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12,815 | Flag of Greenland | The flag of Greenland (Greenlandic: Kalaallit erfalasuat, Danish: Grønlands flag) was designed by Greenland native Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red (bottom) with a counter-changed red-and-white disk slightly to the hoist side of centre. The entire flag measures 18 by 12 parts; each stripe measures 6 parts; the disk is 8 parts in diameter, horizontally offset by 7 parts from the hoist to the centre of the circle, and vertically centered.
Its local name in the Greenlandic language is Erfalasorput, which means "our flag". The term Aappalaartoq (meaning "the red") is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the flag of Denmark (Dannebrog). Today, Greenlanders display both the Erfalasorput and the Dannebrog—often side by side. The flag of Greenland is the only national flag of a Nordic country or territory without a Nordic cross, but do compare the cultural Sámi flag, which also features a circular design.
Greenland first entertained the idea of a flag of its own in 1973 when five Greenlanders proposed a green, white and blue flag. The following year, a newspaper solicited eleven design proposals (all but one of which was a Nordic cross) and polled the people to determine the most popular. The flag of Denmark was preferred to the others. Little came of this effort.
In 1978, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, making it an equal member of the Danish Realm. The home rule government held an official call for flag proposals, receiving 555 (of which 293 were submitted by Greenlanders).
The deciding committee came to no consensus, so more proposals were solicited. Finally, the present red-and-white design by Thue Christiansen narrowly won over a green-and-white Nordic cross by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Christiansen's red-and-white flag was officially adopted on 21 June 1985.
To honour the tenth anniversary of the flag, the Greenland Post Office issued commemorative postage stamps and a leaflet by the flag's creator. He described the white stripe as representing the glaciers and ice cap, which cover more than 80% of the island; the red stripe, the ocean; the red semicircle, the sun, with its bottom part sunk in the ocean; and the white semicircle, the icebergs and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting Sun half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea. In 1985, it was reported that Greenland's flag had exactly the same motif as the flag of the Danish rowing club HEI Rosport, which was founded before Greenland's flag was chosen. It is not clear whether this is a case of plagiarism or just a coincidence, but the rowing club gave Greenland permission to use their flag.
The colours of the flag are the same as those of the flag of Denmark, symbolizing Greenland's place in the Danish realm. | [
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"text": "The flag of Greenland (Greenlandic: Kalaallit erfalasuat, Danish: Grønlands flag) was designed by Greenland native Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red (bottom) with a counter-changed red-and-white disk slightly to the hoist side of centre. The entire flag measures 18 by 12 parts; each stripe measures 6 parts; the disk is 8 parts in diameter, horizontally offset by 7 parts from the hoist to the centre of the circle, and vertically centered.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "Its local name in the Greenlandic language is Erfalasorput, which means \"our flag\". The term Aappalaartoq (meaning \"the red\") is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the flag of Denmark (Dannebrog). Today, Greenlanders display both the Erfalasorput and the Dannebrog—often side by side. The flag of Greenland is the only national flag of a Nordic country or territory without a Nordic cross, but do compare the cultural Sámi flag, which also features a circular design.",
"title": ""
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"text": "Greenland first entertained the idea of a flag of its own in 1973 when five Greenlanders proposed a green, white and blue flag. The following year, a newspaper solicited eleven design proposals (all but one of which was a Nordic cross) and polled the people to determine the most popular. The flag of Denmark was preferred to the others. Little came of this effort.",
"title": "History"
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"text": "In 1978, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, making it an equal member of the Danish Realm. The home rule government held an official call for flag proposals, receiving 555 (of which 293 were submitted by Greenlanders).",
"title": "History"
},
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"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The deciding committee came to no consensus, so more proposals were solicited. Finally, the present red-and-white design by Thue Christiansen narrowly won over a green-and-white Nordic cross by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Christiansen's red-and-white flag was officially adopted on 21 June 1985.",
"title": "History"
},
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"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "To honour the tenth anniversary of the flag, the Greenland Post Office issued commemorative postage stamps and a leaflet by the flag's creator. He described the white stripe as representing the glaciers and ice cap, which cover more than 80% of the island; the red stripe, the ocean; the red semicircle, the sun, with its bottom part sunk in the ocean; and the white semicircle, the icebergs and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting Sun half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea. In 1985, it was reported that Greenland's flag had exactly the same motif as the flag of the Danish rowing club HEI Rosport, which was founded before Greenland's flag was chosen. It is not clear whether this is a case of plagiarism or just a coincidence, but the rowing club gave Greenland permission to use their flag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The colours of the flag are the same as those of the flag of Denmark, symbolizing Greenland's place in the Danish realm.",
"title": "History"
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]
| The flag of Greenland was designed by Greenland native Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red (bottom) with a counter-changed red-and-white disk slightly to the hoist side of centre. The entire flag measures 18 by 12 parts; each stripe measures 6 parts; the disk is 8 parts in diameter, horizontally offset by 7 parts from the hoist to the centre of the circle, and vertically centered. Its local name in the Greenlandic language is Erfalasorput, which means "our flag". The term Aappalaartoq is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the flag of Denmark (Dannebrog). Today, Greenlanders display both the Erfalasorput and the Dannebrog—often side by side. The flag of Greenland is the only national flag of a Nordic country or territory without a Nordic cross, but do compare the cultural Sámi flag, which also features a circular design. | 2001-11-07T06:52:17Z | 2023-10-13T09:58:03Z | [
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12,816 | Gustav Radbruch | Gustav Radbruch (21 November 1878 – 23 November 1949) was a German legal scholar and politician. He served as Minister of Justice of Germany during the early Weimar period. Radbruch is also regarded as one of the most influential legal philosophers of the 20th century.
Born in Lübeck, Radbruch studied law in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. He passed his first bar exam ("Staatsexamen") in Berlin in 1901, and the following year he received his doctorate with a dissertation on "The Theory of Adequate Causation". This was followed in 1903 by his qualification to teach criminal law in Heidelberg. In 1904, he was appointed Professor of criminal and trial law and legal philosophy in Heidelberg. In 1914 he accepted a call to a professorship in Königsberg, and later that year assumed a professorship at Kiel.
Radbruch was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and held a seat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1924. In 1921–22 and throughout 1923, he was minister of justice in the cabinets of Joseph Wirth and Gustav Stresemann. During his time in office, a number of important laws were implemented, such as those giving women access to the justice system, and, after the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organizations that opposed the "constitutional republican form of government" along with their printed matter and meetings.
In 1926, Radbruch accepted a renewed call to lecture at Heidelberg where he delivered his inaugural lecture entitled "Der Mensch im Recht (Law's Image of the Human)" as the newly appointed Professor of Criminal Law on 13 November 1926. After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Radbruch, as a former Social Democratic politician, was dismissed from his university post under the terms of the so-called "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums"). (The universities, as public bodies, were subject to civil service laws and regulations.) Despite the employment ban in Nazi Germany, during 1935/36 he was able to spend a year in England, at University College, Oxford. An important practical outcome of this was his book, Der Geist des englischen Rechts (The Spirit of English Law), although this could be published only in 1945. During the Nazi period, he devoted himself primarily to cultural-historical work.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War in 1945, he resumed his teaching activities, but died at Heidelberg in 1949 without being able to complete his planned updated edition of his textbook on legal philosophy.
In September 1945, Radbruch published a short paper "Fünf Minuten Rechtsphilosophie (Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy)", which was influential in shaping the jurisprudence of values (Wertungsjurisprudenz), prevalent in the aftermath of World War II as a reaction against legal positivism.
Radbruch's legal philosophy derived from neo-Kantianism, which assumes that a categorical cleavage exists between "is" (sein) and "ought" (sollen). According to this view, "should" can never be derived from "Being." Indicative of the Heidelberg school of neokantianism to which Radbruch subscribed was that it interpolated the value-related cultural studies between the explanatory sciences (being) and philosophical teachings of values (should).
In relation to the law, this triadism shows itself in the subfields of legal sociology, legal philosophy and legal dogma. Legal dogma assumes a place in between. It posits itself in opposition to positive law, as the latter depicts itself in social reality and methodologically in the objective "should-have" sense of law, which reveals itself through value-related interpretation.
The core of Radbruch's legal philosophy consists of his tenets the concept of law and the idea of law. The idea of law is defined through a triad of justice, utility and certainty. Radbruch thereby had the idea of utility or usefulness spring forth from an analysis of the idea of justice. Upon this notion was based the Radbruch formula, which is still vigorously debated today. The concept of law, for Radbruch, is "nothing other than the given fact, which has the sense to serve the idea of law."
Hotly disputed is the question whether Radbruch was a legal positivist before 1933 and executed an about-face in his thinking due to the advent of Nazism, or whether he continued to develop, under the impression of Nazi crimes, the relativistic values-teaching he had already been advocating before 1933.
The problem of the controversy between the spirit and the letter of the law, in Germany, has been brought back to public attention due to the trials of former East German soldiers who guarded the Berlin Wall—the so-called necessity of following orders. Radbruch's theories are posited against the positivist "pure legal tenets" represented by Hans Kelsen and, to some extent, also from Georg Jellinek.
In sum, Radbruch's formula argues that where statutory law is incompatible with the requirements of justice "to an intolerable degree", or where statutory law was obviously designed in a way that deliberately negates "the equality that is the core of all justice", statutory law must be disregarded by a judge in favour of the justice principle. Since its first publication in 1946 the principle has been accepted by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in a variety of cases. Many people partially blame the older German legal tradition of legal positivism for the ease with which Hitler obtained power in an outwardly "legal" manner, rather than by means of a coup. Arguably, the shift to a concept of natural law ought to act as a safeguard against dictatorship, an untrammeled State power and the abrogation of civil rights. | [
{
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"title": ""
},
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"text": "Born in Lübeck, Radbruch studied law in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. He passed his first bar exam (\"Staatsexamen\") in Berlin in 1901, and the following year he received his doctorate with a dissertation on \"The Theory of Adequate Causation\". This was followed in 1903 by his qualification to teach criminal law in Heidelberg. In 1904, he was appointed Professor of criminal and trial law and legal philosophy in Heidelberg. In 1914 he accepted a call to a professorship in Königsberg, and later that year assumed a professorship at Kiel.",
"title": "Life"
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"text": "Radbruch was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and held a seat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1924. In 1921–22 and throughout 1923, he was minister of justice in the cabinets of Joseph Wirth and Gustav Stresemann. During his time in office, a number of important laws were implemented, such as those giving women access to the justice system, and, after the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organizations that opposed the \"constitutional republican form of government\" along with their printed matter and meetings.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1926, Radbruch accepted a renewed call to lecture at Heidelberg where he delivered his inaugural lecture entitled \"Der Mensch im Recht (Law's Image of the Human)\" as the newly appointed Professor of Criminal Law on 13 November 1926. After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Radbruch, as a former Social Democratic politician, was dismissed from his university post under the terms of the so-called \"Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service\" (\"Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums\"). (The universities, as public bodies, were subject to civil service laws and regulations.) Despite the employment ban in Nazi Germany, during 1935/36 he was able to spend a year in England, at University College, Oxford. An important practical outcome of this was his book, Der Geist des englischen Rechts (The Spirit of English Law), although this could be published only in 1945. During the Nazi period, he devoted himself primarily to cultural-historical work.",
"title": "Life"
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"text": "Immediately after the end of the Second World War in 1945, he resumed his teaching activities, but died at Heidelberg in 1949 without being able to complete his planned updated edition of his textbook on legal philosophy.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In September 1945, Radbruch published a short paper \"Fünf Minuten Rechtsphilosophie (Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy)\", which was influential in shaping the jurisprudence of values (Wertungsjurisprudenz), prevalent in the aftermath of World War II as a reaction against legal positivism.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Radbruch's legal philosophy derived from neo-Kantianism, which assumes that a categorical cleavage exists between \"is\" (sein) and \"ought\" (sollen). According to this view, \"should\" can never be derived from \"Being.\" Indicative of the Heidelberg school of neokantianism to which Radbruch subscribed was that it interpolated the value-related cultural studies between the explanatory sciences (being) and philosophical teachings of values (should).",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In relation to the law, this triadism shows itself in the subfields of legal sociology, legal philosophy and legal dogma. Legal dogma assumes a place in between. It posits itself in opposition to positive law, as the latter depicts itself in social reality and methodologically in the objective \"should-have\" sense of law, which reveals itself through value-related interpretation.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The core of Radbruch's legal philosophy consists of his tenets the concept of law and the idea of law. The idea of law is defined through a triad of justice, utility and certainty. Radbruch thereby had the idea of utility or usefulness spring forth from an analysis of the idea of justice. Upon this notion was based the Radbruch formula, which is still vigorously debated today. The concept of law, for Radbruch, is \"nothing other than the given fact, which has the sense to serve the idea of law.\"",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hotly disputed is the question whether Radbruch was a legal positivist before 1933 and executed an about-face in his thinking due to the advent of Nazism, or whether he continued to develop, under the impression of Nazi crimes, the relativistic values-teaching he had already been advocating before 1933.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The problem of the controversy between the spirit and the letter of the law, in Germany, has been brought back to public attention due to the trials of former East German soldiers who guarded the Berlin Wall—the so-called necessity of following orders. Radbruch's theories are posited against the positivist \"pure legal tenets\" represented by Hans Kelsen and, to some extent, also from Georg Jellinek.",
"title": "Work"
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"text": "In sum, Radbruch's formula argues that where statutory law is incompatible with the requirements of justice \"to an intolerable degree\", or where statutory law was obviously designed in a way that deliberately negates \"the equality that is the core of all justice\", statutory law must be disregarded by a judge in favour of the justice principle. Since its first publication in 1946 the principle has been accepted by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in a variety of cases. Many people partially blame the older German legal tradition of legal positivism for the ease with which Hitler obtained power in an outwardly \"legal\" manner, rather than by means of a coup. Arguably, the shift to a concept of natural law ought to act as a safeguard against dictatorship, an untrammeled State power and the abrogation of civil rights.",
"title": "Work"
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| Gustav Radbruch was a German legal scholar and politician. He served as Minister of Justice of Germany during the early Weimar period. Radbruch is also regarded as one of the most influential legal philosophers of the 20th century. | 2001-11-07T08:25:20Z | 2023-12-31T15:23:05Z | [
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12,821 | Gate | A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include yett and port. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall or fence, rather than a barrier which closed it. Gates may prevent or control the entry or exit of individuals, or they may be merely decorative. The moving part or parts of a gateway may be considered "doors", as they are fixed at one side whilst opening and closing like one.
A gate may have a latch that can be raised and lowered to both open a gate or prevent it from swinging. Gate operation can be either automated gate operator or manual. Locks are also used on gates to increase security.
Larger gates can be used for a whole building, such as a castle or fortified town. Actual doors can also be considered gates when they are used to block entry as prevalent within a gatehouse. Today, many gate doors are equipped with self-closing devices that can improve safety, security, and convenience.
It is important to choose a controlled gate closer to ensure a consistent closing speed, as well as safety and security. A self-closing gate can help prevent accidents by children or pets, particularly around swimming pools, spas, beaches and hot tubs. A self-closing gate can also improve the security of the property by ensuring that the gate is closed and latched properly. There are various types of gate closers available, including exposed spring devices, gate closers, spring hinges, and self-closing hinges. The appropriate type of closer will depend on the weight and size of the gate, as well as other factors like speed control, weather resistance, and ADA compliance. | [
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"text": "A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse \"gat\" meaning road or path; But other terms include yett and port. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall or fence, rather than a barrier which closed it. Gates may prevent or control the entry or exit of individuals, or they may be merely decorative. The moving part or parts of a gateway may be considered \"doors\", as they are fixed at one side whilst opening and closing like one.",
"title": ""
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"text": "Larger gates can be used for a whole building, such as a castle or fortified town. Actual doors can also be considered gates when they are used to block entry as prevalent within a gatehouse. Today, many gate doors are equipped with self-closing devices that can improve safety, security, and convenience.",
"title": ""
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"text": "It is important to choose a controlled gate closer to ensure a consistent closing speed, as well as safety and security. A self-closing gate can help prevent accidents by children or pets, particularly around swimming pools, spas, beaches and hot tubs. A self-closing gate can also improve the security of the property by ensuring that the gate is closed and latched properly. There are various types of gate closers available, including exposed spring devices, gate closers, spring hinges, and self-closing hinges. The appropriate type of closer will depend on the weight and size of the gate, as well as other factors like speed control, weather resistance, and ADA compliance.",
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| A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include yett and port. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall or fence, rather than a barrier which closed it. Gates may prevent or control the entry or exit of individuals, or they may be merely decorative. The moving part or parts of a gateway may be considered "doors", as they are fixed at one side whilst opening and closing like one. A gate may have a latch that can be raised and lowered to both open a gate or prevent it from swinging. Gate operation can be either automated gate operator or manual. Locks are also used on gates to increase security. Larger gates can be used for a whole building, such as a castle or fortified town. Actual doors can also be considered gates when they are used to block entry as prevalent within a gatehouse. Today, many gate doors are equipped with self-closing devices that can improve safety, security, and convenience. It is important to choose a controlled gate closer to ensure a consistent closing speed, as well as safety and security. A self-closing gate can help prevent accidents by children or pets, particularly around swimming pools, spas, beaches and hot tubs. A self-closing gate can also improve the security of the property by ensuring that the gate is closed and latched properly. There are various types of gate closers available, including exposed spring devices, gate closers, spring hinges, and self-closing hinges. The appropriate type of closer will depend on the weight and size of the gate, as well as other factors like speed control, weather resistance, and ADA compliance. | 2001-11-08T18:26:18Z | 2023-12-14T19:02:23Z | [
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12,822 | Greek fire | Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning AD 672. Used to set enemy ships on fire, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians said it could be ignited on contact with water, and was probably based on naphtha and quicklime. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect, as it could continue burning while floating on water. The technological advantage it provided was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from the first and second Arab sieges, thus securing the empire's survival.
The impression made by Greek fire on the western European Crusaders was such that the name was applied to any sort of incendiary weapon, including those used by Arabs, the Chinese, and the Mongols. However, these mixtures used formulas different from that of Byzantine Greek fire, which was a closely guarded state secret. Byzantines also used pressurized nozzles to project the liquid onto the enemy, in a manner resembling a modern flamethrower.
The composition of Greek fire remains a matter of speculation and debate, with various proposals including combinations of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter.
Usage of the term "Greek fire" has been general in English and most other languages since the Crusades, but original Byzantine sources called the substance a variety of names, such as "sea fire" (Medieval Greek: πῦρ θαλάσσιον pŷr thalássion), "Roman fire" (πῦρ ῥωμαϊκόν pŷr rhōmaïkón), "war fire" (πολεμικὸν πῦρ polemikòn pŷr), "liquid fire" (ὑγρὸν πῦρ hygròn pŷr), "sticky fire" (πῦρ κολλητικόν pŷr kollētikón), or "manufactured fire" (πῦρ σκευαστόν pŷr skeuastón).
Incendiary and flaming weapons were used in warfare for centuries before Greek fire was invented. They included a number of sulfur-, petroleum-, and bitumen-based mixtures. Incendiary arrows and pots containing combustible substances surrounded by caltrops or spikes, or launched by catapults, were used as early as the 9th century BC by the Assyrians and were extensively used in the Greco-Roman world as well. Furthermore, Thucydides mentions that in the siege of Delium in 424 BC a long tube on wheels was used which blew flames forward using a large bellows. The Roman author Julius Africanus, writing in the 3rd century AD, records a mixture that ignited from adequate heat and intense sunlight, used in grenades or night attacks:
Automatic fire also by the following formula. This is the recipe: take equal amounts of sulphur, rock salt, ashes, thunder stone, and pyrite and pound fine in a black mortar at midday sun. Also in equal amounts of each ingredient mix together black mulberry resin and Zakynthian asphalt, the latter in a liquid form and free-flowing, resulting in a product that is sooty colored. Then add to the asphalt the tiniest amount of quicklime. But because the sun is at its zenith, one must pound it carefully and protect the face, for it will ignite suddenly. When it catches fire, one should seal it in some sort of copper receptacle; in this way you will have it available in a box, without exposing it to the sun. If you should wish to ignite enemy armaments, you will smear it on in the evening, either on the armaments or some other object, but in secret; when the sun comes up, everything will be burnt up.
In naval warfare, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518) is recorded by chronicler John Malalas to have been advised by a philosopher from Athens called Proclus to use sulfur to burn the ships of the rebel general Vitalian.
Greek fire proper, however, was developed in c. 672 and is ascribed by the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor to Kallinikos (Latinized Callinicus), an architect from Heliopolis in the former province of Phoenice, by then overrun by the Muslim conquests:
At that time Kallinikos, an artificer from Heliopolis, fled to the Romans. He had devised a sea fire which ignited the Arab ships and burned them with all hands. Thus it was that the Romans returned with victory and discovered the sea fire.
The accuracy and exact chronology of this account is open to question: elsewhere, Theophanes reports the use of fire-carrying ships equipped with nozzles (siphōn) by the Byzantines a couple of years before the supposed arrival of Kallinikos at Constantinople. If this is not due to chronological confusion of the events of the siege, it may suggest that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon. The historian James Partington further thinks it likely that Greek fire was not in fact the creation of any single person but "invented by chemists in Constantinople who had inherited the discoveries of the Alexandrian chemical school." Indeed, the 11th-century chronicler George Kedrenos records that Kallinikos came from Heliopolis in Egypt, but most scholars reject this as an error. Kedrenos also records the story, considered rather implausible by modern scholars, that Kallinikos' descendants, a family called Lampros, "brilliant," kept the secret of the fire's manufacture and continued doing so to Kedrenos' time.
Kallinikos' development of Greek fire came at a critical moment in the Byzantine Empire's history: weakened by its long wars with Sassanid Persia, the Byzantines had been unable to effectively resist the onslaught of the Muslim conquests. Within a generation, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had fallen to the Arabs, who in c. 672 set out to conquer the imperial capital of Constantinople. Greek fire was used to great effect against the Muslim fleets, helping to repel the Muslims at the first and second Arab sieges of the city. Records of its use in later naval battles against the Saracens are more sporadic, but it did secure a number of victories, especially in the phase of Byzantine expansion in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Utilisation of the substance was prominent in Byzantine civil wars, chiefly the revolt of the thematic fleets in 727 and the large-scale rebellion led by Thomas the Slav in 821–823. In both cases, the rebel fleets were defeated by the Constantinople-based central Imperial Fleet through the use of Greek fire. The Byzantines also used the weapon to devastating effect against the various Rus' raids on the Bosporus, especially those of 941 and 1043, as well as during the Bulgarian war of 970–971, when the fire-carrying Byzantine ships blockaded the Danube.
The importance placed on Greek fire during the Empire's struggle against the Arabs would lead to its discovery being ascribed to divine intervention. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos (r. 945–959), in his book De Administrando Imperio, admonishes his son and heir, Romanos II (r. 959–963), to never reveal the secrets of its composition, as it was "shown and revealed by an angel to the great and holy first Christian emperor Constantine" and that the angel bound him "not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city." As a warning, he adds that one official, who was bribed into handing some of it over to the Empire's enemies, was struck down by a "flame from heaven" as he was about to enter a church. As the latter incident demonstrates, the Byzantines could not avoid capture of their precious secret weapon: the Arabs captured at least one fireship intact in 827, and the Bulgars captured several siphōns and much of the substance itself in 812/814. This, however, was apparently not enough to allow their enemies to copy it (see below). The Arabs, for instance, employed a variety of incendiary substances similar to the Byzantine weapon, but they were never able to copy the Byzantine method of deployment by siphōn, and used catapults and grenades instead.
Greek fire continued to be mentioned during the 12th century, and Anna Komnene gives a vivid description of its use in a naval battle against the Pisans in 1099. However, although the use of hastily improvised fireships is mentioned during the 1203 siege of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, no report confirms the use of the actual Greek fire. This might be because of the general disarmament of the Empire in the 20 years leading up to the sacking, or because the Byzantines had lost access to the areas where the primary ingredients were to be found, or even perhaps because the secret had been lost over time.
Records of a 13th-century event in which "Greek fire" was used by the Saracens against the Crusaders can be read through the Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville during the Seventh Crusade. One description of the memoir says "the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed."
In the 19th century, it is reported that an Armenian by the name of Kavafian approached the government of the Ottoman Empire with a new type of Greek fire he claimed to have developed. Kavafian refused to reveal its composition when asked by the government, insisting that he be placed in command of its use during naval engagements. Not long after this, he was poisoned by imperial authorities, without their ever having found out his secret.
As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets. So strict was the secrecy that the composition of Greek fire was lost forever and remains a source of speculation. Consequently, the "mystery" of the formula has long dominated the research into Greek fire. Despite this almost exclusive focus, however, Greek fire is best understood as a complete weapon system of many components, all of which were needed to operate together to render it effective. This comprised not only the formula of its composition, but also the specialized dromon ships that carried it into battle, the device used to prepare the substance by heating and pressurizing it, the siphōn projecting it, and the special training of the siphōnarioi who used it. Knowledge of the whole system was highly compartmentalised, with operators and technicians aware of the secrets of only one component, ensuring that no enemy could gain knowledge of it in its entirety. This accounts for the fact that when the Bulgarians took Mesembria and Debeltos in 814, they captured 36 siphōns and even quantities of the substance itself, but were unable to make any use of them.
The information available on Greek fire is exclusively indirect, based on references in the Byzantine military manuals and a number of secondary historical sources such as Anna Komnene and Western European chroniclers, which are often inaccurate. In her Alexiad, Anna Komnene provides a description of an incendiary weapon, which was used by the Byzantine garrison of Dyrrhachium in 1108 against the Normans. It is often regarded as an at least partial "recipe" for Greek fire:
This fire is made by the following arts: From the pine and certain such evergreen trees, inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulfur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemies.
At the same time, the reports by Western chroniclers of the famed ignis graecus are largely unreliable, since they apply the name to any and all sorts of incendiary substances.
In attempting to reconstruct the Greek fire system, the concrete evidence, as it emerges from the contemporary literary references, provides the following characteristics:
The first and, for a long time, most popular theory regarding the composition of Greek fire held that its chief ingredient was saltpeter, making it an early form of gunpowder. This argument was based on the "thunder and smoke" description, as well as on the distance the flame could be projected from the siphōn, which suggested an explosive discharge. From the times of Isaac Vossius, several scholars adhered to this position, most notably the so-called "French school" during the 19th century, which included chemist Marcellin Berthelot.
This view has been rejected since saltpeter does not appear to have been used in warfare in Europe or the Middle East before the 13th century, and is absent from the accounts of the Muslim writers – the foremost chemists of the early medieval world – before the same period. In addition, the behavior of the proposed mixture would have been radically different from the siphōn-projected substance described by Byzantine sources.
A second view, based on the fact that Greek fire was inextinguishable by water (some sources suggest that water intensified the flames) suggested that its destructive power was the result of the explosive reaction between water and quicklime. Although quicklime was certainly known and used by the Byzantines and the Arabs in warfare, the theory is refuted by literary and empirical evidence. A quicklime-based substance would have to come in contact with water to ignite, while Emperor Leo's Tactica indicates that Greek fire was often poured directly on the decks of enemy ships, although admittedly, decks were kept wet due to lack of sealants. Likewise, Leo describes the use of grenades, which further reinforces the view that contact with water was not necessary for the substance's ignition. Furthermore, Zenghelis (1932) pointed out that, based on experiments, the actual result of the water–quicklime reaction would be negligible in the open sea.
Another similar proposition suggested that Kallinikos had in fact discovered calcium phosphide, which can be made by boiling bones in urine within a sealed vessel. On contact with water it releases phosphine, which ignites spontaneously. However, extensive experiments with calcium phosphide also failed to reproduce the described intensity of Greek fire.
Consequently, although the presence of either quicklime or saltpeter in the mixture cannot be entirely excluded, they were not the primary ingredient. Most modern scholars agree that Greek fire was based on either crude or refined petroleum, comparable to modern napalm. The Byzantines had easy access to crude oil from the naturally occurring wells around the Black Sea (e.g., the wells around Tmutorakan noted by Constantine Porphyrogennetos) or in various locations throughout the Middle East. An alternate name for Greek fire was "Median fire" (μηδικὸν πῦρ), and the 6th-century historian Procopius records that crude oil, called "naphtha" (in Greek: νάφθα naphtha, from Old Persian 𐎴𐎳𐎫 naft) by the Persians, was known to the Greeks as "Median oil" (μηδικὸν ἔλαιον). This seems to corroborate the availability of naphtha as a basic ingredient of Greek fire.
Naphtha was also used by the Abbasids in the 9th century, with special troops, the naffāṭūn, who wore thick protective suits and used small copper vessels containing burning oil, which they threw onto the enemy troops. There is also a surviving 9th century Latin text, preserved at Wolfenbüttel in Germany, which mentions the ingredients of what appears to be Greek fire and the operation of the siphōns used to project it. Although the text contains some inaccuracies, it clearly identifies the main component as naphtha. Resins were probably added as a thickener (the Praecepta Militaria refer to the substance as πῦρ κολλητικόν, "sticky fire"), and to increase the duration and intensity of the flame. A modern theoretical concoction included the use of pine tar and animal fat, along with other ingredients.
A 12th century treatise prepared by Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi for Saladin records an Arab version of Greek fire, called naft, which also had a petroleum base, with sulfur and various resins added. Any direct relation with the Byzantine formula is unlikely. An Italian recipe from the 16th century has been recorded for recreational use; it includes charcoal from a willow tree, saltpeter (sale ardente), alcohol, sulfur, incense, tar (pegola), wool and camphor; the concoction was guaranteed to "burn under water" and to be "beautiful".
The chief method of deployment of Greek fire, which sets it apart from similar substances, was its projection through a tube (siphōn), for use aboard ships or in sieges. Portable projectors (cheirosiphōnes, χειροσίφωνες) were also invented, reputedly by Emperor Leo VI. The Byzantine military manuals also mention that jars (chytrai or tzykalia) filled with Greek fire and caltrops wrapped with tow and soaked in the substance were thrown by catapults, while pivoting cranes (gerania) were employed to pour it upon enemy ships. The cheirosiphōnes especially were prescribed for use at land and in sieges, both against siege machines and against defenders on the walls, by several 10th-century military authors, and their use is depicted in the Poliorcetica of Hero of Byzantium. The Byzantine dromons usually had a siphōn installed on their prow under the forecastle, but additional devices could also on occasion be placed elsewhere on the ship. Thus in 941, when the Byzantines were facing the vastly more numerous Rus' fleet, siphōns were placed also amidships and even astern.
The use of tubular projectors (σίφων, siphōn) is amply attested in the contemporary sources. Anna Komnene gives this account of beast-shaped Greek fire projectors being mounted to the bow of warships:
As he [the Emperor Alexios I] knew that the Pisans were skilled in sea warfare and dreaded a battle with them, on the prow of each ship he had a head fixed of a lion or other land-animal, made in brass or iron with the mouth open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect was terrifying. And the fire which was to be directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through the mouths of the beasts, so that it seemed as if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting the fire.
Some sources provide more information on the composition and function of the whole mechanism. The Wolfenbüttel manuscript in particular provides the following description:
...having built a furnace right at the front of the ship, they set on it a copper vessel full of these things, having put fire underneath. And one of them, having made a bronze tube similar to that which the rustics call a squitiatoria, "squirt," with which boys play, they spray [it] at the enemy.
Another, possibly first-hand, account of the use of Greek fire comes from the 11th-century Yngvars saga víðförla, in which the Viking Ingvar the Far-Travelled faces ships equipped with Greek fire weapons:
[They] began blowing with smiths’ bellows at a furnace in which there was fire and there came from it a great din. There stood there also a brass [or bronze] tube and from it flew much fire against one ship, and it burned up in a short time so that all of it became white ashes...
The account, albeit embellished, corresponds with many of the characteristics of Greek fire known from other sources, such as a loud roar that accompanied its discharge. These two texts are also the only two sources that explicitly mention that the substance was heated over a furnace before being discharged; although the validity of this information is open to question, modern reconstructions have relied upon them.
Based on these descriptions and the Byzantine sources, John Haldon and Maurice Byrne designed a hypothetical apparatus as consisting of three main components: a bronze pump, which was used to pressurize the oil; a brazier, used to heat the oil (πρόπυρον, propyron, "pre-heater"); and the nozzle, which was covered in bronze and mounted on a swivel (στρεπτόν, strepton). The brazier, burning a match of linen or flax that produced intense heat and the characteristic thick smoke, was used to heat oil and the other ingredients in an airtight tank above it, a process that also helped to dissolve the resins into a fluid mixture. The substance was pressurized by the heat and the usage of a force pump. After it had reached the proper pressure, a valve connecting the tank with the swivel was opened and the mixture was discharged from its end, being ignited at its mouth by some source of flame. The intense heat of the flame made necessary the presence of heat shields made of iron (βουκόλια, boukolia), which are attested in the fleet inventories.
The process of operating Haldon and Byrne's design was fraught with danger, as the mounting pressure could easily make the heated oil tank explode, a flaw which was not recorded as a problem with the historical fire weapon. In the experiments conducted by Haldon in 2002 for the episode "Fireship" of the television series Machines Times Forgot, even modern welding techniques failed to secure adequate insulation of the bronze tank under pressure. This led to the relocation of the pressure pump between the tank and the nozzle. The full-scale device built on this basis established the effectiveness of the mechanism's design, even with the simple materials and techniques available to the Byzantines. The experiment used crude oil mixed with wood resins, and achieved a flame temperature of over 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) and an effective range of up to 15 meters (49 ft).
The portable cheirosiphōn ("hand-siphōn"), the earliest analogue to a modern flamethrower, is extensively attested in the military documents of the 10th century, and recommended for use in both sea and land. They first appear in the Tactica of emperor Leo VI the Wise, who claims to have invented them. Subsequent authors continued to refer to the cheirosiphōnes, especially for use against siege towers, although Nikephoros II Phokas also advises their use in field armies, with the aim of disrupting the enemy formation. Although both Leo VI and Nikephoros Phokas claim that the substance used in the cheirosiphōnes was the same as in the static devices used on ships, Haldon and Byrne consider that the former were manifestly different from their larger cousins, and theorize that the device was fundamentally different, "a simple syringe [that] squirted both liquid fire (presumably unignited) and noxious juices to repel enemy troops." The illustrations of Hero's Poliorcetica show the cheirosiphōn also throwing the ignited substance.
In its earliest form, Greek fire was hurled onto enemy forces by firing a burning cloth-wrapped ball, perhaps containing a flask, using a form of light catapult, most probably a seaborne variant of the Roman light catapult or onager. These were capable of hurling light loads, around 6 to 9 kg (13 to 20 lb), a distance of 350–450 m (380–490 yd).
Although the destructiveness of Greek fire is indisputable, it did not make the Byzantine navy invincible. It was not, in the words of naval historian John Pryor, a "ship-killer" comparable to the naval ram, which, by then, had fallen out of use. While Greek fire remained a potent weapon, its limitations were significant when compared to more traditional forms of artillery: in its siphōn-deployed version, it had a limited range, and it could be used safely only in a calm sea and with favourable wind conditions.
The Muslim navies eventually adapted themselves to it by staying out of its effective range and devising methods of protection such as felt or hides soaked in vinegar.
Nevertheless it was still a decisive weapon in many battles. John Julius Norwich wrote: "It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Greek fire in Byzantine history."
In Paloma Recasens´s historical 2021 novel Sevilla antes de la Giralda, the Castilian army fabricates Greek Fire to use it in their crusade against the Almohads.
In Steve Berry's 2007 novel The Venetian Betrayal Greek Fire is described and used as a weapon.
In William Golding's 1958 play The Brass Butterfly, adapted from his novella Envoy Extraordinary, the Greek inventor Phanocles demonstrates explosives to the Roman Emperor. The Emperor decides that his empire is not ready for this or for Phanocles's other inventions and sends him on "a slow boat to China".
In Victor Canning's stage play Honour Bright (1960), the crusader Godfrey of Ware returns with a casket of Greek Fire given to him by an old man in Athens.
In Rick Riordan's Greek storyline, Greek Fire is described as being a volatile green liquid. When it explodes, all of the substance is spread out over an area and burns continuously. It is very strong and dangerous.
In C. J. Sansom's historical mystery novel Dark Fire, Thomas Cromwell sends the lawyer Matthew Shardlake to recover the secret of Greek fire, following its discovery in the library of a dissolved London monastery.
In Michael Crichton's sci-fi novel Timeline, Professor Edward Johnston is stuck in the past in 14th century Europe, and claims to have knowledge of Greek fire.
In Mika Waltari's novel The Dark Angel, some old men who are the last ones who know the secret of Greek fire are mentioned as present in the last Christian services held in Hagia Sophia before the Fall of Constantinople. The narrator is told that in the event of the city's fall, they will be killed so as to keep the secret from the Turks.
In George R. R. Martin's fantasy series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, wildfire is similar to Greek fire. It was used in naval battles as it could remain lit on water, and its recipe was closely guarded.
In Leland Purvis's graphic novel Vox : collected works, 1999-2003, there is a passage detailing Callinicus and Greek Fire. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning AD 672. Used to set enemy ships on fire, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians said it could be ignited on contact with water, and was probably based on naphtha and quicklime. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect, as it could continue burning while floating on water. The technological advantage it provided was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from the first and second Arab sieges, thus securing the empire's survival.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The impression made by Greek fire on the western European Crusaders was such that the name was applied to any sort of incendiary weapon, including those used by Arabs, the Chinese, and the Mongols. However, these mixtures used formulas different from that of Byzantine Greek fire, which was a closely guarded state secret. Byzantines also used pressurized nozzles to project the liquid onto the enemy, in a manner resembling a modern flamethrower.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The composition of Greek fire remains a matter of speculation and debate, with various proposals including combinations of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Usage of the term \"Greek fire\" has been general in English and most other languages since the Crusades, but original Byzantine sources called the substance a variety of names, such as \"sea fire\" (Medieval Greek: πῦρ θαλάσσιον pŷr thalássion), \"Roman fire\" (πῦρ ῥωμαϊκόν pŷr rhōmaïkón), \"war fire\" (πολεμικὸν πῦρ polemikòn pŷr), \"liquid fire\" (ὑγρὸν πῦρ hygròn pŷr), \"sticky fire\" (πῦρ κολλητικόν pŷr kollētikón), or \"manufactured fire\" (πῦρ σκευαστόν pŷr skeuastón).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Incendiary and flaming weapons were used in warfare for centuries before Greek fire was invented. They included a number of sulfur-, petroleum-, and bitumen-based mixtures. Incendiary arrows and pots containing combustible substances surrounded by caltrops or spikes, or launched by catapults, were used as early as the 9th century BC by the Assyrians and were extensively used in the Greco-Roman world as well. Furthermore, Thucydides mentions that in the siege of Delium in 424 BC a long tube on wheels was used which blew flames forward using a large bellows. The Roman author Julius Africanus, writing in the 3rd century AD, records a mixture that ignited from adequate heat and intense sunlight, used in grenades or night attacks:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Automatic fire also by the following formula. This is the recipe: take equal amounts of sulphur, rock salt, ashes, thunder stone, and pyrite and pound fine in a black mortar at midday sun. Also in equal amounts of each ingredient mix together black mulberry resin and Zakynthian asphalt, the latter in a liquid form and free-flowing, resulting in a product that is sooty colored. Then add to the asphalt the tiniest amount of quicklime. But because the sun is at its zenith, one must pound it carefully and protect the face, for it will ignite suddenly. When it catches fire, one should seal it in some sort of copper receptacle; in this way you will have it available in a box, without exposing it to the sun. If you should wish to ignite enemy armaments, you will smear it on in the evening, either on the armaments or some other object, but in secret; when the sun comes up, everything will be burnt up.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In naval warfare, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518) is recorded by chronicler John Malalas to have been advised by a philosopher from Athens called Proclus to use sulfur to burn the ships of the rebel general Vitalian.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Greek fire proper, however, was developed in c. 672 and is ascribed by the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor to Kallinikos (Latinized Callinicus), an architect from Heliopolis in the former province of Phoenice, by then overrun by the Muslim conquests:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "At that time Kallinikos, an artificer from Heliopolis, fled to the Romans. He had devised a sea fire which ignited the Arab ships and burned them with all hands. Thus it was that the Romans returned with victory and discovered the sea fire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The accuracy and exact chronology of this account is open to question: elsewhere, Theophanes reports the use of fire-carrying ships equipped with nozzles (siphōn) by the Byzantines a couple of years before the supposed arrival of Kallinikos at Constantinople. If this is not due to chronological confusion of the events of the siege, it may suggest that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon. The historian James Partington further thinks it likely that Greek fire was not in fact the creation of any single person but \"invented by chemists in Constantinople who had inherited the discoveries of the Alexandrian chemical school.\" Indeed, the 11th-century chronicler George Kedrenos records that Kallinikos came from Heliopolis in Egypt, but most scholars reject this as an error. Kedrenos also records the story, considered rather implausible by modern scholars, that Kallinikos' descendants, a family called Lampros, \"brilliant,\" kept the secret of the fire's manufacture and continued doing so to Kedrenos' time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Kallinikos' development of Greek fire came at a critical moment in the Byzantine Empire's history: weakened by its long wars with Sassanid Persia, the Byzantines had been unable to effectively resist the onslaught of the Muslim conquests. Within a generation, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had fallen to the Arabs, who in c. 672 set out to conquer the imperial capital of Constantinople. Greek fire was used to great effect against the Muslim fleets, helping to repel the Muslims at the first and second Arab sieges of the city. Records of its use in later naval battles against the Saracens are more sporadic, but it did secure a number of victories, especially in the phase of Byzantine expansion in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Utilisation of the substance was prominent in Byzantine civil wars, chiefly the revolt of the thematic fleets in 727 and the large-scale rebellion led by Thomas the Slav in 821–823. In both cases, the rebel fleets were defeated by the Constantinople-based central Imperial Fleet through the use of Greek fire. The Byzantines also used the weapon to devastating effect against the various Rus' raids on the Bosporus, especially those of 941 and 1043, as well as during the Bulgarian war of 970–971, when the fire-carrying Byzantine ships blockaded the Danube.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The importance placed on Greek fire during the Empire's struggle against the Arabs would lead to its discovery being ascribed to divine intervention. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos (r. 945–959), in his book De Administrando Imperio, admonishes his son and heir, Romanos II (r. 959–963), to never reveal the secrets of its composition, as it was \"shown and revealed by an angel to the great and holy first Christian emperor Constantine\" and that the angel bound him \"not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city.\" As a warning, he adds that one official, who was bribed into handing some of it over to the Empire's enemies, was struck down by a \"flame from heaven\" as he was about to enter a church. As the latter incident demonstrates, the Byzantines could not avoid capture of their precious secret weapon: the Arabs captured at least one fireship intact in 827, and the Bulgars captured several siphōns and much of the substance itself in 812/814. This, however, was apparently not enough to allow their enemies to copy it (see below). The Arabs, for instance, employed a variety of incendiary substances similar to the Byzantine weapon, but they were never able to copy the Byzantine method of deployment by siphōn, and used catapults and grenades instead.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Greek fire continued to be mentioned during the 12th century, and Anna Komnene gives a vivid description of its use in a naval battle against the Pisans in 1099. However, although the use of hastily improvised fireships is mentioned during the 1203 siege of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, no report confirms the use of the actual Greek fire. This might be because of the general disarmament of the Empire in the 20 years leading up to the sacking, or because the Byzantines had lost access to the areas where the primary ingredients were to be found, or even perhaps because the secret had been lost over time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Records of a 13th-century event in which \"Greek fire\" was used by the Saracens against the Crusaders can be read through the Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville during the Seventh Crusade. One description of the memoir says \"the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In the 19th century, it is reported that an Armenian by the name of Kavafian approached the government of the Ottoman Empire with a new type of Greek fire he claimed to have developed. Kavafian refused to reveal its composition when asked by the government, insisting that he be placed in command of its use during naval engagements. Not long after this, he was poisoned by imperial authorities, without their ever having found out his secret.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets. So strict was the secrecy that the composition of Greek fire was lost forever and remains a source of speculation. Consequently, the \"mystery\" of the formula has long dominated the research into Greek fire. Despite this almost exclusive focus, however, Greek fire is best understood as a complete weapon system of many components, all of which were needed to operate together to render it effective. This comprised not only the formula of its composition, but also the specialized dromon ships that carried it into battle, the device used to prepare the substance by heating and pressurizing it, the siphōn projecting it, and the special training of the siphōnarioi who used it. Knowledge of the whole system was highly compartmentalised, with operators and technicians aware of the secrets of only one component, ensuring that no enemy could gain knowledge of it in its entirety. This accounts for the fact that when the Bulgarians took Mesembria and Debeltos in 814, they captured 36 siphōns and even quantities of the substance itself, but were unable to make any use of them.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The information available on Greek fire is exclusively indirect, based on references in the Byzantine military manuals and a number of secondary historical sources such as Anna Komnene and Western European chroniclers, which are often inaccurate. In her Alexiad, Anna Komnene provides a description of an incendiary weapon, which was used by the Byzantine garrison of Dyrrhachium in 1108 against the Normans. It is often regarded as an at least partial \"recipe\" for Greek fire:",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "This fire is made by the following arts: From the pine and certain such evergreen trees, inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulfur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemies.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "At the same time, the reports by Western chroniclers of the famed ignis graecus are largely unreliable, since they apply the name to any and all sorts of incendiary substances.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In attempting to reconstruct the Greek fire system, the concrete evidence, as it emerges from the contemporary literary references, provides the following characteristics:",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The first and, for a long time, most popular theory regarding the composition of Greek fire held that its chief ingredient was saltpeter, making it an early form of gunpowder. This argument was based on the \"thunder and smoke\" description, as well as on the distance the flame could be projected from the siphōn, which suggested an explosive discharge. From the times of Isaac Vossius, several scholars adhered to this position, most notably the so-called \"French school\" during the 19th century, which included chemist Marcellin Berthelot.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "This view has been rejected since saltpeter does not appear to have been used in warfare in Europe or the Middle East before the 13th century, and is absent from the accounts of the Muslim writers – the foremost chemists of the early medieval world – before the same period. In addition, the behavior of the proposed mixture would have been radically different from the siphōn-projected substance described by Byzantine sources.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "A second view, based on the fact that Greek fire was inextinguishable by water (some sources suggest that water intensified the flames) suggested that its destructive power was the result of the explosive reaction between water and quicklime. Although quicklime was certainly known and used by the Byzantines and the Arabs in warfare, the theory is refuted by literary and empirical evidence. A quicklime-based substance would have to come in contact with water to ignite, while Emperor Leo's Tactica indicates that Greek fire was often poured directly on the decks of enemy ships, although admittedly, decks were kept wet due to lack of sealants. Likewise, Leo describes the use of grenades, which further reinforces the view that contact with water was not necessary for the substance's ignition. Furthermore, Zenghelis (1932) pointed out that, based on experiments, the actual result of the water–quicklime reaction would be negligible in the open sea.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Another similar proposition suggested that Kallinikos had in fact discovered calcium phosphide, which can be made by boiling bones in urine within a sealed vessel. On contact with water it releases phosphine, which ignites spontaneously. However, extensive experiments with calcium phosphide also failed to reproduce the described intensity of Greek fire.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Consequently, although the presence of either quicklime or saltpeter in the mixture cannot be entirely excluded, they were not the primary ingredient. Most modern scholars agree that Greek fire was based on either crude or refined petroleum, comparable to modern napalm. The Byzantines had easy access to crude oil from the naturally occurring wells around the Black Sea (e.g., the wells around Tmutorakan noted by Constantine Porphyrogennetos) or in various locations throughout the Middle East. An alternate name for Greek fire was \"Median fire\" (μηδικὸν πῦρ), and the 6th-century historian Procopius records that crude oil, called \"naphtha\" (in Greek: νάφθα naphtha, from Old Persian 𐎴𐎳𐎫 naft) by the Persians, was known to the Greeks as \"Median oil\" (μηδικὸν ἔλαιον). This seems to corroborate the availability of naphtha as a basic ingredient of Greek fire.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Naphtha was also used by the Abbasids in the 9th century, with special troops, the naffāṭūn, who wore thick protective suits and used small copper vessels containing burning oil, which they threw onto the enemy troops. There is also a surviving 9th century Latin text, preserved at Wolfenbüttel in Germany, which mentions the ingredients of what appears to be Greek fire and the operation of the siphōns used to project it. Although the text contains some inaccuracies, it clearly identifies the main component as naphtha. Resins were probably added as a thickener (the Praecepta Militaria refer to the substance as πῦρ κολλητικόν, \"sticky fire\"), and to increase the duration and intensity of the flame. A modern theoretical concoction included the use of pine tar and animal fat, along with other ingredients.",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "A 12th century treatise prepared by Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi for Saladin records an Arab version of Greek fire, called naft, which also had a petroleum base, with sulfur and various resins added. Any direct relation with the Byzantine formula is unlikely. An Italian recipe from the 16th century has been recorded for recreational use; it includes charcoal from a willow tree, saltpeter (sale ardente), alcohol, sulfur, incense, tar (pegola), wool and camphor; the concoction was guaranteed to \"burn under water\" and to be \"beautiful\".",
"title": "Manufacture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The chief method of deployment of Greek fire, which sets it apart from similar substances, was its projection through a tube (siphōn), for use aboard ships or in sieges. Portable projectors (cheirosiphōnes, χειροσίφωνες) were also invented, reputedly by Emperor Leo VI. The Byzantine military manuals also mention that jars (chytrai or tzykalia) filled with Greek fire and caltrops wrapped with tow and soaked in the substance were thrown by catapults, while pivoting cranes (gerania) were employed to pour it upon enemy ships. The cheirosiphōnes especially were prescribed for use at land and in sieges, both against siege machines and against defenders on the walls, by several 10th-century military authors, and their use is depicted in the Poliorcetica of Hero of Byzantium. The Byzantine dromons usually had a siphōn installed on their prow under the forecastle, but additional devices could also on occasion be placed elsewhere on the ship. Thus in 941, when the Byzantines were facing the vastly more numerous Rus' fleet, siphōns were placed also amidships and even astern.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The use of tubular projectors (σίφων, siphōn) is amply attested in the contemporary sources. Anna Komnene gives this account of beast-shaped Greek fire projectors being mounted to the bow of warships:",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "As he [the Emperor Alexios I] knew that the Pisans were skilled in sea warfare and dreaded a battle with them, on the prow of each ship he had a head fixed of a lion or other land-animal, made in brass or iron with the mouth open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect was terrifying. And the fire which was to be directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through the mouths of the beasts, so that it seemed as if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting the fire.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Some sources provide more information on the composition and function of the whole mechanism. The Wolfenbüttel manuscript in particular provides the following description:",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "...having built a furnace right at the front of the ship, they set on it a copper vessel full of these things, having put fire underneath. And one of them, having made a bronze tube similar to that which the rustics call a squitiatoria, \"squirt,\" with which boys play, they spray [it] at the enemy.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Another, possibly first-hand, account of the use of Greek fire comes from the 11th-century Yngvars saga víðförla, in which the Viking Ingvar the Far-Travelled faces ships equipped with Greek fire weapons:",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "[They] began blowing with smiths’ bellows at a furnace in which there was fire and there came from it a great din. There stood there also a brass [or bronze] tube and from it flew much fire against one ship, and it burned up in a short time so that all of it became white ashes...",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The account, albeit embellished, corresponds with many of the characteristics of Greek fire known from other sources, such as a loud roar that accompanied its discharge. These two texts are also the only two sources that explicitly mention that the substance was heated over a furnace before being discharged; although the validity of this information is open to question, modern reconstructions have relied upon them.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Based on these descriptions and the Byzantine sources, John Haldon and Maurice Byrne designed a hypothetical apparatus as consisting of three main components: a bronze pump, which was used to pressurize the oil; a brazier, used to heat the oil (πρόπυρον, propyron, \"pre-heater\"); and the nozzle, which was covered in bronze and mounted on a swivel (στρεπτόν, strepton). The brazier, burning a match of linen or flax that produced intense heat and the characteristic thick smoke, was used to heat oil and the other ingredients in an airtight tank above it, a process that also helped to dissolve the resins into a fluid mixture. The substance was pressurized by the heat and the usage of a force pump. After it had reached the proper pressure, a valve connecting the tank with the swivel was opened and the mixture was discharged from its end, being ignited at its mouth by some source of flame. The intense heat of the flame made necessary the presence of heat shields made of iron (βουκόλια, boukolia), which are attested in the fleet inventories.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The process of operating Haldon and Byrne's design was fraught with danger, as the mounting pressure could easily make the heated oil tank explode, a flaw which was not recorded as a problem with the historical fire weapon. In the experiments conducted by Haldon in 2002 for the episode \"Fireship\" of the television series Machines Times Forgot, even modern welding techniques failed to secure adequate insulation of the bronze tank under pressure. This led to the relocation of the pressure pump between the tank and the nozzle. The full-scale device built on this basis established the effectiveness of the mechanism's design, even with the simple materials and techniques available to the Byzantines. The experiment used crude oil mixed with wood resins, and achieved a flame temperature of over 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) and an effective range of up to 15 meters (49 ft).",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The portable cheirosiphōn (\"hand-siphōn\"), the earliest analogue to a modern flamethrower, is extensively attested in the military documents of the 10th century, and recommended for use in both sea and land. They first appear in the Tactica of emperor Leo VI the Wise, who claims to have invented them. Subsequent authors continued to refer to the cheirosiphōnes, especially for use against siege towers, although Nikephoros II Phokas also advises their use in field armies, with the aim of disrupting the enemy formation. Although both Leo VI and Nikephoros Phokas claim that the substance used in the cheirosiphōnes was the same as in the static devices used on ships, Haldon and Byrne consider that the former were manifestly different from their larger cousins, and theorize that the device was fundamentally different, \"a simple syringe [that] squirted both liquid fire (presumably unignited) and noxious juices to repel enemy troops.\" The illustrations of Hero's Poliorcetica show the cheirosiphōn also throwing the ignited substance.",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In its earliest form, Greek fire was hurled onto enemy forces by firing a burning cloth-wrapped ball, perhaps containing a flask, using a form of light catapult, most probably a seaborne variant of the Roman light catapult or onager. These were capable of hurling light loads, around 6 to 9 kg (13 to 20 lb), a distance of 350–450 m (380–490 yd).",
"title": "Methods of deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Although the destructiveness of Greek fire is indisputable, it did not make the Byzantine navy invincible. It was not, in the words of naval historian John Pryor, a \"ship-killer\" comparable to the naval ram, which, by then, had fallen out of use. While Greek fire remained a potent weapon, its limitations were significant when compared to more traditional forms of artillery: in its siphōn-deployed version, it had a limited range, and it could be used safely only in a calm sea and with favourable wind conditions.",
"title": "Effectiveness and countermeasures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Muslim navies eventually adapted themselves to it by staying out of its effective range and devising methods of protection such as felt or hides soaked in vinegar.",
"title": "Effectiveness and countermeasures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Nevertheless it was still a decisive weapon in many battles. John Julius Norwich wrote: \"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Greek fire in Byzantine history.\"",
"title": "Effectiveness and countermeasures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In Paloma Recasens´s historical 2021 novel Sevilla antes de la Giralda, the Castilian army fabricates Greek Fire to use it in their crusade against the Almohads.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In Steve Berry's 2007 novel The Venetian Betrayal Greek Fire is described and used as a weapon.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In William Golding's 1958 play The Brass Butterfly, adapted from his novella Envoy Extraordinary, the Greek inventor Phanocles demonstrates explosives to the Roman Emperor. The Emperor decides that his empire is not ready for this or for Phanocles's other inventions and sends him on \"a slow boat to China\".",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In Victor Canning's stage play Honour Bright (1960), the crusader Godfrey of Ware returns with a casket of Greek Fire given to him by an old man in Athens.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In Rick Riordan's Greek storyline, Greek Fire is described as being a volatile green liquid. When it explodes, all of the substance is spread out over an area and burns continuously. It is very strong and dangerous.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In C. J. Sansom's historical mystery novel Dark Fire, Thomas Cromwell sends the lawyer Matthew Shardlake to recover the secret of Greek fire, following its discovery in the library of a dissolved London monastery.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In Michael Crichton's sci-fi novel Timeline, Professor Edward Johnston is stuck in the past in 14th century Europe, and claims to have knowledge of Greek fire.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In Mika Waltari's novel The Dark Angel, some old men who are the last ones who know the secret of Greek fire are mentioned as present in the last Christian services held in Hagia Sophia before the Fall of Constantinople. The narrator is told that in the event of the city's fall, they will be killed so as to keep the secret from the Turks.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In George R. R. Martin's fantasy series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, wildfire is similar to Greek fire. It was used in naval battles as it could remain lit on water, and its recipe was closely guarded.",
"title": "In literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In Leland Purvis's graphic novel Vox : collected works, 1999-2003, there is a passage detailing Callinicus and Greek Fire.",
"title": "In literature"
}
]
| Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning AD 672. Used to set enemy ships on fire, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians said it could be ignited on contact with water, and was probably based on naphtha and quicklime. The Byzantines typically used it in naval battles to great effect, as it could continue burning while floating on water. The technological advantage it provided was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from the first and second Arab sieges, thus securing the empire's survival. The impression made by Greek fire on the western European Crusaders was such that the name was applied to any sort of incendiary weapon, including those used by Arabs, the Chinese, and the Mongols. However, these mixtures used formulas different from that of Byzantine Greek fire, which was a closely guarded state secret. Byzantines also used pressurized nozzles to project the liquid onto the enemy, in a manner resembling a modern flamethrower. The composition of Greek fire remains a matter of speculation and debate, with various proposals including combinations of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter. | 2001-11-08T19:28:32Z | 2023-12-29T19:57:27Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire |
12,823 | Garbage in, garbage out | In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, or nonsense (garbage) input data produces nonsense output. Rubbish in, rubbish out (RIRO) is an alternate wording.
The principle applies to all logical argumentation: soundness implies validity, but validity does not imply soundness.
The expression was popular in the early days of computing. The first known use is in a 1957 syndicated newspaper article about US Army mathematicians and their work with early computers, in which an Army Specialist named William D. Mellin explained that computers cannot think for themselves, and that "sloppily programmed" inputs inevitably lead to incorrect outputs. The underlying principle was noted by the inventor of the first programmable computing device design:
On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
More recently, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch comes to a similar conclusion:
A loading computer is an effective and useful tool for the safe running of a ship. However, its output can only be as accurate as the information entered into it.
The term may have been derived from last-in, first-out (LIFO) or first-in, first-out (FIFO).
This phrase can be used as an explanation for the poor quality of a digitized audio or video file. Although digitizing can be the first step in cleaning up a signal, it does not, by itself, improve the quality. Defects in the original analog signal will be faithfully recorded, but might be identified and removed by a subsequent step by digital signal processing.
GIGO is also used to describe failures in human decision-making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.
In audiology, GIGO describes the process that occurs at the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) when auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder is present. This occurs when the neural firing from the cochlea has become unsynchronized, resulting in a static-filled sound being input into the DCN and then passed up the chain to the auditory cortex. The term was applied by Dan Schwartz at the 2012 Worldwide ANSD Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, on 16 March 2012; and adopted as industry jargon to describe the electrical signal received by the dorsal cochlear nucleus and passed up the auditory chain to the superior olivary complex on the way to the auditory cortex destination.
GIGO was the name of a Usenet gateway program to FidoNet, MAUSnet, e.a. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, or nonsense (garbage) input data produces nonsense output. Rubbish in, rubbish out (RIRO) is an alternate wording.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The principle applies to all logical argumentation: soundness implies validity, but validity does not imply soundness.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The expression was popular in the early days of computing. The first known use is in a 1957 syndicated newspaper article about US Army mathematicians and their work with early computers, in which an Army Specialist named William D. Mellin explained that computers cannot think for themselves, and that \"sloppily programmed\" inputs inevitably lead to incorrect outputs. The underlying principle was noted by the inventor of the first programmable computing device design:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "On two occasions I have been asked, \"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?\" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "More recently, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch comes to a similar conclusion:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A loading computer is an effective and useful tool for the safe running of a ship. However, its output can only be as accurate as the information entered into it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The term may have been derived from last-in, first-out (LIFO) or first-in, first-out (FIFO).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This phrase can be used as an explanation for the poor quality of a digitized audio or video file. Although digitizing can be the first step in cleaning up a signal, it does not, by itself, improve the quality. Defects in the original analog signal will be faithfully recorded, but might be identified and removed by a subsequent step by digital signal processing.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "GIGO is also used to describe failures in human decision-making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In audiology, GIGO describes the process that occurs at the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) when auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder is present. This occurs when the neural firing from the cochlea has become unsynchronized, resulting in a static-filled sound being input into the DCN and then passed up the chain to the auditory cortex. The term was applied by Dan Schwartz at the 2012 Worldwide ANSD Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, on 16 March 2012; and adopted as industry jargon to describe the electrical signal received by the dorsal cochlear nucleus and passed up the auditory chain to the superior olivary complex on the way to the auditory cortex destination.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "GIGO was the name of a Usenet gateway program to FidoNet, MAUSnet, e.a.",
"title": "Uses"
}
]
| In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, or nonsense (garbage) input data produces nonsense output. Rubbish in, rubbish out (RIRO) is an alternate wording. The principle applies to all logical argumentation: soundness implies validity, but validity does not imply soundness. | 2001-11-09T18:33:08Z | 2023-12-14T19:24:21Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_out |
12,828 | GATT (disambiguation) | GATT or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade.
Gatt or GATT may also refer to: | [
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"text": "GATT or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade.",
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gatt or GATT may also refer to:",
"title": ""
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| GATT or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade. Gatt or GATT may also refer to: Gatt (surname)
Gatt Gatt the Bat, a nickname given to Mike Gatting, an English cricketer
Generic Attribute Profile, a data exchange protocol in Bluetooth Low Energy | 2020-05-12T12:37:45Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATT_(disambiguation) |
|
12,830 | Gipsy (disambiguation) | Gipsy is an English name for the Romani people.
Gipsy or gispies may also refer to: | [
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"text": "Gipsy is an English name for the Romani people.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gipsy or gispies may also refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Gipsy is an English name for the Romani people. Gipsy or gispies may also refer to: | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-08-04T08:52:34Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gipsy_(disambiguation) |
12,831 | General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade | The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."
The GATT was first discussed during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). It was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on 30 October 1947, and was applied on a provisional basis 1 January 1948. It remained in effect until 1 January 1995, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established after agreement by 123 nations in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994, as part of the Uruguay Round Agreements. The WTO is the successor to the GATT, and the original GATT text (GATT 1947) is still in effect under the WTO framework, subject to the modifications of GATT 1994. Nations that were not party in 1995 to the GATT need to meet the minimum conditions spelled out in specific documents before they can accede; in September 2019, the list contained 36 nations.
The GATT, and its successor the WTO, have succeeded in reducing tariffs. The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22% in 1947, but were 5% after the Uruguay Round in 1999. Experts attribute part of these tariff changes to GATT and the WTO.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a multi-national trade treaty. It has been updated in a series of global trade negotiations consisting of nine rounds between 1947 and 1995. Its role in international trade was largely succeeded in 1995 by the World Trade Organization.
During the 1940s, the United States sought to establish a set of post-war multilateral institutions, one of which would be devoted to the reconstruction of world trade. In 1945 and 1946, the U.S. took concrete steps to bring about such an organisation, proposing a conference to negotiate a charter for a trade organisation. The GATT was first conceived at the 1947 United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment (UNCTE), at which the International Trade Organization (ITO) was one of the ideas proposed. It was hoped that the ITO would be run alongside the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). More than 50 nations negotiated ITO and organising its founding charter, but after the withdrawal of the United States these negotiations collapsed.
Preparatory sessions were held simultaneously at the UNCTE regarding the GATT. After several of these sessions, 23 nations signed the GATT on 30 October 1947 in Geneva, Switzerland. It came into force on 1 January 1948.
The second round took place in 1949 in Annecy, France. 13 countries took part in the round. The main focus of the talks was more tariff reductions, around 5,000 in total.
The third round occurred in Torquay, England in 1951. Thirty-eight countries took part in the round. 8,700 tariff concessions were made totalling the remaining amount of tariffs to ¾ of the tariffs which were in effect in 1948. The contemporaneous rejection by the U.S. of the Havana Charter signified the establishment of the GATT as a governing world body.
The fourth round returned to Geneva in 1955 and lasted until May 1956. Twenty-six countries took part in the round. $2.5 billion in tariffs were eliminated or reduced.
The fifth round occurred once more in Geneva and lasted from 1960 to 1962. The talks were named after U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Under Secretary of State, Douglas Dillon, who first proposed the talks. Twenty-six countries took part in the round. Along with reducing over $4.9 billion in tariffs, it also yielded discussion relating to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC).
The sixth round of GATT multilateral trade negotiations, held from 1964 to 1967. It was named after U.S. President John F. Kennedy in recognition of his support for the reformulation of the United States trade agenda, which resulted in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. This Act gave the President the widest-ever negotiating authority.
As the Dillon Round went through the laborious process of item-by-item tariff negotiations, it became clear, long before the Round ended, that a more comprehensive approach was needed to deal with the emerging challenges resulting from the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) and EFTA, as well as Europe's re-emergence as a significant international trader more generally.
Japan's high economic growth rate portended the major role it would play later as an exporter, but the focal point of the Kennedy Round always was the United States-EEC relationship. Indeed, there was an influential American view that saw what became the Kennedy Round as the start of a transatlantic partnership that might ultimately lead to a transatlantic economic community.
To an extent, this view was shared in Europe, but the process of European unification created its own stresses under which the Kennedy Round at times became a secondary focus for the EEC. An example of this was the French veto in January 1963, before the round had even started, on membership by the United Kingdom.
Another was the internal crisis of 1965, which ended in the Luxembourg Compromise. Preparations for the new round were immediately overshadowed by the Chicken War, an early sign of the impact variable levies under the Common Agricultural Policy would eventually have. Some participants in the Round had been concerned that the convening of UNCTAD, scheduled for 1964, would result in further complications, but its impact on the actual negotiations was minimal.
In May 1963 Ministers reached agreement on three negotiating objectives for the round:
The working hypothesis for the tariff negotiations was a linear tariff cut of 50% with the smallest number of exceptions. A drawn-out argument developed about the trade effects a uniform linear cut would have on the dispersed rates (low and high tariffs quite far apart) of the United States as compared to the much more concentrated rates of the EEC which also tended to be in the lower held of United States tariff rates.
The EEC accordingly argued for an evening-out or harmonisation of peaks and troughs through its cerement, double cart and thirty: ten proposals. Once negotiations had been joined, the lofty working hypothesis was soon undermined. The special-structure countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa), so called because their exports were dominated by raw materials and other primary commodities, negotiated their tariff reductions entirely through the item-by-item method.
In the end, the result was an average 35% reduction in tariffs, except for textiles, chemicals, steel and other sensitive products; plus a 15% to 18% reduction in tariffs for agricultural and food products. In addition, the negotiations on chemicals led to a provisional agreement on the abolition of the American Selling Price (ASP). This was a method of valuing some chemicals used by the noted States for the imposition of import duties which gave domestic manufacturers a much higher level of protection than the tariff schedule indicated.
However, this part of the outcome was disallowed by Congress, and the American Selling Price was not abolished until Congress adopted the results of the Tokyo Round. The results on agriculture overall were poor. The most notable achievement was agreement on a Memorandum of Agreement on Basic Elements for the Negotiation of a World Grants Arrangement, which eventually was rolled into a new International Grains Arrangement.
The EEC claimed that for it the main result of the negotiations on agriculture was that they "greatly helped to define its own common policy". The developing countries, who played a minor role throughout the negotiations in this round, benefited nonetheless from substantial tariff cuts particularly in non-agricultural items of interest to them.
Their main achievement at the time, however, was seen to be the adoption of Part IV of the GATT, which absolved them from according reciprocity to developed countries in trade negotiations. In the view of many developing countries, this was a direct result of the call at UNCTAD I for a better trade deal for them.
There has been argument ever since whether this symbolic gesture was a victory for them, or whether it ensured their exclusion in the future from meaningful participation in the multilateral trading system. On the other hand, there was no doubt that the extension of the Long-Term Arrangement Regarding International Trade in Cotton Textiles, which later became the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, for three years until 1970 led to the longer-term impairment of export opportunities for developing countries.
Another outcome of the Kennedy Round was the adoption of an Anti-dumping Code, which gave more precise guidance on the implementation of Article VI of the GATT. In particular, it sought to ensure speedy and fair investigations, and it imposed limits on the retrospective application of anti-dumping measures.
Kennedy Round took place from 1962 to 1967. $40 billion in tariffs were eliminated or reduced.
Reduced tariffs and established new regulations aimed at controlling the proliferation of non-tariff barriers and voluntary export restrictions. 102 countries took part in the round. Concessions were made on $19 billion worth of trade.
The Quadrilateral Group was formed in 1982 by the European Union, the United States, Japan and Canada, to influence the GATT.
The Uruguay Round began in 1986. It was the most ambitious round to date, as of 1986, hoping to expand the competence of the GATT to important new areas such as services, capital, intellectual property, textiles, and agriculture. 123 countries took part in the round. The Uruguay Round was also the first set of multilateral trade negotiations in which developing countries had played an active role.
Agriculture was essentially exempted from previous agreements as it was given special status in the areas of import quotas and export subsidies, with only mild caveats. However, by the time of the Uruguay round, many countries considered the exception of agriculture to be sufficiently glaring that they refused to sign a new deal without some movement on agricultural products. These fourteen countries came to be known as the "Cairns Group", and included mostly small and medium-sized agricultural exporters such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and New Zealand.
The Agreement on Agriculture of the Uruguay Round continues to be the most substantial trade liberalisation agreement in agricultural products in the history of trade negotiations. The goals of the agreement were to improve market access for agricultural products, reduce domestic support of agriculture in the form of price-distorting subsidies and quotas, eliminate over time export subsidies on agricultural products and to harmonise to the extent possible sanitary and phytosanitary measures between member countries.
In 1993, the GATT was updated ('GATT 1994') to include new obligations upon its signatories. One of the most significant changes was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 76 existing GATT members and the European Communities became the founding members of the WTO on 1 January 1995. The other 51 GATT members rejoined the WTO in the following two years (the last being Congo in 1997). Since the founding of the WTO, 33 new non-GATT members have joined and 22 are currently negotiating membership. There are a total of 164 member countries in the WTO, with Liberia and Afghanistan being the newest members as of 2018.
Of the original GATT members, Syria, Lebanon and the SFR Yugoslavia have not rejoined the WTO. Since FR Yugoslavia (renamed as Serbia and Montenegro and with membership negotiations later split in two), is not recognised as a direct SFRY successor state; therefore, its application is considered a new (non-GATT) one. The General Council of WTO, on 4 May 2010, agreed to establish a working party to examine the request of Syria for WTO membership. The contracting parties who founded the WTO ended official agreement of the "GATT 1947" terms on 31 December 1995. Montenegro became a member in 2012, while Serbia is in the decision stage of the negotiations and is expected to become a member of the WTO in the future.
Whilst GATT was a set of rules agreed upon by nations, the WTO is an intergovernmental organisation with its own headquarters and staff, and its scope includes both traded goods and trade within the service sector and intellectual property rights. Although it was designed to serve multilateral agreements, during several rounds of GATT negotiations (particularly the Tokyo Round) plurilateral agreements created selective trading and caused fragmentation among members. WTO arrangements are generally a multilateral agreement settlement mechanism of GATT.
The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22 per cent in 1947. As a result of the first negotiating rounds, tariffs were reduced in the GATT core of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, relative to other contracting parties and non-GATT participants. By the Kennedy round (1962–67), the average tariff levels of GATT participants were about 15%. After the Uruguay Round, tariffs were under 5%.
In addition to facilitating applied tariff reductions, the early GATT's contribution to trade liberalisation "include binding the negotiated tariff reductions for an extended period (made more permanent in 1955), establishing the generality of non-discrimination through most-favoured nation (MFN) treatment and national treatment status, ensuring increased transparency of trade policy measures, and providing a forum for future negotiations and for the peaceful resolution of bilateral disputes. All of these elements contributed to the rationalization of trade policy and the reduction of trade barriers and policy uncertainty."
According to Dartmouth economic historian Douglas Irwin,
The prosperity of the world economy over the past half century owes a great deal to the growth of world trade which, in turn, is partly the result of farsighted officials who created the GATT. They established a set of procedures giving stability to the trade-policy environment and thereby facilitating the rapid growth of world trade. With the long run in view, the original GATT conferees helped put the world economy on a sound foundation and thereby improved the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Following the United Kingdom's vote to withdraw from the European Union, supporters of leaving the EU suggested that Article 24, paragraph 5B of the treaty could be used to maintain a "standstill" in trading conditions between the UK and the EU in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal, hence preventing the introduction of tariffs. According to proponents of this approach, it could be used to implement an interim agreement pending negotiation of a final agreement lasting up to ten years.
This claim formed the basis of the so-called "Malthouse compromise" between Conservative party factions as to how to replace the withdrawal agreement. However, this plan was rejected by parliament. The claim that Article 24 might be used was also adopted by Boris Johnson during his 2019 campaign to lead the Conservative Party.
The claim that Article 24 might be used in this way has been criticised by Mark Carney, Liam Fox and others as being unrealistic given the requirement in paragraph 5c of the treaty that there be an agreement between the parties for paragraph 5b to be of use as, in the event of a "no-deal" scenario, there would be no agreement. Moreover, critics of the GATT 24 approach point out that services would not be covered by such an arrangement. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the \"substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The GATT was first discussed during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). It was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on 30 October 1947, and was applied on a provisional basis 1 January 1948. It remained in effect until 1 January 1995, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established after agreement by 123 nations in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994, as part of the Uruguay Round Agreements. The WTO is the successor to the GATT, and the original GATT text (GATT 1947) is still in effect under the WTO framework, subject to the modifications of GATT 1994. Nations that were not party in 1995 to the GATT need to meet the minimum conditions spelled out in specific documents before they can accede; in September 2019, the list contained 36 nations.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The GATT, and its successor the WTO, have succeeded in reducing tariffs. The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22% in 1947, but were 5% after the Uruguay Round in 1999. Experts attribute part of these tariff changes to GATT and the WTO.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a multi-national trade treaty. It has been updated in a series of global trade negotiations consisting of nine rounds between 1947 and 1995. Its role in international trade was largely succeeded in 1995 by the World Trade Organization.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "During the 1940s, the United States sought to establish a set of post-war multilateral institutions, one of which would be devoted to the reconstruction of world trade. In 1945 and 1946, the U.S. took concrete steps to bring about such an organisation, proposing a conference to negotiate a charter for a trade organisation. The GATT was first conceived at the 1947 United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment (UNCTE), at which the International Trade Organization (ITO) was one of the ideas proposed. It was hoped that the ITO would be run alongside the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). More than 50 nations negotiated ITO and organising its founding charter, but after the withdrawal of the United States these negotiations collapsed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Preparatory sessions were held simultaneously at the UNCTE regarding the GATT. After several of these sessions, 23 nations signed the GATT on 30 October 1947 in Geneva, Switzerland. It came into force on 1 January 1948.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The second round took place in 1949 in Annecy, France. 13 countries took part in the round. The main focus of the talks was more tariff reductions, around 5,000 in total.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The third round occurred in Torquay, England in 1951. Thirty-eight countries took part in the round. 8,700 tariff concessions were made totalling the remaining amount of tariffs to ¾ of the tariffs which were in effect in 1948. The contemporaneous rejection by the U.S. of the Havana Charter signified the establishment of the GATT as a governing world body.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The fourth round returned to Geneva in 1955 and lasted until May 1956. Twenty-six countries took part in the round. $2.5 billion in tariffs were eliminated or reduced.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The fifth round occurred once more in Geneva and lasted from 1960 to 1962. The talks were named after U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Under Secretary of State, Douglas Dillon, who first proposed the talks. Twenty-six countries took part in the round. Along with reducing over $4.9 billion in tariffs, it also yielded discussion relating to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The sixth round of GATT multilateral trade negotiations, held from 1964 to 1967. It was named after U.S. President John F. Kennedy in recognition of his support for the reformulation of the United States trade agenda, which resulted in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. This Act gave the President the widest-ever negotiating authority.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "As the Dillon Round went through the laborious process of item-by-item tariff negotiations, it became clear, long before the Round ended, that a more comprehensive approach was needed to deal with the emerging challenges resulting from the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) and EFTA, as well as Europe's re-emergence as a significant international trader more generally.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Japan's high economic growth rate portended the major role it would play later as an exporter, but the focal point of the Kennedy Round always was the United States-EEC relationship. Indeed, there was an influential American view that saw what became the Kennedy Round as the start of a transatlantic partnership that might ultimately lead to a transatlantic economic community.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "To an extent, this view was shared in Europe, but the process of European unification created its own stresses under which the Kennedy Round at times became a secondary focus for the EEC. An example of this was the French veto in January 1963, before the round had even started, on membership by the United Kingdom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Another was the internal crisis of 1965, which ended in the Luxembourg Compromise. Preparations for the new round were immediately overshadowed by the Chicken War, an early sign of the impact variable levies under the Common Agricultural Policy would eventually have. Some participants in the Round had been concerned that the convening of UNCTAD, scheduled for 1964, would result in further complications, but its impact on the actual negotiations was minimal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In May 1963 Ministers reached agreement on three negotiating objectives for the round:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The working hypothesis for the tariff negotiations was a linear tariff cut of 50% with the smallest number of exceptions. A drawn-out argument developed about the trade effects a uniform linear cut would have on the dispersed rates (low and high tariffs quite far apart) of the United States as compared to the much more concentrated rates of the EEC which also tended to be in the lower held of United States tariff rates.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The EEC accordingly argued for an evening-out or harmonisation of peaks and troughs through its cerement, double cart and thirty: ten proposals. Once negotiations had been joined, the lofty working hypothesis was soon undermined. The special-structure countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa), so called because their exports were dominated by raw materials and other primary commodities, negotiated their tariff reductions entirely through the item-by-item method.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the end, the result was an average 35% reduction in tariffs, except for textiles, chemicals, steel and other sensitive products; plus a 15% to 18% reduction in tariffs for agricultural and food products. In addition, the negotiations on chemicals led to a provisional agreement on the abolition of the American Selling Price (ASP). This was a method of valuing some chemicals used by the noted States for the imposition of import duties which gave domestic manufacturers a much higher level of protection than the tariff schedule indicated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "However, this part of the outcome was disallowed by Congress, and the American Selling Price was not abolished until Congress adopted the results of the Tokyo Round. The results on agriculture overall were poor. The most notable achievement was agreement on a Memorandum of Agreement on Basic Elements for the Negotiation of a World Grants Arrangement, which eventually was rolled into a new International Grains Arrangement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The EEC claimed that for it the main result of the negotiations on agriculture was that they \"greatly helped to define its own common policy\". The developing countries, who played a minor role throughout the negotiations in this round, benefited nonetheless from substantial tariff cuts particularly in non-agricultural items of interest to them.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Their main achievement at the time, however, was seen to be the adoption of Part IV of the GATT, which absolved them from according reciprocity to developed countries in trade negotiations. In the view of many developing countries, this was a direct result of the call at UNCTAD I for a better trade deal for them.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "There has been argument ever since whether this symbolic gesture was a victory for them, or whether it ensured their exclusion in the future from meaningful participation in the multilateral trading system. On the other hand, there was no doubt that the extension of the Long-Term Arrangement Regarding International Trade in Cotton Textiles, which later became the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, for three years until 1970 led to the longer-term impairment of export opportunities for developing countries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Another outcome of the Kennedy Round was the adoption of an Anti-dumping Code, which gave more precise guidance on the implementation of Article VI of the GATT. In particular, it sought to ensure speedy and fair investigations, and it imposed limits on the retrospective application of anti-dumping measures.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Kennedy Round took place from 1962 to 1967. $40 billion in tariffs were eliminated or reduced.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Reduced tariffs and established new regulations aimed at controlling the proliferation of non-tariff barriers and voluntary export restrictions. 102 countries took part in the round. Concessions were made on $19 billion worth of trade.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Quadrilateral Group was formed in 1982 by the European Union, the United States, Japan and Canada, to influence the GATT.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Uruguay Round began in 1986. It was the most ambitious round to date, as of 1986, hoping to expand the competence of the GATT to important new areas such as services, capital, intellectual property, textiles, and agriculture. 123 countries took part in the round. The Uruguay Round was also the first set of multilateral trade negotiations in which developing countries had played an active role.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Agriculture was essentially exempted from previous agreements as it was given special status in the areas of import quotas and export subsidies, with only mild caveats. However, by the time of the Uruguay round, many countries considered the exception of agriculture to be sufficiently glaring that they refused to sign a new deal without some movement on agricultural products. These fourteen countries came to be known as the \"Cairns Group\", and included mostly small and medium-sized agricultural exporters such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and New Zealand.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Agreement on Agriculture of the Uruguay Round continues to be the most substantial trade liberalisation agreement in agricultural products in the history of trade negotiations. The goals of the agreement were to improve market access for agricultural products, reduce domestic support of agriculture in the form of price-distorting subsidies and quotas, eliminate over time export subsidies on agricultural products and to harmonise to the extent possible sanitary and phytosanitary measures between member countries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1993, the GATT was updated ('GATT 1994') to include new obligations upon its signatories. One of the most significant changes was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 76 existing GATT members and the European Communities became the founding members of the WTO on 1 January 1995. The other 51 GATT members rejoined the WTO in the following two years (the last being Congo in 1997). Since the founding of the WTO, 33 new non-GATT members have joined and 22 are currently negotiating membership. There are a total of 164 member countries in the WTO, with Liberia and Afghanistan being the newest members as of 2018.",
"title": "GATT and the World Trade Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Of the original GATT members, Syria, Lebanon and the SFR Yugoslavia have not rejoined the WTO. Since FR Yugoslavia (renamed as Serbia and Montenegro and with membership negotiations later split in two), is not recognised as a direct SFRY successor state; therefore, its application is considered a new (non-GATT) one. The General Council of WTO, on 4 May 2010, agreed to establish a working party to examine the request of Syria for WTO membership. The contracting parties who founded the WTO ended official agreement of the \"GATT 1947\" terms on 31 December 1995. Montenegro became a member in 2012, while Serbia is in the decision stage of the negotiations and is expected to become a member of the WTO in the future.",
"title": "GATT and the World Trade Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Whilst GATT was a set of rules agreed upon by nations, the WTO is an intergovernmental organisation with its own headquarters and staff, and its scope includes both traded goods and trade within the service sector and intellectual property rights. Although it was designed to serve multilateral agreements, during several rounds of GATT negotiations (particularly the Tokyo Round) plurilateral agreements created selective trading and caused fragmentation among members. WTO arrangements are generally a multilateral agreement settlement mechanism of GATT.",
"title": "GATT and the World Trade Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22 per cent in 1947. As a result of the first negotiating rounds, tariffs were reduced in the GATT core of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, relative to other contracting parties and non-GATT participants. By the Kennedy round (1962–67), the average tariff levels of GATT participants were about 15%. After the Uruguay Round, tariffs were under 5%.",
"title": "Effects on trade liberalisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In addition to facilitating applied tariff reductions, the early GATT's contribution to trade liberalisation \"include binding the negotiated tariff reductions for an extended period (made more permanent in 1955), establishing the generality of non-discrimination through most-favoured nation (MFN) treatment and national treatment status, ensuring increased transparency of trade policy measures, and providing a forum for future negotiations and for the peaceful resolution of bilateral disputes. All of these elements contributed to the rationalization of trade policy and the reduction of trade barriers and policy uncertainty.\"",
"title": "Effects on trade liberalisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "According to Dartmouth economic historian Douglas Irwin,",
"title": "Effects on trade liberalisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The prosperity of the world economy over the past half century owes a great deal to the growth of world trade which, in turn, is partly the result of farsighted officials who created the GATT. They established a set of procedures giving stability to the trade-policy environment and thereby facilitating the rapid growth of world trade. With the long run in view, the original GATT conferees helped put the world economy on a sound foundation and thereby improved the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people around the world.",
"title": "Effects on trade liberalisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Following the United Kingdom's vote to withdraw from the European Union, supporters of leaving the EU suggested that Article 24, paragraph 5B of the treaty could be used to maintain a \"standstill\" in trading conditions between the UK and the EU in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal, hence preventing the introduction of tariffs. According to proponents of this approach, it could be used to implement an interim agreement pending negotiation of a final agreement lasting up to ten years.",
"title": "Article 24"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "This claim formed the basis of the so-called \"Malthouse compromise\" between Conservative party factions as to how to replace the withdrawal agreement. However, this plan was rejected by parliament. The claim that Article 24 might be used was also adopted by Boris Johnson during his 2019 campaign to lead the Conservative Party.",
"title": "Article 24"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The claim that Article 24 might be used in this way has been criticised by Mark Carney, Liam Fox and others as being unrealistic given the requirement in paragraph 5c of the treaty that there be an agreement between the parties for paragraph 5b to be of use as, in the event of a \"no-deal\" scenario, there would be no agreement. Moreover, critics of the GATT 24 approach point out that services would not be covered by such an arrangement.",
"title": "Article 24"
}
]
| The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." The GATT was first discussed during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). It was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on 30 October 1947, and was applied on a provisional basis 1 January 1948. It remained in effect until 1 January 1995, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established after agreement by 123 nations in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994, as part of the Uruguay Round Agreements. The WTO is the successor to the GATT, and the original GATT text is still in effect under the WTO framework, subject to the modifications of GATT 1994. Nations that were not party in 1995 to the GATT need to meet the minimum conditions spelled out in specific documents before they can accede; in September 2019, the list contained 36 nations. The GATT, and its successor the WTO, have succeeded in reducing tariffs. The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22% in 1947, but were 5% after the Uruguay Round in 1999. Experts attribute part of these tariff changes to GATT and the WTO. | 2001-11-13T07:57:10Z | 2023-12-14T22:51:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Agreement_on_Tariffs_and_Trade |
12,832 | G protein-coupled receptor | G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large group of evolutionarily related proteins that are cell surface receptors that detect molecules outside the cell and activate cellular responses. They are coupled with G proteins. They pass through the cell membrane seven times in the form of six loops (three extracellular loops interacting with ligand molecules, three intracellular loops interacting with G proteins, an N-terminal extracellular region and a C-terminal intracellular region) of amino acid residues, which is why they are sometimes referred to as seven-transmembrane receptors. Ligands can bind either to the extracellular N-terminus and loops (e.g. glutamate receptors) or to the binding site within transmembrane helices (rhodopsin-like family). They are all activated by agonists, although a spontaneous auto-activation of an empty receptor has also been observed.
G protein-coupled receptors are found only in eukaryotes, including yeast, and choanoflagellates. The ligands that bind and activate these receptors include light-sensitive compounds, odors, pheromones, hormones, and neurotransmitters, and vary in size from small molecules to peptides to large proteins. G protein-coupled receptors are involved in many diseases.
There are two principal signal transduction pathways involving the G protein-coupled receptors:
When a ligand binds to the GPCR it causes a conformational change in the GPCR, which allows it to act as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF). The GPCR can then activate an associated G protein by exchanging the GDP bound to the G protein for a GTP. The G protein's α subunit, together with the bound GTP, can then dissociate from the β and γ subunits to further affect intracellular signaling proteins or target functional proteins directly depending on the α subunit type (Gαs, Gαi/o, Gαq/11, Gα12/13).
GPCRs are an important drug target and approximately 34% of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs target 108 members of this family. The global sales volume for these drugs is estimated to be 180 billion US dollars as of 2018. It is estimated that GPCRs are targets for about 50% of drugs currently on the market, mainly due to their involvement in signaling pathways related to many diseases i.e. mental, metabolic including endocrinological disorders, immunological including viral infections, cardiovascular, inflammatory, senses disorders, and cancer. The long ago discovered association between GPCRs and many endogenous and exogenous substances, resulting in e.g. analgesia, is another dynamically developing field of the pharmaceutical research.
With the determination of the first structure of the complex between a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) and a G-protein trimer (Gαβγ) in 2011 a new chapter of GPCR research was opened for structural investigations of global switches with more than one protein being investigated. The previous breakthroughs involved determination of the crystal structure of the first GPCR, rhodopsin, in 2000 and the crystal structure of the first GPCR with a diffusible ligand (β2AR) in 2007. The way in which the seven transmembrane helices of a GPCR are arranged into a bundle was suspected based on the low-resolution model of frog rhodopsin from cryogenic electron microscopy studies of the two-dimensional crystals. The crystal structure of rhodopsin, that came up three years later, was not a surprise apart from the presence of an additional cytoplasmic helix H8 and a precise location of a loop covering retinal binding site. However, it provided a scaffold which was hoped to be a universal template for homology modeling and drug design for other GPCRs – a notion that proved to be too optimistic.
Seven years later, the crystallization of β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) with a diffusible ligand brought surprising results because it revealed quite a different shape of the receptor extracellular side than that of rhodopsin. This area is important because it is responsible for the ligand binding and is targeted by many drugs. Moreover, the ligand binding site was much more spacious than in the rhodopsin structure and was open to the exterior. In the other receptors crystallized shortly afterwards the binding side was even more easily accessible to the ligand. New structures complemented with biochemical investigations uncovered mechanisms of action of molecular switches which modulate the structure of the receptor leading to activation states for agonists or to complete or partial inactivation states for inverse agonists.
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz for their work that was "crucial for understanding how G protein-coupled receptors function". There have been at least seven other Nobel Prizes awarded for some aspect of G protein–mediated signaling. As of 2012, two of the top ten global best-selling drugs (Advair Diskus and Abilify) act by targeting G protein-coupled receptors.
The exact size of the GPCR superfamily is unknown, but at least 831 different human genes (or ~ 4% of the entire protein-coding genome) have been predicted to code for them from genome sequence analysis. Although numerous classification schemes have been proposed, the superfamily was classically divided into three main classes (A, B, and C) with no detectable shared sequence homology between classes.
The largest class by far is class A, which accounts for nearly 85% of the GPCR genes. Of class A GPCRs, over half of these are predicted to encode olfactory receptors, while the remaining receptors are liganded by known endogenous compounds or are classified as orphan receptors. Despite the lack of sequence homology between classes, all GPCRs have a common structure and mechanism of signal transduction. The very large rhodopsin A group has been further subdivided into 19 subgroups (A1-A19).
According to the classical A-F system, GPCRs can be grouped into 6 classes based on sequence homology and functional similarity:
More recently, an alternative classification system called GRAFS (Glutamate, Rhodopsin, Adhesion, Frizzled/Taste2, Secretin) has been proposed for vertebrate GPCRs. They correspond to classical classes C, A, B2, F, and B.
An early study based on available DNA sequence suggested that the human genome encodes roughly 750 G protein-coupled receptors, about 350 of which detect hormones, growth factors, and other endogenous ligands. Approximately 150 of the GPCRs found in the human genome have unknown functions.
Some web-servers and bioinformatics prediction methods have been used for predicting the classification of GPCRs according to their amino acid sequence alone, by means of the pseudo amino acid composition approach.
GPCRs are involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Some examples of their physiological roles include:
GPCRs are integral membrane proteins that possess seven membrane-spanning domains or transmembrane helices. The extracellular parts of the receptor can be glycosylated. These extracellular loops also contain two highly conserved cysteine residues that form disulfide bonds to stabilize the receptor structure. Some seven-transmembrane helix proteins (channelrhodopsin) that resemble GPCRs may contain ion channels, within their protein.
In 2000, the first crystal structure of a mammalian GPCR, that of bovine rhodopsin (1F88), was solved. In 2007, the first structure of a human GPCR was solved This human β2-adrenergic receptor GPCR structure proved highly similar to the bovine rhodopsin. The structures of activated or agonist-bound GPCRs have also been determined. These structures indicate how ligand binding at the extracellular side of a receptor leads to conformational changes in the cytoplasmic side of the receptor. The biggest change is an outward movement of the cytoplasmic part of the 5th and 6th transmembrane helix (TM5 and TM6). The structure of activated beta-2 adrenergic receptor in complex with Gs confirmed that the Gα binds to a cavity created by this movement.
GPCRs exhibit a similar structure to some other proteins with seven transmembrane domains, such as microbial rhodopsins and adiponectin receptors 1 and 2 (ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2). However, these 7TMH (7-transmembrane helices) receptors and channels do not associate with G proteins. In addition, ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2 are oriented oppositely to GPCRs in the membrane (i.e. GPCRs usually have an extracellular N-terminus, cytoplasmic C-terminus, whereas ADIPORs are inverted).
In terms of structure, GPCRs are characterized by an extracellular N-terminus, followed by seven transmembrane (7-TM) α-helices (TM-1 to TM-7) connected by three intracellular (IL-1 to IL-3) and three extracellular loops (EL-1 to EL-3), and finally an intracellular C-terminus. The GPCR arranges itself into a tertiary structure resembling a barrel, with the seven transmembrane helices forming a cavity within the plasma membrane that serves a ligand-binding domain that is often covered by EL-2. Ligands may also bind elsewhere, however, as is the case for bulkier ligands (e.g., proteins or large peptides), which instead interact with the extracellular loops, or, as illustrated by the class C metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), the N-terminal tail. The class C GPCRs are distinguished by their large N-terminal tail, which also contains a ligand-binding domain. Upon glutamate-binding to an mGluR, the N-terminal tail undergoes a conformational change that leads to its interaction with the residues of the extracellular loops and TM domains. The eventual effect of all three types of agonist-induced activation is a change in the relative orientations of the TM helices (likened to a twisting motion) leading to a wider intracellular surface and "revelation" of residues of the intracellular helices and TM domains crucial to signal transduction function (i.e., G-protein coupling). Inverse agonists and antagonists may also bind to a number of different sites, but the eventual effect must be prevention of this TM helix reorientation.
The structure of the N- and C-terminal tails of GPCRs may also serve important functions beyond ligand-binding. For example, The C-terminus of M3 muscarinic receptors is sufficient, and the six-amino-acid polybasic (KKKRRK) domain in the C-terminus is necessary for its preassembly with Gq proteins. In particular, the C-terminus often contains serine (Ser) or threonine (Thr) residues that, when phosphorylated, increase the affinity of the intracellular surface for the binding of scaffolding proteins called β-arrestins (β-arr). Once bound, β-arrestins both sterically prevent G-protein coupling and may recruit other proteins, leading to the creation of signaling complexes involved in extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK) pathway activation or receptor endocytosis (internalization). As the phosphorylation of these Ser and Thr residues often occurs as a result of GPCR activation, the β-arr-mediated G-protein-decoupling and internalization of GPCRs are important mechanisms of desensitization. In addition, internalized "mega-complexes" consisting of a single GPCR, β-arr(in the tail conformation), and heterotrimeric G protein exist and may account for protein signaling from endosomes.
A final common structural theme among GPCRs is palmitoylation of one or more sites of the C-terminal tail or the intracellular loops. Palmitoylation is the covalent modification of cysteine (Cys) residues via addition of hydrophobic acyl groups, and has the effect of targeting the receptor to cholesterol- and sphingolipid-rich microdomains of the plasma membrane called lipid rafts. As many of the downstream transducer and effector molecules of GPCRs (including those involved in negative feedback pathways) are also targeted to lipid rafts, this has the effect of facilitating rapid receptor signaling.
GPCRs respond to extracellular signals mediated by a huge diversity of agonists, ranging from proteins to biogenic amines to protons, but all transduce this signal via a mechanism of G-protein coupling. This is made possible by a guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) domain primarily formed by a combination of IL-2 and IL-3 along with adjacent residues of the associated TM helices.
The G protein-coupled receptor is activated by an external signal in the form of a ligand or other signal mediator. This creates a conformational change in the receptor, causing activation of a G protein. Further effect depends on the type of G protein. G proteins are subsequently inactivated by GTPase activating proteins, known as RGS proteins.
GPCRs include one or more receptors for the following ligands: sensory signal mediators (e.g., light and olfactory stimulatory molecules); adenosine, bombesin, bradykinin, endothelin, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), melanocortins, neuropeptide Y, opioid peptides, opsins, somatostatin, GH, tachykinins, members of the vasoactive intestinal peptide family, and vasopressin; biogenic amines (e.g., dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, histamine, serotonin, and melatonin); glutamate (metabotropic effect); glucagon; acetylcholine (muscarinic effect); chemokines; lipid mediators of inflammation (e.g., prostaglandins, prostanoids, platelet-activating factor, and leukotrienes); peptide hormones (e.g., calcitonin, C5a anaphylatoxin, follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH], gonadotropin-releasing hormone [GnRH], neurokinin, thyrotropin-releasing hormone [TRH], and oxytocin); and endocannabinoids.
GPCRs that act as receptors for stimuli that have not yet been identified are known as orphan receptors.
However, in contrast to other types of receptors that have been studied, wherein ligands bind externally to the membrane, the ligands of GPCRs typically bind within the transmembrane domain. However, protease-activated receptors are activated by cleavage of part of their extracellular domain.
The transduction of the signal through the membrane by the receptor is not completely understood. It is known that in the inactive state, the GPCR is bound to a heterotrimeric G protein complex. Binding of an agonist to the GPCR results in a conformational change in the receptor that is transmitted to the bound Gα subunit of the heterotrimeric G protein via protein domain dynamics. The activated Gα subunit exchanges GTP in place of GDP which in turn triggers the dissociation of Gα subunit from the Gβγ dimer and from the receptor. The dissociated Gα and Gβγ subunits interact with other intracellular proteins to continue the signal transduction cascade while the freed GPCR is able to rebind to another heterotrimeric G protein to form a new complex that is ready to initiate another round of signal transduction.
It is believed that a receptor molecule exists in a conformational equilibrium between active and inactive biophysical states. The binding of ligands to the receptor may shift the equilibrium toward the active receptor states. Three types of ligands exist: Agonists are ligands that shift the equilibrium in favour of active states; inverse agonists are ligands that shift the equilibrium in favour of inactive states; and neutral antagonists are ligands that do not affect the equilibrium. It is not yet known how exactly the active and inactive states differ from each other.
When the receptor is inactive, the GEF domain may be bound to an also inactive α-subunit of a heterotrimeric G-protein. These "G-proteins" are a trimer of α, β, and γ subunits (known as Gα, Gβ, and Gγ, respectively) that is rendered inactive when reversibly bound to Guanosine diphosphate (GDP) (or, alternatively, no guanine nucleotide) but active when bound to guanosine triphosphate (GTP). Upon receptor activation, the GEF domain, in turn, allosterically activates the G-protein by facilitating the exchange of a molecule of GDP for GTP at the G-protein's α-subunit. The cell maintains a 10:1 ratio of cytosolic GTP:GDP so exchange for GTP is ensured. At this point, the subunits of the G-protein dissociate from the receptor, as well as each other, to yield a Gα-GTP monomer and a tightly interacting Gβγ dimer, which are now free to modulate the activity of other intracellular proteins. The extent to which they may diffuse, however, is limited due to the palmitoylation of Gα and the presence of an isoprenoid moiety that has been covalently added to the C-termini of Gγ.
Because Gα also has slow GTP→GDP hydrolysis capability, the inactive form of the α-subunit (Gα-GDP) is eventually regenerated, thus allowing reassociation with a Gβγ dimer to form the "resting" G-protein, which can again bind to a GPCR and await activation. The rate of GTP hydrolysis is often accelerated due to the actions of another family of allosteric modulating proteins called Regulators of G-protein Signaling, or RGS proteins, which are a type of GTPase-Activating Protein, or GAP. In fact, many of the primary effector proteins (e.g., adenylate cyclases) that become activated/inactivated upon interaction with Gα-GTP also have GAP activity. Thus, even at this early stage in the process, GPCR-initiated signaling has the capacity for self-termination.
GPCRs downstream signals have been shown to possibly interact with integrin signals, such as FAK. Integrin signaling will phosphorylate FAK, which can then decrease GPCR Gαs activity.
If a receptor in an active state encounters a G protein, it may activate it. Some evidence suggests that receptors and G proteins are actually pre-coupled. For example, binding of G proteins to receptors affects the receptor's affinity for ligands. Activated G proteins are bound to GTP.
Further signal transduction depends on the type of G protein. The enzyme adenylate cyclase is an example of a cellular protein that can be regulated by a G protein, in this case the G protein Gs. Adenylate cyclase activity is activated when it binds to a subunit of the activated G protein. Activation of adenylate cyclase ends when the G protein returns to the GDP-bound state.
Adenylate cyclases (of which 9 membrane-bound and one cytosolic forms are known in humans) may also be activated or inhibited in other ways (e.g., Ca2+/Calmodulin binding), which can modify the activity of these enzymes in an additive or synergistic fashion along with the G proteins.
The signaling pathways activated through a GPCR are limited by the primary sequence and tertiary structure of the GPCR itself but ultimately determined by the particular conformation stabilized by a particular ligand, as well as the availability of transducer molecules. Currently, GPCRs are considered to utilize two primary types of transducers: G-proteins and β-arrestins. Because β-arr's have high affinity only to the phosphorylated form of most GPCRs (see above or below), the majority of signaling is ultimately dependent upon G-protein activation. However, the possibility for interaction does allow for G-protein-independent signaling to occur.
There are three main G-protein-mediated signaling pathways, mediated by four sub-classes of G-proteins distinguished from each other by sequence homology (Gαs, Gαi/o, Gαq/11, and Gα12/13). Each sub-class of G-protein consists of multiple proteins, each the product of multiple genes or splice variations that may imbue them with differences ranging from subtle to distinct with regard to signaling properties, but in general they appear reasonably grouped into four classes. Because the signal transducing properties of the various possible βγ combinations do not appear to radically differ from one another, these classes are defined according to the isoform of their α-subunit.
While most GPCRs are capable of activating more than one Gα-subtype, they also show a preference for one subtype over another. When the subtype activated depends on the ligand that is bound to the GPCR, this is called functional selectivity (also known as agonist-directed trafficking, or conformation-specific agonism). However, the binding of any single particular agonist may also initiate activation of multiple different G-proteins, as it may be capable of stabilizing more than one conformation of the GPCR's GEF domain, even over the course of a single interaction. In addition, a conformation that preferably activates one isoform of Gα may activate another if the preferred is less available. Furthermore, feedback pathways may result in receptor modifications (e.g., phosphorylation) that alter the G-protein preference. Regardless of these various nuances, the GPCR's preferred coupling partner is usually defined according to the G-protein most obviously activated by the endogenous ligand under most physiological or experimental conditions.
The above descriptions ignore the effects of Gβγ–signalling, which can also be important, in particular in the case of activated Gαi/o-coupled GPCRs. The primary effectors of Gβγ are various ion channels, such as G-protein-regulated inwardly rectifying K channels (GIRKs), P/Q- and N-type voltage-gated Ca channels, as well as some isoforms of AC and PLC, along with some phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) isoforms.
Although they are classically thought of working only together, GPCRs may signal through G-protein-independent mechanisms, and heterotrimeric G-proteins may play functional roles independent of GPCRs. GPCRs may signal independently through many proteins already mentioned for their roles in G-protein-dependent signaling such as β-arrs, GRKs, and Srcs. Such signaling has been shown to be physiologically relevant, for example, β-arrestin signaling mediated by the chemokine receptor CXCR3 was necessary for full efficacy chemotaxis of activated T cells. In addition, further scaffolding proteins involved in subcellular localization of GPCRs (e.g., PDZ-domain-containing proteins) may also act as signal transducers. Most often the effector is a member of the MAPK family.
In the late 1990s, evidence began accumulating to suggest that some GPCRs are able to signal without G proteins. The ERK2 mitogen-activated protein kinase, a key signal transduction mediator downstream of receptor activation in many pathways, has been shown to be activated in response to cAMP-mediated receptor activation in the slime mold D. discoideum despite the absence of the associated G protein α- and β-subunits.
In mammalian cells, the much-studied β2-adrenoceptor has been demonstrated to activate the ERK2 pathway after arrestin-mediated uncoupling of G-protein-mediated signaling. Therefore, it seems likely that some mechanisms previously believed related purely to receptor desensitisation are actually examples of receptors switching their signaling pathway, rather than simply being switched off.
In kidney cells, the bradykinin receptor B2 has been shown to interact directly with a protein tyrosine phosphatase. The presence of a tyrosine-phosphorylated ITIM (immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif) sequence in the B2 receptor is necessary to mediate this interaction and subsequently the antiproliferative effect of bradykinin.
Although it is a relatively immature area of research, it appears that heterotrimeric G-proteins may also take part in non-GPCR signaling. There is evidence for roles as signal transducers in nearly all other types of receptor-mediated signaling, including integrins, receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), cytokine receptors (JAK/STATs), as well as modulation of various other "accessory" proteins such as GEFs, guanine-nucleotide dissociation inhibitors (GDIs) and protein phosphatases. There may even be specific proteins of these classes whose primary function is as part of GPCR-independent pathways, termed activators of G-protein signalling (AGS). Both the ubiquity of these interactions and the importance of Gα vs. Gβγ subunits to these processes are still unclear.
There are two principal signal transduction pathways involving the G protein-linked receptors: the cAMP signal pathway and the phosphatidylinositol signal pathway.
The cAMP signal transduction contains 5 main characters: stimulative hormone receptor (Rs) or inhibitory hormone receptor (Ri); stimulative regulative G-protein (Gs) or inhibitory regulative G-protein (Gi); adenylyl cyclase; protein kinase A (PKA); and cAMP phosphodiesterase.
Stimulative hormone receptor (Rs) is a receptor that can bind with stimulative signal molecules, while inhibitory hormone receptor (Ri) is a receptor that can bind with inhibitory signal molecules.
Stimulative regulative G-protein is a G-protein linked to stimulative hormone receptor (Rs), and its α subunit upon activation could stimulate the activity of an enzyme or other intracellular metabolism. On the contrary, inhibitory regulative G-protein is linked to an inhibitory hormone receptor, and its α subunit upon activation could inhibit the activity of an enzyme or other intracellular metabolism.
Adenylyl cyclase is a 12-transmembrane glycoprotein that catalyzes the conversion of ATP to cAMP with the help of cofactor Mg or Mn. The cAMP produced is a second messenger in cellular metabolism and is an allosteric activator of protein kinase A.
Protein kinase A is an important enzyme in cell metabolism due to its ability to regulate cell metabolism by phosphorylating specific committed enzymes in the metabolic pathway. It can also regulate specific gene expression, cellular secretion, and membrane permeability. The protein enzyme contains two catalytic subunits and two regulatory subunits. When there is no cAMP，the complex is inactive. When cAMP binds to the regulatory subunits, their conformation is altered, causing the dissociation of the regulatory subunits, which activates protein kinase A and allows further biological effects.
These signals then can be terminated by cAMP phosphodiesterase, which is an enzyme that degrades cAMP to 5'-AMP and inactivates protein kinase A.
In the phosphatidylinositol signal pathway, the extracellular signal molecule binds with the G-protein receptor (Gq) on the cell surface and activates phospholipase C, which is located on the plasma membrane. The lipase hydrolyzes phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) into two second messengers: inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) and diacylglycerol (DAG). IP3 binds with the IP3 receptor in the membrane of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria to open Ca channels. DAG helps activate protein kinase C (PKC), which phosphorylates many other proteins, changing their catalytic activities, leading to cellular responses.
The effects of Ca are also remarkable: it cooperates with DAG in activating PKC and can activate the CaM kinase pathway, in which calcium-modulated protein calmodulin (CaM) binds Ca, undergoes a change in conformation, and activates CaM kinase II, which has unique ability to increase its binding affinity to CaM by autophosphorylation, making CaM unavailable for the activation of other enzymes. The kinase then phosphorylates target enzymes, regulating their activities. The two signal pathways are connected together by Ca-CaM, which is also a regulatory subunit of adenylyl cyclase and phosphodiesterase in the cAMP signal pathway.
GPCRs become desensitized when exposed to their ligand for a long period of time. There are two recognized forms of desensitization: 1) homologous desensitization, in which the activated GPCR is downregulated; and 2) heterologous desensitization, wherein the activated GPCR causes downregulation of a different GPCR. The key reaction of this downregulation is the phosphorylation of the intracellular (or cytoplasmic) receptor domain by protein kinases.
Cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases (protein kinase A) are activated by the signal chain coming from the G protein (that was activated by the receptor) via adenylate cyclase and cyclic AMP (cAMP). In a feedback mechanism, these activated kinases phosphorylate the receptor. The longer the receptor remains active the more kinases are activated and the more receptors are phosphorylated. In β2-adrenoceptors, this phosphorylation results in the switching of the coupling from the Gs class of G-protein to the Gi class. cAMP-dependent PKA mediated phosphorylation can cause heterologous desensitisation in receptors other than those activated.
The G protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are protein kinases that phosphorylate only active GPCRs. G-protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are key modulators of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. They constitute a family of seven mammalian serine-threonine protein kinases that phosphorylate agonist-bound receptor. GRKs-mediated receptor phosphorylation rapidly initiates profound impairment of receptor signaling and desensitization. Activity of GRKs and subcellular targeting is tightly regulated by interaction with receptor domains, G protein subunits, lipids, anchoring proteins and calcium-sensitive proteins.
Phosphorylation of the receptor can have two consequences:
As mentioned above, G-proteins may terminate their own activation due to their intrinsic GTP→GDP hydrolysis capability. However, this reaction proceeds at a slow rate (≈.02 times/sec) and, thus, it would take around 50 seconds for any single G-protein to deactivate if other factors did not come into play. Indeed, there are around 30 isoforms of RGS proteins that, when bound to Gα through their GAP domain, accelerate the hydrolysis rate to ≈30 times/sec. This 1500-fold increase in rate allows for the cell to respond to external signals with high speed, as well as spatial resolution due to limited amount of second messenger that can be generated and limited distance a G-protein can diffuse in 0.03 seconds. For the most part, the RGS proteins are promiscuous in their ability to deactivate G-proteins, while which RGS is involved in a given signaling pathway seems more determined by the tissue and GPCR involved than anything else. In addition, RGS proteins have the additional function of increasing the rate of GTP-GDP exchange at GPCRs, (i.e., as a sort of co-GEF) further contributing to the time resolution of GPCR signaling.
In addition, the GPCR may be desensitized itself. This can occur as:
Once β-arrestin is bound to a GPCR, it undergoes a conformational change allowing it to serve as a scaffolding protein for an adaptor complex termed AP-2, which in turn recruits another protein called clathrin. If enough receptors in the local area recruit clathrin in this manner, they aggregate and the membrane buds inwardly as a result of interactions between the molecules of clathrin, in a process called opsonization. Once the pit has been pinched off the plasma membrane due to the actions of two other proteins called amphiphysin and dynamin, it is now an endocytic vesicle. At this point, the adapter molecules and clathrin have dissociated, and the receptor is either trafficked back to the plasma membrane or targeted to lysosomes for degradation.
At any point in this process, the β-arrestins may also recruit other proteins—such as the non-receptor tyrosine kinase (nRTK), c-SRC—which may activate ERK1/2, or other mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling through, for example, phosphorylation of the small GTPase, Ras, or recruit the proteins of the ERK cascade directly (i.e., Raf-1, MEK, ERK-1/2) at which point signaling is initiated due to their close proximity to one another. Another target of c-SRC are the dynamin molecules involved in endocytosis. Dynamins polymerize around the neck of an incoming vesicle, and their phosphorylation by c-SRC provides the energy necessary for the conformational change allowing the final "pinching off" from the membrane.
Receptor desensitization is mediated through a combination phosphorylation, β-arr binding, and endocytosis as described above. Downregulation occurs when endocytosed receptor is embedded in an endosome that is trafficked to merge with an organelle called a lysosome. Because lysosomal membranes are rich in proton pumps, their interiors have low pH (≈4.8 vs. the pH≈7.2 cytosol), which acts to denature the GPCRs. In addition, lysosomes contain many degradative enzymes, including proteases, which can function only at such low pH, and so the peptide bonds joining the residues of the GPCR together may be cleaved. Whether or not a given receptor is trafficked to a lysosome, detained in endosomes, or trafficked back to the plasma membrane depends on a variety of factors, including receptor type and magnitude of the signal. GPCR regulation is additionally mediated by gene transcription factors. These factors can increase or decrease gene transcription and thus increase or decrease the generation of new receptors (up- or down-regulation) that travel to the cell membrane.
G-protein-coupled receptor oligomerisation is a widespread phenomenon. One of the best-studied examples is the metabotropic GABAB receptor. This so-called constitutive receptor is formed by heterodimerization of GABABR1 and GABABR2 subunits. Expression of the GABABR1 without the GABABR2 in heterologous systems leads to retention of the subunit in the endoplasmic reticulum. Expression of the GABABR2 subunit alone, meanwhile, leads to surface expression of the subunit, although with no functional activity (i.e., the receptor does not bind agonist and cannot initiate a response following exposure to agonist). Expression of the two subunits together leads to plasma membrane expression of functional receptor. It has been shown that GABABR2 binding to GABABR1 causes masking of a retention signal of functional receptors.
Signal transduction mediated by the superfamily of GPCRs dates back to the origin of multicellularity. Mammalian-like GPCRs are found in fungi, and have been classified according to the GRAFS classification system based on GPCR fingerprints. Identification of the superfamily members across the eukaryotic domain, and comparison of the family-specific motifs, have shown that the superfamily of GPCRs have a common origin. Characteristic motifs indicate that three of the five GRAFS families, Rhodopsin, Adhesion, and Frizzled, evolved from the Dictyostelium discoideum cAMP receptors before the split of opisthokonts. Later, the Secretin family evolved from the Adhesion GPCR receptor family before the split of nematodes. Insect GPCRs appear to be in their own group and Taste2 is identified as descending from Rhodopsin. Note that the Secretin/Adhesion split is based on presumed function rather than signature, as the classical Class B (7tm_2, Pfam PF00002) is used to identify both in the studies. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large group of evolutionarily related proteins that are cell surface receptors that detect molecules outside the cell and activate cellular responses. They are coupled with G proteins. They pass through the cell membrane seven times in the form of six loops (three extracellular loops interacting with ligand molecules, three intracellular loops interacting with G proteins, an N-terminal extracellular region and a C-terminal intracellular region) of amino acid residues, which is why they are sometimes referred to as seven-transmembrane receptors. Ligands can bind either to the extracellular N-terminus and loops (e.g. glutamate receptors) or to the binding site within transmembrane helices (rhodopsin-like family). They are all activated by agonists, although a spontaneous auto-activation of an empty receptor has also been observed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "G protein-coupled receptors are found only in eukaryotes, including yeast, and choanoflagellates. The ligands that bind and activate these receptors include light-sensitive compounds, odors, pheromones, hormones, and neurotransmitters, and vary in size from small molecules to peptides to large proteins. G protein-coupled receptors are involved in many diseases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "There are two principal signal transduction pathways involving the G protein-coupled receptors:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "When a ligand binds to the GPCR it causes a conformational change in the GPCR, which allows it to act as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF). The GPCR can then activate an associated G protein by exchanging the GDP bound to the G protein for a GTP. The G protein's α subunit, together with the bound GTP, can then dissociate from the β and γ subunits to further affect intracellular signaling proteins or target functional proteins directly depending on the α subunit type (Gαs, Gαi/o, Gαq/11, Gα12/13).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "GPCRs are an important drug target and approximately 34% of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs target 108 members of this family. The global sales volume for these drugs is estimated to be 180 billion US dollars as of 2018. It is estimated that GPCRs are targets for about 50% of drugs currently on the market, mainly due to their involvement in signaling pathways related to many diseases i.e. mental, metabolic including endocrinological disorders, immunological including viral infections, cardiovascular, inflammatory, senses disorders, and cancer. The long ago discovered association between GPCRs and many endogenous and exogenous substances, resulting in e.g. analgesia, is another dynamically developing field of the pharmaceutical research.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "With the determination of the first structure of the complex between a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) and a G-protein trimer (Gαβγ) in 2011 a new chapter of GPCR research was opened for structural investigations of global switches with more than one protein being investigated. The previous breakthroughs involved determination of the crystal structure of the first GPCR, rhodopsin, in 2000 and the crystal structure of the first GPCR with a diffusible ligand (β2AR) in 2007. The way in which the seven transmembrane helices of a GPCR are arranged into a bundle was suspected based on the low-resolution model of frog rhodopsin from cryogenic electron microscopy studies of the two-dimensional crystals. The crystal structure of rhodopsin, that came up three years later, was not a surprise apart from the presence of an additional cytoplasmic helix H8 and a precise location of a loop covering retinal binding site. However, it provided a scaffold which was hoped to be a universal template for homology modeling and drug design for other GPCRs – a notion that proved to be too optimistic.",
"title": "History and significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Seven years later, the crystallization of β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) with a diffusible ligand brought surprising results because it revealed quite a different shape of the receptor extracellular side than that of rhodopsin. This area is important because it is responsible for the ligand binding and is targeted by many drugs. Moreover, the ligand binding site was much more spacious than in the rhodopsin structure and was open to the exterior. In the other receptors crystallized shortly afterwards the binding side was even more easily accessible to the ligand. New structures complemented with biochemical investigations uncovered mechanisms of action of molecular switches which modulate the structure of the receptor leading to activation states for agonists or to complete or partial inactivation states for inverse agonists.",
"title": "History and significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz for their work that was \"crucial for understanding how G protein-coupled receptors function\". There have been at least seven other Nobel Prizes awarded for some aspect of G protein–mediated signaling. As of 2012, two of the top ten global best-selling drugs (Advair Diskus and Abilify) act by targeting G protein-coupled receptors.",
"title": "History and significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The exact size of the GPCR superfamily is unknown, but at least 831 different human genes (or ~ 4% of the entire protein-coding genome) have been predicted to code for them from genome sequence analysis. Although numerous classification schemes have been proposed, the superfamily was classically divided into three main classes (A, B, and C) with no detectable shared sequence homology between classes.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The largest class by far is class A, which accounts for nearly 85% of the GPCR genes. Of class A GPCRs, over half of these are predicted to encode olfactory receptors, while the remaining receptors are liganded by known endogenous compounds or are classified as orphan receptors. Despite the lack of sequence homology between classes, all GPCRs have a common structure and mechanism of signal transduction. The very large rhodopsin A group has been further subdivided into 19 subgroups (A1-A19).",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "According to the classical A-F system, GPCRs can be grouped into 6 classes based on sequence homology and functional similarity:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "More recently, an alternative classification system called GRAFS (Glutamate, Rhodopsin, Adhesion, Frizzled/Taste2, Secretin) has been proposed for vertebrate GPCRs. They correspond to classical classes C, A, B2, F, and B.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "An early study based on available DNA sequence suggested that the human genome encodes roughly 750 G protein-coupled receptors, about 350 of which detect hormones, growth factors, and other endogenous ligands. Approximately 150 of the GPCRs found in the human genome have unknown functions.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some web-servers and bioinformatics prediction methods have been used for predicting the classification of GPCRs according to their amino acid sequence alone, by means of the pseudo amino acid composition approach.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "GPCRs are involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Some examples of their physiological roles include:",
"title": "Physiological roles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "GPCRs are integral membrane proteins that possess seven membrane-spanning domains or transmembrane helices. The extracellular parts of the receptor can be glycosylated. These extracellular loops also contain two highly conserved cysteine residues that form disulfide bonds to stabilize the receptor structure. Some seven-transmembrane helix proteins (channelrhodopsin) that resemble GPCRs may contain ion channels, within their protein.",
"title": "Receptor structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 2000, the first crystal structure of a mammalian GPCR, that of bovine rhodopsin (1F88), was solved. In 2007, the first structure of a human GPCR was solved This human β2-adrenergic receptor GPCR structure proved highly similar to the bovine rhodopsin. The structures of activated or agonist-bound GPCRs have also been determined. These structures indicate how ligand binding at the extracellular side of a receptor leads to conformational changes in the cytoplasmic side of the receptor. The biggest change is an outward movement of the cytoplasmic part of the 5th and 6th transmembrane helix (TM5 and TM6). The structure of activated beta-2 adrenergic receptor in complex with Gs confirmed that the Gα binds to a cavity created by this movement.",
"title": "Receptor structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "GPCRs exhibit a similar structure to some other proteins with seven transmembrane domains, such as microbial rhodopsins and adiponectin receptors 1 and 2 (ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2). However, these 7TMH (7-transmembrane helices) receptors and channels do not associate with G proteins. In addition, ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2 are oriented oppositely to GPCRs in the membrane (i.e. GPCRs usually have an extracellular N-terminus, cytoplasmic C-terminus, whereas ADIPORs are inverted).",
"title": "Receptor structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In terms of structure, GPCRs are characterized by an extracellular N-terminus, followed by seven transmembrane (7-TM) α-helices (TM-1 to TM-7) connected by three intracellular (IL-1 to IL-3) and three extracellular loops (EL-1 to EL-3), and finally an intracellular C-terminus. The GPCR arranges itself into a tertiary structure resembling a barrel, with the seven transmembrane helices forming a cavity within the plasma membrane that serves a ligand-binding domain that is often covered by EL-2. Ligands may also bind elsewhere, however, as is the case for bulkier ligands (e.g., proteins or large peptides), which instead interact with the extracellular loops, or, as illustrated by the class C metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), the N-terminal tail. The class C GPCRs are distinguished by their large N-terminal tail, which also contains a ligand-binding domain. Upon glutamate-binding to an mGluR, the N-terminal tail undergoes a conformational change that leads to its interaction with the residues of the extracellular loops and TM domains. The eventual effect of all three types of agonist-induced activation is a change in the relative orientations of the TM helices (likened to a twisting motion) leading to a wider intracellular surface and \"revelation\" of residues of the intracellular helices and TM domains crucial to signal transduction function (i.e., G-protein coupling). Inverse agonists and antagonists may also bind to a number of different sites, but the eventual effect must be prevention of this TM helix reorientation.",
"title": "Structure–function relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The structure of the N- and C-terminal tails of GPCRs may also serve important functions beyond ligand-binding. For example, The C-terminus of M3 muscarinic receptors is sufficient, and the six-amino-acid polybasic (KKKRRK) domain in the C-terminus is necessary for its preassembly with Gq proteins. In particular, the C-terminus often contains serine (Ser) or threonine (Thr) residues that, when phosphorylated, increase the affinity of the intracellular surface for the binding of scaffolding proteins called β-arrestins (β-arr). Once bound, β-arrestins both sterically prevent G-protein coupling and may recruit other proteins, leading to the creation of signaling complexes involved in extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK) pathway activation or receptor endocytosis (internalization). As the phosphorylation of these Ser and Thr residues often occurs as a result of GPCR activation, the β-arr-mediated G-protein-decoupling and internalization of GPCRs are important mechanisms of desensitization. In addition, internalized \"mega-complexes\" consisting of a single GPCR, β-arr(in the tail conformation), and heterotrimeric G protein exist and may account for protein signaling from endosomes.",
"title": "Structure–function relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A final common structural theme among GPCRs is palmitoylation of one or more sites of the C-terminal tail or the intracellular loops. Palmitoylation is the covalent modification of cysteine (Cys) residues via addition of hydrophobic acyl groups, and has the effect of targeting the receptor to cholesterol- and sphingolipid-rich microdomains of the plasma membrane called lipid rafts. As many of the downstream transducer and effector molecules of GPCRs (including those involved in negative feedback pathways) are also targeted to lipid rafts, this has the effect of facilitating rapid receptor signaling.",
"title": "Structure–function relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "GPCRs respond to extracellular signals mediated by a huge diversity of agonists, ranging from proteins to biogenic amines to protons, but all transduce this signal via a mechanism of G-protein coupling. This is made possible by a guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) domain primarily formed by a combination of IL-2 and IL-3 along with adjacent residues of the associated TM helices.",
"title": "Structure–function relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The G protein-coupled receptor is activated by an external signal in the form of a ligand or other signal mediator. This creates a conformational change in the receptor, causing activation of a G protein. Further effect depends on the type of G protein. G proteins are subsequently inactivated by GTPase activating proteins, known as RGS proteins.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "GPCRs include one or more receptors for the following ligands: sensory signal mediators (e.g., light and olfactory stimulatory molecules); adenosine, bombesin, bradykinin, endothelin, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), melanocortins, neuropeptide Y, opioid peptides, opsins, somatostatin, GH, tachykinins, members of the vasoactive intestinal peptide family, and vasopressin; biogenic amines (e.g., dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, histamine, serotonin, and melatonin); glutamate (metabotropic effect); glucagon; acetylcholine (muscarinic effect); chemokines; lipid mediators of inflammation (e.g., prostaglandins, prostanoids, platelet-activating factor, and leukotrienes); peptide hormones (e.g., calcitonin, C5a anaphylatoxin, follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH], gonadotropin-releasing hormone [GnRH], neurokinin, thyrotropin-releasing hormone [TRH], and oxytocin); and endocannabinoids.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "GPCRs that act as receptors for stimuli that have not yet been identified are known as orphan receptors.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "However, in contrast to other types of receptors that have been studied, wherein ligands bind externally to the membrane, the ligands of GPCRs typically bind within the transmembrane domain. However, protease-activated receptors are activated by cleavage of part of their extracellular domain.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The transduction of the signal through the membrane by the receptor is not completely understood. It is known that in the inactive state, the GPCR is bound to a heterotrimeric G protein complex. Binding of an agonist to the GPCR results in a conformational change in the receptor that is transmitted to the bound Gα subunit of the heterotrimeric G protein via protein domain dynamics. The activated Gα subunit exchanges GTP in place of GDP which in turn triggers the dissociation of Gα subunit from the Gβγ dimer and from the receptor. The dissociated Gα and Gβγ subunits interact with other intracellular proteins to continue the signal transduction cascade while the freed GPCR is able to rebind to another heterotrimeric G protein to form a new complex that is ready to initiate another round of signal transduction.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It is believed that a receptor molecule exists in a conformational equilibrium between active and inactive biophysical states. The binding of ligands to the receptor may shift the equilibrium toward the active receptor states. Three types of ligands exist: Agonists are ligands that shift the equilibrium in favour of active states; inverse agonists are ligands that shift the equilibrium in favour of inactive states; and neutral antagonists are ligands that do not affect the equilibrium. It is not yet known how exactly the active and inactive states differ from each other.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "When the receptor is inactive, the GEF domain may be bound to an also inactive α-subunit of a heterotrimeric G-protein. These \"G-proteins\" are a trimer of α, β, and γ subunits (known as Gα, Gβ, and Gγ, respectively) that is rendered inactive when reversibly bound to Guanosine diphosphate (GDP) (or, alternatively, no guanine nucleotide) but active when bound to guanosine triphosphate (GTP). Upon receptor activation, the GEF domain, in turn, allosterically activates the G-protein by facilitating the exchange of a molecule of GDP for GTP at the G-protein's α-subunit. The cell maintains a 10:1 ratio of cytosolic GTP:GDP so exchange for GTP is ensured. At this point, the subunits of the G-protein dissociate from the receptor, as well as each other, to yield a Gα-GTP monomer and a tightly interacting Gβγ dimer, which are now free to modulate the activity of other intracellular proteins. The extent to which they may diffuse, however, is limited due to the palmitoylation of Gα and the presence of an isoprenoid moiety that has been covalently added to the C-termini of Gγ.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Because Gα also has slow GTP→GDP hydrolysis capability, the inactive form of the α-subunit (Gα-GDP) is eventually regenerated, thus allowing reassociation with a Gβγ dimer to form the \"resting\" G-protein, which can again bind to a GPCR and await activation. The rate of GTP hydrolysis is often accelerated due to the actions of another family of allosteric modulating proteins called Regulators of G-protein Signaling, or RGS proteins, which are a type of GTPase-Activating Protein, or GAP. In fact, many of the primary effector proteins (e.g., adenylate cyclases) that become activated/inactivated upon interaction with Gα-GTP also have GAP activity. Thus, even at this early stage in the process, GPCR-initiated signaling has the capacity for self-termination.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "GPCRs downstream signals have been shown to possibly interact with integrin signals, such as FAK. Integrin signaling will phosphorylate FAK, which can then decrease GPCR Gαs activity.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "If a receptor in an active state encounters a G protein, it may activate it. Some evidence suggests that receptors and G proteins are actually pre-coupled. For example, binding of G proteins to receptors affects the receptor's affinity for ligands. Activated G proteins are bound to GTP.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Further signal transduction depends on the type of G protein. The enzyme adenylate cyclase is an example of a cellular protein that can be regulated by a G protein, in this case the G protein Gs. Adenylate cyclase activity is activated when it binds to a subunit of the activated G protein. Activation of adenylate cyclase ends when the G protein returns to the GDP-bound state.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Adenylate cyclases (of which 9 membrane-bound and one cytosolic forms are known in humans) may also be activated or inhibited in other ways (e.g., Ca2+/Calmodulin binding), which can modify the activity of these enzymes in an additive or synergistic fashion along with the G proteins.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The signaling pathways activated through a GPCR are limited by the primary sequence and tertiary structure of the GPCR itself but ultimately determined by the particular conformation stabilized by a particular ligand, as well as the availability of transducer molecules. Currently, GPCRs are considered to utilize two primary types of transducers: G-proteins and β-arrestins. Because β-arr's have high affinity only to the phosphorylated form of most GPCRs (see above or below), the majority of signaling is ultimately dependent upon G-protein activation. However, the possibility for interaction does allow for G-protein-independent signaling to occur.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "There are three main G-protein-mediated signaling pathways, mediated by four sub-classes of G-proteins distinguished from each other by sequence homology (Gαs, Gαi/o, Gαq/11, and Gα12/13). Each sub-class of G-protein consists of multiple proteins, each the product of multiple genes or splice variations that may imbue them with differences ranging from subtle to distinct with regard to signaling properties, but in general they appear reasonably grouped into four classes. Because the signal transducing properties of the various possible βγ combinations do not appear to radically differ from one another, these classes are defined according to the isoform of their α-subunit.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "While most GPCRs are capable of activating more than one Gα-subtype, they also show a preference for one subtype over another. When the subtype activated depends on the ligand that is bound to the GPCR, this is called functional selectivity (also known as agonist-directed trafficking, or conformation-specific agonism). However, the binding of any single particular agonist may also initiate activation of multiple different G-proteins, as it may be capable of stabilizing more than one conformation of the GPCR's GEF domain, even over the course of a single interaction. In addition, a conformation that preferably activates one isoform of Gα may activate another if the preferred is less available. Furthermore, feedback pathways may result in receptor modifications (e.g., phosphorylation) that alter the G-protein preference. Regardless of these various nuances, the GPCR's preferred coupling partner is usually defined according to the G-protein most obviously activated by the endogenous ligand under most physiological or experimental conditions.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The above descriptions ignore the effects of Gβγ–signalling, which can also be important, in particular in the case of activated Gαi/o-coupled GPCRs. The primary effectors of Gβγ are various ion channels, such as G-protein-regulated inwardly rectifying K channels (GIRKs), P/Q- and N-type voltage-gated Ca channels, as well as some isoforms of AC and PLC, along with some phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) isoforms.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Although they are classically thought of working only together, GPCRs may signal through G-protein-independent mechanisms, and heterotrimeric G-proteins may play functional roles independent of GPCRs. GPCRs may signal independently through many proteins already mentioned for their roles in G-protein-dependent signaling such as β-arrs, GRKs, and Srcs. Such signaling has been shown to be physiologically relevant, for example, β-arrestin signaling mediated by the chemokine receptor CXCR3 was necessary for full efficacy chemotaxis of activated T cells. In addition, further scaffolding proteins involved in subcellular localization of GPCRs (e.g., PDZ-domain-containing proteins) may also act as signal transducers. Most often the effector is a member of the MAPK family.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In the late 1990s, evidence began accumulating to suggest that some GPCRs are able to signal without G proteins. The ERK2 mitogen-activated protein kinase, a key signal transduction mediator downstream of receptor activation in many pathways, has been shown to be activated in response to cAMP-mediated receptor activation in the slime mold D. discoideum despite the absence of the associated G protein α- and β-subunits.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In mammalian cells, the much-studied β2-adrenoceptor has been demonstrated to activate the ERK2 pathway after arrestin-mediated uncoupling of G-protein-mediated signaling. Therefore, it seems likely that some mechanisms previously believed related purely to receptor desensitisation are actually examples of receptors switching their signaling pathway, rather than simply being switched off.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In kidney cells, the bradykinin receptor B2 has been shown to interact directly with a protein tyrosine phosphatase. The presence of a tyrosine-phosphorylated ITIM (immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif) sequence in the B2 receptor is necessary to mediate this interaction and subsequently the antiproliferative effect of bradykinin.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Although it is a relatively immature area of research, it appears that heterotrimeric G-proteins may also take part in non-GPCR signaling. There is evidence for roles as signal transducers in nearly all other types of receptor-mediated signaling, including integrins, receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), cytokine receptors (JAK/STATs), as well as modulation of various other \"accessory\" proteins such as GEFs, guanine-nucleotide dissociation inhibitors (GDIs) and protein phosphatases. There may even be specific proteins of these classes whose primary function is as part of GPCR-independent pathways, termed activators of G-protein signalling (AGS). Both the ubiquity of these interactions and the importance of Gα vs. Gβγ subunits to these processes are still unclear.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "There are two principal signal transduction pathways involving the G protein-linked receptors: the cAMP signal pathway and the phosphatidylinositol signal pathway.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The cAMP signal transduction contains 5 main characters: stimulative hormone receptor (Rs) or inhibitory hormone receptor (Ri); stimulative regulative G-protein (Gs) or inhibitory regulative G-protein (Gi); adenylyl cyclase; protein kinase A (PKA); and cAMP phosphodiesterase.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Stimulative hormone receptor (Rs) is a receptor that can bind with stimulative signal molecules, while inhibitory hormone receptor (Ri) is a receptor that can bind with inhibitory signal molecules.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Stimulative regulative G-protein is a G-protein linked to stimulative hormone receptor (Rs), and its α subunit upon activation could stimulate the activity of an enzyme or other intracellular metabolism. On the contrary, inhibitory regulative G-protein is linked to an inhibitory hormone receptor, and its α subunit upon activation could inhibit the activity of an enzyme or other intracellular metabolism.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Adenylyl cyclase is a 12-transmembrane glycoprotein that catalyzes the conversion of ATP to cAMP with the help of cofactor Mg or Mn. The cAMP produced is a second messenger in cellular metabolism and is an allosteric activator of protein kinase A.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Protein kinase A is an important enzyme in cell metabolism due to its ability to regulate cell metabolism by phosphorylating specific committed enzymes in the metabolic pathway. It can also regulate specific gene expression, cellular secretion, and membrane permeability. The protein enzyme contains two catalytic subunits and two regulatory subunits. When there is no cAMP，the complex is inactive. When cAMP binds to the regulatory subunits, their conformation is altered, causing the dissociation of the regulatory subunits, which activates protein kinase A and allows further biological effects.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "These signals then can be terminated by cAMP phosphodiesterase, which is an enzyme that degrades cAMP to 5'-AMP and inactivates protein kinase A.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In the phosphatidylinositol signal pathway, the extracellular signal molecule binds with the G-protein receptor (Gq) on the cell surface and activates phospholipase C, which is located on the plasma membrane. The lipase hydrolyzes phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) into two second messengers: inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) and diacylglycerol (DAG). IP3 binds with the IP3 receptor in the membrane of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria to open Ca channels. DAG helps activate protein kinase C (PKC), which phosphorylates many other proteins, changing their catalytic activities, leading to cellular responses.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The effects of Ca are also remarkable: it cooperates with DAG in activating PKC and can activate the CaM kinase pathway, in which calcium-modulated protein calmodulin (CaM) binds Ca, undergoes a change in conformation, and activates CaM kinase II, which has unique ability to increase its binding affinity to CaM by autophosphorylation, making CaM unavailable for the activation of other enzymes. The kinase then phosphorylates target enzymes, regulating their activities. The two signal pathways are connected together by Ca-CaM, which is also a regulatory subunit of adenylyl cyclase and phosphodiesterase in the cAMP signal pathway.",
"title": "Details of cAMP and PIP2 pathways"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "GPCRs become desensitized when exposed to their ligand for a long period of time. There are two recognized forms of desensitization: 1) homologous desensitization, in which the activated GPCR is downregulated; and 2) heterologous desensitization, wherein the activated GPCR causes downregulation of a different GPCR. The key reaction of this downregulation is the phosphorylation of the intracellular (or cytoplasmic) receptor domain by protein kinases.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases (protein kinase A) are activated by the signal chain coming from the G protein (that was activated by the receptor) via adenylate cyclase and cyclic AMP (cAMP). In a feedback mechanism, these activated kinases phosphorylate the receptor. The longer the receptor remains active the more kinases are activated and the more receptors are phosphorylated. In β2-adrenoceptors, this phosphorylation results in the switching of the coupling from the Gs class of G-protein to the Gi class. cAMP-dependent PKA mediated phosphorylation can cause heterologous desensitisation in receptors other than those activated.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The G protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are protein kinases that phosphorylate only active GPCRs. G-protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) are key modulators of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. They constitute a family of seven mammalian serine-threonine protein kinases that phosphorylate agonist-bound receptor. GRKs-mediated receptor phosphorylation rapidly initiates profound impairment of receptor signaling and desensitization. Activity of GRKs and subcellular targeting is tightly regulated by interaction with receptor domains, G protein subunits, lipids, anchoring proteins and calcium-sensitive proteins.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Phosphorylation of the receptor can have two consequences:",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "As mentioned above, G-proteins may terminate their own activation due to their intrinsic GTP→GDP hydrolysis capability. However, this reaction proceeds at a slow rate (≈.02 times/sec) and, thus, it would take around 50 seconds for any single G-protein to deactivate if other factors did not come into play. Indeed, there are around 30 isoforms of RGS proteins that, when bound to Gα through their GAP domain, accelerate the hydrolysis rate to ≈30 times/sec. This 1500-fold increase in rate allows for the cell to respond to external signals with high speed, as well as spatial resolution due to limited amount of second messenger that can be generated and limited distance a G-protein can diffuse in 0.03 seconds. For the most part, the RGS proteins are promiscuous in their ability to deactivate G-proteins, while which RGS is involved in a given signaling pathway seems more determined by the tissue and GPCR involved than anything else. In addition, RGS proteins have the additional function of increasing the rate of GTP-GDP exchange at GPCRs, (i.e., as a sort of co-GEF) further contributing to the time resolution of GPCR signaling.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In addition, the GPCR may be desensitized itself. This can occur as:",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Once β-arrestin is bound to a GPCR, it undergoes a conformational change allowing it to serve as a scaffolding protein for an adaptor complex termed AP-2, which in turn recruits another protein called clathrin. If enough receptors in the local area recruit clathrin in this manner, they aggregate and the membrane buds inwardly as a result of interactions between the molecules of clathrin, in a process called opsonization. Once the pit has been pinched off the plasma membrane due to the actions of two other proteins called amphiphysin and dynamin, it is now an endocytic vesicle. At this point, the adapter molecules and clathrin have dissociated, and the receptor is either trafficked back to the plasma membrane or targeted to lysosomes for degradation.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "At any point in this process, the β-arrestins may also recruit other proteins—such as the non-receptor tyrosine kinase (nRTK), c-SRC—which may activate ERK1/2, or other mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling through, for example, phosphorylation of the small GTPase, Ras, or recruit the proteins of the ERK cascade directly (i.e., Raf-1, MEK, ERK-1/2) at which point signaling is initiated due to their close proximity to one another. Another target of c-SRC are the dynamin molecules involved in endocytosis. Dynamins polymerize around the neck of an incoming vesicle, and their phosphorylation by c-SRC provides the energy necessary for the conformational change allowing the final \"pinching off\" from the membrane.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Receptor desensitization is mediated through a combination phosphorylation, β-arr binding, and endocytosis as described above. Downregulation occurs when endocytosed receptor is embedded in an endosome that is trafficked to merge with an organelle called a lysosome. Because lysosomal membranes are rich in proton pumps, their interiors have low pH (≈4.8 vs. the pH≈7.2 cytosol), which acts to denature the GPCRs. In addition, lysosomes contain many degradative enzymes, including proteases, which can function only at such low pH, and so the peptide bonds joining the residues of the GPCR together may be cleaved. Whether or not a given receptor is trafficked to a lysosome, detained in endosomes, or trafficked back to the plasma membrane depends on a variety of factors, including receptor type and magnitude of the signal. GPCR regulation is additionally mediated by gene transcription factors. These factors can increase or decrease gene transcription and thus increase or decrease the generation of new receptors (up- or down-regulation) that travel to the cell membrane.",
"title": "Receptor regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "G-protein-coupled receptor oligomerisation is a widespread phenomenon. One of the best-studied examples is the metabotropic GABAB receptor. This so-called constitutive receptor is formed by heterodimerization of GABABR1 and GABABR2 subunits. Expression of the GABABR1 without the GABABR2 in heterologous systems leads to retention of the subunit in the endoplasmic reticulum. Expression of the GABABR2 subunit alone, meanwhile, leads to surface expression of the subunit, although with no functional activity (i.e., the receptor does not bind agonist and cannot initiate a response following exposure to agonist). Expression of the two subunits together leads to plasma membrane expression of functional receptor. It has been shown that GABABR2 binding to GABABR1 causes masking of a retention signal of functional receptors.",
"title": "Receptor oligomerization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Signal transduction mediated by the superfamily of GPCRs dates back to the origin of multicellularity. Mammalian-like GPCRs are found in fungi, and have been classified according to the GRAFS classification system based on GPCR fingerprints. Identification of the superfamily members across the eukaryotic domain, and comparison of the family-specific motifs, have shown that the superfamily of GPCRs have a common origin. Characteristic motifs indicate that three of the five GRAFS families, Rhodopsin, Adhesion, and Frizzled, evolved from the Dictyostelium discoideum cAMP receptors before the split of opisthokonts. Later, the Secretin family evolved from the Adhesion GPCR receptor family before the split of nematodes. Insect GPCRs appear to be in their own group and Taste2 is identified as descending from Rhodopsin. Note that the Secretin/Adhesion split is based on presumed function rather than signature, as the classical Class B (7tm_2, Pfam PF00002) is used to identify both in the studies.",
"title": "Origin and diversification of the superfamily"
}
]
| G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large group of evolutionarily related proteins that are cell surface receptors that detect molecules outside the cell and activate cellular responses. They are coupled with G proteins. They pass through the cell membrane seven times in the form of six loops of amino acid residues, which is why they are sometimes referred to as seven-transmembrane receptors. Ligands can bind either to the extracellular N-terminus and loops or to the binding site within transmembrane helices. They are all activated by agonists, although a spontaneous auto-activation of an empty receptor has also been observed. G protein-coupled receptors are found only in eukaryotes, including yeast, and choanoflagellates. The ligands that bind and activate these receptors include light-sensitive compounds, odors, pheromones, hormones, and neurotransmitters, and vary in size from small molecules to peptides to large proteins. G protein-coupled receptors are involved in many diseases. There are two principal signal transduction pathways involving the G protein-coupled receptors: the cAMP signal pathway and
the phosphatidylinositol signal pathway. When a ligand binds to the GPCR it causes a conformational change in the GPCR, which allows it to act as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF). The GPCR can then activate an associated G protein by exchanging the GDP bound to the G protein for a GTP. The G protein's α subunit, together with the bound GTP, can then dissociate from the β and γ subunits to further affect intracellular signaling proteins or target functional proteins directly depending on the α subunit type. GPCRs are an important drug target and approximately 34% of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs target 108 members of this family. The global sales volume for these drugs is estimated to be 180 billion US dollars as of 2018. It is estimated that GPCRs are targets for about 50% of drugs currently on the market, mainly due to their involvement in signaling pathways related to many diseases i.e. mental, metabolic including endocrinological disorders, immunological including viral infections, cardiovascular, inflammatory, senses disorders, and cancer. The long ago discovered association between GPCRs and many endogenous and exogenous substances, resulting in e.g. analgesia, is another dynamically developing field of the pharmaceutical research. | 2001-11-13T11:27:26Z | 2023-12-06T20:13:14Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_protein-coupled_receptor |
12,833 | GTPase | GTPases are a large family of hydrolase enzymes that bind to the nucleotide guanosine triphosphate (GTP) and hydrolyze it to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). The GTP binding and hydrolysis takes place in the highly conserved P-loop "G domain", a protein domain common to many GTPases.
GTPases function as molecular switches or timers in many fundamental cellular processes.
Examples of these roles include:
GTPases are active when bound to GTP and inactive when bound to GDP. In the generalized receptor-transducer-effector signaling model of Martin Rodbell, signaling GTPases act as transducers to regulate the activity of effector proteins. This inactive-active switch is due to conformational changes in the protein distinguishing these two forms, particularly of the "switch" regions that in the active state are able to make protein-protein contacts with partner proteins that alter the function of these effectors.
Hydrolysis of GTP bound to an (active) G domain-GTPase leads to deactivation of the signaling/timer function of the enzyme. The hydrolysis of the third (γ) phosphate of GTP to create guanosine diphosphate (GDP) and Pi, inorganic phosphate, occurs by the SN2 mechanism (see nucleophilic substitution) via a pentacoordinate transition state and is dependent on the presence of a magnesium ion Mg.
GTPase activity serves as the shutoff mechanism for the signaling roles of GTPases by returning the active, GTP-bound protein to the inactive, GDP-bound state. Most "GTPases" have functional GTPase activity, allowing them to remain active (that is, bound to GTP) only for a short time before deactivating themselves by converting bound GTP to bound GDP. However, many GTPases also use accessory proteins named GTPase-activating proteins or GAPs to accelerate their GTPase activity. This further limits the active lifetime of signaling GTPases. Some GTPases have little to no intrinsic GTPase activity, and are entirely dependent on GAP proteins for deactivation (such as the ADP-ribosylation factor or ARF family of small GTP-binding proteins that are involved in vesicle-mediated transport within cells).
To become activated, GTPases must bind to GTP. Since mechanisms to convert bound GDP directly into GTP are unknown, the inactive GTPases are induced to release bound GDP by the action of distinct regulatory proteins called guanine nucleotide exchange factors or GEFs. The nucleotide-free GTPase protein quickly rebinds GTP, which is in far excess in healthy cells over GDP, allowing the GTPase to enter the active conformation state and promote its effects on the cell. For many GTPases, activation of GEFs is the primary control mechanism in the stimulation of the GTPase signaling functions, although GAPs also play an important role. For heterotrimeric G proteins and many small GTP-binding proteins, GEF activity is stimulated by cell surface receptors in response to signals outside the cell (for heterotrimeric G proteins, the G protein-coupled receptors are themselves GEFs, while for receptor-activated small GTPases their GEFs are distinct from cell surface receptors).
Some GTPases also bind to accessory proteins called guanine nucleotide dissociation inhibitors or GDIs that stabilize the inactive, GDP-bound state.
The amount of active GTPase can be changed in several ways:
In most GTPases, the specificity for the base guanine versus other nucleotides is imparted by the base-recognition motif, which has the consensus sequence [N/T]KXD. The following classification is based on shared features; some examples have mutations in the base-recognition motif that shift their substrate specificity, most commonly to ATP.
The TRAFAC class of G domain proteins is named after the prototypical member, the translation factor G proteins. They play roles in translation, signal transduction, and cell motility.
Multiple classical translation factor family GTPases play important roles in initiation, elongation and termination of protein biosynthesis. Sharing a similar mode of ribosome binding due to the β-EI domain following the GTPase, the most well-known members of the family are EF-1A/EF-Tu, EF-2/EF-G, and class 2 release factors. Other members include EF-4 (LepA), BipA (TypA), SelB (bacterial selenocysteinyl-tRNA EF-Tu paralog), Tet (tetracycline resistance by ribosomal protection), and HBS1L (eukaryotic ribosome rescue protein similar to release factors).
The superfamily also includes the Bms1 family from yeast.
Heterotrimeric G protein complexes are composed of three distinct protein subunits named alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) subunits. The alpha subunits contain the GTP binding/GTPase domain flanked by long regulatory regions, while the beta and gamma subunits form a stable dimeric complex referred to as the beta-gamma complex. When activated, a heterotrimeric G protein dissociates into activated, GTP-bound alpha subunit and separate beta-gamma subunit, each of which can perform distinct signaling roles. The α and γ subunit are modified by lipid anchors to increase their association with the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane.
Heterotrimeric G proteins act as the transducers of G protein-coupled receptors, coupling receptor activation to downstream signaling effectors and second messengers. In unstimulated cells, heterotrimeric G proteins are assembled as the GDP bound, inactive trimer (Gα-GDP-Gβγ complex). Upon receptor activation, the activated receptor intracellular domain acts as GEF to release GDP from the G protein complex and to promote binding of GTP in its place. The GTP-bound complex undergoes an activating conformation shift that dissociates it from the receptor and also breaks the complex into its component G protein alpha and beta-gamma subunit components. While these activated G protein subunits are now free to activate their effectors, the active receptor is likewise free to activate additional G proteins – this allows catalytic activation and amplification where one receptor may activate many G proteins.
G protein signaling is terminated by hydrolysis of bound GTP to bound GDP. This can occur through the intrinsic GTPase activity of the α subunit, or be accelerated by separate regulatory proteins that act as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), such as members of the Regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) family). The speed of the hydrolysis reaction works as an internal clock limiting the length of the signal. Once Gα is returned to being GDP bound, the two parts of the heterotrimer re-associate to the original, inactive state.
The heterotrimeric G proteins can be classified by sequence homology of the α unit and by their functional targets into four families: Gs family, Gi family, Gq family and G12 family. Each of these Gα protein families contains multiple members, such that the mammals have 16 distinct α-subunit genes. The Gβ and Gγ are likewise composed of many members, increasing heterotrimer structural and functional diversity. Among the target molecules of the specific G proteins are the second messenger-generating enzymes adenylyl cyclase and phospholipase C, as well as various ion channels.
Small GTPases function as monomers and have a molecular weight of about 21 kilodaltons that consists primarily of the GTPase domain. They are also called small or monomeric guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory proteins, small or monomeric GTP-binding proteins, or small or monomeric G-proteins, and because they have significant homology with the first-identified such protein, named Ras, they are also referred to as Ras superfamily GTPases. Small GTPases generally serve as molecular switches and signal transducers for a wide variety of cellular signaling events, often involving membranes, vesicles or cytoskeleton. According to their primary amino acid sequences and biochemical properties, the many Ras superfamily small GTPases are further divided into five subfamilies with distinct functions: Ras, Rho ("Ras-homology"), Rab, Arf and Ran. While many small GTPases are activated by their GEFs in response to intracellular signals emanating from cell surface receptors (particularly growth factor receptors), regulatory GEFs for many other small GTPases are activated in response to intrinsic cell signals, not cell surface (external) signals.
This class is defined by loss of two beta-strands and additional N-terminal strands. Both namesakes of this superfamily, myosin and kinesin, have shifted to use ATP.
See dynamin as a prototype for large monomeric GTPases.
Much of the SIMIBI class of GTPases is activated by dimerization. Named after the signal recognition particle (SRP), MinD, and BioD, the class is involved in protein localization, chromosome partitioning, and membrane transport. Several members of this class, including MinD and Get3, has shifted in substrate specificity to become ATPases.
For a discussion of Translocation factors and the role of GTP, see signal recognition particle (SRP).
While tubulin and related structural proteins also bind and hydrolyze GTP as part of their function to form intracellular tubules, these proteins utilize a distinct tubulin domain that is unrelated to the G domain used by signaling GTPases.
There are also GTP-hydrolyzing proteins that use a P-loop from a superclass other than the G-domain-containg one. Examples include the NACHT proteins of its own superclass and McrB protein of the AAA+ superclass. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "GTPases are a large family of hydrolase enzymes that bind to the nucleotide guanosine triphosphate (GTP) and hydrolyze it to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). The GTP binding and hydrolysis takes place in the highly conserved P-loop \"G domain\", a protein domain common to many GTPases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "GTPases function as molecular switches or timers in many fundamental cellular processes.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Examples of these roles include:",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "GTPases are active when bound to GTP and inactive when bound to GDP. In the generalized receptor-transducer-effector signaling model of Martin Rodbell, signaling GTPases act as transducers to regulate the activity of effector proteins. This inactive-active switch is due to conformational changes in the protein distinguishing these two forms, particularly of the \"switch\" regions that in the active state are able to make protein-protein contacts with partner proteins that alter the function of these effectors.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hydrolysis of GTP bound to an (active) G domain-GTPase leads to deactivation of the signaling/timer function of the enzyme. The hydrolysis of the third (γ) phosphate of GTP to create guanosine diphosphate (GDP) and Pi, inorganic phosphate, occurs by the SN2 mechanism (see nucleophilic substitution) via a pentacoordinate transition state and is dependent on the presence of a magnesium ion Mg.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "GTPase activity serves as the shutoff mechanism for the signaling roles of GTPases by returning the active, GTP-bound protein to the inactive, GDP-bound state. Most \"GTPases\" have functional GTPase activity, allowing them to remain active (that is, bound to GTP) only for a short time before deactivating themselves by converting bound GTP to bound GDP. However, many GTPases also use accessory proteins named GTPase-activating proteins or GAPs to accelerate their GTPase activity. This further limits the active lifetime of signaling GTPases. Some GTPases have little to no intrinsic GTPase activity, and are entirely dependent on GAP proteins for deactivation (such as the ADP-ribosylation factor or ARF family of small GTP-binding proteins that are involved in vesicle-mediated transport within cells).",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "To become activated, GTPases must bind to GTP. Since mechanisms to convert bound GDP directly into GTP are unknown, the inactive GTPases are induced to release bound GDP by the action of distinct regulatory proteins called guanine nucleotide exchange factors or GEFs. The nucleotide-free GTPase protein quickly rebinds GTP, which is in far excess in healthy cells over GDP, allowing the GTPase to enter the active conformation state and promote its effects on the cell. For many GTPases, activation of GEFs is the primary control mechanism in the stimulation of the GTPase signaling functions, although GAPs also play an important role. For heterotrimeric G proteins and many small GTP-binding proteins, GEF activity is stimulated by cell surface receptors in response to signals outside the cell (for heterotrimeric G proteins, the G protein-coupled receptors are themselves GEFs, while for receptor-activated small GTPases their GEFs are distinct from cell surface receptors).",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Some GTPases also bind to accessory proteins called guanine nucleotide dissociation inhibitors or GDIs that stabilize the inactive, GDP-bound state.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The amount of active GTPase can be changed in several ways:",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In most GTPases, the specificity for the base guanine versus other nucleotides is imparted by the base-recognition motif, which has the consensus sequence [N/T]KXD. The following classification is based on shared features; some examples have mutations in the base-recognition motif that shift their substrate specificity, most commonly to ATP.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The TRAFAC class of G domain proteins is named after the prototypical member, the translation factor G proteins. They play roles in translation, signal transduction, and cell motility.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Multiple classical translation factor family GTPases play important roles in initiation, elongation and termination of protein biosynthesis. Sharing a similar mode of ribosome binding due to the β-EI domain following the GTPase, the most well-known members of the family are EF-1A/EF-Tu, EF-2/EF-G, and class 2 release factors. Other members include EF-4 (LepA), BipA (TypA), SelB (bacterial selenocysteinyl-tRNA EF-Tu paralog), Tet (tetracycline resistance by ribosomal protection), and HBS1L (eukaryotic ribosome rescue protein similar to release factors).",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The superfamily also includes the Bms1 family from yeast.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Heterotrimeric G protein complexes are composed of three distinct protein subunits named alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) subunits. The alpha subunits contain the GTP binding/GTPase domain flanked by long regulatory regions, while the beta and gamma subunits form a stable dimeric complex referred to as the beta-gamma complex. When activated, a heterotrimeric G protein dissociates into activated, GTP-bound alpha subunit and separate beta-gamma subunit, each of which can perform distinct signaling roles. The α and γ subunit are modified by lipid anchors to increase their association with the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Heterotrimeric G proteins act as the transducers of G protein-coupled receptors, coupling receptor activation to downstream signaling effectors and second messengers. In unstimulated cells, heterotrimeric G proteins are assembled as the GDP bound, inactive trimer (Gα-GDP-Gβγ complex). Upon receptor activation, the activated receptor intracellular domain acts as GEF to release GDP from the G protein complex and to promote binding of GTP in its place. The GTP-bound complex undergoes an activating conformation shift that dissociates it from the receptor and also breaks the complex into its component G protein alpha and beta-gamma subunit components. While these activated G protein subunits are now free to activate their effectors, the active receptor is likewise free to activate additional G proteins – this allows catalytic activation and amplification where one receptor may activate many G proteins.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "G protein signaling is terminated by hydrolysis of bound GTP to bound GDP. This can occur through the intrinsic GTPase activity of the α subunit, or be accelerated by separate regulatory proteins that act as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), such as members of the Regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) family). The speed of the hydrolysis reaction works as an internal clock limiting the length of the signal. Once Gα is returned to being GDP bound, the two parts of the heterotrimer re-associate to the original, inactive state.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The heterotrimeric G proteins can be classified by sequence homology of the α unit and by their functional targets into four families: Gs family, Gi family, Gq family and G12 family. Each of these Gα protein families contains multiple members, such that the mammals have 16 distinct α-subunit genes. The Gβ and Gγ are likewise composed of many members, increasing heterotrimer structural and functional diversity. Among the target molecules of the specific G proteins are the second messenger-generating enzymes adenylyl cyclase and phospholipase C, as well as various ion channels.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Small GTPases function as monomers and have a molecular weight of about 21 kilodaltons that consists primarily of the GTPase domain. They are also called small or monomeric guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory proteins, small or monomeric GTP-binding proteins, or small or monomeric G-proteins, and because they have significant homology with the first-identified such protein, named Ras, they are also referred to as Ras superfamily GTPases. Small GTPases generally serve as molecular switches and signal transducers for a wide variety of cellular signaling events, often involving membranes, vesicles or cytoskeleton. According to their primary amino acid sequences and biochemical properties, the many Ras superfamily small GTPases are further divided into five subfamilies with distinct functions: Ras, Rho (\"Ras-homology\"), Rab, Arf and Ran. While many small GTPases are activated by their GEFs in response to intracellular signals emanating from cell surface receptors (particularly growth factor receptors), regulatory GEFs for many other small GTPases are activated in response to intrinsic cell signals, not cell surface (external) signals.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "This class is defined by loss of two beta-strands and additional N-terminal strands. Both namesakes of this superfamily, myosin and kinesin, have shifted to use ATP.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "See dynamin as a prototype for large monomeric GTPases.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Much of the SIMIBI class of GTPases is activated by dimerization. Named after the signal recognition particle (SRP), MinD, and BioD, the class is involved in protein localization, chromosome partitioning, and membrane transport. Several members of this class, including MinD and Get3, has shifted in substrate specificity to become ATPases.",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "For a discussion of Translocation factors and the role of GTP, see signal recognition particle (SRP).",
"title": "G domain GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "While tubulin and related structural proteins also bind and hydrolyze GTP as part of their function to form intracellular tubules, these proteins utilize a distinct tubulin domain that is unrelated to the G domain used by signaling GTPases.",
"title": "Other GTPases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "There are also GTP-hydrolyzing proteins that use a P-loop from a superclass other than the G-domain-containg one. Examples include the NACHT proteins of its own superclass and McrB protein of the AAA+ superclass.",
"title": "Other GTPases"
}
]
| GTPases are a large family of hydrolase enzymes that bind to the nucleotide guanosine triphosphate (GTP) and hydrolyze it to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). The GTP binding and hydrolysis takes place in the highly conserved P-loop "G domain", a protein domain common to many GTPases. | 2001-11-13T14:52:44Z | 2023-12-03T10:38:02Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTPase |
12,835 | Galla Placidia | Galla Placidia (392/93 – 27 November 450), daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was a mother, tutor, and advisor to emperor Valentinian III. She was queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, briefly empress consort to Constantius III in 421, and managed the government administration as a regent during the early reign of Valentinian III until her death.
Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his second wife, Galla, who was herself daughter of Valentinian I and his second wife, Justina. Galla Placidia's date of birth is not recorded, but she must have been born either in the period 388–89 or 392–93. Between these dates, her father was in Italy following his campaign against the usurper Magnus Maximus, while her mother remained in Constantinople.
A surviving letter from Bishop Ambrose of Milan, dated 390, refers to a younger son of Theodosius named Gratianus, who died in infancy; as Gratian must have been born in the period 388–89, it is most probable that Galla Placidia was born during the second period, 392–93. Placidia's mother Galla died some time in 394, perhaps giving birth to a stillborn son.
Placidia was a younger, paternal half-sister of emperors Arcadius and Honorius. Her older half-sister Pulcheria predeceased her parents according to Gregory of Nyssa, placing the death of Pulcheria prior to the death of Aelia Flaccilla, the first wife of Theodosius I, in 385. Coins issued in Placidia's honour in Constantinople after 425 give her name as AELIA PLACIDIA; this may have been intended to integrate Placidia with the eastern dynasty of Theodosius II. There is no evidence that the name Aelia was ever used in the west, or that it formed part of Placidia's official nomenclature.
Placidia was granted her own household by her father in the early 390s and was thus financially independent while underage. She was summoned to the court of her father in Mediolanum (Milan) during 394, and was present at Theodosius' death on 17 January 395. She was granted the title of "nobilissima puella" ("most noble girl") during her childhood.
Placidia spent most of her early years in the household of Stilicho and his wife, Serena. She is presumed to have learned weaving and embroidery. She might have also been given a classical education. Serena was a first cousin of Arcadius, Honorius and Placidia. The poem "In Praise of Serena" by Claudian and the Historia Nova by Zosimus clarify that Serena's father was an elder Honorius, a brother to Theodosius I. According to "De Consulatu Stilichonis" by Claudian, Placidia was betrothed to Eucherius, only known son of Stilicho and Serena. Her scheduled marriage is mentioned in the text as the third union between Stilicho's family and the Theodosian dynasty, following those of Stilicho to Serena and Maria, their daughter, to Honorius.
Stilicho was the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. He was the only known person to hold the rank of "magister militum in praesenti" from 394 to 408 in both the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. He was also titled "magister equitum et peditum" ("Master of the Horse and of Foot"), placing him in charge of both the cavalry and infantry forces of the Western Roman Empire. In 408, Arcadius died and was succeeded by his son Theodosius II, only seven years old. Stilicho planned to proceed to Constantinople and "undertake the management of the affairs of Theodosius", convincing Honorius not to travel to the East himself. Shortly after, Olympius, 'Magister Scrinii', attempted to convince Honorius that Stilicho was in fact conspiring to depose Theodosius II, to replace him with Eucherius. Stilicho was arrested and executed by Honorius's order on 22 August 408. Eucherius sought refuge in Rome but was arrested there and executed by the eunuchs Arsacius and Tarentius, on imperial orders. Honorius appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, and gave the next post under him to Arsacius.
In the disturbances that followed the fall of Stilicho, wives and children of foederati living in the cities of Italy were killed. Most of the foederati, regarded as loyal to Stilicho, joined the forces of Alaric I, King of the Visigoths. Alaric led them to Rome and put it under siege, with minor interruptions, from autumn 408 to 24 August 410. Zosimus records that Placidia was within the city during the siege. When Serena was accused of conspiring with Alaric, the whole senate and Placidia sentenced her to death.
Placidia was captured by Alaric before the fall of Rome, and accompanied the Visigoths from Italy to Gaul in 412. Their ruler Ataulf, having succeeded Alaric, entered an alliance with Honorius against Jovinus and Sebastianus, rival Western Roman emperors located in Gaul, and managed to defeat and execute both in 413.
After the heads of Sebastianus and Jovinus arrived at Honorius' court in Ravenna in late August, to be forwarded for display among other usurpers on the walls of Carthage, relations between Ataulf and Honorius improved sufficiently for Ataulf to cement them by marrying Galla Placidia at Narbonne on 1 January 414. The nuptials were celebrated with high Roman festivities and magnificent gifts. Priscus Attalus gave the wedding speech, a classical epithalamium. The marriage was recorded by Hydatius and Jordanes, although the latter states that it was earlier, in 411 at Forum Livii (Forlì) (possibly a more informal event).
Placidia and Ataulf had one son, Theodosius, born in Barcelona by the end of 414, but the child died early in the following year, eliminating an opportunity for a Romano-Visigothic line; years later the corpse was exhumed and reburied in the imperial mausoleum in Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. In Hispania, Ataulf imprudently accepted into his service a man identified as "Dubius" or "Eberwolf", a former follower of Sarus. Sarus had been a Germanic chieftain killed while fighting under Jovinus and Sebastianus, and his follower harbored a secret desire to avenge the death of his patron. In August/September, 415, in the palace at Barcelona, the man brought Ataulf's reign to a sudden end by killing him while he bathed.
The Amali faction proceeded to proclaim Sigeric, a brother of Sarus, as the next king of the Visigoths. Sigeric killed Ataulf's six children from a former wife by taking them away from Sigesar, bishop of the Goths. Galla Placidia, Ataulf's widow, was forced to walk more than twelve miles on foot among the crowd of captives driven ahead of the mounted Sigeric. After 7 days of ruling, Sigeric was assassinated and replaced with Wallia, Ataulf's relative.
According to the Chronicon Albeldense, included in the Códice de Roda, Wallia was desperate for food supplies. He surrendered to Constantius III, at the time magister militum of Honorius, negotiating terms giving foederati status for the Visigoths. Placidia was returned to Honorius as part of the peace treaty. Her brother Honorius forced her into marriage to Constantius III on 1 January 417. Their daughter Justa Grata Honoria was probably born in 417 or 418. The history of Paul the Deacon mentions her first among the children of the marriage, suggesting that she was the eldest. Their son Valentinian III was born 2 July 419.
Placidia intervened in the succession crisis following the death of Pope Zosimus on 26 December 418. Two factions of the Roman clergy had proceeded to elect their own popes, the first electing Eulalius (27 December) and the other electing Boniface I (28 December). They acted as rival popes, both in Rome, and their factions plunged the city into tumult. Symmachus, Prefect of Rome, sent his report to the imperial court at Ravenna, requesting an imperial decision on the matter. Placidia and, presumably, Constantius petitioned the emperor in favor of Eulalius. This was arguably the first intervention by an Emperor in the Papal election.
Honorius initially confirmed Eulalius as the legitimate pope. As this failed to put an end to the controversy, Honorius called a synod of Italian bishops at Ravenna to decide the matter. The synod met from February to March 419 but failed to reach a conclusion. Honorius called a second synod in May, this time including Gaulish and African bishops. In the meantime, the two rival popes were ordered to leave Rome. As Easter approached, however, Eulalius returned to the city and attempted to seize the Basilica of St. John Lateran in order to "preside at the paschal ceremonies". Imperial troops managed to repel him, and on Easter (30 March 419) the ceremonies were led by Achilleus, Bishop of Spoleto. The conflict cost Eulalius the imperial favor, and Boniface was proclaimed the legitimate pope as of 3 April 419, returning to Rome a week later. Placidia had personally written to the African bishops, summoning them to the second synod. Three of her letters are known to have survived.
On 8 February 421, Constantius was proclaimed an Augustus, becoming co-ruler with the childless Honorius. Placidia was proclaimed an Augusta. She was the only Empress in the West, since Honorius had divorced his second wife Thermantia in 408 and had never remarried. Neither title was recognised by Theodosius II, the Eastern Roman Emperor. Constantius reportedly complained about the loss of personal freedom and privacy that came with the imperial office. He died of an illness on 2 September 421.
According to Olympiodorus of Thebes, a historian used as a source by Zosimus, Sozomen and probably Philostorgius, the public grew suspicious of the increasingly scandalous public caresses she was said to have received from her own brother Honorius after her husband's death. However, the siblings' relationship suddenly turned hostile, and around this time, she may have plotted against him. After her soldiers clashed with those of Honorius, Galla Placidia herself was now forced to flee to Constantinople with her children. Despite this setback, Bonifacius, governor of the Diocese of Africa continued to be loyal to her.
Placidia, Valentinian, and Honoria arrived in Constantinople around 422/423. On 15 August 423, Honorius died of edema, perhaps pulmonary edema. With no member of the Theodosian dynasty present at Ravenna to claim the throne, Theodosius II was expected to nominate a Western co-emperor. However, Theodosius hesitated and the decision was delayed. Taking advantage of the power vacuum, Castinus the Patrician proceeded to become a kingmaker. He declared Joannes, the primicerius notariorum "chief notary" (the head of the civil service), to be the new Western Roman Emperor. Among their supporters was Flavius Aetius. Joannes' rule was accepted in the provinces of Italia, Gaul and Hispania, but not in the province of Africa.
Theodosius II reacted by preparing Valentinian III for eventual promotion to the imperial office. In 423/424, Valentinian was named nobilissimus. In 424, Valentinian was betrothed to Licinia Eudoxia, his first cousin once removed. She was a daughter of Theodosius II and Aelia Eudocia. The year of their betrothal was recorded by Marcellinus Comes. At the time of their betrothal, Valentinian was approximately four years old, Licinia only two.
The campaign against Joannes also started in the same year. Forces of the Eastern Roman army gathered at Thessaloniki, and were placed under the general command of Ardaburius, who had served in the Roman-Persian War. The invasion force was to cross the Adriatic Sea by two routes. Aspar, son of Ardaburius, led the cavalry by land, following the coast of the Adriatic from the Western Balkans to Northern Italy. Placidia and Valentinian joined this force. Along the way, Valentinian was proclaimed Caesar by Helion, a magister officiorum under Theodosius in 23 October 424.
Ardaburius and the infantry boarded ships of the Eastern Roman navy in an attempt to reach Ravenna by sea. Aspar marched his forces to Aquileia, taking the city by surprise and with virtually no resistance. The fleet, on the other hand, was dispersed by a storm. Ardaburius and two of his galleys were captured by forces loyal to Joannes and were held prisoners in Ravenna. Ardaburius was treated well by Joannes, who probably intended to negotiate with Theodosius for an end to the hostilities. The prisoner was allowed the "courteous freedom" of walking the court and streets of Ravenna during his captivity. He took advantage of this privilege to come into contact with the forces of Joannes and convinced some of them to defect to Theodosius' side. The conspirators contacted Aspar and beckoned him to Ravenna. A shepherd led Aspar's cavalry force through the marshes of the Po to the gates of Ravenna; with the besiegers outside the walls and the defectors within, the city was quickly captured. Joannes was taken and his right hand cut off; he was then mounted on a donkey and paraded through the streets, and finally beheaded in the hippodrome of Aquileia.
With Joannes dead, Valentinian was officially proclaimed the new Augustus of the Western Roman Empire on 23 October 425, by Helion, in the presence of the Roman Senate, with Theodosius II's support. Three days following Joannes' death, Aetius brought reinforcements for his army, a reported number of sixty thousand Huns from across the Danube. After some skirmishing, Placidia, Valentinian and Aetius came to an agreement and established peace. The Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of comes and magister militum per Gallias (commander-in-chief of the Roman army in Gaul).
Galla Placidia became a regent of Western Roman Empire for her son, Valentinian, in 425 until Aetius' rise. Among her early supporters were Bonifacius and Felix. Aetius, their rival for influence, managed to secure Arles against Theodoric I of the Visigoths. The Visigoths concluded a treaty and were given Gallic noblemen as hostages. The later Emperor Avitus visited Theodoric, lived at his court and taught his sons. Felix, her ally, was assassinated in 430, possibly by Aetius.
Conflict between Placidia and Bonifacius started in 429. Placidia appointed Bonifacius general of Libya. Procopius records that Aetius played the two against each other, warning Placidia against Bonifacius and advising her to recall him to Rome; simultaneously writing to Bonifacius, warning him that Placidia was about to summon him for no good reason in order to put him away.
Bonifacius, trusting the warning from Aetius, refused the summons; and, thinking his position untenable, sought an alliance with the Vandals in Spain. The Vandals subsequently crossed from Spain into Libya to join him. To friends of Bonifacius in Rome, this apparent act of hostility toward the Empire seemed entirely out of character for Bonifacius. They traveled to Carthage at Placidia's behest to intercede with him, and he showed them the letter from Aetius. The plot now revealed, his friends returned to Rome to apprise Placidia of the true situation. She did not move against Aetius, as he wielded great influence, and as the Empire was already in danger; but she urged Bonifacius to return to Rome "and not to permit the empire of the Romans to lie under the hand of barbarians."
Bonifacius now regretted his alliance with the Vandals and tried to persuade them to return to Spain. Gaiseric offered battle instead, and Bonifacius was besieged at Hippo Regius in Numidia by the sea (Augustine of Hippo was its bishop and died in this siege). Unable to take the city, the Vandals eventually raised the siege. The Romans, with reinforcements under Aspar, renewed the struggle but were routed and lost Africa to the Vandals.
Bonifacius had meanwhile returned to Rome, where Placidia raised him to the rank of patrician and made him "master-general of the Roman armies". Aetius returned from Gaul with an army of "barbarians", and was met by Bonifacius in the bloody Battle of Ravenna (432). Bonifacius won the battle, but was mortally wounded and died a few days later. Aetius was compelled to retire to Pannonia.
With the generals loyal to her having either died or defected to Aetius, Placidia acknowledged Aetius' political role as legitimate. In 433, Aetius was given the titles "magister militum" and "patrician". The appointments effectively left Aetius in control of the entire Western Roman army and gave him considerable influence over imperial policy. Aetius later played a pivotal role in the defense of the Western Empire against Attila. Placidia continued to act as regent until 437, though her direct influence over decisions was diminished. She would continue to exercise political influence until her death in 450—no longer, however, the only power at court.
During these years, Galla Placidia befriended bishop Peter Chrysologus, both having a shared interest in building churches.
Attila was diverted from Constantinople towards Italy by a letter from Placidia's own daughter Justa Grata Honoria in the spring of 450, asking him to rescue her from an unwanted marriage to a Roman senator that the Imperial family, including Placidia, was trying to force upon her. Honoria included her engagement ring with the letter. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of Placidia persuaded him not to kill Honoria. Valentinian wrote to Attila denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila, unconvinced, sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his. Honoria was quickly married to Flavius Bassus Herculanus, though this did not prevent Attila from pressing his claim.
Placidia died shortly afterwards at Rome, in November 450, and was buried in the Theodosian family mausoleum adjacent to Old St. Peter's Basilica, later the chapel of Saint Petronilla. She did not live to see Attila ravage Italy in 451–453, using Honoria's letter as his "legitimate" excuse.
Being a devout Christian, she was involved in the building and restoration of various churches throughout her period of influence. She restored and expanded the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. She built San Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna in thanks for the sparing of her life and those of her children in a storm while crossing the Adriatic Sea. The dedicatory inscription reads "Galla Placidia, along with her son Placidus Valentinian Augustus and her daughter Justa Grata Honoria Augusta, paid off their vow for their liberation from the danger of the sea."
Her Mausoleum in Ravenna was one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites inscribed in 1996. However, the building never served as her tomb, but was initially erected as a chapel dedicated to Lawrence of Rome. It is unknown whether the sarcophagi therein contained the bodies of other members of the Theodosian dynasty, or when they were placed in the building. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Galla Placidia (392/93 – 27 November 450), daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was a mother, tutor, and advisor to emperor Valentinian III. She was queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, briefly empress consort to Constantius III in 421, and managed the government administration as a regent during the early reign of Valentinian III until her death.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his second wife, Galla, who was herself daughter of Valentinian I and his second wife, Justina. Galla Placidia's date of birth is not recorded, but she must have been born either in the period 388–89 or 392–93. Between these dates, her father was in Italy following his campaign against the usurper Magnus Maximus, while her mother remained in Constantinople.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "A surviving letter from Bishop Ambrose of Milan, dated 390, refers to a younger son of Theodosius named Gratianus, who died in infancy; as Gratian must have been born in the period 388–89, it is most probable that Galla Placidia was born during the second period, 392–93. Placidia's mother Galla died some time in 394, perhaps giving birth to a stillborn son.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Placidia was a younger, paternal half-sister of emperors Arcadius and Honorius. Her older half-sister Pulcheria predeceased her parents according to Gregory of Nyssa, placing the death of Pulcheria prior to the death of Aelia Flaccilla, the first wife of Theodosius I, in 385. Coins issued in Placidia's honour in Constantinople after 425 give her name as AELIA PLACIDIA; this may have been intended to integrate Placidia with the eastern dynasty of Theodosius II. There is no evidence that the name Aelia was ever used in the west, or that it formed part of Placidia's official nomenclature.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Placidia was granted her own household by her father in the early 390s and was thus financially independent while underage. She was summoned to the court of her father in Mediolanum (Milan) during 394, and was present at Theodosius' death on 17 January 395. She was granted the title of \"nobilissima puella\" (\"most noble girl\") during her childhood.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Placidia spent most of her early years in the household of Stilicho and his wife, Serena. She is presumed to have learned weaving and embroidery. She might have also been given a classical education. Serena was a first cousin of Arcadius, Honorius and Placidia. The poem \"In Praise of Serena\" by Claudian and the Historia Nova by Zosimus clarify that Serena's father was an elder Honorius, a brother to Theodosius I. According to \"De Consulatu Stilichonis\" by Claudian, Placidia was betrothed to Eucherius, only known son of Stilicho and Serena. Her scheduled marriage is mentioned in the text as the third union between Stilicho's family and the Theodosian dynasty, following those of Stilicho to Serena and Maria, their daughter, to Honorius.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Stilicho was the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. He was the only known person to hold the rank of \"magister militum in praesenti\" from 394 to 408 in both the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. He was also titled \"magister equitum et peditum\" (\"Master of the Horse and of Foot\"), placing him in charge of both the cavalry and infantry forces of the Western Roman Empire. In 408, Arcadius died and was succeeded by his son Theodosius II, only seven years old. Stilicho planned to proceed to Constantinople and \"undertake the management of the affairs of Theodosius\", convincing Honorius not to travel to the East himself. Shortly after, Olympius, 'Magister Scrinii', attempted to convince Honorius that Stilicho was in fact conspiring to depose Theodosius II, to replace him with Eucherius. Stilicho was arrested and executed by Honorius's order on 22 August 408. Eucherius sought refuge in Rome but was arrested there and executed by the eunuchs Arsacius and Tarentius, on imperial orders. Honorius appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, and gave the next post under him to Arsacius.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the disturbances that followed the fall of Stilicho, wives and children of foederati living in the cities of Italy were killed. Most of the foederati, regarded as loyal to Stilicho, joined the forces of Alaric I, King of the Visigoths. Alaric led them to Rome and put it under siege, with minor interruptions, from autumn 408 to 24 August 410. Zosimus records that Placidia was within the city during the siege. When Serena was accused of conspiring with Alaric, the whole senate and Placidia sentenced her to death.",
"title": "First marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Placidia was captured by Alaric before the fall of Rome, and accompanied the Visigoths from Italy to Gaul in 412. Their ruler Ataulf, having succeeded Alaric, entered an alliance with Honorius against Jovinus and Sebastianus, rival Western Roman emperors located in Gaul, and managed to defeat and execute both in 413.",
"title": "First marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "After the heads of Sebastianus and Jovinus arrived at Honorius' court in Ravenna in late August, to be forwarded for display among other usurpers on the walls of Carthage, relations between Ataulf and Honorius improved sufficiently for Ataulf to cement them by marrying Galla Placidia at Narbonne on 1 January 414. The nuptials were celebrated with high Roman festivities and magnificent gifts. Priscus Attalus gave the wedding speech, a classical epithalamium. The marriage was recorded by Hydatius and Jordanes, although the latter states that it was earlier, in 411 at Forum Livii (Forlì) (possibly a more informal event).",
"title": "First marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Placidia and Ataulf had one son, Theodosius, born in Barcelona by the end of 414, but the child died early in the following year, eliminating an opportunity for a Romano-Visigothic line; years later the corpse was exhumed and reburied in the imperial mausoleum in Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. In Hispania, Ataulf imprudently accepted into his service a man identified as \"Dubius\" or \"Eberwolf\", a former follower of Sarus. Sarus had been a Germanic chieftain killed while fighting under Jovinus and Sebastianus, and his follower harbored a secret desire to avenge the death of his patron. In August/September, 415, in the palace at Barcelona, the man brought Ataulf's reign to a sudden end by killing him while he bathed.",
"title": "First marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Amali faction proceeded to proclaim Sigeric, a brother of Sarus, as the next king of the Visigoths. Sigeric killed Ataulf's six children from a former wife by taking them away from Sigesar, bishop of the Goths. Galla Placidia, Ataulf's widow, was forced to walk more than twelve miles on foot among the crowd of captives driven ahead of the mounted Sigeric. After 7 days of ruling, Sigeric was assassinated and replaced with Wallia, Ataulf's relative.",
"title": "First marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "According to the Chronicon Albeldense, included in the Códice de Roda, Wallia was desperate for food supplies. He surrendered to Constantius III, at the time magister militum of Honorius, negotiating terms giving foederati status for the Visigoths. Placidia was returned to Honorius as part of the peace treaty. Her brother Honorius forced her into marriage to Constantius III on 1 January 417. Their daughter Justa Grata Honoria was probably born in 417 or 418. The history of Paul the Deacon mentions her first among the children of the marriage, suggesting that she was the eldest. Their son Valentinian III was born 2 July 419.",
"title": "Second marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Placidia intervened in the succession crisis following the death of Pope Zosimus on 26 December 418. Two factions of the Roman clergy had proceeded to elect their own popes, the first electing Eulalius (27 December) and the other electing Boniface I (28 December). They acted as rival popes, both in Rome, and their factions plunged the city into tumult. Symmachus, Prefect of Rome, sent his report to the imperial court at Ravenna, requesting an imperial decision on the matter. Placidia and, presumably, Constantius petitioned the emperor in favor of Eulalius. This was arguably the first intervention by an Emperor in the Papal election.",
"title": "Second marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Honorius initially confirmed Eulalius as the legitimate pope. As this failed to put an end to the controversy, Honorius called a synod of Italian bishops at Ravenna to decide the matter. The synod met from February to March 419 but failed to reach a conclusion. Honorius called a second synod in May, this time including Gaulish and African bishops. In the meantime, the two rival popes were ordered to leave Rome. As Easter approached, however, Eulalius returned to the city and attempted to seize the Basilica of St. John Lateran in order to \"preside at the paschal ceremonies\". Imperial troops managed to repel him, and on Easter (30 March 419) the ceremonies were led by Achilleus, Bishop of Spoleto. The conflict cost Eulalius the imperial favor, and Boniface was proclaimed the legitimate pope as of 3 April 419, returning to Rome a week later. Placidia had personally written to the African bishops, summoning them to the second synod. Three of her letters are known to have survived.",
"title": "Second marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On 8 February 421, Constantius was proclaimed an Augustus, becoming co-ruler with the childless Honorius. Placidia was proclaimed an Augusta. She was the only Empress in the West, since Honorius had divorced his second wife Thermantia in 408 and had never remarried. Neither title was recognised by Theodosius II, the Eastern Roman Emperor. Constantius reportedly complained about the loss of personal freedom and privacy that came with the imperial office. He died of an illness on 2 September 421.",
"title": "Second marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "According to Olympiodorus of Thebes, a historian used as a source by Zosimus, Sozomen and probably Philostorgius, the public grew suspicious of the increasingly scandalous public caresses she was said to have received from her own brother Honorius after her husband's death. However, the siblings' relationship suddenly turned hostile, and around this time, she may have plotted against him. After her soldiers clashed with those of Honorius, Galla Placidia herself was now forced to flee to Constantinople with her children. Despite this setback, Bonifacius, governor of the Diocese of Africa continued to be loyal to her.",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Placidia, Valentinian, and Honoria arrived in Constantinople around 422/423. On 15 August 423, Honorius died of edema, perhaps pulmonary edema. With no member of the Theodosian dynasty present at Ravenna to claim the throne, Theodosius II was expected to nominate a Western co-emperor. However, Theodosius hesitated and the decision was delayed. Taking advantage of the power vacuum, Castinus the Patrician proceeded to become a kingmaker. He declared Joannes, the primicerius notariorum \"chief notary\" (the head of the civil service), to be the new Western Roman Emperor. Among their supporters was Flavius Aetius. Joannes' rule was accepted in the provinces of Italia, Gaul and Hispania, but not in the province of Africa.",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Theodosius II reacted by preparing Valentinian III for eventual promotion to the imperial office. In 423/424, Valentinian was named nobilissimus. In 424, Valentinian was betrothed to Licinia Eudoxia, his first cousin once removed. She was a daughter of Theodosius II and Aelia Eudocia. The year of their betrothal was recorded by Marcellinus Comes. At the time of their betrothal, Valentinian was approximately four years old, Licinia only two.",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The campaign against Joannes also started in the same year. Forces of the Eastern Roman army gathered at Thessaloniki, and were placed under the general command of Ardaburius, who had served in the Roman-Persian War. The invasion force was to cross the Adriatic Sea by two routes. Aspar, son of Ardaburius, led the cavalry by land, following the coast of the Adriatic from the Western Balkans to Northern Italy. Placidia and Valentinian joined this force. Along the way, Valentinian was proclaimed Caesar by Helion, a magister officiorum under Theodosius in 23 October 424.",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Ardaburius and the infantry boarded ships of the Eastern Roman navy in an attempt to reach Ravenna by sea. Aspar marched his forces to Aquileia, taking the city by surprise and with virtually no resistance. The fleet, on the other hand, was dispersed by a storm. Ardaburius and two of his galleys were captured by forces loyal to Joannes and were held prisoners in Ravenna. Ardaburius was treated well by Joannes, who probably intended to negotiate with Theodosius for an end to the hostilities. The prisoner was allowed the \"courteous freedom\" of walking the court and streets of Ravenna during his captivity. He took advantage of this privilege to come into contact with the forces of Joannes and convinced some of them to defect to Theodosius' side. The conspirators contacted Aspar and beckoned him to Ravenna. A shepherd led Aspar's cavalry force through the marshes of the Po to the gates of Ravenna; with the besiegers outside the walls and the defectors within, the city was quickly captured. Joannes was taken and his right hand cut off; he was then mounted on a donkey and paraded through the streets, and finally beheaded in the hippodrome of Aquileia.",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "With Joannes dead, Valentinian was officially proclaimed the new Augustus of the Western Roman Empire on 23 October 425, by Helion, in the presence of the Roman Senate, with Theodosius II's support. Three days following Joannes' death, Aetius brought reinforcements for his army, a reported number of sixty thousand Huns from across the Danube. After some skirmishing, Placidia, Valentinian and Aetius came to an agreement and established peace. The Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of comes and magister militum per Gallias (commander-in-chief of the Roman army in Gaul).",
"title": "Widow"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Galla Placidia became a regent of Western Roman Empire for her son, Valentinian, in 425 until Aetius' rise. Among her early supporters were Bonifacius and Felix. Aetius, their rival for influence, managed to secure Arles against Theodoric I of the Visigoths. The Visigoths concluded a treaty and were given Gallic noblemen as hostages. The later Emperor Avitus visited Theodoric, lived at his court and taught his sons. Felix, her ally, was assassinated in 430, possibly by Aetius.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Conflict between Placidia and Bonifacius started in 429. Placidia appointed Bonifacius general of Libya. Procopius records that Aetius played the two against each other, warning Placidia against Bonifacius and advising her to recall him to Rome; simultaneously writing to Bonifacius, warning him that Placidia was about to summon him for no good reason in order to put him away.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Bonifacius, trusting the warning from Aetius, refused the summons; and, thinking his position untenable, sought an alliance with the Vandals in Spain. The Vandals subsequently crossed from Spain into Libya to join him. To friends of Bonifacius in Rome, this apparent act of hostility toward the Empire seemed entirely out of character for Bonifacius. They traveled to Carthage at Placidia's behest to intercede with him, and he showed them the letter from Aetius. The plot now revealed, his friends returned to Rome to apprise Placidia of the true situation. She did not move against Aetius, as he wielded great influence, and as the Empire was already in danger; but she urged Bonifacius to return to Rome \"and not to permit the empire of the Romans to lie under the hand of barbarians.\"",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Bonifacius now regretted his alliance with the Vandals and tried to persuade them to return to Spain. Gaiseric offered battle instead, and Bonifacius was besieged at Hippo Regius in Numidia by the sea (Augustine of Hippo was its bishop and died in this siege). Unable to take the city, the Vandals eventually raised the siege. The Romans, with reinforcements under Aspar, renewed the struggle but were routed and lost Africa to the Vandals.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Bonifacius had meanwhile returned to Rome, where Placidia raised him to the rank of patrician and made him \"master-general of the Roman armies\". Aetius returned from Gaul with an army of \"barbarians\", and was met by Bonifacius in the bloody Battle of Ravenna (432). Bonifacius won the battle, but was mortally wounded and died a few days later. Aetius was compelled to retire to Pannonia.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "With the generals loyal to her having either died or defected to Aetius, Placidia acknowledged Aetius' political role as legitimate. In 433, Aetius was given the titles \"magister militum\" and \"patrician\". The appointments effectively left Aetius in control of the entire Western Roman army and gave him considerable influence over imperial policy. Aetius later played a pivotal role in the defense of the Western Empire against Attila. Placidia continued to act as regent until 437, though her direct influence over decisions was diminished. She would continue to exercise political influence until her death in 450—no longer, however, the only power at court.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "During these years, Galla Placidia befriended bishop Peter Chrysologus, both having a shared interest in building churches.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Attila was diverted from Constantinople towards Italy by a letter from Placidia's own daughter Justa Grata Honoria in the spring of 450, asking him to rescue her from an unwanted marriage to a Roman senator that the Imperial family, including Placidia, was trying to force upon her. Honoria included her engagement ring with the letter. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of Placidia persuaded him not to kill Honoria. Valentinian wrote to Attila denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila, unconvinced, sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his. Honoria was quickly married to Flavius Bassus Herculanus, though this did not prevent Attila from pressing his claim.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Placidia died shortly afterwards at Rome, in November 450, and was buried in the Theodosian family mausoleum adjacent to Old St. Peter's Basilica, later the chapel of Saint Petronilla. She did not live to see Attila ravage Italy in 451–453, using Honoria's letter as his \"legitimate\" excuse.",
"title": "Regent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Being a devout Christian, she was involved in the building and restoration of various churches throughout her period of influence. She restored and expanded the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. She built San Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna in thanks for the sparing of her life and those of her children in a storm while crossing the Adriatic Sea. The dedicatory inscription reads \"Galla Placidia, along with her son Placidus Valentinian Augustus and her daughter Justa Grata Honoria Augusta, paid off their vow for their liberation from the danger of the sea.\"",
"title": "Public works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Her Mausoleum in Ravenna was one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites inscribed in 1996. However, the building never served as her tomb, but was initially erected as a chapel dedicated to Lawrence of Rome. It is unknown whether the sarcophagi therein contained the bodies of other members of the Theodosian dynasty, or when they were placed in the building.",
"title": "Public works"
}
]
| Galla Placidia, daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was a mother, tutor, and advisor to emperor Valentinian III. She was queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, briefly empress consort to Constantius III in 421, and managed the government administration as a regent during the early reign of Valentinian III until her death. | 2001-11-14T01:57:05Z | 2023-12-29T21:02:37Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galla_Placidia |
12,837 | Galicia (Spain) | Galicia (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ə/ gə-LISH(-ee)-ə; Galician: Galicia [ɡaˈliθjɐ] or Galiza [ɡaˈliθɐ]; Spanish: Galicia) is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.
Galicia is located in Atlantic Europe. It is bordered by Portugal to the south, the Spanish autonomous communities of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Cantabrian Sea to the north. It had a population of 2,701,743 in 2018 and a total area of 29,574 km (11,419 sq mi). Galicia has over 1,660 km (1,030 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada Island, which together form the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, and the largest and most populated, A Illa de Arousa.
The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic people living north of the Douro River during the last millennium BC. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, and was made a Roman province in the 3rd century AD. In 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga; this kingdom was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. In 711, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula conquering the Visigoth kingdom of Hispania by 718, but soon Galicia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom of Asturias by 740. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Galicia was occasionally ruled by its own kings, but most of the time it was leagued to the kingdom of Leon and later to that of Castile, while maintaining its own legal and customary practices and culture. From the 13th century on, the kings of Castile, as kings of Galicia, appointed an Adiantado-mór, whose attributions passed to the Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galiza from the last years of the 15th century. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, a royal tribunal and government body. From the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia. This institution was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four administrative provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and for the recognition of the culture of Galicia. This resulted in the Statute of Autonomy of 1936, soon frustrated by Franco's coup d'état and subsequent long dictatorship. After democracy was restored the legislature passed the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, approved in referendum and currently in force, providing Galicia with self-government.
The interior of Galicia is characterized by a hilly landscape; mountain ranges rise to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly an alternate series of rias and beaches. The climate of Galicia is usually temperate and rainy, with markedly drier summers; it is usually classified as Oceanic. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicia's wealth for most of its history, allowing for a relatively high density of population. Except shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was based on a farming and fishing economy until after the mid-20th century, when it began to industrialize. In 2018, the nominal gross domestic product was €62.900 billion, with a nominal GDP per capita of €23,300. Galicia is characterised, unlike other Spanish regions, by the absence of a metropolis dominating the territory. Indeed, the urban network is made up of 7 main cities: the four provincial capitals A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo, the political capital Santiago de Compostela and the industrial cities Vigo and Ferrol. The population is largely concentrated in two main areas: from Ferrol to A Coruña on the northern coast, and in the Rías Baixas region in the southwest, including the cities of Vigo, Pontevedra, and the interior city of Santiago de Compostela. There are smaller populations around the interior cities of Lugo and Ourense. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the largest municipality and A Coruña the most populated city in Galicia. Two languages are official and widely used today in Galicia: the native Galician; and Spanish, usually called Castilian. While most Galicians are bilingual, a 2013 survey reported that 51% of the Galician population spoke Galician most often on a day-to-day basis, while 48% most often used Spanish.
The name Galicia derives from the Latin toponym Callaecia, later Gallaecia, related to the name of an ancient Celtic tribe that resided north of the Douro river, the Gallaeci or Callaeci in Latin, or Καλλαϊκoί (Kallaïkoí) in Greek. These Callaeci were the first tribe in the area to help the Lusitanians against the invading Romans. The Romans applied their name to all the other tribes in the northwest who spoke the same language and lived the same life.
The toponymy of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors such as Isidore of Seville, who wrote that "Galicians are called so, because of their fair skin, as the Gauls", relating the name to the Greek word for milk. (See the etymology of the word galaxy.) In the 21st century, some scholars (J.J. Moralejo, Carlos Búa) have derived the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European *kl(H)-no- 'hill', through a local relational suffix -aik-, also attested in Celtiberian, so meaning 'the hill (people)'; or either from Proto-Celtic *kallī- 'forest', so meaning 'the forest (people)'. In any case, Galicia, being per se a derivation of the ethnic name Kallaikói, means 'the land of the Galicians'.
Another recent proposal comes from linguist Francesco Benozzo after identifying the root gall- / kall- in a number of Celtic words with the meaning "stone" or "rock", as follows: gall (old Irish), gal (Middle Welsh), gailleichan (Scottish Gaelic), kailhoù (Breton), galagh (Manx) and gall (Gaulish). Hence, Benozzo explains the ethnonym Callaeci as being "the stone people" or "the people of the stone" ("those who work with stones"), about the builders of the ancient megaliths and stone formations so common in Galicia.
The name evolved during the Middle Ages from Gallaecia, sometimes written Galletia, to Gallicia. In the 13th century, with the written emergence of the Galician language, Galiza became the most usual written form of the name of the country, being replaced during the 15th and 16th centuries by the current form, Galicia, which is also the spelling of the name in Spanish. The historical denomination Galiza became popular again during the end of the 19th and the first three-quarters of the 20th century and is still used with some frequency today. The Xunta de Galicia, the local devolved government, uses Galicia. The Royal Galician Academy, the institution responsible for regulating the Galician language, whilst recognizing Galiza as a legitimate current denomination, has stated that the only official name of the country is Galicia.
Due to Galicia's history and culture with mythology, the land has been called "Terra Meiga" (land of the witches/witch(ing) land).
The oldest attestation of human presence in Galicia has been found in the Eirós Cave, in the municipality of Triacastela, which has preserved animal remains and Neanderthal stone objects from the Middle Paleolithic. The earliest culture to have left significant architectural traces is the Megalithic culture, which expanded along the western European coasts during the Neolithic and Calcolithic eras. Thousands of Megalithic tumuli are distributed throughout the country, mostly along the coastal areas. Within each tumulus is a stone burial chamber known locally as anta (dolmen), frequently preceded by a corridor. Galicia was later influenced by the Bell Beaker culture. Its rich mineral deposits of tin and gold led to the development of Bronze Age metallurgy, and the commerce of bronze and gold items all along the Atlantic coast of Western Europe. A shared elite culture evolved in this region during the Atlantic Bronze Age.
Dating from the end of the Megalithic era, and up to the Bronze Age, numerous stone carvings (petroglyphs) are found in open air. They usually represent cup and ring marks, labyrinths, deer, Bronze Age weapons, and riding and hunting scenes. Large numbers of these stone carvings can be found in the Rías Baixas regions, at places such as Tourón and Campo Lameiro.
The Castro culture ('Culture of the Castles') developed during the Iron Age, and flourished during the second half of the first millennium BC. It is usually considered a local evolution of the Atlantic Bronze Age, with later developments and influences overlapping into the Roman era. Geographically, it corresponds to the people the Romans called Gallaeci, which were composed of a large series of nations or tribes, among them the Artabri, Bracari, Limici, Celtici, Albiones and Lemavi. They were capable fighters: Strabo described them as the most difficult foes the Romans encountered in conquering Lusitania, while Appian mentions their warlike spirit, noting that the women bore their weapons side by side with their men, frequently preferring death to captivity. According to Pomponius Mela all the inhabitants of the coastal areas were Celtic people.
Gallaeci lived in castros. These were usually annular forts, with one or more concentric earthen or stony walls, with a trench in front of each one. They were frequently located on hills, or in seashore cliffs and peninsulas. Some well known castros can be found on the seashore at: Fazouro, Santa Tegra, Baroña, and O Neixón; and inland at: San Cibrao de Lás, Borneiro, Castromao, and Viladonga. Some other distinctive features, such as temples, baths, reservoirs, warrior statues, and decorative carvings have been found associated with this culture, together with rich gold and metalworking traditions.
The Roman legions first entered the area under Decimus Junius Brutus in 137–136 BC, but the country was only incorporated into the Roman Empire by the time of Augustus (29 BC – 19 BC). The Romans were interested in Galicia mainly for its mineral resources, most notably gold. Under Roman rule, most Galician hillforts began to be – sometimes forcibly – abandoned, and Gallaeci served frequently in the Roman army as auxiliary troops. Romans brought new technologies, new travel routes, new forms of organizing property, and a new language; Latin. The Roman Empire established its control over Galicia through camps (castra) as Aquis Querquennis, Ciadella camp or Lucus Augusti (Lugo), roads (viae) and monuments as the lighthouse known as Tower of Hercules, in Corunna, but the remoteness and lesser interest of the country since the 2nd century of our era, when the gold mines stopped being productive, led to a lesser degree of Romanization. In the 3rd century, it was made a province, under the name Gallaecia, which included also northern Portugal, Asturias, and a large section of what today is known as Castile and León.
In the early 5th century, the deep crisis suffered by the Roman Empire allowed different tribes of Central Europe (Suebi, Vandals and Alani) to cross the Rhine and penetrate the rule on 31 December 406. Its progress towards the Iberian Peninsula forced the Roman authorities to establish a treaty (foedus) by which the Suebi would settle peacefully and govern Galicia as imperial allies. So, from 409 Galicia was taken by the Suebi, forming the first medieval kingdom to be created in Europe, in 411, even before the fall of the Roman Empire, being also the first Germanic kingdom to mint coinage in Roman lands. During this period a Briton colony and bishopric (see Mailoc) was established in Northern Galicia (Britonia), probably as foederati and allies of the Suebi. In 585, the Visigothic King Leovigild invaded the Suebic kingdom of Galicia and defeated it, bringing it under Visigoth control.
Later the Muslims invaded Spain (711), but the Arabs and Moors never managed to have any real control over Galicia, which was later incorporated into the expanding Christian Kingdom of Asturias, usually known as Gallaecia or Galicia (Yillīqiya and Galīsiya) by Muslim chroniclers, as well as by many European contemporaries. This era consolidated Galicia as a Christian society which spoke a Romance language. During the next century Galician noblemen took northern Portugal, conquering Coimbra in 871, thus freeing what was considered the southernmost city of ancient Galicia.
In the 9th century, the rise of the cult of the Apostle James in Santiago de Compostela gave Galicia particular symbolic importance among Christians, an importance it would hold throughout the Reconquista. As the Middle Ages went on, Santiago became a major pilgrim destination and the Way of Saint James (Camiño de Santiago) a major pilgrim road, a route for the propagation of Romanesque art and the words and music of the troubadors. During the 10th and 11th centuries, a period during which Galician nobility become related to the royal family, Galicia was at times headed by its own native kings, while Vikings (locally known as Leodemanes or Lordomanes) occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers of Catoira (Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to prevent and stop the Viking raids on Santiago de Compostela.
In 1063, Ferdinand I of Castile divided his realm among his sons, and the Kingdom of Galicia was granted to Garcia II of Galicia. In 1072, it was forcibly annexed by Garcia's brother Alfonso VI of León; from that time Galicia was united with the Kingdom of León under the same monarchs. In the 13th century Alfonso X of Castile standardized the Castilian language (i.e. Spanish) and made it the language of court and government. Nevertheless, in his Kingdom of Galicia the Galician language was the only language spoken, and the most used in government and legal uses, as well as in literature.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the progressive distancing of the kings from Galician affairs left the kingdom in the hands of the local knights, counts, and bishops, who frequently fought each other to increase their fiefs, or simply to plunder the lands of others. At the same time, the deputies of the Kingdom in the Cortes stopped being called. The Kingdom of Galicia, slipping away from the control of the King, responded with a century of fiscal insubordination.
On the other hand, the lack of an effective royal justice system in the Kingdom led to the social conflict known as the Guerras Irmandiñas ('Wars of the brotherhoods'), when leagues of peasants and burghers, with the support of several knights, noblemen, and under legal protection offered by the remote king, toppled many of the castles of the Kingdom and briefly drove the noblemen into Portugal and Castile. Soon after, in the late 15th century, in the dynastic conflict between Isabella I of Castile and Joanna La Beltraneja, part of the Galician aristocracy supported Joanna. After Isabella's victory, she initiated an administrative and political reform which the chronicler Jeronimo Zurita defined as "doma del Reino de Galicia": 'It was then when the taming of Galicia began, because not just the local lords and knights, but all the people of that nation were the ones against the others very bold and warlike'. These reforms, while establishing a local government and tribunal (the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia), and bringing the nobleman under submission, also brought most Galician monasteries and institutions under Castilian control, in what has been criticized as a process of centralisation. At the same time the kings began to call the Xunta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, an assembly of deputies or representatives of the cities of the Kingdom, to ask for monetary and military contributions. This assembly soon developed into the voice and legal representation of the Kingdom, and the depositary of its will and laws.
The modern period of the Kingdom of Galicia began with the defeat of some of the most powerful Galician lords, such as Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, called Pedro Madruga, and Rodrigo Henriquez Osorio, at the hands of the Castilian armies sent to Galicia between the years 1480 and 1486. Isabella I of Castile, considered a usurper by many Galician nobles, defeated all armed resistance and definitively established the royal power of the Castilian monarchy. Fearing a general revolt, the monarchs ordered the banishing of the rest of the great lords like Pedro de Bolaño, Diego de Andrade, or Lope Sánchez de Moscoso, among others.
The establishment of the Santa Hermandad in 1480, and the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia in 1500—a tribunal and executive body directed by the Governor-Captain General as a direct representative of the King—implied initially the submission of the Kingdom to the Crown, after a century of unrest and fiscal insubordination. As a result, from 1480 to 1520 the Kingdom of Galicia contributed more than 10% of the total earnings of the Crown of Castille, including the Americas, well over its economic relevance. Like the rest of Spain, the 16th century was marked by population growth up to 1580, when the simultaneous wars with the Netherlands, France, and England hampered Galicia's Atlantic commerce, which consisted mostly in the exportation of sardines, wood, and some cattle and wine.
In the late years of the 15th century the written form of the Galician language began a slow decline as it was increasingly replaced by Spanish, which would culminate in the Séculos Escuros "the Dark Centuries" of the language, roughly from the 16th century through to the mid-18th century, when written Galician almost completely disappeared except for private or occasional uses but the spoken language remained the common language of the people in the villages and even the cities.
From that moment Galicia, which participated to a minor extent in the American expansion of the Spanish Empire, found itself at the center of the Atlantic wars fought by Spain against the French and the Protestant powers of England and the Netherlands, whose privateers attacked the coastal areas, but major assaults were not common as the coastline was difficult and the harbors easily defended. The most famous assaults were upon the city of Vigo by Sir Francis Drake in 1585 and 1589, and the siege of A Coruña in 1589 by the English Armada. Galicia also suffered occasional slave raids by Barbary pirates, but not as frequently as the Mediterranean coastal areas. The most famous Barbary attack was the bloody sack of the town of Cangas in 1617. At the time, the king's petitions for money and troops became more frequent, due to the human and economic exhaustion of Castile; the Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia (the local Cortes or representative assembly) was initially receptive to these petitions, raising large sums, accepting the conscription of the men of the kingdom, and even commissioning a new naval squadron which was sustained with the incomes of the Kingdom.
After the rupture of the wars with Portugal and Catalonia, the Junta changed its attitude, this time due to the exhaustion of Galicia, now involved not just in naval or oversea operations, but also in an exhausting war with the Portuguese, war which produced thousands of casualties and refugees and was heavily disturbing to the local economy and commerce. So, in the second half of the 17th century the Junta frequently denied or considerably reduced the initial petitions of the monarch, and though the tension did not rise to the levels experienced in Portugal or Catalonia, there were frequent urban mutinies and some voices even asked for the secession of the Kingdom of Galicia.
During the Peninsular War the successful uprising of the local people against the new French authorities, together with the support of the British Army, limited the occupation to six months in 1808–1809. During the pre-war period the Supreme Council of the Kingdom of Galicia (Junta Suprema del Reino de Galicia), auto-proclaimed interim sovereign in 1808, was the sole government of the country and mobilized near 40,000 men against the invaders.
The 1833 territorial division of Spain put a formal end to the Kingdom of Galicia, unifying Spain into a single centralized monarchy. Instead of seven provinces and a regional administration, Galicia was reorganized into the current four provinces. Although it was recognized as a "historical region", that status was strictly honorific. In reaction, nationalist and federalist movements arose.
The liberal General Miguel Solís Cuetos led a separatist coup attempt in 1846 against the authoritarian regime of Ramón María Narváez. Solís and his forces were defeated at the Battle of Cacheiras, 23 April 1846, and the survivors, including Solís himself, were shot. They have taken their place in Galician memory as the Martyrs of Carral or simply the Martyrs of Liberty.
Defeated on the military front, Galicians turned to culture. The Rexurdimento focused on the recovery of the Galician language as a vehicle of social and cultural expression. Among the writers associated with this movement are Rosalía de Castro, Manuel Murguía, Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro, and Eduardo Pondal.
In the early 20th century came another turn toward nationalist politics with Solidaridad Gallega (1907–1912) modeled on Solidaritat Catalana in Catalonia. Solidaridad Gallega failed, but in 1916 Irmandades da Fala (Brotherhood of the Language) developed first as a cultural association but soon as a full-blown nationalist movement. Vicente Risco and Ramón Otero Pedrayo were outstanding cultural figures of this movement, and the magazine Nós ('Us'), founded in 1920, its most notable cultural institution, Lois Peña Novo the outstanding political figure.
The Second Spanish Republic was declared in 1931. During the republic, the Partido Galeguista (PG) was the most important of a shifting collection of Galician nationalist parties. Following a referendum on a Galician Statute of Autonomy, Galicia was granted the status of an autonomous region.
Galicia was spared the worst of the fighting in that war: it was one of the areas where the initial coup attempt at the outset of the war was successful, and it remained in Nationalist hands (Franco's army) throughout the war. While there were no pitched battles, there was repression and death: all political parties were abolished, as were all labor unions and Galician nationalist organizations as the Seminario de Estudos Galegos. Galicia's statute of autonomy was annulled (as were those of Catalonia and the Basque provinces once those were conquered). According to Carlos Fernández Santander, at least 4,200 people were killed either extrajudicially or after summary trials, among them republicans, communists, Galician nationalists, socialists, and anarchists. Victims included the civil governors of all four Galician provinces; Juana Capdevielle, the wife of the governor of A Coruña; mayors such as Ánxel Casal of Santiago de Compostela, of the Partido Galeguista; prominent socialists such as Jaime Quintanilla in Ferrol and Emilio Martínez Garrido in Vigo; Popular Front deputies Antonio Bilbatúa, José Miñones, Díaz Villamil, Ignacio Seoane, and former deputy Heraclio Botana); soldiers who had not joined the rebellion, such as Generals Rogelio Caridad Pita and Enrique Salcedo Molinuevo and Admiral Antonio Azarola; and the founders of the PG, Alexandre Bóveda and Víctor Casas, as well as other professionals akin to republicans and nationalists, as the journalist Manuel Lustres Rivas or physician Luis Poza Pastrana. Many others were forced to escape into exile, or were victims of other reprisals and removed from their jobs and positions. General Francisco Franco – himself a Galician from Ferrol – ruled as dictator from the civil war until he died in 1975. Franco's centralizing regime suppressed any official use of the Galician language, including the use of Galician names for newborns, although its everyday oral use was not forbidden. Among the attempts at resistance were small leftist guerrilla groups such as those led by José Castro Veiga ("O Piloto") and Benigno Andrade ("Foucellas"), both of whom were ultimately captured and executed. In the 1960s, ministers such as Manuel Fraga Iribarne introduced some reforms allowing technocrats affiliated with Opus Dei to modernize administration in a way that facilitated capitalist economic development. However, for decades Galicia was largely confined to the role of a supplier of raw materials and energy to the rest of Spain, causing environmental havoc and leading to a wave of migration to Venezuela and to various parts of Europe. Fenosa, the monopolistic supplier of electricity, built hydroelectric dams, flooding many Galician river valleys.
The Galician economy finally began to modernize with a French Citroën factory in Vigo, the modernization of the canning industry and the fishing fleet, and eventually a modernization of small peasant farming practices, especially in the production of cows' milk. In the province of Ourense, businessman and politician Eulogio Gómez Franqueira gave impetus to the raising of livestock and poultry by establishing the Cooperativa Orensana S.A. (Coren).
During the last decade of Franco's rule, there was a renewal of nationalist feeling in Galicia. The early 1970s were a time of unrest among university students, workers, and farmers. In 1972, general strikes in Vigo and Ferrol cost the lives of Amador Rey and Daniel Niebla. Later, the bishop of Mondoñedo-Ferrol, Miguel Anxo Araúxo Iglesias, wrote a pastoral letter that was not well received by the Franco regime, about a demonstration in Bazán (Ferrol) where two workers died.
As part of the transition to democracy upon the death of Franco in 1975, Galicia regained its status as an autonomous region within Spain with the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, which begins, "Galicia, historical nationality, is constituted as an Autonomous Community to access to its self-government, in agreement with the Spanish Constitution and with the present Statute (...)". Varying degrees of nationalist or independentist sentiment are evident at the political level. The Bloque Nacionalista Galego or BNG, is a conglomerate of left-wing parties and individuals that claims Galician political status as a nation.
From 1990 to 2005, Manuel Fraga, former minister and ambassador in the Franco dictatorship, presided over the Galician autonomous government, the Xunta de Galicia. Fraga was associated with the Partido Popular ('People's Party', Spain's main national conservative party) since its founding. In 2002, when the oil tanker Prestige sank and covered the Galician coast in oil, Fraga was accused by the grassroots movement Nunca Mais ("Never again") of having been unwilling to react. In the 2005 Galician elections, the 'People's Party' lost its absolute majority, though remaining (barely) the largest party in the parliament, with 43% of the total votes. As a result, power passed to a coalition of the Partido dos Socialistas de Galicia (PSdeG) ('Galician Socialists' Party'), a federal sister-party of Spain's main social-democratic party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, 'Spanish Socialist Workers Party') and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG). As the senior partner in the new coalition, the PSdeG nominated its leader, Emilio Pérez Touriño, to serve as Galicia's new president, with Anxo Quintana, the leader of BNG, as its vice president.
In 2009, the PSdG-BNG coalition lost the elections, and the government went back to the People's Party (conservative), even though the PSdG-BNG coalition obtained the most votes.
Galicia has a surface area of 29,574 square kilometres (11,419 sq mi). Its northernmost point, at 43°47′N, is Estaca de Bares (also the northernmost point of Spain); its southernmost, at 41°49′N, is on the Portuguese border in the Baixa Limia-Serra do Xurés Natural Park. The easternmost longitude is at 6°42′W on the border between the province of Ourense and the Castilian-Leonese province of Zamora) its westernmost at 9°18′W reached in two places: the A Nave Cape in Fisterra (also known as Finisterre), and Cape Touriñán, both in the province of A Coruña.
The interior of Galicia is a hilly landscape, composed of relatively low mountain ranges, usually below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high, without sharp peaks, rising to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the eastern mountains. There are many rivers, most (though not all) running down relatively gentle slopes in narrow river valleys, though at times their courses become far more rugged, as in the canyons of the Sil river, Galicia's second most important river after the Miño.
Topographically, a remarkable feature of Galicia is the presence of many firth-like inlets along the coast, estuaries that were drowned with rising sea levels after the ice age. These are called rías and are divided into the smaller Rías Altas ("High Rías"), and the larger Rías Baixas ("Low Rías"). The Rías Altas include Ribadeo, Foz, Viveiro, O Barqueiro, Ortigueira, Cedeira, Ferrol, Betanzos, A Coruña, Corme e Laxe and Camariñas. The Rías Baixas, found south of Fisterra, include Corcubión, Muros e Noia, Arousa, Pontevedra and Vigo. The Rías Altas can sometimes refer only to those east of Estaca de Bares, with the others being called Rías Medias ("Intermediate Rías").
Erosion by the Atlantic Ocean has contributed to the great number of capes. Besides the aforementioned Estaca de Bares in the far north, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Cantabrian Sea, other notable capes are Cape Ortegal, Cape Prior, Punta Santo Adrao, Cape Vilán, Cape Touriñán (westernmost point in Galicia), Cape Finisterre or Fisterra, considered by the Romans, along with Finistère in Brittany and Land's End in Cornwall, to be the end of the known world.
All along the Galician coast are various archipelagos near the mouths of the rías. These archipelagos provide protected deepwater harbors and also provide habitat for seagoing birds. A 2007 inventory estimates that the Galician coast has 316 archipelagos, islets, and freestanding rocks. Among the most important of these are the archipelagos of Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora. Together with Cortegada Island, these make up the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. Other significant islands are Islas Malveiras, Islas Sisargas, and, the largest and holding the largest population, Arousa Island.
The coast of this 'green corner' of the Iberian Peninsula, some 1,500 km (930 mi) in length, attracts great numbers of tourists, although real estate development in the 2000–2010 decade has degraded it partially.
Galicia is quite mountainous, a fact which has contributed to isolate the rural areas, hampering communications, most notably in the inland. The main mountain range is the Macizo Galaico (Serra do Eixe, Serra da Lastra, Serra do Courel), also known as Macizo Galaico-Leonés, located in the eastern parts, bordering with Castile and León. Noteworthy mountain ranges are O Xistral (northern Lugo), the Serra dos Ancares (on the border with León and Asturias), O Courel (on the border with León), O Eixe (the border between Ourense and Zamora), Serra de Queixa (in the center of Ourense province), O Faro (the border between Lugo and Pontevedra), Cova da Serpe (border of Lugo and A Coruña), Montemaior (A Coruña), Montes do Testeiro, Serra do Suído, and Faro de Avión (between Pontevedra and Ourense); and, to the south, A Peneda, O Xurés and O Larouco, all on the border of Ourense and Portugal.
The highest point in Galicia is Trevinca or Pena Trevinca (2,124 metres or 6,969 feet), located in the Serra do Eixe, at the border between Ourense and León and Zamora provinces. Other tall peaks are Pena Survia (2,112 metres or 6,929 feet) in the Serra do Eixe, O Mustallar (1,935 metres or 6,348 feet) in Os Ancares, and Cabeza de Manzaneda (1,782 metres or 5,846 feet) in Serra de Queixa, where there is a ski resort.
Galicia is poetically known as the "country of the thousand rivers" ("o país dos mil ríos"). The largest and most important of these rivers is the Miño, poetically known as O Pai Miño (Father Miño), which is 307.5 km (191.1 mi) long and discharges 419 m (548 cu yd) per second, with its affluent the Sil, which has created a spectacular canyon. Most of the rivers in the inland are tributaries of this river system, which drains some 17,027 km (6,574 sq mi). Other rivers run directly into the Atlantic Ocean or the Cantabrian Sea, most of them having short courses. Only the Navia, Ulla, Tambre, and Limia have courses longer than 100 km (62 mi).
Galicia's many hydroelectric dams take advantage of the steep, deep, narrow rivers and their canyons. Due to their steep course, few of Galicia's rivers are navigable, other than the lower portion of the Miño and the portions of various rivers that have been dammed into reservoirs. Some rivers are navigable by small boats in their lower reaches: this is taken great advantage of in several semi-aquatic festivals and pilgrimages.
Galicia has preserved some of its dense forests. It is relatively unpolluted, and its landscapes composed of green hills, cliffs, and rias are generally different from what is commonly understood as Spanish landscape. Nevertheless, Galicia has some important environmental problems.
Deforestation and forest fires are a problem in many areas, as is the continual spread of the eucalyptus tree, a species imported from Australia, actively promoted by the paper industry since the mid-20th century. Galicia is one of the more forested areas of Spain, but the majority of Galicia's plantations, usually growing eucalyptus or pine, lack any formal management. Massive eucalyptus plantation, especially of Eucalyptus globulus, began in the Francisco Franco era, largely on behalf of the paper company Empresa Nacional de Celulosas de España (ENCE) in Pontevedra, which wanted it for its pulp. Galician photographer Delmi Álvarez began documenting the fires in Galicia in 2006 in a project called Queiman Galiza (Burn Galicia).. Wood products figure significantly in Galicia's economy. Apart from tree plantations, Galicia is also notable for the extensive surface occupied by meadows used for animal husbandry, especially cattle, an important activity. Hydroelectric development in most rivers has been a serious concern for local conservationists during the last decades.
Fauna, most notably the European wolf, has suffered because of the actions of livestock owners and farmers, and because of the loss of habitats, whilst the native deer species have declined because of hunting and development.
Oil spills are a major issue. The Prestige oil spill in 2002 spilled more oil than the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.
Galicia has more than 2,800 plant species and 31 endemic plant taxa. Plantations and mixed forests of eucalyptus predominate in the west and north; a few oak forests (variously known locally as fragas or devesas) remain, particularly in the north-central part of the province of Lugo and the north of the province of A Coruña (Fragas do Eume). In the interior regions of the country, oak and bushland predominate. Galicia has 262 inventoried species of vertebrates, including 12 species of freshwater fish, 15 amphibians, 24 reptiles, 152 birds, and 59 mammals.
The animals most often thought of as being "typical" of Galicia are the livestock raised there. The Galician horse is native to the region, as is the Galician Blond cow and the domestic fowl known as the galiña de Mos. The last is an endangered species, although it is showing signs of a comeback since 2001.
Galicia is home to one of the largest populations of wolves in western Europe. Galicia's woodlands and mountains are also home to rabbits, hares, wild boars, and roe deer, all of which are popular with hunters. Several important bird migration routes pass through Galicia, and some of the community's relatively few environmentally protected areas are Special Protection Areas (such as on the Ría de Ribadeo) for these birds. From a domestic point of view, Galicia has been credited by the author Manuel Rivas as the "land of one million cows". Galician Blond and Holstein cattle coexist on meadows and farms.
Being located on the Atlantic coastline, Galicia has a very mild climate for the latitude and the marine influence affects most of the province to various degrees. In comparison to similar latitudes on the other side of the Atlantic, winters are exceptionally mild, with consistent rainfall. At sea level snow is exceptional, with temperatures just occasionally dropping below freezing; on the other hand, snow regularly falls in the eastern mountains from November to May. Overall, the climate of Galicia is comparable to the Pacific Northwest; the warmest coastal station of Pontevedra has a yearly mean temperature of 14.8 °C (58.6 °F). Ourense located somewhat inland is only slightly warmer with 14.9 °C (58.8 °F). Lugo, to the north, is colder, with 12 °C (54 °F), similar to the 12.45 °C (54.41 °F) of Portland, Oregon.
In coastal areas summers are tempered, with daily maximums averaging around 25 °C (77 °F) in Vigo. Temperatures are further cooler in A Coruña, with a subdued 22.8 °C (73.0 °F) normal. Temperatures are much higher in inland areas such as Ourense, where days above 30 °C (86 °F) are regular.
The lands of Galicia are ascribed to two different areas in the Köppen climate classification: a south area (roughly, the province of Ourense and Pontevedra) with appreciable summer drought, classified as a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb), with mild temperatures and rainfall usual throughout the year; and the western and northern coastal regions, the provinces of Lugo and A Coruña, which are characterized by their Oceanic climate (Cfb), with a more uniform precipitation distribution along the year, and milder summers. However, precipitation in southern coastal areas are often classified as oceanic since the averages remain significantly higher than a typical Mediterranean climate.
As an example, Santiago de Compostela, the capital city, has an average of 129 rainy days (> 1 mm) and 1,362 millimetres (53.6 in) per year (with just 17 rainy days in the three summer months) and 2,101 sunlight hours per year, with just 6 days with frosts per year. But the colder city of Lugo, to the east, has an average of 1,759 sunlight hours per year, 117 days with precipitations (> 1 mm) totalling 901.54 millimetres (35.5 in), and 40 days with frosts per year. The more mountainous parts of the provinces of Ourense and Lugo receive significant snowfall during the winter months. The sunniest city is Pontevedra with 2,223 sunny hours per year.
Climate data for some locations in Galicia (average 1981–2010):
Galicia has partial self-governance, in the form of a devolved government, established on 16 March 1978 and reinforced by the Galician Statute of Autonomy, ratified on 28 April 1981. There are three branches of government: the executive branch, the Xunta de Galicia, consisting of the President and the other independently elected councillors; the legislative branch consisting of the Galician Parliament; and the judicial branch consisting of the High Court of Galicia and lower courts.
The Xunta de Galicia is a collective entity with executive and administrative power. It consists of the President, a vice president, and twelve councillors. Administrative power is largely delegated to dependent bodies. The Xunta also coordinates the activities of the provincial councils (Galician: deputacións) located in A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo.
The President of the Xunta directs and coordinates the actions of the Xunta. The president is simultaneously the representative of the autonomous community and of the Spanish state in Galicia. The president is a member of the parliament and is elected by its deputies and then formally named by the monarch of Spain.
The Galician Parliament consists of 75 deputies elected by universal adult suffrage under a system of proportional representation. The franchise includes also Galicians who reside abroad. Elections occur every four years.
The last elections, held 12 July 2020, resulted in the following distribution of seats:
There are 314 municipalities (Galician: concellos) in Galicia, each of which is run by a mayor–council government known as a concello.
There is a further subdivision of local government known as an Entidade local menor; each has its own council (xunta veciñal) and mayor (alcalde da aldea). There are nine of these in Galicia: Arcos da Condesa, Bembrive, Camposancos, Chenlo, Morgadáns, Pazos de Reis, Queimadelos, Vilasobroso and Berán.
Galicia is also traditionally subdivided in some 3,700 civil parishes, each one comprising one or more vilas (towns), aldeas (villages), lugares (hamlets) or barrios (neighbourhoods).
Galicia's interests are represented at the national level by 25 elected deputies in the Congress of Deputies and 19 senators in the Senate – of these, 16 are elected and 3 are appointed by the Galician parliament.
Before the 1833 territorial division of Spain, Galicia was divided into seven administrative provinces:
From 1833, the seven original provinces of the 15th century were consolidated into four:
Galicia is further divided into 53 comarcas, 315 municipalities (93 in A Coruña, 67 in Lugo, 92 in Ourense, 62 in Pontevedra) and 3,778 parishes. Municipalities are divided into parishes, which may be further divided into aldeas ("hamlets") or lugares ("places"). This traditional breakdown into such small areas is unusual when compared to the rest of Spain. Roughly half of the named population entities of Spain are in Galicia, which occupies only 5.8 percent of the country's area. It is estimated that Galicia has over a million named places, over 40,000 of them being communities.
Textiles, fishing, livestock, forestry, and car manufacturing are the most dynamic sectors of the Galician economy.
The companies based in the province of Coruña generate 70% of the entrepreneurial output of Galicia. Arteixo, an industrial municipality in the A Coruña metropolitan area, is the headquarters of Inditex, the world's largest fashion retailer. Of their eight brands, Zara is the best-known; indeed, it is the best-known Spanish brand of any sort on an international basis. For 2007, Inditex had 9,435 million euros in sales for a net profit of 1,250 million euros. The company president, Amancio Ortega, is the richest person in Spain and indeed Europe with a net worth of 45 billion euros.
A major economic sector of Galicia is its fishing Industry; the main ports are A Coruña, Marín-Pontevedra, Vigo and Ferrol. Related to this fact, the European Fisheries Control Agency, which coordinates fishing controls in European Union waters, is based in Vigo.
Galicia is a land of economic contrast. While the western coast, with its major population centers and its fishing and manufacturing industries, is prosperous and increasing in population, the rural hinterland—the provinces of Ourense and Lugo—is economically dependent on traditional agriculture, based on small landholdings called minifundios. However, the rise of tourism, sustainable forestry, and organic and traditional agriculture are bringing other possibilities to the Galician economy without compromising the preservation of the natural resources and the local culture.
Traditionally, Galicia depended mainly on agriculture and fishing. Nonetheless, today the tertiary sector of the economy (the service sector) is the largest, with 582,000 workers out of a regional total of 1,072,000 (as of 2002).
The secondary sector (manufacturing) includes shipbuilding in Vigo, Marín-Pontevedra and Ferrol, textiles and granite work in A Coruña. A Coruña also manufactures automobiles. The French Centro de Vigo de PSA Peugeot Citroën, founded in 1958, makes about 450,000 vehicles annually (455,430 in 2006); a Citroën C4 Picasso made in 2007 was their nine-millionth vehicle.
Other companies with a large number of workers and a significant turnover are San José, based in Pontevedra, belonging to the construction sector, and Gadisa and Vego, based in A Coruña and Froiz, based in Pontevedra, linked to the retail sector.
Galicia is home to the savings bank, and to Spain's two oldest commercial banks Banco Etcheverría (the oldest) and Banco Pastor, owned since 2011 by Banco Popular Español.
Galicia was late to catch the tourism boom that has swept Spain in recent decades, but the coastal regions (especially the Rías Baixas and Santiago de Compostela) are now significant tourist destinations and are especially popular with visitors from other regions in Spain, where the majority of tourists come from. In 2007, 5.7 million tourists visited Galicia, an 8% growth over the previous year, and part of a continual pattern of growth in this sector. 85% of tourists who visit Galicia visit Santiago de Compostela. Tourism constitutes 12% of Galician GDP and employs about 12% of the regional workforce.
The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the autonomous community was 62.6 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 5.2% of Spanish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 24,900 euros or 82% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 95% of the EU average.
The unemployment rate stood at 15.7% in 2017 and was lower than the national average.
Galicia's main airport is Santiago de Compostela Airport. Having been used by 2,083,873 passengers in 2014, it connects the Galician capital with cities in Spain as well as several major European cities. There are two other domestic airports in Galicia: A Coruña Airport – Alvedro and Vigo-Peinador Airport.
The most important Galician fishing port is the Port of Vigo; It is one of the European's leading fishing ports, with an annual catch worth 1,500 million euros. In 2007 the port took in 732,951 metric tons (721,375 long tons; 807,940 short tons) of fish and seafood, and about 4,000,000 metric tons (3,900,000 long tons; 4,400,000 short tons) of other cargoes. Other important ports are A Coruña, Marín-Pontevedra, Ferrol and the smaller port of Vilagarcía de Arousa, as well as important recreational ports in Pontevedra capital city and Burela. Beyond these, Galicia has 120 other organized ports.
The Galician road network includes autopistas and autovías connecting the major cities, as well as national and secondary roads to the rest of the municipalities. The Autovía A-6 connects A Coruña and Lugo to Madrid, entering Galicia at Pedrafita do Cebreiro. The Autovía A-52 connects O Porriño, Ourense and Benavente, and enters Galicia at A Gudiña. Two more autovías are under construction. Autovía A-8 enters Galicia on the Cantabrian coast, and ends in Baamonde (Lugo province). Autovía A-76 enters Galicia in Valdeorras; it is an upgrade of the existing N-120 to Ourense.
Within Galicia are the Autopista AP-9 from Ferrol to Portugal and the Autopista AP-53 (also known as AG-53, because it was initially built by the Xunta de Galicia) from Santiago to Ourense. Additional roads under construction include Autovía A-54 from Santiago de Compostela to Lugo, the Autovía A-57 that will pass through Pontevedra and Autovía A-56 from Lugo to Ourense. The Xunta de Galicia has built roads connecting comarcal capitals, such as the before mentioned AG-53, Autovía AG-55 connecting A Coruña to Carballo or AG-41 connecting Pontevedra to Sanxenxo.
The first railway line in Galicia was inaugurated on 15 September 1873. It ran from O Carril, Vilagarcía da Arousa to Cornes, Conxo, Santiago de Compostela. A second line was inaugurated in 1875, connecting A Coruña and Lugo. In 1883, Galicia was first connected by rail to the rest of Spain, by way of O Barco de Valdeorras. Galicia today has roughly 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) of rail lines. Several 1,668 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) Iberian gauge lines operated by Adif and Renfe Operadora connect all the important Galician cities. A 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge line operated by FEVE connects Ferrol to Ribadeo and Oviedo. An old electrified line is the Ponferrada-Monforte de Lemos-Ourense-Vigo line. Several high-speed rail lines are under construction. Among these are the Olmedo-Zamora-Galicia high-speed rail line that opened partly in 2011, and the AVE Atlantic Axis route, which will connect all of the major Galician Atlantic coast cities A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo to Portugal.
Galicia's inhabitants are known as Galicians (Galician: galegos, Spanish: gallegos). For well over a century Galicia has grown more slowly than the rest of Spain, due largely to a poorer economy compared with other regions of Spain and emigration to Latin America and to other parts of Spain. Sometimes Galicia has lost population in absolute terms. In 1857, Galicia had Spain's densest population and constituted 11.5% of the national population. As of 2007, only 6.1% of the Spanish population resided in the autonomous community. This is due to an exodus of Galician people since the 19th century, first to South America and later to Central Europe and the development of population centers and industry in other parts of Spain.
According to the 2006 census, Galicia has a fertility rate of 1.03 children per woman, compared to 1.38 nationally, and far below the figure of 2.1 that represents a stable populace. Lugo and Ourense provinces have the lowest fertility rates in Spain, 0.88 and 0.93, respectively.
In northern Galicia, the A Coruña-Ferrol metropolitan area has become increasingly dominant in terms of population. The population of the city of A Coruña in 1900 was 43,971. The population of the rest of the province, including the City and Naval Station of nearby Ferrol and Santiago de Compostela, was 653,556. A Coruña's growth occurred after the Spanish Civil War at the same speed as other major Galician cities, but since the revival of democracy after the death of Francisco Franco, A Coruña has grown at a faster rate than all the other Galician cities.
During the mid-20th century, the population rapidly increased in A Coruña, Vigo, and to a lesser degree, other major Galician cities, such as Ourense, Pontevedra or Santiago de Compostela as the rural population declined after the Spanish Civil War: many villages and hamlets of the four provinces of Galicia disappeared or nearly disappeared during the same period. Economic development and mechanization of agriculture resulted in the fields being abandoned, and most of the population moved to find jobs in the main cities. The number of people working in the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the economy increased significantly.
Since 1999, the absolute number of births in Galicia has been increasing. In 2006, 21,392 births were registered in Galicia, 300 more than in 2005, according to the Instituto Galego de Estatística. Since 1981, the Galician life expectancy has increased by five years, thanks to a higher quality of life.
Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Galicia. In 2012, the proportion of Galicians that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 82.2%.
As a Celtic region of Spain, Galicia has a tartan called Galicia National.
The principal cities are the four capitals A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo, Santiago de Compostela – the political capital and archiepiscopal seat – and the industrial cities Vigo and Ferrol.
The largest conurbations are:
Like many rural areas of Western Europe, Galicia's history has been defined by mass emigration. Significant internal migration took place from Galicia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the industrialized Spanish cities of Barcelona, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Madrid. Other Galicians emigrated to Latin America – Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and Cuba in particular.
The two cities with the greatest number of people of Galician descent outside Galicia are Buenos Aires, Argentina, and nearby Montevideo, Uruguay. Immigration from Galicia was so significant in these areas that Argentines and Uruguayans now commonly refer to all Spaniards as gallegos (Galicians).
During the Franco years, there was a new wave of emigration out of Galicia to other European countries, most notably to France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Many of these immigrant or expatriate communities have their groups or clubs, which they formed in the first decades of settling in a new place. The Galician diaspora is so widespread that websites such as Fillos de Galicia have been created in the 21st century to organize and form a network of ethnic Galicians throughout the world.
After this, a third wave was a Spanish internal emigration to heavier industrialised areas of Spain, like the Basque Country or Catalonia.
The proportion of foreign-born people in Galicia is only 2.9 percent compared to the national figure of 10 percent; among the autonomous communities, only Extremadura has a lower percentage of immigrants. Of the foreign nationals resident in Galicia, 17.93 percent are the ethnically related Portuguese, 10.93 percent are Colombian and 8.74 percent Brazilian.
Galicia has two official languages: Galician (Galician: galego) and Spanish (also known in Spain as Castellano, i.e. "Castilian"), both of them Romance languages. The former (Galician) originated regionally; the latter (Castilian) was associated with Castile. Galician is recognized in the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia as the lingua propia ("own language") of Galicia.
Galician and Portuguese share a common medieval phase known as Galician-Portuguese. The independence of Portugal since the late Middle Ages has favored the divergence of the Galician and Portuguese languages as they developed. Though considered to be independent languages in Galicia, the shared history between Galician and Portuguese has been widely acknowledged; in 2014, the Galician parliament approved Law 1/2014 on the promotion of Portuguese and links with the Lusophony.
The official Galician language has been standardized by the Real Academia Galega based on literary tradition. Although there are local dialects, Galician media conform to this standard form, which is also used in primary, secondary, and university education. There are more than three million Galician speakers in the world. Galician ranks in the lower orders of the 150 most widely spoken languages on earth.
For more than four centuries of Castilian domination, Spanish was the only official language in Galicia. Galician faded from day-to-day use in urban areas. Since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain—in particular since the passage and implementation of the Lei de Normalización Lingüística ("Law of Linguistic Normalization", Ley 3/1983, 15 June 1983)—the first generation of students in mass education has attended schools conducted in Galician. (Spanish is also taught.)
Since the late 20th century and the establishment of Galicia's autonomy, the Galician language is resurgent. In the cities, it is generally used as a second language for most. According to a 2001 census, 99.16 percent of the population of Galicia understood the language, 91.04 percent spoke it, 68.65 percent could read it and 57.64 percent could write it. The first two numbers (understanding and speaking) were roughly the same as responses a decade earlier. But there were great gains in the percentage of the population who could read and write Galician: a decade earlier, only 49.3 percent of the population could read Galician, and 34.85 percent could write it. During the Franco era, the teaching of Galician was prohibited. Today older people may speak the language but have no written competence because of those years. Among the regional languages of Spain, Galician has the highest percentage of speakers in its population.
The earliest known document in Galician-Portuguese dates from 1228. The Foro do bo burgo do Castro Caldelas was granted by Alfonso IX of León to the town of Burgo, in Castro Caldelas, after the model of the constitutions of the town of Allariz. A distinct Galician literature emerged during the Middle Ages: In the 13th century important contributions were made to the Romance canon in Galician-Portuguese, the most notable those by the troubadour Martín Codax, the priest Airas Nunes, King Denis of Portugal, and King Alfonso X of Castile, Alfonso O Sabio ("Alfonso the Wise"), the same monarch who began the process of standardization of the Spanish language. During this period, Galician-Portuguese was considered the language of love poetry in the Iberian Romance linguistic culture. The names and memories of Codax and other popular cultural figures are well preserved in modern Galicia.
Religion in Galicia (2019)
Christianity is the most widely practised religion in Galicia. It was introduced in Late Antiquity and was practiced alongside the native Celtic religion for a few centuries which, incidentally, was re-established as an officially recognised religion in 2015. Still, today about 77.7% of Galicians identify as Catholic. Most Christians adhere to Catholicism, though only 32.1% of the population described themselves as active members.
The Catholic Church in Galicia has had its primatial see in Santiago de Compostela since the 12th century. In fact, since the Middle Ages, the Galician Catholic Church has been organized into five dioceses: the Metropolitan see Santiago de Compostela, and four suffragan dioceses: Lugo, Ourense, Mondoñedo-Ferrol and Tui-Vigo. While in the 15th-century diocesan boundaries may have coincided with those of the civil province, this is no longer the case. The five dioceses of Galicia are subdivided into a total of 163 districts and 3,792 parishes. In a minority of cases, the parish priest is represented by an administrator.
The patron saint of Galicia is Saint James the Greater. According to Catholic tradition, his body was discovered in 814 near Compostela. After that date, the relics of Saint James attracted an extraordinary number of pilgrims. Since the 9th century these relics have been kept in the heart of the church – the modern-day cathedral – dedicated to him. There are many other Galician and associated saints; some of the best-known are: Saint Ansurius, Saint Rudesind, Saint Mariña of Augas Santas, Saint Senorina, Trahamunda and Froilan.
Galicia's education system is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Education and University Administration. 76% of Galician teenagers achieve a high school degree – ranked fifth out of the 17 autonomous communities.
There are three public universities in Galicia: University of A Coruña with campuses in A Coruña and Ferrol, University of Santiago de Compostela with campuses in Santiago de Compostela and Lugo and the University of Vigo with campuses in Pontevedra, Ourense and Vigo.
Galicia's public healthcare system is the Servizo Galego de Saúde (SERGAS). It is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Health.
Hundreds of ancient standing stone monuments like dolmens, menhirs, and megalithic tumuli were erected during the prehistoric period in Galicia. Amongst the best-known are the dolmens of Dombate, Corveira, Axeitos of Pedra da Arca, and menhirs like the Lapa de Gargantáns. From the Iron Age, Galicia has a rich heritage based mainly on a great number of hill forts, few of them excavated like Baroña, Sta. Tegra, San Cibrao de Lás and Formigueiros among others. With the introduction of Ancient Roman architecture, there was a development of basilicas, castra, city walls, cities, villas, Roman temples, Roman roads, and the Roman bridge of Ponte Vella. It was the Romans who founded some of the first cities in Galicia like Lugo and Ourense. Perhaps the best-known examples are the Roman Walls of Lugo and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña.
During the Middle Ages, many fortified castles were built by Galician feudal nobles to mark their powers against their rivals. Although most of them were demolished during the Irmandiño Wars (1466–1469), some Galician castles that survived are Pambre, Castro Caldelas, Sobroso, Soutomaior and Monterrei. The ecclesiastical architecture was raised early in Galicia, and the first churches and monasteries as San Pedro de Rocas began to be built in the 5th and 6th centuries. However, the most famous medieval architecture in Galicia had been using Romanesque architecture like most of Western Europe. Some of the greatest examples of Romanesque churches in Galicia are the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the Ourense Cathedral, Saint John of Caaveiro, Our Lady Mary of Cambre, and the Church of San Xoán of Portomarín among others. In the art of Galicia, the stone has a strong imprint, especially the granite, which served as a support from the prehistoric petroglyphs figures to the development of medieval art in the Galician Romanesque sculptures from Portico of Glory by Master Mateo, in Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Medieval splendor was followed, as in literature, by a few centuries of darkness (the Séculos escuros) until the arrival of the Compostela Baroque. In painting, the romanticism and impressionist-influenced landscapes of the 20th century were materialized by a generation of artists who died young, so they were called the "Xeración Doente" (Sick Generation). In the 20th century, the renovation came in the 20s by Os renovadores, and by the Atlántica group after the dictatorship.
Galician cuisine often uses fish and shellfish. The empanada is a meat or fish pie, with a bread-like base, top, and crust with the meat or fish filling usually being in a tomato sauce including onions and garlic. Caldo galego is a hearty soup whose main ingredients are potatoes and a local vegetable named grelo (broccoli rabe). The latter is also employed in lacón con grelos, a typical carnival dish, consisting of pork shoulder boiled with grelos, potatoes, and chorizo. Centolla is the equivalent of king crab. It is prepared by being boiled alive, having its main body opened like a shell, and then having its innards mixed vigorously. Another popular dish is octopus, boiled (traditionally in a copper pot) and served on a wooden plate, cut into small pieces, and laced with olive oil, sea salt, and pimentón (Spanish paprika). This dish is called pulpo a la gallega or in Galician polbo á feira, which roughly translates as 'fair-style octopus', most commonly translated as 'Galician-style octopus'. There are several regional varieties of cheese. The best-known one is the so-called tetilla, named after its breast-like shape. Other highly regarded varieties include the San Simón cheese from Vilalba and the creamy cheese produced in the Arzúa-Ulloa area. A classical is filloas, crêpe-like pancakes made with flour, broth or milk, and eggs. When cooked at a pig slaughter festival, they may also contain the animal's blood. A famous almond cake called Tarta de Santiago (St. James' cake) is a Galician sweet specialty mainly produced in Santiago de Compostela and all around Galicia.
Galicia has 30 products with Denominación de orixe (D.O.), some of them with Denominación de Orixe Protexida (D.O.P.). D.O. and D.O.P. are part of a system of regulation of quality and geographical origin among Spain's finest producers. Galicia produces a number of high-quality Galician wines, including Albariño, Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Monterrei and Valdeorras. The grape varieties used are local and rarely found outside Galicia and Northern Portugal. Just as notably from Galicia comes the spirit Augardente—the name means burning water—often referred to as Orujo in Spain and internationally or as caña in Galicia. This spirit is made from the distillation of the pomace of grapes.
The traditional music of Galicia and Asturias features highly distinctive folk styles that have some similarities with the neighboring area of Cantabria. The music is characterized by the use of bagpipes.
As with many other Romance languages, Galician-Portuguese emerged as a literary language in the Middle Ages, during the 12th and 13th centuries, when a rich lyric tradition developed, followed by a minor prose tradition, whilst being the predominant language used for legal and private texts till the 15th century. However, in the face of the hegemony of Spanish, during the so-called Séculos Escuros ("Dark Centuries") from 1530 to the late 18th century, it fell from major literary or legal written use.
As a literary language it was revived again during the 18th and, most notably, the 19th-century (Rexurdimento Resurgence) with such writers as Rosalía de Castro, Manuel Murguía, Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro, and Eduardo Pondal. In the 20th century, before the Spanish Civil War the Irmandades da Fala ("Brotherhood of the Language") and Grupo Nós included such writers as Vicente Risco, Ramón Cabanillas and Castelao. Public use of Galician was largely suppressed during the Franco dictatorship but has been resurgent since the restoration of democracy. Though written primarily in Castilian, several works by the Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela, notably Mazurka for Two Dead Men, are set in the author's native Galicia and make frequent allusions to Galician folklore, customs, and language. Other notable Galician authors who wrote mostly in Spanish, but always around Galician subjects, are Valle-Inclán, Wenceslao Fernández Flórez, Emilia Pardo Bazán and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester. Contemporary writers in Galician include Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín, Manuel Rivas, Chus Pato, and Suso de Toro.
In 2015 only five corridas took place within Galicia. In addition, recent studies have stated that 92% of Galicians are firmly against bullfighting, the highest rate in Spain. Despite this, popular associations, such as Galicia Mellor Sen Touradas ("Galicia Better without Bullfights"), have blamed politicians for having no compromise to abolish it and have been very critical of local councils', especially those governed by the PP and PSOE, payment of subsidies for corridas. The province government of Pontevedra stopped the end of these subsidies and declared the province "free of bullfights". The province government of A Coruña approved a document supporting the abolition of these events.
Televisión de Galicia (TVG) is the autonomous community's public channel, which has broadcast since 24 July 1985 and is part of the Compañía de Radio-Televisión de Galicia (CRTVG). TVG broadcasts throughout Galicia and has two international channels, Galicia Televisión Europa and Galicia Televisión América, available throughout the European Union and the Americas through Hispasat. CRTVG also broadcasts a digital terrestrial television (DTT) channel known as tvG2 and is considering adding further DTT channels, with a 24-hour news channel projected for 2010.
Radio Galega (RG) is the autonomous community's public radio station and is part of CRTVG. Radio Galega began broadcasting on 24 February 1985, with regular programming starting on 29 March 1985. There are two regular broadcast channels: Radio Galega and Radio Galega Música. In addition, there is a DTT and internet channel, Son Galicia Radio, dedicated specifically to Galician music.
Galicia has several free and community radio stations. Cuac FM is the headquarters of the Community Media Network (which brings together media non-profit oriented and serves their community). CUAC FM (A Coruña), Radio Filispim (Ferrol), Radio Roncudo (corme), Kalimera Radio (Santiago de Compostela), Radio Piratona (Vigo) and Radio Clavi (Lugo) are part of the Galician Network of Free and Association of Community Radio Broadcasters(ReGaRLiC)
The most widely distributed newspaper in Galicia is La Voz de Galicia, with 12 local editions and a national edition. Other major newspapers are El Correo Gallego (Santiago de Compostela), Faro de Vigo (Vigo), Diario de Pontevedra (Pontevedra), El Progreso (Lugo), La Región (Ourense), and Galicia Hoxe – The first daily newspaper to publish exclusively in Galician. Other newspapers are Diario de Ferrol, the sports paper DxT Campeón, El Ideal Gallego from A Coruña, the Heraldo de Vivero, Atlántico Diario from Vigo and the Xornal de Galicia.
Galicia has a long sporting tradition dating back to the early 20th century when the majority of sports clubs in Spain were founded. The most popular and well-supported teams in the region are Deportivo de La Coruña and Celta Vigo. When the two sides play, it is referred to as the Galician derby. Deportivo was champion of La Liga in the 1999–2000 season.
Pontevedra CF from Pontevedra and Racing Ferrol from Ferrol are two other notable clubs from Galicia as well as CD Lugo and SD Compostela. The Galician Football Federation periodically fields a national team against international opposition. This fact causes some political controversy because matches involving other national football teams different from the Spanish official national team threaten its status as the only national football team of the State. The policy of centralization in sport is very strong as it is systematically used as a patriotic device with which to build a symbol of the supposed unity of Spain which is a plurinational state.
Football aside, the most popular team sports in Galicia are futsal, handball and basketball. In basketball, Obradoiro CAB is the most successful team of note, and currently, the only Galician team that plays in the Liga ACB; other teams are CB Breogan, Club Ourense Baloncesto and OAR Ferrol. In the sport of handball, Club Balonmán Cangas plays in the top-flight (Liga ASOBAL). The sport is particularly popular in the province of Pontevedra with the three other Galician teams in the top two divisions: SD Teucro (Pontevedra), Octavio Pilotes Posada (Vigo) and SD Chapela (Redondela).
In roller hockey HC Liceo is the most successful Galician team, in any sport, with numerous European and World titles. In futsal teams, Lobelle Santiago and Azkar Lugo.
Galicia is also known for its tradition of participation in water sports both at sea and in rivers; these include rowing, yachting, canoeing and surfing. Its athletes have regularly won medals in the Olympics; currently, the most notable examples are David Cal, Carlos Pérez Rial, and Fernando Echavarri.
Galician triathlon contenders Francisco Javier Gómez Noya and Iván Raña have been world champions. In 2006 the cyclist Oscar Pereiro won the Tour de France after the disqualification of American Floyd Landis, gaining the top position on the penultimate day of the race. Galicians are also prominent athletes in the sport of mountaineering—Chus Lago is the third woman to reach the summit of Everest without supplemental oxygen.
Since 2011, several Gaelic football teams have been set up in Galicia. The first was Fillos de Breogán (A Coruña), followed Artabros (Oleiros), Irmandinhos (A Estrada), SDG Corvos (Pontevedra), and Suebia (Santiago de Compostela) with talk of creating a Galician league. Galicia also fielded a Gaelic football side (recognised as national by the GAA) that beat Brittany in July 2012 and was reported in the Spanish nationwide press.
Rugby is growing in popularity, although the success of local teams is hampered by the absence of experienced ex-pat players from English-speaking countries typically seen at teams based on the Mediterranean coast or in the big cities. Galicia has a long-established Rugby Federation that organises its own women's, children's, and men's leagues. Galicia has also fielded a national side for friendly matches against other regions of Spain and Portugal. A team of ex-pat Galicians in Salvador, Brazil have also formed Galicia Rugby, a sister team of the local football club.
A golden chalice enclosed in a field of azure has been the symbol of Galicia since the 13th century. Originated as a Canting arms due to the phonetic similarity between the words "chalice" and Galyce ("Galicia" in old Norman language), the first documented mention of this emblem is on the Segar's Roll, an English medieval roll of arms where are represented all the Christian kingdoms of 13th-century Europe. In the following centuries, the Galician emblem was variating; diverse shapes and several chalices (initially three and later one or five), would not be until the 16th century that its number was fixed finally as one single chalice. Centuries after, a field of crosses was slowly added to the azure background, and latterly also a silver host. Since then basically, the emblem of the kingdom would be kept until nowadays.
The ancient flag of the Kingdom of Galicia was based mainly on its coat of arms until the 19th century. However, when in 1833 the Government of Spain decided to abolish the kingdom and divided it into four provinces, the Galician emblem, as well as the flag, lost its legal status and international validity. It would not be until the late 19th century that some Galician intellectuals (nationalist politicians and writers) began to use a new flag as a symbol of renewed national unity for Galicia. That flag, which was composed of a diagonal stripe over a white background, was designated the "official flag of Galicia" in 1984, after the fall of Franco's dictatorship. In addition, the Royal Academy of Galicia asked the Galician government to incorporate the ancient coat of arms of the kingdom onto the modern flag, being present in it since then.
In addition to its coat of arms and flag, Galicia also has its own anthem. While it is true that the Kingdom of Galicia had during centuries a kind of unofficial anthem known as the "Solemn March of the kingdom", the Galician current anthem was not created until 1907, although its composition had begun already in 1880. Titled "Os Pinos" ("The Pines"), the Galician anthem lyrics were written by Eduardo Pondal, one of the greatest modern Galician poets, and its music was composed by Pascual Veiga. Performed for the first time in 1907 in Havana (Cuba) by Galician emigrants, the anthem was banned from 1927 by diverse Spanish Governments until 1977 when it was officially established by the Galician authorities.
Galicia Peak in Vinson Massif, Antarctica is named after the autonomous community of Galicia. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Galicia (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ə/ gə-LISH(-ee)-ə; Galician: Galicia [ɡaˈliθjɐ] or Galiza [ɡaˈliθɐ]; Spanish: Galicia) is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Galicia is located in Atlantic Europe. It is bordered by Portugal to the south, the Spanish autonomous communities of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Cantabrian Sea to the north. It had a population of 2,701,743 in 2018 and a total area of 29,574 km (11,419 sq mi). Galicia has over 1,660 km (1,030 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada Island, which together form the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, and the largest and most populated, A Illa de Arousa.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic people living north of the Douro River during the last millennium BC. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, and was made a Roman province in the 3rd century AD. In 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga; this kingdom was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. In 711, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula conquering the Visigoth kingdom of Hispania by 718, but soon Galicia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom of Asturias by 740. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Galicia was occasionally ruled by its own kings, but most of the time it was leagued to the kingdom of Leon and later to that of Castile, while maintaining its own legal and customary practices and culture. From the 13th century on, the kings of Castile, as kings of Galicia, appointed an Adiantado-mór, whose attributions passed to the Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galiza from the last years of the 15th century. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, a royal tribunal and government body. From the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia. This institution was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four administrative provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and for the recognition of the culture of Galicia. This resulted in the Statute of Autonomy of 1936, soon frustrated by Franco's coup d'état and subsequent long dictatorship. After democracy was restored the legislature passed the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, approved in referendum and currently in force, providing Galicia with self-government.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The interior of Galicia is characterized by a hilly landscape; mountain ranges rise to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly an alternate series of rias and beaches. The climate of Galicia is usually temperate and rainy, with markedly drier summers; it is usually classified as Oceanic. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicia's wealth for most of its history, allowing for a relatively high density of population. Except shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was based on a farming and fishing economy until after the mid-20th century, when it began to industrialize. In 2018, the nominal gross domestic product was €62.900 billion, with a nominal GDP per capita of €23,300. Galicia is characterised, unlike other Spanish regions, by the absence of a metropolis dominating the territory. Indeed, the urban network is made up of 7 main cities: the four provincial capitals A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo, the political capital Santiago de Compostela and the industrial cities Vigo and Ferrol. The population is largely concentrated in two main areas: from Ferrol to A Coruña on the northern coast, and in the Rías Baixas region in the southwest, including the cities of Vigo, Pontevedra, and the interior city of Santiago de Compostela. There are smaller populations around the interior cities of Lugo and Ourense. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the largest municipality and A Coruña the most populated city in Galicia. Two languages are official and widely used today in Galicia: the native Galician; and Spanish, usually called Castilian. While most Galicians are bilingual, a 2013 survey reported that 51% of the Galician population spoke Galician most often on a day-to-day basis, while 48% most often used Spanish.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The name Galicia derives from the Latin toponym Callaecia, later Gallaecia, related to the name of an ancient Celtic tribe that resided north of the Douro river, the Gallaeci or Callaeci in Latin, or Καλλαϊκoί (Kallaïkoí) in Greek. These Callaeci were the first tribe in the area to help the Lusitanians against the invading Romans. The Romans applied their name to all the other tribes in the northwest who spoke the same language and lived the same life.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The toponymy of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors such as Isidore of Seville, who wrote that \"Galicians are called so, because of their fair skin, as the Gauls\", relating the name to the Greek word for milk. (See the etymology of the word galaxy.) In the 21st century, some scholars (J.J. Moralejo, Carlos Búa) have derived the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European *kl(H)-no- 'hill', through a local relational suffix -aik-, also attested in Celtiberian, so meaning 'the hill (people)'; or either from Proto-Celtic *kallī- 'forest', so meaning 'the forest (people)'. In any case, Galicia, being per se a derivation of the ethnic name Kallaikói, means 'the land of the Galicians'.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Another recent proposal comes from linguist Francesco Benozzo after identifying the root gall- / kall- in a number of Celtic words with the meaning \"stone\" or \"rock\", as follows: gall (old Irish), gal (Middle Welsh), gailleichan (Scottish Gaelic), kailhoù (Breton), galagh (Manx) and gall (Gaulish). Hence, Benozzo explains the ethnonym Callaeci as being \"the stone people\" or \"the people of the stone\" (\"those who work with stones\"), about the builders of the ancient megaliths and stone formations so common in Galicia.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The name evolved during the Middle Ages from Gallaecia, sometimes written Galletia, to Gallicia. In the 13th century, with the written emergence of the Galician language, Galiza became the most usual written form of the name of the country, being replaced during the 15th and 16th centuries by the current form, Galicia, which is also the spelling of the name in Spanish. The historical denomination Galiza became popular again during the end of the 19th and the first three-quarters of the 20th century and is still used with some frequency today. The Xunta de Galicia, the local devolved government, uses Galicia. The Royal Galician Academy, the institution responsible for regulating the Galician language, whilst recognizing Galiza as a legitimate current denomination, has stated that the only official name of the country is Galicia.",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Due to Galicia's history and culture with mythology, the land has been called \"Terra Meiga\" (land of the witches/witch(ing) land).",
"title": "Toponymy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The oldest attestation of human presence in Galicia has been found in the Eirós Cave, in the municipality of Triacastela, which has preserved animal remains and Neanderthal stone objects from the Middle Paleolithic. The earliest culture to have left significant architectural traces is the Megalithic culture, which expanded along the western European coasts during the Neolithic and Calcolithic eras. Thousands of Megalithic tumuli are distributed throughout the country, mostly along the coastal areas. Within each tumulus is a stone burial chamber known locally as anta (dolmen), frequently preceded by a corridor. Galicia was later influenced by the Bell Beaker culture. Its rich mineral deposits of tin and gold led to the development of Bronze Age metallurgy, and the commerce of bronze and gold items all along the Atlantic coast of Western Europe. A shared elite culture evolved in this region during the Atlantic Bronze Age.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Dating from the end of the Megalithic era, and up to the Bronze Age, numerous stone carvings (petroglyphs) are found in open air. They usually represent cup and ring marks, labyrinths, deer, Bronze Age weapons, and riding and hunting scenes. Large numbers of these stone carvings can be found in the Rías Baixas regions, at places such as Tourón and Campo Lameiro.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Castro culture ('Culture of the Castles') developed during the Iron Age, and flourished during the second half of the first millennium BC. It is usually considered a local evolution of the Atlantic Bronze Age, with later developments and influences overlapping into the Roman era. Geographically, it corresponds to the people the Romans called Gallaeci, which were composed of a large series of nations or tribes, among them the Artabri, Bracari, Limici, Celtici, Albiones and Lemavi. They were capable fighters: Strabo described them as the most difficult foes the Romans encountered in conquering Lusitania, while Appian mentions their warlike spirit, noting that the women bore their weapons side by side with their men, frequently preferring death to captivity. According to Pomponius Mela all the inhabitants of the coastal areas were Celtic people.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Gallaeci lived in castros. These were usually annular forts, with one or more concentric earthen or stony walls, with a trench in front of each one. They were frequently located on hills, or in seashore cliffs and peninsulas. Some well known castros can be found on the seashore at: Fazouro, Santa Tegra, Baroña, and O Neixón; and inland at: San Cibrao de Lás, Borneiro, Castromao, and Viladonga. Some other distinctive features, such as temples, baths, reservoirs, warrior statues, and decorative carvings have been found associated with this culture, together with rich gold and metalworking traditions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Roman legions first entered the area under Decimus Junius Brutus in 137–136 BC, but the country was only incorporated into the Roman Empire by the time of Augustus (29 BC – 19 BC). The Romans were interested in Galicia mainly for its mineral resources, most notably gold. Under Roman rule, most Galician hillforts began to be – sometimes forcibly – abandoned, and Gallaeci served frequently in the Roman army as auxiliary troops. Romans brought new technologies, new travel routes, new forms of organizing property, and a new language; Latin. The Roman Empire established its control over Galicia through camps (castra) as Aquis Querquennis, Ciadella camp or Lucus Augusti (Lugo), roads (viae) and monuments as the lighthouse known as Tower of Hercules, in Corunna, but the remoteness and lesser interest of the country since the 2nd century of our era, when the gold mines stopped being productive, led to a lesser degree of Romanization. In the 3rd century, it was made a province, under the name Gallaecia, which included also northern Portugal, Asturias, and a large section of what today is known as Castile and León.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In the early 5th century, the deep crisis suffered by the Roman Empire allowed different tribes of Central Europe (Suebi, Vandals and Alani) to cross the Rhine and penetrate the rule on 31 December 406. Its progress towards the Iberian Peninsula forced the Roman authorities to establish a treaty (foedus) by which the Suebi would settle peacefully and govern Galicia as imperial allies. So, from 409 Galicia was taken by the Suebi, forming the first medieval kingdom to be created in Europe, in 411, even before the fall of the Roman Empire, being also the first Germanic kingdom to mint coinage in Roman lands. During this period a Briton colony and bishopric (see Mailoc) was established in Northern Galicia (Britonia), probably as foederati and allies of the Suebi. In 585, the Visigothic King Leovigild invaded the Suebic kingdom of Galicia and defeated it, bringing it under Visigoth control.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Later the Muslims invaded Spain (711), but the Arabs and Moors never managed to have any real control over Galicia, which was later incorporated into the expanding Christian Kingdom of Asturias, usually known as Gallaecia or Galicia (Yillīqiya and Galīsiya) by Muslim chroniclers, as well as by many European contemporaries. This era consolidated Galicia as a Christian society which spoke a Romance language. During the next century Galician noblemen took northern Portugal, conquering Coimbra in 871, thus freeing what was considered the southernmost city of ancient Galicia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the 9th century, the rise of the cult of the Apostle James in Santiago de Compostela gave Galicia particular symbolic importance among Christians, an importance it would hold throughout the Reconquista. As the Middle Ages went on, Santiago became a major pilgrim destination and the Way of Saint James (Camiño de Santiago) a major pilgrim road, a route for the propagation of Romanesque art and the words and music of the troubadors. During the 10th and 11th centuries, a period during which Galician nobility become related to the royal family, Galicia was at times headed by its own native kings, while Vikings (locally known as Leodemanes or Lordomanes) occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers of Catoira (Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to prevent and stop the Viking raids on Santiago de Compostela.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1063, Ferdinand I of Castile divided his realm among his sons, and the Kingdom of Galicia was granted to Garcia II of Galicia. In 1072, it was forcibly annexed by Garcia's brother Alfonso VI of León; from that time Galicia was united with the Kingdom of León under the same monarchs. In the 13th century Alfonso X of Castile standardized the Castilian language (i.e. Spanish) and made it the language of court and government. Nevertheless, in his Kingdom of Galicia the Galician language was the only language spoken, and the most used in government and legal uses, as well as in literature.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "During the 14th and 15th centuries, the progressive distancing of the kings from Galician affairs left the kingdom in the hands of the local knights, counts, and bishops, who frequently fought each other to increase their fiefs, or simply to plunder the lands of others. At the same time, the deputies of the Kingdom in the Cortes stopped being called. The Kingdom of Galicia, slipping away from the control of the King, responded with a century of fiscal insubordination.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "On the other hand, the lack of an effective royal justice system in the Kingdom led to the social conflict known as the Guerras Irmandiñas ('Wars of the brotherhoods'), when leagues of peasants and burghers, with the support of several knights, noblemen, and under legal protection offered by the remote king, toppled many of the castles of the Kingdom and briefly drove the noblemen into Portugal and Castile. Soon after, in the late 15th century, in the dynastic conflict between Isabella I of Castile and Joanna La Beltraneja, part of the Galician aristocracy supported Joanna. After Isabella's victory, she initiated an administrative and political reform which the chronicler Jeronimo Zurita defined as \"doma del Reino de Galicia\": 'It was then when the taming of Galicia began, because not just the local lords and knights, but all the people of that nation were the ones against the others very bold and warlike'. These reforms, while establishing a local government and tribunal (the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia), and bringing the nobleman under submission, also brought most Galician monasteries and institutions under Castilian control, in what has been criticized as a process of centralisation. At the same time the kings began to call the Xunta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, an assembly of deputies or representatives of the cities of the Kingdom, to ask for monetary and military contributions. This assembly soon developed into the voice and legal representation of the Kingdom, and the depositary of its will and laws.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The modern period of the Kingdom of Galicia began with the defeat of some of the most powerful Galician lords, such as Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, called Pedro Madruga, and Rodrigo Henriquez Osorio, at the hands of the Castilian armies sent to Galicia between the years 1480 and 1486. Isabella I of Castile, considered a usurper by many Galician nobles, defeated all armed resistance and definitively established the royal power of the Castilian monarchy. Fearing a general revolt, the monarchs ordered the banishing of the rest of the great lords like Pedro de Bolaño, Diego de Andrade, or Lope Sánchez de Moscoso, among others.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The establishment of the Santa Hermandad in 1480, and the Real Audiencia del Reino de Galicia in 1500—a tribunal and executive body directed by the Governor-Captain General as a direct representative of the King—implied initially the submission of the Kingdom to the Crown, after a century of unrest and fiscal insubordination. As a result, from 1480 to 1520 the Kingdom of Galicia contributed more than 10% of the total earnings of the Crown of Castille, including the Americas, well over its economic relevance. Like the rest of Spain, the 16th century was marked by population growth up to 1580, when the simultaneous wars with the Netherlands, France, and England hampered Galicia's Atlantic commerce, which consisted mostly in the exportation of sardines, wood, and some cattle and wine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the late years of the 15th century the written form of the Galician language began a slow decline as it was increasingly replaced by Spanish, which would culminate in the Séculos Escuros \"the Dark Centuries\" of the language, roughly from the 16th century through to the mid-18th century, when written Galician almost completely disappeared except for private or occasional uses but the spoken language remained the common language of the people in the villages and even the cities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "From that moment Galicia, which participated to a minor extent in the American expansion of the Spanish Empire, found itself at the center of the Atlantic wars fought by Spain against the French and the Protestant powers of England and the Netherlands, whose privateers attacked the coastal areas, but major assaults were not common as the coastline was difficult and the harbors easily defended. The most famous assaults were upon the city of Vigo by Sir Francis Drake in 1585 and 1589, and the siege of A Coruña in 1589 by the English Armada. Galicia also suffered occasional slave raids by Barbary pirates, but not as frequently as the Mediterranean coastal areas. The most famous Barbary attack was the bloody sack of the town of Cangas in 1617. At the time, the king's petitions for money and troops became more frequent, due to the human and economic exhaustion of Castile; the Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia (the local Cortes or representative assembly) was initially receptive to these petitions, raising large sums, accepting the conscription of the men of the kingdom, and even commissioning a new naval squadron which was sustained with the incomes of the Kingdom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "After the rupture of the wars with Portugal and Catalonia, the Junta changed its attitude, this time due to the exhaustion of Galicia, now involved not just in naval or oversea operations, but also in an exhausting war with the Portuguese, war which produced thousands of casualties and refugees and was heavily disturbing to the local economy and commerce. So, in the second half of the 17th century the Junta frequently denied or considerably reduced the initial petitions of the monarch, and though the tension did not rise to the levels experienced in Portugal or Catalonia, there were frequent urban mutinies and some voices even asked for the secession of the Kingdom of Galicia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the Peninsular War the successful uprising of the local people against the new French authorities, together with the support of the British Army, limited the occupation to six months in 1808–1809. During the pre-war period the Supreme Council of the Kingdom of Galicia (Junta Suprema del Reino de Galicia), auto-proclaimed interim sovereign in 1808, was the sole government of the country and mobilized near 40,000 men against the invaders.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The 1833 territorial division of Spain put a formal end to the Kingdom of Galicia, unifying Spain into a single centralized monarchy. Instead of seven provinces and a regional administration, Galicia was reorganized into the current four provinces. Although it was recognized as a \"historical region\", that status was strictly honorific. In reaction, nationalist and federalist movements arose.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The liberal General Miguel Solís Cuetos led a separatist coup attempt in 1846 against the authoritarian regime of Ramón María Narváez. Solís and his forces were defeated at the Battle of Cacheiras, 23 April 1846, and the survivors, including Solís himself, were shot. They have taken their place in Galician memory as the Martyrs of Carral or simply the Martyrs of Liberty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Defeated on the military front, Galicians turned to culture. The Rexurdimento focused on the recovery of the Galician language as a vehicle of social and cultural expression. Among the writers associated with this movement are Rosalía de Castro, Manuel Murguía, Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro, and Eduardo Pondal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In the early 20th century came another turn toward nationalist politics with Solidaridad Gallega (1907–1912) modeled on Solidaritat Catalana in Catalonia. Solidaridad Gallega failed, but in 1916 Irmandades da Fala (Brotherhood of the Language) developed first as a cultural association but soon as a full-blown nationalist movement. Vicente Risco and Ramón Otero Pedrayo were outstanding cultural figures of this movement, and the magazine Nós ('Us'), founded in 1920, its most notable cultural institution, Lois Peña Novo the outstanding political figure.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Second Spanish Republic was declared in 1931. During the republic, the Partido Galeguista (PG) was the most important of a shifting collection of Galician nationalist parties. Following a referendum on a Galician Statute of Autonomy, Galicia was granted the status of an autonomous region.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Galicia was spared the worst of the fighting in that war: it was one of the areas where the initial coup attempt at the outset of the war was successful, and it remained in Nationalist hands (Franco's army) throughout the war. While there were no pitched battles, there was repression and death: all political parties were abolished, as were all labor unions and Galician nationalist organizations as the Seminario de Estudos Galegos. Galicia's statute of autonomy was annulled (as were those of Catalonia and the Basque provinces once those were conquered). According to Carlos Fernández Santander, at least 4,200 people were killed either extrajudicially or after summary trials, among them republicans, communists, Galician nationalists, socialists, and anarchists. Victims included the civil governors of all four Galician provinces; Juana Capdevielle, the wife of the governor of A Coruña; mayors such as Ánxel Casal of Santiago de Compostela, of the Partido Galeguista; prominent socialists such as Jaime Quintanilla in Ferrol and Emilio Martínez Garrido in Vigo; Popular Front deputies Antonio Bilbatúa, José Miñones, Díaz Villamil, Ignacio Seoane, and former deputy Heraclio Botana); soldiers who had not joined the rebellion, such as Generals Rogelio Caridad Pita and Enrique Salcedo Molinuevo and Admiral Antonio Azarola; and the founders of the PG, Alexandre Bóveda and Víctor Casas, as well as other professionals akin to republicans and nationalists, as the journalist Manuel Lustres Rivas or physician Luis Poza Pastrana. Many others were forced to escape into exile, or were victims of other reprisals and removed from their jobs and positions. General Francisco Franco – himself a Galician from Ferrol – ruled as dictator from the civil war until he died in 1975. Franco's centralizing regime suppressed any official use of the Galician language, including the use of Galician names for newborns, although its everyday oral use was not forbidden. Among the attempts at resistance were small leftist guerrilla groups such as those led by José Castro Veiga (\"O Piloto\") and Benigno Andrade (\"Foucellas\"), both of whom were ultimately captured and executed. In the 1960s, ministers such as Manuel Fraga Iribarne introduced some reforms allowing technocrats affiliated with Opus Dei to modernize administration in a way that facilitated capitalist economic development. However, for decades Galicia was largely confined to the role of a supplier of raw materials and energy to the rest of Spain, causing environmental havoc and leading to a wave of migration to Venezuela and to various parts of Europe. Fenosa, the monopolistic supplier of electricity, built hydroelectric dams, flooding many Galician river valleys.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The Galician economy finally began to modernize with a French Citroën factory in Vigo, the modernization of the canning industry and the fishing fleet, and eventually a modernization of small peasant farming practices, especially in the production of cows' milk. In the province of Ourense, businessman and politician Eulogio Gómez Franqueira gave impetus to the raising of livestock and poultry by establishing the Cooperativa Orensana S.A. (Coren).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "During the last decade of Franco's rule, there was a renewal of nationalist feeling in Galicia. The early 1970s were a time of unrest among university students, workers, and farmers. In 1972, general strikes in Vigo and Ferrol cost the lives of Amador Rey and Daniel Niebla. Later, the bishop of Mondoñedo-Ferrol, Miguel Anxo Araúxo Iglesias, wrote a pastoral letter that was not well received by the Franco regime, about a demonstration in Bazán (Ferrol) where two workers died.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As part of the transition to democracy upon the death of Franco in 1975, Galicia regained its status as an autonomous region within Spain with the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, which begins, \"Galicia, historical nationality, is constituted as an Autonomous Community to access to its self-government, in agreement with the Spanish Constitution and with the present Statute (...)\". Varying degrees of nationalist or independentist sentiment are evident at the political level. The Bloque Nacionalista Galego or BNG, is a conglomerate of left-wing parties and individuals that claims Galician political status as a nation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "From 1990 to 2005, Manuel Fraga, former minister and ambassador in the Franco dictatorship, presided over the Galician autonomous government, the Xunta de Galicia. Fraga was associated with the Partido Popular ('People's Party', Spain's main national conservative party) since its founding. In 2002, when the oil tanker Prestige sank and covered the Galician coast in oil, Fraga was accused by the grassroots movement Nunca Mais (\"Never again\") of having been unwilling to react. In the 2005 Galician elections, the 'People's Party' lost its absolute majority, though remaining (barely) the largest party in the parliament, with 43% of the total votes. As a result, power passed to a coalition of the Partido dos Socialistas de Galicia (PSdeG) ('Galician Socialists' Party'), a federal sister-party of Spain's main social-democratic party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, 'Spanish Socialist Workers Party') and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG). As the senior partner in the new coalition, the PSdeG nominated its leader, Emilio Pérez Touriño, to serve as Galicia's new president, with Anxo Quintana, the leader of BNG, as its vice president.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 2009, the PSdG-BNG coalition lost the elections, and the government went back to the People's Party (conservative), even though the PSdG-BNG coalition obtained the most votes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Galicia has a surface area of 29,574 square kilometres (11,419 sq mi). Its northernmost point, at 43°47′N, is Estaca de Bares (also the northernmost point of Spain); its southernmost, at 41°49′N, is on the Portuguese border in the Baixa Limia-Serra do Xurés Natural Park. The easternmost longitude is at 6°42′W on the border between the province of Ourense and the Castilian-Leonese province of Zamora) its westernmost at 9°18′W reached in two places: the A Nave Cape in Fisterra (also known as Finisterre), and Cape Touriñán, both in the province of A Coruña.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The interior of Galicia is a hilly landscape, composed of relatively low mountain ranges, usually below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high, without sharp peaks, rising to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the eastern mountains. There are many rivers, most (though not all) running down relatively gentle slopes in narrow river valleys, though at times their courses become far more rugged, as in the canyons of the Sil river, Galicia's second most important river after the Miño.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Topographically, a remarkable feature of Galicia is the presence of many firth-like inlets along the coast, estuaries that were drowned with rising sea levels after the ice age. These are called rías and are divided into the smaller Rías Altas (\"High Rías\"), and the larger Rías Baixas (\"Low Rías\"). The Rías Altas include Ribadeo, Foz, Viveiro, O Barqueiro, Ortigueira, Cedeira, Ferrol, Betanzos, A Coruña, Corme e Laxe and Camariñas. The Rías Baixas, found south of Fisterra, include Corcubión, Muros e Noia, Arousa, Pontevedra and Vigo. The Rías Altas can sometimes refer only to those east of Estaca de Bares, with the others being called Rías Medias (\"Intermediate Rías\").",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Erosion by the Atlantic Ocean has contributed to the great number of capes. Besides the aforementioned Estaca de Bares in the far north, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Cantabrian Sea, other notable capes are Cape Ortegal, Cape Prior, Punta Santo Adrao, Cape Vilán, Cape Touriñán (westernmost point in Galicia), Cape Finisterre or Fisterra, considered by the Romans, along with Finistère in Brittany and Land's End in Cornwall, to be the end of the known world.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "All along the Galician coast are various archipelagos near the mouths of the rías. These archipelagos provide protected deepwater harbors and also provide habitat for seagoing birds. A 2007 inventory estimates that the Galician coast has 316 archipelagos, islets, and freestanding rocks. Among the most important of these are the archipelagos of Cíes, Ons, and Sálvora. Together with Cortegada Island, these make up the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. Other significant islands are Islas Malveiras, Islas Sisargas, and, the largest and holding the largest population, Arousa Island.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The coast of this 'green corner' of the Iberian Peninsula, some 1,500 km (930 mi) in length, attracts great numbers of tourists, although real estate development in the 2000–2010 decade has degraded it partially.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Galicia is quite mountainous, a fact which has contributed to isolate the rural areas, hampering communications, most notably in the inland. The main mountain range is the Macizo Galaico (Serra do Eixe, Serra da Lastra, Serra do Courel), also known as Macizo Galaico-Leonés, located in the eastern parts, bordering with Castile and León. Noteworthy mountain ranges are O Xistral (northern Lugo), the Serra dos Ancares (on the border with León and Asturias), O Courel (on the border with León), O Eixe (the border between Ourense and Zamora), Serra de Queixa (in the center of Ourense province), O Faro (the border between Lugo and Pontevedra), Cova da Serpe (border of Lugo and A Coruña), Montemaior (A Coruña), Montes do Testeiro, Serra do Suído, and Faro de Avión (between Pontevedra and Ourense); and, to the south, A Peneda, O Xurés and O Larouco, all on the border of Ourense and Portugal.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The highest point in Galicia is Trevinca or Pena Trevinca (2,124 metres or 6,969 feet), located in the Serra do Eixe, at the border between Ourense and León and Zamora provinces. Other tall peaks are Pena Survia (2,112 metres or 6,929 feet) in the Serra do Eixe, O Mustallar (1,935 metres or 6,348 feet) in Os Ancares, and Cabeza de Manzaneda (1,782 metres or 5,846 feet) in Serra de Queixa, where there is a ski resort.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Galicia is poetically known as the \"country of the thousand rivers\" (\"o país dos mil ríos\"). The largest and most important of these rivers is the Miño, poetically known as O Pai Miño (Father Miño), which is 307.5 km (191.1 mi) long and discharges 419 m (548 cu yd) per second, with its affluent the Sil, which has created a spectacular canyon. Most of the rivers in the inland are tributaries of this river system, which drains some 17,027 km (6,574 sq mi). Other rivers run directly into the Atlantic Ocean or the Cantabrian Sea, most of them having short courses. Only the Navia, Ulla, Tambre, and Limia have courses longer than 100 km (62 mi).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Galicia's many hydroelectric dams take advantage of the steep, deep, narrow rivers and their canyons. Due to their steep course, few of Galicia's rivers are navigable, other than the lower portion of the Miño and the portions of various rivers that have been dammed into reservoirs. Some rivers are navigable by small boats in their lower reaches: this is taken great advantage of in several semi-aquatic festivals and pilgrimages.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Galicia has preserved some of its dense forests. It is relatively unpolluted, and its landscapes composed of green hills, cliffs, and rias are generally different from what is commonly understood as Spanish landscape. Nevertheless, Galicia has some important environmental problems.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Deforestation and forest fires are a problem in many areas, as is the continual spread of the eucalyptus tree, a species imported from Australia, actively promoted by the paper industry since the mid-20th century. Galicia is one of the more forested areas of Spain, but the majority of Galicia's plantations, usually growing eucalyptus or pine, lack any formal management. Massive eucalyptus plantation, especially of Eucalyptus globulus, began in the Francisco Franco era, largely on behalf of the paper company Empresa Nacional de Celulosas de España (ENCE) in Pontevedra, which wanted it for its pulp. Galician photographer Delmi Álvarez began documenting the fires in Galicia in 2006 in a project called Queiman Galiza (Burn Galicia).. Wood products figure significantly in Galicia's economy. Apart from tree plantations, Galicia is also notable for the extensive surface occupied by meadows used for animal husbandry, especially cattle, an important activity. Hydroelectric development in most rivers has been a serious concern for local conservationists during the last decades.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Fauna, most notably the European wolf, has suffered because of the actions of livestock owners and farmers, and because of the loss of habitats, whilst the native deer species have declined because of hunting and development.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Oil spills are a major issue. The Prestige oil spill in 2002 spilled more oil than the Exxon Valdez in Alaska.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Galicia has more than 2,800 plant species and 31 endemic plant taxa. Plantations and mixed forests of eucalyptus predominate in the west and north; a few oak forests (variously known locally as fragas or devesas) remain, particularly in the north-central part of the province of Lugo and the north of the province of A Coruña (Fragas do Eume). In the interior regions of the country, oak and bushland predominate. Galicia has 262 inventoried species of vertebrates, including 12 species of freshwater fish, 15 amphibians, 24 reptiles, 152 birds, and 59 mammals.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The animals most often thought of as being \"typical\" of Galicia are the livestock raised there. The Galician horse is native to the region, as is the Galician Blond cow and the domestic fowl known as the galiña de Mos. The last is an endangered species, although it is showing signs of a comeback since 2001.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Galicia is home to one of the largest populations of wolves in western Europe. Galicia's woodlands and mountains are also home to rabbits, hares, wild boars, and roe deer, all of which are popular with hunters. Several important bird migration routes pass through Galicia, and some of the community's relatively few environmentally protected areas are Special Protection Areas (such as on the Ría de Ribadeo) for these birds. From a domestic point of view, Galicia has been credited by the author Manuel Rivas as the \"land of one million cows\". Galician Blond and Holstein cattle coexist on meadows and farms.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Being located on the Atlantic coastline, Galicia has a very mild climate for the latitude and the marine influence affects most of the province to various degrees. In comparison to similar latitudes on the other side of the Atlantic, winters are exceptionally mild, with consistent rainfall. At sea level snow is exceptional, with temperatures just occasionally dropping below freezing; on the other hand, snow regularly falls in the eastern mountains from November to May. Overall, the climate of Galicia is comparable to the Pacific Northwest; the warmest coastal station of Pontevedra has a yearly mean temperature of 14.8 °C (58.6 °F). Ourense located somewhat inland is only slightly warmer with 14.9 °C (58.8 °F). Lugo, to the north, is colder, with 12 °C (54 °F), similar to the 12.45 °C (54.41 °F) of Portland, Oregon.",
"title": "Climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In coastal areas summers are tempered, with daily maximums averaging around 25 °C (77 °F) in Vigo. Temperatures are further cooler in A Coruña, with a subdued 22.8 °C (73.0 °F) normal. Temperatures are much higher in inland areas such as Ourense, where days above 30 °C (86 °F) are regular.",
"title": "Climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The lands of Galicia are ascribed to two different areas in the Köppen climate classification: a south area (roughly, the province of Ourense and Pontevedra) with appreciable summer drought, classified as a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb), with mild temperatures and rainfall usual throughout the year; and the western and northern coastal regions, the provinces of Lugo and A Coruña, which are characterized by their Oceanic climate (Cfb), with a more uniform precipitation distribution along the year, and milder summers. However, precipitation in southern coastal areas are often classified as oceanic since the averages remain significantly higher than a typical Mediterranean climate.",
"title": "Climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "As an example, Santiago de Compostela, the capital city, has an average of 129 rainy days (> 1 mm) and 1,362 millimetres (53.6 in) per year (with just 17 rainy days in the three summer months) and 2,101 sunlight hours per year, with just 6 days with frosts per year. But the colder city of Lugo, to the east, has an average of 1,759 sunlight hours per year, 117 days with precipitations (> 1 mm) totalling 901.54 millimetres (35.5 in), and 40 days with frosts per year. The more mountainous parts of the provinces of Ourense and Lugo receive significant snowfall during the winter months. The sunniest city is Pontevedra with 2,223 sunny hours per year.",
"title": "Climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Climate data for some locations in Galicia (average 1981–2010):",
"title": "Climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Galicia has partial self-governance, in the form of a devolved government, established on 16 March 1978 and reinforced by the Galician Statute of Autonomy, ratified on 28 April 1981. There are three branches of government: the executive branch, the Xunta de Galicia, consisting of the President and the other independently elected councillors; the legislative branch consisting of the Galician Parliament; and the judicial branch consisting of the High Court of Galicia and lower courts.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The Xunta de Galicia is a collective entity with executive and administrative power. It consists of the President, a vice president, and twelve councillors. Administrative power is largely delegated to dependent bodies. The Xunta also coordinates the activities of the provincial councils (Galician: deputacións) located in A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The President of the Xunta directs and coordinates the actions of the Xunta. The president is simultaneously the representative of the autonomous community and of the Spanish state in Galicia. The president is a member of the parliament and is elected by its deputies and then formally named by the monarch of Spain.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Galician Parliament consists of 75 deputies elected by universal adult suffrage under a system of proportional representation. The franchise includes also Galicians who reside abroad. Elections occur every four years.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The last elections, held 12 July 2020, resulted in the following distribution of seats:",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "There are 314 municipalities (Galician: concellos) in Galicia, each of which is run by a mayor–council government known as a concello.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "There is a further subdivision of local government known as an Entidade local menor; each has its own council (xunta veciñal) and mayor (alcalde da aldea). There are nine of these in Galicia: Arcos da Condesa, Bembrive, Camposancos, Chenlo, Morgadáns, Pazos de Reis, Queimadelos, Vilasobroso and Berán.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Galicia is also traditionally subdivided in some 3,700 civil parishes, each one comprising one or more vilas (towns), aldeas (villages), lugares (hamlets) or barrios (neighbourhoods).",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Galicia's interests are represented at the national level by 25 elected deputies in the Congress of Deputies and 19 senators in the Senate – of these, 16 are elected and 3 are appointed by the Galician parliament.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Before the 1833 territorial division of Spain, Galicia was divided into seven administrative provinces:",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "From 1833, the seven original provinces of the 15th century were consolidated into four:",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Galicia is further divided into 53 comarcas, 315 municipalities (93 in A Coruña, 67 in Lugo, 92 in Ourense, 62 in Pontevedra) and 3,778 parishes. Municipalities are divided into parishes, which may be further divided into aldeas (\"hamlets\") or lugares (\"places\"). This traditional breakdown into such small areas is unusual when compared to the rest of Spain. Roughly half of the named population entities of Spain are in Galicia, which occupies only 5.8 percent of the country's area. It is estimated that Galicia has over a million named places, over 40,000 of them being communities.",
"title": "Government and politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Textiles, fishing, livestock, forestry, and car manufacturing are the most dynamic sectors of the Galician economy.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The companies based in the province of Coruña generate 70% of the entrepreneurial output of Galicia. Arteixo, an industrial municipality in the A Coruña metropolitan area, is the headquarters of Inditex, the world's largest fashion retailer. Of their eight brands, Zara is the best-known; indeed, it is the best-known Spanish brand of any sort on an international basis. For 2007, Inditex had 9,435 million euros in sales for a net profit of 1,250 million euros. The company president, Amancio Ortega, is the richest person in Spain and indeed Europe with a net worth of 45 billion euros.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "A major economic sector of Galicia is its fishing Industry; the main ports are A Coruña, Marín-Pontevedra, Vigo and Ferrol. Related to this fact, the European Fisheries Control Agency, which coordinates fishing controls in European Union waters, is based in Vigo.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Galicia is a land of economic contrast. While the western coast, with its major population centers and its fishing and manufacturing industries, is prosperous and increasing in population, the rural hinterland—the provinces of Ourense and Lugo—is economically dependent on traditional agriculture, based on small landholdings called minifundios. However, the rise of tourism, sustainable forestry, and organic and traditional agriculture are bringing other possibilities to the Galician economy without compromising the preservation of the natural resources and the local culture.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Traditionally, Galicia depended mainly on agriculture and fishing. Nonetheless, today the tertiary sector of the economy (the service sector) is the largest, with 582,000 workers out of a regional total of 1,072,000 (as of 2002).",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The secondary sector (manufacturing) includes shipbuilding in Vigo, Marín-Pontevedra and Ferrol, textiles and granite work in A Coruña. A Coruña also manufactures automobiles. The French Centro de Vigo de PSA Peugeot Citroën, founded in 1958, makes about 450,000 vehicles annually (455,430 in 2006); a Citroën C4 Picasso made in 2007 was their nine-millionth vehicle.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Other companies with a large number of workers and a significant turnover are San José, based in Pontevedra, belonging to the construction sector, and Gadisa and Vego, based in A Coruña and Froiz, based in Pontevedra, linked to the retail sector.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Galicia is home to the savings bank, and to Spain's two oldest commercial banks Banco Etcheverría (the oldest) and Banco Pastor, owned since 2011 by Banco Popular Español.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Galicia was late to catch the tourism boom that has swept Spain in recent decades, but the coastal regions (especially the Rías Baixas and Santiago de Compostela) are now significant tourist destinations and are especially popular with visitors from other regions in Spain, where the majority of tourists come from. In 2007, 5.7 million tourists visited Galicia, an 8% growth over the previous year, and part of a continual pattern of growth in this sector. 85% of tourists who visit Galicia visit Santiago de Compostela. Tourism constitutes 12% of Galician GDP and employs about 12% of the regional workforce.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the autonomous community was 62.6 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 5.2% of Spanish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 24,900 euros or 82% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 95% of the EU average.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The unemployment rate stood at 15.7% in 2017 and was lower than the national average.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Galicia's main airport is Santiago de Compostela Airport. Having been used by 2,083,873 passengers in 2014, it connects the Galician capital with cities in Spain as well as several major European cities. There are two other domestic airports in Galicia: A Coruña Airport – Alvedro and Vigo-Peinador Airport.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The most important Galician fishing port is the Port of Vigo; It is one of the European's leading fishing ports, with an annual catch worth 1,500 million euros. In 2007 the port took in 732,951 metric tons (721,375 long tons; 807,940 short tons) of fish and seafood, and about 4,000,000 metric tons (3,900,000 long tons; 4,400,000 short tons) of other cargoes. Other important ports are A Coruña, Marín-Pontevedra, Ferrol and the smaller port of Vilagarcía de Arousa, as well as important recreational ports in Pontevedra capital city and Burela. Beyond these, Galicia has 120 other organized ports.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The Galician road network includes autopistas and autovías connecting the major cities, as well as national and secondary roads to the rest of the municipalities. The Autovía A-6 connects A Coruña and Lugo to Madrid, entering Galicia at Pedrafita do Cebreiro. The Autovía A-52 connects O Porriño, Ourense and Benavente, and enters Galicia at A Gudiña. Two more autovías are under construction. Autovía A-8 enters Galicia on the Cantabrian coast, and ends in Baamonde (Lugo province). Autovía A-76 enters Galicia in Valdeorras; it is an upgrade of the existing N-120 to Ourense.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Within Galicia are the Autopista AP-9 from Ferrol to Portugal and the Autopista AP-53 (also known as AG-53, because it was initially built by the Xunta de Galicia) from Santiago to Ourense. Additional roads under construction include Autovía A-54 from Santiago de Compostela to Lugo, the Autovía A-57 that will pass through Pontevedra and Autovía A-56 from Lugo to Ourense. The Xunta de Galicia has built roads connecting comarcal capitals, such as the before mentioned AG-53, Autovía AG-55 connecting A Coruña to Carballo or AG-41 connecting Pontevedra to Sanxenxo.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The first railway line in Galicia was inaugurated on 15 September 1873. It ran from O Carril, Vilagarcía da Arousa to Cornes, Conxo, Santiago de Compostela. A second line was inaugurated in 1875, connecting A Coruña and Lugo. In 1883, Galicia was first connected by rail to the rest of Spain, by way of O Barco de Valdeorras. Galicia today has roughly 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) of rail lines. Several 1,668 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) Iberian gauge lines operated by Adif and Renfe Operadora connect all the important Galician cities. A 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge line operated by FEVE connects Ferrol to Ribadeo and Oviedo. An old electrified line is the Ponferrada-Monforte de Lemos-Ourense-Vigo line. Several high-speed rail lines are under construction. Among these are the Olmedo-Zamora-Galicia high-speed rail line that opened partly in 2011, and the AVE Atlantic Axis route, which will connect all of the major Galician Atlantic coast cities A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo to Portugal.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Galicia's inhabitants are known as Galicians (Galician: galegos, Spanish: gallegos). For well over a century Galicia has grown more slowly than the rest of Spain, due largely to a poorer economy compared with other regions of Spain and emigration to Latin America and to other parts of Spain. Sometimes Galicia has lost population in absolute terms. In 1857, Galicia had Spain's densest population and constituted 11.5% of the national population. As of 2007, only 6.1% of the Spanish population resided in the autonomous community. This is due to an exodus of Galician people since the 19th century, first to South America and later to Central Europe and the development of population centers and industry in other parts of Spain.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "According to the 2006 census, Galicia has a fertility rate of 1.03 children per woman, compared to 1.38 nationally, and far below the figure of 2.1 that represents a stable populace. Lugo and Ourense provinces have the lowest fertility rates in Spain, 0.88 and 0.93, respectively.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In northern Galicia, the A Coruña-Ferrol metropolitan area has become increasingly dominant in terms of population. The population of the city of A Coruña in 1900 was 43,971. The population of the rest of the province, including the City and Naval Station of nearby Ferrol and Santiago de Compostela, was 653,556. A Coruña's growth occurred after the Spanish Civil War at the same speed as other major Galician cities, but since the revival of democracy after the death of Francisco Franco, A Coruña has grown at a faster rate than all the other Galician cities.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "During the mid-20th century, the population rapidly increased in A Coruña, Vigo, and to a lesser degree, other major Galician cities, such as Ourense, Pontevedra or Santiago de Compostela as the rural population declined after the Spanish Civil War: many villages and hamlets of the four provinces of Galicia disappeared or nearly disappeared during the same period. Economic development and mechanization of agriculture resulted in the fields being abandoned, and most of the population moved to find jobs in the main cities. The number of people working in the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the economy increased significantly.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Since 1999, the absolute number of births in Galicia has been increasing. In 2006, 21,392 births were registered in Galicia, 300 more than in 2005, according to the Instituto Galego de Estatística. Since 1981, the Galician life expectancy has increased by five years, thanks to a higher quality of life.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Galicia. In 2012, the proportion of Galicians that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 82.2%.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "As a Celtic region of Spain, Galicia has a tartan called Galicia National.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The principal cities are the four capitals A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo, Santiago de Compostela – the political capital and archiepiscopal seat – and the industrial cities Vigo and Ferrol.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "The largest conurbations are:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Like many rural areas of Western Europe, Galicia's history has been defined by mass emigration. Significant internal migration took place from Galicia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the industrialized Spanish cities of Barcelona, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Madrid. Other Galicians emigrated to Latin America – Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and Cuba in particular.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "The two cities with the greatest number of people of Galician descent outside Galicia are Buenos Aires, Argentina, and nearby Montevideo, Uruguay. Immigration from Galicia was so significant in these areas that Argentines and Uruguayans now commonly refer to all Spaniards as gallegos (Galicians).",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "During the Franco years, there was a new wave of emigration out of Galicia to other European countries, most notably to France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Many of these immigrant or expatriate communities have their groups or clubs, which they formed in the first decades of settling in a new place. The Galician diaspora is so widespread that websites such as Fillos de Galicia have been created in the 21st century to organize and form a network of ethnic Galicians throughout the world.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "After this, a third wave was a Spanish internal emigration to heavier industrialised areas of Spain, like the Basque Country or Catalonia.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The proportion of foreign-born people in Galicia is only 2.9 percent compared to the national figure of 10 percent; among the autonomous communities, only Extremadura has a lower percentage of immigrants. Of the foreign nationals resident in Galicia, 17.93 percent are the ethnically related Portuguese, 10.93 percent are Colombian and 8.74 percent Brazilian.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Galicia has two official languages: Galician (Galician: galego) and Spanish (also known in Spain as Castellano, i.e. \"Castilian\"), both of them Romance languages. The former (Galician) originated regionally; the latter (Castilian) was associated with Castile. Galician is recognized in the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia as the lingua propia (\"own language\") of Galicia.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Galician and Portuguese share a common medieval phase known as Galician-Portuguese. The independence of Portugal since the late Middle Ages has favored the divergence of the Galician and Portuguese languages as they developed. Though considered to be independent languages in Galicia, the shared history between Galician and Portuguese has been widely acknowledged; in 2014, the Galician parliament approved Law 1/2014 on the promotion of Portuguese and links with the Lusophony.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "The official Galician language has been standardized by the Real Academia Galega based on literary tradition. Although there are local dialects, Galician media conform to this standard form, which is also used in primary, secondary, and university education. There are more than three million Galician speakers in the world. Galician ranks in the lower orders of the 150 most widely spoken languages on earth.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "For more than four centuries of Castilian domination, Spanish was the only official language in Galicia. Galician faded from day-to-day use in urban areas. Since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain—in particular since the passage and implementation of the Lei de Normalización Lingüística (\"Law of Linguistic Normalization\", Ley 3/1983, 15 June 1983)—the first generation of students in mass education has attended schools conducted in Galician. (Spanish is also taught.)",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Since the late 20th century and the establishment of Galicia's autonomy, the Galician language is resurgent. In the cities, it is generally used as a second language for most. According to a 2001 census, 99.16 percent of the population of Galicia understood the language, 91.04 percent spoke it, 68.65 percent could read it and 57.64 percent could write it. The first two numbers (understanding and speaking) were roughly the same as responses a decade earlier. But there were great gains in the percentage of the population who could read and write Galician: a decade earlier, only 49.3 percent of the population could read Galician, and 34.85 percent could write it. During the Franco era, the teaching of Galician was prohibited. Today older people may speak the language but have no written competence because of those years. Among the regional languages of Spain, Galician has the highest percentage of speakers in its population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "The earliest known document in Galician-Portuguese dates from 1228. The Foro do bo burgo do Castro Caldelas was granted by Alfonso IX of León to the town of Burgo, in Castro Caldelas, after the model of the constitutions of the town of Allariz. A distinct Galician literature emerged during the Middle Ages: In the 13th century important contributions were made to the Romance canon in Galician-Portuguese, the most notable those by the troubadour Martín Codax, the priest Airas Nunes, King Denis of Portugal, and King Alfonso X of Castile, Alfonso O Sabio (\"Alfonso the Wise\"), the same monarch who began the process of standardization of the Spanish language. During this period, Galician-Portuguese was considered the language of love poetry in the Iberian Romance linguistic culture. The names and memories of Codax and other popular cultural figures are well preserved in modern Galicia.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Religion in Galicia (2019)",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Christianity is the most widely practised religion in Galicia. It was introduced in Late Antiquity and was practiced alongside the native Celtic religion for a few centuries which, incidentally, was re-established as an officially recognised religion in 2015. Still, today about 77.7% of Galicians identify as Catholic. Most Christians adhere to Catholicism, though only 32.1% of the population described themselves as active members.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "The Catholic Church in Galicia has had its primatial see in Santiago de Compostela since the 12th century. In fact, since the Middle Ages, the Galician Catholic Church has been organized into five dioceses: the Metropolitan see Santiago de Compostela, and four suffragan dioceses: Lugo, Ourense, Mondoñedo-Ferrol and Tui-Vigo. While in the 15th-century diocesan boundaries may have coincided with those of the civil province, this is no longer the case. The five dioceses of Galicia are subdivided into a total of 163 districts and 3,792 parishes. In a minority of cases, the parish priest is represented by an administrator.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The patron saint of Galicia is Saint James the Greater. According to Catholic tradition, his body was discovered in 814 near Compostela. After that date, the relics of Saint James attracted an extraordinary number of pilgrims. Since the 9th century these relics have been kept in the heart of the church – the modern-day cathedral – dedicated to him. There are many other Galician and associated saints; some of the best-known are: Saint Ansurius, Saint Rudesind, Saint Mariña of Augas Santas, Saint Senorina, Trahamunda and Froilan.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Galicia's education system is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Education and University Administration. 76% of Galician teenagers achieve a high school degree – ranked fifth out of the 17 autonomous communities.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "There are three public universities in Galicia: University of A Coruña with campuses in A Coruña and Ferrol, University of Santiago de Compostela with campuses in Santiago de Compostela and Lugo and the University of Vigo with campuses in Pontevedra, Ourense and Vigo.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Galicia's public healthcare system is the Servizo Galego de Saúde (SERGAS). It is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Health.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Hundreds of ancient standing stone monuments like dolmens, menhirs, and megalithic tumuli were erected during the prehistoric period in Galicia. Amongst the best-known are the dolmens of Dombate, Corveira, Axeitos of Pedra da Arca, and menhirs like the Lapa de Gargantáns. From the Iron Age, Galicia has a rich heritage based mainly on a great number of hill forts, few of them excavated like Baroña, Sta. Tegra, San Cibrao de Lás and Formigueiros among others. With the introduction of Ancient Roman architecture, there was a development of basilicas, castra, city walls, cities, villas, Roman temples, Roman roads, and the Roman bridge of Ponte Vella. It was the Romans who founded some of the first cities in Galicia like Lugo and Ourense. Perhaps the best-known examples are the Roman Walls of Lugo and the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "During the Middle Ages, many fortified castles were built by Galician feudal nobles to mark their powers against their rivals. Although most of them were demolished during the Irmandiño Wars (1466–1469), some Galician castles that survived are Pambre, Castro Caldelas, Sobroso, Soutomaior and Monterrei. The ecclesiastical architecture was raised early in Galicia, and the first churches and monasteries as San Pedro de Rocas began to be built in the 5th and 6th centuries. However, the most famous medieval architecture in Galicia had been using Romanesque architecture like most of Western Europe. Some of the greatest examples of Romanesque churches in Galicia are the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the Ourense Cathedral, Saint John of Caaveiro, Our Lady Mary of Cambre, and the Church of San Xoán of Portomarín among others. In the art of Galicia, the stone has a strong imprint, especially the granite, which served as a support from the prehistoric petroglyphs figures to the development of medieval art in the Galician Romanesque sculptures from Portico of Glory by Master Mateo, in Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Medieval splendor was followed, as in literature, by a few centuries of darkness (the Séculos escuros) until the arrival of the Compostela Baroque. In painting, the romanticism and impressionist-influenced landscapes of the 20th century were materialized by a generation of artists who died young, so they were called the \"Xeración Doente\" (Sick Generation). In the 20th century, the renovation came in the 20s by Os renovadores, and by the Atlántica group after the dictatorship.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "Galician cuisine often uses fish and shellfish. The empanada is a meat or fish pie, with a bread-like base, top, and crust with the meat or fish filling usually being in a tomato sauce including onions and garlic. Caldo galego is a hearty soup whose main ingredients are potatoes and a local vegetable named grelo (broccoli rabe). The latter is also employed in lacón con grelos, a typical carnival dish, consisting of pork shoulder boiled with grelos, potatoes, and chorizo. Centolla is the equivalent of king crab. It is prepared by being boiled alive, having its main body opened like a shell, and then having its innards mixed vigorously. Another popular dish is octopus, boiled (traditionally in a copper pot) and served on a wooden plate, cut into small pieces, and laced with olive oil, sea salt, and pimentón (Spanish paprika). This dish is called pulpo a la gallega or in Galician polbo á feira, which roughly translates as 'fair-style octopus', most commonly translated as 'Galician-style octopus'. There are several regional varieties of cheese. The best-known one is the so-called tetilla, named after its breast-like shape. Other highly regarded varieties include the San Simón cheese from Vilalba and the creamy cheese produced in the Arzúa-Ulloa area. A classical is filloas, crêpe-like pancakes made with flour, broth or milk, and eggs. When cooked at a pig slaughter festival, they may also contain the animal's blood. A famous almond cake called Tarta de Santiago (St. James' cake) is a Galician sweet specialty mainly produced in Santiago de Compostela and all around Galicia.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Galicia has 30 products with Denominación de orixe (D.O.), some of them with Denominación de Orixe Protexida (D.O.P.). D.O. and D.O.P. are part of a system of regulation of quality and geographical origin among Spain's finest producers. Galicia produces a number of high-quality Galician wines, including Albariño, Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Monterrei and Valdeorras. The grape varieties used are local and rarely found outside Galicia and Northern Portugal. Just as notably from Galicia comes the spirit Augardente—the name means burning water—often referred to as Orujo in Spain and internationally or as caña in Galicia. This spirit is made from the distillation of the pomace of grapes.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "The traditional music of Galicia and Asturias features highly distinctive folk styles that have some similarities with the neighboring area of Cantabria. The music is characterized by the use of bagpipes.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "As with many other Romance languages, Galician-Portuguese emerged as a literary language in the Middle Ages, during the 12th and 13th centuries, when a rich lyric tradition developed, followed by a minor prose tradition, whilst being the predominant language used for legal and private texts till the 15th century. However, in the face of the hegemony of Spanish, during the so-called Séculos Escuros (\"Dark Centuries\") from 1530 to the late 18th century, it fell from major literary or legal written use.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "As a literary language it was revived again during the 18th and, most notably, the 19th-century (Rexurdimento Resurgence) with such writers as Rosalía de Castro, Manuel Murguía, Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro, and Eduardo Pondal. In the 20th century, before the Spanish Civil War the Irmandades da Fala (\"Brotherhood of the Language\") and Grupo Nós included such writers as Vicente Risco, Ramón Cabanillas and Castelao. Public use of Galician was largely suppressed during the Franco dictatorship but has been resurgent since the restoration of democracy. Though written primarily in Castilian, several works by the Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela, notably Mazurka for Two Dead Men, are set in the author's native Galicia and make frequent allusions to Galician folklore, customs, and language. Other notable Galician authors who wrote mostly in Spanish, but always around Galician subjects, are Valle-Inclán, Wenceslao Fernández Flórez, Emilia Pardo Bazán and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester. Contemporary writers in Galician include Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín, Manuel Rivas, Chus Pato, and Suso de Toro.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "In 2015 only five corridas took place within Galicia. In addition, recent studies have stated that 92% of Galicians are firmly against bullfighting, the highest rate in Spain. Despite this, popular associations, such as Galicia Mellor Sen Touradas (\"Galicia Better without Bullfights\"), have blamed politicians for having no compromise to abolish it and have been very critical of local councils', especially those governed by the PP and PSOE, payment of subsidies for corridas. The province government of Pontevedra stopped the end of these subsidies and declared the province \"free of bullfights\". The province government of A Coruña approved a document supporting the abolition of these events.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Televisión de Galicia (TVG) is the autonomous community's public channel, which has broadcast since 24 July 1985 and is part of the Compañía de Radio-Televisión de Galicia (CRTVG). TVG broadcasts throughout Galicia and has two international channels, Galicia Televisión Europa and Galicia Televisión América, available throughout the European Union and the Americas through Hispasat. CRTVG also broadcasts a digital terrestrial television (DTT) channel known as tvG2 and is considering adding further DTT channels, with a 24-hour news channel projected for 2010.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "Radio Galega (RG) is the autonomous community's public radio station and is part of CRTVG. Radio Galega began broadcasting on 24 February 1985, with regular programming starting on 29 March 1985. There are two regular broadcast channels: Radio Galega and Radio Galega Música. In addition, there is a DTT and internet channel, Son Galicia Radio, dedicated specifically to Galician music.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Galicia has several free and community radio stations. Cuac FM is the headquarters of the Community Media Network (which brings together media non-profit oriented and serves their community). CUAC FM (A Coruña), Radio Filispim (Ferrol), Radio Roncudo (corme), Kalimera Radio (Santiago de Compostela), Radio Piratona (Vigo) and Radio Clavi (Lugo) are part of the Galician Network of Free and Association of Community Radio Broadcasters(ReGaRLiC)",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "The most widely distributed newspaper in Galicia is La Voz de Galicia, with 12 local editions and a national edition. Other major newspapers are El Correo Gallego (Santiago de Compostela), Faro de Vigo (Vigo), Diario de Pontevedra (Pontevedra), El Progreso (Lugo), La Región (Ourense), and Galicia Hoxe – The first daily newspaper to publish exclusively in Galician. Other newspapers are Diario de Ferrol, the sports paper DxT Campeón, El Ideal Gallego from A Coruña, the Heraldo de Vivero, Atlántico Diario from Vigo and the Xornal de Galicia.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "Galicia has a long sporting tradition dating back to the early 20th century when the majority of sports clubs in Spain were founded. The most popular and well-supported teams in the region are Deportivo de La Coruña and Celta Vigo. When the two sides play, it is referred to as the Galician derby. Deportivo was champion of La Liga in the 1999–2000 season.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "Pontevedra CF from Pontevedra and Racing Ferrol from Ferrol are two other notable clubs from Galicia as well as CD Lugo and SD Compostela. The Galician Football Federation periodically fields a national team against international opposition. This fact causes some political controversy because matches involving other national football teams different from the Spanish official national team threaten its status as the only national football team of the State. The policy of centralization in sport is very strong as it is systematically used as a patriotic device with which to build a symbol of the supposed unity of Spain which is a plurinational state.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Football aside, the most popular team sports in Galicia are futsal, handball and basketball. In basketball, Obradoiro CAB is the most successful team of note, and currently, the only Galician team that plays in the Liga ACB; other teams are CB Breogan, Club Ourense Baloncesto and OAR Ferrol. In the sport of handball, Club Balonmán Cangas plays in the top-flight (Liga ASOBAL). The sport is particularly popular in the province of Pontevedra with the three other Galician teams in the top two divisions: SD Teucro (Pontevedra), Octavio Pilotes Posada (Vigo) and SD Chapela (Redondela).",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "In roller hockey HC Liceo is the most successful Galician team, in any sport, with numerous European and World titles. In futsal teams, Lobelle Santiago and Azkar Lugo.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "Galicia is also known for its tradition of participation in water sports both at sea and in rivers; these include rowing, yachting, canoeing and surfing. Its athletes have regularly won medals in the Olympics; currently, the most notable examples are David Cal, Carlos Pérez Rial, and Fernando Echavarri.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "Galician triathlon contenders Francisco Javier Gómez Noya and Iván Raña have been world champions. In 2006 the cyclist Oscar Pereiro won the Tour de France after the disqualification of American Floyd Landis, gaining the top position on the penultimate day of the race. Galicians are also prominent athletes in the sport of mountaineering—Chus Lago is the third woman to reach the summit of Everest without supplemental oxygen.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "Since 2011, several Gaelic football teams have been set up in Galicia. The first was Fillos de Breogán (A Coruña), followed Artabros (Oleiros), Irmandinhos (A Estrada), SDG Corvos (Pontevedra), and Suebia (Santiago de Compostela) with talk of creating a Galician league. Galicia also fielded a Gaelic football side (recognised as national by the GAA) that beat Brittany in July 2012 and was reported in the Spanish nationwide press.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "Rugby is growing in popularity, although the success of local teams is hampered by the absence of experienced ex-pat players from English-speaking countries typically seen at teams based on the Mediterranean coast or in the big cities. Galicia has a long-established Rugby Federation that organises its own women's, children's, and men's leagues. Galicia has also fielded a national side for friendly matches against other regions of Spain and Portugal. A team of ex-pat Galicians in Salvador, Brazil have also formed Galicia Rugby, a sister team of the local football club.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "A golden chalice enclosed in a field of azure has been the symbol of Galicia since the 13th century. Originated as a Canting arms due to the phonetic similarity between the words \"chalice\" and Galyce (\"Galicia\" in old Norman language), the first documented mention of this emblem is on the Segar's Roll, an English medieval roll of arms where are represented all the Christian kingdoms of 13th-century Europe. In the following centuries, the Galician emblem was variating; diverse shapes and several chalices (initially three and later one or five), would not be until the 16th century that its number was fixed finally as one single chalice. Centuries after, a field of crosses was slowly added to the azure background, and latterly also a silver host. Since then basically, the emblem of the kingdom would be kept until nowadays.",
"title": "Symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "The ancient flag of the Kingdom of Galicia was based mainly on its coat of arms until the 19th century. However, when in 1833 the Government of Spain decided to abolish the kingdom and divided it into four provinces, the Galician emblem, as well as the flag, lost its legal status and international validity. It would not be until the late 19th century that some Galician intellectuals (nationalist politicians and writers) began to use a new flag as a symbol of renewed national unity for Galicia. That flag, which was composed of a diagonal stripe over a white background, was designated the \"official flag of Galicia\" in 1984, after the fall of Franco's dictatorship. In addition, the Royal Academy of Galicia asked the Galician government to incorporate the ancient coat of arms of the kingdom onto the modern flag, being present in it since then.",
"title": "Symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "In addition to its coat of arms and flag, Galicia also has its own anthem. While it is true that the Kingdom of Galicia had during centuries a kind of unofficial anthem known as the \"Solemn March of the kingdom\", the Galician current anthem was not created until 1907, although its composition had begun already in 1880. Titled \"Os Pinos\" (\"The Pines\"), the Galician anthem lyrics were written by Eduardo Pondal, one of the greatest modern Galician poets, and its music was composed by Pascual Veiga. Performed for the first time in 1907 in Havana (Cuba) by Galician emigrants, the anthem was banned from 1927 by diverse Spanish Governments until 1977 when it was officially established by the Galician authorities.",
"title": "Symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "Galicia Peak in Vinson Massif, Antarctica is named after the autonomous community of Galicia.",
"title": "Honour"
}
]
| Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, and Pontevedra. Galicia is located in Atlantic Europe. It is bordered by Portugal to the south, the Spanish autonomous communities of Castile and León and Asturias to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Cantabrian Sea to the north. It had a population of 2,701,743 in 2018 and a total area of 29,574 km2 (11,419 sq mi). Galicia has over 1,660 km (1,030 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada Island, which together form the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, and the largest and most populated, A Illa de Arousa. The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic people living north of the Douro River during the last millennium BC. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, and was made a Roman province in the 3rd century AD. In 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga; this kingdom was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. In 711, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula conquering the Visigoth kingdom of Hispania by 718, but soon Galicia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom of Asturias by 740. During the Middle Ages, the kingdom of Galicia was occasionally ruled by its own kings, but most of the time it was leagued to the kingdom of Leon and later to that of Castile, while maintaining its own legal and customary practices and culture. From the 13th century on, the kings of Castile, as kings of Galicia, appointed an Adiantado-mór, whose attributions passed to the Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galiza from the last years of the 15th century. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, a royal tribunal and government body. From the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia. This institution was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four administrative provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and for the recognition of the culture of Galicia. This resulted in the Statute of Autonomy of 1936, soon frustrated by Franco's coup d'état and subsequent long dictatorship. After democracy was restored the legislature passed the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, approved in referendum and currently in force, providing Galicia with self-government. The interior of Galicia is characterized by a hilly landscape; mountain ranges rise to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly an alternate series of rias and beaches. The climate of Galicia is usually temperate and rainy, with markedly drier summers; it is usually classified as Oceanic. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicia's wealth for most of its history, allowing for a relatively high density of population. Except shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was based on a farming and fishing economy until after the mid-20th century, when it began to industrialize. In 2018, the nominal gross domestic product was €62.900 billion, with a nominal GDP per capita of €23,300. Galicia is characterised, unlike other Spanish regions, by the absence of a metropolis dominating the territory. Indeed, the urban network is made up of 7 main cities: the four provincial capitals A Coruña, Pontevedra, Ourense and Lugo, the political capital Santiago de Compostela and the industrial cities Vigo and Ferrol. The population is largely concentrated in two main areas: from Ferrol to A Coruña on the northern coast, and in the Rías Baixas region in the southwest, including the cities of Vigo, Pontevedra, and the interior city of Santiago de Compostela. There are smaller populations around the interior cities of Lugo and Ourense. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña. Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the largest municipality and A Coruña the most populated city in Galicia. Two languages are official and widely used today in Galicia: the native Galician; and Spanish, usually called Castilian. While most Galicians are bilingual, a 2013 survey reported that 51% of the Galician population spoke Galician most often on a day-to-day basis, while 48% most often used Spanish. | 2001-11-14T05:40:06Z | 2023-12-30T09:00:08Z | [
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12,841 | G protein | G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their activity is regulated by factors that control their ability to bind to and hydrolyze guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). When they are bound to GTP, they are 'on', and, when they are bound to GDP, they are 'off'. G proteins belong to the larger group of enzymes called GTPases.
There are two classes of G proteins. The first function as monomeric small GTPases (small G-proteins), while the second function as heterotrimeric G protein complexes. The latter class of complexes is made up of alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) subunits. In addition, the beta and gamma subunits can form a stable dimeric complex referred to as the beta-gamma complex .
Heterotrimeric G proteins located within the cell are activated by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that span the cell membrane. Signaling molecules bind to a domain of the GPCR located outside the cell, and an intracellular GPCR domain then in turn activates a particular G protein. Some active-state GPCRs have also been shown to be "pre-coupled" with G proteins, whereas in other cases a collision coupling mechanism is thought to occur. The G protein triggers a cascade of further signaling events that finally results in a change in cell function. G protein-coupled receptors and G proteins working together transmit signals from many hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signaling factors. G proteins regulate metabolic enzymes, ion channels, transporter proteins, and other parts of the cell machinery, controlling transcription, motility, contractility, and secretion, which in turn regulate diverse systemic functions such as embryonic development, learning and memory, and homeostasis.
G proteins were discovered in 1980 when Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell investigated stimulation of cells by adrenaline. They found that when adrenaline binds to a receptor, the receptor does not stimulate enzymes (inside the cell) directly. Instead, the receptor stimulates a G protein, which then stimulates an enzyme. An example is adenylate cyclase, which produces the second messenger cyclic AMP. For this discovery, they won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Nobel prizes have been awarded for many aspects of signaling by G proteins and GPCRs. These include receptor antagonists, neurotransmitters, neurotransmitter reuptake, G protein-coupled receptors, G proteins, second messengers, the enzymes that trigger protein phosphorylation in response to cAMP, and consequent metabolic processes such as glycogenolysis.
Prominent examples include (in chronological order of awarding):
G proteins are important signal transducing molecules in cells. "Malfunction of GPCR [G Protein-Coupled Receptor] signaling pathways are involved in many diseases, such as diabetes, blindness, allergies, depression, cardiovascular defects, and certain forms of cancer. It is estimated that about 30% of the modern drugs' cellular targets are GPCRs." The human genome encodes roughly 800 G protein-coupled receptors, which detect photons of light, hormones, growth factors, drugs, and other endogenous ligands. Approximately 150 of the GPCRs found in the human genome still have unknown functions.
Whereas G proteins are activated by G protein-coupled receptors, they are inactivated by RGS proteins (for "Regulator of G protein signalling"). Receptors stimulate GTP binding (turning the G protein on). RGS proteins stimulate GTP hydrolysis (creating GDP, thus turning the G protein off).
All eukaryotes use G proteins for signaling and have evolved a large diversity of G proteins. For instance, humans encode 18 different Gα proteins, 5 Gβ proteins, and 12 Gγ proteins.
G protein can refer to two distinct families of proteins. Heterotrimeric G proteins, sometimes referred to as the "large" G proteins, are activated by G protein-coupled receptors and are made up of alpha (α), beta (β), and gamma (γ) subunits. "Small" G proteins (20-25kDa) belong to the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but are in fact monomeric, consisting of only a single unit. However, like their larger relatives, they also bind GTP and GDP and are involved in signal transduction.
Different types of heterotrimeric G proteins share a common mechanism. They are activated in response to a conformational change in the GPCR, exchanging GDP for GTP, and dissociating in order to activate other proteins in a particular signal transduction pathway. The specific mechanisms, however, differ between protein types.
Receptor-activated G proteins are bound to the inner surface of the cell membrane. They consist of the Gα and the tightly associated Gβγ subunits. There are four main families of Gα subunits: Gαs (G stimulatory), Gαi (G inhibitory), Gαq/11, and Gα12/13. They behave differently in the recognition of the effector molecule, but share a similar mechanism of activation.
When a ligand activates the G protein-coupled receptor, it induces a conformational change in the receptor that allows the receptor to function as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) that exchanges GDP for GTP. The GTP (or GDP) is bound to the Gα subunit in the traditional view of heterotrimeric GPCR activation. This exchange triggers the dissociation of the Gα subunit (which is bound to GTP) from the Gβγ dimer and the receptor as a whole. However, models which suggest molecular rearrangement, reorganization, and pre-complexing of effector molecules are beginning to be accepted. Both Gα-GTP and Gβγ can then activate different signaling cascades (or second messenger pathways) and effector proteins, while the receptor is able to activate the next G protein.
The Gα subunit will eventually hydrolyze the attached GTP to GDP by its inherent enzymatic activity, allowing it to re-associate with Gβγ and starting a new cycle. A group of proteins called Regulator of G protein signalling (RGSs), act as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), are specific for Gα subunits. These proteins accelerate the hydrolysis of GTP to GDP, thus terminating the transduced signal. In some cases, the effector itself may possess intrinsic GAP activity, which then can help deactivate the pathway. This is true in the case of phospholipase C-beta, which possesses GAP activity within its C-terminal region. This is an alternate form of regulation for the Gα subunit. Such Gα GAPs do not have catalytic residues (specific amino acid sequences) to activate the Gα protein. They work instead by lowering the required activation energy for the reaction to take place.
Gαs activates the cAMP-dependent pathway by stimulating the production of cyclic AMP (cAMP) from ATP. This is accomplished by direct stimulation of the membrane-associated enzyme adenylate cyclase. cAMP can then act as a second messenger that goes on to interact with and activate protein kinase A (PKA). PKA can phosphorylate a myriad downstream targets.
The cAMP-dependent pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:
Gαi inhibits the production of cAMP from ATP. e.g. somatostatin, prostaglandins
Gαq/11 stimulates the membrane-bound phospholipase C beta, which then cleaves PIP2 (a minor membrane phosphoinositol) into two second messengers, IP3 and diacylglycerol (DAG). The Inositol Phospholipid Dependent Pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:
Small GTPases, also known as small G-proteins, bind GTP and GDP likewise, and are involved in signal transduction. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but exist as monomers. They are small (20-kDa to 25-kDa) proteins that bind to guanosine triphosphate (GTP). This family of proteins is homologous to the Ras GTPases and is also called the Ras superfamily GTPases.
In order to associate with the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, many G proteins and small GTPases are lipidated, that is, covalently modified with lipid extensions. They may be myristoylated, palmitoylated or prenylated. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their activity is regulated by factors that control their ability to bind to and hydrolyze guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). When they are bound to GTP, they are 'on', and, when they are bound to GDP, they are 'off'. G proteins belong to the larger group of enzymes called GTPases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "There are two classes of G proteins. The first function as monomeric small GTPases (small G-proteins), while the second function as heterotrimeric G protein complexes. The latter class of complexes is made up of alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) subunits. In addition, the beta and gamma subunits can form a stable dimeric complex referred to as the beta-gamma complex .",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Heterotrimeric G proteins located within the cell are activated by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that span the cell membrane. Signaling molecules bind to a domain of the GPCR located outside the cell, and an intracellular GPCR domain then in turn activates a particular G protein. Some active-state GPCRs have also been shown to be \"pre-coupled\" with G proteins, whereas in other cases a collision coupling mechanism is thought to occur. The G protein triggers a cascade of further signaling events that finally results in a change in cell function. G protein-coupled receptors and G proteins working together transmit signals from many hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signaling factors. G proteins regulate metabolic enzymes, ion channels, transporter proteins, and other parts of the cell machinery, controlling transcription, motility, contractility, and secretion, which in turn regulate diverse systemic functions such as embryonic development, learning and memory, and homeostasis.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "G proteins were discovered in 1980 when Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell investigated stimulation of cells by adrenaline. They found that when adrenaline binds to a receptor, the receptor does not stimulate enzymes (inside the cell) directly. Instead, the receptor stimulates a G protein, which then stimulates an enzyme. An example is adenylate cyclase, which produces the second messenger cyclic AMP. For this discovery, they won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Nobel prizes have been awarded for many aspects of signaling by G proteins and GPCRs. These include receptor antagonists, neurotransmitters, neurotransmitter reuptake, G protein-coupled receptors, G proteins, second messengers, the enzymes that trigger protein phosphorylation in response to cAMP, and consequent metabolic processes such as glycogenolysis.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Prominent examples include (in chronological order of awarding):",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "G proteins are important signal transducing molecules in cells. \"Malfunction of GPCR [G Protein-Coupled Receptor] signaling pathways are involved in many diseases, such as diabetes, blindness, allergies, depression, cardiovascular defects, and certain forms of cancer. It is estimated that about 30% of the modern drugs' cellular targets are GPCRs.\" The human genome encodes roughly 800 G protein-coupled receptors, which detect photons of light, hormones, growth factors, drugs, and other endogenous ligands. Approximately 150 of the GPCRs found in the human genome still have unknown functions.",
"title": "Function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Whereas G proteins are activated by G protein-coupled receptors, they are inactivated by RGS proteins (for \"Regulator of G protein signalling\"). Receptors stimulate GTP binding (turning the G protein on). RGS proteins stimulate GTP hydrolysis (creating GDP, thus turning the G protein off).",
"title": "Function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "All eukaryotes use G proteins for signaling and have evolved a large diversity of G proteins. For instance, humans encode 18 different Gα proteins, 5 Gβ proteins, and 12 Gγ proteins.",
"title": "Diversity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "G protein can refer to two distinct families of proteins. Heterotrimeric G proteins, sometimes referred to as the \"large\" G proteins, are activated by G protein-coupled receptors and are made up of alpha (α), beta (β), and gamma (γ) subunits. \"Small\" G proteins (20-25kDa) belong to the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but are in fact monomeric, consisting of only a single unit. However, like their larger relatives, they also bind GTP and GDP and are involved in signal transduction.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Different types of heterotrimeric G proteins share a common mechanism. They are activated in response to a conformational change in the GPCR, exchanging GDP for GTP, and dissociating in order to activate other proteins in a particular signal transduction pathway. The specific mechanisms, however, differ between protein types.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Receptor-activated G proteins are bound to the inner surface of the cell membrane. They consist of the Gα and the tightly associated Gβγ subunits. There are four main families of Gα subunits: Gαs (G stimulatory), Gαi (G inhibitory), Gαq/11, and Gα12/13. They behave differently in the recognition of the effector molecule, but share a similar mechanism of activation.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "When a ligand activates the G protein-coupled receptor, it induces a conformational change in the receptor that allows the receptor to function as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) that exchanges GDP for GTP. The GTP (or GDP) is bound to the Gα subunit in the traditional view of heterotrimeric GPCR activation. This exchange triggers the dissociation of the Gα subunit (which is bound to GTP) from the Gβγ dimer and the receptor as a whole. However, models which suggest molecular rearrangement, reorganization, and pre-complexing of effector molecules are beginning to be accepted. Both Gα-GTP and Gβγ can then activate different signaling cascades (or second messenger pathways) and effector proteins, while the receptor is able to activate the next G protein.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Gα subunit will eventually hydrolyze the attached GTP to GDP by its inherent enzymatic activity, allowing it to re-associate with Gβγ and starting a new cycle. A group of proteins called Regulator of G protein signalling (RGSs), act as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), are specific for Gα subunits. These proteins accelerate the hydrolysis of GTP to GDP, thus terminating the transduced signal. In some cases, the effector itself may possess intrinsic GAP activity, which then can help deactivate the pathway. This is true in the case of phospholipase C-beta, which possesses GAP activity within its C-terminal region. This is an alternate form of regulation for the Gα subunit. Such Gα GAPs do not have catalytic residues (specific amino acid sequences) to activate the Gα protein. They work instead by lowering the required activation energy for the reaction to take place.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Gαs activates the cAMP-dependent pathway by stimulating the production of cyclic AMP (cAMP) from ATP. This is accomplished by direct stimulation of the membrane-associated enzyme adenylate cyclase. cAMP can then act as a second messenger that goes on to interact with and activate protein kinase A (PKA). PKA can phosphorylate a myriad downstream targets.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The cAMP-dependent pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Gαi inhibits the production of cAMP from ATP. e.g. somatostatin, prostaglandins",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Gαq/11 stimulates the membrane-bound phospholipase C beta, which then cleaves PIP2 (a minor membrane phosphoinositol) into two second messengers, IP3 and diacylglycerol (DAG). The Inositol Phospholipid Dependent Pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Small GTPases, also known as small G-proteins, bind GTP and GDP likewise, and are involved in signal transduction. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but exist as monomers. They are small (20-kDa to 25-kDa) proteins that bind to guanosine triphosphate (GTP). This family of proteins is homologous to the Ras GTPases and is also called the Ras superfamily GTPases.",
"title": "Signaling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In order to associate with the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, many G proteins and small GTPases are lipidated, that is, covalently modified with lipid extensions. They may be myristoylated, palmitoylated or prenylated.",
"title": "Lipidation"
}
]
| G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their activity is regulated by factors that control their ability to bind to and hydrolyze guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). When they are bound to GTP, they are 'on', and, when they are bound to GDP, they are 'off'. G proteins belong to the larger group of enzymes called GTPases. There are two classes of G proteins. The first function as monomeric small GTPases, while the second function as heterotrimeric G protein complexes. The latter class of complexes is made up of alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) subunits. In addition, the beta and gamma subunits can form a stable dimeric complex referred to as the beta-gamma complex. Heterotrimeric G proteins located within the cell are activated by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that span the cell membrane. Signaling molecules bind to a domain of the GPCR located outside the cell, and an intracellular GPCR domain then in turn activates a particular G protein. Some active-state GPCRs have also been shown to be "pre-coupled" with G proteins, whereas in other cases a collision coupling mechanism is thought to occur. The G protein triggers a cascade of further signaling events that finally results in a change in cell function. G protein-coupled receptors and G proteins working together transmit signals from many hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signaling factors. G proteins regulate metabolic enzymes, ion channels, transporter proteins, and other parts of the cell machinery, controlling transcription, motility, contractility, and secretion, which in turn regulate diverse systemic functions such as embryonic development, learning and memory, and homeostasis. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-11-02T03:18:45Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_protein |
12,848 | Gary Gygax | Ernest Gary Gygax (/ˈɡaɪɡæks/ GHY-gaks; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, he and Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. The same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a D&D game (the "Dungeon Master") a rough script and ideas for how to run a game scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series.
After leaving TSR in 1986 over conflicts with its new majority owner, Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre Dangerous Journeys in 1992. He designed another gaming system, Lejendary Adventure, released in 1999. In 2005, Gygax was involved in the Castles & Crusades role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of D&D and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax.
Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, he had two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack; he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and died in March 2008 at 69. Following Gygax's funeral, many mourners adjourned to the nearby American Legion hall to play games. This impromptu game event has become known since as Gary Con 0, and since then gamers celebrate in Lake Geneva each March with a large role-playing game convention in Gygax's honor.
Gygax was born in Chicago, the son of Almina Emelie "Posey" (Burdick) and Swiss immigrant and former Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Ernst Gygax. He was named Ernest after his father, but was commonly known as Gary, the middle name given to him by his mother after the actor Gary Cooper. The family lived on Kenmore Avenue, close enough to Wrigley Field that he could hear the roar of the crowds watching the Chicago Cubs play. At age 7, he became a member of a small group of friends who called themselves the "Kenmore Pirates". In 1946, after the Kenmore Pirates were involved in a fracas with another gang of boys, his father decided to move the family to Posey's family home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Posey's family had settled in the early 19th century, and where Gary's grandparents still lived.
In this new setting, Gygax soon made friends with several of his peers, including Don Kaye and Mary Jo Powell. During his childhood and teen years, he developed a love of games and an appreciation for fantasy and science fiction literature. When he was five, he played card games such as pinochle and then board games such as chess. At age ten, he and his friends played the sort of make-believe games that eventually came to be called "live action role-playing games", with one of them acting as referee. His father introduced him to science fiction and fantasy through pulp novels. His interest in games, combined with an appreciation of history, eventually led Gygax to begin playing miniature war games in 1953 with his best friend, Don Kaye. As teenagers, Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers with a large collection of 54 mm and 70 mm figures, where they used "ladyfingers" (small firecrackers) to simulate explosions.
By his teens, Gygax had a voracious appetite for pulp fiction authors such as Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was a mediocre student, and in 1956, a few months after his father died, he dropped out of high school in his junior year. He joined the Marines, but after being diagnosed with walking pneumonia, he received a medical discharge and moved back home with his mother. From there, he commuted to a job as a shipping clerk with Kemper Insurance Co. in Chicago. Shortly after his return, a friend introduced him to Avalon Hill's new wargame Gettysburg. Gygax was soon obsessed with the game, often playing marathon sessions once or more a week. It was also from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hex mapping sheets available, which he then employed to design his own games.
About the same time that he discovered Gettysburg, his mother reintroduced him to Mary Jo Powell, who had left Lake Geneva as a child and just returned. Gygax was smitten with her and, after a short courtship, persuaded her to marry him, despite being only 19. This caused some friction with Kaye, who had also been wooing Mary Jo. Kaye refused to attend Gygax's wedding. Kaye and Gygax reconciled after the wedding.
The couple moved to Chicago where Gygax continued as a shipping clerk at Kemper Insurance. He found a job for Mary Jo there, but the company laid her off when she became pregnant with their first child. He also took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago.
Despite his commitments to his job, raising a family, school, and his political volunteerism, Gygax continued to play wargames. It reached the point that Mary Jo, pregnant with their second child, believed he was having an affair and confronted him in a friend's basement only to discover him and his friends sitting around a map-covered table.
In 1962, Gygax got a job as an insurance underwriter at Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. His family continued to grow, and after his third child was born, he decided to move his family back to Lake Geneva. Except for a few months he spent in Clinton, Wisconsin, after his divorce, and his time in Hollywood while he was the head of TSR's entertainment division, Lake Geneva was his home for the rest of his life.
By 1966, Gygax was active in the wargame hobby world and was writing many magazine articles on the subject. He learned about H. G. Wells's Little Wars book for play of military miniatures wargames and Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame book. Gygax later looked for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and used not only common six-sided dice, but dice of all five Platonic solid shapes, which he discovered in a school supply catalog.
Gygax cited as influences the fantasy and science fiction authors Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Vance, Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, A. Merritt, and H. P. Lovecraft.
In 1967, Gygax co-founded the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) with Bill Speer and Scott Duncan. The IFW grew rapidly, particularly by assimilating several preexisting wargaming clubs, and aimed to promote interest in wargames of all periods. It provided a forum for wargamers via its newsletters and societies, which enabled them to form local groups and share rules. In 1967, Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home; this event was later called "Gen Con 0". In 1968, he rented Lake Geneva's vine-covered Horticultural Hall for $50 (equivalent to $420 in 2022) to hold the first Lake Geneva Convention, also known as the Gen Con gaming convention. Gen Con is now one of North America's largest annual hobby-game gatherings. Gygax met Dave Arneson, the future co-creator of D&D, at the second Gen Con in August 1969.
I'm very fond of the Medieval period, the Dark Ages in particular. We started playing in the period because I had found appropriate miniatures. I started devising rules where what the plastic figure was wearing was what he had. If he had a shield and no armor, then he just has a shield. Shields and half-armor = half-armor rules; full-armor figure = full armor rules. I did rules for weapons as well.
Together with Don Kaye, Mike Reese, and Leon Tucker, Gygax created a military miniatures society called Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) in 1970, with its first headquarters in Gygax's basement. Shortly thereafter in 1970, Gygax and Robert Kuntz founded the Castle & Crusade Society of the IFW.
In October 1970, Gygax lost his job at the insurance company after almost nine years. Unemployed and now with five children—Ernest ("Ernie"), Lucion ("Luke"), Heidi, Cindy, and Elise—he tried to use his enthusiasm for games to make a living by designing board games for commercial sale. This proved unsustainable when he grossed only $882 in 1971 (equivalent to $6,373 in 2022). He began cobbling shoes in his basement, which provided him with a steady income and gave him more time for game development. In 1971, he began doing some editing work at Guidon Games, a publisher of wargames, for which he produced the board games Alexander the Great and Dunkirk: The Battle of France. Early that same year, Gygax published Chainmail, a miniatures wargame that simulated medieval-era tactical combat, which he had originally written with hobby-shop owner Jeff Perren. The Chainmail medieval miniatures rules were originally published in the Castle & Crusade Society's fanzine The Domesday Book. Guidon Games hired Gygax to produce a "Wargaming with Miniatures" series of games, and a new edition of Chainmail (1971) was the first book in the series. The first edition of Chainmail included a fantasy supplement to the rules. These comprised a system for warriors, wizards, and various monsters of nonhuman races drawn from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and other sources. For a small publisher like Guidon Games, Chainmail was relatively successful, selling 100 copies per month.
Gygax also collaborated on Tractics with Mike Reese and Leon Tucker, his contribution being the change to a 20-sided spinner or a coffee can with 20 numbered poker chips (eventually, 20-sided dice) to decide combat resolutions instead of the standard six-sided dice. He also collaborated with Arneson on the Napoleonic naval wargame Don't Give Up the Ship!
Dave Arneson briefly adapted the Chainmail rules for his fantasy Blackmoor campaign. In the fall of 1972, around late November, Arneson and friend David Megarry, inventor of the Dungeon! board game, traveled to Lake Geneva to showcase their respective games to Gygax, in his role as a representative of Guidon Games. Gygax saw potential in both games, and was especially excited by Arneson's role-playing game. Gygax and Arneson immediately started to collaborate on creating "The Fantasy Game", the role-playing game that evolved into Dungeons & Dragons.
Two weeks after Arneson's Blackmoor demonstration, Gygax had produced a 50-page set of rules, and was ready to try it on his two oldest children, Ernie and Elise, in a setting he called "Greyhawk". This group rapidly expanded to include Kaye, Kuntz, and eventually a large circle of players. Gygax sent the 50 pages of rules to his wargaming contacts and asked them to playtest the new game. Gygax and Arneson continued to trade notes about their respective campaigns. But the final draft contained changes not vetted by Arneson, and Gygax's vision differed on some rule details Arneson had preferred.
Based on the feedback he received, Gygax created a 150-page revision of the rules by mid-1973. Several aspects of the system governing magic in the game were inspired by fantasy author Jack Vance's The Dying Earth stories (notably that magic-users in the game forget the spells that they have learned immediately upon casting them and must re-study them in order to cast them again), and the system as a whole drew upon the work of authors such as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, Tolkien, Bram Stoker, and others. He asked Guidon Games to publish it, but the three-volume rule set in a labeled box was beyond the small publisher's scope. Gygax pitched the game to Avalon Hill, but it did not understand the concept of role-playing and turned down his offer.
By 1974, Gygax's Greyhawk group, which had started off with himself, Ernie Gygax, Don Kaye, Rob Kuntz, and Terry Kuntz, had grown to over 20 people, with Rob Kuntz becoming co-dungeon-master so that each of them could referee groups of only a dozen players.
Gygax left Guidon Games in 1973 and in October, with Don Kaye as a partner, founded Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR, Inc. The two men each invested $1,000 in the venture—Kaye borrowed his share on his life insurance policy—to print a thousand copies of the Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. They also tried to raise money by immediately publishing a set of wargame rules called Cavaliers and Roundheads, but sales were poor; when the printing costs for the thousand copies of Dungeons & Dragons rose from $2000 to $2500, they still did not have enough capital to publish it. Worried that the other playtesters and wargamers now familiar with Gygax's rules would bring a similar product to the market first, the two accepted an offer in December 1973 from gaming acquaintance Brian Blume to invest $2,000 in TSR to become an equal one-third partner. (Gygax accepted Blume's offer right away. Kaye was less enthusiastic, and after a week to consider the offer, he questioned Blume closely before acquiescing.) Blume's investment finally brought the financing that enabled them to publish D&D. Gygax worked on rules for more miniatures and tabletop battle games including Classic Warfare (Ancient Period: 1500 BC to 500 AD) and Warriors of Mars.
TSR released the first commercial version of D&D in January 1974 as a boxed set. Sales of the hand-assembled print run of 1,000 copies, put together in Gygax's home, sold out in less than a year. (In 2018, a first printing of the boxed set sold at auction for more than $20,000.)
At the end of 1974, with sales of D&D skyrocketing, the future looked bright for Gygax and Kaye, who were only 36. But in January 1975, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack. He had not made any specific provision in his will regarding his share of the company, simply leaving his entire estate to his wife Donna. Although she had worked briefly for TSR as an accountant, she did not share her husband's enthusiasm for gaming, and made clear that she would not have anything to do with managing the company. Gygax called her "less than personable... After Don died she dumped all the Tactical Studies Rules materials off on my front porch. It would have been impossible to manage a business with her involved as a partner." After Kaye's death, TSR was forced to relocate from Kaye's dining room to Gygax's basement. In July 1975, Gygax and Blume reorganized their company from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies. Gygax owned 150 shares, Blume the other 100 shares, and both had the option to buy up to 700 shares at any time in the future. But TSR Hobbies had nothing to publish—D&D was still owned by the three-way partnership of TSR, and neither Gygax nor Blume had the money to buy out Donna Kaye's shares. Blume persuaded a reluctant Gygax to allow his father, Melvin Blume, to buy Donna's shares, and those were converted to 200 shares in TSR Hobbies. In addition, Brian bought another 140 shares. These purchases reduced Gygax from majority shareholder in control of the company to minority shareholder; he effectively became the Blumes' employee.
Gygax wrote the supplements Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, and Swords & Spells for the original D&D game. With Brian Blume, he also designed the wild west-oriented role-playing game Boot Hill. The same year, Gygax created the magazine The Strategic Review with himself as editor. But wanting a more industry-wide periodical, he hired Tim Kask as TSR's first employee to change this magazine to the fantasy periodical The Dragon, with Gygax as writer, columnist, and publisher (from 1978 to 1981). The Dragon debuted in June 1976, and Gygax said of its success years later: "When I decided that The Strategic Review was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, and named the new publication he was to produce The Dragon, I thought we would eventually have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide ... At no time did I ever contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan."
In 1976, TSR moved out of Gygax's house into its first professional home, known as "The Dungeon Hobby Shop". Arneson was hired as part of the creative staff, but was let go after only ten months, another sign that Gygax and Arneson had creative differences over D&D.
The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, released in 1977, was an introductory version of the original D&D geared toward new players and edited by J. Eric Holmes. The same year, TSR Hobbies released a completely new and complex version of D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). The Monster Manual, released later that year, became the first supplemental rule book of the new system, and many more followed. AD&D's rules were not fully compatible with those of the D&D Basic Set and as a result, D&D and AD&D became distinct product lines. Splitting the game lines created a further rift between Gygax and Arneson; although Arneson received a 10% royalty on sales of all D&D products, Gygax refused to pay him royalties on AD&D books, claiming it was a new and different property. In 1979, Arneson sued TSR; they settled in March 1981 with the agreement that Arneson would receive a 2.5% royalty on all AD&D products, giving him a six-figure annual income for the next decade.
Gygax wrote the AD&D hardcovers Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, and Monster Manual II. He also wrote or co-wrote many AD&D and basic D&D adventure modules, including The Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, Isle of the Ape, and all seven of the modules later combined into Queen of the Spiders. In 1980, Gygax's long-time campaign setting Greyhawk was published in the form of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting folio, which was expanded in 1983 into the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting boxed set. Sales of the D&D game reached $8.5 million in 1980. Gygax also provided assistance on the Gamma World science fantasy role-playing game in 1981 and co-authored the Gamma World adventure Legion of Gold.
In 1979, a Michigan State University student, James Dallas Egbert III, allegedly disappeared into the school's steam tunnels while playing a live-action version of D&D. In fact, Egbert was discovered in Louisiana several weeks later, but negative mainstream media attention focused on D&D as the cause. In 1982, Patricia Pulling's son killed himself. Blaming D&D for her son's suicide, Pulling formed the organization B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) to attack the game and TSR. Gygax defended the game on a segment of 60 Minutes that aired in 1985. When death threats started arriving at the TSR office, he hired a bodyguard. Despite the negative publicity, or perhaps because of it, TSR's annual D&D sales increased in 1982 to $16 million, and in January 1983, The New York Times speculated that D&D might become "the great game of the 1980s" in the same manner that Monopoly was emblematic of the Great Depression.
Brian Blume persuaded Gygax to allow Brian's brother Kevin to purchase Melvin Blume's shares. This gave the Blume brothers a controlling interest, and by 1981, Gygax and the Blumes were increasingly at loggerheads over the company's management. Gygax's frustrations at work and increased prosperity from his generous royalties brought a number of changes to his personal life. He and Mary Jo had been active members of the local Jehovah's Witnesses, but others in the congregation already felt uneasy about Gygax's smoking and drinking; his connection to the "satanic" game D&D caused enough friction that the Gygaxes finally disassociated themselves from Jehovah's Witnesses. Continuing to resent the amount of time her husband spent "playing games", Mary Jo had begun to drink excessively, and the couple argued frequently. Gygax, who had started smoking marijuana when he lost his insurance job in 1970, started to use cocaine, and had a number of extramarital affairs. In 1983, the two had an acrimonious divorce.
At the same time, the Blumes, wanting to get Gygax out of Lake Geneva so they could manage the company without his "interference", split TSR Hobbies into TSR, Inc., and TSR Entertainment, Inc. Gygax became president of TSR Entertainment, Inc., and the Blumes sent him to Hollywood to develop TV and movie opportunities. He became co-producer of the licensed D&D cartoon series for CBS, which led its time slot for two years.
Newly single, Gygax took advantage of his time on the West Coast, renting an immense mansion, increasing his cocaine use, and spending time with several young starlets.
Because he was occupied with getting a movie off the ground in Hollywood, Gygax had to leave the day-to-day operations of TSR to Kevin and Brian Blume. In 1984, after months of negotiation, he reached an agreement with Orson Welles to star in a D&D movie, and John Boorman to act as producer and director. But almost at the same time, he received word that back in Lake Geneva, TSR had run into severe financial difficulties and Kevin Blume was shopping the company for $6 million.
Gygax immediately discarded his movie ambitions—his D&D movie was never made—and flew back to Lake Geneva. There, he discovered to his shock that although industry leader TSR was grossing $30 million, it was barely breaking even; it was in fact $1.5 million in debt and teetering on the edge of insolvency. After investigating, Gygax brought his findings to the five other company directors. (Since 1982, TSR, Inc. had conformed to the recommendations of the American Management Association by adding three "outside" directors to the board, increasing its size to six.) He charged that the financial crisis was due to Kevin Blume's mismanagement: excess inventory, overstaffing, too many company cars, and some questionable (and expensive) projects such as dredging up a 19th-century shipwreck. Gygax gained control and produced a new AD&D book, Unearthed Arcana, and a Greyhawk novel, Saga of Old City, featuring a protagonist called Gord the Rogue: both sold well. He hired a company manager, Lorraine Williams; in October 1985, having bought the Blumes' shares, she replaced Gygax as president and CEO, stating that Gygax would make no further creative contributions to TSR. Several of his projects were immediately shelved. Gygax took TSR to court in a bid to block the Blumes' sale of their shares to Williams, but lost.
Sales of D&D reached $29 million in 1985, but Gygax resigned all positions with TSR in October 1986, settling his disputes with TSR in December. By the terms of the settlement, he gave up his rights except to Gord the Rogue and to those D&D characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name (for example, Yrag and Zagyg).
Immediately after leaving TSR, Gygax was approached by a wargaming acquaintance, Forrest Baker, who had done some consulting work for TSR in 1983 and 1984. Tired of company management, Gygax was simply looking for a way to market more of his Gord the Rogue novels, but Baker had a vision for a new gaming company. He promised that he would handle the business end while Gygax would handle the creative projects. Baker also guaranteed that, using Gygax's name, he would be able to bring in one to two million dollars of investment. Gygax decided this was a good opportunity, and in October 1986, New Infinities Productions, Inc. (NIPI) was publicly announced. To help him with the creative work, Gygax poached Frank Mentzer and Dragon magazine editor Kim Mohan from TSR. But before a single product was released, Forrest Baker left NIPI when his promised outside investment of one to two million dollars failed to materialize.
Against his will, Gygax was back in charge again; he immediately looked for a quick product to get NIPI off the ground. He had retained the rights to Gord the Rogue as part of his severance agreement with TSR, so he licensed Greyhawk from TSR and started writing new novels beginning with Sea of Death (1987); sales were brisk, and Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels kept New Infinities in business.
Gygax brought in Don Turnbull from Games Workshop to manage the company, then worked with Mohan and Mentzer on a science fiction-themed RPG, Cyborg Commando, which was published in 1987. But sales of the new game were not brisk. As game historian Shannon Appelcline noted in 2014, the game was "seen as one of the biggest flops in the industry." Mentzer and Mohan wrote a series of generic RPG adventures, Gary Gygax Presents Fantasy Master, and began working on a third line of products, which began with an adventure written by Mentzer, The Convert (1987). He had written it as an RPGA tournament for D&D, but TSR was not interested in publishing it. Mentzer got verbal permission to publish it with New Infinities, but since the permission was not in writing TSR filed an injunction for a period to prevent the adventure's sale.
During all this drama, Gygax had a romantic relationship with Gail Carpenter, his former assistant at TSR. In November 1986, she gave birth to Gygax's sixth child, Alex. Biographer Michael Witwer believes Alex's birth forced Gygax to reconsider the equation of work, gaming and family that, until this time, had been dominated by work and gaming. "Gary, keenly aware that he had made mistakes as a father and husband in the past, was determined not to make them again ... Gary was also a realist, and knew what good fatherhood would demand, especially at his age." On August 15, 1987, on what would have been his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, Gygax married Carpenter.
During 1987 and 1988, Gygax worked with Flint Dille on the Sagard the Barbarian books, as well as Role-Playing Mastery and its sequel, Master of the Game. He also wrote two more Gord the Rogue novels, City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). But by 1988, TSR had rewritten the setting for the world of Greyhawk, and Gygax was not happy with the new direction in which TSR was taking "his" creation. In a literary declaration that his old world was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons.
With the Gord the Rogue novels finished, NIPI's main source of steady income dried up. The company needed a new product. Gygax announced in 1988 in a company newsletter that he and Rob Kuntz, his co-Dungeon Master during the early days of the Greyhawk campaign, were working as a team again. This time they would create a new multi-genre fantasy RPG called "Infinite Adventures", which would be supported by different gamebooks for different genres. This line would detail the Castle and City of Greyhawk as Gygax and Kuntz had originally envisioned them, now called "Castle Dunfalcon". Before work on this project could commence, NIPI ran out of money, was forced into bankruptcy, and dissolved in 1989.
After NIPI folded, Gygax decided to create an entirely new RPG called The Carpenter Project, one considerably more complex and "rule heavy" than his original and relatively simple D&D system, which had been encompassed by a mere 150 typewritten pages. He also wanted to create a horror setting for the new RPG called Unhallowed. He began working on the RPG and the setting with the help of games designer Mike McCulley. Game Designers' Workshop became interested in publishing the new system, and it also drew the attention of JVC and NEC, who were looking for a new RPG system and setting to turn into a series of computer games. NEC and JVC were not interested in horror though, and work on the Unhallowed setting was shelved in favour of a fantasy setting called Mythus. JVC also wanted a name change for the RPG, favoring Dangerous Dimensions over The Carpenter Project. Work progressed favourably until March 1992, when TSR filed an injunction against Dangerous Dimensions, claiming the name and initials were too similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax, with the approval of NEC and JVC, quickly changed the name to Dangerous Journeys.
The marketing strategy for Dangerous Journeys: Mythus was multi-pronged: in addition to the RPG and setting to be published by Game Designers' Workshop, and the Mythus computer game being prepared by NEC and JVC, there would also be a series of books based on the Mythus setting written by Gygax. So in addition to his work on the RPG and the Mythus setting, Gygax wrote three novels, released under publisher Penguin/Roc and later reprinted by Paizo Publishing: The Anubis Murders, The Samarkand Solution, and Death in Delhi.
In late 1992, the Dangerous Journeys RPG was released by Game Designers' Workshop, but TSR immediately applied for an injunction against the entire Dangerous Journeys RPG and the Mythus setting, arguing that Dangerous Journeys was based on D&D and AD&D. Although the injunction failed, TSR moved forward with litigation. Gygax believed the legal action was without merit and fuelled by Lorraine Williams' personal enmity, but NEC and JVC both withdrew from the project, killing the Mythus computer game. By 1994, the legal costs associated with many months of pretrial discovery had drained all of Gygax's resources; believing that TSR was also suffering, Gygax offered to settle. In the end, TSR paid Gygax for the complete rights to Dangerous Journeys and Mythus.
In 1995, Gygax began work on a new computer role-playing game called Lejendary Adventures. In contrast to the rules-heavy Dangerous Journeys, this new system was a return to simple and basic rules. Although he was not able to successfully release a Lejendary Adventures computer game, Gygax decided to instead publish it as a tabletop game.
Meanwhile, in 1996 the games industry was rocked by the news that TSR had run into insoluble financial problems and had been bought by Wizards of the Coast. While WotC was busy refocussing TSR's products, Christopher Clark of Inner City Games Designs approached Gygax in 1997 to suggest that they produce some adventures to sell in game stores while TSR was otherwise occupied; the result was a pair of fantasy adventures published by Inner City Games: A Challenge of Arms (1998) and The Ritual of the Golden Eyes (1999). Gygax introduced some investors to Clark's publication setup, and although the investors were not willing to fund publication of Legendary Adventures, Clark and Gygax formed a partnership called Hekaforge Productions. Gygax was thus able to return to publish Lejendary Adventures in 1999. The game was published as a three-volume set: The Lejendary Rules for All Players (1999), Lejend Master's Lore (2000) and Beasts of Lejend (2000).
The new owner of TSR, WotC's Peter Adkison, clearly did not harbor any of Lorraine Williams' ill-will toward Gygax: Adkison purchased all of Gygax's residual rights to D&D and AD&D for a six-figure sum. Although Gygax did not write any new supplements or books for TSR or WotC, he did agree to write the preface to the 1998 adventure Return to the Tomb of Horrors, a paean to Gygax's original AD&D adventure Tomb of Horrors. He also returned to the pages of Dragon Magazine, writing the "Up on a Soapbox" column from Issue #268 (January 2000) to Issue #320 (June 2004).
Gygax continued to work on Lejendary Adventures which he believed was his best work. However, sales were below expectation.
On June 11, 2001, Stephen Chenault and Davis Chenault of Troll Lord Games announced that Gygax would be writing books for their company. Gygax's early work for Troll Lord included a series of hardcover books that eventually came to be called "Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds"; the first was The Canting Crew (2002), a look at the roguish underworld. He also wrote World Builder (2003) and Living Fantasy (2003), generic game design books usable in many different settings. After the first four books in the series, Gygax stepped down from writing and took on an advisory role, though the series logo still carried his name. Troll Lord also published a few adventures as a result of their partnership with Gygax, including The Hermit (2002) an adventure intended for d20 and also for Lejendary Adventures.
By 2002, Gygax had given Christopher Clark of Hekaforge an encyclopaedic 72,000-word text describing the Lejendary Earth. Clark split the manuscript up into five books and expanded it, with each of the final books coming to about 128,000 words, giving Hekaforge a third Lejendary Adventures line to supplement the core rules and adventures. Hekaforge managed to publish the first two of those Lejendary Earth sourcebooks, Gazetteer (2002) and Noble Kings and Great Lands (2003), but by 2003 the small company was having financial difficulties. Clark had to ask Troll Lord Games to become an "angel" investor by publishing the three remaining Lejendary Adventures books.
On October 9, 2001, Necromancer Games announced that they would be publishing a d20 version of Necropolis, an adventure originally planned by Gygax for New Infinities Productions and later printed in 1992 as a Mythus adventure by GDW; Gary Gygax's Necropolis was published a year later.
Gygax also performed voiceover narration for cartoons and video games. In 2000, he voiced his own cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking and Nichelle Nichols. Gygax also performed as a guest Dungeon Master in the Delera's Tomb quest series of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach.
During his time with TSR, Gygax had often mentioned the mysterious Castle Greyhawk which formed the centre of his own home campaign. But despite all of his written output over the previous 30 years, Gygax had never published details of the castle. In 2003, Gygax announced that he was again partnering with Rob Kuntz to publish the original and previously unpublished details of Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk in 6 volumes, although the project would use the rules for Castles and Crusades rather than D&D. As Gygax wrote in an on-line forum:
I have laid out a new schematic of castle and dungeon levels based on both my original design of 13 levels plus side adjuncts, and the 'New Greyhawk Castle' that resulted when Rob and I combined our efforts and added a lot of new levels too. From that Rob will draft the level plans for the newest version of the work. Meantime, I am collecting all the most salient feature, encounters, tricks, traps, etc. for inclusion on the various levels. So the end result will be what is essentially the best of our old work in a coherent presentation usable by all DMs, the material having all the known and yet to be discussed features of the original work that are outstanding ... I hope."
Since Wizards of the Coast, which had bought TSR in 1997, still owned the rights to the name "Greyhawk", Gygax changed the name of Castle Greyhawk to "Castle Zagyg", a reverse homophone of his own name, and also changed the name of the nearby city to "Yggsburgh", a play on his initials "E.G.G."
The scale of the project was enormous: By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on their original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed 50 levels of cunningly complex passages with thousands of rooms and traps. This, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city, would clearly be too much to fit into the proposed 6 volumes. Gygax decided he would compress the castle dungeons into 13 levels, the size of his original Castle Greyhawk in 1973 by amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes. However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept careful or comprehensive plans. Because they had often made up details of play sessions on the spot, they usually just scribbled a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps. These sketchy maps had contained just enough detail that the two could ensure their independent work would dovetail. All of these old notes now had to be deciphered, 25-year-old memories dredged up as to what had happened in each room, and a decision made whether to keep or discard each new piece. Recreating the city too would be a challenge. Although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while still maintaining the "look and feel" of his original.
Due to creative differences, Kuntz backed out of the project, but created an adventure module that would be published at the same time as Gygax's first book. Gygax continued to painstakingly put Castle Zagyg together on his own, but even this slow and laborious process came to a complete halt when Gygax had a serious stroke in April 2004 and then another one a few weeks later. Although he returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output was reduced from 14-hour work days to only one or two hours per day. Finally in 2005, Castle Zagyg Part I: Yggsburgh, the first book in the six-book series, appeared. Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau (2005), the adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz. Jeff Talanian helped with the creation of the dungeon, eventually resulting in publication of the limited edition CZ9: The East Marks Gazetteer (2007).
That same year, Gygax was diagnosed with a potentially deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm. Doctors concurred that surgery was needed, but their estimates of success varied from 50% to 90%. With no firm medical consensus, Gygax came to believe that he would likely die on the operating table; he refused to consider surgery, although he realized that a rupture of the aneurysm – likely inevitable – would be fatal. In one concession to his condition, he switched from cigarettes, which he had smoked since high school, to cigars.
It wasn't until 2008 that Gygax was able to finish the second volume of six volumes, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, which described details of the castle above ground. The next two volumes were supposed to detail the dungeons beneath Castle Zagyg. However, before they could be written, Gygax died in March 2008. Three months after his death, Gygax Games – a new company formed by Gary's widow, Gail – withdrew all of the Gygax licenses from Troll Lord, and also from Hekaforge.
From an early age, Gygax hunted and was a target-shooter with both bow and gun. He was also an avid gun collector, and at various times owned a variety of rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
He was an avid football fan, supporting the Chicago Bears. Gygax married Mary Jo Powell on 14 September 1958, the couple later had 5 children; Ernie, Elise, Heidi, Cindy and Luke. Gygax and his first wife became Jehovah's Witnesses. Later Gygax would separate from that religion but remain a Christian, and a few months before he died he cited his favorite Bible verse Matthew 5:15–16. After his divorce Gygax married Gail Carpenter, one of his former TSR accountants, on 15 August 1987. Their son, Alex, was born in 1986.
Immediately after Gygax's 2008 funeral, mourners adjourned to Lake Geneva's American Legion Hall to play games in the deceased's honor. Members of his family served refreshments and played games with friends. This event inspired Luke Gygax to create a locally hosted game event around the date of his father's death. Years later, Gary Con is so well-attended a dozen Lake Geneva hotels must be utilized in order to serve the demand. The funeral day event is now regarded as Gary Con 0.
As the "father of role-playing games", Gygax received many awards, honors, and tributes related to gaming:
In 2008 Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, began the process to establish a memorial to her late husband in Lake Geneva. On March 28, 2011 the City Council of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, approved Gail Gygax's application for a site of memorial in Donian Park; however, the Gygax family was unable to raise the money at the time to complete the memorial during a 2012 funding campaign. The design of the monument is a stone castle look with medieval pole arms, a family crest and a dragon.
In 2014, with the approval of Gary's eldest son, Ernie, Epic Quest Publishing started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding for a museum dedicated to Gary featuring a gaming and event center and hall of fame for authors, artists, designers and game masters.
Lake Geneva mayor Charlene Klein proclaimed July 27, 2023 as "Gary Gygax Day", and on that day dedicated a lakeside park bench in his honor. In her proclamation she reminds residents that in 1983 TSR employed over 400 people, "over 6% of Lake Geneva's population at the time."
In 2000, Gygax voiced his cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, and Nichelle Nichols. Gygax appeared as his 8-bit self on Code Monkeys in 2007-8. Stephen Colbert, an avid D&D gamer in his youth, dedicated the last part of the March 5, 2008, episode of The Colbert Report to Gygax.
Numerous names in D&D, such as Zagyg, Ring of Gaxx, and Gryrax, are anagrams or alterations of Gygax's name. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ernest Gary Gygax (/ˈɡaɪɡæks/ GHY-gaks; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, he and Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. The same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called \"modules\" that gave a person running a D&D game (the \"Dungeon Master\") a rough script and ideas for how to run a game scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "After leaving TSR in 1986 over conflicts with its new majority owner, Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre Dangerous Journeys in 1992. He designed another gaming system, Lejendary Adventure, released in 1999. In 2005, Gygax was involved in the Castles & Crusades role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of D&D and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, he had two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack; he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and died in March 2008 at 69. Following Gygax's funeral, many mourners adjourned to the nearby American Legion hall to play games. This impromptu game event has become known since as Gary Con 0, and since then gamers celebrate in Lake Geneva each March with a large role-playing game convention in Gygax's honor.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Gygax was born in Chicago, the son of Almina Emelie \"Posey\" (Burdick) and Swiss immigrant and former Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Ernst Gygax. He was named Ernest after his father, but was commonly known as Gary, the middle name given to him by his mother after the actor Gary Cooper. The family lived on Kenmore Avenue, close enough to Wrigley Field that he could hear the roar of the crowds watching the Chicago Cubs play. At age 7, he became a member of a small group of friends who called themselves the \"Kenmore Pirates\". In 1946, after the Kenmore Pirates were involved in a fracas with another gang of boys, his father decided to move the family to Posey's family home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Posey's family had settled in the early 19th century, and where Gary's grandparents still lived.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In this new setting, Gygax soon made friends with several of his peers, including Don Kaye and Mary Jo Powell. During his childhood and teen years, he developed a love of games and an appreciation for fantasy and science fiction literature. When he was five, he played card games such as pinochle and then board games such as chess. At age ten, he and his friends played the sort of make-believe games that eventually came to be called \"live action role-playing games\", with one of them acting as referee. His father introduced him to science fiction and fantasy through pulp novels. His interest in games, combined with an appreciation of history, eventually led Gygax to begin playing miniature war games in 1953 with his best friend, Don Kaye. As teenagers, Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers with a large collection of 54 mm and 70 mm figures, where they used \"ladyfingers\" (small firecrackers) to simulate explosions.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "By his teens, Gygax had a voracious appetite for pulp fiction authors such as Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was a mediocre student, and in 1956, a few months after his father died, he dropped out of high school in his junior year. He joined the Marines, but after being diagnosed with walking pneumonia, he received a medical discharge and moved back home with his mother. From there, he commuted to a job as a shipping clerk with Kemper Insurance Co. in Chicago. Shortly after his return, a friend introduced him to Avalon Hill's new wargame Gettysburg. Gygax was soon obsessed with the game, often playing marathon sessions once or more a week. It was also from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hex mapping sheets available, which he then employed to design his own games.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "About the same time that he discovered Gettysburg, his mother reintroduced him to Mary Jo Powell, who had left Lake Geneva as a child and just returned. Gygax was smitten with her and, after a short courtship, persuaded her to marry him, despite being only 19. This caused some friction with Kaye, who had also been wooing Mary Jo. Kaye refused to attend Gygax's wedding. Kaye and Gygax reconciled after the wedding.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The couple moved to Chicago where Gygax continued as a shipping clerk at Kemper Insurance. He found a job for Mary Jo there, but the company laid her off when she became pregnant with their first child. He also took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Despite his commitments to his job, raising a family, school, and his political volunteerism, Gygax continued to play wargames. It reached the point that Mary Jo, pregnant with their second child, believed he was having an affair and confronted him in a friend's basement only to discover him and his friends sitting around a map-covered table.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1962, Gygax got a job as an insurance underwriter at Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. His family continued to grow, and after his third child was born, he decided to move his family back to Lake Geneva. Except for a few months he spent in Clinton, Wisconsin, after his divorce, and his time in Hollywood while he was the head of TSR's entertainment division, Lake Geneva was his home for the rest of his life.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "By 1966, Gygax was active in the wargame hobby world and was writing many magazine articles on the subject. He learned about H. G. Wells's Little Wars book for play of military miniatures wargames and Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame book. Gygax later looked for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and used not only common six-sided dice, but dice of all five Platonic solid shapes, which he discovered in a school supply catalog.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Gygax cited as influences the fantasy and science fiction authors Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Vance, Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, A. Merritt, and H. P. Lovecraft.",
"title": "Early life and inspiration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1967, Gygax co-founded the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) with Bill Speer and Scott Duncan. The IFW grew rapidly, particularly by assimilating several preexisting wargaming clubs, and aimed to promote interest in wargames of all periods. It provided a forum for wargamers via its newsletters and societies, which enabled them to form local groups and share rules. In 1967, Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home; this event was later called \"Gen Con 0\". In 1968, he rented Lake Geneva's vine-covered Horticultural Hall for $50 (equivalent to $420 in 2022) to hold the first Lake Geneva Convention, also known as the Gen Con gaming convention. Gen Con is now one of North America's largest annual hobby-game gatherings. Gygax met Dave Arneson, the future co-creator of D&D, at the second Gen Con in August 1969.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "I'm very fond of the Medieval period, the Dark Ages in particular. We started playing in the period because I had found appropriate miniatures. I started devising rules where what the plastic figure was wearing was what he had. If he had a shield and no armor, then he just has a shield. Shields and half-armor = half-armor rules; full-armor figure = full armor rules. I did rules for weapons as well.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Together with Don Kaye, Mike Reese, and Leon Tucker, Gygax created a military miniatures society called Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) in 1970, with its first headquarters in Gygax's basement. Shortly thereafter in 1970, Gygax and Robert Kuntz founded the Castle & Crusade Society of the IFW.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In October 1970, Gygax lost his job at the insurance company after almost nine years. Unemployed and now with five children—Ernest (\"Ernie\"), Lucion (\"Luke\"), Heidi, Cindy, and Elise—he tried to use his enthusiasm for games to make a living by designing board games for commercial sale. This proved unsustainable when he grossed only $882 in 1971 (equivalent to $6,373 in 2022). He began cobbling shoes in his basement, which provided him with a steady income and gave him more time for game development. In 1971, he began doing some editing work at Guidon Games, a publisher of wargames, for which he produced the board games Alexander the Great and Dunkirk: The Battle of France. Early that same year, Gygax published Chainmail, a miniatures wargame that simulated medieval-era tactical combat, which he had originally written with hobby-shop owner Jeff Perren. The Chainmail medieval miniatures rules were originally published in the Castle & Crusade Society's fanzine The Domesday Book. Guidon Games hired Gygax to produce a \"Wargaming with Miniatures\" series of games, and a new edition of Chainmail (1971) was the first book in the series. The first edition of Chainmail included a fantasy supplement to the rules. These comprised a system for warriors, wizards, and various monsters of nonhuman races drawn from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and other sources. For a small publisher like Guidon Games, Chainmail was relatively successful, selling 100 copies per month.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Gygax also collaborated on Tractics with Mike Reese and Leon Tucker, his contribution being the change to a 20-sided spinner or a coffee can with 20 numbered poker chips (eventually, 20-sided dice) to decide combat resolutions instead of the standard six-sided dice. He also collaborated with Arneson on the Napoleonic naval wargame Don't Give Up the Ship!",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Dave Arneson briefly adapted the Chainmail rules for his fantasy Blackmoor campaign. In the fall of 1972, around late November, Arneson and friend David Megarry, inventor of the Dungeon! board game, traveled to Lake Geneva to showcase their respective games to Gygax, in his role as a representative of Guidon Games. Gygax saw potential in both games, and was especially excited by Arneson's role-playing game. Gygax and Arneson immediately started to collaborate on creating \"The Fantasy Game\", the role-playing game that evolved into Dungeons & Dragons.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Two weeks after Arneson's Blackmoor demonstration, Gygax had produced a 50-page set of rules, and was ready to try it on his two oldest children, Ernie and Elise, in a setting he called \"Greyhawk\". This group rapidly expanded to include Kaye, Kuntz, and eventually a large circle of players. Gygax sent the 50 pages of rules to his wargaming contacts and asked them to playtest the new game. Gygax and Arneson continued to trade notes about their respective campaigns. But the final draft contained changes not vetted by Arneson, and Gygax's vision differed on some rule details Arneson had preferred.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Based on the feedback he received, Gygax created a 150-page revision of the rules by mid-1973. Several aspects of the system governing magic in the game were inspired by fantasy author Jack Vance's The Dying Earth stories (notably that magic-users in the game forget the spells that they have learned immediately upon casting them and must re-study them in order to cast them again), and the system as a whole drew upon the work of authors such as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, Tolkien, Bram Stoker, and others. He asked Guidon Games to publish it, but the three-volume rule set in a labeled box was beyond the small publisher's scope. Gygax pitched the game to Avalon Hill, but it did not understand the concept of role-playing and turned down his offer.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "By 1974, Gygax's Greyhawk group, which had started off with himself, Ernie Gygax, Don Kaye, Rob Kuntz, and Terry Kuntz, had grown to over 20 people, with Rob Kuntz becoming co-dungeon-master so that each of them could referee groups of only a dozen players.",
"title": "Wargames"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Gygax left Guidon Games in 1973 and in October, with Don Kaye as a partner, founded Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR, Inc. The two men each invested $1,000 in the venture—Kaye borrowed his share on his life insurance policy—to print a thousand copies of the Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. They also tried to raise money by immediately publishing a set of wargame rules called Cavaliers and Roundheads, but sales were poor; when the printing costs for the thousand copies of Dungeons & Dragons rose from $2000 to $2500, they still did not have enough capital to publish it. Worried that the other playtesters and wargamers now familiar with Gygax's rules would bring a similar product to the market first, the two accepted an offer in December 1973 from gaming acquaintance Brian Blume to invest $2,000 in TSR to become an equal one-third partner. (Gygax accepted Blume's offer right away. Kaye was less enthusiastic, and after a week to consider the offer, he questioned Blume closely before acquiescing.) Blume's investment finally brought the financing that enabled them to publish D&D. Gygax worked on rules for more miniatures and tabletop battle games including Classic Warfare (Ancient Period: 1500 BC to 500 AD) and Warriors of Mars.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "TSR released the first commercial version of D&D in January 1974 as a boxed set. Sales of the hand-assembled print run of 1,000 copies, put together in Gygax's home, sold out in less than a year. (In 2018, a first printing of the boxed set sold at auction for more than $20,000.)",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "At the end of 1974, with sales of D&D skyrocketing, the future looked bright for Gygax and Kaye, who were only 36. But in January 1975, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack. He had not made any specific provision in his will regarding his share of the company, simply leaving his entire estate to his wife Donna. Although she had worked briefly for TSR as an accountant, she did not share her husband's enthusiasm for gaming, and made clear that she would not have anything to do with managing the company. Gygax called her \"less than personable... After Don died she dumped all the Tactical Studies Rules materials off on my front porch. It would have been impossible to manage a business with her involved as a partner.\" After Kaye's death, TSR was forced to relocate from Kaye's dining room to Gygax's basement. In July 1975, Gygax and Blume reorganized their company from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies. Gygax owned 150 shares, Blume the other 100 shares, and both had the option to buy up to 700 shares at any time in the future. But TSR Hobbies had nothing to publish—D&D was still owned by the three-way partnership of TSR, and neither Gygax nor Blume had the money to buy out Donna Kaye's shares. Blume persuaded a reluctant Gygax to allow his father, Melvin Blume, to buy Donna's shares, and those were converted to 200 shares in TSR Hobbies. In addition, Brian bought another 140 shares. These purchases reduced Gygax from majority shareholder in control of the company to minority shareholder; he effectively became the Blumes' employee.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Gygax wrote the supplements Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, and Swords & Spells for the original D&D game. With Brian Blume, he also designed the wild west-oriented role-playing game Boot Hill. The same year, Gygax created the magazine The Strategic Review with himself as editor. But wanting a more industry-wide periodical, he hired Tim Kask as TSR's first employee to change this magazine to the fantasy periodical The Dragon, with Gygax as writer, columnist, and publisher (from 1978 to 1981). The Dragon debuted in June 1976, and Gygax said of its success years later: \"When I decided that The Strategic Review was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, and named the new publication he was to produce The Dragon, I thought we would eventually have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide ... At no time did I ever contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan.\"",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 1976, TSR moved out of Gygax's house into its first professional home, known as \"The Dungeon Hobby Shop\". Arneson was hired as part of the creative staff, but was let go after only ten months, another sign that Gygax and Arneson had creative differences over D&D.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, released in 1977, was an introductory version of the original D&D geared toward new players and edited by J. Eric Holmes. The same year, TSR Hobbies released a completely new and complex version of D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). The Monster Manual, released later that year, became the first supplemental rule book of the new system, and many more followed. AD&D's rules were not fully compatible with those of the D&D Basic Set and as a result, D&D and AD&D became distinct product lines. Splitting the game lines created a further rift between Gygax and Arneson; although Arneson received a 10% royalty on sales of all D&D products, Gygax refused to pay him royalties on AD&D books, claiming it was a new and different property. In 1979, Arneson sued TSR; they settled in March 1981 with the agreement that Arneson would receive a 2.5% royalty on all AD&D products, giving him a six-figure annual income for the next decade.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Gygax wrote the AD&D hardcovers Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, and Monster Manual II. He also wrote or co-wrote many AD&D and basic D&D adventure modules, including The Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, Isle of the Ape, and all seven of the modules later combined into Queen of the Spiders. In 1980, Gygax's long-time campaign setting Greyhawk was published in the form of the World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting folio, which was expanded in 1983 into the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting boxed set. Sales of the D&D game reached $8.5 million in 1980. Gygax also provided assistance on the Gamma World science fantasy role-playing game in 1981 and co-authored the Gamma World adventure Legion of Gold.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 1979, a Michigan State University student, James Dallas Egbert III, allegedly disappeared into the school's steam tunnels while playing a live-action version of D&D. In fact, Egbert was discovered in Louisiana several weeks later, but negative mainstream media attention focused on D&D as the cause. In 1982, Patricia Pulling's son killed himself. Blaming D&D for her son's suicide, Pulling formed the organization B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) to attack the game and TSR. Gygax defended the game on a segment of 60 Minutes that aired in 1985. When death threats started arriving at the TSR office, he hired a bodyguard. Despite the negative publicity, or perhaps because of it, TSR's annual D&D sales increased in 1982 to $16 million, and in January 1983, The New York Times speculated that D&D might become \"the great game of the 1980s\" in the same manner that Monopoly was emblematic of the Great Depression.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Brian Blume persuaded Gygax to allow Brian's brother Kevin to purchase Melvin Blume's shares. This gave the Blume brothers a controlling interest, and by 1981, Gygax and the Blumes were increasingly at loggerheads over the company's management. Gygax's frustrations at work and increased prosperity from his generous royalties brought a number of changes to his personal life. He and Mary Jo had been active members of the local Jehovah's Witnesses, but others in the congregation already felt uneasy about Gygax's smoking and drinking; his connection to the \"satanic\" game D&D caused enough friction that the Gygaxes finally disassociated themselves from Jehovah's Witnesses. Continuing to resent the amount of time her husband spent \"playing games\", Mary Jo had begun to drink excessively, and the couple argued frequently. Gygax, who had started smoking marijuana when he lost his insurance job in 1970, started to use cocaine, and had a number of extramarital affairs. In 1983, the two had an acrimonious divorce.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "At the same time, the Blumes, wanting to get Gygax out of Lake Geneva so they could manage the company without his \"interference\", split TSR Hobbies into TSR, Inc., and TSR Entertainment, Inc. Gygax became president of TSR Entertainment, Inc., and the Blumes sent him to Hollywood to develop TV and movie opportunities. He became co-producer of the licensed D&D cartoon series for CBS, which led its time slot for two years.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Newly single, Gygax took advantage of his time on the West Coast, renting an immense mansion, increasing his cocaine use, and spending time with several young starlets.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Because he was occupied with getting a movie off the ground in Hollywood, Gygax had to leave the day-to-day operations of TSR to Kevin and Brian Blume. In 1984, after months of negotiation, he reached an agreement with Orson Welles to star in a D&D movie, and John Boorman to act as producer and director. But almost at the same time, he received word that back in Lake Geneva, TSR had run into severe financial difficulties and Kevin Blume was shopping the company for $6 million.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Gygax immediately discarded his movie ambitions—his D&D movie was never made—and flew back to Lake Geneva. There, he discovered to his shock that although industry leader TSR was grossing $30 million, it was barely breaking even; it was in fact $1.5 million in debt and teetering on the edge of insolvency. After investigating, Gygax brought his findings to the five other company directors. (Since 1982, TSR, Inc. had conformed to the recommendations of the American Management Association by adding three \"outside\" directors to the board, increasing its size to six.) He charged that the financial crisis was due to Kevin Blume's mismanagement: excess inventory, overstaffing, too many company cars, and some questionable (and expensive) projects such as dredging up a 19th-century shipwreck. Gygax gained control and produced a new AD&D book, Unearthed Arcana, and a Greyhawk novel, Saga of Old City, featuring a protagonist called Gord the Rogue: both sold well. He hired a company manager, Lorraine Williams; in October 1985, having bought the Blumes' shares, she replaced Gygax as president and CEO, stating that Gygax would make no further creative contributions to TSR. Several of his projects were immediately shelved. Gygax took TSR to court in a bid to block the Blumes' sale of their shares to Williams, but lost.",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Sales of D&D reached $29 million in 1985, but Gygax resigned all positions with TSR in October 1986, settling his disputes with TSR in December. By the terms of the settlement, he gave up his rights except to Gord the Rogue and to those D&D characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name (for example, Yrag and Zagyg).",
"title": "TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Immediately after leaving TSR, Gygax was approached by a wargaming acquaintance, Forrest Baker, who had done some consulting work for TSR in 1983 and 1984. Tired of company management, Gygax was simply looking for a way to market more of his Gord the Rogue novels, but Baker had a vision for a new gaming company. He promised that he would handle the business end while Gygax would handle the creative projects. Baker also guaranteed that, using Gygax's name, he would be able to bring in one to two million dollars of investment. Gygax decided this was a good opportunity, and in October 1986, New Infinities Productions, Inc. (NIPI) was publicly announced. To help him with the creative work, Gygax poached Frank Mentzer and Dragon magazine editor Kim Mohan from TSR. But before a single product was released, Forrest Baker left NIPI when his promised outside investment of one to two million dollars failed to materialize.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Against his will, Gygax was back in charge again; he immediately looked for a quick product to get NIPI off the ground. He had retained the rights to Gord the Rogue as part of his severance agreement with TSR, so he licensed Greyhawk from TSR and started writing new novels beginning with Sea of Death (1987); sales were brisk, and Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels kept New Infinities in business.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Gygax brought in Don Turnbull from Games Workshop to manage the company, then worked with Mohan and Mentzer on a science fiction-themed RPG, Cyborg Commando, which was published in 1987. But sales of the new game were not brisk. As game historian Shannon Appelcline noted in 2014, the game was \"seen as one of the biggest flops in the industry.\" Mentzer and Mohan wrote a series of generic RPG adventures, Gary Gygax Presents Fantasy Master, and began working on a third line of products, which began with an adventure written by Mentzer, The Convert (1987). He had written it as an RPGA tournament for D&D, but TSR was not interested in publishing it. Mentzer got verbal permission to publish it with New Infinities, but since the permission was not in writing TSR filed an injunction for a period to prevent the adventure's sale.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "During all this drama, Gygax had a romantic relationship with Gail Carpenter, his former assistant at TSR. In November 1986, she gave birth to Gygax's sixth child, Alex. Biographer Michael Witwer believes Alex's birth forced Gygax to reconsider the equation of work, gaming and family that, until this time, had been dominated by work and gaming. \"Gary, keenly aware that he had made mistakes as a father and husband in the past, was determined not to make them again ... Gary was also a realist, and knew what good fatherhood would demand, especially at his age.\" On August 15, 1987, on what would have been his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, Gygax married Carpenter.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "During 1987 and 1988, Gygax worked with Flint Dille on the Sagard the Barbarian books, as well as Role-Playing Mastery and its sequel, Master of the Game. He also wrote two more Gord the Rogue novels, City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). But by 1988, TSR had rewritten the setting for the world of Greyhawk, and Gygax was not happy with the new direction in which TSR was taking \"his\" creation. In a literary declaration that his old world was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "With the Gord the Rogue novels finished, NIPI's main source of steady income dried up. The company needed a new product. Gygax announced in 1988 in a company newsletter that he and Rob Kuntz, his co-Dungeon Master during the early days of the Greyhawk campaign, were working as a team again. This time they would create a new multi-genre fantasy RPG called \"Infinite Adventures\", which would be supported by different gamebooks for different genres. This line would detail the Castle and City of Greyhawk as Gygax and Kuntz had originally envisioned them, now called \"Castle Dunfalcon\". Before work on this project could commence, NIPI ran out of money, was forced into bankruptcy, and dissolved in 1989.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "After NIPI folded, Gygax decided to create an entirely new RPG called The Carpenter Project, one considerably more complex and \"rule heavy\" than his original and relatively simple D&D system, which had been encompassed by a mere 150 typewritten pages. He also wanted to create a horror setting for the new RPG called Unhallowed. He began working on the RPG and the setting with the help of games designer Mike McCulley. Game Designers' Workshop became interested in publishing the new system, and it also drew the attention of JVC and NEC, who were looking for a new RPG system and setting to turn into a series of computer games. NEC and JVC were not interested in horror though, and work on the Unhallowed setting was shelved in favour of a fantasy setting called Mythus. JVC also wanted a name change for the RPG, favoring Dangerous Dimensions over The Carpenter Project. Work progressed favourably until March 1992, when TSR filed an injunction against Dangerous Dimensions, claiming the name and initials were too similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax, with the approval of NEC and JVC, quickly changed the name to Dangerous Journeys.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The marketing strategy for Dangerous Journeys: Mythus was multi-pronged: in addition to the RPG and setting to be published by Game Designers' Workshop, and the Mythus computer game being prepared by NEC and JVC, there would also be a series of books based on the Mythus setting written by Gygax. So in addition to his work on the RPG and the Mythus setting, Gygax wrote three novels, released under publisher Penguin/Roc and later reprinted by Paizo Publishing: The Anubis Murders, The Samarkand Solution, and Death in Delhi.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In late 1992, the Dangerous Journeys RPG was released by Game Designers' Workshop, but TSR immediately applied for an injunction against the entire Dangerous Journeys RPG and the Mythus setting, arguing that Dangerous Journeys was based on D&D and AD&D. Although the injunction failed, TSR moved forward with litigation. Gygax believed the legal action was without merit and fuelled by Lorraine Williams' personal enmity, but NEC and JVC both withdrew from the project, killing the Mythus computer game. By 1994, the legal costs associated with many months of pretrial discovery had drained all of Gygax's resources; believing that TSR was also suffering, Gygax offered to settle. In the end, TSR paid Gygax for the complete rights to Dangerous Journeys and Mythus.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 1995, Gygax began work on a new computer role-playing game called Lejendary Adventures. In contrast to the rules-heavy Dangerous Journeys, this new system was a return to simple and basic rules. Although he was not able to successfully release a Lejendary Adventures computer game, Gygax decided to instead publish it as a tabletop game.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Meanwhile, in 1996 the games industry was rocked by the news that TSR had run into insoluble financial problems and had been bought by Wizards of the Coast. While WotC was busy refocussing TSR's products, Christopher Clark of Inner City Games Designs approached Gygax in 1997 to suggest that they produce some adventures to sell in game stores while TSR was otherwise occupied; the result was a pair of fantasy adventures published by Inner City Games: A Challenge of Arms (1998) and The Ritual of the Golden Eyes (1999). Gygax introduced some investors to Clark's publication setup, and although the investors were not willing to fund publication of Legendary Adventures, Clark and Gygax formed a partnership called Hekaforge Productions. Gygax was thus able to return to publish Lejendary Adventures in 1999. The game was published as a three-volume set: The Lejendary Rules for All Players (1999), Lejend Master's Lore (2000) and Beasts of Lejend (2000).",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The new owner of TSR, WotC's Peter Adkison, clearly did not harbor any of Lorraine Williams' ill-will toward Gygax: Adkison purchased all of Gygax's residual rights to D&D and AD&D for a six-figure sum. Although Gygax did not write any new supplements or books for TSR or WotC, he did agree to write the preface to the 1998 adventure Return to the Tomb of Horrors, a paean to Gygax's original AD&D adventure Tomb of Horrors. He also returned to the pages of Dragon Magazine, writing the \"Up on a Soapbox\" column from Issue #268 (January 2000) to Issue #320 (June 2004).",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Gygax continued to work on Lejendary Adventures which he believed was his best work. However, sales were below expectation.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "On June 11, 2001, Stephen Chenault and Davis Chenault of Troll Lord Games announced that Gygax would be writing books for their company. Gygax's early work for Troll Lord included a series of hardcover books that eventually came to be called \"Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds\"; the first was The Canting Crew (2002), a look at the roguish underworld. He also wrote World Builder (2003) and Living Fantasy (2003), generic game design books usable in many different settings. After the first four books in the series, Gygax stepped down from writing and took on an advisory role, though the series logo still carried his name. Troll Lord also published a few adventures as a result of their partnership with Gygax, including The Hermit (2002) an adventure intended for d20 and also for Lejendary Adventures.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "By 2002, Gygax had given Christopher Clark of Hekaforge an encyclopaedic 72,000-word text describing the Lejendary Earth. Clark split the manuscript up into five books and expanded it, with each of the final books coming to about 128,000 words, giving Hekaforge a third Lejendary Adventures line to supplement the core rules and adventures. Hekaforge managed to publish the first two of those Lejendary Earth sourcebooks, Gazetteer (2002) and Noble Kings and Great Lands (2003), but by 2003 the small company was having financial difficulties. Clark had to ask Troll Lord Games to become an \"angel\" investor by publishing the three remaining Lejendary Adventures books.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "On October 9, 2001, Necromancer Games announced that they would be publishing a d20 version of Necropolis, an adventure originally planned by Gygax for New Infinities Productions and later printed in 1992 as a Mythus adventure by GDW; Gary Gygax's Necropolis was published a year later.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Gygax also performed voiceover narration for cartoons and video games. In 2000, he voiced his own cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, \"Anthology of Interest I\" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking and Nichelle Nichols. Gygax also performed as a guest Dungeon Master in the Delera's Tomb quest series of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "During his time with TSR, Gygax had often mentioned the mysterious Castle Greyhawk which formed the centre of his own home campaign. But despite all of his written output over the previous 30 years, Gygax had never published details of the castle. In 2003, Gygax announced that he was again partnering with Rob Kuntz to publish the original and previously unpublished details of Castle Greyhawk and the City of Greyhawk in 6 volumes, although the project would use the rules for Castles and Crusades rather than D&D. As Gygax wrote in an on-line forum:",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "I have laid out a new schematic of castle and dungeon levels based on both my original design of 13 levels plus side adjuncts, and the 'New Greyhawk Castle' that resulted when Rob and I combined our efforts and added a lot of new levels too. From that Rob will draft the level plans for the newest version of the work. Meantime, I am collecting all the most salient feature, encounters, tricks, traps, etc. for inclusion on the various levels. So the end result will be what is essentially the best of our old work in a coherent presentation usable by all DMs, the material having all the known and yet to be discussed features of the original work that are outstanding ... I hope.\"",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Since Wizards of the Coast, which had bought TSR in 1997, still owned the rights to the name \"Greyhawk\", Gygax changed the name of Castle Greyhawk to \"Castle Zagyg\", a reverse homophone of his own name, and also changed the name of the nearby city to \"Yggsburgh\", a play on his initials \"E.G.G.\"",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The scale of the project was enormous: By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on their original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed 50 levels of cunningly complex passages with thousands of rooms and traps. This, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city, would clearly be too much to fit into the proposed 6 volumes. Gygax decided he would compress the castle dungeons into 13 levels, the size of his original Castle Greyhawk in 1973 by amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes. However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept careful or comprehensive plans. Because they had often made up details of play sessions on the spot, they usually just scribbled a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps. These sketchy maps had contained just enough detail that the two could ensure their independent work would dovetail. All of these old notes now had to be deciphered, 25-year-old memories dredged up as to what had happened in each room, and a decision made whether to keep or discard each new piece. Recreating the city too would be a challenge. Although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while still maintaining the \"look and feel\" of his original.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Due to creative differences, Kuntz backed out of the project, but created an adventure module that would be published at the same time as Gygax's first book. Gygax continued to painstakingly put Castle Zagyg together on his own, but even this slow and laborious process came to a complete halt when Gygax had a serious stroke in April 2004 and then another one a few weeks later. Although he returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output was reduced from 14-hour work days to only one or two hours per day. Finally in 2005, Castle Zagyg Part I: Yggsburgh, the first book in the six-book series, appeared. Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau (2005), the adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz. Jeff Talanian helped with the creation of the dungeon, eventually resulting in publication of the limited edition CZ9: The East Marks Gazetteer (2007).",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "That same year, Gygax was diagnosed with a potentially deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm. Doctors concurred that surgery was needed, but their estimates of success varied from 50% to 90%. With no firm medical consensus, Gygax came to believe that he would likely die on the operating table; he refused to consider surgery, although he realized that a rupture of the aneurysm – likely inevitable – would be fatal. In one concession to his condition, he switched from cigarettes, which he had smoked since high school, to cigars.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "It wasn't until 2008 that Gygax was able to finish the second volume of six volumes, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, which described details of the castle above ground. The next two volumes were supposed to detail the dungeons beneath Castle Zagyg. However, before they could be written, Gygax died in March 2008. Three months after his death, Gygax Games – a new company formed by Gary's widow, Gail – withdrew all of the Gygax licenses from Troll Lord, and also from Hekaforge.",
"title": "After TSR"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "From an early age, Gygax hunted and was a target-shooter with both bow and gun. He was also an avid gun collector, and at various times owned a variety of rifles, shotguns, and handguns.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "He was an avid football fan, supporting the Chicago Bears. Gygax married Mary Jo Powell on 14 September 1958, the couple later had 5 children; Ernie, Elise, Heidi, Cindy and Luke. Gygax and his first wife became Jehovah's Witnesses. Later Gygax would separate from that religion but remain a Christian, and a few months before he died he cited his favorite Bible verse Matthew 5:15–16. After his divorce Gygax married Gail Carpenter, one of his former TSR accountants, on 15 August 1987. Their son, Alex, was born in 1986.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Immediately after Gygax's 2008 funeral, mourners adjourned to Lake Geneva's American Legion Hall to play games in the deceased's honor. Members of his family served refreshments and played games with friends. This event inspired Luke Gygax to create a locally hosted game event around the date of his father's death. Years later, Gary Con is so well-attended a dozen Lake Geneva hotels must be utilized in order to serve the demand. The funeral day event is now regarded as Gary Con 0.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "As the \"father of role-playing games\", Gygax received many awards, honors, and tributes related to gaming:",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In 2008 Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, began the process to establish a memorial to her late husband in Lake Geneva. On March 28, 2011 the City Council of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, approved Gail Gygax's application for a site of memorial in Donian Park; however, the Gygax family was unable to raise the money at the time to complete the memorial during a 2012 funding campaign. The design of the monument is a stone castle look with medieval pole arms, a family crest and a dragon.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In 2014, with the approval of Gary's eldest son, Ernie, Epic Quest Publishing started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding for a museum dedicated to Gary featuring a gaming and event center and hall of fame for authors, artists, designers and game masters.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Lake Geneva mayor Charlene Klein proclaimed July 27, 2023 as \"Gary Gygax Day\", and on that day dedicated a lakeside park bench in his honor. In her proclamation she reminds residents that in 1983 TSR employed over 400 people, \"over 6% of Lake Geneva's population at the time.\"",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 2000, Gygax voiced his cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, \"Anthology of Interest I\" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, and Nichelle Nichols. Gygax appeared as his 8-bit self on Code Monkeys in 2007-8. Stephen Colbert, an avid D&D gamer in his youth, dedicated the last part of the March 5, 2008, episode of The Colbert Report to Gygax.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Numerous names in D&D, such as Zagyg, Ring of Gaxx, and Gryrax, are anagrams or alterations of Gygax's name.",
"title": "In popular culture"
}
]
| Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson. In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, he and Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. The same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a D&D game a rough script and ideas for how to run a game scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series. After leaving TSR in 1986 over conflicts with its new majority owner, Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre Dangerous Journeys in 1992. He designed another gaming system, Lejendary Adventure, released in 1999. In 2005, Gygax was involved in the Castles & Crusades role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of D&D and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax. Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, he had two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack; he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and died in March 2008 at 69. Following Gygax's funeral, many mourners adjourned to the nearby American Legion hall to play games. This impromptu game event has become known since as Gary Con 0, and since then gamers celebrate in Lake Geneva each March with a large role-playing game convention in Gygax's honor. | 2001-11-18T04:40:14Z | 2023-12-21T00:03:00Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax |
12,850 | Governor of New South Wales | The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the Australian states perform constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of New South Wales, and serves in office for an unfixed period of time—known as serving At His Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the general standard of office term. The current governor is retired jurist Margaret Beazley, who succeeded David Hurley on 2 May 2019.
The office has its origin in the 18th-century colonial governors of New South Wales upon its settlement in 1788, and is the oldest continuous institution in Australia. The present incarnation of the position emerged with the Federation of Australia and the New South Wales Constitution Act 1902, which defined the viceregal office as the governor acting by and with the advice of the Executive Council of New South Wales. However, the post still ultimately represented the government of the United Kingdom until, after continually decreasing involvement by the British government, the passage in 1942 of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (see Statute of Westminster) and the Australia Act 1986, after which the governor became the direct, personal representative of the Australian sovereign.
The Office of Governor is required by the New South Wales Constitution Act, 1902. The Australian monarch, on the advice and recommendation of the premier of New South Wales, approves the appointment of governor with a commission issued under the royal sign-manual and Public Seal of the State, who is from then until being sworn in by the premier and chief justice referred to as the governor-designate.
Besides the administration of the oaths of office, there is no set formula for the swearing-in of a governor-designate. The constitution act stipulates that: "Before assuming office, a person appointed to be Governor shall take the Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance and the Oath or Affirmation of Office in the presence of the Chief Justice or another Judge of the Supreme Court." The sovereign will also hold an audience with the appointee and will at that time induct the governor-designate as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).
The incumbent will generally serve for at least five years, though this is only a developed convention, and the governor still technically acts at His Majesty's pleasure (or the Royal Pleasure). The premier may therefore recommend to the King that the viceroy remain in his service for a longer period of time, sometimes upwards of more than seven years. A governor may also resign and three have died in office. In such a circumstance, or if the governor leaves the country for longer than one month, the lieutenant governor of New South Wales, concurrently held by the chief justice of New South Wales since 1872, serves as Administrator of the Government and exercises all powers of the governor. Furthermore, if the lieutenant governor becomes incapacitated while serving in the office of governor or is also absent from the state, the next most senior judge of the Supreme Court is sworn in as the administrator.
Between 1788 and 1957, all governors were born outside New South Wales and were often members of the peerage. Historian A. J. P. Taylor once noted that "going out and governing New South Wales became the British aristocracy's 'abiding consolation'". However, even though the implementation of the Australian Citizenship Act in 1948 established the concept of an independent Australian citizenship, the idea of Australian-born persons being appointed governor of New South Wales was much earlier. Coincidentally the first Australian-born governor, Sir John Northcott on 1 August 1946, was also the first Australian-born governor of any state. However, as Northcott was born in Victoria, it was not until Sir Eric Woodward's appointment by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957 that the position was filled by a New South Welshman; this practice continued until 1996, when Queen Elizabeth II commissioned as her representative Gordon Samuels, a London-born immigrant to Australia.
Although required by the tenets of constitutional monarchy to be non-partisan while in office, governors were frequently former politicians, many being members of the House of Lords by virtue of their peerage. The first governors were all military officers and the majority of governors since have come from a military background, numbering 19. Samuels was the first governor in New South Wales history without a political or common public service background – a former justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The first woman to hold this position is also the first Lebanese-Australian governor, Dame Marie Bashir.
As the sovereign predominantly lives outside New South Wales, the governor's primary task is to perform the sovereign's constitutional duties on their behalf.
It is the governor who is required, by the Constitution Act 1902, to appoint persons to the Government of New South Wales, who are all theoretically tasked with tendering to the monarch and viceroy guidance on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. Convention dictates that the governor must draw from the Parliament an individual to act as premier, who is also capable of forming government—in almost all cases the Member of Parliament who commands the confidence of the Legislative Assembly. The premier then directs the governor to appoint other members of parliament to the Executive Council of New South Wales known as the Cabinet, and it is in practice only from this group of ministers of the Crown that the King and governor will take direction on the use of executive power, an arrangement called the King-in-Council or, more specifically, the Governor-in-Council. In this capacity, the governor will issue royal proclamations and sign orders in council. The governor-in-council is also required to appoint in the King's name the president of the Legislative Council, the speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Supreme Court and District Court justices, and local court magistrates in the state, though all of these are made on the advice of either the premier and cabinet or the majority of elected members of each house in the case of the speaker or president. The advice given by the Cabinet is, in order to ensure the stability of government, typically binding; both the King and his viceroy, however, may in exceptional circumstances invoke the reserve powers, which remain the Crown's final check against a ministry's abuse of power, this was last fully exercised in 1932, when Sir Philip Game revoked the commission of Premier Jack Lang.
The governor alone is constitutionally mandated to summon parliament. Beyond that, the viceroy carries out the other conventional parliamentary duties in the sovereign's absence, including reading the Speech from the throne and the proroguing and dissolving of parliament. The governor grants royal assent in the King's name; legally, by granting royal assent (making the bill law), withholding royal assent (vetoing the bill), or reserving the bill for the King's pleasure (allowing the sovereign to personally grant or withhold assent). If the governor withholds the King's assent, the sovereign may, within two years, disallow the bill, thereby annulling the law in question. No modern viceroy has denied royal assent to a bill. With most constitutional functions delegated to Cabinet, the governor acts in a primarily ceremonial fashion. The governor hosts members of Australia's royal family, as well as foreign royalty and heads of state. Also as part of international relations, the governor receives letters of credence and of recall from foreign consuls-general appointed to Sydney. When they are the longest-serving state governor, the governor of New South Wales holds a dormant commission to act as the administrator of the Commonwealth when the governor-general of Australia is absent from Australia, a role most recently held by Governor Bashir.
The governor is also tasked with fostering unity and pride. The governor inducts individuals into the various national orders and present national medals and decorations, however the most senior awards such as ACs or the Victoria Cross are the sole prerogative of the governor general. The governor also ex-officio serves as Honorary Colonel of the Royal New South Wales Regiment (since 1960), Honorary Air Commodore of No. 22 (City of Sydney) Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (since 1937) and Honorary Commodore of the Royal Australian Navy , as well as the Chief Scout for New South Wales.
As the personal representative of the monarch, the governor follows only the sovereign in the NSW order of precedence. The incumbent governor is entitled to use the style of His or Her Excellency, while in office. On 28 November 2013 the premier of NSW announced that the Queen had given approval for the title of "The Honourable" to be accorded to the governors and former governors of New South Wales. Upon installation, the governor serves as a Deputy Prior of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in Australia and is also traditionally invested as either a Knight or Dame of Justice or Grace of the Order. It is also customary that the governor is made a Companion of the Order of Australia, though this is not necessarily automatic. The use by the governor of an elaborate uniform, comprising a plain blue tailcoat, scarlet collar and cuffs (embroidered in silver), silver epaulettes, and a plumed bicorne hat, fell out of use with the appointment of the first Australian-born Governor, Sir John Northcott, in 1946.
The Viceregal Salute—composed of the first and last four bars of the national anthem ("Advance Australia Fair")—is the salute used to greet the governor upon arrival at, and mark his or her departure from most official events, although "God Save The King", as the royal anthem, is also used. The state badge of the New South Wales crowned with the St Edward's Crown (a change to effect the preference of King Charles III for the Tudor Crown has not yet taken place) is employed as the badge of the governor, appearing on the viceroy's flag and on other objects associated with the person or the office.
To mark the viceroy's presence at any building, ship, aeroplane, or car in Australia, the governor's standard or flag is employed. Following the example of other states adopting unique Governor's standards, in 1980 the Government of New South Wales sought to introduce a new standard for the governor to replace the Union Flag that had been in use since 1788. Premier Neville Wran wrote to the Governor, Sir Roden Cutler, on 25 November 1980 advising: “His Excellency’s Ministers of State now consider that there should be a change in the Personal Standard of the Governor of New South Wales, such change to take effect at the conclusion of His Excellency’s term of office. The Premier therefore recommends for approval a change in the Governor’s distinctive flag from the Union Flag to the New South Wales State Flag with a Crown surmounting the State badge in the fly.” However, Cutler did not agree with this change, and it was recommended that the change be undertaken after he had left office. The new Governor's Standard was designed and presented by the Garter King of Arms to the Agent-General for New South Wales in London on 8 January 1981, who then sought Royal assent of the new design, which was given on 15 January 1981. The flag was first flown on 20 January 1981 over Parliament House for the official swearing-in of Governor Sir James Rowland, and was flown for the first time over Government House on 29 January 1981.
Aside from the Crown itself, the office of Governor of New South Wales is the oldest constitutional office in Australia. Captain Arthur Phillip assumed office as Governor of New South Wales on 7 February 1788, when the Colony of New South Wales, the first British settlement in Australia, was formally proclaimed. The early colonial governors held an almost autocratic power due to the distance from and poor communications with Great Britain, until 1824 when the New South Wales Legislative Council, Australia's first legislative body, was appointed to advise the governor.
Between 1850 and 1861, the Governor of New South Wales was titled Governor-General, in an early attempt at federalism imposed by Earl Grey. All communication between the Australian colonies and the British Government was meant to go through the Governor-General, and the other colonies had lieutenant-Governors. As South Australia (1836), Tasmania (January 1855) and Victoria (May 1855) obtained responsible government, their lieutenant-Governors were replaced by Governors. Although he had ceased acting as a Governor-General, Sir William Denison retained the title until his retirement in 1861.
The six British colonies in Australia joined to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. New South Wales and the other colonies became states in the federal system under the Constitution of Australia. In 1902, the New South Wales Constitution Act 1902 confirmed the modern system of government of New South Wales as a state, including defining the role of the governor as the monarch's representative, who acts by and with the advice of the Executive Council. Like the new federal Governor-General and the other state governors, in the first years after federation, the governor of New South Wales continued to act both as a constitutional head of the state, and as a liaison between the government and the imperial government in London. However, the British government's involvement in Australian affairs gradually reduced in the next few years.
In 1942, the Commonwealth of Australia passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, which rendered Australia dominion status under the Statute of Westminster, and while Australia and Britain share the same person as monarch, that person acts in a distinct capacity when acting as the monarch of each dominion. The convention that the monarch acts in respect of Australian affairs on the advice of his or her Australian ministers, rather than his or her British ministers, became enshrined in law. For New South Wales however, because the Statute of Westminster did not disturb the constitutional arrangements of the Australian states, the governor remains (at least formally) in New South Wales the representative of the British monarch. This arrangement seemed incongruous with the Commonwealth of Australia's independent dominion status conferred by the Statute of Westminster, and with the federal structure.
After much negotiation between the federal and state governments of Australia, the British government and Buckingham Palace, the Australia Act 1986 removed any remaining constitutional roles of the British monarch and British government in the Australian states, and established that the governor of New South Wales (along with the other state governors) was the direct, personal representative of the Australian monarch, and not the British monarch or the British government, nor the governor-general of Australia or the Australian federal government.
On his arrival in Sydney in 1788, Governor Phillip resided in a temporary wood and canvas house before the construction of a more substantial house on a site now bounded by Bridge Street and Phillip Street, Sydney. This first Government House was extended and repaired by the following eight governors, but was generally in poor condition and was vacated when the governor relocated to the new building in 1845, designed by Edward Blore and Mortimer Lewis.
With the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, it was announced that Government House was to serve as the secondary residence of the new governor-general of Australia. As a consequence the NSW Government leased the residence of Cranbrook, Bellevue Hill as the residence of the governor. This arrangement lasted until 1913 when the NSW Government terminated the Commonwealth lease of Government House (the governor-general moved to the new Sydney residence of Admiralty House), the governor from 1913 to 1917, Sir Gerald Strickland, continued to live in Cranbrook and on his departure his successor returned to Government House.
On 16 January 1996, Premier Bob Carr announced that the next governor would be Gordon Samuels, that he would not live or work at Government House and that he would retain his appointment as chairman of the New South Wales Law Reform Commission. On these changes, Carr said: "The Office of the Governor should be less associated with pomp and ceremony, less encumbered by anachronistic protocol, more in tune with the character of the people." The state's longest-serving governor, Sir Roden Cutler, was also reported as saying: "It's a political push to make way in New South Wales to lead the push for a republic. If they decide not to have a Governor and the public agrees with that, and Parliament agrees, and the queen agrees to it, that is a different matter, but while there is a Governor you have got to give him some respectability and credibility, because he is the host for the whole of New South Wales. For the life of me I cannot understand the logic of having a Governor who is part-time and doesn't live at Government House. It is such a degrading of the office and of the Governor."
In October 2011, the new premier, Barry O'Farrell, announced that the governor, now Dame Marie Bashir, had agreed with O'Farrell's offer to move back into Government House: "A lot of people believe the Governor should live at Government House. That's what it was built for ... [A]t some stage a rural or regional governor will be appointed and we will need to provide accommodation at Government House so it makes sense to provide appropriate living areas". With the Governor's return, management of the residence reverted to the Office of the Governor in December 2013.
In addition to the primary Sydney vice-regal residence, many governors had also felt the need for a 'summer retreat' to escape the hard temperatures of the Sydney summers. In 1790, Governor Phillip had a secondary residence built in the township of Parramatta. In 1799 the second governor, John Hunter, had the remains of Arthur Phillip's cottage cleared away, and a more permanent building erected on the same site. This residence remained occupied until the completion of the primary Government House in 1845, however the hard summers and growing size of Sydney convinced successive governors of the need for a rural residence.
The governor from 1868 to 1872, the Earl Belmore, used Throsby Park in Moss Vale as his summer residence. His successor, Sir Hercules Robinson, often retired privately to the same area, in the Southern Highlands, for the same reason. In 1879 it was then decided that the colony should purchase a house at Sutton Forest for use as a permanent summer residence, and in 1881 the NSW Government purchased for £6000 a property known as "Prospect" that had been built by Robert Pemberton Richardson (of the firm Richardson & Wrench). This was renamed "Hillview", and became the primary summer governor's residence from 1885 to 1957. In 1957, seen as unnecessary and expensive, Hillview was put up for sale and purchased from the state government by Edwin Klein. Hillview was returned to the people of NSW in 1985 and is currently leased under the ownership of the Environment and Heritage Group of the Department of Planning & Environment.
The viceregal household aids the governor in the execution of the royal constitutional and ceremonial duties and is managed by the Office of the Governor, whose current official secretary and chief of staff is Michael Miller RFD. These organised offices and support systems include aides-de-camp, press officers, financial managers, speech writers, trip organisers, event planners and protocol officers, chefs and other kitchen employees, waiters, and various cleaning staff, as well as tour guides. In this official and bureaucratic capacity, the entire household is often referred to as Government House. These departments are funded through the annual budget, as is the governor's salary of A$529,000.
The following individuals have served as a governor of New South Wales: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the Australian states perform constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of New South Wales, and serves in office for an unfixed period of time—known as serving At His Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the general standard of office term. The current governor is retired jurist Margaret Beazley, who succeeded David Hurley on 2 May 2019.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The office has its origin in the 18th-century colonial governors of New South Wales upon its settlement in 1788, and is the oldest continuous institution in Australia. The present incarnation of the position emerged with the Federation of Australia and the New South Wales Constitution Act 1902, which defined the viceregal office as the governor acting by and with the advice of the Executive Council of New South Wales. However, the post still ultimately represented the government of the United Kingdom until, after continually decreasing involvement by the British government, the passage in 1942 of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (see Statute of Westminster) and the Australia Act 1986, after which the governor became the direct, personal representative of the Australian sovereign.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Office of Governor is required by the New South Wales Constitution Act, 1902. The Australian monarch, on the advice and recommendation of the premier of New South Wales, approves the appointment of governor with a commission issued under the royal sign-manual and Public Seal of the State, who is from then until being sworn in by the premier and chief justice referred to as the governor-designate.",
"title": "Appointment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Besides the administration of the oaths of office, there is no set formula for the swearing-in of a governor-designate. The constitution act stipulates that: \"Before assuming office, a person appointed to be Governor shall take the Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance and the Oath or Affirmation of Office in the presence of the Chief Justice or another Judge of the Supreme Court.\" The sovereign will also hold an audience with the appointee and will at that time induct the governor-designate as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).",
"title": "Appointment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The incumbent will generally serve for at least five years, though this is only a developed convention, and the governor still technically acts at His Majesty's pleasure (or the Royal Pleasure). The premier may therefore recommend to the King that the viceroy remain in his service for a longer period of time, sometimes upwards of more than seven years. A governor may also resign and three have died in office. In such a circumstance, or if the governor leaves the country for longer than one month, the lieutenant governor of New South Wales, concurrently held by the chief justice of New South Wales since 1872, serves as Administrator of the Government and exercises all powers of the governor. Furthermore, if the lieutenant governor becomes incapacitated while serving in the office of governor or is also absent from the state, the next most senior judge of the Supreme Court is sworn in as the administrator.",
"title": "Appointment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Between 1788 and 1957, all governors were born outside New South Wales and were often members of the peerage. Historian A. J. P. Taylor once noted that \"going out and governing New South Wales became the British aristocracy's 'abiding consolation'\". However, even though the implementation of the Australian Citizenship Act in 1948 established the concept of an independent Australian citizenship, the idea of Australian-born persons being appointed governor of New South Wales was much earlier. Coincidentally the first Australian-born governor, Sir John Northcott on 1 August 1946, was also the first Australian-born governor of any state. However, as Northcott was born in Victoria, it was not until Sir Eric Woodward's appointment by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957 that the position was filled by a New South Welshman; this practice continued until 1996, when Queen Elizabeth II commissioned as her representative Gordon Samuels, a London-born immigrant to Australia.",
"title": "Appointment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Although required by the tenets of constitutional monarchy to be non-partisan while in office, governors were frequently former politicians, many being members of the House of Lords by virtue of their peerage. The first governors were all military officers and the majority of governors since have come from a military background, numbering 19. Samuels was the first governor in New South Wales history without a political or common public service background – a former justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The first woman to hold this position is also the first Lebanese-Australian governor, Dame Marie Bashir.",
"title": "Appointment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As the sovereign predominantly lives outside New South Wales, the governor's primary task is to perform the sovereign's constitutional duties on their behalf.",
"title": "Role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "It is the governor who is required, by the Constitution Act 1902, to appoint persons to the Government of New South Wales, who are all theoretically tasked with tendering to the monarch and viceroy guidance on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. Convention dictates that the governor must draw from the Parliament an individual to act as premier, who is also capable of forming government—in almost all cases the Member of Parliament who commands the confidence of the Legislative Assembly. The premier then directs the governor to appoint other members of parliament to the Executive Council of New South Wales known as the Cabinet, and it is in practice only from this group of ministers of the Crown that the King and governor will take direction on the use of executive power, an arrangement called the King-in-Council or, more specifically, the Governor-in-Council. In this capacity, the governor will issue royal proclamations and sign orders in council. The governor-in-council is also required to appoint in the King's name the president of the Legislative Council, the speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Supreme Court and District Court justices, and local court magistrates in the state, though all of these are made on the advice of either the premier and cabinet or the majority of elected members of each house in the case of the speaker or president. The advice given by the Cabinet is, in order to ensure the stability of government, typically binding; both the King and his viceroy, however, may in exceptional circumstances invoke the reserve powers, which remain the Crown's final check against a ministry's abuse of power, this was last fully exercised in 1932, when Sir Philip Game revoked the commission of Premier Jack Lang.",
"title": "Role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The governor alone is constitutionally mandated to summon parliament. Beyond that, the viceroy carries out the other conventional parliamentary duties in the sovereign's absence, including reading the Speech from the throne and the proroguing and dissolving of parliament. The governor grants royal assent in the King's name; legally, by granting royal assent (making the bill law), withholding royal assent (vetoing the bill), or reserving the bill for the King's pleasure (allowing the sovereign to personally grant or withhold assent). If the governor withholds the King's assent, the sovereign may, within two years, disallow the bill, thereby annulling the law in question. No modern viceroy has denied royal assent to a bill. With most constitutional functions delegated to Cabinet, the governor acts in a primarily ceremonial fashion. The governor hosts members of Australia's royal family, as well as foreign royalty and heads of state. Also as part of international relations, the governor receives letters of credence and of recall from foreign consuls-general appointed to Sydney. When they are the longest-serving state governor, the governor of New South Wales holds a dormant commission to act as the administrator of the Commonwealth when the governor-general of Australia is absent from Australia, a role most recently held by Governor Bashir.",
"title": "Role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The governor is also tasked with fostering unity and pride. The governor inducts individuals into the various national orders and present national medals and decorations, however the most senior awards such as ACs or the Victoria Cross are the sole prerogative of the governor general. The governor also ex-officio serves as Honorary Colonel of the Royal New South Wales Regiment (since 1960), Honorary Air Commodore of No. 22 (City of Sydney) Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (since 1937) and Honorary Commodore of the Royal Australian Navy , as well as the Chief Scout for New South Wales.",
"title": "Role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "As the personal representative of the monarch, the governor follows only the sovereign in the NSW order of precedence. The incumbent governor is entitled to use the style of His or Her Excellency, while in office. On 28 November 2013 the premier of NSW announced that the Queen had given approval for the title of \"The Honourable\" to be accorded to the governors and former governors of New South Wales. Upon installation, the governor serves as a Deputy Prior of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in Australia and is also traditionally invested as either a Knight or Dame of Justice or Grace of the Order. It is also customary that the governor is made a Companion of the Order of Australia, though this is not necessarily automatic. The use by the governor of an elaborate uniform, comprising a plain blue tailcoat, scarlet collar and cuffs (embroidered in silver), silver epaulettes, and a plumed bicorne hat, fell out of use with the appointment of the first Australian-born Governor, Sir John Northcott, in 1946.",
"title": "Symbols and protocol"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Viceregal Salute—composed of the first and last four bars of the national anthem (\"Advance Australia Fair\")—is the salute used to greet the governor upon arrival at, and mark his or her departure from most official events, although \"God Save The King\", as the royal anthem, is also used. The state badge of the New South Wales crowned with the St Edward's Crown (a change to effect the preference of King Charles III for the Tudor Crown has not yet taken place) is employed as the badge of the governor, appearing on the viceroy's flag and on other objects associated with the person or the office.",
"title": "Symbols and protocol"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "To mark the viceroy's presence at any building, ship, aeroplane, or car in Australia, the governor's standard or flag is employed. Following the example of other states adopting unique Governor's standards, in 1980 the Government of New South Wales sought to introduce a new standard for the governor to replace the Union Flag that had been in use since 1788. Premier Neville Wran wrote to the Governor, Sir Roden Cutler, on 25 November 1980 advising: “His Excellency’s Ministers of State now consider that there should be a change in the Personal Standard of the Governor of New South Wales, such change to take effect at the conclusion of His Excellency’s term of office. The Premier therefore recommends for approval a change in the Governor’s distinctive flag from the Union Flag to the New South Wales State Flag with a Crown surmounting the State badge in the fly.” However, Cutler did not agree with this change, and it was recommended that the change be undertaken after he had left office. The new Governor's Standard was designed and presented by the Garter King of Arms to the Agent-General for New South Wales in London on 8 January 1981, who then sought Royal assent of the new design, which was given on 15 January 1981. The flag was first flown on 20 January 1981 over Parliament House for the official swearing-in of Governor Sir James Rowland, and was flown for the first time over Government House on 29 January 1981.",
"title": "Symbols and protocol"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Aside from the Crown itself, the office of Governor of New South Wales is the oldest constitutional office in Australia. Captain Arthur Phillip assumed office as Governor of New South Wales on 7 February 1788, when the Colony of New South Wales, the first British settlement in Australia, was formally proclaimed. The early colonial governors held an almost autocratic power due to the distance from and poor communications with Great Britain, until 1824 when the New South Wales Legislative Council, Australia's first legislative body, was appointed to advise the governor.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Between 1850 and 1861, the Governor of New South Wales was titled Governor-General, in an early attempt at federalism imposed by Earl Grey. All communication between the Australian colonies and the British Government was meant to go through the Governor-General, and the other colonies had lieutenant-Governors. As South Australia (1836), Tasmania (January 1855) and Victoria (May 1855) obtained responsible government, their lieutenant-Governors were replaced by Governors. Although he had ceased acting as a Governor-General, Sir William Denison retained the title until his retirement in 1861.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The six British colonies in Australia joined to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. New South Wales and the other colonies became states in the federal system under the Constitution of Australia. In 1902, the New South Wales Constitution Act 1902 confirmed the modern system of government of New South Wales as a state, including defining the role of the governor as the monarch's representative, who acts by and with the advice of the Executive Council. Like the new federal Governor-General and the other state governors, in the first years after federation, the governor of New South Wales continued to act both as a constitutional head of the state, and as a liaison between the government and the imperial government in London. However, the British government's involvement in Australian affairs gradually reduced in the next few years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1942, the Commonwealth of Australia passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, which rendered Australia dominion status under the Statute of Westminster, and while Australia and Britain share the same person as monarch, that person acts in a distinct capacity when acting as the monarch of each dominion. The convention that the monarch acts in respect of Australian affairs on the advice of his or her Australian ministers, rather than his or her British ministers, became enshrined in law. For New South Wales however, because the Statute of Westminster did not disturb the constitutional arrangements of the Australian states, the governor remains (at least formally) in New South Wales the representative of the British monarch. This arrangement seemed incongruous with the Commonwealth of Australia's independent dominion status conferred by the Statute of Westminster, and with the federal structure.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After much negotiation between the federal and state governments of Australia, the British government and Buckingham Palace, the Australia Act 1986 removed any remaining constitutional roles of the British monarch and British government in the Australian states, and established that the governor of New South Wales (along with the other state governors) was the direct, personal representative of the Australian monarch, and not the British monarch or the British government, nor the governor-general of Australia or the Australian federal government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "On his arrival in Sydney in 1788, Governor Phillip resided in a temporary wood and canvas house before the construction of a more substantial house on a site now bounded by Bridge Street and Phillip Street, Sydney. This first Government House was extended and repaired by the following eight governors, but was generally in poor condition and was vacated when the governor relocated to the new building in 1845, designed by Edward Blore and Mortimer Lewis.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "With the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, it was announced that Government House was to serve as the secondary residence of the new governor-general of Australia. As a consequence the NSW Government leased the residence of Cranbrook, Bellevue Hill as the residence of the governor. This arrangement lasted until 1913 when the NSW Government terminated the Commonwealth lease of Government House (the governor-general moved to the new Sydney residence of Admiralty House), the governor from 1913 to 1917, Sir Gerald Strickland, continued to live in Cranbrook and on his departure his successor returned to Government House.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "On 16 January 1996, Premier Bob Carr announced that the next governor would be Gordon Samuels, that he would not live or work at Government House and that he would retain his appointment as chairman of the New South Wales Law Reform Commission. On these changes, Carr said: \"The Office of the Governor should be less associated with pomp and ceremony, less encumbered by anachronistic protocol, more in tune with the character of the people.\" The state's longest-serving governor, Sir Roden Cutler, was also reported as saying: \"It's a political push to make way in New South Wales to lead the push for a republic. If they decide not to have a Governor and the public agrees with that, and Parliament agrees, and the queen agrees to it, that is a different matter, but while there is a Governor you have got to give him some respectability and credibility, because he is the host for the whole of New South Wales. For the life of me I cannot understand the logic of having a Governor who is part-time and doesn't live at Government House. It is such a degrading of the office and of the Governor.\"",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In October 2011, the new premier, Barry O'Farrell, announced that the governor, now Dame Marie Bashir, had agreed with O'Farrell's offer to move back into Government House: \"A lot of people believe the Governor should live at Government House. That's what it was built for ... [A]t some stage a rural or regional governor will be appointed and we will need to provide accommodation at Government House so it makes sense to provide appropriate living areas\". With the Governor's return, management of the residence reverted to the Office of the Governor in December 2013.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In addition to the primary Sydney vice-regal residence, many governors had also felt the need for a 'summer retreat' to escape the hard temperatures of the Sydney summers. In 1790, Governor Phillip had a secondary residence built in the township of Parramatta. In 1799 the second governor, John Hunter, had the remains of Arthur Phillip's cottage cleared away, and a more permanent building erected on the same site. This residence remained occupied until the completion of the primary Government House in 1845, however the hard summers and growing size of Sydney convinced successive governors of the need for a rural residence.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The governor from 1868 to 1872, the Earl Belmore, used Throsby Park in Moss Vale as his summer residence. His successor, Sir Hercules Robinson, often retired privately to the same area, in the Southern Highlands, for the same reason. In 1879 it was then decided that the colony should purchase a house at Sutton Forest for use as a permanent summer residence, and in 1881 the NSW Government purchased for £6000 a property known as \"Prospect\" that had been built by Robert Pemberton Richardson (of the firm Richardson & Wrench). This was renamed \"Hillview\", and became the primary summer governor's residence from 1885 to 1957. In 1957, seen as unnecessary and expensive, Hillview was put up for sale and purchased from the state government by Edwin Klein. Hillview was returned to the people of NSW in 1985 and is currently leased under the ownership of the Environment and Heritage Group of the Department of Planning & Environment.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The viceregal household aids the governor in the execution of the royal constitutional and ceremonial duties and is managed by the Office of the Governor, whose current official secretary and chief of staff is Michael Miller RFD. These organised offices and support systems include aides-de-camp, press officers, financial managers, speech writers, trip organisers, event planners and protocol officers, chefs and other kitchen employees, waiters, and various cleaning staff, as well as tour guides. In this official and bureaucratic capacity, the entire household is often referred to as Government House. These departments are funded through the annual budget, as is the governor's salary of A$529,000.",
"title": "Residences and household"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The following individuals have served as a governor of New South Wales:",
"title": "List of governors of New South Wales"
}
]
| The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the Australian states perform constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of New South Wales, and serves in office for an unfixed period of time—known as serving At His Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the general standard of office term. The current governor is retired jurist Margaret Beazley, who succeeded David Hurley on 2 May 2019. The office has its origin in the 18th-century colonial governors of New South Wales upon its settlement in 1788, and is the oldest continuous institution in Australia. The present incarnation of the position emerged with the Federation of Australia and the New South Wales Constitution Act 1902, which defined the viceregal office as the governor acting by and with the advice of the Executive Council of New South Wales. However, the post still ultimately represented the government of the United Kingdom until, after continually decreasing involvement by the British government, the passage in 1942 of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 and the Australia Act 1986, after which the governor became the direct, personal representative of the Australian sovereign. | 2001-11-19T05:09:03Z | 2023-12-18T03:51:13Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_New_South_Wales |
12,851 | Governor of Victoria | The governor of Victoria is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in the Australian state of Victoria. The governor is one of seven viceregal representatives in the country, analogous to the governors of the other states and the governor-general federally.
The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of Victoria. The governor's role is to represent the Crown in right of Victoria. This role mainly includes performing ceremonial functions, such as opening and dissolving parliament, appointing the cabinet and granting royal assent.
The governor's office and official residence is Government House next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and surrounded by Kings Domain in Melbourne.
The current governor of Victoria is Margaret Gardner, who succeeded Linda Dessau in August 2023.
In accordance with the conventions of the Westminster system of parliamentary government, the governor nearly always acts solely on the advice of the head of the elected government, the premier of Victoria. Nevertheless, the governor retains the reserve powers of the Crown, and has the right to dismiss the premier.
The governor is appointed by the Monarch of Australia, on the advice of the premier of Victoria, to act as the monarch's representative as head of state in Victoria. The governor acts "At His Majesty's pleasure", meaning that the term of the governor can be terminated at any time by the monarch acting upon the advice of the premier.
Since the Australia Acts of 1986, it is the governor and not the monarch who exercises all the powers of the head of state and the governor is not subject to the direction or supervision of the monarch but acts upon the advice of the premier. Upon appointment, the governor becomes a viceroy. The governor's main responsibilities fall into three categories – constitutional, ceremonial and community engagement.
The personal standard of the governor of Victoria is the same design as the state flag of Victoria, but with the blue background replaced by gold, and red stars depicting the Southern Cross. Above the Southern Cross is the Royal Crown.
The current standard has been in place since 1984. Previously, the standard used by Victorian governors after 1870 had been the Union Jack with the Badge of the State of Victoria emblazoned in the centre. From 1903 to 1953, the Tudor Crown was used on the state flag and governor's standard and this was changed to the present crown in 1954.
The governor's standard is flown at Government House and on vehicles conveying the governor. The standard is lowered over Government House when the governor is absent from Victoria.
There is also a lieutenant-governor and an administrator. The chief justice of Victoria is ex officio the administrator, unless the chief justice is the lieutenant-governor, in which case, the next most senior judge is the administrator. The lieutenant-governor takes on the responsibilities of the governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. The administrator takes on those duties if both the governor and lieutenant-governor are not able to act for the above reasons.
See Governors of the Australian states for a description and history of the office of governor.
The Official Secretary to the Governor of Victoria is the head of the Office of the Governor which supports the Governor of Victoria in carrying out his or her official constitutional and ceremonial duties and community and international engagements. The official secretary manages the office and its administrative and service staff. All staff report to their respective managers, and through them to the Deputy Official Secretary and Official Secretary. The office also is in charge of maintaining Government House and its collections as a heritage and community asset of national importance. The official secretary is the Victorian nominee on the Council for the Order of Australia.
The Office of the Governor was established under the Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic) as an administrative office within the portfolio of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. The current official secretary is Joshua Puls and the current deputy official secretary (operations) is Taara Olorenshaw.
As with the other states, until the 1986 Australia Acts, the office of Governor of Victoria was an appointment of the British Foreign Office although local advice was considered and sometimes accepted.
Until the appointment of Victorian-born Sir Henry Winneke in 1974, the governors of Victoria were British. Since then, governors have been Australian although several were born overseas, namely Davis McCaughey (born in Ireland) came to Australia for work and David de Kretser (born in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) and Alex Chernov (born in Lithuania), both of whom came to Australia while at school.
Prior to the separation of the colony of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851, the area was called the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. The Governor of New South Wales appointed superintendents of the district. In 1839, Charles La Trobe was appointed superintendent. La Trobe became lieutenant-governor of the new colony of Victoria on separation on 1 July 1851.
From 1850 to 1861, the Governor of New South Wales was titled Governor-general of New South Wales in an attempt to form a federal structure. Until Victoria obtained responsible government in 1855, the Governor-general of New South Wales appointed lieutenant-governors to Victoria. On Victoria obtaining responsible government in May 1855, the title of the then incumbent lieutenant-governor, Captain Sir Charles Hotham, became governor.
There is also a lieutenant-governor and an administrator. The lieutenant-governor takes on the responsibilities of the governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. The lieutenant-governor is appointed by the governor on the advice of the premier of Victoria. Appointment as lieutenant-governor does not of itself confer any powers or functions. If there is no governor or if the governor is unavailable to act for a substantial period, the lieutenant-governor assumes office as administrator and exercises all the powers and functions of the governor.
If expecting to be unavailable for a short period only, the governor, with the consent of the premier, usually commissions the lieutenant-governor to act as deputy for the governor, performing some or all of the powers and functions of the governor.
The chief justice of Victoria is ex officio the administrator, unless the chief justice is the lieutenant-governor, in which case the next most senior judge is the administrator. The administrator takes on the governor's duties if both the governor and lieutenant-governor are not able to act for the above reasons.
The current lieutenant-governor is James Angus, who was appointed to the role on 12 November 2021 to succeed Ken Lay. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The governor of Victoria is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in the Australian state of Victoria. The governor is one of seven viceregal representatives in the country, analogous to the governors of the other states and the governor-general federally.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of Victoria. The governor's role is to represent the Crown in right of Victoria. This role mainly includes performing ceremonial functions, such as opening and dissolving parliament, appointing the cabinet and granting royal assent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The governor's office and official residence is Government House next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and surrounded by Kings Domain in Melbourne.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The current governor of Victoria is Margaret Gardner, who succeeded Linda Dessau in August 2023.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In accordance with the conventions of the Westminster system of parliamentary government, the governor nearly always acts solely on the advice of the head of the elected government, the premier of Victoria. Nevertheless, the governor retains the reserve powers of the Crown, and has the right to dismiss the premier.",
"title": "Powers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The governor is appointed by the Monarch of Australia, on the advice of the premier of Victoria, to act as the monarch's representative as head of state in Victoria. The governor acts \"At His Majesty's pleasure\", meaning that the term of the governor can be terminated at any time by the monarch acting upon the advice of the premier.",
"title": "Role of governor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Since the Australia Acts of 1986, it is the governor and not the monarch who exercises all the powers of the head of state and the governor is not subject to the direction or supervision of the monarch but acts upon the advice of the premier. Upon appointment, the governor becomes a viceroy. The governor's main responsibilities fall into three categories – constitutional, ceremonial and community engagement.",
"title": "Role of governor"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The personal standard of the governor of Victoria is the same design as the state flag of Victoria, but with the blue background replaced by gold, and red stars depicting the Southern Cross. Above the Southern Cross is the Royal Crown.",
"title": "Governor's personal standard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The current standard has been in place since 1984. Previously, the standard used by Victorian governors after 1870 had been the Union Jack with the Badge of the State of Victoria emblazoned in the centre. From 1903 to 1953, the Tudor Crown was used on the state flag and governor's standard and this was changed to the present crown in 1954.",
"title": "Governor's personal standard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The governor's standard is flown at Government House and on vehicles conveying the governor. The standard is lowered over Government House when the governor is absent from Victoria.",
"title": "Governor's personal standard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "There is also a lieutenant-governor and an administrator. The chief justice of Victoria is ex officio the administrator, unless the chief justice is the lieutenant-governor, in which case, the next most senior judge is the administrator. The lieutenant-governor takes on the responsibilities of the governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. The administrator takes on those duties if both the governor and lieutenant-governor are not able to act for the above reasons.",
"title": "Related offices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "See Governors of the Australian states for a description and history of the office of governor.",
"title": "Related offices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Official Secretary to the Governor of Victoria is the head of the Office of the Governor which supports the Governor of Victoria in carrying out his or her official constitutional and ceremonial duties and community and international engagements. The official secretary manages the office and its administrative and service staff. All staff report to their respective managers, and through them to the Deputy Official Secretary and Official Secretary. The office also is in charge of maintaining Government House and its collections as a heritage and community asset of national importance. The official secretary is the Victorian nominee on the Council for the Order of Australia.",
"title": "Related offices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Office of the Governor was established under the Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic) as an administrative office within the portfolio of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. The current official secretary is Joshua Puls and the current deputy official secretary (operations) is Taara Olorenshaw.",
"title": "Related offices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As with the other states, until the 1986 Australia Acts, the office of Governor of Victoria was an appointment of the British Foreign Office although local advice was considered and sometimes accepted.",
"title": "Australianisation of the office"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Until the appointment of Victorian-born Sir Henry Winneke in 1974, the governors of Victoria were British. Since then, governors have been Australian although several were born overseas, namely Davis McCaughey (born in Ireland) came to Australia for work and David de Kretser (born in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) and Alex Chernov (born in Lithuania), both of whom came to Australia while at school.",
"title": "Australianisation of the office"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Prior to the separation of the colony of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851, the area was called the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. The Governor of New South Wales appointed superintendents of the district. In 1839, Charles La Trobe was appointed superintendent. La Trobe became lieutenant-governor of the new colony of Victoria on separation on 1 July 1851.",
"title": "List of governors of Victoria"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "From 1850 to 1861, the Governor of New South Wales was titled Governor-general of New South Wales in an attempt to form a federal structure. Until Victoria obtained responsible government in 1855, the Governor-general of New South Wales appointed lieutenant-governors to Victoria. On Victoria obtaining responsible government in May 1855, the title of the then incumbent lieutenant-governor, Captain Sir Charles Hotham, became governor.",
"title": "List of governors of Victoria"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "There is also a lieutenant-governor and an administrator. The lieutenant-governor takes on the responsibilities of the governor when that post is vacant or when the governor is out of the state or unable to act. The lieutenant-governor is appointed by the governor on the advice of the premier of Victoria. Appointment as lieutenant-governor does not of itself confer any powers or functions. If there is no governor or if the governor is unavailable to act for a substantial period, the lieutenant-governor assumes office as administrator and exercises all the powers and functions of the governor.",
"title": "Line of succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "If expecting to be unavailable for a short period only, the governor, with the consent of the premier, usually commissions the lieutenant-governor to act as deputy for the governor, performing some or all of the powers and functions of the governor.",
"title": "Line of succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The chief justice of Victoria is ex officio the administrator, unless the chief justice is the lieutenant-governor, in which case the next most senior judge is the administrator. The administrator takes on the governor's duties if both the governor and lieutenant-governor are not able to act for the above reasons.",
"title": "Line of succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The current lieutenant-governor is James Angus, who was appointed to the role on 12 November 2021 to succeed Ken Lay.",
"title": "Line of succession"
}
]
| The governor of Victoria is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in the Australian state of Victoria. The governor is one of seven viceregal representatives in the country, analogous to the governors of the other states and the governor-general federally. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the premier of Victoria. The governor's role is to represent the Crown in right of Victoria. This role mainly includes performing ceremonial functions, such as opening and dissolving parliament, appointing the cabinet and granting royal assent. The governor's office and official residence is Government House next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and surrounded by Kings Domain in Melbourne. The current governor of Victoria is Margaret Gardner, who succeeded Linda Dessau in August 2023. | 2001-11-19T05:26:11Z | 2023-12-30T06:08:59Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Victoria |
12,855 | George Bernard Shaw | George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra.
Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s, he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he made fewer public statements but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946.
Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them.
Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty".
By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players.
In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature.
Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw".
In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano.
Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years.
Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer.
Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80 and, as in Dublin, achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author.
For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. In the same year he suffered an attack of smallpox; eventually he grew a beard to hide the resultant facial scar. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner.
In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it".
Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career.
On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals.
After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator.
"The most striking result of our present system of farming out the national Land and capital to private individuals has been the division of society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme, and large dinners and no appetites at the other"
Shaw, Fabian Tract No. 2: A Manifesto (1884).
From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education". This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties.
Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions".
The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons.
The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in To-Day magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886.
In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886, he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic.
Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950.
From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence".
After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage.
Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W. S. Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson.
The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties.
In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel! excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895.
By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council.
In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court.
During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for ... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island.
Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year.
Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances.
Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US.
In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it".
As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body".
In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian.
In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw.
"I see the Junkers and Militarists of England and Germany jumping at the chance they have longed for in vain for many years of smashing one another and establishing their own oligarchy as the dominant military power of the world."
Shaw: Common Sense About the War (1914).
After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present."
Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism".
Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917.
Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten.
In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934.
Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword.
Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays.
This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs".
After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World".
Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude".
During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini.
"We the undersigned are recent visitors to the USSR ... We desire to record that we saw nowhere evidence of economic slavery, privation, unemployment and cynical despair of betterment. ... Everywhere we saw [a] hopeful and enthusiastic working-class ... setting an example of industry and conduct which would greatly enrich us if our systems supplied our workers with any incentive to follow it."
Letter to The Manchester Guardian, 2 March 1933, signed by Shaw and 20 others.
Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933, he was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press."
Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler"; though his principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb.
Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it.
During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself ... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess.
Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to keep it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy".
Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime.
Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians.
Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited.
"The rest of Shaw's life was quiet and solitary. The loss of his wife was more profoundly felt than he had ever imagined any loss could be: for he prided himself on a stoical fortitude in all loss and misfortune."
St John Ervine on Shaw, 1959
Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September.
Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals".
Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille".
In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system.
Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday.
During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden.
Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two.
1890s
Full-length plays
Adaptation
Short play
Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society.
Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular.
The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon.
1900–1909
Full-length plays
Short plays
Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero.
Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909).
1910–1919
Full-length plays
Short plays
In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder).
The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917).
1920–1950
Full-length plays
Short plays
Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement.
The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them."
Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak.
In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932.
Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors."
Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct.
After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished.
The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible".
"Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses".
Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s.
Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors.
Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published.
Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary.
Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism.
Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography.
Shaw was a poseur and a puritan; he was similarly a bourgeois and an antibourgeois writer, working for Hearst and posterity; his didacticism is entertaining and his pranks are purposeful; he supports socialism and is tempted by fascism.
—Leonard Feinberg, The Satirist (2006)
Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception.
Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice".
Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies."
In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club.
Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G. Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw.
Shaw, arguably the most important English-language playwright after Shakespeare, produced an immense oeuvre, of which at least half a dozen plays remain part of the world repertoire. ... Academically unfashionable, of limited influence even in areas such as Irish drama and British political theatre where influence might be expected, Shaw's unique and unmistakable plays keep escaping from the safely dated category of period piece to which they have often been consigned.
Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre (2003)
Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter.
Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols.
Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that".
Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardian's theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw.
In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign.
Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre.
The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw.
In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active as of 2016. More recent societies have been established in Japan and India.
Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930).
The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw."
In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded:
He was no originator of ideas. He was an insatiable adopter and adapter, an incomparable prestidigitator with the thoughts of the forerunners. Nietzsche, Samuel Butler (Erewhon), Marx, Shelley, Blake, Dickens, William Morris, Ruskin, Beethoven and Wagner all had their applications and misapplications. By bending to their service all the faculties of a powerful mind, by inextinguishable wit, and by every artifice of argument, he carried their thoughts as far as they would reach—so far beyond their sources that they came to us with the vitality of the newly created. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s, he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he made fewer public statements but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of \"shabby-genteel poverty\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: \"Schools and schoolmasters\", he later wrote, were \"prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents.\" In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as \"George Shaw\"; after 1876, he dropped the \"George\" and styled himself \"Bernard Shaw\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80 and, as in Dublin, achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. In the same year he suffered an attack of smallpox; eventually he grew a beard to hide the resultant facial scar. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to \"search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race\". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: \"You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "\"The most striking result of our present system of farming out the national Land and capital to private individuals has been the division of society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme, and large dinners and no appetites at the other\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Shaw, Fabian Tract No. 2: A Manifesto (1884).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, \"the closest Shaw had ever come to university education\". This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 (\"Bloody Sunday\"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of \"permeation\" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, \"Transition\", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that \"the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone\". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that \"socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in To-Day magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886, he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as \"G.B.S.\" for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, \"Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability.\" Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line \"G.B.S.\" He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: \"I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W. S. Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income \"to extinction\". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a \"grand philippic\" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel! excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a \"vestryman\" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, \"their life together was entirely felicitous\". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house \"Shaw's Corner\", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, \"got rather more than he bargained for ... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland.\" Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as \"discussion drama\" and \"serious farce\". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, \"It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first.\" The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a \"non-Socialist\" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that \"until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: \"After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished\". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as \"[making] absolutely certain of not getting in\", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: \"I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's \"Old Gang\", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells \"had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity\". In Shaw's view, \"the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself\". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: \"God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it\". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—\"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me\", according to Shaw.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "\"I see the Junkers and Militarists of England and Germany jumping at the chance they have longed for in vain for many years of smashing one another and establishing their own oligarchy as the dominant military power of the world.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Shaw: Common Sense About the War (1914).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that \"[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: \"a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: \"In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere.\" Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: \"I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death\". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: \"Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it\". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: \"As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long\", although containing \"much entertainment and some profitable reflection\". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as \"Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'\". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this \"Metabiological Pentateuch\". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between \"half-witted genius\" and someone of \"exceptional sanity\". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, \"even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan\". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as \"... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty\". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that \"My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his \"magnum opus\", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as \"a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy\", but thought that it had not yet become the \"Federation of the World\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called \"a political extravaganza\", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as \"a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the \"indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock\", Mussolini was \"the right kind of tyrant\". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's \"flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes\" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was \"obsessed\" about Mussolini.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "\"We the undersigned are recent visitors to the USSR ... We desire to record that we saw nowhere evidence of economic slavery, privation, unemployment and cynical despair of betterment. ... Everywhere we saw [a] hopeful and enthusiastic working-class ... setting an example of industry and conduct which would greatly enrich us if our systems supplied our workers with any incentive to follow it.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Letter to The Manchester Guardian, 2 March 1933, signed by Shaw and 20 others.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as \"the one really interesting statesman in Europe\". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as \"a Georgian gentleman\" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: \"I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them\". In March 1933, he was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: \"No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as \"a very remarkable man, a very able man\", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was \"scrupulously polite and just to Hitler\"; though his principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had \"yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject\", judged the play a \"rambling and indifferently tedious conversation\". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was \"discourse, unbelievably long lectures\" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to \"that awful country, that uncivilized place\", \"unfit to govern itself ... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary\". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as \"the best country I've been in\"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to keep it from winning one Academy Award (\"Oscar\"); he described his award for \"best-written screenplay\" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having \"lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as \"Herr Battler\" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only \"witless and idle\" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "\"The rest of Shaw's life was quiet and solitary. The loss of his wife was more profoundly felt than he had ever imagined any loss could be: for he prided himself on a stoical fortitude in all loss and misfortune.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "St John Ervine on Shaw, 1959",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as \"a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself\". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: \"We are all potential criminals\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated \"the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema\". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film \"a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as \"a little comedy\", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "1890s",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Full-length plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Adaptation",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Short play",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as \"Plays Unpleasant\". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as \"undoubtedly the most challenging\" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as \"Plays Pleasant\". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The \"Three Plays for Puritans\"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "1900–1909",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Full-length plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Short plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his \"disquisitionary\" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909).",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "1910–1919",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Full-length plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Short plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts \"cultured, leisured Europe before the war\" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder).",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called \"utter nonsense\" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a \"Bolshevik empress\" (Annajanska, 1917).",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "1920–1950",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Full-length plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Short plays",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a \"no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time\" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle \"A political extravaganza\", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, \"is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous.\" Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still \"astonishingly vigorous and vivacious\" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. \"The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them.\"",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—\"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'\". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for \"a chorus of twenty capable artists\". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against \"melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions\". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw \"ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique\". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: \"... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre\". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling \"Shakespear\"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, \"it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain.\" Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, \"With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his,\" he also said, \"But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more\". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating \"Bardolaters\", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: \"Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors.\"",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to \"alter history by rewriting it\". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided \"a pleasant means\" of proselytising his socialism, adding that \"Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays\". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: \"[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done\". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' \"abuse\" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution \"to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country\". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, \"rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible\".",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "\"Creative evolution\", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had \"always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist\". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that \"if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it\"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: \"There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated\". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, \"this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses\".",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's \"own David Copperfield\" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, \"hardly more than animated theories\". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: \"Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age.\" After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of \"wit and wisdom\" and general journalism.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—\"GBS Confesses\", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Shaw was a poseur and a puritan; he was similarly a bourgeois and an antibourgeois writer, working for Hearst and posterity; his didacticism is entertaining and his pranks are purposeful; he supports socialism and is tempted by fascism.",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "—Leonard Feinberg, The Satirist (2006)",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as \"a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity\". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as \"shew\" for \"show\"; he dropped the \"u\" in words like \"honour\" and \"favour\"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as \"won't\" or \"that's\". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception.",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a \"mystic\", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious \"in the sectarian sense\", aligning himself with Jesus as \"a person of no religion\". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks \"Why not give Christianity a chance?\" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, \"a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you\". In his will, Shaw stated that his \"religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution\". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should \"take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice\".",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism \"the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business\". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, \"In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies.\"",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination \"a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft\"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in \"bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties\". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club.",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as \"Bernard Shaw\" rather than \"George Bernard Shaw\", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself \"G. Bernard Shaw\". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw.",
"title": "Beliefs and opinions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Shaw, arguably the most important English-language playwright after Shakespeare, produced an immense oeuvre, of which at least half a dozen plays remain part of the world repertoire. ... Academically unfashionable, of limited influence even in areas such as Irish drama and British political theatre where influence might be expected, Shaw's unique and unmistakable plays keep escaping from the safely dated category of period piece to which they have often been consigned.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre (2003)",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today \"we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas\" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered \"intelligent\" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk \"had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw\". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as \"the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights\"; Shaw's \"serious farce\" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw \"opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons\"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as \"the embattled individualist against the philistines\"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: \"I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that\".",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardian's theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as \"the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare\". Osborne responded that Shaw \"is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public\". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—\"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias\"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's \"almost unlimited relevance to our times\". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term \"Shavian\", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as \"The Bernard Shaw Society\", remains active as of 2016. More recent societies have been established in Japan and India.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre (\"my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own\") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930).",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: \"I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation.\" Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked \"immensely hard\" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—\"the fun of a brilliant artist\". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: \"No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw.\"",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded:",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "He was no originator of ideas. He was an insatiable adopter and adapter, an incomparable prestidigitator with the thoughts of the forerunners. Nietzsche, Samuel Butler (Erewhon), Marx, Shelley, Blake, Dickens, William Morris, Ruskin, Beethoven and Wagner all had their applications and misapplications. By bending to their service all the faculties of a powerful mind, by inextinguishable wit, and by every artifice of argument, he carried their thoughts as far as they would reach—so far beyond their sources that they came to us with the vitality of the newly created.",
"title": "Legacy and influence"
}
]
| George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s, he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he made fewer public statements but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. | 2001-11-20T18:46:42Z | 2023-12-28T08:31:41Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw |
12,858 | Galvanization | Galvanization or galvanizing (also spelled galvanisation or galvanising) is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which the parts are coated by submerging them in a bath of hot, molten zinc.
The zinc coating, when intact, prevents corrosive substances from reaching the underlying iron. Additional electroplating such as a chromate conversion coating may be applied to provide further surface passivation to the substrate material.
The process is named after the Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher Luigi Galvani (9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798). The earliest known example of galvanized iron was encountered by Europeans on 17th-century Indian armour in the Royal Armouries Museum collection.
The term "galvanized" can also be used metaphorically of any stimulus which results in activity by a person or group of people.
In modern usage, the term "galvanizing" has largely come to be associated with zinc coatings, to the exclusion of other metals. Galvanic paint, a precursor to hot-dip galvanizing, was patented by Stanislas Sorel, of Paris, on June 10, 1837, as an adoption of a term from a highly fashionable field of contemporary science, despite having no evident relation to it.
Hot-dip galvanizing deposits a thick, robust layer of zinc iron alloys on the surface of a steel item. In the case of automobile bodies, where additional decorative coatings of paint will be applied, a thinner form of galvanizing is applied by electrogalvanizing. The hot-dip process generally does not reduce strength to a measurable degree, with the exception of high-strength steels where hydrogen embrittlement can become a problem.
Thermal diffusion galvanizing, or Sherardizing, provides a zinc diffusion coating on iron- or copper-based materials.
Galvanized steel can last for many decades if other supplementary measures are maintained, such as paint coatings and additional sacrificial anodes. Corrosion in non-salty environments is caused mainly by levels of sulfur dioxide in the air.
This is the most common use for galvanized metal, and hundreds of thousands of tons of steel products are galvanized annually worldwide. In developed countries most larger cities have several galvanizing factories, and many items of steel manufacture are galvanized for protection. Typically these include: street furniture, building frameworks, balconies, verandahs, staircases, ladders, walkways, and more. Hot dip galvanized steel is also used for making steel frames as a basic construction material for steel frame buildings.
In the early 20th century, galvanized piping replaced previously-used cast iron and lead in cold-water plumbing. Typically, galvanized piping rusts from the inside out, building up layers of plaque on the inside of the piping, causing both water pressure problems and eventual pipe failure. These plaques can flake off, leading to visible impurities in water and a slight metallic taste. The life expectancy of galvanized piping is about 40–50 years, but it may vary on how well the pipes were built and installed. Pipe longevity also depends on the thickness of zinc in the original galvanizing, which ranges on a scale from G01 to G360. | [
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"text": "Hot-dip galvanizing deposits a thick, robust layer of zinc iron alloys on the surface of a steel item. In the case of automobile bodies, where additional decorative coatings of paint will be applied, a thinner form of galvanizing is applied by electrogalvanizing. The hot-dip process generally does not reduce strength to a measurable degree, with the exception of high-strength steels where hydrogen embrittlement can become a problem.",
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"text": "Galvanized steel can last for many decades if other supplementary measures are maintained, such as paint coatings and additional sacrificial anodes. Corrosion in non-salty environments is caused mainly by levels of sulfur dioxide in the air.",
"title": "Eventual corrosion"
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"text": "This is the most common use for galvanized metal, and hundreds of thousands of tons of steel products are galvanized annually worldwide. In developed countries most larger cities have several galvanizing factories, and many items of steel manufacture are galvanized for protection. Typically these include: street furniture, building frameworks, balconies, verandahs, staircases, ladders, walkways, and more. Hot dip galvanized steel is also used for making steel frames as a basic construction material for steel frame buildings.",
"title": "Galvanized construction steel"
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"title": "Galvanized piping"
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| Galvanization or galvanizing is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which the parts are coated by submerging them in a bath of hot, molten zinc. | 2001-11-21T12:56:33Z | 2023-09-27T03:08:02Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanization |
12,859 | Golden Rule | The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. It is sometimes called an ethics of reciprocity, meaning that you should reciprocate to others how you would like them to treat you (not necessarily how they actually treat you). Various expressions of this rule can be found in the tenets of most religions and creeds through the ages.
The maxim may appear as a positive or negative injunction governing conduct:
The term "Golden Rule", or "Golden law", began to be used widely in the early 17th century in Britain by Anglican theologians and preachers; the earliest known usage is that of Anglicans Charles Gibbon and Thomas Jackson in 1604.
Possibly the earliest affirmation of the maxim of reciprocity, reflecting the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma'at, appears in the story of "The Eloquent Peasant", which dates to the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1650 BCE): "Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do." This proverb embodies the do ut des principle. A Late Period (c. 664–323 BCE) papyrus contains an early negative affirmation of the Golden Rule: "That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another."
In Mahābhārata, the ancient epic of India, there is a discourse in which sage Brihaspati tells the king Yudhishthira the following about dharma, a philosophical understanding of values and actions that lend good order to life:
One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self. In brief, this is dharma. Anything else is succumbing to desire.
The Mahābhārata is usually dated to the period between 400 BCE and 400 CE.
In Chapter 32 in the Book of Virtue of the Tirukkuṛaḷ (c. 1st century BCE to 5th century CE), Valluvar says:
Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.
Why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt?
Furthermore, in verse 312, Valluvar says that it is the determination or code of the spotless (virtuous) not to do evil, even in return, to those who have cherished enmity and done them evil. According to him, the proper punishment to those who have done evil is to put them to shame by showing them kindness, in return and to forget both the evil and the good done on both sides (verse 314).
The Golden Rule in its prohibitive (negative) form was a common principle in ancient Greek philosophy. Examples of the general concept include:
The Pahlavi Texts of Zoroastrianism (c. 300 BCE – 1000 CE) were an early source for the Golden Rule: "That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself." Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5, and "Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE – 65 CE), a practitioner of Stoicism (c. 300 BCE – 200 CE) expressed a hierarchical variation of the Golden Rule in his Letter 47, an essay regarding the treatment of slaves: "Treat your inferior as you would wish your superior to treat you."
According to Simon Blackburn, the Golden Rule "can be found in some form in almost every ethical tradition". A multi-faith poster showing the Golden Rule in sacred writings from 13 faith traditions (designed by Paul McKenna of Scarboro Missions, 2000) has been on permanent display at the Headquarters of the United Nations since 4 January 2002. Creating the poster "took five years of research that included consultations with experts in each of the 13 faith groups." (See also the section on Global Ethic.)
A rule of reciprocal altruism was stated positively in a well-known Torah verse (Hebrew: ואהבת לרעך כמוך):
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
Rashi commented what constitutes revenge and grudge, using the example of two men. One man would not lend the other his ax, then the next day, the same man asks the other for his ax. If the second man should say, "“I will not lend it to you, just as you did not lend to me," it constitutes revenge; if "Here it is for you; I am not like you, who did not lend me," it constitutes a grudge. Rashi concludes his commentary by quoting Rabbi Akiva on love of neighbor: "This is a fundamental [all-inclusive] principle of the Torah."
Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE), used this verse as a most important message of the Torah for his teachings. Once, he was challenged by a gentile who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism but, drawing on Leviticus 19:18, briefed the man:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish ethics. Rabbi Akiva agreed, while Simeon ben Azzai suggested that the principle of love must have its foundation in Genesis chapter 1, which teaches that all men are the offspring of Adam, who was made in the image of God. According to Jewish rabbinic literature, the first man Adam represents the unity of mankind. This is echoed in the modern preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And it is also taught, that Adam is last in order according to the evolutionary character of God's creation:
Why was only a single specimen of man created first? To teach us that he who destroys a single soul destroys a whole world and that he who saves a single soul saves a whole world; furthermore, so no race or class may claim a nobler ancestry, saying, 'Our father was born first'; and, finally, to give testimony to the greatness of the Lord, who caused the wonderful diversity of mankind to emanate from one type. And why was Adam created last of all beings? To teach him humility; for if he be overbearing, let him remember that the little fly preceded him in the order of creation.
The Jewish Publication Society's edition of Leviticus states:
Thou shalt not hate thy brother, in thy heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him. 18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
This Torah verse represents one of several versions of the Golden Rule, which itself appears in various forms, positive and negative. It is the earliest written version of that concept in a positive form.
At the turn of the era, the Jewish rabbis were discussing the scope of the meaning of Leviticus 19:18 and 19:34 extensively:
The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.
Commentators interpret that this applies to foreigners (= Samaritans), proselytes (= 'strangers who reside with you') and Jews.
On the verse, "Love your fellow as yourself", the classic commentator Rashi quotes from Torat Kohanim, an early Midrashic text regarding the famous dictum of Rabbi Akiva: "Love your fellow as yourself – Rabbi Akiva says this is a great principle of the Torah."
Israel's postal service quoted from the previous Leviticus verse when it commemorated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a 1958 postage stamp.
The "Golden Rule" was proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth during his Sermon on the Mount and described by him as the second great commandment. The common English phrasing is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". A similar form of the phrase appeared in a Catholic catechism around 1567 (certainly in the reprint of 1583). Various applications of the Golden Rule are stated positively numerous times in the Old Testament: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Or, in Leviticus 19:34: "But treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you were foreigners one time in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.".
The Old Testament Deuterocanonical books of Tobit and Sirach, accepted as part of the Scriptural canon by Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Non-Chalcedonian Churches, express a negative form of the golden rule:
"Do to no one what you yourself dislike."
Recognize that your neighbor feels as you do, and keep in mind your own dislikes.
Two passages in the New Testament quote Jesus of Nazareth espousing the positive form of the Golden rule:
Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
A similar passage, a parallel to the Great Commandment, is Luke 10:25.
Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?"
He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself."
He said to him, "You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live."
The passage in the book of Luke then continues with Jesus answering the question, "Who is my neighbor?", by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, which John Wesley interprets as meaning that "your neighbor" is anyone in need.
Jesus' teaching goes beyond the negative formulation of not doing what one would not like done to themselves, to the positive formulation of actively doing good to another that, if the situations were reversed, one would desire that the other would do for them. This formulation, as indicated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, emphasizes the needs for positive action that brings benefit to another, not simply restraining oneself from negative activities that hurt another.
In one passage of the New Testament, Paul the Apostle refers to the golden rule, restating Jesus' second commandment:
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
St. Paul also comments on the golden rule in the book of Romans:
The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery", "You shall not murder", "You shall not steal", "You shall not covet", and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
The Arabian peninsula was known to not practice the golden rule prior to the advent of Islam. According to Th. Emil Homerin: "Pre-Islamic Arabs regarded the survival of the tribe, as most essential and to be ensured by the ancient rite of blood vengeance." Homerin goes on to say:
Similar examples of the golden rule are found in the hadith of the prophet Muhammad. The hadith recount what the prophet is believed to have said and done, and traditionally Muslims regard the hadith as second to only the Qur'an as a guide to correct belief and action.
From the hadith, the collected oral and written accounts of Muhammad and his teachings during his lifetime:
A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: O the messenger of God! Teach me something to go to heaven with it. Prophet said: "As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them. Now let the stirrup go! [This maxim is enough for you; go and act in accordance with it!]"
None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
Seek for mankind that of which you are desirous for yourself, that you may be a believer.
That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.
The most righteous person is the one who consents for other people what he consents for himself, and who dislikes for them what he dislikes for himself.
Ali ibn Abi Talib (4th Caliph in Sunni Islam, and first Imam in Shia Islam) says:
O my child, make yourself the measure (for dealings) between you and others. Thus, you should desire for others what you desire for yourself and hate for others what you hate for yourself. Do not oppress as you do not like to be oppressed. Do good to others as you would like good to be done to you. Regard bad for yourself whatever you regard bad for others. Accept that (treatment) from others which you would like others to accept from you ... Do not say to others what you do not like to be said to you.
Hussein bin Ali bin Awn al-Hashemi (102nd Caliph in Sunni Islam), repeated the Golden rule in the context of the Armenian genocide, thus, in 1917, he states:
Winter is ahead of us. Refugees from the Armenian Jacobite Community will probably need warmth. Help them how you would help your brothers. Pray for these people who have been expelled from their homes and left homeless and devoid of livestock and all their property.
The writings of the Baháʼí Faith encourage everyone to treat others as they would treat themselves and even prefer others over oneself:
O SON OF MAN! Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is My face; be then abashed before Me.
Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.
And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself.
Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not.
One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.
By making dharma your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself
Also,
श्रूयतां धर्मसर्वस्वं श्रुत्वा चाप्यवधार्यताम्। आत्मनः प्रतिकूलानि परेषां न समाचरेत्।।
If the entire Dharma can be said in a few words, then it is—that which is unfavorable to us, do not do that to others.
Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, c. 623–543 BCE) made the negative formulation of the golden rule one of the cornerstones of his ethics in the 6th century BCE. It occurs in many places and in many forms throughout the Tripitaka.
Comparing oneself to others in such terms as "Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I," he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.
One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
The Golden Rule is paramount in the Jainist philosophy and can be seen in the doctrines of ahimsa and karma. As part of the prohibition of causing any living beings to suffer, Jainism forbids inflicting upon others what is harmful to oneself.
The following line from the Acaranga Sutra sums up the philosophy of Jainism:
Nothing which breathes, which exists, which lives, or which has essence or potential of life, should be destroyed or ruled over, or subjugated, or harmed, or denied of its essence or potential. In support of this Truth, I ask you a question – "Is sorrow or pain desirable to you?" If you say "yes it is", it would be a lie. If you say, "No, It is not" you will be expressing the truth. Just as sorrow or pain is not desirable to you, so it is to all which breathe, exist, live or have any essence of life. To you and all, it is undesirable, and painful, and repugnant.
A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.
In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.
Precious like jewels are the minds of all. To hurt them is not at all good. If thou desirest thy Beloved, then hurt thou not anyone's heart.
The same idea is also presented in V.12 and VI.30 of the Analects (c. 500 BCE), which can be found in the online Chinese Text Project. The phraseology differs from the Christian version of the Golden Rule. It does not presume to do anything unto others, but merely to avoid doing what would be harmful. It does not preclude doing good deeds and taking moral positions.
The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful.
Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.
If people regarded other people's states in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people's cities in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own city to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. And so if states and cities do not attack one another and families do not wreak havoc upon and steal from one another, would this be a harm to the world or a benefit? Of course one must say it is a benefit to the world.
Mozi regarded the golden rule as a corollary to the cardinal virtue of impartiality, and encouraged egalitarianism and selflessness in relationships.
Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself.
Hear ye these words and heed them well, the words of Dea, thy Mother Goddess, "I command thee thus, O children of the Earth, that that which ye deem harmful unto thyself, the very same shall ye be forbidden from doing unto another, for violence and hatred give rise to the same. My command is thus, that ye shall return all violence and hatred with peacefulness and love, for my Law is love unto all things. Only through love shall ye have peace; yea and verily, only peace and love will cure the world, and subdue all evil."
Try not to do things to others that you would not like them to do to you. Try to treat others as you would want them to treat you.
One who is going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.
The "Declaration Toward a Global Ethic" from the Parliament of the World's Religions (1993) proclaimed the Golden Rule ("We must treat others as we wish others to treat us") as the common principle for many religions. The Initial Declaration was signed by 143 leaders from all of the world's major faiths, including Baháʼí Faith, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian. In the folklore of several cultures the Golden Rule is depicted by the allegory of the long spoons.
In the view of Greg M. Epstein, a Humanist chaplain at Harvard University, " 'do unto others' ... is a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely. But not a single one of these versions of the golden rule requires a God". Various sources identify the Golden Rule as a humanist principle:
Trying to live according to the Golden Rule means trying to empathise with other people, including those who may be very different from us. Empathy is at the root of kindness, compassion, understanding and respect – qualities that we all appreciate being shown, whoever we are, whatever we think and wherever we come from. And although it isn't possible to know what it really feels like to be a different person or live in different circumstances and have different life experiences, it isn't difficult for most of us to imagine what would cause us suffering and to try to avoid causing suffering to others. For this reason many people find the Golden Rule's corollary – "do not treat people in a way you would not wish to be treated yourself" – more pragmatic.
Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. [is] (…) the single greatest, simplest, and most important moral axiom humanity has ever invented, one which reappears in the writings of almost every culture and religion throughout history, the one we know as the Golden Rule. Moral directives do not need to be complex or obscure to be worthwhile, and in fact, it is precisely this rule's simplicity which makes it great. It is easy to come up with, easy to understand, and easy to apply, and these three things are the hallmarks of a strong and healthy moral system. The idea behind it is readily graspable: before performing an action which might harm another person, try to imagine yourself in their position, and consider whether you would want to be the recipient of that action. If you would not want to be in such a position, the other person probably would not either, and so you should not do it. It is the basic and fundamental human trait of empathy, the ability to vicariously experience how another is feeling, that makes this possible, and it is the principle of empathy by which we should live our lives.
When we say that man chooses for himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all.
John Stuart Mill in his book, Utilitarianism (originally published in 1861), wrote, "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. 'To do as you would be done by,' and 'to love your neighbour as yourself,' constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."
According to Marc H. Bornstein, and William E. Paden, the Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others.
However, Leo Damrosch argued that the notion that the Golden Rule pertains to "rights" per se is a contemporary interpretation and has nothing to do with its origin. The development of human "rights" is a modern political ideal that began as a philosophical concept promulgated through the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau in 18th century France, among others. His writings influenced Thomas Jefferson, who then incorporated Rousseau's reference to "inalienable rights" into the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. Damrosch argued that to confuse the Golden Rule with human rights is to apply contemporary thinking to ancient concepts.
There has been research published arguing that some 'sense' of fair play and the Golden Rule may be stated and rooted in terms of neuroscientific and neuroethical principles.
The Golden Rule can also be explained from the perspectives of psychology, philosophy, sociology, human evolution, and economics. Psychologically, it involves a person empathizing with others. Philosophically, it involves a person perceiving their neighbor also as "I" or "self". Sociologically, "love your neighbor as yourself" is applicable between individuals, between groups, and also between individuals and groups. In evolution, "reciprocal altruism" is seen as a distinctive advance in the capacity of human groups to survive and reproduce, as their exceptional brains demanded exceptionally long childhoods and ongoing provision and protection even beyond that of the immediate family. In economics, Richard Swift, referring to ideas from David Graeber, suggests that "without some kind of reciprocity society would no longer be able to exist."
Study of other primates provides evidence that the Golden Rule exists in other non-human species.
Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche have objected to the rule on a variety of grounds. One is the epistemic question of determining how others want to be treated. The obvious way is to ask them, but they might give duplicitous answers if they find this strategically useful, and they might also fail to understand the details of the choice situation as you understand it. We might also be biased to perceiving harms and benefits to ourselves more than to others, which could lead to escalating conflict if we are suspicious of others. Hence Linus Pauling suggested that we introduce a bias towards others into the golden rule: "Do unto others 20 percent better than you would have them to unto you-to correct for subjective bias."
One religion that officially rejects the Golden Rule is the Neo-Nazi religion of the "Creativity Movement" founded by Ben Klassen. Followers of the religion believe that the Golden Rule doesn't make sense and is a "completely unworkable principle."
George Bernard Shaw wrote, "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." This suggests that if your values are not shared with others, the way you want to be treated will not be the way they want to be treated. Hence, the Golden Rule of "do unto others" is "dangerous in the wrong hands", according to philosopher Iain King, because "some fanatics have no aversion to death: the Golden Rule might inspire them to kill others in suicide missions."
Walter Terence Stace, in The Concept of Morals (1937) argued that Shaw's remark
...seems to overlook the fact that "doing as you would be done by" includes taking into account your neighbour's tastes as you would that he should take yours into account. Thus the "golden rule" might still express the essence of a universal morality even if no two men in the world had any needs or tastes in common.
Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others. On the other hand, in a critique of the consistency of Kant's writings, several authors have noted the "similarity" between the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative, introduced in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (See discussion at this link).
This was perhaps a well-known objection, as Leibniz actually responded to it long before Kant made it, suggesting that the judge should put himself in the place, not merely of the criminal, but of all affected persons and then judging each option (to inflict punishment, or release the criminal, etc.) by whether there was a “greater good in which this lesser evil was included.”
Marcus George Singer observed that there are two importantly different ways of looking at the golden rule: as requiring (1) that you perform specific actions that you want others to do to you or (2) that you guide your behavior in the same general ways that you want others to. Counter-examples to the golden rule typically are more forceful against the first than the second.
In his book on the golden rule, Jeffrey Wattles makes the similar observation that such objections typically arise while applying the golden rule in certain general ways (namely, ignoring differences in taste or situation, failing to compensate for subjective bias, etc.) But if we apply the golden rule to our own method of using it, asking in effect if we would want other people to apply the golden rule in such ways, the answer would typically be no, since others' ignoring of such factors will lead to behavior which we object to. It follows that we should not do so ourselves—according to the golden rule. In this way, the golden rule may be self-correcting. An article by Jouni Reinikainen develops this suggestion in greater detail.
It is possible, then, that the golden rule can itself guide us in identifying which differences of situation are morally relevant. We would often want other people to ignore any prejudice against our race or nationality when deciding how to act towards us, but would also want them to not ignore our differing preferences in food, desire for aggressiveness, and so on. This principle of "doing unto others, wherever possible, as they would be done by..." has sometimes been termed the platinum rule.
Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1863) includes a character named Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By (and another, Mrs Be-Done-By-As-You-Did). | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. It is sometimes called an ethics of reciprocity, meaning that you should reciprocate to others how you would like them to treat you (not necessarily how they actually treat you). Various expressions of this rule can be found in the tenets of most religions and creeds through the ages.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The maxim may appear as a positive or negative injunction governing conduct:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The term \"Golden Rule\", or \"Golden law\", began to be used widely in the early 17th century in Britain by Anglican theologians and preachers; the earliest known usage is that of Anglicans Charles Gibbon and Thomas Jackson in 1604.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Possibly the earliest affirmation of the maxim of reciprocity, reflecting the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma'at, appears in the story of \"The Eloquent Peasant\", which dates to the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1650 BCE): \"Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do.\" This proverb embodies the do ut des principle. A Late Period (c. 664–323 BCE) papyrus contains an early negative affirmation of the Golden Rule: \"That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.\"",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In Mahābhārata, the ancient epic of India, there is a discourse in which sage Brihaspati tells the king Yudhishthira the following about dharma, a philosophical understanding of values and actions that lend good order to life:",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self. In brief, this is dharma. Anything else is succumbing to desire.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Mahābhārata is usually dated to the period between 400 BCE and 400 CE.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In Chapter 32 in the Book of Virtue of the Tirukkuṛaḷ (c. 1st century BCE to 5th century CE), Valluvar says:",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt?",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Furthermore, in verse 312, Valluvar says that it is the determination or code of the spotless (virtuous) not to do evil, even in return, to those who have cherished enmity and done them evil. According to him, the proper punishment to those who have done evil is to put them to shame by showing them kindness, in return and to forget both the evil and the good done on both sides (verse 314).",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Golden Rule in its prohibitive (negative) form was a common principle in ancient Greek philosophy. Examples of the general concept include:",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Pahlavi Texts of Zoroastrianism (c. 300 BCE – 1000 CE) were an early source for the Golden Rule: \"That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself.\" Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5, and \"Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.\" Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE – 65 CE), a practitioner of Stoicism (c. 300 BCE – 200 CE) expressed a hierarchical variation of the Golden Rule in his Letter 47, an essay regarding the treatment of slaves: \"Treat your inferior as you would wish your superior to treat you.\"",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "According to Simon Blackburn, the Golden Rule \"can be found in some form in almost every ethical tradition\". A multi-faith poster showing the Golden Rule in sacred writings from 13 faith traditions (designed by Paul McKenna of Scarboro Missions, 2000) has been on permanent display at the Headquarters of the United Nations since 4 January 2002. Creating the poster \"took five years of research that included consultations with experts in each of the 13 faith groups.\" (See also the section on Global Ethic.)",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A rule of reciprocal altruism was stated positively in a well-known Torah verse (Hebrew: ואהבת לרעך כמוך):",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Rashi commented what constitutes revenge and grudge, using the example of two men. One man would not lend the other his ax, then the next day, the same man asks the other for his ax. If the second man should say, \"“I will not lend it to you, just as you did not lend to me,\" it constitutes revenge; if \"Here it is for you; I am not like you, who did not lend me,\" it constitutes a grudge. Rashi concludes his commentary by quoting Rabbi Akiva on love of neighbor: \"This is a fundamental [all-inclusive] principle of the Torah.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE), used this verse as a most important message of the Torah for his teachings. Once, he was challenged by a gentile who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism but, drawing on Leviticus 19:18, briefed the man:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish ethics. Rabbi Akiva agreed, while Simeon ben Azzai suggested that the principle of love must have its foundation in Genesis chapter 1, which teaches that all men are the offspring of Adam, who was made in the image of God. According to Jewish rabbinic literature, the first man Adam represents the unity of mankind. This is echoed in the modern preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And it is also taught, that Adam is last in order according to the evolutionary character of God's creation:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Why was only a single specimen of man created first? To teach us that he who destroys a single soul destroys a whole world and that he who saves a single soul saves a whole world; furthermore, so no race or class may claim a nobler ancestry, saying, 'Our father was born first'; and, finally, to give testimony to the greatness of the Lord, who caused the wonderful diversity of mankind to emanate from one type. And why was Adam created last of all beings? To teach him humility; for if he be overbearing, let him remember that the little fly preceded him in the order of creation.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Jewish Publication Society's edition of Leviticus states:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Thou shalt not hate thy brother, in thy heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him. 18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "This Torah verse represents one of several versions of the Golden Rule, which itself appears in various forms, positive and negative. It is the earliest written version of that concept in a positive form.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "At the turn of the era, the Jewish rabbis were discussing the scope of the meaning of Leviticus 19:18 and 19:34 extensively:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Commentators interpret that this applies to foreigners (= Samaritans), proselytes (= 'strangers who reside with you') and Jews.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "On the verse, \"Love your fellow as yourself\", the classic commentator Rashi quotes from Torat Kohanim, an early Midrashic text regarding the famous dictum of Rabbi Akiva: \"Love your fellow as yourself – Rabbi Akiva says this is a great principle of the Torah.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Israel's postal service quoted from the previous Leviticus verse when it commemorated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a 1958 postage stamp.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The \"Golden Rule\" was proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth during his Sermon on the Mount and described by him as the second great commandment. The common English phrasing is \"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you\". A similar form of the phrase appeared in a Catholic catechism around 1567 (certainly in the reprint of 1583). Various applications of the Golden Rule are stated positively numerous times in the Old Testament: \"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\" Or, in Leviticus 19:34: \"But treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you were foreigners one time in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.\".",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Old Testament Deuterocanonical books of Tobit and Sirach, accepted as part of the Scriptural canon by Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Non-Chalcedonian Churches, express a negative form of the golden rule:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "\"Do to no one what you yourself dislike.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Recognize that your neighbor feels as you do, and keep in mind your own dislikes.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Two passages in the New Testament quote Jesus of Nazareth espousing the positive form of the Golden rule:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "A similar passage, a parallel to the Great Commandment, is Luke 10:25.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, \"Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "He said to him, \"What is written in the law? How do you read it?\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "He answered, \"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "He said to him, \"You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The passage in the book of Luke then continues with Jesus answering the question, \"Who is my neighbor?\", by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, which John Wesley interprets as meaning that \"your neighbor\" is anyone in need.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Jesus' teaching goes beyond the negative formulation of not doing what one would not like done to themselves, to the positive formulation of actively doing good to another that, if the situations were reversed, one would desire that the other would do for them. This formulation, as indicated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, emphasizes the needs for positive action that brings benefit to another, not simply restraining oneself from negative activities that hurt another.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In one passage of the New Testament, Paul the Apostle refers to the golden rule, restating Jesus' second commandment:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "St. Paul also comments on the golden rule in the book of Romans:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The commandments, \"You shall not commit adultery\", \"You shall not murder\", \"You shall not steal\", \"You shall not covet\", and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: \"Love your neighbor as yourself.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The Arabian peninsula was known to not practice the golden rule prior to the advent of Islam. According to Th. Emil Homerin: \"Pre-Islamic Arabs regarded the survival of the tribe, as most essential and to be ensured by the ancient rite of blood vengeance.\" Homerin goes on to say:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Similar examples of the golden rule are found in the hadith of the prophet Muhammad. The hadith recount what the prophet is believed to have said and done, and traditionally Muslims regard the hadith as second to only the Qur'an as a guide to correct belief and action.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "From the hadith, the collected oral and written accounts of Muhammad and his teachings during his lifetime:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: O the messenger of God! Teach me something to go to heaven with it. Prophet said: \"As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them. Now let the stirrup go! [This maxim is enough for you; go and act in accordance with it!]\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Seek for mankind that of which you are desirous for yourself, that you may be a believer.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The most righteous person is the one who consents for other people what he consents for himself, and who dislikes for them what he dislikes for himself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Ali ibn Abi Talib (4th Caliph in Sunni Islam, and first Imam in Shia Islam) says:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "O my child, make yourself the measure (for dealings) between you and others. Thus, you should desire for others what you desire for yourself and hate for others what you hate for yourself. Do not oppress as you do not like to be oppressed. Do good to others as you would like good to be done to you. Regard bad for yourself whatever you regard bad for others. Accept that (treatment) from others which you would like others to accept from you ... Do not say to others what you do not like to be said to you.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Hussein bin Ali bin Awn al-Hashemi (102nd Caliph in Sunni Islam), repeated the Golden rule in the context of the Armenian genocide, thus, in 1917, he states:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Winter is ahead of us. Refugees from the Armenian Jacobite Community will probably need warmth. Help them how you would help your brothers. Pray for these people who have been expelled from their homes and left homeless and devoid of livestock and all their property.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The writings of the Baháʼí Faith encourage everyone to treat others as they would treat themselves and even prefer others over oneself:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "O SON OF MAN! Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is My face; be then abashed before Me.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "By making dharma your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Also,",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "श्रूयतां धर्मसर्वस्वं श्रुत्वा चाप्यवधार्यताम्। आत्मनः प्रतिकूलानि परेषां न समाचरेत्।।",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "If the entire Dharma can be said in a few words, then it is—that which is unfavorable to us, do not do that to others.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, c. 623–543 BCE) made the negative formulation of the golden rule one of the cornerstones of his ethics in the 6th century BCE. It occurs in many places and in many forms throughout the Tripitaka.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Comparing oneself to others in such terms as \"Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I,\" he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "The Golden Rule is paramount in the Jainist philosophy and can be seen in the doctrines of ahimsa and karma. As part of the prohibition of causing any living beings to suffer, Jainism forbids inflicting upon others what is harmful to oneself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The following line from the Acaranga Sutra sums up the philosophy of Jainism:",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Nothing which breathes, which exists, which lives, or which has essence or potential of life, should be destroyed or ruled over, or subjugated, or harmed, or denied of its essence or potential. In support of this Truth, I ask you a question – \"Is sorrow or pain desirable to you?\" If you say \"yes it is\", it would be a lie. If you say, \"No, It is not\" you will be expressing the truth. Just as sorrow or pain is not desirable to you, so it is to all which breathe, exist, live or have any essence of life. To you and all, it is undesirable, and painful, and repugnant.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Precious like jewels are the minds of all. To hurt them is not at all good. If thou desirest thy Beloved, then hurt thou not anyone's heart.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The same idea is also presented in V.12 and VI.30 of the Analects (c. 500 BCE), which can be found in the online Chinese Text Project. The phraseology differs from the Christian version of the Golden Rule. It does not presume to do anything unto others, but merely to avoid doing what would be harmful. It does not preclude doing good deeds and taking moral positions.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "If people regarded other people's states in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people's cities in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own city to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people's families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. And so if states and cities do not attack one another and families do not wreak havoc upon and steal from one another, would this be a harm to the world or a benefit? Of course one must say it is a benefit to the world.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Mozi regarded the golden rule as a corollary to the cardinal virtue of impartiality, and encouraged egalitarianism and selflessness in relationships.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Hear ye these words and heed them well, the words of Dea, thy Mother Goddess, \"I command thee thus, O children of the Earth, that that which ye deem harmful unto thyself, the very same shall ye be forbidden from doing unto another, for violence and hatred give rise to the same. My command is thus, that ye shall return all violence and hatred with peacefulness and love, for my Law is love unto all things. Only through love shall ye have peace; yea and verily, only peace and love will cure the world, and subdue all evil.\"",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Try not to do things to others that you would not like them to do to you. Try to treat others as you would want them to treat you.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "One who is going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.",
"title": "Religious context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "The \"Declaration Toward a Global Ethic\" from the Parliament of the World's Religions (1993) proclaimed the Golden Rule (\"We must treat others as we wish others to treat us\") as the common principle for many religions. The Initial Declaration was signed by 143 leaders from all of the world's major faiths, including Baháʼí Faith, Brahmanism, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous, Interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American, Neo-Pagan, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophist, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian. In the folklore of several cultures the Golden Rule is depicted by the allegory of the long spoons.",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "In the view of Greg M. Epstein, a Humanist chaplain at Harvard University, \" 'do unto others' ... is a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely. But not a single one of these versions of the golden rule requires a God\". Various sources identify the Golden Rule as a humanist principle:",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Trying to live according to the Golden Rule means trying to empathise with other people, including those who may be very different from us. Empathy is at the root of kindness, compassion, understanding and respect – qualities that we all appreciate being shown, whoever we are, whatever we think and wherever we come from. And although it isn't possible to know what it really feels like to be a different person or live in different circumstances and have different life experiences, it isn't difficult for most of us to imagine what would cause us suffering and to try to avoid causing suffering to others. For this reason many people find the Golden Rule's corollary – \"do not treat people in a way you would not wish to be treated yourself\" – more pragmatic.",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. [is] (…) the single greatest, simplest, and most important moral axiom humanity has ever invented, one which reappears in the writings of almost every culture and religion throughout history, the one we know as the Golden Rule. Moral directives do not need to be complex or obscure to be worthwhile, and in fact, it is precisely this rule's simplicity which makes it great. It is easy to come up with, easy to understand, and easy to apply, and these three things are the hallmarks of a strong and healthy moral system. The idea behind it is readily graspable: before performing an action which might harm another person, try to imagine yourself in their position, and consider whether you would want to be the recipient of that action. If you would not want to be in such a position, the other person probably would not either, and so you should not do it. It is the basic and fundamental human trait of empathy, the ability to vicariously experience how another is feeling, that makes this possible, and it is the principle of empathy by which we should live our lives.",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "When we say that man chooses for himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all.",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "John Stuart Mill in his book, Utilitarianism (originally published in 1861), wrote, \"In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. 'To do as you would be done by,' and 'to love your neighbour as yourself,' constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.\"",
"title": "Secular context"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "According to Marc H. Bornstein, and William E. Paden, the Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others.",
"title": "Other contexts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "However, Leo Damrosch argued that the notion that the Golden Rule pertains to \"rights\" per se is a contemporary interpretation and has nothing to do with its origin. The development of human \"rights\" is a modern political ideal that began as a philosophical concept promulgated through the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau in 18th century France, among others. His writings influenced Thomas Jefferson, who then incorporated Rousseau's reference to \"inalienable rights\" into the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. Damrosch argued that to confuse the Golden Rule with human rights is to apply contemporary thinking to ancient concepts.",
"title": "Other contexts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "There has been research published arguing that some 'sense' of fair play and the Golden Rule may be stated and rooted in terms of neuroscientific and neuroethical principles.",
"title": "Science and economics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "The Golden Rule can also be explained from the perspectives of psychology, philosophy, sociology, human evolution, and economics. Psychologically, it involves a person empathizing with others. Philosophically, it involves a person perceiving their neighbor also as \"I\" or \"self\". Sociologically, \"love your neighbor as yourself\" is applicable between individuals, between groups, and also between individuals and groups. In evolution, \"reciprocal altruism\" is seen as a distinctive advance in the capacity of human groups to survive and reproduce, as their exceptional brains demanded exceptionally long childhoods and ongoing provision and protection even beyond that of the immediate family. In economics, Richard Swift, referring to ideas from David Graeber, suggests that \"without some kind of reciprocity society would no longer be able to exist.\"",
"title": "Science and economics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Study of other primates provides evidence that the Golden Rule exists in other non-human species.",
"title": "Science and economics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche have objected to the rule on a variety of grounds. One is the epistemic question of determining how others want to be treated. The obvious way is to ask them, but they might give duplicitous answers if they find this strategically useful, and they might also fail to understand the details of the choice situation as you understand it. We might also be biased to perceiving harms and benefits to ourselves more than to others, which could lead to escalating conflict if we are suspicious of others. Hence Linus Pauling suggested that we introduce a bias towards others into the golden rule: \"Do unto others 20 percent better than you would have them to unto you-to correct for subjective bias.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "One religion that officially rejects the Golden Rule is the Neo-Nazi religion of the \"Creativity Movement\" founded by Ben Klassen. Followers of the religion believe that the Golden Rule doesn't make sense and is a \"completely unworkable principle.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "George Bernard Shaw wrote, \"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.\" This suggests that if your values are not shared with others, the way you want to be treated will not be the way they want to be treated. Hence, the Golden Rule of \"do unto others\" is \"dangerous in the wrong hands\", according to philosopher Iain King, because \"some fanatics have no aversion to death: the Golden Rule might inspire them to kill others in suicide missions.\"",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Walter Terence Stace, in The Concept of Morals (1937) argued that Shaw's remark",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "...seems to overlook the fact that \"doing as you would be done by\" includes taking into account your neighbour's tastes as you would that he should take yours into account. Thus the \"golden rule\" might still express the essence of a universal morality even if no two men in the world had any needs or tastes in common.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others. On the other hand, in a critique of the consistency of Kant's writings, several authors have noted the \"similarity\" between the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative, introduced in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (See discussion at this link).",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "This was perhaps a well-known objection, as Leibniz actually responded to it long before Kant made it, suggesting that the judge should put himself in the place, not merely of the criminal, but of all affected persons and then judging each option (to inflict punishment, or release the criminal, etc.) by whether there was a “greater good in which this lesser evil was included.”",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Marcus George Singer observed that there are two importantly different ways of looking at the golden rule: as requiring (1) that you perform specific actions that you want others to do to you or (2) that you guide your behavior in the same general ways that you want others to. Counter-examples to the golden rule typically are more forceful against the first than the second.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "In his book on the golden rule, Jeffrey Wattles makes the similar observation that such objections typically arise while applying the golden rule in certain general ways (namely, ignoring differences in taste or situation, failing to compensate for subjective bias, etc.) But if we apply the golden rule to our own method of using it, asking in effect if we would want other people to apply the golden rule in such ways, the answer would typically be no, since others' ignoring of such factors will lead to behavior which we object to. It follows that we should not do so ourselves—according to the golden rule. In this way, the golden rule may be self-correcting. An article by Jouni Reinikainen develops this suggestion in greater detail.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "It is possible, then, that the golden rule can itself guide us in identifying which differences of situation are morally relevant. We would often want other people to ignore any prejudice against our race or nationality when deciding how to act towards us, but would also want them to not ignore our differing preferences in food, desire for aggressiveness, and so on. This principle of \"doing unto others, wherever possible, as they would be done by...\" has sometimes been termed the platinum rule.",
"title": "Criticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1863) includes a character named Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By (and another, Mrs Be-Done-By-As-You-Did).",
"title": "Popular references"
}
]
| The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. It is sometimes called an ethics of reciprocity, meaning that you should reciprocate to others how you would like them to treat you. Various expressions of this rule can be found in the tenets of most religions and creeds through the ages. The maxim may appear as a positive or negative injunction governing conduct: Treat others as you would like others to treat you
Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated
What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself | 2001-11-21T17:04:14Z | 2023-12-28T12:07:41Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule |
12,861 | Governor of New York | The governor of New York is the head of state and head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the New York Legislature, to convene the legislature and grant pardons, except in cases of impeachment and treason. The governor is the highest paid governor in the country.
The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the New York State Legislature, to convene the legislature, and to grant pardons, except in cases of treason and impeachment. Unlike the other government departments that compose the executive branch of government, the governor is the head of the state Executive Department. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy style of His/Her Excellency while in office.
Often considered a potential candidate to lead the executive branch of the federal government, 10 New York governors have been selected as presidential candidates by a major party, four of whom (Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt) were elected as president of the United States. Meanwhile, six New York governors have gone on to serve as vice president. Additionally, two New York governors, John Jay and Charles Evans Hughes, have served as chief justice.
Under the New York State Constitution, a person must be at least 30 years of age, a United States citizen, and a resident of the state of New York for at least five years prior to being elected to serve as governor.
There have been a total of 57 governors as of November 22, 2023.
The governor is responsible for appointing their Executive Chamber. These appointments do not require the confirmation of the New York State Senate. Most political advisors report to the secretary to the governor, while most policy advisors report to the director of state operations, who also answers to the secretary to the governor, making that position, in practice, the true chief of staff and most powerful position in the Cabinet. The literal chief of staff is in charge of the Office of Scheduling and holds no authority over other cabinet officials.
The governor is also charged with naming the heads of the various departments, divisions, boards, and offices within the state government. These nominees require confirmation by the state Senate. While some appointees may share the title of commissioner, director, etc., only department level-heads are considered members of the actual state cabinet, although the heads of the various divisions, boards, and offices may attend cabinet-level meetings from time to time.
The position of governor in New York dates back to the British take over of New Amsterdam where the position replaced the former Dutch offices of director or director-general.
The Constitution of New York has provided since 1777 for the election of a lieutenant governor of New York, who also acts as president of the State Senate, to the same term (keeping the same term lengths as the governor throughout all the constitutional revisions). Originally, in the event of the death, resignation or impeachment of the governor, or absence from the state, the lieutenant governor would take on the governor's duties and powers. Since the 1938 constitution, the lieutenant governor explicitly becomes governor upon such vacancy in the office.
Should the office of lieutenant governor become vacant, the temporary president of the state senate performs the duties of a lieutenant governor until the governor can take back the duties of the office, or the next election; likewise, should both offices become vacant, the temporary president acts as governor, with the office of lieutenant governor remaining vacant. Although no provision exists in the constitution for it, precedent set in 2009 allows the governor to appoint a lieutenant governor should a vacancy occur. Should the temporary president be unable to fulfill the duties, the speaker of the assembly is next in the line of succession. The lieutenant governor is elected on the same ticket as the governor, but nominated separately.
Line of succession: | [
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"text": "The governor of New York is the head of state and head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the New York Legislature, to convene the legislature and grant pardons, except in cases of impeachment and treason. The governor is the highest paid governor in the country.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the New York State Legislature, to convene the legislature, and to grant pardons, except in cases of treason and impeachment. Unlike the other government departments that compose the executive branch of government, the governor is the head of the state Executive Department. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy style of His/Her Excellency while in office.",
"title": "Powers and duties"
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"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Often considered a potential candidate to lead the executive branch of the federal government, 10 New York governors have been selected as presidential candidates by a major party, four of whom (Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt) were elected as president of the United States. Meanwhile, six New York governors have gone on to serve as vice president. Additionally, two New York governors, John Jay and Charles Evans Hughes, have served as chief justice.",
"title": "Powers and duties"
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"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Under the New York State Constitution, a person must be at least 30 years of age, a United States citizen, and a resident of the state of New York for at least five years prior to being elected to serve as governor.",
"title": "Qualifications"
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"text": "There have been a total of 57 governors as of November 22, 2023.",
"title": "List of governors of New York"
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"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The governor is responsible for appointing their Executive Chamber. These appointments do not require the confirmation of the New York State Senate. Most political advisors report to the secretary to the governor, while most policy advisors report to the director of state operations, who also answers to the secretary to the governor, making that position, in practice, the true chief of staff and most powerful position in the Cabinet. The literal chief of staff is in charge of the Office of Scheduling and holds no authority over other cabinet officials.",
"title": "Appointments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The governor is also charged with naming the heads of the various departments, divisions, boards, and offices within the state government. These nominees require confirmation by the state Senate. While some appointees may share the title of commissioner, director, etc., only department level-heads are considered members of the actual state cabinet, although the heads of the various divisions, boards, and offices may attend cabinet-level meetings from time to time.",
"title": "Appointments"
},
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"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The position of governor in New York dates back to the British take over of New Amsterdam where the position replaced the former Dutch offices of director or director-general.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Constitution of New York has provided since 1777 for the election of a lieutenant governor of New York, who also acts as president of the State Senate, to the same term (keeping the same term lengths as the governor throughout all the constitutional revisions). Originally, in the event of the death, resignation or impeachment of the governor, or absence from the state, the lieutenant governor would take on the governor's duties and powers. Since the 1938 constitution, the lieutenant governor explicitly becomes governor upon such vacancy in the office.",
"title": "Line of succession"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Should the office of lieutenant governor become vacant, the temporary president of the state senate performs the duties of a lieutenant governor until the governor can take back the duties of the office, or the next election; likewise, should both offices become vacant, the temporary president acts as governor, with the office of lieutenant governor remaining vacant. Although no provision exists in the constitution for it, precedent set in 2009 allows the governor to appoint a lieutenant governor should a vacancy occur. Should the temporary president be unable to fulfill the duties, the speaker of the assembly is next in the line of succession. The lieutenant governor is elected on the same ticket as the governor, but nominated separately.",
"title": "Line of succession"
},
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"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Line of succession:",
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| The governor of New York is the head of state and head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the New York Legislature, to convene the legislature and grant pardons, except in cases of impeachment and treason. The governor is the highest paid governor in the country. | 2001-11-21T20:42:11Z | 2023-11-24T15:51:08Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_New_York |
12,862 | Glasnevin | Glasnevin (Irish: Glas Naíon, meaning 'stream of the infants', also known as Glas Naedhe, meaning "stream of O'Naeidhe" after a local stream and an ancient chieftain) is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin Cemetery, the National Meteorological Office, and a range of other state bodies, and Dublin City University has its main campus and other facilities in and near the area. Glasnevin is also a civil parish in the ancient barony of Coolock.
A mainly residential neighbourhood, Glasnevin is located on the Northside of the city of Dublin (about 3 km north of Dublin city centre). It was established on the northern bank of the River Tolka where the stream for which it may be named joins, and now extends north and south of the river. Three watercourses flow into the Tolka in the area. Two streams can be seen near the Catholic "pyramid church", the Claremont Stream or Nevin Stream, flowing south from Poppintree and Jamestown Industrial Estate branches, and what is sometimes called the "Cemetery Drain" coming north from the southern edge of Glasnevin Cemetery. In addition, a major diversion from the Wad River comes from the Ballymun area, joining near the Claremont Stream.
The boundaries of Glasnevin stretch from the Royal Canal to Glasnevin Avenue and from the Finglas Road to the edges of Drumcondra. It spans the postal districts of Dublin 9 and 11, and is bordered to the northwest by Finglas, northeast by Ballymun and Santry, Whitehall to the east, Phibsborough and Drumcondra to the south and Cabra to the southwest.
Glasnevin was reputedly founded by Saint Mobhi (sometimes known as St Berchan) in the sixth (or perhaps fifth) century as a monastery. His monastery continued to be used for many years afterwards - St. Colman is recorded as having paid homage to its founder when he returned from abroad to visit Ireland a century after St Mobhi's death in 544. St. Columba of Iona is thought to have studied under St. Mobhi, but left Glasnevin following an outbreak of plague and journeyed north to open the House at Derry; there is a long street (Iona Road) in Glasnevin named in his honour and the church on Iona Road is called Saint Columba's.
A settlement grew up around the monastery, which survived until the Viking invasions in the eighth century. After raids on monasteries at Glendalough and Clondalkin, the monasteries at Glasnevin and Finglas were attacked and destroyed.
By 822 Glasnevin, along with Grangegorman and Clonken or Clonkene (now known as Deansgrange), had become parts of the grange (farm) of Christ Church Cathedral and it seems to have maintained this connection up to the time of the Reformation.
The Battle of Clontarf was fought on the banks of the River Tolka in 1014 (a field called the bloody acre is supposed to be part of the site). The Irish defeated the Danes in a battle, in which 7,000 Danes and 4,000 Irish died.
The 12th century saw the Normans (who had conquered England and Wales in the eleventh century) invade Ireland. As local rulers continued fighting amongst themselves the Norman King of England Henry II was invited to intervene. He arrived in 1171, took control of much land, and then parcelled it out amongst his supporters. Glasnevin ended up under the jurisdiction of Finglas Abbey. Later, Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, took responsibility for Glasnevin and it became the property of the Priory of the Most Holy Trinity (Christ Church Cathedral).
In 1240 a church and tower were reconstructed on the site of the Church of St. Mobhi in the monastery. The returns of the church for 1326 stated that 28 tenants resided in Glasnevin. The church was enlarged in 1346, along with a small hall known as the Manor Hall.
When King Henry VIII broke from Rome an era of religious repression began. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Catholic Church property and land were appropriated to the new Church of England, and monasteries (including the one at Glasnevin) were forcibly closed and fell into ruin. Glasnevin had at this stage developed as a village, with its principal landmark and focal point being its "bull-ring" noted in 1542.
By 1667 Glasnevin had expanded - but not by very much; it is recorded as containing 24 houses. The development of the village was given a fresh impetus when Sir John Rogerson built his country residence - "The Glen" or "Glasnevin House" - outside the village.
The plantations of Ireland saw the settlement of Protestant English families on land previously held by Catholics. Lands at Glasnevin were leased to such families and a Protestant church was erected there in 1707. It was built on the site of the old Catholic Church and was named after St. Mobhi. The church was largely rebuilt in the mid-18th century. The attached churchyard became a graveyard for both Protestants and Catholics. It is said that Robert Emmet is buried there, this claim being made because once somebody working in the graveyard there dug up a headless body.
By now Glasnevin was an area for "families of distinction" - in spite of a comment attributed to the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, William King that "when any couple had a mind to be wicked, they would retire to Glasnevin". In a letter, dated 1725 he described Glasnevin as "the receptacle for thieves and rogues [..] The first search when anything was stolen, was there, and when any couple had a mind to retire to be wicked there was their harbour. But since the church was built, and service regularly settled, all these evils are banished. Good houses are built in it, and the place civilised." Glasnevin National School was also built during this period.
In the 1830s, the civil parish population was recorded as 1,001, of whom 559 resided in the village. Glasnevin was described as a parish in the barony of Coolock, pleasantly situated and the residence of many families of distinction.
On 1 June 1832, Charles Lindsay, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and William John released their holdings of Sir John Rogerson's lands at Glasnevin, (including Glasnevin House) to George Hayward Lindsay. This transfer included the sum of 1,500 Pounds Sterling. Although this does not specifically cite the marriage of George Hayward Lindsay to Lady Mary Catherine Gore, George Lindsay almost certainly came into possession of the lands at Glasnevin as a result of his marriage.
When Drumcondra began to rapidly expand in the 1870s, the residents of Glasnevin sought to protect their district and opposed being merged with the neighbouring suburb. One of the objectors was the property owner, Dr Henry Gogarty, the father of the Irish poet, Oliver St. John Gogarty.
Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin became a township in 1878 and became part of the City of Dublin in 1900 under the Dublin Corporation Act 1900.
George Hayward Lindsay's eldest son, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Gore Lindsay, was in possession of his father's lands at Glasnevin when the area began to be developed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The development of his lands after 1903/04 marked the start of the gradual development of the area.
Glasnevin remained relatively undeveloped until the opening up of the Carroll Estate in 1914, which saw the creation of the redbrick residential roads running down towards Drumcondra. The process was accelerated by Dublin Corporation in the 1920s and the present shape of the suburb was in place by 1930. Among the developers who built estates in the area were Alexander Strain and his son-in-law George Linzell. Linzell built the first individual house built in the international style in Ireland, Balnagowan House, on St. Mobhi Boithrin in the late 1920s.
The start of the 20th century also saw the opening of a short-lived railway station on the Drumcondra and North Dublin Link Railway line from Glasnevin Junction to Connolly Station (then Amiens Street). Glasnevin railway station opened on 1 April 1901 and closed on 1 December 1910.
The village has changed a lot over the years, and is now part of Dublin city. It is now populated by a mix of young families, senior citizens and students attending Dublin City University.
As well as the amenities of the National Botanic Gardens (Ireland) and local parks, the national meteorological office Met Éireann, the Central Fisheries Board, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Department of Defence and the national enterprise and trade board Enterprise Ireland are all located in the area.
The house and lands of the poet Thomas Tickell were sold in 1790 to the Irish Parliament and given to the Royal Dublin Society for them to establish Ireland's first Botanic Gardens. The gardens were the first location in Ireland where the infection responsible for the 1845–1847 Great Famine was identified. Throughout the famine, research to stop the infection was undertaken at the gardens.
The 48 acres (190,000 m) which border the River Tolka also adjoin the Prospect Cemetery. In 2002 the Botanic Gardens gained a new two-storey complex which included a new cafe and a large lecture theatre. The Irish National Herbarium is also located at the botanic gardens.
Prospect Cemetery is located in Glasnevin, although better known as Glasnevin Cemetery, the most historically notable burial place in the country and the last resting place, among a host of historical figures, of Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, Charles Stewart Parnell and also Arthur Griffith. This graveyard led to Glasnevin being known as "the dead centre of Dublin". It opened in 1832 and is the final resting place for thousands of ordinary citizens, as well as many Irish patriots.
Approaching Glasnevin via Phibsboro is what is known as Hart's Corner but which about 200 years ago was called Glasmanogue, and was then a well-known stage on the way to Finglas. At an earlier date, the name possessed a wider signification and was applied to a considerable portion of the adjoining district.
At the start of the 18th century a large house, called Delville, known at first as The Glen, was built on the site of the present Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin. Its name was an amalgamation of the surnames of two tenants, Dr. Helsam and Dr. Patrick Delany (as Heldeville), both Fellows of Trinity College.
When Delany married his first wife he acquired sole ownership, but it became more well-known as the home of Delany and his second wife, Mary Pendarves. She was a widow whom Delany married in 1743, and was an accomplished letter writer.
The couple were friends of Dean Jonathan Swift and, through him, of Alexander Pope. Pope encouraged the Delaneys to develop a garden in a style then becoming popular in England - moving away from the very formal, geometric layout that was common. He redesigned the house in the style of a villa and had the gardens laid out in the latest Dutch fashion creating what was almost certainly Ireland's first naturalistic garden.
The house was, under Mrs Delany, a centre of Dublin's intellectual life. Swift is said to have composed a number of his campaigning pamphlets while staying there. He and his lifelong companion Stella were both in the habit of visiting, and Swift satirised the grounds which he considered too small for the size of the house. Through her correspondence with her sister, Mrs Dewes, Mary wrote of Swift in 1733: "he calls himself my master and corrects me when I speak bad English or do not pronounce my words distinctly".
Patrick Delany died in 1768 at the age of 82, prompting his widow to sell Delville and return to her native England until her death twenty years later.
Glasnevin is also a parish in the Fingal South West deanery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. It is served by the Church of Lady of Dolours.
The church underwent some refurbishment work inside and in its grounds and car park during the first half of 2011. A timber church, which originally stood on Berkeley Road, was moved to a riverside site on Botanic Avenue early in the twentieth century. The altar in this church was from Newgate prison in Dublin. It served as the parish church until it was replaced, in 1972, by a structure resembling a pyramid when viewed from Botanic Avenue. The previous church was known locally as "The Woodener" or "The Wooden" and the new building is still known to older residents as "The new Woodener" or "The Wigwam".
In 1975 the new headquarters of Met Éireann, the Irish Meteorological Office, designed by Liam McCormick opened on Glasnevin Hill, on the former site of a juvenile detention centre, Marlborough House. The Met Éireann building is a pyramidal shape and was originally to be covered in Welsh Slate, however, an indigenous material was deemed more appropriate, and the selected Irish stone curled and had to be replaced by metal sheeting. It is recognised as one of the most significant buildings to be erected in Dublin in the 1970s.
Griffith Avenue, which runs through Glasnevin, Drumcondra and Marino. The avenue spans three electoral constituencies. Like nearby Griffith Park, it was named after Arthur Griffith who was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin and also served as President of Dáil Éireann. Arthur Griffith also was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
A double-row of mature lime trees runs along both sides of Griffith Avenue from its junction with St Mobhi Road (in the west) to its junction with Malahide Road (in the east), a distance of 2.81km. It is reputed to be the longest tree-lined purely residential avenue in the northern hemisphere.
Scouting is represented in Glasnevin by the 1st Dublin (L.H.O) Scout Troop located on the corner of Griffith Avenue and Ballygall Road East.
The Gaelic games of Gaelic football, hurling, camogie and Gaelic handball are all organised locally by Na Fianna CLG, while soccer is played by local clubs Tolka Rovers, Glasnevin FC and Glasnaion FC. Basketball is organised by Tolka Rovers. Tennis is played in Charleville Lawn Tennis Club which was founded in 1894 and took its name from the original location at the corner of the Charleville and Cabra Roads. The move to its present location on Whitworth Road took place in 1904. The club has a membership of 400 senior and junior members and the club has won many Dublin Lawn Tennis Council titles. Hockey is also played in Botanic Hockey club on the Old Finglas Road. Glasnevin Boxing Club and Football (soccer) club have a clubhouse on Mobhi road.
Billy Whelan, one of the eight Manchester United players who lost their lives in the Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958, was born locally and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
There are several primary schools in Glasnevin, including Lindsay Road National School(Presbyterian patronage), Glasnevin National School(Church of Ireland patronage), founded by Dean Swift and constructed in a round shape, known as 'The Ink Bottle' this building was replaced in 1911, Glasnevin Educate Together National school, North Dublin National School Project, Scoil Mobhi, St. Brigid's GNS, St. Columba's NS and St.Vincent's CBS.
There are several Roman Catholic secondary schools in the area St Vincent's (Christian Brothers) School, Scoil Chaitríona and St Mary's (Holy Faith) Secondary School.
The main campus of Dublin City University and the DCU Alpha centre are in Glasnevin. Teagasc also run horticultural education courses from the Botanic Gardens.
Glasnevin is part of the Dáil Éireann constituency of Dublin Central and Dublin North-West. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Glasnevin (Irish: Glas Naíon, meaning 'stream of the infants', also known as Glas Naedhe, meaning \"stream of O'Naeidhe\" after a local stream and an ancient chieftain) is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin Cemetery, the National Meteorological Office, and a range of other state bodies, and Dublin City University has its main campus and other facilities in and near the area. Glasnevin is also a civil parish in the ancient barony of Coolock.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "A mainly residential neighbourhood, Glasnevin is located on the Northside of the city of Dublin (about 3 km north of Dublin city centre). It was established on the northern bank of the River Tolka where the stream for which it may be named joins, and now extends north and south of the river. Three watercourses flow into the Tolka in the area. Two streams can be seen near the Catholic \"pyramid church\", the Claremont Stream or Nevin Stream, flowing south from Poppintree and Jamestown Industrial Estate branches, and what is sometimes called the \"Cemetery Drain\" coming north from the southern edge of Glasnevin Cemetery. In addition, a major diversion from the Wad River comes from the Ballymun area, joining near the Claremont Stream.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The boundaries of Glasnevin stretch from the Royal Canal to Glasnevin Avenue and from the Finglas Road to the edges of Drumcondra. It spans the postal districts of Dublin 9 and 11, and is bordered to the northwest by Finglas, northeast by Ballymun and Santry, Whitehall to the east, Phibsborough and Drumcondra to the south and Cabra to the southwest.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Glasnevin was reputedly founded by Saint Mobhi (sometimes known as St Berchan) in the sixth (or perhaps fifth) century as a monastery. His monastery continued to be used for many years afterwards - St. Colman is recorded as having paid homage to its founder when he returned from abroad to visit Ireland a century after St Mobhi's death in 544. St. Columba of Iona is thought to have studied under St. Mobhi, but left Glasnevin following an outbreak of plague and journeyed north to open the House at Derry; there is a long street (Iona Road) in Glasnevin named in his honour and the church on Iona Road is called Saint Columba's.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A settlement grew up around the monastery, which survived until the Viking invasions in the eighth century. After raids on monasteries at Glendalough and Clondalkin, the monasteries at Glasnevin and Finglas were attacked and destroyed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By 822 Glasnevin, along with Grangegorman and Clonken or Clonkene (now known as Deansgrange), had become parts of the grange (farm) of Christ Church Cathedral and it seems to have maintained this connection up to the time of the Reformation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Battle of Clontarf was fought on the banks of the River Tolka in 1014 (a field called the bloody acre is supposed to be part of the site). The Irish defeated the Danes in a battle, in which 7,000 Danes and 4,000 Irish died.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The 12th century saw the Normans (who had conquered England and Wales in the eleventh century) invade Ireland. As local rulers continued fighting amongst themselves the Norman King of England Henry II was invited to intervene. He arrived in 1171, took control of much land, and then parcelled it out amongst his supporters. Glasnevin ended up under the jurisdiction of Finglas Abbey. Later, Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, took responsibility for Glasnevin and it became the property of the Priory of the Most Holy Trinity (Christ Church Cathedral).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1240 a church and tower were reconstructed on the site of the Church of St. Mobhi in the monastery. The returns of the church for 1326 stated that 28 tenants resided in Glasnevin. The church was enlarged in 1346, along with a small hall known as the Manor Hall.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "When King Henry VIII broke from Rome an era of religious repression began. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Catholic Church property and land were appropriated to the new Church of England, and monasteries (including the one at Glasnevin) were forcibly closed and fell into ruin. Glasnevin had at this stage developed as a village, with its principal landmark and focal point being its \"bull-ring\" noted in 1542.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "By 1667 Glasnevin had expanded - but not by very much; it is recorded as containing 24 houses. The development of the village was given a fresh impetus when Sir John Rogerson built his country residence - \"The Glen\" or \"Glasnevin House\" - outside the village.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The plantations of Ireland saw the settlement of Protestant English families on land previously held by Catholics. Lands at Glasnevin were leased to such families and a Protestant church was erected there in 1707. It was built on the site of the old Catholic Church and was named after St. Mobhi. The church was largely rebuilt in the mid-18th century. The attached churchyard became a graveyard for both Protestants and Catholics. It is said that Robert Emmet is buried there, this claim being made because once somebody working in the graveyard there dug up a headless body.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "By now Glasnevin was an area for \"families of distinction\" - in spite of a comment attributed to the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, William King that \"when any couple had a mind to be wicked, they would retire to Glasnevin\". In a letter, dated 1725 he described Glasnevin as \"the receptacle for thieves and rogues [..] The first search when anything was stolen, was there, and when any couple had a mind to retire to be wicked there was their harbour. But since the church was built, and service regularly settled, all these evils are banished. Good houses are built in it, and the place civilised.\" Glasnevin National School was also built during this period.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In the 1830s, the civil parish population was recorded as 1,001, of whom 559 resided in the village. Glasnevin was described as a parish in the barony of Coolock, pleasantly situated and the residence of many families of distinction.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "On 1 June 1832, Charles Lindsay, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and William John released their holdings of Sir John Rogerson's lands at Glasnevin, (including Glasnevin House) to George Hayward Lindsay. This transfer included the sum of 1,500 Pounds Sterling. Although this does not specifically cite the marriage of George Hayward Lindsay to Lady Mary Catherine Gore, George Lindsay almost certainly came into possession of the lands at Glasnevin as a result of his marriage.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "When Drumcondra began to rapidly expand in the 1870s, the residents of Glasnevin sought to protect their district and opposed being merged with the neighbouring suburb. One of the objectors was the property owner, Dr Henry Gogarty, the father of the Irish poet, Oliver St. John Gogarty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin became a township in 1878 and became part of the City of Dublin in 1900 under the Dublin Corporation Act 1900.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "George Hayward Lindsay's eldest son, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Gore Lindsay, was in possession of his father's lands at Glasnevin when the area began to be developed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The development of his lands after 1903/04 marked the start of the gradual development of the area.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Glasnevin remained relatively undeveloped until the opening up of the Carroll Estate in 1914, which saw the creation of the redbrick residential roads running down towards Drumcondra. The process was accelerated by Dublin Corporation in the 1920s and the present shape of the suburb was in place by 1930. Among the developers who built estates in the area were Alexander Strain and his son-in-law George Linzell. Linzell built the first individual house built in the international style in Ireland, Balnagowan House, on St. Mobhi Boithrin in the late 1920s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The start of the 20th century also saw the opening of a short-lived railway station on the Drumcondra and North Dublin Link Railway line from Glasnevin Junction to Connolly Station (then Amiens Street). Glasnevin railway station opened on 1 April 1901 and closed on 1 December 1910.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The village has changed a lot over the years, and is now part of Dublin city. It is now populated by a mix of young families, senior citizens and students attending Dublin City University.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "As well as the amenities of the National Botanic Gardens (Ireland) and local parks, the national meteorological office Met Éireann, the Central Fisheries Board, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Department of Defence and the national enterprise and trade board Enterprise Ireland are all located in the area.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The house and lands of the poet Thomas Tickell were sold in 1790 to the Irish Parliament and given to the Royal Dublin Society for them to establish Ireland's first Botanic Gardens. The gardens were the first location in Ireland where the infection responsible for the 1845–1847 Great Famine was identified. Throughout the famine, research to stop the infection was undertaken at the gardens.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The 48 acres (190,000 m) which border the River Tolka also adjoin the Prospect Cemetery. In 2002 the Botanic Gardens gained a new two-storey complex which included a new cafe and a large lecture theatre. The Irish National Herbarium is also located at the botanic gardens.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Prospect Cemetery is located in Glasnevin, although better known as Glasnevin Cemetery, the most historically notable burial place in the country and the last resting place, among a host of historical figures, of Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, Charles Stewart Parnell and also Arthur Griffith. This graveyard led to Glasnevin being known as \"the dead centre of Dublin\". It opened in 1832 and is the final resting place for thousands of ordinary citizens, as well as many Irish patriots.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Approaching Glasnevin via Phibsboro is what is known as Hart's Corner but which about 200 years ago was called Glasmanogue, and was then a well-known stage on the way to Finglas. At an earlier date, the name possessed a wider signification and was applied to a considerable portion of the adjoining district.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "At the start of the 18th century a large house, called Delville, known at first as The Glen, was built on the site of the present Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin. Its name was an amalgamation of the surnames of two tenants, Dr. Helsam and Dr. Patrick Delany (as Heldeville), both Fellows of Trinity College.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "When Delany married his first wife he acquired sole ownership, but it became more well-known as the home of Delany and his second wife, Mary Pendarves. She was a widow whom Delany married in 1743, and was an accomplished letter writer.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The couple were friends of Dean Jonathan Swift and, through him, of Alexander Pope. Pope encouraged the Delaneys to develop a garden in a style then becoming popular in England - moving away from the very formal, geometric layout that was common. He redesigned the house in the style of a villa and had the gardens laid out in the latest Dutch fashion creating what was almost certainly Ireland's first naturalistic garden.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The house was, under Mrs Delany, a centre of Dublin's intellectual life. Swift is said to have composed a number of his campaigning pamphlets while staying there. He and his lifelong companion Stella were both in the habit of visiting, and Swift satirised the grounds which he considered too small for the size of the house. Through her correspondence with her sister, Mrs Dewes, Mary wrote of Swift in 1733: \"he calls himself my master and corrects me when I speak bad English or do not pronounce my words distinctly\".",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Patrick Delany died in 1768 at the age of 82, prompting his widow to sell Delville and return to her native England until her death twenty years later.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Glasnevin is also a parish in the Fingal South West deanery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. It is served by the Church of Lady of Dolours.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The church underwent some refurbishment work inside and in its grounds and car park during the first half of 2011. A timber church, which originally stood on Berkeley Road, was moved to a riverside site on Botanic Avenue early in the twentieth century. The altar in this church was from Newgate prison in Dublin. It served as the parish church until it was replaced, in 1972, by a structure resembling a pyramid when viewed from Botanic Avenue. The previous church was known locally as \"The Woodener\" or \"The Wooden\" and the new building is still known to older residents as \"The new Woodener\" or \"The Wigwam\".",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 1975 the new headquarters of Met Éireann, the Irish Meteorological Office, designed by Liam McCormick opened on Glasnevin Hill, on the former site of a juvenile detention centre, Marlborough House. The Met Éireann building is a pyramidal shape and was originally to be covered in Welsh Slate, however, an indigenous material was deemed more appropriate, and the selected Irish stone curled and had to be replaced by metal sheeting. It is recognised as one of the most significant buildings to be erected in Dublin in the 1970s.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Griffith Avenue, which runs through Glasnevin, Drumcondra and Marino. The avenue spans three electoral constituencies. Like nearby Griffith Park, it was named after Arthur Griffith who was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin and also served as President of Dáil Éireann. Arthur Griffith also was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "A double-row of mature lime trees runs along both sides of Griffith Avenue from its junction with St Mobhi Road (in the west) to its junction with Malahide Road (in the east), a distance of 2.81km. It is reputed to be the longest tree-lined purely residential avenue in the northern hemisphere.",
"title": "Village of Glasnevin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Scouting is represented in Glasnevin by the 1st Dublin (L.H.O) Scout Troop located on the corner of Griffith Avenue and Ballygall Road East.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Gaelic games of Gaelic football, hurling, camogie and Gaelic handball are all organised locally by Na Fianna CLG, while soccer is played by local clubs Tolka Rovers, Glasnevin FC and Glasnaion FC. Basketball is organised by Tolka Rovers. Tennis is played in Charleville Lawn Tennis Club which was founded in 1894 and took its name from the original location at the corner of the Charleville and Cabra Roads. The move to its present location on Whitworth Road took place in 1904. The club has a membership of 400 senior and junior members and the club has won many Dublin Lawn Tennis Council titles. Hockey is also played in Botanic Hockey club on the Old Finglas Road. Glasnevin Boxing Club and Football (soccer) club have a clubhouse on Mobhi road.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Billy Whelan, one of the eight Manchester United players who lost their lives in the Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958, was born locally and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "There are several primary schools in Glasnevin, including Lindsay Road National School(Presbyterian patronage), Glasnevin National School(Church of Ireland patronage), founded by Dean Swift and constructed in a round shape, known as 'The Ink Bottle' this building was replaced in 1911, Glasnevin Educate Together National school, North Dublin National School Project, Scoil Mobhi, St. Brigid's GNS, St. Columba's NS and St.Vincent's CBS.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "There are several Roman Catholic secondary schools in the area St Vincent's (Christian Brothers) School, Scoil Chaitríona and St Mary's (Holy Faith) Secondary School.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The main campus of Dublin City University and the DCU Alpha centre are in Glasnevin. Teagasc also run horticultural education courses from the Botanic Gardens.",
"title": "Amenities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Glasnevin is part of the Dáil Éireann constituency of Dublin Central and Dublin North-West.",
"title": "Representation"
}
]
| Glasnevin is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin Cemetery, the National Meteorological Office, and a range of other state bodies, and Dublin City University has its main campus and other facilities in and near the area. Glasnevin is also a civil parish in the ancient barony of Coolock. | 2001-11-21T23:00:19Z | 2023-10-17T20:19:43Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnevin |
12,863 | George Abbot (author) | George Abbot or Abbott (1604 – 2 February 1649) was an English lay writer, known as "The Puritan", and a politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1640 and 1649. He is known also for his part in defending Caldecote House against royalist forces in the early days of the English Civil War.
Abbott was the son of George Abbott of York (died 1607) and his wife Joan Penkeston. While Alumni Cantabrigienses states that he matriculated at King's College, Cambridge in 1622, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography discounts the identification, for lack of evidence. He owned property in Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, and was a good friend of Richard Vines, minister at Caldecote some way to the east. In April 1640, he was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamworth in the Short Parliament.
In the English Civil War, Abbot worked closely in Warwickshire with his stepfather William Purefoy, and made a notable defence, with his mother Joan, of the Purefoy house at Caldecote, Warwickshire, gaining the family coverage in the London press. On 15 August 1642, with eight men, his mother and maids, he held out for a time against Prince Rupert of the Rhine, with about 18 troops of horses and dragoons. In the aftermath of the Battle of Edgehill, in October of the same year, Richard Baxter moved to Coventry, and Abbot was one of those hearing him preach there. Baxter in writing on the Sabbath referred to "my dear friend Mr. George Abbot". In his memoirs Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, Baxter placed Abbot's defence of Caldecote House, where barns were burnt, in local context: royalists under Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton were attacking Warwick Castle, defended by John Bridges, and Coventry, defended by John Barker.
Abbot was re-elected MP for Tamworth in 1645 for the Long Parliament and held the seat until his death in 1649. He died unmarried in his 44th year, and was buried in Caldecote church where his monument describes his defence of Caldecote.
By his will, Abbot endowed a free school at Caldecote. It was supported by land left to it at Baddesley Ensor.
Abbot was a lay theologian and scholar. His Whole Booke of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand (1640), was written in a terse style, and his Vindiciae Sabbathi (1641) influenced the Sabbatarian controversy. His The Whole Book of Psalms Paraphrased (1650) was published posthumously by Richard Vines, and dedicated to Joan Purefoy, his mother.
Abbot has been confused with others of the same name and has been described as a clergyman, which he never was. His writings have been incorrectly attributed in some bibliographical authorities to a relation of George Abbot the archbishop of Canterbury. One of the sons of Sir Morris Abbot called George was also an MP in the Long Parliament but for the constituency of Guildford. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "George Abbot or Abbott (1604 – 2 February 1649) was an English lay writer, known as \"The Puritan\", and a politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1640 and 1649. He is known also for his part in defending Caldecote House against royalist forces in the early days of the English Civil War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Abbott was the son of George Abbott of York (died 1607) and his wife Joan Penkeston. While Alumni Cantabrigienses states that he matriculated at King's College, Cambridge in 1622, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography discounts the identification, for lack of evidence. He owned property in Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, and was a good friend of Richard Vines, minister at Caldecote some way to the east. In April 1640, he was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamworth in the Short Parliament.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the English Civil War, Abbot worked closely in Warwickshire with his stepfather William Purefoy, and made a notable defence, with his mother Joan, of the Purefoy house at Caldecote, Warwickshire, gaining the family coverage in the London press. On 15 August 1642, with eight men, his mother and maids, he held out for a time against Prince Rupert of the Rhine, with about 18 troops of horses and dragoons. In the aftermath of the Battle of Edgehill, in October of the same year, Richard Baxter moved to Coventry, and Abbot was one of those hearing him preach there. Baxter in writing on the Sabbath referred to \"my dear friend Mr. George Abbot\". In his memoirs Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, Baxter placed Abbot's defence of Caldecote House, where barns were burnt, in local context: royalists under Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton were attacking Warwick Castle, defended by John Bridges, and Coventry, defended by John Barker.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Abbot was re-elected MP for Tamworth in 1645 for the Long Parliament and held the seat until his death in 1649. He died unmarried in his 44th year, and was buried in Caldecote church where his monument describes his defence of Caldecote.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "By his will, Abbot endowed a free school at Caldecote. It was supported by land left to it at Baddesley Ensor.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Abbot was a lay theologian and scholar. His Whole Booke of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand (1640), was written in a terse style, and his Vindiciae Sabbathi (1641) influenced the Sabbatarian controversy. His The Whole Book of Psalms Paraphrased (1650) was published posthumously by Richard Vines, and dedicated to Joan Purefoy, his mother.",
"title": "Works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Abbot has been confused with others of the same name and has been described as a clergyman, which he never was. His writings have been incorrectly attributed in some bibliographical authorities to a relation of George Abbot the archbishop of Canterbury. One of the sons of Sir Morris Abbot called George was also an MP in the Long Parliament but for the constituency of Guildford.",
"title": "Mistaken identifications"
}
]
| George Abbot or Abbott was an English lay writer, known as "The Puritan", and a politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1640 and 1649. He is known also for his part in defending Caldecote House against royalist forces in the early days of the English Civil War. | 2001-11-22T04:42:45Z | 2023-08-24T20:50:20Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Abbot_(author) |
12,866 | Globular cluster | A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting in a stable, compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. Their name is derived from Latin globulus (small sphere). Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars".
Although one globular cluster, Omega Centauri, was observed in antiquity and long thought to be a star, recognition of the clusters' true nature came with the advent of telescopes in the 17th century. In early telescopic observations globular clusters appeared as fuzzy blobs, leading French astronomer Charles Messier to include many of them in his catalog of astronomical objects that he thought could be mistaken for comets. Using larger telescopes, 18th-century astronomers recognized that globular clusters are groups of many individual stars. Early in the 20th century the distribution of globular clusters in the sky was some of the first evidence that the Sun is far from the center of the Milky Way.
Globular clusters are found in nearly all galaxies. In spiral galaxies like the Milky Way they are mostly found in the outer spheroidal part of the galaxy – the galactic halo. They are the largest and most massive type of star cluster, tending to be older, denser, and composed of lower abundances of heavy elements than open clusters, which are generally found in the disks of spiral galaxies. The Milky Way has more than 150 known globulars, and there may be many more.
The origin of globular clusters and their role in galactic evolution are unclear. Some are among the oldest objects in their galaxies and even the universe, constraining estimates of the universe's age. Star clusters were formerly thought to consist of stars that all formed at the same time from one star-forming nebula, but nearly all globular clusters contain stars that formed at different times, or that have differing compositions. Some clusters may have had multiple episodes of star formation, and some may be remnants of smaller galaxies captured by larger galaxies.
The first known globular cluster, now called M 22, was discovered in 1665 by Abraham Ihle, a German amateur astronomer. The cluster Omega Centauri, easily visible in the southern sky with the naked eye, was known to ancient astronomers like Ptolemy as a star, but was reclassified as a nebula by Edmond Halley in 1677, then finally as a globular cluster in the early 19th century by John Herschel. The French astronomer Abbé Lacaille listed NGC 104, NGC 4833, M 55, M 69, and NGC 6397 in his 1751–1752 catalogue. The low resolution of early telescopes prevented individual stars in a cluster from being visually separated until Charles Messier observed M 4 in 1764.
When William Herschel began his comprehensive survey of the sky using large telescopes in 1782, there were 34 known globular clusters. Herschel discovered another 36 and was the first to resolve virtually all of them into stars. He coined the term globular cluster in his Catalogue of a Second Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (1789). In 1914 Harlow Shapley began a series of studies of globular clusters, published across about forty scientific papers. He examined the clusters' RR Lyrae variables (stars which he assumed were Cepheid variables) and used their luminosity and period of variability to estimate the distances to the clusters. It was later found that RR Lyrae variables are fainter than Cepheid variables, causing Shapley to overestimate the distances.
A large majority of the Milky Way's globular clusters are found around the galactic core. In 1918 Shapley used this strongly asymmetrical distribution to determine the overall dimensions of the galaxy. Assuming a roughly spherical distribution of globular clusters around the galaxy's center, he used the positions of the clusters to estimate the position of the Sun relative to the Galactic Center. He correctly concluded that the Milky Way's center is in the Sagittarius constellation and not near the Earth. He overestimated the distance, finding typical globular cluster distances of 10–30 kiloparsecs (33,000–98,000 ly); the modern distance to the Galactic Center is roughly 8.5 kiloparsecs (28,000 ly). Shapley's measurements indicated the Sun is relatively far from the center of the galaxy, contrary to what had been inferred from the observed uniform distribution of ordinary stars. In reality most ordinary stars lie within the galaxy's disk and are thus obscured by gas and dust in the disk, whereas globular clusters lie outside the disk and can be seen at much greater distances.
The count of known globular clusters in the Milky Way has continued to increase, reaching 83 in 1915, 93 in 1930, 97 by 1947, and 157 in 2010. Additional, undiscovered globular clusters are believed to be in the galactic bulge or hidden by the gas and dust of the Milky Way. For example, most of the Palomar Globular Clusters have only been discovered in the 1950s, with some located relatively close-by yet obscured by dust, while others reside in the very far reaches of the Milky Way halo. The Andromeda Galaxy, which is comparable in size to the Milky Way, may have as many as five hundred globulars. Every galaxy of sufficient mass in the Local Group has an associated system of globular clusters, as does almost every large galaxy surveyed. Some giant elliptical galaxies (particularly those at the centers of galaxy clusters), such as M 87, have as many as 13,000 globular clusters.
Shapley was later assisted in his studies of clusters by Henrietta Swope and Helen Sawyer Hogg. In 1927–1929 Shapley and Sawyer categorized clusters by the degree of concentration of stars toward each core. Their system, known as the Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class, identifies the most concentrated clusters as Class I and ranges to the most diffuse Class XII. In 2015 astronomers from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile proposed a new type of globular cluster on the basis of observational data: Dark globular clusters.
The formation of globular clusters is poorly understood. Globular clusters have traditionally been described as a simple star population formed from a single giant molecular cloud, and thus with roughly uniform age and metallicity (proportion of heavy elements in their composition). Modern observations show that nearly all globular clusters contain multiple populations; the globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) exhibit a bimodal population, for example. During their youth, these LMC clusters may have encountered giant molecular clouds that triggered a second round of star formation. This star-forming period is relatively brief, compared with the age of many globular clusters. It has been proposed that this multiplicity in stellar populations could have a dynamical origin. In the Antennae Galaxy, for example, the Hubble Space Telescope has observed clusters of clusters – regions in the galaxy that span hundreds of parsecs, in which many of the clusters will eventually collide and merge. Their overall range of ages and (possibly) metallicities could lead to clusters with a bimodal, or even multiple, distribution of populations.
Observations of globular clusters show that their stars primarily come from regions of more efficient star formation, and from where the interstellar medium is at a higher density, as compared to normal star-forming regions. Globular cluster formation is prevalent in starburst regions and in interacting galaxies. Some globular clusters likely formed in dwarf galaxies and were removed by tidal forces to join the Milky Way. In elliptical and lenticular galaxies there is a correlation between the mass of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers and the extent of their globular cluster systems. The mass of the SMBH in such a galaxy is often close to the combined mass of the galaxy's globular clusters.
No known globular clusters display active star formation, consistent with the hypothesis that globular clusters are typically the oldest objects in their galaxy and were among the first collections of stars to form. Very large regions of star formation known as super star clusters, such as Westerlund 1 in the Milky Way, may be the precursors of globular clusters.
Many of the Milky Way's globular clusters have a retrograde orbit (meaning that they revolve around the galaxy in the reverse of the direction the galaxy is rotating), including the most massive, Omega Centauri. Its retrograde orbit suggests it may be a remnant of a dwarf galaxy captured by the Milky Way.
Globular clusters are generally composed of hundreds of thousands of low-metal, old stars. The stars found in a globular cluster are similar to those in the bulge of a spiral galaxy but confined to a spheroid in which half the light is emitted within a radius of only a few to a few tens of parsecs. They are free of gas and dust and it is presumed that all the gas and dust was long ago either turned into stars or blown out of the cluster by the massive first-generation stars.
Globular clusters can contain a high density of stars; on average about 0.4 stars per cubic parsec, increasing to 100 or 1000 stars/pc in the core of the cluster. In comparison, the stellar density around the Sun is roughly 0.1 stars/pc. The typical distance between stars in a globular cluster is about one light year, but at its core the separation between stars averages about a third of a light year – thirteen times closer than the Sun is to its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri.
Globular clusters are thought to be unfavorable locations for planetary systems. Planetary orbits are dynamically unstable within the cores of dense clusters because of the gravitational perturbations of passing stars. A planet orbiting at one astronomical unit around a star that is within the core of a dense cluster, such as 47 Tucanae, would survive only on the order of a hundred million years. There is a planetary system orbiting a pulsar (PSR B1620−26) that belongs to the globular cluster M4, but these planets likely formed after the event that created the pulsar.
Some globular clusters, like Omega Centauri in the Milky Way and Mayall II in the Andromeda Galaxy, are extraordinarily massive, measuring several million solar masses (M☉) and having multiple stellar populations. Both are evidence that supermassive globular clusters formed from the cores of dwarf galaxies that have been consumed by larger galaxies. About a quarter of the globular cluster population in the Milky Way may have been accreted this way, as with more than 60% of the globular clusters in the outer halo of Andromeda.
Globular clusters normally consist of Population II stars which, compared with Population I stars such as the Sun, have a higher proportion of hydrogen and helium and a lower proportion of heavier elements. Astronomers refer to these heavier elements as metals (distinct from the material concept) and to the proportions of these elements as the metallicity. Produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, the metals are recycled into the interstellar medium and enter a new generation of stars. The proportion of metals can thus be an indication of the age of a star in simple models, with older stars typically having a lower metallicity.
The Dutch astronomer Pieter Oosterhoff observed two special populations of globular clusters, which became known as Oosterhoff groups. The second group has a slightly longer period of RR Lyrae variable stars. While both groups have a low proportion of metallic elements as measured by spectroscopy, the metal spectral lines in the stars of Oosterhoff type I (Oo I) cluster are not quite as weak as those in type II (Oo II), and so type I stars are referred to as metal-rich (e.g. Terzan 7), while type II stars are metal-poor (e.g. ESO 280-SC06). These two distinct populations have been observed in many galaxies, especially massive elliptical galaxies. Both groups are nearly as old as the universe itself and are of similar ages. Suggested scenarios to explain these subpopulations include violent gas-rich galaxy mergers, the accretion of dwarf galaxies, and multiple phases of star formation in a single galaxy. In the Milky Way the metal-poor clusters are associated with the halo and the metal-rich clusters with the bulge.
In the Milky Way a large majority of the metal-poor clusters are aligned on a plane in the outer part of the galaxy's halo. This observation supports the view that type II clusters were captured from a satellite galaxy, rather than being the oldest members of the Milky Way's globular cluster system as was previously thought. The difference between the two cluster types would then be explained by a time delay between when the two galaxies formed their cluster systems.
Close interactions and near-collisions of stars occur relatively often in globular clusters because of their high star density. These chance encounters give rise to some exotic classes of stars – such as blue stragglers, millisecond pulsars, and low-mass X-ray binaries – which are much more common in globular clusters. How blue stragglers form remains unclear, but most models attribute them to interactions between stars, such as stellar mergers, the transfer of material from one star to another, or even an encounter between two binary systems. The resulting star has a higher temperature than other stars in the cluster with comparable luminosity and thus differs from the main-sequence stars formed early in the cluster's existence. Some clusters have two distinct sequences of blue stragglers, one bluer than the other.
Astronomers have searched for black holes within globular clusters since the 1970s. The required resolution for this task is exacting; it is only with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that the first claimed discoveries were made, in 2002 and 2003. Based on HST observations, other researchers suggested the existence of a 4,000 M☉(solar masses) intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster M15 and a 20,000 M☉ black hole in the Mayall II cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy. Both X-ray and radio emissions from Mayall II appear consistent with an intermediate-mass black hole; however, these claimed detections are controversial.
The heaviest objects in globular clusters are expected to migrate to the cluster center due to mass segregation. One research group pointed out that the mass-to-light ratio should rise sharply towards the center of the cluster, even without a black hole, in both M15 and Mayall II. Observations from 2018 find no evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in any globular cluster, including M15, but cannot definitively rule out one with a mass of 500–1000 M☉. Finally, in 2023, an analysis of HST and the Gaia spacecraft data from the closest globular cluster, Messier 4, revealed an excess mass of roughly 800 M☉ in the center of this cluster, which appears to not be extended. This could thus be the best kinematic evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole (even if an unusually compact cluster of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars or stellar-mass black holes cannot be completely discounted).
The confirmation of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters would have important ramifications for theories of galaxy development as being possible sources for the supermassive black holes at their centers. The mass of these supposed intermediate-mass black holes is proportional to the mass of their surrounding clusters, following a pattern previously discovered between supermassive black holes and their surrounding galaxies.
Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams (H–R diagrams) of globular clusters allow astronomers to determine many of the properties of their populations of stars. An H–R diagram is a graph of a large sample of stars plotting their absolute magnitude (their luminosity, or brightness measured from a standard distance), as a function of their color index. The color index, roughly speaking, measures the color of the star; positive color indices indicate a reddish star with a cool surface temperature, while negative values indicate a bluer star with a hotter surface. Stars on an H–R diagram mostly lie along a roughly diagonal line sloping from hot, luminous stars in the upper left to cool, faint stars in the lower right. This line is known as the main sequence and represents the primary stage of stellar evolution. The diagram also includes stars in later evolutionary stages such as the cool but luminous red giants.
Constructing an H–R diagram requires knowing the distance to the observed stars to convert apparent into absolute magnitude. Because all the stars in a globular cluster have about the same distance from Earth, a color–magnitude diagram using their observed magnitudes looks like a shifted H–R diagram (because of the roughly constant difference between their apparent and absolute magnitudes). This shift is called the distance modulus and can be used to calculate the distance to the cluster. The modulus is determined by comparing features (like the main sequence) of the cluster's color–magnitude diagram to corresponding features in an H–R diagram of another set of stars, a method known as spectroscopic parallax or main-sequence fitting.
Since globular clusters form at once from a single giant molecular cloud, a cluster's stars have roughly the same age and composition. A star's evolution is primarily determined by its initial mass, so the positions of stars in a cluster's H–R or color–magnitude diagram mostly reflect their initial masses. A cluster's H–R diagram, therefore, appears quite different from H–R diagrams containing stars of a wide variety of ages. Almost all stars fall on a well-defined curve in globular cluster H–R diagrams, and that curve's shape indicates the age of the cluster. A more detailed H–R diagram often reveals multiple stellar populations as indicated by the presence of closely separated curves, each corresponding to a distinct population of stars with a slightly different age or composition. Observations with the Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009 on the Hubble Space Telescope, made it possible to distinguish these slightly different curves.
The most massive main-sequence stars have the highest luminosity and will be the first to evolve into the giant star stage. As the cluster ages, stars of successively lower masses will do the same. Therefore, the age of a single-population cluster can be measured by looking for those stars just beginning to enter the giant star stage, which form a "knee" in the H–R diagram called the main-sequence turnoff, bending to the upper right from the main-sequence line. The absolute magnitude at this bend is directly a function of the cluster's age; an age scale can be plotted on an axis parallel to the magnitude.
The morphology and luminosity of globular cluster stars in H–R diagrams are influenced by numerous parameters, many of which are still actively researched. Recent observations have overturned the historical paradigm that all globular clusters consist of stars born at exactly the same time, or sharing exactly the same chemical abundance. Some clusters feature multiple populations, slightly differing in composition and age; for example, high-precision imagery of cluster NGC 2808 discerned three close, but distinct, main sequences. Further, the placements of the cluster stars in an H–R diagram (including the brightnesses of distance indicators) can be influenced by observational biases. One such effect, called blending, arises when the cores of globular clusters are so dense that observations see multiple stars as a single target. The brightness measured for that seemingly single star is thus incorrect – too bright, given that multiple stars contributed. The computed distance is in turn incorrect, so the blending effect can introduce a systematic uncertainty into the cosmic distance ladder and may bias the estimated age of the universe and the Hubble constant.
The blue stragglers appear on the H–R diagram as a series diverging from the main sequence in the direction of brighter, bluer stars. White dwarfs (the final remnants of some Sun-like stars), which are much fainter and somewhat hotter than the main-sequence stars, lie on the bottom-left of an H–R diagram. Globular clusters can be dated by looking at the temperatures of the coolest white dwarfs, often giving results as old as 12.7 billion years. In comparison, open clusters are rarely older than about half a billion years. The ages of globular clusters place a lower bound on the age of the entire universe, presenting a significant constraint in cosmology. Astronomers were historically faced with age estimates of clusters older than their cosmological models would allow, but better measurements of cosmological parameters, through deep sky surveys and satellites, appear to have resolved this issue.
Studying globular clusters sheds light on how the composition of the formational gas and dust affects stellar evolution; the stars' evolutionary tracks vary depending on the abundance of heavy elements. Data obtained from these studies are then used to study the evolution of the Milky Way as a whole.
In contrast to open clusters, most globular clusters remain gravitationally bound together for time periods comparable to the lifespans of most of their stars. Strong tidal interactions with other large masses result in the dispersal of some stars, leaving behind "tidal tails" of stars removed from the cluster.
After formation, the stars in the globular cluster begin to interact gravitationally with each other. The velocities of the stars steadily change, and the stars lose any history of their original velocity. The characteristic interval for this to occur is the relaxation time, related to the characteristic length of time a star needs to cross the cluster and the number of stellar masses. The relaxation time varies by cluster, but a typical value is on the order of one billion years.
Although globular clusters are generally spherical in form, ellipticity can form via tidal interactions. Clusters within the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are typically oblate spheroids in shape, while those in the Large Magellanic Cloud are more elliptical.
Astronomers characterize the morphology (shape) of a globular cluster by means of standard radii: the core radius (rc), the half-light radius (rh), and the tidal or Jacobi radius (rt). The radius can be expressed as a physical distance or as a subtended angle in the sky. Considering a radius around the core, the surface luminosity of the cluster steadily decreases with distance, and the core radius is the distance at which the apparent surface luminosity has dropped by half. A comparable quantity is the half-light radius, or the distance from the core containing half the total luminosity of the cluster; the half-light radius is typically larger than the core radius.
Most globular clusters have a half-light radius of less than ten parsecs (pc), although some globular clusters have very large radii, like NGC 2419 (rh = 18 pc) and Palomar 14 (rh = 25 pc). The half-light radius includes stars in the outer part of the cluster that happen to lie along the line of sight, so theorists also use the half-mass radius (rm) – the radius from the core that contains half the total mass of the cluster. A small half-mass radius, relative to the overall size, indicates a dense core. Messier 3 (M3), for example, has an overall visible dimension of about 18 arc minutes, but a half-mass radius of only 1.12 arc minutes.
The tidal radius, or Hill sphere, is the distance from the center of the globular cluster at which the external gravitation of the galaxy has more influence over the stars in the cluster than does the cluster itself. This is the distance at which the individual stars belonging to a cluster can be separated away by the galaxy. The tidal radius of M3, for example, is about forty arc minutes, or about 113 pc.
In most Milky Way clusters the surface brightness of a globular cluster as a function of decreasing distance to the core first increases, then levels off at a distance typically 1–2 parsecs from the core. About 20% of the globular clusters have undergone a process termed "core collapse". In such a cluster the luminosity increases steadily all the way to the core region.
Models of globular clusters predict core collapse occurs when the more massive stars in a globular cluster encounter their less massive counterparts. Over time, dynamic processes cause individual stars to migrate from the center of the cluster to the outside, resulting in a net loss of kinetic energy from the core region and leading the region's remaining stars to occupy a more compact volume. When this gravothermal instability occurs, the central region of the cluster becomes densely crowded with stars, and the surface brightness of the cluster forms a power-law cusp. A massive black hole at the core could also result in a luminosity cusp. Over a long time this leads to a concentration of massive stars near the core, a phenomenon called mass segregation.
The dynamical heating effect of binary star systems works to prevent an initial core collapse of the cluster. When a star passes near a binary system, the orbit of the latter pair tends to contract, releasing energy. Only after this primordial supply of energy is exhausted can a deeper core collapse proceed. In contrast, the effect of tidal shocks as a globular cluster repeatedly passes through the plane of a spiral galaxy tends to significantly accelerate core collapse.
Core collapse may be divided into three phases. During a cluster's adolescence, core collapse begins with stars nearest the core. Interactions between binary star systems prevents further collapse as the cluster approaches middle age. The central binaries are either disrupted or ejected, resulting in a tighter concentration at the core. The interaction of stars in the collapsed core region causes tight binary systems to form. As other stars interact with these tight binaries they increase the energy at the core, causing the cluster to re-expand. As the average time for a core collapse is typically less than the age of the galaxy, many of a galaxy's globular clusters may have passed through a core collapse stage, then re-expanded.
The HST has provided convincing observational evidence of this stellar mass-sorting process in globular clusters. Heavier stars slow down and crowd at the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and tend to spend more time at the cluster's periphery. The cluster 47 Tucanae, made up of about one million stars, is one of the densest globular clusters in the Southern Hemisphere. This cluster was subjected to an intensive photographic survey that obtained precise velocities for nearly fifteen thousand stars in this cluster.
The overall luminosities of the globular clusters within the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy each have a roughly Gaussian distribution, with an average magnitude Mv and a variance σ. This distribution of globular cluster luminosities is called the Globular Cluster Luminosity Function (GCLF). For the Milky Way, Mv = −7.29 ± 0.13, σ = 1.1 ± 0.1. The GCLF has been used as a "standard candle" for measuring the distance to other galaxies, under the assumption that globular clusters in remote galaxies behave similarly to those in the Milky Way.
Computing the gravitational interactions between stars within a globular cluster requires solving the N-body problem. The naive computational cost for a dynamic simulation increases in proportion to N (where N is the number of objects), so the computing requirements to accurately simulate a cluster of thousands of stars can be enormous. A more efficient method of simulating the N-body dynamics of a globular cluster is done by subdivision into small volumes and velocity ranges, and using probabilities to describe the locations of the stars. Their motions are described by means of the Fokker–Planck equation, often using a model describing the mass density as a function of radius, such as a Plummer model. The simulation becomes more difficult when the effects of binaries and the interaction with external gravitation forces (such as from the Milky Way galaxy) must also be included. In 2010 a low-density globular cluster's lifetime evolution was able to be directly computed, star-by-star.
Completed N-body simulations have shown that stars can follow unusual paths through the cluster, often forming loops and falling more directly toward the core than would a single star orbiting a central mass. Additionally, some stars gain sufficient energy to escape the cluster due to gravitational interactions that result in a sufficient increase in velocity. Over long periods of time this process leads to the dissipation of the cluster, a process termed evaporation. The typical time scale for the evaporation of a globular cluster is 10 years. The ultimate fate of a globular cluster must be either to accrete stars at its core, causing its steady contraction, or gradual shedding of stars from its outer layers.
Binary stars form a significant portion of stellar systems, with up to half of all field stars and open cluster stars occurring in binary systems. The present-day binary fraction in globular clusters is difficult to measure, and any information about their initial binary fraction is lost by subsequent dynamical evolution. Numerical simulations of globular clusters have demonstrated that binaries can hinder and even reverse the process of core collapse in globular clusters. When a star in a cluster has a gravitational encounter with a binary system, a possible result is that the binary becomes more tightly bound and kinetic energy is added to the solitary star. When the massive stars in the cluster are sped up by this process, it reduces the contraction at the core and limits core collapse.
Cluster classification is not always definitive; objects have been found that can be classified in more than one categories. For example, BH 176 in the southern part of the Milky Way has properties of both an open and a globular cluster.
In 2005 astronomers discovered a new, "extended" type of star cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy's halo, similar to the globular cluster. The three new-found clusters have a similar star count as globular clusters and share other characteristics, such as stellar populations and metallicity, but are distinguished by their larger size – several hundred light years across – and some hundred times lower density. Their stars are separated by larger distances; parametrically, these clusters lie somewhere between a globular cluster and a dwarf spheroidal galaxy. The formation of these extended clusters is likely related to accretion. It is unclear why the Milky Way lacks such clusters; Andromeda is unlikely to be the sole galaxy with them, but their presence in other galaxies remains unknown.
When a globular cluster comes close to a large mass, such as the core region of a galaxy, it undergoes a tidal interaction. The difference in gravitational strength between the nearer and further parts of the cluster results in an asymmetric, tidal force. A "tidal shock" occurs whenever the orbit of a cluster takes it through the plane of a galaxy.
Tidal shocks can pull stars away from the cluster halo, leaving only the core part of the cluster; these trails of stars can extend several degrees away from the cluster. These tails typically both precede and follow the cluster along its orbit and can accumulate significant portions of the original mass of the cluster, forming clump-like features. The globular cluster Palomar 5, for example, is near the apogalactic point of its orbit after passing through the Milky Way. Streams of stars extend outward toward the front and rear of the orbital path of this cluster, stretching to distances of 13,000 light years. Tidal interactions have stripped away much of Palomar 5's mass; further interactions with the galactic core are expected to transform it into a long stream of stars orbiting the Milky Way in its halo.
The Milky Way is in the process of tidally stripping the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy of stars and globular clusters through the Sagittarius Stream. As many as 20% of the globular clusters in the Milky Way's outer halo may have originated in that galaxy. Palomar 12, for example, most likely originated in the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal but is now associated with the Milky Way. Tidal interactions like these add kinetic energy into a globular cluster, dramatically increasing the evaporation rate and shrinking the size of the cluster. The increased evaporation accelerates the process of core collapse.
Astronomers are searching for exoplanets of stars in globular star clusters. A search in 2000 for giant planets in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae came up negative, suggesting that the abundance of heavier elements – low in globular clusters – necessary to build these planets may need to be at least 40% of the Sun's abundance. Because terrestrial planets are built from heavier elements such as silicon, iron and magnesium, member stars have a far lower likelihood of hosting Earth-mass planets than stars in the solar neighborhood. Globular clusters are thus unlikely to host habitable terrestrial planets.
A giant planet was found in the globular cluster Messier 4, orbiting a pulsar in the binary star system PSR B1620-26. The planet's eccentric and highly inclined orbit suggests it may have been formed around another star in the cluster, then "exchanged" into its current arrangement. The likelihood of close encounters between stars in a globular cluster can disrupt planetary systems; some planets break free to become rogue planets, orbiting the galaxy. Planets orbiting close to their star can become disrupted, potentially leading to orbital decay and an increase in orbital eccentricity and tidal effects. | [
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"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting in a stable, compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. Their name is derived from Latin globulus (small sphere). Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as \"globulars\".",
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Although one globular cluster, Omega Centauri, was observed in antiquity and long thought to be a star, recognition of the clusters' true nature came with the advent of telescopes in the 17th century. In early telescopic observations globular clusters appeared as fuzzy blobs, leading French astronomer Charles Messier to include many of them in his catalog of astronomical objects that he thought could be mistaken for comets. Using larger telescopes, 18th-century astronomers recognized that globular clusters are groups of many individual stars. Early in the 20th century the distribution of globular clusters in the sky was some of the first evidence that the Sun is far from the center of the Milky Way.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Globular clusters are found in nearly all galaxies. In spiral galaxies like the Milky Way they are mostly found in the outer spheroidal part of the galaxy – the galactic halo. They are the largest and most massive type of star cluster, tending to be older, denser, and composed of lower abundances of heavy elements than open clusters, which are generally found in the disks of spiral galaxies. The Milky Way has more than 150 known globulars, and there may be many more.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The origin of globular clusters and their role in galactic evolution are unclear. Some are among the oldest objects in their galaxies and even the universe, constraining estimates of the universe's age. Star clusters were formerly thought to consist of stars that all formed at the same time from one star-forming nebula, but nearly all globular clusters contain stars that formed at different times, or that have differing compositions. Some clusters may have had multiple episodes of star formation, and some may be remnants of smaller galaxies captured by larger galaxies.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The first known globular cluster, now called M 22, was discovered in 1665 by Abraham Ihle, a German amateur astronomer. The cluster Omega Centauri, easily visible in the southern sky with the naked eye, was known to ancient astronomers like Ptolemy as a star, but was reclassified as a nebula by Edmond Halley in 1677, then finally as a globular cluster in the early 19th century by John Herschel. The French astronomer Abbé Lacaille listed NGC 104, NGC 4833, M 55, M 69, and NGC 6397 in his 1751–1752 catalogue. The low resolution of early telescopes prevented individual stars in a cluster from being visually separated until Charles Messier observed M 4 in 1764.",
"title": "History of observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "When William Herschel began his comprehensive survey of the sky using large telescopes in 1782, there were 34 known globular clusters. Herschel discovered another 36 and was the first to resolve virtually all of them into stars. He coined the term globular cluster in his Catalogue of a Second Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (1789). In 1914 Harlow Shapley began a series of studies of globular clusters, published across about forty scientific papers. He examined the clusters' RR Lyrae variables (stars which he assumed were Cepheid variables) and used their luminosity and period of variability to estimate the distances to the clusters. It was later found that RR Lyrae variables are fainter than Cepheid variables, causing Shapley to overestimate the distances.",
"title": "History of observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A large majority of the Milky Way's globular clusters are found around the galactic core. In 1918 Shapley used this strongly asymmetrical distribution to determine the overall dimensions of the galaxy. Assuming a roughly spherical distribution of globular clusters around the galaxy's center, he used the positions of the clusters to estimate the position of the Sun relative to the Galactic Center. He correctly concluded that the Milky Way's center is in the Sagittarius constellation and not near the Earth. He overestimated the distance, finding typical globular cluster distances of 10–30 kiloparsecs (33,000–98,000 ly); the modern distance to the Galactic Center is roughly 8.5 kiloparsecs (28,000 ly). Shapley's measurements indicated the Sun is relatively far from the center of the galaxy, contrary to what had been inferred from the observed uniform distribution of ordinary stars. In reality most ordinary stars lie within the galaxy's disk and are thus obscured by gas and dust in the disk, whereas globular clusters lie outside the disk and can be seen at much greater distances.",
"title": "History of observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The count of known globular clusters in the Milky Way has continued to increase, reaching 83 in 1915, 93 in 1930, 97 by 1947, and 157 in 2010. Additional, undiscovered globular clusters are believed to be in the galactic bulge or hidden by the gas and dust of the Milky Way. For example, most of the Palomar Globular Clusters have only been discovered in the 1950s, with some located relatively close-by yet obscured by dust, while others reside in the very far reaches of the Milky Way halo. The Andromeda Galaxy, which is comparable in size to the Milky Way, may have as many as five hundred globulars. Every galaxy of sufficient mass in the Local Group has an associated system of globular clusters, as does almost every large galaxy surveyed. Some giant elliptical galaxies (particularly those at the centers of galaxy clusters), such as M 87, have as many as 13,000 globular clusters.",
"title": "History of observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Shapley was later assisted in his studies of clusters by Henrietta Swope and Helen Sawyer Hogg. In 1927–1929 Shapley and Sawyer categorized clusters by the degree of concentration of stars toward each core. Their system, known as the Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class, identifies the most concentrated clusters as Class I and ranges to the most diffuse Class XII. In 2015 astronomers from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile proposed a new type of globular cluster on the basis of observational data: Dark globular clusters.",
"title": "History of observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The formation of globular clusters is poorly understood. Globular clusters have traditionally been described as a simple star population formed from a single giant molecular cloud, and thus with roughly uniform age and metallicity (proportion of heavy elements in their composition). Modern observations show that nearly all globular clusters contain multiple populations; the globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) exhibit a bimodal population, for example. During their youth, these LMC clusters may have encountered giant molecular clouds that triggered a second round of star formation. This star-forming period is relatively brief, compared with the age of many globular clusters. It has been proposed that this multiplicity in stellar populations could have a dynamical origin. In the Antennae Galaxy, for example, the Hubble Space Telescope has observed clusters of clusters – regions in the galaxy that span hundreds of parsecs, in which many of the clusters will eventually collide and merge. Their overall range of ages and (possibly) metallicities could lead to clusters with a bimodal, or even multiple, distribution of populations.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Observations of globular clusters show that their stars primarily come from regions of more efficient star formation, and from where the interstellar medium is at a higher density, as compared to normal star-forming regions. Globular cluster formation is prevalent in starburst regions and in interacting galaxies. Some globular clusters likely formed in dwarf galaxies and were removed by tidal forces to join the Milky Way. In elliptical and lenticular galaxies there is a correlation between the mass of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers and the extent of their globular cluster systems. The mass of the SMBH in such a galaxy is often close to the combined mass of the galaxy's globular clusters.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "No known globular clusters display active star formation, consistent with the hypothesis that globular clusters are typically the oldest objects in their galaxy and were among the first collections of stars to form. Very large regions of star formation known as super star clusters, such as Westerlund 1 in the Milky Way, may be the precursors of globular clusters.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Many of the Milky Way's globular clusters have a retrograde orbit (meaning that they revolve around the galaxy in the reverse of the direction the galaxy is rotating), including the most massive, Omega Centauri. Its retrograde orbit suggests it may be a remnant of a dwarf galaxy captured by the Milky Way.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Globular clusters are generally composed of hundreds of thousands of low-metal, old stars. The stars found in a globular cluster are similar to those in the bulge of a spiral galaxy but confined to a spheroid in which half the light is emitted within a radius of only a few to a few tens of parsecs. They are free of gas and dust and it is presumed that all the gas and dust was long ago either turned into stars or blown out of the cluster by the massive first-generation stars.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Globular clusters can contain a high density of stars; on average about 0.4 stars per cubic parsec, increasing to 100 or 1000 stars/pc in the core of the cluster. In comparison, the stellar density around the Sun is roughly 0.1 stars/pc. The typical distance between stars in a globular cluster is about one light year, but at its core the separation between stars averages about a third of a light year – thirteen times closer than the Sun is to its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Globular clusters are thought to be unfavorable locations for planetary systems. Planetary orbits are dynamically unstable within the cores of dense clusters because of the gravitational perturbations of passing stars. A planet orbiting at one astronomical unit around a star that is within the core of a dense cluster, such as 47 Tucanae, would survive only on the order of a hundred million years. There is a planetary system orbiting a pulsar (PSR B1620−26) that belongs to the globular cluster M4, but these planets likely formed after the event that created the pulsar.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Some globular clusters, like Omega Centauri in the Milky Way and Mayall II in the Andromeda Galaxy, are extraordinarily massive, measuring several million solar masses (M☉) and having multiple stellar populations. Both are evidence that supermassive globular clusters formed from the cores of dwarf galaxies that have been consumed by larger galaxies. About a quarter of the globular cluster population in the Milky Way may have been accreted this way, as with more than 60% of the globular clusters in the outer halo of Andromeda.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Globular clusters normally consist of Population II stars which, compared with Population I stars such as the Sun, have a higher proportion of hydrogen and helium and a lower proportion of heavier elements. Astronomers refer to these heavier elements as metals (distinct from the material concept) and to the proportions of these elements as the metallicity. Produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, the metals are recycled into the interstellar medium and enter a new generation of stars. The proportion of metals can thus be an indication of the age of a star in simple models, with older stars typically having a lower metallicity.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Dutch astronomer Pieter Oosterhoff observed two special populations of globular clusters, which became known as Oosterhoff groups. The second group has a slightly longer period of RR Lyrae variable stars. While both groups have a low proportion of metallic elements as measured by spectroscopy, the metal spectral lines in the stars of Oosterhoff type I (Oo I) cluster are not quite as weak as those in type II (Oo II), and so type I stars are referred to as metal-rich (e.g. Terzan 7), while type II stars are metal-poor (e.g. ESO 280-SC06). These two distinct populations have been observed in many galaxies, especially massive elliptical galaxies. Both groups are nearly as old as the universe itself and are of similar ages. Suggested scenarios to explain these subpopulations include violent gas-rich galaxy mergers, the accretion of dwarf galaxies, and multiple phases of star formation in a single galaxy. In the Milky Way the metal-poor clusters are associated with the halo and the metal-rich clusters with the bulge.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the Milky Way a large majority of the metal-poor clusters are aligned on a plane in the outer part of the galaxy's halo. This observation supports the view that type II clusters were captured from a satellite galaxy, rather than being the oldest members of the Milky Way's globular cluster system as was previously thought. The difference between the two cluster types would then be explained by a time delay between when the two galaxies formed their cluster systems.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Close interactions and near-collisions of stars occur relatively often in globular clusters because of their high star density. These chance encounters give rise to some exotic classes of stars – such as blue stragglers, millisecond pulsars, and low-mass X-ray binaries – which are much more common in globular clusters. How blue stragglers form remains unclear, but most models attribute them to interactions between stars, such as stellar mergers, the transfer of material from one star to another, or even an encounter between two binary systems. The resulting star has a higher temperature than other stars in the cluster with comparable luminosity and thus differs from the main-sequence stars formed early in the cluster's existence. Some clusters have two distinct sequences of blue stragglers, one bluer than the other.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Astronomers have searched for black holes within globular clusters since the 1970s. The required resolution for this task is exacting; it is only with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that the first claimed discoveries were made, in 2002 and 2003. Based on HST observations, other researchers suggested the existence of a 4,000 M☉(solar masses) intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster M15 and a 20,000 M☉ black hole in the Mayall II cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy. Both X-ray and radio emissions from Mayall II appear consistent with an intermediate-mass black hole; however, these claimed detections are controversial.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The heaviest objects in globular clusters are expected to migrate to the cluster center due to mass segregation. One research group pointed out that the mass-to-light ratio should rise sharply towards the center of the cluster, even without a black hole, in both M15 and Mayall II. Observations from 2018 find no evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in any globular cluster, including M15, but cannot definitively rule out one with a mass of 500–1000 M☉. Finally, in 2023, an analysis of HST and the Gaia spacecraft data from the closest globular cluster, Messier 4, revealed an excess mass of roughly 800 M☉ in the center of this cluster, which appears to not be extended. This could thus be the best kinematic evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole (even if an unusually compact cluster of compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars or stellar-mass black holes cannot be completely discounted).",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The confirmation of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters would have important ramifications for theories of galaxy development as being possible sources for the supermassive black holes at their centers. The mass of these supposed intermediate-mass black holes is proportional to the mass of their surrounding clusters, following a pattern previously discovered between supermassive black holes and their surrounding galaxies.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams (H–R diagrams) of globular clusters allow astronomers to determine many of the properties of their populations of stars. An H–R diagram is a graph of a large sample of stars plotting their absolute magnitude (their luminosity, or brightness measured from a standard distance), as a function of their color index. The color index, roughly speaking, measures the color of the star; positive color indices indicate a reddish star with a cool surface temperature, while negative values indicate a bluer star with a hotter surface. Stars on an H–R diagram mostly lie along a roughly diagonal line sloping from hot, luminous stars in the upper left to cool, faint stars in the lower right. This line is known as the main sequence and represents the primary stage of stellar evolution. The diagram also includes stars in later evolutionary stages such as the cool but luminous red giants.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Constructing an H–R diagram requires knowing the distance to the observed stars to convert apparent into absolute magnitude. Because all the stars in a globular cluster have about the same distance from Earth, a color–magnitude diagram using their observed magnitudes looks like a shifted H–R diagram (because of the roughly constant difference between their apparent and absolute magnitudes). This shift is called the distance modulus and can be used to calculate the distance to the cluster. The modulus is determined by comparing features (like the main sequence) of the cluster's color–magnitude diagram to corresponding features in an H–R diagram of another set of stars, a method known as spectroscopic parallax or main-sequence fitting.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Since globular clusters form at once from a single giant molecular cloud, a cluster's stars have roughly the same age and composition. A star's evolution is primarily determined by its initial mass, so the positions of stars in a cluster's H–R or color–magnitude diagram mostly reflect their initial masses. A cluster's H–R diagram, therefore, appears quite different from H–R diagrams containing stars of a wide variety of ages. Almost all stars fall on a well-defined curve in globular cluster H–R diagrams, and that curve's shape indicates the age of the cluster. A more detailed H–R diagram often reveals multiple stellar populations as indicated by the presence of closely separated curves, each corresponding to a distinct population of stars with a slightly different age or composition. Observations with the Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009 on the Hubble Space Telescope, made it possible to distinguish these slightly different curves.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The most massive main-sequence stars have the highest luminosity and will be the first to evolve into the giant star stage. As the cluster ages, stars of successively lower masses will do the same. Therefore, the age of a single-population cluster can be measured by looking for those stars just beginning to enter the giant star stage, which form a \"knee\" in the H–R diagram called the main-sequence turnoff, bending to the upper right from the main-sequence line. The absolute magnitude at this bend is directly a function of the cluster's age; an age scale can be plotted on an axis parallel to the magnitude.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The morphology and luminosity of globular cluster stars in H–R diagrams are influenced by numerous parameters, many of which are still actively researched. Recent observations have overturned the historical paradigm that all globular clusters consist of stars born at exactly the same time, or sharing exactly the same chemical abundance. Some clusters feature multiple populations, slightly differing in composition and age; for example, high-precision imagery of cluster NGC 2808 discerned three close, but distinct, main sequences. Further, the placements of the cluster stars in an H–R diagram (including the brightnesses of distance indicators) can be influenced by observational biases. One such effect, called blending, arises when the cores of globular clusters are so dense that observations see multiple stars as a single target. The brightness measured for that seemingly single star is thus incorrect – too bright, given that multiple stars contributed. The computed distance is in turn incorrect, so the blending effect can introduce a systematic uncertainty into the cosmic distance ladder and may bias the estimated age of the universe and the Hubble constant.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The blue stragglers appear on the H–R diagram as a series diverging from the main sequence in the direction of brighter, bluer stars. White dwarfs (the final remnants of some Sun-like stars), which are much fainter and somewhat hotter than the main-sequence stars, lie on the bottom-left of an H–R diagram. Globular clusters can be dated by looking at the temperatures of the coolest white dwarfs, often giving results as old as 12.7 billion years. In comparison, open clusters are rarely older than about half a billion years. The ages of globular clusters place a lower bound on the age of the entire universe, presenting a significant constraint in cosmology. Astronomers were historically faced with age estimates of clusters older than their cosmological models would allow, but better measurements of cosmological parameters, through deep sky surveys and satellites, appear to have resolved this issue.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Studying globular clusters sheds light on how the composition of the formational gas and dust affects stellar evolution; the stars' evolutionary tracks vary depending on the abundance of heavy elements. Data obtained from these studies are then used to study the evolution of the Milky Way as a whole.",
"title": "Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In contrast to open clusters, most globular clusters remain gravitationally bound together for time periods comparable to the lifespans of most of their stars. Strong tidal interactions with other large masses result in the dispersal of some stars, leaving behind \"tidal tails\" of stars removed from the cluster.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "After formation, the stars in the globular cluster begin to interact gravitationally with each other. The velocities of the stars steadily change, and the stars lose any history of their original velocity. The characteristic interval for this to occur is the relaxation time, related to the characteristic length of time a star needs to cross the cluster and the number of stellar masses. The relaxation time varies by cluster, but a typical value is on the order of one billion years.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Although globular clusters are generally spherical in form, ellipticity can form via tidal interactions. Clusters within the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are typically oblate spheroids in shape, while those in the Large Magellanic Cloud are more elliptical.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Astronomers characterize the morphology (shape) of a globular cluster by means of standard radii: the core radius (rc), the half-light radius (rh), and the tidal or Jacobi radius (rt). The radius can be expressed as a physical distance or as a subtended angle in the sky. Considering a radius around the core, the surface luminosity of the cluster steadily decreases with distance, and the core radius is the distance at which the apparent surface luminosity has dropped by half. A comparable quantity is the half-light radius, or the distance from the core containing half the total luminosity of the cluster; the half-light radius is typically larger than the core radius.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Most globular clusters have a half-light radius of less than ten parsecs (pc), although some globular clusters have very large radii, like NGC 2419 (rh = 18 pc) and Palomar 14 (rh = 25 pc). The half-light radius includes stars in the outer part of the cluster that happen to lie along the line of sight, so theorists also use the half-mass radius (rm) – the radius from the core that contains half the total mass of the cluster. A small half-mass radius, relative to the overall size, indicates a dense core. Messier 3 (M3), for example, has an overall visible dimension of about 18 arc minutes, but a half-mass radius of only 1.12 arc minutes.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The tidal radius, or Hill sphere, is the distance from the center of the globular cluster at which the external gravitation of the galaxy has more influence over the stars in the cluster than does the cluster itself. This is the distance at which the individual stars belonging to a cluster can be separated away by the galaxy. The tidal radius of M3, for example, is about forty arc minutes, or about 113 pc.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In most Milky Way clusters the surface brightness of a globular cluster as a function of decreasing distance to the core first increases, then levels off at a distance typically 1–2 parsecs from the core. About 20% of the globular clusters have undergone a process termed \"core collapse\". In such a cluster the luminosity increases steadily all the way to the core region.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Models of globular clusters predict core collapse occurs when the more massive stars in a globular cluster encounter their less massive counterparts. Over time, dynamic processes cause individual stars to migrate from the center of the cluster to the outside, resulting in a net loss of kinetic energy from the core region and leading the region's remaining stars to occupy a more compact volume. When this gravothermal instability occurs, the central region of the cluster becomes densely crowded with stars, and the surface brightness of the cluster forms a power-law cusp. A massive black hole at the core could also result in a luminosity cusp. Over a long time this leads to a concentration of massive stars near the core, a phenomenon called mass segregation.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The dynamical heating effect of binary star systems works to prevent an initial core collapse of the cluster. When a star passes near a binary system, the orbit of the latter pair tends to contract, releasing energy. Only after this primordial supply of energy is exhausted can a deeper core collapse proceed. In contrast, the effect of tidal shocks as a globular cluster repeatedly passes through the plane of a spiral galaxy tends to significantly accelerate core collapse.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Core collapse may be divided into three phases. During a cluster's adolescence, core collapse begins with stars nearest the core. Interactions between binary star systems prevents further collapse as the cluster approaches middle age. The central binaries are either disrupted or ejected, resulting in a tighter concentration at the core. The interaction of stars in the collapsed core region causes tight binary systems to form. As other stars interact with these tight binaries they increase the energy at the core, causing the cluster to re-expand. As the average time for a core collapse is typically less than the age of the galaxy, many of a galaxy's globular clusters may have passed through a core collapse stage, then re-expanded.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The HST has provided convincing observational evidence of this stellar mass-sorting process in globular clusters. Heavier stars slow down and crowd at the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and tend to spend more time at the cluster's periphery. The cluster 47 Tucanae, made up of about one million stars, is one of the densest globular clusters in the Southern Hemisphere. This cluster was subjected to an intensive photographic survey that obtained precise velocities for nearly fifteen thousand stars in this cluster.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The overall luminosities of the globular clusters within the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy each have a roughly Gaussian distribution, with an average magnitude Mv and a variance σ. This distribution of globular cluster luminosities is called the Globular Cluster Luminosity Function (GCLF). For the Milky Way, Mv = −7.29 ± 0.13, σ = 1.1 ± 0.1. The GCLF has been used as a \"standard candle\" for measuring the distance to other galaxies, under the assumption that globular clusters in remote galaxies behave similarly to those in the Milky Way.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Computing the gravitational interactions between stars within a globular cluster requires solving the N-body problem. The naive computational cost for a dynamic simulation increases in proportion to N (where N is the number of objects), so the computing requirements to accurately simulate a cluster of thousands of stars can be enormous. A more efficient method of simulating the N-body dynamics of a globular cluster is done by subdivision into small volumes and velocity ranges, and using probabilities to describe the locations of the stars. Their motions are described by means of the Fokker–Planck equation, often using a model describing the mass density as a function of radius, such as a Plummer model. The simulation becomes more difficult when the effects of binaries and the interaction with external gravitation forces (such as from the Milky Way galaxy) must also be included. In 2010 a low-density globular cluster's lifetime evolution was able to be directly computed, star-by-star.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Completed N-body simulations have shown that stars can follow unusual paths through the cluster, often forming loops and falling more directly toward the core than would a single star orbiting a central mass. Additionally, some stars gain sufficient energy to escape the cluster due to gravitational interactions that result in a sufficient increase in velocity. Over long periods of time this process leads to the dissipation of the cluster, a process termed evaporation. The typical time scale for the evaporation of a globular cluster is 10 years. The ultimate fate of a globular cluster must be either to accrete stars at its core, causing its steady contraction, or gradual shedding of stars from its outer layers.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Binary stars form a significant portion of stellar systems, with up to half of all field stars and open cluster stars occurring in binary systems. The present-day binary fraction in globular clusters is difficult to measure, and any information about their initial binary fraction is lost by subsequent dynamical evolution. Numerical simulations of globular clusters have demonstrated that binaries can hinder and even reverse the process of core collapse in globular clusters. When a star in a cluster has a gravitational encounter with a binary system, a possible result is that the binary becomes more tightly bound and kinetic energy is added to the solitary star. When the massive stars in the cluster are sped up by this process, it reduces the contraction at the core and limits core collapse.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Cluster classification is not always definitive; objects have been found that can be classified in more than one categories. For example, BH 176 in the southern part of the Milky Way has properties of both an open and a globular cluster.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 2005 astronomers discovered a new, \"extended\" type of star cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy's halo, similar to the globular cluster. The three new-found clusters have a similar star count as globular clusters and share other characteristics, such as stellar populations and metallicity, but are distinguished by their larger size – several hundred light years across – and some hundred times lower density. Their stars are separated by larger distances; parametrically, these clusters lie somewhere between a globular cluster and a dwarf spheroidal galaxy. The formation of these extended clusters is likely related to accretion. It is unclear why the Milky Way lacks such clusters; Andromeda is unlikely to be the sole galaxy with them, but their presence in other galaxies remains unknown.",
"title": "Morphology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "When a globular cluster comes close to a large mass, such as the core region of a galaxy, it undergoes a tidal interaction. The difference in gravitational strength between the nearer and further parts of the cluster results in an asymmetric, tidal force. A \"tidal shock\" occurs whenever the orbit of a cluster takes it through the plane of a galaxy.",
"title": "Tidal encounters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Tidal shocks can pull stars away from the cluster halo, leaving only the core part of the cluster; these trails of stars can extend several degrees away from the cluster. These tails typically both precede and follow the cluster along its orbit and can accumulate significant portions of the original mass of the cluster, forming clump-like features. The globular cluster Palomar 5, for example, is near the apogalactic point of its orbit after passing through the Milky Way. Streams of stars extend outward toward the front and rear of the orbital path of this cluster, stretching to distances of 13,000 light years. Tidal interactions have stripped away much of Palomar 5's mass; further interactions with the galactic core are expected to transform it into a long stream of stars orbiting the Milky Way in its halo.",
"title": "Tidal encounters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The Milky Way is in the process of tidally stripping the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy of stars and globular clusters through the Sagittarius Stream. As many as 20% of the globular clusters in the Milky Way's outer halo may have originated in that galaxy. Palomar 12, for example, most likely originated in the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal but is now associated with the Milky Way. Tidal interactions like these add kinetic energy into a globular cluster, dramatically increasing the evaporation rate and shrinking the size of the cluster. The increased evaporation accelerates the process of core collapse.",
"title": "Tidal encounters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Astronomers are searching for exoplanets of stars in globular star clusters. A search in 2000 for giant planets in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae came up negative, suggesting that the abundance of heavier elements – low in globular clusters – necessary to build these planets may need to be at least 40% of the Sun's abundance. Because terrestrial planets are built from heavier elements such as silicon, iron and magnesium, member stars have a far lower likelihood of hosting Earth-mass planets than stars in the solar neighborhood. Globular clusters are thus unlikely to host habitable terrestrial planets.",
"title": "Planets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "A giant planet was found in the globular cluster Messier 4, orbiting a pulsar in the binary star system PSR B1620-26. The planet's eccentric and highly inclined orbit suggests it may have been formed around another star in the cluster, then \"exchanged\" into its current arrangement. The likelihood of close encounters between stars in a globular cluster can disrupt planetary systems; some planets break free to become rogue planets, orbiting the galaxy. Planets orbiting close to their star can become disrupted, potentially leading to orbital decay and an increase in orbital eccentricity and tidal effects.",
"title": "Planets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting in a stable, compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. Their name is derived from Latin globulus. Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars". Although one globular cluster, Omega Centauri, was observed in antiquity and long thought to be a star, recognition of the clusters' true nature came with the advent of telescopes in the 17th century. In early telescopic observations globular clusters appeared as fuzzy blobs, leading French astronomer Charles Messier to include many of them in his catalog of astronomical objects that he thought could be mistaken for comets. Using larger telescopes, 18th-century astronomers recognized that globular clusters are groups of many individual stars. Early in the 20th century the distribution of globular clusters in the sky was some of the first evidence that the Sun is far from the center of the Milky Way. Globular clusters are found in nearly all galaxies. In spiral galaxies like the Milky Way they are mostly found in the outer spheroidal part of the galaxy – the galactic halo. They are the largest and most massive type of star cluster, tending to be older, denser, and composed of lower abundances of heavy elements than open clusters, which are generally found in the disks of spiral galaxies. The Milky Way has more than 150 known globulars, and there may be many more. The origin of globular clusters and their role in galactic evolution are unclear. Some are among the oldest objects in their galaxies and even the universe, constraining estimates of the universe's age. Star clusters were formerly thought to consist of stars that all formed at the same time from one star-forming nebula, but nearly all globular clusters contain stars that formed at different times, or that have differing compositions. Some clusters may have had multiple episodes of star formation, and some may be remnants of smaller galaxies captured by larger galaxies. | 2001-11-23T22:12:42Z | 2023-10-30T17:18:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster |
12,867 | George Vancouver | Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are now the Canadian province of British Columbia as well as the US states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.
Vancouver Island, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Vancouver River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington in the United States, Mount Vancouver on the Canadian–US border between Yukon and Alaska, and New Zealand's fourth-highest mountain, also Mount Vancouver, are all named after him.
George Vancouver was born in the seaport town of King's Lynn (Norfolk, England) on 22 June 1757 – the sixth and youngest child of John Jasper Vancouver, a Dutch-born deputy collector of customs, and Bridget Berners. He came from an old respected family. The surname Vancouver comes from Coevorden, Drenthe province, Netherlands (Koevern in Dutch Low Saxon).
In 1771, at the age of 13, Vancouver entered the Royal Navy as a "young gentleman", a future candidate for midshipman. He was nominally an able seaman (AB) but, in reality, sailed as one of the midshipmen aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also sailed with Cook's third voyage (1776–1780), this time aboard Resolution's companion ship, HMS Discovery (1774), and was present during the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands. Upon his return to Britain in October 1780 Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloop HMS Martin – initially on escort and patrol duty in the English Channel and North Sea. He accompanied the ship when it left Plymouth on 11 February 1782 for the West Indies. On 7 May 1782 he was appointed fourth lieutenant of the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Fame, which was at the time part of the British West Indies Fleet and assigned to patrolling the French-held Leeward Islands. Vancouver subsequently saw action at the Battle of the Saintes (April 1782), wherein he distinguished himself. Vancouver returned to England in June 1783.
In the late 1780s the Spanish Empire commissioned an expedition to the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 the Nootka Crisis developed, and Spain and Britain came close to war over ownership of Nootka Sound on contemporary Vancouver Island, and – of greater importance – over the right to colonise and settle the Pacific Northwest coast. Henry Roberts had recently taken command of the survey ship HMS Discovery (a new vessel named in honour of the ship on Cook's voyage) with the prospect of another round-the-world voyage, and Roberts selected Vancouver as his first lieutenant, but they both were then posted to other warships due to the crisis. Vancouver went with Joseph Whidbey to the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Courageux. When the first Nootka Convention ended the crisis in 1790, Vancouver was given command of Discovery to take possession of Nootka Sound and to survey the coasts.
Departing England with two ships, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham, on 1 April 1791, Vancouver commanded an expedition charged with exploring the Pacific region. In its first year the expedition travelled to Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii, collecting botanical samples and surveying coastlines along the way. He formally claimed at Possession Point, King George Sound Western Australia, now the town of Albany, Western Australia for the British. Proceeding to North America, Vancouver followed the coasts of present-day Oregon and Washington northward. In April 1792 he encountered American Captain Robert Gray off the coast of Oregon just prior to Gray's sailing up the Columbia River.
Vancouver entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the present-day Washington state mainland, on 29 April 1792. His orders included a survey of every inlet and outlet on the west coast of the mainland, all the way north to Alaska. Most of this work was in small craft propelled by both sail and oar; manoeuvring larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous.
Vancouver named many features for his officers, friends, associates, and his ship Discovery, including:
After a Spanish expedition in 1791, Vancouver was the second European to enter Burrard Inlet on 13 June 1792, naming it for his friend Sir Harry Burrard. It is the present day main harbour area of the City of Vancouver beyond Stanley Park. He surveyed Howe Sound and Jervis Inlet over the next nine days. Then, on his 35th birthday on 22 June 1792, he returned to Point Grey, the present-day location of the University of British Columbia. Here he unexpectedly met a Spanish expedition led by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores. Vancouver was "mortified" (his word) to learn they already had a crude chart of the Strait of Georgia based on the 1791 exploratory voyage of José María Narváez the year before, under command of Francisco de Eliza. For three weeks they cooperatively explored the Georgia Strait and the Discovery Islands area before sailing separately towards Nootka Sound.
After the summer surveying season ended, in August 1792, Vancouver went to Nootka, then the region's most important harbour, on contemporary Vancouver Island. Here he was to receive any British buildings and lands returned by the Spanish from claims by Francisco de Eliza for the Spanish crown. The Spanish commander, Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra, was very cordial and he and Vancouver exchanged the maps they had made, but no agreement was reached; they decided to await further instructions. At this time, they decided to name the large island on which Nootka was now proven to be located as Quadra and Vancouver Island. Years later, as Spanish influence declined, the name was shortened to simply Vancouver Island.
While at Nootka Sound Vancouver acquired Robert Gray's chart of the lower Columbia River. Gray had entered the river during the summer before sailing to Nootka Sound for repairs. Vancouver realised the importance of verifying Gray's information and conducting a more thorough survey. In October 1792, he sent Lieutenant William Robert Broughton with several boats up the Columbia River. Broughton got as far as the Columbia River Gorge, sighting and naming Mount Hood.
Vancouver sailed south along the coast of Spanish Alta California, entered San Francisco Bay, later visiting Monterey; in both places, he was warmly received by the Spanish. Later he visited Chumash villages at Point Conception and near Mission San Buenaventura. Vancouver spent the winter in continuing exploration of the Sandwich Islands, the contemporary islands of Hawaii.
The next year, 1793, he returned to British Columbia and proceeded further north, unknowingly missing the overland explorer Alexander Mackenzie by only 48 days. He got to 56°30'N, having explored north from Point Menzies in Burke Channel to the northwest coast of Prince of Wales Island. He sailed around the latter island, as well as circumnavigating Revillagigedo Island and charting parts of the coasts of Mitkof, Zarembo, Etolin, Wrangell, Kuiu and Kupreanof Islands. With worsening weather, he sailed south to Alta California, hoping to find Bodega y Quadra and fulfil his territorial mission, but the Spaniard was not there. The Spanish governor refused to let a foreign official into the interior. Vancouver noted that the region's "only defenses against foreign attack are a few poor cannons". He again spent the winter in the Sandwich Islands.
In 1794, he first went to Cook Inlet, the northernmost point of his exploration, and from there followed the coast south. Boat parties charted the east coasts of Chichagof and Baranof Islands, circumnavigated Admiralty Island, explored to the head of Lynn Canal, and charted the rest of Kuiu Island and nearly all of Kupreanof Island. He then set sail for Great Britain by way of Cape Horn, returning in September 1795, thus completing a circumnavigation of South America.
Impressed by the view from Richmond Hill, Vancouver retired to Petersham, which was then in Surrey and is now in London.
Vancouver faced difficulties when he returned home to England. The accomplished and politically well-connected naturalist Archibald Menzies complained that his servant had been pressed into service during a shipboard emergency; sailing master Joseph Whidbey had a competing claim for pay as expedition astronomer; and Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford, whom Vancouver had disciplined for numerous infractions and eventually sent home in disgrace, proceeded to harass him publicly and privately.
Pitt's allies, including his cousin, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, attacked Vancouver in the press. Thomas Pitt took a more direct approach; on 29 August 1796 he sent Vancouver a letter heaping many insults on the head of his former captain, and challenging him to a duel. Vancouver gravely replied that he was unable "in a private capacity to answer for his public conduct in his official duty," and offered instead to submit to formal examination by flag officers. Pitt chose instead to stalk Vancouver, ultimately assaulting him on a London street corner. The terms of their subsequent legal dispute required both parties to keep the peace, but nothing stopped Vancouver's civilian brother Charles from interposing and giving Pitt blow after blow until onlookers restrained the attacker. Charges and counter-charges flew in the press, with the wealthy Camelford faction having the greater firepower until Vancouver, ailing from his long naval service, died.
Vancouver, at one time amongst Britain's greatest explorers and navigators, died in obscurity on 10 May 1798 at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his voyages and expeditions. No official cause of death was stated, as the medical records pertaining to Vancouver were destroyed; one doctor named John Naish claimed Vancouver died from kidney failure, while others believed it was a hyperthyroid condition.
Vancouver's grave is in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, Petersham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The Hudson's Bay Company placed a memorial plaque in the church in 1841. His grave in Portland stone, renovated in the 1960s, is now Grade II listed in view of its historical associations.
Vancouver determined that the Northwest Passage did not exist at the latitudes that had long been suggested. His charts of the North American northwest coast were so extremely accurate that they served as the key reference for coastal navigation for generations. Robin Fisher, the academic vice-president of Mount Royal University in Calgary and author of two books on Vancouver, states:
He put the northwest coast on the map...He drew up a map of the north-west coast that was accurate to the 9th degree, to the point it was still being used into the modern day as a navigational aid. That's unusual for a map from that early a time.
However, Vancouver failed to discover two of the largest and most important rivers on the Pacific coast, the Fraser River and the Columbia River. He also missed the Skeena River near Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia. Vancouver did eventually learn of the Columbia River before he finished his survey—from Robert Gray, captain of the American merchant ship that conducted the first Euroamerican sailing of the Columbia River on 11 May 1792, after first sighting it on an earlier voyage in 1788. However, neither the Columbia River nor the Fraser River were included on any of Vancouver's charts. Stephen R. Bown noted in Mercator's World magazine (November/December 1999) that:
How Vancouver could have missed these rivers while accurately charting hundreds of comparatively insignificant inlets, islands, and streams is hard to fathom. What is certain is that his failure to spot the Columbia had great implications for the future political development of the Pacific Northwest....
While it is difficult to comprehend how Vancouver missed the Fraser River, much of this river's delta was subject to flooding and summer freshet which prevented the captain from spotting any of its great channels as he sailed the entire shoreline from Point Roberts, Washington, to Point Grey in 1792. The Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, with the 1791 Francisco de Eliza expedition preceding Vancouver by a year, had also missed the Fraser River although they knew from its muddy plume that there was a major river located nearby.
Vancouver generally established a rapport with both Indigenous peoples and European trappers. Historical records show Vancouver enjoyed good relations with native leaders both in Hawaii – with King Kamehameha I as well as the Pacific Northwest and California. Vancouver's journals exhibit a high degree of sensitivity to the indigenous populations he encountered. He wrote of meeting the Chumash people, and of his exploration of a small island on the Californian coast on which an important burial site was marked by a sepulchre of "peculiar character" lined with boards and fragments of military instruments lying near a square box covered with mats. Vancouver states:
This we naturally conjectured contained the remains of some person of consequence, and it much excited the curiosity of some of our party; but as further examination could not possibly have served any useful purpose, and might have given umbrage and pain to the friends of the deceased, should it be their custom to visit the repositories of their dead, I did not think it right that it should be disturbed.
Vancouver also displayed contempt in his journals towards unscrupulous western traders who provided guns to natives, writing:
I am extremely concerned to be compelled to state here, that many of the traders from the civilised world have not only pursued a line of conduct, diametrically opposite to the true principles of justice in their commercial dealings, but have fomented discords, and stirred up contentions, between the different tribes, in order to increase the demand for these destructive engines... They have been likewise eager to instruct the natives in the use of European arms of all descriptions; and have shewn by their own example, that they consider gain as the only object of pursuit; and whether this be acquired by fair and honourable means, or otherwise, so long as the advantage is secured, the manner how it is obtained seems to have been, with too many of them, but a very secondary consideration.
Robin Fisher notes that Vancouver's "relationships with aboriginal groups were generally peaceful; indeed, his detailed survey would not have been possible if they had been hostile." While there were hostile incidents at the end of Vancouver's last season – the most serious of which involved a clash with the Tlingit people at Behm Canal in southeast Alaska in 1794 – these were the exceptions to Vancouver's exploration of the US and Canadian Northwest coast.
Despite a long history of warfare between Britain and Spain, Vancouver maintained excellent relations with his Spanish counterparts and even fêted a Spanish sea captain aboard his ship Discovery during his 1792 trip to the Vancouver region.
Many places around the world have been named after George Vancouver, including:
Many collections were made on the voyage: one was donated by Archibald Menzies to the British Museum 1796; another made by surgeon George Goodman Hewett (1765–1834) was donated by Augustus Wollaston Franks to the British Museum in 1891. An account of these has been published.
Canada Post issued a $1.55 postage stamp to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, on 22 June 2007. The stamp has an embossed image of Vancouver seen from behind as he gazes forward towards a mountainous coastline. This may be the first Canadian stamp not to show the subject's face.
The City of Vancouver in Canada organised a celebration to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, in June 2007 at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The one-hour festivities included the presentation of a massive 63 by 114 centimetre carrot cake, the firing of a gun salute by the Royal Canadian Artillery's 15th Field Regiment and a performance by the Vancouver Firefighter's Band. Vancouver's then-mayor, Sam Sullivan, officially declared 22 June 2007 to be "George Day".
The Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Elder sɁəyeɬəq (Larry Grant) attended the festivities and acknowledged that some of his people might disapprove of his presence, but also noted:
Many people don't feel aboriginal people should be celebrating this occasion...I believe it has helped the world and that's part of who we are. That's the legacy of our people. We're generous to a fault. The legacy is strong and a good one, in the sense that without the first nations working with the colonials, it [B.C.] wouldn't have been part of Canada to begin with and Britain would be the poorer for it.
There has been some debate about the origins of the Vancouver name. It is now commonly accepted that the name Vancouver derives from the expression van Coevorden, meaning "(originating) from Coevorden", a city in the northeast of the Netherlands. This city is apparently named after the "Coeverden" family of the 13th–15th century.
In the 16th century, a number of businessmen from the Coevorden area (and the rest of the Netherlands) moved to England. Some of them were known as Van Coeverden. Others adopted the surname Oxford, as in oxen fording (a river), which is approximately the English translation of Coevorden. However, it is not the exact name of the noble family mentioned in the history books that claim Vancouver's noble lineage: that name was Coeverden not Coevorden.
In the 1970s, Adrien Mansvelt, a former consul-general of the Netherlands based in Vancouver, published a collation of information in both historical and genealogical journals and in the Vancouver Sun newspaper. Mansvelt's theory was later presented by the city during the Expo 86 World's Fair, as historical fact. The information was then used by historian W. Kaye Lamb in his book A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791–1795 (1984).
W. Kaye Lamb, in summarising Mansvelt's 1973 research, observes evidence of close family ties between the Vancouver family of Britain and the Van Coeverden family of the Netherlands as well as George Vancouver's own words from his diaries in referring to his Dutch ancestry:
As the name Vancouver suggests, the Vancouvers were of Dutch origin. They were descended from the titled van Coeverden family, one of the oldest in the Netherlands. By the twelfth century, and for many years thereafter, their castle at Coevorden, in the Province of Drenthe, was an important fortress on the eastern frontier. George Vancouver was aware of this. In July 1794, he named the Lynn Canal "after the place of my nativity" and Point Couverden (which he spelt incorrectly) "after the seat of my ancestors". Vancouver's great grandfather, Reint Wolter van Couverden, was probably the first of the line to establish an English connection. While serving as a squire at one of the German courts he met Johanna (Jane) Lilingston, an English girl who was one of the ladies in waiting. They were married in 1699. Their son, Lucas Hendrik van Couverden, married Vancouver's grandmother, Sarah. In his later years he probably anglicized his name and spent most of his time in England. By the eighteenth century, the estates of the van Couverdens were mostly in the Province of Overijssel, and some of the family were living in Vollenhove, on the Zuider Zee. The English and Dutch branches kept in touch, and in 1798 (the date of Vancouver's death) George Vancouver's brother Charles would marry a kinswoman, Louise Josephine van Couverden, of Vollenhove. Both were great-grandchildren of Reint Wolter van Couverden."
In 2006 John Robson, a librarian at the University of Waikato, conducted his own research into George Vancouver's ancestry, which he published in an article in the British Columbia History journal. Robson theorises that Vancouver's forebears may have been Flemish rather than Dutch; he believes that Vancouver is descended from the Vangover family of Ipswich in Suffolk and Colchester in Essex. Those towns had a significant Flemish population in the 16th and 17th centuries.
George Vancouver named the south point of what is now Couverden Island, Alaska, Point Couverden during his exploration of the North American Pacific coast, in honour of his family's hometown of Coevorden. It is located at the western point of entry to Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska.
The Admiralty instructed Vancouver to publish a narrative of his voyage which he started to write in early 1796 in Petersham. At the time of his death the manuscript covered the period up to mid-1795. The work, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World, was completed by his brother John and published in three volumes in the autumn of 1798. A second edition was published in 1801 in six volumes.
A modern annotated edition (1984) by W. Kaye Lamb was renamed The Voyage of George Vancouver 1791–1795, and published in four volumes by the Hakluyt Society of London, England. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are now the Canadian province of British Columbia as well as the US states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Vancouver Island, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Vancouver River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington in the United States, Mount Vancouver on the Canadian–US border between Yukon and Alaska, and New Zealand's fourth-highest mountain, also Mount Vancouver, are all named after him.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "George Vancouver was born in the seaport town of King's Lynn (Norfolk, England) on 22 June 1757 – the sixth and youngest child of John Jasper Vancouver, a Dutch-born deputy collector of customs, and Bridget Berners. He came from an old respected family. The surname Vancouver comes from Coevorden, Drenthe province, Netherlands (Koevern in Dutch Low Saxon).",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1771, at the age of 13, Vancouver entered the Royal Navy as a \"young gentleman\", a future candidate for midshipman. He was nominally an able seaman (AB) but, in reality, sailed as one of the midshipmen aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also sailed with Cook's third voyage (1776–1780), this time aboard Resolution's companion ship, HMS Discovery (1774), and was present during the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands. Upon his return to Britain in October 1780 Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloop HMS Martin – initially on escort and patrol duty in the English Channel and North Sea. He accompanied the ship when it left Plymouth on 11 February 1782 for the West Indies. On 7 May 1782 he was appointed fourth lieutenant of the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Fame, which was at the time part of the British West Indies Fleet and assigned to patrolling the French-held Leeward Islands. Vancouver subsequently saw action at the Battle of the Saintes (April 1782), wherein he distinguished himself. Vancouver returned to England in June 1783.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the late 1780s the Spanish Empire commissioned an expedition to the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 the Nootka Crisis developed, and Spain and Britain came close to war over ownership of Nootka Sound on contemporary Vancouver Island, and – of greater importance – over the right to colonise and settle the Pacific Northwest coast. Henry Roberts had recently taken command of the survey ship HMS Discovery (a new vessel named in honour of the ship on Cook's voyage) with the prospect of another round-the-world voyage, and Roberts selected Vancouver as his first lieutenant, but they both were then posted to other warships due to the crisis. Vancouver went with Joseph Whidbey to the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Courageux. When the first Nootka Convention ended the crisis in 1790, Vancouver was given command of Discovery to take possession of Nootka Sound and to survey the coasts.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Departing England with two ships, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham, on 1 April 1791, Vancouver commanded an expedition charged with exploring the Pacific region. In its first year the expedition travelled to Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii, collecting botanical samples and surveying coastlines along the way. He formally claimed at Possession Point, King George Sound Western Australia, now the town of Albany, Western Australia for the British. Proceeding to North America, Vancouver followed the coasts of present-day Oregon and Washington northward. In April 1792 he encountered American Captain Robert Gray off the coast of Oregon just prior to Gray's sailing up the Columbia River.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Vancouver entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the present-day Washington state mainland, on 29 April 1792. His orders included a survey of every inlet and outlet on the west coast of the mainland, all the way north to Alaska. Most of this work was in small craft propelled by both sail and oar; manoeuvring larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Vancouver named many features for his officers, friends, associates, and his ship Discovery, including:",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "After a Spanish expedition in 1791, Vancouver was the second European to enter Burrard Inlet on 13 June 1792, naming it for his friend Sir Harry Burrard. It is the present day main harbour area of the City of Vancouver beyond Stanley Park. He surveyed Howe Sound and Jervis Inlet over the next nine days. Then, on his 35th birthday on 22 June 1792, he returned to Point Grey, the present-day location of the University of British Columbia. Here he unexpectedly met a Spanish expedition led by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores. Vancouver was \"mortified\" (his word) to learn they already had a crude chart of the Strait of Georgia based on the 1791 exploratory voyage of José María Narváez the year before, under command of Francisco de Eliza. For three weeks they cooperatively explored the Georgia Strait and the Discovery Islands area before sailing separately towards Nootka Sound.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "After the summer surveying season ended, in August 1792, Vancouver went to Nootka, then the region's most important harbour, on contemporary Vancouver Island. Here he was to receive any British buildings and lands returned by the Spanish from claims by Francisco de Eliza for the Spanish crown. The Spanish commander, Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra, was very cordial and he and Vancouver exchanged the maps they had made, but no agreement was reached; they decided to await further instructions. At this time, they decided to name the large island on which Nootka was now proven to be located as Quadra and Vancouver Island. Years later, as Spanish influence declined, the name was shortened to simply Vancouver Island.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "While at Nootka Sound Vancouver acquired Robert Gray's chart of the lower Columbia River. Gray had entered the river during the summer before sailing to Nootka Sound for repairs. Vancouver realised the importance of verifying Gray's information and conducting a more thorough survey. In October 1792, he sent Lieutenant William Robert Broughton with several boats up the Columbia River. Broughton got as far as the Columbia River Gorge, sighting and naming Mount Hood.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Vancouver sailed south along the coast of Spanish Alta California, entered San Francisco Bay, later visiting Monterey; in both places, he was warmly received by the Spanish. Later he visited Chumash villages at Point Conception and near Mission San Buenaventura. Vancouver spent the winter in continuing exploration of the Sandwich Islands, the contemporary islands of Hawaii.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The next year, 1793, he returned to British Columbia and proceeded further north, unknowingly missing the overland explorer Alexander Mackenzie by only 48 days. He got to 56°30'N, having explored north from Point Menzies in Burke Channel to the northwest coast of Prince of Wales Island. He sailed around the latter island, as well as circumnavigating Revillagigedo Island and charting parts of the coasts of Mitkof, Zarembo, Etolin, Wrangell, Kuiu and Kupreanof Islands. With worsening weather, he sailed south to Alta California, hoping to find Bodega y Quadra and fulfil his territorial mission, but the Spaniard was not there. The Spanish governor refused to let a foreign official into the interior. Vancouver noted that the region's \"only defenses against foreign attack are a few poor cannons\". He again spent the winter in the Sandwich Islands.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1794, he first went to Cook Inlet, the northernmost point of his exploration, and from there followed the coast south. Boat parties charted the east coasts of Chichagof and Baranof Islands, circumnavigated Admiralty Island, explored to the head of Lynn Canal, and charted the rest of Kuiu Island and nearly all of Kupreanof Island. He then set sail for Great Britain by way of Cape Horn, returning in September 1795, thus completing a circumnavigation of South America.",
"title": "Explorations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Impressed by the view from Richmond Hill, Vancouver retired to Petersham, which was then in Surrey and is now in London.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Vancouver faced difficulties when he returned home to England. The accomplished and politically well-connected naturalist Archibald Menzies complained that his servant had been pressed into service during a shipboard emergency; sailing master Joseph Whidbey had a competing claim for pay as expedition astronomer; and Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford, whom Vancouver had disciplined for numerous infractions and eventually sent home in disgrace, proceeded to harass him publicly and privately.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Pitt's allies, including his cousin, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, attacked Vancouver in the press. Thomas Pitt took a more direct approach; on 29 August 1796 he sent Vancouver a letter heaping many insults on the head of his former captain, and challenging him to a duel. Vancouver gravely replied that he was unable \"in a private capacity to answer for his public conduct in his official duty,\" and offered instead to submit to formal examination by flag officers. Pitt chose instead to stalk Vancouver, ultimately assaulting him on a London street corner. The terms of their subsequent legal dispute required both parties to keep the peace, but nothing stopped Vancouver's civilian brother Charles from interposing and giving Pitt blow after blow until onlookers restrained the attacker. Charges and counter-charges flew in the press, with the wealthy Camelford faction having the greater firepower until Vancouver, ailing from his long naval service, died.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Vancouver, at one time amongst Britain's greatest explorers and navigators, died in obscurity on 10 May 1798 at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his voyages and expeditions. No official cause of death was stated, as the medical records pertaining to Vancouver were destroyed; one doctor named John Naish claimed Vancouver died from kidney failure, while others believed it was a hyperthyroid condition.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Vancouver's grave is in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, Petersham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The Hudson's Bay Company placed a memorial plaque in the church in 1841. His grave in Portland stone, renovated in the 1960s, is now Grade II listed in view of its historical associations.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Vancouver determined that the Northwest Passage did not exist at the latitudes that had long been suggested. His charts of the North American northwest coast were so extremely accurate that they served as the key reference for coastal navigation for generations. Robin Fisher, the academic vice-president of Mount Royal University in Calgary and author of two books on Vancouver, states:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "He put the northwest coast on the map...He drew up a map of the north-west coast that was accurate to the 9th degree, to the point it was still being used into the modern day as a navigational aid. That's unusual for a map from that early a time.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "However, Vancouver failed to discover two of the largest and most important rivers on the Pacific coast, the Fraser River and the Columbia River. He also missed the Skeena River near Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia. Vancouver did eventually learn of the Columbia River before he finished his survey—from Robert Gray, captain of the American merchant ship that conducted the first Euroamerican sailing of the Columbia River on 11 May 1792, after first sighting it on an earlier voyage in 1788. However, neither the Columbia River nor the Fraser River were included on any of Vancouver's charts. Stephen R. Bown noted in Mercator's World magazine (November/December 1999) that:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "How Vancouver could have missed these rivers while accurately charting hundreds of comparatively insignificant inlets, islands, and streams is hard to fathom. What is certain is that his failure to spot the Columbia had great implications for the future political development of the Pacific Northwest....",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "While it is difficult to comprehend how Vancouver missed the Fraser River, much of this river's delta was subject to flooding and summer freshet which prevented the captain from spotting any of its great channels as he sailed the entire shoreline from Point Roberts, Washington, to Point Grey in 1792. The Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, with the 1791 Francisco de Eliza expedition preceding Vancouver by a year, had also missed the Fraser River although they knew from its muddy plume that there was a major river located nearby.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Vancouver generally established a rapport with both Indigenous peoples and European trappers. Historical records show Vancouver enjoyed good relations with native leaders both in Hawaii – with King Kamehameha I as well as the Pacific Northwest and California. Vancouver's journals exhibit a high degree of sensitivity to the indigenous populations he encountered. He wrote of meeting the Chumash people, and of his exploration of a small island on the Californian coast on which an important burial site was marked by a sepulchre of \"peculiar character\" lined with boards and fragments of military instruments lying near a square box covered with mats. Vancouver states:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "This we naturally conjectured contained the remains of some person of consequence, and it much excited the curiosity of some of our party; but as further examination could not possibly have served any useful purpose, and might have given umbrage and pain to the friends of the deceased, should it be their custom to visit the repositories of their dead, I did not think it right that it should be disturbed.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Vancouver also displayed contempt in his journals towards unscrupulous western traders who provided guns to natives, writing:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "I am extremely concerned to be compelled to state here, that many of the traders from the civilised world have not only pursued a line of conduct, diametrically opposite to the true principles of justice in their commercial dealings, but have fomented discords, and stirred up contentions, between the different tribes, in order to increase the demand for these destructive engines... They have been likewise eager to instruct the natives in the use of European arms of all descriptions; and have shewn by their own example, that they consider gain as the only object of pursuit; and whether this be acquired by fair and honourable means, or otherwise, so long as the advantage is secured, the manner how it is obtained seems to have been, with too many of them, but a very secondary consideration.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Robin Fisher notes that Vancouver's \"relationships with aboriginal groups were generally peaceful; indeed, his detailed survey would not have been possible if they had been hostile.\" While there were hostile incidents at the end of Vancouver's last season – the most serious of which involved a clash with the Tlingit people at Behm Canal in southeast Alaska in 1794 – these were the exceptions to Vancouver's exploration of the US and Canadian Northwest coast.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Despite a long history of warfare between Britain and Spain, Vancouver maintained excellent relations with his Spanish counterparts and even fêted a Spanish sea captain aboard his ship Discovery during his 1792 trip to the Vancouver region.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Many places around the world have been named after George Vancouver, including:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Many collections were made on the voyage: one was donated by Archibald Menzies to the British Museum 1796; another made by surgeon George Goodman Hewett (1765–1834) was donated by Augustus Wollaston Franks to the British Museum in 1891. An account of these has been published.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Canada Post issued a $1.55 postage stamp to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, on 22 June 2007. The stamp has an embossed image of Vancouver seen from behind as he gazes forward towards a mountainous coastline. This may be the first Canadian stamp not to show the subject's face.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The City of Vancouver in Canada organised a celebration to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, in June 2007 at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The one-hour festivities included the presentation of a massive 63 by 114 centimetre carrot cake, the firing of a gun salute by the Royal Canadian Artillery's 15th Field Regiment and a performance by the Vancouver Firefighter's Band. Vancouver's then-mayor, Sam Sullivan, officially declared 22 June 2007 to be \"George Day\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Elder sɁəyeɬəq (Larry Grant) attended the festivities and acknowledged that some of his people might disapprove of his presence, but also noted:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Many people don't feel aboriginal people should be celebrating this occasion...I believe it has helped the world and that's part of who we are. That's the legacy of our people. We're generous to a fault. The legacy is strong and a good one, in the sense that without the first nations working with the colonials, it [B.C.] wouldn't have been part of Canada to begin with and Britain would be the poorer for it.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "There has been some debate about the origins of the Vancouver name. It is now commonly accepted that the name Vancouver derives from the expression van Coevorden, meaning \"(originating) from Coevorden\", a city in the northeast of the Netherlands. This city is apparently named after the \"Coeverden\" family of the 13th–15th century.",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In the 16th century, a number of businessmen from the Coevorden area (and the rest of the Netherlands) moved to England. Some of them were known as Van Coeverden. Others adopted the surname Oxford, as in oxen fording (a river), which is approximately the English translation of Coevorden. However, it is not the exact name of the noble family mentioned in the history books that claim Vancouver's noble lineage: that name was Coeverden not Coevorden.",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In the 1970s, Adrien Mansvelt, a former consul-general of the Netherlands based in Vancouver, published a collation of information in both historical and genealogical journals and in the Vancouver Sun newspaper. Mansvelt's theory was later presented by the city during the Expo 86 World's Fair, as historical fact. The information was then used by historian W. Kaye Lamb in his book A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791–1795 (1984).",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "W. Kaye Lamb, in summarising Mansvelt's 1973 research, observes evidence of close family ties between the Vancouver family of Britain and the Van Coeverden family of the Netherlands as well as George Vancouver's own words from his diaries in referring to his Dutch ancestry:",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "As the name Vancouver suggests, the Vancouvers were of Dutch origin. They were descended from the titled van Coeverden family, one of the oldest in the Netherlands. By the twelfth century, and for many years thereafter, their castle at Coevorden, in the Province of Drenthe, was an important fortress on the eastern frontier. George Vancouver was aware of this. In July 1794, he named the Lynn Canal \"after the place of my nativity\" and Point Couverden (which he spelt incorrectly) \"after the seat of my ancestors\". Vancouver's great grandfather, Reint Wolter van Couverden, was probably the first of the line to establish an English connection. While serving as a squire at one of the German courts he met Johanna (Jane) Lilingston, an English girl who was one of the ladies in waiting. They were married in 1699. Their son, Lucas Hendrik van Couverden, married Vancouver's grandmother, Sarah. In his later years he probably anglicized his name and spent most of his time in England. By the eighteenth century, the estates of the van Couverdens were mostly in the Province of Overijssel, and some of the family were living in Vollenhove, on the Zuider Zee. The English and Dutch branches kept in touch, and in 1798 (the date of Vancouver's death) George Vancouver's brother Charles would marry a kinswoman, Louise Josephine van Couverden, of Vollenhove. Both were great-grandchildren of Reint Wolter van Couverden.\"",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In 2006 John Robson, a librarian at the University of Waikato, conducted his own research into George Vancouver's ancestry, which he published in an article in the British Columbia History journal. Robson theorises that Vancouver's forebears may have been Flemish rather than Dutch; he believes that Vancouver is descended from the Vangover family of Ipswich in Suffolk and Colchester in Essex. Those towns had a significant Flemish population in the 16th and 17th centuries.",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "George Vancouver named the south point of what is now Couverden Island, Alaska, Point Couverden during his exploration of the North American Pacific coast, in honour of his family's hometown of Coevorden. It is located at the western point of entry to Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska.",
"title": "Origins of the family name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Admiralty instructed Vancouver to publish a narrative of his voyage which he started to write in early 1796 in Petersham. At the time of his death the manuscript covered the period up to mid-1795. The work, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World, was completed by his brother John and published in three volumes in the autumn of 1798. A second edition was published in 1801 in six volumes.",
"title": "Works by George Vancouver"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A modern annotated edition (1984) by W. Kaye Lamb was renamed The Voyage of George Vancouver 1791–1795, and published in four volumes by the Hakluyt Society of London, England.",
"title": "Works by George Vancouver"
}
]
| Captain George Vancouver was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are now the Canadian province of British Columbia as well as the US states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia. Vancouver Island, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Vancouver River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington in the United States, Mount Vancouver on the Canadian–US border between Yukon and Alaska, and New Zealand's fourth-highest mountain, also Mount Vancouver, are all named after him. | 2001-11-24T01:50:36Z | 2023-12-31T22:26:10Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Vancouver |
12,872 | Great Vowel Shift | The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds changed as well, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes.
The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.
The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown and have been a source of intense scholarly debate; as yet, there is no firm consensus. The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, and their origins are at least partly phonetic.
The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels.
Long vowels in Middle English had "continental" values, much like those in Italian and Standard German; in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations. The differing pronunciations of English vowel letters do not stem from the Great Shift as such but rather because English spelling did not adapt to the changes.
German had undergone vowel changes quite similar to the Great Shift in a slightly earlier period but the spelling was changed accordingly (e.g. Middle High German bīzen → modern German beißen "to bite").
This timeline shows the main vowel changes that occurred between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century by using representative words. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 1400 and 1600–1700.
The changes that happened after 1700 are not considered part of the Great Vowel Shift. Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet:
Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The vowels occurred in, for example, the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out, respectively.
The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English.
In addition, Middle English had:
After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:
These changes occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels /iː uː/ and the close-mid vowels /eː oː/: /eː oː/ were raised to /iː uː/, and /iː uː/ became the diphthongs /ei ou/ or /əi əu/. The second phase affected the open vowel /aː/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/: /aː ɛː ɔː/ were raised, in most cases changing to /eː iː oː/.
The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift.
After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as /miːt/.
However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/ as in mate rather than the vowel /iː/ as in meat.
This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME), Early Modern English (EModE), and today's English (ModE). Pronunciations in 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1900 are shown. To hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols.
Before labial consonants and also after /j/, /uː/ did not shift, and /uː/ remains as in soup.
The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels /eː oː/, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels /iː uː/, as in bite and out. The close-mid vowels /eː oː/ became close /iː uː/, and the close vowels /iː uː/ became diphthongs. The first phase was complete in 1500, meaning that by that time, words like beet and boot had lost their Middle English pronunciation, and were pronounced with the same vowels as in Modern English. The words bite and out were pronounced with diphthongs, but not the same diphthongs as in Modern English.
Scholars agree that the Middle English close vowels /iː uː/ became diphthongs around the year 1500, but disagree about what diphthongs they changed to. According to Lass, the words bite and out after diphthongisation were pronounced as /beit/ and /out/, similar to American English bait /beɪt/ and oat /oʊt/. Later, the diphthongs /ei ou/ shifted to /ɛi ɔu/, then /əi əu/, and finally to Modern English /aɪ aʊ/. This sequence of events is supported by the testimony of orthoepists before Hodges in 1644.
However, many scholars such as Dobson (1968), Kökeritz (1953), and Cercignani (1981) argue for theoretical reasons that, contrary to what 16th-century witnesses report, the vowels /iː uː/ were actually immediately centralised and lowered to /əi əu/.
Evidence from northern English and Scots (see below) suggests that the close-mid vowels /eː oː/ were the first to shift. As the Middle English vowels /eː oː/ were raised towards /iː uː/, they forced the original Middle English /iː uː/ out of place and caused them to become diphthongs /ei ou/. This type of sound change, in which one vowel's pronunciation shifts so that it is pronounced like a second vowel, and the second vowel is forced to change its pronunciation, is called a push chain.
However, according to professor Jürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel /iː/ and the diphthong /əi/, in words where the Middle English /iː/ shifted to the Modern English /aɪ/. For an example, high was pronounced with the vowel /iː/, and like and my were pronounced with the diphthong /əi/. Therefore, for logical reasons, the close vowels /iː uː/ could have diphthongised before the close-mid vowels /eː oː/ raised. Otherwise, high would probably rhyme with thee rather than my. This type of chain is called a drag chain.
The second phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English open vowel /aː/, as in mate, and the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/, as in meat and boat. Around 1550, Middle English /aː/ was raised to /æː/. Then, after 1600, the new /æː/ was raised to /ɛː/, with the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/ raised to close-mid /eː oː/.
During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong /ɛj/, as in day, which often (but not always, see the pane-pain merger) monophthongised to /ɛː/, and merged with Middle English /aː/ as in mate or /ɛː/ as in meat.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words like meet, meat, mate, and day. In each pronunciation variant, different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English, meet and meat are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel /iː/, and mate and day are merged with the diphthong /eɪ/, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel /eː/.
Modern English typically has the meet–meat merger: both meet and meat are pronounced with the vowel /iː/. Words like great and steak, however, have merged with mate and are pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/, which developed from the /eː/ shown in the table above. Before historic /r/ some of these vowels merged with /ə/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/
The Great Vowel Shift affected other dialects as well as the standard English of southern England but in different ways. In Northern England, the shift did not operate on the long back vowels because they had undergone an earlier shift. Similarly, the dialect in Scotland had a different vowel system before the Great Vowel Shift, as /oː/ had shifted to /øː/ in Early Scots. In the Scots equivalent of the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels /iː/, /eː/ and /aː/ shifted to /ei/, /iː/ and /eː/ by the Middle Scots period and /uː/ remained unaffected.
The first step in the Great Vowel Shift in Northern and Southern English is shown in the table below. The Northern English developments of Middle English /iː, eː/ and /oː, uː/ were different from Southern English. In particular, the Northern English vowels /iː/ in bite, /eː/ in feet, and /oː/ in boot shifted, while the vowel /uː/ in house did not. These developments below fall under the label "older" to refer to Scots and a more conservative and increasingly rural Northern sound, while "younger" refers to a more mainstream Northern sound largely emerging just since the twentieth century.
The vowel systems of Northern and Southern Middle English immediately before the Great Vowel Shift were different in one way. In Northern Middle English, the back close-mid vowel /oː/ in boot had already shifted to front /øː/ (a sound change known as fronting), like the long ö in German hören [ˈhøːʁən] "hear". Thus, Southern English had a back close-mid vowel /oː/, but Northern English did not:
In both Northern and Southern English, the first step of the Great Vowel Shift raised the close-mid vowels to become close. Northern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – /eː/ in feet and /øː/ in boot – which were raised to /iː/ and /yː/. Later on, Northern English /yː/ changed to /iː/ in many dialects (though not in all, see Phonological history of Scots § Vowel 7), so that boot has the same vowel as feet. Southern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – /eː/ in feet and /oː/ in boot – which were raised to /iː/ and /uː/.
In Southern English, the close vowels /iː/ in bite and /uː/ in house shifted to become diphthongs, but in Northern English, /iː/ in bite shifted but /uː/ in house did not.
If the difference between the Northern and Southern vowel shifts is caused by the vowel systems at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, /uː/ did not shift because there was no back mid vowel /oː/ in Northern English. In Southern English, shifting of /oː/ to /uː/ could have caused diphthongisation of original /uː/, but because Northern English had no back close-mid vowel /oː/ to shift, the back close vowel /uː/ did not diphthongise. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds changed as well, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are unknown and have been a source of intense scholarly debate; as yet, there is no firm consensus. The greatest changes occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, and their origins are at least partly phonetic.",
"title": "Causes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English (Received Pronunciation) is in the value of the long vowels.",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Long vowels in Middle English had \"continental\" values, much like those in Italian and Standard German; in standard Modern English, they have entirely different pronunciations. The differing pronunciations of English vowel letters do not stem from the Great Shift as such but rather because English spelling did not adapt to the changes.",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "German had undergone vowel changes quite similar to the Great Shift in a slightly earlier period but the spelling was changed accordingly (e.g. Middle High German bīzen → modern German beißen \"to bite\").",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "This timeline shows the main vowel changes that occurred between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century by using representative words. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the lower half of the table, between 1400 and 1600–1700.",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The changes that happened after 1700 are not considered part of the Great Vowel Shift. Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet:",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "",
"title": "Overall changes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The vowels occurred in, for example, the words bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot, and out, respectively.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In addition, Middle English had:",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "After around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation as follows:",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "These changes occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels /iː uː/ and the close-mid vowels /eː oː/: /eː oː/ were raised to /iː uː/, and /iː uː/ became the diphthongs /ei ou/ or /əi əu/. The second phase affected the open vowel /aː/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/: /aː ɛː ɔː/ were raised, in most cases changing to /eː iː oː/.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging. Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as /miːt/.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/ as in mate rather than the vowel /iː/ as in meat.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME), Early Modern English (EModE), and today's English (ModE). Pronunciations in 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1900 are shown. To hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Before labial consonants and also after /j/, /uː/ did not shift, and /uː/ remains as in soup.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels /eː oː/, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels /iː uː/, as in bite and out. The close-mid vowels /eː oː/ became close /iː uː/, and the close vowels /iː uː/ became diphthongs. The first phase was complete in 1500, meaning that by that time, words like beet and boot had lost their Middle English pronunciation, and were pronounced with the same vowels as in Modern English. The words bite and out were pronounced with diphthongs, but not the same diphthongs as in Modern English.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Scholars agree that the Middle English close vowels /iː uː/ became diphthongs around the year 1500, but disagree about what diphthongs they changed to. According to Lass, the words bite and out after diphthongisation were pronounced as /beit/ and /out/, similar to American English bait /beɪt/ and oat /oʊt/. Later, the diphthongs /ei ou/ shifted to /ɛi ɔu/, then /əi əu/, and finally to Modern English /aɪ aʊ/. This sequence of events is supported by the testimony of orthoepists before Hodges in 1644.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "However, many scholars such as Dobson (1968), Kökeritz (1953), and Cercignani (1981) argue for theoretical reasons that, contrary to what 16th-century witnesses report, the vowels /iː uː/ were actually immediately centralised and lowered to /əi əu/.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Evidence from northern English and Scots (see below) suggests that the close-mid vowels /eː oː/ were the first to shift. As the Middle English vowels /eː oː/ were raised towards /iː uː/, they forced the original Middle English /iː uː/ out of place and caused them to become diphthongs /ei ou/. This type of sound change, in which one vowel's pronunciation shifts so that it is pronounced like a second vowel, and the second vowel is forced to change its pronunciation, is called a push chain.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "However, according to professor Jürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel /iː/ and the diphthong /əi/, in words where the Middle English /iː/ shifted to the Modern English /aɪ/. For an example, high was pronounced with the vowel /iː/, and like and my were pronounced with the diphthong /əi/. Therefore, for logical reasons, the close vowels /iː uː/ could have diphthongised before the close-mid vowels /eː oː/ raised. Otherwise, high would probably rhyme with thee rather than my. This type of chain is called a drag chain.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The second phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English open vowel /aː/, as in mate, and the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/, as in meat and boat. Around 1550, Middle English /aː/ was raised to /æː/. Then, after 1600, the new /æː/ was raised to /ɛː/, with the Middle English open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/ raised to close-mid /eː oː/.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong /ɛj/, as in day, which often (but not always, see the pane-pain merger) monophthongised to /ɛː/, and merged with Middle English /aː/ as in mate or /ɛː/ as in meat.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words like meet, meat, mate, and day. In each pronunciation variant, different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English, meet and meat are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel /iː/, and mate and day are merged with the diphthong /eɪ/, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel /eː/.",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Modern English typically has the meet–meat merger: both meet and meat are pronounced with the vowel /iː/. Words like great and steak, however, have merged with mate and are pronounced with the vowel /eɪ/, which developed from the /eː/ shown in the table above. Before historic /r/ some of these vowels merged with /ə/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/",
"title": "Details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Great Vowel Shift affected other dialects as well as the standard English of southern England but in different ways. In Northern England, the shift did not operate on the long back vowels because they had undergone an earlier shift. Similarly, the dialect in Scotland had a different vowel system before the Great Vowel Shift, as /oː/ had shifted to /øː/ in Early Scots. In the Scots equivalent of the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels /iː/, /eː/ and /aː/ shifted to /ei/, /iː/ and /eː/ by the Middle Scots period and /uː/ remained unaffected.",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The first step in the Great Vowel Shift in Northern and Southern English is shown in the table below. The Northern English developments of Middle English /iː, eː/ and /oː, uː/ were different from Southern English. In particular, the Northern English vowels /iː/ in bite, /eː/ in feet, and /oː/ in boot shifted, while the vowel /uː/ in house did not. These developments below fall under the label \"older\" to refer to Scots and a more conservative and increasingly rural Northern sound, while \"younger\" refers to a more mainstream Northern sound largely emerging just since the twentieth century.",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The vowel systems of Northern and Southern Middle English immediately before the Great Vowel Shift were different in one way. In Northern Middle English, the back close-mid vowel /oː/ in boot had already shifted to front /øː/ (a sound change known as fronting), like the long ö in German hören [ˈhøːʁən] \"hear\". Thus, Southern English had a back close-mid vowel /oː/, but Northern English did not:",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In both Northern and Southern English, the first step of the Great Vowel Shift raised the close-mid vowels to become close. Northern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – /eː/ in feet and /øː/ in boot – which were raised to /iː/ and /yː/. Later on, Northern English /yː/ changed to /iː/ in many dialects (though not in all, see Phonological history of Scots § Vowel 7), so that boot has the same vowel as feet. Southern Middle English had two close-mid vowels – /eː/ in feet and /oː/ in boot – which were raised to /iː/ and /uː/.",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In Southern English, the close vowels /iː/ in bite and /uː/ in house shifted to become diphthongs, but in Northern English, /iː/ in bite shifted but /uː/ in house did not.",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "If the difference between the Northern and Southern vowel shifts is caused by the vowel systems at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, /uː/ did not shift because there was no back mid vowel /oː/ in Northern English. In Southern English, shifting of /oː/ to /uː/ could have caused diphthongisation of original /uː/, but because Northern English had no back close-mid vowel /oː/ to shift, the back close vowel /uː/ did not diphthongise.",
"title": "Northern English and Scots"
}
]
| The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds changed as well, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonantal changes. The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term. | 2001-11-26T13:57:56Z | 2023-10-06T20:32:53Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift |
12,874 | Gilbert Arthur à Beckett | Gilbert Arthur à Beckett (April 7, 1837 – October 15, 1891) was an English writer.
Beckett was born at Portland House Hammersmith, on 7 April 1837, the eldest son of the civil servant and humorist Gilbert Abbott à Beckett and the composer Mary Anne à Beckett, daughter of Joseph Glossop, clerk of the cheque to the hon. corps of gentlemen-at-arms. His brother was Arthur William à Beckett. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, as a Westminster scholar in 1860. He was entered at Lincoln's Inn on 15 October 1857, but gave his attention chiefly to drama, producing Diamonds and Hearts at the Haymarket Theatre in 1867; this was followed by other light comedies. His adaptation of a French operetta by Émile Jonas called The Two Harlequins opened the new Gaiety Theatre, London in 1868, together with his distant cousin, W. S. Gilbert's, Robert the Devil and another piece.
Beckett's pieces include numerous burlesques and pantomimes, the libretti of Savonarola (Hamburg, 1884) and The Canterbury Pilgrims (Drury Lane, 1884) for the music of Dr. C. V. Stanford. With the composer Alfred Cellier, Beckett wrote the operetta Two Foster Brothers (St. George's Hall, 1877).
In 1879, he had been asked by Tom Taylor, the editor of Punch, to follow the example of his younger brother Arthur, and become a regular member of the staff of Punch. Three years later he was 'appointed to the Table.' The Punch dinners 'were his greatest pleasure, and he attended them with regularity, although the paralysis of the legs, the result of falling down the stairway of Gower Street station, rendered his locomotion, and especially the mounting of Mr. Punch's staircase, a matter of painful exertion'. To Punch he contributed both prose and verse; he wrote, in greater part, the admirable parody of a boy's sensational shocker (March 1882), and he developed Jerrold's idea of humorous bogus advertisements under the heading 'How we advertise now.' The idea of one of Sir John Tenniel's best cartoons for Punch, entitled 'Dropping the Pilot,' illustrative of Bismarck's resignation in 1889, was due to him.
Apart from his work on 'Punch,' he wrote songs and music for the German Reeds' entertainment, while in 1873 and 1874 he was collaborator in two dramatic productions which evoked a considerable amount of public attention.
On 3 March 1873, The Happy Land was given at the Court Theatre, 1873, a daring political satire and burlesque of W. S. Gilbert's The Wicked World. In this amusing piece of banter three statesmen (Gladstone, Lowe, and Ayrton) were represented as visiting Fairyland in order to impart to the inhabitants the secrets of popular government. The actors representing 'Mr. G.,' 'Mr. L.,' and 'Mr. A.' were dressed so as to resemble the ministers satirised, and the representation elicited a question in the House of Commons and an official visit of the Lord Chamberlain to the theatre, with the result that the actors had to change their 'make-up.'
In the following year, he furnished the 'legend' to Herman Merivale's tragedy 'The White Pilgrim,' first given at the Court in February 1874. At the close of his life he furnished the 'lyrics' and most of the book for the operetta La Cigale, which at the time of his death was nearing its four hundredth performance at the Lyric Theatre.
In 1889, he suffered a great shock from the death by drowning of his only son, and he died in London on 15 October 1891, and was buried in Mortlake cemetery.
Punch devoted some appreciative stanzas to his memory, bearing the epigraph 'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life' (24 Oct. 1891). His portrait appeared in the well-known drawing of 'The Mahogany Tree' (Punch, Jubilee Number, 18 July 1887), and likenesses were also given in the 'Illustrated London News' and in Spielmann's 'History of Punch' (1895).
He married Emily, eldest daughter of William Hunt, J.P., of Bath, and his only daughter Minna married in 1896 Mr. Hugh Clifford, C.M.G., governor of Labuan and British North Borneo.
Seccombe, Thomas (1901). "À Beckett, Gilbert Arthur" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 7–8. | [
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"text": "Gilbert Arthur à Beckett (April 7, 1837 – October 15, 1891) was an English writer.",
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"text": "Beckett was born at Portland House Hammersmith, on 7 April 1837, the eldest son of the civil servant and humorist Gilbert Abbott à Beckett and the composer Mary Anne à Beckett, daughter of Joseph Glossop, clerk of the cheque to the hon. corps of gentlemen-at-arms. His brother was Arthur William à Beckett. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, as a Westminster scholar in 1860. He was entered at Lincoln's Inn on 15 October 1857, but gave his attention chiefly to drama, producing Diamonds and Hearts at the Haymarket Theatre in 1867; this was followed by other light comedies. His adaptation of a French operetta by Émile Jonas called The Two Harlequins opened the new Gaiety Theatre, London in 1868, together with his distant cousin, W. S. Gilbert's, Robert the Devil and another piece.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Beckett's pieces include numerous burlesques and pantomimes, the libretti of Savonarola (Hamburg, 1884) and The Canterbury Pilgrims (Drury Lane, 1884) for the music of Dr. C. V. Stanford. With the composer Alfred Cellier, Beckett wrote the operetta Two Foster Brothers (St. George's Hall, 1877).",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1879, he had been asked by Tom Taylor, the editor of Punch, to follow the example of his younger brother Arthur, and become a regular member of the staff of Punch. Three years later he was 'appointed to the Table.' The Punch dinners 'were his greatest pleasure, and he attended them with regularity, although the paralysis of the legs, the result of falling down the stairway of Gower Street station, rendered his locomotion, and especially the mounting of Mr. Punch's staircase, a matter of painful exertion'. To Punch he contributed both prose and verse; he wrote, in greater part, the admirable parody of a boy's sensational shocker (March 1882), and he developed Jerrold's idea of humorous bogus advertisements under the heading 'How we advertise now.' The idea of one of Sir John Tenniel's best cartoons for Punch, entitled 'Dropping the Pilot,' illustrative of Bismarck's resignation in 1889, was due to him.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Apart from his work on 'Punch,' he wrote songs and music for the German Reeds' entertainment, while in 1873 and 1874 he was collaborator in two dramatic productions which evoked a considerable amount of public attention.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "On 3 March 1873, The Happy Land was given at the Court Theatre, 1873, a daring political satire and burlesque of W. S. Gilbert's The Wicked World. In this amusing piece of banter three statesmen (Gladstone, Lowe, and Ayrton) were represented as visiting Fairyland in order to impart to the inhabitants the secrets of popular government. The actors representing 'Mr. G.,' 'Mr. L.,' and 'Mr. A.' were dressed so as to resemble the ministers satirised, and the representation elicited a question in the House of Commons and an official visit of the Lord Chamberlain to the theatre, with the result that the actors had to change their 'make-up.'",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the following year, he furnished the 'legend' to Herman Merivale's tragedy 'The White Pilgrim,' first given at the Court in February 1874. At the close of his life he furnished the 'lyrics' and most of the book for the operetta La Cigale, which at the time of his death was nearing its four hundredth performance at the Lyric Theatre.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1889, he suffered a great shock from the death by drowning of his only son, and he died in London on 15 October 1891, and was buried in Mortlake cemetery.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Punch devoted some appreciative stanzas to his memory, bearing the epigraph 'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life' (24 Oct. 1891). His portrait appeared in the well-known drawing of 'The Mahogany Tree' (Punch, Jubilee Number, 18 July 1887), and likenesses were also given in the 'Illustrated London News' and in Spielmann's 'History of Punch' (1895).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "He married Emily, eldest daughter of William Hunt, J.P., of Bath, and his only daughter Minna married in 1896 Mr. Hugh Clifford, C.M.G., governor of Labuan and British North Borneo.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Seccombe, Thomas (1901). \"À Beckett, Gilbert Arthur\" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 7–8.",
"title": "References"
}
]
| Gilbert Arthur à Beckett was an English writer. | 2001-11-26T14:51:29Z | 2023-07-30T16:57:55Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Arthur_%C3%A0_Beckett |
12,875 | Glaucus (disambiguation) | In Greek mythology, Glaucus was a Greek prophetic sea-god.
Glaucus, often transliterated to Glafkos, may also refer to: | [
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| In Greek mythology, Glaucus was a Greek prophetic sea-god. Glaucus, often transliterated to Glafkos, may also refer to: | 2001-11-26T18:26:07Z | 2023-10-28T16:35:43Z | [
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12,878 | George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen | George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen (3 October 1637 – 20 April 1720), was a Lord Chancellor of Scotland.
Gordon, born on 3 October 1637, the second son of Sir John Gordon, 1st Baronet, of Haddo, Aberdeenshire, (executed in 1644); and his wife, Mary Forbes. He graduated MA, and was chosen professor at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1658. Subsequently, he travelled and studied civil law abroad.
At the Restoration the sequestration of his father's lands was annulled, and in 1665 he succeeded by the death of his elder brother as the 3rd Baronet Gordon, of Haddo and to the family estates. He returned home in 1667, was admitted advocate in 1668 and gained a high legal reputation. He represented Aberdeenshire in the Parliament of Scotland of 1669 to 1674, the Convention of Estates of 1678 and the following parliamentary assembly of 1681/82. During his first session he strongly opposed the projected union of England and Scotland. In November 1678 he was made a Privy Counsellor for Scotland, and in 1680 was raised to the bench as Lord Haddo. He was a leading member of the Duke of York's administration, was created a Lord of the Articles in June and in November 1681 Lord President of the Privy Council. The same year he is reported as moving in the council for the torture of witnesses.
In 1682 he was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland, and was created, on 13 November, Earl of Aberdeen, Viscount Formartine, and Lord Haddo, Methlick, Tarves and Kellie, in the Scottish peerage, being appointed also Sheriff of Aberdeen and Sheriff of Edinburgh later the same year.
Burnet reflected unfavourably upon him, writing of him, "...a proud and covetous man ... the new chancellor exceeded all that had gone before him.
He executed the laws enforcing religious conformity with severity, and filled the parish churches, but resisted the excessive measures of tyranny prescribed by the English government; and in consequence of an intrigue of the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Perth, who gained the duchess of Portsmouth with a present of £27,000, he was dismissed in 1684.
After his fall he was subjected to various petty prosecutions by his victorious rivals with the view of discovering some act of maladministration on which to found a charge against him, but the investigations only served to strengthen his credit. He took an active part in parliament in 1685 and 1686, but remained a non-juror during the whole of William's reign, being frequently fined for his non-attendance, and took the oaths for the first time after Anne's accession, on 11 May 1703.
In the great affair of the Union in 1707, while protesting against the completion of the treaty till the act declaring the Scots aliens should be repealed, he refused to support the opposition to the measure itself and refrained from attending parliament when the treaty was settled.
He is described by John Mackay as, "...very knowing in the laws and constitution of his country and is believed to be the solidest statesman in Scotland, a fine orator, speaks slow but sure.
His person was said to be deformed, and his want of mine or deportment was alleged as a disqualification for the office of Lord Chancellor.
He married Anne Lockhart, daughter and (eventual) sole heiress of George Lockhart of Tarbrax and Anne Lockhart. They had several children:
His only surviving son, William, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Aberdeen. He died on 20 April 1720, having amassed a large fortune.
Attribution | [
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"text": "Gordon, born on 3 October 1637, the second son of Sir John Gordon, 1st Baronet, of Haddo, Aberdeenshire, (executed in 1644); and his wife, Mary Forbes. He graduated MA, and was chosen professor at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1658. Subsequently, he travelled and studied civil law abroad.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "At the Restoration the sequestration of his father's lands was annulled, and in 1665 he succeeded by the death of his elder brother as the 3rd Baronet Gordon, of Haddo and to the family estates. He returned home in 1667, was admitted advocate in 1668 and gained a high legal reputation. He represented Aberdeenshire in the Parliament of Scotland of 1669 to 1674, the Convention of Estates of 1678 and the following parliamentary assembly of 1681/82. During his first session he strongly opposed the projected union of England and Scotland. In November 1678 he was made a Privy Counsellor for Scotland, and in 1680 was raised to the bench as Lord Haddo. He was a leading member of the Duke of York's administration, was created a Lord of the Articles in June and in November 1681 Lord President of the Privy Council. The same year he is reported as moving in the council for the torture of witnesses.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1682 he was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland, and was created, on 13 November, Earl of Aberdeen, Viscount Formartine, and Lord Haddo, Methlick, Tarves and Kellie, in the Scottish peerage, being appointed also Sheriff of Aberdeen and Sheriff of Edinburgh later the same year.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Burnet reflected unfavourably upon him, writing of him, \"...a proud and covetous man ... the new chancellor exceeded all that had gone before him.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He executed the laws enforcing religious conformity with severity, and filled the parish churches, but resisted the excessive measures of tyranny prescribed by the English government; and in consequence of an intrigue of the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Perth, who gained the duchess of Portsmouth with a present of £27,000, he was dismissed in 1684.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After his fall he was subjected to various petty prosecutions by his victorious rivals with the view of discovering some act of maladministration on which to found a charge against him, but the investigations only served to strengthen his credit. He took an active part in parliament in 1685 and 1686, but remained a non-juror during the whole of William's reign, being frequently fined for his non-attendance, and took the oaths for the first time after Anne's accession, on 11 May 1703.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the great affair of the Union in 1707, while protesting against the completion of the treaty till the act declaring the Scots aliens should be repealed, he refused to support the opposition to the measure itself and refrained from attending parliament when the treaty was settled.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He is described by John Mackay as, \"...very knowing in the laws and constitution of his country and is believed to be the solidest statesman in Scotland, a fine orator, speaks slow but sure.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "His person was said to be deformed, and his want of mine or deportment was alleged as a disqualification for the office of Lord Chancellor.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "He married Anne Lockhart, daughter and (eventual) sole heiress of George Lockhart of Tarbrax and Anne Lockhart. They had several children:",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "His only surviving son, William, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Aberdeen. He died on 20 April 1720, having amassed a large fortune.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Attribution",
"title": "References"
}
]
| George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen, was a Lord Chancellor of Scotland. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-31T22:06:59Z | [
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12,879 | George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen | George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, KG, KT, PC, FRS, FRSE, FSA Scot (28 January 1784 – 14 December 1860), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British statesman, diplomat and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite politician and specialist in foreign affairs. He served as Prime Minister from 1852 until 1855 in a coalition between the Whigs and Peelites, with Radical and Irish support. The Aberdeen ministry was filled with powerful and talented politicians, whom Aberdeen was largely unable to control and direct. Despite his trying to avoid this happening, it took Britain into the Crimean War, and fell when its conduct became unpopular, after which Aberdeen retired from politics.
Born into a wealthy family with the largest estates in Scotland, his personal life was marked by the loss of both parents by the time he was eleven, and of his first wife after only seven years of a happy marriage. His daughters died young, and his relations with his sons were difficult. He travelled extensively in Europe, including Greece, and he had a serious interest in the classical civilisations and their archaeology. His Scottish estates having been neglected by his father, he devoted himself (when he came of age) to modernising them according to the latest standards.
After 1812 he became a diplomat, and in 1813, at age 29, was given the critically important embassy to Vienna, where he organised and financed the sixth coalition that defeated Napoleon. His rise in politics was equally rapid and lucky, and "two accidents — Canning's death and Wellington's impulsive acceptance of the Canningite resignations" led to his becoming Foreign Secretary for Prime Minister Wellington in 1828 despite "an almost ludicrous lack of official experience"; he had been a minister for less than six months. After holding the position for two years, followed by another cabinet role, by 1841 his experience led to his appointment as Foreign Secretary again under Robert Peel for a longer term. His diplomatic successes include organizing the coalition against Napoleon in 1812–1814, normalizing relations with post-Napoleonic France, settling the old border dispute between Canada and the United States, and ending the First Opium War with China in 1842, whereby Hong Kong was obtained. Aberdeen was a poor speaker, but this scarcely mattered in the House of Lords. He exhibited a "dour, awkward, occasionally sarcastic exterior". His friend William Ewart Gladstone, said of him that he was "the man in public life of all others whom I have loved. I say emphatically loved. I have loved others, but never like him".
Born in Edinburgh on 28 January 1784, he was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, son of George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen. His mother was Charlotte, youngest daughter of William Baird of Newbyth. He lost his father on 18 October 1791 and his mother in 1795, and he was brought up by Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, and William Pitt the Younger. He was educated at Harrow, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1804. Before this, however, he had become Earl of Aberdeen on his grandfather's death in 1801, and had travelled all over Europe. On his return to Britain, he founded the Society of Athenian Travellers. In 1805, he married Lady Catherine Elizabeth, daughter of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn.
In December 1805, Lord Aberdeen took his seat as a Tory Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords. In 1808, he was created a Knight of the Thistle. Following the death of his wife from tuberculosis in 1812 he joined the Foreign Service. He was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria, and signed the Treaty of Töplitz between Britain and Austria in Vienna in October 1813. In the company of the Austrian Emperor, Francis II, he was an observer at the decisive Coalition victory of the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813; he had met Napoleon in his earlier travels. He became one of the central diplomatic figures in European diplomacy at this time, and he was one of the British representatives at the Congress of Châtillon in February 1814, and at the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Paris in May of that year.
Aberdeen was greatly affected by the aftermath of war which he witnessed at first hand. He wrote home:
The near approach of war and its effects are horrible beyond what you can conceive. The whole road from Prague to [Teplitz] was covered with waggons full of wounded, dead, and dying. The shock and disgust and pity produced by such scenes are beyond what I could have supposed possible...the scenes of distress and misery have sunk deeper in my mind. I have been quite haunted by them.
Returning home he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon, of Aberdeen in the County of Aberdeen (1814), and made a member of the Privy Council.
In July 1815, he married his former sister-in-law Harriet, daughter of John Douglas, and widow of James Hamilton, Viscount Hamilton; the marriage was much less happy than his first. During the ensuing thirteen years Aberdeen took a less prominent part in public affairs.
Lord Aberdeen served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between January and June 1828 and subsequently as Foreign Secretary until 1830 under the Duke of Wellington. He resigned with Wellington over the Reform Bill of 1832.
He was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in the first Peel ministry (December 1834 - April 1835), and again Foreign Secretary between 1841 and 1846 under Sir Robert Peel (second Peel ministry). It was during his second stint as Foreign Secretary that he had the harbor settlement of 'Little Hong Kong', on the south side of Hong Kong Island, named after him. It was probably the most productive period of his career; he settled two disagreements with the US: the northeast boundary dispute by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), and the Oregon dispute by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. He enjoyed the trust of Queen Victoria, which was still important for a Foreign Secretary. He worked closely with Henry Bulwer, his ambassador to Madrid, to help arrange marriages for Queen Isabella and her younger sister the Infanta Luisa Fernanda. They helped stabilize Spain's internal and external relations. He sought better relations with France, relying on his friendship with Guizot, but Britain was annoyed with France on a series of issues, especially French colonial policies, the right to search slave ships, the French desire to control Belgium, disputes in the Pacific and the French intervention in Morocco.
Aberdeen again followed his leader and resigned with Peel over the issue of the Corn Laws. After Peel's death in July 1850 he became the recognised leader of the Peelites. In August 1847, a general election of Parliament had been held which resulted in the election of 325 Tory/Conservative party members to Parliament. This represented 42.7% of the seats in Parliament. The main opposition to the Tory/Conservative Party was the Whig Party, which had 292 seats.
While the Peelites agreed with the Whigs on issues dealing with international trade, there were other issues on which the Peelites disagreed with the Whigs. Indeed, Lord Aberdeen's own dislike of the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill, the rejection of which he failed to secure in 1851, prevented him from joining the Whig government of Lord John Russell in that year. Additionally, 113 of the members of Parliament elected in 1847 were Free Traders. These members agreed with the Peelites on the repeal of the "Corn Laws", but they felt that the tariffs on all consumer products should be removed.
Furthermore, 36 members of Parliament elected in 1847 were members of the "Irish Brigade", who voted with the Peelites and the Whigs for the repeal of the Corn Laws because they sought an end the Great Irish Famine by means of cheaper wheat and bread prices for the poor and middle classes in Ireland. Currently, however, the Free Traders and the Irish Brigade had disagreements with the Whigs that prevented them from joining with the Whigs to form a government. Accordingly, the Tory/Conservative Party leader the Earl of Derby was asked to form a "minority government". Derby appointed Benjamin Disraeli as the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the minority government. The general election in July 1852 had no clear winner.
When in December 1852 Disraeli submitted his budget to Parliament on behalf of the minority government, the Peelites, the Free Traders, and the Irish Brigade were all alienated by the proposed budget. Accordingly, those groups suddenly forgot their differences with the Whig Party and voted with the Whigs against the proposed budget. The vote was 286 in favour of the budget and 305 votes against the budget. Because the leadership of the minority government had made the vote on the budget vote a vote of confidence, the defeat of the Disraeli budget was a "vote of no confidence" in the minority government and meant its downfall. Lord Aberdeen was asked to form a new government; Gladstone became his Chancellor.
Following the downfall of the Tory/Conservative minority government under Lord Derby in December 1852, Lord Aberdeen formed a new government from the coalition of Free Traders, Peelites, and Whigs that had voted no confidence in the minority government. Lord Aberdeen was able to put together a coalition that held 53.8% of the seats of Parliament. Thus Lord Aberdeen, a Peelite, became Prime Minister and headed a coalition ministry of Whigs and Peelites.
Although united on international trade issues and on questions of domestic reform, his cabinet also contained Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, who were certain to differ on questions of foreign policy. Charles Greville wrote in his Memoirs, "In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any other, and every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their premier"; and Sir James Graham wrote, "It is a powerful team, but it will require good driving", which Aberdeen was unable to provide. During the administration, much trouble was caused by the rivalry between Palmerston and Russell, and over the course of it Palmerston managed to out-manoeuvre Russell to emerge as the Whig heir apparent. The cabinet also included a single Radical, Sir William Molesworth, but much later, when justifying to the Queen his own new appointments, Gladstone told her: "For instance, even in Ld Aberdeen's Govt, in 52, Sir William Molesworth had been selected, at that time, a very advanced Radical, but who was perfectly harmless, & took little, or no part.... He said these people generally became very moderate, when they were in office", which she admitted had been the case.
One of the foreign policy issues on which Palmerston and Russell disagreed was the type of relationship that Britain should have with France and especially France's ruler, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Bonaparte was the nephew of the famous Napoleon Bonaparte, who had become dictator and then Emperor of France from 1804 until 1814. The younger Bonaparte had been elected to a three-year term as President of the Second Republic of France on 20 December 1848. The Constitution of the Second Republic limited the President to a single term in office. Thus, Louis Bonaparte would be unable to succeed himself and after 20 December 1851 would no longer be president. Consequently, on 2 December 1851, shortly before the end of his single three-year term in office was to expire, Bonaparte staged a coup against the Second Republic in France, disbanded the elected Constituent Assembly, arrested some of the Republican leaders, and declared himself Emperor Napoleon III of France. This coup upset many democrats in England as well as in France. Some British government officials felt that Louis Bonaparte was seeking foreign adventure in the spirit of his uncle, Napoleon I. Consequently, these officials felt that any close association with Bonaparte would eventually lead Britain into another series of wars, like the wars with France and Napoleon dating from 1793 until 1815. British relations with France had scarcely improved since 1815. As prime minister, the Earl of Aberdeen was one of these officials who feared France and Bonaparte.
However, other British government officials were beginning to worry more about the rising political dominance of the Russian Empire in eastern Europe and the corresponding decline of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Palmerston at the time of Louis Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup was serving as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Whig government of Prime Minister Lord John Russell. Without informing the rest of the cabinet or Queen Victoria, Palmerston had sent a private note to the French ambassador endorsing Louis Bonaparte's coup and congratulating Louis Bonaparte himself on the coup. Queen Victoria and members of the Russell government demanded that Palmerston be dismissed as Foreign Minister. Russell requested Palmerston's resignation and Palmerston reluctantly provided it.
In February 1852, Palmerston took revenge on Russell by voting with the Conservatives in a "no confidence" vote against the Russell government. This brought an end to the Russell Whig government and set the stage for a general election in July 1852 which eventually brought the Conservatives to power in a minority government under the Earl of Derby. Later in the year, another problem facing the Earl of Aberdeen in the formation of his own new government in December 1852 was Lord John Russell himself. Russell was the leader of the Whig Party, the largest group in the coalition government. Consequently, Lord Aberdeen, was required to appoint Russell as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which he had done on 29 December 1852. However, Russell sometimes liked to use this position to speak for the whole government, as if he were the prime minister. In 1832, Russell had been nicknamed "Finality John" because of his statement that the 1832 Reform Act had just been approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords would be the "final" expansion of the vote in Britain. There would be no further extension of the ballot to the common people of Britain. However, as political pressure in favour of further reform had risen over the twenty years since 1832, Russell had changed his mind. Russell had said, in January 1852, that he intended to introduce a new reform bill into the House of Commons which would equalise the populations of the districts from which members of Parliament were elected. Probably as a result of their continuing feud, Palmerston declared himself against this Reform Bill of 1852. As a result, support for the bill dwindled and Russell was forced to change his mind again and not introduce any Reform Bill in 1852.
In order to form the coalition government, the Earl of Aberdeen had been required to appoint both Palmerston and Russell to his cabinet. Because of the controversy surrounding Palmerston's removal as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Palmerston could not now be appointed Foreign Minister again so soon after his removal from that position. Accordingly, on 28 December 1852, Aberdeen appointed Palmerston as Home Secretary and appointed Russell as Foreign Minister.
Given the differences of opinion within the Lord Aberdeen cabinet over the direction of foreign policy with regard to relations between Britain and France under Napoleon III, it is not surprising that debate raged within the government as Louis Bonaparte, now assuming the title of Emperor Napoleon III. As Prime Minister of the Peelite/Whig coalition government, Aberdeen eventually led Britain into war on the side of the French and Ottomans against the Russian Empire. This war would eventually be called the Crimean War, but throughout the foreign policy negotiations surrounding the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, which would continue throughout the middle and end of nineteenth century, the problem would be referred to as the "Eastern Question".
The cabinet was bitterly divided. Palmerston stirred up anti-reform feeling in Parliament and pro-war public opinion to out-maneuver Russell. The result was that the weak Aberdeen government went to war with Russia as the result of internal British political rivalries. Aberdeen accepted Russian arguments at face value because he sympathised with Russian interests against French pressure and was not in favour of the Crimean War. However, he was unable to resist the pressure that was being exerted on him by Palmerston's faction. In the end, the Crimean War proved to be the downfall of his government.
The Eastern Question flared up on 2 December 1852, with the Napoleon's coup against the Second Republic. As Napoleon III was forming his new imperial government, he sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to assert France's right to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The Ottoman Empire agreed to this condition to avoid conflict or even war with France. Aberdeen, as Foreign Secretary in 1845, had himself tacitly authorised the construction of the first Anglican church in Jerusalem, following his predecessor's commission in 1838 of the first European Consul in Jerusalem on Britain's behalf, which lead to series of successive appointments by other nations. Both resulted from Lord Shaftesbury's canvassing with substantial public support.
Nevertheless, Britain became increasingly worried about the situation in Turkey, and Prime Minister Aberdeen sent Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, a diplomat with vast experience in Turkey, as a special envoy to the Ottoman Empire to guard British interests. Russia protested the Turkish agreement with the French as a violation of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1778, which ended the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Under the treaty, the Russians had been granted the exclusive right to protect the Christian sites in the Holy Land. Accordingly, on 7 May 1853, the Russians sent Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov, one their premier statesmen, to negotiate a settlement of the issue. Prince Menshikov called the attention of the Turks to the fact that during the Russo-Turkish War, the Russians had occupied the Turkish-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia on the north bank of the Danube River, and he reminded them that pursuant to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, the Russians had returned these "Danubian provinces" to Ottoman control in exchange for the right to protect the Christian sites in the Holy Land. Accordingly, the Turks reversed themselves and agreed with the Russians.
The French sent one of their premier ships-of-the-line, the Charlemagne, to the Black Sea as a show of force. In light of the French show of force, the Turks, again, reversed themselves and recognised the French right to protect the Christian sites. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was advising the Ottomans during this time, and later it was alleged that he had been instrumental in persuading the Turks to reject the Russian arguments.
As war became inevitable, Aberdeen wrote to Russell:
The abstract justice of the cause, although indisputable, is but a poor consolation for the inevitable calamities of all war, or for a decision which I am not without fear may prove to have been impolitic and unwise. My conscience upbraids me the more, because seeing, as I did from the first, all that was to be apprehended, it is possible that by a little more energy and vigour, not on the Danube, but in Downing Street, it might have been prevented.
In response this latest change of mind by the Ottomans, the Russians on 2 July 1853 occupied the Turkish satellite states of Wallachia and Moldavia, as they had during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. Almost immediately, the Russian troops deployed along the northern banks of the Danube River, implying that they might cross the river. Aberdeen ordered the British Fleet to Constantinople and later into the Black Sea. On 23 October 1853, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. A Russian naval raid on Sinope, on 30 November 1853, resulted in the destruction of the Turkish fleet in the battle of Sinope. When Russia ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to abandon the Danubian provinces, Britain and France declared war on Russia on 28 March 1854. In September 1854, British and French troops landed on the Crimean peninsula at Eupatoria, north of Sevastopol. The Allied troops then moved across the Alma River on 20 September 1854 at the battle of Alma and set siege to the fort of Sevastopol.
A Russian attack on the allied supply base at Balaclava on 25 October 1854 was rebuffed. The Battle of Balaclava is noted for its famous (or rather infamous) Charge of the Light Brigade. On 5 November 1854, Russian forces tried to relieve the siege at Sevastopol and defeat the Allied armies in the field in the Battle of Inkerman. However, this attempt failed. Dissatisfaction as to the course of the war grew in England. As reports returned detailing the mismanagement of the conflict, Parliament began to investigate. On 29 January 1855, John Arthur Roebuck introduced a motion for the appointment of a select committee to enquire into the conduct of the war. This motion was carried by the large majority of 305 in favour and 148 against.
Treating this as a vote of no confidence in his government, Aberdeen resigned, and retired from active politics, speaking for the last time in the House of Lords in 1858. In visiting Windsor Castle to resign, he told the Queen: "Nothing could have been better, he said than the feeling of the members towards each other. Had it not been for the incessant attempts of Ld John Russell to keep up party differences, it must be acknowledged that the experiment of a coalition had succeeded admirably. We discussed future possibilities & agreed that nothing remained to be done, but to offer the Govt to Ld Derby,...". The Queen continued to criticise Lord John Russell for his behaviour for the rest of his life; on his death in 1878 her journal records that he was "A man of much talent, who leaves a name behind him, kind, & good, with a great knowledge of the constitution, who behaved very well, on many trying occasions; but he was impulsive, very selfish (as shown on many occasions, especially during Ld Aberdeen's administration) vain, & often reckless & imprudent".
British-American relations had been troublesome under Palmerston, but Aberdeen proved much more conciliatory, and worked well with Daniel Webster, the American Secretary of State who was himself an Anglophile. In 1842, Aberdeen sent Lord Ashburton to Washington to settle all disputes, especially the border between Canada and Maine, the boundary along the Great Lakes, the Oregon boundary, the African slave trade, the Caroline affair about boundaries in 1837 and the Creole case of 1841 involving a slave revolt on the high seas. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 solved the most of the problems amicably. Thus Maine got most of the disputed land, but Canada obtained a vital, strategic strip of land connecting it to a warm water port. Aberdeen helped solve the Oregon dispute amicably in 1846. However, as prime minister, Aberdeen had trouble with the United States. In 1854 an American naval vessel bombarded the mosquito port of Greytown, Nicaragua in retaliation for an insult; Britain protested. Later in 1846, the United States announced its intention of annexing Hawaii, and Britain not only complained but sent a naval force to make the point. Negotiations for reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada dragged on for eight years until a reciprocity treaty was reached in 1854.
Aberdeen was generally successful as a hard-working diplomat, but his reputation has suffered greatly because of the lack of military success in the Crimean War and from the ridicule of enemies such as Disraeli who regarded him as weak, inefficient, and cold. Before the Crimean debacle that ended his career, Aberdeen scored numerous diplomatic triumphs, starting in 1813-14 when as ambassador to the Austrian Empire he negotiated the alliances and financing that led to the defeat of Napoleon. In Paris, he normalized relations with the newly restored Bourbon government and convinced London it could be trusted. He worked well with top European diplomats such as his friends Klemens von Metternich in Vienna and François Guizot in Paris. He brought Britain into the center of Continental diplomacy on critical issues, such as the local wars in Greece, Portugal, and Belgium. Simmering troubles on numerous issues with the United States were ended by friendly compromises. He played a central role in winning the Opium Wars against China, gaining control of Hong Kong in the process.
Lord Aberdeen married Lady Catherine Elizabeth (10 January 1784 – 29 February 1812; daughter of Lord Abercorn) on 28 July 1805. They had four children.
He remarried Harriet Douglas (paternal granddaughter of James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton and maternal granddaughter of Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood) on 8 July 1815. They had five children:
The Countess of Aberdeen died in August 1833. Lord Aberdeen died at Argyll House, St. James's, London, on 14 December 1860, and was buried in the family vault at Stanmore church. In 1994 the novelist, columnist, and politician Ferdinand Mount used George Gordon's life as the basis for a historical novel, Umbrella.
Apart from his political career, Aberdeen was also a scholar of the classical civilisations, who published An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture (London, 1822) and was referred to by his cousin Lord Byron in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) as "the travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen." He was appointed Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen in 1827 and was President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Aberdeen's biographer Muriel Chamberlain summarises, "Religion never came easy to him". In his Scots landowning capacity "North of the border, he considered himself ex officio a Presbyterian". In England "he privately considered himself an Anglican"; as early as 1840 he told Gladstone he preferred what Aberdeen called "the sister church [of England]" and when in London worshipped at St James's Piccadilly. He was ultimately buried in the Anglican parish church at Stanmore, Middlesex.
He was a member of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1818 to 1828 and exercised his existing rights to present ministers to parishes on his Scottish estates through a time when the right of churches to veto the appointment or 'call' of a minister became so contentious as to lead in 1843 to the schism known as "the Disruption" when a third of ministers broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. In the House of Lords, in 1840 and 1843, he raised two Compromise Bills to allow presbyteries but not congregations the right of veto. The first failed to pass (and was voted against by the General Assembly) but the latter, raised post-schism, became law for Scotland and remained in force until patronage of Scots livings was abolished in 1874.
It was under his prime ministership that the revival of the Convocations of Canterbury and York began, though they did not obtain their potential power until 1859.
He is said in the last few months of his life, after the Crimean War, to have declined to contribute to building a church on his Scotland estates because of a sense of guilt in having "shed much blood", citing biblically King David's being forbidden to build the Temple in Jerusalem. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, KG, KT, PC, FRS, FRSE, FSA Scot (28 January 1784 – 14 December 1860), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British statesman, diplomat and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite politician and specialist in foreign affairs. He served as Prime Minister from 1852 until 1855 in a coalition between the Whigs and Peelites, with Radical and Irish support. The Aberdeen ministry was filled with powerful and talented politicians, whom Aberdeen was largely unable to control and direct. Despite his trying to avoid this happening, it took Britain into the Crimean War, and fell when its conduct became unpopular, after which Aberdeen retired from politics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born into a wealthy family with the largest estates in Scotland, his personal life was marked by the loss of both parents by the time he was eleven, and of his first wife after only seven years of a happy marriage. His daughters died young, and his relations with his sons were difficult. He travelled extensively in Europe, including Greece, and he had a serious interest in the classical civilisations and their archaeology. His Scottish estates having been neglected by his father, he devoted himself (when he came of age) to modernising them according to the latest standards.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "After 1812 he became a diplomat, and in 1813, at age 29, was given the critically important embassy to Vienna, where he organised and financed the sixth coalition that defeated Napoleon. His rise in politics was equally rapid and lucky, and \"two accidents — Canning's death and Wellington's impulsive acceptance of the Canningite resignations\" led to his becoming Foreign Secretary for Prime Minister Wellington in 1828 despite \"an almost ludicrous lack of official experience\"; he had been a minister for less than six months. After holding the position for two years, followed by another cabinet role, by 1841 his experience led to his appointment as Foreign Secretary again under Robert Peel for a longer term. His diplomatic successes include organizing the coalition against Napoleon in 1812–1814, normalizing relations with post-Napoleonic France, settling the old border dispute between Canada and the United States, and ending the First Opium War with China in 1842, whereby Hong Kong was obtained. Aberdeen was a poor speaker, but this scarcely mattered in the House of Lords. He exhibited a \"dour, awkward, occasionally sarcastic exterior\". His friend William Ewart Gladstone, said of him that he was \"the man in public life of all others whom I have loved. I say emphatically loved. I have loved others, but never like him\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Born in Edinburgh on 28 January 1784, he was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, son of George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen. His mother was Charlotte, youngest daughter of William Baird of Newbyth. He lost his father on 18 October 1791 and his mother in 1795, and he was brought up by Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, and William Pitt the Younger. He was educated at Harrow, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1804. Before this, however, he had become Earl of Aberdeen on his grandfather's death in 1801, and had travelled all over Europe. On his return to Britain, he founded the Society of Athenian Travellers. In 1805, he married Lady Catherine Elizabeth, daughter of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In December 1805, Lord Aberdeen took his seat as a Tory Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords. In 1808, he was created a Knight of the Thistle. Following the death of his wife from tuberculosis in 1812 he joined the Foreign Service. He was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria, and signed the Treaty of Töplitz between Britain and Austria in Vienna in October 1813. In the company of the Austrian Emperor, Francis II, he was an observer at the decisive Coalition victory of the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813; he had met Napoleon in his earlier travels. He became one of the central diplomatic figures in European diplomacy at this time, and he was one of the British representatives at the Congress of Châtillon in February 1814, and at the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Paris in May of that year.",
"title": "Political and diplomatic career, 1805–1828"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Aberdeen was greatly affected by the aftermath of war which he witnessed at first hand. He wrote home:",
"title": "Political and diplomatic career, 1805–1828"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The near approach of war and its effects are horrible beyond what you can conceive. The whole road from Prague to [Teplitz] was covered with waggons full of wounded, dead, and dying. The shock and disgust and pity produced by such scenes are beyond what I could have supposed possible...the scenes of distress and misery have sunk deeper in my mind. I have been quite haunted by them.",
"title": "Political and diplomatic career, 1805–1828"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Returning home he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon, of Aberdeen in the County of Aberdeen (1814), and made a member of the Privy Council.",
"title": "Political and diplomatic career, 1805–1828"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In July 1815, he married his former sister-in-law Harriet, daughter of John Douglas, and widow of James Hamilton, Viscount Hamilton; the marriage was much less happy than his first. During the ensuing thirteen years Aberdeen took a less prominent part in public affairs.",
"title": "Political and diplomatic career, 1805–1828"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Lord Aberdeen served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between January and June 1828 and subsequently as Foreign Secretary until 1830 under the Duke of Wellington. He resigned with Wellington over the Reform Bill of 1832.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "He was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in the first Peel ministry (December 1834 - April 1835), and again Foreign Secretary between 1841 and 1846 under Sir Robert Peel (second Peel ministry). It was during his second stint as Foreign Secretary that he had the harbor settlement of 'Little Hong Kong', on the south side of Hong Kong Island, named after him. It was probably the most productive period of his career; he settled two disagreements with the US: the northeast boundary dispute by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), and the Oregon dispute by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. He enjoyed the trust of Queen Victoria, which was still important for a Foreign Secretary. He worked closely with Henry Bulwer, his ambassador to Madrid, to help arrange marriages for Queen Isabella and her younger sister the Infanta Luisa Fernanda. They helped stabilize Spain's internal and external relations. He sought better relations with France, relying on his friendship with Guizot, but Britain was annoyed with France on a series of issues, especially French colonial policies, the right to search slave ships, the French desire to control Belgium, disputes in the Pacific and the French intervention in Morocco.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Aberdeen again followed his leader and resigned with Peel over the issue of the Corn Laws. After Peel's death in July 1850 he became the recognised leader of the Peelites. In August 1847, a general election of Parliament had been held which resulted in the election of 325 Tory/Conservative party members to Parliament. This represented 42.7% of the seats in Parliament. The main opposition to the Tory/Conservative Party was the Whig Party, which had 292 seats.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "While the Peelites agreed with the Whigs on issues dealing with international trade, there were other issues on which the Peelites disagreed with the Whigs. Indeed, Lord Aberdeen's own dislike of the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill, the rejection of which he failed to secure in 1851, prevented him from joining the Whig government of Lord John Russell in that year. Additionally, 113 of the members of Parliament elected in 1847 were Free Traders. These members agreed with the Peelites on the repeal of the \"Corn Laws\", but they felt that the tariffs on all consumer products should be removed.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Furthermore, 36 members of Parliament elected in 1847 were members of the \"Irish Brigade\", who voted with the Peelites and the Whigs for the repeal of the Corn Laws because they sought an end the Great Irish Famine by means of cheaper wheat and bread prices for the poor and middle classes in Ireland. Currently, however, the Free Traders and the Irish Brigade had disagreements with the Whigs that prevented them from joining with the Whigs to form a government. Accordingly, the Tory/Conservative Party leader the Earl of Derby was asked to form a \"minority government\". Derby appointed Benjamin Disraeli as the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the minority government. The general election in July 1852 had no clear winner.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "When in December 1852 Disraeli submitted his budget to Parliament on behalf of the minority government, the Peelites, the Free Traders, and the Irish Brigade were all alienated by the proposed budget. Accordingly, those groups suddenly forgot their differences with the Whig Party and voted with the Whigs against the proposed budget. The vote was 286 in favour of the budget and 305 votes against the budget. Because the leadership of the minority government had made the vote on the budget vote a vote of confidence, the defeat of the Disraeli budget was a \"vote of no confidence\" in the minority government and meant its downfall. Lord Aberdeen was asked to form a new government; Gladstone became his Chancellor.",
"title": "Political career, 1828–1852"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Following the downfall of the Tory/Conservative minority government under Lord Derby in December 1852, Lord Aberdeen formed a new government from the coalition of Free Traders, Peelites, and Whigs that had voted no confidence in the minority government. Lord Aberdeen was able to put together a coalition that held 53.8% of the seats of Parliament. Thus Lord Aberdeen, a Peelite, became Prime Minister and headed a coalition ministry of Whigs and Peelites.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Although united on international trade issues and on questions of domestic reform, his cabinet also contained Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, who were certain to differ on questions of foreign policy. Charles Greville wrote in his Memoirs, \"In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any other, and every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their premier\"; and Sir James Graham wrote, \"It is a powerful team, but it will require good driving\", which Aberdeen was unable to provide. During the administration, much trouble was caused by the rivalry between Palmerston and Russell, and over the course of it Palmerston managed to out-manoeuvre Russell to emerge as the Whig heir apparent. The cabinet also included a single Radical, Sir William Molesworth, but much later, when justifying to the Queen his own new appointments, Gladstone told her: \"For instance, even in Ld Aberdeen's Govt, in 52, Sir William Molesworth had been selected, at that time, a very advanced Radical, but who was perfectly harmless, & took little, or no part.... He said these people generally became very moderate, when they were in office\", which she admitted had been the case.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "One of the foreign policy issues on which Palmerston and Russell disagreed was the type of relationship that Britain should have with France and especially France's ruler, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Bonaparte was the nephew of the famous Napoleon Bonaparte, who had become dictator and then Emperor of France from 1804 until 1814. The younger Bonaparte had been elected to a three-year term as President of the Second Republic of France on 20 December 1848. The Constitution of the Second Republic limited the President to a single term in office. Thus, Louis Bonaparte would be unable to succeed himself and after 20 December 1851 would no longer be president. Consequently, on 2 December 1851, shortly before the end of his single three-year term in office was to expire, Bonaparte staged a coup against the Second Republic in France, disbanded the elected Constituent Assembly, arrested some of the Republican leaders, and declared himself Emperor Napoleon III of France. This coup upset many democrats in England as well as in France. Some British government officials felt that Louis Bonaparte was seeking foreign adventure in the spirit of his uncle, Napoleon I. Consequently, these officials felt that any close association with Bonaparte would eventually lead Britain into another series of wars, like the wars with France and Napoleon dating from 1793 until 1815. British relations with France had scarcely improved since 1815. As prime minister, the Earl of Aberdeen was one of these officials who feared France and Bonaparte.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "However, other British government officials were beginning to worry more about the rising political dominance of the Russian Empire in eastern Europe and the corresponding decline of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Palmerston at the time of Louis Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup was serving as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Whig government of Prime Minister Lord John Russell. Without informing the rest of the cabinet or Queen Victoria, Palmerston had sent a private note to the French ambassador endorsing Louis Bonaparte's coup and congratulating Louis Bonaparte himself on the coup. Queen Victoria and members of the Russell government demanded that Palmerston be dismissed as Foreign Minister. Russell requested Palmerston's resignation and Palmerston reluctantly provided it.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In February 1852, Palmerston took revenge on Russell by voting with the Conservatives in a \"no confidence\" vote against the Russell government. This brought an end to the Russell Whig government and set the stage for a general election in July 1852 which eventually brought the Conservatives to power in a minority government under the Earl of Derby. Later in the year, another problem facing the Earl of Aberdeen in the formation of his own new government in December 1852 was Lord John Russell himself. Russell was the leader of the Whig Party, the largest group in the coalition government. Consequently, Lord Aberdeen, was required to appoint Russell as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which he had done on 29 December 1852. However, Russell sometimes liked to use this position to speak for the whole government, as if he were the prime minister. In 1832, Russell had been nicknamed \"Finality John\" because of his statement that the 1832 Reform Act had just been approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords would be the \"final\" expansion of the vote in Britain. There would be no further extension of the ballot to the common people of Britain. However, as political pressure in favour of further reform had risen over the twenty years since 1832, Russell had changed his mind. Russell had said, in January 1852, that he intended to introduce a new reform bill into the House of Commons which would equalise the populations of the districts from which members of Parliament were elected. Probably as a result of their continuing feud, Palmerston declared himself against this Reform Bill of 1852. As a result, support for the bill dwindled and Russell was forced to change his mind again and not introduce any Reform Bill in 1852.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In order to form the coalition government, the Earl of Aberdeen had been required to appoint both Palmerston and Russell to his cabinet. Because of the controversy surrounding Palmerston's removal as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Palmerston could not now be appointed Foreign Minister again so soon after his removal from that position. Accordingly, on 28 December 1852, Aberdeen appointed Palmerston as Home Secretary and appointed Russell as Foreign Minister.",
"title": "Prime Minister, 1852–1855"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Given the differences of opinion within the Lord Aberdeen cabinet over the direction of foreign policy with regard to relations between Britain and France under Napoleon III, it is not surprising that debate raged within the government as Louis Bonaparte, now assuming the title of Emperor Napoleon III. As Prime Minister of the Peelite/Whig coalition government, Aberdeen eventually led Britain into war on the side of the French and Ottomans against the Russian Empire. This war would eventually be called the Crimean War, but throughout the foreign policy negotiations surrounding the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, which would continue throughout the middle and end of nineteenth century, the problem would be referred to as the \"Eastern Question\".",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The cabinet was bitterly divided. Palmerston stirred up anti-reform feeling in Parliament and pro-war public opinion to out-maneuver Russell. The result was that the weak Aberdeen government went to war with Russia as the result of internal British political rivalries. Aberdeen accepted Russian arguments at face value because he sympathised with Russian interests against French pressure and was not in favour of the Crimean War. However, he was unable to resist the pressure that was being exerted on him by Palmerston's faction. In the end, the Crimean War proved to be the downfall of his government.",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Eastern Question flared up on 2 December 1852, with the Napoleon's coup against the Second Republic. As Napoleon III was forming his new imperial government, he sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to assert France's right to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The Ottoman Empire agreed to this condition to avoid conflict or even war with France. Aberdeen, as Foreign Secretary in 1845, had himself tacitly authorised the construction of the first Anglican church in Jerusalem, following his predecessor's commission in 1838 of the first European Consul in Jerusalem on Britain's behalf, which lead to series of successive appointments by other nations. Both resulted from Lord Shaftesbury's canvassing with substantial public support.",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Nevertheless, Britain became increasingly worried about the situation in Turkey, and Prime Minister Aberdeen sent Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, a diplomat with vast experience in Turkey, as a special envoy to the Ottoman Empire to guard British interests. Russia protested the Turkish agreement with the French as a violation of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1778, which ended the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Under the treaty, the Russians had been granted the exclusive right to protect the Christian sites in the Holy Land. Accordingly, on 7 May 1853, the Russians sent Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov, one their premier statesmen, to negotiate a settlement of the issue. Prince Menshikov called the attention of the Turks to the fact that during the Russo-Turkish War, the Russians had occupied the Turkish-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia on the north bank of the Danube River, and he reminded them that pursuant to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, the Russians had returned these \"Danubian provinces\" to Ottoman control in exchange for the right to protect the Christian sites in the Holy Land. Accordingly, the Turks reversed themselves and agreed with the Russians.",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The French sent one of their premier ships-of-the-line, the Charlemagne, to the Black Sea as a show of force. In light of the French show of force, the Turks, again, reversed themselves and recognised the French right to protect the Christian sites. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was advising the Ottomans during this time, and later it was alleged that he had been instrumental in persuading the Turks to reject the Russian arguments.",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "As war became inevitable, Aberdeen wrote to Russell:",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The abstract justice of the cause, although indisputable, is but a poor consolation for the inevitable calamities of all war, or for a decision which I am not without fear may prove to have been impolitic and unwise. My conscience upbraids me the more, because seeing, as I did from the first, all that was to be apprehended, it is possible that by a little more energy and vigour, not on the Danube, but in Downing Street, it might have been prevented.",
"title": "The \"Eastern Question\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In response this latest change of mind by the Ottomans, the Russians on 2 July 1853 occupied the Turkish satellite states of Wallachia and Moldavia, as they had during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. Almost immediately, the Russian troops deployed along the northern banks of the Danube River, implying that they might cross the river. Aberdeen ordered the British Fleet to Constantinople and later into the Black Sea. On 23 October 1853, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. A Russian naval raid on Sinope, on 30 November 1853, resulted in the destruction of the Turkish fleet in the battle of Sinope. When Russia ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to abandon the Danubian provinces, Britain and France declared war on Russia on 28 March 1854. In September 1854, British and French troops landed on the Crimean peninsula at Eupatoria, north of Sevastopol. The Allied troops then moved across the Alma River on 20 September 1854 at the battle of Alma and set siege to the fort of Sevastopol.",
"title": "Crimean War 1853–1856"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A Russian attack on the allied supply base at Balaclava on 25 October 1854 was rebuffed. The Battle of Balaclava is noted for its famous (or rather infamous) Charge of the Light Brigade. On 5 November 1854, Russian forces tried to relieve the siege at Sevastopol and defeat the Allied armies in the field in the Battle of Inkerman. However, this attempt failed. Dissatisfaction as to the course of the war grew in England. As reports returned detailing the mismanagement of the conflict, Parliament began to investigate. On 29 January 1855, John Arthur Roebuck introduced a motion for the appointment of a select committee to enquire into the conduct of the war. This motion was carried by the large majority of 305 in favour and 148 against.",
"title": "Crimean War 1853–1856"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Treating this as a vote of no confidence in his government, Aberdeen resigned, and retired from active politics, speaking for the last time in the House of Lords in 1858. In visiting Windsor Castle to resign, he told the Queen: \"Nothing could have been better, he said than the feeling of the members towards each other. Had it not been for the incessant attempts of Ld John Russell to keep up party differences, it must be acknowledged that the experiment of a coalition had succeeded admirably. We discussed future possibilities & agreed that nothing remained to be done, but to offer the Govt to Ld Derby,...\". The Queen continued to criticise Lord John Russell for his behaviour for the rest of his life; on his death in 1878 her journal records that he was \"A man of much talent, who leaves a name behind him, kind, & good, with a great knowledge of the constitution, who behaved very well, on many trying occasions; but he was impulsive, very selfish (as shown on many occasions, especially during Ld Aberdeen's administration) vain, & often reckless & imprudent\".",
"title": "Crimean War 1853–1856"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "British-American relations had been troublesome under Palmerston, but Aberdeen proved much more conciliatory, and worked well with Daniel Webster, the American Secretary of State who was himself an Anglophile. In 1842, Aberdeen sent Lord Ashburton to Washington to settle all disputes, especially the border between Canada and Maine, the boundary along the Great Lakes, the Oregon boundary, the African slave trade, the Caroline affair about boundaries in 1837 and the Creole case of 1841 involving a slave revolt on the high seas. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 solved the most of the problems amicably. Thus Maine got most of the disputed land, but Canada obtained a vital, strategic strip of land connecting it to a warm water port. Aberdeen helped solve the Oregon dispute amicably in 1846. However, as prime minister, Aberdeen had trouble with the United States. In 1854 an American naval vessel bombarded the mosquito port of Greytown, Nicaragua in retaliation for an insult; Britain protested. Later in 1846, the United States announced its intention of annexing Hawaii, and Britain not only complained but sent a naval force to make the point. Negotiations for reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada dragged on for eight years until a reciprocity treaty was reached in 1854.",
"title": "Relations with the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Aberdeen was generally successful as a hard-working diplomat, but his reputation has suffered greatly because of the lack of military success in the Crimean War and from the ridicule of enemies such as Disraeli who regarded him as weak, inefficient, and cold. Before the Crimean debacle that ended his career, Aberdeen scored numerous diplomatic triumphs, starting in 1813-14 when as ambassador to the Austrian Empire he negotiated the alliances and financing that led to the defeat of Napoleon. In Paris, he normalized relations with the newly restored Bourbon government and convinced London it could be trusted. He worked well with top European diplomats such as his friends Klemens von Metternich in Vienna and François Guizot in Paris. He brought Britain into the center of Continental diplomacy on critical issues, such as the local wars in Greece, Portugal, and Belgium. Simmering troubles on numerous issues with the United States were ended by friendly compromises. He played a central role in winning the Opium Wars against China, gaining control of Hong Kong in the process.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Lord Aberdeen married Lady Catherine Elizabeth (10 January 1784 – 29 February 1812; daughter of Lord Abercorn) on 28 July 1805. They had four children.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "He remarried Harriet Douglas (paternal granddaughter of James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton and maternal granddaughter of Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood) on 8 July 1815. They had five children:",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Countess of Aberdeen died in August 1833. Lord Aberdeen died at Argyll House, St. James's, London, on 14 December 1860, and was buried in the family vault at Stanmore church. In 1994 the novelist, columnist, and politician Ferdinand Mount used George Gordon's life as the basis for a historical novel, Umbrella.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Apart from his political career, Aberdeen was also a scholar of the classical civilisations, who published An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture (London, 1822) and was referred to by his cousin Lord Byron in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) as \"the travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.\" He was appointed Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen in 1827 and was President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Aberdeen's biographer Muriel Chamberlain summarises, \"Religion never came easy to him\". In his Scots landowning capacity \"North of the border, he considered himself ex officio a Presbyterian\". In England \"he privately considered himself an Anglican\"; as early as 1840 he told Gladstone he preferred what Aberdeen called \"the sister church [of England]\" and when in London worshipped at St James's Piccadilly. He was ultimately buried in the Anglican parish church at Stanmore, Middlesex.",
"title": "Religious interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "He was a member of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1818 to 1828 and exercised his existing rights to present ministers to parishes on his Scottish estates through a time when the right of churches to veto the appointment or 'call' of a minister became so contentious as to lead in 1843 to the schism known as \"the Disruption\" when a third of ministers broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. In the House of Lords, in 1840 and 1843, he raised two Compromise Bills to allow presbyteries but not congregations the right of veto. The first failed to pass (and was voted against by the General Assembly) but the latter, raised post-schism, became law for Scotland and remained in force until patronage of Scots livings was abolished in 1874.",
"title": "Religious interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "It was under his prime ministership that the revival of the Convocations of Canterbury and York began, though they did not obtain their potential power until 1859.",
"title": "Religious interests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "He is said in the last few months of his life, after the Crimean War, to have declined to contribute to building a church on his Scotland estates because of a sense of guilt in having \"shed much blood\", citing biblically King David's being forbidden to build the Temple in Jerusalem.",
"title": "Religious interests"
}
]
| George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen,, styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British statesman, diplomat and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite politician and specialist in foreign affairs. He served as Prime Minister from 1852 until 1855 in a coalition between the Whigs and Peelites, with Radical and Irish support. The Aberdeen ministry was filled with powerful and talented politicians, whom Aberdeen was largely unable to control and direct. Despite his trying to avoid this happening, it took Britain into the Crimean War, and fell when its conduct became unpopular, after which Aberdeen retired from politics. Born into a wealthy family with the largest estates in Scotland, his personal life was marked by the loss of both parents by the time he was eleven, and of his first wife after only seven years of a happy marriage. His daughters died young, and his relations with his sons were difficult. He travelled extensively in Europe, including Greece, and he had a serious interest in the classical civilisations and their archaeology. His Scottish estates having been neglected by his father, he devoted himself to modernising them according to the latest standards. After 1812 he became a diplomat, and in 1813, at age 29, was given the critically important embassy to Vienna, where he organised and financed the sixth coalition that defeated Napoleon. His rise in politics was equally rapid and lucky, and "two accidents — Canning's death and Wellington's impulsive acceptance of the Canningite resignations" led to his becoming Foreign Secretary for Prime Minister Wellington in 1828 despite "an almost ludicrous lack of official experience"; he had been a minister for less than six months. After holding the position for two years, followed by another cabinet role, by 1841 his experience led to his appointment as Foreign Secretary again under Robert Peel for a longer term. His diplomatic successes include organizing the coalition against Napoleon in 1812–1814, normalizing relations with post-Napoleonic France, settling the old border dispute between Canada and the United States, and ending the First Opium War with China in 1842, whereby Hong Kong was obtained. Aberdeen was a poor speaker, but this scarcely mattered in the House of Lords. He exhibited a "dour, awkward, occasionally sarcastic exterior". His friend William Ewart Gladstone, said of him that he was "the man in public life of all others whom I have loved. I say emphatically loved. I have loved others, but never like him". | 2002-02-18T04:33:57Z | 2023-12-22T18:48:11Z | [
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12,880 | GnuCash | GnuCash is an accounting program that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements.
GnuCash is part of the GNU Project, and runs on Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, macOS, and other Unix-like platforms. A Microsoft Windows (2000 or newer) port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series.
Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was in 1998. Small Business Accounting was added in 2001. A Mac installer became available in 2004. A Windows port was released in 2007.
GnuCash for Android was initially developed as part of a Google Summer of Code Project. This was an expense-tracking companion app for GnuCash, as opposed to a stand-alone accounting package, and is now abandoned. Currently, there are more than 100,000 downloads on the Play Store. In 2022 a companion version dubbed GnuCash Mobile is also available on the App Store and Play Store and unlike previous iterations was released under the MIT License. GnuCash Mobile is developed using Flutter. Beyond mentoring the original GnuCash for Android developer and providing some publicity there was no connection between Gnucash for Android and the GnuCash project, nor is there any for the current so-called GnuCash Mobile app.
GnuCash maintains the ability to read older data files between major releases, as long as major releases are not skipped. If a user wishes to access historical data saved in old GnuCash files, they must install intermediate versions of GnuCash. For example, upgrading from 2.2 to 4.1 may not be possible; the user should upgrade from 2.2.9 to 2.4.15, then to 2.6.21, then 3.11, then 4.1. The other alternative is for users to export transactions files to a CSV format prior to upgrading GnuCash. Exporting of the account tree must be done as a separate step.
GnuCash is written primarily in C, with a small fraction in Scheme. One of the available features is pure fixed-point arithmetic to avoid rounding errors which would arise with floating-point arithmetic. This feature was introduced with version 1.6.
Users on the GnuCash mailing list have reported using it for the United States 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations successfully. However, the reports need to be exported and edited.
In April 2011, the Minnesota State Bar Association made their GnuCash trust accounting guide freely available in PDF format.
As of July 2018, SourceForge shows a count of over 6.3 million downloads of the stable releases starting from November 1999 Also, SourceForge shows that current downloads are running at ~7,000 per week. This does not include other software download sites as well as Linux distributions that provide download from their own repositories.
Open Hub's analysis based on commits up to May 2018 (noninclusive) concluded that the project has a mature, well-established code base with increasing year-over-year development activity. Moreover, "Over the past twelve months, 51 developers contributed new code to GnuCash. This is one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and is in the top 2% of all project teams on Open Hub." | [
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"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "GnuCash is an accounting program that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "GnuCash is part of the GNU Project, and runs on Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, macOS, and other Unix-like platforms. A Microsoft Windows (2000 or newer) port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was in 1998. Small Business Accounting was added in 2001. A Mac installer became available in 2004. A Windows port was released in 2007.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "GnuCash for Android was initially developed as part of a Google Summer of Code Project. This was an expense-tracking companion app for GnuCash, as opposed to a stand-alone accounting package, and is now abandoned. Currently, there are more than 100,000 downloads on the Play Store. In 2022 a companion version dubbed GnuCash Mobile is also available on the App Store and Play Store and unlike previous iterations was released under the MIT License. GnuCash Mobile is developed using Flutter. Beyond mentoring the original GnuCash for Android developer and providing some publicity there was no connection between Gnucash for Android and the GnuCash project, nor is there any for the current so-called GnuCash Mobile app.",
"title": "GnuCash for Android/GnuCash Mobile"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "GnuCash maintains the ability to read older data files between major releases, as long as major releases are not skipped. If a user wishes to access historical data saved in old GnuCash files, they must install intermediate versions of GnuCash. For example, upgrading from 2.2 to 4.1 may not be possible; the user should upgrade from 2.2.9 to 2.4.15, then to 2.6.21, then 3.11, then 4.1. The other alternative is for users to export transactions files to a CSV format prior to upgrading GnuCash. Exporting of the account tree must be done as a separate step.",
"title": "Backwards compatibility issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "GnuCash is written primarily in C, with a small fraction in Scheme. One of the available features is pure fixed-point arithmetic to avoid rounding errors which would arise with floating-point arithmetic. This feature was introduced with version 1.6.",
"title": "Technical design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Users on the GnuCash mailing list have reported using it for the United States 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations successfully. However, the reports need to be exported and edited.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In April 2011, the Minnesota State Bar Association made their GnuCash trust accounting guide freely available in PDF format.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As of July 2018, SourceForge shows a count of over 6.3 million downloads of the stable releases starting from November 1999 Also, SourceForge shows that current downloads are running at ~7,000 per week. This does not include other software download sites as well as Linux distributions that provide download from their own repositories.",
"title": "Download statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Open Hub's analysis based on commits up to May 2018 (noninclusive) concluded that the project has a mature, well-established code base with increasing year-over-year development activity. Moreover, \"Over the past twelve months, 51 developers contributed new code to GnuCash. This is one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and is in the top 2% of all project teams on Open Hub.\"",
"title": "Project status"
}
]
| GnuCash is an accounting program that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements. GnuCash is part of the GNU Project, and runs on Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, macOS, and other Unix-like platforms. A Microsoft Windows port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-12T00:41:38Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCash |
12,881 | George Robert Aberigh-Mackay | George Robert Aberigh-Mackay (25 July 1848 – 12 January 1881) was a British educationalist and writer resident in India during his short adult life.
George Robert Aberigh-Mackay was the son of the Reverend James Aberigh-Mackay D.D., B.D. and his first wife Lucretia Livingston née Reed. He was educated privately in Scotland, and then at Magdalen College School, Oxford and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Entering the Indian education department in the North-Western Provinces in 1870, he became professor of English literature in Delhi College in 1873, tutor to the Raja of Rutlam in 1876, and principal of the Rajkumar College at Indore in 1877. He was appointed fellow of Calcutta University in 1880.
He wrote a number of educational works, and extensive manuals giving first-hand data about the princely states and their rulers. He also wrote, mainly for The Pioneer newspaper, but also for other English and Indian papers, including letters in the Bombay Gazette under the nom de plume "The Political Orphan".
He is best known for his book Twenty-one Days in India (1878–1879), a satire upon Anglo-Indian society and modes of thought. This book gave promise of a successful literary career, but the author died at the age of thirty-three.
On 8 January 1881 he developed symptoms of tetanus after playing polo and tennis on the previous 2 days, and died on 12 January 1881 in Indore.
George Robert Aberigh-Mackay married Mary Ann Louisa Cherry on 13 October 1873 at Simla, Bengal, India; their children were: | [
{
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"text": "George Robert Aberigh-Mackay (25 July 1848 – 12 January 1881) was a British educationalist and writer resident in India during his short adult life.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "George Robert Aberigh-Mackay was the son of the Reverend James Aberigh-Mackay D.D., B.D. and his first wife Lucretia Livingston née Reed. He was educated privately in Scotland, and then at Magdalen College School, Oxford and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Entering the Indian education department in the North-Western Provinces in 1870, he became professor of English literature in Delhi College in 1873, tutor to the Raja of Rutlam in 1876, and principal of the Rajkumar College at Indore in 1877. He was appointed fellow of Calcutta University in 1880.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "He wrote a number of educational works, and extensive manuals giving first-hand data about the princely states and their rulers. He also wrote, mainly for The Pioneer newspaper, but also for other English and Indian papers, including letters in the Bombay Gazette under the nom de plume \"The Political Orphan\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "He is best known for his book Twenty-one Days in India (1878–1879), a satire upon Anglo-Indian society and modes of thought. This book gave promise of a successful literary career, but the author died at the age of thirty-three.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On 8 January 1881 he developed symptoms of tetanus after playing polo and tennis on the previous 2 days, and died on 12 January 1881 in Indore.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "George Robert Aberigh-Mackay married Mary Ann Louisa Cherry on 13 October 1873 at Simla, Bengal, India; their children were:",
"title": "Family"
}
]
| George Robert Aberigh-Mackay was a British educationalist and writer resident in India during his short adult life. | 2001-11-27T01:59:59Z | 2023-11-02T00:50:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Robert_Aberigh-Mackay |
12,882 | Gallon | The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use:
There are two pints in a quart and four quarts in a gallon. Different sizes of pints account for the different sizes of the imperial and US gallons.
The IEEE standard symbol for both US (liquid) and imperial gallon is gal, not to be confused with the gal (symbol: Gal), a CGS unit of acceleration.
The gallon currently has one definition in the imperial system, and two definitions (liquid and dry) in the US customary system. Historically, there were many definitions and redefinitions.
There were a number of systems of liquid measurements in the United Kingdom prior to the 19th century.
The British imperial gallon (frequently called simply "gallon") is defined as exactly 4.54609 dm (4.54609 litres). It is used in some Commonwealth countries, and until 1976 was defined as the volume of water at 62 degrees Fahrenheit (16.67 °C) whose mass is 10 pounds (4.5359237 kg). There are four imperial quarts in a gallon, two imperial pints in a quart, and there are 20 imperial fluid ounces in an imperial pint, yielding 160 fluid ounces in an imperial gallon.
The US liquid gallon (frequently called simply "gallon") is legally defined as 231 cubic inches, which is exactly 3.785411784 litres. A US liquid gallon can contain about 3.785 kilograms or 8.34 pounds of water at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F), and is about 16.7% less than the imperial gallon. There are four quarts in a gallon, two pints in a quart and 16 US fluid ounces in a US pint, which makes the US fluid ounce equal to 1/128 of a US gallon. In order to overcome the effects of expansion and contraction with temperature when using a gallon to specify a quantity of material for purposes of trade, it is common to define the temperature at which the material will occupy the specified volume. For example, the volume of petroleum products and alcoholic beverages are both referenced to 60 °F (15.6 °C) in government regulations.
Since the dry measure is one-eighth of a US Winchester bushel of 2150.42 cubic inches, it is equal to exactly 268.8025 cubic inches, which is 4.40488377086 L. The US dry gallon is not used in commerce, and is also not listed in the relevant statute, which jumps from the dry pint to the bushel.
As of 2021, the imperial gallon continues to be used as the standard petrol unit on 12 Caribbean islands, consisting of:
All 12 of the Caribbean islands use miles per hour for speed limits signage, and drive on the left side of the road.
The United Arab Emirates ceased selling petrol by the imperial gallon in 2010 and switched to the litre, with Guyana following suit in 2013. In 2014, Myanmar switched from the imperial gallon to the litre.
Antigua and Barbuda has proposed switching to selling petrol by litres since 2015.
In the European Union the gallon was removed from the list of legally defined primary units of measure catalogue in the EU directive 80/181/EEC for trading and official purposes, effective from 31 December 1994. Under the directive the gallon could still be used, but only as a supplementary or secondary unit.
As a result of the EU directive Ireland and the United Kingdom passed legislation to replace the gallon with the litre as a primary unit of measure in trade and in the conduct of public business, effective from 31 December 1993, and 30 September 1995 respectively. Though the gallon has ceased to be a primary unit of trade, it can still be legally used in both the UK and Ireland as a supplementary unit. However, barrels and large containers of beer, oil and other fluids are commonly measured in multiples of an imperial gallon.
Miles per imperial gallon is used as the primary fuel economy unit in the United Kingdom and as a supplementary unit in Canada on official documentation.
Other than the United States, petrol is sold by the US gallon in 13 other countries, and one US territory:
The latest country to cease using the gallon is El Salvador in June 2021.
Both the US gallon and imperial gallon are used in the Turks and Caicos Islands - to an increase in tax duties which was disguised by levying the same duty on the US gallon (3.79 L) as was previously levied on the Imperial gallon (4.55 L), and The Bahamas.
In some parts of the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, 18.9 litre water cooler bottles are marketed as five gallon bottles.
Both the US liquid and imperial gallon are divided into four quarts (quarter gallons), which in turn are divided into two pints, which in turn are divided into two cups, (not in customary use outside the US), which in turn are further divided into two gills. Thus, both gallons are equal to four quarts, eight pints, sixteen cups, or thirty-two gills.
The imperial gill is further divided into five fluid ounces, whereas the US gill is divided into four fluid ounces, meaning an imperial fluid ounce is 1/20 of an imperial pint, or 1/160 of an imperial gallon, while a US fluid ounce is 1/16 of a US pint, or 1/128 of a US gallon. Thus, the imperial gallon, quart, pint, cup and gill are approximately 20% larger than their US counterparts, meaning these are not interchangeable, but the imperial fluid ounce is only approximately 4% smaller than the US fluid ounce, meaning these are often used interchangeably.
Historically, a common bottle size for liquor in the US was the "fifth", i.e. one-fifth of a US gallon (or one-sixth of an imperial gallon). While spirit sales in the US were switched to metric measures in 1976, a 750 mL bottle is still sometimes known as a "fifth".
The term derives most immediately from galun, galon in Old Norman French, but the usage was common in several languages, for example jale in Old French and gęllet (bowl) in Old English. This suggests a common origin in Romance Latin, but the ultimate source of the word is unknown.
The gallon originated as the base of systems for measuring wine and beer in England. The sizes of gallon used in these two systems were different from each other: the first was based on the wine gallon (equal in size to the US gallon), and the second one either the ale gallon or the larger imperial gallon.
By the end of the 18th century, there were three definitions of the gallon in common use:
The corn or dry gallon is used (along with the dry quart and pint) in the United States for grain and other dry commodities. It is one-eighth of the (Winchester) bushel, originally defined as a cylindrical measure of 18+1/2 inches in diameter and 8 inches in depth, which made the dry gallon 8 in × (9+1/4 in) × π ≈ 2150.42017 cubic inches. The bushel was later defined to be 2150.42 cubic inches exactly, thus making its gallon exactly 268.8025 in (4.40488377086 L); in previous centuries, there had been a corn gallon of between 271 and 272 cubic inches.
The wine, fluid, or liquid gallon has been the standard US gallon since the early 19th century. The wine gallon, which some sources relate to the volume occupied by eight medieval merchant pounds of wine, was at one time defined as the volume of a cylinder 6 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter, i.e. 6 in × (3+1/2 in) × π ≈ 230.907 06 cubic inches. It was redefined during the reign of Queen Anne in 1706 as 231 cubic inches exactly, the earlier definition with π approximated to 22/7.
Although the wine gallon had been used for centuries for import duty purposes, there was no legal standard of it in the Exchequer, while a smaller gallon (224 cu in) was actually in use, requiring this statute; the 231 cubic inch gallon remains the U.S. definition today.
In 1824, Britain adopted a close approximation to the ale gallon known as the imperial gallon, and abolished all other gallons in favour of it. Inspired by the kilogram-litre relationship, the imperial gallon was based on the volume of 10 pounds of distilled water weighed in air with brass weights with the barometer standing at 30 inches of mercury and at a temperature of 62 °F (17 °C).
In 1963, this definition was refined as the space occupied by 10 pounds of distilled water of density 0.998859 g/mL weighed in air of density 0.001217 g/mL against weights of density 8.136 g/mL (the original "brass" was refined as the densities of brass alloys vary depending on metallurgical composition), which was calculated as 4.546091879 L to ten significant figures.
The precise definition of exactly 4.54609 cubic decimetres (also 4.54609 L, ≈ 277.419433 in) came after the litre was redefined in 1964. This was adopted shortly afterwards in Canada, and adopted in 1976 in the United Kingdom.
Historically, gallons of various sizes were used in many parts of Western Europe. In these localities, it has been replaced as the unit of capacity by the litre. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "There are two pints in a quart and four quarts in a gallon. Different sizes of pints account for the different sizes of the imperial and US gallons.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The IEEE standard symbol for both US (liquid) and imperial gallon is gal, not to be confused with the gal (symbol: Gal), a CGS unit of acceleration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The gallon currently has one definition in the imperial system, and two definitions (liquid and dry) in the US customary system. Historically, there were many definitions and redefinitions.",
"title": "Definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There were a number of systems of liquid measurements in the United Kingdom prior to the 19th century.",
"title": "Definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The British imperial gallon (frequently called simply \"gallon\") is defined as exactly 4.54609 dm (4.54609 litres). It is used in some Commonwealth countries, and until 1976 was defined as the volume of water at 62 degrees Fahrenheit (16.67 °C) whose mass is 10 pounds (4.5359237 kg). There are four imperial quarts in a gallon, two imperial pints in a quart, and there are 20 imperial fluid ounces in an imperial pint, yielding 160 fluid ounces in an imperial gallon.",
"title": "Definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The US liquid gallon (frequently called simply \"gallon\") is legally defined as 231 cubic inches, which is exactly 3.785411784 litres. A US liquid gallon can contain about 3.785 kilograms or 8.34 pounds of water at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F), and is about 16.7% less than the imperial gallon. There are four quarts in a gallon, two pints in a quart and 16 US fluid ounces in a US pint, which makes the US fluid ounce equal to 1/128 of a US gallon. In order to overcome the effects of expansion and contraction with temperature when using a gallon to specify a quantity of material for purposes of trade, it is common to define the temperature at which the material will occupy the specified volume. For example, the volume of petroleum products and alcoholic beverages are both referenced to 60 °F (15.6 °C) in government regulations.",
"title": "Definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Since the dry measure is one-eighth of a US Winchester bushel of 2150.42 cubic inches, it is equal to exactly 268.8025 cubic inches, which is 4.40488377086 L. The US dry gallon is not used in commerce, and is also not listed in the relevant statute, which jumps from the dry pint to the bushel.",
"title": "Definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As of 2021, the imperial gallon continues to be used as the standard petrol unit on 12 Caribbean islands, consisting of:",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "All 12 of the Caribbean islands use miles per hour for speed limits signage, and drive on the left side of the road.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The United Arab Emirates ceased selling petrol by the imperial gallon in 2010 and switched to the litre, with Guyana following suit in 2013. In 2014, Myanmar switched from the imperial gallon to the litre.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Antigua and Barbuda has proposed switching to selling petrol by litres since 2015.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the European Union the gallon was removed from the list of legally defined primary units of measure catalogue in the EU directive 80/181/EEC for trading and official purposes, effective from 31 December 1994. Under the directive the gallon could still be used, but only as a supplementary or secondary unit.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "As a result of the EU directive Ireland and the United Kingdom passed legislation to replace the gallon with the litre as a primary unit of measure in trade and in the conduct of public business, effective from 31 December 1993, and 30 September 1995 respectively. Though the gallon has ceased to be a primary unit of trade, it can still be legally used in both the UK and Ireland as a supplementary unit. However, barrels and large containers of beer, oil and other fluids are commonly measured in multiples of an imperial gallon.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Miles per imperial gallon is used as the primary fuel economy unit in the United Kingdom and as a supplementary unit in Canada on official documentation.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Other than the United States, petrol is sold by the US gallon in 13 other countries, and one US territory:",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The latest country to cease using the gallon is El Salvador in June 2021.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Both the US gallon and imperial gallon are used in the Turks and Caicos Islands - to an increase in tax duties which was disguised by levying the same duty on the US gallon (3.79 L) as was previously levied on the Imperial gallon (4.55 L), and The Bahamas.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In some parts of the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, 18.9 litre water cooler bottles are marketed as five gallon bottles.",
"title": "Worldwide usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Both the US liquid and imperial gallon are divided into four quarts (quarter gallons), which in turn are divided into two pints, which in turn are divided into two cups, (not in customary use outside the US), which in turn are further divided into two gills. Thus, both gallons are equal to four quarts, eight pints, sixteen cups, or thirty-two gills.",
"title": "Relationship to other units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The imperial gill is further divided into five fluid ounces, whereas the US gill is divided into four fluid ounces, meaning an imperial fluid ounce is 1/20 of an imperial pint, or 1/160 of an imperial gallon, while a US fluid ounce is 1/16 of a US pint, or 1/128 of a US gallon. Thus, the imperial gallon, quart, pint, cup and gill are approximately 20% larger than their US counterparts, meaning these are not interchangeable, but the imperial fluid ounce is only approximately 4% smaller than the US fluid ounce, meaning these are often used interchangeably.",
"title": "Relationship to other units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Historically, a common bottle size for liquor in the US was the \"fifth\", i.e. one-fifth of a US gallon (or one-sixth of an imperial gallon). While spirit sales in the US were switched to metric measures in 1976, a 750 mL bottle is still sometimes known as a \"fifth\".",
"title": "Relationship to other units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The term derives most immediately from galun, galon in Old Norman French, but the usage was common in several languages, for example jale in Old French and gęllet (bowl) in Old English. This suggests a common origin in Romance Latin, but the ultimate source of the word is unknown.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The gallon originated as the base of systems for measuring wine and beer in England. The sizes of gallon used in these two systems were different from each other: the first was based on the wine gallon (equal in size to the US gallon), and the second one either the ale gallon or the larger imperial gallon.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "By the end of the 18th century, there were three definitions of the gallon in common use:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The corn or dry gallon is used (along with the dry quart and pint) in the United States for grain and other dry commodities. It is one-eighth of the (Winchester) bushel, originally defined as a cylindrical measure of 18+1/2 inches in diameter and 8 inches in depth, which made the dry gallon 8 in × (9+1/4 in) × π ≈ 2150.42017 cubic inches. The bushel was later defined to be 2150.42 cubic inches exactly, thus making its gallon exactly 268.8025 in (4.40488377086 L); in previous centuries, there had been a corn gallon of between 271 and 272 cubic inches.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The wine, fluid, or liquid gallon has been the standard US gallon since the early 19th century. The wine gallon, which some sources relate to the volume occupied by eight medieval merchant pounds of wine, was at one time defined as the volume of a cylinder 6 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter, i.e. 6 in × (3+1/2 in) × π ≈ 230.907 06 cubic inches. It was redefined during the reign of Queen Anne in 1706 as 231 cubic inches exactly, the earlier definition with π approximated to 22/7.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Although the wine gallon had been used for centuries for import duty purposes, there was no legal standard of it in the Exchequer, while a smaller gallon (224 cu in) was actually in use, requiring this statute; the 231 cubic inch gallon remains the U.S. definition today.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 1824, Britain adopted a close approximation to the ale gallon known as the imperial gallon, and abolished all other gallons in favour of it. Inspired by the kilogram-litre relationship, the imperial gallon was based on the volume of 10 pounds of distilled water weighed in air with brass weights with the barometer standing at 30 inches of mercury and at a temperature of 62 °F (17 °C).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 1963, this definition was refined as the space occupied by 10 pounds of distilled water of density 0.998859 g/mL weighed in air of density 0.001217 g/mL against weights of density 8.136 g/mL (the original \"brass\" was refined as the densities of brass alloys vary depending on metallurgical composition), which was calculated as 4.546091879 L to ten significant figures.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The precise definition of exactly 4.54609 cubic decimetres (also 4.54609 L, ≈ 277.419433 in) came after the litre was redefined in 1964. This was adopted shortly afterwards in Canada, and adopted in 1976 in the United Kingdom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Historically, gallons of various sizes were used in many parts of Western Europe. In these localities, it has been replaced as the unit of capacity by the litre.",
"title": "History"
}
]
| The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: the imperial gallon, defined as 4.54609 litres, which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and some Caribbean countries;
the US gallon, defined as 231 cubic inches, which is used in the United States and some Latin American and Caribbean countries; and
the US dry gallon ("usdrygal"), defined as 1⁄8 US bushel. There are two pints in a quart and four quarts in a gallon. Different sizes of pints account for the different sizes of the imperial and US gallons. The IEEE standard symbol for both US (liquid) and imperial gallon is gal, not to be confused with the gal, a CGS unit of acceleration. | 2001-11-27T03:08:34Z | 2023-12-31T07:18:44Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon |
12,883 | Gini coefficient | In economics, the Gini coefficient (/ˈdʒiːni/ JEE-nee), also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.
The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among the values of a frequency distribution, such as levels of income. A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none.
The Gini coefficient was proposed by Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth. For OECD countries in the late 20th century, considering the effect of taxes and transfer payments, the income Gini coefficient ranged between 0.24 and 0.49, with Slovenia being the lowest and Mexico the highest. African countries had the highest pre-tax Gini coefficients in 2008–2009, with South Africa having the world's highest, estimated to be 0.63 to 0.7. However, this figure drops to 0.52 after social assistance is taken into account, and drops again to 0.47 after taxation. The country with the lowest Gini coefficient is Slovenia, with a Gini coefficient of 0.232. The Gini coefficient of the global income in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources.
There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, as the same value may result from many different distribution curves. To mitigate this, the demographic structure should be taken into account. Countries with an aging population, or those with an increased birth rate, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Many scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient.
The Gini coefficient was developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper Variabilità e mutabilità (English: variability and mutability). Building on the work of American economist Max Lorenz, Gini proposed that the difference between the hypothetical straight line depicting perfect equality, and the actual line depicting people's incomes, be used as a measure of inequality.
The Gini coefficient is an index for the degree of inequality in the distribution of income/wealth, used to estimate how far a country's wealth or income distribution deviates from an equal distribution.
The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve, which plots the proportion of the total income of the population (y-axis) that is cumulatively earned by the bottom x of the population (see diagram). The line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area that lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve (marked A in the diagram) over the total area under the line of equality (marked A and B in the diagram); i.e., G = A/(A + B). If there are no negative incomes, it is also equal to 2A and 1 − 2B due to the fact that A + B = 0.5.
Assuming non-negative income or wealth for all, the Gini coefficient's theoretical range is from 0 (total equality) to 1 (absolute inequality). This measure is often rendered as a percentage, spanning 0 to 100. However, if negative values are factored in, as in cases of debt, the Gini index could exceed 1. Typically, we presuppose a positive mean or total, precluding a Gini coefficient below zero.
An alternative approach is to define the Gini coefficient as half of the relative mean absolute difference, which is equivalent to the definition based on the Lorenz curve. The mean absolute difference is the average absolute difference of all pairs of items of the population, and the relative mean absolute difference is the mean absolute difference divided by the average, x ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {x}}} , to normalize for scale. If xi is the wealth or income of person i, and there are n persons, then the Gini coefficient G is given by:
When the income (or wealth) distribution is given as a continuous probability density function p(x), the Gini coefficient is again half of the relative mean absolute difference:
where μ = ∫ − ∞ ∞ x p ( x ) d x {\displaystyle \textstyle \mu =\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }xp(x)\,dx} is the mean of the distribution, and the lower limits of integration may be replaced by zero when all incomes are positive.
While the income distribution of any particular country will not correspond perfectly to the theoretical models, these models can provide a qualitative explanation of the income distribution in a nation given the Gini coefficient.
The extreme cases are represented by the most equal possible society in which every person receives the same income (G = 0), and the most unequal society (with N individuals) where a single person receives 100% of the total income and the remaining N − 1 people receive none (G = 1 − 1/N).
A simple case assumes just two levels of income, low and high. If the high income group is a proportion u of the population and earns a proportion f of all income, then the Gini coefficient is f − u. A more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f − u.
For example, if the wealthiest u = 20% of the population has f = 80% of all income (see Pareto principle), the income Gini coefficient is at least 60%. In another example, if u = 1% of the world's population owns f = 50% of all wealth, the wealth Gini coefficient is at least 49%.
In some cases, this equation can be applied to calculate the Gini coefficient without direct reference to the Lorenz curve. For example, (taking y to indicate the income or wealth of a person or household):
The Gini coefficient can also be considered as half the relative mean absolute difference. For a random sample S with values y 1 ≤ y 2 ≤ ⋯ ≤ y n {\displaystyle y_{1}\leq y_{2}\leq \cdots \leq y_{n}} , the sample Gini coefficient
is a consistent estimator of the population Gini coefficient, but is not in general unbiased. In simplified form:
There does not exist a sample statistic that is always an unbiased estimator of the population Gini coefficient.
For a discrete probability distribution with probability mass function f ( y i ) , {\displaystyle f(y_{i}),} i = 1 , … , n {\displaystyle i=1,\ldots ,n} , where f ( y i ) {\displaystyle f(y_{i})} is the fraction of the population with income or wealth y i > 0 {\displaystyle y_{i}>0} , the Gini coefficient is:
where
If the points with non-zero probabilities are indexed in increasing order ( y i < y i + 1 ) {\displaystyle (y_{i}<y_{i+1})} , then:
where
When the population is large, the income distribution may be represented by a continuous probability density function f(x) where f(x) dx is the fraction of the population with wealth or income in the interval dx about x. If F(x) is the cumulative distribution function for f(x):
and L(x) is the Lorenz function:
then the Lorenz curve L(F) may then be represented as a function parametric in L(x) and F(x) and the value of B can be found by integration:
The Gini coefficient can also be calculated directly from the cumulative distribution function of the distribution F(y). Defining μ as the mean of the distribution, and specifying that F(y) is zero for all negative values, the Gini coefficient is given by:
The latter result comes from integration by parts. (Note that this formula can be applied when there are negative values if the integration is taken from minus infinity to plus infinity.)
The Gini coefficient may be expressed in terms of the quantile function Q(F) (inverse of the cumulative distribution function: Q(F(x)) = x)
Since the Gini coefficient is independent of scale, if the distribution function can be expressed in the form f(x,φ,a,b,c...) where φ is a scale factor and a, b, c... are dimensionless parameters, then the Gini coefficient will be a function only of a, b, c.... For example, for the exponential distribution, which is a function of only x and a scale parameter, the Gini coefficient is a constant, equal to 1/2.
For some functional forms, the Gini index can be calculated explicitly. For example, if y follows a log-normal distribution with the standard deviation of logs equal to σ {\displaystyle \sigma } , then G = erf ( σ 2 ) {\displaystyle G=\operatorname {erf} \left({\frac {\sigma }{2}}\right)} where erf {\displaystyle \operatorname {erf} } is the error function ( since G = 2 Φ ( σ 2 ) − 1 {\displaystyle G=2\Phi \left({\frac {\sigma }{\sqrt {2}}}\right)-1} , where Φ {\displaystyle \Phi } is the cumulative distribution function of a standard normal distribution). In the table below, some examples for probability density functions with support on [ 0 , ∞ ) {\displaystyle [0,\infty )} are shown. The Dirac delta distribution represents the case where everyone has the same wealth (or income); it implies no variations between incomes.
Sometimes the entire Lorenz curve is not known, and only values at certain intervals are given. In that case, the Gini coefficient can be approximated using various techniques for interpolating the missing values of the Lorenz curve. If (Xk, Yk) are the known points on the Lorenz curve, with the Xk indexed in increasing order (Xk – 1 < Xk), so that:
If the Lorenz curve is approximated on each interval as a line between consecutive points, then the area B can be approximated with trapezoids and:
is the resulting approximation for G. More accurate results can be obtained using other methods to approximate the area B, such as approximating the Lorenz curve with a quadratic function across pairs of intervals or building an appropriately smooth approximation to the underlying distribution function that matches the known data. If the population mean and boundary values for each interval are also known, these can also often be used to improve the accuracy of the approximation.
The Gini coefficient calculated from a sample is a statistic, and its standard error, or confidence intervals for the population Gini coefficient, should be reported. These can be calculated using bootstrap techniques, mathematically complicated and computationally demanding even in an era of fast computers. Economist Tomson Ogwang made the process more efficient by setting up a "trick regression model" in which respective income variables in the sample are ranked, with the lowest income being allocated rank 1. The model then expresses the rank (dependent variable) as the sum of a constant A and a normal error term whose variance is inversely proportional to yk:
Thus, G can be expressed as a function of the weighted least squares estimate of the constant A and that this can be used to speed up the calculation of the jackknife estimate for the standard error. Economist David Giles argued that the standard error of the estimate of A can be used to derive the estimate of G directly without using a jackknife. This method only requires using ordinary least squares regression after ordering the sample data. The results compare favorably with the estimates from the jackknife with agreement improving with increasing sample size.
However, it has been argued that this depends on the model's assumptions about the error distributions and the independence of error terms. These assumptions are often not valid for real data sets. There is still ongoing debate surrounding this topic.
Guillermina Jasso and Angus Deaton independently proposed the following formula for the Gini coefficient:
where μ {\displaystyle \mu } is mean income of the population, Pi is the income rank P of person i, with income X, such that the richest person receives a rank of 1 and the poorest a rank of N. This effectively gives higher weight to poorer people in the income distribution, which allows the Gini to meet the Transfer Principle. Note that the Jasso-Deaton formula rescales the coefficient so that its value is one if all the X i {\displaystyle X_{i}} are zero except one. Note however Allison's reply on the need to divide by N² instead.
FAO explains another version of the formula.
The Gini coefficient and other standard inequality indices reduce to a common form. Perfect equality—the absence of inequality—exists when and only when the inequality ratio, r j = x j / x ¯ {\displaystyle r_{j}=x_{j}/{\overline {x}}} , equals 1 for all j units in some population (for example, there is perfect income equality when everyone's income x j {\displaystyle x_{j}} equals the mean income x ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {x}}} , so that r j = 1 {\displaystyle r_{j}=1} for everyone). Measures of inequality, then, are measures of the average deviations of the r j = 1 {\displaystyle r_{j}=1} from 1; the greater the average deviation, the greater the inequality. Based on these observations the inequality indices have this common form:
where pj weights the units by their population share, and f(rj) is a function of the deviation of each unit's rj from 1, the point of equality. The insight of this generalized inequality index is that inequality indices differ because they employ different functions of the distance of the inequality ratios (the rj) from 1.
Gini coefficients of income are calculated on a market income and a disposable income basis. The Gini coefficient on market income—sometimes referred to as a pre-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income before taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income without considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country. The Gini coefficient on disposable income—sometimes referred to as the after-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income after taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income after considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country.
For OECD countries over the 2008–2009 period, the Gini coefficient (pre-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.34 and 0.53, with South Korea the lowest and Italy the highest. The Gini coefficient (after-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.25 and 0.48, with Denmark the lowest and Mexico the highest. For the United States, the country with the largest population among OECD countries, the pre-tax Gini index was 0.49, and the after-tax Gini index was 0.38 in 2008–2009. The OECD average for total populations in OECD countries was 0.46 for the pre-tax income Gini index and 0.31 for the after-tax income Gini index. Taxes and social spending that were in place in 2008–2009 period in OECD countries significantly lowered effective income inequality, and in general, "European countries—especially Nordic and Continental welfare states—achieve lower levels of income inequality than other countries."
Using the Gini can help quantify differences in welfare and compensation policies and philosophies. However, it should be borne in mind that the Gini coefficient can be misleading when used to make political comparisons between large and small countries or those with different immigration policies (see limitations section).
The Gini coefficient for the entire world has been estimated by various parties to be between 0.61 and 0.68. The graph shows the values expressed as a percentage in their historical development for a number of countries.
According to UNICEF, Latin America and the Caribbean region had the highest net income Gini index in the world at 48.3, on an unweighted average basis in 2008. The remaining regional averages were: sub-Saharan Africa (44.2), Asia (40.4), Middle East and North Africa (39.2), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (35.4), and High-income Countries (30.9). Using the same method, the United States is claimed to have a Gini index of 36, while South Africa had the highest income Gini index score of 67.8.
Taking income distribution of all human beings, worldwide income inequality has been constantly increasing since the early 19th century (and will keep on increasing over the years) . There was a steady increase in the global income inequality Gini score from 1820 to 2002, with a significant increase between 1980 and 2002. This trend appears to have peaked and begun a reversal with rapid economic growth in emerging economies, particularly in the large populations of BRIC countries.
The table below presents the estimated world income Gini coefficients over the last 200 years, as calculated by Milanovic.
More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988. This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people, mostly in countries like China and India. Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care, education, and sanitation; others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies.
The Gini coefficient is widely used in fields as diverse as sociology, economics, health science, ecology, engineering, and agriculture. For example, in social sciences and economics, in addition to income Gini coefficients, scholars have published education Gini coefficients and opportunity Gini coefficients.
Education Gini index estimates the inequality in education for a given population. It is used to discern trends in social development through educational attainment over time. A study across 85 countries by three World Bank economists, Vinod Thomas, Yan Wang, and Xibo Fan, estimated Mali had the highest education Gini index of 0.92 in 1990 (implying very high inequality in educational attainment across the population), while the United States had the lowest education inequality Gini index of 0.14. Between 1960 and 1990, China, India and South Korea had the fastest drop in education inequality Gini Index. They also claim education Gini index for the United States slightly increased over the 1980–1990 period.
Though India's education Gini Index has been falling from 1960 through 1990, most of the population still has not received any education, while 10 percent of the population received more than 40% of the total educational hours in the nation. This means that a large portion of capable children in the country are not receiving the support necessary to allow them to become positive contributors to society. This will lead to a deadweight loss to the national society because there are many people who are underdeveloped and underutilized.
Similar in concept to the Gini income coefficient, the Gini opportunity coefficient measures inequality in opportunities. The concept builds on Amartya Sen's suggestion that inequality coefficients of social development should be premised on the process of enlarging people's choices and enhancing their capabilities, rather than on the process of reducing income inequality. Kovacevic, in a review of the Gini opportunity coefficient, explained that the coefficient estimates how well a society enables its citizens to achieve success in life where the success is based on a person's choices, efforts and talents, not their background defined by a set of predetermined circumstances at birth, such as gender, race, place of birth, parent's income and circumstances beyond the control of that individual.
In 2003, Roemer reported Italy and Spain exhibited the largest opportunity inequality Gini index amongst advanced economies.
In 1978, Anthony Shorrocks introduced a measure based on income Gini coefficients to estimate income mobility. This measure, generalized by Maasoumi and Zandvakili, is now generally referred to as Shorrocks index, sometimes as Shorrocks mobility index or Shorrocks rigidity index. It attempts to estimate whether the income inequality Gini coefficient is permanent or temporary and to what extent a country or region enables economic mobility to its people so that they can move from one (e.g., bottom 20%) income quantile to another (e.g., middle 20%) over time. In other words, the Shorrocks index compares inequality of short-term earnings, such as the annual income of households, to inequality of long-term earnings, such as 5-year or 10-year total income for the same households.
Shorrocks index is calculated in several different ways, a common approach being from the ratio of income Gini coefficients between short-term and long-term for the same region or country.
A 2010 study using social security income data for the United States since 1937 and Gini-based Shorrock's indices concludes that income mobility in the United States has had a complicated history, primarily due to the mass influx of women into the American labor force after World War II. Income inequality and income mobility trends have been different for men and women workers between 1937 and the 2000s. When men and women are considered together, the Gini coefficient-based Shorrocks index trends imply long-term income inequality has been substantially reduced among all workers, in recent decades for the United States. Other scholars, using just 1990s data or other short periods have come to different conclusions. For example, Sastre and Ayala conclude from their study of income Gini coefficient data between 1993 and 1998 for six developed economies that France had the least income mobility, Italy the highest, and the United States and Germany intermediate levels of income mobility over those five years.
The Gini coefficient has features that make it useful as a measure of dispersion in a population, and inequalities in particular. The coefficient ranges from 0, for perfect equality, to 1, indicating perfect inequality. The Gini is based on the comparison of cumulative proportions of the population against cumulative proportions of income they receive.
The Gini coefficient is a relative measure. The Gini coefficient of a developing country can rise (due to increasing inequality of income) even when the number of people in absolute poverty decreases. This is because the Gini coefficient measures relative, not absolute, wealth. Changing income inequality, measured by Gini coefficients, can be due to structural changes in a society such as growing population (increased birth rates, aging populations, increased divorce rates, extended family households splitting into nuclear families, emigration, immigration) and income mobility. Gini coefficients are simple, and this simplicity can lead to oversights and can confuse the comparison of different populations; for example, while both Bangladesh (per capita income of $1,693) and the Netherlands (per capita income of $42,183) had an income Gini coefficient of 0.31 in 2010, the quality of life, economic opportunity and absolute income in these countries are very different, i.e. countries may have identical Gini coefficients, but differ greatly in wealth. Basic necessities may be available to all in a developed economy, while in an undeveloped economy with the same Gini coefficient, basic necessities may be unavailable to most or unequally available due to lower absolute wealth.
Even when the total income of a population is the same, in certain situations two countries with different income distributions can have the same Gini index (e.g. cases when income Lorenz Curves cross). Table A illustrates one such situation. Both countries have a Gini coefficient of 0.2, but the average income distributions for household groups are different. As another example, in a population where the lowest 50% of individuals have no income, and the other 50% have equal income, the Gini coefficient is 0.5; whereas for another population where the lowest 75% of people have 25% of income and the top 25% have 75% of the income, the Gini index is also 0.5. Economies with similar incomes and Gini coefficients can have very different income distributions. Bellù and Liberati claim that ranking income inequality between two populations is not always possible based on their Gini indices. Similarly, computational social scientist Fabian Stephany illustrates that income inequality within the population, e.g., in specific socioeconomic groups of same age and education, also remains undetected by conventional Gini indices.
A Gini index does not contain information about absolute national or personal incomes. Populations can simultaneously have very low-income Gini indices and very high wealth Gini indexes. By measuring inequality in income, the Gini ignores the differential efficiency of the use of household income. By ignoring wealth (except as it contributes to income), the Gini can create the appearance of inequality when the people compared are at different stages in their life. Wealthy countries such as Sweden can show a low Gini coefficient for the disposable income of 0.31, thereby appearing equal, yet have a very high Gini coefficient for wealth of 0.79 to 0.86, suggesting an extremely unequal wealth distribution in its society. These factors are not assessed in income-based Gini.
Gini index has a downward-bias for small populations. Counties or states or countries with small populations and less diverse economies will tend to report small Gini coefficients. For economically diverse large population groups, a much higher coefficient is expected than for each of its regions. For example, taking the world economy as a whole and income distribution for all human beings, different scholars estimate the global Gini index to range between 0.61 and 0.68. As with other inequality coefficients, the Gini coefficient is influenced by the granularity of the measurements. For example, five 20% quantiles (low granularity) will usually yield a lower Gini coefficient than twenty 5% quantiles (high granularity) for the same distribution. Philippe Monfort has shown that using inconsistent or unspecified granularity limits the usefulness of Gini coefficient measurements.
The Gini coefficient measure gives different results when applied to individuals instead of households, for the same economy and same income distributions. If household data is used, the measured value of income Gini depends on how the household is defined. The comparison is not meaningful when different populations are not measured with consistent definitions.
Deininger and Squire (1996) show that the income Gini coefficient based on individual income rather than household income is different. For example, for the United States, they found that the individual income-based Gini index was 0.35, while for France, 0.43. According to their individual-focused method, in the 108 countries they studied, South Africa had the world's highest Gini coefficient at 0.62, Malaysia had Asia's highest Gini coefficient at 0.5, Brazil the highest at 0.57 in Latin America and the Caribbean region, and Turkey the highest at 0.5 in OECD countries.
Expanding on the importance of life-span measures, the Gini coefficient as a point-estimate of equality at a certain time ignores life-span changes in income. Typically, increases in the proportion of young or old members of a society will drive apparent changes in equality simply because people generally have lower incomes and wealth when they are young than when they are old. Because of this, factors such as age distribution within a population and mobility within income classes can create the appearance of inequality when none exist, taking into account demographic effects. Thus a given economy may have a higher Gini coefficient at any timepoint compared to another, while the Gini coefficient calculated over individuals' lifetime income is lower than the apparently more equal (at a given point in time) economy's. Essentially, what matters is not just inequality in any particular year but the distribution composition over time.
Billionaire Thomas Kwok claimed the income Gini coefficient for Hong Kong has been high (0.434 in 2010), in part because of structural changes in its population. Over recent decades, Hong Kong has witnessed increasing numbers of small households, elderly households, and elderly living alone. The combined income is now split into more households. Many older people live separately from their children in Hong Kong. These social changes have caused substantial changes in household income distribution. The income Gini coefficient, claims Kwok, does not discern these structural changes in its society. Household money income distribution for the United States, summarized in Table C of this section, confirms that this issue is not limited to just Hong Kong. According to the US Census Bureau, between 1979 and 2010, the population of the United States experienced structural changes in overall households; the income for all income brackets increased in inflation-adjusted terms, household income distributions shifted into higher income brackets over time, while the income Gini coefficient increased.
Another limitation of the Gini coefficient is that it is not a proper measure of egalitarianism, as it only measures income dispersion. For example, suppose two equally egalitarian countries pursue different immigration policies. In that case, the country accepting a higher proportion of low-income or impoverished migrants will report a higher Gini coefficient and, therefore, may exhibit more income inequality.
Some countries distribute benefits that are difficult to value. Countries that provide subsidized housing, medical care, education or other such services are difficult to value objectively, as it depends on the quality and extent of the benefit. In absence of a free market, valuing these income transfers as household income is subjective. The theoretical model of the Gini coefficient is limited to accepting correct or incorrect subjective assumptions.
In subsistence-driven and informal economies, people may have significant income in other forms than money, for example, through subsistence farming or bartering. These income tend to accrue to the segment of population below the poverty line or very poor in emerging and transitional economy countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Informal economy accounts for over half of global employment and as much as 90 per cent of employment in some of the poorer sub-Saharan countries with high official Gini inequality coefficients. Schneider et al., in their 2010 study of 162 countries, report about 31.2%, or about $20 trillion, of world's GDP is informal. In developing countries, the informal economy predominates for all income brackets except the richer, urban upper-income bracket populations. Even in developed economies, 8% (United States) to 27% (Italy) of each nation's GDP is informal. The resulting informal income predominates as a livelihood activity for those in the lowest income brackets. The value and distribution of the incomes from informal or underground economy is difficult to quantify, making true income Gini coefficients estimates difficult. Different assumptions and quantifications of these incomes will yield different Gini coefficients.
Gini has some mathematical limitations as well. It is not additive and different sets of people cannot be averaged to obtain the Gini coefficient of all the people in the sets.
Given the limitations of the Gini coefficient, other statistical methods are used in combination or as an alternative measure of population dispersity. For example, entropy measures are frequently used (e.g. the Atkinson index or the Theil Index and Mean log deviation as special cases of the generalized entropy index). These measures attempt to compare the distribution of resources by intelligent agents in the market with a maximum entropy random distribution, which would occur if these agents acted like non-interacting particles in a closed system following the laws of statistical physics.
There is a summary measure of the diagnostic ability of a binary classifier system that is also called the Gini coefficient, which is defined as twice the area between the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and its diagonal. It is related to the AUC (Area Under the ROC Curve) measure of performance given by A U C = ( G + 1 ) / 2 {\displaystyle AUC=(G+1)/2} and to Mann–Whitney U. Although both Gini coefficients are defined as areas between certain curves and share certain properties, there is no simple direct relationship between the Gini coefficient of statistical dispersion and the Gini coefficient of a classifier.
The Gini index is also related to the Pietra index — both of which measure statistical heterogeneity and are derived from the Lorenz curve and the diagonal line.
In certain fields such as ecology, inverse Simpson's index 1 / λ {\displaystyle 1/\lambda } is used to quantify diversity, and this should not be confused with the Simpson index λ {\displaystyle \lambda } . These indicators are related to Gini. The inverse Simpson index increases with diversity, unlike the Simpson index and Gini coefficient, which decrease with diversity. The Simpson index is in the range [0, 1], where 0 means maximum and 1 means minimum diversity (or heterogeneity). Since diversity indices typically increase with increasing heterogeneity, the Simpson index is often transformed into inverse Simpson, or using the complement 1 − λ {\displaystyle 1-\lambda } , known as the Gini-Simpson Index.
In recent decades, researchers have attempted to estimate Gini coefficients for pre-20th century societies. In the absence of household income surveys and income taxes, scholars have relied on proxy variables. These include wealth taxes in medieval European city states, patterns of landownership in Roman Egypt, variation of the size of houses in societies from ancient Greece to Aztec Mexico, and inheritance and dowries in Babylonian society. Other data does not directly document variations in wealth or income but are known to reflect inequality, such as the ratio of rents to wages or of labor to capital.
Although the Gini coefficient is most popular in economics, it can, in theory, be applied in any field of science that studies a distribution. For example, in ecology, the Gini coefficient has been used as a measure of biodiversity, where the cumulative proportion of species is plotted against the cumulative proportion of individuals. In health, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of health-related quality of life in a population. In education, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of universities. In chemistry it has been used to express the selectivity of protein kinase inhibitors against a panel of kinases. In engineering, it has been used to evaluate the fairness achieved by Internet routers in scheduling packet transmissions from different flows of traffic.
The Gini coefficient is sometimes used for the measurement of the discriminatory power of rating systems in credit risk management.
A 2005 study accessed US census data to measure home computer ownership and used the Gini coefficient to measure inequalities amongst whites and African Americans. Results indicated that although decreasing overall, home computer ownership inequality was substantially smaller among white households.
A 2016 peer-reviewed study titled Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment-focused Digital Health Social Networks illustrated that the Gini coefficient was helpful and accurate in measuring shifts in inequality, however as a standalone metric it failed to incorporate overall network size.
Discriminatory power refers to a credit risk model's ability to differentiate between defaulting and non-defaulting clients. The formula G 1 {\displaystyle G_{1}} , in the calculation section above, may be used for the final model and at the individual model factor level to quantify the discriminatory power of individual factors. It is related to the accuracy ratio in population assessment models.
The Gini coefficient has also been applied to analyze inequality in dating apps.
Kaminskiy and Krivtsov extended the concept of the Gini coefficient from economics to reliability theory and proposed a Gini–type coefficient that helps to assess the degree of aging of non−repairable systems or aging and rejuvenation of repairable systems. The coefficient is defined between -1 and 1 and can be used in both empirical and parametric life distributions. It takes negative values for the class of decreasing failure rate distributions and point processes with decreasing failure intensity rate and is positive for the increasing failure rate distributions and point processes with increasing failure intensity rate. The value of zero corresponds to the exponential life distribution or the Homogeneous Poisson Process. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In economics, the Gini coefficient (/ˈdʒiːni/ JEE-nee), also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among the values of a frequency distribution, such as levels of income. A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Gini coefficient was proposed by Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth. For OECD countries in the late 20th century, considering the effect of taxes and transfer payments, the income Gini coefficient ranged between 0.24 and 0.49, with Slovenia being the lowest and Mexico the highest. African countries had the highest pre-tax Gini coefficients in 2008–2009, with South Africa having the world's highest, estimated to be 0.63 to 0.7. However, this figure drops to 0.52 after social assistance is taken into account, and drops again to 0.47 after taxation. The country with the lowest Gini coefficient is Slovenia, with a Gini coefficient of 0.232. The Gini coefficient of the global income in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, as the same value may result from many different distribution curves. To mitigate this, the demographic structure should be taken into account. Countries with an aging population, or those with an increased birth rate, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Many scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Gini coefficient was developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper Variabilità e mutabilità (English: variability and mutability). Building on the work of American economist Max Lorenz, Gini proposed that the difference between the hypothetical straight line depicting perfect equality, and the actual line depicting people's incomes, be used as a measure of inequality.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Gini coefficient is an index for the degree of inequality in the distribution of income/wealth, used to estimate how far a country's wealth or income distribution deviates from an equal distribution.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve, which plots the proportion of the total income of the population (y-axis) that is cumulatively earned by the bottom x of the population (see diagram). The line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area that lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve (marked A in the diagram) over the total area under the line of equality (marked A and B in the diagram); i.e., G = A/(A + B). If there are no negative incomes, it is also equal to 2A and 1 − 2B due to the fact that A + B = 0.5.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Assuming non-negative income or wealth for all, the Gini coefficient's theoretical range is from 0 (total equality) to 1 (absolute inequality). This measure is often rendered as a percentage, spanning 0 to 100. However, if negative values are factored in, as in cases of debt, the Gini index could exceed 1. Typically, we presuppose a positive mean or total, precluding a Gini coefficient below zero.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "An alternative approach is to define the Gini coefficient as half of the relative mean absolute difference, which is equivalent to the definition based on the Lorenz curve. The mean absolute difference is the average absolute difference of all pairs of items of the population, and the relative mean absolute difference is the mean absolute difference divided by the average, x ¯ {\\displaystyle {\\bar {x}}} , to normalize for scale. If xi is the wealth or income of person i, and there are n persons, then the Gini coefficient G is given by:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "When the income (or wealth) distribution is given as a continuous probability density function p(x), the Gini coefficient is again half of the relative mean absolute difference:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "where μ = ∫ − ∞ ∞ x p ( x ) d x {\\displaystyle \\textstyle \\mu =\\int _{-\\infty }^{\\infty }xp(x)\\,dx} is the mean of the distribution, and the lower limits of integration may be replaced by zero when all incomes are positive.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "While the income distribution of any particular country will not correspond perfectly to the theoretical models, these models can provide a qualitative explanation of the income distribution in a nation given the Gini coefficient.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The extreme cases are represented by the most equal possible society in which every person receives the same income (G = 0), and the most unequal society (with N individuals) where a single person receives 100% of the total income and the remaining N − 1 people receive none (G = 1 − 1/N).",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A simple case assumes just two levels of income, low and high. If the high income group is a proportion u of the population and earns a proportion f of all income, then the Gini coefficient is f − u. A more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f − u.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For example, if the wealthiest u = 20% of the population has f = 80% of all income (see Pareto principle), the income Gini coefficient is at least 60%. In another example, if u = 1% of the world's population owns f = 50% of all wealth, the wealth Gini coefficient is at least 49%.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In some cases, this equation can be applied to calculate the Gini coefficient without direct reference to the Lorenz curve. For example, (taking y to indicate the income or wealth of a person or household):",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Gini coefficient can also be considered as half the relative mean absolute difference. For a random sample S with values y 1 ≤ y 2 ≤ ⋯ ≤ y n {\\displaystyle y_{1}\\leq y_{2}\\leq \\cdots \\leq y_{n}} , the sample Gini coefficient",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "is a consistent estimator of the population Gini coefficient, but is not in general unbiased. In simplified form:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "There does not exist a sample statistic that is always an unbiased estimator of the population Gini coefficient.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "For a discrete probability distribution with probability mass function f ( y i ) , {\\displaystyle f(y_{i}),} i = 1 , … , n {\\displaystyle i=1,\\ldots ,n} , where f ( y i ) {\\displaystyle f(y_{i})} is the fraction of the population with income or wealth y i > 0 {\\displaystyle y_{i}>0} , the Gini coefficient is:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "where",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "If the points with non-zero probabilities are indexed in increasing order ( y i < y i + 1 ) {\\displaystyle (y_{i}<y_{i+1})} , then:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "where",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "When the population is large, the income distribution may be represented by a continuous probability density function f(x) where f(x) dx is the fraction of the population with wealth or income in the interval dx about x. If F(x) is the cumulative distribution function for f(x):",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "and L(x) is the Lorenz function:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "then the Lorenz curve L(F) may then be represented as a function parametric in L(x) and F(x) and the value of B can be found by integration:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Gini coefficient can also be calculated directly from the cumulative distribution function of the distribution F(y). Defining μ as the mean of the distribution, and specifying that F(y) is zero for all negative values, the Gini coefficient is given by:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The latter result comes from integration by parts. (Note that this formula can be applied when there are negative values if the integration is taken from minus infinity to plus infinity.)",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Gini coefficient may be expressed in terms of the quantile function Q(F) (inverse of the cumulative distribution function: Q(F(x)) = x)",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Since the Gini coefficient is independent of scale, if the distribution function can be expressed in the form f(x,φ,a,b,c...) where φ is a scale factor and a, b, c... are dimensionless parameters, then the Gini coefficient will be a function only of a, b, c.... For example, for the exponential distribution, which is a function of only x and a scale parameter, the Gini coefficient is a constant, equal to 1/2.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "For some functional forms, the Gini index can be calculated explicitly. For example, if y follows a log-normal distribution with the standard deviation of logs equal to σ {\\displaystyle \\sigma } , then G = erf ( σ 2 ) {\\displaystyle G=\\operatorname {erf} \\left({\\frac {\\sigma }{2}}\\right)} where erf {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {erf} } is the error function ( since G = 2 Φ ( σ 2 ) − 1 {\\displaystyle G=2\\Phi \\left({\\frac {\\sigma }{\\sqrt {2}}}\\right)-1} , where Φ {\\displaystyle \\Phi } is the cumulative distribution function of a standard normal distribution). In the table below, some examples for probability density functions with support on [ 0 , ∞ ) {\\displaystyle [0,\\infty )} are shown. The Dirac delta distribution represents the case where everyone has the same wealth (or income); it implies no variations between incomes.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Sometimes the entire Lorenz curve is not known, and only values at certain intervals are given. In that case, the Gini coefficient can be approximated using various techniques for interpolating the missing values of the Lorenz curve. If (Xk, Yk) are the known points on the Lorenz curve, with the Xk indexed in increasing order (Xk – 1 < Xk), so that:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "If the Lorenz curve is approximated on each interval as a line between consecutive points, then the area B can be approximated with trapezoids and:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "is the resulting approximation for G. More accurate results can be obtained using other methods to approximate the area B, such as approximating the Lorenz curve with a quadratic function across pairs of intervals or building an appropriately smooth approximation to the underlying distribution function that matches the known data. If the population mean and boundary values for each interval are also known, these can also often be used to improve the accuracy of the approximation.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Gini coefficient calculated from a sample is a statistic, and its standard error, or confidence intervals for the population Gini coefficient, should be reported. These can be calculated using bootstrap techniques, mathematically complicated and computationally demanding even in an era of fast computers. Economist Tomson Ogwang made the process more efficient by setting up a \"trick regression model\" in which respective income variables in the sample are ranked, with the lowest income being allocated rank 1. The model then expresses the rank (dependent variable) as the sum of a constant A and a normal error term whose variance is inversely proportional to yk:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Thus, G can be expressed as a function of the weighted least squares estimate of the constant A and that this can be used to speed up the calculation of the jackknife estimate for the standard error. Economist David Giles argued that the standard error of the estimate of A can be used to derive the estimate of G directly without using a jackknife. This method only requires using ordinary least squares regression after ordering the sample data. The results compare favorably with the estimates from the jackknife with agreement improving with increasing sample size.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "However, it has been argued that this depends on the model's assumptions about the error distributions and the independence of error terms. These assumptions are often not valid for real data sets. There is still ongoing debate surrounding this topic.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Guillermina Jasso and Angus Deaton independently proposed the following formula for the Gini coefficient:",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "where μ {\\displaystyle \\mu } is mean income of the population, Pi is the income rank P of person i, with income X, such that the richest person receives a rank of 1 and the poorest a rank of N. This effectively gives higher weight to poorer people in the income distribution, which allows the Gini to meet the Transfer Principle. Note that the Jasso-Deaton formula rescales the coefficient so that its value is one if all the X i {\\displaystyle X_{i}} are zero except one. Note however Allison's reply on the need to divide by N² instead.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "FAO explains another version of the formula.",
"title": "Calculation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Gini coefficient and other standard inequality indices reduce to a common form. Perfect equality—the absence of inequality—exists when and only when the inequality ratio, r j = x j / x ¯ {\\displaystyle r_{j}=x_{j}/{\\overline {x}}} , equals 1 for all j units in some population (for example, there is perfect income equality when everyone's income x j {\\displaystyle x_{j}} equals the mean income x ¯ {\\displaystyle {\\overline {x}}} , so that r j = 1 {\\displaystyle r_{j}=1} for everyone). Measures of inequality, then, are measures of the average deviations of the r j = 1 {\\displaystyle r_{j}=1} from 1; the greater the average deviation, the greater the inequality. Based on these observations the inequality indices have this common form:",
"title": "Generalized inequality indices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "where pj weights the units by their population share, and f(rj) is a function of the deviation of each unit's rj from 1, the point of equality. The insight of this generalized inequality index is that inequality indices differ because they employ different functions of the distance of the inequality ratios (the rj) from 1.",
"title": "Generalized inequality indices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Gini coefficients of income are calculated on a market income and a disposable income basis. The Gini coefficient on market income—sometimes referred to as a pre-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income before taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income without considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country. The Gini coefficient on disposable income—sometimes referred to as the after-tax Gini coefficient—is calculated on income after taxes and transfers. It measures inequality in income after considering the effect of taxes and social spending already in place in a country.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "For OECD countries over the 2008–2009 period, the Gini coefficient (pre-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.34 and 0.53, with South Korea the lowest and Italy the highest. The Gini coefficient (after-taxes and transfers) for a total population ranged between 0.25 and 0.48, with Denmark the lowest and Mexico the highest. For the United States, the country with the largest population among OECD countries, the pre-tax Gini index was 0.49, and the after-tax Gini index was 0.38 in 2008–2009. The OECD average for total populations in OECD countries was 0.46 for the pre-tax income Gini index and 0.31 for the after-tax income Gini index. Taxes and social spending that were in place in 2008–2009 period in OECD countries significantly lowered effective income inequality, and in general, \"European countries—especially Nordic and Continental welfare states—achieve lower levels of income inequality than other countries.\"",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Using the Gini can help quantify differences in welfare and compensation policies and philosophies. However, it should be borne in mind that the Gini coefficient can be misleading when used to make political comparisons between large and small countries or those with different immigration policies (see limitations section).",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Gini coefficient for the entire world has been estimated by various parties to be between 0.61 and 0.68. The graph shows the values expressed as a percentage in their historical development for a number of countries.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "According to UNICEF, Latin America and the Caribbean region had the highest net income Gini index in the world at 48.3, on an unweighted average basis in 2008. The remaining regional averages were: sub-Saharan Africa (44.2), Asia (40.4), Middle East and North Africa (39.2), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (35.4), and High-income Countries (30.9). Using the same method, the United States is claimed to have a Gini index of 36, while South Africa had the highest income Gini index score of 67.8.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Taking income distribution of all human beings, worldwide income inequality has been constantly increasing since the early 19th century (and will keep on increasing over the years) . There was a steady increase in the global income inequality Gini score from 1820 to 2002, with a significant increase between 1980 and 2002. This trend appears to have peaked and begun a reversal with rapid economic growth in emerging economies, particularly in the large populations of BRIC countries.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The table below presents the estimated world income Gini coefficients over the last 200 years, as calculated by Milanovic.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "More detailed data from similar sources plots a continuous decline since 1988. This is attributed to globalization increasing incomes for billions of poor people, mostly in countries like China and India. Developing countries like Brazil have also improved basic services like health care, education, and sanitation; others like Chile and Mexico have enacted more progressive tax policies.",
"title": "Of income distributions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The Gini coefficient is widely used in fields as diverse as sociology, economics, health science, ecology, engineering, and agriculture. For example, in social sciences and economics, in addition to income Gini coefficients, scholars have published education Gini coefficients and opportunity Gini coefficients.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Education Gini index estimates the inequality in education for a given population. It is used to discern trends in social development through educational attainment over time. A study across 85 countries by three World Bank economists, Vinod Thomas, Yan Wang, and Xibo Fan, estimated Mali had the highest education Gini index of 0.92 in 1990 (implying very high inequality in educational attainment across the population), while the United States had the lowest education inequality Gini index of 0.14. Between 1960 and 1990, China, India and South Korea had the fastest drop in education inequality Gini Index. They also claim education Gini index for the United States slightly increased over the 1980–1990 period.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Though India's education Gini Index has been falling from 1960 through 1990, most of the population still has not received any education, while 10 percent of the population received more than 40% of the total educational hours in the nation. This means that a large portion of capable children in the country are not receiving the support necessary to allow them to become positive contributors to society. This will lead to a deadweight loss to the national society because there are many people who are underdeveloped and underutilized.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Similar in concept to the Gini income coefficient, the Gini opportunity coefficient measures inequality in opportunities. The concept builds on Amartya Sen's suggestion that inequality coefficients of social development should be premised on the process of enlarging people's choices and enhancing their capabilities, rather than on the process of reducing income inequality. Kovacevic, in a review of the Gini opportunity coefficient, explained that the coefficient estimates how well a society enables its citizens to achieve success in life where the success is based on a person's choices, efforts and talents, not their background defined by a set of predetermined circumstances at birth, such as gender, race, place of birth, parent's income and circumstances beyond the control of that individual.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In 2003, Roemer reported Italy and Spain exhibited the largest opportunity inequality Gini index amongst advanced economies.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In 1978, Anthony Shorrocks introduced a measure based on income Gini coefficients to estimate income mobility. This measure, generalized by Maasoumi and Zandvakili, is now generally referred to as Shorrocks index, sometimes as Shorrocks mobility index or Shorrocks rigidity index. It attempts to estimate whether the income inequality Gini coefficient is permanent or temporary and to what extent a country or region enables economic mobility to its people so that they can move from one (e.g., bottom 20%) income quantile to another (e.g., middle 20%) over time. In other words, the Shorrocks index compares inequality of short-term earnings, such as the annual income of households, to inequality of long-term earnings, such as 5-year or 10-year total income for the same households.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Shorrocks index is calculated in several different ways, a common approach being from the ratio of income Gini coefficients between short-term and long-term for the same region or country.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "A 2010 study using social security income data for the United States since 1937 and Gini-based Shorrock's indices concludes that income mobility in the United States has had a complicated history, primarily due to the mass influx of women into the American labor force after World War II. Income inequality and income mobility trends have been different for men and women workers between 1937 and the 2000s. When men and women are considered together, the Gini coefficient-based Shorrocks index trends imply long-term income inequality has been substantially reduced among all workers, in recent decades for the United States. Other scholars, using just 1990s data or other short periods have come to different conclusions. For example, Sastre and Ayala conclude from their study of income Gini coefficient data between 1993 and 1998 for six developed economies that France had the least income mobility, Italy the highest, and the United States and Germany intermediate levels of income mobility over those five years.",
"title": "Of social development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Gini coefficient has features that make it useful as a measure of dispersion in a population, and inequalities in particular. The coefficient ranges from 0, for perfect equality, to 1, indicating perfect inequality. The Gini is based on the comparison of cumulative proportions of the population against cumulative proportions of income they receive.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Gini coefficient is a relative measure. The Gini coefficient of a developing country can rise (due to increasing inequality of income) even when the number of people in absolute poverty decreases. This is because the Gini coefficient measures relative, not absolute, wealth. Changing income inequality, measured by Gini coefficients, can be due to structural changes in a society such as growing population (increased birth rates, aging populations, increased divorce rates, extended family households splitting into nuclear families, emigration, immigration) and income mobility. Gini coefficients are simple, and this simplicity can lead to oversights and can confuse the comparison of different populations; for example, while both Bangladesh (per capita income of $1,693) and the Netherlands (per capita income of $42,183) had an income Gini coefficient of 0.31 in 2010, the quality of life, economic opportunity and absolute income in these countries are very different, i.e. countries may have identical Gini coefficients, but differ greatly in wealth. Basic necessities may be available to all in a developed economy, while in an undeveloped economy with the same Gini coefficient, basic necessities may be unavailable to most or unequally available due to lower absolute wealth.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Even when the total income of a population is the same, in certain situations two countries with different income distributions can have the same Gini index (e.g. cases when income Lorenz Curves cross). Table A illustrates one such situation. Both countries have a Gini coefficient of 0.2, but the average income distributions for household groups are different. As another example, in a population where the lowest 50% of individuals have no income, and the other 50% have equal income, the Gini coefficient is 0.5; whereas for another population where the lowest 75% of people have 25% of income and the top 25% have 75% of the income, the Gini index is also 0.5. Economies with similar incomes and Gini coefficients can have very different income distributions. Bellù and Liberati claim that ranking income inequality between two populations is not always possible based on their Gini indices. Similarly, computational social scientist Fabian Stephany illustrates that income inequality within the population, e.g., in specific socioeconomic groups of same age and education, also remains undetected by conventional Gini indices.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "A Gini index does not contain information about absolute national or personal incomes. Populations can simultaneously have very low-income Gini indices and very high wealth Gini indexes. By measuring inequality in income, the Gini ignores the differential efficiency of the use of household income. By ignoring wealth (except as it contributes to income), the Gini can create the appearance of inequality when the people compared are at different stages in their life. Wealthy countries such as Sweden can show a low Gini coefficient for the disposable income of 0.31, thereby appearing equal, yet have a very high Gini coefficient for wealth of 0.79 to 0.86, suggesting an extremely unequal wealth distribution in its society. These factors are not assessed in income-based Gini.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Gini index has a downward-bias for small populations. Counties or states or countries with small populations and less diverse economies will tend to report small Gini coefficients. For economically diverse large population groups, a much higher coefficient is expected than for each of its regions. For example, taking the world economy as a whole and income distribution for all human beings, different scholars estimate the global Gini index to range between 0.61 and 0.68. As with other inequality coefficients, the Gini coefficient is influenced by the granularity of the measurements. For example, five 20% quantiles (low granularity) will usually yield a lower Gini coefficient than twenty 5% quantiles (high granularity) for the same distribution. Philippe Monfort has shown that using inconsistent or unspecified granularity limits the usefulness of Gini coefficient measurements.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Gini coefficient measure gives different results when applied to individuals instead of households, for the same economy and same income distributions. If household data is used, the measured value of income Gini depends on how the household is defined. The comparison is not meaningful when different populations are not measured with consistent definitions.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Deininger and Squire (1996) show that the income Gini coefficient based on individual income rather than household income is different. For example, for the United States, they found that the individual income-based Gini index was 0.35, while for France, 0.43. According to their individual-focused method, in the 108 countries they studied, South Africa had the world's highest Gini coefficient at 0.62, Malaysia had Asia's highest Gini coefficient at 0.5, Brazil the highest at 0.57 in Latin America and the Caribbean region, and Turkey the highest at 0.5 in OECD countries.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Expanding on the importance of life-span measures, the Gini coefficient as a point-estimate of equality at a certain time ignores life-span changes in income. Typically, increases in the proportion of young or old members of a society will drive apparent changes in equality simply because people generally have lower incomes and wealth when they are young than when they are old. Because of this, factors such as age distribution within a population and mobility within income classes can create the appearance of inequality when none exist, taking into account demographic effects. Thus a given economy may have a higher Gini coefficient at any timepoint compared to another, while the Gini coefficient calculated over individuals' lifetime income is lower than the apparently more equal (at a given point in time) economy's. Essentially, what matters is not just inequality in any particular year but the distribution composition over time.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Billionaire Thomas Kwok claimed the income Gini coefficient for Hong Kong has been high (0.434 in 2010), in part because of structural changes in its population. Over recent decades, Hong Kong has witnessed increasing numbers of small households, elderly households, and elderly living alone. The combined income is now split into more households. Many older people live separately from their children in Hong Kong. These social changes have caused substantial changes in household income distribution. The income Gini coefficient, claims Kwok, does not discern these structural changes in its society. Household money income distribution for the United States, summarized in Table C of this section, confirms that this issue is not limited to just Hong Kong. According to the US Census Bureau, between 1979 and 2010, the population of the United States experienced structural changes in overall households; the income for all income brackets increased in inflation-adjusted terms, household income distributions shifted into higher income brackets over time, while the income Gini coefficient increased.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Another limitation of the Gini coefficient is that it is not a proper measure of egalitarianism, as it only measures income dispersion. For example, suppose two equally egalitarian countries pursue different immigration policies. In that case, the country accepting a higher proportion of low-income or impoverished migrants will report a higher Gini coefficient and, therefore, may exhibit more income inequality.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Some countries distribute benefits that are difficult to value. Countries that provide subsidized housing, medical care, education or other such services are difficult to value objectively, as it depends on the quality and extent of the benefit. In absence of a free market, valuing these income transfers as household income is subjective. The theoretical model of the Gini coefficient is limited to accepting correct or incorrect subjective assumptions.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In subsistence-driven and informal economies, people may have significant income in other forms than money, for example, through subsistence farming or bartering. These income tend to accrue to the segment of population below the poverty line or very poor in emerging and transitional economy countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Informal economy accounts for over half of global employment and as much as 90 per cent of employment in some of the poorer sub-Saharan countries with high official Gini inequality coefficients. Schneider et al., in their 2010 study of 162 countries, report about 31.2%, or about $20 trillion, of world's GDP is informal. In developing countries, the informal economy predominates for all income brackets except the richer, urban upper-income bracket populations. Even in developed economies, 8% (United States) to 27% (Italy) of each nation's GDP is informal. The resulting informal income predominates as a livelihood activity for those in the lowest income brackets. The value and distribution of the incomes from informal or underground economy is difficult to quantify, making true income Gini coefficients estimates difficult. Different assumptions and quantifications of these incomes will yield different Gini coefficients.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Gini has some mathematical limitations as well. It is not additive and different sets of people cannot be averaged to obtain the Gini coefficient of all the people in the sets.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Given the limitations of the Gini coefficient, other statistical methods are used in combination or as an alternative measure of population dispersity. For example, entropy measures are frequently used (e.g. the Atkinson index or the Theil Index and Mean log deviation as special cases of the generalized entropy index). These measures attempt to compare the distribution of resources by intelligent agents in the market with a maximum entropy random distribution, which would occur if these agents acted like non-interacting particles in a closed system following the laws of statistical physics.",
"title": "Alternatives"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "There is a summary measure of the diagnostic ability of a binary classifier system that is also called the Gini coefficient, which is defined as twice the area between the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and its diagonal. It is related to the AUC (Area Under the ROC Curve) measure of performance given by A U C = ( G + 1 ) / 2 {\\displaystyle AUC=(G+1)/2} and to Mann–Whitney U. Although both Gini coefficients are defined as areas between certain curves and share certain properties, there is no simple direct relationship between the Gini coefficient of statistical dispersion and the Gini coefficient of a classifier.",
"title": "Relation to other statistical measures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The Gini index is also related to the Pietra index — both of which measure statistical heterogeneity and are derived from the Lorenz curve and the diagonal line.",
"title": "Relation to other statistical measures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "In certain fields such as ecology, inverse Simpson's index 1 / λ {\\displaystyle 1/\\lambda } is used to quantify diversity, and this should not be confused with the Simpson index λ {\\displaystyle \\lambda } . These indicators are related to Gini. The inverse Simpson index increases with diversity, unlike the Simpson index and Gini coefficient, which decrease with diversity. The Simpson index is in the range [0, 1], where 0 means maximum and 1 means minimum diversity (or heterogeneity). Since diversity indices typically increase with increasing heterogeneity, the Simpson index is often transformed into inverse Simpson, or using the complement 1 − λ {\\displaystyle 1-\\lambda } , known as the Gini-Simpson Index.",
"title": "Relation to other statistical measures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "In recent decades, researchers have attempted to estimate Gini coefficients for pre-20th century societies. In the absence of household income surveys and income taxes, scholars have relied on proxy variables. These include wealth taxes in medieval European city states, patterns of landownership in Roman Egypt, variation of the size of houses in societies from ancient Greece to Aztec Mexico, and inheritance and dowries in Babylonian society. Other data does not directly document variations in wealth or income but are known to reflect inequality, such as the ratio of rents to wages or of labor to capital.",
"title": "Gini coefficients for pre-modern societies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Although the Gini coefficient is most popular in economics, it can, in theory, be applied in any field of science that studies a distribution. For example, in ecology, the Gini coefficient has been used as a measure of biodiversity, where the cumulative proportion of species is plotted against the cumulative proportion of individuals. In health, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of health-related quality of life in a population. In education, it has been used as a measure of the inequality of universities. In chemistry it has been used to express the selectivity of protein kinase inhibitors against a panel of kinases. In engineering, it has been used to evaluate the fairness achieved by Internet routers in scheduling packet transmissions from different flows of traffic.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The Gini coefficient is sometimes used for the measurement of the discriminatory power of rating systems in credit risk management.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "A 2005 study accessed US census data to measure home computer ownership and used the Gini coefficient to measure inequalities amongst whites and African Americans. Results indicated that although decreasing overall, home computer ownership inequality was substantially smaller among white households.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "A 2016 peer-reviewed study titled Employing the Gini coefficient to measure participation inequality in treatment-focused Digital Health Social Networks illustrated that the Gini coefficient was helpful and accurate in measuring shifts in inequality, however as a standalone metric it failed to incorporate overall network size.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Discriminatory power refers to a credit risk model's ability to differentiate between defaulting and non-defaulting clients. The formula G 1 {\\displaystyle G_{1}} , in the calculation section above, may be used for the final model and at the individual model factor level to quantify the discriminatory power of individual factors. It is related to the accuracy ratio in population assessment models.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The Gini coefficient has also been applied to analyze inequality in dating apps.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Kaminskiy and Krivtsov extended the concept of the Gini coefficient from economics to reliability theory and proposed a Gini–type coefficient that helps to assess the degree of aging of non−repairable systems or aging and rejuvenation of repairable systems. The coefficient is defined between -1 and 1 and can be used in both empirical and parametric life distributions. It takes negative values for the class of decreasing failure rate distributions and point processes with decreasing failure intensity rate and is positive for the increasing failure rate distributions and point processes with increasing failure intensity rate. The value of zero corresponds to the exponential life distribution or the Homogeneous Poisson Process.",
"title": "Other uses"
}
]
| In economics, the Gini coefficient, also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini. The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among the values of a frequency distribution, such as levels of income. A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none. The Gini coefficient was proposed by Corrado Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth. For OECD countries in the late 20th century, considering the effect of taxes and transfer payments, the income Gini coefficient ranged between 0.24 and 0.49, with Slovenia being the lowest and Mexico the highest. African countries had the highest pre-tax Gini coefficients in 2008–2009, with South Africa having the world's highest, estimated to be 0.63 to 0.7. However, this figure drops to 0.52 after social assistance is taken into account, and drops again to 0.47 after taxation. The country with the lowest Gini coefficient is Slovenia, with a Gini coefficient of 0.232. The Gini coefficient of the global income in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources. There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, as the same value may result from many different distribution curves. To mitigate this, the demographic structure should be taken into account. Countries with an aging population, or those with an increased birth rate, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Many scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient. | 2001-09-23T02:18:57Z | 2023-12-27T14:13:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient |
12,884 | GCHQ | Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.
GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the UK's own communications. The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments. It is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes.
In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance. The Guardian newspaper was forced to destroy computer hard drives with the files Snowden had given them because of the threats of a lawsuit under the Official Secrets Act.
GCHQ is led by the Director of GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler, and a Corporate Board, made up of executive and non-executive directors. Reporting to the Corporate Board are:
During the First World War, the British Army and Royal Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (initially known as Room 40) respectively. In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee, chaired by Lord Curzon, recommended that a peacetime codebreaking agency should be created, a task which was given to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Hugh Sinclair. Sinclair merged staff from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which initially consisted of around 25–30 officers and a similar number of clerical staff. It was titled the "Government Code and Cypher School" (GC&CS), a cover-name which was chosen by Victor Forbes of the Foreign Office. Alastair Denniston, who had been a member of NID25, was appointed as its operational head. It was initially under the control of the Admiralty and located in Watergate House, Adelphi, London. Its public function was "to advise as to the security of codes and cyphers used by all Government departments and to assist in their provision", but also had a secret directive to "study the methods of cypher communications used by foreign powers". GC&CS officially formed on 1 November 1919, and produced its first decrypt prior to that date, on 19 October.
Before the Second World War, GC&CS was a relatively small department. By 1922, the main focus of GC&CS was on diplomatic traffic, with "no service traffic ever worth circulating" and so, at the initiative of Lord Curzon, it was transferred from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office. GC&CS came under the supervision of Hugh Sinclair, who by 1923 was both the Chief of SIS and Director of GC&CS. In 1925, both organisations were co-located on different floors of Broadway Buildings, opposite St. James's Park. Messages decrypted by GC&CS were distributed in blue-jacketed files that became known as "BJs". In the 1920s, GC&CS was successfully reading Soviet Union diplomatic cyphers. However, in May 1927, during a row over clandestine Soviet support for the General Strike and the distribution of subversive propaganda, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made details from the decrypts public.
During the Second World War, GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park, in present-day Milton Keynes, working on understanding the German Enigma machine and Lorenz ciphers. In 1940, GC&CS was working on the diplomatic codes and ciphers of 26 countries, tackling over 150 diplomatic cryptosystems. Senior staff included Alastair Denniston, Oliver Strachey, Dilly Knox, John Tiltman, Edward Travis, Ernst Fetterlein, Josh Cooper, Donald Michie, Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Joan Clarke, Max Newman, William Tutte, I. J. (Jack) Good, Peter Calvocoressi and Hugh Foss. The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA, connected the signal intercept networks of the GC&CS and the US National Security Agency (NSA).
An outstation in the Far East, the Far East Combined Bureau, was set up in Hong Kong in 1935 and moved to Singapore in 1939. Subsequently, with the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula, the Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, India. The Navy codebreakers in FECB went to Colombo, Ceylon, then to Kilindini, near Mombasa, Kenya.
GC&CS was renamed the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in June 1946.
The organisation was at first based in Eastcote in northwest London, then in 1951 moved to the outskirts of Cheltenham, setting up two sites at Oakley and Benhall. One of the major reasons for selecting Cheltenham was that the town had been the location of the headquarters of the United States Army Services of Supply for the European Theater during the War, which built up a telecommunications infrastructure in the region to carry out its logistics tasks.
Following the Second World War, US and British intelligence have shared information as part of the UKUSA Agreement. The principal aspect of this is that GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency (NSA), share technologies, infrastructure and information.
GCHQ ran many signals intelligence (SIGINT) monitoring stations abroad. During the early Cold War, the remnants of the British Empire provided a global network of ground stations which were a major contribution to the UKUSA Agreement; the US regarded RAF Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong as the most valuable of these. The monitoring stations were largely run by inexpensive National Service recruits, but when this ended in the early 1960s, the increased cost of civilian employees caused budgetary problems. In 1965 a Foreign Office review found that 11,500 staff were involved in SIGINT collection (8,000 GCHQ staff and 3,500 military personnel), exceeding the size of the Diplomatic Service. Reaction to the Suez War led to the eviction of GCHQ from several of its best foreign SIGINT collection sites, including the new Perkar, Ceylon site and RAF Habbaniya, Iraq. The staff largely moved to tented encampments on military bases in Cyprus, which later became the Sovereign Base Area.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, GCHQ Scarborough intercepted radio communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions and used that to establish where they were heading. A copy of the report was sent directly to the White House Situation Room, providing initial indications of Soviet intentions with regards the US naval blockade of Cuba.
Duncan Campbell and Mark Hosenball revealed the existence of GCHQ in 1976 in an article for Time Out; as a result, Hosenball was deported from the UK. GCHQ had a very low profile in the media until 1983 when the trial of Geoffrey Prime, a KGB mole within it, created considerable media interest.
In 1984, GCHQ was the centre of a political row when, in the wake of strikes which affected Sigint collection, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher prohibited its employees from belonging to a trade union. Following the breakdown of talks and the failure to negotiate a no-strike agreement, it was believed by the Thatcher Government that membership of a union would be in conflict with national security. A number of mass national one-day strikes were held to protest this decision, claimed by some as the first step to wider bans on trade unions. Appeals to British courts and European Commission of Human Rights were unsuccessful. The government offered a sum of money to each employee who agreed to give up their union membership. An appeal to the International Labour Organization resulted in a decision that the government's actions were in violation of Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention.
A no-strike agreement was eventually negotiated and the ban lifted by the incoming Labour government in 1997, with the Government Communications Group of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) being formed to represent interested employees at all grades. In 2000, a group of 14 former GCHQ employees, who had been dismissed after refusing to give up their union membership, were offered re-employment, which three of them accepted.
The legal case Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service is significant beyond the dispute, and even beyond trade union law, in that it held for the first time that the royal prerogative is generally subject to judicial review, although the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Crown in this instance.
The Intelligence Services Act 1994 formalised the activities of the intelligence agencies for the first time, defining their purpose, and the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee was given a remit to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the three intelligence agencies. The objectives of GCHQ were defined as working as "in the interests of national security, with particular reference to the defence and foreign policies of His Majesty's government; in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom; and in support of the prevention and the detection of serious crime". During the introduction of the Intelligence Agency Act in late 1993, the former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan had described GCHQ as a "full-blown bureaucracy", adding that future bodies created to provide oversight of the intelligence agencies should "investigate whether all the functions that GCHQ carries out today are still necessary."
In late 1993 civil servant Michael Quinlan advised a deep review of the work of GCHQ following the conclusion of his "Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources", which had imposed a 3% cut on the agency. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken, subsequently held face to face discussions with the intelligence agency directors to assess further savings in the wake of Quinlan's review. Aldrich (2010) suggests that Sir John Adye, the then Director of GCHQ performed badly in meetings with Aitken, leading Aitken to conclude that GCHQ was "suffering from out-of-date methods of management and out-of-date methods for assessing priorities". GCHQ's budget was £850 million in 1993, (£1.84 billion as of 2021) compared to £125 million for the Security Service and SIS (MI5 and MI6). In December 1994 the businessman Roger Hurn was commissioned to begin a review of GCHQ, which was concluded in March 1995. Hurn's report recommended a cut of £100 million in GCHQ's budget; such a large reduction had not been suffered by any British intelligence agency since the end of World War II. The J Division of GCHQ, which had collected SIGINT on Russia, disappeared as a result of the cuts. The cuts had been mostly reversed by 2000 in the wake of threats from violent non-state actors, and risks from increased terrorism, organised crime and illegal access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
David Omand became the Director of GCHQ in 1996, and greatly restructured the agency in the face of new and changing targets and rapid technological change. Omand introduced the concept of "Sinews" (or "SIGINT New Systems") which allowed more flexible working methods, avoiding overlaps in work by creating fourteen domains, each with a well-defined working scope. The tenure of Omand also saw the construction of a modern new headquarters, intended to consolidate the two old sites at Oakley and Benhall into a single, more open-plan work environment. Located on a 176-acre site in Benhall, it would be the largest building constructed for secret intelligence operations outside the United States.
Operations at GCHQ's Chung Hom Kok listening station in Hong Kong ended in 1994. GCHQ's Hong Kong operations were extremely important to their relationship with the NSA, who contributed investment and equipment to the station. In anticipation of the transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the Hong Kong stations operations were moved to Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station in Geraldton in Western Australia.
Operations that used GCHQ's intelligence-gathering capabilities in the 1990s included the monitoring of communications of Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War, of dissident republican terrorists and the Real IRA, of the various factions involved in the Yugoslav Wars, and of the criminal Kenneth Noye. In the mid 1990s GCHQ began to assist in the investigation of cybercrime.
At the end of 2003, GCHQ moved in to its new building. Built on a circular plan around a large central courtyard, it quickly became known as the Doughnut. At the time, it was one of the largest public-sector building projects in Europe, with an estimated cost of £337 million. The new building, which was designed by Gensler and constructed by Carillion, became the base for all of GCHQ's Cheltenham operations.
The public spotlight fell on GCHQ in late 2003 and early 2004 following the sacking of Katharine Gun after she leaked to The Observer a confidential email from agents at the United States' National Security Agency addressed to GCHQ agents about the wiretapping of UN delegates in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.
GCHQ gains its intelligence by monitoring a wide variety of communications and other electronic signals. For this, a number of stations have been established in the UK and overseas. The listening stations are at Cheltenham itself, Bude, Scarborough, Ascension Island, and with the United States at Menwith Hill. Ayios Nikolaos Station in Cyprus is run by the British Army for GCHQ.
In March 2010, GCHQ was criticised by the Intelligence and Security Committee for problems with its IT security practices and failing to meet its targets for work targeted against cyber attacks.
As revealed by Edward Snowden in The Guardian, GCHQ spied on foreign politicians visiting the 2009 G-20 London Summit by eavesdropping phonecalls and emails and monitoring their computers, and in some cases even ongoing after the summit via keyloggers that had been installed during the summit.
According to Edward Snowden, at that time GCHQ had two principal umbrella programs for collecting communications:
GCHQ has also had access to the US internet monitoring programme PRISM from at least as far back as June 2010. PRISM is said to give the National Security Agency and FBI easy access to the systems of nine of the world's top internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, and Skype.
From 2013, GCHQ realised that public attitudes to Sigint had changed and its former unquestioned secrecy was no longer appropriate or acceptable. The growing use of the Internet, together with its inherent insecurities, meant that the communications traffic of private citizens were becoming inextricably mixed with those of their targets and openness in the handling of this issue was becoming essential to their credibility as an organisation. The Internet had become a "cyber commons", with its dominance creating a "second age of Sigint". GCHQ transformed itself accordingly, including greatly expanded Public Relations and Legal departments, and adopting public education in cyber security as an important part of its remit.
In February 2014, The Guardian, based on documents provided by Snowden, revealed that GCHQ had indiscriminately collected 1.8 million private Yahoo webcam images from users across the world. In the same month NBC and The Intercept, based on documents released by Snowden, revealed the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group and the Computer Network Exploitation units within GCHQ. Their mission was cyber operations based on "dirty tricks" to shut down enemy communications, discredit, and plant misinformation on enemies. These operations were 5% of all GCHQ operations according to a conference slideshow presented by the GCHQ.
Soon after becoming Director of GCHQ in 2014, Robert Hannigan wrote an article in the Financial Times on the topic of internet surveillance, stating that "however much [large US technology companies] may dislike it, they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals" and that GCHQ and its sister agencies "cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector", arguing that most internet users "would be comfortable with a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies". Since the 2013 global surveillance disclosures, large US technology companies have improved security and become less co-operative with foreign intelligence agencies, including those of the UK, generally requiring a US court order before disclosing data. However the head of the UK technology industry group techUK rejected these claims, stating that they understood the issues but that disclosure obligations "must be based upon a clear and transparent legal framework and effective oversight rather than, as suggested, a deal between the industry and government".
In 2015, documents obtained by The Intercept from US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that GCHQ had carried out a mass-surveillance operation, codenamed KARMA POLICE, since about 2008. The operation swept up the IP address of Internet users visiting websites, and was established with no public scrutiny or oversight. KARMA POLICE is a powerful spying tool in conjunction with other GCHQ programs because IP addresses could be cross-referenced with other data. The goal of the program, according to the documents, was "either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the internet."
In 2015, GCHQ admitted for the first time in court that it conducts computer hacking.
In 2017, US Press Secretary Sean Spicer made allegations that GCHQ had conducted surveillance on US President Donald Trump. These unfounded claims were based on statements made during an opinion piece in a FOX media segment. The US government formally apologised for the unfounded allegations and promised they would not be repeated.
British intelligence did gather information relating to Russian contacts made by Trump's campaign team in the run-up to his election, which were passed on to US intelligence agencies.
On 31 October 2018, GCHQ joined Instagram.
GCHQ personnel are recognised annually by King Charles III (formerly the Prince of Wales) at the Prince of Wales's Intelligence Community Awards at St James's Palace or Clarence House alongside members of the Security Service (MI5), and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Awards and citations are given to teams within the agencies as well as individuals.
As well as a mission to gather intelligence, GCHQ has for a long time had a corresponding mission to assist in the protection of the British government's own communications. When the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was created in 1919, its overt task was providing security advice. GC&CS's Security section was located in Mansfield College, Oxford during the Second World War.
In April 1946, GC&CS became GCHQ, and the now GCHQ Security section moved from Oxford to join the rest of the organisation at Eastcote later that year.
From 1952 to 1954, the intelligence mission of GCHQ relocated to Cheltenham; the Security section remained at Eastcote, and in March 1954 became a separate, independent organisation: the London Communications Security Agency (LCSA), which in 1958 was renamed to the London Communications-Electronic Security Agency (LCESA).
In April 1965, GPO and MOD units merged with LCESA to become the Communications-Electronic Security Department (CESD).
In October 1969, CESD was merged into GCHQ and becoming Communications-Electronic Security Group (CESG).
In 1977 CESG relocated from Eastcote to Cheltenham.
CESG continued as the UK National Technical Authority for information assurance, including cryptography. CESG did not manufacture security equipment, but worked with industry to ensure the availability of suitable products and services, while GCHQ itself funded research into such areas, for example to the Centre for Quantum Computation at Oxford University and the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research at the University of Bristol.
In the 21st century, CESG ran a number of assurance schemes such as CHECK, CLAS, Commercial Product Assurance (CPA) and CESG Assisted Products Service (CAPS).
In 1970 the concept for public-key encryption (public key infrastructure) was developed and proven by GCHQ's James H. Ellis. Ellis lacked the number theory skills required to build a workable system. In 1974 GCHQ mathematician Clifford Cocks had developed a workable public key cryptography algorithm and a workable PKI system. Cock's system was not available in the public domain until it was declassified in 1997.
By 1997 broader public key cryptography commercial technologies had been independently developed and had become well established, in areas such as email security, digital signatures, and TLS (a fundamental TCP/IP security component) etc. Most notably in 1977 the RSA algorithm had been developed (equivalent to Cocks' system) and by 1997 was extremely well established.
In 2016, the National Cyber Security Centre was established under GCHQ but located in London, as the UK's authority on cybersecurity. It absorbed and replaced CESG as well as activities that had previously existed outside GCHQ: the Centre for Cyber Assessment (CCA), Computer Emergency Response Team UK (CERT UK) and the cyber-related responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).
The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) was established in 1955, drawing on members of the small Ministry of Defence technical language team and others, initially to provide standard English translations for organisational expressions in any foreign language, discover the correct English equivalents of technical terms in foreign languages and discover the correct expansions of abbreviations in any language. The remit of the JTLS has expanded in the ensuing years to cover technical language support and interpreting and translation services across the UK Government and to local public sector services in Gloucestershire and surrounding counties. The JTLS also produces and publishes foreign language working aids under crown copyright and conducts research into machine translation and on-line dictionaries and glossaries. The JTLS is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes.
GCHQ operates in partnership with equivalent agencies worldwide in a number of bi-lateral and multi-lateral relationships. The principal of these is with the United States (National Security Agency), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Australian Signals Directorate) and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), through the mechanism of the UK-US Security Agreement, a broad intelligence-sharing agreement encompassing a range of intelligence collection methods. Relationships are alleged to include shared collection methods, such as the system described in the popular media as ECHELON, as well as analysed product.
GCHQ's legal basis is established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 Section 3 as follows:
Activities that involve interception of communications are permitted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000; this kind of interception can only be carried out after a warrant has been issued by a Secretary of State. The Human Rights Act 1998 requires the intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, to respect citizens' rights as described in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Prime Minister nominates cross-party Members of Parliament to an Intelligence and Security Committee. The remit of the Committee includes oversight of intelligence and security activities and reports are made directly to Parliament. Its functions were increased under the Justice and Security Act 2013 to provide for further access and investigatory powers.
Judicial oversight of GCHQ's conduct is exercised by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The UK also has an independent Intelligence Services Commissioner and Interception of Communications Commissioner, both of whom are former senior judges.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled in December 2014 that GCHQ does not breach the European Convention of Human Rights, and that its activities are compliant with Articles 8 (right to privacy) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention of Human Rights. However, the Tribunal stated in February 2015 that one particular aspect, the data-sharing arrangement that allowed UK Intelligence services to request data from the US surveillance programmes Prism and Upstream, had been in contravention of human rights law prior to this until two paragraphs of additional information, providing details about the procedures and safeguards, were disclosed to the public in December 2014.
Furthermore, the IPT ruled that the legislative framework in the United Kingdom does not permit mass surveillance and that while GCHQ collects and analyses data in bulk, it does not practice mass surveillance. This complements independent reports by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, and a special report made by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament; although several shortcomings and potential improvements to both oversight and the legislative framework were highlighted.
Despite the inherent secrecy around much of GCHQ's work, investigations carried out by the UK government after the Snowden disclosures have admitted various abuses by the security services. A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in 2015 revealed that a small number of staff at UK intelligence agencies had been found to misuse their surveillance powers, in one case leading to the dismissal of a member of staff at GCHQ, although there were no laws in place at the time to make these abuses a criminal offence.
Later that year, a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal found that GCHQ acted unlawfully in conducting surveillance on two human rights organisations. The closed hearing found the government in breach of its internal surveillance policies in accessing and retaining the communications of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa. This was only the second time in the IPT's history that it had made a positive determination in favour of applicants after a closed session.
At another IPT case in 2015, GCHQ conceded that "from January 2010, the regime for the interception/obtaining, analysis, use, disclosure and destruction of legally privileged material has not been in accordance with the law for the purposes of Article 8(2) of the European convention on human rights and was accordingly unlawful". This admission was made in connection with a case brought against them by Abdelhakim Belhaj, a Libyan opponent of the former Gaddafi regime, and his wife Fatima Bouchard. The couple accused British ministers and officials of participating in their unlawful abduction, kidnapping and removal to Libya in March 2004, while Gaddafi was still in power.
On 25 May 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the GCHQ is guilty of violating data privacy rules through their bulk interception of communications, and does not provide sufficient protections for confidential journalistic material because it gathers communications in bulk.
In 2015 there was a complaint by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas that British intelligence services, including GCHQ, had been spying on MPs allegedly "in defiance of laws prohibiting it."
Then-Home Secretary, Theresa May, had told Parliament in 2014 that:
Obviously, the Wilson Doctrine applies to parliamentarians. It does not absolutely exclude the use of these powers against parliamentarians, but it sets certain requirements for those powers to be used in relation to a parliamentarian. It is not the case that parliamentarians are excluded and nobody else in the country is, but there is a certain set of rules and protocols that have to be met if there is a requirement to use any of these powers against a parliamentarian.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal investigated the complaint, and ruled that contrary to the allegation, there was no law that gave the communications of Parliament any special protection. The Wilson Doctrine merely acts as a political convention.
A controversial GCHQ case determined the scope of judicial review of prerogative powers (the Crown's residual powers under common law). This was Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374 (often known simply as the "GCHQ case"). In this case, a prerogative Order in Council had been used by the prime minister (who is the Minister for the Civil Service) to ban trade union activities by civil servants working at GCHQ. This order was issued without consultation. The House of Lords had to decide whether this was reviewable by judicial review. It was held that executive action is not immune from judicial review simply because it uses powers derived from common law rather than statute (thus the prerogative is reviewable).
The following is a list of the heads and operational heads of GCHQ and GC&CS:
The following are stations and former stations that have operated since the Cold War.
In the historical drama film The Imitation Game (2014) Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Alan Turing in his efforts to break the Enigma code while employed by the Government Code and Cypher School.
GCHQ have set a number of cryptic online challenges to the public, used to attract interest and for recruitment, starting in late 1999. The response to the 2004 challenge was described as "excellent", and the challenge set in 2015 had over 600,000 attempts. It also published the GCHQ Puzzle Book in 2016 which sold more than 300,000 copies, with the proceeds going to charity. A second book was published in October 2018.
GCHQ appeared in the Doctor Who 2019 special "Resolution" where the Reconnaissance Scout Dalek storms the facility and exterminates the staff in order to use the organisation's resources to summon a Dalek fleet.
GCHQ is the setting of the 2020 Sky One sitcom Intelligence, featuring David Schwimmer as an incompetent American NSA officer liaising with GCHQ's Cyber Crimes unit.
In October 2020, intelligence and security expert John Ferris published Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency.
GCHQ is the setting of the 2022 Channel 4 drama The Undeclared War. Set in the near future, it depicts a work experience student at the government agency during a cyberattack on the UK and the implications.
GCHQ units:
GCHQ specifics:
UK agencies:
Elsewhere: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at \"The Doughnut\" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the UK's own communications. The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments. It is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance. The Guardian newspaper was forced to destroy computer hard drives with the files Snowden had given them because of the threats of a lawsuit under the Official Secrets Act.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "GCHQ is led by the Director of GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler, and a Corporate Board, made up of executive and non-executive directors. Reporting to the Corporate Board are:",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "During the First World War, the British Army and Royal Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (initially known as Room 40) respectively. In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee, chaired by Lord Curzon, recommended that a peacetime codebreaking agency should be created, a task which was given to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Hugh Sinclair. Sinclair merged staff from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which initially consisted of around 25–30 officers and a similar number of clerical staff. It was titled the \"Government Code and Cypher School\" (GC&CS), a cover-name which was chosen by Victor Forbes of the Foreign Office. Alastair Denniston, who had been a member of NID25, was appointed as its operational head. It was initially under the control of the Admiralty and located in Watergate House, Adelphi, London. Its public function was \"to advise as to the security of codes and cyphers used by all Government departments and to assist in their provision\", but also had a secret directive to \"study the methods of cypher communications used by foreign powers\". GC&CS officially formed on 1 November 1919, and produced its first decrypt prior to that date, on 19 October.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Before the Second World War, GC&CS was a relatively small department. By 1922, the main focus of GC&CS was on diplomatic traffic, with \"no service traffic ever worth circulating\" and so, at the initiative of Lord Curzon, it was transferred from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office. GC&CS came under the supervision of Hugh Sinclair, who by 1923 was both the Chief of SIS and Director of GC&CS. In 1925, both organisations were co-located on different floors of Broadway Buildings, opposite St. James's Park. Messages decrypted by GC&CS were distributed in blue-jacketed files that became known as \"BJs\". In the 1920s, GC&CS was successfully reading Soviet Union diplomatic cyphers. However, in May 1927, during a row over clandestine Soviet support for the General Strike and the distribution of subversive propaganda, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made details from the decrypts public.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the Second World War, GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park, in present-day Milton Keynes, working on understanding the German Enigma machine and Lorenz ciphers. In 1940, GC&CS was working on the diplomatic codes and ciphers of 26 countries, tackling over 150 diplomatic cryptosystems. Senior staff included Alastair Denniston, Oliver Strachey, Dilly Knox, John Tiltman, Edward Travis, Ernst Fetterlein, Josh Cooper, Donald Michie, Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Joan Clarke, Max Newman, William Tutte, I. J. (Jack) Good, Peter Calvocoressi and Hugh Foss. The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA, connected the signal intercept networks of the GC&CS and the US National Security Agency (NSA).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "An outstation in the Far East, the Far East Combined Bureau, was set up in Hong Kong in 1935 and moved to Singapore in 1939. Subsequently, with the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula, the Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, India. The Navy codebreakers in FECB went to Colombo, Ceylon, then to Kilindini, near Mombasa, Kenya.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "GC&CS was renamed the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in June 1946.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The organisation was at first based in Eastcote in northwest London, then in 1951 moved to the outskirts of Cheltenham, setting up two sites at Oakley and Benhall. One of the major reasons for selecting Cheltenham was that the town had been the location of the headquarters of the United States Army Services of Supply for the European Theater during the War, which built up a telecommunications infrastructure in the region to carry out its logistics tasks.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Following the Second World War, US and British intelligence have shared information as part of the UKUSA Agreement. The principal aspect of this is that GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency (NSA), share technologies, infrastructure and information.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "GCHQ ran many signals intelligence (SIGINT) monitoring stations abroad. During the early Cold War, the remnants of the British Empire provided a global network of ground stations which were a major contribution to the UKUSA Agreement; the US regarded RAF Little Sai Wan in Hong Kong as the most valuable of these. The monitoring stations were largely run by inexpensive National Service recruits, but when this ended in the early 1960s, the increased cost of civilian employees caused budgetary problems. In 1965 a Foreign Office review found that 11,500 staff were involved in SIGINT collection (8,000 GCHQ staff and 3,500 military personnel), exceeding the size of the Diplomatic Service. Reaction to the Suez War led to the eviction of GCHQ from several of its best foreign SIGINT collection sites, including the new Perkar, Ceylon site and RAF Habbaniya, Iraq. The staff largely moved to tented encampments on military bases in Cyprus, which later became the Sovereign Base Area.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "During the Cuban Missile Crisis, GCHQ Scarborough intercepted radio communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions and used that to establish where they were heading. A copy of the report was sent directly to the White House Situation Room, providing initial indications of Soviet intentions with regards the US naval blockade of Cuba.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Duncan Campbell and Mark Hosenball revealed the existence of GCHQ in 1976 in an article for Time Out; as a result, Hosenball was deported from the UK. GCHQ had a very low profile in the media until 1983 when the trial of Geoffrey Prime, a KGB mole within it, created considerable media interest.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1984, GCHQ was the centre of a political row when, in the wake of strikes which affected Sigint collection, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher prohibited its employees from belonging to a trade union. Following the breakdown of talks and the failure to negotiate a no-strike agreement, it was believed by the Thatcher Government that membership of a union would be in conflict with national security. A number of mass national one-day strikes were held to protest this decision, claimed by some as the first step to wider bans on trade unions. Appeals to British courts and European Commission of Human Rights were unsuccessful. The government offered a sum of money to each employee who agreed to give up their union membership. An appeal to the International Labour Organization resulted in a decision that the government's actions were in violation of Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "A no-strike agreement was eventually negotiated and the ban lifted by the incoming Labour government in 1997, with the Government Communications Group of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) being formed to represent interested employees at all grades. In 2000, a group of 14 former GCHQ employees, who had been dismissed after refusing to give up their union membership, were offered re-employment, which three of them accepted.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The legal case Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service is significant beyond the dispute, and even beyond trade union law, in that it held for the first time that the royal prerogative is generally subject to judicial review, although the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Crown in this instance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Intelligence Services Act 1994 formalised the activities of the intelligence agencies for the first time, defining their purpose, and the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee was given a remit to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the three intelligence agencies. The objectives of GCHQ were defined as working as \"in the interests of national security, with particular reference to the defence and foreign policies of His Majesty's government; in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom; and in support of the prevention and the detection of serious crime\". During the introduction of the Intelligence Agency Act in late 1993, the former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan had described GCHQ as a \"full-blown bureaucracy\", adding that future bodies created to provide oversight of the intelligence agencies should \"investigate whether all the functions that GCHQ carries out today are still necessary.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In late 1993 civil servant Michael Quinlan advised a deep review of the work of GCHQ following the conclusion of his \"Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources\", which had imposed a 3% cut on the agency. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken, subsequently held face to face discussions with the intelligence agency directors to assess further savings in the wake of Quinlan's review. Aldrich (2010) suggests that Sir John Adye, the then Director of GCHQ performed badly in meetings with Aitken, leading Aitken to conclude that GCHQ was \"suffering from out-of-date methods of management and out-of-date methods for assessing priorities\". GCHQ's budget was £850 million in 1993, (£1.84 billion as of 2021) compared to £125 million for the Security Service and SIS (MI5 and MI6). In December 1994 the businessman Roger Hurn was commissioned to begin a review of GCHQ, which was concluded in March 1995. Hurn's report recommended a cut of £100 million in GCHQ's budget; such a large reduction had not been suffered by any British intelligence agency since the end of World War II. The J Division of GCHQ, which had collected SIGINT on Russia, disappeared as a result of the cuts. The cuts had been mostly reversed by 2000 in the wake of threats from violent non-state actors, and risks from increased terrorism, organised crime and illegal access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "David Omand became the Director of GCHQ in 1996, and greatly restructured the agency in the face of new and changing targets and rapid technological change. Omand introduced the concept of \"Sinews\" (or \"SIGINT New Systems\") which allowed more flexible working methods, avoiding overlaps in work by creating fourteen domains, each with a well-defined working scope. The tenure of Omand also saw the construction of a modern new headquarters, intended to consolidate the two old sites at Oakley and Benhall into a single, more open-plan work environment. Located on a 176-acre site in Benhall, it would be the largest building constructed for secret intelligence operations outside the United States.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Operations at GCHQ's Chung Hom Kok listening station in Hong Kong ended in 1994. GCHQ's Hong Kong operations were extremely important to their relationship with the NSA, who contributed investment and equipment to the station. In anticipation of the transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the Hong Kong stations operations were moved to Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station in Geraldton in Western Australia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Operations that used GCHQ's intelligence-gathering capabilities in the 1990s included the monitoring of communications of Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War, of dissident republican terrorists and the Real IRA, of the various factions involved in the Yugoslav Wars, and of the criminal Kenneth Noye. In the mid 1990s GCHQ began to assist in the investigation of cybercrime.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At the end of 2003, GCHQ moved in to its new building. Built on a circular plan around a large central courtyard, it quickly became known as the Doughnut. At the time, it was one of the largest public-sector building projects in Europe, with an estimated cost of £337 million. The new building, which was designed by Gensler and constructed by Carillion, became the base for all of GCHQ's Cheltenham operations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The public spotlight fell on GCHQ in late 2003 and early 2004 following the sacking of Katharine Gun after she leaked to The Observer a confidential email from agents at the United States' National Security Agency addressed to GCHQ agents about the wiretapping of UN delegates in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "GCHQ gains its intelligence by monitoring a wide variety of communications and other electronic signals. For this, a number of stations have been established in the UK and overseas. The listening stations are at Cheltenham itself, Bude, Scarborough, Ascension Island, and with the United States at Menwith Hill. Ayios Nikolaos Station in Cyprus is run by the British Army for GCHQ.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In March 2010, GCHQ was criticised by the Intelligence and Security Committee for problems with its IT security practices and failing to meet its targets for work targeted against cyber attacks.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "As revealed by Edward Snowden in The Guardian, GCHQ spied on foreign politicians visiting the 2009 G-20 London Summit by eavesdropping phonecalls and emails and monitoring their computers, and in some cases even ongoing after the summit via keyloggers that had been installed during the summit.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "According to Edward Snowden, at that time GCHQ had two principal umbrella programs for collecting communications:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "GCHQ has also had access to the US internet monitoring programme PRISM from at least as far back as June 2010. PRISM is said to give the National Security Agency and FBI easy access to the systems of nine of the world's top internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, and Skype.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "From 2013, GCHQ realised that public attitudes to Sigint had changed and its former unquestioned secrecy was no longer appropriate or acceptable. The growing use of the Internet, together with its inherent insecurities, meant that the communications traffic of private citizens were becoming inextricably mixed with those of their targets and openness in the handling of this issue was becoming essential to their credibility as an organisation. The Internet had become a \"cyber commons\", with its dominance creating a \"second age of Sigint\". GCHQ transformed itself accordingly, including greatly expanded Public Relations and Legal departments, and adopting public education in cyber security as an important part of its remit.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In February 2014, The Guardian, based on documents provided by Snowden, revealed that GCHQ had indiscriminately collected 1.8 million private Yahoo webcam images from users across the world. In the same month NBC and The Intercept, based on documents released by Snowden, revealed the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group and the Computer Network Exploitation units within GCHQ. Their mission was cyber operations based on \"dirty tricks\" to shut down enemy communications, discredit, and plant misinformation on enemies. These operations were 5% of all GCHQ operations according to a conference slideshow presented by the GCHQ.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Soon after becoming Director of GCHQ in 2014, Robert Hannigan wrote an article in the Financial Times on the topic of internet surveillance, stating that \"however much [large US technology companies] may dislike it, they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals\" and that GCHQ and its sister agencies \"cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector\", arguing that most internet users \"would be comfortable with a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies\". Since the 2013 global surveillance disclosures, large US technology companies have improved security and become less co-operative with foreign intelligence agencies, including those of the UK, generally requiring a US court order before disclosing data. However the head of the UK technology industry group techUK rejected these claims, stating that they understood the issues but that disclosure obligations \"must be based upon a clear and transparent legal framework and effective oversight rather than, as suggested, a deal between the industry and government\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 2015, documents obtained by The Intercept from US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that GCHQ had carried out a mass-surveillance operation, codenamed KARMA POLICE, since about 2008. The operation swept up the IP address of Internet users visiting websites, and was established with no public scrutiny or oversight. KARMA POLICE is a powerful spying tool in conjunction with other GCHQ programs because IP addresses could be cross-referenced with other data. The goal of the program, according to the documents, was \"either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the internet.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 2015, GCHQ admitted for the first time in court that it conducts computer hacking.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 2017, US Press Secretary Sean Spicer made allegations that GCHQ had conducted surveillance on US President Donald Trump. These unfounded claims were based on statements made during an opinion piece in a FOX media segment. The US government formally apologised for the unfounded allegations and promised they would not be repeated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "British intelligence did gather information relating to Russian contacts made by Trump's campaign team in the run-up to his election, which were passed on to US intelligence agencies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On 31 October 2018, GCHQ joined Instagram.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "GCHQ personnel are recognised annually by King Charles III (formerly the Prince of Wales) at the Prince of Wales's Intelligence Community Awards at St James's Palace or Clarence House alongside members of the Security Service (MI5), and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Awards and citations are given to teams within the agencies as well as individuals.",
"title": "Personnel awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "As well as a mission to gather intelligence, GCHQ has for a long time had a corresponding mission to assist in the protection of the British government's own communications. When the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was created in 1919, its overt task was providing security advice. GC&CS's Security section was located in Mansfield College, Oxford during the Second World War.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In April 1946, GC&CS became GCHQ, and the now GCHQ Security section moved from Oxford to join the rest of the organisation at Eastcote later that year.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "From 1952 to 1954, the intelligence mission of GCHQ relocated to Cheltenham; the Security section remained at Eastcote, and in March 1954 became a separate, independent organisation: the London Communications Security Agency (LCSA), which in 1958 was renamed to the London Communications-Electronic Security Agency (LCESA).",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In April 1965, GPO and MOD units merged with LCESA to become the Communications-Electronic Security Department (CESD).",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In October 1969, CESD was merged into GCHQ and becoming Communications-Electronic Security Group (CESG).",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 1977 CESG relocated from Eastcote to Cheltenham.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "CESG continued as the UK National Technical Authority for information assurance, including cryptography. CESG did not manufacture security equipment, but worked with industry to ensure the availability of suitable products and services, while GCHQ itself funded research into such areas, for example to the Centre for Quantum Computation at Oxford University and the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research at the University of Bristol.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In the 21st century, CESG ran a number of assurance schemes such as CHECK, CLAS, Commercial Product Assurance (CPA) and CESG Assisted Products Service (CAPS).",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 1970 the concept for public-key encryption (public key infrastructure) was developed and proven by GCHQ's James H. Ellis. Ellis lacked the number theory skills required to build a workable system. In 1974 GCHQ mathematician Clifford Cocks had developed a workable public key cryptography algorithm and a workable PKI system. Cock's system was not available in the public domain until it was declassified in 1997.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "By 1997 broader public key cryptography commercial technologies had been independently developed and had become well established, in areas such as email security, digital signatures, and TLS (a fundamental TCP/IP security component) etc. Most notably in 1977 the RSA algorithm had been developed (equivalent to Cocks' system) and by 1997 was extremely well established.",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In 2016, the National Cyber Security Centre was established under GCHQ but located in London, as the UK's authority on cybersecurity. It absorbed and replaced CESG as well as activities that had previously existed outside GCHQ: the Centre for Cyber Assessment (CCA), Computer Emergency Response Team UK (CERT UK) and the cyber-related responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).",
"title": "Security mission"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) was established in 1955, drawing on members of the small Ministry of Defence technical language team and others, initially to provide standard English translations for organisational expressions in any foreign language, discover the correct English equivalents of technical terms in foreign languages and discover the correct expansions of abbreviations in any language. The remit of the JTLS has expanded in the ensuing years to cover technical language support and interpreting and translation services across the UK Government and to local public sector services in Gloucestershire and surrounding counties. The JTLS also produces and publishes foreign language working aids under crown copyright and conducts research into machine translation and on-line dictionaries and glossaries. The JTLS is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes.",
"title": "Joint Technical Language Service"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "GCHQ operates in partnership with equivalent agencies worldwide in a number of bi-lateral and multi-lateral relationships. The principal of these is with the United States (National Security Agency), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Australian Signals Directorate) and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), through the mechanism of the UK-US Security Agreement, a broad intelligence-sharing agreement encompassing a range of intelligence collection methods. Relationships are alleged to include shared collection methods, such as the system described in the popular media as ECHELON, as well as analysed product.",
"title": "International relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "GCHQ's legal basis is established by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 Section 3 as follows:",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Activities that involve interception of communications are permitted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000; this kind of interception can only be carried out after a warrant has been issued by a Secretary of State. The Human Rights Act 1998 requires the intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, to respect citizens' rights as described in the European Convention on Human Rights.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Prime Minister nominates cross-party Members of Parliament to an Intelligence and Security Committee. The remit of the Committee includes oversight of intelligence and security activities and reports are made directly to Parliament. Its functions were increased under the Justice and Security Act 2013 to provide for further access and investigatory powers.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Judicial oversight of GCHQ's conduct is exercised by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The UK also has an independent Intelligence Services Commissioner and Interception of Communications Commissioner, both of whom are former senior judges.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled in December 2014 that GCHQ does not breach the European Convention of Human Rights, and that its activities are compliant with Articles 8 (right to privacy) and 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention of Human Rights. However, the Tribunal stated in February 2015 that one particular aspect, the data-sharing arrangement that allowed UK Intelligence services to request data from the US surveillance programmes Prism and Upstream, had been in contravention of human rights law prior to this until two paragraphs of additional information, providing details about the procedures and safeguards, were disclosed to the public in December 2014.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Furthermore, the IPT ruled that the legislative framework in the United Kingdom does not permit mass surveillance and that while GCHQ collects and analyses data in bulk, it does not practice mass surveillance. This complements independent reports by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, and a special report made by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament; although several shortcomings and potential improvements to both oversight and the legislative framework were highlighted.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Despite the inherent secrecy around much of GCHQ's work, investigations carried out by the UK government after the Snowden disclosures have admitted various abuses by the security services. A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in 2015 revealed that a small number of staff at UK intelligence agencies had been found to misuse their surveillance powers, in one case leading to the dismissal of a member of staff at GCHQ, although there were no laws in place at the time to make these abuses a criminal offence.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Later that year, a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal found that GCHQ acted unlawfully in conducting surveillance on two human rights organisations. The closed hearing found the government in breach of its internal surveillance policies in accessing and retaining the communications of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa. This was only the second time in the IPT's history that it had made a positive determination in favour of applicants after a closed session.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "At another IPT case in 2015, GCHQ conceded that \"from January 2010, the regime for the interception/obtaining, analysis, use, disclosure and destruction of legally privileged material has not been in accordance with the law for the purposes of Article 8(2) of the European convention on human rights and was accordingly unlawful\". This admission was made in connection with a case brought against them by Abdelhakim Belhaj, a Libyan opponent of the former Gaddafi regime, and his wife Fatima Bouchard. The couple accused British ministers and officials of participating in their unlawful abduction, kidnapping and removal to Libya in March 2004, while Gaddafi was still in power.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "On 25 May 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the GCHQ is guilty of violating data privacy rules through their bulk interception of communications, and does not provide sufficient protections for confidential journalistic material because it gathers communications in bulk.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In 2015 there was a complaint by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas that British intelligence services, including GCHQ, had been spying on MPs allegedly \"in defiance of laws prohibiting it.\"",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Then-Home Secretary, Theresa May, had told Parliament in 2014 that:",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Obviously, the Wilson Doctrine applies to parliamentarians. It does not absolutely exclude the use of these powers against parliamentarians, but it sets certain requirements for those powers to be used in relation to a parliamentarian. It is not the case that parliamentarians are excluded and nobody else in the country is, but there is a certain set of rules and protocols that have to be met if there is a requirement to use any of these powers against a parliamentarian.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The Investigatory Powers Tribunal investigated the complaint, and ruled that contrary to the allegation, there was no law that gave the communications of Parliament any special protection. The Wilson Doctrine merely acts as a political convention.",
"title": "Legal basis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "A controversial GCHQ case determined the scope of judicial review of prerogative powers (the Crown's residual powers under common law). This was Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1985] AC 374 (often known simply as the \"GCHQ case\"). In this case, a prerogative Order in Council had been used by the prime minister (who is the Minister for the Civil Service) to ban trade union activities by civil servants working at GCHQ. This order was issued without consultation. The House of Lords had to decide whether this was reviewable by judicial review. It was held that executive action is not immune from judicial review simply because it uses powers derived from common law rather than statute (thus the prerogative is reviewable).",
"title": "Constitutional legal case"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The following is a list of the heads and operational heads of GCHQ and GC&CS:",
"title": "Leadership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The following are stations and former stations that have operated since the Cold War.",
"title": "Stations and former stations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In the historical drama film The Imitation Game (2014) Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Alan Turing in his efforts to break the Enigma code while employed by the Government Code and Cypher School.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "GCHQ have set a number of cryptic online challenges to the public, used to attract interest and for recruitment, starting in late 1999. The response to the 2004 challenge was described as \"excellent\", and the challenge set in 2015 had over 600,000 attempts. It also published the GCHQ Puzzle Book in 2016 which sold more than 300,000 copies, with the proceeds going to charity. A second book was published in October 2018.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "GCHQ appeared in the Doctor Who 2019 special \"Resolution\" where the Reconnaissance Scout Dalek storms the facility and exterminates the staff in order to use the organisation's resources to summon a Dalek fleet.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "GCHQ is the setting of the 2020 Sky One sitcom Intelligence, featuring David Schwimmer as an incompetent American NSA officer liaising with GCHQ's Cyber Crimes unit.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In October 2020, intelligence and security expert John Ferris published Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "GCHQ is the setting of the 2022 Channel 4 drama The Undeclared War. Set in the near future, it depicts a work experience student at the government agency during a cyberattack on the UK and the implications.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "GCHQ units:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "GCHQ specifics:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "UK agencies:",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Elsewhere:",
"title": "See also"
}
]
| Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary. GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the UK's own communications. The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments. It is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes. In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance. The Guardian newspaper was forced to destroy computer hard drives with the files Snowden had given them because of the threats of a lawsuit under the Official Secrets Act. | 2001-11-27T13:32:52Z | 2023-11-26T00:50:31Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCHQ |
12,888 | Francis Gary Powers | Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.
He later worked as a helicopter pilot for KNBC in Los Angeles and died in a 1977 helicopter crash.
Powers was born August 17, 1929, in Jenkins, Kentucky, the son of Oliver Winfield Powers (1904–1970), a coal miner, and his wife Ida Melinda Powers (née Ford; 1905–1991). His family eventually moved to Pound, Virginia, just across the state border. He was the second-born and only male of six children.
His family lived in a mining town, and because of the hardships associated with living in such a town, his father wanted Powers to become a physician. He hoped his son would achieve the higher earnings of such a profession and felt that this would involve less hardship than any job in his hometown.
After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Milligan College in Tennessee in June 1950, Powers enlisted in the United States Air Force in October. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1952 after completing his advanced training with USAF Pilot Training Class 52-H at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona. Powers was then assigned to the 468th Strategic Fighter Squadron at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia, as a Republic F-84 Thunderjet pilot.
Powers married Barbara Gay Moore in Newnan, Georgia, on April 2, 1955. In January 1956 he was recruited by the CIA. In May 1956 he began U-2 training at Watertown Strip, Nevada. His training was complete by August 1956 and his unit, the Second Weather Observational Squadron (Provisional) or Detachment 10-10, was deployed to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. By 1960, Powers was already a veteran of many covert aerial reconnaissance missions. Family members believed that he was a NASA weather reconnaissance pilot.
Powers was discharged from the Air Force in 1956 with the rank of captain. He then joined the CIA's U-2 program at the civilian grade of GS-12. U-2 pilots flew espionage missions at altitudes of 70,000 feet (21 km), supposedly above the reach of Soviet air defenses. The U-2 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camera designed to take high-resolution photos from the stratosphere over hostile countries, including the Soviet Union. U-2 missions systematically photographed military installations and other important sites.
The primary mission of the U-2s was to overfly the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence had been aware of encroaching U-2 flights at least since 1958 if not earlier but lacked effective countermeasures until 1960. On May 1, 1960, Powers' U-2A, 56-6693, departed from a military airbase in Peshawar, Pakistan, with support from the U.S. Air Station at Badaber (Peshawar Air Station). This was to be the first attempt "to fly all the way across the Soviet Union ... but it was considered worth the gamble. The planned route would take us deeper into Russia than we had ever gone, while traversing important targets never before photographed."
Powers was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 "Guideline") surface-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk. A total of 14 Dvinas were launched, one of which hit a MiG-19 jet fighter which was sent to intercept the U-2 but could not reach a high enough altitude. Its pilot, Sergei Safronov, ejected but died of his injuries. Another Soviet aircraft, a newly manufactured Su-9 on a transit flight, also attempted to intercept Powers' U-2. The unarmed Su-9 was directed to ram the U-2 but missed because of the large differences in speed.
As Powers flew near Kosulino in the Ural Region, three S-75 Dvinas were launched at his U-2, with the first one hitting the aircraft. "What was left of the plane began spinning, only upside down, the nose pointing upward toward the sky, the tail down toward the ground." According to his book Operation Overflight, Powers delayed activating the camera's self-destruct mechanism until he made sure he could exit the cockpit before the charges detonated. When g-forces unexpectedly threw him from the spinning aircraft, he could no longer reach the destruct switches. While descending under his parachute, Powers had time to scatter his escape map, and rid himself of part of his suicide device, a silver dollar coin suspended around his neck containing a poison-laced injection pin, though he kept the poison pin. "Yet I was still hopeful of escape." He hit the ground hard, was immediately captured, and taken to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. Powers did note a second chute after landing on the ground, "some distance away and very high, a lone red and white parachute".
When the U.S. government learned of Powers' disappearance over the Soviet Union, they lied that a "weather plane" had strayed off course after its pilot had "difficulties with his oxygen equipment". What CIA officials did not realize was that the plane crashed almost fully intact and that the Soviets had recovered its pilot and the plane's equipment, including its top-secret high-altitude camera. Powers was interrogated extensively by the KGB for months before he made a confession and a public apology for his part in espionage.
Following admission by the White House that Powers had been captured alive, American media depicted Powers as an all-American pilot hero, who never smoked or touched alcohol. In fact, Powers smoked and drank socially. The CIA urged that his wife Barbara be given sedatives before speaking to the press and gave her talking points that she repeated to the press to portray her as a devoted wife. Her broken leg, according to the CIA disinformation, was the result of a water-skiing accident, when in fact it happened after she had had too much to drink and was dancing with another man.
In the course of his trial for espionage in the Soviet Union, Powers confessed to the charges against him and apologized for violating Soviet airspace to spy on the Soviets. In the wake of his apology, American media often depicted Powers as a coward and even as a symptom of the decay of America's "moral character."
Powers tried to limit the information he shared with the KGB to that which could be determined from the remains of his plane's wreckage. He was hampered by information appearing in the western press. A KGB major stated "there's no reason for you to withhold information. We'll find it out anyway. Your Press will give it to us." However, he limited his divulging of CIA contacts to one individual, with a pseudonym of "Collins". At the same time, he repeatedly stated the maximum altitude for the U-2 was 68,000 feet (21 km), lower than its actual flight ceiling.
The incident set back talks between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Powers' interrogations ended on June 30, and his solitary confinement ended on July 9. On August 17, 1960, his trial began for espionage before the military division of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. Lieutenant General Borisoglebsky, Major General Vorobyev, and Major General Zakharov presided. Roman Rudenko acted as prosecutor in his capacity of Procurator General of the Soviet Union. Mikhail I. Grinev served as Powers' defense counsel. In attendance were his parents and sister, and his wife Barbara and her mother. His father brought along his attorney Carl McAfee, while the CIA provided two additional attorneys.
On August 19, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage, "a grave crime covered by Article 2 of the Soviet Union's law 'On Criminality Responsibility for State Crimes'". His sentence consisted of 10 years' confinement, three of which were to be in a prison, with the remainder in a labor camp. The US Embassy "News Bulletin" stated, according to Powers, "as far as the government was concerned, I had acted in accordance with the instructions given me and would receive my full salary while imprisoned".
He was held in Vladimir Central Prison, about 150 miles (240 km) east of Moscow, in building number 2 from September 9, 1960, until February 8, 1962. His cellmate was Zigurds Krūmiņš, a Latvian political prisoner. Powers kept a diary and a journal while confined. Additionally, he learned carpet weaving from his cellmate to pass the time. He could send and receive a limited number of letters to and from his family. The prison now contains a small museum with an exhibit on Powers, who allegedly developed a good rapport with Soviet prisoners there. Some pieces of the plane and Powers' uniform are on display at the Monino Airbase museum near Moscow.
The CIA, in particular, chief of CIA Counterintelligence James Jesus Angleton, opposed exchanging Powers for Soviet KGB Colonel William Fisher, known as "Rudolf Abel", who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage. First, Angleton believed that Powers might have deliberately defected to the Soviet side. CIA documents released in 2010 indicate that U.S. officials did not believe Powers' account of the incident at the time, because it was contradicted by a classified National Security Agency (NSA) report which alleged that the U-2 had descended from 65,000 to 34,000 feet (20 to 10 km) before changing course and disappearing from radar. The NSA report remains classified as of 2022.
In any event, Angleton suspected that Powers had already revealed all he knew to the Soviets and therefore reasoned that Powers was worthless to the U.S. On the other hand, according to Angleton, William Fisher had revealed little to the CIA, refusing to disclose even his real name, and for this reason, William Fisher was still of potential value.
However, Barbara Powers, Gary Powers' wife, was allegedly often drinking and having affairs. On June 22, 1961, she was pulled over by the police after driving erratically and was caught driving under the influence. To avoid bad publicity for the wife of the well-known CIA operative, doctors tasked by the CIA to keep Barbara out of the limelight arranged to have her committed to a psychiatric ward in Augusta, Georgia, under strict supervision. She was eventually released to the care of her mother. However, the CIA feared that Gary Powers languishing in Soviet prison might learn of Barbara's plight and as a result reach a state of desperation causing him to reveal to the Soviets whatever secrets he had not already revealed. Thus, Barbara unwittingly may have aided the cause of the approval of the prisoner exchange involving her husband and William Fisher. Angleton and others at the CIA still opposed the exchange but President John F. Kennedy approved it.
On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with U.S. student Frederic Pryor, for Soviet KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel. Due to political differences between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic at the time, Pryor was turned over to American authorities at Checkpoint Charlie, before the exchange of Powers for Fisher was allowed to proceed on the Glienicke Bridge.
Powers credited his father with the swap idea. When released, Powers' total time in captivity was 1 year, 9 months, and 10 days.
Powers initially received a cold reception on his return home. He was criticized for not activating his aircraft's self-destruct charge to destroy the camera, photographic film, and related classified parts. He was also criticized for not using a CIA-issued "suicide pill" to kill himself (a coin with shellfish toxin embedded in its grooves, revealed during CIA testimony to the Church Committee in 1975).
He was debriefed extensively by the CIA, Lockheed Corporation, and the Air Force, after which a statement was issued by CIA director John McCone that "Mr. Powers lived up to the terms of his employment and instructions in connection with his mission and in his obligations as an American." On March 6, 1962, he appeared before a Senate Armed Services Select Committee hearing chaired by Senator Richard Russell Jr. which included Senators Prescott Bush, Leverett Saltonstall, Robert Byrd, Margaret Chase Smith, John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and Barry Goldwater. During the hearing, Senator Saltonstall stated, "I commend you as a courageous, fine young American citizen who lived up to your instructions and who did the best you could under very difficult circumstances." Senator Bush declared, "I am satisfied he has conducted himself in exemplary fashion and in accordance with the highest traditions of service to one's country, and I congratulate him upon his conduct in captivity." Senator Goldwater sent him a handwritten note: "You did a good job for your country."
Powers sued his wife for divorce on August 14, 1962, claiming she cursed and abused him for no reason. Powers stated that the reasons for the divorce included her infidelity and alcoholism, adding that she constantly threw tantrums and overdosed on pills shortly after his return. He started a relationship with Claudia Edwards "Sue" Downey, whom he had met while working briefly at CIA Headquarters. Downey had a child, Dee, from her previous marriage. They were married on October 26, 1963. Their son Francis Gary Powers Jr. was born on June 5, 1965. The marriage proved to be a very happy one, and Sue worked hard to preserve her husband's legacy after his death.
During a speech in March 1964, former CIA Director Allen Dulles said of Powers, "He performed his duty in a very dangerous mission and he performed it well, and I think I know more about that than some of his detractors and critics know, and I am glad to say that to him tonight."
Powers worked for Lockheed as a test pilot from 1962 to 1970, though the CIA paid his salary. In 1970, he wrote the book Operation Overflight with co-author Curt Gentry. Lockheed fired him, because "the book's publication had ruffled some feathers at Langley." Powers then became a traffic reporting airplane pilot for Los Angeles radio station KGIL. After that he became a helicopter news reporter for KNBC television.
Powers was piloting a helicopter for Los Angeles TV station KNBC Channel 4 over the San Fernando Valley on August 1, 1977, when the aircraft crashed, killing him and his cameraman George Spears. They had been recording video following brush fires in Santa Barbara County in the KNBC helicopter and were heading back when the crash occurred.
His Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed at the Sepulveda Dam recreational area in Encino, California, several miles short of its intended landing site at Burbank Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board report attributed the probable cause of the crash to pilot error. According to Powers' son, an aviation mechanic had repaired a faulty fuel gauge without informing Powers, who subsequently misread it.
At the last moment, it is surmised that he noticed children playing in the area and directed the helicopter elsewhere to avoid landing on them. He might have landed safely if not for the last-second deviation, which compromised his autorotative descent. Powers was survived by his wife, children (Claudia Dee and Francis Gary Powers Jr.), and five sisters. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery as an Air Force veteran.
Powers received the CIA's Intelligence Star in 1972 after his return from the Soviet Union. Powers was originally scheduled to receive it in 1963 along with other pilots involved in the CIA's U-2 program, but the award was postponed for political reasons. In 1970, Powers published his first—and only—book review, on a work about aerial reconnaissance, Unarmed and Unafraid by Glenn Infield, in the monthly magazine Business & Commercial Aviation. "The subject has great interest to me," he said, in submitting his review.
In 1998, newly declassified information revealed that Powers' mission had been a joint USAF/CIA operation. In 2000, on the 40th anniversary of the U-2 Incident, his family was presented with his posthumously awarded Prisoner of War Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, and National Defense Service Medal. In addition, CIA Director George Tenet authorized Powers to posthumously receive the CIA's coveted Director's Medal for extreme fidelity and extraordinary courage in the line of duty.
On June 15, 2012, Powers was posthumously awarded the Silver Star medal for "demonstrating 'exceptional loyalty' while enduring harsh interrogation in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow for almost two years." Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz presented the decoration to Powers' grandchildren, Trey Powers, 9, and Lindsey Berry, 29, in a Pentagon ceremony.
Powers' son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., founded the Cold War Museum in 1996. Affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, it was essentially a traveling exhibit until it found a permanent home in 2011 on a former Army communications base outside Washington, D.C. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "He later worked as a helicopter pilot for KNBC in Los Angeles and died in a 1977 helicopter crash.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Powers was born August 17, 1929, in Jenkins, Kentucky, the son of Oliver Winfield Powers (1904–1970), a coal miner, and his wife Ida Melinda Powers (née Ford; 1905–1991). His family eventually moved to Pound, Virginia, just across the state border. He was the second-born and only male of six children.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "His family lived in a mining town, and because of the hardships associated with living in such a town, his father wanted Powers to become a physician. He hoped his son would achieve the higher earnings of such a profession and felt that this would involve less hardship than any job in his hometown.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Milligan College in Tennessee in June 1950, Powers enlisted in the United States Air Force in October. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in December 1952 after completing his advanced training with USAF Pilot Training Class 52-H at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona. Powers was then assigned to the 468th Strategic Fighter Squadron at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia, as a Republic F-84 Thunderjet pilot.",
"title": "Education and service"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Powers married Barbara Gay Moore in Newnan, Georgia, on April 2, 1955. In January 1956 he was recruited by the CIA. In May 1956 he began U-2 training at Watertown Strip, Nevada. His training was complete by August 1956 and his unit, the Second Weather Observational Squadron (Provisional) or Detachment 10-10, was deployed to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. By 1960, Powers was already a veteran of many covert aerial reconnaissance missions. Family members believed that he was a NASA weather reconnaissance pilot.",
"title": "Education and service"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Powers was discharged from the Air Force in 1956 with the rank of captain. He then joined the CIA's U-2 program at the civilian grade of GS-12. U-2 pilots flew espionage missions at altitudes of 70,000 feet (21 km), supposedly above the reach of Soviet air defenses. The U-2 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camera designed to take high-resolution photos from the stratosphere over hostile countries, including the Soviet Union. U-2 missions systematically photographed military installations and other important sites.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The primary mission of the U-2s was to overfly the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence had been aware of encroaching U-2 flights at least since 1958 if not earlier but lacked effective countermeasures until 1960. On May 1, 1960, Powers' U-2A, 56-6693, departed from a military airbase in Peshawar, Pakistan, with support from the U.S. Air Station at Badaber (Peshawar Air Station). This was to be the first attempt \"to fly all the way across the Soviet Union ... but it was considered worth the gamble. The planned route would take us deeper into Russia than we had ever gone, while traversing important targets never before photographed.\"",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Powers was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 \"Guideline\") surface-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk. A total of 14 Dvinas were launched, one of which hit a MiG-19 jet fighter which was sent to intercept the U-2 but could not reach a high enough altitude. Its pilot, Sergei Safronov, ejected but died of his injuries. Another Soviet aircraft, a newly manufactured Su-9 on a transit flight, also attempted to intercept Powers' U-2. The unarmed Su-9 was directed to ram the U-2 but missed because of the large differences in speed.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "As Powers flew near Kosulino in the Ural Region, three S-75 Dvinas were launched at his U-2, with the first one hitting the aircraft. \"What was left of the plane began spinning, only upside down, the nose pointing upward toward the sky, the tail down toward the ground.\" According to his book Operation Overflight, Powers delayed activating the camera's self-destruct mechanism until he made sure he could exit the cockpit before the charges detonated. When g-forces unexpectedly threw him from the spinning aircraft, he could no longer reach the destruct switches. While descending under his parachute, Powers had time to scatter his escape map, and rid himself of part of his suicide device, a silver dollar coin suspended around his neck containing a poison-laced injection pin, though he kept the poison pin. \"Yet I was still hopeful of escape.\" He hit the ground hard, was immediately captured, and taken to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. Powers did note a second chute after landing on the ground, \"some distance away and very high, a lone red and white parachute\".",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "When the U.S. government learned of Powers' disappearance over the Soviet Union, they lied that a \"weather plane\" had strayed off course after its pilot had \"difficulties with his oxygen equipment\". What CIA officials did not realize was that the plane crashed almost fully intact and that the Soviets had recovered its pilot and the plane's equipment, including its top-secret high-altitude camera. Powers was interrogated extensively by the KGB for months before he made a confession and a public apology for his part in espionage.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Following admission by the White House that Powers had been captured alive, American media depicted Powers as an all-American pilot hero, who never smoked or touched alcohol. In fact, Powers smoked and drank socially. The CIA urged that his wife Barbara be given sedatives before speaking to the press and gave her talking points that she repeated to the press to portray her as a devoted wife. Her broken leg, according to the CIA disinformation, was the result of a water-skiing accident, when in fact it happened after she had had too much to drink and was dancing with another man.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the course of his trial for espionage in the Soviet Union, Powers confessed to the charges against him and apologized for violating Soviet airspace to spy on the Soviets. In the wake of his apology, American media often depicted Powers as a coward and even as a symptom of the decay of America's \"moral character.\"",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Powers tried to limit the information he shared with the KGB to that which could be determined from the remains of his plane's wreckage. He was hampered by information appearing in the western press. A KGB major stated \"there's no reason for you to withhold information. We'll find it out anyway. Your Press will give it to us.\" However, he limited his divulging of CIA contacts to one individual, with a pseudonym of \"Collins\". At the same time, he repeatedly stated the maximum altitude for the U-2 was 68,000 feet (21 km), lower than its actual flight ceiling.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The incident set back talks between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Powers' interrogations ended on June 30, and his solitary confinement ended on July 9. On August 17, 1960, his trial began for espionage before the military division of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. Lieutenant General Borisoglebsky, Major General Vorobyev, and Major General Zakharov presided. Roman Rudenko acted as prosecutor in his capacity of Procurator General of the Soviet Union. Mikhail I. Grinev served as Powers' defense counsel. In attendance were his parents and sister, and his wife Barbara and her mother. His father brought along his attorney Carl McAfee, while the CIA provided two additional attorneys.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On August 19, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage, \"a grave crime covered by Article 2 of the Soviet Union's law 'On Criminality Responsibility for State Crimes'\". His sentence consisted of 10 years' confinement, three of which were to be in a prison, with the remainder in a labor camp. The US Embassy \"News Bulletin\" stated, according to Powers, \"as far as the government was concerned, I had acted in accordance with the instructions given me and would receive my full salary while imprisoned\".",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "He was held in Vladimir Central Prison, about 150 miles (240 km) east of Moscow, in building number 2 from September 9, 1960, until February 8, 1962. His cellmate was Zigurds Krūmiņš, a Latvian political prisoner. Powers kept a diary and a journal while confined. Additionally, he learned carpet weaving from his cellmate to pass the time. He could send and receive a limited number of letters to and from his family. The prison now contains a small museum with an exhibit on Powers, who allegedly developed a good rapport with Soviet prisoners there. Some pieces of the plane and Powers' uniform are on display at the Monino Airbase museum near Moscow.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The CIA, in particular, chief of CIA Counterintelligence James Jesus Angleton, opposed exchanging Powers for Soviet KGB Colonel William Fisher, known as \"Rudolf Abel\", who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage. First, Angleton believed that Powers might have deliberately defected to the Soviet side. CIA documents released in 2010 indicate that U.S. officials did not believe Powers' account of the incident at the time, because it was contradicted by a classified National Security Agency (NSA) report which alleged that the U-2 had descended from 65,000 to 34,000 feet (20 to 10 km) before changing course and disappearing from radar. The NSA report remains classified as of 2022.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In any event, Angleton suspected that Powers had already revealed all he knew to the Soviets and therefore reasoned that Powers was worthless to the U.S. On the other hand, according to Angleton, William Fisher had revealed little to the CIA, refusing to disclose even his real name, and for this reason, William Fisher was still of potential value.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "However, Barbara Powers, Gary Powers' wife, was allegedly often drinking and having affairs. On June 22, 1961, she was pulled over by the police after driving erratically and was caught driving under the influence. To avoid bad publicity for the wife of the well-known CIA operative, doctors tasked by the CIA to keep Barbara out of the limelight arranged to have her committed to a psychiatric ward in Augusta, Georgia, under strict supervision. She was eventually released to the care of her mother. However, the CIA feared that Gary Powers languishing in Soviet prison might learn of Barbara's plight and as a result reach a state of desperation causing him to reveal to the Soviets whatever secrets he had not already revealed. Thus, Barbara unwittingly may have aided the cause of the approval of the prisoner exchange involving her husband and William Fisher. Angleton and others at the CIA still opposed the exchange but President John F. Kennedy approved it.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with U.S. student Frederic Pryor, for Soviet KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel. Due to political differences between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic at the time, Pryor was turned over to American authorities at Checkpoint Charlie, before the exchange of Powers for Fisher was allowed to proceed on the Glienicke Bridge.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Powers credited his father with the swap idea. When released, Powers' total time in captivity was 1 year, 9 months, and 10 days.",
"title": "U-2 incident"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Powers initially received a cold reception on his return home. He was criticized for not activating his aircraft's self-destruct charge to destroy the camera, photographic film, and related classified parts. He was also criticized for not using a CIA-issued \"suicide pill\" to kill himself (a coin with shellfish toxin embedded in its grooves, revealed during CIA testimony to the Church Committee in 1975).",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "He was debriefed extensively by the CIA, Lockheed Corporation, and the Air Force, after which a statement was issued by CIA director John McCone that \"Mr. Powers lived up to the terms of his employment and instructions in connection with his mission and in his obligations as an American.\" On March 6, 1962, he appeared before a Senate Armed Services Select Committee hearing chaired by Senator Richard Russell Jr. which included Senators Prescott Bush, Leverett Saltonstall, Robert Byrd, Margaret Chase Smith, John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and Barry Goldwater. During the hearing, Senator Saltonstall stated, \"I commend you as a courageous, fine young American citizen who lived up to your instructions and who did the best you could under very difficult circumstances.\" Senator Bush declared, \"I am satisfied he has conducted himself in exemplary fashion and in accordance with the highest traditions of service to one's country, and I congratulate him upon his conduct in captivity.\" Senator Goldwater sent him a handwritten note: \"You did a good job for your country.\"",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Powers sued his wife for divorce on August 14, 1962, claiming she cursed and abused him for no reason. Powers stated that the reasons for the divorce included her infidelity and alcoholism, adding that she constantly threw tantrums and overdosed on pills shortly after his return. He started a relationship with Claudia Edwards \"Sue\" Downey, whom he had met while working briefly at CIA Headquarters. Downey had a child, Dee, from her previous marriage. They were married on October 26, 1963. Their son Francis Gary Powers Jr. was born on June 5, 1965. The marriage proved to be a very happy one, and Sue worked hard to preserve her husband's legacy after his death.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During a speech in March 1964, former CIA Director Allen Dulles said of Powers, \"He performed his duty in a very dangerous mission and he performed it well, and I think I know more about that than some of his detractors and critics know, and I am glad to say that to him tonight.\"",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Powers worked for Lockheed as a test pilot from 1962 to 1970, though the CIA paid his salary. In 1970, he wrote the book Operation Overflight with co-author Curt Gentry. Lockheed fired him, because \"the book's publication had ruffled some feathers at Langley.\" Powers then became a traffic reporting airplane pilot for Los Angeles radio station KGIL. After that he became a helicopter news reporter for KNBC television.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Powers was piloting a helicopter for Los Angeles TV station KNBC Channel 4 over the San Fernando Valley on August 1, 1977, when the aircraft crashed, killing him and his cameraman George Spears. They had been recording video following brush fires in Santa Barbara County in the KNBC helicopter and were heading back when the crash occurred.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "His Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed at the Sepulveda Dam recreational area in Encino, California, several miles short of its intended landing site at Burbank Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board report attributed the probable cause of the crash to pilot error. According to Powers' son, an aviation mechanic had repaired a faulty fuel gauge without informing Powers, who subsequently misread it.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "At the last moment, it is surmised that he noticed children playing in the area and directed the helicopter elsewhere to avoid landing on them. He might have landed safely if not for the last-second deviation, which compromised his autorotative descent. Powers was survived by his wife, children (Claudia Dee and Francis Gary Powers Jr.), and five sisters. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery as an Air Force veteran.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Powers received the CIA's Intelligence Star in 1972 after his return from the Soviet Union. Powers was originally scheduled to receive it in 1963 along with other pilots involved in the CIA's U-2 program, but the award was postponed for political reasons. In 1970, Powers published his first—and only—book review, on a work about aerial reconnaissance, Unarmed and Unafraid by Glenn Infield, in the monthly magazine Business & Commercial Aviation. \"The subject has great interest to me,\" he said, in submitting his review.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 1998, newly declassified information revealed that Powers' mission had been a joint USAF/CIA operation. In 2000, on the 40th anniversary of the U-2 Incident, his family was presented with his posthumously awarded Prisoner of War Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, and National Defense Service Medal. In addition, CIA Director George Tenet authorized Powers to posthumously receive the CIA's coveted Director's Medal for extreme fidelity and extraordinary courage in the line of duty.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "On June 15, 2012, Powers was posthumously awarded the Silver Star medal for \"demonstrating 'exceptional loyalty' while enduring harsh interrogation in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow for almost two years.\" Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz presented the decoration to Powers' grandchildren, Trey Powers, 9, and Lindsey Berry, 29, in a Pentagon ceremony.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Powers' son, Francis Gary Powers Jr., founded the Cold War Museum in 1996. Affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, it was essentially a traveling exhibit until it found a permanent home in 2011 on a former Army communications base outside Washington, D.C.",
"title": "Legacy"
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| Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident. He later worked as a helicopter pilot for KNBC in Los Angeles and died in a 1977 helicopter crash. | 2001-11-28T14:14:05Z | 2023-12-18T00:12:52Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers |
12,890 | Gospel of James | The Gospel of James (or the Protevangelium of James) is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology.
The Gospel of James was well known to Origen in the early third century and probably to Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second, so is assumed to have been in circulation soon after circa 150 AD. The author claims to be James the brother of Jesus by an earlier marriage of Joseph, but in fact his identity is unknown. Early studies assumed a Jewish milieu, largely because of its frequent use and knowledge of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures); further investigation demonstrated that it misunderstands and/or misrepresents many Jewish practices, but Judaism at this time was highly diverse, and recent trends in scholarship do not entirely dismiss a Jewish connection. Its origin is probably Syrian, and it possibly derives from a sect called the Encratites, whose founder, Tatian, taught that sex and marriage were symptoms of original sin.
The gospel is a midrash (an elaboration) on the birth narratives found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and many of its elements, notably its very physical description of Mary's pregnancy and the examination of her hymen by the midwife Salome, suggest strongly that it was attempting to deny the arguments of docetists, Christians who held that Jesus was entirely supernatural. It also draws heavily on the Septuagint for historical analogies, turns of phrase, and details of Jewish life. Ronald Hock and Mary F. Foskett have drawn attention to the influence of Greco-Roman literature on its themes of virginity and purity.
Scholars generally accept that the Gospel of James was originally composed in Greek. Over 100 Greek manuscripts have survived, and translations were made into Syriac, Ethiopic, Sahidic Coptic, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and presumably Latin, given that it was apparently known to the compiler of the Gelasian Decree. The oldest is Papyrus Bodmer 5 from the fourth or possibly third century, discovered in 1952 and now in the Bodmer Library, Geneva, while the fullest is a 10th-century Greek codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The first widely printed edition (as opposed to hand-copied manuscripts) was a 1552 edition printed in Basel, Switzerland, by Guillaume Postel, who printed his Latin translation of a Greek version of the work. Postel also gave the work the Latin name Protevangelion Jacobi (Proto-Gospel of James) because he believed (incorrectly) that the work antedated the main gospels of the New Testament (proto- for first, evangelion for gospel). Emile de Stryker published the standard modern critical edition in 1961, and in 1995 Ronald Hock published an English translation based on de Stryker.
The narrative is made up of three distinct sections with only slight ties to each other:
Mary is presented as an extraordinary child destined for great things from the moment of her conception. Her parents, the wealthy Joachim and his wife Anna (or Anne), are distressed that they have no children, and Joachim goes into the wilderness to pray, leaving Anna to lament her childless state. God hears Anna's prayer, angels announce the coming child, and in the seventh month of Anna's pregnancy (underlining the exceptional nature of Mary's future life), she is born. Anna dedicates the child to God and vows that she shall be raised in the Temple. Joachim and Anna name the child Mary, and when she is three years old, they send her to the Temple, where she is fed each day by an angel.
When Mary approaches her 12th year, the priests decide that she can no longer stay in the Temple lest her menstrual blood render it unclean, and God finds a widower, Joseph, to act as her guardian: Joseph is depicted as elderly and the father of grown sons; he has no desire for sexual relations with Mary. He leaves on business, and Mary is called to the Temple to help weave the temple curtain, where one day an angel appears and tells her that she has been chosen to conceive Jesus the Saviour, but that she will not give birth as other women do. Joseph returns and finds Mary six months pregnant, and rebukes her, fearing that the priests will assume that he is the guilty party. They do, but the chastity of both is proven through the "test of bitter waters".
The Roman census forces the holy couple to travel to Bethlehem, but Mary's time comes before they can reach the village. Joseph settles Mary in a cave, where she is guarded by his sons, while he goes in search of a midwife, and for an apocalyptic moment as he searches all creation stands still. He returns with a midwife, and as they stand at the mouth of the cave, a cloud overshadows it, an intense light fills it, and suddenly a baby is at Mary's breast. Joseph and the midwife marvel at the miracle, but a second midwife named Salome (the first is not given a name) insists on examining Mary, upon which her hand withers as a sign of her lack of faith; Salome prays to God for forgiveness and an angel appears and tells her to touch the Christ Child, upon which her hand is healed.
The gospel concludes with the visit of the Three Magi, the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem, the martyrdom of the High Priest Zechariah (father of John the Baptist), the election of his successor Simeon, and an epilogue telling the circumstances under which the work was supposedly composed.
The Gospel of James was a widely influential source for Christian doctrine regarding Mary. According to Bernhard Lohse, it is the earliest assertion of her perpetual virginity, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during the birth and afterwards. Its explanation of the gospels' "brothers of Jesus" (the adelphoi) as the offspring of Joseph by an earlier marriage remains the position of the Eastern church, but in the West, influential theologian Jerome asserted that Joseph himself had been a perpetual virgin, and that the adelphoi were cousins of the Lord. Jerome's opposition to the Protevangelium led to a diminished influence and circulation in the western, Latin church. It was condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500. It was completely unknown in the West, and it was taken over by the widely read Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which popularized most of its stories.
The Gospel of James was the first to give the name Anne to the mother of Mary, taking it probably from Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, and Mary, like Samuel, is taken to spend her childhood in the temple. Some manuscripts say of Anne's pregnancy that it was the result of normal intercourse with her husband, but current scholars prefer the oldest texts, which say that Mary was conceived in Joachim's absence through divine intervention; nevertheless, the Gospel of James does not advance the idea of Mary's Immaculate Conception.
Various manuscripts place the birth of Mary in the sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth month, with the oldest having the seventh; this was in keeping with both the Judaism of the period, which had similar seventh-month births for significant individuals such as Samuel, Isaac, and Moses, as the sign of a miraculous or divine conception. Further signs of Mary's supremely holy nature follow, including Anne's vow that the infant would never walk on the earth (her bedroom is made a "sanctuary" where she is attended by "undefiled daughters of the Hebrews"), her blessing "with the ultimate blessing" by the priests on her first birthday with the declaration that because of her God will bring redemption to Israel, and the angels who bring her food in the Temple, where she is attended by the priests and engages herself in weaving the temple curtain.
The ordeal of the bitter water serves to defend Jesus against accusation of illegitimacy levied in the second century by pagan and Jewish opponents of Christianity. Christian sensitivity to these charges made them eager to defend both the virgin birth of Jesus and the immaculate conception of Mary (i.e., her freedom from sin at the moment of her conception).
The Quranic stories of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus can be traced to the canonical Christian gospels, to the Diatessaron (a second century gospel harmony), and to various apocryphan infancy gospels including the Gospel of James, which provides the Quran's mention of Mary fed by angels, the choice of her guardian through the casting of lots, and her occupation making a curtain for the Temple immediately before the Annunciation. | [
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"text": "The Gospel of James was well known to Origen in the early third century and probably to Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second, so is assumed to have been in circulation soon after circa 150 AD. The author claims to be James the brother of Jesus by an earlier marriage of Joseph, but in fact his identity is unknown. Early studies assumed a Jewish milieu, largely because of its frequent use and knowledge of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures); further investigation demonstrated that it misunderstands and/or misrepresents many Jewish practices, but Judaism at this time was highly diverse, and recent trends in scholarship do not entirely dismiss a Jewish connection. Its origin is probably Syrian, and it possibly derives from a sect called the Encratites, whose founder, Tatian, taught that sex and marriage were symptoms of original sin.",
"title": "Composition"
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"text": "The gospel is a midrash (an elaboration) on the birth narratives found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and many of its elements, notably its very physical description of Mary's pregnancy and the examination of her hymen by the midwife Salome, suggest strongly that it was attempting to deny the arguments of docetists, Christians who held that Jesus was entirely supernatural. It also draws heavily on the Septuagint for historical analogies, turns of phrase, and details of Jewish life. Ronald Hock and Mary F. Foskett have drawn attention to the influence of Greco-Roman literature on its themes of virginity and purity.",
"title": "Composition"
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"text": "Scholars generally accept that the Gospel of James was originally composed in Greek. Over 100 Greek manuscripts have survived, and translations were made into Syriac, Ethiopic, Sahidic Coptic, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and presumably Latin, given that it was apparently known to the compiler of the Gelasian Decree. The oldest is Papyrus Bodmer 5 from the fourth or possibly third century, discovered in 1952 and now in the Bodmer Library, Geneva, while the fullest is a 10th-century Greek codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. The first widely printed edition (as opposed to hand-copied manuscripts) was a 1552 edition printed in Basel, Switzerland, by Guillaume Postel, who printed his Latin translation of a Greek version of the work. Postel also gave the work the Latin name Protevangelion Jacobi (Proto-Gospel of James) because he believed (incorrectly) that the work antedated the main gospels of the New Testament (proto- for first, evangelion for gospel). Emile de Stryker published the standard modern critical edition in 1961, and in 1995 Ronald Hock published an English translation based on de Stryker.",
"title": "Composition"
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"text": "The narrative is made up of three distinct sections with only slight ties to each other:",
"title": "Structure and content"
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"text": "Mary is presented as an extraordinary child destined for great things from the moment of her conception. Her parents, the wealthy Joachim and his wife Anna (or Anne), are distressed that they have no children, and Joachim goes into the wilderness to pray, leaving Anna to lament her childless state. God hears Anna's prayer, angels announce the coming child, and in the seventh month of Anna's pregnancy (underlining the exceptional nature of Mary's future life), she is born. Anna dedicates the child to God and vows that she shall be raised in the Temple. Joachim and Anna name the child Mary, and when she is three years old, they send her to the Temple, where she is fed each day by an angel.",
"title": "Structure and content"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When Mary approaches her 12th year, the priests decide that she can no longer stay in the Temple lest her menstrual blood render it unclean, and God finds a widower, Joseph, to act as her guardian: Joseph is depicted as elderly and the father of grown sons; he has no desire for sexual relations with Mary. He leaves on business, and Mary is called to the Temple to help weave the temple curtain, where one day an angel appears and tells her that she has been chosen to conceive Jesus the Saviour, but that she will not give birth as other women do. Joseph returns and finds Mary six months pregnant, and rebukes her, fearing that the priests will assume that he is the guilty party. They do, but the chastity of both is proven through the \"test of bitter waters\".",
"title": "Structure and content"
},
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"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Roman census forces the holy couple to travel to Bethlehem, but Mary's time comes before they can reach the village. Joseph settles Mary in a cave, where she is guarded by his sons, while he goes in search of a midwife, and for an apocalyptic moment as he searches all creation stands still. He returns with a midwife, and as they stand at the mouth of the cave, a cloud overshadows it, an intense light fills it, and suddenly a baby is at Mary's breast. Joseph and the midwife marvel at the miracle, but a second midwife named Salome (the first is not given a name) insists on examining Mary, upon which her hand withers as a sign of her lack of faith; Salome prays to God for forgiveness and an angel appears and tells her to touch the Christ Child, upon which her hand is healed.",
"title": "Structure and content"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The gospel concludes with the visit of the Three Magi, the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem, the martyrdom of the High Priest Zechariah (father of John the Baptist), the election of his successor Simeon, and an epilogue telling the circumstances under which the work was supposedly composed.",
"title": "Structure and content"
},
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"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Gospel of James was a widely influential source for Christian doctrine regarding Mary. According to Bernhard Lohse, it is the earliest assertion of her perpetual virginity, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during the birth and afterwards. Its explanation of the gospels' \"brothers of Jesus\" (the adelphoi) as the offspring of Joseph by an earlier marriage remains the position of the Eastern church, but in the West, influential theologian Jerome asserted that Joseph himself had been a perpetual virgin, and that the adelphoi were cousins of the Lord. Jerome's opposition to the Protevangelium led to a diminished influence and circulation in the western, Latin church. It was condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500. It was completely unknown in the West, and it was taken over by the widely read Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which popularized most of its stories.",
"title": "Influence"
},
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"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Gospel of James was the first to give the name Anne to the mother of Mary, taking it probably from Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, and Mary, like Samuel, is taken to spend her childhood in the temple. Some manuscripts say of Anne's pregnancy that it was the result of normal intercourse with her husband, but current scholars prefer the oldest texts, which say that Mary was conceived in Joachim's absence through divine intervention; nevertheless, the Gospel of James does not advance the idea of Mary's Immaculate Conception.",
"title": "Influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Various manuscripts place the birth of Mary in the sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth month, with the oldest having the seventh; this was in keeping with both the Judaism of the period, which had similar seventh-month births for significant individuals such as Samuel, Isaac, and Moses, as the sign of a miraculous or divine conception. Further signs of Mary's supremely holy nature follow, including Anne's vow that the infant would never walk on the earth (her bedroom is made a \"sanctuary\" where she is attended by \"undefiled daughters of the Hebrews\"), her blessing \"with the ultimate blessing\" by the priests on her first birthday with the declaration that because of her God will bring redemption to Israel, and the angels who bring her food in the Temple, where she is attended by the priests and engages herself in weaving the temple curtain.",
"title": "Influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The ordeal of the bitter water serves to defend Jesus against accusation of illegitimacy levied in the second century by pagan and Jewish opponents of Christianity. Christian sensitivity to these charges made them eager to defend both the virgin birth of Jesus and the immaculate conception of Mary (i.e., her freedom from sin at the moment of her conception).",
"title": "Influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Quranic stories of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus can be traced to the canonical Christian gospels, to the Diatessaron (a second century gospel harmony), and to various apocryphan infancy gospels including the Gospel of James, which provides the Quran's mention of Mary fed by angels, the choice of her guardian through the casting of lots, and her occupation making a curtain for the Temple immediately before the Annunciation.",
"title": "Influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
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| The Gospel of James is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and rejected by the Gelasian Decree around 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-19T07:18:03Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James |
12,891 | Gene therapy | Gene therapy is a medical technology that aims to produce a therapeutic effect through the manipulation of gene expression or through altering the biological properties of living cells.
The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980, by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989. The first therapeutic use of gene transfer as well as the first direct insertion of human DNA into the nuclear genome was performed by French Anderson in a trial starting in September 1990. Between 1989 and December 2018, over 2,900 clinical trials were conducted, with more than half of them in phase I. In 2003, Gendicine became the first gene therapy to receive regulatory approval. Since that time, further gene therapy drugs were approved, such as Glybera (2012), Strimvelis (2016), Kymriah (2017), Luxturna (2017), Onpattro (2018), Zolgensma (2019), Abecma (2021), Adstiladrin, Roctavian and Hemgenix (all 2022). Most of these approaches utilize adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and lentiviruses for performing gene insertions, in vivo and ex vivo, respectively. AAVs are characterized by stabilizing the viral capsid, lower immunogenicity, ability to transduce both dividing and nondividing cells, the potential to integrate site specifically and to achieve long-term expression in the in-vivo treatment. ASO / siRNA approaches such as those conducted by Alnylam and Ionis Pharmaceuticals require non-viral delivery systems, and utilize alternative mechanisms for trafficking to liver cells by way of GalNAc transporters.
Not all medical procedures that introduce alterations to a patient's genetic makeup can be considered gene therapy. Bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants in general have been found to introduce foreign DNA into patients.
Gene therapy was first conceptualized in the 1960s, when the feasibility of adding new genetic functions to mammalian cells began to be researched. Several methods to do so were tested, including injecting genes with a micropipette directly into a living mammalian cell, and exposing cells to a precipitate of DNA that contained the desired genes. Scientists theorized that a virus could also be used as a vehicle, or vector, to deliver new genes into cells.
One of the first scientists to report the successful direct incorporation of functional DNA into a mammalian cell was biochemist Dr. Lorraine Marquardt Kraus (6 September 1922 – 1 July 2016) at the University of Tennessee in Tennessee, United States. In 1961, she managed to genetically alter the hemoglobin of cells from bone marrow taken from a patient with sickle cell anaemia. She did this by incubating the patient’s cells in tissue culture with DNA extracted from a donor with normal hemoglobin. In 1968, researchers Theodore Friedmann, Jay Seegmiller, and John Subak-Sharpe at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, in the United States successfully corrected genetic defects associated with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a debilitating neurological disease, by adding foreign DNA to cultured cells collected from patients suffering from the disease.
The first attempt, an unsuccessful one, at gene therapy (as well as the first case of medical transfer of foreign genes into humans not counting organ transplantation) was performed by geneticist Martin Cline of the University of California, Los Angeles in California, United States on 10 July 1980. Cline claimed that one of the genes in his patients was active six months later, though he never published this data or had it verified.
After extensive research on animals throughout the 1980s and a 1989 bacterial gene tagging trial on humans, the first gene therapy widely accepted as a success was demonstrated in a trial that started on 14 September 1990, when Ashanthi DeSilva was treated for ADA-SCID.
The first somatic treatment that produced a permanent genetic change was initiated in 1993. The goal was to cure malignant brain tumors by using recombinant DNA to transfer a gene making the tumor cells sensitive to a drug that in turn would cause the tumor cells to die.
The polymers are either translated into proteins, interfere with target gene expression, or possibly correct genetic mutations. The most common form uses DNA that encodes a functional, therapeutic gene to replace a mutated gene. The polymer molecule is packaged within a "vector", which carries the molecule inside cells.
Early clinical failures led to dismissals of gene therapy. Clinical successes since 2006 regained researchers' attention, although as of 2014, it was still largely an experimental technique. These include treatment of retinal diseases Leber's congenital amaurosis and choroideremia, X-linked SCID, ADA-SCID, adrenoleukodystrophy, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), multiple myeloma, haemophilia, and Parkinson's disease. Between 2013 and April 2014, US companies invested over $600 million in the field.
The first commercial gene therapy, Gendicine, was approved in China in 2003, for the treatment of certain cancers. In 2011, Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia. In 2012, Glybera, a treatment for a rare inherited disorder, lipoprotein lipase deficiency, became the first treatment to be approved for clinical use in either Europe or the United States after its endorsement by the European Commission.
Following early advances in genetic engineering of bacteria, cells, and small animals, scientists started considering how to apply it to medicine. Two main approaches were considered – replacing or disrupting defective genes. Scientists focused on diseases caused by single-gene defects, such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia, and sickle cell anemia. Glybera treats one such disease, caused by a defect in lipoprotein lipase.
DNA must be administered, reach the damaged cells, enter the cell and either express or disrupt a protein. Multiple delivery techniques have been explored. The initial approach incorporated DNA into an engineered virus to deliver the DNA into a chromosome. Naked DNA approaches have also been explored, especially in the context of vaccine development.
Generally, efforts focused on administering a gene that causes a needed protein to be expressed. More recently, increased understanding of nuclease function has led to more direct DNA editing, using techniques such as zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR. The vector incorporates genes into chromosomes. The expressed nucleases then knock out and replace genes in the chromosome. As of 2014 these approaches involve removing cells from patients, editing a chromosome and returning the transformed cells to patients.
Gene editing is a potential approach to alter the human genome to treat genetic diseases, viral diseases, and cancer. As of 2020 these approaches are being studied in clinical trials.
In 1986, a meeting at the Institute Of Medicine defined gene therapy as the addition or replacement of a gene in a targeted cell type. In the same year, the FDA announced that it had jurisdiction over approving "gene therapy" without defining the term. The FDA added a very broad definition in 1993 of any treatment that would ‘modify or manipulate the expression of genetic material or to alter the biological properties of living cells’. In 2018 this was narrowed to ‘products that mediate their effects by transcription or translation of transferred genetic material or by specifically altering host (human) genetic sequences’.
Writing in 2018, in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Sherkow et al. argued for a narrower definition of gene therapy than the FDA's in light of new technology that would consist of any treatment that intentionally and permanently modified a cell's genome, with the definition of genome including episomes outside the nucleus but excluding changes due to episomes that are lost over time. This definition would also exclude introducing cells that did not derive from a patient themselves, but include ex vivo approaches, and would not depend on the vector used.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some academics insisted that the mRNA vaccines for COVID were not gene therapy to prevent the spread of incorrect information that the vaccine could alter DNA, other academics maintained that the vaccines were a gene therapy because they introduced genetic material into a cell. Fact-checkers, such as Full Fact, Reuters, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.org said that calling the vaccines a gene therapy was incorrect. Podcast host Joe Rogan was criticized for calling mRNA vaccines gene therapy as was British politician Andrew Bridgen, with fact checker Full Fact calling for Bridgen to be removed from the conservative party for this and other statements.
Gene therapy encapsulates many forms of adding different nucleic acids to a cell. Gene augmentation adds a new protein coding gene to a cell. One form of gene augmentiation is gene replacement therapy, a treatment for monogenic recessive disorders where a single gene is not functional an additional functional gene is added. For diseases caused by multiple genes or a dominant gene, gene silencing or gene editing approaches are more appropriate but gene addition, a form of gene augmentation where new gene is added, may improve a cells function without modifying the genes that cause a disorder.
Gene therapy may be classified into two types by the type of cell it affects: somatic cell and germline gene therapy.
In somatic cell gene therapy (SCGT), the therapeutic genes are transferred into any cell other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte, or undifferentiated stem cell. Any such modifications affect the individual patient only, and are not inherited by offspring. Somatic gene therapy represents mainstream basic and clinical research, in which therapeutic DNA (either integrated in the genome or as an external episome or plasmid) is used to treat disease. Over 600 clinical trials utilizing SCGT are underway in the US. Most focus on severe genetic disorders, including immunodeficiencies, haemophilia, thalassaemia, and cystic fibrosis. Such single gene disorders are good candidates for somatic cell therapy. The complete correction of a genetic disorder or the replacement of multiple genes is not yet possible. Only a few of the trials are in the advanced stages.
In germline gene therapy (GGT), germ cells (sperm or egg cells) are modified by the introduction of functional genes into their genomes. Modifying a germ cell causes all the organism's cells to contain the modified gene. The change is therefore heritable and passed on to later generations. Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the Netherlands prohibit GGT for application in human beings, for technical and ethical reasons, including insufficient knowledge about possible risks to future generations and higher risks versus SCGT. The US has no federal controls specifically addressing human genetic modification (beyond FDA regulations for therapies in general).
In in vivo gene therapy, a vector (typically, a virus) is introduced to the patient, which then achieves the desired biological effect by passing the genetic material (e.g. for a missing protein) into the patient's cells. In ex vivo gene therapies, such as CAR-T therapeutics, the patient's own cells (autologous) or healthy donor cells (allogeneic) are modified outside the body (hence, ex vivo) using a vector to express a particular protein, such as a chimeric antigen receptor.
In vivo gene therapy is seen as simpler, since it does not require the harvesting of mitotic cells. However, ex vivo gene therapies are better tolerated and less associated with severe immune responses. The death of Jesse Gelsinger in a trial of an adenovirus-vectored treatment for ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency due to a systemic inflammatory reaction led to a temporary halt on gene therapy trials across the United States. As of 2021, in vivo and ex vivo therapeutics are both seen as safe.
The concept of gene therapy is to fix a genetic problem at its source. If, for instance, a mutation in a certain gene causes the production of a dysfunctional protein resulting (usually recessively) in an inherited disease, gene therapy could be used to deliver a copy of this gene that does not contain the deleterious mutation and thereby produces a functional protein. This strategy is referred to as gene replacement therapy and could be employed to treat inherited retinal diseases.
While the concept of gene replacement therapy is mostly suitable for recessive diseases, novel strategies have been suggested that are capable of also treating conditions with a dominant pattern of inheritance.
In vivo, gene editing systems using CRISPR have been used in studies with mice to treat cancer and have been effective at reducing tumors. In vitro, the CRISPR system has been used to treat HPV cancer tumors. Adeno-associated virus, Lentivirus based vectors have been to introduce the genome for the CRISPR system.
The delivery of DNA into cells can be accomplished by multiple methods. The two major classes are recombinant viruses (sometimes called biological nanoparticles or viral vectors) and naked DNA or DNA complexes (non-viral methods).
In order to replicate, viruses introduce their genetic material into the host cell, tricking the host's cellular machinery into using it as blueprints for viral proteins. Retroviruses go a stage further by having their genetic material copied into the nuclear genome of the host cell. Scientists exploit this by substituting part of a virus's genetic material with therapeutic DNA or RNA. Like the genetic material (DNA or RNA) in viruses, therapeutic genetic material can be designed to simply serve as a temporary blueprint that degrades naturally, as in a non-integrative vectors, or to enter the host's nucleus becoming a permanent part of the host's nuclear DNA in infected cells.
A number of viruses have been used for human gene therapy, including retroviruses such as lentivirus, adenoviruses, herpes simplex, vaccinia, and adeno-associated virus.
Adenovirus viral vectors (Ad) temporarily modify a cell's genetic expression with genetic material that is not integrated into the host cell's DNA. As of 2017, such vectors were used in 20% of trials for gene therapy. Adenovirus vectors are mostly used in cancer treatments and novel genetic vaccines such as the Ebola vaccine, vaccines used in clinical trials for HIV and SARS-CoV-2, or cancer vaccines.
Lentiviral vectors based on lentivirus, a retrovirus, can modify a cell's nuclear genome to permanently express a gene, although vectors can be modified to prevent integration. Retroviruses were used in 18% of trials before 2018. Libmeldy is an ex vivo stem cell treatment for metachromatic leukodystrophy which uses a lentiviral vector and was approved by the european medical agency in 2020.
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a virus that is incapable of transmission between cells unless the cell is infected by another virus, a helper virus. Adenovirus and the herpes viruses act as helper viruses for AAV. AAV persists within the cell outside of the cell's nuclear genome for an extended period of time through the formation of concatemers mostly organized as episomes. Genetic material from AAV vectors is integrated into the host cell's nuclear genome at a low frequency and likely mediated by the DNA-modifying enzymes of the host cell. Animal models suggest that integration of AAV genetic material into the host cell's nuclear genome may cause hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer.
Non-viral vectors for gene therapy present certain advantages over viral methods, such as large scale production and low host immunogenicity. However, non-viral methods initially produced lower levels of transfection and gene expression, and thus lower therapeutic efficacy. Newer technologies offer promise of solving these problems, with the advent of increased cell-specific targeting and subcellular trafficking control.
Methods for non-viral gene therapy include the injection of naked DNA, electroporation, the gene gun, sonoporation, magnetofection, the use of oligonucleotides, lipoplexes, dendrimers, and inorganic nanoparticles.
More recent approaches, such as those performed by companies such as Ligandal, offer the possibility of creating cell-specific targeting technologies for a variety of gene therapy modalities, including RNA, DNA and gene editing tools such as CRISPR. Other companies, such as Arbutus Biopharma and Arcturus Therapeutics, offer non-viral, non-cell-targeted approaches that mainly exhibit liver trophism. In more recent years, startups such as Sixfold Bio, GenEdit, and Spotlight Therapeutics have begun to solve the non-viral gene delivery problem. Non-viral techniques offer the possibility of repeat dosing and greater tailorability of genetic payloads, which in the future will be more likely to take over viral-based delivery systems.
Companies such as Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, Casebia, Cellectis, Precision Biosciences, bluebird bio, Excision BioTherapeutics, and Sangamo have developed non-viral gene editing techniques, however frequently still use viruses for delivering gene insertion material following genomic cleavage by guided nucleases. These companies focus on gene editing, and still face major delivery hurdles.
BioNTech, Moderna Therapeutics and CureVac focus on delivery of mRNA payloads, which are necessarily non-viral delivery problems.
Alnylam, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, and Ionis Pharmaceuticals focus on delivery of siRNA (antisense oligonucleotides) for gene suppression, which also necessitate non-viral delivery systems.
In academic contexts, a number of laboratories are working on delivery of PEGylated particles, which form serum protein coronas and chiefly exhibit LDL receptor mediated uptake in cells in vivo.
There have been attempts to treat cancer using gene therapy. As of 2017, 65% of gene therapy trials were for cancer treatment.
Adenovirus vectors are useful for some cancer gene therapies because adenovirus can transiently insert genetic material into a cell without permanently altering the cell's nuclear genome. These vectors can be used to cause antigens to be added to cancers causing an immune response, or hinder angiogenesis by expressing certain proteins. An Adenovirus vector is used in the commercial products Gendicine and Oncorine. Another commercial product, Rexin G, uses a retrovirus-based vector and selectively binds to receptors that are more expressed in tumors.
One approach, suicide gene therapy, works by introducing genes encoding enzymes that will cause a cancer cell to die. Another approach is the use oncolytic viruses, such as Oncorine, which are viruses that selectively reproduce in cancerous cells leaving other cells unaffected.
mRNA has been suggested as a non-viral vector for cancer gene therapy that would temporarily change a cancerous cell's function to create antigens or kill the cancerous cells and there have been several trials.
Gene therapy approaches to replace a faulty gene with a healthy gene have been proposed and are being studied for treating some genetic diseases. As of 2017, 11.1% of gene therapy clinical trials targeted monogenic diseases.
Diseases such as sickle cell disease that are caused by autosomal recessive disorders for which a person's normal phenotype or cell function may be restored in cells that have the disease by a normal copy of the gene that is mutated, may be a good candidate for gene therapy treatment. The risks and benefits related to gene therapy for sickle cell disease are not known.
Gene therapy has been used in the eye. The eye is especially suitable for adeno-associated virus vectors. Luxturna is an approved gene therapy to treat Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy. Glybera, a treatment for pancreatitis caused by a genetic condition, and Zolgensma for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy both use an adeno-associated virus vector.
As of 2017, 7% of genetic therapy trials targeted infectious diseases. 69.2% of trials targeted HIV, 11% hepatitis B or C, and 7.1% malaria.
Some genetic therapies have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and for use in Russia and China.
Some of the unsolved problems include:
Three patients' deaths have been reported in gene therapy trials, putting the field under close scrutiny. The first was that of Jesse Gelsinger, who died in 1999, because of immune rejection response. One X-SCID patient died of leukemia in 2003. In 2007, a rheumatoid arthritis patient died from an infection; the subsequent investigation concluded that the death was not related to gene therapy.
Regulations covering genetic modification are part of general guidelines about human-involved biomedical research. There are no international treaties which are legally binding in this area, but there are recommendations for national laws from various bodies.
The Helsinki Declaration (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects) was amended by the World Medical Association's General Assembly in 2008. This document provides principles physicians and researchers must consider when involving humans as research subjects. The Statement on Gene Therapy Research initiated by the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) in 2001, provides a legal baseline for all countries. HUGO's document emphasizes human freedom and adherence to human rights, and offers recommendations for somatic gene therapy, including the importance of recognizing public concerns about such research.
No federal legislation lays out protocols or restrictions about human genetic engineering. This subject is governed by overlapping regulations from local and federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA and NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. Researchers seeking federal funds for an investigational new drug application, (commonly the case for somatic human genetic engineering,) must obey international and federal guidelines for the protection of human subjects.
NIH serves as the main gene therapy regulator for federally funded research. Privately funded research is advised to follow these regulations. NIH provides funding for research that develops or enhances genetic engineering techniques and to evaluate the ethics and quality in current research. The NIH maintains a mandatory registry of human genetic engineering research protocols that includes all federally funded projects.
An NIH advisory committee published a set of guidelines on gene manipulation. The guidelines discuss lab safety as well as human test subjects and various experimental types that involve genetic changes. Several sections specifically pertain to human genetic engineering, including Section III-C-1. This section describes required review processes and other aspects when seeking approval to begin clinical research involving genetic transfer into a human patient. The protocol for a gene therapy clinical trial must be approved by the NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee prior to any clinical trial beginning; this is different from any other kind of clinical trial.
As with other kinds of drugs, the FDA regulates the quality and safety of gene therapy products and supervises how these products are used clinically. Therapeutic alteration of the human genome falls under the same regulatory requirements as any other medical treatment. Research involving human subjects, such as clinical trials, must be reviewed and approved by the FDA and an Institutional Review Board.
Athletes may adopt gene therapy technologies to improve their performance. Gene doping is not known to occur, but multiple gene therapies may have such effects. Kayser et al. argue that gene doping could level the playing field if all athletes receive equal access. Critics claim that any therapeutic intervention for non-therapeutic/enhancement purposes compromises the ethical foundations of medicine and sports.
Genetic engineering could be used to cure diseases, but also to change physical appearance, metabolism, and even improve physical capabilities and mental faculties such as memory and intelligence. Ethical claims about germline engineering include beliefs that every fetus has a right to remain genetically unmodified, that parents hold the right to genetically modify their offspring, and that every child has the right to be born free of preventable diseases. For parents, genetic engineering could be seen as another child enhancement technique to add to diet, exercise, education, training, cosmetics, and plastic surgery. Another theorist claims that moral concerns limit but do not prohibit germline engineering.
A 2020 issue of the journal Bioethics was devoted to moral issues surrounding germline genetic engineering in people.
Possible regulatory schemes include a complete ban, provision to everyone, or professional self-regulation. The American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs stated that "genetic interventions to enhance traits should be considered permissible only in severely restricted situations: (1) clear and meaningful benefits to the fetus or child; (2) no trade-off with other characteristics or traits; and (3) equal access to the genetic technology, irrespective of income or other socioeconomic characteristics."
As early in the history of biotechnology as 1990, there have been scientists opposed to attempts to modify the human germline using these new tools, and such concerns have continued as technology progressed. With the advent of new techniques like CRISPR, in March 2015 a group of scientists urged a worldwide moratorium on clinical use of gene editing technologies to edit the human genome in a way that can be inherited. In April 2015, researchers sparked controversy when they reported results of basic research to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos using CRISPR. A committee of the American National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine gave qualified support to human genome editing in 2017 once answers have been found to safety and efficiency problems "but only for serious conditions under stringent oversight."
In 1972, Friedmann and Roblin authored a paper in Science titled "Gene therapy for human genetic disease?". Rogers (1970) was cited for proposing that exogenous good DNA be used to replace the defective DNA in those with genetic defects.
In 1984, a retrovirus vector system was designed that could efficiently insert foreign genes into mammalian chromosomes.
The first approved gene therapy clinical research in the US took place on 14 September 1990, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the direction of William French Anderson. Four-year-old Ashanti DeSilva received treatment for a genetic defect that left her with adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID), a severe immune system deficiency. The defective gene of the patient's blood cells was replaced by the functional variant. Ashanti's immune system was partially restored by the therapy. Production of the missing enzyme was temporarily stimulated, but the new cells with functional genes were not generated. She led a normal life only with the regular injections performed every two months. The effects were successful, but temporary.
Cancer gene therapy was introduced in 1992/93 (Trojan et al. 1993). The treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, the malignant brain tumor whose outcome is always fatal, was done using a vector expressing antisense IGF-I RNA (clinical trial approved by NIH protocol no.1602 24 November 1993, and by the FDA in 1994). This therapy also represents the beginning of cancer immunogene therapy, a treatment which proves to be effective due to the anti-tumor mechanism of IGF-I antisense, which is related to strong immune and apoptotic phenomena.
In 1992, Claudio Bordignon, working at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, performed the first gene therapy procedure using hematopoietic stem cells as vectors to deliver genes intended to correct hereditary diseases. In 2002, this work led to the publication of the first successful gene therapy treatment for ADA-SCID. The success of a multi-center trial for treating children with SCID (severe combined immune deficiency or "bubble boy" disease) from 2000 and 2002, was questioned when two of the ten children treated at the trial's Paris center developed a leukemia-like condition. Clinical trials were halted temporarily in 2002, but resumed after regulatory review of the protocol in the US, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany.
In 1993, Andrew Gobea was born with SCID following prenatal genetic screening. Blood was removed from his mother's placenta and umbilical cord immediately after birth, to acquire stem cells. The allele that codes for adenosine deaminase (ADA) was obtained and inserted into a retrovirus. Retroviruses and stem cells were mixed, after which the viruses inserted the gene into the stem cell chromosomes. Stem cells containing the working ADA gene were injected into Andrew's blood. Injections of the ADA enzyme were also given weekly. For four years T cells (white blood cells), produced by stem cells, made ADA enzymes using the ADA gene. After four years more treatment was needed.
In 1996, Luigi Naldini and Didier Trono developed a new class of gene therapy vectors based on HIV capable of infecting non-dividing cells that have since then been widely used in clinical and research settings, pioneering lentivirals vector in gene therapy.
Jesse Gelsinger's death in 1999 impeded gene therapy research in the US. As a result, the FDA suspended several clinical trials pending the reevaluation of ethical and procedural practices.
The modified gene therapy strategy of antisense IGF-I RNA (NIH n˚ 1602) using antisense / triple helix anti-IGF-I approach was registered in 2002, by Wiley gene therapy clinical trial - n˚ 635 and 636. The approach has shown promising results in the treatment of six different malignant tumors: glioblastoma, cancers of liver, colon, prostate, uterus, and ovary (Collaborative NATO Science Programme on Gene Therapy USA, France, Poland n˚ LST 980517 conducted by J. Trojan) (Trojan et al., 2012). This anti-gene antisense/triple helix therapy has proven to be efficient, due to the mechanism stopping simultaneously IGF-I expression on translation and transcription levels, strengthening anti-tumor immune and apoptotic phenomena.
Sickle cell disease can be treated in mice. The mice – which have essentially the same defect that causes human cases – used a viral vector to induce production of fetal hemoglobin (HbF), which normally ceases to be produced shortly after birth. In humans, the use of hydroxyurea to stimulate the production of HbF temporarily alleviates sickle cell symptoms. The researchers demonstrated this treatment to be a more permanent means to increase therapeutic HbF production.
A new gene therapy approach repaired errors in messenger RNA derived from defective genes. This technique has the potential to treat thalassaemia, cystic fibrosis and some cancers.
Researchers created liposomes 25 nanometers across that can carry therapeutic DNA through pores in the nuclear membrane.
In 2003, a research team inserted genes into the brain for the first time. They used liposomes coated in a polymer called polyethylene glycol, which unlike viral vectors, are small enough to cross the blood–brain barrier.
Short pieces of double-stranded RNA (short, interfering RNAs or siRNAs) are used by cells to degrade RNA of a particular sequence. If a siRNA is designed to match the RNA copied from a faulty gene, then the abnormal protein product of that gene will not be produced.
Gendicine is a cancer gene therapy that delivers the tumor suppressor gene p53 using an engineered adenovirus. In 2003, it was approved in China for the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
In March, researchers announced the successful use of gene therapy to treat two adult patients for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, a disease which affects myeloid cells and damages the immune system. The study is the first to show that gene therapy can treat the myeloid system.
In May, a team reported a way to prevent the immune system from rejecting a newly delivered gene. Similar to organ transplantation, gene therapy has been plagued by this problem. The immune system normally recognizes the new gene as foreign and rejects the cells carrying it. The research utilized a newly uncovered network of genes regulated by molecules known as microRNAs. This natural function selectively obscured their therapeutic gene in immune system cells and protected it from discovery. Mice infected with the gene containing an immune-cell microRNA target sequence did not reject the gene.
In August, scientists successfully treated metastatic melanoma in two patients using killer T cells genetically retargeted to attack the cancer cells.
In November, researchers reported on the use of VRX496, a gene-based immunotherapy for the treatment of HIV that uses a lentiviral vector to deliver an antisense gene against the HIV envelope. In a phase I clinical trial, five subjects with chronic HIV infection who had failed to respond to at least two antiretroviral regimens were treated. A single intravenous infusion of autologous CD4 T cells genetically modified with VRX496 was well tolerated. All patients had stable or decreased viral load; four of the five patients had stable or increased CD4 T cell counts. All five patients had stable or increased immune response to HIV antigens and other pathogens. This was the first evaluation of a lentiviral vector administered in a US human clinical trial.
In May, researchers announced the first gene therapy trial for inherited retinal disease. The first operation was carried out on a 23-year-old British male, Robert Johnson, in early 2007.
Leber's congenital amaurosis is an inherited blinding disease caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. The results of a small clinical trial in children were published in April. Delivery of recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying RPE65 yielded positive results. In May, two more groups reported positive results in independent clinical trials using gene therapy to treat the condition. In all three clinical trials, patients recovered functional vision without apparent side-effects.
In September researchers were able to give trichromatic vision to squirrel monkeys. In November 2009, researchers halted a fatal genetic disorder called adrenoleukodystrophy in two children using a lentivirus vector to deliver a functioning version of ABCD1, the gene that is mutated in the disorder.
An April paper reported that gene therapy addressed achromatopsia (color blindness) in dogs by targeting cone photoreceptors. Cone function and day vision were restored for at least 33 months in two young specimens. The therapy was less efficient for older dogs.
In September it was announced that an 18-year-old male patient in France with beta thalassemia major had been successfully treated. Beta thalassemia major is an inherited blood disease in which beta haemoglobin is missing and patients are dependent on regular lifelong blood transfusions. The technique used a lentiviral vector to transduce the human β-globin gene into purified blood and marrow cells obtained from the patient in June 2007. The patient's haemoglobin levels were stable at 9 to 10 g/dL. About a third of the hemoglobin contained the form introduced by the viral vector and blood transfusions were not needed. Further clinical trials were planned. Bone marrow transplants are the only cure for thalassemia, but 75% of patients do not find a matching donor.
Cancer immunogene therapy using modified antigene, antisense/triple helix approach was introduced in South America in 2010/11 in La Sabana University, Bogota (Ethical Committee 14 December 2010, no P-004-10). Considering the ethical aspect of gene diagnostic and gene therapy targeting IGF-I, the IGF-I expressing tumors i.e. lung and epidermis cancers were treated (Trojan et al. 2016).
In 2007 and 2008, a man (Timothy Ray Brown) was cured of HIV by repeated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (see also allogeneic stem cell transplantation, allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, allotransplantation) with double-delta-32 mutation which disables the CCR5 receptor. This cure was accepted by the medical community in 2011. It required complete ablation of existing bone marrow, which is very debilitating.
In August two of three subjects of a pilot study were confirmed to have been cured from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The therapy used genetically modified T cells to attack cells that expressed the CD19 protein to fight the disease. In 2013, the researchers announced that 26 of 59 patients had achieved complete remission and the original patient had remained tumor-free.
Human HGF plasmid DNA therapy of cardiomyocytes is being examined as a potential treatment for coronary artery disease as well as treatment for the damage that occurs to the heart after myocardial infarction.
In 2011, Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia; it delivers the gene encoding for VEGF. Neovasculogen is a plasmid encoding the CMV promoter and the 165 amino acid form of VEGF.
The FDA approved Phase I clinical trials on thalassemia major patients in the US for 10 participants in July. The study was expected to continue until 2015.
In July 2012, the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of a gene therapy treatment for the first time in either Europe or the United States. The treatment used Alipogene tiparvovec (Glybera) to compensate for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, which can cause severe pancreatitis. The recommendation was endorsed by the European Commission in November 2012, and commercial rollout began in late 2014. Alipogene tiparvovec was expected to cost around $1.6 million per treatment in 2012, revised to $1 million in 2015, making it the most expensive medicine in the world at the time. As of 2016, only the patients treated in clinical trials and a patient who paid the full price for treatment have received the drug.
In December 2012, it was reported that 10 of 13 patients with multiple myeloma were in remission "or very close to it" three months after being injected with a treatment involving genetically engineered T cells to target proteins NY-ESO-1 and LAGE-1, which exist only on cancerous myeloma cells.
In March researchers reported that three of five adult subjects who had acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had been in remission for five months to two years after being treated with genetically modified T cells which attacked cells with CD19 genes on their surface, i.e. all B cells, cancerous or not. The researchers believed that the patients' immune systems would make normal T cells and B cells after a couple of months. They were also given bone marrow. One patient relapsed and died and one died of a blood clot unrelated to the disease.
Following encouraging Phase I trials, in April, researchers announced they were starting Phase II clinical trials (called CUPID2 and SERCA-LVAD) on 250 patients at several hospitals to combat heart disease. The therapy was designed to increase the levels of SERCA2, a protein in heart muscles, improving muscle function. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted this a breakthrough therapy designation to accelerate the trial and approval process. In 2016, it was reported that no improvement was found from the CUPID 2 trial.
In July researchers reported promising results for six children with two severe hereditary diseases had been treated with a partially deactivated lentivirus to replace a faulty gene and after 7–32 months. Three of the children had metachromatic leukodystrophy, which causes children to lose cognitive and motor skills. The other children had Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome, which leaves them to open to infection, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Follow up trials with gene therapy on another six children with Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome were also reported as promising.
In October researchers reported that two children born with adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency disease (ADA-SCID) had been treated with genetically engineered stem cells 18 months previously and that their immune systems were showing signs of full recovery. Another three children were making progress. In 2014, a further 18 children with ADA-SCID were cured by gene therapy. ADA-SCID children have no functioning immune system and are sometimes known as "bubble children".
Also in October researchers reported that they had treated six people with haemophilia in early 2011 using an adeno-associated virus. Over two years later all six were producing clotting factor.
In January researchers reported that six choroideremia patients had been treated with adeno-associated virus with a copy of REP1. Over a six-month to two-year period all had improved their sight. By 2016, 32 patients had been treated with positive results and researchers were hopeful the treatment would be long-lasting. Choroideremia is an inherited genetic eye disease with no approved treatment, leading to loss of sight.
In March researchers reported that 12 HIV patients had been treated since 2009 in a trial with a genetically engineered virus with a rare mutation (CCR5 deficiency) known to protect against HIV with promising results.
Clinical trials of gene therapy for sickle cell disease were started in 2014.
In February LentiGlobin BB305, a gene therapy treatment undergoing clinical trials for treatment of beta thalassemia gained FDA "breakthrough" status after several patients were able to forgo the frequent blood transfusions usually required to treat the disease.
In March researchers delivered a recombinant gene encoding a broadly neutralizing antibody into monkeys infected with simian HIV; the monkeys' cells produced the antibody, which cleared them of HIV. The technique is named immunoprophylaxis by gene transfer (IGT). Animal tests for antibodies to ebola, malaria, influenza, and hepatitis were underway.
In March, scientists, including an inventor of CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, urged a worldwide moratorium on germline gene therapy, writing "scientists should avoid even attempting, in lax jurisdictions, germline genome modification for clinical application in humans" until the full implications "are discussed among scientific and governmental organizations".
In December, scientists of major world academies called for a moratorium on inheritable human genome edits, including those related to CRISPR-Cas9 technologies but that basic research including embryo gene editing should continue.
Researchers successfully treated a boy with epidermolysis bullosa using skin grafts grown from his own skin cells, genetically altered to repair the mutation that caused his disease.
In November, researchers announced that they had treated a baby girl, Layla Richards, with an experimental treatment using donor T cells genetically engineered using TALEN to attack cancer cells. One year after the treatment she was still free of her cancer (a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [ALL]). Children with highly aggressive ALL normally have a very poor prognosis and Layla's disease had been regarded as terminal before the treatment.
In April the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency endorsed a gene therapy treatment called Strimvelis and the European Commission approved it in June. This treats children born with adenosine deaminase deficiency and who have no functioning immune system. This was the second gene therapy treatment to be approved in Europe.
In October, Chinese scientists reported they had started a trial to genetically modify T cells from 10 adult patients with lung cancer and reinject the modified T cells back into their bodies to attack the cancer cells. The T cells had the PD-1 protein (which stops or slows the immune response) removed using CRISPR-Cas9.
A 2016 Cochrane systematic review looking at data from four trials on topical cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene therapy does not support its clinical use as a mist inhaled into the lungs to treat cystic fibrosis patients with lung infections. One of the four trials did find weak evidence that liposome-based CFTR gene transfer therapy may lead to a small respiratory improvement for people with CF. This weak evidence is not enough to make a clinical recommendation for routine CFTR gene therapy.
In February Kite Pharma announced results from a clinical trial of CAR-T cells in around a hundred people with advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
In March, French scientists reported on clinical research of gene therapy to treat sickle cell disease.
In August, the FDA approved tisagenlecleucel for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Tisagenlecleucel is an adoptive cell transfer therapy for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; T cells from a person with cancer are removed, genetically engineered to make a specific T-cell receptor (a chimeric T cell receptor, or "CAR-T") that reacts to the cancer, and are administered back to the person. The T cells are engineered to target a protein called CD19 that is common on B cells. This is the first form of gene therapy to be approved in the United States. In October, a similar therapy called axicabtagene ciloleucel was approved for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
In October, biophysicist and biohacker Josiah Zayner claimed to have performed the very first in-vivo human genome editing in the form of a self-administered therapy.
On 13 November, medical scientists working with Sangamo Therapeutics, headquartered in Richmond, California, announced the first ever in-body human gene editing therapy. The treatment, designed to permanently insert a healthy version of the flawed gene that causes Hunter syndrome, was given to 44-year-old Brian Madeux and is part of the world's first study to permanently edit DNA inside the human body. The success of the gene insertion was later confirmed. Clinical trials by Sangamo involving gene editing using zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) are ongoing.
In December the results of using an adeno-associated virus with blood clotting factor VIII to treat nine haemophilia A patients were published. Six of the seven patients on the high dose regime increased the level of the blood clotting VIII to normal levels. The low and medium dose regimes had no effect on the patient's blood clotting levels.
In December, the FDA approved Luxturna, the first in vivo gene therapy, for the treatment of blindness due to Leber's congenital amaurosis. The price of this treatment is US$850,000 for both eyes.
In May, the FDA approved onasemnogene abeparvovec (Zolgensma) for treating spinal muscular atrophy in children under two years of age. The list price of Zolgensma was set at US$2.125 million per dose, making it the most expensive drug ever.
In May, the EMA approved betibeglogene autotemcel (Zynteglo) for treating beta thalassemia for people twelve years of age and older.
In July, Allergan and Editas Medicine announced phase I/II clinical trial of AGN-151587 for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis 10. This is the first study of a CRISPR-based in vivo human gene editing therapy, where the editing takes place inside the human body. The first injection of the CRISPR-Cas System was confirmed in March 2020.
In May, onasemnogene abeparvovec (Zolgensma) was approved by the European Union for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy in people who either have clinical symptoms of SMA type 1 or who have no more than three copies of the SMN2 gene, irrespective of body weight or age.
In August, Audentes Therapeutics reported that three out of 17 children with X-linked myotubular myopathy participating the clinical trial of a AAV8-based gene therapy treatment AT132 have died. It was suggested that the treatment, whose dosage is based on body weight, exerts a disproportionately toxic effect on heavier patients, since the three patients who died were heavier than the others. The trial has been put on clinical hold.
On 15 October, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive opinion, recommending the granting of a marketing authorisation for the medicinal product Libmeldy (autologous CD34+ cell enriched population that contains hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells transduced ex vivo using a lentiviral vector encoding the human arylsulfatase A gene), a gene therapy for the treatment of children with the "late infantile" (LI) or "early juvenile" (EJ) forms of metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). The active substance of Libmeldy consists of the child's own stem cells which have been modified to contain working copies of the ARSA gene. When the modified cells are injected back into the patient as a one-time infusion, the cells are expected to start producing the ARSA enzyme that breaks down the build-up of sulfatides in the nerve cells and other cells of the patient's body. Libmeldy was approved for medical use in the EU in December 2020.
On 15 October, Lysogene, a French biotechnological company, reported the death of a patient in who has received LYS-SAF302, an experimental gene therapy treatment for mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIA (Sanfilippo syndrome type A).
In May, a new method using an altered version of the HIV virus as a lentivirus vector was reported in the treatment of 50 children with ADA-SCID obtaining positive results in 48 of them, this method is expected to be safer than retroviruses vectors commonly used in previous studies of SCID where the development of leukemia was usually observed and had already been used in 2019, but in a smaller group with X-SCID.
In June a clinical trial on six patients affected with transthyretin amyloidosis reported a reduction the concentration of missfolded transthretin (TTR) protein in serum through CRISPR-based inactivation of the TTR gene in liver cells observing mean reductions of 52% and 87% among the lower and higher dose groups.This was done in vivo without taking cells out of the patient to edit them and reinfuse them later.
In July results of a small gene therapy phase I study was published reporting observation of dopamine restoration on seven patients between 4 and 9 years old affected by aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency (AADC deficiency).
In February, the first ever gene therapy for Tay–Sachs disease was announced, it uses an adeno-associated virus to deliver the correct instruction for the HEXA gene on brain cells which causes the disease. Only two children were part of a compassionate trial presenting improvements over the natural course of the disease and no vector-related adverse events.
In May, eladocagene exuparvovec is recommended for approval by the European Commission.
In July results of a gene therapy candidate for haemophilia B called FLT180 were announced, it works using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) to restore the clotting factor IX (FIX) protein, normal levels of the protein were observed with low doses of the therapy but immunosuppression was necessitated to decrease the risk of vector-related immune responses.
In December, a 13-year girl that had been diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia was successfully treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in the first documented use of therapeutic gene editing for this purpose, after undergoing six months of an experimental treatment, where all attempts of other treatments failed. The procedure included reprogramming a healthy T-cell to destroy the cancerous T-cells to first rid her of leukaemia, and then rebuilding her immune system using healthy immune cells. The GOSH team used BASE editing and had previously treated a case of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2015 using TALENs.
In May the FDA approved Vyjuvek for the treatment of wounds in patients with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) which is applied as a topical gel that delivers a herpes-simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) vector encoding the collagen type VII alpha 1 chain (COL7A1) gene that is dysfunctional on those affected by DEB . One trial found 65% of the Vyjuvek-treated wounds completely closed while only 26% of the placebo-treated at 24 weeks. It has been also reported its use as a eyedrops for a patient with DEB that had vision loss due to the widespread blistering with good results.
In June the FDA gave an accelerated approval to Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) only for boys 4 to 5 years old as they are more likely to benefit from the therapy which consists of one-time intravenous infusion of a virus (AAV rh74 vector) that delivers a functioning “microdystrophin” gene (138 kDa) into the muscle cells to act in place of the normal dystrophin (427 kDa) that is found mutated in this disease.
In July it was reported that it had been developed a new method to affect genetic expressions through direct current. | [
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{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980, by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989. The first therapeutic use of gene transfer as well as the first direct insertion of human DNA into the nuclear genome was performed by French Anderson in a trial starting in September 1990. Between 1989 and December 2018, over 2,900 clinical trials were conducted, with more than half of them in phase I. In 2003, Gendicine became the first gene therapy to receive regulatory approval. Since that time, further gene therapy drugs were approved, such as Glybera (2012), Strimvelis (2016), Kymriah (2017), Luxturna (2017), Onpattro (2018), Zolgensma (2019), Abecma (2021), Adstiladrin, Roctavian and Hemgenix (all 2022). Most of these approaches utilize adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and lentiviruses for performing gene insertions, in vivo and ex vivo, respectively. AAVs are characterized by stabilizing the viral capsid, lower immunogenicity, ability to transduce both dividing and nondividing cells, the potential to integrate site specifically and to achieve long-term expression in the in-vivo treatment. ASO / siRNA approaches such as those conducted by Alnylam and Ionis Pharmaceuticals require non-viral delivery systems, and utilize alternative mechanisms for trafficking to liver cells by way of GalNAc transporters.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Not all medical procedures that introduce alterations to a patient's genetic makeup can be considered gene therapy. Bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants in general have been found to introduce foreign DNA into patients.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Gene therapy was first conceptualized in the 1960s, when the feasibility of adding new genetic functions to mammalian cells began to be researched. Several methods to do so were tested, including injecting genes with a micropipette directly into a living mammalian cell, and exposing cells to a precipitate of DNA that contained the desired genes. Scientists theorized that a virus could also be used as a vehicle, or vector, to deliver new genes into cells.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "One of the first scientists to report the successful direct incorporation of functional DNA into a mammalian cell was biochemist Dr. Lorraine Marquardt Kraus (6 September 1922 – 1 July 2016) at the University of Tennessee in Tennessee, United States. In 1961, she managed to genetically alter the hemoglobin of cells from bone marrow taken from a patient with sickle cell anaemia. She did this by incubating the patient’s cells in tissue culture with DNA extracted from a donor with normal hemoglobin. In 1968, researchers Theodore Friedmann, Jay Seegmiller, and John Subak-Sharpe at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, in the United States successfully corrected genetic defects associated with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a debilitating neurological disease, by adding foreign DNA to cultured cells collected from patients suffering from the disease.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first attempt, an unsuccessful one, at gene therapy (as well as the first case of medical transfer of foreign genes into humans not counting organ transplantation) was performed by geneticist Martin Cline of the University of California, Los Angeles in California, United States on 10 July 1980. Cline claimed that one of the genes in his patients was active six months later, though he never published this data or had it verified.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After extensive research on animals throughout the 1980s and a 1989 bacterial gene tagging trial on humans, the first gene therapy widely accepted as a success was demonstrated in a trial that started on 14 September 1990, when Ashanthi DeSilva was treated for ADA-SCID.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The first somatic treatment that produced a permanent genetic change was initiated in 1993. The goal was to cure malignant brain tumors by using recombinant DNA to transfer a gene making the tumor cells sensitive to a drug that in turn would cause the tumor cells to die.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The polymers are either translated into proteins, interfere with target gene expression, or possibly correct genetic mutations. The most common form uses DNA that encodes a functional, therapeutic gene to replace a mutated gene. The polymer molecule is packaged within a \"vector\", which carries the molecule inside cells.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Early clinical failures led to dismissals of gene therapy. Clinical successes since 2006 regained researchers' attention, although as of 2014, it was still largely an experimental technique. These include treatment of retinal diseases Leber's congenital amaurosis and choroideremia, X-linked SCID, ADA-SCID, adrenoleukodystrophy, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), multiple myeloma, haemophilia, and Parkinson's disease. Between 2013 and April 2014, US companies invested over $600 million in the field.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The first commercial gene therapy, Gendicine, was approved in China in 2003, for the treatment of certain cancers. In 2011, Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia. In 2012, Glybera, a treatment for a rare inherited disorder, lipoprotein lipase deficiency, became the first treatment to be approved for clinical use in either Europe or the United States after its endorsement by the European Commission.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Following early advances in genetic engineering of bacteria, cells, and small animals, scientists started considering how to apply it to medicine. Two main approaches were considered – replacing or disrupting defective genes. Scientists focused on diseases caused by single-gene defects, such as cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia, and sickle cell anemia. Glybera treats one such disease, caused by a defect in lipoprotein lipase.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "DNA must be administered, reach the damaged cells, enter the cell and either express or disrupt a protein. Multiple delivery techniques have been explored. The initial approach incorporated DNA into an engineered virus to deliver the DNA into a chromosome. Naked DNA approaches have also been explored, especially in the context of vaccine development.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Generally, efforts focused on administering a gene that causes a needed protein to be expressed. More recently, increased understanding of nuclease function has led to more direct DNA editing, using techniques such as zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR. The vector incorporates genes into chromosomes. The expressed nucleases then knock out and replace genes in the chromosome. As of 2014 these approaches involve removing cells from patients, editing a chromosome and returning the transformed cells to patients.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Gene editing is a potential approach to alter the human genome to treat genetic diseases, viral diseases, and cancer. As of 2020 these approaches are being studied in clinical trials.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 1986, a meeting at the Institute Of Medicine defined gene therapy as the addition or replacement of a gene in a targeted cell type. In the same year, the FDA announced that it had jurisdiction over approving \"gene therapy\" without defining the term. The FDA added a very broad definition in 1993 of any treatment that would ‘modify or manipulate the expression of genetic material or to alter the biological properties of living cells’. In 2018 this was narrowed to ‘products that mediate their effects by transcription or translation of transferred genetic material or by specifically altering host (human) genetic sequences’.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Writing in 2018, in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Sherkow et al. argued for a narrower definition of gene therapy than the FDA's in light of new technology that would consist of any treatment that intentionally and permanently modified a cell's genome, with the definition of genome including episomes outside the nucleus but excluding changes due to episomes that are lost over time. This definition would also exclude introducing cells that did not derive from a patient themselves, but include ex vivo approaches, and would not depend on the vector used.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "During the COVID-19 pandemic, some academics insisted that the mRNA vaccines for COVID were not gene therapy to prevent the spread of incorrect information that the vaccine could alter DNA, other academics maintained that the vaccines were a gene therapy because they introduced genetic material into a cell. Fact-checkers, such as Full Fact, Reuters, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.org said that calling the vaccines a gene therapy was incorrect. Podcast host Joe Rogan was criticized for calling mRNA vaccines gene therapy as was British politician Andrew Bridgen, with fact checker Full Fact calling for Bridgen to be removed from the conservative party for this and other statements.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Gene therapy encapsulates many forms of adding different nucleic acids to a cell. Gene augmentation adds a new protein coding gene to a cell. One form of gene augmentiation is gene replacement therapy, a treatment for monogenic recessive disorders where a single gene is not functional an additional functional gene is added. For diseases caused by multiple genes or a dominant gene, gene silencing or gene editing approaches are more appropriate but gene addition, a form of gene augmentation where new gene is added, may improve a cells function without modifying the genes that cause a disorder.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Gene therapy may be classified into two types by the type of cell it affects: somatic cell and germline gene therapy.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In somatic cell gene therapy (SCGT), the therapeutic genes are transferred into any cell other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte, or undifferentiated stem cell. Any such modifications affect the individual patient only, and are not inherited by offspring. Somatic gene therapy represents mainstream basic and clinical research, in which therapeutic DNA (either integrated in the genome or as an external episome or plasmid) is used to treat disease. Over 600 clinical trials utilizing SCGT are underway in the US. Most focus on severe genetic disorders, including immunodeficiencies, haemophilia, thalassaemia, and cystic fibrosis. Such single gene disorders are good candidates for somatic cell therapy. The complete correction of a genetic disorder or the replacement of multiple genes is not yet possible. Only a few of the trials are in the advanced stages.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In germline gene therapy (GGT), germ cells (sperm or egg cells) are modified by the introduction of functional genes into their genomes. Modifying a germ cell causes all the organism's cells to contain the modified gene. The change is therefore heritable and passed on to later generations. Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the Netherlands prohibit GGT for application in human beings, for technical and ethical reasons, including insufficient knowledge about possible risks to future generations and higher risks versus SCGT. The US has no federal controls specifically addressing human genetic modification (beyond FDA regulations for therapies in general).",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In in vivo gene therapy, a vector (typically, a virus) is introduced to the patient, which then achieves the desired biological effect by passing the genetic material (e.g. for a missing protein) into the patient's cells. In ex vivo gene therapies, such as CAR-T therapeutics, the patient's own cells (autologous) or healthy donor cells (allogeneic) are modified outside the body (hence, ex vivo) using a vector to express a particular protein, such as a chimeric antigen receptor.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In vivo gene therapy is seen as simpler, since it does not require the harvesting of mitotic cells. However, ex vivo gene therapies are better tolerated and less associated with severe immune responses. The death of Jesse Gelsinger in a trial of an adenovirus-vectored treatment for ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency due to a systemic inflammatory reaction led to a temporary halt on gene therapy trials across the United States. As of 2021, in vivo and ex vivo therapeutics are both seen as safe.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The concept of gene therapy is to fix a genetic problem at its source. If, for instance, a mutation in a certain gene causes the production of a dysfunctional protein resulting (usually recessively) in an inherited disease, gene therapy could be used to deliver a copy of this gene that does not contain the deleterious mutation and thereby produces a functional protein. This strategy is referred to as gene replacement therapy and could be employed to treat inherited retinal diseases.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "While the concept of gene replacement therapy is mostly suitable for recessive diseases, novel strategies have been suggested that are capable of also treating conditions with a dominant pattern of inheritance.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In vivo, gene editing systems using CRISPR have been used in studies with mice to treat cancer and have been effective at reducing tumors. In vitro, the CRISPR system has been used to treat HPV cancer tumors. Adeno-associated virus, Lentivirus based vectors have been to introduce the genome for the CRISPR system.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The delivery of DNA into cells can be accomplished by multiple methods. The two major classes are recombinant viruses (sometimes called biological nanoparticles or viral vectors) and naked DNA or DNA complexes (non-viral methods).",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In order to replicate, viruses introduce their genetic material into the host cell, tricking the host's cellular machinery into using it as blueprints for viral proteins. Retroviruses go a stage further by having their genetic material copied into the nuclear genome of the host cell. Scientists exploit this by substituting part of a virus's genetic material with therapeutic DNA or RNA. Like the genetic material (DNA or RNA) in viruses, therapeutic genetic material can be designed to simply serve as a temporary blueprint that degrades naturally, as in a non-integrative vectors, or to enter the host's nucleus becoming a permanent part of the host's nuclear DNA in infected cells.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "A number of viruses have been used for human gene therapy, including retroviruses such as lentivirus, adenoviruses, herpes simplex, vaccinia, and adeno-associated virus.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Adenovirus viral vectors (Ad) temporarily modify a cell's genetic expression with genetic material that is not integrated into the host cell's DNA. As of 2017, such vectors were used in 20% of trials for gene therapy. Adenovirus vectors are mostly used in cancer treatments and novel genetic vaccines such as the Ebola vaccine, vaccines used in clinical trials for HIV and SARS-CoV-2, or cancer vaccines.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Lentiviral vectors based on lentivirus, a retrovirus, can modify a cell's nuclear genome to permanently express a gene, although vectors can be modified to prevent integration. Retroviruses were used in 18% of trials before 2018. Libmeldy is an ex vivo stem cell treatment for metachromatic leukodystrophy which uses a lentiviral vector and was approved by the european medical agency in 2020.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a virus that is incapable of transmission between cells unless the cell is infected by another virus, a helper virus. Adenovirus and the herpes viruses act as helper viruses for AAV. AAV persists within the cell outside of the cell's nuclear genome for an extended period of time through the formation of concatemers mostly organized as episomes. Genetic material from AAV vectors is integrated into the host cell's nuclear genome at a low frequency and likely mediated by the DNA-modifying enzymes of the host cell. Animal models suggest that integration of AAV genetic material into the host cell's nuclear genome may cause hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Non-viral vectors for gene therapy present certain advantages over viral methods, such as large scale production and low host immunogenicity. However, non-viral methods initially produced lower levels of transfection and gene expression, and thus lower therapeutic efficacy. Newer technologies offer promise of solving these problems, with the advent of increased cell-specific targeting and subcellular trafficking control.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Methods for non-viral gene therapy include the injection of naked DNA, electroporation, the gene gun, sonoporation, magnetofection, the use of oligonucleotides, lipoplexes, dendrimers, and inorganic nanoparticles.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "More recent approaches, such as those performed by companies such as Ligandal, offer the possibility of creating cell-specific targeting technologies for a variety of gene therapy modalities, including RNA, DNA and gene editing tools such as CRISPR. Other companies, such as Arbutus Biopharma and Arcturus Therapeutics, offer non-viral, non-cell-targeted approaches that mainly exhibit liver trophism. In more recent years, startups such as Sixfold Bio, GenEdit, and Spotlight Therapeutics have begun to solve the non-viral gene delivery problem. Non-viral techniques offer the possibility of repeat dosing and greater tailorability of genetic payloads, which in the future will be more likely to take over viral-based delivery systems.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Companies such as Editas Medicine, Intellia Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, Casebia, Cellectis, Precision Biosciences, bluebird bio, Excision BioTherapeutics, and Sangamo have developed non-viral gene editing techniques, however frequently still use viruses for delivering gene insertion material following genomic cleavage by guided nucleases. These companies focus on gene editing, and still face major delivery hurdles.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "BioNTech, Moderna Therapeutics and CureVac focus on delivery of mRNA payloads, which are necessarily non-viral delivery problems.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Alnylam, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, and Ionis Pharmaceuticals focus on delivery of siRNA (antisense oligonucleotides) for gene suppression, which also necessitate non-viral delivery systems.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In academic contexts, a number of laboratories are working on delivery of PEGylated particles, which form serum protein coronas and chiefly exhibit LDL receptor mediated uptake in cells in vivo.",
"title": "Vectors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "There have been attempts to treat cancer using gene therapy. As of 2017, 65% of gene therapy trials were for cancer treatment.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Adenovirus vectors are useful for some cancer gene therapies because adenovirus can transiently insert genetic material into a cell without permanently altering the cell's nuclear genome. These vectors can be used to cause antigens to be added to cancers causing an immune response, or hinder angiogenesis by expressing certain proteins. An Adenovirus vector is used in the commercial products Gendicine and Oncorine. Another commercial product, Rexin G, uses a retrovirus-based vector and selectively binds to receptors that are more expressed in tumors.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "One approach, suicide gene therapy, works by introducing genes encoding enzymes that will cause a cancer cell to die. Another approach is the use oncolytic viruses, such as Oncorine, which are viruses that selectively reproduce in cancerous cells leaving other cells unaffected.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "mRNA has been suggested as a non-viral vector for cancer gene therapy that would temporarily change a cancerous cell's function to create antigens or kill the cancerous cells and there have been several trials.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Gene therapy approaches to replace a faulty gene with a healthy gene have been proposed and are being studied for treating some genetic diseases. As of 2017, 11.1% of gene therapy clinical trials targeted monogenic diseases.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Diseases such as sickle cell disease that are caused by autosomal recessive disorders for which a person's normal phenotype or cell function may be restored in cells that have the disease by a normal copy of the gene that is mutated, may be a good candidate for gene therapy treatment. The risks and benefits related to gene therapy for sickle cell disease are not known.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Gene therapy has been used in the eye. The eye is especially suitable for adeno-associated virus vectors. Luxturna is an approved gene therapy to treat Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy. Glybera, a treatment for pancreatitis caused by a genetic condition, and Zolgensma for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy both use an adeno-associated virus vector.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "As of 2017, 7% of genetic therapy trials targeted infectious diseases. 69.2% of trials targeted HIV, 11% hepatitis B or C, and 7.1% malaria.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Some genetic therapies have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and for use in Russia and China.",
"title": "Treatment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Some of the unsolved problems include:",
"title": "Adverse effects, contraindications and hurdles for use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Three patients' deaths have been reported in gene therapy trials, putting the field under close scrutiny. The first was that of Jesse Gelsinger, who died in 1999, because of immune rejection response. One X-SCID patient died of leukemia in 2003. In 2007, a rheumatoid arthritis patient died from an infection; the subsequent investigation concluded that the death was not related to gene therapy.",
"title": "Adverse effects, contraindications and hurdles for use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Regulations covering genetic modification are part of general guidelines about human-involved biomedical research. There are no international treaties which are legally binding in this area, but there are recommendations for national laws from various bodies.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Helsinki Declaration (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects) was amended by the World Medical Association's General Assembly in 2008. This document provides principles physicians and researchers must consider when involving humans as research subjects. The Statement on Gene Therapy Research initiated by the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) in 2001, provides a legal baseline for all countries. HUGO's document emphasizes human freedom and adherence to human rights, and offers recommendations for somatic gene therapy, including the importance of recognizing public concerns about such research.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "No federal legislation lays out protocols or restrictions about human genetic engineering. This subject is governed by overlapping regulations from local and federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA and NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. Researchers seeking federal funds for an investigational new drug application, (commonly the case for somatic human genetic engineering,) must obey international and federal guidelines for the protection of human subjects.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "NIH serves as the main gene therapy regulator for federally funded research. Privately funded research is advised to follow these regulations. NIH provides funding for research that develops or enhances genetic engineering techniques and to evaluate the ethics and quality in current research. The NIH maintains a mandatory registry of human genetic engineering research protocols that includes all federally funded projects.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "An NIH advisory committee published a set of guidelines on gene manipulation. The guidelines discuss lab safety as well as human test subjects and various experimental types that involve genetic changes. Several sections specifically pertain to human genetic engineering, including Section III-C-1. This section describes required review processes and other aspects when seeking approval to begin clinical research involving genetic transfer into a human patient. The protocol for a gene therapy clinical trial must be approved by the NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee prior to any clinical trial beginning; this is different from any other kind of clinical trial.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "As with other kinds of drugs, the FDA regulates the quality and safety of gene therapy products and supervises how these products are used clinically. Therapeutic alteration of the human genome falls under the same regulatory requirements as any other medical treatment. Research involving human subjects, such as clinical trials, must be reviewed and approved by the FDA and an Institutional Review Board.",
"title": "Regulations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Athletes may adopt gene therapy technologies to improve their performance. Gene doping is not known to occur, but multiple gene therapies may have such effects. Kayser et al. argue that gene doping could level the playing field if all athletes receive equal access. Critics claim that any therapeutic intervention for non-therapeutic/enhancement purposes compromises the ethical foundations of medicine and sports.",
"title": "Gene doping"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Genetic engineering could be used to cure diseases, but also to change physical appearance, metabolism, and even improve physical capabilities and mental faculties such as memory and intelligence. Ethical claims about germline engineering include beliefs that every fetus has a right to remain genetically unmodified, that parents hold the right to genetically modify their offspring, and that every child has the right to be born free of preventable diseases. For parents, genetic engineering could be seen as another child enhancement technique to add to diet, exercise, education, training, cosmetics, and plastic surgery. Another theorist claims that moral concerns limit but do not prohibit germline engineering.",
"title": "Genetic enhancement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "A 2020 issue of the journal Bioethics was devoted to moral issues surrounding germline genetic engineering in people.",
"title": "Genetic enhancement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Possible regulatory schemes include a complete ban, provision to everyone, or professional self-regulation. The American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs stated that \"genetic interventions to enhance traits should be considered permissible only in severely restricted situations: (1) clear and meaningful benefits to the fetus or child; (2) no trade-off with other characteristics or traits; and (3) equal access to the genetic technology, irrespective of income or other socioeconomic characteristics.\"",
"title": "Genetic enhancement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "As early in the history of biotechnology as 1990, there have been scientists opposed to attempts to modify the human germline using these new tools, and such concerns have continued as technology progressed. With the advent of new techniques like CRISPR, in March 2015 a group of scientists urged a worldwide moratorium on clinical use of gene editing technologies to edit the human genome in a way that can be inherited. In April 2015, researchers sparked controversy when they reported results of basic research to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos using CRISPR. A committee of the American National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine gave qualified support to human genome editing in 2017 once answers have been found to safety and efficiency problems \"but only for serious conditions under stringent oversight.\"",
"title": "Genetic enhancement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In 1972, Friedmann and Roblin authored a paper in Science titled \"Gene therapy for human genetic disease?\". Rogers (1970) was cited for proposing that exogenous good DNA be used to replace the defective DNA in those with genetic defects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In 1984, a retrovirus vector system was designed that could efficiently insert foreign genes into mammalian chromosomes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The first approved gene therapy clinical research in the US took place on 14 September 1990, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the direction of William French Anderson. Four-year-old Ashanti DeSilva received treatment for a genetic defect that left her with adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID), a severe immune system deficiency. The defective gene of the patient's blood cells was replaced by the functional variant. Ashanti's immune system was partially restored by the therapy. Production of the missing enzyme was temporarily stimulated, but the new cells with functional genes were not generated. She led a normal life only with the regular injections performed every two months. The effects were successful, but temporary.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Cancer gene therapy was introduced in 1992/93 (Trojan et al. 1993). The treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, the malignant brain tumor whose outcome is always fatal, was done using a vector expressing antisense IGF-I RNA (clinical trial approved by NIH protocol no.1602 24 November 1993, and by the FDA in 1994). This therapy also represents the beginning of cancer immunogene therapy, a treatment which proves to be effective due to the anti-tumor mechanism of IGF-I antisense, which is related to strong immune and apoptotic phenomena.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 1992, Claudio Bordignon, working at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, performed the first gene therapy procedure using hematopoietic stem cells as vectors to deliver genes intended to correct hereditary diseases. In 2002, this work led to the publication of the first successful gene therapy treatment for ADA-SCID. The success of a multi-center trial for treating children with SCID (severe combined immune deficiency or \"bubble boy\" disease) from 2000 and 2002, was questioned when two of the ten children treated at the trial's Paris center developed a leukemia-like condition. Clinical trials were halted temporarily in 2002, but resumed after regulatory review of the protocol in the US, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In 1993, Andrew Gobea was born with SCID following prenatal genetic screening. Blood was removed from his mother's placenta and umbilical cord immediately after birth, to acquire stem cells. The allele that codes for adenosine deaminase (ADA) was obtained and inserted into a retrovirus. Retroviruses and stem cells were mixed, after which the viruses inserted the gene into the stem cell chromosomes. Stem cells containing the working ADA gene were injected into Andrew's blood. Injections of the ADA enzyme were also given weekly. For four years T cells (white blood cells), produced by stem cells, made ADA enzymes using the ADA gene. After four years more treatment was needed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In 1996, Luigi Naldini and Didier Trono developed a new class of gene therapy vectors based on HIV capable of infecting non-dividing cells that have since then been widely used in clinical and research settings, pioneering lentivirals vector in gene therapy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Jesse Gelsinger's death in 1999 impeded gene therapy research in the US. As a result, the FDA suspended several clinical trials pending the reevaluation of ethical and procedural practices.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The modified gene therapy strategy of antisense IGF-I RNA (NIH n˚ 1602) using antisense / triple helix anti-IGF-I approach was registered in 2002, by Wiley gene therapy clinical trial - n˚ 635 and 636. The approach has shown promising results in the treatment of six different malignant tumors: glioblastoma, cancers of liver, colon, prostate, uterus, and ovary (Collaborative NATO Science Programme on Gene Therapy USA, France, Poland n˚ LST 980517 conducted by J. Trojan) (Trojan et al., 2012). This anti-gene antisense/triple helix therapy has proven to be efficient, due to the mechanism stopping simultaneously IGF-I expression on translation and transcription levels, strengthening anti-tumor immune and apoptotic phenomena.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Sickle cell disease can be treated in mice. The mice – which have essentially the same defect that causes human cases – used a viral vector to induce production of fetal hemoglobin (HbF), which normally ceases to be produced shortly after birth. In humans, the use of hydroxyurea to stimulate the production of HbF temporarily alleviates sickle cell symptoms. The researchers demonstrated this treatment to be a more permanent means to increase therapeutic HbF production.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "A new gene therapy approach repaired errors in messenger RNA derived from defective genes. This technique has the potential to treat thalassaemia, cystic fibrosis and some cancers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Researchers created liposomes 25 nanometers across that can carry therapeutic DNA through pores in the nuclear membrane.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "In 2003, a research team inserted genes into the brain for the first time. They used liposomes coated in a polymer called polyethylene glycol, which unlike viral vectors, are small enough to cross the blood–brain barrier.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Short pieces of double-stranded RNA (short, interfering RNAs or siRNAs) are used by cells to degrade RNA of a particular sequence. If a siRNA is designed to match the RNA copied from a faulty gene, then the abnormal protein product of that gene will not be produced.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Gendicine is a cancer gene therapy that delivers the tumor suppressor gene p53 using an engineered adenovirus. In 2003, it was approved in China for the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In March, researchers announced the successful use of gene therapy to treat two adult patients for X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, a disease which affects myeloid cells and damages the immune system. The study is the first to show that gene therapy can treat the myeloid system.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In May, a team reported a way to prevent the immune system from rejecting a newly delivered gene. Similar to organ transplantation, gene therapy has been plagued by this problem. The immune system normally recognizes the new gene as foreign and rejects the cells carrying it. The research utilized a newly uncovered network of genes regulated by molecules known as microRNAs. This natural function selectively obscured their therapeutic gene in immune system cells and protected it from discovery. Mice infected with the gene containing an immune-cell microRNA target sequence did not reject the gene.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "In August, scientists successfully treated metastatic melanoma in two patients using killer T cells genetically retargeted to attack the cancer cells.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "In November, researchers reported on the use of VRX496, a gene-based immunotherapy for the treatment of HIV that uses a lentiviral vector to deliver an antisense gene against the HIV envelope. In a phase I clinical trial, five subjects with chronic HIV infection who had failed to respond to at least two antiretroviral regimens were treated. A single intravenous infusion of autologous CD4 T cells genetically modified with VRX496 was well tolerated. All patients had stable or decreased viral load; four of the five patients had stable or increased CD4 T cell counts. All five patients had stable or increased immune response to HIV antigens and other pathogens. This was the first evaluation of a lentiviral vector administered in a US human clinical trial.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "In May, researchers announced the first gene therapy trial for inherited retinal disease. The first operation was carried out on a 23-year-old British male, Robert Johnson, in early 2007.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Leber's congenital amaurosis is an inherited blinding disease caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. The results of a small clinical trial in children were published in April. Delivery of recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying RPE65 yielded positive results. In May, two more groups reported positive results in independent clinical trials using gene therapy to treat the condition. In all three clinical trials, patients recovered functional vision without apparent side-effects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "In September researchers were able to give trichromatic vision to squirrel monkeys. In November 2009, researchers halted a fatal genetic disorder called adrenoleukodystrophy in two children using a lentivirus vector to deliver a functioning version of ABCD1, the gene that is mutated in the disorder.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "An April paper reported that gene therapy addressed achromatopsia (color blindness) in dogs by targeting cone photoreceptors. Cone function and day vision were restored for at least 33 months in two young specimens. The therapy was less efficient for older dogs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "In September it was announced that an 18-year-old male patient in France with beta thalassemia major had been successfully treated. Beta thalassemia major is an inherited blood disease in which beta haemoglobin is missing and patients are dependent on regular lifelong blood transfusions. The technique used a lentiviral vector to transduce the human β-globin gene into purified blood and marrow cells obtained from the patient in June 2007. The patient's haemoglobin levels were stable at 9 to 10 g/dL. About a third of the hemoglobin contained the form introduced by the viral vector and blood transfusions were not needed. Further clinical trials were planned. Bone marrow transplants are the only cure for thalassemia, but 75% of patients do not find a matching donor.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Cancer immunogene therapy using modified antigene, antisense/triple helix approach was introduced in South America in 2010/11 in La Sabana University, Bogota (Ethical Committee 14 December 2010, no P-004-10). Considering the ethical aspect of gene diagnostic and gene therapy targeting IGF-I, the IGF-I expressing tumors i.e. lung and epidermis cancers were treated (Trojan et al. 2016).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "In 2007 and 2008, a man (Timothy Ray Brown) was cured of HIV by repeated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (see also allogeneic stem cell transplantation, allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, allotransplantation) with double-delta-32 mutation which disables the CCR5 receptor. This cure was accepted by the medical community in 2011. It required complete ablation of existing bone marrow, which is very debilitating.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In August two of three subjects of a pilot study were confirmed to have been cured from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The therapy used genetically modified T cells to attack cells that expressed the CD19 protein to fight the disease. In 2013, the researchers announced that 26 of 59 patients had achieved complete remission and the original patient had remained tumor-free.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Human HGF plasmid DNA therapy of cardiomyocytes is being examined as a potential treatment for coronary artery disease as well as treatment for the damage that occurs to the heart after myocardial infarction.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "In 2011, Neovasculgen was registered in Russia as the first-in-class gene-therapy drug for treatment of peripheral artery disease, including critical limb ischemia; it delivers the gene encoding for VEGF. Neovasculogen is a plasmid encoding the CMV promoter and the 165 amino acid form of VEGF.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "The FDA approved Phase I clinical trials on thalassemia major patients in the US for 10 participants in July. The study was expected to continue until 2015.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "In July 2012, the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of a gene therapy treatment for the first time in either Europe or the United States. The treatment used Alipogene tiparvovec (Glybera) to compensate for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, which can cause severe pancreatitis. The recommendation was endorsed by the European Commission in November 2012, and commercial rollout began in late 2014. Alipogene tiparvovec was expected to cost around $1.6 million per treatment in 2012, revised to $1 million in 2015, making it the most expensive medicine in the world at the time. As of 2016, only the patients treated in clinical trials and a patient who paid the full price for treatment have received the drug.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "In December 2012, it was reported that 10 of 13 patients with multiple myeloma were in remission \"or very close to it\" three months after being injected with a treatment involving genetically engineered T cells to target proteins NY-ESO-1 and LAGE-1, which exist only on cancerous myeloma cells.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "In March researchers reported that three of five adult subjects who had acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had been in remission for five months to two years after being treated with genetically modified T cells which attacked cells with CD19 genes on their surface, i.e. all B cells, cancerous or not. The researchers believed that the patients' immune systems would make normal T cells and B cells after a couple of months. They were also given bone marrow. One patient relapsed and died and one died of a blood clot unrelated to the disease.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Following encouraging Phase I trials, in April, researchers announced they were starting Phase II clinical trials (called CUPID2 and SERCA-LVAD) on 250 patients at several hospitals to combat heart disease. The therapy was designed to increase the levels of SERCA2, a protein in heart muscles, improving muscle function. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted this a breakthrough therapy designation to accelerate the trial and approval process. In 2016, it was reported that no improvement was found from the CUPID 2 trial.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "In July researchers reported promising results for six children with two severe hereditary diseases had been treated with a partially deactivated lentivirus to replace a faulty gene and after 7–32 months. Three of the children had metachromatic leukodystrophy, which causes children to lose cognitive and motor skills. The other children had Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome, which leaves them to open to infection, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Follow up trials with gene therapy on another six children with Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome were also reported as promising.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "In October researchers reported that two children born with adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency disease (ADA-SCID) had been treated with genetically engineered stem cells 18 months previously and that their immune systems were showing signs of full recovery. Another three children were making progress. In 2014, a further 18 children with ADA-SCID were cured by gene therapy. ADA-SCID children have no functioning immune system and are sometimes known as \"bubble children\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Also in October researchers reported that they had treated six people with haemophilia in early 2011 using an adeno-associated virus. Over two years later all six were producing clotting factor.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In January researchers reported that six choroideremia patients had been treated with adeno-associated virus with a copy of REP1. Over a six-month to two-year period all had improved their sight. By 2016, 32 patients had been treated with positive results and researchers were hopeful the treatment would be long-lasting. Choroideremia is an inherited genetic eye disease with no approved treatment, leading to loss of sight.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "In March researchers reported that 12 HIV patients had been treated since 2009 in a trial with a genetically engineered virus with a rare mutation (CCR5 deficiency) known to protect against HIV with promising results.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Clinical trials of gene therapy for sickle cell disease were started in 2014.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "In February LentiGlobin BB305, a gene therapy treatment undergoing clinical trials for treatment of beta thalassemia gained FDA \"breakthrough\" status after several patients were able to forgo the frequent blood transfusions usually required to treat the disease.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "In March researchers delivered a recombinant gene encoding a broadly neutralizing antibody into monkeys infected with simian HIV; the monkeys' cells produced the antibody, which cleared them of HIV. The technique is named immunoprophylaxis by gene transfer (IGT). Animal tests for antibodies to ebola, malaria, influenza, and hepatitis were underway.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "In March, scientists, including an inventor of CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, urged a worldwide moratorium on germline gene therapy, writing \"scientists should avoid even attempting, in lax jurisdictions, germline genome modification for clinical application in humans\" until the full implications \"are discussed among scientific and governmental organizations\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "In December, scientists of major world academies called for a moratorium on inheritable human genome edits, including those related to CRISPR-Cas9 technologies but that basic research including embryo gene editing should continue.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Researchers successfully treated a boy with epidermolysis bullosa using skin grafts grown from his own skin cells, genetically altered to repair the mutation that caused his disease.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "In November, researchers announced that they had treated a baby girl, Layla Richards, with an experimental treatment using donor T cells genetically engineered using TALEN to attack cancer cells. One year after the treatment she was still free of her cancer (a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [ALL]). Children with highly aggressive ALL normally have a very poor prognosis and Layla's disease had been regarded as terminal before the treatment.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "In April the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency endorsed a gene therapy treatment called Strimvelis and the European Commission approved it in June. This treats children born with adenosine deaminase deficiency and who have no functioning immune system. This was the second gene therapy treatment to be approved in Europe.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "In October, Chinese scientists reported they had started a trial to genetically modify T cells from 10 adult patients with lung cancer and reinject the modified T cells back into their bodies to attack the cancer cells. The T cells had the PD-1 protein (which stops or slows the immune response) removed using CRISPR-Cas9.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "A 2016 Cochrane systematic review looking at data from four trials on topical cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene therapy does not support its clinical use as a mist inhaled into the lungs to treat cystic fibrosis patients with lung infections. One of the four trials did find weak evidence that liposome-based CFTR gene transfer therapy may lead to a small respiratory improvement for people with CF. This weak evidence is not enough to make a clinical recommendation for routine CFTR gene therapy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "In February Kite Pharma announced results from a clinical trial of CAR-T cells in around a hundred people with advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "In March, French scientists reported on clinical research of gene therapy to treat sickle cell disease.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "In August, the FDA approved tisagenlecleucel for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Tisagenlecleucel is an adoptive cell transfer therapy for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; T cells from a person with cancer are removed, genetically engineered to make a specific T-cell receptor (a chimeric T cell receptor, or \"CAR-T\") that reacts to the cancer, and are administered back to the person. The T cells are engineered to target a protein called CD19 that is common on B cells. This is the first form of gene therapy to be approved in the United States. In October, a similar therapy called axicabtagene ciloleucel was approved for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "In October, biophysicist and biohacker Josiah Zayner claimed to have performed the very first in-vivo human genome editing in the form of a self-administered therapy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "On 13 November, medical scientists working with Sangamo Therapeutics, headquartered in Richmond, California, announced the first ever in-body human gene editing therapy. The treatment, designed to permanently insert a healthy version of the flawed gene that causes Hunter syndrome, was given to 44-year-old Brian Madeux and is part of the world's first study to permanently edit DNA inside the human body. The success of the gene insertion was later confirmed. Clinical trials by Sangamo involving gene editing using zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) are ongoing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "In December the results of using an adeno-associated virus with blood clotting factor VIII to treat nine haemophilia A patients were published. Six of the seven patients on the high dose regime increased the level of the blood clotting VIII to normal levels. The low and medium dose regimes had no effect on the patient's blood clotting levels.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "In December, the FDA approved Luxturna, the first in vivo gene therapy, for the treatment of blindness due to Leber's congenital amaurosis. The price of this treatment is US$850,000 for both eyes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "In May, the FDA approved onasemnogene abeparvovec (Zolgensma) for treating spinal muscular atrophy in children under two years of age. The list price of Zolgensma was set at US$2.125 million per dose, making it the most expensive drug ever.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "In May, the EMA approved betibeglogene autotemcel (Zynteglo) for treating beta thalassemia for people twelve years of age and older.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "In July, Allergan and Editas Medicine announced phase I/II clinical trial of AGN-151587 for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis 10. This is the first study of a CRISPR-based in vivo human gene editing therapy, where the editing takes place inside the human body. The first injection of the CRISPR-Cas System was confirmed in March 2020.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "In May, onasemnogene abeparvovec (Zolgensma) was approved by the European Union for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy in people who either have clinical symptoms of SMA type 1 or who have no more than three copies of the SMN2 gene, irrespective of body weight or age.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "In August, Audentes Therapeutics reported that three out of 17 children with X-linked myotubular myopathy participating the clinical trial of a AAV8-based gene therapy treatment AT132 have died. It was suggested that the treatment, whose dosage is based on body weight, exerts a disproportionately toxic effect on heavier patients, since the three patients who died were heavier than the others. The trial has been put on clinical hold.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "On 15 October, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive opinion, recommending the granting of a marketing authorisation for the medicinal product Libmeldy (autologous CD34+ cell enriched population that contains hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells transduced ex vivo using a lentiviral vector encoding the human arylsulfatase A gene), a gene therapy for the treatment of children with the \"late infantile\" (LI) or \"early juvenile\" (EJ) forms of metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). The active substance of Libmeldy consists of the child's own stem cells which have been modified to contain working copies of the ARSA gene. When the modified cells are injected back into the patient as a one-time infusion, the cells are expected to start producing the ARSA enzyme that breaks down the build-up of sulfatides in the nerve cells and other cells of the patient's body. Libmeldy was approved for medical use in the EU in December 2020.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "On 15 October, Lysogene, a French biotechnological company, reported the death of a patient in who has received LYS-SAF302, an experimental gene therapy treatment for mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIA (Sanfilippo syndrome type A).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "In May, a new method using an altered version of the HIV virus as a lentivirus vector was reported in the treatment of 50 children with ADA-SCID obtaining positive results in 48 of them, this method is expected to be safer than retroviruses vectors commonly used in previous studies of SCID where the development of leukemia was usually observed and had already been used in 2019, but in a smaller group with X-SCID.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "In June a clinical trial on six patients affected with transthyretin amyloidosis reported a reduction the concentration of missfolded transthretin (TTR) protein in serum through CRISPR-based inactivation of the TTR gene in liver cells observing mean reductions of 52% and 87% among the lower and higher dose groups.This was done in vivo without taking cells out of the patient to edit them and reinfuse them later.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "In July results of a small gene therapy phase I study was published reporting observation of dopamine restoration on seven patients between 4 and 9 years old affected by aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency (AADC deficiency).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "In February, the first ever gene therapy for Tay–Sachs disease was announced, it uses an adeno-associated virus to deliver the correct instruction for the HEXA gene on brain cells which causes the disease. Only two children were part of a compassionate trial presenting improvements over the natural course of the disease and no vector-related adverse events.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "In May, eladocagene exuparvovec is recommended for approval by the European Commission.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "In July results of a gene therapy candidate for haemophilia B called FLT180 were announced, it works using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) to restore the clotting factor IX (FIX) protein, normal levels of the protein were observed with low doses of the therapy but immunosuppression was necessitated to decrease the risk of vector-related immune responses.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "In December, a 13-year girl that had been diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia was successfully treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in the first documented use of therapeutic gene editing for this purpose, after undergoing six months of an experimental treatment, where all attempts of other treatments failed. The procedure included reprogramming a healthy T-cell to destroy the cancerous T-cells to first rid her of leukaemia, and then rebuilding her immune system using healthy immune cells. The GOSH team used BASE editing and had previously treated a case of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2015 using TALENs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "In May the FDA approved Vyjuvek for the treatment of wounds in patients with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) which is applied as a topical gel that delivers a herpes-simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) vector encoding the collagen type VII alpha 1 chain (COL7A1) gene that is dysfunctional on those affected by DEB . One trial found 65% of the Vyjuvek-treated wounds completely closed while only 26% of the placebo-treated at 24 weeks. It has been also reported its use as a eyedrops for a patient with DEB that had vision loss due to the widespread blistering with good results.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "In June the FDA gave an accelerated approval to Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) only for boys 4 to 5 years old as they are more likely to benefit from the therapy which consists of one-time intravenous infusion of a virus (AAV rh74 vector) that delivers a functioning “microdystrophin” gene (138 kDa) into the muscle cells to act in place of the normal dystrophin (427 kDa) that is found mutated in this disease.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "In July it was reported that it had been developed a new method to affect genetic expressions through direct current.",
"title": "History"
}
]
| Gene therapy is a medical technology that aims to produce a therapeutic effect through the manipulation of gene expression or through altering the biological properties of living cells. The first attempt at modifying human DNA was performed in 1980, by Martin Cline, but the first successful nuclear gene transfer in humans, approved by the National Institutes of Health, was performed in May 1989. The first therapeutic use of gene transfer as well as the first direct insertion of human DNA into the nuclear genome was performed by French Anderson in a trial starting in September 1990. Between 1989 and December 2018, over 2,900 clinical trials were conducted, with more than half of them in phase I. In 2003, Gendicine became the first gene therapy to receive regulatory approval. Since that time, further gene therapy drugs were approved, such as Glybera (2012), Strimvelis (2016), Kymriah (2017), Luxturna (2017), Onpattro (2018), Zolgensma (2019), Abecma (2021), Adstiladrin, Roctavian and Hemgenix. Most of these approaches utilize adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and lentiviruses for performing gene insertions, in vivo and ex vivo, respectively. AAVs are characterized by stabilizing the viral capsid, lower immunogenicity, ability to transduce both dividing and nondividing cells, the potential to integrate site specifically and to achieve long-term expression in the in-vivo treatment. ASO / siRNA approaches such as those conducted by Alnylam and Ionis Pharmaceuticals require non-viral delivery systems, and utilize alternative mechanisms for trafficking to liver cells by way of GalNAc transporters. Not all medical procedures that introduce alterations to a patient's genetic makeup can be considered gene therapy. Bone marrow transplantation and organ transplants in general have been found to introduce foreign DNA into patients. | 2001-11-28T20:47:26Z | 2023-12-31T23:12:00Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy |
12,893 | Galatea | Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white".
Galatea, Galathea or Gallathea may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning \"she who is milk-white\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Galatea, Galathea or Gallathea may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white". Galatea, Galathea or Gallathea may refer to: | 2001-11-29T18:34:26Z | 2023-10-05T13:48:58Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea |
12,896 | Gulf of Oman | The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman (Arabic: خليج عمان khalīj ʿumān; Persian: دریای عمان daryâ-ye omân), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran (Arabic: خلیج مکران khalīj makrān; Persian: دریای مکران daryâ-ye makrān), is a gulf that connects the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz, which then runs to the Persian Gulf. It borders Iran and Pakistan on the north, Oman on the south, and the United Arab Emirates on the west.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Gulf of Oman as follows:
Exclusive economic zones in Persian Gulf:
Coastline length of bordering countries:
The Gulf of Oman historically and geographically has been referred to with different names by Arabian, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani and European geographers and travelers, including Makran Sea and Akhzar Sea.
Until the 18th century it was known as Makran Sea and is also visible on historical maps and museums.
The Western side of the gulf connects to the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route through which a third of the world's liquefied natural gas and 20% of global oil consumption passes from Middle East producers.
In 2018, scientists confirmed the Gulf of Oman contains one of the world's largest marine dead zones, where the ocean contains little or no oxygen and marine wildlife cannot exist. The dead zone encompasses nearly the entire 165,000-square-kilometre (63,700 sq mi) Gulf of Oman, equivalent to the size of Florida, United States of America. The cause is a combination of increased ocean warming and increased runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers.
In 2018, a rail tunnel under the sea was suggested to link the UAE with the western coast of India. The bullet train tunnel would be supported by pontoons and be nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) in length.
In the Battlefield video game series, the Gulf of Oman is a map used in Battlefield 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield 4 with the United States Marines Corps (USMC) invading the shore of Oman with the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC) defending it in Battlefield 2, and with Russian Ground Forces defending it in Play4Free, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman (Arabic: خليج عمان khalīj ʿumān; Persian: دریای عمان daryâ-ye omân), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran (Arabic: خلیج مکران khalīj makrān; Persian: دریای مکران daryâ-ye makrān), is a gulf that connects the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz, which then runs to the Persian Gulf. It borders Iran and Pakistan on the north, Oman on the south, and the United Arab Emirates on the west.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Gulf of Oman as follows:",
"title": "Extent"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Exclusive economic zones in Persian Gulf:",
"title": "Exclusive economic zone"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Coastline length of bordering countries:",
"title": "Bordering countries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Gulf of Oman historically and geographically has been referred to with different names by Arabian, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani and European geographers and travelers, including Makran Sea and Akhzar Sea.",
"title": "Alternative names"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Until the 18th century it was known as Makran Sea and is also visible on historical maps and museums.",
"title": "Alternative names"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Western side of the gulf connects to the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route through which a third of the world's liquefied natural gas and 20% of global oil consumption passes from Middle East producers.",
"title": "International trade"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 2018, scientists confirmed the Gulf of Oman contains one of the world's largest marine dead zones, where the ocean contains little or no oxygen and marine wildlife cannot exist. The dead zone encompasses nearly the entire 165,000-square-kilometre (63,700 sq mi) Gulf of Oman, equivalent to the size of Florida, United States of America. The cause is a combination of increased ocean warming and increased runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers.",
"title": "Ecology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 2018, a rail tunnel under the sea was suggested to link the UAE with the western coast of India. The bullet train tunnel would be supported by pontoons and be nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) in length.",
"title": "International underwater rail tunnel"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the Battlefield video game series, the Gulf of Oman is a map used in Battlefield 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield 4 with the United States Marines Corps (USMC) invading the shore of Oman with the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC) defending it in Battlefield 2, and with Russian Ground Forces defending it in Play4Free, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4.",
"title": "Pop culture"
}
]
| The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman, also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran, is a gulf that connects the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz, which then runs to the Persian Gulf. It borders Iran and Pakistan on the north, Oman on the south, and the United Arab Emirates on the west. | 2001-11-30T01:27:45Z | 2023-11-25T16:10:16Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Oman |
12,898 | Grammatical case | A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English, one says I see them and they see me: the nominative pronouns I/they represent the perceiver and the accusative pronouns me/them represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative and accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation.
English has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the nominative, accusative (including functions formerly handled by the dative) and genitive cases. They are used with personal pronouns: subjective case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who, whoever), objective case (me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom, whomever) and possessive case (my, mine; your, yours; his; her, hers; its; our, ours; their, theirs; whose; whosever). Forms such as I, he and we are used for the subject ("I kicked the ball"), and forms such as me, him and us are used for the object ("John kicked me").
As a language evolves, cases can merge (for instance, in Ancient Greek, the locative case merged with the dative), a phenomenon known as syncretism.
Languages such as Sanskrit, Kannada, Latin, Tamil, and Russian have extensive case systems, with nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and determiners all inflecting (usually by means of different suffixes) to indicate their case. The number of cases differs between languages: Persian has two; modern English has three but for pronouns only; Torlakian dialects, Classical and Modern Standard Arabic have three; German, Icelandic, Modern Greek, and Irish have four; Romanian and Ancient Greek have five; Bengali, Latin, Russian, Slovak, Kajkavian, Slovenian, and Turkish each have at least six; Armenian, Czech, Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and Ukrainian have seven; Mongolian, Marathi, Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Assamese and Greenlandic have eight; Old Nubian had nine; Basque has 13; Estonian has 14; Finnish has 15; Hungarian has 18; and Tsez has at least 36 cases.
Commonly encountered cases include nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. A role that one of those languages marks by case is often marked in English with a preposition. For example, the English prepositional phrase with (his) foot (as in "John kicked the ball with his foot") might be rendered in Russian using a single noun in the instrumental case, or in Ancient Greek as τῷ ποδί (tôi podí, meaning "the foot") with both words (the definite article, and the noun πούς (poús) "foot") changing to dative form.
More formally, case has been defined as "a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads". Cases should be distinguished from thematic roles such as agent and patient. They are often closely related, and in languages such as Latin, several thematic roles are realised by a somewhat fixed case for deponent verbs, but cases are a syntagmatic/phrasal category, and thematic roles are the function of a syntagma/phrase in a larger structure. Languages having cases often exhibit free word order, as thematic roles are not required to be marked by position in the sentence.
It is widely accepted that the Ancient Greeks had a certain idea of the forms of a name in their own language. A fragment of Anacreon seems to prove this. Nevertheless, it cannot be inferred that the Ancient Greeks really knew what grammatical cases were. Grammatical cases were first recognized by the Stoics and from some philosophers of the Peripatetic school. The advancements of those philosophers were later employed by the philologists of the Library of Alexandria.
The English word case used in this sense comes from the Latin casus, which is derived from the verb cadere, "to fall", from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱad-. The Latin word is a calque of the Greek πτῶσις, ptôsis, lit. "falling, fall". The sense is that all other cases are considered to have "fallen" away from the nominative. This imagery is also reflected in the word declension, from Latin declinere, "to lean", from the PIE root *ḱley-.
The equivalent to "case" in several other European languages also derives from casus, including cas in French, caso in Italian, caso in Spanish, caso in Portuguese and Kasus in German. The Russian word паде́ж (padyézh) is a calque from Greek and similarly contains a root meaning "fall", and the German Fall and Czech pád simply mean "fall", and are used for both the concept of grammatical case and to refer to physical falls. The Dutch equivalent naamval translates as 'noun case', in which 'noun' has the older meaning of both 'adjective (noun)' and '(substantive) noun'. The Finnish equivalent is sija, whose main meaning is "position" or "place".
Although not very prominent in modern English, cases featured much more saliently in Old English and other ancient Indo-European languages, such as Latin, Old Persian, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. Historically, the Indo-European languages had eight morphological cases, although modern languages typically have fewer, using prepositions and word order to convey information that had previously been conveyed using distinct noun forms. Among modern languages, cases still feature prominently in most of the Balto-Slavic languages (except Macedonian and Bulgarian), with most having six to eight cases, as well as Icelandic, German and Modern Greek, which have four. In German, cases are mostly marked on articles and adjectives, and less so on nouns. In Icelandic, articles, adjectives, personal names and nouns are all marked for case, making it, among other things, the living Germanic language that could be said to most closely resemble Proto-Germanic.
The eight historical Indo-European cases are as follows, with examples either of the English case or of the English syntactic alternative to case:
All of the above are just rough descriptions; the precise distinctions vary significantly from language to language, and as such they are often more complex. Case is based fundamentally on changes to the noun to indicate the noun's role in the sentence – one of the defining features of so-called fusional languages. Old English was a fusional language, but Modern English does not work this way.
Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Proto-Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronouns of Modern English retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the "Saxon genitive" (-'s).
Taken as a whole, English personal pronouns are typically said to have three morphological cases:
Most English personal pronouns have five forms: the nominative case form, the oblique case form, a distinct reflexive or intensive form (such as myself, ourselves) which is based upon the possessive determiner form but is coreferential to a preceding instance of nominative or oblique, and the possessive case forms, which include both a determiner form (such as my, our) and a predicatively-used independent form (such as mine, ours) which is distinct (with two exceptions: the third person singular masculine he and the third person singular neuter it, which use the same form for both determiner and independent [his car, it is his]). The interrogative personal pronoun who exhibits the greatest diversity of forms within the modern English pronoun system, having definite nominative, oblique, and genitive forms (who, whom, whose) and equivalently-coordinating indefinite forms (whoever, whomever, and whosever).
Although English pronouns can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), nouns show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g. chair, chairs, chair's, chairs'); there is no manifest difference in the form of chair between "The chair is here." (subject) and "I own the chair." (direct object), a distinction made instead by word order and context.
Cases can be ranked in the following hierarchy, where a language that does not have a given case will tend not to have any cases to the right of the missing case:
This is, however, only a general tendency. Many forms of Central German, such as Colognian and Luxembourgish, have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, whereas the dative–locative has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has genitive and vocative cases. In many modern Indo-Aryan languages, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but many of these languages still retain vocative, locative, and ablative cases. Old English had an instrumental case, but neither a locative nor a prepositional case.
The traditional case order (nom-gen-dat-acc) was expressed for the first time in The Art of Grammar in the 2nd century BC:
Latin grammars, such as Ars grammatica, followed the Greek tradition, but added the ablative case of Latin. Later other European languages also followed that Graeco-Roman tradition.
However, for some languages, such as Latin, due to case syncretism the order may be changed for convenience, where the accusative or the vocative cases are placed after the nominative and before the genitive. For example:
For similar reasons, the customary order of the four cases in Icelandic is nominative–accusative–dative–genitive, as illustrated below:
In the most common case concord system, only the head-word (the noun) in a phrase is marked for case. This system appears in many Papuan languages as well as in Turkic, Mongolian, Quechua, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and other languages. In Basque and various Amazonian and Australian languages, only the phrase-final word (not necessarily the noun) is marked for case. In many Indo-European, Finnic, and Semitic languages, case is marked on the noun, the determiner, and usually the adjective. Other systems are less common. In some languages, there is double-marking of a word as both genitive (to indicate semantic role) and another case such as accusative (to establish concord with the head noun).
Declension is the process or result of altering nouns to the correct grammatical cases. Languages with rich nominal inflection (using grammatical cases for many purposes) typically have a number of identifiable declension classes, or groups of nouns with a similar pattern of case inflection or declension. Sanskrit has six declension classes, whereas Latin is traditionally considered to have five, and Ancient Greek three. For example, Slovak has fifteen noun declension classes, five for each gender (the number may vary depending on which paradigms are counted or omitted, this mainly concerns those that modify declension of foreign words; refer to article).
In Indo-European languages, declension patterns may depend on a variety of factors, such as gender, number, phonological environment, and irregular historical factors. Pronouns sometimes have separate paradigms. In some languages, particularly Slavic languages, a case may contain different groups of endings depending on whether the word is a noun or an adjective. A single case may contain many different endings, some of which may even be derived from different roots. For example, in Polish, the genitive case has -a, -u, -ów, -i/-y, -e- for nouns, and -ego, -ej, -ich/-ych for adjectives. To a lesser extent, a noun's animacy or humanness may add another layer of complexity. For example, in Russian:
Кот
Kot-∅
cat-NOM.AN.
ловит
lóvit
catches
мышей
myshéy.
mice
Кот ловит мышей
Kot-∅ lóvit myshéy.
cat-NOM.AN. catches mice
(The) cat catches mice.
Столб
Stolb-∅
pillar-NOM.INAN
держит
dérzhit
holds
крышу
krýshu.
roof
Столб держит крышу
Stolb-∅ dérzhit krýshu.
pillar-NOM.INAN holds roof
(The) pillar holds a/the roof)
vs.
Пётр
Pyotr
Peter
гладит
gládit
strokes
кота
kot-á
cat-ACC.AN
Пётр гладит кота
Pyotr gládit kot-á
Peter strokes cat-ACC.AN
Peter strokes a/the cat
and
Пётр
Pyotr
Peter
ломает
lomáyet
breaks
столб
stolb-∅
pillar-ACC.INAN
Пётр ломает столб
Pyotr lomáyet stolb-∅
Peter breaks pillar-ACC.INAN
Peter breaks a/the pillar
Australian languages represent a diversity of case paradigms in terms of their alignment (i.e. nominative-accusative vs. ergative-absolutive) and the morpho-syntactic properties of case inflection including where/how many times across a noun phrase the case morphology will appear. For typical r-expression noun phrases, most Australian languages follow a basic ERG-ABS template with additional cases for peripheral arguments; however, many Australian languages, the function of case marking extends beyond the prototypical function of specifying the syntactic and semantic relation of an NP to a predicate. Dench and Evans (1988) use a five-part system for categorizing the functional roles of case marking in Australian languages. They are enumerated below as they appear in Senge (2015):
To illustrate this paradigm in action, take the case-system of Wanyjirra for whose description Senge invokes this system. Each of the case markers functions in the prototypical relational sense, but many extend into these additional functions:
Wanyjirra is an example of a language in which case marking occurs on all sub-constituents of the NP; see the following example in which the demonstrative, head, and quantifier of the noun phrase all receive ergative marking:
yalu-nggu
DIST-ERG
mawun-du
man-ERG
gujarra-lu
two-ERG
ngu=wula
REAL=3.AUG.SBJ
yunbarn-ana
sing-PRES
junba
corroboree.ABS
yalu-nggu mawun-du gujarra-lu ngu=wula yunbarn-ana junba
DIST-ERG man-ERG two-ERG REAL=3.AUG.SBJ sing-PRES corroboree.ABS
Those two men are singing corroboree.
However, this is by no means always the case or even the norm for Australian languages. For many, case-affixes are considered special-clitics (i.e. phrasal-affixes, see Anderson 2005) because they have a singular fixed position within the phrase. For Bardi, the case marker usually appears on the first phrasal constituent while the opposite is the case for Wangkatja (i.e. the case marker is attracted to the rightmost edge of the phrase). See the following examples respectively:
Boordiji-nim
fat-ERG
niiwandi
tall
aamba
man
i-na-m-boo-na
3-TR-PST-poke-REM.PST
aril
fish
Boordiji-nim niiwandi aamba i-na-m-boo-na aril
fat-ERG tall man 3-TR-PST-poke-REM.PST fish
The tall fat man speared a fish.
tjitji
child
warta
tree
purlkana-ngka
big-LOC
nyinarra-nyi
sitting-?
tjitji warta purlkana-ngka nyinarra-nyi
child tree big-LOC sitting-?
'The child is sitting in the big tree.'
Basque has the following cases, with examples given in the indefinite, definite singular, definite plural, and definite close plural of the word etxe, "house", "home":
Some of them can be re-declined, even more than once, as if they were nouns (usually, from the genitive locative case), although they mainly work as noun modifiers before a noun clause:
In German, grammatical case is largely preserved in the articles and adjectives, but nouns have lost many of their original endings. Below is an example of case inflection in German using the masculine definite article and one of the German words for "sailor".
An example with the feminine definite article with the German word for "woman".
An example with the neuter definite article with the German word for "book".
Proper names for cities have two genitive nouns:
Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) has three noun cases, the nominative, oblique, and vocative cases. The vocative case is now obsolete (but still used in certain regions) and the oblique case doubles as the vocative case. The pronoun cases in Hindi-Urdu are the nominative, ergative, accusative, dative, and two oblique cases. The case forms which do not exist for certain pronouns are constructed using primary postpositions (or other grammatical particles) and the oblique case (shown in parentheses in the table below).
The other cases are constructed adpositionally using the case-marking postpositions using the nouns and pronouns in their oblique cases. The oblique case is used exclusively with these 8 case-marking postpositions of Hindi-Urdu forming 10 grammatical cases, which are: ergative ने (ne), dative and accusative को (ko), instrumental and ablative से (se), genitive का (kā), inessive में (mẽ), adessive पे (pe), terminative तक (tak), semblative सा (sā).
An example of a Latin case inflection is given below, using the singular forms of the Latin term for "cook", which belongs to Latin's second declension class.
For some toponyms, a seventh case, the locative, also exists, such as Mediolānī (in Mediolanum).
The Romance languages have largely abandoned or simplified the grammatical cases of Latin. Much like English, most Romance case markers survive only in pronouns.
Typically in Lithuanian, only the inflection changes for the seven different grammatical cases:
Hungarian declension is relatively simple with regular suffixes attached to the vast majority of nouns. The following table lists all of the cases used in Hungarian.
An example of a Russian case inflection is given below (with explicit stress marks), using the singular forms of the Russian term for "sailor", which belongs to Russian's first declension class.
Up to ten additional cases are identified by linguists, although today all of them are either incomplete (do not apply to all nouns or do not form full word paradigm with all combinations of gender and number) or degenerate (appear identical to one of the main six cases). The most recognized additional cases are locative (в лесу́, на мосту́, в слеза́х), partitive (ча́ю, са́хару, песку́), and two forms of vocative — old (Го́споди, Бо́же, о́тче) and neo-vocative (Маш, пап, ребя́т). Sometimes, so called count-form (for some countable nouns after numerals) is considered to be a sub-case.
Grammatical case was analyzed extensively in Sanskrit. The grammarian Pāṇini identified six semantic roles or kāraka, which are related to the following eight Sanskrit cases in order:
For example, in the following sentence leaf is the agent (kartā, nominative case), tree is the source (apādāna, ablative case), and ground is the locus (adhikaraṇa, locative case). The declensions are reflected in the morphemes -āt, -am, and -au respectively.
vṛkṣ-āt
from the tree
parṇ-am
a leaf
bhūm-au
on the ground
patati
falls
vṛkṣ-āt parṇ-am bhūm-au patati
{from the tree} {a leaf} {on the ground} falls
However, the cases may be deployed for other than the default thematic roles. A notable example is the passive construction. In the following sentence, Devadatta is the kartā, but appears in the instrumental case, and rice, the karman, object, is in the nominative case (as subject of the verb). The declensions are reflected in the morphemes -ena and -am.
devadatt-ena
by Devadatta
odan-am
the rice
pacyate
is cooked
devadatt-ena odan-am pacyate
{by Devadatta} {the rice} {is cooked}
The Tamil case system is analyzed in native and missionary grammars as consisting of a finite number of cases. The usual treatment of Tamil case (Arden 1942) is one in which there are seven cases: nominative (first case), accusative (second case), instrumental (third), dative (fourth), ablative (fifth), genitive (sixth), and locative (seventh). In traditional analyses, there is always a clear distinction made between post-positional morphemes and case endings. The vocative is sometimes given a place in the case system as an eighth case, but vocative forms do not participate in usual morphophonemic alternations and do not govern the use of any postpositions. Modern grammarians, however, argue that this eight-case classification is coarse and artificial and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case.
Modern Turkish has six cases (In Turkish İsmin Hâlleri).
The accusative can exist only in the noun(whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, "Arkadaşlar bize gelmeyi düşünüyorlar." (Friends are thinking of coming to us).
The dative can exist only in the noun (whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, "Bol bol kitap okumaya çalışıyorum." (I try to read a lot of books).
As languages evolve, case systems change. In early Ancient Greek, for example, the genitive and ablative cases of given names became combined, giving five cases, rather than the six retained in Latin. In modern Hindi, the cases have been reduced to three: a direct case (for subjects and direct objects) and oblique case, and a vocative case. In English, apart from the pronouns discussed above, case has vanished altogether except for the possessive/non-possessive dichotomy in nouns.
The evolution of the treatment of case relationships can be circular. Postpositions can become unstressed and sound like they are an unstressed syllable of a neighboring word. A postposition can thus merge into the stem of a head noun, developing various forms depending on the phonological shape of the stem. Affixes can then be subject to various phonological processes such as assimilation, vowel centering to the schwa, phoneme loss, and fusion, and these processes can reduce or even eliminate the distinctions between cases. Languages can then compensate for the resulting loss of function by creating postpositions, thus coming full circle.
Recent experiments in agent-based modeling have shown how case systems can emerge and evolve in a population of language users. The experiments demonstrate that language users may introduce new case markers to reduce the cognitive effort required for semantic interpretation, hence facilitating communication through language. Case markers then become generalized through analogical reasoning and reuse.
Languages are categorized into several case systems, based on their morphosyntactic alignment—how they group verb agents and patients into cases:
The following are systems that some languages use to mark case instead of, or in addition to, declension:
The lemma form of words, which is the form chosen by convention as the canonical form of a word, is usually the most unmarked or basic case, which is typically the nominative, trigger, or absolutive case, whichever a language may have. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English, one says I see them and they see me: the nominative pronouns I/they represent the perceiver and the accusative pronouns me/them represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative and accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "English has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the nominative, accusative (including functions formerly handled by the dative) and genitive cases. They are used with personal pronouns: subjective case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who, whoever), objective case (me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom, whomever) and possessive case (my, mine; your, yours; his; her, hers; its; our, ours; their, theirs; whose; whosever). Forms such as I, he and we are used for the subject (\"I kicked the ball\"), and forms such as me, him and us are used for the object (\"John kicked me\").",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As a language evolves, cases can merge (for instance, in Ancient Greek, the locative case merged with the dative), a phenomenon known as syncretism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Languages such as Sanskrit, Kannada, Latin, Tamil, and Russian have extensive case systems, with nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and determiners all inflecting (usually by means of different suffixes) to indicate their case. The number of cases differs between languages: Persian has two; modern English has three but for pronouns only; Torlakian dialects, Classical and Modern Standard Arabic have three; German, Icelandic, Modern Greek, and Irish have four; Romanian and Ancient Greek have five; Bengali, Latin, Russian, Slovak, Kajkavian, Slovenian, and Turkish each have at least six; Armenian, Czech, Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and Ukrainian have seven; Mongolian, Marathi, Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Assamese and Greenlandic have eight; Old Nubian had nine; Basque has 13; Estonian has 14; Finnish has 15; Hungarian has 18; and Tsez has at least 36 cases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Commonly encountered cases include nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. A role that one of those languages marks by case is often marked in English with a preposition. For example, the English prepositional phrase with (his) foot (as in \"John kicked the ball with his foot\") might be rendered in Russian using a single noun in the instrumental case, or in Ancient Greek as τῷ ποδί (tôi podí, meaning \"the foot\") with both words (the definite article, and the noun πούς (poús) \"foot\") changing to dative form.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "More formally, case has been defined as \"a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads\". Cases should be distinguished from thematic roles such as agent and patient. They are often closely related, and in languages such as Latin, several thematic roles are realised by a somewhat fixed case for deponent verbs, but cases are a syntagmatic/phrasal category, and thematic roles are the function of a syntagma/phrase in a larger structure. Languages having cases often exhibit free word order, as thematic roles are not required to be marked by position in the sentence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "It is widely accepted that the Ancient Greeks had a certain idea of the forms of a name in their own language. A fragment of Anacreon seems to prove this. Nevertheless, it cannot be inferred that the Ancient Greeks really knew what grammatical cases were. Grammatical cases were first recognized by the Stoics and from some philosophers of the Peripatetic school. The advancements of those philosophers were later employed by the philologists of the Library of Alexandria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The English word case used in this sense comes from the Latin casus, which is derived from the verb cadere, \"to fall\", from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱad-. The Latin word is a calque of the Greek πτῶσις, ptôsis, lit. \"falling, fall\". The sense is that all other cases are considered to have \"fallen\" away from the nominative. This imagery is also reflected in the word declension, from Latin declinere, \"to lean\", from the PIE root *ḱley-.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The equivalent to \"case\" in several other European languages also derives from casus, including cas in French, caso in Italian, caso in Spanish, caso in Portuguese and Kasus in German. The Russian word паде́ж (padyézh) is a calque from Greek and similarly contains a root meaning \"fall\", and the German Fall and Czech pád simply mean \"fall\", and are used for both the concept of grammatical case and to refer to physical falls. The Dutch equivalent naamval translates as 'noun case', in which 'noun' has the older meaning of both 'adjective (noun)' and '(substantive) noun'. The Finnish equivalent is sija, whose main meaning is \"position\" or \"place\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Although not very prominent in modern English, cases featured much more saliently in Old English and other ancient Indo-European languages, such as Latin, Old Persian, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. Historically, the Indo-European languages had eight morphological cases, although modern languages typically have fewer, using prepositions and word order to convey information that had previously been conveyed using distinct noun forms. Among modern languages, cases still feature prominently in most of the Balto-Slavic languages (except Macedonian and Bulgarian), with most having six to eight cases, as well as Icelandic, German and Modern Greek, which have four. In German, cases are mostly marked on articles and adjectives, and less so on nouns. In Icelandic, articles, adjectives, personal names and nouns are all marked for case, making it, among other things, the living Germanic language that could be said to most closely resemble Proto-Germanic.",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The eight historical Indo-European cases are as follows, with examples either of the English case or of the English syntactic alternative to case:",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "All of the above are just rough descriptions; the precise distinctions vary significantly from language to language, and as such they are often more complex. Case is based fundamentally on changes to the noun to indicate the noun's role in the sentence – one of the defining features of so-called fusional languages. Old English was a fusional language, but Modern English does not work this way.",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Proto-Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronouns of Modern English retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the \"Saxon genitive\" (-'s).",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Taken as a whole, English personal pronouns are typically said to have three morphological cases:",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Most English personal pronouns have five forms: the nominative case form, the oblique case form, a distinct reflexive or intensive form (such as myself, ourselves) which is based upon the possessive determiner form but is coreferential to a preceding instance of nominative or oblique, and the possessive case forms, which include both a determiner form (such as my, our) and a predicatively-used independent form (such as mine, ours) which is distinct (with two exceptions: the third person singular masculine he and the third person singular neuter it, which use the same form for both determiner and independent [his car, it is his]). The interrogative personal pronoun who exhibits the greatest diversity of forms within the modern English pronoun system, having definite nominative, oblique, and genitive forms (who, whom, whose) and equivalently-coordinating indefinite forms (whoever, whomever, and whosever).",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Although English pronouns can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), nouns show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g. chair, chairs, chair's, chairs'); there is no manifest difference in the form of chair between \"The chair is here.\" (subject) and \"I own the chair.\" (direct object), a distinction made instead by word order and context.",
"title": "Indo-European languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Cases can be ranked in the following hierarchy, where a language that does not have a given case will tend not to have any cases to the right of the missing case:",
"title": "Hierarchy of cases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "This is, however, only a general tendency. Many forms of Central German, such as Colognian and Luxembourgish, have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, whereas the dative–locative has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has genitive and vocative cases. In many modern Indo-Aryan languages, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but many of these languages still retain vocative, locative, and ablative cases. Old English had an instrumental case, but neither a locative nor a prepositional case.",
"title": "Hierarchy of cases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The traditional case order (nom-gen-dat-acc) was expressed for the first time in The Art of Grammar in the 2nd century BC:",
"title": "Case order"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Latin grammars, such as Ars grammatica, followed the Greek tradition, but added the ablative case of Latin. Later other European languages also followed that Graeco-Roman tradition.",
"title": "Case order"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "However, for some languages, such as Latin, due to case syncretism the order may be changed for convenience, where the accusative or the vocative cases are placed after the nominative and before the genitive. For example:",
"title": "Case order"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "For similar reasons, the customary order of the four cases in Icelandic is nominative–accusative–dative–genitive, as illustrated below:",
"title": "Case order"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the most common case concord system, only the head-word (the noun) in a phrase is marked for case. This system appears in many Papuan languages as well as in Turkic, Mongolian, Quechua, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and other languages. In Basque and various Amazonian and Australian languages, only the phrase-final word (not necessarily the noun) is marked for case. In many Indo-European, Finnic, and Semitic languages, case is marked on the noun, the determiner, and usually the adjective. Other systems are less common. In some languages, there is double-marking of a word as both genitive (to indicate semantic role) and another case such as accusative (to establish concord with the head noun).",
"title": "Case concord systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Declension is the process or result of altering nouns to the correct grammatical cases. Languages with rich nominal inflection (using grammatical cases for many purposes) typically have a number of identifiable declension classes, or groups of nouns with a similar pattern of case inflection or declension. Sanskrit has six declension classes, whereas Latin is traditionally considered to have five, and Ancient Greek three. For example, Slovak has fifteen noun declension classes, five for each gender (the number may vary depending on which paradigms are counted or omitted, this mainly concerns those that modify declension of foreign words; refer to article).",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In Indo-European languages, declension patterns may depend on a variety of factors, such as gender, number, phonological environment, and irregular historical factors. Pronouns sometimes have separate paradigms. In some languages, particularly Slavic languages, a case may contain different groups of endings depending on whether the word is a noun or an adjective. A single case may contain many different endings, some of which may even be derived from different roots. For example, in Polish, the genitive case has -a, -u, -ów, -i/-y, -e- for nouns, and -ego, -ej, -ich/-ych for adjectives. To a lesser extent, a noun's animacy or humanness may add another layer of complexity. For example, in Russian:",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Кот",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Kot-∅",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "cat-NOM.AN.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "ловит",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "lóvit",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "catches",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "мышей",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "myshéy.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "mice",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Кот ловит мышей",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Kot-∅ lóvit myshéy.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "cat-NOM.AN. catches mice",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "(The) cat catches mice.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Столб",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Stolb-∅",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "pillar-NOM.INAN",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "держит",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "dérzhit",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "holds",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "крышу",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "krýshu.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "roof",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Столб держит крышу",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Stolb-∅ dérzhit krýshu.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "pillar-NOM.INAN holds roof",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "(The) pillar holds a/the roof)",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "vs.",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Пётр",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Pyotr",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Peter",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "гладит",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "gládit",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "strokes",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "кота",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "kot-á",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "cat-ACC.AN",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Пётр гладит кота",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Pyotr gládit kot-á",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Peter strokes cat-ACC.AN",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Peter strokes a/the cat",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "and",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Пётр",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Pyotr",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Peter",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "ломает",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "lomáyet",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "breaks",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "столб",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "stolb-∅",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "pillar-ACC.INAN",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Пётр ломает столб",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Pyotr lomáyet stolb-∅",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Peter breaks pillar-ACC.INAN",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Peter breaks a/the pillar",
"title": "Declension paradigms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Australian languages represent a diversity of case paradigms in terms of their alignment (i.e. nominative-accusative vs. ergative-absolutive) and the morpho-syntactic properties of case inflection including where/how many times across a noun phrase the case morphology will appear. For typical r-expression noun phrases, most Australian languages follow a basic ERG-ABS template with additional cases for peripheral arguments; however, many Australian languages, the function of case marking extends beyond the prototypical function of specifying the syntactic and semantic relation of an NP to a predicate. Dench and Evans (1988) use a five-part system for categorizing the functional roles of case marking in Australian languages. They are enumerated below as they appear in Senge (2015):",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "To illustrate this paradigm in action, take the case-system of Wanyjirra for whose description Senge invokes this system. Each of the case markers functions in the prototypical relational sense, but many extend into these additional functions:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Wanyjirra is an example of a language in which case marking occurs on all sub-constituents of the NP; see the following example in which the demonstrative, head, and quantifier of the noun phrase all receive ergative marking:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "yalu-nggu",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "DIST-ERG",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "mawun-du",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "man-ERG",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "gujarra-lu",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "two-ERG",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "ngu=wula",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "REAL=3.AUG.SBJ",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "yunbarn-ana",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "sing-PRES",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "junba",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "corroboree.ABS",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "yalu-nggu mawun-du gujarra-lu ngu=wula yunbarn-ana junba",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "DIST-ERG man-ERG two-ERG REAL=3.AUG.SBJ sing-PRES corroboree.ABS",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Those two men are singing corroboree.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "However, this is by no means always the case or even the norm for Australian languages. For many, case-affixes are considered special-clitics (i.e. phrasal-affixes, see Anderson 2005) because they have a singular fixed position within the phrase. For Bardi, the case marker usually appears on the first phrasal constituent while the opposite is the case for Wangkatja (i.e. the case marker is attracted to the rightmost edge of the phrase). See the following examples respectively:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Boordiji-nim",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "fat-ERG",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "niiwandi",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "tall",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "aamba",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "man",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "i-na-m-boo-na",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "3-TR-PST-poke-REM.PST",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "aril",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "fish",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Boordiji-nim niiwandi aamba i-na-m-boo-na aril",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "fat-ERG tall man 3-TR-PST-poke-REM.PST fish",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The tall fat man speared a fish.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "tjitji",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "child",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "warta",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "tree",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "purlkana-ngka",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "big-LOC",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "nyinarra-nyi",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "sitting-?",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "tjitji warta purlkana-ngka nyinarra-nyi",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "child tree big-LOC sitting-?",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "'The child is sitting in the big tree.'",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Basque has the following cases, with examples given in the indefinite, definite singular, definite plural, and definite close plural of the word etxe, \"house\", \"home\":",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "Some of them can be re-declined, even more than once, as if they were nouns (usually, from the genitive locative case), although they mainly work as noun modifiers before a noun clause:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "In German, grammatical case is largely preserved in the articles and adjectives, but nouns have lost many of their original endings. Below is an example of case inflection in German using the masculine definite article and one of the German words for \"sailor\".",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "An example with the feminine definite article with the German word for \"woman\".",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "An example with the neuter definite article with the German word for \"book\".",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "Proper names for cities have two genitive nouns:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) has three noun cases, the nominative, oblique, and vocative cases. The vocative case is now obsolete (but still used in certain regions) and the oblique case doubles as the vocative case. The pronoun cases in Hindi-Urdu are the nominative, ergative, accusative, dative, and two oblique cases. The case forms which do not exist for certain pronouns are constructed using primary postpositions (or other grammatical particles) and the oblique case (shown in parentheses in the table below).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "The other cases are constructed adpositionally using the case-marking postpositions using the nouns and pronouns in their oblique cases. The oblique case is used exclusively with these 8 case-marking postpositions of Hindi-Urdu forming 10 grammatical cases, which are: ergative ने (ne), dative and accusative को (ko), instrumental and ablative से (se), genitive का (kā), inessive में (mẽ), adessive पे (pe), terminative तक (tak), semblative सा (sā).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "An example of a Latin case inflection is given below, using the singular forms of the Latin term for \"cook\", which belongs to Latin's second declension class.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "For some toponyms, a seventh case, the locative, also exists, such as Mediolānī (in Mediolanum).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "The Romance languages have largely abandoned or simplified the grammatical cases of Latin. Much like English, most Romance case markers survive only in pronouns.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "Typically in Lithuanian, only the inflection changes for the seven different grammatical cases:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "Hungarian declension is relatively simple with regular suffixes attached to the vast majority of nouns. The following table lists all of the cases used in Hungarian.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "An example of a Russian case inflection is given below (with explicit stress marks), using the singular forms of the Russian term for \"sailor\", which belongs to Russian's first declension class.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "Up to ten additional cases are identified by linguists, although today all of them are either incomplete (do not apply to all nouns or do not form full word paradigm with all combinations of gender and number) or degenerate (appear identical to one of the main six cases). The most recognized additional cases are locative (в лесу́, на мосту́, в слеза́х), partitive (ча́ю, са́хару, песку́), and two forms of vocative — old (Го́споди, Бо́же, о́тче) and neo-vocative (Маш, пап, ребя́т). Sometimes, so called count-form (for some countable nouns after numerals) is considered to be a sub-case.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "Grammatical case was analyzed extensively in Sanskrit. The grammarian Pāṇini identified six semantic roles or kāraka, which are related to the following eight Sanskrit cases in order:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "For example, in the following sentence leaf is the agent (kartā, nominative case), tree is the source (apādāna, ablative case), and ground is the locus (adhikaraṇa, locative case). The declensions are reflected in the morphemes -āt, -am, and -au respectively.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "vṛkṣ-āt",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "from the tree",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "parṇ-am",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "a leaf",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "bhūm-au",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "on the ground",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "patati",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "falls",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "vṛkṣ-āt parṇ-am bhūm-au patati",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "{from the tree} {a leaf} {on the ground} falls",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "However, the cases may be deployed for other than the default thematic roles. A notable example is the passive construction. In the following sentence, Devadatta is the kartā, but appears in the instrumental case, and rice, the karman, object, is in the nominative case (as subject of the verb). The declensions are reflected in the morphemes -ena and -am.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "devadatt-ena",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "by Devadatta",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "odan-am",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 153,
"text": "the rice",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 154,
"text": "pacyate",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 155,
"text": "is cooked",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 156,
"text": "devadatt-ena odan-am pacyate",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 157,
"text": "{by Devadatta} {the rice} {is cooked}",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 158,
"text": "The Tamil case system is analyzed in native and missionary grammars as consisting of a finite number of cases. The usual treatment of Tamil case (Arden 1942) is one in which there are seven cases: nominative (first case), accusative (second case), instrumental (third), dative (fourth), ablative (fifth), genitive (sixth), and locative (seventh). In traditional analyses, there is always a clear distinction made between post-positional morphemes and case endings. The vocative is sometimes given a place in the case system as an eighth case, but vocative forms do not participate in usual morphophonemic alternations and do not govern the use of any postpositions. Modern grammarians, however, argue that this eight-case classification is coarse and artificial and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 159,
"text": "Modern Turkish has six cases (In Turkish İsmin Hâlleri).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 160,
"text": "The accusative can exist only in the noun(whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, \"Arkadaşlar bize gelmeyi düşünüyorlar.\" (Friends are thinking of coming to us).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 161,
"text": "The dative can exist only in the noun (whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, \"Bol bol kitap okumaya çalışıyorum.\" (I try to read a lot of books).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 162,
"text": "As languages evolve, case systems change. In early Ancient Greek, for example, the genitive and ablative cases of given names became combined, giving five cases, rather than the six retained in Latin. In modern Hindi, the cases have been reduced to three: a direct case (for subjects and direct objects) and oblique case, and a vocative case. In English, apart from the pronouns discussed above, case has vanished altogether except for the possessive/non-possessive dichotomy in nouns.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 163,
"text": "The evolution of the treatment of case relationships can be circular. Postpositions can become unstressed and sound like they are an unstressed syllable of a neighboring word. A postposition can thus merge into the stem of a head noun, developing various forms depending on the phonological shape of the stem. Affixes can then be subject to various phonological processes such as assimilation, vowel centering to the schwa, phoneme loss, and fusion, and these processes can reduce or even eliminate the distinctions between cases. Languages can then compensate for the resulting loss of function by creating postpositions, thus coming full circle.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 164,
"text": "Recent experiments in agent-based modeling have shown how case systems can emerge and evolve in a population of language users. The experiments demonstrate that language users may introduce new case markers to reduce the cognitive effort required for semantic interpretation, hence facilitating communication through language. Case markers then become generalized through analogical reasoning and reuse.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 165,
"text": "Languages are categorized into several case systems, based on their morphosyntactic alignment—how they group verb agents and patients into cases:",
"title": "Linguistic typology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 166,
"text": "The following are systems that some languages use to mark case instead of, or in addition to, declension:",
"title": "Linguistic typology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 167,
"text": "The lemma form of words, which is the form chosen by convention as the canonical form of a word, is usually the most unmarked or basic case, which is typically the nominative, trigger, or absolutive case, whichever a language may have.",
"title": "Linguistic typology"
}
]
| A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English, one says I see them and they see me: the nominative pronouns I/they represent the perceiver and the accusative pronouns me/them represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative and accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation. English has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the nominative, accusative and genitive cases. They are used with personal pronouns: subjective case, objective case and possessive case. Forms such as I, he and we are used for the subject, and forms such as me, him and us are used for the object. As a language evolves, cases can merge, a phenomenon known as syncretism. Languages such as Sanskrit, Kannada, Latin, Tamil, and Russian have extensive case systems, with nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and determiners all inflecting to indicate their case. The number of cases differs between languages: Persian has two; modern English has three but for pronouns only; Torlakian dialects, Classical and Modern Standard Arabic have three; German, Icelandic, Modern Greek, and Irish have four; Romanian and Ancient Greek have five; Bengali, Latin, Russian, Slovak, Kajkavian, Slovenian, and Turkish each have at least six; Armenian, Czech, Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and Ukrainian have seven; Mongolian, Marathi, Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Assamese and Greenlandic have eight; Old Nubian had nine; Basque has 13; Estonian has 14; Finnish has 15; Hungarian has 18; and Tsez has at least 36 cases. Commonly encountered cases include nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. A role that one of those languages marks by case is often marked in English with a preposition. For example, the English prepositional phrase with (his) foot might be rendered in Russian using a single noun in the instrumental case, or in Ancient Greek as τῷ ποδί with both words changing to dative form. More formally, case has been defined as "a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads". Cases should be distinguished from thematic roles such as agent and patient. They are often closely related, and in languages such as Latin, several thematic roles are realised by a somewhat fixed case for deponent verbs, but cases are a syntagmatic/phrasal category, and thematic roles are the function of a syntagma/phrase in a larger structure. Languages having cases often exhibit free word order, as thematic roles are not required to be marked by position in the sentence. | 2001-11-30T15:20:38Z | 2023-12-20T17:37:15Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case |
12,899 | Gestapo | The Geheime Staatspolizei (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈhaɪmə ˈʃtaːtspoliˌtsaɪ] ; transl. "Secret State Police"), abbreviated Gestapo (/ɡəˈstɑːpoʊ/ gə-STAH-poh, German: [ɡəˈʃtaːpo] ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as Amt (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service).
The Gestapo committed widespread atrocities during its existence. The power of the Gestapo was used to focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals, and above all, the Jews. Those arrested by the Gestapo were often held without judicial process, and political prisoners throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree (German: Nacht und Nebel)—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Contrary to popular perception, the Gestapo was actually a relatively small organization with limited surveillance capacity; despite this the Gestapo proved extremely effective due to the willingness of ordinary Germans to report on fellow citizens. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials, and several top Gestapo members were sentenced to death.
After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Hermann Göring—future commander of the Luftwaffe and the number two man in the Nazi Party—was named Interior Minister of Prussia. This gave Göring command of the largest police force in Germany. Soon afterward, Göring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the Geheime Staatspolizei, which was abbreviated by a post office clerk for a franking stamp and became known as the "Gestapo". He originally wanted to name it the Secret Police Office (Geheimes Polizeiamt), but the German initials, "GPA", were too similar to those of the Soviet State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie, or GPU).
The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels, a protégé of Göring. Diels was appointed with the title of chief of Abteilung Ia (Department 1a) of the Prussian Secret Police. Diels was best known as the primary interrogator of Marinus van der Lubbe after the Reichstag fire. In late 1933, the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick wanted to integrate all the police forces of the German states under his control. Göring outflanked him by removing the Prussian political and intelligence departments from the state interior ministry. Göring took over the Gestapo in 1934 and urged Hitler to extend the agency's authority throughout Germany. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a Land (state) and local matter. In this, he ran into conflict with Schutzstaffel (SS) chief Heinrich Himmler who was police chief of the second most powerful German state, Bavaria. Frick did not have the political power to take on Göring by himself so he allied with Himmler. With Frick's support, Himmler (pushed on by his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich) took over the political police in state-after-state. Soon only Prussia was left.
Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Also on that date, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April 1934, also continued as head of the SS Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst; SD). Himmler and Heydrich both immediately began installing their own personnel in select positions, several of whom were directly from the Bavarian Political Police, such as Heinrich Müller, Franz Josef Huber and Josef Meisinger. Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents.
By the spring of 1934, Himmler's SS controlled the SD and the Gestapo, but for him, there was still a problem, as technically the SS (and the Gestapo by proxy) was subordinated to the SA, which was under the command of Ernst Röhm. Himmler wanted to free himself entirely from Röhm, whom he viewed as an obstacle. Röhm's position was menacing as more than 4.5 million men fell under his command once the militias and veterans organisations were absorbed by the SA, a fact which fuelled Röhm's aspirations; his dream of fusing the SA and Reichswehr together was undermining Hitler's relationships with the leadership of Germany's armed forces. Several Nazi chieftains, among them Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, and Himmler, began a concerted campaign to convince Hitler to take action against Röhm. Both the SD and Gestapo released information concerning an imminent putsch by the SA. Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. The Gestapo supplied the information which implicated the SA and ultimately enabled Himmler and Heydrich to emancipate themselves entirely from the organisation. For the Gestapo, the next two years following the Night of the Long Knives, a term describing the putsch against Röhm and the SA, were characterised by "behind-the-scenes political wrangling over policing".
On 17 June 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in Germany and named Himmler as Chief of German Police. This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. Himmler was nominally subordinate to Frick as police chief, but as Reichsführer-SS, he answered only to Hitler. This move also gave Himmler operational control over Germany's entire detective force. The Gestapo became a national state agency. Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; Order Police), which became a national agency under SS general Kurt Daluege. Shortly thereafter, Himmler created the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police), merging it with the Gestapo into the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), under Heydrich's command. Heinrich Müller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. He answered to Heydrich, Heydrich answered only to Himmler, and Himmler answered only to Hitler.
The Gestapo had the authority to investigate cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and Germany. The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial review—in effect, putting it above the law. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. As early as 1935, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. The SS officer Werner Best, one-time head of legal affairs in the Gestapo, summed up this policy by saying, "As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally".
On 27 September 1939, the security and police agencies of Nazi Germany—with the exception of the Order Police—were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. The Gestapo became Amt IV (Department IV) of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief. Müller remained the Gestapo Chief. His direct subordinate Adolf Eichmann headed the Gestapo's Office of Resettlement and then its Office of Jewish Affairs (Referat IV B4 or Sub-Department IV, Section B4). During the Holocaust, Eichmann's department within the Gestapo coordinated the mass deportation of European Jews to the Nazis' extermination camps.
The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft—"protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own Schutzhaftbefehl, an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonment—presumably out of fear of personal harm. In addition, political prisoners throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree (German: Nacht und Nebel)—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under Nacht und Nebel orders. However, the total number of people who disappeared as a result of this decree is not known.
The Polish government-in-exile in London during World War II received sensitive military information about Nazi Germany from agents and informants throughout Europe. After Germany conquered Poland (in the autumn of 1939), Gestapo officials believed that they had neutralised Polish intelligence activities. However, certain Polish information about the movement of German police and SS units to the East during 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union was similar to information British intelligence secretly obtained through intercepting and decoding German police and SS messages sent by radio telegraphy.
In 1942, the Gestapo discovered a cache of Polish intelligence documents in Prague and were surprised to see that Polish agents and informants had been gathering detailed military information and smuggling it out to London, via Budapest and Istanbul. The Poles identified and tracked German military trains to the Eastern front and identified four Order Police battalions sent to occupied areas of the Soviet Union in October 1941 that engaged in war crimes and mass murder.
Polish agents also gathered detailed information about the morale of German soldiers in the East. After uncovering a sample of the information the Poles had reported, Gestapo officials concluded that Polish intelligence activity represented a very serious danger to Germany. As late as 6 June 1944, Heinrich Müller—concerned about the leakage of information to the Allies—set up a special unit called Sonderkommando Jerzy that was meant to root out the Polish intelligence network in western and southwestern Europe.
In Austria, there were groups still loyal to the Habsburgs, who unlike most across the Greater German Reich, remained determined to resist the Nazis. These groups became a special focus of the Gestapo because of their insurrectionist goals—the overthrow of the Nazi regime, the re-establishment of an independent Austria under Habsburg leadership—and Hitler's hatred of the Habsburg family. Hitler vehemently rejected the centuries' old Habsburg pluralist principles of "live and let live" with regard to ethnic groups, peoples, minorities, religions, cultures and languages. Habsburg loyalist Karl Burian's (who was later executed) plan to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna represented a unique attempt to act aggressively against the Gestapo. Burian's group had also set up a secret courier service to Otto von Habsburg in Belgium. Individuals in Austrian resistance groups led by Heinrich Maier also managed to pass along the plans and the location of production facilities for V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, and aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) to the Allies. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews. The resistance group, later discovered by the Gestapo because of a double agent of the Abwehr, was in contact with Allen Dulles, the head of the US Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland. Although Maier and the other group members were severely tortured, the Gestapo did not uncover the essential involvement of the resistance group in Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra.
Early in the regime's existence, harsh measures were meted out to political opponents and those who resisted Nazi doctrine, such as members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD); a role originally performed by the SA until the SD and Gestapo undermined their influence and took control of Reich security. Because the Gestapo seemed omniscient and omnipotent, the atmosphere of fear they created led to an overestimation of their reach and strength; a faulty assessment which hampered the operational effectiveness of underground resistance organisations.
Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they decided to dissolve the 28 federations of the General German Trade Union Confederation, because Hitler—after noting their success in the works council elections—intended to consolidate all German workers under the Nazi government's administration, a decision he made on 7 April 1933. As a preface to this action, Hitler decreed May 1 as National Labor Day to celebrate German workers, a move the trade union leaders welcomed. With their trade union flags waving, Hitler gave a rousing speech to the 1.5 million people assembled on Berlin's Tempelhofer Feld that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity. On the following day, the newly formed Gestapo officers, who had been shadowing some 58 trade union leaders, arrested them wherever they could find them—many in their homes. Meanwhile, the SA and police occupied trade union headquarters, arrested functionaries, confiscated their property and assets; all by design so as to be replaced on 12 May by the German Labour Front (DAF), a Nazi organisation placed under the leadership of Robert Ley. For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia.
Many parts of Germany (where religious dissent existed upon the Nazi seizure of power) saw a rapid transformation; a change as noted by the Gestapo in conservative towns such as Würzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance. Increasing religious objections to Nazi policies led the Gestapo to carefully monitor church organisations. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact.
However, the Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called Kirchenkampf. When Church leaders (clergy) voiced their misgiving about the euthanasia program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them "traitors to the people" and went so far as to call them "the destroyers of Germany". The extreme anti-semitism and neo-pagan heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist, and Pope Pius XI to issue the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for their opposition with their lives.
In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's Referat B1 monitored the activities of bishops very closely—instructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the Vatican should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Deans were to be targeted as the "eyes and ears of the bishops" and a "vast network" established to monitor the activities of ordinary clergy: "The importance of this enemy is such that inspectors of security police and of the security service will make this group of people and the questions discussed by them their special concern".
In Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945, Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps: "One priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England too; another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S. man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for a deceased communist". Others were arrested simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society". Over 2,700 Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. After Heydrich (who was staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian) was assassinated in Prague, his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, relaxed some of the policies and then disbanded Department IVB (religious opponents) of the Gestapo.
Violence and arrest were not confined to that opposing political parties, membership in trade unions, or those with dissenting religious opinions, but also homosexuality. It was viewed negatively by Hitler. Homosexuals were correspondingly considered a threat to the Volksgemeinschaft (National Community). From the Nazis rise to national power in 1933, the number of court verdicts against homosexuals steadily increased and only declined once the Second World War started. In 1934, a special Gestapo office was set up in Berlin to deal with homosexuality.
Despite male homosexuality being considered a greater danger to "national survival", lesbianism was likewise viewed as unacceptable—deemed gender nonconformity—and a number of individual reports on lesbians can be found in Gestapo files. Between 1933 and 1935, some 4,000 men were arrested; between 1936 and 1939, another 30,000 men were convicted. If homosexuals showed any signs of sympathy to the Nazis' identified racial enemies, they were considered an even greater danger. According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.
Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. These included the non-violent resistance of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. However, resistance groups and those who were in moral or political opposition to the Nazis were stalled by the fear of reprisals from the Gestapo. Fearful of an internal overthrow, the forces of the Gestapo were unleashed on the opposition. Groups like the White Rose and others, such as the Edelweiss Pirates, and the Swing Youth, were placed under close Gestapo observation. Some participants were sent to concentration camps. Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. For several leaders the punishment was death. During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. Student opposition leaders were executed in late February, and a major opposition organisation, the Oster Circle, was destroyed in April 1943. Efforts to resist the Nazi regime amounted to very little and had only minor chances of success, particularly since a broad percentage of the German people did not support such actions.
Between 1934 and 1938, opponents of the Nazi regime and their fellow travellers began to emerge. Among the first to speak out were religious dissenters but following in their wake were educators, aristocratic businessmen, office workers, teachers, and others from nearly every walk of life. Most people quickly learned that open opposition was dangerous since Gestapo informants and agents were widespread. However, a significant number of them still worked against the National Socialist government.
In May 1935, the Gestapo broke up and arrested members of the "Markwitz Circle", a group of former socialists in contact with Otto Strasser, who sought Hitler's downfall. From the mid-1930s into the early 1940s—various groups made up of communists, idealists, working-class people, and far-right conservative opposition organisations covertly fought against Hitler's government, and several of them fomented plots that included Hitler's assassination. Nearly all of them, including: the Römer Group, Robby Group, Solf Circle, Schwarze Reichswehr, the Party of the Radical Middle Class, Jungdeutscher Orden, Schwarze Front and Stahlhelm were either discovered or infiltrated by the Gestapo. This led to corresponding arrests, being sent to concentration camps and execution. One of the methods employed by the Gestapo to contend with these resistance factions was 'protective detention' which facilitated the process in expediting dissenters to concentration camps and against which there was no legal defence.
Early efforts to resist the Nazis with aid from abroad were hindered when the opposition's peace feelers to the Western Allies did not meet with success. This was partly because of the Venlo incident of 9 November 1939, in which SD and Gestapo agents, posing as anti-Nazis in the Netherlands, kidnapped two British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers after having lured them to a meeting to discuss peace terms. This prompted Winston Churchill to ban any further contact with the German opposition. Later, the British and Americans did not want to deal with anti-Nazis because they were fearful that the Soviet Union would believe they were attempting to make deals behind their back.
The German opposition was in an unenviable position by the late spring and early summer of 1943. On one hand, it was next to impossible for them to overthrow Hitler and the party; on the other, the Allied demand for an unconditional surrender meant no opportunity for a compromise peace, which left the military and conservative aristocrats who opposed the regime no option (in their eyes) other than continuing the military struggle. Despite the fear of the Gestapo after mass arrests and executions in the spring, the opposition still plotted and planned. One of the more famous schemes, Operation Valkyrie, involved a number of senior German officers and was carried out by Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. In an attempt to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg planted a bomb underneath a conference table inside the Wolf's Lair field headquarters. Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. Reports indicate that the Gestapo was caught unaware of this plot as they did not have sufficient protections in place at the appropriate locations nor did they take any preventative steps. Stauffenberg and his group were shot on 21 July 1944; meanwhile, his fellow conspirators were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by Roland Freisler, followed by their execution.
Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. Sabotage efforts were undertaken by members of the Abwehr (military intelligence) leadership, as they recruited people known to oppose the Nazi regime. The Gestapo cracked down ruthlessly on dissidents in Germany, just as they did everywhere else. Opposition became more difficult. Arrests, torture, and executions were common. Terror against "state enemies" had become a way of life to such a degree that the Gestapo's presence and methods were eventually normalised in the minds of people living in Nazi Germany.
In January 1933, Hermann Göring, Hitler's minister without portfolio, was appointed the head of the Prussian Police and began filling the political and intelligence units of the Prussian Secret Police with Nazi Party members. A year after the organisation's inception, Göring wrote in a British publication about having created the organisation on his own initiative and how he was "chiefly responsible" for the elimination of the Marxist and Communist threat to Germany and Prussia. Describing the activities of the organisation, Göring boasted about the utter ruthlessness required for Germany's recovery, the establishment of concentration camps for that purpose, and even went on to claim that excesses were committed in the beginning, recounting how beatings took place here and there. On 26 April 1933, he reorganised the force's Amt III as the Gestapa (better-known by the "sobriquet" Gestapo), a secret state police intended to serve the Nazi cause. Less than two weeks later in early May 1933, the Gestapo moved into their Berlin headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8.
As a result of its 1936 merger with the Kripo (National criminal police) to form sub-units of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), the Gestapo was officially classified as a government agency. Himmler's subsequent appointment to Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Chief of German Police) and status as Reichsführer-SS made him independent of Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick's nominal control.
The SiPo was placed under the direct command of Reinhard Heydrich who was already chief of the Nazi Party's intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). The idea was to fully identify and integrate the party agency (SD) with the state agency (SiPo). Most SiPo members joined the SS and held a rank in both organisations. Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo.
In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). Both the Gestapo and Kripo became distinct departments within the RSHA. Although the Sicherheitspolizei was officially disbanded, the term SiPo was figuratively used to describe any RSHA personnel throughout the remainder of the war. In lieu of naming convention changes, the original construct of the SiPo, Gestapo, and Kripo cannot be fully comprehended as "discrete entities", since they ultimately formed "a conglomerate in which each was wedded to each other and the SS through its Security Service, the SD".
The creation of the RSHA represented the formalisation, at the top level, of the relationship under which the SD served as the intelligence agency for the security police. A similar co-ordination existed in the local offices. Within Germany and areas which were incorporated within the Reich for the purpose of civil administration, local offices of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD were formally separate. They were subject to co-ordination by inspectors of the security police and SD on the staffs of the local higher SS and police leaders, however, and one of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD was slightly closer.
The Gestapo became known as RSHA Amt IV ("Department or Office IV") with Heinrich Müller as its chief. In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. The specific internal departments of Amt IV were as follows:
In 1941 Referat N, the central command office of the Gestapo was formed. However, these internal departments remained and the Gestapo continued to be a department under the RSHA umbrella. The local offices of the Gestapo, known as Gestapo Leitstellen and Stellen, answered to a local commander known as the Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD ("Inspector of the Security Police and Security Service") who, in turn, was under the dual command of Referat N of the Gestapo and also his local SS and Police Leader.
In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. The Gestapo also maintained offices at all Nazi concentration camps, held an office on the staff of the SS and Police Leaders, and supplied personnel as needed to formations such as the Einsatzgruppen. Personnel assigned to these auxiliary duties were often removed from the Gestapo chain of command and fell under the authority of branches of the SS. It was the Gestapo chief, SS-Brigadierführer Heinrich Müller, who kept Hitler abreast of the killing operations in the Soviet Union and who issued orders to the four Einsatzgruppen that their continual work in the east was to be "presented to the Führer."
According to regulations issued by the Reich Security Main Office in 1940, women who had been trained in social work or having a similar education could be hired as female detectives. Female youth leaders, lawyers, business administrators with experience in social work, female leaders in the Reichsarbeitsdienst and personnel administrators in the Bund Deutscher Mädel were hired as detectives after a one-year course, if they had several years professional experience. Later, nurses, kindergarten teachers, and trained female commercial employees with an aptitude for police work were hired as female detectives after a two-year course as Kriminaloberassistentin and could promote to a Kriminalsekretärin. After another two or three years in that grade, the female detective could advance to Kriminalobersekretärin. Further promotions to Kriminalkommissarin and Kriminalrätin were also possible.
In 1933, there was no purge of the German police forces. The vast majority of Gestapo officers came from the police forces of the Weimar Republic; members of the SS, the SA, and the Nazi Party also joined the Gestapo but were less numerous. By March 1937, the Gestapo employed an estimated 6,500 people in fifty-four regional offices across the Reich. Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. In 1939, only 3,000 out of the total of 20,000 Gestapo men held SS ranks, and in most cases, these were honorary. One man who served in the Prussian Gestapo in 1933 recalled that most of his co-workers "were by no means Nazis. For the most part they were young professional civil service officers..." The Nazis valued police competence more than politics, so in general in 1933, almost all of the men who served in the various state police forces under the Weimar Republic stayed on in their jobs. In Würzburg, which is one of the few places in Germany where most of the Gestapo records survived, every member of the Gestapo was a career policeman or had a police background.
The Canadian historian Robert Gellately wrote that most Gestapo men were not Nazis, but at the same time were not opposed to the Nazi regime, which they were willing to serve, in whatever task they were called upon to perform. Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological training, particularly once Werner Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. Employing biological metaphors, Best emphasised a doctrine which encouraged members of the Gestapo to view themselves as 'doctors' to the 'national body' in the struggle against "pathogens" and "diseases"; among the implied sicknesses were "communists, Freemasons, and the churches—and above and behind all these stood the Jews". Heydrich thought along similar lines and advocated both defensive and offensive measures on the part of the Gestapo, so as to prevent any subversion or destruction of the National Socialist body.
Whether trained as police originally or not, Gestapo agents themselves were shaped by their socio-political environment. Historian George C. Browder contends that there was a four-part process (authorisation, bolstering, routinisation, and dehumanisation) in effect which legitimised the psycho-social atmosphere conditioning members of the Gestapo to radicalised violence. Browder also describes a sandwich effect, where from above; Gestapo agents were subjected to ideologically oriented racism and criminal biological theories; and from below, the Gestapo was transformed by SS personnel who did not have the proper police training, which showed in their propensity for unrestrained violence. This admixture certainly shaped the Gestapo's public image which they sought to maintain despite their increasing workload; an image which helped them identify and eliminate enemies of the Nazi state.
Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society. In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined. In Düsseldorf, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people. "V-men", as undercover Gestapo agents were known, were used to infiltrate Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Communist opposition groups, but this was more the exception than the rule. The Gestapo office in Saarbrücken had 50 full-term informers in 1939. The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria, employed a total of 80–100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945. The majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term employees working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who chose to denounce other people to the Gestapo.
According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo was—for the most part—made up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information. Gellately argued that it was because of the widespread willingness of Germans to inform on each other to the Gestapo that Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a prime example of panopticism. The Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations. Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations. Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was "a reactive organisation...constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens".
After 1939, when many Gestapo personnel were called up for war-related work such as service with the Einsatzgruppen, the level of overwork and understaffing at the local offices increased. For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by ordinary Germans; while 10% were started in response to information provided by other branches of the German government and another 10% started in response to information that the Gestapo itself unearthed. The information supplied by denunciations often led the Gestapo in determining who was arrested.
The popular picture of the Gestapo with its spies everywhere terrorising German society has been rejected by many historians as a myth invented after the war as a cover for German society's widespread complicity in allowing the Gestapo to work. Work done by social historians such as Detlev Peukert, Robert Gellately, Reinhard Mann, Inge Marssolek, René Otto, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Paul Gerhard, which by focusing on what the local offices were doing has shown the Gestapo's almost total dependence on denunciations from ordinary Germans, and very much discredited the older "Big Brother" picture with the Gestapo having its eyes and ears everywhere. For example, of the 84 cases in Würzburg of Rassenschande ("race defilement"—sexual relations with non-Aryans), 45 (54%) were started in response to denunciations by ordinary people, two (2%) by information provided by other branches of the government, 20 (24%) via information gained during interrogations of people relating to other matters, four (5%) from information from (Nazi) NSDAP organisations, two (2%) during "political evaluations" and 11 (13%) have no source listed while none were started by Gestapo's own "observations" of the people of Würzburg.
An examination of 213 denunciations in Düsseldorf showed that 37% were motivated by personal conflicts, no motive could be established in 39%, and 24% were motivated by support for the Nazi regime. The Gestapo always showed a special interest in denunciations concerning sexual matters, especially cases concerning Rassenschande with Jews or between Germans and foreigners, in particular Polish slave workers; the Gestapo applied even harsher methods to the foreign workers in the country, especially those from Poland, Jews, Catholics and homosexuals. As time went by, anonymous denunciations to the Gestapo caused trouble to various NSDAP officials, who often found themselves being investigated by the Gestapo.
Of the political cases, 61 people were investigated for suspicion of belonging to the KPD, 44 for the SPD and 69 for other political parties. Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. After that year, political investigations declined with only 18 investigations in 1938, 13 in 1939, two in 1941, seven in 1942, four in 1943 and one in 1944. The "other" category associated with non-conformity included everything from a man who drew a caricature of Hitler to a Catholic teacher suspected of being lukewarm about teaching National Socialism in his classroom. The "administrative control" category concerned those who were breaking the law concerning residency in the city. The "conventional criminality" category concerned economic crimes such as money laundering, smuggling and homosexuality.
Normal methods of investigation included various forms of blackmail, threats and extortion to secure "confessions". Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. Failing that, torture and planting evidence were common methods of resolving a case, especially if the case concerned someone Jewish. Brutality on the part of interrogators—often prompted by denunciations and followed with roundups—enabled the Gestapo to uncover numerous resistance networks; it also made them seem like they knew everything and could do anything they wanted.
While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average Volksgenosse (Nazi term for the "member of the German people") was typically not under observation, so the statistical ratio between Gestapo officials and inhabitants is "largely worthless and of little significance" according to some recent scholars. As historian Eric Johnson remarked, "The Nazi terror was selective terror", with its focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. "Selective terror" by the Gestapo, as mentioned by Johnson, is also supported by historian Richard Evans who states that, "Violence and intimidation rarely touched the lives of most ordinary Germans. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned." The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo. As Evans makes clear, "...it was not the ordinary German people who engaged in surveillance, it was the Gestapo; nothing happened until the Gestapo received a denunciation, and it was the Gestapo's active pursuit of deviance and dissent that was the only thing that gave denunciations meaning." The Gestapo's effectiveness remained in the ability to "project" omnipotence...they co-opted the assistance of the German population by using denunciations to their advantage; proving in the end a powerful, ruthless and effective organ of terror under the Nazi regime that was seemingly everywhere. Lastly, the Gestapo's effectiveness, while aided by denunciations and the watchful eye of ordinary Germans, was more the result of the co-ordination and co-operation amid the various police organs within Germany, the assistance of the SS, and the support provided by the various Nazi Party organisations; all of them together forming an organised persecution network.
As an instrument of Nazi power, terror, and repression, the Gestapo operated throughout occupied Europe. Much like their affiliated organisations, the SS and the SD, the Gestapo "played a leading part" in enslaving and deporting workers from occupied territory, torturing and executing civilians, singling out and murdering Jews, and subjecting Allied prisoners of war to terrible treatment. To this end, the Gestapo was "a vital component both in Nazi repression and the Holocaust." Once the German armies advanced into enemy territory, they were accompanied by Einsatzgruppen staffed by officers from the Gestapo and Kripo, who usually operated in the rear areas to administer and police the occupied land. Whenever a region came fully under German military occupational jurisdiction, the Gestapo administered all executive actions under the military commander's authority, albeit operating relatively independent of it.
A former partisan and Soviet officer named Hersch Gurewicz attested to the torture methods used by the Gestapo. He recalled a partisan was strapped to a table in a room and "a German turned the lever and the table moved apart in sections like a rack. The man screamed and his leg bones snapped through his skin. The lever turned again and his arms ripped in jagged tears. After the man fainted, his torturers shot him dead." He also claimed that he had been strapped down and a wire slowly forced up his nose, into his lung, causing him to go unconscious. Later he was tied to a horse, which was made to gallop full speed, and recalled being smashed into the ground repeatedly, before being knocked out by a solid object.
Occupation meant administration and policing, a duty assigned to the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo even before hostilities began, as was the case for Czechoslovakia. Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. Some locals aided the Gestapo, whether as professional police auxiliaries or in other duties. Nonetheless, operations performed either by German members of the Gestapo or auxiliaries from willing collaborators of other nationalities were inconsistent in both disposition and effectiveness. Varying degrees of pacification and police enforcement measures were necessary in each place, dependent on how cooperative or resistant the locals were to Nazi mandates and racial policies.
Throughout the Eastern territories, the Gestapo and other Nazi organisations co-opted the assistance of indigenous police units, nearly all of whom were uniformed and able to carry out drastic actions. Many of the auxiliary police personnel operating on behalf of German Order Police, the SD, and Gestapo were members of the Schutzmannschaft, which included staffing by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians. While in many countries the Nazis occupied in the East, the local domestic police forces supplemented German operations, noted Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, asserts that "those of Poland were least involved in anti-Jewish actions." Nonetheless, German authorities ordered the mobilisation of reserve Polish police forces, known as the Blue Police, which strengthened the Nazi police presence and carried out numerous "police" functions; in some cases, its functionaries even identified and rounded up Jews or performed other unsavory duties on behalf of their German masters.
In places like Denmark, there were some 550 uniformed Danes in Copenhagen working with the Gestapo, patrolling and terrorising the local population at the behest of their German overseers, many of whom were arrested after the war. Other Danish civilians, like in many places across Europe, acted as Gestapo informants but this should not be seen as wholehearted support for the Nazi program, as motives for cooperation varied. Whereas in France, the number of members in the Carlingue (French Gestapo) who worked on behalf of the Nazis was upwards of 30,000 to 32,000; they conducted operations nearly indistinguishable from their German equivalents.
Between 14 November 1945 and 3 October 1946, the Allies established an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to try 22 major Nazi war criminals and six groups for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nineteen of the 22 were convicted, and twelve—Martin Bormann (in absentia), Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Göring, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher—were given the death penalty. Three—Walther Funk, Rudolf Hess, Erich Raeder—received life terms; and the remaining four—Karl Dönitz, Konstantin von Neurath, Albert Speer, and Baldur von Schirach—received shorter prison sentences. Three others—Hans Fritzsche, Hjalmar Schacht, and Franz von Papen—were acquitted. At that time, the Gestapo was condemned as a criminal organisation, along with the SS. However, Gestapo leader Heinrich Müller was never tried, as he disappeared at the end of the war.
Leaders, organisers, investigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit the crimes specified were declared responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official positions of defendants as heads of state or holders of high government offices were not to free them from responsibility or mitigate their punishment; nor was that a defendant acted pursuant to an order of a superior to excuse him from responsibility, although it might be considered by the IMT in mitigation of punishment.
At the trial of any individual member of any group or organisation, the IMT was authorised to declare (in connection with any act of which the individual was convicted) that the group or organisation to which he belonged was a criminal organisation. When a group or organisation was thus declared criminal, the competent national authority of any signatory had the right to bring persons to trial for membership in that organisation, with the criminal nature of the group or organisation assumed proved.
The IMT subsequently convicted three of the groups: the Nazi leadership corps, the SS (including the SD) and the Gestapo. Gestapo members Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were individually convicted. While three groups were acquitted of collective war crimes charges, this did not relieve individual members of those groups from conviction and punishment under the denazification programme. Members of the three convicted groups, however, were subject to apprehension by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France. These groups—the Nazi Party and government leadership, the German General staff and High Command (OKW); the Sturmabteilung (SA); the Schutzstaffel (SS), including the Sicherheitsdienst (SD); and the Gestapo—had an aggregate membership exceeding two million, making a large number of their members liable to trial when the organisations were convicted.
In 1997, Cologne transformed the former regional Gestapo headquarters in Cologne—the EL-DE Haus—into a museum to document the Gestapo's actions.
After the war, U.S. Counterintelligence Corps employed the former Lyon Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie for his anti-communist efforts and also helped him escape to Bolivia.
The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. There were strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. When asked for identification, an operative was required only to present his warrant disc and not a picture identification. This disc identified the operative as a member of the Gestapo without revealing personal information, except when ordered to do so by an authorised official.
Leitstellung (district office) staff did wear the grey SS service uniform, but with police-pattern shoulderboards, and SS rank insignia on the left collar patch. The right collar patch was black without the sig runes. The SD sleeve diamond (SD Raute) insignia was worn on the lower left sleeve, even by SiPo men who were not in the SD. Uniforms worn by Gestapo men assigned to the Einsatzgruppen in occupied territories, were at first indistinguishable from the Waffen-SS field uniform. Complaints from the Waffen-SS led to a change of rank insignia shoulder boards from those of the Waffen-SS to those of the Ordnungspolizei.
The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members.
Sources: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Geheime Staatspolizei (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈhaɪmə ˈʃtaːtspoliˌtsaɪ] ; transl. \"Secret State Police\"), abbreviated Gestapo (/ɡəˈstɑːpoʊ/ gə-STAH-poh, German: [ɡəˈʃtaːpo] ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as Amt (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Gestapo committed widespread atrocities during its existence. The power of the Gestapo was used to focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals, and above all, the Jews. Those arrested by the Gestapo were often held without judicial process, and political prisoners throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree (German: Nacht und Nebel)—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Contrary to popular perception, the Gestapo was actually a relatively small organization with limited surveillance capacity; despite this the Gestapo proved extremely effective due to the willingness of ordinary Germans to report on fellow citizens. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials, and several top Gestapo members were sentenced to death.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Hermann Göring—future commander of the Luftwaffe and the number two man in the Nazi Party—was named Interior Minister of Prussia. This gave Göring command of the largest police force in Germany. Soon afterward, Göring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the Geheime Staatspolizei, which was abbreviated by a post office clerk for a franking stamp and became known as the \"Gestapo\". He originally wanted to name it the Secret Police Office (Geheimes Polizeiamt), but the German initials, \"GPA\", were too similar to those of the Soviet State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie, or GPU).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels, a protégé of Göring. Diels was appointed with the title of chief of Abteilung Ia (Department 1a) of the Prussian Secret Police. Diels was best known as the primary interrogator of Marinus van der Lubbe after the Reichstag fire. In late 1933, the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick wanted to integrate all the police forces of the German states under his control. Göring outflanked him by removing the Prussian political and intelligence departments from the state interior ministry. Göring took over the Gestapo in 1934 and urged Hitler to extend the agency's authority throughout Germany. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a Land (state) and local matter. In this, he ran into conflict with Schutzstaffel (SS) chief Heinrich Himmler who was police chief of the second most powerful German state, Bavaria. Frick did not have the political power to take on Göring by himself so he allied with Himmler. With Frick's support, Himmler (pushed on by his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich) took over the political police in state-after-state. Soon only Prussia was left.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Also on that date, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April 1934, also continued as head of the SS Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst; SD). Himmler and Heydrich both immediately began installing their own personnel in select positions, several of whom were directly from the Bavarian Political Police, such as Heinrich Müller, Franz Josef Huber and Josef Meisinger. Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "By the spring of 1934, Himmler's SS controlled the SD and the Gestapo, but for him, there was still a problem, as technically the SS (and the Gestapo by proxy) was subordinated to the SA, which was under the command of Ernst Röhm. Himmler wanted to free himself entirely from Röhm, whom he viewed as an obstacle. Röhm's position was menacing as more than 4.5 million men fell under his command once the militias and veterans organisations were absorbed by the SA, a fact which fuelled Röhm's aspirations; his dream of fusing the SA and Reichswehr together was undermining Hitler's relationships with the leadership of Germany's armed forces. Several Nazi chieftains, among them Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, and Himmler, began a concerted campaign to convince Hitler to take action against Röhm. Both the SD and Gestapo released information concerning an imminent putsch by the SA. Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. The Gestapo supplied the information which implicated the SA and ultimately enabled Himmler and Heydrich to emancipate themselves entirely from the organisation. For the Gestapo, the next two years following the Night of the Long Knives, a term describing the putsch against Röhm and the SA, were characterised by \"behind-the-scenes political wrangling over policing\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On 17 June 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in Germany and named Himmler as Chief of German Police. This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. Himmler was nominally subordinate to Frick as police chief, but as Reichsführer-SS, he answered only to Hitler. This move also gave Himmler operational control over Germany's entire detective force. The Gestapo became a national state agency. Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; Order Police), which became a national agency under SS general Kurt Daluege. Shortly thereafter, Himmler created the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police), merging it with the Gestapo into the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), under Heydrich's command. Heinrich Müller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. He answered to Heydrich, Heydrich answered only to Himmler, and Himmler answered only to Hitler.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Gestapo had the authority to investigate cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and Germany. The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial review—in effect, putting it above the law. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. As early as 1935, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. The SS officer Werner Best, one-time head of legal affairs in the Gestapo, summed up this policy by saying, \"As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On 27 September 1939, the security and police agencies of Nazi Germany—with the exception of the Order Police—were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. The Gestapo became Amt IV (Department IV) of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief. Müller remained the Gestapo Chief. His direct subordinate Adolf Eichmann headed the Gestapo's Office of Resettlement and then its Office of Jewish Affairs (Referat IV B4 or Sub-Department IV, Section B4). During the Holocaust, Eichmann's department within the Gestapo coordinated the mass deportation of European Jews to the Nazis' extermination camps.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft—\"protective custody\", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own Schutzhaftbefehl, an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonment—presumably out of fear of personal harm. In addition, political prisoners throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree (German: Nacht und Nebel)—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under Nacht und Nebel orders. However, the total number of people who disappeared as a result of this decree is not known.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Polish government-in-exile in London during World War II received sensitive military information about Nazi Germany from agents and informants throughout Europe. After Germany conquered Poland (in the autumn of 1939), Gestapo officials believed that they had neutralised Polish intelligence activities. However, certain Polish information about the movement of German police and SS units to the East during 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union was similar to information British intelligence secretly obtained through intercepting and decoding German police and SS messages sent by radio telegraphy.",
"title": "Counterintelligence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1942, the Gestapo discovered a cache of Polish intelligence documents in Prague and were surprised to see that Polish agents and informants had been gathering detailed military information and smuggling it out to London, via Budapest and Istanbul. The Poles identified and tracked German military trains to the Eastern front and identified four Order Police battalions sent to occupied areas of the Soviet Union in October 1941 that engaged in war crimes and mass murder.",
"title": "Counterintelligence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Polish agents also gathered detailed information about the morale of German soldiers in the East. After uncovering a sample of the information the Poles had reported, Gestapo officials concluded that Polish intelligence activity represented a very serious danger to Germany. As late as 6 June 1944, Heinrich Müller—concerned about the leakage of information to the Allies—set up a special unit called Sonderkommando Jerzy that was meant to root out the Polish intelligence network in western and southwestern Europe.",
"title": "Counterintelligence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Austria, there were groups still loyal to the Habsburgs, who unlike most across the Greater German Reich, remained determined to resist the Nazis. These groups became a special focus of the Gestapo because of their insurrectionist goals—the overthrow of the Nazi regime, the re-establishment of an independent Austria under Habsburg leadership—and Hitler's hatred of the Habsburg family. Hitler vehemently rejected the centuries' old Habsburg pluralist principles of \"live and let live\" with regard to ethnic groups, peoples, minorities, religions, cultures and languages. Habsburg loyalist Karl Burian's (who was later executed) plan to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna represented a unique attempt to act aggressively against the Gestapo. Burian's group had also set up a secret courier service to Otto von Habsburg in Belgium. Individuals in Austrian resistance groups led by Heinrich Maier also managed to pass along the plans and the location of production facilities for V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, and aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) to the Allies. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews. The resistance group, later discovered by the Gestapo because of a double agent of the Abwehr, was in contact with Allen Dulles, the head of the US Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland. Although Maier and the other group members were severely tortured, the Gestapo did not uncover the essential involvement of the resistance group in Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra.",
"title": "Counterintelligence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Early in the regime's existence, harsh measures were meted out to political opponents and those who resisted Nazi doctrine, such as members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD); a role originally performed by the SA until the SD and Gestapo undermined their influence and took control of Reich security. Because the Gestapo seemed omniscient and omnipotent, the atmosphere of fear they created led to an overestimation of their reach and strength; a faulty assessment which hampered the operational effectiveness of underground resistance organisations.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they decided to dissolve the 28 federations of the General German Trade Union Confederation, because Hitler—after noting their success in the works council elections—intended to consolidate all German workers under the Nazi government's administration, a decision he made on 7 April 1933. As a preface to this action, Hitler decreed May 1 as National Labor Day to celebrate German workers, a move the trade union leaders welcomed. With their trade union flags waving, Hitler gave a rousing speech to the 1.5 million people assembled on Berlin's Tempelhofer Feld that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity. On the following day, the newly formed Gestapo officers, who had been shadowing some 58 trade union leaders, arrested them wherever they could find them—many in their homes. Meanwhile, the SA and police occupied trade union headquarters, arrested functionaries, confiscated their property and assets; all by design so as to be replaced on 12 May by the German Labour Front (DAF), a Nazi organisation placed under the leadership of Robert Ley. For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Many parts of Germany (where religious dissent existed upon the Nazi seizure of power) saw a rapid transformation; a change as noted by the Gestapo in conservative towns such as Würzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance. Increasing religious objections to Nazi policies led the Gestapo to carefully monitor church organisations. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "However, the Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called Kirchenkampf. When Church leaders (clergy) voiced their misgiving about the euthanasia program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them \"traitors to the people\" and went so far as to call them \"the destroyers of Germany\". The extreme anti-semitism and neo-pagan heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist, and Pope Pius XI to issue the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for their opposition with their lives.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's Referat B1 monitored the activities of bishops very closely—instructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the Vatican should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Deans were to be targeted as the \"eyes and ears of the bishops\" and a \"vast network\" established to monitor the activities of ordinary clergy: \"The importance of this enemy is such that inspectors of security police and of the security service will make this group of people and the questions discussed by them their special concern\".",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945, Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps: \"One priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England too; another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S. man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for a deceased communist\". Others were arrested simply on the basis of being \"suspected of activities hostile to the State\" or that there was reason to \"suppose that his dealings might harm society\". Over 2,700 Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. After Heydrich (who was staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian) was assassinated in Prague, his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, relaxed some of the policies and then disbanded Department IVB (religious opponents) of the Gestapo.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Violence and arrest were not confined to that opposing political parties, membership in trade unions, or those with dissenting religious opinions, but also homosexuality. It was viewed negatively by Hitler. Homosexuals were correspondingly considered a threat to the Volksgemeinschaft (National Community). From the Nazis rise to national power in 1933, the number of court verdicts against homosexuals steadily increased and only declined once the Second World War started. In 1934, a special Gestapo office was set up in Berlin to deal with homosexuality.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Despite male homosexuality being considered a greater danger to \"national survival\", lesbianism was likewise viewed as unacceptable—deemed gender nonconformity—and a number of individual reports on lesbians can be found in Gestapo files. Between 1933 and 1935, some 4,000 men were arrested; between 1936 and 1939, another 30,000 men were convicted. If homosexuals showed any signs of sympathy to the Nazis' identified racial enemies, they were considered an even greater danger. According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. These included the non-violent resistance of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. However, resistance groups and those who were in moral or political opposition to the Nazis were stalled by the fear of reprisals from the Gestapo. Fearful of an internal overthrow, the forces of the Gestapo were unleashed on the opposition. Groups like the White Rose and others, such as the Edelweiss Pirates, and the Swing Youth, were placed under close Gestapo observation. Some participants were sent to concentration camps. Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. For several leaders the punishment was death. During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. Student opposition leaders were executed in late February, and a major opposition organisation, the Oster Circle, was destroyed in April 1943. Efforts to resist the Nazi regime amounted to very little and had only minor chances of success, particularly since a broad percentage of the German people did not support such actions.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Between 1934 and 1938, opponents of the Nazi regime and their fellow travellers began to emerge. Among the first to speak out were religious dissenters but following in their wake were educators, aristocratic businessmen, office workers, teachers, and others from nearly every walk of life. Most people quickly learned that open opposition was dangerous since Gestapo informants and agents were widespread. However, a significant number of them still worked against the National Socialist government.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In May 1935, the Gestapo broke up and arrested members of the \"Markwitz Circle\", a group of former socialists in contact with Otto Strasser, who sought Hitler's downfall. From the mid-1930s into the early 1940s—various groups made up of communists, idealists, working-class people, and far-right conservative opposition organisations covertly fought against Hitler's government, and several of them fomented plots that included Hitler's assassination. Nearly all of them, including: the Römer Group, Robby Group, Solf Circle, Schwarze Reichswehr, the Party of the Radical Middle Class, Jungdeutscher Orden, Schwarze Front and Stahlhelm were either discovered or infiltrated by the Gestapo. This led to corresponding arrests, being sent to concentration camps and execution. One of the methods employed by the Gestapo to contend with these resistance factions was 'protective detention' which facilitated the process in expediting dissenters to concentration camps and against which there was no legal defence.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Early efforts to resist the Nazis with aid from abroad were hindered when the opposition's peace feelers to the Western Allies did not meet with success. This was partly because of the Venlo incident of 9 November 1939, in which SD and Gestapo agents, posing as anti-Nazis in the Netherlands, kidnapped two British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers after having lured them to a meeting to discuss peace terms. This prompted Winston Churchill to ban any further contact with the German opposition. Later, the British and Americans did not want to deal with anti-Nazis because they were fearful that the Soviet Union would believe they were attempting to make deals behind their back.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The German opposition was in an unenviable position by the late spring and early summer of 1943. On one hand, it was next to impossible for them to overthrow Hitler and the party; on the other, the Allied demand for an unconditional surrender meant no opportunity for a compromise peace, which left the military and conservative aristocrats who opposed the regime no option (in their eyes) other than continuing the military struggle. Despite the fear of the Gestapo after mass arrests and executions in the spring, the opposition still plotted and planned. One of the more famous schemes, Operation Valkyrie, involved a number of senior German officers and was carried out by Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. In an attempt to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg planted a bomb underneath a conference table inside the Wolf's Lair field headquarters. Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. Reports indicate that the Gestapo was caught unaware of this plot as they did not have sufficient protections in place at the appropriate locations nor did they take any preventative steps. Stauffenberg and his group were shot on 21 July 1944; meanwhile, his fellow conspirators were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by Roland Freisler, followed by their execution.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. Sabotage efforts were undertaken by members of the Abwehr (military intelligence) leadership, as they recruited people known to oppose the Nazi regime. The Gestapo cracked down ruthlessly on dissidents in Germany, just as they did everywhere else. Opposition became more difficult. Arrests, torture, and executions were common. Terror against \"state enemies\" had become a way of life to such a degree that the Gestapo's presence and methods were eventually normalised in the minds of people living in Nazi Germany.",
"title": "Suppression of resistance and persecution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In January 1933, Hermann Göring, Hitler's minister without portfolio, was appointed the head of the Prussian Police and began filling the political and intelligence units of the Prussian Secret Police with Nazi Party members. A year after the organisation's inception, Göring wrote in a British publication about having created the organisation on his own initiative and how he was \"chiefly responsible\" for the elimination of the Marxist and Communist threat to Germany and Prussia. Describing the activities of the organisation, Göring boasted about the utter ruthlessness required for Germany's recovery, the establishment of concentration camps for that purpose, and even went on to claim that excesses were committed in the beginning, recounting how beatings took place here and there. On 26 April 1933, he reorganised the force's Amt III as the Gestapa (better-known by the \"sobriquet\" Gestapo), a secret state police intended to serve the Nazi cause. Less than two weeks later in early May 1933, the Gestapo moved into their Berlin headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "As a result of its 1936 merger with the Kripo (National criminal police) to form sub-units of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), the Gestapo was officially classified as a government agency. Himmler's subsequent appointment to Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Chief of German Police) and status as Reichsführer-SS made him independent of Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick's nominal control.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The SiPo was placed under the direct command of Reinhard Heydrich who was already chief of the Nazi Party's intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). The idea was to fully identify and integrate the party agency (SD) with the state agency (SiPo). Most SiPo members joined the SS and held a rank in both organisations. Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). Both the Gestapo and Kripo became distinct departments within the RSHA. Although the Sicherheitspolizei was officially disbanded, the term SiPo was figuratively used to describe any RSHA personnel throughout the remainder of the war. In lieu of naming convention changes, the original construct of the SiPo, Gestapo, and Kripo cannot be fully comprehended as \"discrete entities\", since they ultimately formed \"a conglomerate in which each was wedded to each other and the SS through its Security Service, the SD\".",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The creation of the RSHA represented the formalisation, at the top level, of the relationship under which the SD served as the intelligence agency for the security police. A similar co-ordination existed in the local offices. Within Germany and areas which were incorporated within the Reich for the purpose of civil administration, local offices of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD were formally separate. They were subject to co-ordination by inspectors of the security police and SD on the staffs of the local higher SS and police leaders, however, and one of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD was slightly closer.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Gestapo became known as RSHA Amt IV (\"Department or Office IV\") with Heinrich Müller as its chief. In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. The specific internal departments of Amt IV were as follows:",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 1941 Referat N, the central command office of the Gestapo was formed. However, these internal departments remained and the Gestapo continued to be a department under the RSHA umbrella. The local offices of the Gestapo, known as Gestapo Leitstellen and Stellen, answered to a local commander known as the Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (\"Inspector of the Security Police and Security Service\") who, in turn, was under the dual command of Referat N of the Gestapo and also his local SS and Police Leader.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. The Gestapo also maintained offices at all Nazi concentration camps, held an office on the staff of the SS and Police Leaders, and supplied personnel as needed to formations such as the Einsatzgruppen. Personnel assigned to these auxiliary duties were often removed from the Gestapo chain of command and fell under the authority of branches of the SS. It was the Gestapo chief, SS-Brigadierführer Heinrich Müller, who kept Hitler abreast of the killing operations in the Soviet Union and who issued orders to the four Einsatzgruppen that their continual work in the east was to be \"presented to the Führer.\"",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "According to regulations issued by the Reich Security Main Office in 1940, women who had been trained in social work or having a similar education could be hired as female detectives. Female youth leaders, lawyers, business administrators with experience in social work, female leaders in the Reichsarbeitsdienst and personnel administrators in the Bund Deutscher Mädel were hired as detectives after a one-year course, if they had several years professional experience. Later, nurses, kindergarten teachers, and trained female commercial employees with an aptitude for police work were hired as female detectives after a two-year course as Kriminaloberassistentin and could promote to a Kriminalsekretärin. After another two or three years in that grade, the female detective could advance to Kriminalobersekretärin. Further promotions to Kriminalkommissarin and Kriminalrätin were also possible.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 1933, there was no purge of the German police forces. The vast majority of Gestapo officers came from the police forces of the Weimar Republic; members of the SS, the SA, and the Nazi Party also joined the Gestapo but were less numerous. By March 1937, the Gestapo employed an estimated 6,500 people in fifty-four regional offices across the Reich. Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. In 1939, only 3,000 out of the total of 20,000 Gestapo men held SS ranks, and in most cases, these were honorary. One man who served in the Prussian Gestapo in 1933 recalled that most of his co-workers \"were by no means Nazis. For the most part they were young professional civil service officers...\" The Nazis valued police competence more than politics, so in general in 1933, almost all of the men who served in the various state police forces under the Weimar Republic stayed on in their jobs. In Würzburg, which is one of the few places in Germany where most of the Gestapo records survived, every member of the Gestapo was a career policeman or had a police background.",
"title": "Membership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Canadian historian Robert Gellately wrote that most Gestapo men were not Nazis, but at the same time were not opposed to the Nazi regime, which they were willing to serve, in whatever task they were called upon to perform. Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological training, particularly once Werner Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. Employing biological metaphors, Best emphasised a doctrine which encouraged members of the Gestapo to view themselves as 'doctors' to the 'national body' in the struggle against \"pathogens\" and \"diseases\"; among the implied sicknesses were \"communists, Freemasons, and the churches—and above and behind all these stood the Jews\". Heydrich thought along similar lines and advocated both defensive and offensive measures on the part of the Gestapo, so as to prevent any subversion or destruction of the National Socialist body.",
"title": "Membership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Whether trained as police originally or not, Gestapo agents themselves were shaped by their socio-political environment. Historian George C. Browder contends that there was a four-part process (authorisation, bolstering, routinisation, and dehumanisation) in effect which legitimised the psycho-social atmosphere conditioning members of the Gestapo to radicalised violence. Browder also describes a sandwich effect, where from above; Gestapo agents were subjected to ideologically oriented racism and criminal biological theories; and from below, the Gestapo was transformed by SS personnel who did not have the proper police training, which showed in their propensity for unrestrained violence. This admixture certainly shaped the Gestapo's public image which they sought to maintain despite their increasing workload; an image which helped them identify and eliminate enemies of the Nazi state.",
"title": "Membership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society. In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined. In Düsseldorf, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people. \"V-men\", as undercover Gestapo agents were known, were used to infiltrate Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Communist opposition groups, but this was more the exception than the rule. The Gestapo office in Saarbrücken had 50 full-term informers in 1939. The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria, employed a total of 80–100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945. The majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term employees working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who chose to denounce other people to the Gestapo.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo was—for the most part—made up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information. Gellately argued that it was because of the widespread willingness of Germans to inform on each other to the Gestapo that Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a prime example of panopticism. The Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations. Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations. Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was \"a reactive organisation...constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens\".",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "After 1939, when many Gestapo personnel were called up for war-related work such as service with the Einsatzgruppen, the level of overwork and understaffing at the local offices increased. For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by ordinary Germans; while 10% were started in response to information provided by other branches of the German government and another 10% started in response to information that the Gestapo itself unearthed. The information supplied by denunciations often led the Gestapo in determining who was arrested.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The popular picture of the Gestapo with its spies everywhere terrorising German society has been rejected by many historians as a myth invented after the war as a cover for German society's widespread complicity in allowing the Gestapo to work. Work done by social historians such as Detlev Peukert, Robert Gellately, Reinhard Mann, Inge Marssolek, René Otto, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Paul Gerhard, which by focusing on what the local offices were doing has shown the Gestapo's almost total dependence on denunciations from ordinary Germans, and very much discredited the older \"Big Brother\" picture with the Gestapo having its eyes and ears everywhere. For example, of the 84 cases in Würzburg of Rassenschande (\"race defilement\"—sexual relations with non-Aryans), 45 (54%) were started in response to denunciations by ordinary people, two (2%) by information provided by other branches of the government, 20 (24%) via information gained during interrogations of people relating to other matters, four (5%) from information from (Nazi) NSDAP organisations, two (2%) during \"political evaluations\" and 11 (13%) have no source listed while none were started by Gestapo's own \"observations\" of the people of Würzburg.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "An examination of 213 denunciations in Düsseldorf showed that 37% were motivated by personal conflicts, no motive could be established in 39%, and 24% were motivated by support for the Nazi regime. The Gestapo always showed a special interest in denunciations concerning sexual matters, especially cases concerning Rassenschande with Jews or between Germans and foreigners, in particular Polish slave workers; the Gestapo applied even harsher methods to the foreign workers in the country, especially those from Poland, Jews, Catholics and homosexuals. As time went by, anonymous denunciations to the Gestapo caused trouble to various NSDAP officials, who often found themselves being investigated by the Gestapo.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Of the political cases, 61 people were investigated for suspicion of belonging to the KPD, 44 for the SPD and 69 for other political parties. Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. After that year, political investigations declined with only 18 investigations in 1938, 13 in 1939, two in 1941, seven in 1942, four in 1943 and one in 1944. The \"other\" category associated with non-conformity included everything from a man who drew a caricature of Hitler to a Catholic teacher suspected of being lukewarm about teaching National Socialism in his classroom. The \"administrative control\" category concerned those who were breaking the law concerning residency in the city. The \"conventional criminality\" category concerned economic crimes such as money laundering, smuggling and homosexuality.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Normal methods of investigation included various forms of blackmail, threats and extortion to secure \"confessions\". Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. Failing that, torture and planting evidence were common methods of resolving a case, especially if the case concerned someone Jewish. Brutality on the part of interrogators—often prompted by denunciations and followed with roundups—enabled the Gestapo to uncover numerous resistance networks; it also made them seem like they knew everything and could do anything they wanted.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average Volksgenosse (Nazi term for the \"member of the German people\") was typically not under observation, so the statistical ratio between Gestapo officials and inhabitants is \"largely worthless and of little significance\" according to some recent scholars. As historian Eric Johnson remarked, \"The Nazi terror was selective terror\", with its focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. \"Selective terror\" by the Gestapo, as mentioned by Johnson, is also supported by historian Richard Evans who states that, \"Violence and intimidation rarely touched the lives of most ordinary Germans. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned.\" The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo. As Evans makes clear, \"...it was not the ordinary German people who engaged in surveillance, it was the Gestapo; nothing happened until the Gestapo received a denunciation, and it was the Gestapo's active pursuit of deviance and dissent that was the only thing that gave denunciations meaning.\" The Gestapo's effectiveness remained in the ability to \"project\" omnipotence...they co-opted the assistance of the German population by using denunciations to their advantage; proving in the end a powerful, ruthless and effective organ of terror under the Nazi regime that was seemingly everywhere. Lastly, the Gestapo's effectiveness, while aided by denunciations and the watchful eye of ordinary Germans, was more the result of the co-ordination and co-operation amid the various police organs within Germany, the assistance of the SS, and the support provided by the various Nazi Party organisations; all of them together forming an organised persecution network.",
"title": "Population ratios, methods and effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "As an instrument of Nazi power, terror, and repression, the Gestapo operated throughout occupied Europe. Much like their affiliated organisations, the SS and the SD, the Gestapo \"played a leading part\" in enslaving and deporting workers from occupied territory, torturing and executing civilians, singling out and murdering Jews, and subjecting Allied prisoners of war to terrible treatment. To this end, the Gestapo was \"a vital component both in Nazi repression and the Holocaust.\" Once the German armies advanced into enemy territory, they were accompanied by Einsatzgruppen staffed by officers from the Gestapo and Kripo, who usually operated in the rear areas to administer and police the occupied land. Whenever a region came fully under German military occupational jurisdiction, the Gestapo administered all executive actions under the military commander's authority, albeit operating relatively independent of it.",
"title": "Operations in Nazi-occupied territories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "A former partisan and Soviet officer named Hersch Gurewicz attested to the torture methods used by the Gestapo. He recalled a partisan was strapped to a table in a room and \"a German turned the lever and the table moved apart in sections like a rack. The man screamed and his leg bones snapped through his skin. The lever turned again and his arms ripped in jagged tears. After the man fainted, his torturers shot him dead.\" He also claimed that he had been strapped down and a wire slowly forced up his nose, into his lung, causing him to go unconscious. Later he was tied to a horse, which was made to gallop full speed, and recalled being smashed into the ground repeatedly, before being knocked out by a solid object.",
"title": "Operations in Nazi-occupied territories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Occupation meant administration and policing, a duty assigned to the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo even before hostilities began, as was the case for Czechoslovakia. Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. Some locals aided the Gestapo, whether as professional police auxiliaries or in other duties. Nonetheless, operations performed either by German members of the Gestapo or auxiliaries from willing collaborators of other nationalities were inconsistent in both disposition and effectiveness. Varying degrees of pacification and police enforcement measures were necessary in each place, dependent on how cooperative or resistant the locals were to Nazi mandates and racial policies.",
"title": "Operations in Nazi-occupied territories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Throughout the Eastern territories, the Gestapo and other Nazi organisations co-opted the assistance of indigenous police units, nearly all of whom were uniformed and able to carry out drastic actions. Many of the auxiliary police personnel operating on behalf of German Order Police, the SD, and Gestapo were members of the Schutzmannschaft, which included staffing by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians. While in many countries the Nazis occupied in the East, the local domestic police forces supplemented German operations, noted Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, asserts that \"those of Poland were least involved in anti-Jewish actions.\" Nonetheless, German authorities ordered the mobilisation of reserve Polish police forces, known as the Blue Police, which strengthened the Nazi police presence and carried out numerous \"police\" functions; in some cases, its functionaries even identified and rounded up Jews or performed other unsavory duties on behalf of their German masters.",
"title": "Operations in Nazi-occupied territories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In places like Denmark, there were some 550 uniformed Danes in Copenhagen working with the Gestapo, patrolling and terrorising the local population at the behest of their German overseers, many of whom were arrested after the war. Other Danish civilians, like in many places across Europe, acted as Gestapo informants but this should not be seen as wholehearted support for the Nazi program, as motives for cooperation varied. Whereas in France, the number of members in the Carlingue (French Gestapo) who worked on behalf of the Nazis was upwards of 30,000 to 32,000; they conducted operations nearly indistinguishable from their German equivalents.",
"title": "Operations in Nazi-occupied territories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Between 14 November 1945 and 3 October 1946, the Allies established an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to try 22 major Nazi war criminals and six groups for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nineteen of the 22 were convicted, and twelve—Martin Bormann (in absentia), Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Göring, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher—were given the death penalty. Three—Walther Funk, Rudolf Hess, Erich Raeder—received life terms; and the remaining four—Karl Dönitz, Konstantin von Neurath, Albert Speer, and Baldur von Schirach—received shorter prison sentences. Three others—Hans Fritzsche, Hjalmar Schacht, and Franz von Papen—were acquitted. At that time, the Gestapo was condemned as a criminal organisation, along with the SS. However, Gestapo leader Heinrich Müller was never tried, as he disappeared at the end of the war.",
"title": "Nuremberg trials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Leaders, organisers, investigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit the crimes specified were declared responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official positions of defendants as heads of state or holders of high government offices were not to free them from responsibility or mitigate their punishment; nor was that a defendant acted pursuant to an order of a superior to excuse him from responsibility, although it might be considered by the IMT in mitigation of punishment.",
"title": "Nuremberg trials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "At the trial of any individual member of any group or organisation, the IMT was authorised to declare (in connection with any act of which the individual was convicted) that the group or organisation to which he belonged was a criminal organisation. When a group or organisation was thus declared criminal, the competent national authority of any signatory had the right to bring persons to trial for membership in that organisation, with the criminal nature of the group or organisation assumed proved.",
"title": "Nuremberg trials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The IMT subsequently convicted three of the groups: the Nazi leadership corps, the SS (including the SD) and the Gestapo. Gestapo members Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were individually convicted. While three groups were acquitted of collective war crimes charges, this did not relieve individual members of those groups from conviction and punishment under the denazification programme. Members of the three convicted groups, however, were subject to apprehension by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France. These groups—the Nazi Party and government leadership, the German General staff and High Command (OKW); the Sturmabteilung (SA); the Schutzstaffel (SS), including the Sicherheitsdienst (SD); and the Gestapo—had an aggregate membership exceeding two million, making a large number of their members liable to trial when the organisations were convicted.",
"title": "Nuremberg trials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In 1997, Cologne transformed the former regional Gestapo headquarters in Cologne—the EL-DE Haus—into a museum to document the Gestapo's actions.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "After the war, U.S. Counterintelligence Corps employed the former Lyon Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie for his anti-communist efforts and also helped him escape to Bolivia.",
"title": "Aftermath"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. There were strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. When asked for identification, an operative was required only to present his warrant disc and not a picture identification. This disc identified the operative as a member of the Gestapo without revealing personal information, except when ordered to do so by an authorised official.",
"title": "Ranks and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Leitstellung (district office) staff did wear the grey SS service uniform, but with police-pattern shoulderboards, and SS rank insignia on the left collar patch. The right collar patch was black without the sig runes. The SD sleeve diamond (SD Raute) insignia was worn on the lower left sleeve, even by SiPo men who were not in the SD. Uniforms worn by Gestapo men assigned to the Einsatzgruppen in occupied territories, were at first indistinguishable from the Waffen-SS field uniform. Complaints from the Waffen-SS led to a change of rank insignia shoulder boards from those of the Waffen-SS to those of the Ordnungspolizei.",
"title": "Ranks and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members.",
"title": "Ranks and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Sources:",
"title": "Ranks and uniforms"
}
]
| The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Sicherheitspolizei. From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as Amt (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the Sicherheitsdienst. The Gestapo committed widespread atrocities during its existence. The power of the Gestapo was used to focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters, career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals, and above all, the Jews. Those arrested by the Gestapo were often held without judicial process, and political prisoners throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Contrary to popular perception, the Gestapo was actually a relatively small organization with limited surveillance capacity; despite this the Gestapo proved extremely effective due to the willingness of ordinary Germans to report on fellow citizens. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials, and several top Gestapo members were sentenced to death. | 2001-11-30T16:16:19Z | 2023-10-30T18:11:03Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo |
12,900 | Grammatical conjugation | In linguistics, conjugation (/ˌkɒndʒʊˈɡeɪʃən/) is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb break can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic or Spanish are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.
Verbs may inflect for grammatical categories such as person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, mood, voice, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, interrogatives, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by agreement, polypersonal agreement, incorporation, noun class, noun classifiers, and verb classifiers. Agglutinative and polysynthetic languages tend to have the most complex conjugations, albeit some fusional languages such as Archi can also have extremely complex conjugation. Typically the principal parts are the root and/or several modifications of it (stems). All the different forms of the same verb constitute a lexeme, and the canonical form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent that lexeme (as seen in dictionary entries) is called a lemma.
The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of nouns and adjectives is known as declension). Also it is often restricted to denoting the formation of finite forms of a verb – these may be referred to as conjugated forms, as opposed to non-finite forms, such as the infinitive or gerund, which tend not to be marked for most of the grammatical categories.
Conjugation is also the traditional name for a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language (a verb class). For example, Latin is said to have four conjugations of verbs. This means that any regular Latin verb can be conjugated in any person, number, tense, mood, and voice by knowing which of the four conjugation groups it belongs to, and its principal parts. A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an irregular verb. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a verb paradigm; this may be presented in the form of a conjugation table.
Verbal agreement, or concord, is a morpho-syntactic construct in which properties of the subject and/or objects of a verb are indicated by the verb form. Verbs are then said to agree with their subjects (resp. objects).
Many English verbs exhibit subject agreement of the following sort: whereas I go, you go, we go, they go are all grammatical in standard English, he go is not (except in the subjunctive, as "They requested that he go with them"). Instead, a special form of the verb to go has to be used to produce he goes. On the other hand I goes, you goes etc. are not grammatical in standard English. (Things are different in some English dialects that lack agreement.) A few English verbs have no special forms that indicate subject agreement (I may, you may, he may), and the verb to be has an additional form am that can only be used with the pronoun I as the subject.
Verbs in written French exhibit more intensive agreement morphology than English verbs: je suis (I am), tu es ("you are", singular informal), elle est (she is), nous sommes (we are), vous êtes ("you are", plural), ils sont (they are). Historically, English used to have a similar verbal paradigm. Some historic verb forms are used by Shakespeare as slightly archaic or more formal variants (I do, thou dost, he doth, typically used by nobility) of the modern forms.
Some languages with verbal agreement can leave certain subjects implicit when the subject is fully determined by the verb form. In Spanish, for instance, subject pronouns do not need to be explicitly present, but in French, its close relative, they are obligatory. The Spanish equivalent to the French je suis (I am) can be simply soy (lit. "am"). The pronoun yo (I) in the explicit form yo soy is used only for emphasis or to clear ambiguity in complex texts.
Some languages have a richer agreement system in which verbs agree also with some or all of their objects. Ubykh exhibits verbal agreement for the subject, direct object, indirect object, benefaction and ablative objects (a.w3.s.xe.n.t'u.n, you gave it to him for me).
Basque can show agreement not only for subject, direct object and indirect object but it also can exhibit agreement for the listener as the implicit benefactor: autoa ekarri digute means "they brought us the car" (neuter agreement for the listener), but autoa ekarri ziguten means "they brought us the car" (agreement for feminine singular listener).
Languages with a rich agreement morphology facilitate relatively free word order without leading to increased ambiguity. The canonical word order in Basque is subject–object–verb, but all permutations of subject, verb and object are permitted.
In some languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements receive a form of person agreement that is distinct from that used on ordinary predicative verbs. Although that is a form of conjugation in that it refers back to the person of the subject, it is not "verbal" because it always derives from pronouns that have become clitic to the nouns to which they refer. An example of nonverbal person agreement, along with contrasting verbal conjugation, can be found from Beja (person agreement affixes in bold):
Another example can be found from Ket:
In Turkic, and a few Uralic and Australian Aboriginal languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements take affixes that are identical to those used on predicative verbs, but their negation is different. For example, in Turkish:
Under negation, that becomes (negative affixes in bold):
Therefore, the person agreement affixes used with predicative adjectives and nominals in Turkic languages are considered to be nonverbal in character. In some analyses, they are viewed as a form of verbal takeover by a copular strategy.
These common grammatical categories affect how verbs can be conjugated:
Here are other factors that may affect conjugation:
Indo-European languages usually inflect verbs for several grammatical categories in complex paradigms, although some, like English, have simplified verb conjugation to a large extent. Below is the conjugation of the verb to be in the present tense (of the infinitive, if it exists, and indicative moods), in English, German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Latvian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Slovenian, Macedonian, Urdu or Hindi, Persian, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Albanian, Armenian, Irish, Ukrainian, Ancient Attic Greek and Modern Greek. This is usually the most irregular verb. The similarities in corresponding verb forms may be noticed. Some of the conjugations may be disused, like the English thou-form, or have additional meanings, like the English you-form, which can also stand for second person singular or be impersonal.
One common feature of Pama–Nyungan languages, the largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages, is the notion of conjugation classes, which are a set of groups into which each lexical verb falls. They determine how a verb is conjugated for Tense–aspect–mood. The classes can but do not universally correspond to the transitivity or valency of the verb in question. Generally, of the two to six conjugation classes in a Pama-Nyungan language, two classes are open with a large membership and allow for new coinages, and the remainder are closed and of limited membership.
In Wati languages, verbs generally fall into four classes:
They are labelled by using common morphological components of verb endings in each respective class in infinitival forms. In the Wanman language these each correspond to la, ya, rra, and wa verbs respectively.
See also a similar table of verb classes and conjugations in Pitjantjatjara, a Wati language wherein the correlating verb classes are presented below also by their imperative verbal endings -la, -∅, -ra and -wa respectively
Ngarla, a member of the Ngayarda sub-family of languages has a binary conjugation system labelled:
In the case of Ngarla, there is a notably strong correlation between conjugation class and transitivity, with transitive/ditransitive verbs falling in the l-class and intransitive/semi-transitive verbs in the ∅-class.
These classes even extend to how verbs are nominalized as instruments with the l-class verb including the addition of an /l/ before the nominalizing suffix and the blank class remaining blank:
l-class example:
Kunyjarta-lu
Woman-ERG
mara
hand
ku-rnu
CAUS-PST
parnu-nga
3SG-GEN
warnta
stick
pirri-lpunyjarri,
dig-INS
kurni-rnu
throw-PST
kunyjarta
woman
kurri
teenager
Kunyjarta-lu mara ku-rnu parnu-nga warnta pirri-lpunyjarri, kurni-rnu kunyjarta kurri
Woman-ERG hand CAUS-PST 3SG-GEN stick dig-INS throw-PST woman teenager
‘(The) woman caused her digging stick to be in (the) hand (i.e. picked up her digging stick), (and) threw (it) at (the) girl.’
∅-class example
Jarrari-punyjarri
light-INS
waa-n
give-FUT
ngajapa
1SG.LOC
pinurru
fire
ngaya
1SG.NOM
nyali
light
ja-lu
CAUS-PURP
Jarrari-punyjarri waa-n ngajapa pinurru ngaya nyali ja-lu
light-INS give-FUT 1SG.LOC fire 1SG.NOM light CAUS-PURP
‘(A) match (lit. something to light with) give on (i.e. to) me, (a) fire I intend to light.’
Yidiny has a ternary verb class system with two open classes and one closed class (~20 members). Verbs are classified as: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In linguistics, conjugation (/ˌkɒndʒʊˈɡeɪʃən/) is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb break can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic or Spanish are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Verbs may inflect for grammatical categories such as person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, mood, voice, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, interrogatives, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by agreement, polypersonal agreement, incorporation, noun class, noun classifiers, and verb classifiers. Agglutinative and polysynthetic languages tend to have the most complex conjugations, albeit some fusional languages such as Archi can also have extremely complex conjugation. Typically the principal parts are the root and/or several modifications of it (stems). All the different forms of the same verb constitute a lexeme, and the canonical form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent that lexeme (as seen in dictionary entries) is called a lemma.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of nouns and adjectives is known as declension). Also it is often restricted to denoting the formation of finite forms of a verb – these may be referred to as conjugated forms, as opposed to non-finite forms, such as the infinitive or gerund, which tend not to be marked for most of the grammatical categories.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Conjugation is also the traditional name for a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language (a verb class). For example, Latin is said to have four conjugations of verbs. This means that any regular Latin verb can be conjugated in any person, number, tense, mood, and voice by knowing which of the four conjugation groups it belongs to, and its principal parts. A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an irregular verb. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a verb paradigm; this may be presented in the form of a conjugation table.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Verbal agreement, or concord, is a morpho-syntactic construct in which properties of the subject and/or objects of a verb are indicated by the verb form. Verbs are then said to agree with their subjects (resp. objects).",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Many English verbs exhibit subject agreement of the following sort: whereas I go, you go, we go, they go are all grammatical in standard English, he go is not (except in the subjunctive, as \"They requested that he go with them\"). Instead, a special form of the verb to go has to be used to produce he goes. On the other hand I goes, you goes etc. are not grammatical in standard English. (Things are different in some English dialects that lack agreement.) A few English verbs have no special forms that indicate subject agreement (I may, you may, he may), and the verb to be has an additional form am that can only be used with the pronoun I as the subject.",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Verbs in written French exhibit more intensive agreement morphology than English verbs: je suis (I am), tu es (\"you are\", singular informal), elle est (she is), nous sommes (we are), vous êtes (\"you are\", plural), ils sont (they are). Historically, English used to have a similar verbal paradigm. Some historic verb forms are used by Shakespeare as slightly archaic or more formal variants (I do, thou dost, he doth, typically used by nobility) of the modern forms.",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Some languages with verbal agreement can leave certain subjects implicit when the subject is fully determined by the verb form. In Spanish, for instance, subject pronouns do not need to be explicitly present, but in French, its close relative, they are obligatory. The Spanish equivalent to the French je suis (I am) can be simply soy (lit. \"am\"). The pronoun yo (I) in the explicit form yo soy is used only for emphasis or to clear ambiguity in complex texts.",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Some languages have a richer agreement system in which verbs agree also with some or all of their objects. Ubykh exhibits verbal agreement for the subject, direct object, indirect object, benefaction and ablative objects (a.w3.s.xe.n.t'u.n, you gave it to him for me).",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Basque can show agreement not only for subject, direct object and indirect object but it also can exhibit agreement for the listener as the implicit benefactor: autoa ekarri digute means \"they brought us the car\" (neuter agreement for the listener), but autoa ekarri ziguten means \"they brought us the car\" (agreement for feminine singular listener).",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Languages with a rich agreement morphology facilitate relatively free word order without leading to increased ambiguity. The canonical word order in Basque is subject–object–verb, but all permutations of subject, verb and object are permitted.",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In some languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements receive a form of person agreement that is distinct from that used on ordinary predicative verbs. Although that is a form of conjugation in that it refers back to the person of the subject, it is not \"verbal\" because it always derives from pronouns that have become clitic to the nouns to which they refer. An example of nonverbal person agreement, along with contrasting verbal conjugation, can be found from Beja (person agreement affixes in bold):",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Another example can be found from Ket:",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In Turkic, and a few Uralic and Australian Aboriginal languages, predicative adjectives and copular complements take affixes that are identical to those used on predicative verbs, but their negation is different. For example, in Turkish:",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Under negation, that becomes (negative affixes in bold):",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Therefore, the person agreement affixes used with predicative adjectives and nominals in Turkic languages are considered to be nonverbal in character. In some analyses, they are viewed as a form of verbal takeover by a copular strategy.",
"title": "Verbal agreement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "These common grammatical categories affect how verbs can be conjugated:",
"title": "Factors that affect conjugation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Here are other factors that may affect conjugation:",
"title": "Factors that affect conjugation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Indo-European languages usually inflect verbs for several grammatical categories in complex paradigms, although some, like English, have simplified verb conjugation to a large extent. Below is the conjugation of the verb to be in the present tense (of the infinitive, if it exists, and indicative moods), in English, German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Latvian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Slovenian, Macedonian, Urdu or Hindi, Persian, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Albanian, Armenian, Irish, Ukrainian, Ancient Attic Greek and Modern Greek. This is usually the most irregular verb. The similarities in corresponding verb forms may be noticed. Some of the conjugations may be disused, like the English thou-form, or have additional meanings, like the English you-form, which can also stand for second person singular or be impersonal.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "One common feature of Pama–Nyungan languages, the largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages, is the notion of conjugation classes, which are a set of groups into which each lexical verb falls. They determine how a verb is conjugated for Tense–aspect–mood. The classes can but do not universally correspond to the transitivity or valency of the verb in question. Generally, of the two to six conjugation classes in a Pama-Nyungan language, two classes are open with a large membership and allow for new coinages, and the remainder are closed and of limited membership.",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In Wati languages, verbs generally fall into four classes:",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "They are labelled by using common morphological components of verb endings in each respective class in infinitival forms. In the Wanman language these each correspond to la, ya, rra, and wa verbs respectively.",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "See also a similar table of verb classes and conjugations in Pitjantjatjara, a Wati language wherein the correlating verb classes are presented below also by their imperative verbal endings -la, -∅, -ra and -wa respectively",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Ngarla, a member of the Ngayarda sub-family of languages has a binary conjugation system labelled:",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In the case of Ngarla, there is a notably strong correlation between conjugation class and transitivity, with transitive/ditransitive verbs falling in the l-class and intransitive/semi-transitive verbs in the ∅-class.",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "These classes even extend to how verbs are nominalized as instruments with the l-class verb including the addition of an /l/ before the nominalizing suffix and the blank class remaining blank:",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "l-class example:",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Kunyjarta-lu",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Woman-ERG",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "mara",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "hand",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "ku-rnu",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "CAUS-PST",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "parnu-nga",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "3SG-GEN",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "warnta",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "stick",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "pirri-lpunyjarri,",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "dig-INS",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "kurni-rnu",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "throw-PST",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "kunyjarta",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "woman",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "kurri",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "teenager",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Kunyjarta-lu mara ku-rnu parnu-nga warnta pirri-lpunyjarri, kurni-rnu kunyjarta kurri",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Woman-ERG hand CAUS-PST 3SG-GEN stick dig-INS throw-PST woman teenager",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "‘(The) woman caused her digging stick to be in (the) hand (i.e. picked up her digging stick), (and) threw (it) at (the) girl.’",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "∅-class example",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Jarrari-punyjarri",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "light-INS",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "waa-n",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "give-FUT",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "ngajapa",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "1SG.LOC",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "pinurru",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "fire",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "ngaya",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "1SG.NOM",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "nyali",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "light",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "ja-lu",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "CAUS-PURP",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Jarrari-punyjarri waa-n ngajapa pinurru ngaya nyali ja-lu",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "light-INS give-FUT 1SG.LOC fire 1SG.NOM light CAUS-PURP",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "‘(A) match (lit. something to light with) give on (i.e. to) me, (a) fire I intend to light.’",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Yidiny has a ternary verb class system with two open classes and one closed class (~20 members). Verbs are classified as:",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "",
"title": "Conjugation classes"
}
]
| In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection. For instance, the verb break can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic or Spanish are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb. Verbs may inflect for grammatical categories such as person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, mood, voice, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, interrogatives, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by agreement, polypersonal agreement, incorporation, noun class, noun classifiers, and verb classifiers. Agglutinative and polysynthetic languages tend to have the most complex conjugations, albeit some fusional languages such as Archi can also have extremely complex conjugation. Typically the principal parts are the root and/or several modifications of it (stems). All the different forms of the same verb constitute a lexeme, and the canonical form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent that lexeme is called a lemma. The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech. Also it is often restricted to denoting the formation of finite forms of a verb – these may be referred to as conjugated forms, as opposed to non-finite forms, such as the infinitive or gerund, which tend not to be marked for most of the grammatical categories. Conjugation is also the traditional name for a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language. For example, Latin is said to have four conjugations of verbs. This means that any regular Latin verb can be conjugated in any person, number, tense, mood, and voice by knowing which of the four conjugation groups it belongs to, and its principal parts. A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an irregular verb. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a verb paradigm; this may be presented in the form of a conjugation table. | 2001-11-30T17:15:29Z | 2023-11-02T18:53:19Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation |
12,902 | Gomoku | Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a 15×15 Go board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names.
Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. Black plays first. The winner is the first player to form an unbroken line of five stones of their color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. In some rules, this line must be exactly five stones long; six or more stones in a row does not count as a win and is called an overline. If the board is completely filled and no one can make a line of 5 stones, then the game ends in a draw.
Historical records indicate that the origins of gomoku can be traced back to the mid-1700s during the Edo period. It is said that the 10th generation of Kuwanaya Buemon, a merchant who frequented the Nijō family, was highly skilled in this game, which subsequently spread among the people. By the late Edo period, around 1850, books had been published on gomoku. The earliest published book on gomoku that can be verified is the Gomoku Jōseki Collection (五石定磧集) in 1856.
The name "gomoku" is from the Japanese language, in which it is referred to as gomokunarabe (五目並べ). Go means five, moku is a counter word for pieces and narabe means line-up. The game is popular in China, where it is called Wuziqi (五子棋). Wu (五 wǔ) means five, zi (子 zǐ) means piece, and qi (棋 qí) refers to a board game category in Chinese. The game is also popular in Korea, where it is called omok (오목 [五目]) which has the same structure and origin as the Japanese name.
In the nineteenth century, the game was introduced to Britain where it was known as Go Bang, said to be a corruption of the Japanese word goban, which was itself adapted from the Chinese k'i pan (qí pán) "go-board."
Gomoku has a strong advantage for the first player when unrestricted.
Championships in gomoku previously used the "Pro" opening rule, which mandated that the first player place the first stone in the center of the board. The second player's stone placement was unrestricted. The first player's second stone had to be placed at least three intersections away from the first player's first stone. This rule was used in the 1989 and 1991 world championships. When the win–loss ratio of these two championships was calculated, the first player (black) won 67 percent of games.
This was deemed too unbalanced for tournament play, so tournament gomoku adopted the Swap2 opening protocol in 2009. In Swap2, the first player places three stones, two black and one white, on the board. The second player then selects one of three options: play as black, play as white and place another white stone, or place two more stones, one white and one black, and let the first player choose the color.
The win ratio of the first player has been calculated to be around 52 percent using the Swap2 opening protocol, greatly balancing the game and largely solving the first-player advantage.
Freestyle gomoku has no restrictions on either player and allows a player to win by creating a line of five or more stones, with each player alternating turns placing one stone at a time.
The rule of "swap after 1st move" is a variant of the freestyle gomoku rule, and is mostly played in China. The game can be played on a 19×19 or 15×15 board. As per the rule, once the first player places a black stone on the board, the second player has the right to swap colors. The rest of the game proceeds as freestyle gomoku. This rule is set to balance the advantage of black in a simple way.
Black (the player who makes the first move) has long been known to have an advantage, even before L. Victor Allis proved that black can force a win (see below). Renju attempts to mitigate this imbalance with extra rules that aim to reduce black's first player advantage.
It is played on a 15×15 board, with the rules of three and three, four and four, and overlines applied to Black only.
Renju also makes use of various tournament opening rules, such as Soosõrv-8, the current international standard.
In Caro, (also called gomoku+, popular among Vietnamese), the winner must have an overline or an unbroken row of five stones that is not blocked at either end (overlines are immune to this rule). This makes the game more balanced and provides more power for White to defend.
Omok is similar to Freestyle gomoku; however, it is played on a 19×19 board and includes the rule of three and three.
Also called Wu, Ninuki Renju is a variant which adds capturing to the game; A pair of stones of the same color may be captured by the opponent by means of custodial capture (sandwiching a line of two stones lengthwise). The winner is the player either to make a perfect five in a row, or to capture five pairs of the opponent's stones. It uses a 15x15 board and the rules of three and three and overlines. It also allows the game to continue after a player has formed a row of five stones if their opponent can capture a pair across the line.
Pente is related to Ninuki-Renju, and has the same custodial capture method, but is most often played on a 19x19 board and does not use the rules of three and three, four and four, or overlines.
Tournament rules are used in professional play to balance the game and mitigate the first player advantage. The tournament rule used for the gomoku world championships since 2009 is the Swap2 opening rule. For all of the following professional rules, an overline (six or more stones in a row) does not count as a win.
The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone (two empty intersections in between the two stones).
The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least four intersections away from the first stone (three empty intersections in between the two stones).
The tentative first player places three stones (two black, and one white) anywhere on the board. The tentative second player then chooses which color to play as. Play proceeds from there as normal with white playing their second stone.
The tentative first player places three stones on the board, two black and one white. The tentative second player then has three options:
Because the tentative first player doesn't know where the tentative second player will place the additional stones if they take option 3, the swap2 opening protocol limits excessive studying of a line by only one of the players.
m,n,k-games are a generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, and k in a row needed to win.
Connect(m,n,k,p,q) games are another generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, k in a row needed to win, p stones for each player to place, and q stones for the first player to place for the first move only. Each player may play only at the lowest unoccupied place in a column. In particular, Connect(m,n,6,2,1) is called Connect6.
This game on the 15×15 board is adapted from the paper "Go-Moku and Threat-Space Search".
The opening moves show clearly black's advantage. An open row of three (one that is not blocked by an opponent's stone at either end) has to be blocked immediately, or countered with a threat elsewhere on the board. If not blocked or countered, the open row of three will be extended to an open row of four, which threatens to win in two ways.
White has to block open rows of three at moves 10, 14, 16 and 20, but black only has to do so at move 9. Move 20 is a blunder for white (it should have been played next to black 19). Black can now force a win against any defense by white, starting with move 21.
There are two forcing sequences for black, depending on whether white 22 is played next to black 15 or black 21. The diagram on the right shows the first sequence. All the moves for white are forced. Such long forcing sequences are typical in gomoku, and expert players can read out forcing sequences of 20 to 40 moves rapidly and accurately.
The diagram on the right shows the second forcing sequence. This diagram shows why white 20 was a blunder; if it had been next to black 19 (at the position of move 32 in this diagram) then black 31 would not be a threat and so the forcing sequence would fail.
World Gomoku Championships have occurred 2 times in 1989, 1991. Since 2009 tournament play has resumed, with the opening rule changed to swap2.
List of the tournaments occurred and title holders follows.
Researchers have been applying artificial intelligence techniques on playing gomoku for several decades. In 1994, L. Victor Allis raised the algorithm of proof-number search (pn-search) and dependency-based search (db-search), and proved that when starting from an empty 15×15 board, the first player has a winning strategy using these searching algorithms. This applies to both free-style gomoku and standard gomoku without any opening rules. It seems very likely that black wins on larger boards too. In any size of a board, freestyle gomoku is an m,n,k-game, hence it is known that the first player can force a win or a draw. In 2001, Allis's winning strategy was also approved for renju, a variation of gomoku, when there was no limitation on the opening stage.
However, neither the theoretical values of all legal positions, nor the opening rules such as Swap2 used by the professional gomoku players have been solved yet, so the topic of gomoku artificial intelligence is still a challenge for computer scientists, such as the problem on how to improve the gomoku algorithms to make them more strategic and competitive. Nowadays, most of the state-of-the-art gomoku algorithms are based on the alpha-beta pruning framework.
Reisch proved that Generalized gomoku is PSPACE-complete. He also observed that the reduction can be adapted to the rules of k-in-a-Row for fixed k. Although he did not specify exactly which values of k are allowed, the reduction would appear to generalize to any k ≥ 5.
There exist several well-known tournaments for gomoku programs since 1989. The Computer Olympiad started with the gomoku game in 1989, but gomoku has not been in the list since 1993. The Renju World Computer Championship was started in 1991, and held for 4 times until 2004. The Gomocup tournament is played since 2000 and taking place every year, still active now, with more than 30 participants from about 10 countries. The Hungarian Computer Go-Moku Tournament was also played twice in 2005. There were also two Computer vs. Human tournaments played in the Czech Republic, in 2006 and 2011. Not until 2017 were the computer programs proved to be able to outperform the world human champion in public competitions. In the Gomoku World Championship 2017, there was a match between the world champion program Yixin and the world champion human player Rudolf Dupszki. Yixin won the match with a score of 2–0.
Gomoku was featured in a 2018 Korean drama by Baek Seung-Hwa starring Park Se-wan. The film follows Baduk Lee (Park Se-wan), a former go prodigy who retired after a humiliating loss on time. Years later, Baduk Lee works part time at a go club, where she meets Ahn Kyung Kim, who introduces her to an Omok (Korean gomoku) tournament. Lee is initially uninterested and considers Omok a children's game, but after her roommate loses money on an impulse purchase, she enters the tournament for the prize money and loses badly, being humiliated once again. Afterwards, she begins training to redeem herself and becomes a serious omok player. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a 15×15 Go board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. Black plays first. The winner is the first player to form an unbroken line of five stones of their color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. In some rules, this line must be exactly five stones long; six or more stones in a row does not count as a win and is called an overline. If the board is completely filled and no one can make a line of 5 stones, then the game ends in a draw.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Historical records indicate that the origins of gomoku can be traced back to the mid-1700s during the Edo period. It is said that the 10th generation of Kuwanaya Buemon, a merchant who frequented the Nijō family, was highly skilled in this game, which subsequently spread among the people. By the late Edo period, around 1850, books had been published on gomoku. The earliest published book on gomoku that can be verified is the Gomoku Jōseki Collection (五石定磧集) in 1856.",
"title": "Origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name \"gomoku\" is from the Japanese language, in which it is referred to as gomokunarabe (五目並べ). Go means five, moku is a counter word for pieces and narabe means line-up. The game is popular in China, where it is called Wuziqi (五子棋). Wu (五 wǔ) means five, zi (子 zǐ) means piece, and qi (棋 qí) refers to a board game category in Chinese. The game is also popular in Korea, where it is called omok (오목 [五目]) which has the same structure and origin as the Japanese name.",
"title": "Origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the nineteenth century, the game was introduced to Britain where it was known as Go Bang, said to be a corruption of the Japanese word goban, which was itself adapted from the Chinese k'i pan (qí pán) \"go-board.\"",
"title": "Origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Gomoku has a strong advantage for the first player when unrestricted.",
"title": "First-player advantage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Championships in gomoku previously used the \"Pro\" opening rule, which mandated that the first player place the first stone in the center of the board. The second player's stone placement was unrestricted. The first player's second stone had to be placed at least three intersections away from the first player's first stone. This rule was used in the 1989 and 1991 world championships. When the win–loss ratio of these two championships was calculated, the first player (black) won 67 percent of games.",
"title": "First-player advantage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This was deemed too unbalanced for tournament play, so tournament gomoku adopted the Swap2 opening protocol in 2009. In Swap2, the first player places three stones, two black and one white, on the board. The second player then selects one of three options: play as black, play as white and place another white stone, or place two more stones, one white and one black, and let the first player choose the color.",
"title": "First-player advantage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The win ratio of the first player has been calculated to be around 52 percent using the Swap2 opening protocol, greatly balancing the game and largely solving the first-player advantage.",
"title": "First-player advantage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Freestyle gomoku has no restrictions on either player and allows a player to win by creating a line of five or more stones, with each player alternating turns placing one stone at a time.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The rule of \"swap after 1st move\" is a variant of the freestyle gomoku rule, and is mostly played in China. The game can be played on a 19×19 or 15×15 board. As per the rule, once the first player places a black stone on the board, the second player has the right to swap colors. The rest of the game proceeds as freestyle gomoku. This rule is set to balance the advantage of black in a simple way.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Black (the player who makes the first move) has long been known to have an advantage, even before L. Victor Allis proved that black can force a win (see below). Renju attempts to mitigate this imbalance with extra rules that aim to reduce black's first player advantage.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "It is played on a 15×15 board, with the rules of three and three, four and four, and overlines applied to Black only.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Renju also makes use of various tournament opening rules, such as Soosõrv-8, the current international standard.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Caro, (also called gomoku+, popular among Vietnamese), the winner must have an overline or an unbroken row of five stones that is not blocked at either end (overlines are immune to this rule). This makes the game more balanced and provides more power for White to defend.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Omok is similar to Freestyle gomoku; however, it is played on a 19×19 board and includes the rule of three and three.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Also called Wu, Ninuki Renju is a variant which adds capturing to the game; A pair of stones of the same color may be captured by the opponent by means of custodial capture (sandwiching a line of two stones lengthwise). The winner is the player either to make a perfect five in a row, or to capture five pairs of the opponent's stones. It uses a 15x15 board and the rules of three and three and overlines. It also allows the game to continue after a player has formed a row of five stones if their opponent can capture a pair across the line.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Pente is related to Ninuki-Renju, and has the same custodial capture method, but is most often played on a 19x19 board and does not use the rules of three and three, four and four, or overlines.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Tournament rules are used in professional play to balance the game and mitigate the first player advantage. The tournament rule used for the gomoku world championships since 2009 is the Swap2 opening rule. For all of the following professional rules, an overline (six or more stones in a row) does not count as a win.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone (two empty intersections in between the two stones).",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least four intersections away from the first stone (three empty intersections in between the two stones).",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The tentative first player places three stones (two black, and one white) anywhere on the board. The tentative second player then chooses which color to play as. Play proceeds from there as normal with white playing their second stone.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The tentative first player places three stones on the board, two black and one white. The tentative second player then has three options:",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Because the tentative first player doesn't know where the tentative second player will place the additional stones if they take option 3, the swap2 opening protocol limits excessive studying of a line by only one of the players.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "m,n,k-games are a generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, and k in a row needed to win.",
"title": "Theoretical generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Connect(m,n,k,p,q) games are another generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, k in a row needed to win, p stones for each player to place, and q stones for the first player to place for the first move only. Each player may play only at the lowest unoccupied place in a column. In particular, Connect(m,n,6,2,1) is called Connect6.",
"title": "Theoretical generalizations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "This game on the 15×15 board is adapted from the paper \"Go-Moku and Threat-Space Search\".",
"title": "Example game"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The opening moves show clearly black's advantage. An open row of three (one that is not blocked by an opponent's stone at either end) has to be blocked immediately, or countered with a threat elsewhere on the board. If not blocked or countered, the open row of three will be extended to an open row of four, which threatens to win in two ways.",
"title": "Example game"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "White has to block open rows of three at moves 10, 14, 16 and 20, but black only has to do so at move 9. Move 20 is a blunder for white (it should have been played next to black 19). Black can now force a win against any defense by white, starting with move 21.",
"title": "Example game"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There are two forcing sequences for black, depending on whether white 22 is played next to black 15 or black 21. The diagram on the right shows the first sequence. All the moves for white are forced. Such long forcing sequences are typical in gomoku, and expert players can read out forcing sequences of 20 to 40 moves rapidly and accurately.",
"title": "Example game"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The diagram on the right shows the second forcing sequence. This diagram shows why white 20 was a blunder; if it had been next to black 19 (at the position of move 32 in this diagram) then black 31 would not be a threat and so the forcing sequence would fail.",
"title": "Example game"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "World Gomoku Championships have occurred 2 times in 1989, 1991. Since 2009 tournament play has resumed, with the opening rule changed to swap2.",
"title": "World championships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "List of the tournaments occurred and title holders follows.",
"title": "World championships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Researchers have been applying artificial intelligence techniques on playing gomoku for several decades. In 1994, L. Victor Allis raised the algorithm of proof-number search (pn-search) and dependency-based search (db-search), and proved that when starting from an empty 15×15 board, the first player has a winning strategy using these searching algorithms. This applies to both free-style gomoku and standard gomoku without any opening rules. It seems very likely that black wins on larger boards too. In any size of a board, freestyle gomoku is an m,n,k-game, hence it is known that the first player can force a win or a draw. In 2001, Allis's winning strategy was also approved for renju, a variation of gomoku, when there was no limitation on the opening stage.",
"title": "Computers and gomoku"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "However, neither the theoretical values of all legal positions, nor the opening rules such as Swap2 used by the professional gomoku players have been solved yet, so the topic of gomoku artificial intelligence is still a challenge for computer scientists, such as the problem on how to improve the gomoku algorithms to make them more strategic and competitive. Nowadays, most of the state-of-the-art gomoku algorithms are based on the alpha-beta pruning framework.",
"title": "Computers and gomoku"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Reisch proved that Generalized gomoku is PSPACE-complete. He also observed that the reduction can be adapted to the rules of k-in-a-Row for fixed k. Although he did not specify exactly which values of k are allowed, the reduction would appear to generalize to any k ≥ 5.",
"title": "Computers and gomoku"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "There exist several well-known tournaments for gomoku programs since 1989. The Computer Olympiad started with the gomoku game in 1989, but gomoku has not been in the list since 1993. The Renju World Computer Championship was started in 1991, and held for 4 times until 2004. The Gomocup tournament is played since 2000 and taking place every year, still active now, with more than 30 participants from about 10 countries. The Hungarian Computer Go-Moku Tournament was also played twice in 2005. There were also two Computer vs. Human tournaments played in the Czech Republic, in 2006 and 2011. Not until 2017 were the computer programs proved to be able to outperform the world human champion in public competitions. In the Gomoku World Championship 2017, there was a match between the world champion program Yixin and the world champion human player Rudolf Dupszki. Yixin won the match with a score of 2–0.",
"title": "Computers and gomoku"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Gomoku was featured in a 2018 Korean drama by Baek Seung-Hwa starring Park Se-wan. The film follows Baduk Lee (Park Se-wan), a former go prodigy who retired after a humiliating loss on time. Years later, Baduk Lee works part time at a go club, where she meets Ahn Kyung Kim, who introduces her to an Omok (Korean gomoku) tournament. Lee is initially uninterested and considers Omok a children's game, but after her roommate loses money on an impulse purchase, she enters the tournament for the prize money and loses badly, being humiliated once again. Afterwards, she begins training to redeem herself and becomes a serious omok player.",
"title": "In popular culture"
}
]
| Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces on a 15×15 Go board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names. | 2001-12-04T01:51:12Z | 2023-12-06T16:37:15Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomoku |
12,903 | Gegenschein | Gegenschein (/ˈɡeɪɡənˌʃaɪn/; German: [ˈɡeːɡn̩ˌʃaɪn]; lit. 'counter-shine') or counterglow is a faintly bright spot in the night sky centered at the antisolar point. The backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust causes this optical phenomenon.
Like zodiacal light, gegenschein is sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Most of this dust orbits the Sun near the ecliptic plane, with a possible concentration of particles centered at the L2 point of the Earth–Sun system.
Gegenschein is distinguished from zodiacal light by its high angle of reflection of the incident sunlight on the dust particles. It forms a slightly brighter elliptical spot of 8–10° across directly opposite the Sun within the dimmer band of zodiacal light and zodiac constellation. The intensity of the gegenschein is relatively enhanced because each dust particle is seen at full phase, having a difficult to measure apparent magnitude of +5 to +6, with a very low surface brightness in the +10 to +12 magnitude range.
It is commonly stated that the gegenschein was first described by the French Jesuit astronomer and professor Esprit Pézenas [fr] (1692–1776) in 1730. Further observations were supposedly made by the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt during his South American journey from 1799 to 1803. It was Humboldt who first used the German term Gegenschein. However, research conducted in 2021 by Texas State University astronomer and professor Donald Olson discovered that the Danish astronomer Theodor Brorsen was actually the first person to observe and describe one in 1854, although Brorsen had thought that Pézenas had observed it first. Olson believes what Pézenas actually observed was an auroral event, as he described the phenomenon as having a red glow; Olson found many other reports of auroral activity from around Europe and Asia on the same date Pézenas made his observation. Humboldt's report instead described glowing triangular patches on both the western and eastern horizons shortly after sunset, while true gegenschein is most visible near local midnight when it is highest in the sky.
Brorsen published the first thorough investigations of the gegenschein in 1854. T. W. Backhouse discovered it independently in 1876, as did Edward Emerson Barnard in 1882. In modern times, the gegenschein is not visible in most inhabited regions of the world due to light pollution. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gegenschein (/ˈɡeɪɡənˌʃaɪn/; German: [ˈɡeːɡn̩ˌʃaɪn]; lit. 'counter-shine') or counterglow is a faintly bright spot in the night sky centered at the antisolar point. The backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust causes this optical phenomenon.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Like zodiacal light, gegenschein is sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Most of this dust orbits the Sun near the ecliptic plane, with a possible concentration of particles centered at the L2 point of the Earth–Sun system.",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Gegenschein is distinguished from zodiacal light by its high angle of reflection of the incident sunlight on the dust particles. It forms a slightly brighter elliptical spot of 8–10° across directly opposite the Sun within the dimmer band of zodiacal light and zodiac constellation. The intensity of the gegenschein is relatively enhanced because each dust particle is seen at full phase, having a difficult to measure apparent magnitude of +5 to +6, with a very low surface brightness in the +10 to +12 magnitude range.",
"title": "Explanation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "It is commonly stated that the gegenschein was first described by the French Jesuit astronomer and professor Esprit Pézenas [fr] (1692–1776) in 1730. Further observations were supposedly made by the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt during his South American journey from 1799 to 1803. It was Humboldt who first used the German term Gegenschein. However, research conducted in 2021 by Texas State University astronomer and professor Donald Olson discovered that the Danish astronomer Theodor Brorsen was actually the first person to observe and describe one in 1854, although Brorsen had thought that Pézenas had observed it first. Olson believes what Pézenas actually observed was an auroral event, as he described the phenomenon as having a red glow; Olson found many other reports of auroral activity from around Europe and Asia on the same date Pézenas made his observation. Humboldt's report instead described glowing triangular patches on both the western and eastern horizons shortly after sunset, while true gegenschein is most visible near local midnight when it is highest in the sky.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Brorsen published the first thorough investigations of the gegenschein in 1854. T. W. Backhouse discovered it independently in 1876, as did Edward Emerson Barnard in 1882. In modern times, the gegenschein is not visible in most inhabited regions of the world due to light pollution.",
"title": "History"
}
]
| Gegenschein or counterglow is a faintly bright spot in the night sky centered at the antisolar point. The backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust causes this optical phenomenon. | 2001-12-01T19:25:24Z | 2023-09-27T17:22:40Z | [
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12,904 | Glyph | A glyph (/ɡlɪf/) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A grapheme, or part of a grapheme (such as a diacritic), or sometimes several graphemes in combination (a composed glyph) can be represented by a glyph.
In most languages written in any variety of the Latin alphabet except English, the use of diacritics to signify a sound mutation is common. For example, the grapheme ⟨à⟩ requires two glyphs: the basic a and the grave accent `. In general, a diacritic is regarded as a glyph, even if it is contiguous with the rest of the character like a cedilla in French, Catalan or Portuguese, the ogonek in several languages, or the stroke on a Polish "Ł". Although these marks originally had no independent meaning, they have since acquired meaning in the field of mathematics and computing, for instance.
Conversely, in the languages of Western Europe, the dot on a lower-case ⟨i⟩ is not a glyph in because it does not convey any distinction, and an ⟨ı⟩ in which the dot has been accidentally omitted is still likely to be recognized correctly. However, in Turkish and adjacent languages, this dot is a glyph because that language has two distinct versions of the letter i, with and without a dot.
In Japanese syllabaries, some of the characters are made up of more than one separate mark, but in general these separate marks are not glyphs because they have no meaning by themselves. However, in some cases, additional marks fulfil the role of diacritics, to differentiate distinct characters. Such additional marks constitute glyphs.
Some characters such as "æ" in Icelandic and the "ß" in German may be regarded as glyphs. They were originally typographic ligatures, but over time have become characters in their own right; these languages treat them as unique letters. However, a ligature such as "fi", that is treated in some typefaces as a single unit, is arguably not a glyph as this is just a design choice of that typeface, essentially an allographic feature, and includes more than one grapheme. In normal handwriting, even long words are often written "joined up", without the pen leaving the paper, and the form of each written letter will often vary depending on which letters precede and follow it, but that does not make the whole word into a single glyph.
Older models of typewriters required the use of multiple glyphs to depict a single character, as an overstruck apostrophe and period to create an exclamation mark. If there is more than one allograph of a unit of writing, and the choice between them depends on context or on the preference of the author, they now have to be treated as separate glyphs, because mechanical arrangements have to be available to differentiate between them and to print whichever of them is required.
In computing as well as typography, the term "character" refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems (scripts). In typography and computing, the range of graphemes is broader than in a written language in other ways too: a typeface often has to cope with a range of different languages each of which contribute their own graphemes, and it may also be required to print non-linguistic symbols such as dingbats. The range of glyphs required increases correspondingly. In summary, in typography and computing, a glyph is a graphical unit. | [
{
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"text": "A glyph (/ɡlɪf/) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is \"the specific shape, design, or representation of a character\". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A grapheme, or part of a grapheme (such as a diacritic), or sometimes several graphemes in combination (a composed glyph) can be represented by a glyph.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "In most languages written in any variety of the Latin alphabet except English, the use of diacritics to signify a sound mutation is common. For example, the grapheme ⟨à⟩ requires two glyphs: the basic a and the grave accent `. In general, a diacritic is regarded as a glyph, even if it is contiguous with the rest of the character like a cedilla in French, Catalan or Portuguese, the ogonek in several languages, or the stroke on a Polish \"Ł\". Although these marks originally had no independent meaning, they have since acquired meaning in the field of mathematics and computing, for instance.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Conversely, in the languages of Western Europe, the dot on a lower-case ⟨i⟩ is not a glyph in because it does not convey any distinction, and an ⟨ı⟩ in which the dot has been accidentally omitted is still likely to be recognized correctly. However, in Turkish and adjacent languages, this dot is a glyph because that language has two distinct versions of the letter i, with and without a dot.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In Japanese syllabaries, some of the characters are made up of more than one separate mark, but in general these separate marks are not glyphs because they have no meaning by themselves. However, in some cases, additional marks fulfil the role of diacritics, to differentiate distinct characters. Such additional marks constitute glyphs.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
},
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"text": "Some characters such as \"æ\" in Icelandic and the \"ß\" in German may be regarded as glyphs. They were originally typographic ligatures, but over time have become characters in their own right; these languages treat them as unique letters. However, a ligature such as \"fi\", that is treated in some typefaces as a single unit, is arguably not a glyph as this is just a design choice of that typeface, essentially an allographic feature, and includes more than one grapheme. In normal handwriting, even long words are often written \"joined up\", without the pen leaving the paper, and the form of each written letter will often vary depending on which letters precede and follow it, but that does not make the whole word into a single glyph.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Older models of typewriters required the use of multiple glyphs to depict a single character, as an overstruck apostrophe and period to create an exclamation mark. If there is more than one allograph of a unit of writing, and the choice between them depends on context or on the preference of the author, they now have to be treated as separate glyphs, because mechanical arrangements have to be available to differentiate between them and to print whichever of them is required.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In computing as well as typography, the term \"character\" refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems (scripts). In typography and computing, the range of graphemes is broader than in a written language in other ways too: a typeface often has to cope with a range of different languages each of which contribute their own graphemes, and it may also be required to print non-linguistic symbols such as dingbats. The range of glyphs required increases correspondingly. In summary, in typography and computing, a glyph is a graphical unit.",
"title": "Glyphs, graphemes and characters"
}
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| A glyph is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A grapheme, or part of a grapheme, or sometimes several graphemes in combination can be represented by a glyph. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-08T16:22:56Z | [
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12,905 | Goth subculture | Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.
The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-century Gothic fiction and from horror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially in Western Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion.
The music preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock, death rock, cold wave, dark wave, and ethereal wave. The Gothic fashion style draws influences from punk, new wave, New Romantic fashion and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as the Victorian, Edwardian, and Belle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark (usually solid black) attire, dark makeup, and black hair.
The term gothic rock was coined by music critic John Stickney in 1967 to describe a meeting he had with Jim Morrison in a dimly lit wine-cellar, which he called "the perfect room to honor the Gothic rock of the Doors". That same year, the Velvet Underground song "All Tomorrow's Parties" created a kind of "mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece" according to music historian Kurt Loder. In the late 1970s, the gothic adjective was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, and Joy Division. In a live review about a Siouxsie and the Banshees' concert in July 1978, critic Nick Kent wrote, concerning their music, "[P]arallels and comparisons can now be drawn with gothic rock architects like the Doors and, certainly, early Velvet Underground". In March 1979, in his review of Magazine's second album Secondhand Daylight, Kent noted there was "a new austere sense of authority" in the music, with a "dank neo-Gothic sound". Later that year, the term was also used by Joy Division's manager, Tony Wilson on 15 September in an interview for the BBC TV programme's Something Else. Wilson described Joy Division as "gothic" compared to the pop mainstream, right before a live performance of the band. The term was later applied to "newer bands such as Bauhaus who had arrived in the wake of Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees". Bauhaus's first single issued in 1979, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", is generally credited as the starting point of the gothic rock genre.
In 1979, Sounds described Joy Division as "Gothic" and "theatrical". In February 1980, Melody Maker qualified the same band as "masters of this Gothic gloom". Critic Jon Savage would later say that their singer Ian Curtis wrote "the definitive Northern Gothic statement". However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became a coherent music subgenre within post-punk, and followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. They may have taken the "goth" mantle from a 1981 article published in UK rock weekly Sounds: "The face of Punk Gothique", written by Steve Keaton. In a text about the audience of UK Decay, Keaton asked: "Could this be the coming of Punk Gothique? With Bauhaus flying in on similar wings could it be the next big thing?" The F Club night in Leeds in Northern England, which had opened in 1977 firstly as a punk club, became instrumental to the development of the goth subculture in the 1980s. In July 1982, the opening of the Batcave in London's Soho provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which would be briefly labelled "positive punk" by the NME in a special issue with a front cover in early 1983. The term Batcaver was then used to describe old-school goths.
Outside the British scene, deathrock developed in California during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a distinct branch of American punk rock, with acts such as Christian Death, Kommunity FK and 45 Grave at the forefront.
The bands that defined and embraced the gothic rock genre included Bauhaus, early Adam and the Ants, the Cure, the Birthday Party, Southern Death Cult, Specimen, Sex Gang Children, UK Decay, Virgin Prunes, Killing Joke, and the Damned. Near the peak of this first generation of the gothic scene in 1983, The Face's Paul Rambali recalled "several strong Gothic characteristics" in the music of Joy Division. In 1984, Joy Division's bassist Peter Hook named Play Dead as one of their heirs: "If you listen to a band like Play Dead, who I really like, Joy Division played similar music to Play Dead."
By the mid-1980s, bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including the Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, Alien Sex Fiend, the March Violets, Xmal Deutschland, the Membranes, and Fields of the Nephilim. Record labels like Factory, 4AD and Beggars Banquet released much of this music in Europe, and through a vibrant import music market in the US, the subculture grew, especially in New York and Los Angeles, California, where many nightclubs featured "gothic/industrial" nights and bands like Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Theatre of Ice, Human Drama and The Wake became key figures for the genre to expand on an nationwide level. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of similar US labels, such as Wax Trax! Records and Projekt.
The 1990s saw further growth for some 1980s bands and the emergence of many new acts, as well as new goth-centric US record labels such as Cleopatra Records, among others. According to Dave Simpson of The Guardian, "[I]n the 90s, goths all but disappeared as dance music became the dominant youth cult". As a result, the goth movement went underground and fractured into cyber goth, shock rock, industrial metal, gothic metal, and Medieval folk metal. Marilyn Manson was seen as a "goth-shock icon" by Spin.
In 1993, Jack Off Jill's front woman Jessicka coined the term Riot Goth to define music and aesthetics that were similar to riotgrrrl – bloody babydoll dresses and songs that addressed issues such as abuse, selfharm, depression and feminism. Jack Off Jill is referred to as "legendary" by Alternative Press and "cult heroes" by The Guardian.
The Goth subculture of the 1980s drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Some of them were modern or contemporary, others were centuries-old or ancient. Michael Bibby and Lauren M. E. Goodlad liken the subculture to a bricolage. Among the music-subcultures that influenced it were punk, new wave, and glam. But it also drew inspiration from B-movies, Gothic literature, horror films, vampire cults and traditional mythology. Among the mythologies that proved influential in Goth were Celtic mythology, Christian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and various traditions of Paganism.
The figures that the movement counted among its historic canon of ancestors were equally diverse. They included the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844‒1900), Comte de Lautréamont (1846‒1870), Salvador Dalí (1904‒1989) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905‒1980). Writers that have had a significant influence on the movement also represent a diverse canon. They include Ann Radcliffe (1764‒1823), John William Polidori (1795‒1821), Edgar Allan Poe (1809‒1849), Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), Bram Stoker (1847‒1912), Oscar Wilde (1854‒1900), H. P. Lovecraft (1890‒1937), Anne Rice (1941‒2021), William Gibson (1948‒), Ian McEwan (1948‒), Storm Constantine (1956‒2021), and Poppy Z. Brite (1967‒).
Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that combines romance and dark elements to produce mystery, suspense, terror, horror and the supernatural. According to David H. Richter, settings were framed to take place at "...ruinous castles, gloomy churchyards, claustrophobic monasteries, and lonely mountain roads". Typical characters consisted of the cruel parent, sinister priest, courageous victor, and the helpless heroine, along with supernatural figures such as demons, vampires, ghosts, and monsters. Often, the plot focused on characters ill-fated, internally conflicted, and innocently victimized by harassing malicious figures. In addition to the dismal plot focuses, the literary tradition of the gothic was to also focus on individual characters that were gradually going insane.
English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto is one of the first writers who explored this genre. The American Revolutionary War-era "American Gothic" story of the Headless Horseman, immortalized in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (published in 1820) by Washington Irving, marked the arrival in the New World of dark, romantic storytelling. The tale was composed by Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley, New York. The story would be adapted to film in 1922, in 1949 as the animated The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and again in 1999.
Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic Romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and Romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:
C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère! It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear, He dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, —Hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother!
The gothic subculture has influenced different artists—not only musicians—but also painters and photographers. In particular their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to romantic images of vampires or ghosts. There is a marked preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to Gothic fiction. At the end of the 19th century, painters like John Everett Millais and John Ruskin invented a new kind of Gothic.
Some people credit Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, perhaps best known for his 1956 song "I Put A Spell on You", as a foundation of modern goth style and music. Some people credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in August 1979, with the start of goth subculture.
In the early 90s, Jack Off Jill, fronted by vocalist Jessicka, pioneered the 'Riot Goth' sound, combining elements of the goth and riot grrrl genres. Through their lyrics, the band tackled issues such as misogyny and racism, giving them significant underground appeal.
The British sitcom The IT Crowd featured a recurring goth character named Richmond Avenal, played by Noel Fielding. Fielding said in an interview that he himself had been a goth at age fifteen and that he had a series of goth girlfriends. This was the first time he dabbled in makeup. Fielding said that he loved his girlfriends dressing him up.
The game Visigoths vs. Mall Goths (2020) by Lucian Kahn is about "two versions of Goths – the ancient Roman peoples and the black-clad teenagers" and is set in LA in the 1990s.
Goth icons include several bandleaders: Siouxsie Sioux, of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Robert Smith, of the Cure; Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus; Dave Vanian, of The Damned; Rozz Williams, of Christian Death; Olli Wisdom, leader of the band Specimen and keyboardist Jonathan Melton aka Jonny Slut, who evolved the Batcave style. Nick Cave was dubbed as "the grand lord of gothic lushness".
One female role model is Theda Bara, the 1910s femme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow. In 1977, Karl Lagerfeld hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noir party, specifying "tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire" (black tragic dress absolutely required). The event included elements associated with leatherman style.
Siouxsie Sioux was particularly influential on the dress style of the gothic rock scene; Paul Morley of NME described Siouxsie and the Banshees' 1980 gig at Futurama: "[Siouxsie was] modeling her newest outfit, the one that will influence how all the girls dress over the next few months. About half the girls at Leeds had used Sioux as a basis for their appearance, hair to ankle". Robert Smith, Musidora, Bela Lugosi, Bettie Page, Vampira, Morticia Addams, Nico, Rozz Williams, David Bowie and Lux Interior are also style icons.
The 1980s established designers such as Drew Bernstein of Lip Service, and the 1990s saw a surge of US-based gothic fashion designers, many of whom continue to evolve the style to the present day. Style magazines such as Gothic Beauty have given repeat features to a select few gothic fashion designers who began their labels in the 1990s, such as Kambriel, Rose Mortem, and Tyler Ondine of Heavy Red.
American model Gabbriette who has been known for her goth aesthetic, has been at the forefront of what has been dubbed the "Succubus Chic" trend of 2023.
Gothic fashion is marked by conspicuously dark, antiquated and homogeneous features. It is stereotyped as eerie, mysterious, complex and exotic. A dark, sometimes morbid fashion and style of dress, typical gothic fashion includes colored black hair and black period-styled clothing. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernail polish, most especially black. Styles are often borrowed from punk fashion and—more currently—from the Victorian and Elizabethan periods. It also frequently expresses pagan, occult or other religious imagery. Gothic fashion and styling may also feature silver jewelry and piercings.
Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a "profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes". Of the male "goth look", goth historian Pete Scathe draws a distinction between the Sid Vicious archetype of black spiky hair and black leather jacket in contrast to the gender ambiguous individuals wearing makeup. The first is the early goth gig-going look, which was essentially punk, whereas the second evolved into the Batcave nightclub look. Early goth gigs were often very hectic affairs, and the audience dressed accordingly.
In contrast to the LARP-based Victorian and Elizabethan pomposity of the 2000s, the more Romantic side of 1980s trad-goth—mainly represented by women—was characterized by new wave/post-punk-oriented hairstyles (both long and short, partly shaved and teased) and street-compliant clothing, including black frill blouses, midi dresses or tea-length skirts, and floral lace tights, Dr. Martens, spike heels (pumps), and pointed toe buckle boots (winklepickers), sometimes supplemented with accessories such as bracelets, chokers and bib necklaces. This style, retroactively referred to as Ethergoth, took its inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux and mid-1980s musicians from the 4AD roster like Elizabeth Fraser and Lisa Gerrard.
The New York Times noted: "The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre's somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew".
Cintra Wilson declares that the origins of the dark romantic style are found in the "Victorian cult of mourning". Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.
Goth fashion has a reciprocal relationship with the fashion world. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, designers such as Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, Ann Demeulemeester, Philipp Plein, Hedi Slimane, John Richmond, John Galliano, Olivier Theyskens and Yohji Yamamoto brought elements of goth to runways. This was described as "Haute Goth" by Cintra Wilson in the New York Times.
Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix have also been associated with the fashion trend. In Spring 2004, Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raf Simons and Stefano Pilati dressed their models as "glamorous ghouls dressed in form-fitting suits and coal-tinted cocktail dresses". Swedish designer Helena Horstedt and jewelry artist Hanna Hedman also practice a goth aesthetic.
Some of the early gothic rock and deathrock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences responded by adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs featured as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in bands' music and images were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural and occult themes became more noticeably serious in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. The film featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub. Tim Burton created a storybook atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow in some of his films like Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992) and the stop motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which was produced/co-written by Burton, and Corpse Bride (2005), which he co-produced. The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim is also based on the goth subculture.
As the subculture became well-established, the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example, The Craft, The Crow, The Matrix and Underworld film series drew directly on goth music and style. The dark comedies Beetlejuice, The Faculty, American Beauty, Wedding Crashers, and a few episodes of the animated TV show South Park portray or parody the goth subculture. In South Park, several of the fictional schoolchildren are depicted as goths. The goth kids on the show are depicted as finding it annoying to be confused with the Hot Topic "vampire" kids from the episode "The Ungroundable" in season 12, and even more frustrating to be compared with emo kids. The goth kids are usually depicted listening to gothic music, writing or reading Gothic poetry, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, and smoking.
Morticia Addams from The Addams Family created by Charles Addams is a fictional character and the mother in the Addams Family. Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones in the 1964 television show The Addams Family and by Anjelica Huston in the 1991 version, and voiced by Charlize Theron in 2019 animated film.
A recurring sketch in the 1990s on NBC's Saturday Night Live was Goth Talk, in which a public access channel broadcast hosted by unpopular young goths would continually be interrupted by the more "normal" kids in school. The sketch featured series regulars Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Chris Kattan.
A prominent American literary influence on the gothic scene was provided by Anne Rice's re-imagining of the vampire in 1976. In The Vampire Chronicles, Rice's characters were depicted as self-tormentors who struggled with alienation, loneliness, and the human condition. Not only did the characters torment themselves, but they also depicted a surreal world that focused on uncovering its splendour. These Chronicles assumed goth attitudes, but they were not intentionally created to represent the gothic subculture. Their romance, beauty, and erotic appeal attracted many goth readers, making her works popular from the 1980s through the 1990s. While Goth has embraced Vampire literature both in its 19th century form and in its later incarnations, Rice's postmodern take on the vampire mythos has had a "special resonance" in the subculture. Her vampire novels feature intense emotions, period clothing, and "cultured decadence". Her vampires are socially alienated monsters, but they are also stunningly attractive. Rice's goth readers tend to envision themselves in much the same terms and view characters like Lestat de Lioncourt as role models.
Richard Wright's novel Native Son contains gothic imagery and themes that demonstrate the links between blackness and the gothic; themes and images of "premonitions, curses, prophecies, spells, veils, demonic possessions, graves, skeletons" are present, suggesting gothic influence. Other classic themes of the gothic are present in the novel, such as transgression and unstable identities of race, class, gender, and nationality.
The re-imagining of the vampire continued with the release of Poppy Z. Brite's book Lost Souls in October 1992. Despite the fact that Brite's first novel was criticized by some mainstream sources for allegedly "lack[ing] a moral center: neither terrifyingly malevolent supernatural creatures nor (like Anne Rice's protagonists) tortured souls torn between good and evil, these vampires simply add blood-drinking to the amoral panoply of drug abuse, problem drinking and empty sex practiced by their human counterparts", many of these so-called "human counterparts" identified with the teen angst and goth music references therein, keeping the book in print. Upon release of a special 10th anniversary edition of Lost Souls, Publishers Weekly—the same periodical that criticized the novel's "amorality" a decade prior—deemed it a "modern horror classic" and acknowledged that Brite established a "cult audience".
The 2002 release 21st Century Goth by Mick Mercer, an author, noted music journalist and leading historian of gothic rock, explored the modern state of the goth scene around the world, including South America, Japan, and mainland Asia. His previous 1997 release, Hex Files: The Goth Bible, similarly took an international look at the subculture.
In the US, Propaganda was a gothic subculture magazine founded in 1982. In Italy, Ver Sacrum covers the Italian goth scene, including fashion, sexuality, music, art and literature. Some magazines, such as the now-defunct Dark Realms and Goth Is Dead included goth fiction and poetry. Other magazines cover fashion (e.g., Gothic Beauty); music (e.g., Severance) or culture and lifestyle (e.g., Althaus e-zine).
On 31 October 2011, ECW Press published the Encyclopedia Gothica written by author and poet Liisa Ladouceur with illustrations done by Gary Pullin. This non-fiction book describes over 600 words and phrases relevant to Goth subculture.
Brian Craddock's 2017 novel Eucalyptus Goth charts a year in the life of a household of 20-somethings in Brisbane, Australia. The central characters are deeply entrenched in the local gothic subculture, with the book exploring themes relevant to the characters, notably unemployment, mental health, politics, and relationships.
In 2023, several books about the music genre and the subculture, were released. John Robb's The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth was hailed in The Times as a "new magestrial survey", and Cathi Unsworth's Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth was praised in Mojo as a "superb history of the dark and all its risings".
Visual contemporary graphic artists with this aesthetic include Gerald Brom, Dave McKean, and Trevor Brown as well as illustrators Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Lorin Morgan-Richards, and James O'Barr. The artwork of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński is often described as gothic. British artist Anne Sudworth published a book on gothic art in 2007.
There are large annual goth-themed festivals in Germany, including Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig and M'era Luna in Hildesheim), both annually attracting tens of thousands of people. Castle Party is the biggest goth festival in Poland.
In the 1980s, goths decorated their walls and ceilings with black fabrics and accessories like rosaries, crosses and plastic roses. Black furniture and cemetery-related objects such as candlesticks, death lanterns and skulls were also part of their interior design. In the 1990s, the interior design approach of the 1980s was replaced by a less macabre style.
Since the late 1970s, the UK goth scene refused "traditional standards of sexual propriety" and accepted and celebrated "unusual, bizarre or deviant sexual practices". In the 2000s, many members "claim overlapping memberships in the queer, polyamorous, bondage-discipline/sadomasochism, and pagan communities".
Though sexual empowerment is not unique to women in the goth scene, it remains an important part of many goth women's experience: The scene's "celebration of active sexuality" enables goth women to "resist mainstream notions of passive femininity". They have an "active sexuality" approach which creates "gender egalitarianism" within the scene, as it "allows them to engage in sexual play with multiple partners while sidestepping most of the stigma and dangers that women who engage in such behavior" outside the scene frequently incur, while continuing to "see themselves as strong".
Men dress up in an androgynous way: "Men 'gender blend,' wearing makeup and skirts". In contrast, the "women are dressed in sexy feminine outfits" that are "highly sexualized" and which often combine "corsets with short skirts and fishnet stockings". Androgyny is common among the scene: "androgyny in Goth subcultural style often disguises or even functions to reinforce conventional gender roles". It was only "valorised" for male goths, who adopt a "feminine" appearance, including "make-up, skirts and feminine accessories" to "enhance masculinity" and facilitate traditional heterosexual courting roles.
While goth is a music-based scene, the goth subculture is also characterized by particular aesthetics, outlooks, and a "way of seeing and of being seen". In more recent years, goths have been able to meet people with similar interests, learn from each other and take part in the scene through social media, manifesting in the same practices which take place in goth clubs. This is not a new phenomenon since before the rise of social media online forums had the same function for goths. Observers have raised the issue of to what degree individuals are truly members of the goth subculture. On one end of the spectrum is the "Uber goth", a person who is described as seeking a pallor so much that they apply "as much white foundation and white powder as possible". On the other end of the spectrum exists what another writer terms "poseurs" – "goth wannabes, usually young kids going through a goth phase who do not hold to goth sensibilities but want to be part of the goth crowd". It has been said that a "mall goth" is a teen who dresses in a goth style and spends time in malls with a Hot Topic store, but who does not know much about goth subculture or its music, thus making them a poseur. In one case, even a well-known performer has been labelled with the pejorative term – a "number of goths, especially those who belonged to this subculture before the late-1980s, reject Marilyn Manson as a poseur who undermines the true meaning of goth".
The BBC described academic research that indicated that goths are "refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour". Teens often stay in the subculture "into their adult life", and they are likely to become well-educated and enter professions such as medicine or law. The subculture carries on appealing to teenagers who are looking for meaning and for identity. The scene teaches teens that there are difficult aspects to life that you "have to make an attempt to understand" or explain.
The Guardian reported that a "glue binding the [goth] scene together was drug use"; however, in the scene, drug use was varied. Goth is one of the few subculture movements that is not associated with a single drug, in the way that the Hippie subculture is associated with cannabis and the Mod subculture is associated with amphetamines. A 2006 study of young goths found that those with higher levels of goth identification had higher drug use.
A study conducted by the University of Glasgow, involving 1,258 youth interviewed at ages 11, 13, 15 and 19, found goth subculture to be strongly nonviolent and tolerant, thus providing "valuable social and emotional support" to teens vulnerable to self harm and mental illness.
In the weeks following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, media reports about the teen gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, portrayed them as part of a gothic cult. An increased suspicion of goth subculture subsequently manifested in the media. This led to a moral panic over teen involvement in goth subculture and a number of other activities, such as violent video games. Harris and Klebold had initially been thought to be members of "The Trenchcoat Mafia", an informal club within Columbine High School. Later, such characterizations were considered incorrect.
Media reported that the gunman in the 2006 Dawson College shooting in Montreal, Quebec, Kimveer Singh Gill, was interested in goth subculture. Gill's self-professed love of Goth culture was the topic of media interest, and it was widely reported that the word "Goth", in Gill's writings, was a reference to the alternative industrial and goth subculture rather than a reference to gothic rock music. Gill, who committed suicide after the attack, wrote in his online journal: "I'm so sick of hearing about jocks and preps making life hard for the goths and others who look different, or are different". Gill described himself in his profile on Vampirefreaks.com as "Trench [...] the Angel of Death" and he stated that "Metal and Goth kick ass". An image gallery on Gill's Vampirefreaks.com blog had photos of him pointing a gun at the camera or wearing a long black trench coat.
Mick Mercer stated that Gill was "not a Goth. Never a Goth. The bands he listed as his chosen form of ear-bashing were relentlessly metal and standard grunge, rock and goth metal, with some industrial presence". Mercer stated that "Kimveer Gill listened to metal", "He had nothing whatsoever to do with Goth" and further commented "I realise that like many Neos [neophyte], Kimveer Gill may even have believed he somehow was a Goth, because they're [Neophytes] only really noted for spectacularly missing the point".
In part because of public misunderstanding surrounding gothic aesthetics, people in the goth subculture sometimes suffer prejudice, discrimination, and intolerance. As is the case with members of various other subcultures and alternative lifestyles, outsiders sometimes marginalize goths, either by intention or by accident. Actress Christina Hendricks talked of being bullied as a goth at school and how difficult it was for her to deal with societal pressure: "Kids can be pretty judgmental about people who are different. But instead of breaking down and conforming, I stood firm. That is also probably why I was unhappy. My mother was mortified and kept telling me how horrible and ugly I looked. Strangers would walk by with a look of shock on their face, so I never felt pretty. I just always felt awkward".
On 11 August 2007, while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire, a young couple, Sophie Lancaster and Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenagers. Lancaster subsequently died from the severe head injuries she suffered in the attack. It later emerged that the attackers had attacked the couple because they were goths. On 29 April 2008, two of the attackers, Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, were convicted for the murder of Lancaster and given life sentences. Three others were given lesser sentences for the assault on her boyfriend Robert Maltby. In delivering the sentence, Judge Anthony Russell stated, "This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours". He went on to defend the goth community, calling goths "perfectly peaceful, law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody". Judge Russell added that he "recognised it as a hate crime without Parliament having to tell him to do so and had included that view in his sentencing". Despite this ruling, a bill to add discrimination based on subculture affiliation to the definition of hate crime in British law was not presented to parliament.
In 2013, police in Manchester announced they would be treating attacks on members of alternative subcultures, such as goths, the same as they do for attacks based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.
A more recent phenomenon is the emergence of goth YouTubers who very often address the prejudice and violence against goths. These personalities create videos as a response to problems that they personally face, which include challenges such as bullying, and dealing with negative descriptions of themselves. Viewers often engage closely with these YouTubers, asking them for advice on how to deal with related personal struggles and getting responses in the form of personal messages or videos. These interactions take the form of an informal mentoring which contributes to the building of solidarity within the goth scene.
A study published on the British Medical Journal concluded that "identification as belonging to the Goth subculture [at some point in their lives] was the best predictor of self harm and attempted suicide [among young teens]", and that it was most possibly due to self-selection, with people committing self harm joining the goth subculture in order to get support from individuals with similar experiences.
According to The Guardian, some goth teens are more likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide. A medical journal study of 1,300 Scottish schoolchildren until their teen years found that the 53% of the 25 goth teens sampled had attempted to harm themselves and 47% had attempted suicide. The study found that the "correlation was stronger than any other predictor".
The authors held that most self-harm by teens was done before joining the subculture, and that joining the subculture would actually protect them and help them deal with distress in their lives, while cautioning that the study was based on a small sample size and needed replication to confirm the results. The study was criticized for using only a small sample of goth teens and not taking into account other influences and differences between types of goths. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-century Gothic fiction and from horror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially in Western Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The music preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock, death rock, cold wave, dark wave, and ethereal wave. The Gothic fashion style draws influences from punk, new wave, New Romantic fashion and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as the Victorian, Edwardian, and Belle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark (usually solid black) attire, dark makeup, and black hair.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The term gothic rock was coined by music critic John Stickney in 1967 to describe a meeting he had with Jim Morrison in a dimly lit wine-cellar, which he called \"the perfect room to honor the Gothic rock of the Doors\". That same year, the Velvet Underground song \"All Tomorrow's Parties\" created a kind of \"mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece\" according to music historian Kurt Loder. In the late 1970s, the gothic adjective was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, and Joy Division. In a live review about a Siouxsie and the Banshees' concert in July 1978, critic Nick Kent wrote, concerning their music, \"[P]arallels and comparisons can now be drawn with gothic rock architects like the Doors and, certainly, early Velvet Underground\". In March 1979, in his review of Magazine's second album Secondhand Daylight, Kent noted there was \"a new austere sense of authority\" in the music, with a \"dank neo-Gothic sound\". Later that year, the term was also used by Joy Division's manager, Tony Wilson on 15 September in an interview for the BBC TV programme's Something Else. Wilson described Joy Division as \"gothic\" compared to the pop mainstream, right before a live performance of the band. The term was later applied to \"newer bands such as Bauhaus who had arrived in the wake of Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees\". Bauhaus's first single issued in 1979, \"Bela Lugosi's Dead\", is generally credited as the starting point of the gothic rock genre.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1979, Sounds described Joy Division as \"Gothic\" and \"theatrical\". In February 1980, Melody Maker qualified the same band as \"masters of this Gothic gloom\". Critic Jon Savage would later say that their singer Ian Curtis wrote \"the definitive Northern Gothic statement\". However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became a coherent music subgenre within post-punk, and followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. They may have taken the \"goth\" mantle from a 1981 article published in UK rock weekly Sounds: \"The face of Punk Gothique\", written by Steve Keaton. In a text about the audience of UK Decay, Keaton asked: \"Could this be the coming of Punk Gothique? With Bauhaus flying in on similar wings could it be the next big thing?\" The F Club night in Leeds in Northern England, which had opened in 1977 firstly as a punk club, became instrumental to the development of the goth subculture in the 1980s. In July 1982, the opening of the Batcave in London's Soho provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which would be briefly labelled \"positive punk\" by the NME in a special issue with a front cover in early 1983. The term Batcaver was then used to describe old-school goths.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Outside the British scene, deathrock developed in California during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a distinct branch of American punk rock, with acts such as Christian Death, Kommunity FK and 45 Grave at the forefront.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The bands that defined and embraced the gothic rock genre included Bauhaus, early Adam and the Ants, the Cure, the Birthday Party, Southern Death Cult, Specimen, Sex Gang Children, UK Decay, Virgin Prunes, Killing Joke, and the Damned. Near the peak of this first generation of the gothic scene in 1983, The Face's Paul Rambali recalled \"several strong Gothic characteristics\" in the music of Joy Division. In 1984, Joy Division's bassist Peter Hook named Play Dead as one of their heirs: \"If you listen to a band like Play Dead, who I really like, Joy Division played similar music to Play Dead.\"",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "By the mid-1980s, bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including the Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, Alien Sex Fiend, the March Violets, Xmal Deutschland, the Membranes, and Fields of the Nephilim. Record labels like Factory, 4AD and Beggars Banquet released much of this music in Europe, and through a vibrant import music market in the US, the subculture grew, especially in New York and Los Angeles, California, where many nightclubs featured \"gothic/industrial\" nights and bands like Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Theatre of Ice, Human Drama and The Wake became key figures for the genre to expand on an nationwide level. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of similar US labels, such as Wax Trax! Records and Projekt.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The 1990s saw further growth for some 1980s bands and the emergence of many new acts, as well as new goth-centric US record labels such as Cleopatra Records, among others. According to Dave Simpson of The Guardian, \"[I]n the 90s, goths all but disappeared as dance music became the dominant youth cult\". As a result, the goth movement went underground and fractured into cyber goth, shock rock, industrial metal, gothic metal, and Medieval folk metal. Marilyn Manson was seen as a \"goth-shock icon\" by Spin.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1993, Jack Off Jill's front woman Jessicka coined the term Riot Goth to define music and aesthetics that were similar to riotgrrrl – bloody babydoll dresses and songs that addressed issues such as abuse, selfharm, depression and feminism. Jack Off Jill is referred to as \"legendary\" by Alternative Press and \"cult heroes\" by The Guardian.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Goth subculture of the 1980s drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Some of them were modern or contemporary, others were centuries-old or ancient. Michael Bibby and Lauren M. E. Goodlad liken the subculture to a bricolage. Among the music-subcultures that influenced it were punk, new wave, and glam. But it also drew inspiration from B-movies, Gothic literature, horror films, vampire cults and traditional mythology. Among the mythologies that proved influential in Goth were Celtic mythology, Christian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and various traditions of Paganism.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The figures that the movement counted among its historic canon of ancestors were equally diverse. They included the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844‒1900), Comte de Lautréamont (1846‒1870), Salvador Dalí (1904‒1989) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905‒1980). Writers that have had a significant influence on the movement also represent a diverse canon. They include Ann Radcliffe (1764‒1823), John William Polidori (1795‒1821), Edgar Allan Poe (1809‒1849), Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), Bram Stoker (1847‒1912), Oscar Wilde (1854‒1900), H. P. Lovecraft (1890‒1937), Anne Rice (1941‒2021), William Gibson (1948‒), Ian McEwan (1948‒), Storm Constantine (1956‒2021), and Poppy Z. Brite (1967‒).",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that combines romance and dark elements to produce mystery, suspense, terror, horror and the supernatural. According to David H. Richter, settings were framed to take place at \"...ruinous castles, gloomy churchyards, claustrophobic monasteries, and lonely mountain roads\". Typical characters consisted of the cruel parent, sinister priest, courageous victor, and the helpless heroine, along with supernatural figures such as demons, vampires, ghosts, and monsters. Often, the plot focused on characters ill-fated, internally conflicted, and innocently victimized by harassing malicious figures. In addition to the dismal plot focuses, the literary tradition of the gothic was to also focus on individual characters that were gradually going insane.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto is one of the first writers who explored this genre. The American Revolutionary War-era \"American Gothic\" story of the Headless Horseman, immortalized in \"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow\" (published in 1820) by Washington Irving, marked the arrival in the New World of dark, romantic storytelling. The tale was composed by Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley, New York. The story would be adapted to film in 1922, in 1949 as the animated The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and again in 1999.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic Romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and Romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère! It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear, He dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, —Hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother!",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The gothic subculture has influenced different artists—not only musicians—but also painters and photographers. In particular their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to romantic images of vampires or ghosts. There is a marked preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to Gothic fiction. At the end of the 19th century, painters like John Everett Millais and John Ruskin invented a new kind of Gothic.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Some people credit Jalacy \"Screamin' Jay\" Hawkins, perhaps best known for his 1956 song \"I Put A Spell on You\", as a foundation of modern goth style and music. Some people credit the band Bauhaus' first single \"Bela Lugosi's Dead\", released in August 1979, with the start of goth subculture.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the early 90s, Jack Off Jill, fronted by vocalist Jessicka, pioneered the 'Riot Goth' sound, combining elements of the goth and riot grrrl genres. Through their lyrics, the band tackled issues such as misogyny and racism, giving them significant underground appeal.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The British sitcom The IT Crowd featured a recurring goth character named Richmond Avenal, played by Noel Fielding. Fielding said in an interview that he himself had been a goth at age fifteen and that he had a series of goth girlfriends. This was the first time he dabbled in makeup. Fielding said that he loved his girlfriends dressing him up.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The game Visigoths vs. Mall Goths (2020) by Lucian Kahn is about \"two versions of Goths – the ancient Roman peoples and the black-clad teenagers\" and is set in LA in the 1990s.",
"title": "Art, historical and cultural influences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Goth icons include several bandleaders: Siouxsie Sioux, of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Robert Smith, of the Cure; Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus; Dave Vanian, of The Damned; Rozz Williams, of Christian Death; Olli Wisdom, leader of the band Specimen and keyboardist Jonathan Melton aka Jonny Slut, who evolved the Batcave style. Nick Cave was dubbed as \"the grand lord of gothic lushness\".",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "One female role model is Theda Bara, the 1910s femme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow. In 1977, Karl Lagerfeld hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noir party, specifying \"tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire\" (black tragic dress absolutely required). The event included elements associated with leatherman style.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Siouxsie Sioux was particularly influential on the dress style of the gothic rock scene; Paul Morley of NME described Siouxsie and the Banshees' 1980 gig at Futurama: \"[Siouxsie was] modeling her newest outfit, the one that will influence how all the girls dress over the next few months. About half the girls at Leeds had used Sioux as a basis for their appearance, hair to ankle\". Robert Smith, Musidora, Bela Lugosi, Bettie Page, Vampira, Morticia Addams, Nico, Rozz Williams, David Bowie and Lux Interior are also style icons.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The 1980s established designers such as Drew Bernstein of Lip Service, and the 1990s saw a surge of US-based gothic fashion designers, many of whom continue to evolve the style to the present day. Style magazines such as Gothic Beauty have given repeat features to a select few gothic fashion designers who began their labels in the 1990s, such as Kambriel, Rose Mortem, and Tyler Ondine of Heavy Red.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "American model Gabbriette who has been known for her goth aesthetic, has been at the forefront of what has been dubbed the \"Succubus Chic\" trend of 2023.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Gothic fashion is marked by conspicuously dark, antiquated and homogeneous features. It is stereotyped as eerie, mysterious, complex and exotic. A dark, sometimes morbid fashion and style of dress, typical gothic fashion includes colored black hair and black period-styled clothing. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernail polish, most especially black. Styles are often borrowed from punk fashion and—more currently—from the Victorian and Elizabethan periods. It also frequently expresses pagan, occult or other religious imagery. Gothic fashion and styling may also feature silver jewelry and piercings.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a \"profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes\". Of the male \"goth look\", goth historian Pete Scathe draws a distinction between the Sid Vicious archetype of black spiky hair and black leather jacket in contrast to the gender ambiguous individuals wearing makeup. The first is the early goth gig-going look, which was essentially punk, whereas the second evolved into the Batcave nightclub look. Early goth gigs were often very hectic affairs, and the audience dressed accordingly.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In contrast to the LARP-based Victorian and Elizabethan pomposity of the 2000s, the more Romantic side of 1980s trad-goth—mainly represented by women—was characterized by new wave/post-punk-oriented hairstyles (both long and short, partly shaved and teased) and street-compliant clothing, including black frill blouses, midi dresses or tea-length skirts, and floral lace tights, Dr. Martens, spike heels (pumps), and pointed toe buckle boots (winklepickers), sometimes supplemented with accessories such as bracelets, chokers and bib necklaces. This style, retroactively referred to as Ethergoth, took its inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux and mid-1980s musicians from the 4AD roster like Elizabeth Fraser and Lisa Gerrard.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The New York Times noted: \"The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre's somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew\".",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Cintra Wilson declares that the origins of the dark romantic style are found in the \"Victorian cult of mourning\". Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Goth fashion has a reciprocal relationship with the fashion world. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, designers such as Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, Ann Demeulemeester, Philipp Plein, Hedi Slimane, John Richmond, John Galliano, Olivier Theyskens and Yohji Yamamoto brought elements of goth to runways. This was described as \"Haute Goth\" by Cintra Wilson in the New York Times.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix have also been associated with the fashion trend. In Spring 2004, Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raf Simons and Stefano Pilati dressed their models as \"glamorous ghouls dressed in form-fitting suits and coal-tinted cocktail dresses\". Swedish designer Helena Horstedt and jewelry artist Hanna Hedman also practice a goth aesthetic.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Some of the early gothic rock and deathrock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences responded by adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs featured as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in bands' music and images were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural and occult themes became more noticeably serious in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. The film featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub. Tim Burton created a storybook atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow in some of his films like Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992) and the stop motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which was produced/co-written by Burton, and Corpse Bride (2005), which he co-produced. The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim is also based on the goth subculture.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As the subculture became well-established, the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example, The Craft, The Crow, The Matrix and Underworld film series drew directly on goth music and style. The dark comedies Beetlejuice, The Faculty, American Beauty, Wedding Crashers, and a few episodes of the animated TV show South Park portray or parody the goth subculture. In South Park, several of the fictional schoolchildren are depicted as goths. The goth kids on the show are depicted as finding it annoying to be confused with the Hot Topic \"vampire\" kids from the episode \"The Ungroundable\" in season 12, and even more frustrating to be compared with emo kids. The goth kids are usually depicted listening to gothic music, writing or reading Gothic poetry, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, and smoking.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Morticia Addams from The Addams Family created by Charles Addams is a fictional character and the mother in the Addams Family. Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones in the 1964 television show The Addams Family and by Anjelica Huston in the 1991 version, and voiced by Charlize Theron in 2019 animated film.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "A recurring sketch in the 1990s on NBC's Saturday Night Live was Goth Talk, in which a public access channel broadcast hosted by unpopular young goths would continually be interrupted by the more \"normal\" kids in school. The sketch featured series regulars Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Chris Kattan.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "A prominent American literary influence on the gothic scene was provided by Anne Rice's re-imagining of the vampire in 1976. In The Vampire Chronicles, Rice's characters were depicted as self-tormentors who struggled with alienation, loneliness, and the human condition. Not only did the characters torment themselves, but they also depicted a surreal world that focused on uncovering its splendour. These Chronicles assumed goth attitudes, but they were not intentionally created to represent the gothic subculture. Their romance, beauty, and erotic appeal attracted many goth readers, making her works popular from the 1980s through the 1990s. While Goth has embraced Vampire literature both in its 19th century form and in its later incarnations, Rice's postmodern take on the vampire mythos has had a \"special resonance\" in the subculture. Her vampire novels feature intense emotions, period clothing, and \"cultured decadence\". Her vampires are socially alienated monsters, but they are also stunningly attractive. Rice's goth readers tend to envision themselves in much the same terms and view characters like Lestat de Lioncourt as role models.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Richard Wright's novel Native Son contains gothic imagery and themes that demonstrate the links between blackness and the gothic; themes and images of \"premonitions, curses, prophecies, spells, veils, demonic possessions, graves, skeletons\" are present, suggesting gothic influence. Other classic themes of the gothic are present in the novel, such as transgression and unstable identities of race, class, gender, and nationality.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The re-imagining of the vampire continued with the release of Poppy Z. Brite's book Lost Souls in October 1992. Despite the fact that Brite's first novel was criticized by some mainstream sources for allegedly \"lack[ing] a moral center: neither terrifyingly malevolent supernatural creatures nor (like Anne Rice's protagonists) tortured souls torn between good and evil, these vampires simply add blood-drinking to the amoral panoply of drug abuse, problem drinking and empty sex practiced by their human counterparts\", many of these so-called \"human counterparts\" identified with the teen angst and goth music references therein, keeping the book in print. Upon release of a special 10th anniversary edition of Lost Souls, Publishers Weekly—the same periodical that criticized the novel's \"amorality\" a decade prior—deemed it a \"modern horror classic\" and acknowledged that Brite established a \"cult audience\".",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The 2002 release 21st Century Goth by Mick Mercer, an author, noted music journalist and leading historian of gothic rock, explored the modern state of the goth scene around the world, including South America, Japan, and mainland Asia. His previous 1997 release, Hex Files: The Goth Bible, similarly took an international look at the subculture.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In the US, Propaganda was a gothic subculture magazine founded in 1982. In Italy, Ver Sacrum covers the Italian goth scene, including fashion, sexuality, music, art and literature. Some magazines, such as the now-defunct Dark Realms and Goth Is Dead included goth fiction and poetry. Other magazines cover fashion (e.g., Gothic Beauty); music (e.g., Severance) or culture and lifestyle (e.g., Althaus e-zine).",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On 31 October 2011, ECW Press published the Encyclopedia Gothica written by author and poet Liisa Ladouceur with illustrations done by Gary Pullin. This non-fiction book describes over 600 words and phrases relevant to Goth subculture.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Brian Craddock's 2017 novel Eucalyptus Goth charts a year in the life of a household of 20-somethings in Brisbane, Australia. The central characters are deeply entrenched in the local gothic subculture, with the book exploring themes relevant to the characters, notably unemployment, mental health, politics, and relationships.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 2023, several books about the music genre and the subculture, were released. John Robb's The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth was hailed in The Times as a \"new magestrial survey\", and Cathi Unsworth's Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth was praised in Mojo as a \"superb history of the dark and all its risings\".",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Visual contemporary graphic artists with this aesthetic include Gerald Brom, Dave McKean, and Trevor Brown as well as illustrators Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Lorin Morgan-Richards, and James O'Barr. The artwork of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński is often described as gothic. British artist Anne Sudworth published a book on gothic art in 2007.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "There are large annual goth-themed festivals in Germany, including Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig and M'era Luna in Hildesheim), both annually attracting tens of thousands of people. Castle Party is the biggest goth festival in Poland.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In the 1980s, goths decorated their walls and ceilings with black fabrics and accessories like rosaries, crosses and plastic roses. Black furniture and cemetery-related objects such as candlesticks, death lanterns and skulls were also part of their interior design. In the 1990s, the interior design approach of the 1980s was replaced by a less macabre style.",
"title": "Characteristics of the scene"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Since the late 1970s, the UK goth scene refused \"traditional standards of sexual propriety\" and accepted and celebrated \"unusual, bizarre or deviant sexual practices\". In the 2000s, many members \"claim overlapping memberships in the queer, polyamorous, bondage-discipline/sadomasochism, and pagan communities\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Though sexual empowerment is not unique to women in the goth scene, it remains an important part of many goth women's experience: The scene's \"celebration of active sexuality\" enables goth women to \"resist mainstream notions of passive femininity\". They have an \"active sexuality\" approach which creates \"gender egalitarianism\" within the scene, as it \"allows them to engage in sexual play with multiple partners while sidestepping most of the stigma and dangers that women who engage in such behavior\" outside the scene frequently incur, while continuing to \"see themselves as strong\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Men dress up in an androgynous way: \"Men 'gender blend,' wearing makeup and skirts\". In contrast, the \"women are dressed in sexy feminine outfits\" that are \"highly sexualized\" and which often combine \"corsets with short skirts and fishnet stockings\". Androgyny is common among the scene: \"androgyny in Goth subcultural style often disguises or even functions to reinforce conventional gender roles\". It was only \"valorised\" for male goths, who adopt a \"feminine\" appearance, including \"make-up, skirts and feminine accessories\" to \"enhance masculinity\" and facilitate traditional heterosexual courting roles.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "While goth is a music-based scene, the goth subculture is also characterized by particular aesthetics, outlooks, and a \"way of seeing and of being seen\". In more recent years, goths have been able to meet people with similar interests, learn from each other and take part in the scene through social media, manifesting in the same practices which take place in goth clubs. This is not a new phenomenon since before the rise of social media online forums had the same function for goths. Observers have raised the issue of to what degree individuals are truly members of the goth subculture. On one end of the spectrum is the \"Uber goth\", a person who is described as seeking a pallor so much that they apply \"as much white foundation and white powder as possible\". On the other end of the spectrum exists what another writer terms \"poseurs\" – \"goth wannabes, usually young kids going through a goth phase who do not hold to goth sensibilities but want to be part of the goth crowd\". It has been said that a \"mall goth\" is a teen who dresses in a goth style and spends time in malls with a Hot Topic store, but who does not know much about goth subculture or its music, thus making them a poseur. In one case, even a well-known performer has been labelled with the pejorative term – a \"number of goths, especially those who belonged to this subculture before the late-1980s, reject Marilyn Manson as a poseur who undermines the true meaning of goth\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The BBC described academic research that indicated that goths are \"refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour\". Teens often stay in the subculture \"into their adult life\", and they are likely to become well-educated and enter professions such as medicine or law. The subculture carries on appealing to teenagers who are looking for meaning and for identity. The scene teaches teens that there are difficult aspects to life that you \"have to make an attempt to understand\" or explain.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Guardian reported that a \"glue binding the [goth] scene together was drug use\"; however, in the scene, drug use was varied. Goth is one of the few subculture movements that is not associated with a single drug, in the way that the Hippie subculture is associated with cannabis and the Mod subculture is associated with amphetamines. A 2006 study of young goths found that those with higher levels of goth identification had higher drug use.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "A study conducted by the University of Glasgow, involving 1,258 youth interviewed at ages 11, 13, 15 and 19, found goth subculture to be strongly nonviolent and tolerant, thus providing \"valuable social and emotional support\" to teens vulnerable to self harm and mental illness.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In the weeks following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, media reports about the teen gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, portrayed them as part of a gothic cult. An increased suspicion of goth subculture subsequently manifested in the media. This led to a moral panic over teen involvement in goth subculture and a number of other activities, such as violent video games. Harris and Klebold had initially been thought to be members of \"The Trenchcoat Mafia\", an informal club within Columbine High School. Later, such characterizations were considered incorrect.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Media reported that the gunman in the 2006 Dawson College shooting in Montreal, Quebec, Kimveer Singh Gill, was interested in goth subculture. Gill's self-professed love of Goth culture was the topic of media interest, and it was widely reported that the word \"Goth\", in Gill's writings, was a reference to the alternative industrial and goth subculture rather than a reference to gothic rock music. Gill, who committed suicide after the attack, wrote in his online journal: \"I'm so sick of hearing about jocks and preps making life hard for the goths and others who look different, or are different\". Gill described himself in his profile on Vampirefreaks.com as \"Trench [...] the Angel of Death\" and he stated that \"Metal and Goth kick ass\". An image gallery on Gill's Vampirefreaks.com blog had photos of him pointing a gun at the camera or wearing a long black trench coat.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Mick Mercer stated that Gill was \"not a Goth. Never a Goth. The bands he listed as his chosen form of ear-bashing were relentlessly metal and standard grunge, rock and goth metal, with some industrial presence\". Mercer stated that \"Kimveer Gill listened to metal\", \"He had nothing whatsoever to do with Goth\" and further commented \"I realise that like many Neos [neophyte], Kimveer Gill may even have believed he somehow was a Goth, because they're [Neophytes] only really noted for spectacularly missing the point\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In part because of public misunderstanding surrounding gothic aesthetics, people in the goth subculture sometimes suffer prejudice, discrimination, and intolerance. As is the case with members of various other subcultures and alternative lifestyles, outsiders sometimes marginalize goths, either by intention or by accident. Actress Christina Hendricks talked of being bullied as a goth at school and how difficult it was for her to deal with societal pressure: \"Kids can be pretty judgmental about people who are different. But instead of breaking down and conforming, I stood firm. That is also probably why I was unhappy. My mother was mortified and kept telling me how horrible and ugly I looked. Strangers would walk by with a look of shock on their face, so I never felt pretty. I just always felt awkward\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "On 11 August 2007, while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire, a young couple, Sophie Lancaster and Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenagers. Lancaster subsequently died from the severe head injuries she suffered in the attack. It later emerged that the attackers had attacked the couple because they were goths. On 29 April 2008, two of the attackers, Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, were convicted for the murder of Lancaster and given life sentences. Three others were given lesser sentences for the assault on her boyfriend Robert Maltby. In delivering the sentence, Judge Anthony Russell stated, \"This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours\". He went on to defend the goth community, calling goths \"perfectly peaceful, law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody\". Judge Russell added that he \"recognised it as a hate crime without Parliament having to tell him to do so and had included that view in his sentencing\". Despite this ruling, a bill to add discrimination based on subculture affiliation to the definition of hate crime in British law was not presented to parliament.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In 2013, police in Manchester announced they would be treating attacks on members of alternative subcultures, such as goths, the same as they do for attacks based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "A more recent phenomenon is the emergence of goth YouTubers who very often address the prejudice and violence against goths. These personalities create videos as a response to problems that they personally face, which include challenges such as bullying, and dealing with negative descriptions of themselves. Viewers often engage closely with these YouTubers, asking them for advice on how to deal with related personal struggles and getting responses in the form of personal messages or videos. These interactions take the form of an informal mentoring which contributes to the building of solidarity within the goth scene.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "A study published on the British Medical Journal concluded that \"identification as belonging to the Goth subculture [at some point in their lives] was the best predictor of self harm and attempted suicide [among young teens]\", and that it was most possibly due to self-selection, with people committing self harm joining the goth subculture in order to get support from individuals with similar experiences.",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "According to The Guardian, some goth teens are more likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide. A medical journal study of 1,300 Scottish schoolchildren until their teen years found that the 53% of the 25 goth teens sampled had attempted to harm themselves and 47% had attempted suicide. The study found that the \"correlation was stronger than any other predictor\".",
"title": "Sociology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The authors held that most self-harm by teens was done before joining the subculture, and that joining the subculture would actually protect them and help them deal with distress in their lives, while cautioning that the study was based on a small sample size and needed replication to confirm the results. The study was criticized for using only a small sample of goth teens and not taking into account other influences and differences between types of goths.",
"title": "Sociology"
}
]
| Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-century Gothic fiction and from horror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially in Western Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion. The music preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock, death rock, cold wave, dark wave, and ethereal wave. The Gothic fashion style draws influences from punk, new wave, New Romantic fashion and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as the Victorian, Edwardian, and Belle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark attire, dark makeup, and black hair. | 2001-12-02T14:54:47Z | 2023-12-29T16:32:50Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goth_subculture |
12,908 | Global warming potential | Global warming potential (GWP) is an index to measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas would absorb over a given time frame after it has been added to the atmosphere (or emitted to the atmosphere). The GWP makes different greenhouse gases comparable with regards to their "effectiveness in causing radiative forcing". It is expressed as a multiple of the radiation that would be absorbed by the same mass of added carbon dioxide (CO2), which is taken as a reference gas. Therefore, the GWP is one for CO2. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs infrared thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame being considered.
For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 meaning that, for example, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95.
The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e or CO2eq or CO2-e) can be calculated from the GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas.
The global warming potential (GWP) is defined as an "index measuring the radiative forcing following an emission of a unit mass of a given substance, accumulated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of the reference substance, carbon dioxide (CO2). The GWP thus represents the combined effect of the differing times these substances remain in the atmosphere and their effectiveness in causing radiative forcing."
In turn, radiative forcing is a scientific concept used to quantify and compare the external drivers of change to Earth's energy balance. Radiative forcing is the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors of climate change as measured in watts per meter squared.
The global warming potential (GWP) depends on both the efficiency of the molecule as a greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime. GWP is measured relative to the same mass of CO2 and evaluated for a specific timescale. Thus, if a gas has a high (positive) radiative forcing but also a short lifetime, it will have a large GWP on a 20-year scale but a small one on a 100-year scale. Conversely, if a molecule has a longer atmospheric lifetime than CO2 its GWP will increase when the timescale is considered. Carbon dioxide is defined to have a GWP of 1 over all time periods.
Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 ± 2 years. The 2021 IPCC report lists the GWP as 83 over a time scale of 20 years, 30 over 100 years and 10 over 500 years. A 2014 analysis, however, states that although methane's initial impact is about 100 times greater than that of CO2, because of the shorter atmospheric lifetime, after six or seven decades, the impact of the two gases is about equal, and from then on methane's relative role continues to decline. The decrease in GWP at longer times is because methane decomposes to water and CO2 through chemical reactions in the atmosphere.
Examples of the atmospheric lifetime and GWP relative to CO2 for several greenhouse gases are given in the following table:
Estimates of GWP values over 20, 100 and 500 years are periodically compiled and revised in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The most recent report is the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group I) from 2023.
The IPCC lists many other substances not shown here. Some have high GWP but only a low concentration in the atmosphere.
The values given in the table assume the same mass of compound is analyzed; different ratios will result from the conversion of one substance to another. For instance, burning methane to carbon dioxide would reduce the global warming impact, but by a smaller factor than 25:1 because the mass of methane burned is less than the mass of carbon dioxide released (ratio 1:2.74). For a starting amount of 1 tonne of methane, which has a GWP of 25, after combustion there would be 2.74 tonnes of CO2, each tonne of which has a GWP of 1. This is a net reduction of 22.26 tonnes of GWP, reducing the global warming effect by a ratio of 25:2.74 (approximately 9 times).
The values provided in the table below are from 2007 when they were published in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. These values are still used (as of 2020) for some comparisons.
A substance's GWP depends on the number of years (denoted by a subscript) over which the potential is calculated. A gas which is quickly removed from the atmosphere may initially have a large effect, but for longer time periods, as it has been removed, it becomes less important. Thus methane has a potential of 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86); conversely sulfur hexafluoride has a GWP of 22,800 over 100 years but 16,300 over 20 years (IPCC Third Assessment Report). The GWP value depends on how the gas concentration decays over time in the atmosphere. This is often not precisely known and hence the values should not be considered exact. For this reason when quoting a GWP it is important to give a reference to the calculation.
The GWP for a mixture of gases can be obtained from the mass-fraction-weighted average of the GWPs of the individual gases.
Commonly, a time horizon of 100 years is used by regulators.
Water vapour does contribute to anthropogenic global warming, but as the GWP is defined, it is negligible for H2O: an estimate gives a 100-year GWP between -0.001 and 0.0005.
H2O can function as a greenhouse gas because it has a profound infrared absorption spectrum with more and broader absorption bands than CO2. Its concentration in the atmosphere is limited by air temperature, so that radiative forcing by water vapour increases with global warming (positive feedback). But the GWP definition excludes indirect effects. GWP definition is also based on emissions, and anthropogenic emissions of water vapour (cooling towers, irrigation) are removed via precipitation within weeks, so its GWP is negligible.
When calculating the GWP of a greenhouse gas, the value depends on the following factors:
A high GWP correlates with a large infrared absorption and a long atmospheric lifetime. The dependence of GWP on the wavelength of absorption is more complicated. Even if a gas absorbs radiation efficiently at a certain wavelength, this may not affect its GWP much if the atmosphere already absorbs most radiation at that wavelength. A gas has the most effect if it absorbs in a "window" of wavelengths where the atmosphere is fairly transparent. The dependence of GWP as a function of wavelength has been found empirically and published as a graph.
Because the GWP of a greenhouse gas depends directly on its infrared spectrum, the use of infrared spectroscopy to study greenhouse gases is centrally important in the effort to understand the impact of human activities on global climate change.
Just as radiative forcing provides a simplified means of comparing the various factors that are believed to influence the climate system to one another, global warming potentials (GWPs) are one type of simplified index based upon radiative properties that can be used to estimate the potential future impacts of emissions of different gases upon the climate system in a relative sense. GWP is based on a number of factors, including the radiative efficiency (infrared-absorbing ability) of each gas relative to that of carbon dioxide, as well as the decay rate of each gas (the amount removed from the atmosphere over a given number of years) relative to that of carbon dioxide.
The radiative forcing capacity (RF) is the amount of energy per unit area, per unit time, absorbed by the greenhouse gas, that would otherwise be lost to space. It can be expressed by the formula:
where the subscript i represents a wavenumber interval of 10 inverse centimeters. Absi represents the integrated infrared absorbance of the sample in that interval, and Fi represents the RF for that interval.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the generally accepted values for GWP, which changed slightly between 1996 and 2001, except for methane, which had its GWP almost doubled. An exact definition of how GWP is calculated is to be found in the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report. The GWP is defined as the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg of a trace substance relative to that of 1 kg of a reference gas:
where TH is the time horizon over which the calculation is considered; ax is the radiative efficiency due to a unit increase in atmospheric abundance of the substance (i.e., Wm kg) and [x](t) is the time-dependent decay in abundance of the substance following an instantaneous release of it at time t=0. The denominator contains the corresponding quantities for the reference gas (i.e. CO2). The radiative efficiencies ax and ar are not necessarily constant over time. While the absorption of infrared radiation by many greenhouse gases varies linearly with their abundance, a few important ones display non-linear behaviour for current and likely future abundances (e.g., CO2, CH4, and N2O). For those gases, the relative radiative forcing will depend upon abundance and hence upon the future scenario adopted.
Since all GWP calculations are a comparison to CO2 which is non-linear, all GWP values are affected. Assuming otherwise as is done above will lead to lower GWPs for other gases than a more detailed approach would. Clarifying this, while increasing CO2 has less and less effect on radiative absorption as ppm concentrations rise, more powerful greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide have different thermal absorption frequencies to CO2 that are not filled up (saturated) as much as CO2, so rising ppms of these gases are far more significant.
Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e or CO2eq or CO2-e) of a quantity of gas is calculated from its GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 which would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP multiplied by mass of the other gas. For example, if a gas has GWP of 100, two tonnes of the gas have CO2e of 200 tonnes, and 9 tonnes of the gas has CO2e of 900 tonnes.
On a global scale, the warming effects of one or more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can also be expressed as an equivalent atmospheric concentration of CO2. CO2e can then be the atmospheric concentration of CO2 which would warm the earth as much as a particular concentration of some other gas or of all gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. For example, CO2e of 500 parts per million would reflect a mix of atmospheric gases which warm the earth as much as 500 parts per million of CO2 would warm it. Calculation of the equivalent atmospheric concentration of CO2 of an atmospheric greenhouse gas or aerosol is more complex and involves the atmospheric concentrations of those gases, their GWPs, and the ratios of their molar masses to the molar mass of CO2.
CO2e calculations depend on the time-scale chosen, typically 100 years or 20 years, since gases decay in the atmosphere or are absorbed naturally, at different rates.
The following units are commonly used:
For example, the table above shows GWP for methane over 20 years at 86 and nitrous oxide at 289, so emissions of 1 million tonnes of methane or nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 86 or 289 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, respectively.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997 the Conference of the Parties standardized international reporting, by deciding (see decision number 2/CP.3) that the values of GWP calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report were to be used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents.
After some intermediate updates, in 2013 this standard was updated by the Warsaw meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, decision number 24/CP.19) to require using a new set of 100-year GWP values. They published these values in Annex III, and they took them from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which had been published in 2007. Those 2007 estimates are still used for international comparisons through 2020, although the latest research on warming effects has found other values, as shown in the tables above.
Though recent reports reflect more scientific accuracy, countries and companies continue to use the IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) and IPCC Fourth Assessment Report values for reasons of comparison in their emission reports. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report has skipped the 500-year values but introduced GWP estimations including the climate-carbon feedback (f) with a large amount of uncertainty.
The Global Temperature change Potential (GTP) is another way to compare gases. While GWP estimates infrared thermal radiation absorbed, GTP estimates the resulting rise in average surface temperature of the world, over the next 20, 50 or 100 years, caused by a greenhouse gas, relative to the temperature rise which the same mass of CO2 would cause. Calculation of GTP requires modeling how the world, especially the oceans, will absorb heat. GTP is published in the same IPCC tables with GWP.
GWP* has been proposed to take better account of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) such as methane, relating a change in the rate of emissions of SLCPs to a fixed quantity of CO2. However GWP* has itself been criticised both for its suitability as a metric and for inherent design features which can perpetuate injustices and inequity. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Global warming potential (GWP) is an index to measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas would absorb over a given time frame after it has been added to the atmosphere (or emitted to the atmosphere). The GWP makes different greenhouse gases comparable with regards to their \"effectiveness in causing radiative forcing\". It is expressed as a multiple of the radiation that would be absorbed by the same mass of added carbon dioxide (CO2), which is taken as a reference gas. Therefore, the GWP is one for CO2. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs infrared thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame being considered.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 meaning that, for example, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e or CO2eq or CO2-e) can be calculated from the GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The global warming potential (GWP) is defined as an \"index measuring the radiative forcing following an emission of a unit mass of a given substance, accumulated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of the reference substance, carbon dioxide (CO2). The GWP thus represents the combined effect of the differing times these substances remain in the atmosphere and their effectiveness in causing radiative forcing.\"",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In turn, radiative forcing is a scientific concept used to quantify and compare the external drivers of change to Earth's energy balance. Radiative forcing is the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors of climate change as measured in watts per meter squared.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The global warming potential (GWP) depends on both the efficiency of the molecule as a greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime. GWP is measured relative to the same mass of CO2 and evaluated for a specific timescale. Thus, if a gas has a high (positive) radiative forcing but also a short lifetime, it will have a large GWP on a 20-year scale but a small one on a 100-year scale. Conversely, if a molecule has a longer atmospheric lifetime than CO2 its GWP will increase when the timescale is considered. Carbon dioxide is defined to have a GWP of 1 over all time periods.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 ± 2 years. The 2021 IPCC report lists the GWP as 83 over a time scale of 20 years, 30 over 100 years and 10 over 500 years. A 2014 analysis, however, states that although methane's initial impact is about 100 times greater than that of CO2, because of the shorter atmospheric lifetime, after six or seven decades, the impact of the two gases is about equal, and from then on methane's relative role continues to decline. The decrease in GWP at longer times is because methane decomposes to water and CO2 through chemical reactions in the atmosphere.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Examples of the atmospheric lifetime and GWP relative to CO2 for several greenhouse gases are given in the following table:",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Estimates of GWP values over 20, 100 and 500 years are periodically compiled and revised in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The most recent report is the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group I) from 2023.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The IPCC lists many other substances not shown here. Some have high GWP but only a low concentration in the atmosphere.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The values given in the table assume the same mass of compound is analyzed; different ratios will result from the conversion of one substance to another. For instance, burning methane to carbon dioxide would reduce the global warming impact, but by a smaller factor than 25:1 because the mass of methane burned is less than the mass of carbon dioxide released (ratio 1:2.74). For a starting amount of 1 tonne of methane, which has a GWP of 25, after combustion there would be 2.74 tonnes of CO2, each tonne of which has a GWP of 1. This is a net reduction of 22.26 tonnes of GWP, reducing the global warming effect by a ratio of 25:2.74 (approximately 9 times).",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The values provided in the table below are from 2007 when they were published in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. These values are still used (as of 2020) for some comparisons.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "A substance's GWP depends on the number of years (denoted by a subscript) over which the potential is calculated. A gas which is quickly removed from the atmosphere may initially have a large effect, but for longer time periods, as it has been removed, it becomes less important. Thus methane has a potential of 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86); conversely sulfur hexafluoride has a GWP of 22,800 over 100 years but 16,300 over 20 years (IPCC Third Assessment Report). The GWP value depends on how the gas concentration decays over time in the atmosphere. This is often not precisely known and hence the values should not be considered exact. For this reason when quoting a GWP it is important to give a reference to the calculation.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The GWP for a mixture of gases can be obtained from the mass-fraction-weighted average of the GWPs of the individual gases.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Commonly, a time horizon of 100 years is used by regulators.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Water vapour does contribute to anthropogenic global warming, but as the GWP is defined, it is negligible for H2O: an estimate gives a 100-year GWP between -0.001 and 0.0005.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "H2O can function as a greenhouse gas because it has a profound infrared absorption spectrum with more and broader absorption bands than CO2. Its concentration in the atmosphere is limited by air temperature, so that radiative forcing by water vapour increases with global warming (positive feedback). But the GWP definition excludes indirect effects. GWP definition is also based on emissions, and anthropogenic emissions of water vapour (cooling towers, irrigation) are removed via precipitation within weeks, so its GWP is negligible.",
"title": "Values"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "When calculating the GWP of a greenhouse gas, the value depends on the following factors:",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A high GWP correlates with a large infrared absorption and a long atmospheric lifetime. The dependence of GWP on the wavelength of absorption is more complicated. Even if a gas absorbs radiation efficiently at a certain wavelength, this may not affect its GWP much if the atmosphere already absorbs most radiation at that wavelength. A gas has the most effect if it absorbs in a \"window\" of wavelengths where the atmosphere is fairly transparent. The dependence of GWP as a function of wavelength has been found empirically and published as a graph.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Because the GWP of a greenhouse gas depends directly on its infrared spectrum, the use of infrared spectroscopy to study greenhouse gases is centrally important in the effort to understand the impact of human activities on global climate change.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Just as radiative forcing provides a simplified means of comparing the various factors that are believed to influence the climate system to one another, global warming potentials (GWPs) are one type of simplified index based upon radiative properties that can be used to estimate the potential future impacts of emissions of different gases upon the climate system in a relative sense. GWP is based on a number of factors, including the radiative efficiency (infrared-absorbing ability) of each gas relative to that of carbon dioxide, as well as the decay rate of each gas (the amount removed from the atmosphere over a given number of years) relative to that of carbon dioxide.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The radiative forcing capacity (RF) is the amount of energy per unit area, per unit time, absorbed by the greenhouse gas, that would otherwise be lost to space. It can be expressed by the formula:",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "where the subscript i represents a wavenumber interval of 10 inverse centimeters. Absi represents the integrated infrared absorbance of the sample in that interval, and Fi represents the RF for that interval.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the generally accepted values for GWP, which changed slightly between 1996 and 2001, except for methane, which had its GWP almost doubled. An exact definition of how GWP is calculated is to be found in the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report. The GWP is defined as the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg of a trace substance relative to that of 1 kg of a reference gas:",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "where TH is the time horizon over which the calculation is considered; ax is the radiative efficiency due to a unit increase in atmospheric abundance of the substance (i.e., Wm kg) and [x](t) is the time-dependent decay in abundance of the substance following an instantaneous release of it at time t=0. The denominator contains the corresponding quantities for the reference gas (i.e. CO2). The radiative efficiencies ax and ar are not necessarily constant over time. While the absorption of infrared radiation by many greenhouse gases varies linearly with their abundance, a few important ones display non-linear behaviour for current and likely future abundances (e.g., CO2, CH4, and N2O). For those gases, the relative radiative forcing will depend upon abundance and hence upon the future scenario adopted.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Since all GWP calculations are a comparison to CO2 which is non-linear, all GWP values are affected. Assuming otherwise as is done above will lead to lower GWPs for other gases than a more detailed approach would. Clarifying this, while increasing CO2 has less and less effect on radiative absorption as ppm concentrations rise, more powerful greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide have different thermal absorption frequencies to CO2 that are not filled up (saturated) as much as CO2, so rising ppms of these gases are far more significant.",
"title": "Calculation methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e or CO2eq or CO2-e) of a quantity of gas is calculated from its GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 which would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP multiplied by mass of the other gas. For example, if a gas has GWP of 100, two tonnes of the gas have CO2e of 200 tonnes, and 9 tonnes of the gas has CO2e of 900 tonnes.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "On a global scale, the warming effects of one or more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can also be expressed as an equivalent atmospheric concentration of CO2. CO2e can then be the atmospheric concentration of CO2 which would warm the earth as much as a particular concentration of some other gas or of all gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. For example, CO2e of 500 parts per million would reflect a mix of atmospheric gases which warm the earth as much as 500 parts per million of CO2 would warm it. Calculation of the equivalent atmospheric concentration of CO2 of an atmospheric greenhouse gas or aerosol is more complex and involves the atmospheric concentrations of those gases, their GWPs, and the ratios of their molar masses to the molar mass of CO2.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "CO2e calculations depend on the time-scale chosen, typically 100 years or 20 years, since gases decay in the atmosphere or are absorbed naturally, at different rates.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The following units are commonly used:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "For example, the table above shows GWP for methane over 20 years at 86 and nitrous oxide at 289, so emissions of 1 million tonnes of methane or nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 86 or 289 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, respectively.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Under the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997 the Conference of the Parties standardized international reporting, by deciding (see decision number 2/CP.3) that the values of GWP calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report were to be used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO2 equivalents.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "After some intermediate updates, in 2013 this standard was updated by the Warsaw meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, decision number 24/CP.19) to require using a new set of 100-year GWP values. They published these values in Annex III, and they took them from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which had been published in 2007. Those 2007 estimates are still used for international comparisons through 2020, although the latest research on warming effects has found other values, as shown in the tables above.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Though recent reports reflect more scientific accuracy, countries and companies continue to use the IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) and IPCC Fourth Assessment Report values for reasons of comparison in their emission reports. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report has skipped the 500-year values but introduced GWP estimations including the climate-carbon feedback (f) with a large amount of uncertainty.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Global Temperature change Potential (GTP) is another way to compare gases. While GWP estimates infrared thermal radiation absorbed, GTP estimates the resulting rise in average surface temperature of the world, over the next 20, 50 or 100 years, caused by a greenhouse gas, relative to the temperature rise which the same mass of CO2 would cause. Calculation of GTP requires modeling how the world, especially the oceans, will absorb heat. GTP is published in the same IPCC tables with GWP.",
"title": "Other metrics to compare greenhouse gases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "GWP* has been proposed to take better account of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) such as methane, relating a change in the rate of emissions of SLCPs to a fixed quantity of CO2. However GWP* has itself been criticised both for its suitability as a metric and for inherent design features which can perpetuate injustices and inequity.",
"title": "Other metrics to compare greenhouse gases"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| Global warming potential (GWP) is an index to measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas would absorb over a given time frame after it has been added to the atmosphere. The GWP makes different greenhouse gases comparable with regards to their "effectiveness in causing radiative forcing". It is expressed as a multiple of the radiation that would be absorbed by the same mass of added carbon dioxide, which is taken as a reference gas. Therefore, the GWP is one for CO2. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs infrared thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame being considered. For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 meaning that, for example, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95. The carbon dioxide equivalent can be calculated from the GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas. | 2001-12-03T03:07:48Z | 2023-12-29T01:41:57Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential |
12,910 | Grothendieck topology | In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a Grothendieck topology is a structure on a category C that makes the objects of C act like the open sets of a topological space. A category together with a choice of Grothendieck topology is called a site.
Grothendieck topologies axiomatize the notion of an open cover. Using the notion of covering provided by a Grothendieck topology, it becomes possible to define sheaves on a category and their cohomology. This was first done in algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory by Alexander Grothendieck to define the étale cohomology of a scheme. It has been used to define other cohomology theories since then, such as ℓ-adic cohomology, flat cohomology, and crystalline cohomology. While Grothendieck topologies are most often used to define cohomology theories, they have found other applications as well, such as to John Tate's theory of rigid analytic geometry.
There is a natural way to associate a site to an ordinary topological space, and Grothendieck's theory is loosely regarded as a generalization of classical topology. Under meager point-set hypotheses, namely sobriety, this is completely accurate—it is possible to recover a sober space from its associated site. However simple examples such as the indiscrete topological space show that not all topological spaces can be expressed using Grothendieck topologies. Conversely, there are Grothendieck topologies that do not come from topological spaces.
The term "Grothendieck topology" has changed in meaning. In Artin (1962) it meant what is now called a Grothendieck pretopology, and some authors still use this old meaning. Giraud (1964) modified the definition to use sieves rather than covers. Much of the time this does not make much difference, as each Grothendieck pretopology determines a unique Grothendieck topology, though quite different pretopologies can give the same topology.
André Weil's famous Weil conjectures proposed that certain properties of equations with integral coefficients should be understood as geometric properties of the algebraic variety that they define. His conjectures postulated that there should be a cohomology theory of algebraic varieties that gives number-theoretic information about their defining equations. This cohomology theory was known as the "Weil cohomology", but using the tools he had available, Weil was unable to construct it.
In the early 1960s, Alexander Grothendieck introduced étale maps into algebraic geometry as algebraic analogues of local analytic isomorphisms in analytic geometry. He used étale coverings to define an algebraic analogue of the fundamental group of a topological space. Soon Jean-Pierre Serre noticed that some properties of étale coverings mimicked those of open immersions, and that consequently it was possible to make constructions that imitated the cohomology functor H 1 {\displaystyle H^{1}} . Grothendieck saw that it would be possible to use Serre's idea to define a cohomology theory that he suspected would be the Weil cohomology. To define this cohomology theory, Grothendieck needed to replace the usual, topological notion of an open covering with one that would use étale coverings instead. Grothendieck also saw how to phrase the definition of covering abstractly; this is where the definition of a Grothendieck topology comes from.
The classical definition of a sheaf begins with a topological space X {\displaystyle X} . A sheaf associates information to the open sets of X {\displaystyle X} . This information can be phrased abstractly by letting O ( X ) {\displaystyle O(X)} be the category whose objects are the open subsets U {\displaystyle U} of X {\displaystyle X} and whose morphisms are the inclusion maps V → U {\displaystyle V\rightarrow U} of open sets U {\displaystyle U} and V {\displaystyle V} of X {\displaystyle X} . We will call such maps open immersions, just as in the context of schemes. Then a presheaf on X {\displaystyle X} is a contravariant functor from O ( X ) {\displaystyle O(X)} to the category of sets, and a sheaf is a presheaf that satisfies the gluing axiom (here including the separation axiom). The gluing axiom is phrased in terms of pointwise covering, i.e., { U i } {\displaystyle \{U_{i}\}} covers U {\displaystyle U} if and only if ⋃ i U i = U {\displaystyle \bigcup _{i}U_{i}=U} . In this definition, U i {\displaystyle U_{i}} is an open subset of X {\displaystyle X} . Grothendieck topologies replace each U i {\displaystyle U_{i}} with an entire family of open subsets; in this example, U i {\displaystyle U_{i}} is replaced by the family of all open immersions V i j → U i {\displaystyle V_{ij}\to U_{i}} . Such a collection is called a sieve. Pointwise covering is replaced by the notion of a covering family; in the above example, the set of all { V i j → U i } j {\displaystyle \{V_{ij}\to U_{i}\}_{j}} as i {\displaystyle i} varies is a covering family of U {\displaystyle U} . Sieves and covering families can be axiomatized, and once this is done open sets and pointwise covering can be replaced by other notions that describe other properties of the space X {\displaystyle X} .
In a Grothendieck topology, the notion of a collection of open subsets of U stable under inclusion is replaced by the notion of a sieve. If c is any given object in C, a sieve on c is a subfunctor of the functor Hom(−, c); (this is the Yoneda embedding applied to c). In the case of O(X), a sieve S on an open set U selects a collection of open subsets of U that is stable under inclusion. More precisely, consider that for any open subset V of U, S(V) will be a subset of Hom(V, U), which has only one element, the open immersion V → U. Then V will be considered "selected" by S if and only if S(V) is nonempty. If W is a subset of V, then there is a morphism S(V) → S(W) given by composition with the inclusion W → V. If S(V) is non-empty, it follows that S(W) is also non-empty.
If S is a sieve on X, and f: Y → X is a morphism, then left composition by f gives a sieve on Y called the pullback of S along f, denoted by fS. It is defined as the fibered product S ×Hom(−, X) Hom(−, Y) together with its natural embedding in Hom(−, Y). More concretely, for each object Z of C, fS(Z) = { g: Z → Y | fg ∈ {\displaystyle \in } S(Z) }, and fS inherits its action on morphisms by being a subfunctor of Hom(−, Y). In the classical example, the pullback of a collection {Vi} of subsets of U along an inclusion W → U is the collection {Vi∩W}.
A Grothendieck topology J on a category C is a collection, for each object c of C, of distinguished sieves on c, denoted by J(c) and called covering sieves of c. This selection will be subject to certain axioms, stated below. Continuing the previous example, a sieve S on an open set U in O(X) will be a covering sieve if and only if the union of all the open sets V for which S(V) is nonempty equals U; in other words, if and only if S gives us a collection of open sets that cover U in the classical sense.
The conditions we impose on a Grothendieck topology are:
The base change axiom corresponds to the idea that if {Ui} covers U, then {Ui ∩ V} should cover U ∩ V. The local character axiom corresponds to the idea that if {Ui} covers U and {Vij}j ∈ {\displaystyle \in } Ji covers Ui for each i, then the collection {Vij} for all i and j should cover U. Lastly, the identity axiom corresponds to the idea that any set is covered by itself via the identity map.
In fact, it is possible to put these axioms in another form where their geometric character is more apparent, assuming that the underlying category C contains certain fibered products. In this case, instead of specifying sieves, we can specify that certain collections of maps with a common codomain should cover their codomain. These collections are called covering families. If the collection of all covering families satisfies certain axioms, then we say that they form a Grothendieck pretopology. These axioms are:
For any pretopology, the collection of all sieves that contain a covering family from the pretopology is always a Grothendieck topology.
For categories with fibered products, there is a converse. Given a collection of arrows {Xα → X}, we construct a sieve S by letting S(Y) be the set of all morphisms Y → X that factor through some arrow Xα → X. This is called the sieve generated by {Xα → X}. Now choose a topology. Say that {Xα → X} is a covering family if and only if the sieve that it generates is a covering sieve for the given topology. It is easy to check that this defines a pretopology.
(PT 3) is sometimes replaced by a weaker axiom:
(PT 3) implies (PT 3'), but not conversely. However, suppose that we have a collection of covering families that satisfies (PT 0) through (PT 2) and (PT 3'), but not (PT 3). These families generate a pretopology. The topology generated by the original collection of covering families is then the same as the topology generated by the pretopology, because the sieve generated by an isomorphism Y → X is Hom(−, X). Consequently, if we restrict our attention to topologies, (PT 3) and (PT 3') are equivalent.
Let C be a category and let J be a Grothendieck topology on C. The pair (C, J) is called a site.
A presheaf on a category is a contravariant functor from C to the category of all sets. Note that for this definition C is not required to have a topology. A sheaf on a site, however, should allow gluing, just like sheaves in classical topology. Consequently, we define a sheaf on a site to be a presheaf F such that for all objects X and all covering sieves S on X, the natural map Hom(Hom(−, X), F) → Hom(S, F), induced by the inclusion of S into Hom(−, X), is a bijection. Halfway in between a presheaf and a sheaf is the notion of a separated presheaf, where the natural map above is required to be only an injection, not a bijection, for all sieves S. A morphism of presheaves or of sheaves is a natural transformation of functors. The category of all sheaves on C is the topos defined by the site (C, J).
Using the Yoneda lemma, it is possible to show that a presheaf on the category O(X) is a sheaf on the topology defined above if and only if it is a sheaf in the classical sense.
Sheaves on a pretopology have a particularly simple description: For each covering family {Xα → X}, the diagram
must be an equalizer. For a separated presheaf, the first arrow need only be injective.
Similarly, one can define presheaves and sheaves of abelian groups, rings, modules, and so on. One can require either that a presheaf F is a contravariant functor to the category of abelian groups (or rings, or modules, etc.), or that F be an abelian group (ring, module, etc.) object in the category of all contravariant functors from C to the category of sets. These two definitions are equivalent.
Let C be any category. To define the discrete topology, we declare all sieves to be covering sieves. If C has all fibered products, this is equivalent to declaring all families to be covering families. To define the indiscrete topology, also known as the coarse or chaotic topology, we declare only the sieves of the form Hom(−, X) to be covering sieves. The indiscrete topology is generated by the pretopology that has only isomorphisms for covering families. A sheaf on the indiscrete site is the same thing as a presheaf.
Let C be any category. The Yoneda embedding gives a functor Hom(−, X) for each object X of C. The canonical topology is the biggest (finest) topology such that every representable presheaf, i.e. presheaf of the form Hom(−, X), is a sheaf. A covering sieve or covering family for this site is said to be strictly universally epimorphic because it consists of the legs of a colimit cone (under the full diagram on the domains of its constituent morphisms) and these colimits are stable under pullbacks along morphisms in C. A topology that is less fine than the canonical topology, that is, for which every covering sieve is strictly universally epimorphic, is called subcanonical. Subcanonical sites are exactly the sites for which every presheaf of the form Hom(−, X) is a sheaf. Most sites encountered in practice are subcanonical.
We repeat the example that we began with above. Let X be a topological space. We defined O(X) to be the category whose objects are the open sets of X and whose morphisms are inclusions of open sets. Note that for an open set U and a sieve S on U, the set S(V) contains either zero or one element for every open set V. The covering sieves on an object U of O(X) are those sieves S satisfying the following condition:
This notion of cover matches the usual notion in point-set topology.
This topology can also naturally be expressed as a pretopology. We say that a family of inclusions {Vα ⊆ {\displaystyle \subseteq } U} is a covering family if and only if the union ∪ {\displaystyle \cup } Vα equals U. This site is called the small site associated to a topological space X.
Let Spc be the category of all topological spaces. Given any family of functions {uα : Vα → X}, we say that it is a surjective family or that the morphisms uα are jointly surjective if ∪ {\displaystyle \cup } uα(Vα) equals X. We define a pretopology on Spc by taking the covering families to be surjective families all of whose members are open immersions. Let S be a sieve on Spc. S is a covering sieve for this topology if and only if:
Fix a topological space X. Consider the comma category Spc/X of topological spaces with a fixed continuous map to X. The topology on Spc induces a topology on Spc/X. The covering sieves and covering families are almost exactly the same; the only difference is that now all the maps involved commute with the fixed maps to X. This is the big site associated to a topological space X . Notice that Spc is the big site associated to the one point space. This site was first considered by Jean Giraud.
Let M be a manifold. M has a category of open sets O(M) because it is a topological space, and it gets a topology as in the above example. For two open sets U and V of M, the fiber product U ×M V is the open set U ∩ V, which is still in O(M). This means that the topology on O(M) is defined by a pretopology, the same pretopology as before.
Let Mfd be the category of all manifolds and continuous maps. (Or smooth manifolds and smooth maps, or real analytic manifolds and analytic maps, etc.) Mfd is a subcategory of Spc, and open immersions are continuous (or smooth, or analytic, etc.), so Mfd inherits a topology from Spc. This lets us construct the big site of the manifold M as the site Mfd/M. We can also define this topology using the same pretopology we used above. Notice that to satisfy (PT 0), we need to check that for any continuous map of manifolds X → Y and any open subset U of Y, the fibered product U ×Y X is in Mfd/M. This is just the statement that the preimage of an open set is open. Notice, however, that not all fibered products exist in Mfd because the preimage of a smooth map at a critical value need not be a manifold.
The category of schemes, denoted Sch, has a tremendous number of useful topologies. A complete understanding of some questions may require examining a scheme using several different topologies. All of these topologies have associated small and big sites. The big site is formed by taking the entire category of schemes and their morphisms, together with the covering sieves specified by the topology. The small site over a given scheme is formed by only taking the objects and morphisms that are part of a cover of the given scheme.
The most elementary of these is the Zariski topology. Let X be a scheme. X has an underlying topological space, and this topological space determines a Grothendieck topology. The Zariski topology on Sch is generated by the pretopology whose covering families are jointly surjective families of scheme-theoretic open immersions. The covering sieves S for Zar are characterized by the following two properties:
Despite their outward similarities, the topology on Zar is not the restriction of the topology on Spc! This is because there are morphisms of schemes that are topologically open immersions but that are not scheme-theoretic open immersions. For example, let A be a non-reduced ring and let N be its ideal of nilpotents. The quotient map A → A/N induces a map Spec A/N → Spec A, which is the identity on underlying topological spaces. To be a scheme-theoretic open immersion it must also induce an isomorphism on structure sheaves, which this map does not do. In fact, this map is a closed immersion.
The étale topology is finer than the Zariski topology. It was the first Grothendieck topology to be closely studied. Its covering families are jointly surjective families of étale morphisms. It is finer than the Nisnevich topology, but neither finer nor coarser than the cdh and l′ topologies.
There are two flat topologies, the fppf topology and the fpqc topology. fppf stands for fidèlement plate de présentation finie, and in this topology, a morphism of affine schemes is a covering morphism if it is faithfully flat, of finite presentation, and is quasi-finite. fpqc stands for fidèlement plate et quasi-compacte, and in this topology, a morphism of affine schemes is a covering morphism if it is faithfully flat. In both categories, a covering family is defined to be a family that is a cover on Zariski open subsets. In the fpqc topology, any faithfully flat and quasi-compact morphism is a cover. These topologies are closely related to descent. The fpqc topology is finer than all the topologies mentioned above, and it is very close to the canonical topology.
Grothendieck introduced crystalline cohomology to study the p-torsion part of the cohomology of characteristic p varieties. In the crystalline topology, which is the basis of this theory, the underlying category has objects given by infinitesimal thickenings together with divided power structures. Crystalline sites are examples of sites with no final object.
There are two natural types of functors between sites. They are given by functors that are compatible with the topology in a certain sense.
If (C, J) and (D, K) are sites and u : C → D is a functor, then u is continuous if for every sheaf F on D with respect to the topology K, the presheaf Fu is a sheaf with respect to the topology J. Continuous functors induce functors between the corresponding topoi by sending a sheaf F to Fu. These functors are called pushforwards. If C ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {C}}} and D ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {D}}} denote the topoi associated to C and D, then the pushforward functor is u s : D ~ → C ~ {\displaystyle u_{s}:{\tilde {D}}\to {\tilde {C}}} .
us admits a left adjoint u called the pullback. u need not preserve limits, even finite limits.
In the same way, u sends a sieve on an object X of C to a sieve on the object uX of D. A continuous functor sends covering sieves to covering sieves. If J is the topology defined by a pretopology, and if u commutes with fibered products, then u is continuous if and only if it sends covering sieves to covering sieves and if and only if it sends covering families to covering families. In general, it is not sufficient for u to send covering sieves to covering sieves (see SGA IV 3, Exemple 1.9.3).
Again, let (C, J) and (D, K) be sites and v : C → D be a functor. If X is an object of C and R is a sieve on vX, then R can be pulled back to a sieve S as follows: A morphism f : Z → X is in S if and only if v(f) : vZ → vX is in R. This defines a sieve. v is cocontinuous if and only if for every object X of C and every covering sieve R of vX, the pullback S of R is a covering sieve on X.
Composition with v sends a presheaf F on D to a presheaf Fv on C, but if v is cocontinuous, this need not send sheaves to sheaves. However, this functor on presheaf categories, usually denoted v ^ ∗ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}^{*}} , admits a right adjoint v ^ ∗ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}_{*}} . Then v is cocontinuous if and only if v ^ ∗ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}_{*}} sends sheaves to sheaves, that is, if and only if it restricts to a functor v ∗ : C ~ → D ~ {\displaystyle v_{*}:{\tilde {C}}\to {\tilde {D}}} . In this case, the composite of v ^ ∗ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}^{*}} with the associated sheaf functor is a left adjoint of v* denoted v. Furthermore, v preserves finite limits, so the adjoint functors v* and v determine a geometric morphism of topoi C ~ → D ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {C}}\to {\tilde {D}}} .
A continuous functor u : C → D is a morphism of sites D → C (not C → D) if u preserves finite limits. In this case, u and us determine a geometric morphism of topoi C ~ → D ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {C}}\to {\tilde {D}}} . The reasoning behind the convention that a continuous functor C → D is said to determine a morphism of sites in the opposite direction is that this agrees with the intuition coming from the case of topological spaces. A continuous map of topological spaces X → Y determines a continuous functor O(Y) → O(X). Since the original map on topological spaces is said to send X to Y, the morphism of sites is said to as well.
A particular case of this happens when a continuous functor admits a left adjoint. Suppose that u : C → D and v : D → C are functors with u right adjoint to v. Then u is continuous if and only if v is cocontinuous, and when this happens, u is naturally isomorphic to v and us is naturally isomorphic to v*. In particular, u is a morphism of sites. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a Grothendieck topology is a structure on a category C that makes the objects of C act like the open sets of a topological space. A category together with a choice of Grothendieck topology is called a site.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Grothendieck topologies axiomatize the notion of an open cover. Using the notion of covering provided by a Grothendieck topology, it becomes possible to define sheaves on a category and their cohomology. This was first done in algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory by Alexander Grothendieck to define the étale cohomology of a scheme. It has been used to define other cohomology theories since then, such as ℓ-adic cohomology, flat cohomology, and crystalline cohomology. While Grothendieck topologies are most often used to define cohomology theories, they have found other applications as well, such as to John Tate's theory of rigid analytic geometry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "There is a natural way to associate a site to an ordinary topological space, and Grothendieck's theory is loosely regarded as a generalization of classical topology. Under meager point-set hypotheses, namely sobriety, this is completely accurate—it is possible to recover a sober space from its associated site. However simple examples such as the indiscrete topological space show that not all topological spaces can be expressed using Grothendieck topologies. Conversely, there are Grothendieck topologies that do not come from topological spaces.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The term \"Grothendieck topology\" has changed in meaning. In Artin (1962) it meant what is now called a Grothendieck pretopology, and some authors still use this old meaning. Giraud (1964) modified the definition to use sieves rather than covers. Much of the time this does not make much difference, as each Grothendieck pretopology determines a unique Grothendieck topology, though quite different pretopologies can give the same topology.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "André Weil's famous Weil conjectures proposed that certain properties of equations with integral coefficients should be understood as geometric properties of the algebraic variety that they define. His conjectures postulated that there should be a cohomology theory of algebraic varieties that gives number-theoretic information about their defining equations. This cohomology theory was known as the \"Weil cohomology\", but using the tools he had available, Weil was unable to construct it.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the early 1960s, Alexander Grothendieck introduced étale maps into algebraic geometry as algebraic analogues of local analytic isomorphisms in analytic geometry. He used étale coverings to define an algebraic analogue of the fundamental group of a topological space. Soon Jean-Pierre Serre noticed that some properties of étale coverings mimicked those of open immersions, and that consequently it was possible to make constructions that imitated the cohomology functor H 1 {\\displaystyle H^{1}} . Grothendieck saw that it would be possible to use Serre's idea to define a cohomology theory that he suspected would be the Weil cohomology. To define this cohomology theory, Grothendieck needed to replace the usual, topological notion of an open covering with one that would use étale coverings instead. Grothendieck also saw how to phrase the definition of covering abstractly; this is where the definition of a Grothendieck topology comes from.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The classical definition of a sheaf begins with a topological space X {\\displaystyle X} . A sheaf associates information to the open sets of X {\\displaystyle X} . This information can be phrased abstractly by letting O ( X ) {\\displaystyle O(X)} be the category whose objects are the open subsets U {\\displaystyle U} of X {\\displaystyle X} and whose morphisms are the inclusion maps V → U {\\displaystyle V\\rightarrow U} of open sets U {\\displaystyle U} and V {\\displaystyle V} of X {\\displaystyle X} . We will call such maps open immersions, just as in the context of schemes. Then a presheaf on X {\\displaystyle X} is a contravariant functor from O ( X ) {\\displaystyle O(X)} to the category of sets, and a sheaf is a presheaf that satisfies the gluing axiom (here including the separation axiom). The gluing axiom is phrased in terms of pointwise covering, i.e., { U i } {\\displaystyle \\{U_{i}\\}} covers U {\\displaystyle U} if and only if ⋃ i U i = U {\\displaystyle \\bigcup _{i}U_{i}=U} . In this definition, U i {\\displaystyle U_{i}} is an open subset of X {\\displaystyle X} . Grothendieck topologies replace each U i {\\displaystyle U_{i}} with an entire family of open subsets; in this example, U i {\\displaystyle U_{i}} is replaced by the family of all open immersions V i j → U i {\\displaystyle V_{ij}\\to U_{i}} . Such a collection is called a sieve. Pointwise covering is replaced by the notion of a covering family; in the above example, the set of all { V i j → U i } j {\\displaystyle \\{V_{ij}\\to U_{i}\\}_{j}} as i {\\displaystyle i} varies is a covering family of U {\\displaystyle U} . Sieves and covering families can be axiomatized, and once this is done open sets and pointwise covering can be replaced by other notions that describe other properties of the space X {\\displaystyle X} .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In a Grothendieck topology, the notion of a collection of open subsets of U stable under inclusion is replaced by the notion of a sieve. If c is any given object in C, a sieve on c is a subfunctor of the functor Hom(−, c); (this is the Yoneda embedding applied to c). In the case of O(X), a sieve S on an open set U selects a collection of open subsets of U that is stable under inclusion. More precisely, consider that for any open subset V of U, S(V) will be a subset of Hom(V, U), which has only one element, the open immersion V → U. Then V will be considered \"selected\" by S if and only if S(V) is nonempty. If W is a subset of V, then there is a morphism S(V) → S(W) given by composition with the inclusion W → V. If S(V) is non-empty, it follows that S(W) is also non-empty.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "If S is a sieve on X, and f: Y → X is a morphism, then left composition by f gives a sieve on Y called the pullback of S along f, denoted by fS. It is defined as the fibered product S ×Hom(−, X) Hom(−, Y) together with its natural embedding in Hom(−, Y). More concretely, for each object Z of C, fS(Z) = { g: Z → Y | fg ∈ {\\displaystyle \\in } S(Z) }, and fS inherits its action on morphisms by being a subfunctor of Hom(−, Y). In the classical example, the pullback of a collection {Vi} of subsets of U along an inclusion W → U is the collection {Vi∩W}.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A Grothendieck topology J on a category C is a collection, for each object c of C, of distinguished sieves on c, denoted by J(c) and called covering sieves of c. This selection will be subject to certain axioms, stated below. Continuing the previous example, a sieve S on an open set U in O(X) will be a covering sieve if and only if the union of all the open sets V for which S(V) is nonempty equals U; in other words, if and only if S gives us a collection of open sets that cover U in the classical sense.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The conditions we impose on a Grothendieck topology are:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The base change axiom corresponds to the idea that if {Ui} covers U, then {Ui ∩ V} should cover U ∩ V. The local character axiom corresponds to the idea that if {Ui} covers U and {Vij}j ∈ {\\displaystyle \\in } Ji covers Ui for each i, then the collection {Vij} for all i and j should cover U. Lastly, the identity axiom corresponds to the idea that any set is covered by itself via the identity map.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In fact, it is possible to put these axioms in another form where their geometric character is more apparent, assuming that the underlying category C contains certain fibered products. In this case, instead of specifying sieves, we can specify that certain collections of maps with a common codomain should cover their codomain. These collections are called covering families. If the collection of all covering families satisfies certain axioms, then we say that they form a Grothendieck pretopology. These axioms are:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "For any pretopology, the collection of all sieves that contain a covering family from the pretopology is always a Grothendieck topology.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For categories with fibered products, there is a converse. Given a collection of arrows {Xα → X}, we construct a sieve S by letting S(Y) be the set of all morphisms Y → X that factor through some arrow Xα → X. This is called the sieve generated by {Xα → X}. Now choose a topology. Say that {Xα → X} is a covering family if and only if the sieve that it generates is a covering sieve for the given topology. It is easy to check that this defines a pretopology.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "(PT 3) is sometimes replaced by a weaker axiom:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "(PT 3) implies (PT 3'), but not conversely. However, suppose that we have a collection of covering families that satisfies (PT 0) through (PT 2) and (PT 3'), but not (PT 3). These families generate a pretopology. The topology generated by the original collection of covering families is then the same as the topology generated by the pretopology, because the sieve generated by an isomorphism Y → X is Hom(−, X). Consequently, if we restrict our attention to topologies, (PT 3) and (PT 3') are equivalent.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Let C be a category and let J be a Grothendieck topology on C. The pair (C, J) is called a site.",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A presheaf on a category is a contravariant functor from C to the category of all sets. Note that for this definition C is not required to have a topology. A sheaf on a site, however, should allow gluing, just like sheaves in classical topology. Consequently, we define a sheaf on a site to be a presheaf F such that for all objects X and all covering sieves S on X, the natural map Hom(Hom(−, X), F) → Hom(S, F), induced by the inclusion of S into Hom(−, X), is a bijection. Halfway in between a presheaf and a sheaf is the notion of a separated presheaf, where the natural map above is required to be only an injection, not a bijection, for all sieves S. A morphism of presheaves or of sheaves is a natural transformation of functors. The category of all sheaves on C is the topos defined by the site (C, J).",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Using the Yoneda lemma, it is possible to show that a presheaf on the category O(X) is a sheaf on the topology defined above if and only if it is a sheaf in the classical sense.",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Sheaves on a pretopology have a particularly simple description: For each covering family {Xα → X}, the diagram",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "must be an equalizer. For a separated presheaf, the first arrow need only be injective.",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Similarly, one can define presheaves and sheaves of abelian groups, rings, modules, and so on. One can require either that a presheaf F is a contravariant functor to the category of abelian groups (or rings, or modules, etc.), or that F be an abelian group (ring, module, etc.) object in the category of all contravariant functors from C to the category of sets. These two definitions are equivalent.",
"title": "Sites and sheaves"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Let C be any category. To define the discrete topology, we declare all sieves to be covering sieves. If C has all fibered products, this is equivalent to declaring all families to be covering families. To define the indiscrete topology, also known as the coarse or chaotic topology, we declare only the sieves of the form Hom(−, X) to be covering sieves. The indiscrete topology is generated by the pretopology that has only isomorphisms for covering families. A sheaf on the indiscrete site is the same thing as a presheaf.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Let C be any category. The Yoneda embedding gives a functor Hom(−, X) for each object X of C. The canonical topology is the biggest (finest) topology such that every representable presheaf, i.e. presheaf of the form Hom(−, X), is a sheaf. A covering sieve or covering family for this site is said to be strictly universally epimorphic because it consists of the legs of a colimit cone (under the full diagram on the domains of its constituent morphisms) and these colimits are stable under pullbacks along morphisms in C. A topology that is less fine than the canonical topology, that is, for which every covering sieve is strictly universally epimorphic, is called subcanonical. Subcanonical sites are exactly the sites for which every presheaf of the form Hom(−, X) is a sheaf. Most sites encountered in practice are subcanonical.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "We repeat the example that we began with above. Let X be a topological space. We defined O(X) to be the category whose objects are the open sets of X and whose morphisms are inclusions of open sets. Note that for an open set U and a sieve S on U, the set S(V) contains either zero or one element for every open set V. The covering sieves on an object U of O(X) are those sieves S satisfying the following condition:",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "This notion of cover matches the usual notion in point-set topology.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "This topology can also naturally be expressed as a pretopology. We say that a family of inclusions {Vα ⊆ {\\displaystyle \\subseteq } U} is a covering family if and only if the union ∪ {\\displaystyle \\cup } Vα equals U. This site is called the small site associated to a topological space X.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Let Spc be the category of all topological spaces. Given any family of functions {uα : Vα → X}, we say that it is a surjective family or that the morphisms uα are jointly surjective if ∪ {\\displaystyle \\cup } uα(Vα) equals X. We define a pretopology on Spc by taking the covering families to be surjective families all of whose members are open immersions. Let S be a sieve on Spc. S is a covering sieve for this topology if and only if:",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Fix a topological space X. Consider the comma category Spc/X of topological spaces with a fixed continuous map to X. The topology on Spc induces a topology on Spc/X. The covering sieves and covering families are almost exactly the same; the only difference is that now all the maps involved commute with the fixed maps to X. This is the big site associated to a topological space X . Notice that Spc is the big site associated to the one point space. This site was first considered by Jean Giraud.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Let M be a manifold. M has a category of open sets O(M) because it is a topological space, and it gets a topology as in the above example. For two open sets U and V of M, the fiber product U ×M V is the open set U ∩ V, which is still in O(M). This means that the topology on O(M) is defined by a pretopology, the same pretopology as before.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Let Mfd be the category of all manifolds and continuous maps. (Or smooth manifolds and smooth maps, or real analytic manifolds and analytic maps, etc.) Mfd is a subcategory of Spc, and open immersions are continuous (or smooth, or analytic, etc.), so Mfd inherits a topology from Spc. This lets us construct the big site of the manifold M as the site Mfd/M. We can also define this topology using the same pretopology we used above. Notice that to satisfy (PT 0), we need to check that for any continuous map of manifolds X → Y and any open subset U of Y, the fibered product U ×Y X is in Mfd/M. This is just the statement that the preimage of an open set is open. Notice, however, that not all fibered products exist in Mfd because the preimage of a smooth map at a critical value need not be a manifold.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The category of schemes, denoted Sch, has a tremendous number of useful topologies. A complete understanding of some questions may require examining a scheme using several different topologies. All of these topologies have associated small and big sites. The big site is formed by taking the entire category of schemes and their morphisms, together with the covering sieves specified by the topology. The small site over a given scheme is formed by only taking the objects and morphisms that are part of a cover of the given scheme.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The most elementary of these is the Zariski topology. Let X be a scheme. X has an underlying topological space, and this topological space determines a Grothendieck topology. The Zariski topology on Sch is generated by the pretopology whose covering families are jointly surjective families of scheme-theoretic open immersions. The covering sieves S for Zar are characterized by the following two properties:",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Despite their outward similarities, the topology on Zar is not the restriction of the topology on Spc! This is because there are morphisms of schemes that are topologically open immersions but that are not scheme-theoretic open immersions. For example, let A be a non-reduced ring and let N be its ideal of nilpotents. The quotient map A → A/N induces a map Spec A/N → Spec A, which is the identity on underlying topological spaces. To be a scheme-theoretic open immersion it must also induce an isomorphism on structure sheaves, which this map does not do. In fact, this map is a closed immersion.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The étale topology is finer than the Zariski topology. It was the first Grothendieck topology to be closely studied. Its covering families are jointly surjective families of étale morphisms. It is finer than the Nisnevich topology, but neither finer nor coarser than the cdh and l′ topologies.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "There are two flat topologies, the fppf topology and the fpqc topology. fppf stands for fidèlement plate de présentation finie, and in this topology, a morphism of affine schemes is a covering morphism if it is faithfully flat, of finite presentation, and is quasi-finite. fpqc stands for fidèlement plate et quasi-compacte, and in this topology, a morphism of affine schemes is a covering morphism if it is faithfully flat. In both categories, a covering family is defined to be a family that is a cover on Zariski open subsets. In the fpqc topology, any faithfully flat and quasi-compact morphism is a cover. These topologies are closely related to descent. The fpqc topology is finer than all the topologies mentioned above, and it is very close to the canonical topology.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Grothendieck introduced crystalline cohomology to study the p-torsion part of the cohomology of characteristic p varieties. In the crystalline topology, which is the basis of this theory, the underlying category has objects given by infinitesimal thickenings together with divided power structures. Crystalline sites are examples of sites with no final object.",
"title": "Examples of sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "There are two natural types of functors between sites. They are given by functors that are compatible with the topology in a certain sense.",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "If (C, J) and (D, K) are sites and u : C → D is a functor, then u is continuous if for every sheaf F on D with respect to the topology K, the presheaf Fu is a sheaf with respect to the topology J. Continuous functors induce functors between the corresponding topoi by sending a sheaf F to Fu. These functors are called pushforwards. If C ~ {\\displaystyle {\\tilde {C}}} and D ~ {\\displaystyle {\\tilde {D}}} denote the topoi associated to C and D, then the pushforward functor is u s : D ~ → C ~ {\\displaystyle u_{s}:{\\tilde {D}}\\to {\\tilde {C}}} .",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "us admits a left adjoint u called the pullback. u need not preserve limits, even finite limits.",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In the same way, u sends a sieve on an object X of C to a sieve on the object uX of D. A continuous functor sends covering sieves to covering sieves. If J is the topology defined by a pretopology, and if u commutes with fibered products, then u is continuous if and only if it sends covering sieves to covering sieves and if and only if it sends covering families to covering families. In general, it is not sufficient for u to send covering sieves to covering sieves (see SGA IV 3, Exemple 1.9.3).",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Again, let (C, J) and (D, K) be sites and v : C → D be a functor. If X is an object of C and R is a sieve on vX, then R can be pulled back to a sieve S as follows: A morphism f : Z → X is in S if and only if v(f) : vZ → vX is in R. This defines a sieve. v is cocontinuous if and only if for every object X of C and every covering sieve R of vX, the pullback S of R is a covering sieve on X.",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Composition with v sends a presheaf F on D to a presheaf Fv on C, but if v is cocontinuous, this need not send sheaves to sheaves. However, this functor on presheaf categories, usually denoted v ^ ∗ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}^{*}} , admits a right adjoint v ^ ∗ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}_{*}} . Then v is cocontinuous if and only if v ^ ∗ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}_{*}} sends sheaves to sheaves, that is, if and only if it restricts to a functor v ∗ : C ~ → D ~ {\\displaystyle v_{*}:{\\tilde {C}}\\to {\\tilde {D}}} . In this case, the composite of v ^ ∗ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}^{*}} with the associated sheaf functor is a left adjoint of v* denoted v. Furthermore, v preserves finite limits, so the adjoint functors v* and v determine a geometric morphism of topoi C ~ → D ~ {\\displaystyle {\\tilde {C}}\\to {\\tilde {D}}} .",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A continuous functor u : C → D is a morphism of sites D → C (not C → D) if u preserves finite limits. In this case, u and us determine a geometric morphism of topoi C ~ → D ~ {\\displaystyle {\\tilde {C}}\\to {\\tilde {D}}} . The reasoning behind the convention that a continuous functor C → D is said to determine a morphism of sites in the opposite direction is that this agrees with the intuition coming from the case of topological spaces. A continuous map of topological spaces X → Y determines a continuous functor O(Y) → O(X). Since the original map on topological spaces is said to send X to Y, the morphism of sites is said to as well.",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A particular case of this happens when a continuous functor admits a left adjoint. Suppose that u : C → D and v : D → C are functors with u right adjoint to v. Then u is continuous if and only if v is cocontinuous, and when this happens, u is naturally isomorphic to v and us is naturally isomorphic to v*. In particular, u is a morphism of sites.",
"title": "Continuous and cocontinuous functors"
}
]
| In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a Grothendieck topology is a structure on a category C that makes the objects of C act like the open sets of a topological space. A category together with a choice of Grothendieck topology is called a site. Grothendieck topologies axiomatize the notion of an open cover. Using the notion of covering provided by a Grothendieck topology, it becomes possible to define sheaves on a category and their cohomology. This was first done in algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory by Alexander Grothendieck to define the étale cohomology of a scheme. It has been used to define other cohomology theories since then, such as ℓ-adic cohomology, flat cohomology, and crystalline cohomology. While Grothendieck topologies are most often used to define cohomology theories, they have found other applications as well, such as to John Tate's theory of rigid analytic geometry. There is a natural way to associate a site to an ordinary topological space, and Grothendieck's theory is loosely regarded as a generalization of classical topology. Under meager point-set hypotheses, namely sobriety, this is completely accurate—it is possible to recover a sober space from its associated site. However simple examples such as the indiscrete topological space show that not all topological spaces can be expressed using Grothendieck topologies. Conversely, there are Grothendieck topologies that do not come from topological spaces. The term "Grothendieck topology" has changed in meaning. In Artin (1962) it meant what is now called a Grothendieck pretopology, and some authors still use this old meaning. Giraud (1964) modified the definition to use sieves rather than covers. Much of the time this does not make much difference, as each Grothendieck pretopology determines a unique Grothendieck topology, though quite different pretopologies can give the same topology. | 2023-06-20T11:39:36Z | [
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"Template:Lang",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Citation",
"Template:Cite conference",
"Template:Harvtxt",
"Template:Main"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grothendieck_topology |
|
12,913 | Greens | Greens may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Greens may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Greens may refer to: Leaf vegetables such as collard greens, mustard greens, spring greens, winter greens, spinach, etc. | 2023-03-09T22:36:16Z | [
"Template:Wiktionary",
"Template:TOC right",
"Template:Disambiguation"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens |
|
12,914 | Ghost in the Shell | Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, and is set in mid-21st century Japan.
Animation studio Production I.G has produced several anime adaptations of the series. These include the 1995 film of the same name and its 2004 sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; the 2002 television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and its 2020 follow-up, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045; and the Ghost in the Shell: Arise original video animation (OVA) series. In addition, an American-produced live-action film was released on March 31, 2017.
The original editor Koichi Yuri says: At first, Ghost in the Shell came from Shirow, but when Yuri asked "something more flashy", Shirow came up with "攻殻機動隊 Koukaku Kidou Tai (Shell Squad)" for Yuri. But Shirow was attached to including "Ghost in the Shell" as well even if in smaller type.
Primarily set in the mid-twenty-first century in the fictional Japanese city of Niihama, Niihama Prefecture (新浜県新浜市, Niihama-ken Niihama-shi), otherwise known as New Port City (ニューポートシティ, Nyū Pōto Shiti), the manga and the many anime adaptations follow the members of Public Security Section 9, a task-force consisting of various professionals skilled at solving and preventing crime, mostly with some sort of police background. Political intrigue and counter-terrorism operations are standard fare for Section 9, but the various actions of corrupt officials, companies, and cyber-criminals in each scenario are unique and require the diverse skills of Section 9's staff to prevent a series of incidents from escalating.
In this post-cyberpunk iteration of a possible future, computer technology has advanced to the point that many members of the public possess cyberbrains, technology that allows them to interface their biological brain with various networks. The level of cyberization varies from simple minimal interfaces to almost complete replacement of the brain with cybernetic parts, in cases of severe trauma. This can also be combined with various levels of prostheses, with a fully prosthetic body enabling a person to become a cyborg. The main character of Ghost in the Shell, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is such a cyborg, having had a terrible accident befall her as a child that ultimately required her to use a full-body prosthesis to house her cyberbrain. This high level of cyberization, however, opens the brain up to attacks from highly skilled hackers, with the most dangerous being those who will hack a person to bend to their whims.
The original Ghost in the Shell manga ran in Japan from April 1989 to November 1990 in Kodansha's manga anthology Young Magazine, and was released in a tankōbon volume on October 5, 1991. Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface followed in 1997 for 9 issues in Young Magazine, and was collected in the Ghost in the Shell: Solid Box on December 1, 2000. Four stories from Man-Machine Interface that were not released in tankobon format from previous releases were later collected in Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor, and published by Kodansha on July 23, 2003. Several art books have also been published for the manga.
Two animated films based on the original manga have been released, both directed by Mamoru Oshii and animated by Production I.G. Ghost in the Shell was released in 1995 and follows the "Puppet Master" storyline from the manga. It was re-released in 2008 as Ghost in the Shell 2.0 with new audio and updated 3D computer graphics in certain scenes. Innocence, otherwise known as Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, was released in 2004, with its story based on a chapter from the first manga.
In 2008, DreamWorks and producer Steven Spielberg acquired the rights to a live-action film adaptation of the original Ghost in the Shell manga. On January 24, 2014, Rupert Sanders was announced as director, with a screenplay by William Wheeler. In April 2016, the full cast was announced, which included Juliette Binoche, Chin Han, Lasarus Ratuere and Kaori Momoi, and Scarlett Johansson in the lead role; the casting of Johansson drew accusations of whitewashing. Principal photography on the film began on location in Wellington, New Zealand, on February 1, 2016. Filming wrapped in June 2016. Ghost in the Shell premiered in Tokyo on March 16, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 31, 2017, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D. It received mixed reviews, with praise for its visuals and Johansson's performance but criticism for its script.
In 2002, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex premiered on Animax, presenting a new telling of Ghost in the Shell independent from the original manga, focusing on Section 9's investigation of the Laughing Man hacker. It was followed in 2004 by a second season titled Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, which focused on the Individual Eleven terrorist group. The primary storylines of both seasons were compressed into OVAs broadcast as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex The Laughing Man in 2005 and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Individual Eleven in 2006. Also in 2006, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society, featuring Section 9's confrontation with a hacker known as the Puppeteer, was broadcast, serving as a finale to the anime series. The extensive score for the series and its films was composed by Yoko Kanno.
On April 7, 2017, Kodansha and Production I.G announced that Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki would be co-directing a new Kōkaku Kidōtai anime production. On December 7, 2018, it was reported by Netflix that they had acquired the worldwide streaming rights to the original net animation (ONA) anime series, titled Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, and that it would premiere on April 23, 2020. The series will be in 3DCG and Sola Digital Arts will be collaborating with Production I.G on the project. It was later revealed that Ilya Kuvshinov will handle character designs. It was stated that the new series will have two seasons of 12 episodes each. For the first season, the opening theme song music was “Fly with me” as performed by Daiki Tsuneta, while the ending was “Sustain++” as performed by Mili.
In addition to the anime, a series of published books, two separate manga adaptations, and several video games for consoles and mobile phones have been released for Stand Alone Complex.
In 2013, a new iteration of the series titled Ghost in the Shell: Arise premiered, taking an original look at the Ghost in the Shell world, set before the original manga. It was released as a series of four original video animation (OVA) episodes (with limited theatrical releases) from 2013 to 2014, then recompiled as a 10-episode television series under the title of Kōkaku Kidōtai: Arise - Alternative Architecture. An additional fifth OVA titled Pyrophoric Cult, originally premiering in the Alternative Architecture broadcast as two original episodes, was released on August 26, 2015. Kazuchika Kise served as the chief director of the series, with Tow Ubukata as head writer. Cornelius was brought onto the project to compose the score for the series, with the Major's new voice actress Maaya Sakamoto also providing vocals for certain tracks.
Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, also known as Ghost in the Shell: Arise − The Movie or New Ghost in the Shell, is a 2015 film directed by Kazuya Nomura that serves as a finale to the Ghost in the Shell: Arise story arc. The film is a continuation to the plot of the Pyrophoric Cult episode of Arise, and ties up loose ends from that arc.
A manga adaptation was serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine, which started on March 13 and ended on August 26, 2013.
Ghost in the Shell was developed by Exact and released for the PlayStation on July 17, 1997, in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is a third-person shooter featuring an original storyline where the character plays a rookie member of Section 9. The video game's soundtrack Megatech Body features various techno artists, such as Takkyu Ishino, Scan X and Mijk Van Dijk.
Several video games were also developed to tie into the Stand Alone Complex television series, in addition to a first-person shooter by Nexon and Neople titled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online, released in 2016.
Ghost in the Shell influenced some prominent filmmakers. The Wachowskis, creators of The Matrix and its sequels, showed it to producer Joel Silver, saying, "We wanna do that for real." The Matrix series took several concepts from the film, including the Matrix digital rain, which was inspired by the opening credits of Ghost in the Shell, and the way characters access the Matrix through holes in the back of their necks. Other parallels have been drawn to James Cameron's Avatar, Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates. James Cameron cited Ghost in the Shell as a source of inspiration, citing it as an influence on Avatar.
Bungie's 2001 third-person action game Oni draws substantial inspiration from Ghost in the Shell's setting and characters. Ghost in the Shell also influenced video games such as the Metal Gear Solid series, Deus Ex, and Cyberpunk 2077. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, and is set in mid-21st century Japan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Animation studio Production I.G has produced several anime adaptations of the series. These include the 1995 film of the same name and its 2004 sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; the 2002 television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and its 2020 follow-up, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045; and the Ghost in the Shell: Arise original video animation (OVA) series. In addition, an American-produced live-action film was released on March 31, 2017.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The original editor Koichi Yuri says: At first, Ghost in the Shell came from Shirow, but when Yuri asked \"something more flashy\", Shirow came up with \"攻殻機動隊 Koukaku Kidou Tai (Shell Squad)\" for Yuri. But Shirow was attached to including \"Ghost in the Shell\" as well even if in smaller type.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Primarily set in the mid-twenty-first century in the fictional Japanese city of Niihama, Niihama Prefecture (新浜県新浜市, Niihama-ken Niihama-shi), otherwise known as New Port City (ニューポートシティ, Nyū Pōto Shiti), the manga and the many anime adaptations follow the members of Public Security Section 9, a task-force consisting of various professionals skilled at solving and preventing crime, mostly with some sort of police background. Political intrigue and counter-terrorism operations are standard fare for Section 9, but the various actions of corrupt officials, companies, and cyber-criminals in each scenario are unique and require the diverse skills of Section 9's staff to prevent a series of incidents from escalating.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In this post-cyberpunk iteration of a possible future, computer technology has advanced to the point that many members of the public possess cyberbrains, technology that allows them to interface their biological brain with various networks. The level of cyberization varies from simple minimal interfaces to almost complete replacement of the brain with cybernetic parts, in cases of severe trauma. This can also be combined with various levels of prostheses, with a fully prosthetic body enabling a person to become a cyborg. The main character of Ghost in the Shell, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is such a cyborg, having had a terrible accident befall her as a child that ultimately required her to use a full-body prosthesis to house her cyberbrain. This high level of cyberization, however, opens the brain up to attacks from highly skilled hackers, with the most dangerous being those who will hack a person to bend to their whims.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The original Ghost in the Shell manga ran in Japan from April 1989 to November 1990 in Kodansha's manga anthology Young Magazine, and was released in a tankōbon volume on October 5, 1991. Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface followed in 1997 for 9 issues in Young Magazine, and was collected in the Ghost in the Shell: Solid Box on December 1, 2000. Four stories from Man-Machine Interface that were not released in tankobon format from previous releases were later collected in Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor, and published by Kodansha on July 23, 2003. Several art books have also been published for the manga.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Two animated films based on the original manga have been released, both directed by Mamoru Oshii and animated by Production I.G. Ghost in the Shell was released in 1995 and follows the \"Puppet Master\" storyline from the manga. It was re-released in 2008 as Ghost in the Shell 2.0 with new audio and updated 3D computer graphics in certain scenes. Innocence, otherwise known as Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, was released in 2004, with its story based on a chapter from the first manga.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 2008, DreamWorks and producer Steven Spielberg acquired the rights to a live-action film adaptation of the original Ghost in the Shell manga. On January 24, 2014, Rupert Sanders was announced as director, with a screenplay by William Wheeler. In April 2016, the full cast was announced, which included Juliette Binoche, Chin Han, Lasarus Ratuere and Kaori Momoi, and Scarlett Johansson in the lead role; the casting of Johansson drew accusations of whitewashing. Principal photography on the film began on location in Wellington, New Zealand, on February 1, 2016. Filming wrapped in June 2016. Ghost in the Shell premiered in Tokyo on March 16, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 31, 2017, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D. It received mixed reviews, with praise for its visuals and Johansson's performance but criticism for its script.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 2002, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex premiered on Animax, presenting a new telling of Ghost in the Shell independent from the original manga, focusing on Section 9's investigation of the Laughing Man hacker. It was followed in 2004 by a second season titled Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, which focused on the Individual Eleven terrorist group. The primary storylines of both seasons were compressed into OVAs broadcast as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex The Laughing Man in 2005 and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Individual Eleven in 2006. Also in 2006, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society, featuring Section 9's confrontation with a hacker known as the Puppeteer, was broadcast, serving as a finale to the anime series. The extensive score for the series and its films was composed by Yoko Kanno.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On April 7, 2017, Kodansha and Production I.G announced that Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki would be co-directing a new Kōkaku Kidōtai anime production. On December 7, 2018, it was reported by Netflix that they had acquired the worldwide streaming rights to the original net animation (ONA) anime series, titled Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, and that it would premiere on April 23, 2020. The series will be in 3DCG and Sola Digital Arts will be collaborating with Production I.G on the project. It was later revealed that Ilya Kuvshinov will handle character designs. It was stated that the new series will have two seasons of 12 episodes each. For the first season, the opening theme song music was “Fly with me” as performed by Daiki Tsuneta, while the ending was “Sustain++” as performed by Mili.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In addition to the anime, a series of published books, two separate manga adaptations, and several video games for consoles and mobile phones have been released for Stand Alone Complex.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 2013, a new iteration of the series titled Ghost in the Shell: Arise premiered, taking an original look at the Ghost in the Shell world, set before the original manga. It was released as a series of four original video animation (OVA) episodes (with limited theatrical releases) from 2013 to 2014, then recompiled as a 10-episode television series under the title of Kōkaku Kidōtai: Arise - Alternative Architecture. An additional fifth OVA titled Pyrophoric Cult, originally premiering in the Alternative Architecture broadcast as two original episodes, was released on August 26, 2015. Kazuchika Kise served as the chief director of the series, with Tow Ubukata as head writer. Cornelius was brought onto the project to compose the score for the series, with the Major's new voice actress Maaya Sakamoto also providing vocals for certain tracks.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, also known as Ghost in the Shell: Arise − The Movie or New Ghost in the Shell, is a 2015 film directed by Kazuya Nomura that serves as a finale to the Ghost in the Shell: Arise story arc. The film is a continuation to the plot of the Pyrophoric Cult episode of Arise, and ties up loose ends from that arc.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A manga adaptation was serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine, which started on March 13 and ended on August 26, 2013.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Ghost in the Shell was developed by Exact and released for the PlayStation on July 17, 1997, in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is a third-person shooter featuring an original storyline where the character plays a rookie member of Section 9. The video game's soundtrack Megatech Body features various techno artists, such as Takkyu Ishino, Scan X and Mijk Van Dijk.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Several video games were also developed to tie into the Stand Alone Complex television series, in addition to a first-person shooter by Nexon and Neople titled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online, released in 2016.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Ghost in the Shell influenced some prominent filmmakers. The Wachowskis, creators of The Matrix and its sequels, showed it to producer Joel Silver, saying, \"We wanna do that for real.\" The Matrix series took several concepts from the film, including the Matrix digital rain, which was inspired by the opening credits of Ghost in the Shell, and the way characters access the Matrix through holes in the back of their necks. Other parallels have been drawn to James Cameron's Avatar, Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates. James Cameron cited Ghost in the Shell as a source of inspiration, citing it as an influence on Avatar.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Bungie's 2001 third-person action game Oni draws substantial inspiration from Ghost in the Shell's setting and characters. Ghost in the Shell also influenced video games such as the Metal Gear Solid series, Deus Ex, and Cyberpunk 2077.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, and is set in mid-21st century Japan. Animation studio Production I.G has produced several anime adaptations of the series. These include the 1995 film of the same name and its 2004 sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; the 2002 television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and its 2020 follow-up, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045; and the Ghost in the Shell: Arise original video animation (OVA) series. In addition, an American-produced live-action film was released on March 31, 2017. | 2001-12-05T03:24:24Z | 2023-12-30T00:15:59Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell |
12,916 | Gauss–Legendre algorithm | The Gauss–Legendre algorithm is an algorithm to compute the digits of π. It is notable for being rapidly convergent, with only 25 iterations producing 45 million correct digits of π. However, it has some drawbacks (for example, it is computer memory-intensive) and therefore all record-breaking calculations for many years have used other methods, almost always the Chudnovsky algorithm. For details, see Chronology of computation of π.
The method is based on the individual work of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) combined with modern algorithms for multiplication and square roots. It repeatedly replaces two numbers by their arithmetic and geometric mean, in order to approximate their arithmetic-geometric mean.
The version presented below is also known as the Gauss–Euler, Brent–Salamin (or Salamin–Brent) algorithm; it was independently discovered in 1975 by Richard Brent and Eugene Salamin. It was used to compute the first 206,158,430,000 decimal digits of π on September 18 to 20, 1999, and the results were checked with Borwein's algorithm.
The first three iterations give (approximations given up to and including the first incorrect digit):
The algorithm has quadratic convergence, which essentially means that the number of correct digits doubles with each iteration of the algorithm.
The arithmetic–geometric mean of two numbers, a0 and b0, is found by calculating the limit of the sequences
which both converge to the same limit. If a 0 = 1 {\displaystyle a_{0}=1} and b 0 = cos φ {\displaystyle b_{0}=\cos \varphi } then the limit is π 2 K ( sin φ ) {\textstyle {\pi \over 2K(\sin \varphi )}} where K ( k ) {\displaystyle K(k)} is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind
If c 0 = sin φ {\displaystyle c_{0}=\sin \varphi } , c i + 1 = a i − a i + 1 {\displaystyle c_{i+1}=a_{i}-a_{i+1}} , then
where E ( k ) {\displaystyle E(k)} is the complete elliptic integral of the second kind:
and
Gauss knew of these two results.
Legendre proved the following identity:
The Gauss-Legendre algorithm can be proven to give results converging to π using only integral calculus. This is done here and here. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Gauss–Legendre algorithm is an algorithm to compute the digits of π. It is notable for being rapidly convergent, with only 25 iterations producing 45 million correct digits of π. However, it has some drawbacks (for example, it is computer memory-intensive) and therefore all record-breaking calculations for many years have used other methods, almost always the Chudnovsky algorithm. For details, see Chronology of computation of π.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The method is based on the individual work of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) combined with modern algorithms for multiplication and square roots. It repeatedly replaces two numbers by their arithmetic and geometric mean, in order to approximate their arithmetic-geometric mean.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The version presented below is also known as the Gauss–Euler, Brent–Salamin (or Salamin–Brent) algorithm; it was independently discovered in 1975 by Richard Brent and Eugene Salamin. It was used to compute the first 206,158,430,000 decimal digits of π on September 18 to 20, 1999, and the results were checked with Borwein's algorithm.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first three iterations give (approximations given up to and including the first incorrect digit):",
"title": "Algorithm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The algorithm has quadratic convergence, which essentially means that the number of correct digits doubles with each iteration of the algorithm.",
"title": "Algorithm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The arithmetic–geometric mean of two numbers, a0 and b0, is found by calculating the limit of the sequences",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "which both converge to the same limit. If a 0 = 1 {\\displaystyle a_{0}=1} and b 0 = cos φ {\\displaystyle b_{0}=\\cos \\varphi } then the limit is π 2 K ( sin φ ) {\\textstyle {\\pi \\over 2K(\\sin \\varphi )}} where K ( k ) {\\displaystyle K(k)} is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "If c 0 = sin φ {\\displaystyle c_{0}=\\sin \\varphi } , c i + 1 = a i − a i + 1 {\\displaystyle c_{i+1}=a_{i}-a_{i+1}} , then",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "where E ( k ) {\\displaystyle E(k)} is the complete elliptic integral of the second kind:",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "and",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Gauss knew of these two results.",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Legendre proved the following identity:",
"title": "Mathematical background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Gauss-Legendre algorithm can be proven to give results converging to π using only integral calculus. This is done here and here.",
"title": "Mathematical background"
}
]
| The Gauss–Legendre algorithm is an algorithm to compute the digits of π. It is notable for being rapidly convergent, with only 25 iterations producing 45 million correct digits of π. However, it has some drawbacks and therefore all record-breaking calculations for many years have used other methods, almost always the Chudnovsky algorithm. For details, see Chronology of computation of π. The method is based on the individual work of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) combined with modern algorithms for multiplication and square roots. It repeatedly replaces two numbers by their arithmetic and geometric mean, in order to approximate their arithmetic-geometric mean. The version presented below is also known as the Gauss–Euler, Brent–Salamin algorithm; it was independently discovered in 1975 by Richard Brent and Eugene Salamin. It was used to compute the first 206,158,430,000 decimal digits of π on September 18 to 20, 1999, and the results were checked with Borwein's algorithm. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-12T07:56:30Z | [
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"Template:Pi",
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%E2%80%93Legendre_algorithm |
12,917 | Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search | The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available software to search for Mersenne prime numbers.
GIMPS was founded in 1996 by George Woltman, who also wrote the Prime95 client and its Linux port MPrime. Scott Kurowski wrote the back end PrimeNet server to demonstrate volunteer computing software by Entropia, a company he founded in 1997. GIMPS is registered as Mersenne Research, Inc. with Kurowski as Executive Vice President and board director. GIMPS is said to be one of the first large scale volunteer computing projects over the Internet for research purposes.
As of October 2022, the project has found a total of seventeen Mersenne primes, fifteen of which were the largest known prime number at their respective times of discovery. The largest known prime as of September 2022 is 2 − 1 (or M82,589,933 for short) and was discovered on December 7, 2018, by Patrick Laroche. On December 4, 2020, the project passed a major milestone after all exponents below 100 million were checked at least once.
From its inception until 2018, the project relied primarily on the Lucas–Lehmer primality test as it is an algorithm that is both specialized for testing Mersenne primes and particularly efficient on binary computer architectures. Before applying it to a given Mersenne number, there was a trial division phase, used to rapidly eliminate many Mersenne numbers with small factors. Pollard's p − 1 algorithm is also used to search for smooth factors.
In 2018, GIMPS adopted the Fermat primality test as an alternative option for primality testing, while keeping the Lucas-Lehmer test as a double-check for Mersenne numbers detected as probable primes by the Fermat test. (While the Lucas-Lehmer test is deterministic and the Fermat test is only probabilistic, the probability of the Fermat test finding a Fermat pseudoprime that is not prime is vastly lower than the error rate of the Lucas-Lehmer test due to computer hardware errors.)
In September 2020, GIMPS began to support primality proofs based on verifiable delay functions. The proof files are generated while the Fermat primality test is in progress. These proofs, together with an error-checking algorithm devised by Robert Gerbicz, provide a complete confidence in the correctness of the test result and eliminate the need for double checks. First-time Lucas-Lehmer tests were deprecated in April 2021.
GIMPS also has sub-projects to factor known composite Mersenne and Fermat numbers.
The project began in early January 1996, with a program that ran on i386 computers. The name for the project was coined by Luke Welsh, one of its earlier searchers and the co-discoverer of the 29th Mersenne prime. Within a few months, several dozen people had joined, and over a thousand by the end of the first year. Joel Armengaud, a participant, discovered the primality of M1,398,269 on November 13, 1996. Since then, GIMPS has discovered a new Mersenne prime every 1 to 2 years on average. However, no new Mersenne prime has been found since 2018, constituting the longest period without a new discovery since the start of the project (over 4 years as of February 2023).
As of July 2022, GIMPS has a sustained average aggregate throughput of approximately 4.71 PetaFLOPS (or PFLOPS). In November 2012, GIMPS maintained 95 TFLOPS, theoretically earning the GIMPS virtual computer a rank of 330 among the TOP500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The preceding place was then held by an 'HP Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c G7' of Hewlett-Packard. As of July 2021 TOP500 results, the current GIMPS numbers would no longer make the list.
Previously, this was approximately 50 TFLOPS in early 2010, 30 TFLOPS in mid-2008, 20 TFLOPS in mid-2006, and 14 TFLOPS in early 2004.
Although the GIMPS software's source code is publicly available, technically it is not free software, since it has a restriction that users must abide by the project's distribution terms. Specifically, if the software is used to discover a prime number with at least 100,000,000 decimal digits, the user will only win $50,000 of the $150,000 prize offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Third-party programs for testing Mersenne numbers, such as Mlucas and Glucas (for non-x86 systems), do not have this restriction.
GIMPS also "reserves the right to change this EULA without notice and with reasonable retroactive effect."
All Mersenne primes are of the form Mp = 2 − 1, where p is a prime number itself. The smallest Mersenne prime in this table is 2 − 1.
The first column is the rank of the Mersenne prime in the (ordered) sequence of all Mersenne primes; GIMPS has found all known Mersenne primes beginning with the 35th.
As of October 8, 2023, 65,317,513 is the largest exponent below which all other prime exponents have been checked twice, so it is not verified whether any undiscovered Mersenne primes exist between the 48th (M57885161) and the 51st (M82589933) on this chart; the ranking is therefore provisional. Furthermore, 113,455,873 is the largest exponent below which all other prime exponents have been tested at least once, so all Mersenne numbers below the 51st (M82589933) have been tested.
The number M82589933 has 24,862,048 decimal digits. To help visualize the size of this number, if it were to be saved to disk, the resulting text file would be nearly 25 megabytes long (most books in plain text format clock in under two megabytes). A standard word processor layout (50 lines per page, 75 digits per line) would require 6,629 pages to display it. If one were to print it out using standard printer paper, single-sided, it would require approximately 14 reams (14 × 500 = 7000 sheets) of paper.
Whenever a possible prime is reported to the server, it is verified first (by one or more independent tests on different machines) before being announced. The importance of this was illustrated in 2003, when a false positive was reported to the server as being a Mersenne prime but verification failed.
The official "discovery date" of a prime is the date that a human first noticed the result for the prime, which may differ from the date that the result was first reported to the server. For example, M74207281 was reported to the server on September 17, 2015, but the report was overlooked until January 7, 2016. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available software to search for Mersenne prime numbers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "GIMPS was founded in 1996 by George Woltman, who also wrote the Prime95 client and its Linux port MPrime. Scott Kurowski wrote the back end PrimeNet server to demonstrate volunteer computing software by Entropia, a company he founded in 1997. GIMPS is registered as Mersenne Research, Inc. with Kurowski as Executive Vice President and board director. GIMPS is said to be one of the first large scale volunteer computing projects over the Internet for research purposes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As of October 2022, the project has found a total of seventeen Mersenne primes, fifteen of which were the largest known prime number at their respective times of discovery. The largest known prime as of September 2022 is 2 − 1 (or M82,589,933 for short) and was discovered on December 7, 2018, by Patrick Laroche. On December 4, 2020, the project passed a major milestone after all exponents below 100 million were checked at least once.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "From its inception until 2018, the project relied primarily on the Lucas–Lehmer primality test as it is an algorithm that is both specialized for testing Mersenne primes and particularly efficient on binary computer architectures. Before applying it to a given Mersenne number, there was a trial division phase, used to rapidly eliminate many Mersenne numbers with small factors. Pollard's p − 1 algorithm is also used to search for smooth factors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 2018, GIMPS adopted the Fermat primality test as an alternative option for primality testing, while keeping the Lucas-Lehmer test as a double-check for Mersenne numbers detected as probable primes by the Fermat test. (While the Lucas-Lehmer test is deterministic and the Fermat test is only probabilistic, the probability of the Fermat test finding a Fermat pseudoprime that is not prime is vastly lower than the error rate of the Lucas-Lehmer test due to computer hardware errors.)",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In September 2020, GIMPS began to support primality proofs based on verifiable delay functions. The proof files are generated while the Fermat primality test is in progress. These proofs, together with an error-checking algorithm devised by Robert Gerbicz, provide a complete confidence in the correctness of the test result and eliminate the need for double checks. First-time Lucas-Lehmer tests were deprecated in April 2021.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "GIMPS also has sub-projects to factor known composite Mersenne and Fermat numbers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The project began in early January 1996, with a program that ran on i386 computers. The name for the project was coined by Luke Welsh, one of its earlier searchers and the co-discoverer of the 29th Mersenne prime. Within a few months, several dozen people had joined, and over a thousand by the end of the first year. Joel Armengaud, a participant, discovered the primality of M1,398,269 on November 13, 1996. Since then, GIMPS has discovered a new Mersenne prime every 1 to 2 years on average. However, no new Mersenne prime has been found since 2018, constituting the longest period without a new discovery since the start of the project (over 4 years as of February 2023).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As of July 2022, GIMPS has a sustained average aggregate throughput of approximately 4.71 PetaFLOPS (or PFLOPS). In November 2012, GIMPS maintained 95 TFLOPS, theoretically earning the GIMPS virtual computer a rank of 330 among the TOP500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The preceding place was then held by an 'HP Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c G7' of Hewlett-Packard. As of July 2021 TOP500 results, the current GIMPS numbers would no longer make the list.",
"title": "Status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Previously, this was approximately 50 TFLOPS in early 2010, 30 TFLOPS in mid-2008, 20 TFLOPS in mid-2006, and 14 TFLOPS in early 2004.",
"title": "Status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Although the GIMPS software's source code is publicly available, technically it is not free software, since it has a restriction that users must abide by the project's distribution terms. Specifically, if the software is used to discover a prime number with at least 100,000,000 decimal digits, the user will only win $50,000 of the $150,000 prize offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.",
"title": "Software license"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Third-party programs for testing Mersenne numbers, such as Mlucas and Glucas (for non-x86 systems), do not have this restriction.",
"title": "Software license"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "GIMPS also \"reserves the right to change this EULA without notice and with reasonable retroactive effect.\"",
"title": "Software license"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "All Mersenne primes are of the form Mp = 2 − 1, where p is a prime number itself. The smallest Mersenne prime in this table is 2 − 1.",
"title": "Primes found"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The first column is the rank of the Mersenne prime in the (ordered) sequence of all Mersenne primes; GIMPS has found all known Mersenne primes beginning with the 35th.",
"title": "Primes found"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As of October 8, 2023, 65,317,513 is the largest exponent below which all other prime exponents have been checked twice, so it is not verified whether any undiscovered Mersenne primes exist between the 48th (M57885161) and the 51st (M82589933) on this chart; the ranking is therefore provisional. Furthermore, 113,455,873 is the largest exponent below which all other prime exponents have been tested at least once, so all Mersenne numbers below the 51st (M82589933) have been tested.",
"title": "Primes found"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The number M82589933 has 24,862,048 decimal digits. To help visualize the size of this number, if it were to be saved to disk, the resulting text file would be nearly 25 megabytes long (most books in plain text format clock in under two megabytes). A standard word processor layout (50 lines per page, 75 digits per line) would require 6,629 pages to display it. If one were to print it out using standard printer paper, single-sided, it would require approximately 14 reams (14 × 500 = 7000 sheets) of paper.",
"title": "Primes found"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Whenever a possible prime is reported to the server, it is verified first (by one or more independent tests on different machines) before being announced. The importance of this was illustrated in 2003, when a false positive was reported to the server as being a Mersenne prime but verification failed.",
"title": "Primes found"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The official \"discovery date\" of a prime is the date that a human first noticed the result for the prime, which may differ from the date that the result was first reported to the server. For example, M74207281 was reported to the server on September 17, 2015, but the report was overlooked until January 7, 2016.",
"title": "Primes found"
}
]
| The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available software to search for Mersenne prime numbers. GIMPS was founded in 1996 by George Woltman, who also wrote the Prime95 client and its Linux port MPrime. Scott Kurowski wrote the back end PrimeNet server to demonstrate volunteer computing software by Entropia, a company he founded in 1997. GIMPS is registered as Mersenne Research, Inc. with Kurowski as Executive Vice President and board director. GIMPS is said to be one of the first large scale volunteer computing projects over the Internet for research purposes. As of October 2022, the project has found a total of seventeen Mersenne primes, fifteen of which were the largest known prime number at their respective times of discovery. The largest known prime as of September 2022 is 282,589,933 − 1 and was discovered on December 7, 2018, by Patrick Laroche. On December 4, 2020, the project passed a major milestone after all exponents below 100 million were checked at least once. From its inception until 2018, the project relied primarily on the Lucas–Lehmer primality test as it is an algorithm that is both specialized for testing Mersenne primes and particularly efficient on binary computer architectures. Before applying it to a given Mersenne number, there was a trial division phase, used to rapidly eliminate many Mersenne numbers with small factors. Pollard's p − 1 algorithm is also used to search for smooth factors. In 2018, GIMPS adopted the Fermat primality test as an alternative option for primality testing, while keeping the Lucas-Lehmer test as a double-check for Mersenne numbers detected as probable primes by the Fermat test. In September 2020, GIMPS began to support primality proofs based on verifiable delay functions. The proof files are generated while the Fermat primality test is in progress. These proofs, together with an error-checking algorithm devised by Robert Gerbicz, provide a complete confidence in the correctness of the test result and eliminate the need for double checks. First-time Lucas-Lehmer tests were deprecated in April 2021. GIMPS also has sub-projects to factor known composite Mersenne and Fermat numbers. | 2001-12-05T21:05:28Z | 2023-11-15T02:19:20Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Internet_Mersenne_Prime_Search |
12,919 | Game.com | The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics on September 12, 1997. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999. The first version of the Game.com can be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem for Internet connectivity, hence its name referencing the top level domain .com. It was the first video game console to include a touchscreen and the first handheld console to include Internet connectivity.
Tiger Electronics had previously introduced its R-Zone game console in 1995 – as a competitor to Nintendo's Virtual Boy – but the system was a failure. Prior to the R-Zone, Tiger had also manufactured handheld games consisting of LCD screens with imprinted graphics.
By February 1997, Tiger was planning to release a new game console as a direct competitor to Nintendo's Game Boy. Prior to its release, Tiger Electronics stated that the Game.com would "change the gaming world as we know it," while a spokesperson stated that it would be "one of this summer's hits." The Game.com, the only new game console of the year, was on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May 1997, with sales expected to begin in July. Dennis Lynch of the Chicago Tribune considered the Game.com to be the "most interesting hand-held device" on display at E3, describing it as a "sort of Game Boy for adults".
The Game.com was released in the United States on September 12, 1997, with a retail price of $69.95, while an Internet-access cartridge was scheduled for release in October. Lights Out was included with the console as a pack-in game and Solitaire was built into the handheld itself. The console's release marked Tiger's largest product launch ever. Tiger also launched a website for the system at the domain "game.com". The Game.com was marketed with a television commercial in which a spokesperson insults gamers who ask questions about the console, while stating that it "plays more games than you idiots have brain cells"; GamesRadar stated that the advertisement "probably didn't help matters much". By the end of 1997, the console had been released in the United Kingdom, at a retail price of £79.99.
The Game.com came in a black-and-white color, and featured a design similar to Sega's Game Gear console. The screen is larger than the Game Boy's and has higher resolution. The Game.com included a phone directory, a calculator, and a calendar, and had an older target audience with its PDA features. Tiger designed the console's features to be simple and cheap. The device was powered by four AA batteries, and an optional AC adapter was also available. One of the major peripherals that Tiger produced for the system was the compete.com serial cable, allowing players to connect their consoles to play multiplayer games. The console includes two game cartridge slots. In addition to reducing the need to swap out cartridges, this enabled Game.com games to include online elements, since both a game cartridge and the modem cartridge could be inserted at the same time.
The Game.com was the first video game console to feature a touchscreen and also the first handheld video game console to have Internet connectivity. The Game.com's black-and-white monochrome touchscreen measures approximately one and a half inches by two inches, and is divided into square zones that are imprinted onto the screen itself, to aid players in determining where to apply the stylus. The touchscreen lacks a backlight. The Game.com was also the first handheld gaming console to have internal memory, which is used to save information such as high scores and contact information.
As 1998 opened, the Game.com was considered the only remaining viable competitor for the Game Boy, and Tiger planned to emphasize the Game.com's internet capabilities in marketing, as well as release new games based on major films and Giga Pets.
Because of poor sales with the original Game.com, Tiger developed an updated version known as the Game.com Pocket Pro. The console was shown at the American International Toy Fair in February 1999, and was later shown along with several future games at E3 in May 1999. The Game.com Pocket Pro had been released by June 1999, with a retail price of $29.99. The new console was available in five different colors: green, orange, pink, purple, and teal.
Although it lacked color like its predecessor, the Pocket Pro was reduced in size to be equivalent to the Game Boy Pocket. The screen size was also reduced, and the new console featured only one cartridge slot. Unlike the original Game.com, the Pocket Pro required only two AA batteries. The Game.com Pocket Pro included a phone directory, a calendar and a calculator, but lacked Internet capabilities.
The Game.com Pocket Pro's primary competitor was the Game Boy Color. Despite several games based on popular franchises, the Game.com console line failed to sell in large numbers, and was discontinued in 2000 because of poor sales. The Game.com was a commercial failure, with less than 300,000 units sold, although the idea of a touchscreen would later be used successfully in the Nintendo DS, released in 2004.
Accessing the Internet required the use of an Internet cartridge and a dial-up modem, neither of which were included with the console. Email messages could be read and sent on the Game.com using the Internet cartridge, and the Game.com supported text-only web browsing through Internet service providers. Email messages could not be saved to the Game.com's internal memory. In addition to a Game.com-branded 14.4 kbit/s modem, Tiger also offered an Internet service provider through Delphi that was made to work specifically with the Game.com.
Tiger subsequently released the Web Link cartridge, allowing players to connect their system to a desktop computer. Using the Web Link cartridge, players could upload their high scores to the Game.com website for a chance to be listed on a webpage featuring the top high scores. None of the console's games made use of the Internet feature.
Several games were available for the Game.com at the time of its 1997 launch, in comparison to hundreds of games available for the Game Boy. Tiger planned to have a dozen games available by the end of 1997, and hoped to have as many as 50 games available in 1998, with all of them to be produced or adapted internally by Tiger. Some third parties expressed interest in developing for the system, but Tiger decided against signing any initially. Tiger secured licenses for several popular game series, including Duke Nukem, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Game prices initially ranged between $19 and $29. Cartridge size was in the 16 megabit range.
At the time of the Pocket Pro's 1999 release, the Game.com library consisted primarily of games intended for an older audience. Some games that were planned for release in 1999 would be exclusive to Game.com consoles. Game prices at that time ranged from $14 to $30. Twenty games were ultimately released for the Game.com, most of them developed internally by Tiger, in addition to the built-in game Solitaire.
The following is a list of games that were announced in various forms or known to be in development for the console but were never released.
At the time of the Game.com's launch in 1997, Chris Johnston of VideoGameSpot believed that the console would have difficulty competing against the Game Boy. Johnston also believed that text-based Internet and email would attract only limited appeal, stating that such features were outdated. Johnston concluded that the Game.com "is a decent system, but Nintendo is just way too powerful in the industry." Chip and Jonathan Carter wrote that the console did not play action games as well as it did with other games, although they praised the console's various options and wrote, "Graphically, we'd have to say this has the potential to perform better than Game Boy. As for sound, Game.com delivers better than any other hand-held on the market." A team of four Electronic Gaming Monthly editors gave the Game.com scores of 5.5, 4.5, 5.0, and 4.0. They were impressed by the PDA features and touchscreen, but commented that the games library had thus far failed to deliver on the Game.com's great potential. They elaborated that while the non-scrolling games, particularly Wheel of Fortune, were great fun and made good use of the touchscreen, the more conventional action games were disappointing and suffered from prominent screen blurring.
Wisconsin State Journal stated that the Game.com offered "some serious" advantages over the Game Boy, including its touchscreen. It was also stated that in comparison to the Game Boy, the Game.com's 8-bit processor provided "marginal improvements" in the quality of speed and graphics. The newspaper noted that the Game.com had a "tiny, somewhat blurry screen." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a negative review of the Game.com, particularly criticizing Internet connectivity issues. Also criticized was the system's lack of a backlit screen, as the use of exterior lighting could cause difficulty in viewing the screen, which was highly reflective.
Steven L. Kent, writing for the Chicago Tribune, wrote that the console had an elegant design, as well as better sound and a higher-definition screen than the Game Boy: "Elegant design, however, has not translated into ideal game play. Though Tiger has produced fighting, racing and shooting games for Game.com, the games have noticeably slow frame rates. The racing game looks like a flickering silent picture show." Cameron Davis of VideoGames.com wrote, "Sure, this is no Game Boy Color-killer, but the Game.Com was never meant to be. To deride it by comparing it with more powerful and established formats would be a bit unfair". Davis also wrote, "The touch screen is pretty sensitive, but it works well - you won't need more than a few seconds to get used to it." However, he criticized the screen's squared zones: "more often than not it proves distracting when you are playing games that don't require it."
GamePro criticized the Pocket Pro's lack of screen color and its difficult controls, but considered its two best qualities to be its cheap price and a game library of titles exclusive to the console. The Philadelphia Inquirer also criticized the Pocket Pro's lack of a color screen, as well as "frustrating" gameplay caused by the "unresponsive" controls, including the stylus. The newspaper stated that, "Even at $29.99, the pocket.pro is no bargain."
Brett Alan Weiss of the website AllGame wrote, "The Game.com, the little system that (almost) could, constantly amazes me with the strength and scope of its sound effects. [...] It's astounding what power comes out of such a tiny little speaker." In 2004, Kent included the modem and "some PDA functionality" as the console's strengths, while listing its "Slow processor" and "lackluster library of games" as weaknesses. In 2006, Engadget stated that "You can't fault Tiger Electronics for their ambition," but wrote that the Game.com "didn't do any one thing particularly well", criticizing its text-only Internet access and stating that its "disappointing games were made even worse" by the "outdated" screen.
In 2009, PC World ranked the Game.com at number nine on its list of the 10 worst video game systems ever released, criticizing its Internet aspect, its game library, its low-resolution touchscreen, and its "Silly name that attempted to capitalize on Internet mania." However, PC World positively noted its "primitive" PDA features and its solitaire game, considered by the magazine to be the system's best game. In 2011, Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar ranked the Game.com at number 3 on a list of 7 failed handheld consoles, writing that while the Game.com had several licensed games, it "doesn't actually mean much when they all look like cruddy, poorly animated Game Boy ports." Raparaz also stated that the Game.com "looked dated even by Game Boy standards," noting that the Game Boy Pocket had a sharper display screen. Reparaz stated that the Game.com's continuation into 2000 was a "pretty significant achievement" considering its competition from the Game Boy Color.
In 2013, Jeff Dunn of GamesRadar criticized the Game.com for its "blurry" and "imprecise" touchscreen, as well as its "limited and unwieldy" Internet and email interfaces. Dunn also criticized the "painful" Internet setup process, and stated that all of the console's available games were "ugly and horrible." Dunn noted, however, that the Game.com's Internet aspect was a "smart" feature. In 2016, Motherboard stated that the Game.com was "perhaps one of the worst consoles of all time," due largely to its low screen quality. In 2018, Nadia Oxford of USgamer noted the Game.com's "paper-thin" library of games and stated that the console "died in record time because it was poorly-made, to say the least." | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics on September 12, 1997. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999. The first version of the Game.com can be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem for Internet connectivity, hence its name referencing the top level domain .com. It was the first video game console to include a touchscreen and the first handheld console to include Internet connectivity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Tiger Electronics had previously introduced its R-Zone game console in 1995 – as a competitor to Nintendo's Virtual Boy – but the system was a failure. Prior to the R-Zone, Tiger had also manufactured handheld games consisting of LCD screens with imprinted graphics.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "By February 1997, Tiger was planning to release a new game console as a direct competitor to Nintendo's Game Boy. Prior to its release, Tiger Electronics stated that the Game.com would \"change the gaming world as we know it,\" while a spokesperson stated that it would be \"one of this summer's hits.\" The Game.com, the only new game console of the year, was on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May 1997, with sales expected to begin in July. Dennis Lynch of the Chicago Tribune considered the Game.com to be the \"most interesting hand-held device\" on display at E3, describing it as a \"sort of Game Boy for adults\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Game.com was released in the United States on September 12, 1997, with a retail price of $69.95, while an Internet-access cartridge was scheduled for release in October. Lights Out was included with the console as a pack-in game and Solitaire was built into the handheld itself. The console's release marked Tiger's largest product launch ever. Tiger also launched a website for the system at the domain \"game.com\". The Game.com was marketed with a television commercial in which a spokesperson insults gamers who ask questions about the console, while stating that it \"plays more games than you idiots have brain cells\"; GamesRadar stated that the advertisement \"probably didn't help matters much\". By the end of 1997, the console had been released in the United Kingdom, at a retail price of £79.99.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Game.com came in a black-and-white color, and featured a design similar to Sega's Game Gear console. The screen is larger than the Game Boy's and has higher resolution. The Game.com included a phone directory, a calculator, and a calendar, and had an older target audience with its PDA features. Tiger designed the console's features to be simple and cheap. The device was powered by four AA batteries, and an optional AC adapter was also available. One of the major peripherals that Tiger produced for the system was the compete.com serial cable, allowing players to connect their consoles to play multiplayer games. The console includes two game cartridge slots. In addition to reducing the need to swap out cartridges, this enabled Game.com games to include online elements, since both a game cartridge and the modem cartridge could be inserted at the same time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Game.com was the first video game console to feature a touchscreen and also the first handheld video game console to have Internet connectivity. The Game.com's black-and-white monochrome touchscreen measures approximately one and a half inches by two inches, and is divided into square zones that are imprinted onto the screen itself, to aid players in determining where to apply the stylus. The touchscreen lacks a backlight. The Game.com was also the first handheld gaming console to have internal memory, which is used to save information such as high scores and contact information.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As 1998 opened, the Game.com was considered the only remaining viable competitor for the Game Boy, and Tiger planned to emphasize the Game.com's internet capabilities in marketing, as well as release new games based on major films and Giga Pets.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Because of poor sales with the original Game.com, Tiger developed an updated version known as the Game.com Pocket Pro. The console was shown at the American International Toy Fair in February 1999, and was later shown along with several future games at E3 in May 1999. The Game.com Pocket Pro had been released by June 1999, with a retail price of $29.99. The new console was available in five different colors: green, orange, pink, purple, and teal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Although it lacked color like its predecessor, the Pocket Pro was reduced in size to be equivalent to the Game Boy Pocket. The screen size was also reduced, and the new console featured only one cartridge slot. Unlike the original Game.com, the Pocket Pro required only two AA batteries. The Game.com Pocket Pro included a phone directory, a calendar and a calculator, but lacked Internet capabilities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Game.com Pocket Pro's primary competitor was the Game Boy Color. Despite several games based on popular franchises, the Game.com console line failed to sell in large numbers, and was discontinued in 2000 because of poor sales. The Game.com was a commercial failure, with less than 300,000 units sold, although the idea of a touchscreen would later be used successfully in the Nintendo DS, released in 2004.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Accessing the Internet required the use of an Internet cartridge and a dial-up modem, neither of which were included with the console. Email messages could be read and sent on the Game.com using the Internet cartridge, and the Game.com supported text-only web browsing through Internet service providers. Email messages could not be saved to the Game.com's internal memory. In addition to a Game.com-branded 14.4 kbit/s modem, Tiger also offered an Internet service provider through Delphi that was made to work specifically with the Game.com.",
"title": "Internet features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Tiger subsequently released the Web Link cartridge, allowing players to connect their system to a desktop computer. Using the Web Link cartridge, players could upload their high scores to the Game.com website for a chance to be listed on a webpage featuring the top high scores. None of the console's games made use of the Internet feature.",
"title": "Internet features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Several games were available for the Game.com at the time of its 1997 launch, in comparison to hundreds of games available for the Game Boy. Tiger planned to have a dozen games available by the end of 1997, and hoped to have as many as 50 games available in 1998, with all of them to be produced or adapted internally by Tiger. Some third parties expressed interest in developing for the system, but Tiger decided against signing any initially. Tiger secured licenses for several popular game series, including Duke Nukem, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Game prices initially ranged between $19 and $29. Cartridge size was in the 16 megabit range.",
"title": "Games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "At the time of the Pocket Pro's 1999 release, the Game.com library consisted primarily of games intended for an older audience. Some games that were planned for release in 1999 would be exclusive to Game.com consoles. Game prices at that time ranged from $14 to $30. Twenty games were ultimately released for the Game.com, most of them developed internally by Tiger, in addition to the built-in game Solitaire.",
"title": "Games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The following is a list of games that were announced in various forms or known to be in development for the console but were never released.",
"title": "Games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "At the time of the Game.com's launch in 1997, Chris Johnston of VideoGameSpot believed that the console would have difficulty competing against the Game Boy. Johnston also believed that text-based Internet and email would attract only limited appeal, stating that such features were outdated. Johnston concluded that the Game.com \"is a decent system, but Nintendo is just way too powerful in the industry.\" Chip and Jonathan Carter wrote that the console did not play action games as well as it did with other games, although they praised the console's various options and wrote, \"Graphically, we'd have to say this has the potential to perform better than Game Boy. As for sound, Game.com delivers better than any other hand-held on the market.\" A team of four Electronic Gaming Monthly editors gave the Game.com scores of 5.5, 4.5, 5.0, and 4.0. They were impressed by the PDA features and touchscreen, but commented that the games library had thus far failed to deliver on the Game.com's great potential. They elaborated that while the non-scrolling games, particularly Wheel of Fortune, were great fun and made good use of the touchscreen, the more conventional action games were disappointing and suffered from prominent screen blurring.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Wisconsin State Journal stated that the Game.com offered \"some serious\" advantages over the Game Boy, including its touchscreen. It was also stated that in comparison to the Game Boy, the Game.com's 8-bit processor provided \"marginal improvements\" in the quality of speed and graphics. The newspaper noted that the Game.com had a \"tiny, somewhat blurry screen.\" The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a negative review of the Game.com, particularly criticizing Internet connectivity issues. Also criticized was the system's lack of a backlit screen, as the use of exterior lighting could cause difficulty in viewing the screen, which was highly reflective.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Steven L. Kent, writing for the Chicago Tribune, wrote that the console had an elegant design, as well as better sound and a higher-definition screen than the Game Boy: \"Elegant design, however, has not translated into ideal game play. Though Tiger has produced fighting, racing and shooting games for Game.com, the games have noticeably slow frame rates. The racing game looks like a flickering silent picture show.\" Cameron Davis of VideoGames.com wrote, \"Sure, this is no Game Boy Color-killer, but the Game.Com was never meant to be. To deride it by comparing it with more powerful and established formats would be a bit unfair\". Davis also wrote, \"The touch screen is pretty sensitive, but it works well - you won't need more than a few seconds to get used to it.\" However, he criticized the screen's squared zones: \"more often than not it proves distracting when you are playing games that don't require it.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "GamePro criticized the Pocket Pro's lack of screen color and its difficult controls, but considered its two best qualities to be its cheap price and a game library of titles exclusive to the console. The Philadelphia Inquirer also criticized the Pocket Pro's lack of a color screen, as well as \"frustrating\" gameplay caused by the \"unresponsive\" controls, including the stylus. The newspaper stated that, \"Even at $29.99, the pocket.pro is no bargain.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Brett Alan Weiss of the website AllGame wrote, \"The Game.com, the little system that (almost) could, constantly amazes me with the strength and scope of its sound effects. [...] It's astounding what power comes out of such a tiny little speaker.\" In 2004, Kent included the modem and \"some PDA functionality\" as the console's strengths, while listing its \"Slow processor\" and \"lackluster library of games\" as weaknesses. In 2006, Engadget stated that \"You can't fault Tiger Electronics for their ambition,\" but wrote that the Game.com \"didn't do any one thing particularly well\", criticizing its text-only Internet access and stating that its \"disappointing games were made even worse\" by the \"outdated\" screen.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 2009, PC World ranked the Game.com at number nine on its list of the 10 worst video game systems ever released, criticizing its Internet aspect, its game library, its low-resolution touchscreen, and its \"Silly name that attempted to capitalize on Internet mania.\" However, PC World positively noted its \"primitive\" PDA features and its solitaire game, considered by the magazine to be the system's best game. In 2011, Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar ranked the Game.com at number 3 on a list of 7 failed handheld consoles, writing that while the Game.com had several licensed games, it \"doesn't actually mean much when they all look like cruddy, poorly animated Game Boy ports.\" Raparaz also stated that the Game.com \"looked dated even by Game Boy standards,\" noting that the Game Boy Pocket had a sharper display screen. Reparaz stated that the Game.com's continuation into 2000 was a \"pretty significant achievement\" considering its competition from the Game Boy Color.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 2013, Jeff Dunn of GamesRadar criticized the Game.com for its \"blurry\" and \"imprecise\" touchscreen, as well as its \"limited and unwieldy\" Internet and email interfaces. Dunn also criticized the \"painful\" Internet setup process, and stated that all of the console's available games were \"ugly and horrible.\" Dunn noted, however, that the Game.com's Internet aspect was a \"smart\" feature. In 2016, Motherboard stated that the Game.com was \"perhaps one of the worst consoles of all time,\" due largely to its low screen quality. In 2018, Nadia Oxford of USgamer noted the Game.com's \"paper-thin\" library of games and stated that the console \"died in record time because it was poorly-made, to say the least.\"",
"title": "Reception"
}
]
| The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics on September 12, 1997. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999. The first version of the Game.com can be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem for Internet connectivity, hence its name referencing the top level domain .com. It was the first video game console to include a touchscreen and the first handheld console to include Internet connectivity. | 2001-12-05T22:38:12Z | 2023-10-28T18:47:07Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game.com |
12,920 | General Packet Radio Service | General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in response to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet-switched cellular technologies. It is now maintained by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
GPRS is typically sold according to the total volume of data transferred during the billing cycle, in contrast with circuit switched data, which is usually billed per minute of connection time, or sometimes by one-third minute increments. Usage above the GPRS bundled data cap may be charged per MB of data, speed limited, or disallowed.
GPRS is a best-effort service, implying variable throughput and latency that depend on the number of other users sharing the service concurrently, as opposed to circuit switching, where a certain quality of service (QoS) is guaranteed during the connection. In 2G systems, GPRS provides data rates of 56–114 kbit/s. 2G cellular technology combined with GPRS is sometimes described as 2.5G, that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time-division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases. Mobile devices with GPRS started to roll out around the year 2001.
The GPRS core network allows 2G, 3G and WCDMA mobile networks to transmit IP packets to external networks such as the Internet. The GPRS system is an integrated part of the GSM network switching subsystem.
GPRS extends the GSM Packet circuit switched data capabilities and makes the following services possible:
If SMS over GPRS is used, an SMS transmission speed of about 30 SMS messages per minute may be achieved. This is much faster than using the ordinary SMS over GSM, whose SMS transmission speed is about 6 to 10 SMS messages per minute.
As the GPRS standard is an extension of GSM capabilities, the service operates on the 2G and 3G cellular communication GSM frequencies. GPRS devices can typically use (one or more) of the frequencies within one of the frequency bands the radio supports (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). Depending on the device, location and intended use, regulations may be imposed either restricting or explicitly specifying authorised frequency bands.
GSM-850 and GSM-1900 are used in the United States, Canada, and many other countries in the Americas. GSM-900 and GSM-1800 are used in: Europe, Middle East, Africa and most of Asia. In South Americas these bands are used in Costa Rica (GSM-1800), Brazil (GSM-850, 900 and 1800), Guatemala (GSM-850, GSM-900 and 1900), El Salvador (GSM-850, GSM-900 and 1900). There is a more comprehensive record of international cellular service frequency assignments
GPRS supports the following protocols:
When TCP/IP is used, each phone can have one or more IP addresses allocated. GPRS will store and forward the IP packets to the phone even during handover. The TCP restores any packets lost (e.g. due to a radio noise induced pause).
Devices supporting GPRS are grouped into three classes:
Because a Class A device must service GPRS and GSM networks together, it effectively needs two radios. To avoid this hardware requirement, a GPRS mobile device may implement the dual transfer mode (DTM) feature. A DTM-capable mobile can handle both GSM packets and GPRS packets with network coordination to ensure both types are not transmitted at the same time. Such devices are considered pseudo-Class A, sometimes referred to as "simple class A". Some networks have supported DTM since 2007.
USB 3G/GPRS modems have a terminal-like interface over USB with V.42bis, and RFC 1144 data formats. Some models include an external antenna connector. Modem cards for laptop PCs, or external USB modems are available, similar in shape and size to a computer mouse, or a pendrive.
A GPRS connection is established by reference to its access point name (APN). The APN defines the services such as wireless application protocol (WAP) access, short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access.
In order to set up a GPRS connection for a wireless modem, a user must specify an APN, optionally a user name and password, and very rarely an IP address, provided by the network operator.
GSM module or GPRS modules are similar to modems, but there's one difference: the modem is an external piece of equipment, whereas the GSM module or GPRS module can be integrated within an electrical or electronic equipment. It is an embedded piece of hardware. A GSM mobile, on the other hand, is a complete embedded system in itself. It comes with embedded processors dedicated to provide a functional interface between the user and the mobile network.
The upload and download speeds that can be achieved in GPRS depend on a number of factors such as:
The multiple access methods used in GSM with GPRS are based on frequency-division duplex (FDD) and TDMA. During a session, a user is assigned to one pair of up-link and down-link frequency channels. This is combined with time domain statistical multiplexing which makes it possible for several users to share the same frequency channel. The packets have constant length, corresponding to a GSM time slot. The down-link uses first-come first-served packet scheduling, while the up-link uses a scheme very similar to reservation ALOHA (R-ALOHA). This means that slotted ALOHA (S-ALOHA) is used for reservation inquiries during a contention phase, and then the actual data is transferred using dynamic TDMA with first-come first-served.
The channel encoding process in GPRS consists of two steps: first, a cyclic code is used to add parity bits, which are also referred to as the Block Check Sequence, followed by coding with a possibly punctured convolutional code. The Coding Schemes CS-1 to CS-4 specify the number of parity bits generated by the cyclic code and the puncturing rate of the convolutional code. In Coding Schemes CS-1 through CS-3, the convolutional code is of rate 1/2, i.e. each input bit is converted into two coded bits. In Coding Schemes CS-2 and CS-3, the output of the convolutional code is punctured to achieve the desired code rate. In Coding Scheme CS-4, no convolutional coding is applied. The following table summarises the options.
The least robust, but fastest, coding scheme (CS-4) is available near a base transceiver station (BTS), while the most robust coding scheme (CS-1) is used when the mobile station (MS) is further away from a BTS.
Using the CS-4 it is possible to achieve a user speed of 20.0 kbit/s per time slot. However, using this scheme the cell coverage is 25% of normal. CS-1 can achieve a user speed of only 8.0 kbit/s per time slot, but has 98% of normal coverage. Newer network equipment can adapt the transfer speed automatically depending on the mobile location.
In addition to GPRS, there are two other GSM technologies which deliver data services: circuit-switched data (CSD) and high-speed circuit-switched data (HSCSD). In contrast to the shared nature of GPRS, these instead establish a dedicated circuit (usually billed per minute). Some applications such as video calling may prefer HSCSD, especially when there is a continuous flow of data between the endpoints.
The following table summarises some possible configurations of GPRS and circuit switched data services.
The multislot class determines the speed of data transfer available in the Uplink and Downlink directions. It is a value between 1 and 45 which the network uses to allocate radio channels in the uplink and downlink direction. Multislot class with values greater than 31 are referred to as high multislot classes.
A multislot allocation is represented as, for example, 5+2. The first number is the number of downlink timeslots and the second is the number of uplink timeslots allocated for use by the mobile station. A commonly used value is class 10 for many GPRS/EGPRS mobiles which uses a maximum of 4 timeslots in downlink direction and 2 timeslots in uplink direction. However simultaneously a maximum number of 5 simultaneous timeslots can be used in both uplink and downlink. The network will automatically configure for either 3+2 or 4+1 operation depending on the nature of data transfer.
Some high end mobiles, usually also supporting UMTS, also support GPRS/EDGE multislot class 32. According to 3GPP TS 45.002 (Release 12), Table B.1, mobile stations of this class support 5 timeslots in downlink and 3 timeslots in uplink with a maximum number of 6 simultaneously used timeslots. If data traffic is concentrated in downlink direction the network will configure the connection for 5+1 operation. When more data is transferred in the uplink the network can at any time change the constellation to 4+2 or 3+3. Under the best reception conditions, i.e. when the best EDGE modulation and coding scheme can be used, 5 timeslots can carry a bandwidth of 5*59.2 kbit/s = 296 kbit/s. In uplink direction, 3 timeslots can carry a bandwidth of 3*59.2 kbit/s = 177.6 kbit/s.
Each multislot class identifies the following:
The different multislot class specification is detailed in the Annex B of the 3GPP Technical Specification 45.002 (Multiplexing and multiple access on the radio path)
The maximum speed of a GPRS connection offered in 2003 was similar to a modem connection in an analog wire telephone network, about 32–40 kbit/s, depending on the phone used. Latency is very high; round-trip time (RTT) is typically about 600–700 ms and often reaches 1s. GPRS is typically prioritized lower than speech, and thus the quality of connection varies greatly.
Devices with latency/RTT improvements (via, for example, the extended UL TBF mode feature) are generally available. Also, network upgrades of features are available with certain operators. With these enhancements the active round-trip time can be reduced, resulting in significant increase in application-level throughput speeds.
GPRS opened in 2000 as a packet-switched data service embedded in the channel-switched cellular radio network GSM. GPRS extends the reach of the fixed Internet by connecting mobile terminals worldwide.
The CELLPAC protocol developed 1991–1993 was the trigger point for starting in 1993 the specification of standard GPRS by ETSI SMG. Especially, the CELLPAC Voice & Data functions introduced in a 1993 ETSI Workshop contribution anticipate what was later known to be the roots of GPRS. This workshop contribution is referenced in 22 GPRS-related US patents. Successor systems to GSM/GPRS like W-CDMA (UMTS) and LTE rely on key GPRS functions for mobile Internet access as introduced by CELLPAC.
According to a study on history of GPRS development, Bernhard Walke and his student Peter Decker are the inventors of GPRS — the first system providing worldwide mobile Internet access.
Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), also known as 2.75G, Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), and Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution, is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM. EDGE is considered a pre-3G radio technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition. EDGE was deployed on GSM networks beginning in 2003 – initially by Cingular (now AT&T) in the United States.
EDGE is standardized also by 3GPP as part of the GSM family. A variant, so called Compact-EDGE, was developed for use in a portion of Digital AMPS network spectrum.
Through the introduction of sophisticated methods of coding and transmitting data, EDGE delivers higher bit-rates per radio channel, resulting in a threefold increase in capacity and performance compared with an ordinary GSM/GPRS connection.
EDGE can be used for any packet switched application, such as an Internet connection. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in response to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet-switched cellular technologies. It is now maintained by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "GPRS is typically sold according to the total volume of data transferred during the billing cycle, in contrast with circuit switched data, which is usually billed per minute of connection time, or sometimes by one-third minute increments. Usage above the GPRS bundled data cap may be charged per MB of data, speed limited, or disallowed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "GPRS is a best-effort service, implying variable throughput and latency that depend on the number of other users sharing the service concurrently, as opposed to circuit switching, where a certain quality of service (QoS) is guaranteed during the connection. In 2G systems, GPRS provides data rates of 56–114 kbit/s. 2G cellular technology combined with GPRS is sometimes described as 2.5G, that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time-division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases. Mobile devices with GPRS started to roll out around the year 2001.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The GPRS core network allows 2G, 3G and WCDMA mobile networks to transmit IP packets to external networks such as the Internet. The GPRS system is an integrated part of the GSM network switching subsystem.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "GPRS extends the GSM Packet circuit switched data capabilities and makes the following services possible:",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "If SMS over GPRS is used, an SMS transmission speed of about 30 SMS messages per minute may be achieved. This is much faster than using the ordinary SMS over GSM, whose SMS transmission speed is about 6 to 10 SMS messages per minute.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As the GPRS standard is an extension of GSM capabilities, the service operates on the 2G and 3G cellular communication GSM frequencies. GPRS devices can typically use (one or more) of the frequencies within one of the frequency bands the radio supports (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). Depending on the device, location and intended use, regulations may be imposed either restricting or explicitly specifying authorised frequency bands.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "GSM-850 and GSM-1900 are used in the United States, Canada, and many other countries in the Americas. GSM-900 and GSM-1800 are used in: Europe, Middle East, Africa and most of Asia. In South Americas these bands are used in Costa Rica (GSM-1800), Brazil (GSM-850, 900 and 1800), Guatemala (GSM-850, GSM-900 and 1900), El Salvador (GSM-850, GSM-900 and 1900). There is a more comprehensive record of international cellular service frequency assignments",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "GPRS supports the following protocols:",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "When TCP/IP is used, each phone can have one or more IP addresses allocated. GPRS will store and forward the IP packets to the phone even during handover. The TCP restores any packets lost (e.g. due to a radio noise induced pause).",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Devices supporting GPRS are grouped into three classes:",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Because a Class A device must service GPRS and GSM networks together, it effectively needs two radios. To avoid this hardware requirement, a GPRS mobile device may implement the dual transfer mode (DTM) feature. A DTM-capable mobile can handle both GSM packets and GPRS packets with network coordination to ensure both types are not transmitted at the same time. Such devices are considered pseudo-Class A, sometimes referred to as \"simple class A\". Some networks have supported DTM since 2007.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "USB 3G/GPRS modems have a terminal-like interface over USB with V.42bis, and RFC 1144 data formats. Some models include an external antenna connector. Modem cards for laptop PCs, or external USB modems are available, similar in shape and size to a computer mouse, or a pendrive.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A GPRS connection is established by reference to its access point name (APN). The APN defines the services such as wireless application protocol (WAP) access, short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In order to set up a GPRS connection for a wireless modem, a user must specify an APN, optionally a user name and password, and very rarely an IP address, provided by the network operator.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "GSM module or GPRS modules are similar to modems, but there's one difference: the modem is an external piece of equipment, whereas the GSM module or GPRS module can be integrated within an electrical or electronic equipment. It is an embedded piece of hardware. A GSM mobile, on the other hand, is a complete embedded system in itself. It comes with embedded processors dedicated to provide a functional interface between the user and the mobile network.",
"title": "Technical overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The upload and download speeds that can be achieved in GPRS depend on a number of factors such as:",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The multiple access methods used in GSM with GPRS are based on frequency-division duplex (FDD) and TDMA. During a session, a user is assigned to one pair of up-link and down-link frequency channels. This is combined with time domain statistical multiplexing which makes it possible for several users to share the same frequency channel. The packets have constant length, corresponding to a GSM time slot. The down-link uses first-come first-served packet scheduling, while the up-link uses a scheme very similar to reservation ALOHA (R-ALOHA). This means that slotted ALOHA (S-ALOHA) is used for reservation inquiries during a contention phase, and then the actual data is transferred using dynamic TDMA with first-come first-served.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The channel encoding process in GPRS consists of two steps: first, a cyclic code is used to add parity bits, which are also referred to as the Block Check Sequence, followed by coding with a possibly punctured convolutional code. The Coding Schemes CS-1 to CS-4 specify the number of parity bits generated by the cyclic code and the puncturing rate of the convolutional code. In Coding Schemes CS-1 through CS-3, the convolutional code is of rate 1/2, i.e. each input bit is converted into two coded bits. In Coding Schemes CS-2 and CS-3, the output of the convolutional code is punctured to achieve the desired code rate. In Coding Scheme CS-4, no convolutional coding is applied. The following table summarises the options.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The least robust, but fastest, coding scheme (CS-4) is available near a base transceiver station (BTS), while the most robust coding scheme (CS-1) is used when the mobile station (MS) is further away from a BTS.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Using the CS-4 it is possible to achieve a user speed of 20.0 kbit/s per time slot. However, using this scheme the cell coverage is 25% of normal. CS-1 can achieve a user speed of only 8.0 kbit/s per time slot, but has 98% of normal coverage. Newer network equipment can adapt the transfer speed automatically depending on the mobile location.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In addition to GPRS, there are two other GSM technologies which deliver data services: circuit-switched data (CSD) and high-speed circuit-switched data (HSCSD). In contrast to the shared nature of GPRS, these instead establish a dedicated circuit (usually billed per minute). Some applications such as video calling may prefer HSCSD, especially when there is a continuous flow of data between the endpoints.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The following table summarises some possible configurations of GPRS and circuit switched data services.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The multislot class determines the speed of data transfer available in the Uplink and Downlink directions. It is a value between 1 and 45 which the network uses to allocate radio channels in the uplink and downlink direction. Multislot class with values greater than 31 are referred to as high multislot classes.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "A multislot allocation is represented as, for example, 5+2. The first number is the number of downlink timeslots and the second is the number of uplink timeslots allocated for use by the mobile station. A commonly used value is class 10 for many GPRS/EGPRS mobiles which uses a maximum of 4 timeslots in downlink direction and 2 timeslots in uplink direction. However simultaneously a maximum number of 5 simultaneous timeslots can be used in both uplink and downlink. The network will automatically configure for either 3+2 or 4+1 operation depending on the nature of data transfer.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Some high end mobiles, usually also supporting UMTS, also support GPRS/EDGE multislot class 32. According to 3GPP TS 45.002 (Release 12), Table B.1, mobile stations of this class support 5 timeslots in downlink and 3 timeslots in uplink with a maximum number of 6 simultaneously used timeslots. If data traffic is concentrated in downlink direction the network will configure the connection for 5+1 operation. When more data is transferred in the uplink the network can at any time change the constellation to 4+2 or 3+3. Under the best reception conditions, i.e. when the best EDGE modulation and coding scheme can be used, 5 timeslots can carry a bandwidth of 5*59.2 kbit/s = 296 kbit/s. In uplink direction, 3 timeslots can carry a bandwidth of 3*59.2 kbit/s = 177.6 kbit/s.",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Each multislot class identifies the following:",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The different multislot class specification is detailed in the Annex B of the 3GPP Technical Specification 45.002 (Multiplexing and multiple access on the radio path)",
"title": "Coding schemes and speeds"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The maximum speed of a GPRS connection offered in 2003 was similar to a modem connection in an analog wire telephone network, about 32–40 kbit/s, depending on the phone used. Latency is very high; round-trip time (RTT) is typically about 600–700 ms and often reaches 1s. GPRS is typically prioritized lower than speech, and thus the quality of connection varies greatly.",
"title": "Usability"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Devices with latency/RTT improvements (via, for example, the extended UL TBF mode feature) are generally available. Also, network upgrades of features are available with certain operators. With these enhancements the active round-trip time can be reduced, resulting in significant increase in application-level throughput speeds.",
"title": "Usability"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "GPRS opened in 2000 as a packet-switched data service embedded in the channel-switched cellular radio network GSM. GPRS extends the reach of the fixed Internet by connecting mobile terminals worldwide.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The CELLPAC protocol developed 1991–1993 was the trigger point for starting in 1993 the specification of standard GPRS by ETSI SMG. Especially, the CELLPAC Voice & Data functions introduced in a 1993 ETSI Workshop contribution anticipate what was later known to be the roots of GPRS. This workshop contribution is referenced in 22 GPRS-related US patents. Successor systems to GSM/GPRS like W-CDMA (UMTS) and LTE rely on key GPRS functions for mobile Internet access as introduced by CELLPAC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "According to a study on history of GPRS development, Bernhard Walke and his student Peter Decker are the inventors of GPRS — the first system providing worldwide mobile Internet access.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), also known as 2.75G, Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), and Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution, is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM. EDGE is considered a pre-3G radio technology and is part of ITU's 3G definition. EDGE was deployed on GSM networks beginning in 2003 – initially by Cingular (now AT&T) in the United States.",
"title": "Enhanced GPRS"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "EDGE is standardized also by 3GPP as part of the GSM family. A variant, so called Compact-EDGE, was developed for use in a portion of Digital AMPS network spectrum.",
"title": "Enhanced GPRS"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Through the introduction of sophisticated methods of coding and transmitting data, EDGE delivers higher bit-rates per radio channel, resulting in a threefold increase in capacity and performance compared with an ordinary GSM/GPRS connection.",
"title": "Enhanced GPRS"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "EDGE can be used for any packet switched application, such as an Internet connection.",
"title": "Enhanced GPRS"
}
]
| General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in response to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet-switched cellular technologies. It is now maintained by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). GPRS is typically sold according to the total volume of data transferred during the billing cycle, in contrast with circuit switched data, which is usually billed per minute of connection time, or sometimes by one-third minute increments. Usage above the GPRS bundled data cap may be charged per MB of data, speed limited, or disallowed. GPRS is a best-effort service, implying variable throughput and latency that depend on the number of other users sharing the service concurrently, as opposed to circuit switching, where a certain quality of service (QoS) is guaranteed during the connection. In 2G systems, GPRS provides data rates of 56–114 kbit/s. 2G cellular technology combined with GPRS is sometimes described as 2.5G, that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time-division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases. Mobile devices with GPRS started to roll out around the year 2001. | 2001-12-06T02:55:06Z | 2023-12-23T03:19:03Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service |
12,922 | Gnosis | Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (γνῶσις, gnōsis, f.). The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it signifies a spiritual knowledge or insight into humanity's real nature as divine, leading to the deliverance of the divine spark within humanity from the constraints of earthly existence.
Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun which means "knowledge" or "awareness." It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge (εἴδειν eídein), as with the French connaître compared with savoir, the Portuguese conhecer compared with saber, the Spanish conocer compared with saber, the Italian conoscere compared with sapere, the German kennen rather than wissen, or the Modern Greek γνωρίζω compared with ξέρω.
A related term is the adjective gnostikos, "cognitive", a reasonably common adjective in Classical Greek. The terms do not appear to indicate any mystic, esoteric or hidden meaning in the works of Plato, but instead expressed a sort of higher intelligence and ability analogous to talent.
Plato The Statesman 258e
In the Hellenistic era the term became associated with the mystery cults.
In the Acts of Thomas, translated by G.R.S. Mead, the "motions of gnosis" are also referred to as "kingly motions".
Irenaeus used the phrase "knowledge falsely so-called" (pseudonymos gnosis, from 1 Timothy 6:20) for the title of his book On the Detection and Overthrow of False Knowledge, that contains the adjective gnostikos, which is the source for the 17th-century English term "Gnosticism".
The difference and meaning of epignosis (Greek: ἐπίγνωσις) contrasted with gnosis is disputed. One proposed distinction is between the abstract and absolute knowledge (gnosis) and a practical or more literal knowledge (epignosis). Other interpretations have suggested that 2 Peter is referring to an "epignosis of Jesus Christ", what J. B. Lightfoot described as a "larger and more thorough knowledge". Conversion to Christianity is seen as evidence of the deeper knowledge protecting against false doctrine.
Gnosticism originated in the late 1st century CE in non-rabbinical Jewish and early Christian sects. In the formation of Christianity, various sectarian groups, labeled "gnostics" by their opponents, emphasised spiritual knowledge (gnosis) of the divine spark within, over faith (pistis) in the teachings and traditions of the various communities of Christians. Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God, and the Demiurge, "creator" of the material universe. The Gnostics considered the most essential part of the process of salvation to be this personal knowledge, in contrast to faith as an outlook in their worldview along with faith in the ecclesiastical authority.
In Gnosticism, the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden was praised and thanked for bringing knowledge (gnosis) to Adam and Eve and thereby freeing them from the malevolent Demiurge's control. Gnostic Christian doctrines rely on a dualistic cosmology that implies the eternal conflict between good and evil, and a conception of the serpent as the liberating savior and bestower of knowledge to humankind opposed to the Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament. Gnostic Christians considered the Hebrew God of the Old Testament as the evil, false god and creator of the material universe, and the Unknown God of the Gospel, the father of Jesus Christ and creator of the spiritual world, as the true, good God. In the Archontic, Sethian, and Ophite systems, Yaldabaoth (Yahweh) is regarded as the malevolent Demiurge and false god of the Old Testament who generated the material universe and keeps the souls trapped in physical bodies, imprisoned in the world full of pain and suffering that he created.
However, not all Gnostic movements regarded the creator of the material universe as inherently evil or malevolent. For instance, Valentinians believed that the Demiurge is merely an ignorant and incompetent creator, trying to fashion the world as good as he can, but lacking the proper power to maintain its goodness. All Gnostics were regarded as heretics by the proto-orthodox Early Church Fathers.
In Mandaeism, the concept of manda ("knowledge", "wisdom", "intellect") is roughly equivalent to the Gnostic concept of gnosis. Mandaeism ('having knowledge') is the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity. Mandaeans formally refer to themselves as Nasurai (Nasoraeans) meaning guardians or possessors of secret rites and knowledge. The Mandaeans emphasize salvation of the soul through secret knowledge (gnosis) of its divine origin. Mandaeism "provides knowledge of whence we have come and whither we are going."
Despite rejection of Gnosticism, Christianity has sometimes used the term or derivatives of it in a laudatory rather than lambasting sense.
The New Testament uses the term γνῶσις (Strong's G1108, Transliteration gnōsis) 28 times.
The Church Fathers used the word gnosis (knowledge) to mean spiritual knowledge or specific knowledge of the divine. This positive usage was to contrast it with how gnostic sectarians used the word. Cardiognosis ("knowledge of the heart") from Eastern Christianity related to the tradition of the starets and in Roman Catholic theology is the view that only God knows the condition of one's relationship with God. Boston College Catholic philosopher Dermot Moran notes that
...even in early Christianity, matters were complex, such that an anti-gnostic writer like Clement of Alexandria can regularly invoke the notion of gnostike theoria in a positive sense.
Gnosis in Orthodox Christian (primarily Eastern Orthodox) thought is the spiritual knowledge of a saint (one who has obtained theosis) or divinely-illuminated human being. Within the cultures of the term's provenance (Byzantine and Hellenic) Gnosis was a knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated in all and above all, rather than knowledge strictly into the finite, natural or material world. Gnosis is transcendental as well as mature understanding. It indicates direct spiritual, experiential knowledge and intuitive knowledge, mystic rather than that from rational or reasoned thinking. Gnosis itself is gained through understanding at which one can arrive via inner experience or contemplation such as an internal epiphany of intuition and external epiphany such as the theophany.
In the Philokalia, it is emphasized that such knowledge is not secret knowledge but rather a maturing, transcendent form of knowledge derived from contemplation (theoria resulting from practice of hesychasm), since knowledge cannot truly be derived from knowledge, but rather, knowledge can only be derived from theoria (to witness, see (vision) or experience). Knowledge, thus plays an important role in relation to theosis (deification/personal relationship with God) and theoria (revelation of the divine, vision of God). Gnosis, as the proper use of the spiritual or noetic faculty plays an important role in Orthodox Christian theology. Its importance in the economy of salvation is discussed periodically in the Philokalia where as direct, personal knowledge of God (noesis) it is distinguished from ordinary epistemological knowledge (episteme—i.e., speculative philosophy).
Knowledge (or gnosis) in Sufism refers to knowledge of Self and God. The gnostic is called al-arif bi'lah or "one who knows by God". The goal of the Sufi practitioner is to remove inner obstacles to the knowledge of God. Sufism, understood as the quest for Truth, is to seek for the separate existence of the Self to be consumed by Truth, as stated by the Sufi poet Mansur al-Hallaj, who was executed for saying "I am the Truth" (ana'l haqq).
The Greek word gnosis (knowledge) is used as a standard translation of the Hebrew word "knowledge" (דעת da'ath) in the Septuagint, thus:
The Lord gives wisdom [ħokhma] (sophia), from his face come knowledge [da'ath] (gnosis) and understanding [tevuna] (synesis)"
Philo also refers to the "knowledge" (gnosis) and "wisdom" (sophia) of God. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (γνῶσις, gnōsis, f.). The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it signifies a spiritual knowledge or insight into humanity's real nature as divine, leading to the deliverance of the divine spark within humanity from the constraints of earthly existence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun which means \"knowledge\" or \"awareness.\" It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge (εἴδειν eídein), as with the French connaître compared with savoir, the Portuguese conhecer compared with saber, the Spanish conocer compared with saber, the Italian conoscere compared with sapere, the German kennen rather than wissen, or the Modern Greek γνωρίζω compared with ξέρω.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "A related term is the adjective gnostikos, \"cognitive\", a reasonably common adjective in Classical Greek. The terms do not appear to indicate any mystic, esoteric or hidden meaning in the works of Plato, but instead expressed a sort of higher intelligence and ability analogous to talent.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Plato The Statesman 258e",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the Hellenistic era the term became associated with the mystery cults.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the Acts of Thomas, translated by G.R.S. Mead, the \"motions of gnosis\" are also referred to as \"kingly motions\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Irenaeus used the phrase \"knowledge falsely so-called\" (pseudonymos gnosis, from 1 Timothy 6:20) for the title of his book On the Detection and Overthrow of False Knowledge, that contains the adjective gnostikos, which is the source for the 17th-century English term \"Gnosticism\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The difference and meaning of epignosis (Greek: ἐπίγνωσις) contrasted with gnosis is disputed. One proposed distinction is between the abstract and absolute knowledge (gnosis) and a practical or more literal knowledge (epignosis). Other interpretations have suggested that 2 Peter is referring to an \"epignosis of Jesus Christ\", what J. B. Lightfoot described as a \"larger and more thorough knowledge\". Conversion to Christianity is seen as evidence of the deeper knowledge protecting against false doctrine.",
"title": "Comparison with epignosis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Gnosticism originated in the late 1st century CE in non-rabbinical Jewish and early Christian sects. In the formation of Christianity, various sectarian groups, labeled \"gnostics\" by their opponents, emphasised spiritual knowledge (gnosis) of the divine spark within, over faith (pistis) in the teachings and traditions of the various communities of Christians. Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God, and the Demiurge, \"creator\" of the material universe. The Gnostics considered the most essential part of the process of salvation to be this personal knowledge, in contrast to faith as an outlook in their worldview along with faith in the ecclesiastical authority.",
"title": "Gnosticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In Gnosticism, the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden was praised and thanked for bringing knowledge (gnosis) to Adam and Eve and thereby freeing them from the malevolent Demiurge's control. Gnostic Christian doctrines rely on a dualistic cosmology that implies the eternal conflict between good and evil, and a conception of the serpent as the liberating savior and bestower of knowledge to humankind opposed to the Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament. Gnostic Christians considered the Hebrew God of the Old Testament as the evil, false god and creator of the material universe, and the Unknown God of the Gospel, the father of Jesus Christ and creator of the spiritual world, as the true, good God. In the Archontic, Sethian, and Ophite systems, Yaldabaoth (Yahweh) is regarded as the malevolent Demiurge and false god of the Old Testament who generated the material universe and keeps the souls trapped in physical bodies, imprisoned in the world full of pain and suffering that he created.",
"title": "Gnosticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "However, not all Gnostic movements regarded the creator of the material universe as inherently evil or malevolent. For instance, Valentinians believed that the Demiurge is merely an ignorant and incompetent creator, trying to fashion the world as good as he can, but lacking the proper power to maintain its goodness. All Gnostics were regarded as heretics by the proto-orthodox Early Church Fathers.",
"title": "Gnosticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In Mandaeism, the concept of manda (\"knowledge\", \"wisdom\", \"intellect\") is roughly equivalent to the Gnostic concept of gnosis. Mandaeism ('having knowledge') is the only surviving Gnostic religion from antiquity. Mandaeans formally refer to themselves as Nasurai (Nasoraeans) meaning guardians or possessors of secret rites and knowledge. The Mandaeans emphasize salvation of the soul through secret knowledge (gnosis) of its divine origin. Mandaeism \"provides knowledge of whence we have come and whither we are going.\"",
"title": "Gnosticism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Despite rejection of Gnosticism, Christianity has sometimes used the term or derivatives of it in a laudatory rather than lambasting sense.",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The New Testament uses the term γνῶσις (Strong's G1108, Transliteration gnōsis) 28 times.",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Church Fathers used the word gnosis (knowledge) to mean spiritual knowledge or specific knowledge of the divine. This positive usage was to contrast it with how gnostic sectarians used the word. Cardiognosis (\"knowledge of the heart\") from Eastern Christianity related to the tradition of the starets and in Roman Catholic theology is the view that only God knows the condition of one's relationship with God. Boston College Catholic philosopher Dermot Moran notes that",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "...even in early Christianity, matters were complex, such that an anti-gnostic writer like Clement of Alexandria can regularly invoke the notion of gnostike theoria in a positive sense.",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Gnosis in Orthodox Christian (primarily Eastern Orthodox) thought is the spiritual knowledge of a saint (one who has obtained theosis) or divinely-illuminated human being. Within the cultures of the term's provenance (Byzantine and Hellenic) Gnosis was a knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated in all and above all, rather than knowledge strictly into the finite, natural or material world. Gnosis is transcendental as well as mature understanding. It indicates direct spiritual, experiential knowledge and intuitive knowledge, mystic rather than that from rational or reasoned thinking. Gnosis itself is gained through understanding at which one can arrive via inner experience or contemplation such as an internal epiphany of intuition and external epiphany such as the theophany.",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the Philokalia, it is emphasized that such knowledge is not secret knowledge but rather a maturing, transcendent form of knowledge derived from contemplation (theoria resulting from practice of hesychasm), since knowledge cannot truly be derived from knowledge, but rather, knowledge can only be derived from theoria (to witness, see (vision) or experience). Knowledge, thus plays an important role in relation to theosis (deification/personal relationship with God) and theoria (revelation of the divine, vision of God). Gnosis, as the proper use of the spiritual or noetic faculty plays an important role in Orthodox Christian theology. Its importance in the economy of salvation is discussed periodically in the Philokalia where as direct, personal knowledge of God (noesis) it is distinguished from ordinary epistemological knowledge (episteme—i.e., speculative philosophy).",
"title": "Christian usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Knowledge (or gnosis) in Sufism refers to knowledge of Self and God. The gnostic is called al-arif bi'lah or \"one who knows by God\". The goal of the Sufi practitioner is to remove inner obstacles to the knowledge of God. Sufism, understood as the quest for Truth, is to seek for the separate existence of the Self to be consumed by Truth, as stated by the Sufi poet Mansur al-Hallaj, who was executed for saying \"I am the Truth\" (ana'l haqq).",
"title": "Islam"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Greek word gnosis (knowledge) is used as a standard translation of the Hebrew word \"knowledge\" (דעת da'ath) in the Septuagint, thus:",
"title": "Jewish usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Lord gives wisdom [ħokhma] (sophia), from his face come knowledge [da'ath] (gnosis) and understanding [tevuna] (synesis)\"",
"title": "Jewish usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Philo also refers to the \"knowledge\" (gnosis) and \"wisdom\" (sophia) of God.",
"title": "Jewish usage"
}
]
| Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge. The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it signifies a spiritual knowledge or insight into humanity's real nature as divine, leading to the deliverance of the divine spark within humanity from the constraints of earthly existence. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-27T11:17:42Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis |
12,923 | Georgian | Georgian may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Georgian may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Georgian may refer to: | 2023-06-13T20:40:06Z | [
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"Template:Look from",
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian |
|
12,924 | Georgian architecture | Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover, George I, George II, George III, and George IV, who reigned in continuous succession from August 1714 to June 1830.
The Georgian cities of the British Isles were Edinburgh, Bath, pre-independence Dublin, and London, and to a lesser extent York and Bristol. The style was revived in the late 19th century in the United States as Colonial Revival architecture and in the early 20th century in Great Britain as Neo-Georgian architecture; in both it is also called Georgian Revival architecture.
In the United States, the term Georgian is generally used to describe all buildings from the period, regardless of style; in Britain it is generally restricted to buildings that are "architectural in intention", and have stylistic characteristics that are typical of the period, though that covers a wide range.
The Georgian style is highly variable, but marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome, as revived in Renaissance architecture. Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on the exterior. The period brought the vocabulary of classical architecture to smaller and more modest buildings than had been the case before, replacing English vernacular architecture (or becoming the new vernacular style) for almost all new middle-class homes and public buildings by the end of the period.
Georgian architecture is characterized by its proportion and balance; simple mathematical ratios were used to determine the height of a window in relation to its width or the shape of a room as a double cube. Regularity, as with ashlar (uniformly cut) stonework, was strongly approved, imbuing symmetry and adherence to classical rules: the lack of symmetry, where Georgian additions were added to earlier structures remaining visible, was deeply felt as a flaw, at least before John Nash began to introduce it in a variety of styles. Regularity of housefronts along a street was a desirable feature of Georgian town planning. Until the start of the Gothic Revival in the early 19th century, Georgian designs usually lay within the Classical orders of architecture and employed a decorative vocabulary derived from ancient Rome or Greece.
In towns, which expanded greatly during the period, landowners turned into property developers, and rows of identical terraced houses became the norm. Even the wealthy were persuaded to live in these in town, especially if provided with a square of garden in front of the house. There was an enormous amount of building in the period, all over the English-speaking world, and the standards of construction were generally high. Where they have not been demolished, large numbers of Georgian buildings have survived two centuries or more, and they still form large parts of the core of cities such as London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Newcastle upon Tyne and Bristol.
The period saw the growth of a distinct and trained architectural profession; before the mid-century "the high-sounding title, 'architect' was adopted by anyone who could get away with it". This contrasted with earlier styles, which were primarily disseminated among craftsmen through the direct experience of the apprenticeship system. But most buildings were still designed by builders and landlords together, and the wide spread of Georgian architecture, and the Georgian styles of design more generally, came from dissemination through pattern books and inexpensive suites of engravings. Authors such as the prolific William Halfpenny (active 1723–1755) had editions in America as well as Britain.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in the commonality of housing designs in Canada and the United States (though of a wider variety of styles) from the 19th century down to the 1950s, using pattern books drawn up by professional architects that were distributed by lumber companies and hardware stores to contractors and homebuilders.
From the mid-18th century, Georgian styles were assimilated into an architectural vernacular that became part and parcel of the training of every architect, designer, builder, carpenter, mason and plasterer, from Edinburgh to Maryland.
Georgian succeeded the English Baroque of Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, Thomas Archer, William Talman, and Nicholas Hawksmoor; this in fact continued into at least the 1720s, overlapping with a more restrained Georgian style. The architect James Gibbs was a transitional figure, his earlier buildings are Baroque, reflecting the time he spent in Rome in the early 18th century, but he adjusted his style after 1720. Major architects to promote the change in direction from Baroque were Colen Campbell, author of the influential book Vitruvius Britannicus (1715–1725); Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and his protégé William Kent; Isaac Ware; Henry Flitcroft and the Venetian Giacomo Leoni, who spent most of his career in England.
Other prominent architects of the early Georgian period include James Paine, Robert Taylor, and John Wood, the Elder. The European Grand Tour became very common for wealthy patrons in the period, and Italian influence remained dominant, though at the start of the period Hanover Square, Westminster (1713 on), developed and occupied by Whig supporters of the new dynasty, seems to have deliberately adopted German stylistic elements in their honour, especially vertical bands connecting the windows.
The styles that resulted fall within several categories. In the mainstream of Georgian style were both Palladian architecture—and its whimsical alternatives, Gothic and Chinoiserie, which were the English-speaking world's equivalent of European Rococo. From the mid-1760s a range of Neoclassical modes were fashionable, associated with the British architects Robert Adam, James Gibbs, Sir William Chambers, James Wyatt, George Dance the Younger, Henry Holland and Sir John Soane. John Nash was one of the most prolific architects of the late Georgian era known as The Regency style, he was responsible for designing large areas of London. Greek Revival architecture was added to the repertory, beginning around 1750, but increasing in popularity after 1800. Leading exponents were William Wilkins and Robert Smirke.
In Britain, brick or stone are almost invariably used; brick is often disguised with stucco. The Georgian terraces of Dublin are noted for their almost uniform use of red brick, for example, whereas equivalent terraces in Edinburgh are constructed from stone. In America and other colonies wood remained very common, as its availability and cost-ratio with the other materials was more favourable. Raked roofs were mostly covered in earthenware tiles until Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn led the development of the slate industry in Wales from the 1760s, which by the end of the century had become the usual material.
Versions of revived Palladian architecture dominated English country house architecture. Houses were increasingly placed in grand landscaped settings, and large houses were generally made wide and relatively shallow, largely to look more impressive from a distance. The height was usually highest in the centre, and the Baroque emphasis on corner pavilions often found on the continent generally avoided. In grand houses, an entrance hall led to steps up to a piano nobile or mezzanine floor where the main reception rooms were. Typically the basement area or "rustic", with kitchens, offices and service areas, as well as male guests with muddy boots, came some way above ground, and was lit by windows that were high on the inside, but just above ground level outside. A single block was typical, with perhaps a small court for carriages at the front marked off by railings and a gate, but rarely a stone gatehouse, or side wings around the court.
Windows in all types of buildings were large and regularly placed on a grid; this was partly to minimize window tax, which was in force throughout the period in the United Kingdom. Some windows were subsequently bricked-in. Their height increasingly varied between the floors, and they increasingly began below waist-height in the main rooms, making a small balcony desirable. Before this the internal plan and function of the rooms can generally not be deduced from the outside. To open these large windows the sash window, already developed by the 1670s, became very widespread. Corridor plans became universal inside larger houses.
Internal courtyards became more rare, except beside the stables, and the functional parts of the building were placed at the sides, or in separate buildings nearby hidden by trees. The views to and from the front and rear of the main block were concentrated on, with the side approaches usually much less important. The roof was typically invisible from the ground, though domes were sometimes visible in grander buildings. The roofline was generally clear of ornament except for a balustrade or the top of a pediment. Columns or pilasters, often topped by a pediment, were popular for ornament inside and out, and other ornament was generally geometrical or plant-based, rather than using the human figure.
Inside ornament was far more generous, and could sometimes be overwhelming. The chimneypiece continued to be the usual main focus of rooms, and was now given a classical treatment, and increasingly topped by a painting or a mirror. Plasterwork ceilings, carved wood, and bold schemes of wallpaint formed a backdrop to increasingly rich collections of furniture, paintings, porcelain, mirrors, and objets d'art of all kinds. Wood-panelling, very common since about 1500, fell from favour around the mid-century, and wallpaper included very expensive imports from China.
Smaller houses in the country, such as vicarages, were simple regular blocks with visible raked roofs, and a central doorway, often the only ornamented area. Similar houses, often referred to as "villas" became common around the fringes of the larger cities, especially London, and detached houses in towns remained common, though only the very rich could afford them in central London.
In towns even most better-off people lived in terraced houses, which typically opened straight onto the street, often with a few steps up to the door. There was often an open space, protected by iron railings, dropping down to the basement level, with a discreet entrance down steps off the street for servants and deliveries; this is known as the "area". This meant that the ground floor front was now removed and protected from the street and encouraged the main reception rooms to move there from the floor above. Often, when a new street or set of streets was developed, the road and pavements were raised up, and the gardens or yards behind the houses remained at a lower level, usually representing the original one.
Town terraced houses for all social classes remained resolutely tall and narrow, each dwelling occupying the whole height of the building. This contrasted with well-off continental dwellings, which had already begun to be formed of wide apartments occupying only one or two floors of a building; such arrangements were only typical in England when housing groups of batchelors, as in Oxbridge colleges, the lawyers in the Inns of Court or The Albany after it was converted in 1802. In the period in question, only in Edinburgh were working-class purpose-built tenements common, though lodgers were common in other cities. A curving crescent, often looking out at gardens or a park, was popular for terraces where space allowed. In early and central schemes of development, plots were sold and built on individually, though there was often an attempt to enforce some uniformity, but as development reached further out schemes were increasingly built as a uniform scheme and then sold.
The late Georgian period saw the birth of the semi-detached house, planned systematically, as a suburban compromise between the terraced houses of the city and the detached "villas" further out, where land was cheaper. There had been occasional examples in town centres going back to medieval times. Most early suburban examples are large, and in what are now the outer fringes of Central London, but were then in areas being built up for the first time. Blackheath, Chalk Farm and St John's Wood are among the areas contesting being the original home of the semi. Sir John Summerson gave primacy to the Eyre Estate of St John's Wood. A plan for this exists dated 1794, where "the whole development consists of pairs of semi-detached houses, So far as I know, this is the first recorded scheme of the kind". In fact the French Wars put an end to this scheme, but when the development was finally built it retained the semi-detached form, "a revolution of striking significance and far-reaching effect".
Until the Church Building Act 1818, the period saw relatively few churches built in Britain, which was already well-supplied, although in the later years of the period the demand for Non-conformist and Roman Catholic places of worship greatly increased. Anglican churches that were built were designed internally to allow maximum audibility, and visibility, for preaching, so the main nave was generally wider and shorter than in medieval plans, and often there were no side-aisles. Galleries were common in new churches. Especially in country parishes, the external appearance generally retained the familiar signifiers of a Gothic church, with a tower or spire, a large west front with one or more doors, and very large windows along the nave, but all with any ornament drawn from the classical vocabulary. Where funds permitted, a classical temple portico with columns and a pediment might be used at the west front. Interior decoration was generally chaste; however, walls often became lined with plaques and monuments to the more prosperous members of the congregation.
In the colonies new churches were certainly required, and generally repeated similar formulae. British Non-conformist churches were often more classical in mood, and tended not to feel the need for a tower or steeple.
The archetypal Georgian church is St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (1720), by Gibbs, who boldly added to the classical temple façade at the west end a large steeple on top of a tower, set back slightly from the main frontage. This formula shocked purists and foreigners, but became accepted and was very widely emulated, at home and in the colonies, for example at St Andrew's Church, Chennai in India. And in Dublin, the extremely similar St. George's Church, Dublin.
The 1818 Act allocated some public money for new churches required to reflect changes in population, and a commission to allocate it. Building of Commissioners' churches gathered pace in the 1820s, and continued until the 1850s. The early churches, falling into the Georgian period, show a high proportion of Gothic Revival buildings, along with the classically inspired.
Public buildings generally varied between the extremes of plain boxes with grid windows and Italian Late Renaissance palaces, depending on budget. Somerset House in London, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 for government offices, was as magnificent as any country house, though never quite finished, as funds ran out. Barracks and other less prestigious buildings could be as functional as the mills and factories that were growing increasingly large by the end of the period. But as the period came to an end many commercial projects were becoming sufficiently large, and well-funded, to become "architectural in intention", rather than having their design left to the lesser class of "surveyors".
Georgian architecture was widely disseminated in the English colonies during the Georgian era. American buildings of the Georgian period were very often constructed of wood with clapboards; even columns were made of timber, framed up, and turned on an oversized lathe. At the start of the period the difficulties of obtaining and transporting brick or stone made them a common alternative only in the larger cities, or where they were obtainable locally. Dartmouth College, Harvard University and the College of William and Mary offer leading examples of Georgian architecture in the Americas.
Unlike the Baroque style that it replaced, which was mostly used for palaces and churches, and had little representation in the British colonies, simpler Georgian styles were widely used by the upper and middle classes. Perhaps the best remaining house is the pristine Hammond-Harwood House (1774) in Annapolis, Maryland, designed by the colonial architect William Buckland and modelled on the Villa Pisani at Montagnana, Italy as depicted in Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura ("The Four Books of Architecture").
After independence, in the former American colonies, Federal-style architecture represented the equivalent of Regency architecture, with which it had much in common.
In Canada, the United Empire Loyalists embraced Georgian architecture as a sign of their fealty to Britain, and the Georgian style was dominant in the country for most of the first half of the 19th century. The Grange, for example, is a Georgian manor built in Toronto in 1817. In Montreal, English-born architect John Ostell worked on a significant number of remarkable constructions in the Georgian style such as the Old Montreal Custom House and the Grand séminaire de Montréal.
In Australia, the Old Colonial Georgian residential and non-residential styles were developed in the period from c. 1810 – c. 1840.
After about 1840, Georgian conventions were slowly abandoned as a number of revival styles, including Gothic Revival, that had originated in the Georgian period, developed and contested in Victorian architecture, and in the case of Gothic became better researched, and closer to their originals. Neoclassical architecture remained popular, and was the opponent of Gothic in the Battle of the Styles of the early Victorian period. In the United States the Federalist Style contained many elements of Georgian style, but incorporated revolutionary symbols.
In the early decades of the twentieth century when there was a growing nostalgia for its sense of order, the style was revived and adapted and in the United States came to be known as the Colonial Revival. The revived Georgian style that emerged in Britain during the same period is usually referred to as Neo-Georgian; the work of Edwin Lutyens and Vincent Harris includes some examples. The British town of Welwyn Garden City, established in the 1920s, is an example of pastiche or Neo-Georgian development of the early 20th century in Britain. Versions of the Neo-Georgian style were commonly used in Britain for certain types of urban architecture until the late 1950s, Bradshaw Gass & Hope's Police Headquarters in Salford of 1958 being a good example. Architects such as Raymond Erith, and Donald McMorran were among the few architects who continued the neo-Georgian style into the 1960s. Both in the United States and Britain, the Georgian style is still employed by architects like Quinlan Terry, Julian Bicknell, Ben Pentreath, Robert Adam Architects, and Fairfax and Sammons for private residences. A debased form in commercial housing developments, especially in the suburbs, is known in the UK as mock-Georgian. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover, George I, George II, George III, and George IV, who reigned in continuous succession from August 1714 to June 1830.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Georgian cities of the British Isles were Edinburgh, Bath, pre-independence Dublin, and London, and to a lesser extent York and Bristol. The style was revived in the late 19th century in the United States as Colonial Revival architecture and in the early 20th century in Great Britain as Neo-Georgian architecture; in both it is also called Georgian Revival architecture.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the United States, the term Georgian is generally used to describe all buildings from the period, regardless of style; in Britain it is generally restricted to buildings that are \"architectural in intention\", and have stylistic characteristics that are typical of the period, though that covers a wide range.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Georgian style is highly variable, but marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome, as revived in Renaissance architecture. Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on the exterior. The period brought the vocabulary of classical architecture to smaller and more modest buildings than had been the case before, replacing English vernacular architecture (or becoming the new vernacular style) for almost all new middle-class homes and public buildings by the end of the period.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Georgian architecture is characterized by its proportion and balance; simple mathematical ratios were used to determine the height of a window in relation to its width or the shape of a room as a double cube. Regularity, as with ashlar (uniformly cut) stonework, was strongly approved, imbuing symmetry and adherence to classical rules: the lack of symmetry, where Georgian additions were added to earlier structures remaining visible, was deeply felt as a flaw, at least before John Nash began to introduce it in a variety of styles. Regularity of housefronts along a street was a desirable feature of Georgian town planning. Until the start of the Gothic Revival in the early 19th century, Georgian designs usually lay within the Classical orders of architecture and employed a decorative vocabulary derived from ancient Rome or Greece.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In towns, which expanded greatly during the period, landowners turned into property developers, and rows of identical terraced houses became the norm. Even the wealthy were persuaded to live in these in town, especially if provided with a square of garden in front of the house. There was an enormous amount of building in the period, all over the English-speaking world, and the standards of construction were generally high. Where they have not been demolished, large numbers of Georgian buildings have survived two centuries or more, and they still form large parts of the core of cities such as London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Newcastle upon Tyne and Bristol.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The period saw the growth of a distinct and trained architectural profession; before the mid-century \"the high-sounding title, 'architect' was adopted by anyone who could get away with it\". This contrasted with earlier styles, which were primarily disseminated among craftsmen through the direct experience of the apprenticeship system. But most buildings were still designed by builders and landlords together, and the wide spread of Georgian architecture, and the Georgian styles of design more generally, came from dissemination through pattern books and inexpensive suites of engravings. Authors such as the prolific William Halfpenny (active 1723–1755) had editions in America as well as Britain.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A similar phenomenon can be seen in the commonality of housing designs in Canada and the United States (though of a wider variety of styles) from the 19th century down to the 1950s, using pattern books drawn up by professional architects that were distributed by lumber companies and hardware stores to contractors and homebuilders.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "From the mid-18th century, Georgian styles were assimilated into an architectural vernacular that became part and parcel of the training of every architect, designer, builder, carpenter, mason and plasterer, from Edinburgh to Maryland.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Georgian succeeded the English Baroque of Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, Thomas Archer, William Talman, and Nicholas Hawksmoor; this in fact continued into at least the 1720s, overlapping with a more restrained Georgian style. The architect James Gibbs was a transitional figure, his earlier buildings are Baroque, reflecting the time he spent in Rome in the early 18th century, but he adjusted his style after 1720. Major architects to promote the change in direction from Baroque were Colen Campbell, author of the influential book Vitruvius Britannicus (1715–1725); Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and his protégé William Kent; Isaac Ware; Henry Flitcroft and the Venetian Giacomo Leoni, who spent most of his career in England.",
"title": "Styles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Other prominent architects of the early Georgian period include James Paine, Robert Taylor, and John Wood, the Elder. The European Grand Tour became very common for wealthy patrons in the period, and Italian influence remained dominant, though at the start of the period Hanover Square, Westminster (1713 on), developed and occupied by Whig supporters of the new dynasty, seems to have deliberately adopted German stylistic elements in their honour, especially vertical bands connecting the windows.",
"title": "Styles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The styles that resulted fall within several categories. In the mainstream of Georgian style were both Palladian architecture—and its whimsical alternatives, Gothic and Chinoiserie, which were the English-speaking world's equivalent of European Rococo. From the mid-1760s a range of Neoclassical modes were fashionable, associated with the British architects Robert Adam, James Gibbs, Sir William Chambers, James Wyatt, George Dance the Younger, Henry Holland and Sir John Soane. John Nash was one of the most prolific architects of the late Georgian era known as The Regency style, he was responsible for designing large areas of London. Greek Revival architecture was added to the repertory, beginning around 1750, but increasing in popularity after 1800. Leading exponents were William Wilkins and Robert Smirke.",
"title": "Styles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In Britain, brick or stone are almost invariably used; brick is often disguised with stucco. The Georgian terraces of Dublin are noted for their almost uniform use of red brick, for example, whereas equivalent terraces in Edinburgh are constructed from stone. In America and other colonies wood remained very common, as its availability and cost-ratio with the other materials was more favourable. Raked roofs were mostly covered in earthenware tiles until Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn led the development of the slate industry in Wales from the 1760s, which by the end of the century had become the usual material.",
"title": "Styles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Versions of revived Palladian architecture dominated English country house architecture. Houses were increasingly placed in grand landscaped settings, and large houses were generally made wide and relatively shallow, largely to look more impressive from a distance. The height was usually highest in the centre, and the Baroque emphasis on corner pavilions often found on the continent generally avoided. In grand houses, an entrance hall led to steps up to a piano nobile or mezzanine floor where the main reception rooms were. Typically the basement area or \"rustic\", with kitchens, offices and service areas, as well as male guests with muddy boots, came some way above ground, and was lit by windows that were high on the inside, but just above ground level outside. A single block was typical, with perhaps a small court for carriages at the front marked off by railings and a gate, but rarely a stone gatehouse, or side wings around the court.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Windows in all types of buildings were large and regularly placed on a grid; this was partly to minimize window tax, which was in force throughout the period in the United Kingdom. Some windows were subsequently bricked-in. Their height increasingly varied between the floors, and they increasingly began below waist-height in the main rooms, making a small balcony desirable. Before this the internal plan and function of the rooms can generally not be deduced from the outside. To open these large windows the sash window, already developed by the 1670s, became very widespread. Corridor plans became universal inside larger houses.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Internal courtyards became more rare, except beside the stables, and the functional parts of the building were placed at the sides, or in separate buildings nearby hidden by trees. The views to and from the front and rear of the main block were concentrated on, with the side approaches usually much less important. The roof was typically invisible from the ground, though domes were sometimes visible in grander buildings. The roofline was generally clear of ornament except for a balustrade or the top of a pediment. Columns or pilasters, often topped by a pediment, were popular for ornament inside and out, and other ornament was generally geometrical or plant-based, rather than using the human figure.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Inside ornament was far more generous, and could sometimes be overwhelming. The chimneypiece continued to be the usual main focus of rooms, and was now given a classical treatment, and increasingly topped by a painting or a mirror. Plasterwork ceilings, carved wood, and bold schemes of wallpaint formed a backdrop to increasingly rich collections of furniture, paintings, porcelain, mirrors, and objets d'art of all kinds. Wood-panelling, very common since about 1500, fell from favour around the mid-century, and wallpaper included very expensive imports from China.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Smaller houses in the country, such as vicarages, were simple regular blocks with visible raked roofs, and a central doorway, often the only ornamented area. Similar houses, often referred to as \"villas\" became common around the fringes of the larger cities, especially London, and detached houses in towns remained common, though only the very rich could afford them in central London.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In towns even most better-off people lived in terraced houses, which typically opened straight onto the street, often with a few steps up to the door. There was often an open space, protected by iron railings, dropping down to the basement level, with a discreet entrance down steps off the street for servants and deliveries; this is known as the \"area\". This meant that the ground floor front was now removed and protected from the street and encouraged the main reception rooms to move there from the floor above. Often, when a new street or set of streets was developed, the road and pavements were raised up, and the gardens or yards behind the houses remained at a lower level, usually representing the original one.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Town terraced houses for all social classes remained resolutely tall and narrow, each dwelling occupying the whole height of the building. This contrasted with well-off continental dwellings, which had already begun to be formed of wide apartments occupying only one or two floors of a building; such arrangements were only typical in England when housing groups of batchelors, as in Oxbridge colleges, the lawyers in the Inns of Court or The Albany after it was converted in 1802. In the period in question, only in Edinburgh were working-class purpose-built tenements common, though lodgers were common in other cities. A curving crescent, often looking out at gardens or a park, was popular for terraces where space allowed. In early and central schemes of development, plots were sold and built on individually, though there was often an attempt to enforce some uniformity, but as development reached further out schemes were increasingly built as a uniform scheme and then sold.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The late Georgian period saw the birth of the semi-detached house, planned systematically, as a suburban compromise between the terraced houses of the city and the detached \"villas\" further out, where land was cheaper. There had been occasional examples in town centres going back to medieval times. Most early suburban examples are large, and in what are now the outer fringes of Central London, but were then in areas being built up for the first time. Blackheath, Chalk Farm and St John's Wood are among the areas contesting being the original home of the semi. Sir John Summerson gave primacy to the Eyre Estate of St John's Wood. A plan for this exists dated 1794, where \"the whole development consists of pairs of semi-detached houses, So far as I know, this is the first recorded scheme of the kind\". In fact the French Wars put an end to this scheme, but when the development was finally built it retained the semi-detached form, \"a revolution of striking significance and far-reaching effect\".",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Until the Church Building Act 1818, the period saw relatively few churches built in Britain, which was already well-supplied, although in the later years of the period the demand for Non-conformist and Roman Catholic places of worship greatly increased. Anglican churches that were built were designed internally to allow maximum audibility, and visibility, for preaching, so the main nave was generally wider and shorter than in medieval plans, and often there were no side-aisles. Galleries were common in new churches. Especially in country parishes, the external appearance generally retained the familiar signifiers of a Gothic church, with a tower or spire, a large west front with one or more doors, and very large windows along the nave, but all with any ornament drawn from the classical vocabulary. Where funds permitted, a classical temple portico with columns and a pediment might be used at the west front. Interior decoration was generally chaste; however, walls often became lined with plaques and monuments to the more prosperous members of the congregation.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the colonies new churches were certainly required, and generally repeated similar formulae. British Non-conformist churches were often more classical in mood, and tended not to feel the need for a tower or steeple.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The archetypal Georgian church is St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (1720), by Gibbs, who boldly added to the classical temple façade at the west end a large steeple on top of a tower, set back slightly from the main frontage. This formula shocked purists and foreigners, but became accepted and was very widely emulated, at home and in the colonies, for example at St Andrew's Church, Chennai in India. And in Dublin, the extremely similar St. George's Church, Dublin.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The 1818 Act allocated some public money for new churches required to reflect changes in population, and a commission to allocate it. Building of Commissioners' churches gathered pace in the 1820s, and continued until the 1850s. The early churches, falling into the Georgian period, show a high proportion of Gothic Revival buildings, along with the classically inspired.",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Public buildings generally varied between the extremes of plain boxes with grid windows and Italian Late Renaissance palaces, depending on budget. Somerset House in London, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 for government offices, was as magnificent as any country house, though never quite finished, as funds ran out. Barracks and other less prestigious buildings could be as functional as the mills and factories that were growing increasingly large by the end of the period. But as the period came to an end many commercial projects were becoming sufficiently large, and well-funded, to become \"architectural in intention\", rather than having their design left to the lesser class of \"surveyors\".",
"title": "Types of buildings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Georgian architecture was widely disseminated in the English colonies during the Georgian era. American buildings of the Georgian period were very often constructed of wood with clapboards; even columns were made of timber, framed up, and turned on an oversized lathe. At the start of the period the difficulties of obtaining and transporting brick or stone made them a common alternative only in the larger cities, or where they were obtainable locally. Dartmouth College, Harvard University and the College of William and Mary offer leading examples of Georgian architecture in the Americas.",
"title": "Colonial Georgian architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Unlike the Baroque style that it replaced, which was mostly used for palaces and churches, and had little representation in the British colonies, simpler Georgian styles were widely used by the upper and middle classes. Perhaps the best remaining house is the pristine Hammond-Harwood House (1774) in Annapolis, Maryland, designed by the colonial architect William Buckland and modelled on the Villa Pisani at Montagnana, Italy as depicted in Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (\"The Four Books of Architecture\").",
"title": "Colonial Georgian architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "After independence, in the former American colonies, Federal-style architecture represented the equivalent of Regency architecture, with which it had much in common.",
"title": "Colonial Georgian architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In Canada, the United Empire Loyalists embraced Georgian architecture as a sign of their fealty to Britain, and the Georgian style was dominant in the country for most of the first half of the 19th century. The Grange, for example, is a Georgian manor built in Toronto in 1817. In Montreal, English-born architect John Ostell worked on a significant number of remarkable constructions in the Georgian style such as the Old Montreal Custom House and the Grand séminaire de Montréal.",
"title": "Colonial Georgian architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In Australia, the Old Colonial Georgian residential and non-residential styles were developed in the period from c. 1810 – c. 1840.",
"title": "Colonial Georgian architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "After about 1840, Georgian conventions were slowly abandoned as a number of revival styles, including Gothic Revival, that had originated in the Georgian period, developed and contested in Victorian architecture, and in the case of Gothic became better researched, and closer to their originals. Neoclassical architecture remained popular, and was the opponent of Gothic in the Battle of the Styles of the early Victorian period. In the United States the Federalist Style contained many elements of Georgian style, but incorporated revolutionary symbols.",
"title": "Post-Georgian developments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In the early decades of the twentieth century when there was a growing nostalgia for its sense of order, the style was revived and adapted and in the United States came to be known as the Colonial Revival. The revived Georgian style that emerged in Britain during the same period is usually referred to as Neo-Georgian; the work of Edwin Lutyens and Vincent Harris includes some examples. The British town of Welwyn Garden City, established in the 1920s, is an example of pastiche or Neo-Georgian development of the early 20th century in Britain. Versions of the Neo-Georgian style were commonly used in Britain for certain types of urban architecture until the late 1950s, Bradshaw Gass & Hope's Police Headquarters in Salford of 1958 being a good example. Architects such as Raymond Erith, and Donald McMorran were among the few architects who continued the neo-Georgian style into the 1960s. Both in the United States and Britain, the Georgian style is still employed by architects like Quinlan Terry, Julian Bicknell, Ben Pentreath, Robert Adam Architects, and Fairfax and Sammons for private residences. A debased form in commercial housing developments, especially in the suburbs, is known in the UK as mock-Georgian.",
"title": "Post-Georgian developments"
}
]
| Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover, George I, George II, George III, and George IV, who reigned in continuous succession from August 1714 to June 1830. The Georgian cities of the British Isles were Edinburgh, Bath, pre-independence Dublin, and London, and to a lesser extent York and Bristol. The style was revived in the late 19th century in the United States as Colonial Revival architecture and in the early 20th century in Great Britain as Neo-Georgian architecture; in both it is also called Georgian Revival architecture. In the United States, the term Georgian is generally used to describe all buildings from the period, regardless of style; in Britain it is generally restricted to buildings that are "architectural in intention", and have stylistic characteristics that are typical of the period, though that covers a wide range. The Georgian style is highly variable, but marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome, as revived in Renaissance architecture. Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on the exterior. The period brought the vocabulary of classical architecture to smaller and more modest buildings than had been the case before, replacing English vernacular architecture for almost all new middle-class homes and public buildings by the end of the period. Georgian architecture is characterized by its proportion and balance; simple mathematical ratios were used to determine the height of a window in relation to its width or the shape of a room as a double cube. Regularity, as with ashlar stonework, was strongly approved, imbuing symmetry and adherence to classical rules: the lack of symmetry, where Georgian additions were added to earlier structures remaining visible, was deeply felt as a flaw, at least before John Nash began to introduce it in a variety of styles. Regularity of housefronts along a street was a desirable feature of Georgian town planning. Until the start of the Gothic Revival in the early 19th century, Georgian designs usually lay within the Classical orders of architecture and employed a decorative vocabulary derived from ancient Rome or Greece. | 2001-12-06T17:43:11Z | 2023-11-16T05:47:02Z | [
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]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture |
12,926 | Goshen, Indiana | Goshen (/ˈɡoʊʃən/ GOH-shən) is a city in and the county seat of Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. It is the smaller of the two principal cities of the Elkhart–Goshen Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the South Bend–Elkhart–Mishawaka Combined Statistical Area. It is located in the northern part of Indiana near the Michigan border, in a region known as Michiana. Goshen is located 10 miles southeast of Elkhart, 25 miles southeast of South Bend, 120 miles east of Chicago, and 150 miles north of Indianapolis. The population was 34,517 at the 2020 census.
The city is known as an extremely prominent recreational vehicle and accessories manufacturing center, the home of Goshen College, a small Mennonite liberal arts college, and the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, one of the largest county fairs in the United States.
Before the arrival of white colonists, the land that is today Goshen, Indiana, was populated by Native Americans, specifically the Miami people, the Peoria people, and Potawatomi peoples. These people inhabited this land for thousands of years. In 1830, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, requiring all indigenous people to relocate west of the Mississippi River.
Goshen was platted in 1831. It was named after the Land of Goshen. The initial settlers consisted entirely of old stock "Yankee" immigrants, who were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. The New England Yankee population that founded towns such as Goshen considered themselves the "chosen people," and identified with the Israelites of the Old Testament and they thought of North America as their Canaan. They founded a large number of towns and counties across what is known as the Northern Tier of the upper midwest. It was in this context that Goshen was named.
The Yankee migration to Indiana was a result of several factors, one of which was the overpopulation of New England. The old-stock Yankee population had large families, often bearing up to ten children in one household. Most people were expected to have their own piece of land to farm, and due to the massive and nonstop population boom, land in New England became scarce as every son claimed his own farmstead. As a result, there was not enough land for every family to have a self-sustaining farm, and Yankee settlers began leaving New England for the Midwestern United States.
They were aided in this effort by the construction and completion of the Erie Canal which made traveling to the region much easier, causing an additional surge in migrants coming from New England. Added to this was the end of the Black Hawk War, which made the region much safer for white settlers to travel through and settle in. However, the Black Hawk War also forced the native people who called Goshen home for so long to leave. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago ultimately set the conditions that would force the Potawatomi in particular to leave the Midwest, Goshen included, in 1837. This forced exile is known today as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.
These settlers were primarily members of the Congregational Church, though due to the Second Great Awakening, many of them had converted to Methodism, and some had become Baptists before coming to what is now Indiana. The Congregational Church has subsequently gone through many divisions, and some factions, including those in Goshen, are now known as the Church of Christ and the United Church of Christ. When the New Englanders arrived in what is now Elkhart County there was nothing but a dense virgin forest and wild prairie. They laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings, and established post routes.
On Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965, a large outbreak of tornadoes struck the Midwest. The most famous pair of tornadoes devastated the Midway Trailer Park (now inside the city limits of Goshen), and the Sunnyside Housing Addition in Dunlap, Indiana. Another, smaller F4 tornado also struck neighborhoods on the southeast side of Goshen on the same day. Statewide, 137 Hoosiers died in the storms—55 of them in Elkhart County. Days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson visited the Dunlap site.
The Goshen Historic District, added in 1983 to the National Register of Historic Places is bounded by Pike, RR, Cottage, Plymouth, Main, Purl, the Canal, and Second Sts. with the Elkhart County Courthouse at its center.
In April 2006, Goshen was the site of an immigration march. Officials estimated that from 2,000 to 3,000 people marched from Linway Plaza to the County Courthouse.
Goshen has been called a "sundown town", and African Americans were allegedly prevented from living in, or entering, the town, under threat of violence. However, there was never a city ordinance or official policy to enforce such a restriction. Nevertheless, in March 2015, the city issued a formal apology for racial discrimination in the past. A documentary made at Goshen College, "Goshen: A Sundown Town's Transformation," tells the story of why Goshen has been called a sundown town.
The Elkhart County Courthouse, Fort Wayne Street Bridge, Goshen Carnegie Public Library, Goshen Historic District, William N. Violett House, and Violett-Martin House and Gardens are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Goshen is located at 41°34′55″N 85°50′12″W / 41.58194°N 85.83667°W / 41.58194; -85.83667. The Elkhart River winds its way through the city and through a dam on the south side making the Goshen Dam Pond. Rock Run Creek also runs through town. The city is divided east/west by Main Street and north/south by Lincoln Avenue.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 16.59 square miles (42.97 km), of which 16.23 square miles (42.04 km) is land and 0.36 square miles (0.93 km) is water.
In February 2018, the Elkhart River flooded as a result of heavy rain and snowmelt. The river rose to a record 13.2 feet, damaging more than 300 structures and prompting evacuations. City government has responded to the increase in severe weather such as flooding, hail, and heavy rains with measures including stormwater management, and "an initiative to grow the town's tree canopy by 45%." Goshen completed 92 solar projects in 2019. Goshen outranked Phoenix, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver with its 2019 production of 116 watts of solar power per capita.
Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.
As of the census of 2010, there were 31,719 people, 11,344 households, and 7,580 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,954.3 inhabitants per square mile (754.6/km). There were 12,631 housing units at an average density of 778.3 per square mile (300.5/km). The racial makeup of the city was 78.2% White, 2.6% African American, 0.5% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 14.8% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 28.1% of the population.
There were 11,344 households, of which 36.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.4% were married couples living together, 13.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 6.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 33.2% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.2% had someone who was 65 years of age or older living alone. The average household size was 2.67, and the average family size was 3.23.
The median age in the city was 32.4 years. 27.4% of residents were under 18; 11.3% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26.1% were from 25 to 44; 20% were from 45 to 64, and 14.9% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.9% male and 51.1% female.
As of the census of 2000, there were 29,383 people, 10,675 households, and 7,088 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,227.7 inhabitants per square mile (860.1/km). There were 11,264 housing units at an average density of 854.0 per square mile (329.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 83.15% White, 1.53% Black or African American, 0.26% Native American, 1.10% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 12.00% from other races, and 1.94% from two or more races. 19.33% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 10,675 households, of which 32.6% had children under 18 living with them, 50.8% were married couples living together, 10.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.6% were non-families. 27.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61, and the average family size was 3.14.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.9% under 18, 12.9% from 18 to 24, 30.0% from 25 to 44, 17.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 97.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $39,383, and the median income for a family was $46,877. Males had a median income of $32,159 versus $23,290 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,899. About 6.0% of families and 9.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.8% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those aged 65 or over.
Industry in Goshen centers around the automotive and Recreational Vehicle business. There are automotive component manufacturers such as Benteler; firms that build custom bodies onto chassis such as Supreme, Independent Protection, and Showhauler Trucks. RV manufacturing companies include Dutchmen, Forest River, and Keystone.
The government consists of a mayor, a clerk-treasurer, a city council, and a youth advisor. The mayor and clerk are elected in a citywide vote. The city council consists of seven members. Five are elected from individual districts. Two are elected at large. The youth advisor position was added in 2016 and is elected by the students of Goshen High School. Gina Leichty, a member of the Democratic Party, is the first woman to become Mayor of Goshen in its 192-year history. Leichty became Mayor following the resignation of former mayor Jeremy Stutsman. Stutsman left the mayorship to be CEO of a local nonprofit housing agency, LaCasa.
Goshen Community Schools serves the portion of the city in Elkhart Township. This system consists of seven elementary schools, Goshen Intermediate School, Goshen Junior High School, and Goshen High School.
In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked Goshen High School as the 12th best high school in Indiana and the top 6% of high schools in the country.
Additionally, Goshen is served by Bethany Christian Schools, a private Christian school for grades 4–12.
Small parts of the city of Goshen are covered by several other school districts, including Fairfield Community Schools, Middlebury Community Schools, Concord Community Schools, and WaNee Community Schools.
Goshen College, located on the south side of town, has an enrollment of approximately 800, with 40% male and 60% female. Tuition and fees for the 2017–2018 year were $33,200.
The town has a free lending library, the Goshen Public Library.
Goshen Municipal Airport is a public-use airport located about 3.5 miles southeast of downtown Goshen. The Goshen Board of Aviation Commissioners owns the airport.
The closest airports with regularly scheduled commercial service are South Bend International Airport (about 36 miles (58 km) away) and Fort Wayne International Airport (about 61 miles (98 km) away). O'Hare International Airport in Chicago is about 141 miles (227 km) away.
The Interurban Trolley bus connects Goshen to the nearby city of Elkhart and the unincorporated town of Dunlap via Concord and Elkhart-Goshen routes. The routes pass at Elkhart's Amtrak station, allowing passengers to connect to the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited trains. Riders can also transfer to the North Pointe and Bittersweet/Mishawaka routes. The former allows riders to connect to Elkhart's Greyhound bus station, while the later connects the riders to the city of Mishawaka and town of Osceola. The Bittersweet/Mishawaka route also allows them to transfer to TRANSPO Route 9 to connect to destinations throughout the South Bend-Goshen metropolitan region and the South Shore Line's South Bend International Airport station.
Goshen has seven parks and has a few different greenways and trails winding through the city, one of which runs along the old Mill Race and hydraulic canal, which was once used to power an old hydroelectric power plant. Plans were drawn up in 2005 call for the plant to be reopened and redevelopment to begin along the canal.
The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail runs from Goshen to Middlebury and Shipshewana, along the former Pumpkin Vine Railroad. The trail starts northeast of Goshen at Abshire Park. It is one of the recreational highlights of Goshen. Along with the Maple City Greenway and the Millrace trail, they provide many miles of easily accessible trails for walking, running, and biking.
The Elkhart County Fairgrounds are also located in the city, where the Elkhart County 4-H Fair is held in late July. It is the largest county fair in Indiana and one of the largest 4-H County Fairs in the United States.
The Goshen Air Show is also an annual event that takes place at the Goshen Municipal Airport.
In 2007, Downtown Goshen, Inc., a public-private partnership formed from the merger of Face of the City and the Downtown Action Team, started a First Fridays program. Occurring year round, First Fridays happens on the first Friday of each month with stores open until 9, music and other entertainment, and other events occurring within Goshen's downtown district.
One favorite pastime of Goshen residents is driving cars.
The south side Wal-Mart is rumored to be the first Wal-Mart in the United States to provide a covered stable for its frequent Amish customers. The Amish built the stable with lumber and other supplies donated by Wal-Mart.
Lonesome Jim (2005) which was written by former resident James Strouse, directed by Steve Buscemi and starred Liv Tyler and Casey Affleck, was shot in Goshen.
Goshen has two sister cities as designated by Sister Cities International. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Goshen (/ˈɡoʊʃən/ GOH-shən) is a city in and the county seat of Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. It is the smaller of the two principal cities of the Elkhart–Goshen Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the South Bend–Elkhart–Mishawaka Combined Statistical Area. It is located in the northern part of Indiana near the Michigan border, in a region known as Michiana. Goshen is located 10 miles southeast of Elkhart, 25 miles southeast of South Bend, 120 miles east of Chicago, and 150 miles north of Indianapolis. The population was 34,517 at the 2020 census.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The city is known as an extremely prominent recreational vehicle and accessories manufacturing center, the home of Goshen College, a small Mennonite liberal arts college, and the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, one of the largest county fairs in the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Before the arrival of white colonists, the land that is today Goshen, Indiana, was populated by Native Americans, specifically the Miami people, the Peoria people, and Potawatomi peoples. These people inhabited this land for thousands of years. In 1830, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, requiring all indigenous people to relocate west of the Mississippi River.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Goshen was platted in 1831. It was named after the Land of Goshen. The initial settlers consisted entirely of old stock \"Yankee\" immigrants, who were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. The New England Yankee population that founded towns such as Goshen considered themselves the \"chosen people,\" and identified with the Israelites of the Old Testament and they thought of North America as their Canaan. They founded a large number of towns and counties across what is known as the Northern Tier of the upper midwest. It was in this context that Goshen was named.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Yankee migration to Indiana was a result of several factors, one of which was the overpopulation of New England. The old-stock Yankee population had large families, often bearing up to ten children in one household. Most people were expected to have their own piece of land to farm, and due to the massive and nonstop population boom, land in New England became scarce as every son claimed his own farmstead. As a result, there was not enough land for every family to have a self-sustaining farm, and Yankee settlers began leaving New England for the Midwestern United States.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "They were aided in this effort by the construction and completion of the Erie Canal which made traveling to the region much easier, causing an additional surge in migrants coming from New England. Added to this was the end of the Black Hawk War, which made the region much safer for white settlers to travel through and settle in. However, the Black Hawk War also forced the native people who called Goshen home for so long to leave. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago ultimately set the conditions that would force the Potawatomi in particular to leave the Midwest, Goshen included, in 1837. This forced exile is known today as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "These settlers were primarily members of the Congregational Church, though due to the Second Great Awakening, many of them had converted to Methodism, and some had become Baptists before coming to what is now Indiana. The Congregational Church has subsequently gone through many divisions, and some factions, including those in Goshen, are now known as the Church of Christ and the United Church of Christ. When the New Englanders arrived in what is now Elkhart County there was nothing but a dense virgin forest and wild prairie. They laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings, and established post routes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965, a large outbreak of tornadoes struck the Midwest. The most famous pair of tornadoes devastated the Midway Trailer Park (now inside the city limits of Goshen), and the Sunnyside Housing Addition in Dunlap, Indiana. Another, smaller F4 tornado also struck neighborhoods on the southeast side of Goshen on the same day. Statewide, 137 Hoosiers died in the storms—55 of them in Elkhart County. Days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson visited the Dunlap site.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Goshen Historic District, added in 1983 to the National Register of Historic Places is bounded by Pike, RR, Cottage, Plymouth, Main, Purl, the Canal, and Second Sts. with the Elkhart County Courthouse at its center.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In April 2006, Goshen was the site of an immigration march. Officials estimated that from 2,000 to 3,000 people marched from Linway Plaza to the County Courthouse.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Goshen has been called a \"sundown town\", and African Americans were allegedly prevented from living in, or entering, the town, under threat of violence. However, there was never a city ordinance or official policy to enforce such a restriction. Nevertheless, in March 2015, the city issued a formal apology for racial discrimination in the past. A documentary made at Goshen College, \"Goshen: A Sundown Town's Transformation,\" tells the story of why Goshen has been called a sundown town.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Elkhart County Courthouse, Fort Wayne Street Bridge, Goshen Carnegie Public Library, Goshen Historic District, William N. Violett House, and Violett-Martin House and Gardens are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Goshen is located at 41°34′55″N 85°50′12″W / 41.58194°N 85.83667°W / 41.58194; -85.83667. The Elkhart River winds its way through the city and through a dam on the south side making the Goshen Dam Pond. Rock Run Creek also runs through town. The city is divided east/west by Main Street and north/south by Lincoln Avenue.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 16.59 square miles (42.97 km), of which 16.23 square miles (42.04 km) is land and 0.36 square miles (0.93 km) is water.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In February 2018, the Elkhart River flooded as a result of heavy rain and snowmelt. The river rose to a record 13.2 feet, damaging more than 300 structures and prompting evacuations. City government has responded to the increase in severe weather such as flooding, hail, and heavy rains with measures including stormwater management, and \"an initiative to grow the town's tree canopy by 45%.\" Goshen completed 92 solar projects in 2019. Goshen outranked Phoenix, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver with its 2019 production of 116 watts of solar power per capita.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "As of the census of 2010, there were 31,719 people, 11,344 households, and 7,580 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,954.3 inhabitants per square mile (754.6/km). There were 12,631 housing units at an average density of 778.3 per square mile (300.5/km). The racial makeup of the city was 78.2% White, 2.6% African American, 0.5% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 14.8% from other races, and 2.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 28.1% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "There were 11,344 households, of which 36.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.4% were married couples living together, 13.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 6.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 33.2% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.2% had someone who was 65 years of age or older living alone. The average household size was 2.67, and the average family size was 3.23.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The median age in the city was 32.4 years. 27.4% of residents were under 18; 11.3% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26.1% were from 25 to 44; 20% were from 45 to 64, and 14.9% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.9% male and 51.1% female.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "As of the census of 2000, there were 29,383 people, 10,675 households, and 7,088 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,227.7 inhabitants per square mile (860.1/km). There were 11,264 housing units at an average density of 854.0 per square mile (329.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 83.15% White, 1.53% Black or African American, 0.26% Native American, 1.10% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 12.00% from other races, and 1.94% from two or more races. 19.33% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "There were 10,675 households, of which 32.6% had children under 18 living with them, 50.8% were married couples living together, 10.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.6% were non-families. 27.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61, and the average family size was 3.14.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.9% under 18, 12.9% from 18 to 24, 30.0% from 25 to 44, 17.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 97.7 males.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The median income for a household in the city was $39,383, and the median income for a family was $46,877. Males had a median income of $32,159 versus $23,290 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,899. About 6.0% of families and 9.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.8% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those aged 65 or over.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Industry in Goshen centers around the automotive and Recreational Vehicle business. There are automotive component manufacturers such as Benteler; firms that build custom bodies onto chassis such as Supreme, Independent Protection, and Showhauler Trucks. RV manufacturing companies include Dutchmen, Forest River, and Keystone.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The government consists of a mayor, a clerk-treasurer, a city council, and a youth advisor. The mayor and clerk are elected in a citywide vote. The city council consists of seven members. Five are elected from individual districts. Two are elected at large. The youth advisor position was added in 2016 and is elected by the students of Goshen High School. Gina Leichty, a member of the Democratic Party, is the first woman to become Mayor of Goshen in its 192-year history. Leichty became Mayor following the resignation of former mayor Jeremy Stutsman. Stutsman left the mayorship to be CEO of a local nonprofit housing agency, LaCasa.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Goshen Community Schools serves the portion of the city in Elkhart Township. This system consists of seven elementary schools, Goshen Intermediate School, Goshen Junior High School, and Goshen High School.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked Goshen High School as the 12th best high school in Indiana and the top 6% of high schools in the country.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Additionally, Goshen is served by Bethany Christian Schools, a private Christian school for grades 4–12.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Small parts of the city of Goshen are covered by several other school districts, including Fairfield Community Schools, Middlebury Community Schools, Concord Community Schools, and WaNee Community Schools.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Goshen College, located on the south side of town, has an enrollment of approximately 800, with 40% male and 60% female. Tuition and fees for the 2017–2018 year were $33,200.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The town has a free lending library, the Goshen Public Library.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Goshen Municipal Airport is a public-use airport located about 3.5 miles southeast of downtown Goshen. The Goshen Board of Aviation Commissioners owns the airport.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The closest airports with regularly scheduled commercial service are South Bend International Airport (about 36 miles (58 km) away) and Fort Wayne International Airport (about 61 miles (98 km) away). O'Hare International Airport in Chicago is about 141 miles (227 km) away.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Interurban Trolley bus connects Goshen to the nearby city of Elkhart and the unincorporated town of Dunlap via Concord and Elkhart-Goshen routes. The routes pass at Elkhart's Amtrak station, allowing passengers to connect to the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited trains. Riders can also transfer to the North Pointe and Bittersweet/Mishawaka routes. The former allows riders to connect to Elkhart's Greyhound bus station, while the later connects the riders to the city of Mishawaka and town of Osceola. The Bittersweet/Mishawaka route also allows them to transfer to TRANSPO Route 9 to connect to destinations throughout the South Bend-Goshen metropolitan region and the South Shore Line's South Bend International Airport station.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Goshen has seven parks and has a few different greenways and trails winding through the city, one of which runs along the old Mill Race and hydraulic canal, which was once used to power an old hydroelectric power plant. Plans were drawn up in 2005 call for the plant to be reopened and redevelopment to begin along the canal.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail runs from Goshen to Middlebury and Shipshewana, along the former Pumpkin Vine Railroad. The trail starts northeast of Goshen at Abshire Park. It is one of the recreational highlights of Goshen. Along with the Maple City Greenway and the Millrace trail, they provide many miles of easily accessible trails for walking, running, and biking.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Elkhart County Fairgrounds are also located in the city, where the Elkhart County 4-H Fair is held in late July. It is the largest county fair in Indiana and one of the largest 4-H County Fairs in the United States.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Goshen Air Show is also an annual event that takes place at the Goshen Municipal Airport.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 2007, Downtown Goshen, Inc., a public-private partnership formed from the merger of Face of the City and the Downtown Action Team, started a First Fridays program. Occurring year round, First Fridays happens on the first Friday of each month with stores open until 9, music and other entertainment, and other events occurring within Goshen's downtown district.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "One favorite pastime of Goshen residents is driving cars.",
"title": "Recreation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The south side Wal-Mart is rumored to be the first Wal-Mart in the United States to provide a covered stable for its frequent Amish customers. The Amish built the stable with lumber and other supplies donated by Wal-Mart.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Lonesome Jim (2005) which was written by former resident James Strouse, directed by Steve Buscemi and starred Liv Tyler and Casey Affleck, was shot in Goshen.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Goshen has two sister cities as designated by Sister Cities International.",
"title": "Sister cities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "",
"title": "Sister cities"
}
]
| Goshen is a city in and the county seat of Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. It is the smaller of the two principal cities of the Elkhart–Goshen Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the South Bend–Elkhart–Mishawaka Combined Statistical Area. It is located in the northern part of Indiana near the Michigan border, in a region known as Michiana. Goshen is located 10 miles southeast of Elkhart, 25 miles southeast of South Bend, 120 miles east of Chicago, and 150 miles north of Indianapolis. The population was 34,517 at the 2020 census. The city is known as an extremely prominent recreational vehicle and accessories manufacturing center, the home of Goshen College, a small Mennonite liberal arts college, and the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, one of the largest county fairs in the United States. | 2001-12-06T22:44:40Z | 2023-12-28T00:24:33Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goshen,_Indiana |
12,929 | Gallipoli | The Gallipoli peninsula (/ɡəˈlɪpəli, ɡæ-/; Turkish: Gelibolu Yarımadası; Greek: Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, romanized: Chersónisos tis Kallípolis) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east.
Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name Καλλίπολις (Kallípolis), meaning 'beautiful city', the original name of the modern town of Gelibolu. In antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (Ancient Greek: Θρακικὴ Χερσόνησος, romanized: Thrakiké Chersónesos; Latin: Chersonesus Thracica).
The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Dardanelles (formerly known as the Hellespont), and the Gulf of Saros (formerly the bay of Melas). In antiquity, it was protected by the Long Wall, a defensive structure built across the narrowest part of the peninsula near the ancient city of Agora. The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadth or about 6.5 km (4.0 mi), but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia or about 77.5 km (48.2 mi).
In ancient times, the Gallipoli Peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (from Greek χερσόνησος, 'peninsula') to the Greeks and later the Romans. It was the location of several prominent towns, including Cardia, Pactya, Callipolis (Gallipoli), Alopeconnesus (Ἀλωπεκόννησος), Sestos, Madytos, and Elaeus. The peninsula was renowned for its wheat. It also benefited from its strategic importance on the main route between Europe and Asia, as well as from its control of the shipping route from Crimea. The city of Sestos was the main crossing-point on the Hellespont.
According to Herodotus, the Thracian tribe of Dolonci (Δόλογκοι) (or 'barbarians' according to Cornelius Nepos) held possession of the peninsula before the Greek colonization. Then, settlers from Ancient Greece, mainly of Ionian and Aeolian stock, founded about 12 cities on the peninsula in the 7th century BC. The Athenian statesman Miltiades the Elder founded a major Athenian colony there around 560 BC. He took authority over the entire peninsula, augmenting its defences against incursions from the mainland. It eventually passed to his nephew, the more famous Miltiades the Younger, about 524 BC. The peninsula was abandoned to the Persians in 493 BC after the beginning of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–478 BC).
The Persians were eventually expelled, after which the peninsula was for a time ruled by Athens, which enrolled it into the Delian League in 478 BC. The Athenians established a number of cleruchies on the Thracian Chersonese and sent an additional 1,000 settlers around 448 BC. Sparta gained control after the decisive battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC, but the peninsula subsequently reverted to the Athenians. During the 4th century BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the focus of a bitter territorial dispute between Athens and Macedon, whose king Philip II sought possession. It was eventually ceded to Philip in 338 BC.
After the death of Philip's son Alexander the Great in 323 BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the object of contention among Alexander's successors. Lysimachus established his capital Lysimachia here. In 278 BC, Celtic tribes from Galatia in Asia Minor settled in the area. In 196 BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus III seized the peninsula. This alarmed the Greeks and prompted them to seek the aid of the Romans, who conquered the Thracian Chersonese, which they gave to their ally Eumenes II of Pergamon in 188 BC. At the extinction of the Attalid dynasty in 133 BC it passed again to the Romans, who from 129 BC administered it in the Roman province of Asia. It was subsequently made a state-owned territory (ager publicus) and during the reign of the emperor Augustus it was imperial property.
The Thracian Chersonese was part of the Eastern Roman Empire from its foundation in 395 AD. In 443 AD, Attila the Hun invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula during one of the last stages of his grand campaign that year. He captured both Callipolis and Sestus. Aside from a brief period from 1204 to 1235, when it was controlled by the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire ruled the territory until 1356. During the night between 1 and 2 March 1354, a strong earthquake destroyed the city of Gallipoli and its city walls, weakening its defenses.
Within a month after the devastating 1354 earthquake the Ottomans besieged and captured the town of Gallipoli, making it the first Ottoman stronghold in Europe and the staging area for Ottoman expansion across the Balkans. The Savoyard Crusade recaptured Gallipoli for Byzantium in 1366, but the beleaguered Byzantines were forced to hand it back in September 1376. The Greeks living there were allowed to continue their everyday activities. In the 19th century, Gallipoli (Ottoman Turkish: گلیبولو, Gelibolu) was a district (kaymakamlik) in the Vilayet of Adrianople, with about thirty thousand inhabitants: comprising Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Jews.
Gallipoli became a major encampment for British and French forces in 1854 during the Crimean War, and the harbour was also a stopping-off point between the western Mediterranean and Istanbul (formerly Constantinople).
In March 1854 British and French engineers constructed an 11.5 km (7.1 mi) line of defence to protect the peninsula from a possible Russian attack and so secure control of the route to the Mediterranean Sea.
During the First Balkan War, the 1913 Battle of Bulair and several minor skirmishes took place where the Ottoman army fought in the Greek villages near Gallipoli". The Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars mention destruction and massacres in the area by the Ottoman army against Greek and Bulgarian population.
The Ottoman Government, under the pretext that a village was within the firing line, ordered its evacuation within three hours. The residents abandoned everything they possessed, left their village and went to Gallipoli. Seven of the Greek villagers who stayed two minutes later than the three-hour limit allowed for the evacuation were shot by the soldiers. After the end of the Balkan War the exiles were allowed to return. But as the Government allowed only the Turks to rebuild their houses and furnish them, the exiled Greeks were compelled to remain in Gallipoli.
During World War I (1914-1918), French, British, and allied forces (Australian, New Zealand, Newfoundland, Irish and Indian) fought the Gallipoli campaign (1915-1916) in and near the peninsula, seeking to secure a sea route to relieve their eastern ally, Russia. The Ottomans set up defensive fortifications along the peninsula and contained the invading forces.
In early 1915, attempting to seize a strategic advantage in World War I by capturing Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), the British authorised an attack on the peninsula by French, British, and British Empire forces. The first Australian troops landed at ANZAC Cove early in the morning of 25 April 1915. After eight months of heavy fighting the last Allied soldiers withdrew by 9 January 1916.
The campaign, one of the greatest Ottoman victories during the war, is considered by historians as a humiliating Allied failure. Turks regard it as a defining moment in their nation's history: a final surge in the defence of the motherland as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. The struggle formed the basis for the Turkish War of Independence and the founding of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who first rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli.
The Ottoman Empire instituted the Gallipoli Star as a military decoration in 1915 and awarded it throughout the rest of World War I.
The campaign was the first major military action of Australia and New Zealand (or ANZACs) as independent dominions. The date of the landing, 25 April, is known as "ANZAC Day". It remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties and "returned soldiers" in Australia and New Zealand.
On the Allied side one of the promoters of the expedition was Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, whose bullish optimism caused damage to his reputation that took years to repair.
Whilst the underlying strategic concept of the campaign was sound the military forces of the WW1 lacked the logistical, technological and tactical capabilities to undertake an operation of this scope against a determined, well equipped defender.
The all arms coordination and logistical capabilities required to successfully prosecute such a campaign would only be achieved three decades later, during the successful Allied amphibious invasions of Europe and the Pacific during WW2.
Prior to the Allied landings in April 1915, the Ottoman Empire deported Greek residents from Gallipoli and the surrounding region and from the islands in the sea of Marmara, to the interior where they were at the mercy of hostile Turks. The Greeks had little time to pack and the Ottoman authorities permitted them to take only some bedding and the rest was handed over to the Government. The Turks then plundered the houses and properties. A testimony of a deportee described how the deportees were forced onto crowded steamers, standing-room only, then on disembarking, men of military age were removed (for forced labour in the labour battalions of the Ottoman army). The rest were "scattered… among the farms like ownerless cattle."
The Metropolitan of Gallipoli wrote on 17 July 1915 that the extermination of the Christian refugees was methodical. He also mentions that "The Turks, like beasts of prey, immediately plundered all the Christians' property and carried it off. The inhabitants and refugees of my district are entirely without shelter, awaiting to be sent no one knows where ...". Many Greeks died from hunger and there were frequent cases of rape of women and young girls, as well as their forced conversion to Islam. In some cases, Muhacirs appeared in the villages even before the Greek inhabitants were deported and stoned the houses and threatened the inhabitants that they would kill them if they did not leave.
Greek troops occupied Gallipoli on 4 August 1920 during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22, considered part of the Turkish War of Independence. After the Armistice of Mudros of 30 October 1918 it became a Greek prefecture centre as Kallipolis. However, Greece was forced to withdraw from Eastern Thrace after the Armistice of Mudanya of October 1922. Gallipoli was briefly handed over to British troops on 20 October 1922, but finally returned to Turkish rule on 26 November 1922.
In 1920, after the defeat of the Russian White army of General Pyotr Wrangel, a significant number of émigré soldiers and their families evacuated to Gallipoli from the Crimean Peninsula. From there, many went to European countries, such as Yugoslavia, where they found refuge.
There are now many cemeteries and war memorials on the Gallipoli peninsula.
Between 1923 and 1926 Gallipoli became the centre of Gelibolu Province, comprising the districts of Gelibolu, Eceabat, Keşan and Şarköy. After the dissolution of the province, it became a district centre in Çanakkale Province.
40°21′N 26°27′E / 40.350°N 26.450°E / 40.350; 26.450 | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Gallipoli peninsula (/ɡəˈlɪpəli, ɡæ-/; Turkish: Gelibolu Yarımadası; Greek: Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, romanized: Chersónisos tis Kallípolis) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name Καλλίπολις (Kallípolis), meaning 'beautiful city', the original name of the modern town of Gelibolu. In antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (Ancient Greek: Θρακικὴ Χερσόνησος, romanized: Thrakiké Chersónesos; Latin: Chersonesus Thracica).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Dardanelles (formerly known as the Hellespont), and the Gulf of Saros (formerly the bay of Melas). In antiquity, it was protected by the Long Wall, a defensive structure built across the narrowest part of the peninsula near the ancient city of Agora. The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadth or about 6.5 km (4.0 mi), but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia or about 77.5 km (48.2 mi).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In ancient times, the Gallipoli Peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (from Greek χερσόνησος, 'peninsula') to the Greeks and later the Romans. It was the location of several prominent towns, including Cardia, Pactya, Callipolis (Gallipoli), Alopeconnesus (Ἀλωπεκόννησος), Sestos, Madytos, and Elaeus. The peninsula was renowned for its wheat. It also benefited from its strategic importance on the main route between Europe and Asia, as well as from its control of the shipping route from Crimea. The city of Sestos was the main crossing-point on the Hellespont.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "According to Herodotus, the Thracian tribe of Dolonci (Δόλογκοι) (or 'barbarians' according to Cornelius Nepos) held possession of the peninsula before the Greek colonization. Then, settlers from Ancient Greece, mainly of Ionian and Aeolian stock, founded about 12 cities on the peninsula in the 7th century BC. The Athenian statesman Miltiades the Elder founded a major Athenian colony there around 560 BC. He took authority over the entire peninsula, augmenting its defences against incursions from the mainland. It eventually passed to his nephew, the more famous Miltiades the Younger, about 524 BC. The peninsula was abandoned to the Persians in 493 BC after the beginning of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–478 BC).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Persians were eventually expelled, after which the peninsula was for a time ruled by Athens, which enrolled it into the Delian League in 478 BC. The Athenians established a number of cleruchies on the Thracian Chersonese and sent an additional 1,000 settlers around 448 BC. Sparta gained control after the decisive battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC, but the peninsula subsequently reverted to the Athenians. During the 4th century BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the focus of a bitter territorial dispute between Athens and Macedon, whose king Philip II sought possession. It was eventually ceded to Philip in 338 BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After the death of Philip's son Alexander the Great in 323 BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the object of contention among Alexander's successors. Lysimachus established his capital Lysimachia here. In 278 BC, Celtic tribes from Galatia in Asia Minor settled in the area. In 196 BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus III seized the peninsula. This alarmed the Greeks and prompted them to seek the aid of the Romans, who conquered the Thracian Chersonese, which they gave to their ally Eumenes II of Pergamon in 188 BC. At the extinction of the Attalid dynasty in 133 BC it passed again to the Romans, who from 129 BC administered it in the Roman province of Asia. It was subsequently made a state-owned territory (ager publicus) and during the reign of the emperor Augustus it was imperial property.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Thracian Chersonese was part of the Eastern Roman Empire from its foundation in 395 AD. In 443 AD, Attila the Hun invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula during one of the last stages of his grand campaign that year. He captured both Callipolis and Sestus. Aside from a brief period from 1204 to 1235, when it was controlled by the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire ruled the territory until 1356. During the night between 1 and 2 March 1354, a strong earthquake destroyed the city of Gallipoli and its city walls, weakening its defenses.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Within a month after the devastating 1354 earthquake the Ottomans besieged and captured the town of Gallipoli, making it the first Ottoman stronghold in Europe and the staging area for Ottoman expansion across the Balkans. The Savoyard Crusade recaptured Gallipoli for Byzantium in 1366, but the beleaguered Byzantines were forced to hand it back in September 1376. The Greeks living there were allowed to continue their everyday activities. In the 19th century, Gallipoli (Ottoman Turkish: گلیبولو, Gelibolu) was a district (kaymakamlik) in the Vilayet of Adrianople, with about thirty thousand inhabitants: comprising Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Jews.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Gallipoli became a major encampment for British and French forces in 1854 during the Crimean War, and the harbour was also a stopping-off point between the western Mediterranean and Istanbul (formerly Constantinople).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In March 1854 British and French engineers constructed an 11.5 km (7.1 mi) line of defence to protect the peninsula from a possible Russian attack and so secure control of the route to the Mediterranean Sea.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "During the First Balkan War, the 1913 Battle of Bulair and several minor skirmishes took place where the Ottoman army fought in the Greek villages near Gallipoli\". The Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars mention destruction and massacres in the area by the Ottoman army against Greek and Bulgarian population.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Ottoman Government, under the pretext that a village was within the firing line, ordered its evacuation within three hours. The residents abandoned everything they possessed, left their village and went to Gallipoli. Seven of the Greek villagers who stayed two minutes later than the three-hour limit allowed for the evacuation were shot by the soldiers. After the end of the Balkan War the exiles were allowed to return. But as the Government allowed only the Turks to rebuild their houses and furnish them, the exiled Greeks were compelled to remain in Gallipoli.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "During World War I (1914-1918), French, British, and allied forces (Australian, New Zealand, Newfoundland, Irish and Indian) fought the Gallipoli campaign (1915-1916) in and near the peninsula, seeking to secure a sea route to relieve their eastern ally, Russia. The Ottomans set up defensive fortifications along the peninsula and contained the invading forces.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In early 1915, attempting to seize a strategic advantage in World War I by capturing Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), the British authorised an attack on the peninsula by French, British, and British Empire forces. The first Australian troops landed at ANZAC Cove early in the morning of 25 April 1915. After eight months of heavy fighting the last Allied soldiers withdrew by 9 January 1916.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The campaign, one of the greatest Ottoman victories during the war, is considered by historians as a humiliating Allied failure. Turks regard it as a defining moment in their nation's history: a final surge in the defence of the motherland as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. The struggle formed the basis for the Turkish War of Independence and the founding of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who first rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Ottoman Empire instituted the Gallipoli Star as a military decoration in 1915 and awarded it throughout the rest of World War I.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The campaign was the first major military action of Australia and New Zealand (or ANZACs) as independent dominions. The date of the landing, 25 April, is known as \"ANZAC Day\". It remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties and \"returned soldiers\" in Australia and New Zealand.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "On the Allied side one of the promoters of the expedition was Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, whose bullish optimism caused damage to his reputation that took years to repair.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Whilst the underlying strategic concept of the campaign was sound the military forces of the WW1 lacked the logistical, technological and tactical capabilities to undertake an operation of this scope against a determined, well equipped defender.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The all arms coordination and logistical capabilities required to successfully prosecute such a campaign would only be achieved three decades later, during the successful Allied amphibious invasions of Europe and the Pacific during WW2.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Prior to the Allied landings in April 1915, the Ottoman Empire deported Greek residents from Gallipoli and the surrounding region and from the islands in the sea of Marmara, to the interior where they were at the mercy of hostile Turks. The Greeks had little time to pack and the Ottoman authorities permitted them to take only some bedding and the rest was handed over to the Government. The Turks then plundered the houses and properties. A testimony of a deportee described how the deportees were forced onto crowded steamers, standing-room only, then on disembarking, men of military age were removed (for forced labour in the labour battalions of the Ottoman army). The rest were \"scattered… among the farms like ownerless cattle.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Metropolitan of Gallipoli wrote on 17 July 1915 that the extermination of the Christian refugees was methodical. He also mentions that \"The Turks, like beasts of prey, immediately plundered all the Christians' property and carried it off. The inhabitants and refugees of my district are entirely without shelter, awaiting to be sent no one knows where ...\". Many Greeks died from hunger and there were frequent cases of rape of women and young girls, as well as their forced conversion to Islam. In some cases, Muhacirs appeared in the villages even before the Greek inhabitants were deported and stoned the houses and threatened the inhabitants that they would kill them if they did not leave.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Greek troops occupied Gallipoli on 4 August 1920 during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22, considered part of the Turkish War of Independence. After the Armistice of Mudros of 30 October 1918 it became a Greek prefecture centre as Kallipolis. However, Greece was forced to withdraw from Eastern Thrace after the Armistice of Mudanya of October 1922. Gallipoli was briefly handed over to British troops on 20 October 1922, but finally returned to Turkish rule on 26 November 1922.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1920, after the defeat of the Russian White army of General Pyotr Wrangel, a significant number of émigré soldiers and their families evacuated to Gallipoli from the Crimean Peninsula. From there, many went to European countries, such as Yugoslavia, where they found refuge.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "There are now many cemeteries and war memorials on the Gallipoli peninsula.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Between 1923 and 1926 Gallipoli became the centre of Gelibolu Province, comprising the districts of Gelibolu, Eceabat, Keşan and Şarköy. After the dissolution of the province, it became a district centre in Çanakkale Province.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "40°21′N 26°27′E / 40.350°N 26.450°E / 40.350; 26.450",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| The Gallipoli peninsula is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name Καλλίπολις (Kallípolis), meaning 'beautiful city', the original name of the modern town of Gelibolu. In antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese. The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Dardanelles, and the Gulf of Saros. In antiquity, it was protected by the Long Wall, a defensive structure built across the narrowest part of the peninsula near the ancient city of Agora. The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadth or about 6.5 km (4.0 mi), but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia or about 77.5 km (48.2 mi). | 2001-12-07T13:13:39Z | 2023-12-13T23:26:43Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli |
12,935 | Gram stain | In microbiology and bacteriology, Gram stain (Gram staining or Gram's method), is a method of staining used to classify bacterial species into two large groups: gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. It may also be used to diagnose a fungal infection. The name comes from the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, who developed the technique in 1884.
Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in the cell wall that retains the primary stain, crystal violet. Gram-negative cells have a thinner peptidoglycan layer that allows the crystal violet to wash out on addition of ethanol. They are stained pink or red by the counterstain, commonly safranin or fuchsine. Lugol's iodine solution is always added after addition of crystal violet to strengthen the bonds of the stain with the cell membrane.
Gram staining is almost always the first step in the identification of a bacterial group. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique. This gives rise to gram-variable and gram-indeterminate groups.
The method is named after its inventor, the Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram (1853–1938), who developed the technique while working with Carl Friedländer in the morgue of the city hospital in Berlin in 1884. Gram devised his technique not for the purpose of distinguishing one type of bacterium from another but to make bacteria more visible in stained sections of lung tissue. He published his method in 1884, and included in his short report the observation that the typhus bacillus did not retain the stain.
Gram staining is a bacteriological laboratory technique used to differentiate bacterial species into two large groups (gram-positive and gram-negative) based on the physical properties of their cell walls. Gram staining can also be used to diagnose a fungal infection. Gram staining is not used to classify archaea, since these microorganisms yield widely varying responses that do not follow their phylogenetic groups.
Some organisms are gram-variable (meaning they may stain either negative or positive); some are not stained with either dye used in the Gram technique and are not seen. In a modern environmental or molecular microbiology lab, most identification is done using genetic sequences and other molecular techniques, which are far more specific and informative than differential staining.
Gram stains are performed on body fluid or biopsy when infection is suspected. Gram stains yield results much more quickly than culturing, and are especially important when infection would make an important difference in the patient's treatment and prognosis; examples are cerebrospinal fluid for meningitis and synovial fluid for septic arthritis.
Gram-positive bacteria have a thick mesh-like cell wall made of peptidoglycan (50–90% of cell envelope), and as a result are stained purple by crystal violet, whereas gram-negative bacteria have a thinner layer (10% of cell envelope), so do not retain the purple stain and are counter-stained pink by safranin. There are four basic steps of the Gram stain:
Crystal violet (CV) dissociates in aqueous solutions into CV and chloride (Cl) ions. These ions penetrate the cell wall of both gram-positive and gram-negative cells. The CV ion interacts with negatively charged components of bacterial cells and stains the cells purple.
Iodide (I or I3) interacts with CV and forms large complexes of crystal violet and iodine (CV–I) within the inner and outer layers of the cell. Iodine is often referred to as a mordant, but is a trapping agent that prevents the removal of the CV–I complex and, therefore, colors the cell.
When a decolorizer such as alcohol or acetone is added, it interacts with the lipids of the cell membrane. A gram-negative cell loses its outer lipopolysaccharide membrane, and the inner peptidoglycan layer is left exposed. The CV–I complexes are washed from the gram-negative cell along with the outer membrane. In contrast, a gram-positive cell becomes dehydrated from an ethanol treatment. The large CV–I complexes become trapped within the gram-positive cell due to the multilayered nature of its peptidoglycan. The decolorization step is critical and must be timed correctly; the crystal violet stain is removed from both gram-positive and negative cells if the decolorizing agent is left on too long (a matter of seconds).
After decolorization, the gram-positive cell remains purple and the gram-negative cell loses its purple color. Counterstain, which is usually positively charged safranin or basic fuchsine, is applied last to give decolorized gram-negative bacteria a pink or red color. Both gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria pick up the counterstain. The counterstain, however, is unseen on gram-positive bacteria because of the darker crystal violet stain.
Gram-positive bacteria generally have a single membrane (monoderm) surrounded by a thick peptidoglycan. This rule is followed by two phyla: Bacillota (except for the classes Mollicutes and Negativicutes) and the Actinomycetota. In contrast, members of the Chloroflexota (green non-sulfur bacteria) are monoderms but possess a thin or absent (class Dehalococcoidetes) peptidoglycan and can stain negative, positive or indeterminate; members of the Deinococcota stain positive but are diderms with a thick peptidoglycan.
Historically, the gram-positive forms made up the phylum Firmicutes, a name now used for the largest group. It includes many well-known genera such as Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Listeria, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and Clostridium. It has also been expanded to include the Mollicutes, bacteria such as Mycoplasma and Thermoplasma that lack cell walls and so cannot be Gram-stained, but are derived from such forms.
Some bacteria have cell walls which are particularly adept at retaining stains. These will appear positive by Gram stain even though they are not closely related to other gram-positive bacteria. These are called acid-fast bacteria, and can only be differentiated from other gram-positive bacteria by special staining procedures.
Gram-negative bacteria generally possess a thin layer of peptidoglycan between two membranes (diderm). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the most abundant antigen on the cell surface of most gram-negative bacteria, contributing up to 80% of the outer membrane of E. coli and Salmonella. Most bacterial phyla are gram-negative, including the cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and most Pseudomonadota (exceptions being some members of the Rickettsiales and the insect-endosymbionts of the Enterobacteriales).
Some bacteria, after staining with the Gram stain, yield a gram-variable pattern: a mix of pink and purple cells are seen. In cultures of Bacillus, Butyrivibrio, and Clostridium, a decrease in peptidoglycan thickness during growth coincides with an increase in the number of cells that stain gram-negative. In addition, in all bacteria stained using the Gram stain, the age of the culture may influence the results of the stain.
Gram-indeterminate bacteria do not respond predictably to Gram staining and, therefore, cannot be determined as either gram-positive or gram-negative. Examples include many species of Mycobacterium, including Mycobacterium bovis, Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the latter two of which are the causative agents of leprosy and tuberculosis, respectively. Bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma lack a cell wall around their cell membranes, which means they do not stain by Gram's method and are resistant to the antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis.
The term Gram staining is derived from the surname of Hans Christian Gram; the eponym (Gram) is therefore capitalized but not the common noun (stain) as is usual for scientific terms. The initial letters of gram-positive and gram-negative, which are eponymous adjectives, can be either capital G or lowercase g, depending on what style guide (if any) governs the document being written. Lowercase style is used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other style regimens such as the AMA style. Dictionaries may use lowercase, uppercase, or both. Uppercase Gram-positive or Gram-negative usage is also common in many scientific journal articles and publications. When articles are submitted to journals, each journal may or may not apply house style to the postprint version. Preprint versions contain whichever style the author happened to use. Even style regimens that use lowercase for the adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative still typically use capital for Gram stain. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In microbiology and bacteriology, Gram stain (Gram staining or Gram's method), is a method of staining used to classify bacterial species into two large groups: gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. It may also be used to diagnose a fungal infection. The name comes from the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, who developed the technique in 1884.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in the cell wall that retains the primary stain, crystal violet. Gram-negative cells have a thinner peptidoglycan layer that allows the crystal violet to wash out on addition of ethanol. They are stained pink or red by the counterstain, commonly safranin or fuchsine. Lugol's iodine solution is always added after addition of crystal violet to strengthen the bonds of the stain with the cell membrane.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Gram staining is almost always the first step in the identification of a bacterial group. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique. This gives rise to gram-variable and gram-indeterminate groups.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The method is named after its inventor, the Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram (1853–1938), who developed the technique while working with Carl Friedländer in the morgue of the city hospital in Berlin in 1884. Gram devised his technique not for the purpose of distinguishing one type of bacterium from another but to make bacteria more visible in stained sections of lung tissue. He published his method in 1884, and included in his short report the observation that the typhus bacillus did not retain the stain.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Gram staining is a bacteriological laboratory technique used to differentiate bacterial species into two large groups (gram-positive and gram-negative) based on the physical properties of their cell walls. Gram staining can also be used to diagnose a fungal infection. Gram staining is not used to classify archaea, since these microorganisms yield widely varying responses that do not follow their phylogenetic groups.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Some organisms are gram-variable (meaning they may stain either negative or positive); some are not stained with either dye used in the Gram technique and are not seen. In a modern environmental or molecular microbiology lab, most identification is done using genetic sequences and other molecular techniques, which are far more specific and informative than differential staining.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Gram stains are performed on body fluid or biopsy when infection is suspected. Gram stains yield results much more quickly than culturing, and are especially important when infection would make an important difference in the patient's treatment and prognosis; examples are cerebrospinal fluid for meningitis and synovial fluid for septic arthritis.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Gram-positive bacteria have a thick mesh-like cell wall made of peptidoglycan (50–90% of cell envelope), and as a result are stained purple by crystal violet, whereas gram-negative bacteria have a thinner layer (10% of cell envelope), so do not retain the purple stain and are counter-stained pink by safranin. There are four basic steps of the Gram stain:",
"title": "Staining mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Crystal violet (CV) dissociates in aqueous solutions into CV and chloride (Cl) ions. These ions penetrate the cell wall of both gram-positive and gram-negative cells. The CV ion interacts with negatively charged components of bacterial cells and stains the cells purple.",
"title": "Staining mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Iodide (I or I3) interacts with CV and forms large complexes of crystal violet and iodine (CV–I) within the inner and outer layers of the cell. Iodine is often referred to as a mordant, but is a trapping agent that prevents the removal of the CV–I complex and, therefore, colors the cell.",
"title": "Staining mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "When a decolorizer such as alcohol or acetone is added, it interacts with the lipids of the cell membrane. A gram-negative cell loses its outer lipopolysaccharide membrane, and the inner peptidoglycan layer is left exposed. The CV–I complexes are washed from the gram-negative cell along with the outer membrane. In contrast, a gram-positive cell becomes dehydrated from an ethanol treatment. The large CV–I complexes become trapped within the gram-positive cell due to the multilayered nature of its peptidoglycan. The decolorization step is critical and must be timed correctly; the crystal violet stain is removed from both gram-positive and negative cells if the decolorizing agent is left on too long (a matter of seconds).",
"title": "Staining mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After decolorization, the gram-positive cell remains purple and the gram-negative cell loses its purple color. Counterstain, which is usually positively charged safranin or basic fuchsine, is applied last to give decolorized gram-negative bacteria a pink or red color. Both gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria pick up the counterstain. The counterstain, however, is unseen on gram-positive bacteria because of the darker crystal violet stain.",
"title": "Staining mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Gram-positive bacteria generally have a single membrane (monoderm) surrounded by a thick peptidoglycan. This rule is followed by two phyla: Bacillota (except for the classes Mollicutes and Negativicutes) and the Actinomycetota. In contrast, members of the Chloroflexota (green non-sulfur bacteria) are monoderms but possess a thin or absent (class Dehalococcoidetes) peptidoglycan and can stain negative, positive or indeterminate; members of the Deinococcota stain positive but are diderms with a thick peptidoglycan.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Historically, the gram-positive forms made up the phylum Firmicutes, a name now used for the largest group. It includes many well-known genera such as Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Listeria, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and Clostridium. It has also been expanded to include the Mollicutes, bacteria such as Mycoplasma and Thermoplasma that lack cell walls and so cannot be Gram-stained, but are derived from such forms.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Some bacteria have cell walls which are particularly adept at retaining stains. These will appear positive by Gram stain even though they are not closely related to other gram-positive bacteria. These are called acid-fast bacteria, and can only be differentiated from other gram-positive bacteria by special staining procedures.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Gram-negative bacteria generally possess a thin layer of peptidoglycan between two membranes (diderm). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the most abundant antigen on the cell surface of most gram-negative bacteria, contributing up to 80% of the outer membrane of E. coli and Salmonella. Most bacterial phyla are gram-negative, including the cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and most Pseudomonadota (exceptions being some members of the Rickettsiales and the insect-endosymbionts of the Enterobacteriales).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Some bacteria, after staining with the Gram stain, yield a gram-variable pattern: a mix of pink and purple cells are seen. In cultures of Bacillus, Butyrivibrio, and Clostridium, a decrease in peptidoglycan thickness during growth coincides with an increase in the number of cells that stain gram-negative. In addition, in all bacteria stained using the Gram stain, the age of the culture may influence the results of the stain.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Gram-indeterminate bacteria do not respond predictably to Gram staining and, therefore, cannot be determined as either gram-positive or gram-negative. Examples include many species of Mycobacterium, including Mycobacterium bovis, Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the latter two of which are the causative agents of leprosy and tuberculosis, respectively. Bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma lack a cell wall around their cell membranes, which means they do not stain by Gram's method and are resistant to the antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The term Gram staining is derived from the surname of Hans Christian Gram; the eponym (Gram) is therefore capitalized but not the common noun (stain) as is usual for scientific terms. The initial letters of gram-positive and gram-negative, which are eponymous adjectives, can be either capital G or lowercase g, depending on what style guide (if any) governs the document being written. Lowercase style is used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other style regimens such as the AMA style. Dictionaries may use lowercase, uppercase, or both. Uppercase Gram-positive or Gram-negative usage is also common in many scientific journal articles and publications. When articles are submitted to journals, each journal may or may not apply house style to the postprint version. Preprint versions contain whichever style the author happened to use. Even style regimens that use lowercase for the adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative still typically use capital for Gram stain.",
"title": "Orthographic note"
}
]
| In microbiology and bacteriology, Gram stain, is a method of staining used to classify bacterial species into two large groups: gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. It may also be used to diagnose a fungal infection. The name comes from the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, who developed the technique in 1884. Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in the cell wall that retains the primary stain, crystal violet. Gram-negative cells have a thinner peptidoglycan layer that allows the crystal violet to wash out on addition of ethanol. They are stained pink or red by the counterstain, commonly safranin or fuchsine. Lugol's iodine solution is always added after addition of crystal violet to strengthen the bonds of the stain with the cell membrane. Gram staining is almost always the first step in the identification of a bacterial group. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique. This gives rise to gram-variable and gram-indeterminate groups. | 2001-12-08T09:20:21Z | 2023-11-23T22:43:32Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram_stain |
12,936 | Gram-positive bacteria | In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall.
Gram-positive bacteria take up the crystal violet stain used in the test, and then appear to be purple-coloured when seen through an optical microscope. This is because the thick layer of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall retains the stain after it is washed away from the rest of the sample, in the decolorization stage of the test.
Conversely, gram-negative bacteria cannot retain the violet stain after the decolorization step; alcohol used in this stage degrades the outer membrane of gram-negative cells, making the cell wall more porous and incapable of retaining the crystal violet stain. Their peptidoglycan layer is much thinner and sandwiched between an inner cell membrane and a bacterial outer membrane, causing them to take up the counterstain (safranin or fuchsine) and appear red or pink.
Despite their thicker peptidoglycan layer, gram-positive bacteria are more receptive to certain cell wall–targeting antibiotics than gram-negative bacteria, due to the absence of the outer membrane.
In general, the following characteristics are present in gram-positive bacteria:
Only some species have a capsule, usually consisting of polysaccharides. Also, only some species are flagellates, and when they do have flagella, have only two basal body rings to support them, whereas gram-negative have four. Both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria commonly have a surface layer called an S-layer. In gram-positive bacteria, the S-layer is attached to the peptidoglycan layer. Gram-negative bacteria's S-layer is attached directly to the outer membrane. Specific to gram-positive bacteria is the presence of teichoic acids in the cell wall. Some of these are lipoteichoic acids, which have a lipid component in the cell membrane that can assist in anchoring the peptidoglycan.
Along with cell shape, Gram staining is a rapid method used to differentiate bacterial species. Such staining, together with growth requirement and antibiotic susceptibility testing, and other macroscopic and physiologic tests, forms a basis for practical classification and subdivision of the bacteria (e.g., see figure and pre-1990 versions of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology).
Historically, the kingdom Monera was divided into four divisions based primarily on Gram staining: Bacillota (positive in staining), Gracilicutes (negative in staining), Mollicutes (neutral in staining) and Mendocutes (variable in staining). Based on 16S ribosomal RNA phylogenetic studies of the late microbiologist Carl Woese and collaborators and colleagues at the University of Illinois, the monophyly of the gram-positive bacteria was challenged, with major implications for the therapeutic and general study of these organisms. Based on molecular studies of the 16S sequences, Woese recognised twelve bacterial phyla. Two of these were gram-positive and were divided on the proportion of the guanine and cytosine content in their DNA. The high G + C phylum was made up of the Actinobacteria, and the low G + C phylum contained the Firmicutes. The Actinomycetota include the Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium, Nocardia and Streptomyces genera. The (low G + C) Bacillota, have a 45–60% GC content, but this is lower than that of the Actinomycetota.
Although bacteria are traditionally divided into two main groups, gram-positive and gram-negative, based on their Gram stain retention property, this classification system is ambiguous as it refers to three distinct aspects (staining result, envelope organization, taxonomic group), which do not necessarily coalesce for some bacterial species. The gram-positive and gram-negative staining response is also not a reliable characteristic as these two kinds of bacteria do not form phylogenetic coherent groups. However, although Gram staining response is an empirical criterion, its basis lies in the marked differences in the ultrastructure and chemical composition of the bacterial cell wall, marked by the absence or presence of an outer lipid membrane.
All gram-positive bacteria are bounded by a single-unit lipid membrane, and, in general, they contain a thick layer (20–80 nm) of peptidoglycan responsible for retaining the Gram stain. A number of other bacteria—that are bounded by a single membrane, but stain gram-negative due to either lack of the peptidoglycan layer, as in the mycoplasmas, or their inability to retain the Gram stain because of their cell wall composition—also show close relationship to the gram-positive bacteria. For the bacterial cells bounded by a single cell membrane, the term monoderm bacteria has been proposed.
In contrast to gram-positive bacteria, all typical gram-negative bacteria are bounded by a cytoplasmic membrane and an outer cell membrane; they contain only a thin layer of peptidoglycan (2–3 nm) between these membranes. The presence of inner and outer cell membranes defines a new compartment in these cells: the periplasmic space or the periplasmic compartment. These bacteria have been designated as diderm bacteria. The distinction between the monoderm and diderm bacteria is supported by conserved signature indels in a number of important proteins (viz. DnaK, GroEL). Of these two structurally distinct groups of bacteria, monoderms are indicated to be ancestral. Based upon a number of observations including that the gram-positive bacteria are the major producers of antibiotics and that, in general, gram-negative bacteria are resistant to them, it has been proposed that the outer cell membrane in gram-negative bacteria (diderms) has evolved as a protective mechanism against antibiotic selection pressure. Some bacteria, such as Deinococcus, which stain gram-positive due to the presence of a thick peptidoglycan layer and also possess an outer cell membrane are suggested as intermediates in the transition between monoderm (gram-positive) and diderm (gram-negative) bacteria. The diderm bacteria can also be further differentiated between simple diderms lacking lipopolysaccharide, the archetypical diderm bacteria where the outer cell membrane contains lipopolysaccharide, and the diderm bacteria where outer cell membrane is made up of mycolic acid.
In general, gram-positive bacteria are monoderms and have a single lipid bilayer whereas gram-negative bacteria are diderms and have two bilayers. Exceptions include:
Some Bacillota species are not gram-positive. The class Negativicutes, which includes Selenomonas, are diderm and stain gram-negative. Additionally, a number of bacterial taxa (viz. Negativicutes, Fusobacteriota, Synergistota, and Elusimicrobiota) that are either part of the phylum Bacillota or branch in its proximity are found to possess a diderm cell structure. However, a conserved signature indel (CSI) in the HSP60 (GroEL) protein distinguishes all traditional phyla of gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonadota, Aquificota, Chlamydiota, Bacteroidota, Chlorobiota, "Cyanobacteria", Fibrobacterota, Verrucomicrobiota, Planctomycetota, Spirochaetota, Acidobacteriota, etc.) from these other atypical diderm bacteria, as well as other phyla of monoderm bacteria (e.g., Actinomycetota, Bacillota, Thermotogota, Chloroflexota, etc.). The presence of this CSI in all sequenced species of conventional LPS (lipopolysaccharide)-containing gram-negative bacterial phyla provides evidence that these phyla of bacteria form a monophyletic clade and that no loss of the outer membrane from any species from this group has occurred.
In the classical sense, six gram-positive genera are typically pathogenic in humans. Two of these, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus, are cocci (sphere-shaped). The remaining organisms are bacilli (rod-shaped) and can be subdivided based on their ability to form spores. The non-spore formers are Corynebacterium and Listeria (a coccobacillus), whereas Bacillus and Clostridium produce spores. The spore-forming bacteria can again be divided based on their respiration: Bacillus is a facultative anaerobe, while Clostridium is an obligate anaerobe. Also, Rathybacter, Leifsonia, and Clavibacter are three gram-positive genera that cause plant disease. Gram-positive bacteria are capable of causing serious and sometimes fatal infections in newborn infants. Novel species of clinically relevant gram-positive bacteria also include Catabacter hongkongensis, which is an emerging pathogen belonging to Bacillota.
Transformation is one of three processes for horizontal gene transfer, in which exogenous genetic material passes from a donor bacterium to a recipient bacterium, the other two processes being conjugation (transfer of genetic material between two bacterial cells in direct contact) and transduction (injection of donor bacterial DNA by a bacteriophage virus into a recipient host bacterium). In transformation, the genetic material passes through the intervening medium, and uptake is completely dependent on the recipient bacterium.
As of 2014 about 80 species of bacteria were known to be capable of transformation, about evenly divided between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria; the number might be an overestimate since several of the reports are supported by single papers. Transformation among gram-positive bacteria has been studied in medically important species such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus mutans, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus sanguinis and in gram-positive soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus.
The adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative derive from the surname of Hans Christian Gram; as eponymous adjectives, their initial letter can be either capital G or lower-case g, depending on which style guide (e.g., that of the CDC), if any, governs the document being written. This is further explained at Gram staining § Orthographic note. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gram-positive bacteria take up the crystal violet stain used in the test, and then appear to be purple-coloured when seen through an optical microscope. This is because the thick layer of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall retains the stain after it is washed away from the rest of the sample, in the decolorization stage of the test.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Conversely, gram-negative bacteria cannot retain the violet stain after the decolorization step; alcohol used in this stage degrades the outer membrane of gram-negative cells, making the cell wall more porous and incapable of retaining the crystal violet stain. Their peptidoglycan layer is much thinner and sandwiched between an inner cell membrane and a bacterial outer membrane, causing them to take up the counterstain (safranin or fuchsine) and appear red or pink.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Despite their thicker peptidoglycan layer, gram-positive bacteria are more receptive to certain cell wall–targeting antibiotics than gram-negative bacteria, due to the absence of the outer membrane.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In general, the following characteristics are present in gram-positive bacteria:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Only some species have a capsule, usually consisting of polysaccharides. Also, only some species are flagellates, and when they do have flagella, have only two basal body rings to support them, whereas gram-negative have four. Both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria commonly have a surface layer called an S-layer. In gram-positive bacteria, the S-layer is attached to the peptidoglycan layer. Gram-negative bacteria's S-layer is attached directly to the outer membrane. Specific to gram-positive bacteria is the presence of teichoic acids in the cell wall. Some of these are lipoteichoic acids, which have a lipid component in the cell membrane that can assist in anchoring the peptidoglycan.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Along with cell shape, Gram staining is a rapid method used to differentiate bacterial species. Such staining, together with growth requirement and antibiotic susceptibility testing, and other macroscopic and physiologic tests, forms a basis for practical classification and subdivision of the bacteria (e.g., see figure and pre-1990 versions of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology).",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Historically, the kingdom Monera was divided into four divisions based primarily on Gram staining: Bacillota (positive in staining), Gracilicutes (negative in staining), Mollicutes (neutral in staining) and Mendocutes (variable in staining). Based on 16S ribosomal RNA phylogenetic studies of the late microbiologist Carl Woese and collaborators and colleagues at the University of Illinois, the monophyly of the gram-positive bacteria was challenged, with major implications for the therapeutic and general study of these organisms. Based on molecular studies of the 16S sequences, Woese recognised twelve bacterial phyla. Two of these were gram-positive and were divided on the proportion of the guanine and cytosine content in their DNA. The high G + C phylum was made up of the Actinobacteria, and the low G + C phylum contained the Firmicutes. The Actinomycetota include the Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium, Nocardia and Streptomyces genera. The (low G + C) Bacillota, have a 45–60% GC content, but this is lower than that of the Actinomycetota.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Although bacteria are traditionally divided into two main groups, gram-positive and gram-negative, based on their Gram stain retention property, this classification system is ambiguous as it refers to three distinct aspects (staining result, envelope organization, taxonomic group), which do not necessarily coalesce for some bacterial species. The gram-positive and gram-negative staining response is also not a reliable characteristic as these two kinds of bacteria do not form phylogenetic coherent groups. However, although Gram staining response is an empirical criterion, its basis lies in the marked differences in the ultrastructure and chemical composition of the bacterial cell wall, marked by the absence or presence of an outer lipid membrane.",
"title": "Importance of the outer cell membrane in bacterial classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "All gram-positive bacteria are bounded by a single-unit lipid membrane, and, in general, they contain a thick layer (20–80 nm) of peptidoglycan responsible for retaining the Gram stain. A number of other bacteria—that are bounded by a single membrane, but stain gram-negative due to either lack of the peptidoglycan layer, as in the mycoplasmas, or their inability to retain the Gram stain because of their cell wall composition—also show close relationship to the gram-positive bacteria. For the bacterial cells bounded by a single cell membrane, the term monoderm bacteria has been proposed.",
"title": "Importance of the outer cell membrane in bacterial classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In contrast to gram-positive bacteria, all typical gram-negative bacteria are bounded by a cytoplasmic membrane and an outer cell membrane; they contain only a thin layer of peptidoglycan (2–3 nm) between these membranes. The presence of inner and outer cell membranes defines a new compartment in these cells: the periplasmic space or the periplasmic compartment. These bacteria have been designated as diderm bacteria. The distinction between the monoderm and diderm bacteria is supported by conserved signature indels in a number of important proteins (viz. DnaK, GroEL). Of these two structurally distinct groups of bacteria, monoderms are indicated to be ancestral. Based upon a number of observations including that the gram-positive bacteria are the major producers of antibiotics and that, in general, gram-negative bacteria are resistant to them, it has been proposed that the outer cell membrane in gram-negative bacteria (diderms) has evolved as a protective mechanism against antibiotic selection pressure. Some bacteria, such as Deinococcus, which stain gram-positive due to the presence of a thick peptidoglycan layer and also possess an outer cell membrane are suggested as intermediates in the transition between monoderm (gram-positive) and diderm (gram-negative) bacteria. The diderm bacteria can also be further differentiated between simple diderms lacking lipopolysaccharide, the archetypical diderm bacteria where the outer cell membrane contains lipopolysaccharide, and the diderm bacteria where outer cell membrane is made up of mycolic acid.",
"title": "Importance of the outer cell membrane in bacterial classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In general, gram-positive bacteria are monoderms and have a single lipid bilayer whereas gram-negative bacteria are diderms and have two bilayers. Exceptions include:",
"title": "Importance of the outer cell membrane in bacterial classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Some Bacillota species are not gram-positive. The class Negativicutes, which includes Selenomonas, are diderm and stain gram-negative. Additionally, a number of bacterial taxa (viz. Negativicutes, Fusobacteriota, Synergistota, and Elusimicrobiota) that are either part of the phylum Bacillota or branch in its proximity are found to possess a diderm cell structure. However, a conserved signature indel (CSI) in the HSP60 (GroEL) protein distinguishes all traditional phyla of gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonadota, Aquificota, Chlamydiota, Bacteroidota, Chlorobiota, \"Cyanobacteria\", Fibrobacterota, Verrucomicrobiota, Planctomycetota, Spirochaetota, Acidobacteriota, etc.) from these other atypical diderm bacteria, as well as other phyla of monoderm bacteria (e.g., Actinomycetota, Bacillota, Thermotogota, Chloroflexota, etc.). The presence of this CSI in all sequenced species of conventional LPS (lipopolysaccharide)-containing gram-negative bacterial phyla provides evidence that these phyla of bacteria form a monophyletic clade and that no loss of the outer membrane from any species from this group has occurred.",
"title": "Importance of the outer cell membrane in bacterial classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In the classical sense, six gram-positive genera are typically pathogenic in humans. Two of these, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus, are cocci (sphere-shaped). The remaining organisms are bacilli (rod-shaped) and can be subdivided based on their ability to form spores. The non-spore formers are Corynebacterium and Listeria (a coccobacillus), whereas Bacillus and Clostridium produce spores. The spore-forming bacteria can again be divided based on their respiration: Bacillus is a facultative anaerobe, while Clostridium is an obligate anaerobe. Also, Rathybacter, Leifsonia, and Clavibacter are three gram-positive genera that cause plant disease. Gram-positive bacteria are capable of causing serious and sometimes fatal infections in newborn infants. Novel species of clinically relevant gram-positive bacteria also include Catabacter hongkongensis, which is an emerging pathogen belonging to Bacillota.",
"title": "Pathogenicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Transformation is one of three processes for horizontal gene transfer, in which exogenous genetic material passes from a donor bacterium to a recipient bacterium, the other two processes being conjugation (transfer of genetic material between two bacterial cells in direct contact) and transduction (injection of donor bacterial DNA by a bacteriophage virus into a recipient host bacterium). In transformation, the genetic material passes through the intervening medium, and uptake is completely dependent on the recipient bacterium.",
"title": "Bacterial transformation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As of 2014 about 80 species of bacteria were known to be capable of transformation, about evenly divided between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria; the number might be an overestimate since several of the reports are supported by single papers. Transformation among gram-positive bacteria has been studied in medically important species such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus mutans, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus sanguinis and in gram-positive soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus.",
"title": "Bacterial transformation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative derive from the surname of Hans Christian Gram; as eponymous adjectives, their initial letter can be either capital G or lower-case g, depending on which style guide (e.g., that of the CDC), if any, governs the document being written. This is further explained at Gram staining § Orthographic note.",
"title": "Orthographic note"
}
]
| In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall. Gram-positive bacteria take up the crystal violet stain used in the test, and then appear to be purple-coloured when seen through an optical microscope. This is because the thick layer of peptidoglycan in the bacterial cell wall retains the stain after it is washed away from the rest of the sample, in the decolorization stage of the test. Conversely, gram-negative bacteria cannot retain the violet stain after the decolorization step; alcohol used in this stage degrades the outer membrane of gram-negative cells, making the cell wall more porous and incapable of retaining the crystal violet stain. Their peptidoglycan layer is much thinner and sandwiched between an inner cell membrane and a bacterial outer membrane, causing them to take up the counterstain and appear red or pink. Despite their thicker peptidoglycan layer, gram-positive bacteria are more receptive to certain cell wall–targeting antibiotics than gram-negative bacteria, due to the absence of the outer membrane. | 2001-12-08T10:32:57Z | 2023-11-18T01:18:47Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-positive_bacteria |
12,937 | Gram-negative bacteria | Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall sandwiched between an inner membrane (cytoplasmic), and an outer membrane.
Gram-negative bacteria are found in virtually all environments on Earth that support life. The gram-negative bacteria include the model organism Escherichia coli, as well as many pathogenic bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Chlamydia trachomatis, and Yersinia pestis. They are a significant medical challenge as their outer membrane protects them from many antibiotics (including penicillin), detergents that would normally damage the inner cell membrane, and lysozyme, an antimicrobial enzyme produced by animals that forms part of the innate immune system. Additionally, the outer leaflet of this membrane comprises a complex lipopolysaccharide (LPS) whose lipid A component can cause a toxic reaction when bacteria are lysed by immune cells. This toxic reaction may lead to low blood pressure, respiratory failure, reduced oxygen delivery, and lactic acidosis – manifestations of septic shock.
Several classes of antibiotics have been designed to target gram-negative bacteria, including aminopenicillins, ureidopenicillins, cephalosporins, beta-lactam-betalactamase inhibitor combinations (e.g. piperacillin-tazobactam), Folate antagonists, quinolones, and carbapenems. Many of these antibiotics also cover gram-positive organisms. The drugs that specifically target gram-negative organisms include aminoglycosides, monobactams (aztreonam) and ciprofloxacin.
Conventional gram-negative (LPS-diderm) bacteria display these characteristics:
Along with cell shape, Gram staining is a rapid diagnostic tool and once was used to group species at the subdivision of Bacteria. Historically, the kingdom Monera was divided into four divisions based on Gram staining: Firmacutes (+), Gracillicutes (−), Mollicutes (0) and Mendocutes (var.). Since 1987, the monophyly of the gram-negative bacteria has been disproven with molecular studies. However some authors, such as Cavalier-Smith still treat them as a monophyletic taxon (though not a clade; his definition of monophyly requires a single common ancestor but does not require holophyly, the property that all descendants be encompassed by the taxon) and refer to the group as a subkingdom "Negibacteria".
Bacteria are traditionally classified based on their Gram-staining response into the gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Having just one membrane, the gram-positive bacteria are also known as monoderm bacteria, while gram-negative bacteria, having two membranes, are also known as diderm bacteria. It was traditionally thought that the groups represent lineages, i.e., the extra membrane only evolved once, such that gram-negative bacteria are more closely related to one another than to any gram-positive bacteria. While this is often true, the classification system breaks down in some cases, with lineage groupings not matching the staining result. Thus, Gram staining cannot be reliably used to assess familial relationships of bacteria. Nevertheless, staining often gives reliable information about the composition of the cell membrane, distinguishing between the presence or absence of an outer lipid membrane.
Of these two structurally distinct groups of prokaryotic organisms, monoderm prokaryotes are thought to be ancestral. Based upon a number of different observations, including that the gram-positive bacteria are the most sensitive to antibiotics and that the gram-negative bacteria are, in general, resistant to antibiotics, it has been proposed that the outer cell membrane in gram-negative bacteria (diderms) evolved as a protective mechanism against antibiotic selection pressure. Some bacteria such as Deinococcus, which stain gram-positive due to the presence of a thick peptidoglycan layer, but also possess an outer cell membrane are suggested as intermediates in the transition between monoderm (gram-positive) and diderm (gram-negative) bacteria. The diderm bacteria can also be further differentiated between simple diderms lacking lipopolysaccharide (LPS); the archetypical diderm bacteria, in which the outer cell membrane contains lipopolysaccharide; and the diderm bacteria, in which the outer cell membrane is made up of mycolic acid (e. g. Mycobacterium).
The conventional LPS-diderm group of gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonadota, Aquificota, Chlamydiota, Bacteroidota, Chlorobiota, "Cyanobacteria", Fibrobacterota, Verrucomicrobiota, Planctomycetota, Spirochaetota, Acidobacteriota; "Hydrobacteria") are uniquely identified by a few conserved signature indel (CSI) in the HSP60 (GroEL) protein. In addition, a number of bacterial taxa (including Negativicutes, Fusobacteriota, Synergistota, and Elusimicrobiota) that are either part of the phylum Bacillota (a monoderm group) or branches in its proximity are also found to possess a diderm cell structure. They lack the GroEL signature. The presence of this CSI in all sequenced species of conventional lipopolysaccharide-containing gram-negative bacterial phyla provides evidence that these phyla of bacteria form a monophyletic clade and that no loss of the outer membrane from any species from this group has occurred.
The proteobacteria are a major superphylum of gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, and other Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas, Moraxella, Helicobacter, Stenotrophomonas, Bdellovibrio, acetic acid bacteria, Legionella etc. Other notable groups of gram-negative bacteria include the cyanobacteria, spirochaetes, green sulfur, and green non-sulfur bacteria.
Medically relevant gram-negative cocci include the four types that cause a sexually transmitted disease (Neisseria gonorrhoeae), a meningitis (Neisseria meningitidis), and respiratory symptoms (Moraxella catarrhalis, Haemophilus influenzae).
Medically relevant gram-negative bacilli include a multitude of species. Some of them cause primarily respiratory problems (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa), primarily urinary problems (Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Enterobacter cloacae, Serratia marcescens), and primarily gastrointestinal problems (Helicobacter pylori, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhi).
Gram-negative bacteria associated with hospital-acquired infections include Acinetobacter baumannii, which cause bacteremia, secondary meningitis, and ventilator-associated pneumonia in hospital intensive-care units.
Transformation is one of three processes for horizontal gene transfer, in which exogenous genetic material passes from one bacterium to another, the other two being conjugation (transfer of genetic material between two bacterial cells in direct contact) and transduction (injection of foreign DNA by a bacteriophage virus into the host bacterium). In transformation, the genetic material passes through the intervening medium, and uptake is completely dependent on the recipient bacterium.
As of 2014 about 80 species of bacteria were known to be capable of transformation, about evenly divided between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria; the number might be an overestimate since several of the reports are supported by single papers. Transformation has been studied in medically important gram-negative bacteria species such as Helicobacter pylori, Legionella pneumophila, Neisseria meningitidis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Haemophilus influenzae and Vibrio cholerae. It has also been studied in gram-negative species found in soil such as Pseudomonas stutzeri, Acinetobacter baylyi, and gram-negative plant pathogens such as Ralstonia solanacearum and Xylella fastidiosa.
One of the several unique characteristics of gram-negative bacteria is the structure of the bacterial outer membrane. The outer leaflet of this membrane contains lipopolysaccharide (LPS), whose lipid A portion acts as an endotoxin. If gram-negative bacteria enter the circulatory system, LPS can trigger an innate immune response, activating the immune system and producing cytokines (hormonal regulators). This leads to inflammation and can cause a toxic reaction, resulting in fever, an increased respiratory rate, and low blood pressure. That is why some infections with gram-negative bacteria can lead to life-threatening septic shock.
The outer membrane protects the bacteria from several antibiotics, dyes, and detergents that would normally damage either the inner membrane or the cell wall (made of peptidoglycan). The outer membrane provides these bacteria with resistance to lysozyme and penicillin. The periplasmic space (space between the two cell membranes) also contains enzymes which break down or modify antibiotics. Drugs commonly used to treat gram negative infections include amino, carboxy and ureido penicillins (ampicillin, amoxicillin, pipercillin, ticarcillin) these drugs may be combined with beta-lactamase inhibitors to combat the presence of enzymes that can digest these drugs (known as beta-lactamases) in the peri-plasmic space. Other classes of drugs that have gram negative spectrum include cephalosporins, monobactams (aztreonam), aminoglycosides, quinolones, macrolides, chloramphenicol, folate antagonists, and carbapenems.
The adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative derive from the surname of Hans Christian Gram, a Danish bacteriologist; as eponymous adjectives, their initial letter can be either capital G or lower-case g, depending on which style guide (e.g., that of the CDC), if any, governs the document being written. This is further explained at Gram staining § Orthographic note. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall sandwiched between an inner membrane (cytoplasmic), and an outer membrane.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gram-negative bacteria are found in virtually all environments on Earth that support life. The gram-negative bacteria include the model organism Escherichia coli, as well as many pathogenic bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Chlamydia trachomatis, and Yersinia pestis. They are a significant medical challenge as their outer membrane protects them from many antibiotics (including penicillin), detergents that would normally damage the inner cell membrane, and lysozyme, an antimicrobial enzyme produced by animals that forms part of the innate immune system. Additionally, the outer leaflet of this membrane comprises a complex lipopolysaccharide (LPS) whose lipid A component can cause a toxic reaction when bacteria are lysed by immune cells. This toxic reaction may lead to low blood pressure, respiratory failure, reduced oxygen delivery, and lactic acidosis – manifestations of septic shock.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Several classes of antibiotics have been designed to target gram-negative bacteria, including aminopenicillins, ureidopenicillins, cephalosporins, beta-lactam-betalactamase inhibitor combinations (e.g. piperacillin-tazobactam), Folate antagonists, quinolones, and carbapenems. Many of these antibiotics also cover gram-positive organisms. The drugs that specifically target gram-negative organisms include aminoglycosides, monobactams (aztreonam) and ciprofloxacin.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Conventional gram-negative (LPS-diderm) bacteria display these characteristics:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Along with cell shape, Gram staining is a rapid diagnostic tool and once was used to group species at the subdivision of Bacteria. Historically, the kingdom Monera was divided into four divisions based on Gram staining: Firmacutes (+), Gracillicutes (−), Mollicutes (0) and Mendocutes (var.). Since 1987, the monophyly of the gram-negative bacteria has been disproven with molecular studies. However some authors, such as Cavalier-Smith still treat them as a monophyletic taxon (though not a clade; his definition of monophyly requires a single common ancestor but does not require holophyly, the property that all descendants be encompassed by the taxon) and refer to the group as a subkingdom \"Negibacteria\".",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Bacteria are traditionally classified based on their Gram-staining response into the gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Having just one membrane, the gram-positive bacteria are also known as monoderm bacteria, while gram-negative bacteria, having two membranes, are also known as diderm bacteria. It was traditionally thought that the groups represent lineages, i.e., the extra membrane only evolved once, such that gram-negative bacteria are more closely related to one another than to any gram-positive bacteria. While this is often true, the classification system breaks down in some cases, with lineage groupings not matching the staining result. Thus, Gram staining cannot be reliably used to assess familial relationships of bacteria. Nevertheless, staining often gives reliable information about the composition of the cell membrane, distinguishing between the presence or absence of an outer lipid membrane.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Of these two structurally distinct groups of prokaryotic organisms, monoderm prokaryotes are thought to be ancestral. Based upon a number of different observations, including that the gram-positive bacteria are the most sensitive to antibiotics and that the gram-negative bacteria are, in general, resistant to antibiotics, it has been proposed that the outer cell membrane in gram-negative bacteria (diderms) evolved as a protective mechanism against antibiotic selection pressure. Some bacteria such as Deinococcus, which stain gram-positive due to the presence of a thick peptidoglycan layer, but also possess an outer cell membrane are suggested as intermediates in the transition between monoderm (gram-positive) and diderm (gram-negative) bacteria. The diderm bacteria can also be further differentiated between simple diderms lacking lipopolysaccharide (LPS); the archetypical diderm bacteria, in which the outer cell membrane contains lipopolysaccharide; and the diderm bacteria, in which the outer cell membrane is made up of mycolic acid (e. g. Mycobacterium).",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The conventional LPS-diderm group of gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonadota, Aquificota, Chlamydiota, Bacteroidota, Chlorobiota, \"Cyanobacteria\", Fibrobacterota, Verrucomicrobiota, Planctomycetota, Spirochaetota, Acidobacteriota; \"Hydrobacteria\") are uniquely identified by a few conserved signature indel (CSI) in the HSP60 (GroEL) protein. In addition, a number of bacterial taxa (including Negativicutes, Fusobacteriota, Synergistota, and Elusimicrobiota) that are either part of the phylum Bacillota (a monoderm group) or branches in its proximity are also found to possess a diderm cell structure. They lack the GroEL signature. The presence of this CSI in all sequenced species of conventional lipopolysaccharide-containing gram-negative bacterial phyla provides evidence that these phyla of bacteria form a monophyletic clade and that no loss of the outer membrane from any species from this group has occurred.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The proteobacteria are a major superphylum of gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, and other Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas, Moraxella, Helicobacter, Stenotrophomonas, Bdellovibrio, acetic acid bacteria, Legionella etc. Other notable groups of gram-negative bacteria include the cyanobacteria, spirochaetes, green sulfur, and green non-sulfur bacteria.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Medically relevant gram-negative cocci include the four types that cause a sexually transmitted disease (Neisseria gonorrhoeae), a meningitis (Neisseria meningitidis), and respiratory symptoms (Moraxella catarrhalis, Haemophilus influenzae).",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Medically relevant gram-negative bacilli include a multitude of species. Some of them cause primarily respiratory problems (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa), primarily urinary problems (Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Enterobacter cloacae, Serratia marcescens), and primarily gastrointestinal problems (Helicobacter pylori, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhi).",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Gram-negative bacteria associated with hospital-acquired infections include Acinetobacter baumannii, which cause bacteremia, secondary meningitis, and ventilator-associated pneumonia in hospital intensive-care units.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Transformation is one of three processes for horizontal gene transfer, in which exogenous genetic material passes from one bacterium to another, the other two being conjugation (transfer of genetic material between two bacterial cells in direct contact) and transduction (injection of foreign DNA by a bacteriophage virus into the host bacterium). In transformation, the genetic material passes through the intervening medium, and uptake is completely dependent on the recipient bacterium.",
"title": "Bacterial transformation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "As of 2014 about 80 species of bacteria were known to be capable of transformation, about evenly divided between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria; the number might be an overestimate since several of the reports are supported by single papers. Transformation has been studied in medically important gram-negative bacteria species such as Helicobacter pylori, Legionella pneumophila, Neisseria meningitidis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Haemophilus influenzae and Vibrio cholerae. It has also been studied in gram-negative species found in soil such as Pseudomonas stutzeri, Acinetobacter baylyi, and gram-negative plant pathogens such as Ralstonia solanacearum and Xylella fastidiosa.",
"title": "Bacterial transformation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "One of the several unique characteristics of gram-negative bacteria is the structure of the bacterial outer membrane. The outer leaflet of this membrane contains lipopolysaccharide (LPS), whose lipid A portion acts as an endotoxin. If gram-negative bacteria enter the circulatory system, LPS can trigger an innate immune response, activating the immune system and producing cytokines (hormonal regulators). This leads to inflammation and can cause a toxic reaction, resulting in fever, an increased respiratory rate, and low blood pressure. That is why some infections with gram-negative bacteria can lead to life-threatening septic shock.",
"title": "Role in disease"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The outer membrane protects the bacteria from several antibiotics, dyes, and detergents that would normally damage either the inner membrane or the cell wall (made of peptidoglycan). The outer membrane provides these bacteria with resistance to lysozyme and penicillin. The periplasmic space (space between the two cell membranes) also contains enzymes which break down or modify antibiotics. Drugs commonly used to treat gram negative infections include amino, carboxy and ureido penicillins (ampicillin, amoxicillin, pipercillin, ticarcillin) these drugs may be combined with beta-lactamase inhibitors to combat the presence of enzymes that can digest these drugs (known as beta-lactamases) in the peri-plasmic space. Other classes of drugs that have gram negative spectrum include cephalosporins, monobactams (aztreonam), aminoglycosides, quinolones, macrolides, chloramphenicol, folate antagonists, and carbapenems.",
"title": "Role in disease"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The adjectives gram-positive and gram-negative derive from the surname of Hans Christian Gram, a Danish bacteriologist; as eponymous adjectives, their initial letter can be either capital G or lower-case g, depending on which style guide (e.g., that of the CDC), if any, governs the document being written. This is further explained at Gram staining § Orthographic note.",
"title": "Orthographic note"
}
]
| Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall sandwiched between an inner membrane (cytoplasmic), and an outer membrane. Gram-negative bacteria are found in virtually all environments on Earth that support life. The gram-negative bacteria include the model organism Escherichia coli, as well as many pathogenic bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Chlamydia trachomatis, and Yersinia pestis. They are a significant medical challenge as their outer membrane protects them from many antibiotics, detergents that would normally damage the inner cell membrane, and lysozyme, an antimicrobial enzyme produced by animals that forms part of the innate immune system. Additionally, the outer leaflet of this membrane comprises a complex lipopolysaccharide (LPS) whose lipid A component can cause a toxic reaction when bacteria are lysed by immune cells. This toxic reaction may lead to low blood pressure, respiratory failure, reduced oxygen delivery, and lactic acidosis – manifestations of septic shock. Several classes of antibiotics have been designed to target gram-negative bacteria, including aminopenicillins, ureidopenicillins, cephalosporins, beta-lactam-betalactamase inhibitor combinations, Folate antagonists, quinolones, and carbapenems. Many of these antibiotics also cover gram-positive organisms. The drugs that specifically target gram-negative organisms include aminoglycosides, monobactams (aztreonam) and ciprofloxacin. | 2001-12-08T10:34:42Z | 2023-12-16T01:34:20Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria |
12,938 | Greyhound | The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgence in popularity as a family pet.
Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-coated, "S-shaped" type of sighthound with a long tail and tough feet. Greyhounds are a separate breed from other related sighthounds, such as the Italian greyhound.
The Greyhound is a gentle and intelligent breed whose combination of long, powerful legs, deep chest, flexible spine, and slim build allows it to reach average race speeds exceeding 64 kilometres per hour (40 mph). The Greyhound can reach a full speed of 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) within 30 metres (98 ft), or six strides from the boxes, traveling at almost 20 metres per second (66 ft/s) for the first 250 metres (820 ft) of a race.
Males are usually 71 to 76 centimetres (28 to 30 in) tall at the withers, and weigh on average 27 to 40 kilograms (60 to 88 lb). Females tend to be smaller, with shoulder heights ranging from 66 to 71 centimetres (26 to 28 in) and weights from 25 to 34 kilograms (55 to 75 lb), although weights can be above and below these average weights. Greyhounds have very short fur, which is easy to maintain. There are approximately 30 recognized color forms, of which variations of white, brindle, fawn (pale tan to dark deer-red), black, red, and blue (gray) can appear uniquely or in combination. Greyhounds are dolichocephalic, with a skull which is relatively long in comparison to its breadth, and an elongated muzzle.
Greyhounds are considered to make good pets, and are known for their loving nature and enjoyment of the company of humans or other dogs, though how well a Greyhound tolerates the company of other small animals such as cats depends on the individual dog's personality. Greyhounds will typically chase small animals; most Greyhounds will easily be able to coexist happily with any other dog breeds as well as cats and other pets.
Greyhounds live most happily as pets in quiet environments. They do well in families with children, as long as the children are taught to treat the dog properly with politeness and appropriate respect. Greyhounds have a sensitive nature, and gentle commands work best as training methods.
Occasionally, a Greyhound may bark; however, they are generally not barkers, which is beneficial in suburban environments, and they are usually as friendly to strangers as they are with their own families. A 2008 University of Pennsylvania study found that Greyhounds are one of the least aggressive dog breeds towards strangers, owners, and other dogs.
A common misconception regarding Greyhounds is that they are hyperactive. This is usually not the case with retired racing Greyhounds. Greyhounds can live comfortably as apartment dogs, as they do not require much space and sleep almost 18 hours per day. Due to their calm temperament, Greyhounds can make better "apartment dogs" than smaller, more active breeds.
Many Greyhound adoption groups recommend that owners keep their Greyhounds on a leash whenever outdoors, except in fully enclosed areas. This is due to their prey drive, their speed, and the assertion that Greyhounds have no road sense. In some jurisdictions, it is illegal for Greyhounds to be allowed off leash, even in off-leash dog parks. Due to their size and strength, adoption groups recommend that fences be between 4 and 6 feet (1.2 and 1.8 m) tall, to prevent Greyhounds from jumping over them. As with most breeds being rehomed, Greyhounds that are adopted after racing tend to need time to adjust to their new lives with a human family. Many guides and books have been published to aid Greyhound owners in helping their pet get comfortable in their new home.
Greyhounds are very intelligent and can be trained as service dogs for people with disabilities. Due to greyhounds’ size, temperament, and strength, they excel at assisting with mobility tasks.
The original primary use of Greyhounds, both in the British Isles and on the Continent of Europe, was in the coursing of deer for meat and sport; later, specifically in Britain, they specialized in competition hare coursing. Some Greyhounds are still used for coursing, although artificial lure sports like lure coursing and racing are far more common and popular. Many leading 300- to 550-yard sprinters have bloodlines traceable back through Irish sires, within a few generations of racers that won events such as the Irish Coursing Derby or the Irish Cup.
Until the early 20th century, Greyhounds were principally bred and trained for hunting and coursing. During the 1920s, modern greyhound racing was introduced into the United States, England (1926), Northern Ireland (1927), Scotland (1927), and the Republic of Ireland (1927). Australia also has a significant racing culture.
In the United States, aside from professional racing, many Greyhounds enjoy success on the amateur race track. Organizations like the Large Gazehound Racing Association (LGRA) and the National Oval Track Racing Association (NOTRA) provide opportunities for Greyhounds to compete.
Historically, the Greyhound has, since its first appearance as a hunting type and breed, enjoyed a specific degree of fame and definition in Western literature, heraldry and art as the most elegant or noble companion and hunter of the canine world. In modern times, the professional racing industry, with its large numbers of track-bred greyhounds, as well as international adoption programs aimed at re-homing dogs has redefined the breed as a sporting dog that will supply friendly companionship in its retirement. This has been prevalent in recent years due to track closures in the United States. Outside the racing industry and coursing community, the Kennel Clubs' registered breed still enjoys a modest following as a show dog and pet.
Greyhounds are typically a healthy and long-lived breed, and hereditary illness is rare. Some Greyhounds have been known to develop esophageal achalasia, gastric dilatation volvulus (also known as bloat), and osteosarcoma. Because the Greyhound's lean physique makes it ill-suited to sleeping on hard surfaces, owners of both racing and companion Greyhounds generally provide soft bedding; without bedding, Greyhounds are prone to develop painful skin sores. The average lifespan of a Greyhound is 10 to 14 years.
Due to the Greyhound's unique physiology and anatomy, a veterinarian who understands the issues relevant to the breed is generally needed when the dogs need treatment, particularly when anesthesia is required. Greyhounds cannot metabolize barbiturate-based anesthesia in the same way that other breeds can because their livers have lower amounts of oxidative enzymes. Greyhounds demonstrate unusual blood chemistry , which can be misread by veterinarians not familiar with the breed and can result in an incorrect diagnosis.
Greyhounds are very sensitive to insecticides. Many vets do not recommend the use of flea collars or flea spray on Greyhounds if the product is pyrethrin-based. Products like Advantage, Frontline, Lufenuron, and Amitraz are safe for use on Greyhounds, however, and are very effective in controlling fleas and ticks.
Greyhounds have higher levels of red blood cells than other breeds. Since red blood cells carry oxygen to the muscles, this higher level allows the hound to move larger quantities of oxygen faster from the lungs to the muscles. Conversely, Greyhounds have lower levels of platelets than other breeds.
Delayed haemorrhage following trauma or routine surgery is more common in Greyhounds, with one study reporting significant haemorrhage in 26% of Greyhounds following routine gonadectomy, compared to 0-2% in other dog breeds. This is often termed greyhound fibrinolytic syndrome or breed-associated hyperfibrinolysis, where in there is a disorder of the fibrinolysis system without derangement of the primary or secondary coagulation systems, and is also not related to platelet count. In this syndrome there is initial adequate hemostasis following trauma or routine surgical procedures, however 36–48 hours later the site undergoes inappropriate hyperfibrinolysis. This results in delayed bleeding which can result in significant morbidity and mortality. Standard pre-operative blood work does not identify those at risk It is distinct from common bleeding disorders in other breeds such von Willebrand's disease, which is uncommon in Greyhounds. Although high-quality research data are lacking, it is thought that this condition can be prevented and treated by administering antifibrinolytic medication such as tranexamic acid via the oral or parenteral route. Intensive care and blood product administration may also be required in severe cases.
Greyhounds do not have undercoats and thus are less likely to trigger dog allergies in humans (they are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "hypoallergenic"). The lack of an undercoat, coupled with a general lack of body fat, also makes Greyhounds more susceptible to extreme temperatures (both hot and cold); because of this, they must be housed inside. Some Greyhounds are susceptible to corns on their paw pads; a variety of methods are used to treat them.
The key to the speed of a Greyhound can be found in its light but muscular build, large heart, highest percentage of fast twitch muscle of any breed, double suspension gallop, and extreme flexibility of its spine. "Double suspension rotary gallop" describes the fastest running gait of the Greyhound in which all four feet are free from the ground in two phases, contracted and extended, during each full stride.
The ancient skeletal remains of a dog identified as being of the greyhound/saluki form were excavated at Tell Brak in modern Syria, and dated as being approximately 4,000 years old.
Historical literature by Arrian on the vertragus (from the Latin vertragus, a word of Celtic origin), the first recorded sighthound in Europe and possible antecedent of the Greyhound, suggested that its origin lies with the Celts from Eastern Europe or Eurasia. Systematic archaeozoology of Britain conducted in 1974 ruled out the existence of a true greyhound-type in Britain prior to the Roman occupation, which was further confirmed in 2000. Written evidence from the early period of Roman occupation, the Vindolanda tablets (No. 594), demonstrate that the occupying troops from Continental Europe either had with them in the North of England, or certainly knew of, the vertragus and its hunting use.
An archaeological find at the Chotěbuz fort in the Czech Republic of sighthound type, "gracile" bones dating from the 8th to 9th century AD, anatomically defined as those of a 70 cm (28 in) high "greyhound", were also genetically compared with the modern Greyhound and other sighthounds, and found to be almost completely identical with the modern Greyhound breed, with the exception of only four deletions and one substitution in the DNA sequences, which were interpreted as differences probably arising from 11 centuries of breeding of this type of dog.
All modern pedigree Greyhounds derive from the Greyhound stock recorded and registered first in private studbooks in the 18th century, then in public studbooks in the 19th century, which ultimately were registered with coursing, racing, and kennel club authorities of the United Kingdom. Historically, these sighthounds were used primarily for hunting in the open where their pursuit speed and keen eyesight were essential.
The name "Greyhound" is generally believed to come from the Old English 'grighund'. Hund is the antecedent of the modern "hound", but the meaning of grig is undetermined, other than in reference to dogs in Old English and Old Norse. The word "hund" is still used for dogs in general in Scandinavian languages today. Its origin does not appear to have any common root with the modern word "grey" for color, and indeed the Greyhound is seen with a wide variety of coat colors. The lighter colors, patch-like markings and white appeared in the breed that was once ordinarily grey in color.
The Greyhound is the only dog mentioned by name in the Bible (Hebrew: זַרְזִיר מׇתְנַיִם, zarir mosna'im) in Proverbs 30:29–31. Many versions, including the Jewish Publication Society and King James Version, name the Greyhound as one of the "three that are stately of stride". However, some newer biblical translations, including the New International Version, have changed this to 'strutting rooster', which appears to be an alternative translation. However, the Douay–Rheims Bible translation from the late 4th-century Latin Vulgate into English translates this term as "a cock".
According to Pokorny, the English term 'Greyhound' does not mean "grey dog/hound", but simply "fair dog". Subsequent words have been derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *g'her- "shine, twinkle": English 'grey', Old High German gris "grey, old", Old Icelandic griss "piglet, pig", Old Icelandic gryja "to dawn", gryjandi "morning twilight", Old Irish grian "sun", Old Church Slavonic zorja "morning twilight, brightness". The common sense of these words is "to shine; bright".
In 1928, the first winner of Best in Show at Crufts was breeder/owner Mr. H. Whitley's Greyhound Primley Sceptre. Greyhounds have won the award three times in total, the most recent being in 1956.
Historically, English Greyhounds were grouped: two for coursing, as a "Brace", three for hunting, as a "Leash", otherwise known as a "couple and a half". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgence in popularity as a family pet.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-coated, \"S-shaped\" type of sighthound with a long tail and tough feet. Greyhounds are a separate breed from other related sighthounds, such as the Italian greyhound.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Greyhound is a gentle and intelligent breed whose combination of long, powerful legs, deep chest, flexible spine, and slim build allows it to reach average race speeds exceeding 64 kilometres per hour (40 mph). The Greyhound can reach a full speed of 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) within 30 metres (98 ft), or six strides from the boxes, traveling at almost 20 metres per second (66 ft/s) for the first 250 metres (820 ft) of a race.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Males are usually 71 to 76 centimetres (28 to 30 in) tall at the withers, and weigh on average 27 to 40 kilograms (60 to 88 lb). Females tend to be smaller, with shoulder heights ranging from 66 to 71 centimetres (26 to 28 in) and weights from 25 to 34 kilograms (55 to 75 lb), although weights can be above and below these average weights. Greyhounds have very short fur, which is easy to maintain. There are approximately 30 recognized color forms, of which variations of white, brindle, fawn (pale tan to dark deer-red), black, red, and blue (gray) can appear uniquely or in combination. Greyhounds are dolichocephalic, with a skull which is relatively long in comparison to its breadth, and an elongated muzzle.",
"title": "Appearance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Greyhounds are considered to make good pets, and are known for their loving nature and enjoyment of the company of humans or other dogs, though how well a Greyhound tolerates the company of other small animals such as cats depends on the individual dog's personality. Greyhounds will typically chase small animals; most Greyhounds will easily be able to coexist happily with any other dog breeds as well as cats and other pets.",
"title": "Pets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Greyhounds live most happily as pets in quiet environments. They do well in families with children, as long as the children are taught to treat the dog properly with politeness and appropriate respect. Greyhounds have a sensitive nature, and gentle commands work best as training methods.",
"title": "Pets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Occasionally, a Greyhound may bark; however, they are generally not barkers, which is beneficial in suburban environments, and they are usually as friendly to strangers as they are with their own families. A 2008 University of Pennsylvania study found that Greyhounds are one of the least aggressive dog breeds towards strangers, owners, and other dogs.",
"title": "Pets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A common misconception regarding Greyhounds is that they are hyperactive. This is usually not the case with retired racing Greyhounds. Greyhounds can live comfortably as apartment dogs, as they do not require much space and sleep almost 18 hours per day. Due to their calm temperament, Greyhounds can make better \"apartment dogs\" than smaller, more active breeds.",
"title": "Pets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Many Greyhound adoption groups recommend that owners keep their Greyhounds on a leash whenever outdoors, except in fully enclosed areas. This is due to their prey drive, their speed, and the assertion that Greyhounds have no road sense. In some jurisdictions, it is illegal for Greyhounds to be allowed off leash, even in off-leash dog parks. Due to their size and strength, adoption groups recommend that fences be between 4 and 6 feet (1.2 and 1.8 m) tall, to prevent Greyhounds from jumping over them. As with most breeds being rehomed, Greyhounds that are adopted after racing tend to need time to adjust to their new lives with a human family. Many guides and books have been published to aid Greyhound owners in helping their pet get comfortable in their new home.",
"title": "Pets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Greyhounds are very intelligent and can be trained as service dogs for people with disabilities. Due to greyhounds’ size, temperament, and strength, they excel at assisting with mobility tasks.",
"title": "Service Dogs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The original primary use of Greyhounds, both in the British Isles and on the Continent of Europe, was in the coursing of deer for meat and sport; later, specifically in Britain, they specialized in competition hare coursing. Some Greyhounds are still used for coursing, although artificial lure sports like lure coursing and racing are far more common and popular. Many leading 300- to 550-yard sprinters have bloodlines traceable back through Irish sires, within a few generations of racers that won events such as the Irish Coursing Derby or the Irish Cup.",
"title": "Abilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Until the early 20th century, Greyhounds were principally bred and trained for hunting and coursing. During the 1920s, modern greyhound racing was introduced into the United States, England (1926), Northern Ireland (1927), Scotland (1927), and the Republic of Ireland (1927). Australia also has a significant racing culture.",
"title": "Abilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the United States, aside from professional racing, many Greyhounds enjoy success on the amateur race track. Organizations like the Large Gazehound Racing Association (LGRA) and the National Oval Track Racing Association (NOTRA) provide opportunities for Greyhounds to compete.",
"title": "Abilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Historically, the Greyhound has, since its first appearance as a hunting type and breed, enjoyed a specific degree of fame and definition in Western literature, heraldry and art as the most elegant or noble companion and hunter of the canine world. In modern times, the professional racing industry, with its large numbers of track-bred greyhounds, as well as international adoption programs aimed at re-homing dogs has redefined the breed as a sporting dog that will supply friendly companionship in its retirement. This has been prevalent in recent years due to track closures in the United States. Outside the racing industry and coursing community, the Kennel Clubs' registered breed still enjoys a modest following as a show dog and pet.",
"title": "Companion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Greyhounds are typically a healthy and long-lived breed, and hereditary illness is rare. Some Greyhounds have been known to develop esophageal achalasia, gastric dilatation volvulus (also known as bloat), and osteosarcoma. Because the Greyhound's lean physique makes it ill-suited to sleeping on hard surfaces, owners of both racing and companion Greyhounds generally provide soft bedding; without bedding, Greyhounds are prone to develop painful skin sores. The average lifespan of a Greyhound is 10 to 14 years.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Due to the Greyhound's unique physiology and anatomy, a veterinarian who understands the issues relevant to the breed is generally needed when the dogs need treatment, particularly when anesthesia is required. Greyhounds cannot metabolize barbiturate-based anesthesia in the same way that other breeds can because their livers have lower amounts of oxidative enzymes. Greyhounds demonstrate unusual blood chemistry , which can be misread by veterinarians not familiar with the breed and can result in an incorrect diagnosis.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Greyhounds are very sensitive to insecticides. Many vets do not recommend the use of flea collars or flea spray on Greyhounds if the product is pyrethrin-based. Products like Advantage, Frontline, Lufenuron, and Amitraz are safe for use on Greyhounds, however, and are very effective in controlling fleas and ticks.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Greyhounds have higher levels of red blood cells than other breeds. Since red blood cells carry oxygen to the muscles, this higher level allows the hound to move larger quantities of oxygen faster from the lungs to the muscles. Conversely, Greyhounds have lower levels of platelets than other breeds.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Delayed haemorrhage following trauma or routine surgery is more common in Greyhounds, with one study reporting significant haemorrhage in 26% of Greyhounds following routine gonadectomy, compared to 0-2% in other dog breeds. This is often termed greyhound fibrinolytic syndrome or breed-associated hyperfibrinolysis, where in there is a disorder of the fibrinolysis system without derangement of the primary or secondary coagulation systems, and is also not related to platelet count. In this syndrome there is initial adequate hemostasis following trauma or routine surgical procedures, however 36–48 hours later the site undergoes inappropriate hyperfibrinolysis. This results in delayed bleeding which can result in significant morbidity and mortality. Standard pre-operative blood work does not identify those at risk It is distinct from common bleeding disorders in other breeds such von Willebrand's disease, which is uncommon in Greyhounds. Although high-quality research data are lacking, it is thought that this condition can be prevented and treated by administering antifibrinolytic medication such as tranexamic acid via the oral or parenteral route. Intensive care and blood product administration may also be required in severe cases.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Greyhounds do not have undercoats and thus are less likely to trigger dog allergies in humans (they are sometimes incorrectly referred to as \"hypoallergenic\"). The lack of an undercoat, coupled with a general lack of body fat, also makes Greyhounds more susceptible to extreme temperatures (both hot and cold); because of this, they must be housed inside. Some Greyhounds are susceptible to corns on their paw pads; a variety of methods are used to treat them.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The key to the speed of a Greyhound can be found in its light but muscular build, large heart, highest percentage of fast twitch muscle of any breed, double suspension gallop, and extreme flexibility of its spine. \"Double suspension rotary gallop\" describes the fastest running gait of the Greyhound in which all four feet are free from the ground in two phases, contracted and extended, during each full stride.",
"title": "Health and physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The ancient skeletal remains of a dog identified as being of the greyhound/saluki form were excavated at Tell Brak in modern Syria, and dated as being approximately 4,000 years old.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Historical literature by Arrian on the vertragus (from the Latin vertragus, a word of Celtic origin), the first recorded sighthound in Europe and possible antecedent of the Greyhound, suggested that its origin lies with the Celts from Eastern Europe or Eurasia. Systematic archaeozoology of Britain conducted in 1974 ruled out the existence of a true greyhound-type in Britain prior to the Roman occupation, which was further confirmed in 2000. Written evidence from the early period of Roman occupation, the Vindolanda tablets (No. 594), demonstrate that the occupying troops from Continental Europe either had with them in the North of England, or certainly knew of, the vertragus and its hunting use.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "An archaeological find at the Chotěbuz fort in the Czech Republic of sighthound type, \"gracile\" bones dating from the 8th to 9th century AD, anatomically defined as those of a 70 cm (28 in) high \"greyhound\", were also genetically compared with the modern Greyhound and other sighthounds, and found to be almost completely identical with the modern Greyhound breed, with the exception of only four deletions and one substitution in the DNA sequences, which were interpreted as differences probably arising from 11 centuries of breeding of this type of dog.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "All modern pedigree Greyhounds derive from the Greyhound stock recorded and registered first in private studbooks in the 18th century, then in public studbooks in the 19th century, which ultimately were registered with coursing, racing, and kennel club authorities of the United Kingdom. Historically, these sighthounds were used primarily for hunting in the open where their pursuit speed and keen eyesight were essential.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The name \"Greyhound\" is generally believed to come from the Old English 'grighund'. Hund is the antecedent of the modern \"hound\", but the meaning of grig is undetermined, other than in reference to dogs in Old English and Old Norse. The word \"hund\" is still used for dogs in general in Scandinavian languages today. Its origin does not appear to have any common root with the modern word \"grey\" for color, and indeed the Greyhound is seen with a wide variety of coat colors. The lighter colors, patch-like markings and white appeared in the breed that was once ordinarily grey in color.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Greyhound is the only dog mentioned by name in the Bible (Hebrew: זַרְזִיר מׇתְנַיִם, zarir mosna'im) in Proverbs 30:29–31. Many versions, including the Jewish Publication Society and King James Version, name the Greyhound as one of the \"three that are stately of stride\". However, some newer biblical translations, including the New International Version, have changed this to 'strutting rooster', which appears to be an alternative translation. However, the Douay–Rheims Bible translation from the late 4th-century Latin Vulgate into English translates this term as \"a cock\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "According to Pokorny, the English term 'Greyhound' does not mean \"grey dog/hound\", but simply \"fair dog\". Subsequent words have been derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *g'her- \"shine, twinkle\": English 'grey', Old High German gris \"grey, old\", Old Icelandic griss \"piglet, pig\", Old Icelandic gryja \"to dawn\", gryjandi \"morning twilight\", Old Irish grian \"sun\", Old Church Slavonic zorja \"morning twilight, brightness\". The common sense of these words is \"to shine; bright\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 1928, the first winner of Best in Show at Crufts was breeder/owner Mr. H. Whitley's Greyhound Primley Sceptre. Greyhounds have won the award three times in total, the most recent being in 1956.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Historically, English Greyhounds were grouped: two for coursing, as a \"Brace\", three for hunting, as a \"Leash\", otherwise known as a \"couple and a half\".",
"title": "History"
}
]
| The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgence in popularity as a family pet. Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-coated, "S-shaped" type of sighthound with a long tail and tough feet. Greyhounds are a separate breed from other related sighthounds, such as the Italian greyhound. The Greyhound is a gentle and intelligent breed whose combination of long, powerful legs, deep chest, flexible spine, and slim build allows it to reach average race speeds exceeding 64 kilometres per hour (40 mph). The Greyhound can reach a full speed of 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) within 30 metres (98 ft), or six strides from the boxes, traveling at almost 20 metres per second (66 ft/s) for the first 250 metres (820 ft) of a race. | 2001-12-08T11:58:53Z | 2023-12-03T17:59:07Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound |
12,939 | Geometric algebra | In mathematics, a geometric algebra (also known as a real Clifford algebra) is an extension of elementary algebra to work with geometrical objects such as vectors. Geometric algebra is built out of two fundamental operations, addition and the geometric product. Multiplication of vectors results in higher-dimensional objects called multivectors. Compared to other formalisms for manipulating geometric objects, geometric algebra is noteworthy for supporting vector division and addition of objects of different dimensions.
The geometric product was first briefly mentioned by Hermann Grassmann, who was chiefly interested in developing the closely related exterior algebra. In 1878, William Kingdon Clifford greatly expanded on Grassmann's work to form what are now usually called Clifford algebras in his honor (although Clifford himself chose to call them "geometric algebras"). Clifford defined the Clifford algebra and its product as a unification of the Grassmann algebra and Hamilton's quaternion algebra. Adding the dual of the Grassmann exterior product (the "meet") allows the use of the Grassmann–Cayley algebra, and a conformal version of the latter together with a conformal Clifford algebra yields a conformal geometric algebra (CGA) providing a framework for classical geometries. In practice, these and several derived operations allow a correspondence of elements, subspaces and operations of the algebra with geometric interpretations. For several decades, geometric algebras went somewhat ignored, greatly eclipsed by the vector calculus then newly developed to describe electromagnetism. The term "geometric algebra" was repopularized in the 1960s by Hestenes, who advocated its importance to relativistic physics.
The scalars and vectors have their usual interpretation, and make up distinct subspaces of a geometric algebra. Bivectors provide a more natural representation of the pseudovector quantities in vector algebra such as oriented area, oriented angle of rotation, torque, angular momentum and the electromagnetic field. A trivector can represent an oriented volume, and so on. An element called a blade may be used to represent a subspace of V {\displaystyle V} and orthogonal projections onto that subspace. Rotations and reflections are represented as elements. Unlike a vector algebra, a geometric algebra naturally accommodates any number of dimensions and any quadratic form such as in relativity.
Examples of geometric algebras applied in physics include the spacetime algebra (and the less common algebra of physical space) and the conformal geometric algebra. Geometric calculus, an extension of GA that incorporates differentiation and integration, can be used to formulate other theories such as complex analysis and differential geometry, e.g. by using the Clifford algebra instead of differential forms. Geometric algebra has been advocated, most notably by David Hestenes and Chris Doran, as the preferred mathematical framework for physics. Proponents claim that it provides compact and intuitive descriptions in many areas including classical and quantum mechanics, electromagnetic theory and relativity. GA has also found use as a computational tool in computer graphics and robotics.
There are a number of different ways to define a geometric algebra. Hestenes's original approach was axiomatic, "full of geometric significance" and equivalent to the universal Clifford algebra. Given a finite-dimensional vector space V {\displaystyle V} over a field F {\displaystyle F} with a symmetric bilinear form (the inner product, e.g. the Euclidean or Lorentzian metric) g : V × V → F {\displaystyle g:V\times V\to F} , the geometric algebra of the quadratic space ( V , g ) {\displaystyle (V,g)} is the Clifford algebra Cl ( V , g ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {Cl} (V,g)} which members are called multors or here multivectors. (The term multivector is often used more specificly for elements of exterior algebra.) As usual in this domain, for the remainder of this article, only the real case, F = R {\displaystyle F=\mathbb {R} } , will be considered. The notation G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} (respectively G ( p , q , r ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(p,q,r)} ) will be used to denote a geometric algebra for which the bilinear form g {\displaystyle g} has the signature ( p , q ) {\displaystyle (p,q)} (respectively ( p , q , r ) {\displaystyle (p,q,r)} ).
The essential product in the algebra is called the geometric product, and the product in the contained exterior algebra is called the exterior product (frequently called the wedge product and less often the outer product). It is standard to denote these respectively by juxtaposition (i.e., suppressing any explicit multiplication symbol) and the symbol ∧ {\displaystyle \wedge } . The above definition of the geometric algebra is abstract, so we summarize the properties of the geometric product by the following set of axioms. The geometric product has the following properties, for multors A , B , C ∈ G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle A,B,C\in {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} :
The exterior product has the same properties, except that the last property above is replaced by a ∧ a = 0 {\displaystyle a\wedge a=0} for a ∈ V {\displaystyle a\in V} .
Note that in the last property above, the real number g ( a , a ) {\displaystyle g(a,a)} need not be nonnegative if g {\displaystyle g} is not positive-definite. An important property of the geometric product is the existence of elements having a multiplicative inverse. For a vector a {\displaystyle a} , if a 2 ≠ 0 {\displaystyle a^{2}\neq 0} then a − 1 {\displaystyle a^{-1}} exists and is equal to g ( a , a ) − 1 a {\displaystyle g(a,a)^{-1}a} . A nonzero element of the algebra does not necessarily have a multiplicative inverse. For example, if u {\displaystyle u} is a vector in V {\displaystyle V} such that u 2 = 1 {\displaystyle u^{2}=1} , the element 1 2 ( 1 + u ) {\displaystyle \textstyle {\frac {1}{2}}(1+u)} is both a nontrivial idempotent element and a nonzero zero divisor, and thus has no inverse.
It is usual to identify R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } and V {\displaystyle V} with their images under the natural embeddings R → G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} \to {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} and V → G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle V\to {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} . In this article, this identification is assumed. Throughout, the terms scalar and vector refer to elements of R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } and V {\displaystyle V} respectively (and of their images under this embedding).
For vectors a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} , we may write the geometric product of any two vectors a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} as the sum of a symmetric product and an antisymmetric product:
Thus we can define the inner product of vectors as
so that the symmetric product can be written as
Conversely, g {\displaystyle g} is completely determined by the algebra. The antisymmetric part is the exterior product of the two vectors, the product of the contained exterior algebra:
Then by simple addition:
The inner and exterior products are associated with familiar concepts from standard vector algebra. Geometrically, a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} are parallel if their geometric product is equal to their inner product, whereas a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} are perpendicular if their geometric product is equal to their exterior product. In a geometric algebra for which the square of any nonzero vector is positive, the inner product of two vectors can be identified with the dot product of standard vector algebra. The exterior product of two vectors can be identified with the signed area enclosed by a parallelogram the sides of which are the vectors. The cross product of two vectors in 3 {\displaystyle 3} dimensions with positive-definite quadratic form is closely related to their exterior product.
Most instances of geometric algebras of interest have a nondegenerate quadratic form. If the quadratic form is fully degenerate, the inner product of any two vectors is always zero, and the geometric algebra is then simply an exterior algebra. Unless otherwise stated, this article will treat only nondegenerate geometric algebras.
The exterior product is naturally extended as an associative bilinear binary operator between any two elements of the algebra, satisfying the identities
where the sum is over all permutations of the indices, with sgn ( σ ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {sgn} (\sigma )} the sign of the permutation, and a i {\displaystyle a_{i}} are vectors (not general elements of the algebra). Since every element of the algebra can be expressed as the sum of products of this form, this defines the exterior product for every pair of elements of the algebra. It follows from the definition that the exterior product forms an alternating algebra.
The equivalent structure equation for Clifford algebra is
where P f ( A ) {\displaystyle Pf(A)} is the Pfaffian of A and C = ( n 2 i ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {C}}={\binom {n}{2i}}} provides combinations, μ {\displaystyle \mu } , of n indicies divided into 2i and n-2i parts and k is the parity of the combination.
The Pfaffian provides a metric for the exterior algebra and, as pointed out by Claude Chevalley, Clifford algebra reduces to the exterior algebra with a zero quadratic form. The role the Pfaffian plays can be understood from a geometric viewpoint by developing Clifford algebra from simplices. This derivation provides a better connection between Pascal's triangle and simplices because it provides an interpretation of the first column of ones.
A multivector that is the exterior product of r {\displaystyle r} linearly independent vectors is called a blade, and is said to be of grade r {\displaystyle r} . A multivector that is the sum of blades of grade r {\displaystyle r} is called a (homogeneous) multivector of grade r {\displaystyle r} . From the axioms, with closure, every multivector of the geometric algebra is a sum of blades.
Consider a set of r {\displaystyle r} linearly independent vectors { a 1 , … , a r } {\displaystyle \{a_{1},\ldots ,a_{r}\}} spanning an r {\displaystyle r} -dimensional subspace of the vector space. With these, we can define a real symmetric matrix (in the same way as a Gramian matrix)
By the spectral theorem, A {\displaystyle \mathbf {A} } can be diagonalized to diagonal matrix D {\displaystyle \mathbf {D} } by an orthogonal matrix O {\displaystyle \mathbf {O} } via
Define a new set of vectors { e 1 , … , e r } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{r}\}} , known as orthogonal basis vectors, to be those transformed by the orthogonal matrix:
Since orthogonal transformations preserve inner products, it follows that e i ⋅ e j = [ D ] i j {\displaystyle e_{i}\cdot e_{j}=[\mathbf {D} ]_{ij}} and thus the { e 1 , … , e r } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{r}\}} are perpendicular. In other words, the geometric product of two distinct vectors e i ≠ e j {\displaystyle e_{i}\neq e_{j}} is completely specified by their exterior product, or more generally
Therefore, every blade of grade r {\displaystyle r} can be written as the exterior product of r {\displaystyle r} vectors. More generally, if a degenerate geometric algebra is allowed, then the orthogonal matrix is replaced by a block matrix that is orthogonal in the nondegenerate block, and the diagonal matrix has zero-valued entries along the degenerate dimensions. If the new vectors of the nondegenerate subspace are normalized according to
then these normalized vectors must square to + 1 {\displaystyle +1} or − 1 {\displaystyle -1} . By Sylvester's law of inertia, the total number of + 1 {\displaystyle +1} s and the total number of − 1 {\displaystyle -1} s along the diagonal matrix is invariant. By extension, the total number p {\displaystyle p} of these vectors that square to + 1 {\displaystyle +1} and the total number q {\displaystyle q} that square to − 1 {\displaystyle -1} is invariant. (The total number of basis vectors that square to zero is also invariant, and may be nonzero if the degenerate case is allowed.) We denote this algebra G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} . For example, G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} models three-dimensional Euclidean space, G ( 1 , 3 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} relativistic spacetime and G ( 4 , 1 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(4,1)} a conformal geometric algebra of a three-dimensional space.
The set of all possible products of n {\displaystyle n} orthogonal basis vectors with indices in increasing order, including 1 {\displaystyle 1} as the empty product, forms a basis for the entire geometric algebra (an analogue of the PBW theorem). For example, the following is a basis for the geometric algebra G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} :
A basis formed this way is called a canonical basis for the geometric algebra, and any other orthogonal basis for V {\displaystyle V} will produce another canonical basis. Each canonical basis consists of 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} elements. Every multivector of the geometric algebra can be expressed as a linear combination of the canonical basis elements. If the canonical basis elements are { B i ∣ i ∈ S } {\displaystyle \{B_{i}\mid i\in S\}} with S {\displaystyle S} being an index set, then the geometric product of any two multivectors is
The terminology " k {\displaystyle k} -vector" is often encountered to describe multivectors containing elements of only one grade. In higher dimensional space, some such multivectors are not blades (cannot be factored into the exterior product of k {\displaystyle k} vectors). By way of example, e 1 ∧ e 2 + e 3 ∧ e 4 {\displaystyle e_{1}\wedge e_{2}+e_{3}\wedge e_{4}} in G ( 4 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(4,0)} cannot be factored; typically, however, such elements of the algebra do not yield to geometric interpretation as objects, although they may represent geometric quantities such as rotations. Only 0 , 1 , ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle 0,1,(n-1)} and n {\displaystyle n} -vectors are always blades in n {\displaystyle n} -space.
Using an orthogonal basis, a graded vector space structure can be established. Elements of the geometric algebra that are scalar multiples of 1 {\displaystyle 1} are grade- 0 {\displaystyle 0} blades and are called scalars. Multivectors that are in the span of { e 1 , … , e n } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{n}\}} are grade- 1 {\displaystyle 1} blades and are the ordinary vectors. Multivectors in the span of { e i e j ∣ 1 ≤ i < j ≤ n } {\displaystyle \{e_{i}e_{j}\mid 1\leq i<j\leq n\}} are grade- 2 {\displaystyle 2} blades and are the bivectors. This terminology continues through to the last grade of n {\displaystyle n} -vectors. Alternatively, grade- n {\displaystyle n} blades are called pseudoscalars, grade- ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} blades pseudovectors, etc. Many of the elements of the algebra are not graded by this scheme since they are sums of elements of differing grade. Such elements are said to be of mixed grade. The grading of multivectors is independent of the basis chosen originally.
This is a grading as a vector space, but not as an algebra. Because the product of an r {\displaystyle r} -blade and an s {\displaystyle s} -blade is contained in the span of 0 {\displaystyle 0} through r + s {\displaystyle r+s} -blades, the geometric algebra is a filtered algebra.
A multivector A {\displaystyle A} may be decomposed with the grade-projection operator ⟨ A ⟩ r {\displaystyle \langle A\rangle _{r}} , which outputs the grade- r {\displaystyle r} portion of A {\displaystyle A} . As a result:
As an example, the geometric product of two vectors a b = a ⋅ b + a ∧ b = ⟨ a b ⟩ 0 + ⟨ a b ⟩ 2 {\displaystyle ab=a\cdot b+a\wedge b=\langle ab\rangle _{0}+\langle ab\rangle _{2}} since ⟨ a b ⟩ 0 = a ⋅ b {\displaystyle \langle ab\rangle _{0}=a\cdot b} and ⟨ a b ⟩ 2 = a ∧ b {\displaystyle \langle ab\rangle _{2}=a\wedge b} and ⟨ a b ⟩ i = 0 {\displaystyle \langle ab\rangle _{i}=0} , for i {\displaystyle i} other than 0 {\displaystyle 0} and 2 {\displaystyle 2} .
The decomposition of a multivector A {\displaystyle A} may also be split into those components that are even and those that are odd:
This is the result of forgetting structure from a Z {\displaystyle \mathrm {Z} } -graded vector space to Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded vector space. The geometric product respects this coarser grading. Thus in addition to being a Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded vector space, the geometric algebra is a Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded algebra or superalgebra.
Restricting to the even part, the product of two even elements is also even. This means that the even multivectors defines an even subalgebra. The even subalgebra of an n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional geometric algebra is isomorphic (without preserving either filtration or grading) to a full geometric algebra of ( n − 1 ) {\displaystyle (n-1)} dimensions. Examples include G + ( 2 , 0 ) ≅ G ( 0 , 1 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}^{+}(2,0)\cong {\mathcal {G}}(0,1)} and G + ( 1 , 3 ) ≅ G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}^{+}(1,3)\cong {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} .
Geometric algebra represents subspaces of V {\displaystyle V} as blades, and so they coexist in the same algebra with vectors from V {\displaystyle V} . A k {\displaystyle k} -dimensional subspace W {\displaystyle W} of V {\displaystyle V} is represented by taking an orthogonal basis { b 1 , b 2 , … , b k } {\displaystyle \{b_{1},b_{2},\ldots ,b_{k}\}} and using the geometric product to form the blade D = b 1 b 2 ⋯ b k {\displaystyle D=b_{1}b_{2}\cdots b_{k}} . There are multiple blades representing W {\displaystyle W} ; all those representing W {\displaystyle W} are scalar multiples of D {\displaystyle D} . These blades can be separated into two sets: positive multiples of D {\displaystyle D} and negative multiples of D {\displaystyle D} . The positive multiples of D {\displaystyle D} are said to have the same orientation as D {\displaystyle D} , and the negative multiples the opposite orientation.
Blades are important since geometric operations such as projections, rotations and reflections depend on the factorability via the exterior product that (the restricted class of) n {\displaystyle n} -blades provide but that (the generalized class of) grade- n {\displaystyle n} multivectors do not when n ≥ 4 {\displaystyle n\geq 4} .
Unit pseudoscalars are blades that play important roles in GA. A unit pseudoscalar for a non-degenerate subspace W {\displaystyle W} of V {\displaystyle V} is a blade that is the product of the members of an orthonormal basis for W {\displaystyle W} . It can be shown that if I {\displaystyle I} and I ′ {\displaystyle I'} are both unit pseudoscalars for W {\displaystyle W} , then I = ± I ′ {\displaystyle I=\pm I'} and I 2 = ± 1 {\displaystyle I^{2}=\pm 1} . If one doesn't choose an orthonormal basis for W {\displaystyle W} , then the Plücker embedding gives a vector in the exterior algebra but only up to scaling. Using the vector space isomorphism between the geometric algebra and exterior algebra, this gives the equivalence class of α I {\displaystyle \alpha I} for all α ≠ 0 {\displaystyle \alpha \neq 0} . Orthonormality gets rid of this ambiguity except for the signs above.
Suppose the geometric algebra G ( n , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(n,0)} with the familiar positive definite inner product on R n {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n}} is formed. Given a plane (two-dimensional subspace) of R n {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n}} , one can find an orthonormal basis { b 1 , b 2 } {\displaystyle \{b_{1},b_{2}\}} spanning the plane, and thus find a unit pseudoscalar I = b 1 b 2 {\displaystyle I=b_{1}b_{2}} representing this plane. The geometric product of any two vectors in the span of b 1 {\displaystyle b_{1}} and b 2 {\displaystyle b_{2}} lies in { α 0 + α 1 I ∣ α i ∈ R } {\displaystyle \{\alpha _{0}+\alpha _{1}I\mid \alpha _{i}\in \mathbb {R} \}} , that is, it is the sum of a 0 {\displaystyle 0} -vector and a 2 {\displaystyle 2} -vector.
By the properties of the geometric product, I 2 = b 1 b 2 b 1 b 2 = − b 1 b 2 b 2 b 1 = − 1 {\displaystyle I^{2}=b_{1}b_{2}b_{1}b_{2}=-b_{1}b_{2}b_{2}b_{1}=-1} . The resemblance to the imaginary unit is not incidental: the subspace { α 0 + α 1 I ∣ α i ∈ R } {\displaystyle \{\alpha _{0}+\alpha _{1}I\mid \alpha _{i}\in \mathbb {R} \}} is R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } -algebra isomorphic to the complex numbers. In this way, a copy of the complex numbers is embedded in the geometric algebra for each two-dimensional subspace of V {\displaystyle V} on which the quadratic form is definite.
It is sometimes possible to identify the presence of an imaginary unit in a physical equation. Such units arise from one of the many quantities in the real algebra that square to − 1 {\displaystyle -1} , and these have geometric significance because of the properties of the algebra and the interaction of its various subspaces.
In G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , a further familiar case occurs. Given a canonical basis consisting of orthonormal vectors e i {\displaystyle e_{i}} of V {\displaystyle V} , the set of all 2 {\displaystyle 2} -vectors is spanned by
Labelling these i {\displaystyle i} , j {\displaystyle j} and k {\displaystyle k} (momentarily deviating from our uppercase convention), the subspace generated by 0 {\displaystyle 0} -vectors and 2 {\displaystyle 2} -vectors is exactly { α 0 + i α 1 + j α 2 + k α 3 ∣ α i ∈ R } {\displaystyle \{\alpha _{0}+i\alpha _{1}+j\alpha _{2}+k\alpha _{3}\mid \alpha _{i}\in \mathbb {R} \}} . This set is seen to be the even subalgebra of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , and furthermore is isomorphic as an R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } -algebra to the quaternions, another important algebraic system.
It is common practice to extend the exterior product on vectors to the entire algebra. This may be done through the use of the above mentioned grade projection operator:
This generalization is consistent with the above definition involving antisymmetrization. Another generalization related to the exterior product is the commutator product:
The regressive product (usually referred to as the "meet") is the dual of the exterior product (or "join" in this context). The dual specification of elements permits, for blades A {\displaystyle A} and B {\displaystyle B} , the intersection (or meet) where the duality is to be taken relative to the smallest grade blade containing both A {\displaystyle A} and B {\displaystyle B} (the join).
with I {\displaystyle I} the unit pseudoscalar of the algebra. The regressive product, like the exterior product, is associative.
The inner product on vectors can also be generalized, but in more than one non-equivalent way. The paper (Dorst 2002) gives a full treatment of several different inner products developed for geometric algebras and their interrelationships, and the notation is taken from there. Many authors use the same symbol as for the inner product of vectors for their chosen extension (e.g. Hestenes and Perwass). No consistent notation has emerged.
Among these several different generalizations of the inner product on vectors are:
Dorst (2002) makes an argument for the use of contractions in preference to Hestenes's inner product; they are algebraically more regular and have cleaner geometric interpretations. A number of identities incorporating the contractions are valid without restriction of their inputs. For example,
Benefits of using the left contraction as an extension of the inner product on vectors include that the identity a b = a ⋅ b + a ∧ b {\displaystyle ab=a\cdot b+a\wedge b} is extended to a B = a ⌋ B + a ∧ B {\displaystyle aB=a\;\rfloor \;B+a\wedge B} for any vector a {\displaystyle a} and multivector B {\displaystyle B} , and that the projection operation P b ( a ) = ( a ⋅ b − 1 ) b {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}_{b}(a)=(a\cdot b^{-1})b} is extended to P B ( A ) = ( A ⌋ B − 1 ) ⌋ B {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}_{B}(A)=(A\;\rfloor \;B^{-1})\;\rfloor \;B} for any blade B {\displaystyle B} and any multivector A {\displaystyle A} (with a minor modification to accommodate null B {\displaystyle B} , given below).
Let { e 1 , … , e n } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{n}\}} be a basis of V {\displaystyle V} , i.e. a set of n {\displaystyle n} linearly independent vectors that span the n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional vector space V {\displaystyle V} . The basis that is dual to { e 1 , … , e n } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{n}\}} is the set of elements of the dual vector space V ∗ {\displaystyle V^{*}} that forms a biorthogonal system with this basis, thus being the elements denoted { e 1 , … , e n } {\displaystyle \{e^{1},\ldots ,e^{n}\}} satisfying
where δ {\displaystyle \delta } is the Kronecker delta.
Given a nondegenerate quadratic form on V {\displaystyle V} , V ∗ {\displaystyle V^{*}} becomes naturally identified with V {\displaystyle V} , and the dual basis may be regarded as elements of V {\displaystyle V} , but are not in general the same set as the original basis.
Given further a GA of V {\displaystyle V} , let
be the pseudoscalar (which does not necessarily square to ± 1 {\displaystyle \pm 1} ) formed from the basis { e 1 , … , e n } {\displaystyle \{e_{1},\ldots ,e_{n}\}} . The dual basis vectors may be constructed as
where the e ˇ i {\displaystyle {\check {e}}_{i}} denotes that the i {\displaystyle i} th basis vector is omitted from the product.
A dual basis is also known as a reciprocal basis or reciprocal frame.
A major usage of a dual basis is to separate vectors into components. Given a vector a {\displaystyle a} , scalar components a i {\displaystyle a^{i}} can be defined as
in terms of which a {\displaystyle a} can be separated into vector components as
We can also define scalar components a i {\displaystyle a_{i}} as
in terms of which a {\displaystyle a} can be separated into vector components in terms of the dual basis as
A dual basis as defined above for the vector subspace of a geometric algebra can be extended to cover the entire algebra. For compactness, we'll use a single capital letter to represent an ordered set of vector indices. I.e., writing
where j 1 < j 2 < ⋯ < j n , {\displaystyle j_{1}<j_{2}<\dots <j_{n},} we can write a basis blade as
The corresponding reciprocal blade has the indices in opposite order:
Similar to the case above with vectors, it can be shown that
where ∗ {\displaystyle *} is the scalar product.
With A {\displaystyle A} a multivector, we can define scalar components as
in terms of which A {\displaystyle A} can be separated into component blades as
We can alternatively define scalar components
in terms of which A {\displaystyle A} can be separated into component blades as
Although a versor is easier to work with because it can be directly represented in the algebra as a multivector, versors are a subgroup of linear functions on multivectors, which can still be used when necessary. The geometric algebra of an n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional vector space is spanned by a basis of 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} elements. If a multivector is represented by a 2 n × 1 {\displaystyle 2^{n}\times 1} real column matrix of coefficients of a basis of the algebra, then all linear transformations of the multivector can be expressed as the matrix multiplication by a 2 n × 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}\times 2^{n}} real matrix. However, such a general linear transformation allows arbitrary exchanges among grades, such as a "rotation" of a scalar into a vector, which has no evident geometric interpretation.
A general linear transformation from vectors to vectors is of interest. With the natural restriction to preserving the induced exterior algebra, the outermorphism of the linear transformation is the unique extension of the versor. If f {\displaystyle f} is a linear function that maps vectors to vectors, then its outermorphism is the function that obeys the rule
for a blade, extended to the whole algebra through linearity.
Although a lot of attention has been placed on CGA, it is to be noted that GA is not just one algebra, it is one of a family of algebras with the same essential structure.
G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} may be considered as an extension or completion of vector algebra.
The even subalgebra of G ( 2 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(2,0)} is isomorphic to the complex numbers, as may be seen by writing a vector P {\displaystyle P} in terms of its components in an orthonormal basis and left multiplying by the basis vector e 1 {\displaystyle e_{1}} , yielding
where we identify i ↦ e 1 e 2 {\displaystyle i\mapsto e_{1}e_{2}} since
Similarly, the even subalgebra of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} with basis { 1 , e 2 e 3 , e 3 e 1 , e 1 e 2 } {\displaystyle \{1,e_{2}e_{3},e_{3}e_{1},e_{1}e_{2}\}} is isomorphic to the quaternions as may be seen by identifying i ↦ − e 2 e 3 {\displaystyle i\mapsto -e_{2}e_{3}} , j ↦ − e 3 e 1 {\displaystyle j\mapsto -e_{3}e_{1}} and k ↦ − e 1 e 2 {\displaystyle k\mapsto -e_{1}e_{2}} .
Every associative algebra has a matrix representation; replacing the three Cartesian basis vectors by the Pauli matrices gives a representation of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} :
Dotting the "Pauli vector" (a dyad):
In physics, the main applications are the geometric algebra of Minkowski 3+1 spacetime, G ( 1 , 3 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} , called spacetime algebra (STA), or less commonly, G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , interpreted the algebra of physical space (APS).
While in STA, points of spacetime are represented simply by vectors, in APS, points of ( 3 + 1 ) {\displaystyle (3+1)} -dimensional spacetime are instead represented by paravectors, a three-dimensional vector (space) plus a one-dimensional scalar (time).
In spacetime algebra the electromagnetic field tensor has a bivector representation F = ( E + i c B ) γ 0 {\displaystyle {F}=({E}+ic{B})\gamma _{0}} . Here, the i = γ 0 γ 1 γ 2 γ 3 {\displaystyle i=\gamma _{0}\gamma _{1}\gamma _{2}\gamma _{3}} is the unit pseudoscalar (or four-dimensional volume element), γ 0 {\displaystyle \gamma _{0}} is the unit vector in time direction, and E {\displaystyle E} and B {\displaystyle B} are the classic electric and magnetic field vectors (with a zero time component). Using the four-current J {\displaystyle {J}} , Maxwell's equations then become
In geometric calculus, juxtaposition of vectors such as in D F {\displaystyle DF} indicate the geometric product and can be decomposed into parts as D F = D ⌋ F + D ∧ F {\displaystyle DF=D~\rfloor ~F+D\wedge F} . Here D {\displaystyle D} is the covector derivative in any spacetime and reduces to ∇ {\displaystyle \nabla } in flat spacetime. Where ▽ {\displaystyle \bigtriangledown } plays a role in Minkowski 4 {\displaystyle 4} -spacetime which is synonymous to the role of ∇ {\displaystyle \nabla } in Euclidean 3 {\displaystyle 3} -space and is related to the d'Alembertian by ◻ = ▽ 2 {\displaystyle \Box =\bigtriangledown ^{2}} . Indeed, given an observer represented by a future pointing timelike vector γ 0 {\displaystyle \gamma _{0}} we have
Boosts in this Lorentzian metric space have the same expression e β {\displaystyle e^{\beta }} as rotation in Euclidean space, where β {\displaystyle {\beta }} is the bivector generated by the time and the space directions involved, whereas in the Euclidean case it is the bivector generated by the two space directions, strengthening the "analogy" to almost identity.
The Dirac matrices are a representation of G ( 1 , 3 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} , showing the equivalence with matrix representations used by physicists.
Homogeneous models generally refer to a projective representation in which the elements of the one-dimensional subspaces of a vector space represent points of a geometry.
In a geometric algebra of a space of n {\displaystyle n} dimensions, the rotors represent a set of transformations with n ( n − 1 ) / 2 {\displaystyle n(n-1)/2} degrees of freedom, corresponding to rotations – for example, 3 {\displaystyle 3} when n = 3 {\displaystyle n=3} and 6 {\displaystyle 6} when n = 4. {\displaystyle n=4.} Geometric algebra is often used to model a projective space, i.e. as a homogeneous model: a point, line, plane, etc. is represented by an equivalence class of elements of the algebra that differ by an invertible scalar factor.
The rotors in a space of dimension n + 1 {\displaystyle n+1} have n ( n − 1 ) / 2 + n n(n-1)/2+n degrees of freedom, the same as the number of degrees of freedom in the rotations and translations combined for an n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional space.
This is the case in Projective Geometric Algebra (PGA), which is used to represent Euclidean isometries in Euclidean geometry (thereby covering the large majority of engineering applications of geometry). In this model, a degenerate dimension is added to the three Euclidean dimensions to form the algebra G ( 3 , 0 , 1 ) . {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0,1).} With a suitable identification of subspaces to represent points, lines and planes, the versors of this algebra represent all proper Euclidean isometries, which are always screw motions in 3-dimensional space, along with all improper Euclidean isometries, which includes reflections, rotoreflections, transflections, and point reflections.
PGA combines G ( 3 , 0 , 1 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0,1)} with a dual operator to obtain meet, join, distance, and angle formulae. Depending on the author, this could mean the Hodge star or the projective dual, though both result in identical equations being derived, albeit with different notation. In effect, the dual switches basis vectors that are present and absent in the expression of each term of the algebraic representation. For example, in the PGA or 3-dimensional space, the dual of the line e 12 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} is the line e 03 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{03}} , because e 0 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{0}} and e 3 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{3}} are basis elements that are not contained in e 12 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} but are contained in e 03 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{03}} . In the PGA of 2-dimensional space, the dual of e 12 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} is e 0 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{0}} , since there is no e 3 {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {e}}_{3}} element.
PGA is a widely used system that combines geometric algebra with homogeneous representations in geometry, but there exist several other such systems. The conformal model discussed below is homogeneous, as is "Conic Geometric Algebra", and see Plane-based geometric algebra for discussion of homogeneous models of elliptic and hyperbolic geometry compared with the euclidean geometry derived from PGA.
Working within GA, Euclidean space E 3 {\displaystyle {\mathcal {E}}^{3}} (along with a conformal point at infinity) is embedded projectively in the CGA G ( 4 , 1 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(4,1)} via the identification of Euclidean points with 1D subspaces in the 4D null cone of the 5D CGA vector subspace. This allows all conformal transformations to be performed as rotations and reflections and is covariant, extending incidence relations of projective geometry to circles and spheres.
Specifically, we add orthogonal basis vectors e + {\displaystyle e_{+}} and e − {\displaystyle e_{-}} such that e + 2 = + 1 {\displaystyle e_{+}^{2}=+1} and e − 2 = − 1 {\displaystyle e_{-}^{2}=-1} to the basis of the vector space that generates G ( 3 , 0 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} and identify null vectors
This procedure has some similarities to the procedure for working with homogeneous coordinates in projective geometry and in this case allows the modeling of Euclidean transformations of R 3 {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} ^{3}} as orthogonal transformations of a subset of R 4 , 1 {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} ^{4,1}} .
A fast changing and fluid area of GA, CGA is also being investigated for applications to relativistic physics.
Two potential candidates are currently under investigation as the foundation for affine and projective geometry in three dimensions R ( 3 , 3 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {R}}(3,3)} and R ( 4 , 4 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {R}}(4,4)} which includes representations for shears and non-uniform scaling, as well as quadric surfaces and conic sections.
A new research model, Quadric Conformal Geometric Algebra (QCGA) R ( 9 , 6 ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {R}}(9,6)} is an extension of CGA, dedicated to quadric surfaces. The idea is to represent the objects in low dimensional subspaces of the algebra. QCGA is capable of constructing quadric surfaces either using control points or implicit equations. Moreover, QCGA can compute the intersection of quadric surfaces as well as the surface tangent and normal vectors at a point that lies in the quadric surface.
For any vector a {\displaystyle a} and any invertible vector m {\displaystyle m} ,
where the projection of a {\displaystyle a} onto m {\displaystyle m} (or the parallel part) is
and the rejection of a {\displaystyle a} from m {\displaystyle m} (or the orthogonal part) is
Using the concept of a k {\displaystyle k} -blade B {\displaystyle B} as representing a subspace of V {\displaystyle V} and every multivector ultimately being expressed in terms of vectors, this generalizes to projection of a general multivector onto any invertible k {\displaystyle k} -blade B {\displaystyle B} as
with the rejection being defined as
The projection and rejection generalize to null blades B {\displaystyle B} by replacing the inverse B − 1 {\displaystyle B^{-1}} with the pseudoinverse B + {\displaystyle B^{+}} with respect to the contractive product. The outcome of the projection coincides in both cases for non-null blades. For null blades B {\displaystyle B} , the definition of the projection given here with the first contraction rather than the second being onto the pseudoinverse should be used, as only then is the result necessarily in the subspace represented by B {\displaystyle B} . The projection generalizes through linearity to general multivectors A {\displaystyle A} . The projection is not linear in B {\displaystyle B} and does not generalize to objects B {\displaystyle B} that are not blades.
Simple reflections in a hyperplane are readily expressed in the algebra through conjugation with a single vector. These serve to generate the group of general rotoreflections and rotations.
The reflection c ′ {\displaystyle c'} of a vector c {\displaystyle c} along a vector m {\displaystyle m} , or equivalently in the hyperplane orthogonal to m {\displaystyle m} , is the same as negating the component of a vector parallel to m {\displaystyle m} . The result of the reflection will be
This is not the most general operation that may be regarded as a reflection when the dimension n ≥ 4 {\displaystyle n\geq 4} . A general reflection may be expressed as the composite of any odd number of single-axis reflections. Thus, a general reflection a ′ {\displaystyle a'} of a vector a {\displaystyle a} may be written
where
If we define the reflection along a non-null vector m {\displaystyle m} of the product of vectors as the reflection of every vector in the product along the same vector, we get for any product of an odd number of vectors that, by way of example,
and for the product of an even number of vectors that
Using the concept of every multivector ultimately being expressed in terms of vectors, the reflection of a general multivector A {\displaystyle A} using any reflection versor M {\displaystyle M} may be written
where α {\displaystyle \alpha } is the automorphism of reflection through the origin of the vector space ( v ↦ − v {\displaystyle v\mapsto -v} ) extended through linearity to the whole algebra.
If we have a product of vectors R = a 1 a 2 ⋯ a r {\displaystyle R=a_{1}a_{2}\cdots a_{r}} then we denote the reverse as
As an example, assume that R = a b {\displaystyle R=ab} we get
Scaling R {\displaystyle R} so that R R ~ = 1 {\displaystyle R{\tilde {R}}=1} then
so R v R ~ {\displaystyle Rv{\tilde {R}}} leaves the length of v {\displaystyle v} unchanged. We can also show that
so the transformation R v R ~ {\displaystyle Rv{\tilde {R}}} preserves both length and angle. It therefore can be identified as a rotation or rotoreflection; R {\displaystyle R} is called a rotor if it is a proper rotation (as it is if it can be expressed as a product of an even number of vectors) and is an instance of what is known in GA as a versor.
There is a general method for rotating a vector involving the formation of a multivector of the form R = e − B θ / 2 {\displaystyle R=e^{-B\theta /2}} that produces a rotation θ {\displaystyle \theta } in the plane and with the orientation defined by a 2 {\displaystyle 2} -blade B {\displaystyle B} .
Rotors are a generalization of quaternions to n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional spaces.
A k {\displaystyle k} -versor is a multivector that can be expressed as the geometric product of k {\displaystyle k} invertible vectors. Unit quaternions (originally called versors by Hamilton) may be identified with rotors in 3D space in much the same way as real 2D rotors subsume complex numbers; for the details refer to Dorst.
Some authors use the term "versor product" to refer to the frequently occurring case where an operand is "sandwiched" between operators. The descriptions for rotations and reflections, including their outermorphisms, are examples of such sandwiching. These outermorphisms have a particularly simple algebraic form. Specifically, a mapping of vectors of the form
Since both operators and operand are versors there is potential for alternative examples such as rotating a rotor or reflecting a spinor always provided that some geometrical or physical significance can be attached to such operations.
By the Cartan–Dieudonné theorem we have that every isometry can be given as reflections in hyperplanes and since composed reflections provide rotations then we have that orthogonal transformations are versors.
In group terms, for a real, non-degenerate G ( p , q ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} , having identified the group G × {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}^{\times }} as the group of all invertible elements of G {\displaystyle {\mathcal {G}}} , Lundholm gives a proof that the "versor group" { v 1 v 2 ⋯ v k ∈ G : v i ∈ V × } {\displaystyle \{v_{1}v_{2}\cdots v_{k}\in G:v_{i}\in V^{\times }\}} (the set of invertible versors) is equal to the Lipschitz group Γ {\displaystyle \Gamma } (a.k.a. Clifford group, although Lundholm deprecates this usage).
Lundholm defines the Pin {\displaystyle \operatorname {Pin} } , Spin {\displaystyle \operatorname {Spin} } , and Spin + {\displaystyle \operatorname {Spin} ^{+}} subgroups, generated by unit vectors, and in the case of Spin {\displaystyle \operatorname {Spin} } and Spin + {\displaystyle \operatorname {Spin} ^{+}} , only an even number of such vector factors can be present.
Spinors are defined as elements of the even subalgebra of a real GA; an analysis of the GA approach to spinors is given by Francis and Kosowsky.
For vectors a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} spanning a parallelogram we have
with the result that a ∧ b {\displaystyle a\wedge b} is linear in the product of the "altitude" and the "base" of the parallelogram, that is, its area.
Similar interpretations are true for any number of vectors spanning an n {\displaystyle n} -dimensional parallelotope; the exterior product of vectors a 1 , a 2 , … , a n {\displaystyle a_{1},a_{2},\ldots ,a_{n}} , that is ⋀ i = 1 n a i {\displaystyle \textstyle \bigwedge _{i=1}^{n}a_{i}} , has a magnitude equal to the volume of the n {\displaystyle n} -parallelotope. An n {\displaystyle n} -vector does not necessarily have a shape of a parallelotope – this is a convenient visualization. It could be any shape, although the volume equals that of the parallelotope.
We may define the line parametrically by p = t + α v {\displaystyle p=t+\alpha \ v} where p {\displaystyle p} and t {\displaystyle t} are position vectors for points P and T and v {\displaystyle v} is the direction vector for the line.
Then
so
and
The mathematical description of rotational forces such as torque and angular momentum often makes use of the cross product of vector calculus in three dimensions with a convention of orientation (handedness).
The cross product can be viewed in terms of the exterior product allowing a more natural geometric interpretation of the cross product as a bivector using the dual relationship
For example, torque is generally defined as the magnitude of the perpendicular force component times distance, or work per unit angle.
Suppose a circular path in an arbitrary plane containing orthonormal vectors u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {u}}} and v ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}} is parameterized by angle.
By designating the unit bivector of this plane as the imaginary number
this path vector can be conveniently written in complex exponential form
and the derivative with respect to angle is
So the torque, the rate of change of work W {\displaystyle W} , due to a force F {\displaystyle F} , is
Unlike the cross product description of torque, τ = r × F {\displaystyle \tau =\mathbf {r} \times F} , the geometric algebra description does not introduce a vector in the normal direction; a vector that does not exist in two and that is not unique in greater than three dimensions. The unit bivector describes the plane and the orientation of the rotation, and the sense of the rotation is relative to the angle between the vectors u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {u}}} and v ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {v}}} .
Geometric calculus extends the formalism to include differentiation and integration including differential geometry and differential forms.
Essentially, the vector derivative is defined so that the GA version of Green's theorem is true,
and then one can write
as a geometric product, effectively generalizing Stokes' theorem (including the differential form version of it).
In 1 D {\displaystyle 1D} when A {\displaystyle A} is a curve with endpoints a {\displaystyle a} and b {\displaystyle b} , then
reduces to
or the fundamental theorem of integral calculus.
Also developed are the concept of vector manifold and geometric integration theory (which generalizes differential forms).
Although the connection of geometry with algebra dates as far back at least to Euclid's Elements in the third century B.C. (see Greek geometric algebra), GA in the sense used in this article was not developed until 1844, when it was used in a systematic way to describe the geometrical properties and transformations of a space. In that year, Hermann Grassmann introduced the idea of a geometrical algebra in full generality as a certain calculus (analogous to the propositional calculus) that encoded all of the geometrical information of a space. Grassmann's algebraic system could be applied to a number of different kinds of spaces, the chief among them being Euclidean space, affine space, and projective space. Following Grassmann, in 1878 William Kingdon Clifford examined Grassmann's algebraic system alongside the quaternions of William Rowan Hamilton in (Clifford 1878). From his point of view, the quaternions described certain transformations (which he called rotors), whereas Grassmann's algebra described certain properties (or Strecken such as length, area, and volume). His contribution was to define a new product — the geometric product – on an existing Grassmann algebra, which realized the quaternions as living within that algebra. Subsequently, Rudolf Lipschitz in 1886 generalized Clifford's interpretation of the quaternions and applied them to the geometry of rotations in n {\displaystyle n} dimensions. Later these developments would lead other 20th-century mathematicians to formalize and explore the properties of the Clifford algebra.
Nevertheless, another revolutionary development of the 19th-century would completely overshadow the geometric algebras: that of vector analysis, developed independently by Josiah Willard Gibbs and Oliver Heaviside. Vector analysis was motivated by James Clerk Maxwell's studies of electromagnetism, and specifically the need to express and manipulate conveniently certain differential equations. Vector analysis had a certain intuitive appeal compared to the rigors of the new algebras. Physicists and mathematicians alike readily adopted it as their geometrical toolkit of choice, particularly following the influential 1901 textbook Vector Analysis by Edwin Bidwell Wilson, following lectures of Gibbs.
In more detail, there have been three approaches to geometric algebra: quaternionic analysis, initiated by Hamilton in 1843 and geometrized as rotors by Clifford in 1878; geometric algebra, initiated by Grassmann in 1844; and vector analysis, developed out of quaternionic analysis in the late 19th century by Gibbs and Heaviside. The legacy of quaternionic analysis in vector analysis can be seen in the use of i {\displaystyle i} , j {\displaystyle j} , k {\displaystyle k} to indicate the basis vectors of R 3 {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} ^{3}} : it is being thought of as the purely imaginary quaternions. From the perspective of geometric algebra, the even subalgebra of the Space Time Algebra is isomorphic to the GA of 3D Euclidean space and quaternions are isomorphic to the even subalgebra of the GA of 3D Euclidean space, which unifies the three approaches.
Progress on the study of Clifford algebras quietly advanced through the twentieth century, although largely due to the work of abstract algebraists such as Élie Cartan, Hermann Weyl and Claude Chevalley. The geometrical approach to geometric algebras has seen a number of 20th-century revivals. In mathematics, Emil Artin's Geometric Algebra discusses the algebra associated with each of a number of geometries, including affine geometry, projective geometry, symplectic geometry, and orthogonal geometry. In physics, geometric algebras have been revived as a "new" way to do classical mechanics and electromagnetism, together with more advanced topics such as quantum mechanics and gauge theory. David Hestenes reinterpreted the Pauli and Dirac matrices as vectors in ordinary space and spacetime, respectively, and has been a primary contemporary advocate for the use of geometric algebra.
In computer graphics and robotics, geometric algebras have been revived in order to efficiently represent rotations and other transformations. For applications of GA in robotics (screw theory, kinematics and dynamics using versors), computer vision, control and neural computing (geometric learning) see Bayro (2010).
English translations of early books and papers
Research groups | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In mathematics, a geometric algebra (also known as a real Clifford algebra) is an extension of elementary algebra to work with geometrical objects such as vectors. Geometric algebra is built out of two fundamental operations, addition and the geometric product. Multiplication of vectors results in higher-dimensional objects called multivectors. Compared to other formalisms for manipulating geometric objects, geometric algebra is noteworthy for supporting vector division and addition of objects of different dimensions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The geometric product was first briefly mentioned by Hermann Grassmann, who was chiefly interested in developing the closely related exterior algebra. In 1878, William Kingdon Clifford greatly expanded on Grassmann's work to form what are now usually called Clifford algebras in his honor (although Clifford himself chose to call them \"geometric algebras\"). Clifford defined the Clifford algebra and its product as a unification of the Grassmann algebra and Hamilton's quaternion algebra. Adding the dual of the Grassmann exterior product (the \"meet\") allows the use of the Grassmann–Cayley algebra, and a conformal version of the latter together with a conformal Clifford algebra yields a conformal geometric algebra (CGA) providing a framework for classical geometries. In practice, these and several derived operations allow a correspondence of elements, subspaces and operations of the algebra with geometric interpretations. For several decades, geometric algebras went somewhat ignored, greatly eclipsed by the vector calculus then newly developed to describe electromagnetism. The term \"geometric algebra\" was repopularized in the 1960s by Hestenes, who advocated its importance to relativistic physics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The scalars and vectors have their usual interpretation, and make up distinct subspaces of a geometric algebra. Bivectors provide a more natural representation of the pseudovector quantities in vector algebra such as oriented area, oriented angle of rotation, torque, angular momentum and the electromagnetic field. A trivector can represent an oriented volume, and so on. An element called a blade may be used to represent a subspace of V {\\displaystyle V} and orthogonal projections onto that subspace. Rotations and reflections are represented as elements. Unlike a vector algebra, a geometric algebra naturally accommodates any number of dimensions and any quadratic form such as in relativity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Examples of geometric algebras applied in physics include the spacetime algebra (and the less common algebra of physical space) and the conformal geometric algebra. Geometric calculus, an extension of GA that incorporates differentiation and integration, can be used to formulate other theories such as complex analysis and differential geometry, e.g. by using the Clifford algebra instead of differential forms. Geometric algebra has been advocated, most notably by David Hestenes and Chris Doran, as the preferred mathematical framework for physics. Proponents claim that it provides compact and intuitive descriptions in many areas including classical and quantum mechanics, electromagnetic theory and relativity. GA has also found use as a computational tool in computer graphics and robotics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There are a number of different ways to define a geometric algebra. Hestenes's original approach was axiomatic, \"full of geometric significance\" and equivalent to the universal Clifford algebra. Given a finite-dimensional vector space V {\\displaystyle V} over a field F {\\displaystyle F} with a symmetric bilinear form (the inner product, e.g. the Euclidean or Lorentzian metric) g : V × V → F {\\displaystyle g:V\\times V\\to F} , the geometric algebra of the quadratic space ( V , g ) {\\displaystyle (V,g)} is the Clifford algebra Cl ( V , g ) {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Cl} (V,g)} which members are called multors or here multivectors. (The term multivector is often used more specificly for elements of exterior algebra.) As usual in this domain, for the remainder of this article, only the real case, F = R {\\displaystyle F=\\mathbb {R} } , will be considered. The notation G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} (respectively G ( p , q , r ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q,r)} ) will be used to denote a geometric algebra for which the bilinear form g {\\displaystyle g} has the signature ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle (p,q)} (respectively ( p , q , r ) {\\displaystyle (p,q,r)} ).",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The essential product in the algebra is called the geometric product, and the product in the contained exterior algebra is called the exterior product (frequently called the wedge product and less often the outer product). It is standard to denote these respectively by juxtaposition (i.e., suppressing any explicit multiplication symbol) and the symbol ∧ {\\displaystyle \\wedge } . The above definition of the geometric algebra is abstract, so we summarize the properties of the geometric product by the following set of axioms. The geometric product has the following properties, for multors A , B , C ∈ G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle A,B,C\\in {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} :",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The exterior product has the same properties, except that the last property above is replaced by a ∧ a = 0 {\\displaystyle a\\wedge a=0} for a ∈ V {\\displaystyle a\\in V} .",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Note that in the last property above, the real number g ( a , a ) {\\displaystyle g(a,a)} need not be nonnegative if g {\\displaystyle g} is not positive-definite. An important property of the geometric product is the existence of elements having a multiplicative inverse. For a vector a {\\displaystyle a} , if a 2 ≠ 0 {\\displaystyle a^{2}\\neq 0} then a − 1 {\\displaystyle a^{-1}} exists and is equal to g ( a , a ) − 1 a {\\displaystyle g(a,a)^{-1}a} . A nonzero element of the algebra does not necessarily have a multiplicative inverse. For example, if u {\\displaystyle u} is a vector in V {\\displaystyle V} such that u 2 = 1 {\\displaystyle u^{2}=1} , the element 1 2 ( 1 + u ) {\\displaystyle \\textstyle {\\frac {1}{2}}(1+u)} is both a nontrivial idempotent element and a nonzero zero divisor, and thus has no inverse.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "It is usual to identify R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } and V {\\displaystyle V} with their images under the natural embeddings R → G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} \\to {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} and V → G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle V\\to {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} . In this article, this identification is assumed. Throughout, the terms scalar and vector refer to elements of R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } and V {\\displaystyle V} respectively (and of their images under this embedding).",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "For vectors a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} , we may write the geometric product of any two vectors a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} as the sum of a symmetric product and an antisymmetric product:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Thus we can define the inner product of vectors as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "so that the symmetric product can be written as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Conversely, g {\\displaystyle g} is completely determined by the algebra. The antisymmetric part is the exterior product of the two vectors, the product of the contained exterior algebra:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Then by simple addition:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The inner and exterior products are associated with familiar concepts from standard vector algebra. Geometrically, a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} are parallel if their geometric product is equal to their inner product, whereas a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} are perpendicular if their geometric product is equal to their exterior product. In a geometric algebra for which the square of any nonzero vector is positive, the inner product of two vectors can be identified with the dot product of standard vector algebra. The exterior product of two vectors can be identified with the signed area enclosed by a parallelogram the sides of which are the vectors. The cross product of two vectors in 3 {\\displaystyle 3} dimensions with positive-definite quadratic form is closely related to their exterior product.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Most instances of geometric algebras of interest have a nondegenerate quadratic form. If the quadratic form is fully degenerate, the inner product of any two vectors is always zero, and the geometric algebra is then simply an exterior algebra. Unless otherwise stated, this article will treat only nondegenerate geometric algebras.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The exterior product is naturally extended as an associative bilinear binary operator between any two elements of the algebra, satisfying the identities",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "where the sum is over all permutations of the indices, with sgn ( σ ) {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {sgn} (\\sigma )} the sign of the permutation, and a i {\\displaystyle a_{i}} are vectors (not general elements of the algebra). Since every element of the algebra can be expressed as the sum of products of this form, this defines the exterior product for every pair of elements of the algebra. It follows from the definition that the exterior product forms an alternating algebra.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The equivalent structure equation for Clifford algebra is",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "where P f ( A ) {\\displaystyle Pf(A)} is the Pfaffian of A and C = ( n 2 i ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {C}}={\\binom {n}{2i}}} provides combinations, μ {\\displaystyle \\mu } , of n indicies divided into 2i and n-2i parts and k is the parity of the combination.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Pfaffian provides a metric for the exterior algebra and, as pointed out by Claude Chevalley, Clifford algebra reduces to the exterior algebra with a zero quadratic form. The role the Pfaffian plays can be understood from a geometric viewpoint by developing Clifford algebra from simplices. This derivation provides a better connection between Pascal's triangle and simplices because it provides an interpretation of the first column of ones.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A multivector that is the exterior product of r {\\displaystyle r} linearly independent vectors is called a blade, and is said to be of grade r {\\displaystyle r} . A multivector that is the sum of blades of grade r {\\displaystyle r} is called a (homogeneous) multivector of grade r {\\displaystyle r} . From the axioms, with closure, every multivector of the geometric algebra is a sum of blades.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Consider a set of r {\\displaystyle r} linearly independent vectors { a 1 , … , a r } {\\displaystyle \\{a_{1},\\ldots ,a_{r}\\}} spanning an r {\\displaystyle r} -dimensional subspace of the vector space. With these, we can define a real symmetric matrix (in the same way as a Gramian matrix)",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "By the spectral theorem, A {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {A} } can be diagonalized to diagonal matrix D {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {D} } by an orthogonal matrix O {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {O} } via",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Define a new set of vectors { e 1 , … , e r } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{r}\\}} , known as orthogonal basis vectors, to be those transformed by the orthogonal matrix:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Since orthogonal transformations preserve inner products, it follows that e i ⋅ e j = [ D ] i j {\\displaystyle e_{i}\\cdot e_{j}=[\\mathbf {D} ]_{ij}} and thus the { e 1 , … , e r } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{r}\\}} are perpendicular. In other words, the geometric product of two distinct vectors e i ≠ e j {\\displaystyle e_{i}\\neq e_{j}} is completely specified by their exterior product, or more generally",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Therefore, every blade of grade r {\\displaystyle r} can be written as the exterior product of r {\\displaystyle r} vectors. More generally, if a degenerate geometric algebra is allowed, then the orthogonal matrix is replaced by a block matrix that is orthogonal in the nondegenerate block, and the diagonal matrix has zero-valued entries along the degenerate dimensions. If the new vectors of the nondegenerate subspace are normalized according to",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "then these normalized vectors must square to + 1 {\\displaystyle +1} or − 1 {\\displaystyle -1} . By Sylvester's law of inertia, the total number of + 1 {\\displaystyle +1} s and the total number of − 1 {\\displaystyle -1} s along the diagonal matrix is invariant. By extension, the total number p {\\displaystyle p} of these vectors that square to + 1 {\\displaystyle +1} and the total number q {\\displaystyle q} that square to − 1 {\\displaystyle -1} is invariant. (The total number of basis vectors that square to zero is also invariant, and may be nonzero if the degenerate case is allowed.) We denote this algebra G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} . For example, G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} models three-dimensional Euclidean space, G ( 1 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} relativistic spacetime and G ( 4 , 1 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(4,1)} a conformal geometric algebra of a three-dimensional space.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The set of all possible products of n {\\displaystyle n} orthogonal basis vectors with indices in increasing order, including 1 {\\displaystyle 1} as the empty product, forms a basis for the entire geometric algebra (an analogue of the PBW theorem). For example, the following is a basis for the geometric algebra G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} :",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A basis formed this way is called a canonical basis for the geometric algebra, and any other orthogonal basis for V {\\displaystyle V} will produce another canonical basis. Each canonical basis consists of 2 n {\\displaystyle 2^{n}} elements. Every multivector of the geometric algebra can be expressed as a linear combination of the canonical basis elements. If the canonical basis elements are { B i ∣ i ∈ S } {\\displaystyle \\{B_{i}\\mid i\\in S\\}} with S {\\displaystyle S} being an index set, then the geometric product of any two multivectors is",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The terminology \" k {\\displaystyle k} -vector\" is often encountered to describe multivectors containing elements of only one grade. In higher dimensional space, some such multivectors are not blades (cannot be factored into the exterior product of k {\\displaystyle k} vectors). By way of example, e 1 ∧ e 2 + e 3 ∧ e 4 {\\displaystyle e_{1}\\wedge e_{2}+e_{3}\\wedge e_{4}} in G ( 4 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(4,0)} cannot be factored; typically, however, such elements of the algebra do not yield to geometric interpretation as objects, although they may represent geometric quantities such as rotations. Only 0 , 1 , ( n − 1 ) {\\displaystyle 0,1,(n-1)} and n {\\displaystyle n} -vectors are always blades in n {\\displaystyle n} -space.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Using an orthogonal basis, a graded vector space structure can be established. Elements of the geometric algebra that are scalar multiples of 1 {\\displaystyle 1} are grade- 0 {\\displaystyle 0} blades and are called scalars. Multivectors that are in the span of { e 1 , … , e n } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{n}\\}} are grade- 1 {\\displaystyle 1} blades and are the ordinary vectors. Multivectors in the span of { e i e j ∣ 1 ≤ i < j ≤ n } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{i}e_{j}\\mid 1\\leq i<j\\leq n\\}} are grade- 2 {\\displaystyle 2} blades and are the bivectors. This terminology continues through to the last grade of n {\\displaystyle n} -vectors. Alternatively, grade- n {\\displaystyle n} blades are called pseudoscalars, grade- ( n − 1 ) {\\displaystyle (n-1)} blades pseudovectors, etc. Many of the elements of the algebra are not graded by this scheme since they are sums of elements of differing grade. Such elements are said to be of mixed grade. The grading of multivectors is independent of the basis chosen originally.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "This is a grading as a vector space, but not as an algebra. Because the product of an r {\\displaystyle r} -blade and an s {\\displaystyle s} -blade is contained in the span of 0 {\\displaystyle 0} through r + s {\\displaystyle r+s} -blades, the geometric algebra is a filtered algebra.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "A multivector A {\\displaystyle A} may be decomposed with the grade-projection operator ⟨ A ⟩ r {\\displaystyle \\langle A\\rangle _{r}} , which outputs the grade- r {\\displaystyle r} portion of A {\\displaystyle A} . As a result:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As an example, the geometric product of two vectors a b = a ⋅ b + a ∧ b = ⟨ a b ⟩ 0 + ⟨ a b ⟩ 2 {\\displaystyle ab=a\\cdot b+a\\wedge b=\\langle ab\\rangle _{0}+\\langle ab\\rangle _{2}} since ⟨ a b ⟩ 0 = a ⋅ b {\\displaystyle \\langle ab\\rangle _{0}=a\\cdot b} and ⟨ a b ⟩ 2 = a ∧ b {\\displaystyle \\langle ab\\rangle _{2}=a\\wedge b} and ⟨ a b ⟩ i = 0 {\\displaystyle \\langle ab\\rangle _{i}=0} , for i {\\displaystyle i} other than 0 {\\displaystyle 0} and 2 {\\displaystyle 2} .",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The decomposition of a multivector A {\\displaystyle A} may also be split into those components that are even and those that are odd:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "This is the result of forgetting structure from a Z {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {Z} } -graded vector space to Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded vector space. The geometric product respects this coarser grading. Thus in addition to being a Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded vector space, the geometric algebra is a Z 2 {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {Z} _{2}} -graded algebra or superalgebra.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Restricting to the even part, the product of two even elements is also even. This means that the even multivectors defines an even subalgebra. The even subalgebra of an n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional geometric algebra is isomorphic (without preserving either filtration or grading) to a full geometric algebra of ( n − 1 ) {\\displaystyle (n-1)} dimensions. Examples include G + ( 2 , 0 ) ≅ G ( 0 , 1 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}^{+}(2,0)\\cong {\\mathcal {G}}(0,1)} and G + ( 1 , 3 ) ≅ G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}^{+}(1,3)\\cong {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} .",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Geometric algebra represents subspaces of V {\\displaystyle V} as blades, and so they coexist in the same algebra with vectors from V {\\displaystyle V} . A k {\\displaystyle k} -dimensional subspace W {\\displaystyle W} of V {\\displaystyle V} is represented by taking an orthogonal basis { b 1 , b 2 , … , b k } {\\displaystyle \\{b_{1},b_{2},\\ldots ,b_{k}\\}} and using the geometric product to form the blade D = b 1 b 2 ⋯ b k {\\displaystyle D=b_{1}b_{2}\\cdots b_{k}} . There are multiple blades representing W {\\displaystyle W} ; all those representing W {\\displaystyle W} are scalar multiples of D {\\displaystyle D} . These blades can be separated into two sets: positive multiples of D {\\displaystyle D} and negative multiples of D {\\displaystyle D} . The positive multiples of D {\\displaystyle D} are said to have the same orientation as D {\\displaystyle D} , and the negative multiples the opposite orientation.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Blades are important since geometric operations such as projections, rotations and reflections depend on the factorability via the exterior product that (the restricted class of) n {\\displaystyle n} -blades provide but that (the generalized class of) grade- n {\\displaystyle n} multivectors do not when n ≥ 4 {\\displaystyle n\\geq 4} .",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Unit pseudoscalars are blades that play important roles in GA. A unit pseudoscalar for a non-degenerate subspace W {\\displaystyle W} of V {\\displaystyle V} is a blade that is the product of the members of an orthonormal basis for W {\\displaystyle W} . It can be shown that if I {\\displaystyle I} and I ′ {\\displaystyle I'} are both unit pseudoscalars for W {\\displaystyle W} , then I = ± I ′ {\\displaystyle I=\\pm I'} and I 2 = ± 1 {\\displaystyle I^{2}=\\pm 1} . If one doesn't choose an orthonormal basis for W {\\displaystyle W} , then the Plücker embedding gives a vector in the exterior algebra but only up to scaling. Using the vector space isomorphism between the geometric algebra and exterior algebra, this gives the equivalence class of α I {\\displaystyle \\alpha I} for all α ≠ 0 {\\displaystyle \\alpha \\neq 0} . Orthonormality gets rid of this ambiguity except for the signs above.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Suppose the geometric algebra G ( n , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(n,0)} with the familiar positive definite inner product on R n {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} ^{n}} is formed. Given a plane (two-dimensional subspace) of R n {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} ^{n}} , one can find an orthonormal basis { b 1 , b 2 } {\\displaystyle \\{b_{1},b_{2}\\}} spanning the plane, and thus find a unit pseudoscalar I = b 1 b 2 {\\displaystyle I=b_{1}b_{2}} representing this plane. The geometric product of any two vectors in the span of b 1 {\\displaystyle b_{1}} and b 2 {\\displaystyle b_{2}} lies in { α 0 + α 1 I ∣ α i ∈ R } {\\displaystyle \\{\\alpha _{0}+\\alpha _{1}I\\mid \\alpha _{i}\\in \\mathbb {R} \\}} , that is, it is the sum of a 0 {\\displaystyle 0} -vector and a 2 {\\displaystyle 2} -vector.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "By the properties of the geometric product, I 2 = b 1 b 2 b 1 b 2 = − b 1 b 2 b 2 b 1 = − 1 {\\displaystyle I^{2}=b_{1}b_{2}b_{1}b_{2}=-b_{1}b_{2}b_{2}b_{1}=-1} . The resemblance to the imaginary unit is not incidental: the subspace { α 0 + α 1 I ∣ α i ∈ R } {\\displaystyle \\{\\alpha _{0}+\\alpha _{1}I\\mid \\alpha _{i}\\in \\mathbb {R} \\}} is R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } -algebra isomorphic to the complex numbers. In this way, a copy of the complex numbers is embedded in the geometric algebra for each two-dimensional subspace of V {\\displaystyle V} on which the quadratic form is definite.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "It is sometimes possible to identify the presence of an imaginary unit in a physical equation. Such units arise from one of the many quantities in the real algebra that square to − 1 {\\displaystyle -1} , and these have geometric significance because of the properties of the algebra and the interaction of its various subspaces.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , a further familiar case occurs. Given a canonical basis consisting of orthonormal vectors e i {\\displaystyle e_{i}} of V {\\displaystyle V} , the set of all 2 {\\displaystyle 2} -vectors is spanned by",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Labelling these i {\\displaystyle i} , j {\\displaystyle j} and k {\\displaystyle k} (momentarily deviating from our uppercase convention), the subspace generated by 0 {\\displaystyle 0} -vectors and 2 {\\displaystyle 2} -vectors is exactly { α 0 + i α 1 + j α 2 + k α 3 ∣ α i ∈ R } {\\displaystyle \\{\\alpha _{0}+i\\alpha _{1}+j\\alpha _{2}+k\\alpha _{3}\\mid \\alpha _{i}\\in \\mathbb {R} \\}} . This set is seen to be the even subalgebra of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , and furthermore is isomorphic as an R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } -algebra to the quaternions, another important algebraic system.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "It is common practice to extend the exterior product on vectors to the entire algebra. This may be done through the use of the above mentioned grade projection operator:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "This generalization is consistent with the above definition involving antisymmetrization. Another generalization related to the exterior product is the commutator product:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The regressive product (usually referred to as the \"meet\") is the dual of the exterior product (or \"join\" in this context). The dual specification of elements permits, for blades A {\\displaystyle A} and B {\\displaystyle B} , the intersection (or meet) where the duality is to be taken relative to the smallest grade blade containing both A {\\displaystyle A} and B {\\displaystyle B} (the join).",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "with I {\\displaystyle I} the unit pseudoscalar of the algebra. The regressive product, like the exterior product, is associative.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The inner product on vectors can also be generalized, but in more than one non-equivalent way. The paper (Dorst 2002) gives a full treatment of several different inner products developed for geometric algebras and their interrelationships, and the notation is taken from there. Many authors use the same symbol as for the inner product of vectors for their chosen extension (e.g. Hestenes and Perwass). No consistent notation has emerged.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Among these several different generalizations of the inner product on vectors are:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Dorst (2002) makes an argument for the use of contractions in preference to Hestenes's inner product; they are algebraically more regular and have cleaner geometric interpretations. A number of identities incorporating the contractions are valid without restriction of their inputs. For example,",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Benefits of using the left contraction as an extension of the inner product on vectors include that the identity a b = a ⋅ b + a ∧ b {\\displaystyle ab=a\\cdot b+a\\wedge b} is extended to a B = a ⌋ B + a ∧ B {\\displaystyle aB=a\\;\\rfloor \\;B+a\\wedge B} for any vector a {\\displaystyle a} and multivector B {\\displaystyle B} , and that the projection operation P b ( a ) = ( a ⋅ b − 1 ) b {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {P}}_{b}(a)=(a\\cdot b^{-1})b} is extended to P B ( A ) = ( A ⌋ B − 1 ) ⌋ B {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {P}}_{B}(A)=(A\\;\\rfloor \\;B^{-1})\\;\\rfloor \\;B} for any blade B {\\displaystyle B} and any multivector A {\\displaystyle A} (with a minor modification to accommodate null B {\\displaystyle B} , given below).",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Let { e 1 , … , e n } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{n}\\}} be a basis of V {\\displaystyle V} , i.e. a set of n {\\displaystyle n} linearly independent vectors that span the n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional vector space V {\\displaystyle V} . The basis that is dual to { e 1 , … , e n } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{n}\\}} is the set of elements of the dual vector space V ∗ {\\displaystyle V^{*}} that forms a biorthogonal system with this basis, thus being the elements denoted { e 1 , … , e n } {\\displaystyle \\{e^{1},\\ldots ,e^{n}\\}} satisfying",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "where δ {\\displaystyle \\delta } is the Kronecker delta.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Given a nondegenerate quadratic form on V {\\displaystyle V} , V ∗ {\\displaystyle V^{*}} becomes naturally identified with V {\\displaystyle V} , and the dual basis may be regarded as elements of V {\\displaystyle V} , but are not in general the same set as the original basis.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Given further a GA of V {\\displaystyle V} , let",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "be the pseudoscalar (which does not necessarily square to ± 1 {\\displaystyle \\pm 1} ) formed from the basis { e 1 , … , e n } {\\displaystyle \\{e_{1},\\ldots ,e_{n}\\}} . The dual basis vectors may be constructed as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "where the e ˇ i {\\displaystyle {\\check {e}}_{i}} denotes that the i {\\displaystyle i} th basis vector is omitted from the product.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "A dual basis is also known as a reciprocal basis or reciprocal frame.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "A major usage of a dual basis is to separate vectors into components. Given a vector a {\\displaystyle a} , scalar components a i {\\displaystyle a^{i}} can be defined as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "in terms of which a {\\displaystyle a} can be separated into vector components as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "We can also define scalar components a i {\\displaystyle a_{i}} as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "in terms of which a {\\displaystyle a} can be separated into vector components in terms of the dual basis as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "A dual basis as defined above for the vector subspace of a geometric algebra can be extended to cover the entire algebra. For compactness, we'll use a single capital letter to represent an ordered set of vector indices. I.e., writing",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "where j 1 < j 2 < ⋯ < j n , {\\displaystyle j_{1}<j_{2}<\\dots <j_{n},} we can write a basis blade as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The corresponding reciprocal blade has the indices in opposite order:",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Similar to the case above with vectors, it can be shown that",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "where ∗ {\\displaystyle *} is the scalar product.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "With A {\\displaystyle A} a multivector, we can define scalar components as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "in terms of which A {\\displaystyle A} can be separated into component blades as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "We can alternatively define scalar components",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "in terms of which A {\\displaystyle A} can be separated into component blades as",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Although a versor is easier to work with because it can be directly represented in the algebra as a multivector, versors are a subgroup of linear functions on multivectors, which can still be used when necessary. The geometric algebra of an n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional vector space is spanned by a basis of 2 n {\\displaystyle 2^{n}} elements. If a multivector is represented by a 2 n × 1 {\\displaystyle 2^{n}\\times 1} real column matrix of coefficients of a basis of the algebra, then all linear transformations of the multivector can be expressed as the matrix multiplication by a 2 n × 2 n {\\displaystyle 2^{n}\\times 2^{n}} real matrix. However, such a general linear transformation allows arbitrary exchanges among grades, such as a \"rotation\" of a scalar into a vector, which has no evident geometric interpretation.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "A general linear transformation from vectors to vectors is of interest. With the natural restriction to preserving the induced exterior algebra, the outermorphism of the linear transformation is the unique extension of the versor. If f {\\displaystyle f} is a linear function that maps vectors to vectors, then its outermorphism is the function that obeys the rule",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "for a blade, extended to the whole algebra through linearity.",
"title": "Definition and notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Although a lot of attention has been placed on CGA, it is to be noted that GA is not just one algebra, it is one of a family of algebras with the same essential structure.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} may be considered as an extension or completion of vector algebra.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "The even subalgebra of G ( 2 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(2,0)} is isomorphic to the complex numbers, as may be seen by writing a vector P {\\displaystyle P} in terms of its components in an orthonormal basis and left multiplying by the basis vector e 1 {\\displaystyle e_{1}} , yielding",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "where we identify i ↦ e 1 e 2 {\\displaystyle i\\mapsto e_{1}e_{2}} since",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Similarly, the even subalgebra of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} with basis { 1 , e 2 e 3 , e 3 e 1 , e 1 e 2 } {\\displaystyle \\{1,e_{2}e_{3},e_{3}e_{1},e_{1}e_{2}\\}} is isomorphic to the quaternions as may be seen by identifying i ↦ − e 2 e 3 {\\displaystyle i\\mapsto -e_{2}e_{3}} , j ↦ − e 3 e 1 {\\displaystyle j\\mapsto -e_{3}e_{1}} and k ↦ − e 1 e 2 {\\displaystyle k\\mapsto -e_{1}e_{2}} .",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Every associative algebra has a matrix representation; replacing the three Cartesian basis vectors by the Pauli matrices gives a representation of G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} :",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Dotting the \"Pauli vector\" (a dyad):",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "In physics, the main applications are the geometric algebra of Minkowski 3+1 spacetime, G ( 1 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} , called spacetime algebra (STA), or less commonly, G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} , interpreted the algebra of physical space (APS).",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "While in STA, points of spacetime are represented simply by vectors, in APS, points of ( 3 + 1 ) {\\displaystyle (3+1)} -dimensional spacetime are instead represented by paravectors, a three-dimensional vector (space) plus a one-dimensional scalar (time).",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "In spacetime algebra the electromagnetic field tensor has a bivector representation F = ( E + i c B ) γ 0 {\\displaystyle {F}=({E}+ic{B})\\gamma _{0}} . Here, the i = γ 0 γ 1 γ 2 γ 3 {\\displaystyle i=\\gamma _{0}\\gamma _{1}\\gamma _{2}\\gamma _{3}} is the unit pseudoscalar (or four-dimensional volume element), γ 0 {\\displaystyle \\gamma _{0}} is the unit vector in time direction, and E {\\displaystyle E} and B {\\displaystyle B} are the classic electric and magnetic field vectors (with a zero time component). Using the four-current J {\\displaystyle {J}} , Maxwell's equations then become",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "In geometric calculus, juxtaposition of vectors such as in D F {\\displaystyle DF} indicate the geometric product and can be decomposed into parts as D F = D ⌋ F + D ∧ F {\\displaystyle DF=D~\\rfloor ~F+D\\wedge F} . Here D {\\displaystyle D} is the covector derivative in any spacetime and reduces to ∇ {\\displaystyle \\nabla } in flat spacetime. Where ▽ {\\displaystyle \\bigtriangledown } plays a role in Minkowski 4 {\\displaystyle 4} -spacetime which is synonymous to the role of ∇ {\\displaystyle \\nabla } in Euclidean 3 {\\displaystyle 3} -space and is related to the d'Alembertian by ◻ = ▽ 2 {\\displaystyle \\Box =\\bigtriangledown ^{2}} . Indeed, given an observer represented by a future pointing timelike vector γ 0 {\\displaystyle \\gamma _{0}} we have",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Boosts in this Lorentzian metric space have the same expression e β {\\displaystyle e^{\\beta }} as rotation in Euclidean space, where β {\\displaystyle {\\beta }} is the bivector generated by the time and the space directions involved, whereas in the Euclidean case it is the bivector generated by the two space directions, strengthening the \"analogy\" to almost identity.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "The Dirac matrices are a representation of G ( 1 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(1,3)} , showing the equivalence with matrix representations used by physicists.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Homogeneous models generally refer to a projective representation in which the elements of the one-dimensional subspaces of a vector space represent points of a geometry.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "In a geometric algebra of a space of n {\\displaystyle n} dimensions, the rotors represent a set of transformations with n ( n − 1 ) / 2 {\\displaystyle n(n-1)/2} degrees of freedom, corresponding to rotations – for example, 3 {\\displaystyle 3} when n = 3 {\\displaystyle n=3} and 6 {\\displaystyle 6} when n = 4. {\\displaystyle n=4.} Geometric algebra is often used to model a projective space, i.e. as a homogeneous model: a point, line, plane, etc. is represented by an equivalence class of elements of the algebra that differ by an invertible scalar factor.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "The rotors in a space of dimension n + 1 {\\displaystyle n+1} have n ( n − 1 ) / 2 + n n(n-1)/2+n degrees of freedom, the same as the number of degrees of freedom in the rotations and translations combined for an n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional space.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "This is the case in Projective Geometric Algebra (PGA), which is used to represent Euclidean isometries in Euclidean geometry (thereby covering the large majority of engineering applications of geometry). In this model, a degenerate dimension is added to the three Euclidean dimensions to form the algebra G ( 3 , 0 , 1 ) . {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0,1).} With a suitable identification of subspaces to represent points, lines and planes, the versors of this algebra represent all proper Euclidean isometries, which are always screw motions in 3-dimensional space, along with all improper Euclidean isometries, which includes reflections, rotoreflections, transflections, and point reflections.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "PGA combines G ( 3 , 0 , 1 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0,1)} with a dual operator to obtain meet, join, distance, and angle formulae. Depending on the author, this could mean the Hodge star or the projective dual, though both result in identical equations being derived, albeit with different notation. In effect, the dual switches basis vectors that are present and absent in the expression of each term of the algebraic representation. For example, in the PGA or 3-dimensional space, the dual of the line e 12 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} is the line e 03 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{03}} , because e 0 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{0}} and e 3 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{3}} are basis elements that are not contained in e 12 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} but are contained in e 03 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{03}} . In the PGA of 2-dimensional space, the dual of e 12 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{12}} is e 0 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{0}} , since there is no e 3 {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {e}}_{3}} element.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "PGA is a widely used system that combines geometric algebra with homogeneous representations in geometry, but there exist several other such systems. The conformal model discussed below is homogeneous, as is \"Conic Geometric Algebra\", and see Plane-based geometric algebra for discussion of homogeneous models of elliptic and hyperbolic geometry compared with the euclidean geometry derived from PGA.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Working within GA, Euclidean space E 3 {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {E}}^{3}} (along with a conformal point at infinity) is embedded projectively in the CGA G ( 4 , 1 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(4,1)} via the identification of Euclidean points with 1D subspaces in the 4D null cone of the 5D CGA vector subspace. This allows all conformal transformations to be performed as rotations and reflections and is covariant, extending incidence relations of projective geometry to circles and spheres.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Specifically, we add orthogonal basis vectors e + {\\displaystyle e_{+}} and e − {\\displaystyle e_{-}} such that e + 2 = + 1 {\\displaystyle e_{+}^{2}=+1} and e − 2 = − 1 {\\displaystyle e_{-}^{2}=-1} to the basis of the vector space that generates G ( 3 , 0 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(3,0)} and identify null vectors",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "This procedure has some similarities to the procedure for working with homogeneous coordinates in projective geometry and in this case allows the modeling of Euclidean transformations of R 3 {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {R} ^{3}} as orthogonal transformations of a subset of R 4 , 1 {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {R} ^{4,1}} .",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "A fast changing and fluid area of GA, CGA is also being investigated for applications to relativistic physics.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Two potential candidates are currently under investigation as the foundation for affine and projective geometry in three dimensions R ( 3 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {R}}(3,3)} and R ( 4 , 4 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {R}}(4,4)} which includes representations for shears and non-uniform scaling, as well as quadric surfaces and conic sections.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "A new research model, Quadric Conformal Geometric Algebra (QCGA) R ( 9 , 6 ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {R}}(9,6)} is an extension of CGA, dedicated to quadric surfaces. The idea is to represent the objects in low dimensional subspaces of the algebra. QCGA is capable of constructing quadric surfaces either using control points or implicit equations. Moreover, QCGA can compute the intersection of quadric surfaces as well as the surface tangent and normal vectors at a point that lies in the quadric surface.",
"title": "Modeling geometries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "For any vector a {\\displaystyle a} and any invertible vector m {\\displaystyle m} ,",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "where the projection of a {\\displaystyle a} onto m {\\displaystyle m} (or the parallel part) is",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "and the rejection of a {\\displaystyle a} from m {\\displaystyle m} (or the orthogonal part) is",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Using the concept of a k {\\displaystyle k} -blade B {\\displaystyle B} as representing a subspace of V {\\displaystyle V} and every multivector ultimately being expressed in terms of vectors, this generalizes to projection of a general multivector onto any invertible k {\\displaystyle k} -blade B {\\displaystyle B} as",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "with the rejection being defined as",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "The projection and rejection generalize to null blades B {\\displaystyle B} by replacing the inverse B − 1 {\\displaystyle B^{-1}} with the pseudoinverse B + {\\displaystyle B^{+}} with respect to the contractive product. The outcome of the projection coincides in both cases for non-null blades. For null blades B {\\displaystyle B} , the definition of the projection given here with the first contraction rather than the second being onto the pseudoinverse should be used, as only then is the result necessarily in the subspace represented by B {\\displaystyle B} . The projection generalizes through linearity to general multivectors A {\\displaystyle A} . The projection is not linear in B {\\displaystyle B} and does not generalize to objects B {\\displaystyle B} that are not blades.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Simple reflections in a hyperplane are readily expressed in the algebra through conjugation with a single vector. These serve to generate the group of general rotoreflections and rotations.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "The reflection c ′ {\\displaystyle c'} of a vector c {\\displaystyle c} along a vector m {\\displaystyle m} , or equivalently in the hyperplane orthogonal to m {\\displaystyle m} , is the same as negating the component of a vector parallel to m {\\displaystyle m} . The result of the reflection will be",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "This is not the most general operation that may be regarded as a reflection when the dimension n ≥ 4 {\\displaystyle n\\geq 4} . A general reflection may be expressed as the composite of any odd number of single-axis reflections. Thus, a general reflection a ′ {\\displaystyle a'} of a vector a {\\displaystyle a} may be written",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "where",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "If we define the reflection along a non-null vector m {\\displaystyle m} of the product of vectors as the reflection of every vector in the product along the same vector, we get for any product of an odd number of vectors that, by way of example,",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "and for the product of an even number of vectors that",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Using the concept of every multivector ultimately being expressed in terms of vectors, the reflection of a general multivector A {\\displaystyle A} using any reflection versor M {\\displaystyle M} may be written",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "where α {\\displaystyle \\alpha } is the automorphism of reflection through the origin of the vector space ( v ↦ − v {\\displaystyle v\\mapsto -v} ) extended through linearity to the whole algebra.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "If we have a product of vectors R = a 1 a 2 ⋯ a r {\\displaystyle R=a_{1}a_{2}\\cdots a_{r}} then we denote the reverse as",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "As an example, assume that R = a b {\\displaystyle R=ab} we get",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Scaling R {\\displaystyle R} so that R R ~ = 1 {\\displaystyle R{\\tilde {R}}=1} then",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "so R v R ~ {\\displaystyle Rv{\\tilde {R}}} leaves the length of v {\\displaystyle v} unchanged. We can also show that",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "so the transformation R v R ~ {\\displaystyle Rv{\\tilde {R}}} preserves both length and angle. It therefore can be identified as a rotation or rotoreflection; R {\\displaystyle R} is called a rotor if it is a proper rotation (as it is if it can be expressed as a product of an even number of vectors) and is an instance of what is known in GA as a versor.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "There is a general method for rotating a vector involving the formation of a multivector of the form R = e − B θ / 2 {\\displaystyle R=e^{-B\\theta /2}} that produces a rotation θ {\\displaystyle \\theta } in the plane and with the orientation defined by a 2 {\\displaystyle 2} -blade B {\\displaystyle B} .",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Rotors are a generalization of quaternions to n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional spaces.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "A k {\\displaystyle k} -versor is a multivector that can be expressed as the geometric product of k {\\displaystyle k} invertible vectors. Unit quaternions (originally called versors by Hamilton) may be identified with rotors in 3D space in much the same way as real 2D rotors subsume complex numbers; for the details refer to Dorst.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Some authors use the term \"versor product\" to refer to the frequently occurring case where an operand is \"sandwiched\" between operators. The descriptions for rotations and reflections, including their outermorphisms, are examples of such sandwiching. These outermorphisms have a particularly simple algebraic form. Specifically, a mapping of vectors of the form",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "Since both operators and operand are versors there is potential for alternative examples such as rotating a rotor or reflecting a spinor always provided that some geometrical or physical significance can be attached to such operations.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "By the Cartan–Dieudonné theorem we have that every isometry can be given as reflections in hyperplanes and since composed reflections provide rotations then we have that orthogonal transformations are versors.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "In group terms, for a real, non-degenerate G ( p , q ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}(p,q)} , having identified the group G × {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}^{\\times }} as the group of all invertible elements of G {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {G}}} , Lundholm gives a proof that the \"versor group\" { v 1 v 2 ⋯ v k ∈ G : v i ∈ V × } {\\displaystyle \\{v_{1}v_{2}\\cdots v_{k}\\in G:v_{i}\\in V^{\\times }\\}} (the set of invertible versors) is equal to the Lipschitz group Γ {\\displaystyle \\Gamma } (a.k.a. Clifford group, although Lundholm deprecates this usage).",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Lundholm defines the Pin {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Pin} } , Spin {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Spin} } , and Spin + {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Spin} ^{+}} subgroups, generated by unit vectors, and in the case of Spin {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Spin} } and Spin + {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {Spin} ^{+}} , only an even number of such vector factors can be present.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "Spinors are defined as elements of the even subalgebra of a real GA; an analysis of the GA approach to spinors is given by Francis and Kosowsky.",
"title": "Geometric interpretation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "For vectors a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} spanning a parallelogram we have",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "with the result that a ∧ b {\\displaystyle a\\wedge b} is linear in the product of the \"altitude\" and the \"base\" of the parallelogram, that is, its area.",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "Similar interpretations are true for any number of vectors spanning an n {\\displaystyle n} -dimensional parallelotope; the exterior product of vectors a 1 , a 2 , … , a n {\\displaystyle a_{1},a_{2},\\ldots ,a_{n}} , that is ⋀ i = 1 n a i {\\displaystyle \\textstyle \\bigwedge _{i=1}^{n}a_{i}} , has a magnitude equal to the volume of the n {\\displaystyle n} -parallelotope. An n {\\displaystyle n} -vector does not necessarily have a shape of a parallelotope – this is a convenient visualization. It could be any shape, although the volume equals that of the parallelotope.",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "We may define the line parametrically by p = t + α v {\\displaystyle p=t+\\alpha \\ v} where p {\\displaystyle p} and t {\\displaystyle t} are position vectors for points P and T and v {\\displaystyle v} is the direction vector for the line.",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "Then",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "so",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "and",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "The mathematical description of rotational forces such as torque and angular momentum often makes use of the cross product of vector calculus in three dimensions with a convention of orientation (handedness).",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "The cross product can be viewed in terms of the exterior product allowing a more natural geometric interpretation of the cross product as a bivector using the dual relationship",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "For example, torque is generally defined as the magnitude of the perpendicular force component times distance, or work per unit angle.",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "Suppose a circular path in an arbitrary plane containing orthonormal vectors u ^ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {u}}} and v ^ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}} is parameterized by angle.",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "By designating the unit bivector of this plane as the imaginary number",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "this path vector can be conveniently written in complex exponential form",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "and the derivative with respect to angle is",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "So the torque, the rate of change of work W {\\displaystyle W} , due to a force F {\\displaystyle F} , is",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "Unlike the cross product description of torque, τ = r × F {\\displaystyle \\tau =\\mathbf {r} \\times F} , the geometric algebra description does not introduce a vector in the normal direction; a vector that does not exist in two and that is not unique in greater than three dimensions. The unit bivector describes the plane and the orientation of the rotation, and the sense of the rotation is relative to the angle between the vectors u ^ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {u}}} and v ^ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {v}}} .",
"title": "Examples and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "Geometric calculus extends the formalism to include differentiation and integration including differential geometry and differential forms.",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "Essentially, the vector derivative is defined so that the GA version of Green's theorem is true,",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "and then one can write",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "as a geometric product, effectively generalizing Stokes' theorem (including the differential form version of it).",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "In 1 D {\\displaystyle 1D} when A {\\displaystyle A} is a curve with endpoints a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} , then",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "reduces to",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "or the fundamental theorem of integral calculus.",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 153,
"text": "Also developed are the concept of vector manifold and geometric integration theory (which generalizes differential forms).",
"title": "Geometric calculus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 154,
"text": "Although the connection of geometry with algebra dates as far back at least to Euclid's Elements in the third century B.C. (see Greek geometric algebra), GA in the sense used in this article was not developed until 1844, when it was used in a systematic way to describe the geometrical properties and transformations of a space. In that year, Hermann Grassmann introduced the idea of a geometrical algebra in full generality as a certain calculus (analogous to the propositional calculus) that encoded all of the geometrical information of a space. Grassmann's algebraic system could be applied to a number of different kinds of spaces, the chief among them being Euclidean space, affine space, and projective space. Following Grassmann, in 1878 William Kingdon Clifford examined Grassmann's algebraic system alongside the quaternions of William Rowan Hamilton in (Clifford 1878). From his point of view, the quaternions described certain transformations (which he called rotors), whereas Grassmann's algebra described certain properties (or Strecken such as length, area, and volume). His contribution was to define a new product — the geometric product – on an existing Grassmann algebra, which realized the quaternions as living within that algebra. Subsequently, Rudolf Lipschitz in 1886 generalized Clifford's interpretation of the quaternions and applied them to the geometry of rotations in n {\\displaystyle n} dimensions. Later these developments would lead other 20th-century mathematicians to formalize and explore the properties of the Clifford algebra.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 155,
"text": "Nevertheless, another revolutionary development of the 19th-century would completely overshadow the geometric algebras: that of vector analysis, developed independently by Josiah Willard Gibbs and Oliver Heaviside. Vector analysis was motivated by James Clerk Maxwell's studies of electromagnetism, and specifically the need to express and manipulate conveniently certain differential equations. Vector analysis had a certain intuitive appeal compared to the rigors of the new algebras. Physicists and mathematicians alike readily adopted it as their geometrical toolkit of choice, particularly following the influential 1901 textbook Vector Analysis by Edwin Bidwell Wilson, following lectures of Gibbs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 156,
"text": "In more detail, there have been three approaches to geometric algebra: quaternionic analysis, initiated by Hamilton in 1843 and geometrized as rotors by Clifford in 1878; geometric algebra, initiated by Grassmann in 1844; and vector analysis, developed out of quaternionic analysis in the late 19th century by Gibbs and Heaviside. The legacy of quaternionic analysis in vector analysis can be seen in the use of i {\\displaystyle i} , j {\\displaystyle j} , k {\\displaystyle k} to indicate the basis vectors of R 3 {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {R} ^{3}} : it is being thought of as the purely imaginary quaternions. From the perspective of geometric algebra, the even subalgebra of the Space Time Algebra is isomorphic to the GA of 3D Euclidean space and quaternions are isomorphic to the even subalgebra of the GA of 3D Euclidean space, which unifies the three approaches.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 157,
"text": "Progress on the study of Clifford algebras quietly advanced through the twentieth century, although largely due to the work of abstract algebraists such as Élie Cartan, Hermann Weyl and Claude Chevalley. The geometrical approach to geometric algebras has seen a number of 20th-century revivals. In mathematics, Emil Artin's Geometric Algebra discusses the algebra associated with each of a number of geometries, including affine geometry, projective geometry, symplectic geometry, and orthogonal geometry. In physics, geometric algebras have been revived as a \"new\" way to do classical mechanics and electromagnetism, together with more advanced topics such as quantum mechanics and gauge theory. David Hestenes reinterpreted the Pauli and Dirac matrices as vectors in ordinary space and spacetime, respectively, and has been a primary contemporary advocate for the use of geometric algebra.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 158,
"text": "In computer graphics and robotics, geometric algebras have been revived in order to efficiently represent rotations and other transformations. For applications of GA in robotics (screw theory, kinematics and dynamics using versors), computer vision, control and neural computing (geometric learning) see Bayro (2010).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 159,
"text": "English translations of early books and papers",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 160,
"text": "Research groups",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| In mathematics, a geometric algebra is an extension of elementary algebra to work with geometrical objects such as vectors. Geometric algebra is built out of two fundamental operations, addition and the geometric product. Multiplication of vectors results in higher-dimensional objects called multivectors. Compared to other formalisms for manipulating geometric objects, geometric algebra is noteworthy for supporting vector division and addition of objects of different dimensions. The geometric product was first briefly mentioned by Hermann Grassmann, who was chiefly interested in developing the closely related exterior algebra. In 1878, William Kingdon Clifford greatly expanded on Grassmann's work to form what are now usually called Clifford algebras in his honor. Clifford defined the Clifford algebra and its product as a unification of the Grassmann algebra and Hamilton's quaternion algebra. Adding the dual of the Grassmann exterior product allows the use of the Grassmann–Cayley algebra, and a conformal version of the latter together with a conformal Clifford algebra yields a conformal geometric algebra (CGA) providing a framework for classical geometries. In practice, these and several derived operations allow a correspondence of elements, subspaces and operations of the algebra with geometric interpretations. For several decades, geometric algebras went somewhat ignored, greatly eclipsed by the vector calculus then newly developed to describe electromagnetism. The term "geometric algebra" was repopularized in the 1960s by Hestenes, who advocated its importance to relativistic physics. The scalars and vectors have their usual interpretation, and make up distinct subspaces of a geometric algebra. Bivectors provide a more natural representation of the pseudovector quantities in vector algebra such as oriented area, oriented angle of rotation, torque, angular momentum and the electromagnetic field. A trivector can represent an oriented volume, and so on. An element called a blade may be used to represent a subspace of V and orthogonal projections onto that subspace. Rotations and reflections are represented as elements. Unlike a vector algebra, a geometric algebra naturally accommodates any number of dimensions and any quadratic form such as in relativity. Examples of geometric algebras applied in physics include the spacetime algebra and the conformal geometric algebra. Geometric calculus, an extension of GA that incorporates differentiation and integration, can be used to formulate other theories such as complex analysis and differential geometry, e.g. by using the Clifford algebra instead of differential forms. Geometric algebra has been advocated, most notably by David Hestenes and Chris Doran, as the preferred mathematical framework for physics. Proponents claim that it provides compact and intuitive descriptions in many areas including classical and quantum mechanics, electromagnetic theory and relativity. GA has also found use as a computational tool in computer graphics and robotics. | 2001-12-08T13:08:19Z | 2023-11-25T16:40:48Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_algebra |
12,942 | Genetic | Genetic may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Genetic may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Genetic may refer to: Genetics, in biology, the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms
Genetic, used as an adjective, refers to genes
Genetic disorder, any disorder caused by a genetic mutation, whether inherited or de novo
Genetic mutation, a change in a gene
Heredity, genes and their mutations being passed from parents to offspring
Genetic recombination, refers to the recombining of alleles resulting in a new molecule of DNA
Genetic relationship (linguistics), in linguistics, a relationship between two languages with a common ancestor language
Genetic algorithm, in computer science, a kind of search technique modeled on evolutionary biology | 2020-05-09T18:21:36Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic |
|
12,945 | George Benson | George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album Breezin' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the Billboard album chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. Benson has won ten Grammy Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Benson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of seven, he first played the ukulele in a corner drug store, for which he was paid a few dollars. At age eight, he played guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights, but the police soon closed the club down. At age nine, he started to record. Out of the four sides he cut, two were released: "She Makes Me Mad" backed with "It Should Have Been Me", with RCA Victor in New York; although one source indicates this record was released under the name "Little Georgie", the 45rpm label is printed with the name George Benson. The single was produced by Leroy Kirkland for RCA's rhythm and blues label, Groove Records.
Benson attended and graduated from Schenley High School. As a youth he learned how to play straight-ahead instrumental jazz during a relationship performing for several years with organist Jack McDuff. One of his many early guitar heroes was country-jazz guitarist Hank Garland.
At the age of 21, he recorded his first album as leader, The New Boss Guitar, featuring McDuff. Benson's next recording was It's Uptown with the George Benson Quartet, including Lonnie Smith on organ and Ronnie Cuber on baritone saxophone. Benson followed it up with The George Benson Cookbook, also with Lonnie Smith and Ronnie Cuber on baritone and drummer Marion Booker. Miles Davis employed Benson in the mid-1960s, featuring his guitar on "Paraphernalia" on his 1968 Columbia release, Miles in the Sky before Benson went to Verve Records.
Benson then signed with Creed Taylor's jazz label CTI Records, where he recorded several albums, with jazz heavyweights guesting, to some success, mainly in the jazz field. His 1974 release, Bad Benson, climbed to the top spot in the Billboard jazz chart, while the follow-ups, Good King Bad (#51 Pop album) and Benson & Farrell (with Joe Farrell), both reached the jazz top-three sellers. Benson also did a version of The Beatles's 1969 album Abbey Road called The Other Side of Abbey Road, also released in 1969, and a version of "White Rabbit", originally written and recorded by San Francisco rock group Great Society, and made famous by Jefferson Airplane. Benson played on numerous sessions for other CTI artists during this time, including Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine, notably on the latter's acclaimed album Sugar.
By the mid-to-late 1970s, as he recorded for Warner Bros. Records, a whole new audience began to discover Benson. On 1976's Breezin', Benson sang a lead vocal on the track "This Masquerade", a song written by Leon Russell. Benson's version (notable also for the lush, romantic piano intro and solo by Jorge Dalto), became a huge pop hit and won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. (He had sung vocals infrequently on albums earlier in his career, notably his rendition of "Here Comes the Sun" on The Other Side of Abbey Road album.) The rest of the album is instrumental, including his rendition of the 1975 José Feliciano composition "Affirmation".
In 1976, Benson toured with soul singer Minnie Riperton, who had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer earlier that year and, in addition, appeared as a guitarist and backup vocalist on Stevie Wonder's song "Another Star" from Wonder's album Songs in the Key of Life.
He also recorded the original version of "The Greatest Love of All" for the 1977 Muhammad Ali bio-pic, The Greatest, which was later covered by Whitney Houston as "Greatest Love of All." During this time Benson recorded with the German conductor Claus Ogerman. The live take of "On Broadway," recorded a few months later from the 1978 release Weekend in L.A., also won a Grammy. He has worked with Freddie Hubbard on a number of his albums throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
The Qwest record label (a subsidiary of Warner Bros., run by Quincy Jones) released Benson's breakthrough pop album Give Me The Night, produced by Jones. Benson made it into the pop and R&B top ten with the song "Give Me the Night" (written by former Heatwave keyboardist Rod Temperton). He had many hit singles such as "Love All the Hurt Away," "Turn Your Love Around," "Inside Love," "Lady Love Me," "20/20," "Shiver," "Kisses in the Moonlight." More importantly, Quincy Jones encouraged Benson to search his roots for further vocal inspiration, and he rediscovered his love for Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway in the process, influencing a string of further vocal albums into the 1990s. Despite returning to his jazz and guitar playing most recently, this theme was reflected again much later in Benson's 2000 release Absolute Benson, featuring a cover of one of Hathaway's most notable songs, "The Ghetto." Benson accumulated three other platinum LPs and two gold albums.
In 1990, Benson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music.
To commemorate the long relationship between Benson and Ibanez and to celebrate 30 years of collaboration on the GB Signature Models, Ibanez created the GB30TH, a limited-edition model with a gold-foil finish inspired by the traditional Japanese Garahaku art form.
In 2009, Benson was recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master, the United States highest honor in jazz. Benson performed at the 49th issue of the Ohrid Summer Festival in North Macedonia on July 25, 2009, and his tribute show to Nat King Cole An Unforgettable Tribute to Nat King Cole as part of the Istanbul International Jazz Festival in Turkey on July 27.
In the fall of 2009, Benson finished recording an album entitled Songs and Stories with Marcus Miller, producer John Burk, and session musicians David Paich and Steve Lukather. As a part of the promotion for his album Songs and Stories, Benson has appeared or performed on The Tavis Smiley Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
He performed at the Java Jazz Festival March 4–6, 2011. In 2011, Benson released the album Guitar Man, revisiting his 1960s/early-1970s guitar-playing roots with a 12-song collection of covers of both jazz and pop standards produced by John Burk.
In June 2013, Benson released his fourth album for Concord, Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole, which included Wynton Marsalis, Idina Menzel, Till Brönner, and Judith Hill. In September, he returned to perform at Rock in Rio festival, in Rio de Janeiro, 35 years after his first performance at this festival, which was then the inaugural one.
In July 2016, Benson participated as a mentor in the Sky Arts programme Guitar Star in the search for the UK and Republic of Ireland's most talented guitarist.
In May 2018, Benson was featured on the Gorillaz single "Humility".
On July 12, 2018, it was announced that Benson had signed to Mascot Label Group.
Benson has been married to Johnnie Lee since 1965 and has seven children. Benson describes his music as focusing more on love and romance, due to his commitment to his family and religious practices, with Benson being one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Benson has been a resident of Englewood, New Jersey.
List of Grammy Awards received by George Benson | [
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"text": "A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album Breezin' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the Billboard album chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. Benson has won ten Grammy Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.",
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"text": "Benson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of seven, he first played the ukulele in a corner drug store, for which he was paid a few dollars. At age eight, he played guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights, but the police soon closed the club down. At age nine, he started to record. Out of the four sides he cut, two were released: \"She Makes Me Mad\" backed with \"It Should Have Been Me\", with RCA Victor in New York; although one source indicates this record was released under the name \"Little Georgie\", the 45rpm label is printed with the name George Benson. The single was produced by Leroy Kirkland for RCA's rhythm and blues label, Groove Records.",
"title": "Biography"
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"text": "Benson attended and graduated from Schenley High School. As a youth he learned how to play straight-ahead instrumental jazz during a relationship performing for several years with organist Jack McDuff. One of his many early guitar heroes was country-jazz guitarist Hank Garland.",
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"text": "At the age of 21, he recorded his first album as leader, The New Boss Guitar, featuring McDuff. Benson's next recording was It's Uptown with the George Benson Quartet, including Lonnie Smith on organ and Ronnie Cuber on baritone saxophone. Benson followed it up with The George Benson Cookbook, also with Lonnie Smith and Ronnie Cuber on baritone and drummer Marion Booker. Miles Davis employed Benson in the mid-1960s, featuring his guitar on \"Paraphernalia\" on his 1968 Columbia release, Miles in the Sky before Benson went to Verve Records.",
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"text": "Benson then signed with Creed Taylor's jazz label CTI Records, where he recorded several albums, with jazz heavyweights guesting, to some success, mainly in the jazz field. His 1974 release, Bad Benson, climbed to the top spot in the Billboard jazz chart, while the follow-ups, Good King Bad (#51 Pop album) and Benson & Farrell (with Joe Farrell), both reached the jazz top-three sellers. Benson also did a version of The Beatles's 1969 album Abbey Road called The Other Side of Abbey Road, also released in 1969, and a version of \"White Rabbit\", originally written and recorded by San Francisco rock group Great Society, and made famous by Jefferson Airplane. Benson played on numerous sessions for other CTI artists during this time, including Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine, notably on the latter's acclaimed album Sugar.",
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"text": "By the mid-to-late 1970s, as he recorded for Warner Bros. Records, a whole new audience began to discover Benson. On 1976's Breezin', Benson sang a lead vocal on the track \"This Masquerade\", a song written by Leon Russell. Benson's version (notable also for the lush, romantic piano intro and solo by Jorge Dalto), became a huge pop hit and won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. (He had sung vocals infrequently on albums earlier in his career, notably his rendition of \"Here Comes the Sun\" on The Other Side of Abbey Road album.) The rest of the album is instrumental, including his rendition of the 1975 José Feliciano composition \"Affirmation\".",
"title": "Biography"
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"text": "In 1976, Benson toured with soul singer Minnie Riperton, who had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer earlier that year and, in addition, appeared as a guitarist and backup vocalist on Stevie Wonder's song \"Another Star\" from Wonder's album Songs in the Key of Life.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He also recorded the original version of \"The Greatest Love of All\" for the 1977 Muhammad Ali bio-pic, The Greatest, which was later covered by Whitney Houston as \"Greatest Love of All.\" During this time Benson recorded with the German conductor Claus Ogerman. The live take of \"On Broadway,\" recorded a few months later from the 1978 release Weekend in L.A., also won a Grammy. He has worked with Freddie Hubbard on a number of his albums throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.",
"title": "Biography"
},
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"text": "The Qwest record label (a subsidiary of Warner Bros., run by Quincy Jones) released Benson's breakthrough pop album Give Me The Night, produced by Jones. Benson made it into the pop and R&B top ten with the song \"Give Me the Night\" (written by former Heatwave keyboardist Rod Temperton). He had many hit singles such as \"Love All the Hurt Away,\" \"Turn Your Love Around,\" \"Inside Love,\" \"Lady Love Me,\" \"20/20,\" \"Shiver,\" \"Kisses in the Moonlight.\" More importantly, Quincy Jones encouraged Benson to search his roots for further vocal inspiration, and he rediscovered his love for Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway in the process, influencing a string of further vocal albums into the 1990s. Despite returning to his jazz and guitar playing most recently, this theme was reflected again much later in Benson's 2000 release Absolute Benson, featuring a cover of one of Hathaway's most notable songs, \"The Ghetto.\" Benson accumulated three other platinum LPs and two gold albums.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
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"text": "In 1990, Benson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music.",
"title": "Biography"
},
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"text": "To commemorate the long relationship between Benson and Ibanez and to celebrate 30 years of collaboration on the GB Signature Models, Ibanez created the GB30TH, a limited-edition model with a gold-foil finish inspired by the traditional Japanese Garahaku art form.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 2009, Benson was recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master, the United States highest honor in jazz. Benson performed at the 49th issue of the Ohrid Summer Festival in North Macedonia on July 25, 2009, and his tribute show to Nat King Cole An Unforgettable Tribute to Nat King Cole as part of the Istanbul International Jazz Festival in Turkey on July 27.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In the fall of 2009, Benson finished recording an album entitled Songs and Stories with Marcus Miller, producer John Burk, and session musicians David Paich and Steve Lukather. As a part of the promotion for his album Songs and Stories, Benson has appeared or performed on The Tavis Smiley Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "He performed at the Java Jazz Festival March 4–6, 2011. In 2011, Benson released the album Guitar Man, revisiting his 1960s/early-1970s guitar-playing roots with a 12-song collection of covers of both jazz and pop standards produced by John Burk.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In June 2013, Benson released his fourth album for Concord, Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole, which included Wynton Marsalis, Idina Menzel, Till Brönner, and Judith Hill. In September, he returned to perform at Rock in Rio festival, in Rio de Janeiro, 35 years after his first performance at this festival, which was then the inaugural one.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In July 2016, Benson participated as a mentor in the Sky Arts programme Guitar Star in the search for the UK and Republic of Ireland's most talented guitarist.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In May 2018, Benson was featured on the Gorillaz single \"Humility\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "On July 12, 2018, it was announced that Benson had signed to Mascot Label Group.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Benson has been married to Johnnie Lee since 1965 and has seven children. Benson describes his music as focusing more on love and romance, due to his commitment to his family and religious practices, with Benson being one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Benson has been a resident of Englewood, New Jersey.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "List of Grammy Awards received by George Benson",
"title": "Awards"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| George Washington Benson is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album Breezin' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the Billboard album chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. Benson has won ten Grammy Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-10T10:53:16Z | [
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12,946 | Grigory Barenblatt | Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt (Russian: Григо́рий Исаа́кович Баренблат; 10 July 1927 – 22 June 2018) was a Russian mathematician.
Barenblatt graduated in 1950 from Moscow State University, Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in 1953 from Moscow State University under the supervision of A. N. Kolmogorov.
Barenblatt also received a D.Sc. from Moscow State University in 1957. He was an emeritus Professor in Residence at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California, Berkeley and Mathematician at Department of Mathematics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 1994 and he was Emeritus G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics. His areas of research were: | [
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"text": "Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt (Russian: Григо́рий Исаа́кович Баренблат; 10 July 1927 – 22 June 2018) was a Russian mathematician.",
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"text": "Barenblatt graduated in 1950 from Moscow State University, Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in 1953 from Moscow State University under the supervision of A. N. Kolmogorov.",
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"text": "Barenblatt also received a D.Sc. from Moscow State University in 1957. He was an emeritus Professor in Residence at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California, Berkeley and Mathematician at Department of Mathematics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 1994 and he was Emeritus G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics. His areas of research were:",
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| Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt was a Russian mathematician. | 2001-12-09T13:48:27Z | 2023-12-26T13:07:26Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Barenblatt |
12,947 | Grammatical tense | In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the Chinese languages, though they can possess a future and nonfuture system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages. In recent work Maria Bittner and Judith Tonhauser have described the different ways in which tenseless languages nonetheless mark time. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs recent past, or near vs remote future.
Tenses generally express time relative to the moment of speaking. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativized to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse (the moment being spoken about). This is called relative (as opposed to absolute) tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as pluperfect ("past-in-the-past") and "future-in-the-past".
Expressions of tense are often closely connected with expressions of the category of aspect; sometimes what are traditionally called tenses (in languages such as Latin) may in modern analysis be regarded as combinations of tense with aspect. Verbs are also often conjugated for mood, and since in many cases the three categories are not manifested separately, some languages may be described in terms of a combined tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system.
The English noun tense comes from Old French tens "time" (spelled temps in modern French through deliberate archaization), from Latin tempus, "time". It is not related to the adjective tense, which comes from Latin tensus, the perfect passive participle of tendere, "stretch".
In modern linguistic theory, tense is understood as a category that expresses (grammaticalizes) time reference; namely one which, using grammatical means, places a state or action in time. Nonetheless, in many descriptions of languages, particularly in traditional European grammar, the term "tense" is applied to verb forms or constructions that express not merely position in time, but also additional properties of the state or action – particularly aspectual or modal properties.
The category of aspect expresses how a state or action relates to time – whether it is seen as a complete event, an ongoing or repeated situation, etc. Many languages make a distinction between perfective aspect (denoting complete events) and imperfective aspect (denoting ongoing or repeated situations); some also have other aspects, such as a perfect aspect, denoting a state following a prior event. Some of the traditional "tenses" express time reference together with aspectual information. In Latin and French, for example, the imperfect denotes past time in combination with imperfective aspect, while other verb forms (the Latin perfect, and the French passé composé or passé simple) are used for past time reference with perfective aspect.
The category of mood is used to express modality, which includes such properties as uncertainty, evidentiality, and obligation. Commonly encountered moods include the indicative, subjunctive, and conditional. Mood can be bound up with tense, aspect, or both, in particular verb forms. Hence, certain languages are sometimes analysed as having a single tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system, without separate manifestation of the three categories.
The term tense, then, particularly in less formal contexts, is sometimes used to denote any combination of tense proper, aspect, and mood. As regards English, there are many verb forms and constructions which combine time reference with continuous and/or perfect aspect, and with indicative, subjunctive or conditional mood. Particularly in some English language teaching materials, some or all of these forms can be referred to simply as tenses (see below).
Particular tense forms need not always carry their basic time-referential meaning in every case. For instance, the historical present is a use of the present tense to refer to past events. The phenomenon of fake tense is common crosslinguistically as a means of marking counterfactuality in conditionals and wishes.
Not all languages have tense: tenseless languages include Chinese and Dyirbal. Some languages have all three basic tenses (the past, present, and future), while others have only two: some have past and nonpast tenses, the latter covering both present and future times (as in Arabic, Japanese, and, in some analyses, English), whereas others such as Greenlandic, Quechua, and Nivkh have future and nonfuture. Some languages have four or more tenses, making finer distinctions either in the past (e.g. remote vs. recent past) or in the future (e.g. near vs. remote future). The six-tense language Kalaw Lagaw Ya of Australia has the remote past, the recent past, the today past, the present, the today/near future and the remote future. Some languages, like the Amazonian Cubeo language, have a historical past tense, used for events perceived as historical.
Tenses that refer specifically to "today" are called hodiernal tenses; these can be either past or future. Apart from Kalaw Lagaw Ya, another language which features such tenses is Mwera, a Bantu language of Tanzania. It is also suggested that in 17th-century French, the passé composé served as a hodiernal past. Tenses that contrast with hodiernals, by referring to the past before today or the future after today, are called pre-hodiernal and post-hodiernal respectively. Some languages also have a crastinal tense, a future tense referring specifically to tomorrow (found in some Bantu languages); or a hesternal tense, a past tense referring specifically to yesterday (although this name is also sometimes used to mean pre-hodiernal). A tense for after tomorrow is thus called post-crastinal, and one for before yesterday is called pre-hesternal.
Another tense found in some languages, including Luganda, is the persistive tense, used to indicate that a state or ongoing action is still the case (or, in the negative, is no longer the case). Luganda also has tenses meaning "so far" and "not yet".
Some languages have special tense forms that are used to express relative tense. Tenses that refer to the past relative to the time under consideration are called anterior; these include the pluperfect (for the past relative to a past time) and the future perfect (for the past relative to a future time). Similarly, posterior tenses refer to the future relative to the time under consideration, as with the English "future-in-the-past": (he said that) he would go. Relative tense forms are also sometimes analysed as combinations of tense with aspect: the perfect aspect in the anterior case, or the prospective aspect in the posterior case.
Some languages have cyclic tense systems. This is a form of temporal marking where tense is given relative to a reference point or reference span. In Burarra, for example, events that occurred earlier on the day of speaking are marked with the same verb forms as events that happened in the far past, while events that happened yesterday (compared to the moment of speech) are marked with the same forms as events in the present. This can be thought of as a system where events are marked as prior or contemporaneous to points of reference on a time line.
Tense is normally indicated by the use of a particular verb form – either an inflected form of the main verb, or a multi-word construction, or both in combination. Inflection may involve the use of affixes, such as the -ed ending that marks the past tense of English regular verbs, but can also entail stem modifications, such as ablaut, as found as in the strong verbs in English and other Germanic languages, or reduplication. Multi-word tense constructions often involve auxiliary verbs or clitics. Examples which combine both types of tense marking include the French passé composé, which has an auxiliary verb together with the inflected past participle form of the main verb; and the Irish past tense, where the proclitic do (in various surface forms) appears in conjunction with the affixed or ablaut-modified past tense form of the main verb.
As has already been mentioned, indications of tense are often bound up with indications of other verbal categories, such as aspect and mood. The conjugation patterns of verbs often also reflect agreement with categories pertaining to the subject, such as person, number and gender. It is consequently not always possible to identify elements that mark any specific category, such as tense, separately from the others.
A few languages have been shown to mark tense information (as well as aspect and mood) on nouns. This may be called nominal TAM.
Languages that do not have grammatical tense, such as most Sinitic languages, express time reference chiefly by lexical means – through adverbials, time phrases, and so on. (The same is done in tensed languages, to supplement or reinforce the time information conveyed by the choice of tense.) Time information is also sometimes conveyed as a secondary feature by markers of other categories, as with the aspect markers 了 le and 過 guò, which in most cases place an action in past time. However, much time information is conveyed implicitly by context – it is therefore not always necessary, when translating from a tensed to a tenseless language, say, to express explicitly in the target language all of the information conveyed by the tenses in the source.
The syntactic properties of tense have figured prominently in formal analyses of how tense-marking interacts with word order. Some languages (such as French) allow an adverb (Adv) to intervene between a tense-marked verb (V) and its direct object (O); in other words, they permit [Verb-Adverb-Object] ordering. In contrast, other languages (such as English) do not allow the adverb to intervene between the verb and its direct object, and require [Adverb-Verb-Object] ordering.
Tense in syntax is represented by the category label T, which is the head of a TP (tense phrase).
In linguistics, a tenseless language is a language that does not have a grammatical category of tense. Tenseless languages can and do refer to time, but they do so using lexical items such as adverbs or verbs, or by using combinations of aspect, mood, and words that establish time reference. Examples of tenseless languages are Burmese, Dyirbal, most varieties of Chinese, Malay (including Indonesian), Thai, Maya (linguistic nomenclature: "Yukatek Maya"), Vietnamese and in some analyses Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) and Guaraní.
Latin is traditionally described as having six verb paradigms for tense (the Latin for "tense" being tempus, plural tempora):
Imperfect verbs represent a past process combined with imperfective, that is, they stand for an ongoing past action or state at a past point in time (see secondary present). They can also represent habitual actions (see Latin tenses with modality). In contrast, perfect verbs represent completed actions. Like the imperfect, the pluperfect, the perfect and the future perfect can realise relative tenses, standing for events that are past at the time of another event (see secondary past).
Latin verbs are inflected for tense and aspect together with mood (indicative, subjunctive, infinitive, and imperative) and voice (active or passive). Most verbs can be built by selecting a verb stem and adapting them to endings. Endings may vary according to the speech role, the number and the gender of the subject or an object. Sometimes, verb groups function as a unit and supplement inflection for tense (see Latin periphrases). For details on verb structure, see Latin tenses and Latin conjugation.
The paradigms for tenses in Ancient Greek are similar to the ones in Latin, but with a three-way aspect contrast in the past: the aorist, the perfect and the imperfect. Both aorist and imperfect verbs can represent a past event: through contrast, the imperfect verb implies a longer duration ('ate' vs 'ate for a long time'). The aorist participle represents the first event of a two-event sequence and the present participle represents an ongoing event at the time of another event. Perfect verbs stood for past affecting actions if the result was still present (e.g. "I have found it") or for present states resulting from a past event (e.g. "I remember"). For further details see Ancient Greek verbs.
The study of modern languages has been greatly influenced by the grammar of the Classical languages, since early grammarians, often monks, had no other reference point to describe their language. Latin terminology is often used to describe modern languages, sometimes with a change of meaning, as with the application of "perfect" to forms in English that do not necessarily have perfective meaning, or the words Imperfekt and Perfekt to German past tense forms that mostly lack any relationship to the aspects implied by those terms.
English has only two morphological tenses: the present (or non-past), as in he goes, and the past (or preterite), as in he went. The non-past usually references the present, but sometimes references the future (as in the bus leaves tomorrow). In special uses such as the historical present it can talk about the past as well. These morphological tenses are marked either with a suffix (walk(s) ~ walked) or with ablaut (sing(s) ~ sang).
In some contexts, particularly in English language teaching, various tense–aspect combinations are referred to loosely as tenses. Similarly, the term "future tense" is sometimes loosely applied to cases where modals such as will are used to talk about future points in time.
Proto-Indo-European verbs had present, perfect (stative), imperfect and aorist forms – these can be considered as representing two tenses (present and past) with different aspects. Most languages in the Indo-European family have developed systems either with two morphological tenses (present or "non-past", and past) or with three (present, past and future). The tenses often form part of entangled tense–aspect–mood conjugation systems. Additional tenses, tense–aspect combinations, etc. can be provided by compound constructions containing auxiliary verbs.
The Germanic languages (which include English) have present (non-past) and past tenses formed morphologically, with future and other additional forms made using auxiliaries. In standard German, the compound past (Perfekt) has replaced the simple morphological past in most contexts.
The Romance languages (descendants of Latin) have past, present and future morphological tenses, with additional aspectual distinction in the past. French is an example of a language where, as in German, the simple morphological perfective past (passé simple) has mostly given way to a compound form (passé composé).
Irish, a Celtic language, has past, present and future tenses (see Irish conjugation). The past contrasts perfective and imperfective aspect, and some verbs retain such a contrast in the present. Classical Irish had a three-way aspectual contrast of simple–perfective–imperfective in the past and present tenses. Modern Scottish Gaelic on the other hand only has past, non-past and 'indefinite', and, in the case of the verb 'be' (including its use as an auxiliary), also present tense.
Persian, an Indo-Iranian language, has past and non-past forms, with additional aspectual distinctions. Future can be expressed using an auxiliary, but almost never in non-formal context. Colloquially the perfect suffix -e can be added to past tenses to indicate that an action is speculative or reported (e.g. "it seems that he was doing", "they say that he was doing"). A similar feature is found in Turkish. (For details, see Persian verbs.)
Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), an Indo-Aryan language, has indicative perfect past and indicative future forms, while the indicative present and indicative imperfect past conjugations exist only for the verb honā (to be). The indicative future is constructed using the future subjunctive conjugations (which used to be the indicative present conjugations in older forms of Hind-Urdu) by adding a future future suffix -gā that declines for gender and the number of the noun that the pronoun refes to. The forms of gā are derived from the perfective participle forms of the verb "to go," jāna. The conjugations of the indicative perfect past and the indicative imperfect past are derived from participles (just like the past tense formation in Slavic languages) and hence they agree with the grammatical number and the gender of noun which the pronoun refers to and not the pronoun itself. The perfect past doubles as the perfective aspect participle and the imperfect past conjugations act as the copula to mark imperfect past when used with the aspectual participles. Hindi-Urdu has an overtly marked tense-aspect-mood system. Periphrastic Hindi-Urdu verb forms (aspectual verb forms) consist of two elements, the first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element (the copula) is the common tense-mood marker. Hindi-Urdu has 3 grammatical aspectsː Habitual, Perfective, and Progressive; and 5 grammatical moodsː Indicative, Presumptive, Subjunctive, Contrafactual, and Imperative. (Seeː Hindi verbs)
In the Slavic languages, verbs are intrinsically perfective or imperfective. In Russian and some other languages in the group, perfective verbs have past and "future tenses", while imperfective verbs have past, present and "future", the imperfective "future" being a compound tense in most cases. The "future tense" of perfective verbs is formed in the same way as the present tense of imperfective verbs. However, in South Slavic languages, there may be a greater variety of forms – Bulgarian, for example, has present, past (both "imperfect" and "aorist") and "future tenses", for both perfective and imperfective verbs, as well as perfect forms made with an auxiliary (see Bulgarian verbs). However it doesn't have real future tense, because the future tense is formed by the shortened version of the present of the verb hteti (ще) and it just adds present tense forms of person suffixes: -m (I), -š (you), -ø (he,she,it), -me (we), -te (you, plural), -t (they).
Finnish and Hungarian, both members of the Uralic language family, have morphological present (non-past) and past tenses. The Hungarian verb van ("to be") also has a future form.
Turkish verbs conjugate for past, present and future, with a variety of aspects and moods.
Arabic verbs have past and non-past; future can be indicated by a prefix.
Korean verbs have a variety of affixed forms which can be described as representing present, past and future tenses, although they can alternatively be considered to be aspectual. Similarly, Japanese verbs are described as having present and past tenses, although they may be analysed as aspects. Some Wu Chinese languages, such as Shanghainese, use grammatical particles to mark some tenses. Other Chinese languages and many other East Asian languages generally lack inflection and are considered to be tenseless languages, although they often have aspect markers which convey certain information about time reference.
For examples of languages with a greater variety of tenses, see the section on possible tenses, above. Fuller information on tense formation and usage in particular languages can be found in the articles on those languages and their grammars.
Rapa is the French Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti. Verbs in the indigenous Old Rapa occur with a marker known as TAM which stands for tense, aspect, or mood which can be followed by directional particles or deictic particles. Of the markers there are three tense markers called: Imperfective, Progressive, and Perfective. Which simply mean, Before, Currently, and After. However, specific TAM markers and the type of deictic or directional particle that follows determine and denote different types of meanings in terms of tenses.
Imperfective: denotes actions that have not occurred yet but will occur and expressed by TAM e.
e
IPFV
naku
come
mai
DIR
te
INDEF
'āikete
teacher
anana'i
tomorrow
e naku mai te 'āikete anana'i
IPFV come DIR INDEF teacher tomorrow
'The teacher is coming tomorrow.'
e
IPFV
mānea
pretty
tō
DEF
pē'ā
woman
ra
DEIC
e mānea tō pē'ā ra
IPFV pretty DEF woman DEIC
'That woman is beautiful.'
Progressive: Also expressed by TAM e and denotes actions that are currently happening when used with deictic na, and denotes actions that was just witnessed but still currently happening when used with deictic ra.
e
IPFV
'āikete
learn
na
DEIC
'ōna
3S
i
ACC
te
INDEF
tamariki
child/children
e 'āikete na 'ōna i te tamariki
IPFV learn DEIC 3S ACC INDEF child/children
'He is teaching some children.'
e
IPFV
kai
eat
na
DEIC
ou
1S
i
ACC
kota'i
one
kororio
small
eika
fish
e kai na ou i kota'i kororio eika
IPFV eat DEIC 1S ACC one small fish
'I am eating a small fish.'
e
IPFV
tunu
cook
na
DEIC
ou
1S
i
ACC
te
INDEF
mīkaka
taro
tonga
all
te
INDEF
pōpongi
morning
e tunu na ou i te mīkaka tonga te pōpongi
IPFV cook DEIC 1S ACC INDEF taro all INDEF morning
'I cook taro every morning.'
e
IPFV
kaikai
eat.continuously
ra
DEIC
te
INDEF
kurī
dog
i
ACC
te
INDEF
moa
chicken
e kaikai ra te kurī i te moa
IPFV eat.continuously DEIC INDEF dog ACC INDEF chicken
'The dog is eating a chicken.'
e
IPFV
mate
die
atu
DIR
ra
DEIC
'ōna
3S
e mate atu ra 'ōna
IPFV die DIR DEIC 3S
'She has just died.'
Perfective: denotes actions that have already occurred or have finished and is marked by TAM ka.
ka
PFV
ngurunguru
growl
te
INDEF
kurī
dog
ka ngurunguru te kurī
PFV growl INDEF dog
'A dog growled.'
ka
PFV
tākave
kill
tō
DEF
tangata
man
i
ACC
te
INDEF
mango
shark
ka tākave tō tangata i te mango
PFV kill DEF man ACC INDEF shark
'The man killed the shark.'
ka
PFV
tunu
cook
na
DEIC
ou
1S
i
ACC
te
INDEF
mīkaka
taro
tonga
all
te
INDEF
pōpongi
morning
ka tunu na ou i te mīkaka tonga te pōpongi
PFV cook DEIC 1S ACC INDEF taro all INDEF morning
'I used to cook taro every morning'
In Old Rapa there are also other types of tense markers known as Past, Imperative, and Subjunctive.
Past
TAM i marks past action. It is rarely used as a matrix TAM and is more frequently observed in past embedded clauses
i
PST
komo
sleep
mātou
1PL.EXCL
i komo mātou
PST sleep 1PL.EXCL
'We slept.'
e
IPFV
a'a
what
koe
2S
i
PST
'aka-ineine
CAUS-ready
e a'a koe i 'aka-ineine
IPFV what 2S PST CAUS-ready
'What did you prepare?'
Imperative
The imperative is marked in Old Rapa by TAM a. A second person subject is implied by the direct command of the imperative.
a
IMP
naku
come
mai
DIR
a naku mai
IMP come DIR
'Come here.'
a
IMP
kai
eat
tā-koe
INDEF.PossA-2S
eika
fish
a kai tā-koe eika
IMP eat INDEF.PossA-2S fish
'Eat your fish.'
For a more polite form rather than a straightforward command imperative TAM a is used with adverbial kānei. Kānei is only shown to be used in imperative structures and was translated by the french as "please".
a
IMP
rave
take
mai
DIR
kānei
PREC
tō
DEF
mea
thing
a rave mai kānei tō mea
IMP take DIR PREC DEF thing
'Please take the thing.'
a
IMP
omono
dress
kānei
PREC
koe
2S
tō
DEF
ka'u
clothing
ra
DEIC
a omono kānei koe tō ka'u ra
IMP dress PREC 2S DEF clothing DEIC
'Please dress yourself in those clothes.'
It is also used in a more impersonal form. For example, how you would speak toward a pesky neighbor.
a
IMP
naku
go
kānei
PREC
a naku kānei
IMP go PREC
'Please leave now!'
Subjunctive
The subjunctive in Old Rapa is marked by kia and can also be used in expressions of desire
kia
SBJV
naku
come
ou
1S
i
PREP
te
INDEF
'are
house
e
IPFV
kaikai
eat.continuously
ou
1S
kia naku ou i te 'are e kaikai ou
SBJV come 1S PREP INDEF house IPFV eat.continuously 1S
'When I get to the house, I will eat.'
kia
SBJV
rekareka
happy
kōrua
2DU
kia rekareka kōrua
SBJV happy 2DU
'May you two be happy.'
The Tokelauan language is a tenseless language. The language uses the same words for all three tenses; the phrase E liliu mai au i te Aho Tōnai literally translates to Come back / me / on Saturday, but the translation becomes 'I am coming back on Saturday'.
Wuvulu-Aua does not have an explicit tense, but rather tense is conveyed by mood, aspect markers, and time phrases. Wuvulu speakers use a realis mood to convey past tense as speakers can be certain about events that have occurred. In some cases, realis mood is used to convey present tense — often to indicate a state of being. Wuvulu speakers use an irrealis mood to convey future tense. Tense in Wuvulu-Aua may also be implied by using time adverbials and aspectual markings. Wuvulu contains three verbal markers to indicate sequence of events. The preverbal adverbial loʔo 'first' indicates the verb occurs before any other. The postverbal morpheme liai and linia are the respective intransitive and transitive suffixes indicating a repeated action. The postverbal morpheme li and liria are the respective intransitive and transitive suffixes indicating a completed action.
Mortlockese uses tense markers such as mii and to denote the present tense state of a subject, aa to denote a present tense state that an object has changed to from a different, past state, kɞ to describe something that has already been completed, pɞ and lɛ to denote future tense, pʷapʷ to denote a possible action or state in future tense, and sæn/mwo for something that has not happened yet. Each of these markers is used in conjunction with the subject proclitics except for the markers aa and mii. Additionally, the marker mii can be used with any type of intransitive verb.
DEIC:deictic DIR:directional | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the Chinese languages, though they can possess a future and nonfuture system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages. In recent work Maria Bittner and Judith Tonhauser have described the different ways in which tenseless languages nonetheless mark time. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs recent past, or near vs remote future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Tenses generally express time relative to the moment of speaking. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativized to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse (the moment being spoken about). This is called relative (as opposed to absolute) tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as pluperfect (\"past-in-the-past\") and \"future-in-the-past\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Expressions of tense are often closely connected with expressions of the category of aspect; sometimes what are traditionally called tenses (in languages such as Latin) may in modern analysis be regarded as combinations of tense with aspect. Verbs are also often conjugated for mood, and since in many cases the three categories are not manifested separately, some languages may be described in terms of a combined tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The English noun tense comes from Old French tens \"time\" (spelled temps in modern French through deliberate archaization), from Latin tempus, \"time\". It is not related to the adjective tense, which comes from Latin tensus, the perfect passive participle of tendere, \"stretch\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In modern linguistic theory, tense is understood as a category that expresses (grammaticalizes) time reference; namely one which, using grammatical means, places a state or action in time. Nonetheless, in many descriptions of languages, particularly in traditional European grammar, the term \"tense\" is applied to verb forms or constructions that express not merely position in time, but also additional properties of the state or action – particularly aspectual or modal properties.",
"title": "Uses of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The category of aspect expresses how a state or action relates to time – whether it is seen as a complete event, an ongoing or repeated situation, etc. Many languages make a distinction between perfective aspect (denoting complete events) and imperfective aspect (denoting ongoing or repeated situations); some also have other aspects, such as a perfect aspect, denoting a state following a prior event. Some of the traditional \"tenses\" express time reference together with aspectual information. In Latin and French, for example, the imperfect denotes past time in combination with imperfective aspect, while other verb forms (the Latin perfect, and the French passé composé or passé simple) are used for past time reference with perfective aspect.",
"title": "Uses of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The category of mood is used to express modality, which includes such properties as uncertainty, evidentiality, and obligation. Commonly encountered moods include the indicative, subjunctive, and conditional. Mood can be bound up with tense, aspect, or both, in particular verb forms. Hence, certain languages are sometimes analysed as having a single tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system, without separate manifestation of the three categories.",
"title": "Uses of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The term tense, then, particularly in less formal contexts, is sometimes used to denote any combination of tense proper, aspect, and mood. As regards English, there are many verb forms and constructions which combine time reference with continuous and/or perfect aspect, and with indicative, subjunctive or conditional mood. Particularly in some English language teaching materials, some or all of these forms can be referred to simply as tenses (see below).",
"title": "Uses of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Particular tense forms need not always carry their basic time-referential meaning in every case. For instance, the historical present is a use of the present tense to refer to past events. The phenomenon of fake tense is common crosslinguistically as a means of marking counterfactuality in conditionals and wishes.",
"title": "Uses of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Not all languages have tense: tenseless languages include Chinese and Dyirbal. Some languages have all three basic tenses (the past, present, and future), while others have only two: some have past and nonpast tenses, the latter covering both present and future times (as in Arabic, Japanese, and, in some analyses, English), whereas others such as Greenlandic, Quechua, and Nivkh have future and nonfuture. Some languages have four or more tenses, making finer distinctions either in the past (e.g. remote vs. recent past) or in the future (e.g. near vs. remote future). The six-tense language Kalaw Lagaw Ya of Australia has the remote past, the recent past, the today past, the present, the today/near future and the remote future. Some languages, like the Amazonian Cubeo language, have a historical past tense, used for events perceived as historical.",
"title": "Possible tenses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Tenses that refer specifically to \"today\" are called hodiernal tenses; these can be either past or future. Apart from Kalaw Lagaw Ya, another language which features such tenses is Mwera, a Bantu language of Tanzania. It is also suggested that in 17th-century French, the passé composé served as a hodiernal past. Tenses that contrast with hodiernals, by referring to the past before today or the future after today, are called pre-hodiernal and post-hodiernal respectively. Some languages also have a crastinal tense, a future tense referring specifically to tomorrow (found in some Bantu languages); or a hesternal tense, a past tense referring specifically to yesterday (although this name is also sometimes used to mean pre-hodiernal). A tense for after tomorrow is thus called post-crastinal, and one for before yesterday is called pre-hesternal.",
"title": "Possible tenses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Another tense found in some languages, including Luganda, is the persistive tense, used to indicate that a state or ongoing action is still the case (or, in the negative, is no longer the case). Luganda also has tenses meaning \"so far\" and \"not yet\".",
"title": "Possible tenses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some languages have special tense forms that are used to express relative tense. Tenses that refer to the past relative to the time under consideration are called anterior; these include the pluperfect (for the past relative to a past time) and the future perfect (for the past relative to a future time). Similarly, posterior tenses refer to the future relative to the time under consideration, as with the English \"future-in-the-past\": (he said that) he would go. Relative tense forms are also sometimes analysed as combinations of tense with aspect: the perfect aspect in the anterior case, or the prospective aspect in the posterior case.",
"title": "Possible tenses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Some languages have cyclic tense systems. This is a form of temporal marking where tense is given relative to a reference point or reference span. In Burarra, for example, events that occurred earlier on the day of speaking are marked with the same verb forms as events that happened in the far past, while events that happened yesterday (compared to the moment of speech) are marked with the same forms as events in the present. This can be thought of as a system where events are marked as prior or contemporaneous to points of reference on a time line.",
"title": "Possible tenses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Tense is normally indicated by the use of a particular verb form – either an inflected form of the main verb, or a multi-word construction, or both in combination. Inflection may involve the use of affixes, such as the -ed ending that marks the past tense of English regular verbs, but can also entail stem modifications, such as ablaut, as found as in the strong verbs in English and other Germanic languages, or reduplication. Multi-word tense constructions often involve auxiliary verbs or clitics. Examples which combine both types of tense marking include the French passé composé, which has an auxiliary verb together with the inflected past participle form of the main verb; and the Irish past tense, where the proclitic do (in various surface forms) appears in conjunction with the affixed or ablaut-modified past tense form of the main verb.",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "As has already been mentioned, indications of tense are often bound up with indications of other verbal categories, such as aspect and mood. The conjugation patterns of verbs often also reflect agreement with categories pertaining to the subject, such as person, number and gender. It is consequently not always possible to identify elements that mark any specific category, such as tense, separately from the others.",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "A few languages have been shown to mark tense information (as well as aspect and mood) on nouns. This may be called nominal TAM.",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Languages that do not have grammatical tense, such as most Sinitic languages, express time reference chiefly by lexical means – through adverbials, time phrases, and so on. (The same is done in tensed languages, to supplement or reinforce the time information conveyed by the choice of tense.) Time information is also sometimes conveyed as a secondary feature by markers of other categories, as with the aspect markers 了 le and 過 guò, which in most cases place an action in past time. However, much time information is conveyed implicitly by context – it is therefore not always necessary, when translating from a tensed to a tenseless language, say, to express explicitly in the target language all of the information conveyed by the tenses in the source.",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The syntactic properties of tense have figured prominently in formal analyses of how tense-marking interacts with word order. Some languages (such as French) allow an adverb (Adv) to intervene between a tense-marked verb (V) and its direct object (O); in other words, they permit [Verb-Adverb-Object] ordering. In contrast, other languages (such as English) do not allow the adverb to intervene between the verb and its direct object, and require [Adverb-Verb-Object] ordering.",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Tense in syntax is represented by the category label T, which is the head of a TP (tense phrase).",
"title": "Tense marking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In linguistics, a tenseless language is a language that does not have a grammatical category of tense. Tenseless languages can and do refer to time, but they do so using lexical items such as adverbs or verbs, or by using combinations of aspect, mood, and words that establish time reference. Examples of tenseless languages are Burmese, Dyirbal, most varieties of Chinese, Malay (including Indonesian), Thai, Maya (linguistic nomenclature: \"Yukatek Maya\"), Vietnamese and in some analyses Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) and Guaraní.",
"title": "Tenseless language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Latin is traditionally described as having six verb paradigms for tense (the Latin for \"tense\" being tempus, plural tempora):",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Imperfect verbs represent a past process combined with imperfective, that is, they stand for an ongoing past action or state at a past point in time (see secondary present). They can also represent habitual actions (see Latin tenses with modality). In contrast, perfect verbs represent completed actions. Like the imperfect, the pluperfect, the perfect and the future perfect can realise relative tenses, standing for events that are past at the time of another event (see secondary past).",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Latin verbs are inflected for tense and aspect together with mood (indicative, subjunctive, infinitive, and imperative) and voice (active or passive). Most verbs can be built by selecting a verb stem and adapting them to endings. Endings may vary according to the speech role, the number and the gender of the subject or an object. Sometimes, verb groups function as a unit and supplement inflection for tense (see Latin periphrases). For details on verb structure, see Latin tenses and Latin conjugation.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The paradigms for tenses in Ancient Greek are similar to the ones in Latin, but with a three-way aspect contrast in the past: the aorist, the perfect and the imperfect. Both aorist and imperfect verbs can represent a past event: through contrast, the imperfect verb implies a longer duration ('ate' vs 'ate for a long time'). The aorist participle represents the first event of a two-event sequence and the present participle represents an ongoing event at the time of another event. Perfect verbs stood for past affecting actions if the result was still present (e.g. \"I have found it\") or for present states resulting from a past event (e.g. \"I remember\"). For further details see Ancient Greek verbs.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The study of modern languages has been greatly influenced by the grammar of the Classical languages, since early grammarians, often monks, had no other reference point to describe their language. Latin terminology is often used to describe modern languages, sometimes with a change of meaning, as with the application of \"perfect\" to forms in English that do not necessarily have perfective meaning, or the words Imperfekt and Perfekt to German past tense forms that mostly lack any relationship to the aspects implied by those terms.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "English has only two morphological tenses: the present (or non-past), as in he goes, and the past (or preterite), as in he went. The non-past usually references the present, but sometimes references the future (as in the bus leaves tomorrow). In special uses such as the historical present it can talk about the past as well. These morphological tenses are marked either with a suffix (walk(s) ~ walked) or with ablaut (sing(s) ~ sang).",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In some contexts, particularly in English language teaching, various tense–aspect combinations are referred to loosely as tenses. Similarly, the term \"future tense\" is sometimes loosely applied to cases where modals such as will are used to talk about future points in time.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Proto-Indo-European verbs had present, perfect (stative), imperfect and aorist forms – these can be considered as representing two tenses (present and past) with different aspects. Most languages in the Indo-European family have developed systems either with two morphological tenses (present or \"non-past\", and past) or with three (present, past and future). The tenses often form part of entangled tense–aspect–mood conjugation systems. Additional tenses, tense–aspect combinations, etc. can be provided by compound constructions containing auxiliary verbs.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Germanic languages (which include English) have present (non-past) and past tenses formed morphologically, with future and other additional forms made using auxiliaries. In standard German, the compound past (Perfekt) has replaced the simple morphological past in most contexts.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Romance languages (descendants of Latin) have past, present and future morphological tenses, with additional aspectual distinction in the past. French is an example of a language where, as in German, the simple morphological perfective past (passé simple) has mostly given way to a compound form (passé composé).",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Irish, a Celtic language, has past, present and future tenses (see Irish conjugation). The past contrasts perfective and imperfective aspect, and some verbs retain such a contrast in the present. Classical Irish had a three-way aspectual contrast of simple–perfective–imperfective in the past and present tenses. Modern Scottish Gaelic on the other hand only has past, non-past and 'indefinite', and, in the case of the verb 'be' (including its use as an auxiliary), also present tense.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Persian, an Indo-Iranian language, has past and non-past forms, with additional aspectual distinctions. Future can be expressed using an auxiliary, but almost never in non-formal context. Colloquially the perfect suffix -e can be added to past tenses to indicate that an action is speculative or reported (e.g. \"it seems that he was doing\", \"they say that he was doing\"). A similar feature is found in Turkish. (For details, see Persian verbs.)",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), an Indo-Aryan language, has indicative perfect past and indicative future forms, while the indicative present and indicative imperfect past conjugations exist only for the verb honā (to be). The indicative future is constructed using the future subjunctive conjugations (which used to be the indicative present conjugations in older forms of Hind-Urdu) by adding a future future suffix -gā that declines for gender and the number of the noun that the pronoun refes to. The forms of gā are derived from the perfective participle forms of the verb \"to go,\" jāna. The conjugations of the indicative perfect past and the indicative imperfect past are derived from participles (just like the past tense formation in Slavic languages) and hence they agree with the grammatical number and the gender of noun which the pronoun refers to and not the pronoun itself. The perfect past doubles as the perfective aspect participle and the imperfect past conjugations act as the copula to mark imperfect past when used with the aspectual participles. Hindi-Urdu has an overtly marked tense-aspect-mood system. Periphrastic Hindi-Urdu verb forms (aspectual verb forms) consist of two elements, the first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element (the copula) is the common tense-mood marker. Hindi-Urdu has 3 grammatical aspectsː Habitual, Perfective, and Progressive; and 5 grammatical moodsː Indicative, Presumptive, Subjunctive, Contrafactual, and Imperative. (Seeː Hindi verbs)",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the Slavic languages, verbs are intrinsically perfective or imperfective. In Russian and some other languages in the group, perfective verbs have past and \"future tenses\", while imperfective verbs have past, present and \"future\", the imperfective \"future\" being a compound tense in most cases. The \"future tense\" of perfective verbs is formed in the same way as the present tense of imperfective verbs. However, in South Slavic languages, there may be a greater variety of forms – Bulgarian, for example, has present, past (both \"imperfect\" and \"aorist\") and \"future tenses\", for both perfective and imperfective verbs, as well as perfect forms made with an auxiliary (see Bulgarian verbs). However it doesn't have real future tense, because the future tense is formed by the shortened version of the present of the verb hteti (ще) and it just adds present tense forms of person suffixes: -m (I), -š (you), -ø (he,she,it), -me (we), -te (you, plural), -t (they).",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Finnish and Hungarian, both members of the Uralic language family, have morphological present (non-past) and past tenses. The Hungarian verb van (\"to be\") also has a future form.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Turkish verbs conjugate for past, present and future, with a variety of aspects and moods.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Arabic verbs have past and non-past; future can be indicated by a prefix.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Korean verbs have a variety of affixed forms which can be described as representing present, past and future tenses, although they can alternatively be considered to be aspectual. Similarly, Japanese verbs are described as having present and past tenses, although they may be analysed as aspects. Some Wu Chinese languages, such as Shanghainese, use grammatical particles to mark some tenses. Other Chinese languages and many other East Asian languages generally lack inflection and are considered to be tenseless languages, although they often have aspect markers which convey certain information about time reference.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "For examples of languages with a greater variety of tenses, see the section on possible tenses, above. Fuller information on tense formation and usage in particular languages can be found in the articles on those languages and their grammars.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Rapa is the French Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti. Verbs in the indigenous Old Rapa occur with a marker known as TAM which stands for tense, aspect, or mood which can be followed by directional particles or deictic particles. Of the markers there are three tense markers called: Imperfective, Progressive, and Perfective. Which simply mean, Before, Currently, and After. However, specific TAM markers and the type of deictic or directional particle that follows determine and denote different types of meanings in terms of tenses.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Imperfective: denotes actions that have not occurred yet but will occur and expressed by TAM e.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "naku",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "come",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "mai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "DIR",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "'āikete",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "teacher",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "anana'i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "tomorrow",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "e naku mai te 'āikete anana'i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "IPFV come DIR INDEF teacher tomorrow",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "'The teacher is coming tomorrow.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "mānea",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "pretty",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "tō",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "DEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "pē'ā",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "woman",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "e mānea tō pē'ā ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "IPFV pretty DEF woman DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "'That woman is beautiful.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Progressive: Also expressed by TAM e and denotes actions that are currently happening when used with deictic na, and denotes actions that was just witnessed but still currently happening when used with deictic ra.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "'āikete",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "learn",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "na",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "'ōna",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "3S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "tamariki",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "child/children",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "e 'āikete na 'ōna i te tamariki",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "IPFV learn DEIC 3S ACC INDEF child/children",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "'He is teaching some children.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "kai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "eat",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "na",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "kota'i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "one",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "kororio",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "small",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "eika",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "fish",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "e kai na ou i kota'i kororio eika",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "IPFV eat DEIC 1S ACC one small fish",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "'I am eating a small fish.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "tunu",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "cook",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "na",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "mīkaka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "taro",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "tonga",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "all",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "pōpongi",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "morning",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "e tunu na ou i te mīkaka tonga te pōpongi",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "IPFV cook DEIC 1S ACC INDEF taro all INDEF morning",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "'I cook taro every morning.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "kaikai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "eat.continuously",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "kurī",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "dog",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "moa",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "chicken",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "e kaikai ra te kurī i te moa",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "IPFV eat.continuously DEIC INDEF dog ACC INDEF chicken",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "'The dog is eating a chicken.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 153,
"text": "mate",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 154,
"text": "die",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 155,
"text": "atu",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 156,
"text": "DIR",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 157,
"text": "ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 158,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 159,
"text": "'ōna",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 160,
"text": "3S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 161,
"text": "e mate atu ra 'ōna",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 162,
"text": "IPFV die DIR DEIC 3S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 163,
"text": "'She has just died.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 164,
"text": "",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 165,
"text": "Perfective: denotes actions that have already occurred or have finished and is marked by TAM ka.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 166,
"text": "ka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 167,
"text": "PFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 168,
"text": "ngurunguru",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 169,
"text": "growl",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 170,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 171,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 172,
"text": "kurī",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 173,
"text": "dog",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 174,
"text": "ka ngurunguru te kurī",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 175,
"text": "PFV growl INDEF dog",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 176,
"text": "'A dog growled.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 177,
"text": "ka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 178,
"text": "PFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 179,
"text": "tākave",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 180,
"text": "kill",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 181,
"text": "tō",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 182,
"text": "DEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 183,
"text": "tangata",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 184,
"text": "man",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 185,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 186,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 187,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 188,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 189,
"text": "mango",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 190,
"text": "shark",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 191,
"text": "ka tākave tō tangata i te mango",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 192,
"text": "PFV kill DEF man ACC INDEF shark",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 193,
"text": "'The man killed the shark.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 194,
"text": "ka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 195,
"text": "PFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 196,
"text": "tunu",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 197,
"text": "cook",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 198,
"text": "na",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 199,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 200,
"text": "ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 201,
"text": "1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 202,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 203,
"text": "ACC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 204,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 205,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 206,
"text": "mīkaka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 207,
"text": "taro",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 208,
"text": "tonga",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 209,
"text": "all",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 210,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 211,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 212,
"text": "pōpongi",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 213,
"text": "morning",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 214,
"text": "ka tunu na ou i te mīkaka tonga te pōpongi",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 215,
"text": "PFV cook DEIC 1S ACC INDEF taro all INDEF morning",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 216,
"text": "'I used to cook taro every morning'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 217,
"text": "",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 218,
"text": "In Old Rapa there are also other types of tense markers known as Past, Imperative, and Subjunctive.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 219,
"text": "Past",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 220,
"text": "TAM i marks past action. It is rarely used as a matrix TAM and is more frequently observed in past embedded clauses",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 221,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 222,
"text": "PST",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 223,
"text": "komo",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 224,
"text": "sleep",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 225,
"text": "mātou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 226,
"text": "1PL.EXCL",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 227,
"text": "i komo mātou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 228,
"text": "PST sleep 1PL.EXCL",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 229,
"text": "'We slept.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 230,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 231,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 232,
"text": "a'a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 233,
"text": "what",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 234,
"text": "koe",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 235,
"text": "2S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 236,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 237,
"text": "PST",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 238,
"text": "'aka-ineine",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 239,
"text": "CAUS-ready",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 240,
"text": "e a'a koe i 'aka-ineine",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 241,
"text": "IPFV what 2S PST CAUS-ready",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 242,
"text": "'What did you prepare?'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 243,
"text": "Imperative",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 244,
"text": "The imperative is marked in Old Rapa by TAM a. A second person subject is implied by the direct command of the imperative.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 245,
"text": "a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 246,
"text": "IMP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 247,
"text": "naku",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 248,
"text": "come",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 249,
"text": "mai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 250,
"text": "DIR",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 251,
"text": "a naku mai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 252,
"text": "IMP come DIR",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 253,
"text": "'Come here.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 254,
"text": "a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 255,
"text": "IMP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 256,
"text": "kai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 257,
"text": "eat",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 258,
"text": "tā-koe",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 259,
"text": "INDEF.PossA-2S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 260,
"text": "eika",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 261,
"text": "fish",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 262,
"text": "a kai tā-koe eika",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 263,
"text": "IMP eat INDEF.PossA-2S fish",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 264,
"text": "'Eat your fish.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 265,
"text": "For a more polite form rather than a straightforward command imperative TAM a is used with adverbial kānei. Kānei is only shown to be used in imperative structures and was translated by the french as \"please\".",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 266,
"text": "a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 267,
"text": "IMP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 268,
"text": "rave",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 269,
"text": "take",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 270,
"text": "mai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 271,
"text": "DIR",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 272,
"text": "kānei",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 273,
"text": "PREC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 274,
"text": "tō",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 275,
"text": "DEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 276,
"text": "mea",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 277,
"text": "thing",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 278,
"text": "a rave mai kānei tō mea",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 279,
"text": "IMP take DIR PREC DEF thing",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 280,
"text": "'Please take the thing.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 281,
"text": "a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 282,
"text": "IMP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 283,
"text": "omono",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 284,
"text": "dress",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 285,
"text": "kānei",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 286,
"text": "PREC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 287,
"text": "koe",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 288,
"text": "2S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 289,
"text": "tō",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 290,
"text": "DEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 291,
"text": "ka'u",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 292,
"text": "clothing",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 293,
"text": "ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 294,
"text": "DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 295,
"text": "a omono kānei koe tō ka'u ra",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 296,
"text": "IMP dress PREC 2S DEF clothing DEIC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 297,
"text": "'Please dress yourself in those clothes.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 298,
"text": "It is also used in a more impersonal form. For example, how you would speak toward a pesky neighbor.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 299,
"text": "a",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 300,
"text": "IMP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 301,
"text": "naku",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 302,
"text": "go",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 303,
"text": "kānei",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 304,
"text": "PREC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 305,
"text": "a naku kānei",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 306,
"text": "IMP go PREC",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 307,
"text": "'Please leave now!'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 308,
"text": "Subjunctive",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 309,
"text": "The subjunctive in Old Rapa is marked by kia and can also be used in expressions of desire",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 310,
"text": "kia",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 311,
"text": "SBJV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 312,
"text": "naku",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 313,
"text": "come",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 314,
"text": "ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 315,
"text": "1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 316,
"text": "i",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 317,
"text": "PREP",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 318,
"text": "te",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 319,
"text": "INDEF",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 320,
"text": "'are",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 321,
"text": "house",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 322,
"text": "e",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 323,
"text": "IPFV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 324,
"text": "kaikai",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 325,
"text": "eat.continuously",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 326,
"text": "ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 327,
"text": "1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 328,
"text": "kia naku ou i te 'are e kaikai ou",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 329,
"text": "SBJV come 1S PREP INDEF house IPFV eat.continuously 1S",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 330,
"text": "'When I get to the house, I will eat.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 331,
"text": "kia",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 332,
"text": "SBJV",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 333,
"text": "rekareka",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 334,
"text": "happy",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 335,
"text": "kōrua",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 336,
"text": "2DU",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 337,
"text": "kia rekareka kōrua",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 338,
"text": "SBJV happy 2DU",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 339,
"text": "'May you two be happy.'",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 340,
"text": "The Tokelauan language is a tenseless language. The language uses the same words for all three tenses; the phrase E liliu mai au i te Aho Tōnai literally translates to Come back / me / on Saturday, but the translation becomes 'I am coming back on Saturday'.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 341,
"text": "Wuvulu-Aua does not have an explicit tense, but rather tense is conveyed by mood, aspect markers, and time phrases. Wuvulu speakers use a realis mood to convey past tense as speakers can be certain about events that have occurred. In some cases, realis mood is used to convey present tense — often to indicate a state of being. Wuvulu speakers use an irrealis mood to convey future tense. Tense in Wuvulu-Aua may also be implied by using time adverbials and aspectual markings. Wuvulu contains three verbal markers to indicate sequence of events. The preverbal adverbial loʔo 'first' indicates the verb occurs before any other. The postverbal morpheme liai and linia are the respective intransitive and transitive suffixes indicating a repeated action. The postverbal morpheme li and liria are the respective intransitive and transitive suffixes indicating a completed action.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 342,
"text": "Mortlockese uses tense markers such as mii and to denote the present tense state of a subject, aa to denote a present tense state that an object has changed to from a different, past state, kɞ to describe something that has already been completed, pɞ and lɛ to denote future tense, pʷapʷ to denote a possible action or state in future tense, and sæn/mwo for something that has not happened yet. Each of these markers is used in conjunction with the subject proclitics except for the markers aa and mii. Additionally, the marker mii can be used with any type of intransitive verb.",
"title": "In particular languages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 343,
"text": "DEIC:deictic DIR:directional",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the Chinese languages, though they can possess a future and nonfuture system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages. In recent work Maria Bittner and Judith Tonhauser have described the different ways in which tenseless languages nonetheless mark time. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs recent past, or near vs remote future. Tenses generally express time relative to the moment of speaking. In some contexts, however, their meaning may be relativized to a point in the past or future which is established in the discourse. This is called relative tense. Some languages have different verb forms or constructions which manifest relative tense, such as pluperfect ("past-in-the-past") and "future-in-the-past". Expressions of tense are often closely connected with expressions of the category of aspect; sometimes what are traditionally called tenses may in modern analysis be regarded as combinations of tense with aspect. Verbs are also often conjugated for mood, and since in many cases the three categories are not manifested separately, some languages may be described in terms of a combined tense–aspect–mood (TAM) system. | 2001-12-09T14:29:22Z | 2023-12-11T15:08:34Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense |
12,948 | Grammatical aspect | In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event ("I helped him"). Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as time flows ("I was helping him"; "I used to help people").
Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguish states and ongoing actions (continuous and progressive aspects) from repetitive actions (habitual aspect).
Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation between the time of the event and the time of reference. This is the case with the perfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to (but has continuing relevance at) the time of reference: "I have eaten"; "I had eaten"; "I will have eaten".
Different languages make different grammatical aspectual distinctions; some (such as Standard German; see below) do not make any. The marking of aspect is often conflated with the marking of tense and mood (see tense–aspect–mood). Aspectual distinctions may be restricted to certain tenses: in Latin and the Romance languages, for example, the perfective–imperfective distinction is marked in the past tense, by the division between preterites and imperfects. Explicit consideration of aspect as a category first arose out of study of the Slavic languages; here verbs often occur in pairs, with two related verbs being used respectively for imperfective and perfective meanings.
The concept of grammatical aspect (or verbal aspect) should not be confused with perfect and imperfect verb forms; the meanings of the latter terms are somewhat different, and in some languages, the common names used for verb forms may not follow the actual aspects precisely.
The Indian linguist Yaska (c. 7th century BCE) dealt with grammatical aspect, distinguishing actions that are processes (bhāva), from those where the action is considered as a completed whole (mūrta). This is the key distinction between the imperfective and perfective. Yaska also applied this distinction to a verb versus an action nominal.
Grammarians of the Greek and Latin languages also showed an interest in aspect, but the idea did not enter into the modern Western grammatical tradition until the 19th century via the study of the grammar of the Slavic languages. The earliest use of the term recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1853.
Aspect is often confused with the closely related concept of tense, because they both convey information about time. While tense relates the time of referent to some other time, commonly the speech event, aspect conveys other temporal information, such as duration, completion, or frequency, as it relates to the time of action. Thus tense refers to temporally when while aspect refers to temporally how. Aspect can be said to describe the texture of the time in which a situation occurs, such as a single point of time, a continuous range of time, a sequence of discrete points in time, etc., whereas tense indicates its location in time.
For example, consider the following sentences: "I eat", "I am eating", "I have eaten", and "I have been eating". All are in the present tense, indicated by the present-tense verb of each sentence (eat, am, and have). Yet since they differ in aspect each conveys different information or points of view as to how the action pertains to the present.
Grammatical aspect is a formal property of a language, distinguished through overt inflection, derivational affixes, or independent words that serve as grammatically required markers of those aspects. For example, the Kʼicheʼ language spoken in Guatemala has the inflectional prefixes k- and x- to mark incompletive and completive aspect; Mandarin Chinese has the aspect markers -le 了, -zhe 着, zài- 在, and -guò 过 to mark the perfective, durative stative, durative progressive, and experiential aspects, and also marks aspect with adverbs; and English marks the continuous aspect with the verb to be coupled with present participle and the perfect with the verb to have coupled with past participle. Even languages that do not mark aspect morphologically or through auxiliary verbs, however, can convey such distinctions by the use of adverbs or other syntactic constructions.
Grammatical aspect is distinguished from lexical aspect or Aktionsart, which is an inherent feature of verbs or verb phrases and is determined by the nature of the situation that the verb describes.
The most fundamental aspectual distinction, represented in many languages, is between perfective aspect and imperfective aspect. This is the basic aspectual distinction in the Slavic languages.
It semantically corresponds to the distinction between the morphological forms known respectively as the aorist and imperfect in Greek, the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, the simple past (passé simple) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latin perfectus, meaning "completed").
Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action, while the imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event (thus corresponding to the progressive/continuous aspect for events of short-term duration and to habitual aspect for longer terms).
For events of short durations in the past, the distinction often coincides with the distinction in the English language between the simple past "X-ed," as compared to the progressive "was X-ing". Compare "I wrote the letters this morning" (i.e. finished writing the letters: an action completed) and "I was writing the letters this morning" (the letters may still be unfinished).
In describing longer time periods, English needs context to maintain the distinction between the habitual ("I called him often in the past" – a habit that has no point of completion) and perfective ("I called him once" – an action completed), although the construct "used to" marks both habitual aspect and past tense and can be used if the aspectual distinction otherwise is not clear.
Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, savoir and saber. This is also true when the sense of verb "to know" is "to know somebody", in this case opposed in aspect to the verb "to meet" (or even to the construction "to get to know"). These correspond to imperfect and perfect forms of conocer in Spanish, and connaître in French. In German, on the other hand, the distinction is also lexical (as in English) through verbs kennen and kennenlernen, although the semantic relation between both forms is much more straightforward since kennen means "to know" and lernen means "to learn".
The Germanic languages combine the concept of aspect with the concept of tense. Although English largely separates tense and aspect formally, its aspects (neutral, progressive, perfect, progressive perfect, and [in the past tense] habitual) do not correspond very closely to the distinction of perfective vs. imperfective that is found in most languages with aspect. Furthermore, the separation of tense and aspect in English is not maintained rigidly. One instance of this is the alternation, in some forms of English, between sentences such as "Have you eaten?" and "Did you eat?".
In European languages, rather than locating an event time, the way tense does, aspect describes "the internal temporal constituency of a situation", or in other words, aspect is a way "of conceiving the flow of the process itself". English aspectual distinctions in the past tense include "I went, I used to go, I was going, I had gone"; in the present tense "I lose, I am losing, I have lost, I have been losing, I am going to lose"; and with the future modal "I will see, I will be seeing, I will have seen, I am going to see". What distinguishes these aspects within each tense is not (necessarily) when the event occurs, but how the time in which it occurs is viewed: as complete, ongoing, consequential, planned, etc.
In most dialects of Ancient Greek, aspect is indicated uniquely by verbal morphology. For example, the very frequently used aorist, though a functional preterite in the indicative mood, conveys historic or 'immediate' aspect in the subjunctive and optative. The perfect in all moods is used as an aspectual marker, conveying the sense of a resultant state. E.g. ὁράω – I see (present); εἶδον – I saw (aorist); οἶδα – I am in a state of having seen = I know (perfect). Turkish has a same/similar aspect, such as in Görmüş bulunuyorum/durumdayım, where görmüş means "having seen" and bulunuyorum/durumdayım means "I am in the state".
In many Sino-Tibetan languages, such as Mandarin, verbs lack grammatical markers of tense, but are rich in aspect (Heine, Kuteva 2010, p. 10). Markers of aspect are attached to verbs to indicate aspect. Event time is inferred through use of these aspectual markers, along with optional inclusion of adverbs.
There is a distinction between grammatical aspect, as described here, and lexical aspect. Other terms for the contrast lexical vs. grammatical include: situation vs. viewpoint and inner vs. outer. Lexical aspect, also known as Aktionsart, is an inherent property of a verb or verb-complement phrase, and is not marked formally. The distinctions made as part of lexical aspect are different from those of grammatical aspect. Typical distinctions are between states ("I owned"), activities ("I shopped"), accomplishments ("I painted a picture"), achievements ("I bought"), and punctual, or semelfactive, events ("I sneezed"). These distinctions are often relevant syntactically. For example, states and activities, but not usually achievements, can be used in English with a prepositional for-phrase describing a time duration: "I had a car for five hours", "I shopped for five hours", but not "*I bought a car for five hours". Lexical aspect is sometimes called Aktionsart, especially by German and Slavic linguists. Lexical or situation aspect is marked in Athabaskan languages.
One of the factors in situation aspect is telicity. Telicity might be considered a kind of lexical aspect, except that it is typically not a property of a verb in isolation, but rather a property of an entire verb phrase. Achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives have telic situation aspect, while states and activities have atelic situation aspect.
The other factor in situation aspect is duration, which is also a property of a verb phrase. Accomplishments, states, and activities have duration, while achievements and semelfactives do not.
In some languages, aspect and time are very clearly separated, making them much more distinct to their speakers. There are a number of languages that mark aspect much more saliently than time. Prominent in this category are Chinese and American Sign Language, which both differentiate many aspects but rely exclusively on optional time-indicating terms to pinpoint an action with respect to time. In other language groups, for example in most modern Indo-European languages (except Slavic languages and some Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi), aspect has become almost entirely conflated, in the verbal morphological system, with time.
In Russian, aspect is more salient than tense in narrative. Russian, like other Slavic languages, uses different lexical entries for the different aspects, whereas other languages mark them morphologically, and still others with auxiliaries (e.g., English).
In Hindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker. Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.
In literary Arabic (الْفُصْحَى al-fuṣḥā) the verb has two aspect-tenses: perfective (past), and imperfective (non-past). There is some disagreement among grammarians whether to view the distinction as a distinction in aspect, or tense, or both. The past verb (الْفِعْل الْمَاضِي al-fiʿl al-māḍī) denotes an event (حَدَث ḥadaṯ) completed in the past, but it says nothing about the relation of this past event to present status. For example, وَصَلَ waṣala, "arrived", indicates that arrival occurred in the past without saying anything about the present status of the arriver – maybe they stuck around, maybe they turned around and left, etc. – nor about the aspect of the past event except insofar as completeness can be considered aspectual. This past verb is clearly similar if not identical to the Greek aorist, which is considered a tense but is more of an aspect marker. In the Arabic, aorist aspect is the logical consequence of past tense. By contrast, the "Verb of Similarity" (الْفِعْل الْمُضَارِع al-fiʿl al-muḍāriʿ), so called because of its resemblance to the active participial noun, is considered to denote an event in the present or future without committing to a specific aspectual sense beyond the incompleteness implied by the tense: يَضْرِبُ (yaḍribu, he strikes/is striking/will strike/etc.). Those are the only two "tenses" in Arabic (not counting أَمْر amr, command or imperative, which is traditionally considered as denoting future events.) To explicitly mark aspect, Arabic uses a variety of lexical and syntactic devices.
Contemporary Arabic dialects are another matter. One major change from al-fuṣḥā is the use of a prefix particle (بِ bi in Egyptian and Levantine dialects—though it may have a slightly different range of functions in each dialect) to explicitly mark progressive, continuous, or habitual aspect: بيكتب, bi-yiktib, he is now writing, writes all the time, etc.
Aspect can mark the stage of an action. The prospective aspect is a combination of tense and aspect that indicates the action is in preparation to take place. The inceptive aspect identifies the beginning stage of an action (e.g. Esperanto uses ek-, e.g. Mi ekmanĝas, "I am beginning to eat".) and inchoative and ingressive aspects identify a change of state (The flowers started blooming) or the start of an action (He started running). Aspects of stage continue through progressive, pausative, resumptive, cessive, and terminative.
Important qualifications:
The English tense–aspect system has two morphologically distinct tenses, past and non-past, the latter of which is also known as the present-future or, more commonly and less formally, simply the present. No marker of a distinct future tense exists on the verb in English; the futurity of an event may be expressed through the use of the auxiliary verbs "will" and "shall", by a non-past form plus an adverb, as in "tomorrow we go to New York City", or by some other means. Past is distinguished from non-past, in contrast, with internal modifications of the verb. These two tenses may be modified further for progressive aspect (also called continuous aspect), for the perfect, or for both. These two aspectual forms are also referred to as BE +ING and HAVE +EN, respectively, which avoids what may be unfamiliar terminology.
Aspects of the present tense:
(While many elementary discussions of English grammar classify the present perfect as a past tense, it relates the action to the present time. One cannot say of someone now deceased that they "have eaten" or "have been eating". The present auxiliary implies that they are in some way present (alive), even when the action denoted is completed (perfect) or partially completed (progressive perfect).)
Aspects of the past tense:
Aspects can also be marked on non-finite forms of the verb: "(to) be eating" (infinitive with progressive aspect), "(to) have eaten" (infinitive with perfect aspect), "having eaten" (present participle or gerund with perfect aspect), etc. The perfect infinitive can further be governed by modal verbs to express various meanings, mostly combining modality with past reference: "I should have eaten" etc. In particular, the modals will and shall and their subjunctive forms would and should are used to combine future or hypothetical reference with aspectual meaning:
The uses of the progressive and perfect aspects are quite complex. They may refer to the viewpoint of the speaker:
But they can have other illocutionary forces or additional modal components:
English expresses some other aspectual distinctions with other constructions. Used to + VERB is a past habitual, as in "I used to go to school," and going to / gonna + VERB is a prospective, a future situation highlighting current intention or expectation, as in "I'm going to go to school next year."
The aspectual systems of certain dialects of English, such as African-American Vernacular English (see for example habitual be), and of creoles based on English vocabulary, such as Hawaiian Creole English, are quite different from those of standard English, and often reflect a more elaborate paradigm of aspectual distinctions (often at the expense of tense). The following table, appearing originally in Green (2002) shows the possible aspectual distinctions in AAVE in their prototypical, negative and stressed/emphatic affirmative forms:
Although Standard German does not have aspects, many Upper German languages, all West Central German languages, and some more vernacular German languages do make one aspectual distinction, and so do the colloquial languages of many regions, the so-called German regiolects. While officially discouraged in schools and seen as 'bad language', local English teachers like the distinction, because it corresponds well with the English continuous form. It is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verb sein ("to be") followed by the preposition "am" and the infinitive, or the nominalized verb. The latter two are phonetically indistinguishable; in writing, capitalization differs: "Ich war am essen" vs. "Ich war am Essen" (I was eating, compared to the Standard German approximation: "Ich war beim Essen"); yet these forms are not standardized and thus are relatively infrequently written down or printed, even in quotations or direct speech.
In the Tyrolean and other Bavarian regiolect the prefix *da can be found, which form perfective aspects. "I hu's gleant" (Ich habe es gelernt = I learnt it) vs. "I hu's daleant" (*Ich habe es DAlernt = I succeeded in learning).
In Dutch (a West Germanic language), two types of continuous form are used. Both types are considered Standard Dutch.
The first type is very similar to the non-standard German type. It is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verb zijn ("to be"), followed by aan het and the gerund (which in Dutch matches the infinitive). For example:
The second type is formed by one of the conjugated auxiliary verbs liggen ("to lie"), zitten ("to sit"), hangen ("to hang"), staan ("to stand") or lopen ("to walk"), followed by the preposition te and the infinitive. The conjugated verbs indicate the stance of the subject performing or undergoing the action.
Sometimes the meaning of the auxiliary verb is diminished to 'being engaged in'. Take for instance these examples:
In these cases, there is generally an undertone of irritation.
The Slavic languages make a clear distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects; it was in relation to these languages that the modern concept of aspect originally developed.
In Slavic languages, a given verb is, in itself, either perfective or imperfective. Consequently, each language contains many pairs of verbs, corresponding to each other in meaning, except that one expresses perfective aspect and the other imperfective. (This may be considered a form of lexical aspect.) Perfective verbs are commonly formed from imperfective ones by the addition of a prefix, or else the imperfective verb is formed from the perfective one by modification of the stem or ending. Suppletion also plays a small role. Perfective verbs cannot generally be used with the meaning of a present tense – their present-tense forms in fact have future reference. An example of such a pair of verbs, from Polish, is given below:
In at least the East Slavic and West Slavic languages, there is a three-way aspect differentiation for verbs of motion with the determinate imperfective, indeterminate imperfective, and perfective. The two forms of imperfective can be used in all three tenses (past, present, and future), but the perfective can only be used with past and future. The indeterminate imperfective expresses habitual aspect (or motion in no single direction), while the determinate imperfective expresses progressive aspect. The difference corresponds closely to that between the English "I (regularly) go to school" and "I am going to school (now)". The three-way difference is given below for the Russian basic (unprefixed) verbs of motion.
When prefixes are attached to Russian verbs of motion they become more or less normal imperfective/perfective pairs, with the indeterminate imperfective becoming the prefixed imperfective and the determinate imperfective becoming the prefixed perfective. For example, prefix при- pri- + indeterminate ходи́ть khodít' = приходи́ть prikhodít' (to arrive (on foot), impf.); and prefix при- pri- + determinate идти́ idtí = прийти prijtí (to arrive (on foot), pf.).
Modern Romance languages merge the concepts of aspect and tense but consistently distinguish perfective and imperfective aspects in the past tense. This derives directly from the way the Latin language used to render both aspects and consecutio temporum.
Italian language example using the verb mangiare ("to eat"):
The imperfetto/trapassato prossimo contrasts with the passato remoto/trapassato remoto in that imperfetto renders an imperfective (continuous) past while passato remoto expresses an aorist (punctual/historical) past.
Other aspects in Italian are rendered with other periphrases, like prospective (io sto per mangiare "I'm about to eat", io starò per mangiare "I shall be about to eat"), or continuous/progressive (io sto mangiando "I'm eating", io starò mangiando "I shall be eating").
Hindi has three aspects, habitual aspect, perfective aspect and the progressive aspect. Each of these three aspects are formed from their participles. The aspects of Hindi when conjugated into their personal forms can be put into five grammatical moods: indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, contrafactual, and imperative. In Hindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker. Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker. The second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.
There are a couple of verbs which can be used as the copula to the aspectual participles: होना (honā) [to be, happen], रहना (rêhnā) [to stay, remain], आना (ānā) [to come], and जाना (jānā) [to go]. Each of these copulas provide a unique nuance to the aspect. The default (unmarked) copula is होना (honā) [to be]. These copulas can themselves be conjugated into an aspectual participle and used with another copula, hence forming subaspects. (Seeː Hindi verbs)
Finnish and Estonian, among others, have a grammatical aspect contrast of telicity between telic and atelic. Telic sentences signal that the intended goal of an action is achieved. Atelic sentences do not signal whether any such goal has been achieved. The aspect is indicated by the case of the object: accusative is telic and partitive is atelic. For example, the (implicit) purpose of shooting is to kill, such that:
In rare cases corresponding telic and atelic forms can be unrelated by meaning.
Derivational suffixes exist for various aspects. Examples:
There are derivational suffixes for verbs, which carry frequentative, momentane, causative, and inchoative aspect meanings. Also, pairs of verbs differing only in transitivity exist.
The Rapa language (Reo Rapa) is a mixed language that grew out of Tahitian and Old Rapa among monolingual inhabitants of Rapa Iti. Old Rapa words are still used for grammar and sentence structure, but most common words were replaced by Tahitian words. Rapa is similar to English as they both have specific tense words such as did or do.
ki’ere
NEG.PST
vau
1.SG
i
PFV
haere
go
i
PREP
te
ART
fare
house
ki’ere vau i haere i te fare
NEG.PST 1.SG PFV go PREP ART house
'I did not go to a house.'
kāre
NEG.NPST
tā-koe
ART-2SG
puta
book
kāre tā-koe puta
NEG.NPST ART-2SG book
'You don't have your book.' (Lit. 'Your book doesn't exist')
The Hawaiian language conveys aspect as follows:
Wuvulu language is a minority language in Pacific. The Wuvulu verbal aspect is hard to organize because of its number of morpheme combinations and the interaction of semantics between morphemes. Perfective, imperfective negation, simultaneous and habitual are four aspects markers in Wuvulu language.
maʔua
but
ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani
3SG=REAL-PERF-talk-CAUS-good
ʔaʔa
with
roʔou,
them
Barafi
Barafi
maʔua ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani ʔaʔa roʔou, Barafi
but 3SG=REAL-PERF-talk-CAUS-good with them Barafi
'But, Barafi had already clearly told them.'
ʔi=ta-no-mai
3SG=not.yet-move-DIR
ʔi=ta-no-mai
3SG=not.yet-move-DIR
'It has not yet come.'
ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na
3SG=REAL-hold-together-TR
ruapalo
two
ʔei
the.PL
pani
hand
Puleafo
Puleafo
ma
and
ʔi=fi-unu
3SG=SIM-drink
ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na ruapalo ʔei pani Puleafo ma ʔi=fi-unu
3SG=REAL-hold-together-TR two the.PL hand Puleafo and 3SG=SIM-drink
'He held together the two hands of Puleafo while drinking.' (Note: marker ta- is only for singular subject. When the subject is dual or plural, the marker ʔei and i- are used in same situation.)
ʔi=na-fane-naranara
3SG=REAL-HAB-think(REDUP)
fei
the
nara
thought
Faninilo
Faninilo
ba,
COMP
ʔaleʔena
like
ba
COMP
ini
who
liai
again
mei
the
ramaʔa
person
mei
the
ʔi=na-fane-naranara fei nara Faninilo ba, ʔaleʔena ba ini liai mei ramaʔa mei
3SG=REAL-HAB-think(REDUP) the thought Faninilo COMP like COMP who again the person the
'And the thought kept occurring to Faninilo, "who is this particular person?"'
There are three types of aspects one must consider when analyzing the Tokelauan language: inherent aspect, situation aspect, and viewpoint aspect.
The inherent aspect describes the purpose of a verb and what separates verbs from one another. According to Vendler, inherent aspect can be categorized into four different types: activities, achievements, accomplishments, and states. Simple activities include verbs such as pull, jump, and punch. Some achievements are continue and win. Drive-a-car is an accomplishment while hate is an example of a state. Another way to recognize a state inherent aspect is to note whether or not it changes. For example, if someone were to hate vegetables because they are allergic, this state of hate is unchanging and thus, a state inherent aspect. On the other hand, an achievement, unlike a state, only lasts for a short amount of time. Achievement is the highpoint of an action.
Another type of aspect is situation aspect. Situation aspect is described to be what one is experiencing in his or her life through that circumstance. Therefore, it is his or her understanding of the situation. Situation aspect are abstract terms that are not physically tangible. They are also used based upon one's point of view. For example, a professor may say that a student who comes a minute before each class starts is a punctual student. Based upon the professor's judgment of what punctuality is, he or she may make that assumption of the situation with the student. Situation aspect is firstly divided into states and occurrences, then later subdivided under occurrences into processes and events, and lastly, under events, there are accomplishments and achievements.
The third type of aspect is viewpoint aspect. Viewpoint aspect can be likened to situation aspect such that they both take into consideration one's inferences. However, viewpoint aspect diverges from situation aspect because it is where one decides to view or see such event. A perfect example is the glass metaphor: Is the glass half full or is it half empty. The choice of being half full represents an optimistic viewpoint while the choice of being half empty represents a pessimistic viewpoint. Not only does viewpoint aspect separate into negative and positive, but rather different point of views. Having two people describe a painting can bring about two different viewpoints. One may describe a situation aspect as a perfect or imperfect. A perfect situation aspect entails an event with no reference to time, while an imperfect situation aspect makes a reference to time with the observation.
Aspect in Torau is marked with post-verbal particles or clitics. While the system for marking the imperfective aspect is complex and highly developed, it is unclear if Torau marks the perfective and neutral viewpoints. The imperfective clitics index one of the core arguments, usually the nominative subject, and follow the rightmost element in a syntactic structure larger than the word. The two distinct forms for marking the imperfective aspect are (i)sa- and e-. While more work needs to be done on this language, the preliminary hypothesis is that (i)sa- encodes the stative imperfective and e- encodes the active imperfective. Reduplication always cooccurs with e-, but it usually does not with (i)sa-. This example below shows these two imperfective aspect markers giving different meanings to similar sentences.
Pita
Peter
ma-to
RL.3SG-PST
mate=sa-la.
be.dead=IPFV-3SG
Pita ma-to mate=sa-la.
Peter RL.3SG-PST be.dead=IPFV-3SG
'Peter was dead.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);
Pita
Peter
ma-to
RL.3SG-PST
maa≈mate=e-la.
REDUP≈be.dead=IPFV-3SG
Pita ma-to maa≈mate=e-la.
Peter RL.3SG-PST {REDUP}≈be.dead=IPFV-3SG
'Peter was dying.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);
In Torau, the suffix -to, which must attach to a preverbal particle, may indicate similar meaning to the perfective aspect. In realis clauses, this suffix conveys an event that is entirely in the past and no longer occurring. When -to is used in irrealis clauses, the speaker conveys that the event will definitely occur (Palmer, 2007). Although this suffix is not explicitly stated as a perfective viewpoint marker, the meaning that it contributes is very similar to the perfective viewpoint.
Like many Austronesian languages, the verbs of the Malay language follow a system of affixes to express changes in meaning. To express the aspects, Malay uses a number of auxiliary verbs:
Like many Austronesian languages, the verbs of the Philippine languages follow a complex system of affixes to express subtle changes in meaning. However, the verbs in this family of languages are conjugated to express the aspects and not the tenses. Though many of the Philippine languages do not have a fully codified grammar, most of them follow the verb aspects that are demonstrated by Filipino or Tagalog.
Creole languages typically use the unmarked verb for timeless habitual aspect, or for stative aspect, or for perfective aspect in the past. Invariant pre-verbal markers are often used. Non-stative verbs typically can optionally be marked for the progressive, habitual, completive, or irrealis aspect. The progressive in English-based Atlantic Creoles often uses de (from English "be"). Jamaican Creole uses a (from English "are") or de for the present progressive and a combination of the past time marker (did, behn, ehn or wehn) and the progressive marker (a or de) for the past progressive (e.g. did a or wehn de). Haitian Creole uses the progressive marker ap. Some Atlantic Creoles use one marker for both the habitual and progressive aspects. In Tok Pisin, the optional progressive marker follows the verb. Completive markers tend to come from superstrate words like "done" or "finish", and some creoles model the future/irrealis marker on the superstrate word for "go".
American Sign Language (ASL) is similar to many other sign languages in that it has no grammatical tense but many verbal aspects produced by modifying the base verb sign.
An example is illustrated with the verb TELL. The basic form of this sign is produced with the initial posture of the index finger on the chin, followed by a movement of the hand and finger tip toward the indirect object (the recipient of the telling). Inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect ("to be just about to tell"), the sign begins with the hand moving from in front of the trunk in an arc to the initial posture of the base sign (i.e., index finger touching the chin) while inhaling through the mouth, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object. The posture is then held rather than moved toward the indirect object. During the hold, the signer also stops the breath by closing the glottis. Other verbs (such as "look at", "wash the dishes", "yell", "flirt") are inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect similarly: The hands used in the base sign move in an arc from in front of the trunk to the initial posture of the underlying verb sign while inhaling, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object (if any), but subsequent movements and postures are dropped as the posture and breath are held.
Other aspects in ASL include the following: stative, inchoative ("to begin to..."), predispositional ("to tend to..."), susceptative ("to... easily"), frequentative ("to... often"), protractive ("to... continuously"), incessant ("to... incessantly"), durative ("to... for a long time"), iterative ("to... over and over again"), intensive ("to... very much"), resultative ("to... completely"), approximative ("to... somewhat"), semblitive ("to appear to..."), increasing ("to... more and more"). Some aspects combine with others to create yet finer distinctions.
Aspect is unusual in ASL in that transitive verbs derived for aspect lose their grammatical transitivity. They remain semantically transitive, typically assuming an object made prominent using a topic marker or mentioned in a previous sentence. See Syntax in ASL for details.
The following aspectual terms are found in the literature. Approximate English equivalents are given. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event (\"I helped him\"). Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as time flows (\"I was helping him\"; \"I used to help people\").",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguish states and ongoing actions (continuous and progressive aspects) from repetitive actions (habitual aspect).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation between the time of the event and the time of reference. This is the case with the perfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to (but has continuing relevance at) the time of reference: \"I have eaten\"; \"I had eaten\"; \"I will have eaten\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Different languages make different grammatical aspectual distinctions; some (such as Standard German; see below) do not make any. The marking of aspect is often conflated with the marking of tense and mood (see tense–aspect–mood). Aspectual distinctions may be restricted to certain tenses: in Latin and the Romance languages, for example, the perfective–imperfective distinction is marked in the past tense, by the division between preterites and imperfects. Explicit consideration of aspect as a category first arose out of study of the Slavic languages; here verbs often occur in pairs, with two related verbs being used respectively for imperfective and perfective meanings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The concept of grammatical aspect (or verbal aspect) should not be confused with perfect and imperfect verb forms; the meanings of the latter terms are somewhat different, and in some languages, the common names used for verb forms may not follow the actual aspects precisely.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Indian linguist Yaska (c. 7th century BCE) dealt with grammatical aspect, distinguishing actions that are processes (bhāva), from those where the action is considered as a completed whole (mūrta). This is the key distinction between the imperfective and perfective. Yaska also applied this distinction to a verb versus an action nominal.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Grammarians of the Greek and Latin languages also showed an interest in aspect, but the idea did not enter into the modern Western grammatical tradition until the 19th century via the study of the grammar of the Slavic languages. The earliest use of the term recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1853.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Aspect is often confused with the closely related concept of tense, because they both convey information about time. While tense relates the time of referent to some other time, commonly the speech event, aspect conveys other temporal information, such as duration, completion, or frequency, as it relates to the time of action. Thus tense refers to temporally when while aspect refers to temporally how. Aspect can be said to describe the texture of the time in which a situation occurs, such as a single point of time, a continuous range of time, a sequence of discrete points in time, etc., whereas tense indicates its location in time.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "For example, consider the following sentences: \"I eat\", \"I am eating\", \"I have eaten\", and \"I have been eating\". All are in the present tense, indicated by the present-tense verb of each sentence (eat, am, and have). Yet since they differ in aspect each conveys different information or points of view as to how the action pertains to the present.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Grammatical aspect is a formal property of a language, distinguished through overt inflection, derivational affixes, or independent words that serve as grammatically required markers of those aspects. For example, the Kʼicheʼ language spoken in Guatemala has the inflectional prefixes k- and x- to mark incompletive and completive aspect; Mandarin Chinese has the aspect markers -le 了, -zhe 着, zài- 在, and -guò 过 to mark the perfective, durative stative, durative progressive, and experiential aspects, and also marks aspect with adverbs; and English marks the continuous aspect with the verb to be coupled with present participle and the perfect with the verb to have coupled with past participle. Even languages that do not mark aspect morphologically or through auxiliary verbs, however, can convey such distinctions by the use of adverbs or other syntactic constructions.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Grammatical aspect is distinguished from lexical aspect or Aktionsart, which is an inherent feature of verbs or verb phrases and is determined by the nature of the situation that the verb describes.",
"title": "Basic concept"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The most fundamental aspectual distinction, represented in many languages, is between perfective aspect and imperfective aspect. This is the basic aspectual distinction in the Slavic languages.",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "It semantically corresponds to the distinction between the morphological forms known respectively as the aorist and imperfect in Greek, the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, the simple past (passé simple) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latin perfectus, meaning \"completed\").",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action, while the imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event (thus corresponding to the progressive/continuous aspect for events of short-term duration and to habitual aspect for longer terms).",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For events of short durations in the past, the distinction often coincides with the distinction in the English language between the simple past \"X-ed,\" as compared to the progressive \"was X-ing\". Compare \"I wrote the letters this morning\" (i.e. finished writing the letters: an action completed) and \"I was writing the letters this morning\" (the letters may still be unfinished).",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In describing longer time periods, English needs context to maintain the distinction between the habitual (\"I called him often in the past\" – a habit that has no point of completion) and perfective (\"I called him once\" – an action completed), although the construct \"used to\" marks both habitual aspect and past tense and can be used if the aspectual distinction otherwise is not clear.",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs \"to know\" (the state of knowing) and \"to find out\" (knowing viewed as a \"completed action\") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, savoir and saber. This is also true when the sense of verb \"to know\" is \"to know somebody\", in this case opposed in aspect to the verb \"to meet\" (or even to the construction \"to get to know\"). These correspond to imperfect and perfect forms of conocer in Spanish, and connaître in French. In German, on the other hand, the distinction is also lexical (as in English) through verbs kennen and kennenlernen, although the semantic relation between both forms is much more straightforward since kennen means \"to know\" and lernen means \"to learn\".",
"title": "Common aspectual distinctions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Germanic languages combine the concept of aspect with the concept of tense. Although English largely separates tense and aspect formally, its aspects (neutral, progressive, perfect, progressive perfect, and [in the past tense] habitual) do not correspond very closely to the distinction of perfective vs. imperfective that is found in most languages with aspect. Furthermore, the separation of tense and aspect in English is not maintained rigidly. One instance of this is the alternation, in some forms of English, between sentences such as \"Have you eaten?\" and \"Did you eat?\".",
"title": "Aspect vs. tense"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In European languages, rather than locating an event time, the way tense does, aspect describes \"the internal temporal constituency of a situation\", or in other words, aspect is a way \"of conceiving the flow of the process itself\". English aspectual distinctions in the past tense include \"I went, I used to go, I was going, I had gone\"; in the present tense \"I lose, I am losing, I have lost, I have been losing, I am going to lose\"; and with the future modal \"I will see, I will be seeing, I will have seen, I am going to see\". What distinguishes these aspects within each tense is not (necessarily) when the event occurs, but how the time in which it occurs is viewed: as complete, ongoing, consequential, planned, etc.",
"title": "Aspect vs. tense"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In most dialects of Ancient Greek, aspect is indicated uniquely by verbal morphology. For example, the very frequently used aorist, though a functional preterite in the indicative mood, conveys historic or 'immediate' aspect in the subjunctive and optative. The perfect in all moods is used as an aspectual marker, conveying the sense of a resultant state. E.g. ὁράω – I see (present); εἶδον – I saw (aorist); οἶδα – I am in a state of having seen = I know (perfect). Turkish has a same/similar aspect, such as in Görmüş bulunuyorum/durumdayım, where görmüş means \"having seen\" and bulunuyorum/durumdayım means \"I am in the state\".",
"title": "Aspect vs. tense"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In many Sino-Tibetan languages, such as Mandarin, verbs lack grammatical markers of tense, but are rich in aspect (Heine, Kuteva 2010, p. 10). Markers of aspect are attached to verbs to indicate aspect. Event time is inferred through use of these aspectual markers, along with optional inclusion of adverbs.",
"title": "Aspect vs. tense"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There is a distinction between grammatical aspect, as described here, and lexical aspect. Other terms for the contrast lexical vs. grammatical include: situation vs. viewpoint and inner vs. outer. Lexical aspect, also known as Aktionsart, is an inherent property of a verb or verb-complement phrase, and is not marked formally. The distinctions made as part of lexical aspect are different from those of grammatical aspect. Typical distinctions are between states (\"I owned\"), activities (\"I shopped\"), accomplishments (\"I painted a picture\"), achievements (\"I bought\"), and punctual, or semelfactive, events (\"I sneezed\"). These distinctions are often relevant syntactically. For example, states and activities, but not usually achievements, can be used in English with a prepositional for-phrase describing a time duration: \"I had a car for five hours\", \"I shopped for five hours\", but not \"*I bought a car for five hours\". Lexical aspect is sometimes called Aktionsart, especially by German and Slavic linguists. Lexical or situation aspect is marked in Athabaskan languages.",
"title": "Lexical vs. grammatical aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "One of the factors in situation aspect is telicity. Telicity might be considered a kind of lexical aspect, except that it is typically not a property of a verb in isolation, but rather a property of an entire verb phrase. Achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives have telic situation aspect, while states and activities have atelic situation aspect.",
"title": "Lexical vs. grammatical aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The other factor in situation aspect is duration, which is also a property of a verb phrase. Accomplishments, states, and activities have duration, while achievements and semelfactives do not.",
"title": "Lexical vs. grammatical aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In some languages, aspect and time are very clearly separated, making them much more distinct to their speakers. There are a number of languages that mark aspect much more saliently than time. Prominent in this category are Chinese and American Sign Language, which both differentiate many aspects but rely exclusively on optional time-indicating terms to pinpoint an action with respect to time. In other language groups, for example in most modern Indo-European languages (except Slavic languages and some Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi), aspect has become almost entirely conflated, in the verbal morphological system, with time.",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In Russian, aspect is more salient than tense in narrative. Russian, like other Slavic languages, uses different lexical entries for the different aspects, whereas other languages mark them morphologically, and still others with auxiliaries (e.g., English).",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In Hindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker. Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In literary Arabic (الْفُصْحَى al-fuṣḥā) the verb has two aspect-tenses: perfective (past), and imperfective (non-past). There is some disagreement among grammarians whether to view the distinction as a distinction in aspect, or tense, or both. The past verb (الْفِعْل الْمَاضِي al-fiʿl al-māḍī) denotes an event (حَدَث ḥadaṯ) completed in the past, but it says nothing about the relation of this past event to present status. For example, وَصَلَ waṣala, \"arrived\", indicates that arrival occurred in the past without saying anything about the present status of the arriver – maybe they stuck around, maybe they turned around and left, etc. – nor about the aspect of the past event except insofar as completeness can be considered aspectual. This past verb is clearly similar if not identical to the Greek aorist, which is considered a tense but is more of an aspect marker. In the Arabic, aorist aspect is the logical consequence of past tense. By contrast, the \"Verb of Similarity\" (الْفِعْل الْمُضَارِع al-fiʿl al-muḍāriʿ), so called because of its resemblance to the active participial noun, is considered to denote an event in the present or future without committing to a specific aspectual sense beyond the incompleteness implied by the tense: يَضْرِبُ (yaḍribu, he strikes/is striking/will strike/etc.). Those are the only two \"tenses\" in Arabic (not counting أَمْر amr, command or imperative, which is traditionally considered as denoting future events.) To explicitly mark aspect, Arabic uses a variety of lexical and syntactic devices.",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Contemporary Arabic dialects are another matter. One major change from al-fuṣḥā is the use of a prefix particle (بِ bi in Egyptian and Levantine dialects—though it may have a slightly different range of functions in each dialect) to explicitly mark progressive, continuous, or habitual aspect: بيكتب, bi-yiktib, he is now writing, writes all the time, etc.",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Aspect can mark the stage of an action. The prospective aspect is a combination of tense and aspect that indicates the action is in preparation to take place. The inceptive aspect identifies the beginning stage of an action (e.g. Esperanto uses ek-, e.g. Mi ekmanĝas, \"I am beginning to eat\".) and inchoative and ingressive aspects identify a change of state (The flowers started blooming) or the start of an action (He started running). Aspects of stage continue through progressive, pausative, resumptive, cessive, and terminative.",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Important qualifications:",
"title": "Indicating aspect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The English tense–aspect system has two morphologically distinct tenses, past and non-past, the latter of which is also known as the present-future or, more commonly and less formally, simply the present. No marker of a distinct future tense exists on the verb in English; the futurity of an event may be expressed through the use of the auxiliary verbs \"will\" and \"shall\", by a non-past form plus an adverb, as in \"tomorrow we go to New York City\", or by some other means. Past is distinguished from non-past, in contrast, with internal modifications of the verb. These two tenses may be modified further for progressive aspect (also called continuous aspect), for the perfect, or for both. These two aspectual forms are also referred to as BE +ING and HAVE +EN, respectively, which avoids what may be unfamiliar terminology.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Aspects of the present tense:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "(While many elementary discussions of English grammar classify the present perfect as a past tense, it relates the action to the present time. One cannot say of someone now deceased that they \"have eaten\" or \"have been eating\". The present auxiliary implies that they are in some way present (alive), even when the action denoted is completed (perfect) or partially completed (progressive perfect).)",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Aspects of the past tense:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Aspects can also be marked on non-finite forms of the verb: \"(to) be eating\" (infinitive with progressive aspect), \"(to) have eaten\" (infinitive with perfect aspect), \"having eaten\" (present participle or gerund with perfect aspect), etc. The perfect infinitive can further be governed by modal verbs to express various meanings, mostly combining modality with past reference: \"I should have eaten\" etc. In particular, the modals will and shall and their subjunctive forms would and should are used to combine future or hypothetical reference with aspectual meaning:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The uses of the progressive and perfect aspects are quite complex. They may refer to the viewpoint of the speaker:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "But they can have other illocutionary forces or additional modal components:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "English expresses some other aspectual distinctions with other constructions. Used to + VERB is a past habitual, as in \"I used to go to school,\" and going to / gonna + VERB is a prospective, a future situation highlighting current intention or expectation, as in \"I'm going to go to school next year.\"",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The aspectual systems of certain dialects of English, such as African-American Vernacular English (see for example habitual be), and of creoles based on English vocabulary, such as Hawaiian Creole English, are quite different from those of standard English, and often reflect a more elaborate paradigm of aspectual distinctions (often at the expense of tense). The following table, appearing originally in Green (2002) shows the possible aspectual distinctions in AAVE in their prototypical, negative and stressed/emphatic affirmative forms:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Although Standard German does not have aspects, many Upper German languages, all West Central German languages, and some more vernacular German languages do make one aspectual distinction, and so do the colloquial languages of many regions, the so-called German regiolects. While officially discouraged in schools and seen as 'bad language', local English teachers like the distinction, because it corresponds well with the English continuous form. It is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verb sein (\"to be\") followed by the preposition \"am\" and the infinitive, or the nominalized verb. The latter two are phonetically indistinguishable; in writing, capitalization differs: \"Ich war am essen\" vs. \"Ich war am Essen\" (I was eating, compared to the Standard German approximation: \"Ich war beim Essen\"); yet these forms are not standardized and thus are relatively infrequently written down or printed, even in quotations or direct speech.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In the Tyrolean and other Bavarian regiolect the prefix *da can be found, which form perfective aspects. \"I hu's gleant\" (Ich habe es gelernt = I learnt it) vs. \"I hu's daleant\" (*Ich habe es DAlernt = I succeeded in learning).",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In Dutch (a West Germanic language), two types of continuous form are used. Both types are considered Standard Dutch.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The first type is very similar to the non-standard German type. It is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verb zijn (\"to be\"), followed by aan het and the gerund (which in Dutch matches the infinitive). For example:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The second type is formed by one of the conjugated auxiliary verbs liggen (\"to lie\"), zitten (\"to sit\"), hangen (\"to hang\"), staan (\"to stand\") or lopen (\"to walk\"), followed by the preposition te and the infinitive. The conjugated verbs indicate the stance of the subject performing or undergoing the action.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Sometimes the meaning of the auxiliary verb is diminished to 'being engaged in'. Take for instance these examples:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In these cases, there is generally an undertone of irritation.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Slavic languages make a clear distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects; it was in relation to these languages that the modern concept of aspect originally developed.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In Slavic languages, a given verb is, in itself, either perfective or imperfective. Consequently, each language contains many pairs of verbs, corresponding to each other in meaning, except that one expresses perfective aspect and the other imperfective. (This may be considered a form of lexical aspect.) Perfective verbs are commonly formed from imperfective ones by the addition of a prefix, or else the imperfective verb is formed from the perfective one by modification of the stem or ending. Suppletion also plays a small role. Perfective verbs cannot generally be used with the meaning of a present tense – their present-tense forms in fact have future reference. An example of such a pair of verbs, from Polish, is given below:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In at least the East Slavic and West Slavic languages, there is a three-way aspect differentiation for verbs of motion with the determinate imperfective, indeterminate imperfective, and perfective. The two forms of imperfective can be used in all three tenses (past, present, and future), but the perfective can only be used with past and future. The indeterminate imperfective expresses habitual aspect (or motion in no single direction), while the determinate imperfective expresses progressive aspect. The difference corresponds closely to that between the English \"I (regularly) go to school\" and \"I am going to school (now)\". The three-way difference is given below for the Russian basic (unprefixed) verbs of motion.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "When prefixes are attached to Russian verbs of motion they become more or less normal imperfective/perfective pairs, with the indeterminate imperfective becoming the prefixed imperfective and the determinate imperfective becoming the prefixed perfective. For example, prefix при- pri- + indeterminate ходи́ть khodít' = приходи́ть prikhodít' (to arrive (on foot), impf.); and prefix при- pri- + determinate идти́ idtí = прийти prijtí (to arrive (on foot), pf.).",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Modern Romance languages merge the concepts of aspect and tense but consistently distinguish perfective and imperfective aspects in the past tense. This derives directly from the way the Latin language used to render both aspects and consecutio temporum.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Italian language example using the verb mangiare (\"to eat\"):",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The imperfetto/trapassato prossimo contrasts with the passato remoto/trapassato remoto in that imperfetto renders an imperfective (continuous) past while passato remoto expresses an aorist (punctual/historical) past.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Other aspects in Italian are rendered with other periphrases, like prospective (io sto per mangiare \"I'm about to eat\", io starò per mangiare \"I shall be about to eat\"), or continuous/progressive (io sto mangiando \"I'm eating\", io starò mangiando \"I shall be eating\").",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Hindi has three aspects, habitual aspect, perfective aspect and the progressive aspect. Each of these three aspects are formed from their participles. The aspects of Hindi when conjugated into their personal forms can be put into five grammatical moods: indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, contrafactual, and imperative. In Hindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker. Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker. The second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "There are a couple of verbs which can be used as the copula to the aspectual participles: होना (honā) [to be, happen], रहना (rêhnā) [to stay, remain], आना (ānā) [to come], and जाना (jānā) [to go]. Each of these copulas provide a unique nuance to the aspect. The default (unmarked) copula is होना (honā) [to be]. These copulas can themselves be conjugated into an aspectual participle and used with another copula, hence forming subaspects. (Seeː Hindi verbs)",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Finnish and Estonian, among others, have a grammatical aspect contrast of telicity between telic and atelic. Telic sentences signal that the intended goal of an action is achieved. Atelic sentences do not signal whether any such goal has been achieved. The aspect is indicated by the case of the object: accusative is telic and partitive is atelic. For example, the (implicit) purpose of shooting is to kill, such that:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In rare cases corresponding telic and atelic forms can be unrelated by meaning.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Derivational suffixes exist for various aspects. Examples:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "There are derivational suffixes for verbs, which carry frequentative, momentane, causative, and inchoative aspect meanings. Also, pairs of verbs differing only in transitivity exist.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The Rapa language (Reo Rapa) is a mixed language that grew out of Tahitian and Old Rapa among monolingual inhabitants of Rapa Iti. Old Rapa words are still used for grammar and sentence structure, but most common words were replaced by Tahitian words. Rapa is similar to English as they both have specific tense words such as did or do.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "ki’ere",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "NEG.PST",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "vau",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "1.SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "i",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "PFV",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "haere",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "go",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "i",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "PREP",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "te",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "ART",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "fare",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "house",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "ki’ere vau i haere i te fare",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "NEG.PST 1.SG PFV go PREP ART house",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "'I did not go to a house.'",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "kāre",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "NEG.NPST",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "tā-koe",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "ART-2SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "puta",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "book",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "kāre tā-koe puta",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "NEG.NPST ART-2SG book",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "'You don't have your book.' (Lit. 'Your book doesn't exist')",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "The Hawaiian language conveys aspect as follows:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Wuvulu language is a minority language in Pacific. The Wuvulu verbal aspect is hard to organize because of its number of morpheme combinations and the interaction of semantics between morphemes. Perfective, imperfective negation, simultaneous and habitual are four aspects markers in Wuvulu language.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "maʔua",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "but",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "3SG=REAL-PERF-talk-CAUS-good",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "ʔaʔa",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "with",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "roʔou,",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "them",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Barafi",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Barafi",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "maʔua ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani ʔaʔa roʔou, Barafi",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "but 3SG=REAL-PERF-talk-CAUS-good with them Barafi",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "'But, Barafi had already clearly told them.'",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "ʔi=ta-no-mai",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "3SG=not.yet-move-DIR",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "ʔi=ta-no-mai",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "3SG=not.yet-move-DIR",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "'It has not yet come.'",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "3SG=REAL-hold-together-TR",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "ruapalo",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "two",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "ʔei",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "the.PL",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "pani",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "hand",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Puleafo",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Puleafo",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "ma",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "and",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "ʔi=fi-unu",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "3SG=SIM-drink",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na ruapalo ʔei pani Puleafo ma ʔi=fi-unu",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "3SG=REAL-hold-together-TR two the.PL hand Puleafo and 3SG=SIM-drink",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "'He held together the two hands of Puleafo while drinking.' (Note: marker ta- is only for singular subject. When the subject is dual or plural, the marker ʔei and i- are used in same situation.)",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "ʔi=na-fane-naranara",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "3SG=REAL-HAB-think(REDUP)",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "fei",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "the",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "nara",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "thought",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "Faninilo",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "Faninilo",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "ba,",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "COMP",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "ʔaleʔena",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "like",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "ba",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "COMP",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "ini",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "who",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "liai",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "again",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "mei",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "the",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "ramaʔa",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "person",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "mei",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "the",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "ʔi=na-fane-naranara fei nara Faninilo ba, ʔaleʔena ba ini liai mei ramaʔa mei",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "3SG=REAL-HAB-think(REDUP) the thought Faninilo COMP like COMP who again the person the",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 153,
"text": "'And the thought kept occurring to Faninilo, \"who is this particular person?\"'",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 154,
"text": "There are three types of aspects one must consider when analyzing the Tokelauan language: inherent aspect, situation aspect, and viewpoint aspect.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 155,
"text": "The inherent aspect describes the purpose of a verb and what separates verbs from one another. According to Vendler, inherent aspect can be categorized into four different types: activities, achievements, accomplishments, and states. Simple activities include verbs such as pull, jump, and punch. Some achievements are continue and win. Drive-a-car is an accomplishment while hate is an example of a state. Another way to recognize a state inherent aspect is to note whether or not it changes. For example, if someone were to hate vegetables because they are allergic, this state of hate is unchanging and thus, a state inherent aspect. On the other hand, an achievement, unlike a state, only lasts for a short amount of time. Achievement is the highpoint of an action.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 156,
"text": "Another type of aspect is situation aspect. Situation aspect is described to be what one is experiencing in his or her life through that circumstance. Therefore, it is his or her understanding of the situation. Situation aspect are abstract terms that are not physically tangible. They are also used based upon one's point of view. For example, a professor may say that a student who comes a minute before each class starts is a punctual student. Based upon the professor's judgment of what punctuality is, he or she may make that assumption of the situation with the student. Situation aspect is firstly divided into states and occurrences, then later subdivided under occurrences into processes and events, and lastly, under events, there are accomplishments and achievements.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 157,
"text": "The third type of aspect is viewpoint aspect. Viewpoint aspect can be likened to situation aspect such that they both take into consideration one's inferences. However, viewpoint aspect diverges from situation aspect because it is where one decides to view or see such event. A perfect example is the glass metaphor: Is the glass half full or is it half empty. The choice of being half full represents an optimistic viewpoint while the choice of being half empty represents a pessimistic viewpoint. Not only does viewpoint aspect separate into negative and positive, but rather different point of views. Having two people describe a painting can bring about two different viewpoints. One may describe a situation aspect as a perfect or imperfect. A perfect situation aspect entails an event with no reference to time, while an imperfect situation aspect makes a reference to time with the observation.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 158,
"text": "Aspect in Torau is marked with post-verbal particles or clitics. While the system for marking the imperfective aspect is complex and highly developed, it is unclear if Torau marks the perfective and neutral viewpoints. The imperfective clitics index one of the core arguments, usually the nominative subject, and follow the rightmost element in a syntactic structure larger than the word. The two distinct forms for marking the imperfective aspect are (i)sa- and e-. While more work needs to be done on this language, the preliminary hypothesis is that (i)sa- encodes the stative imperfective and e- encodes the active imperfective. Reduplication always cooccurs with e-, but it usually does not with (i)sa-. This example below shows these two imperfective aspect markers giving different meanings to similar sentences.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 159,
"text": "Pita",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 160,
"text": "Peter",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 161,
"text": "ma-to",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 162,
"text": "RL.3SG-PST",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 163,
"text": "mate=sa-la.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 164,
"text": "be.dead=IPFV-3SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 165,
"text": "Pita ma-to mate=sa-la.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 166,
"text": "Peter RL.3SG-PST be.dead=IPFV-3SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 167,
"text": "'Peter was dead.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 168,
"text": "Pita",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 169,
"text": "Peter",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 170,
"text": "ma-to",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 171,
"text": "RL.3SG-PST",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 172,
"text": "maa≈mate=e-la.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 173,
"text": "REDUP≈be.dead=IPFV-3SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 174,
"text": "Pita ma-to maa≈mate=e-la.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 175,
"text": "Peter RL.3SG-PST {REDUP}≈be.dead=IPFV-3SG",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 176,
"text": "'Peter was dying.' Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 177,
"text": "In Torau, the suffix -to, which must attach to a preverbal particle, may indicate similar meaning to the perfective aspect. In realis clauses, this suffix conveys an event that is entirely in the past and no longer occurring. When -to is used in irrealis clauses, the speaker conveys that the event will definitely occur (Palmer, 2007). Although this suffix is not explicitly stated as a perfective viewpoint marker, the meaning that it contributes is very similar to the perfective viewpoint.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 178,
"text": "Like many Austronesian languages, the verbs of the Malay language follow a system of affixes to express changes in meaning. To express the aspects, Malay uses a number of auxiliary verbs:",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 179,
"text": "Like many Austronesian languages, the verbs of the Philippine languages follow a complex system of affixes to express subtle changes in meaning. However, the verbs in this family of languages are conjugated to express the aspects and not the tenses. Though many of the Philippine languages do not have a fully codified grammar, most of them follow the verb aspects that are demonstrated by Filipino or Tagalog.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 180,
"text": "Creole languages typically use the unmarked verb for timeless habitual aspect, or for stative aspect, or for perfective aspect in the past. Invariant pre-verbal markers are often used. Non-stative verbs typically can optionally be marked for the progressive, habitual, completive, or irrealis aspect. The progressive in English-based Atlantic Creoles often uses de (from English \"be\"). Jamaican Creole uses a (from English \"are\") or de for the present progressive and a combination of the past time marker (did, behn, ehn or wehn) and the progressive marker (a or de) for the past progressive (e.g. did a or wehn de). Haitian Creole uses the progressive marker ap. Some Atlantic Creoles use one marker for both the habitual and progressive aspects. In Tok Pisin, the optional progressive marker follows the verb. Completive markers tend to come from superstrate words like \"done\" or \"finish\", and some creoles model the future/irrealis marker on the superstrate word for \"go\".",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 181,
"text": "American Sign Language (ASL) is similar to many other sign languages in that it has no grammatical tense but many verbal aspects produced by modifying the base verb sign.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 182,
"text": "An example is illustrated with the verb TELL. The basic form of this sign is produced with the initial posture of the index finger on the chin, followed by a movement of the hand and finger tip toward the indirect object (the recipient of the telling). Inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect (\"to be just about to tell\"), the sign begins with the hand moving from in front of the trunk in an arc to the initial posture of the base sign (i.e., index finger touching the chin) while inhaling through the mouth, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object. The posture is then held rather than moved toward the indirect object. During the hold, the signer also stops the breath by closing the glottis. Other verbs (such as \"look at\", \"wash the dishes\", \"yell\", \"flirt\") are inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect similarly: The hands used in the base sign move in an arc from in front of the trunk to the initial posture of the underlying verb sign while inhaling, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object (if any), but subsequent movements and postures are dropped as the posture and breath are held.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 183,
"text": "Other aspects in ASL include the following: stative, inchoative (\"to begin to...\"), predispositional (\"to tend to...\"), susceptative (\"to... easily\"), frequentative (\"to... often\"), protractive (\"to... continuously\"), incessant (\"to... incessantly\"), durative (\"to... for a long time\"), iterative (\"to... over and over again\"), intensive (\"to... very much\"), resultative (\"to... completely\"), approximative (\"to... somewhat\"), semblitive (\"to appear to...\"), increasing (\"to... more and more\"). Some aspects combine with others to create yet finer distinctions.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 184,
"text": "Aspect is unusual in ASL in that transitive verbs derived for aspect lose their grammatical transitivity. They remain semantically transitive, typically assuming an object made prominent using a topic marker or mentioned in a previous sentence. See Syntax in ASL for details.",
"title": "By language"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 185,
"text": "The following aspectual terms are found in the literature. Approximate English equivalents are given.",
"title": "Terms for various aspects"
}
]
| In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event. Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as time flows. Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguish states and ongoing actions from repetitive actions. Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation between the time of the event and the time of reference. This is the case with the perfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to the time of reference: "I have eaten"; "I had eaten"; "I will have eaten". Different languages make different grammatical aspectual distinctions; some do not make any. The marking of aspect is often conflated with the marking of tense and mood. Aspectual distinctions may be restricted to certain tenses: in Latin and the Romance languages, for example, the perfective–imperfective distinction is marked in the past tense, by the division between preterites and imperfects. Explicit consideration of aspect as a category first arose out of study of the Slavic languages; here verbs often occur in pairs, with two related verbs being used respectively for imperfective and perfective meanings. The concept of grammatical aspect should not be confused with perfect and imperfect verb forms; the meanings of the latter terms are somewhat different, and in some languages, the common names used for verb forms may not follow the actual aspects precisely. | 2001-12-09T14:39:12Z | 2023-12-30T15:50:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect |
12,950 | Glucose | Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula C6H12O6. Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using energy from sunlight, where it is used to make cellulose in cell walls, the most abundant carbohydrate in the world.
In energy metabolism, glucose is the most important source of energy in all organisms. Glucose for metabolism is stored as a polymer, in plants mainly as starch and amylopectin, and in animals as glycogen. Glucose circulates in the blood of animals as blood sugar. The naturally occurring form of glucose is d-glucose, while its stereoisomer l-glucose is produced synthetically in comparatively small amounts and is less biologically active. Glucose is a monosaccharide containing six carbon atoms and an aldehyde group, and is therefore an aldohexose. The glucose molecule can exist in an open-chain (acyclic) as well as ring (cyclic) form. Glucose is naturally occurring and is found in its free state in fruits and other parts of plants. In animals, glucose is released from the breakdown of glycogen in a process known as glycogenolysis.
Glucose, as intravenous sugar solution, is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is also on the list in combination with sodium chloride.
The name glucose is derived from Ancient Greek γλεῦκος (gleûkos, "wine, must"), from γλυκύς (glykýs, "sweet"). The suffix "-ose" is a chemical classifier, denoting a sugar.
Glucose was first isolated from raisins in 1747 by the German chemist Andreas Marggraf. Glucose was discovered in grapes by another German chemist – Johann Tobias Lowitz – in 1792, and distinguished as being different from cane sugar (sucrose). Glucose is the term coined by Jean Baptiste Dumas in 1838, which has prevailed in the chemical literature. Friedrich August Kekulé proposed the term dextrose (from the Latin dexter, meaning "right"), because in aqueous solution of glucose, the plane of linearly polarized light is turned to the right. In contrast, l-fructose (usually referred to as d-fructose) (a ketohexose) and l-glucose (l-glucose) turn linearly polarized light to the left. The earlier notation according to the rotation of the plane of linearly polarized light (d and l-nomenclature) was later abandoned in favor of the d- and l-notation, which refers to the absolute configuration of the asymmetric center farthest from the carbonyl group, and in concordance with the configuration of d- or l-glyceraldehyde.
Since glucose is a basic necessity of many organisms, a correct understanding of its chemical makeup and structure contributed greatly to a general advancement in organic chemistry. This understanding occurred largely as a result of the investigations of Emil Fischer, a German chemist who received the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his findings. The synthesis of glucose established the structure of organic material and consequently formed the first definitive validation of Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff's theories of chemical kinetics and the arrangements of chemical bonds in carbon-bearing molecules. Between 1891 and 1894, Fischer established the stereochemical configuration of all the known sugars and correctly predicted the possible isomers, applying Van 't Hoff's theory of asymmetrical carbon atoms. The names initially referred to the natural substances. Their enantiomers were given the same name with the introduction of systematic nomenclatures, taking into account absolute stereochemistry (e.g. Fischer nomenclature, d/l nomenclature).
For the discovery of the metabolism of glucose Otto Meyerhof received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922. Hans von Euler-Chelpin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Arthur Harden in 1929 for their "research on the fermentation of sugar and their share of enzymes in this process". In 1947, Bernardo Houssay (for his discovery of the role of the pituitary gland in the metabolism of glucose and the derived carbohydrates) as well as Carl and Gerty Cori (for their discovery of the conversion of glycogen from glucose) received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1970, Luis Leloir was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of glucose-derived sugar nucleotides in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates.
Glucose forms white or colorless solids that are highly soluble in water and acetic acid but poorly soluble in methanol and ethanol. They melt at 146 °C (295 °F) (α) and 150 °C (302 °F) (β), and decompose starting at 188 °C (370 °F) with release of various volatile products, ultimately leaving a residue of carbon. Glucose has a pK value of 12.16 at 25 °C (77 °F) in water.
With six carbon atoms, it is classed as a hexose, a subcategory of the monosaccharides. d-Glucose is one of the sixteen aldohexose stereoisomers. The d-isomer, d-glucose, also known as dextrose, occurs widely in nature, but the l-isomer, l-glucose, does not. Glucose can be obtained by hydrolysis of carbohydrates such as milk sugar (lactose), cane sugar (sucrose), maltose, cellulose, glycogen, etc. Dextrose is commonly commercially manufactured from cornstarch in the US and Japan, from potato and wheat starch in Europe, and from tapioca starch in tropical areas. The manufacturing process uses hydrolysis via pressurized steaming at controlled pH in a jet followed by further enzymatic depolymerization. Unbonded glucose is one of the main ingredients of honey.
Glucose is usually present in solid form as a monohydrate with a closed pyran ring (α-glucopyranose monohydrate, sometimes known less precisely by dextrose hydrate). In aqueous solution, on the other hand, it is an open-chain to a small extent and is present predominantly as α- or β-pyranose, which interconvert. From aqueous solutions, the three known forms can be crystallized: α-glucopyranose, β-glucopyranose and α-glucopyranose monohydrate. Glucose is a building block of the disaccharides lactose and sucrose (cane or beet sugar), of oligosaccharides such as raffinose and of polysaccharides such as starch, amylopectin, glycogen, and cellulose. The glass transition temperature of glucose is 31 °C (88 °F) and the Gordon–Taylor constant (an experimentally determined constant for the prediction of the glass transition temperature for different mass fractions of a mixture of two substances) is 4.5.
The open-chain form of glucose makes up less than 0.02% of the glucose molecules in an aqueous solution at equilibrium. The rest is one of two cyclic hemiacetal forms. In its open-chain form, the glucose molecule has an open (as opposed to cyclic) unbranched backbone of six carbon atoms, where C-1 is part of an aldehyde group H(C=O)−. Therefore, glucose is also classified as an aldose, or an aldohexose. The aldehyde group makes glucose a reducing sugar giving a positive reaction with the Fehling test.
In solutions, the open-chain form of glucose (either "D-" or "L-") exists in equilibrium with several cyclic isomers, each containing a ring of carbons closed by one oxygen atom. In aqueous solution, however, more than 99% of glucose molecules exist as pyranose forms. The open-chain form is limited to about 0.25%, and furanose forms exist in negligible amounts. The terms "glucose" and "D-glucose" are generally used for these cyclic forms as well. The ring arises from the open-chain form by an intramolecular nucleophilic addition reaction between the aldehyde group (at C-1) and either the C-4 or C-5 hydroxyl group, forming a hemiacetal linkage, −C(OH)H−O−.
The reaction between C-1 and C-5 yields a six-membered heterocyclic system called a pyranose, which is a monosaccharide sugar (hence "-ose") containing a derivatised pyran skeleton. The (much rarer) reaction between C-1 and C-4 yields a five-membered furanose ring, named after the cyclic ether furan. In either case, each carbon in the ring has one hydrogen and one hydroxyl attached, except for the last carbon (C-4 or C-5) where the hydroxyl is replaced by the remainder of the open molecule (which is −(C(CH2OH)HOH)−H or −(CHOH)−H respectively).
The ring-closing reaction can give two products, denoted "α-" and "β-". When a glucopyranose molecule is drawn in the Haworth projection, the designation "α-" means that the hydroxyl group attached to C-1 and the −CH2OH group at C-5 lies on opposite sides of the ring's plane (a trans arrangement), while "β-" means that they are on the same side of the plane (a cis arrangement). Therefore, the open-chain isomer D-glucose gives rise to four distinct cyclic isomers: α-D-glucopyranose, β-D-glucopyranose, α-D-glucofuranose, and β-D-glucofuranose. These five structures exist in equilibrium and interconvert, and the interconversion is much more rapid with acid catalysis.
The other open-chain isomer L-glucose similarly gives rise to four distinct cyclic forms of L-glucose, each the mirror image of the corresponding D-glucose.
The glucopyranose ring (α or β) can assume several non-planar shapes, analogous to the "chair" and "boat" conformations of cyclohexane. Similarly, the glucofuranose ring may assume several shapes, analogous to the "envelope" conformations of cyclopentane.
In the solid state, only the glucopyranose forms are observed.
Some derivatives of glucofuranose, such as 1,2-O-isopropylidene-D-glucofuranose are stable and can be obtained pure as crystalline solids. For example, reaction of α-D-glucose with para-tolylboronic acid H3C−(C6H4)−B(OH)2 reforms the normal pyranose ring to yield the 4-fold ester α-D-glucofuranose-1,2:3,5-bis(p-tolylboronate).
Mutarotation consists of a temporary reversal of the ring-forming reaction, resulting in the open-chain form, followed by a reforming of the ring. The ring closure step may use a different −OH group than the one recreated by the opening step (thus switching between pyranose and furanose forms), or the new hemiacetal group created on C-1 may have the same or opposite handedness as the original one (thus switching between the α and β forms). Thus, though the open-chain form is barely detectable in solution, it is an essential component of the equilibrium.
The open-chain form is thermodynamically unstable, and it spontaneously isomerizes to the cyclic forms. (Although the ring closure reaction could in theory create four- or three-atom rings, these would be highly strained, and are not observed in practice.) In solutions at room temperature, the four cyclic isomers interconvert over a time scale of hours, in a process called mutarotation. Starting from any proportions, the mixture converges to a stable ratio of α:β 36:64. The ratio would be α:β 11:89 if it were not for the influence of the anomeric effect. Mutarotation is considerably slower at temperatures close to 0 °C (32 °F).
Whether in water or the solid form, d-(+)-glucose is dextrorotatory, meaning it will rotate the direction of polarized light clockwise as seen looking toward the light source. The effect is due to the chirality of the molecules, and indeed the mirror-image isomer, l-(−)-glucose, is levorotatory (rotates polarized light counterclockwise) by the same amount. The strength of the effect is different for each of the five tautomers.
Note that the d- prefix does not refer directly to the optical properties of the compound. It indicates that the C-5 chiral centre has the same handedness as that of d-glyceraldehyde (which was so labelled because it is dextrorotatory). The fact that d-glucose is dextrorotatory is a combined effect of its four chiral centres, not just of C-5; and indeed some of the other d-aldohexoses are levorotatory.
The conversion between the two anomers can be observed in a polarimeter since pure α-d-glucose has a specific rotation angle of +112.2° mL/(dm·g), pure β-d-glucose of +17.5° mL/(dm·g). When equilibrium has been reached after a certain time due to mutarotation, the angle of rotation is +52.7° mL/(dm·g). By adding acid or base, this transformation is much accelerated. The equilibration takes place via the open-chain aldehyde form.
In dilute sodium hydroxide or other dilute bases, the monosaccharides mannose, glucose and fructose interconvert (via a Lobry de Bruyn–Alberda–Van Ekenstein transformation), so that a balance between these isomers is formed. This reaction proceeds via an enediol:
Glucose is the most abundant monosaccharide. Glucose is also the most widely used aldohexose in most living organisms. One possible explanation for this is that glucose has a lower tendency than other aldohexoses to react nonspecifically with the amine groups of proteins. This reaction—glycation—impairs or destroys the function of many proteins, e.g. in glycated hemoglobin. Glucose's low rate of glycation can be attributed to its having a more stable cyclic form compared to other aldohexoses, which means it spends less time than they do in its reactive open-chain form. The reason for glucose having the most stable cyclic form of all the aldohexoses is that its hydroxy groups (with the exception of the hydroxy group on the anomeric carbon of d-glucose) are in the equatorial position. Presumably, glucose is the most abundant natural monosaccharide because it is less glycated with proteins than other monosaccharides. Another hypothesis is that glucose, being the only d-aldohexose that has all five hydroxy substituents in the equatorial position in the form of β-d-glucose, is more readily accessible to chemical reactions, for example, for esterification or acetal formation. For this reason, d-glucose is also a highly preferred building block in natural polysaccharides (glycans). Polysaccharides that are composed solely of glucose are termed glucans.
Glucose is produced by plants through photosynthesis using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and can be used by all living organisms as an energy and carbon source. However, most glucose does not occur in its free form, but in the form of its polymers, i.e. lactose, sucrose, starch and others which are energy reserve substances, and cellulose and chitin, which are components of the cell wall in plants or fungi and arthropods, respectively. These polymers, when consumed by animals, fungi and bacteria, are degraded to glucose using enzymes. All animals are also able to produce glucose themselves from certain precursors as the need arises. Neurons, cells of the renal medulla and erythrocytes depend on glucose for their energy production. In adult humans, there is about 18 g (0.63 oz) of glucose, of which about 4 g (0.14 oz) is present in the blood. Approximately 180–220 g (6.3–7.8 oz) of glucose is produced in the liver of an adult in 24 hours.
Many of the long-term complications of diabetes (e.g., blindness, kidney failure, and peripheral neuropathy) are probably due to the glycation of proteins or lipids. In contrast, enzyme-regulated addition of sugars to protein is called glycosylation and is essential for the function of many proteins.
Ingested glucose initially binds to the receptor for sweet taste on the tongue in humans. This complex of the proteins T1R2 and T1R3 makes it possible to identify glucose-containing food sources. Glucose mainly comes from food—about 300 g (11 oz) per day is produced by conversion of food, but it is also synthesized from other metabolites in the body's cells. In humans, the breakdown of glucose-containing polysaccharides happens in part already during chewing by means of amylase, which is contained in saliva, as well as by maltase, lactase, and sucrase on the brush border of the small intestine. Glucose is a building block of many carbohydrates and can be split off from them using certain enzymes. Glucosidases, a subgroup of the glycosidases, first catalyze the hydrolysis of long-chain glucose-containing polysaccharides, removing terminal glucose. In turn, disaccharides are mostly degraded by specific glycosidases to glucose. The names of the degrading enzymes are often derived from the particular poly- and disaccharide; inter alia, for the degradation of polysaccharide chains there are amylases (named after amylose, a component of starch), cellulases (named after cellulose), chitinases (named after chitin), and more. Furthermore, for the cleavage of disaccharides, there are maltase, lactase, sucrase, trehalase, and others. In humans, about 70 genes are known that code for glycosidases. They have functions in the digestion and degradation of glycogen, sphingolipids, mucopolysaccharides, and poly(ADP-ribose). Humans do not produce cellulases, chitinases, or trehalases, but the bacteria in the gut microbiota do.
In order to get into or out of cell membranes of cells and membranes of cell compartments, glucose requires special transport proteins from the major facilitator superfamily. In the small intestine (more precisely, in the jejunum), glucose is taken up into the intestinal epithelium with the help of glucose transporters via a secondary active transport mechanism called sodium ion-glucose symport via sodium/glucose cotransporter 1 (SGLT1). Further transfer occurs on the basolateral side of the intestinal epithelial cells via the glucose transporter GLUT2, as well uptake into liver cells, kidney cells, cells of the islets of Langerhans, neurons, astrocytes, and tanycytes. Glucose enters the liver via the portal vein and is stored there as a cellular glycogen. In the liver cell, it is phosphorylated by glucokinase at position 6 to form glucose 6-phosphate, which cannot leave the cell. Glucose 6-phosphatase can convert glucose 6-phosphate back into glucose exclusively in the liver, so the body can maintain a sufficient blood glucose concentration. In other cells, uptake happens by passive transport through one of the 14 GLUT proteins. In the other cell types, phosphorylation occurs through a hexokinase, whereupon glucose can no longer diffuse out of the cell.
The glucose transporter GLUT1 is produced by most cell types and is of particular importance for nerve cells and pancreatic β-cells. GLUT3 is highly expressed in nerve cells. Glucose from the bloodstream is taken up by GLUT4 from muscle cells (of the skeletal muscle and heart muscle) and fat cells. GLUT14 is expressed exclusively in testicles. Excess glucose is broken down and converted into fatty acids, which are stored as triglycerides. In the kidneys, glucose in the urine is absorbed via SGLT1 and SGLT2 in the apical cell membranes and transmitted via GLUT2 in the basolateral cell membranes. About 90% of kidney glucose reabsorption is via SGLT2 and about 3% via SGLT1.
In plants and some prokaryotes, glucose is a product of photosynthesis. Glucose is also formed by the breakdown of polymeric forms of glucose like glycogen (in animals and mushrooms) or starch (in plants). The cleavage of glycogen is termed glycogenolysis, the cleavage of starch is called starch degradation.
The metabolic pathway that begins with molecules containing two to four carbon atoms (C) and ends in the glucose molecule containing six carbon atoms is called gluconeogenesis and occurs in all living organisms. The smaller starting materials are the result of other metabolic pathways. Ultimately almost all biomolecules come from the assimilation of carbon dioxide in plants and microbes during photosynthesis. The free energy of formation of α-d-glucose is 917.2 kilojoules per mole. In humans, gluconeogenesis occurs in the liver and kidney, but also in other cell types. In the liver about 150 g (5.3 oz) of glycogen are stored, in skeletal muscle about 250 g (8.8 oz). However, the glucose released in muscle cells upon cleavage of the glycogen can not be delivered to the circulation because glucose is phosphorylated by the hexokinase, and a glucose-6-phosphatase is not expressed to remove the phosphate group. Unlike for glucose, there is no transport protein for glucose-6-phosphate. Gluconeogenesis allows the organism to build up glucose from other metabolites, including lactate or certain amino acids, while consuming energy. The renal tubular cells can also produce glucose.
Glucose also can be found outside of living organisms in the ambient environment. Glucose concentrations in the atmosphere are detected via collection of samples by aircraft and are known to vary from location to location. For example, glucose concentrations in atmospheric air from inland China range from 0.8 to 20.1 pg/L, whereas east coastal China glucose concentrations range from 10.3 to 142 pg/L.
In humans, glucose is metabolized by glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. Glycolysis is used by all living organisms, with small variations, and all organisms generate energy from the breakdown of monosaccharides. In the further course of the metabolism, it can be completely degraded via oxidative decarboxylation, the citric acid cycle (synonym Krebs cycle) and the respiratory chain to water and carbon dioxide. If there is not enough oxygen available for this, the glucose degradation in animals occurs anaerobic to lactate via lactic acid fermentation and releases much less energy. Muscular lactate enters the liver through the bloodstream in mammals, where gluconeogenesis occurs (Cori cycle). With a high supply of glucose, the metabolite acetyl-CoA from the Krebs cycle can also be used for fatty acid synthesis. Glucose is also used to replenish the body's glycogen stores, which are mainly found in liver and skeletal muscle. These processes are hormonally regulated.
In other living organisms, other forms of fermentation can occur. The bacterium Escherichia coli can grow on nutrient media containing glucose as the sole carbon source. In some bacteria and, in modified form, also in archaea, glucose is degraded via the Entner-Doudoroff pathway.
Use of glucose as an energy source in cells is by either aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration, or fermentation. The first step of glycolysis is the phosphorylation of glucose by a hexokinase to form glucose 6-phosphate. The main reason for the immediate phosphorylation of glucose is to prevent its diffusion out of the cell as the charged phosphate group prevents glucose 6-phosphate from easily crossing the cell membrane. Furthermore, addition of the high-energy phosphate group activates glucose for subsequent breakdown in later steps of glycolysis. At physiological conditions, this initial reaction is irreversible.
In anaerobic respiration, one glucose molecule produces a net gain of two ATP molecules (four ATP molecules are produced during glycolysis through substrate-level phosphorylation, but two are required by enzymes used during the process). In aerobic respiration, a molecule of glucose is much more profitable in that a maximum net production of 30 or 32 ATP molecules (depending on the organism) is generated.
Click on genes, proteins and metabolites below to link to respective articles.
Tumor cells often grow comparatively quickly and consume an above-average amount of glucose by glycolysis, which leads to the formation of lactate, the end product of fermentation in mammals, even in the presence of oxygen. This is called the Warburg effect. For the increased uptake of glucose in tumors various SGLT and GLUT are overly produced.
In yeast, ethanol is fermented at high glucose concentrations, even in the presence of oxygen (which normally leads to respiration rather than fermentation). This is called the Crabtree effect.
Glucose can also degrade to form carbon dioxide through abiotic means. This has been demonstrated to occur experimentally via oxidation and hydrolysis at 22 °C and a pH of 2.5.
Glucose is a ubiquitous fuel in biology. It is used as an energy source in organisms, from bacteria to humans, through either aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration (in bacteria), or fermentation. Glucose is the human body's key source of energy, through aerobic respiration, providing about 3.75 kilocalories (16 kilojoules) of food energy per gram. Breakdown of carbohydrates (e.g., starch) yields mono- and disaccharides, most of which is glucose. Through glycolysis and later in the reactions of the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, glucose is oxidized to eventually form carbon dioxide and water, yielding energy mostly in the form of ATP. The insulin reaction, and other mechanisms, regulate the concentration of glucose in the blood. The physiological caloric value of glucose, depending on the source, is 16.2 kilojoules per gram or 15.7 kJ/g (3.74 kcal/g). The high availability of carbohydrates from plant biomass has led to a variety of methods during evolution, especially in microorganisms, to utilize glucose for energy and carbon storage. Differences exist in which end product can no longer be used for energy production. The presence of individual genes, and their gene products, the enzymes, determine which reactions are possible. The metabolic pathway of glycolysis is used by almost all living beings. An essential difference in the use of glycolysis is the recovery of NADPH as a reductant for anabolism that would otherwise have to be generated indirectly.
Glucose and oxygen supply almost all the energy for the brain, so its availability influences psychological processes. When glucose is low, psychological processes requiring mental effort (e.g., self-control, effortful decision-making) are impaired. In the brain, which is dependent on glucose and oxygen as the major source of energy, the glucose concentration is usually 4 to 6 mM (5 mM equals 90 mg/dL), but decreases to 2 to 3 mM when fasting. Confusion occurs below 1 mM and coma at lower levels.
The glucose in the blood is called blood sugar. Blood sugar levels are regulated by glucose-binding nerve cells in the hypothalamus. In addition, glucose in the brain binds to glucose receptors of the reward system in the nucleus accumbens. The binding of glucose to the sweet receptor on the tongue induces a release of various hormones of energy metabolism, either through glucose or through other sugars, leading to an increased cellular uptake and lower blood sugar levels. Artificial sweeteners do not lower blood sugar levels.
The blood sugar content of a healthy person in the short-time fasting state, e.g. after overnight fasting, is about 70 to 100 mg/dL of blood (4 to 5.5 mM). In blood plasma, the measured values are about 10–15% higher. In addition, the values in the arterial blood are higher than the concentrations in the venous blood since glucose is absorbed into the tissue during the passage of the capillary bed. Also in the capillary blood, which is often used for blood sugar determination, the values are sometimes higher than in the venous blood. The glucose content of the blood is regulated by the hormones insulin, incretin and glucagon. Insulin lowers the glucose level, glucagon increases it. Furthermore, the hormones adrenaline, thyroxine, glucocorticoids, somatotropin and adrenocorticotropin lead to an increase in the glucose level. There is also a hormone-independent regulation, which is referred to as glucose autoregulation. After food intake the blood sugar concentration increases. Values over 180 mg/dL in venous whole blood are pathological and are termed hyperglycemia, values below 40 mg/dL are termed hypoglycaemia. When needed, glucose is released into the bloodstream by glucose-6-phosphatase from glucose-6-phosphate originating from liver and kidney glycogen, thereby regulating the homeostasis of blood glucose concentration. In ruminants, the blood glucose concentration is lower (60 mg/dL in cattle and 40 mg/dL in sheep), because the carbohydrates are converted more by their gut microbiota into short-chain fatty acids.
Some glucose is converted to lactic acid by astrocytes, which is then utilized as an energy source by brain cells; some glucose is used by intestinal cells and red blood cells, while the rest reaches the liver, adipose tissue and muscle cells, where it is absorbed and stored as glycogen (under the influence of insulin). Liver cell glycogen can be converted to glucose and returned to the blood when insulin is low or absent; muscle cell glycogen is not returned to the blood because of a lack of enzymes. In fat cells, glucose is used to power reactions that synthesize some fat types and have other purposes. Glycogen is the body's "glucose energy storage" mechanism, because it is much more "space efficient" and less reactive than glucose itself.
As a result of its importance in human health, glucose is an analyte in glucose tests that are common medical blood tests. Eating or fasting prior to taking a blood sample has an effect on analyses for glucose in the blood; a high fasting glucose blood sugar level may be a sign of prediabetes or diabetes mellitus.
The glycemic index is an indicator of the speed of resorption and conversion to blood glucose levels from ingested carbohydrates, measured as the area under the curve of blood glucose levels after consumption in comparison to glucose (glucose is defined as 100). The clinical importance of the glycemic index is controversial, as foods with high fat contents slow the resorption of carbohydrates and lower the glycemic index, e.g. ice cream. An alternative indicator is the insulin index, measured as the impact of carbohydrate consumption on the blood insulin levels. The glycemic load is an indicator for the amount of glucose added to blood glucose levels after consumption, based on the glycemic index and the amount of consumed food.
Organisms use glucose as a precursor for the synthesis of several important substances. Starch, cellulose, and glycogen ("animal starch") are common glucose polymers (polysaccharides). Some of these polymers (starch or glycogen) serve as energy stores, while others (cellulose and chitin, which is made from a derivative of glucose) have structural roles. Oligosaccharides of glucose combined with other sugars serve as important energy stores. These include lactose, the predominant sugar in milk, which is a glucose-galactose disaccharide, and sucrose, another disaccharide which is composed of glucose and fructose. Glucose is also added onto certain proteins and lipids in a process called glycosylation. This is often critical for their functioning. The enzymes that join glucose to other molecules usually use phosphorylated glucose to power the formation of the new bond by coupling it with the breaking of the glucose-phosphate bond.
Other than its direct use as a monomer, glucose can be broken down to synthesize a wide variety of other biomolecules. This is important, as glucose serves both as a primary store of energy and as a source of organic carbon. Glucose can be broken down and converted into lipids. It is also a precursor for the synthesis of other important molecules such as vitamin C (ascorbic acid). In living organisms, glucose is converted to several other chemical compounds that are the starting material for various metabolic pathways. Among them, all other monosaccharides such as fructose (via the polyol pathway), mannose (the epimer of glucose at position 2), galactose (the epimer at position 4), fucose, various uronic acids and the amino sugars are produced from glucose. In addition to the phosphorylation to glucose-6-phosphate, which is part of the glycolysis, glucose can be oxidized during its degradation to glucono-1,5-lactone. Glucose is used in some bacteria as a building block in the trehalose or the dextran biosynthesis and in animals as a building block of glycogen. Glucose can also be converted from bacterial xylose isomerase to fructose. In addition, glucose metabolites produce all nonessential amino acids, sugar alcohols such as mannitol and sorbitol, fatty acids, cholesterol and nucleic acids. Finally, glucose is used as a building block in the glycosylation of proteins to glycoproteins, glycolipids, peptidoglycans, glycosides and other substances (catalyzed by glycosyltransferases) and can be cleaved from them by glycosidases.
Diabetes is a metabolic disorder where the body is unable to regulate levels of glucose in the blood either because of a lack of insulin in the body or the failure, by cells in the body, to respond properly to insulin. Each of these situations can be caused by persistently high elevations of blood glucose levels, through pancreatic burnout and insulin resistance. The pancreas is the organ responsible for the secretion of the hormones insulin and glucagon. Insulin is a hormone that regulates glucose levels, allowing the body's cells to absorb and use glucose. Without it, glucose cannot enter the cell and therefore cannot be used as fuel for the body's functions. If the pancreas is exposed to persistently high elevations of blood glucose levels, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas could be damaged, causing a lack of insulin in the body. Insulin resistance occurs when the pancreas tries to produce more and more insulin in response to persistently elevated blood glucose levels. Eventually, the rest of the body becomes resistant to the insulin that the pancreas is producing, thereby requiring more insulin to achieve the same blood glucose-lowering effect, and forcing the pancreas to produce even more insulin to compete with the resistance. This negative spiral contributes to pancreatic burnout, and the disease progression of diabetes.
To monitor the body's response to blood glucose-lowering therapy, glucose levels can be measured. Blood glucose monitoring can be performed by multiple methods, such as the fasting glucose test which measures the level of glucose in the blood after 8 hours of fasting. Another test is the 2-hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) – for this test, the person has a fasting glucose test done, then drinks a 75-gram glucose drink and is retested. This test measures the ability of the person's body to process glucose. Over time the blood glucose levels should decrease as insulin allows it to be taken up by cells and exit the blood stream.
Individuals with diabetes or other conditions that result in low blood sugar often carry small amounts of sugar in various forms. One sugar commonly used is glucose, often in the form of glucose tablets (glucose pressed into a tablet shape sometimes with one or more other ingredients as a binder), hard candy, or sugar packet.
Most dietary carbohydrates contain glucose, either as their only building block (as in the polysaccharides starch and glycogen), or together with another monosaccharide (as in the hetero-polysaccharides sucrose and lactose). Unbound glucose is one of the main ingredients of honey. Glucose is extremely abundant and has been isolated from a variety of natural sources across the world, including male cones of the coniferous tree Wollemia nobilis in Rome, the roots of Ilex asprella plants in China, and straws from rice in California.
Glucose is produced industrially from starch by enzymatic hydrolysis using glucose amylase or by the use of acids. Enzymatic hydrolysis has largely displaced acid-catalyzed hydrolysis reactions. The result is glucose syrup (enzymatically with more than 90% glucose in the dry matter) with an annual worldwide production volume of 20 million tonnes (as of 2011). This is the reason for the former common name "starch sugar". The amylases most often come from Bacillus licheniformis or Bacillus subtilis (strain MN-385), which are more thermostable than the originally used enzymes. Starting in 1982, pullulanases from Aspergillus niger were used in the production of glucose syrup to convert amylopectin to starch (amylose), thereby increasing the yield of glucose. The reaction is carried out at a pH = 4.6–5.2 and a temperature of 55–60 °C. Corn syrup has between 20% and 95% glucose in the dry matter. The Japanese form of the glucose syrup, Mizuame, is made from sweet potato or rice starch. Maltodextrin contains about 20% glucose.
Many crops can be used as the source of starch. Maize, rice, wheat, cassava, potato, barley, sweet potato, corn husk and sago are all used in various parts of the world. In the United States, corn starch (from maize) is used almost exclusively. Some commercial glucose occurs as a component of invert sugar, a roughly 1:1 mixture of glucose and fructose that is produced from sucrose. In principle, cellulose could be hydrolyzed to glucose, but this process is not yet commercially practical.
In the US, almost exclusively corn (more precisely, corn syrup) is used as glucose source for the production of isoglucose, which is a mixture of glucose and fructose, since fructose has a higher sweetening power – with same physiological calorific value of 374 kilocalories per 100 g. The annual world production of isoglucose is 8 million tonnes (as of 2011). When made from corn syrup, the final product is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
Glucose is mainly used for the production of fructose and of glucose-containing foods. In foods, it is used as a sweetener, humectant, to increase the volume and to create a softer mouthfeel. Various sources of glucose, such as grape juice (for wine) or malt (for beer), are used for fermentation to ethanol during the production of alcoholic beverages. Most soft drinks in the US use HFCS-55 (with a fructose content of 55% in the dry mass), while most other HFCS-sweetened foods in the US use HFCS-42 (with a fructose content of 42% in the dry mass). In Mexico, on the other hand, soft drinks are sweetened by cane sugar, which has a higher sweetening power. In addition, glucose syrup is used, inter alia, in the production of confectionery such as candies, toffee and fondant. Typical chemical reactions of glucose when heated under water-free conditions are caramelization and, in presence of amino acids, the Maillard reaction.
In addition, various organic acids can be biotechnologically produced from glucose, for example by fermentation with Clostridium thermoaceticum to produce acetic acid, with Penicillium notatum for the production of araboascorbic acid, with Rhizopus delemar for the production of fumaric acid, with Aspergillus niger for the production of gluconic acid, with Candida brumptii to produce isocitric acid, with Aspergillus terreus for the production of itaconic acid, with Pseudomonas fluorescens for the production of 2-ketogluconic acid, with Gluconobacter suboxydans for the production of 5-ketogluconic acid, with Aspergillus oryzae for the production of kojic acid, with Lactobacillus delbrueckii for the production of lactic acid, with Lactobacillus brevis for the production of malic acid, with Propionibacter shermanii for the production of propionic acid, with Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the production of pyruvic acid and with Gluconobacter suboxydans for the production of tartaric acid. Potent, bioactive natural products like triptolide that inhibit mammalian transcription via inhibition of the XPB subunit of the general transcription factor TFIIH has been recently reported as a glucose conjugate for targeting hypoxic cancer cells with increased glucose transporter expression. Recently, glucose has been gaining commercial use as a key component of "kits" containing lactic acid and insulin intended to induce hypoglycemia and hyperlactatemia to combat different cancers and infections.
When a glucose molecule is to be detected at a certain position in a larger molecule, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography analysis or lectin immunostaining is performed with concanavalin A reporter enzyme conjugate, which binds only glucose or mannose.
These reactions have only historical significance:
The Fehling test is a classic method for the detection of aldoses. Due to mutarotation, glucose is always present to a small extent as an open-chain aldehyde. By adding the Fehling reagents (Fehling (I) solution and Fehling (II) solution), the aldehyde group is oxidized to a carboxylic acid, while the Cu tartrate complex is reduced to Cu and forms a brick red precipitate (Cu2O).
In the Tollens test, after addition of ammoniacal AgNO3 to the sample solution, glucose reduces Ag to elemental silver.
In Barfoed's test, a solution of dissolved copper acetate, sodium acetate and acetic acid is added to the solution of the sugar to be tested and subsequently heated in a water bath for a few minutes. Glucose and other monosaccharides rapidly produce a reddish color and reddish brown copper(I) oxide (Cu2O).
As a reducing sugar, glucose reacts in the Nylander's test.
Upon heating a dilute potassium hydroxide solution with glucose to 100 °C, a strong reddish browning and a caramel-like odor develops. Concentrated sulfuric acid dissolves dry glucose without blackening at room temperature forming sugar sulfuric acid. In a yeast solution, alcoholic fermentation produces carbon dioxide in the ratio of 2.0454 molecules of glucose to one molecule of CO2. Glucose forms a black mass with stannous chloride. In an ammoniacal silver solution, glucose (as well as lactose and dextrin) leads to the deposition of silver. In an ammoniacal lead acetate solution, white lead glycoside is formed in the presence of glucose, which becomes less soluble on cooking and turns brown. In an ammoniacal copper solution, yellow copper oxide hydrate is formed with glucose at room temperature, while red copper oxide is formed during boiling (same with dextrin, except for with an ammoniacal copper acetate solution). With Hager's reagent, glucose forms mercury oxide during boiling. An alkaline bismuth solution is used to precipitate elemental, black-brown bismuth with glucose. Glucose boiled in an ammonium molybdate solution turns the solution blue. A solution with indigo carmine and sodium carbonate destains when boiled with glucose.
In concentrated solutions of glucose with a low proportion of other carbohydrates, its concentration can be determined with a polarimeter. For sugar mixtures, the concentration can be determined with a refractometer, for example in the Oechsle determination in the course of the production of wine.
The enzyme glucose oxidase (GOx) converts glucose into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide while consuming oxygen. Another enzyme, peroxidase, catalyzes a chromogenic reaction (Trinder reaction) of phenol with 4-aminoantipyrine to a purple dye.
The test-strip method employs the above-mentioned enzymatic conversion of glucose to gluconic acid to form hydrogen peroxide. The reagents are immobilised on a polymer matrix, the so-called test strip, which assumes a more or less intense color. This can be measured reflectometrically at 510 nm with the aid of an LED-based handheld photometer. This allows routine blood sugar determination by nonscientists. In addition to the reaction of phenol with 4-aminoantipyrine, new chromogenic reactions have been developed that allow photometry at higher wavelengths (550 nm, 750 nm).
The electroanalysis of glucose is also based on the enzymatic reaction mentioned above. The produced hydrogen peroxide can be amperometrically quantified by anodic oxidation at a potential of 600 mV. The GOx is immobilized on the electrode surface or in a membrane placed close to the electrode. Precious metals such as platinum or gold are used in electrodes, as well as carbon nanotube electrodes, which e.g. are doped with boron. Cu–CuO nanowires are also used as enzyme-free amperometric electrodes, reaching a detection limit of 50 μmol/L. A particularly promising method is the so-called "enzyme wiring", where the electron flowing during the oxidation is transferred via a molecular wire directly from the enzyme to the electrode.
There are a variety of other chemical sensors for measuring glucose. Given the importance of glucose analysis in the life sciences, numerous optical probes have also been developed for saccharides based on the use of boronic acids, which are particularly useful for intracellular sensory applications where other (optical) methods are not or only conditionally usable. In addition to the organic boronic acid derivatives, which often bind highly specifically to the 1,2-diol groups of sugars, there are also other probe concepts classified by functional mechanisms which use selective glucose-binding proteins (e.g. concanavalin A) as a receptor. Furthermore, methods were developed which indirectly detect the glucose concentration via the concentration of metabolized products, e.g. by the consumption of oxygen using fluorescence-optical sensors. Finally, there are enzyme-based concepts that use the intrinsic absorbance or fluorescence of (fluorescence-labeled) enzymes as reporters.
Glucose can be quantified by copper iodometry.
In particular, for the analysis of complex mixtures containing glucose, e.g. in honey, chromatographic methods such as high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography are often used in combination with mass spectrometry. Taking into account the isotope ratios, it is also possible to reliably detect honey adulteration by added sugars with these methods. Derivatization using silylation reagents is commonly used. Also, the proportions of di- and trisaccharides can be quantified.
Glucose uptake in cells of organisms is measured with 2-deoxy-D-glucose or fluorodeoxyglucose. (F)fluorodeoxyglucose is used as a tracer in positron emission tomography in oncology and neurology, where it is by far the most commonly used diagnostic agent. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula C6H12O6. Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using energy from sunlight, where it is used to make cellulose in cell walls, the most abundant carbohydrate in the world.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In energy metabolism, glucose is the most important source of energy in all organisms. Glucose for metabolism is stored as a polymer, in plants mainly as starch and amylopectin, and in animals as glycogen. Glucose circulates in the blood of animals as blood sugar. The naturally occurring form of glucose is d-glucose, while its stereoisomer l-glucose is produced synthetically in comparatively small amounts and is less biologically active. Glucose is a monosaccharide containing six carbon atoms and an aldehyde group, and is therefore an aldohexose. The glucose molecule can exist in an open-chain (acyclic) as well as ring (cyclic) form. Glucose is naturally occurring and is found in its free state in fruits and other parts of plants. In animals, glucose is released from the breakdown of glycogen in a process known as glycogenolysis.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Glucose, as intravenous sugar solution, is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is also on the list in combination with sodium chloride.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name glucose is derived from Ancient Greek γλεῦκος (gleûkos, \"wine, must\"), from γλυκύς (glykýs, \"sweet\"). The suffix \"-ose\" is a chemical classifier, denoting a sugar.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Glucose was first isolated from raisins in 1747 by the German chemist Andreas Marggraf. Glucose was discovered in grapes by another German chemist – Johann Tobias Lowitz – in 1792, and distinguished as being different from cane sugar (sucrose). Glucose is the term coined by Jean Baptiste Dumas in 1838, which has prevailed in the chemical literature. Friedrich August Kekulé proposed the term dextrose (from the Latin dexter, meaning \"right\"), because in aqueous solution of glucose, the plane of linearly polarized light is turned to the right. In contrast, l-fructose (usually referred to as d-fructose) (a ketohexose) and l-glucose (l-glucose) turn linearly polarized light to the left. The earlier notation according to the rotation of the plane of linearly polarized light (d and l-nomenclature) was later abandoned in favor of the d- and l-notation, which refers to the absolute configuration of the asymmetric center farthest from the carbonyl group, and in concordance with the configuration of d- or l-glyceraldehyde.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Since glucose is a basic necessity of many organisms, a correct understanding of its chemical makeup and structure contributed greatly to a general advancement in organic chemistry. This understanding occurred largely as a result of the investigations of Emil Fischer, a German chemist who received the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his findings. The synthesis of glucose established the structure of organic material and consequently formed the first definitive validation of Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff's theories of chemical kinetics and the arrangements of chemical bonds in carbon-bearing molecules. Between 1891 and 1894, Fischer established the stereochemical configuration of all the known sugars and correctly predicted the possible isomers, applying Van 't Hoff's theory of asymmetrical carbon atoms. The names initially referred to the natural substances. Their enantiomers were given the same name with the introduction of systematic nomenclatures, taking into account absolute stereochemistry (e.g. Fischer nomenclature, d/l nomenclature).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "For the discovery of the metabolism of glucose Otto Meyerhof received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922. Hans von Euler-Chelpin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Arthur Harden in 1929 for their \"research on the fermentation of sugar and their share of enzymes in this process\". In 1947, Bernardo Houssay (for his discovery of the role of the pituitary gland in the metabolism of glucose and the derived carbohydrates) as well as Carl and Gerty Cori (for their discovery of the conversion of glycogen from glucose) received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1970, Luis Leloir was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of glucose-derived sugar nucleotides in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Glucose forms white or colorless solids that are highly soluble in water and acetic acid but poorly soluble in methanol and ethanol. They melt at 146 °C (295 °F) (α) and 150 °C (302 °F) (β), and decompose starting at 188 °C (370 °F) with release of various volatile products, ultimately leaving a residue of carbon. Glucose has a pK value of 12.16 at 25 °C (77 °F) in water.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "With six carbon atoms, it is classed as a hexose, a subcategory of the monosaccharides. d-Glucose is one of the sixteen aldohexose stereoisomers. The d-isomer, d-glucose, also known as dextrose, occurs widely in nature, but the l-isomer, l-glucose, does not. Glucose can be obtained by hydrolysis of carbohydrates such as milk sugar (lactose), cane sugar (sucrose), maltose, cellulose, glycogen, etc. Dextrose is commonly commercially manufactured from cornstarch in the US and Japan, from potato and wheat starch in Europe, and from tapioca starch in tropical areas. The manufacturing process uses hydrolysis via pressurized steaming at controlled pH in a jet followed by further enzymatic depolymerization. Unbonded glucose is one of the main ingredients of honey.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Glucose is usually present in solid form as a monohydrate with a closed pyran ring (α-glucopyranose monohydrate, sometimes known less precisely by dextrose hydrate). In aqueous solution, on the other hand, it is an open-chain to a small extent and is present predominantly as α- or β-pyranose, which interconvert. From aqueous solutions, the three known forms can be crystallized: α-glucopyranose, β-glucopyranose and α-glucopyranose monohydrate. Glucose is a building block of the disaccharides lactose and sucrose (cane or beet sugar), of oligosaccharides such as raffinose and of polysaccharides such as starch, amylopectin, glycogen, and cellulose. The glass transition temperature of glucose is 31 °C (88 °F) and the Gordon–Taylor constant (an experimentally determined constant for the prediction of the glass transition temperature for different mass fractions of a mixture of two substances) is 4.5.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The open-chain form of glucose makes up less than 0.02% of the glucose molecules in an aqueous solution at equilibrium. The rest is one of two cyclic hemiacetal forms. In its open-chain form, the glucose molecule has an open (as opposed to cyclic) unbranched backbone of six carbon atoms, where C-1 is part of an aldehyde group H(C=O)−. Therefore, glucose is also classified as an aldose, or an aldohexose. The aldehyde group makes glucose a reducing sugar giving a positive reaction with the Fehling test.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In solutions, the open-chain form of glucose (either \"D-\" or \"L-\") exists in equilibrium with several cyclic isomers, each containing a ring of carbons closed by one oxygen atom. In aqueous solution, however, more than 99% of glucose molecules exist as pyranose forms. The open-chain form is limited to about 0.25%, and furanose forms exist in negligible amounts. The terms \"glucose\" and \"D-glucose\" are generally used for these cyclic forms as well. The ring arises from the open-chain form by an intramolecular nucleophilic addition reaction between the aldehyde group (at C-1) and either the C-4 or C-5 hydroxyl group, forming a hemiacetal linkage, −C(OH)H−O−.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The reaction between C-1 and C-5 yields a six-membered heterocyclic system called a pyranose, which is a monosaccharide sugar (hence \"-ose\") containing a derivatised pyran skeleton. The (much rarer) reaction between C-1 and C-4 yields a five-membered furanose ring, named after the cyclic ether furan. In either case, each carbon in the ring has one hydrogen and one hydroxyl attached, except for the last carbon (C-4 or C-5) where the hydroxyl is replaced by the remainder of the open molecule (which is −(C(CH2OH)HOH)−H or −(CHOH)−H respectively).",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The ring-closing reaction can give two products, denoted \"α-\" and \"β-\". When a glucopyranose molecule is drawn in the Haworth projection, the designation \"α-\" means that the hydroxyl group attached to C-1 and the −CH2OH group at C-5 lies on opposite sides of the ring's plane (a trans arrangement), while \"β-\" means that they are on the same side of the plane (a cis arrangement). Therefore, the open-chain isomer D-glucose gives rise to four distinct cyclic isomers: α-D-glucopyranose, β-D-glucopyranose, α-D-glucofuranose, and β-D-glucofuranose. These five structures exist in equilibrium and interconvert, and the interconversion is much more rapid with acid catalysis.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The other open-chain isomer L-glucose similarly gives rise to four distinct cyclic forms of L-glucose, each the mirror image of the corresponding D-glucose.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The glucopyranose ring (α or β) can assume several non-planar shapes, analogous to the \"chair\" and \"boat\" conformations of cyclohexane. Similarly, the glucofuranose ring may assume several shapes, analogous to the \"envelope\" conformations of cyclopentane.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the solid state, only the glucopyranose forms are observed.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Some derivatives of glucofuranose, such as 1,2-O-isopropylidene-D-glucofuranose are stable and can be obtained pure as crystalline solids. For example, reaction of α-D-glucose with para-tolylboronic acid H3C−(C6H4)−B(OH)2 reforms the normal pyranose ring to yield the 4-fold ester α-D-glucofuranose-1,2:3,5-bis(p-tolylboronate).",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Mutarotation consists of a temporary reversal of the ring-forming reaction, resulting in the open-chain form, followed by a reforming of the ring. The ring closure step may use a different −OH group than the one recreated by the opening step (thus switching between pyranose and furanose forms), or the new hemiacetal group created on C-1 may have the same or opposite handedness as the original one (thus switching between the α and β forms). Thus, though the open-chain form is barely detectable in solution, it is an essential component of the equilibrium.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The open-chain form is thermodynamically unstable, and it spontaneously isomerizes to the cyclic forms. (Although the ring closure reaction could in theory create four- or three-atom rings, these would be highly strained, and are not observed in practice.) In solutions at room temperature, the four cyclic isomers interconvert over a time scale of hours, in a process called mutarotation. Starting from any proportions, the mixture converges to a stable ratio of α:β 36:64. The ratio would be α:β 11:89 if it were not for the influence of the anomeric effect. Mutarotation is considerably slower at temperatures close to 0 °C (32 °F).",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Whether in water or the solid form, d-(+)-glucose is dextrorotatory, meaning it will rotate the direction of polarized light clockwise as seen looking toward the light source. The effect is due to the chirality of the molecules, and indeed the mirror-image isomer, l-(−)-glucose, is levorotatory (rotates polarized light counterclockwise) by the same amount. The strength of the effect is different for each of the five tautomers.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Note that the d- prefix does not refer directly to the optical properties of the compound. It indicates that the C-5 chiral centre has the same handedness as that of d-glyceraldehyde (which was so labelled because it is dextrorotatory). The fact that d-glucose is dextrorotatory is a combined effect of its four chiral centres, not just of C-5; and indeed some of the other d-aldohexoses are levorotatory.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The conversion between the two anomers can be observed in a polarimeter since pure α-d-glucose has a specific rotation angle of +112.2° mL/(dm·g), pure β-d-glucose of +17.5° mL/(dm·g). When equilibrium has been reached after a certain time due to mutarotation, the angle of rotation is +52.7° mL/(dm·g). By adding acid or base, this transformation is much accelerated. The equilibration takes place via the open-chain aldehyde form.",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In dilute sodium hydroxide or other dilute bases, the monosaccharides mannose, glucose and fructose interconvert (via a Lobry de Bruyn–Alberda–Van Ekenstein transformation), so that a balance between these isomers is formed. This reaction proceeds via an enediol:",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "",
"title": "Chemical and physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Glucose is the most abundant monosaccharide. Glucose is also the most widely used aldohexose in most living organisms. One possible explanation for this is that glucose has a lower tendency than other aldohexoses to react nonspecifically with the amine groups of proteins. This reaction—glycation—impairs or destroys the function of many proteins, e.g. in glycated hemoglobin. Glucose's low rate of glycation can be attributed to its having a more stable cyclic form compared to other aldohexoses, which means it spends less time than they do in its reactive open-chain form. The reason for glucose having the most stable cyclic form of all the aldohexoses is that its hydroxy groups (with the exception of the hydroxy group on the anomeric carbon of d-glucose) are in the equatorial position. Presumably, glucose is the most abundant natural monosaccharide because it is less glycated with proteins than other monosaccharides. Another hypothesis is that glucose, being the only d-aldohexose that has all five hydroxy substituents in the equatorial position in the form of β-d-glucose, is more readily accessible to chemical reactions, for example, for esterification or acetal formation. For this reason, d-glucose is also a highly preferred building block in natural polysaccharides (glycans). Polysaccharides that are composed solely of glucose are termed glucans.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Glucose is produced by plants through photosynthesis using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and can be used by all living organisms as an energy and carbon source. However, most glucose does not occur in its free form, but in the form of its polymers, i.e. lactose, sucrose, starch and others which are energy reserve substances, and cellulose and chitin, which are components of the cell wall in plants or fungi and arthropods, respectively. These polymers, when consumed by animals, fungi and bacteria, are degraded to glucose using enzymes. All animals are also able to produce glucose themselves from certain precursors as the need arises. Neurons, cells of the renal medulla and erythrocytes depend on glucose for their energy production. In adult humans, there is about 18 g (0.63 oz) of glucose, of which about 4 g (0.14 oz) is present in the blood. Approximately 180–220 g (6.3–7.8 oz) of glucose is produced in the liver of an adult in 24 hours.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Many of the long-term complications of diabetes (e.g., blindness, kidney failure, and peripheral neuropathy) are probably due to the glycation of proteins or lipids. In contrast, enzyme-regulated addition of sugars to protein is called glycosylation and is essential for the function of many proteins.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Ingested glucose initially binds to the receptor for sweet taste on the tongue in humans. This complex of the proteins T1R2 and T1R3 makes it possible to identify glucose-containing food sources. Glucose mainly comes from food—about 300 g (11 oz) per day is produced by conversion of food, but it is also synthesized from other metabolites in the body's cells. In humans, the breakdown of glucose-containing polysaccharides happens in part already during chewing by means of amylase, which is contained in saliva, as well as by maltase, lactase, and sucrase on the brush border of the small intestine. Glucose is a building block of many carbohydrates and can be split off from them using certain enzymes. Glucosidases, a subgroup of the glycosidases, first catalyze the hydrolysis of long-chain glucose-containing polysaccharides, removing terminal glucose. In turn, disaccharides are mostly degraded by specific glycosidases to glucose. The names of the degrading enzymes are often derived from the particular poly- and disaccharide; inter alia, for the degradation of polysaccharide chains there are amylases (named after amylose, a component of starch), cellulases (named after cellulose), chitinases (named after chitin), and more. Furthermore, for the cleavage of disaccharides, there are maltase, lactase, sucrase, trehalase, and others. In humans, about 70 genes are known that code for glycosidases. They have functions in the digestion and degradation of glycogen, sphingolipids, mucopolysaccharides, and poly(ADP-ribose). Humans do not produce cellulases, chitinases, or trehalases, but the bacteria in the gut microbiota do.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In order to get into or out of cell membranes of cells and membranes of cell compartments, glucose requires special transport proteins from the major facilitator superfamily. In the small intestine (more precisely, in the jejunum), glucose is taken up into the intestinal epithelium with the help of glucose transporters via a secondary active transport mechanism called sodium ion-glucose symport via sodium/glucose cotransporter 1 (SGLT1). Further transfer occurs on the basolateral side of the intestinal epithelial cells via the glucose transporter GLUT2, as well uptake into liver cells, kidney cells, cells of the islets of Langerhans, neurons, astrocytes, and tanycytes. Glucose enters the liver via the portal vein and is stored there as a cellular glycogen. In the liver cell, it is phosphorylated by glucokinase at position 6 to form glucose 6-phosphate, which cannot leave the cell. Glucose 6-phosphatase can convert glucose 6-phosphate back into glucose exclusively in the liver, so the body can maintain a sufficient blood glucose concentration. In other cells, uptake happens by passive transport through one of the 14 GLUT proteins. In the other cell types, phosphorylation occurs through a hexokinase, whereupon glucose can no longer diffuse out of the cell.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The glucose transporter GLUT1 is produced by most cell types and is of particular importance for nerve cells and pancreatic β-cells. GLUT3 is highly expressed in nerve cells. Glucose from the bloodstream is taken up by GLUT4 from muscle cells (of the skeletal muscle and heart muscle) and fat cells. GLUT14 is expressed exclusively in testicles. Excess glucose is broken down and converted into fatty acids, which are stored as triglycerides. In the kidneys, glucose in the urine is absorbed via SGLT1 and SGLT2 in the apical cell membranes and transmitted via GLUT2 in the basolateral cell membranes. About 90% of kidney glucose reabsorption is via SGLT2 and about 3% via SGLT1.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In plants and some prokaryotes, glucose is a product of photosynthesis. Glucose is also formed by the breakdown of polymeric forms of glucose like glycogen (in animals and mushrooms) or starch (in plants). The cleavage of glycogen is termed glycogenolysis, the cleavage of starch is called starch degradation.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The metabolic pathway that begins with molecules containing two to four carbon atoms (C) and ends in the glucose molecule containing six carbon atoms is called gluconeogenesis and occurs in all living organisms. The smaller starting materials are the result of other metabolic pathways. Ultimately almost all biomolecules come from the assimilation of carbon dioxide in plants and microbes during photosynthesis. The free energy of formation of α-d-glucose is 917.2 kilojoules per mole. In humans, gluconeogenesis occurs in the liver and kidney, but also in other cell types. In the liver about 150 g (5.3 oz) of glycogen are stored, in skeletal muscle about 250 g (8.8 oz). However, the glucose released in muscle cells upon cleavage of the glycogen can not be delivered to the circulation because glucose is phosphorylated by the hexokinase, and a glucose-6-phosphatase is not expressed to remove the phosphate group. Unlike for glucose, there is no transport protein for glucose-6-phosphate. Gluconeogenesis allows the organism to build up glucose from other metabolites, including lactate or certain amino acids, while consuming energy. The renal tubular cells can also produce glucose.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Glucose also can be found outside of living organisms in the ambient environment. Glucose concentrations in the atmosphere are detected via collection of samples by aircraft and are known to vary from location to location. For example, glucose concentrations in atmospheric air from inland China range from 0.8 to 20.1 pg/L, whereas east coastal China glucose concentrations range from 10.3 to 142 pg/L.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In humans, glucose is metabolized by glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. Glycolysis is used by all living organisms, with small variations, and all organisms generate energy from the breakdown of monosaccharides. In the further course of the metabolism, it can be completely degraded via oxidative decarboxylation, the citric acid cycle (synonym Krebs cycle) and the respiratory chain to water and carbon dioxide. If there is not enough oxygen available for this, the glucose degradation in animals occurs anaerobic to lactate via lactic acid fermentation and releases much less energy. Muscular lactate enters the liver through the bloodstream in mammals, where gluconeogenesis occurs (Cori cycle). With a high supply of glucose, the metabolite acetyl-CoA from the Krebs cycle can also be used for fatty acid synthesis. Glucose is also used to replenish the body's glycogen stores, which are mainly found in liver and skeletal muscle. These processes are hormonally regulated.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In other living organisms, other forms of fermentation can occur. The bacterium Escherichia coli can grow on nutrient media containing glucose as the sole carbon source. In some bacteria and, in modified form, also in archaea, glucose is degraded via the Entner-Doudoroff pathway.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Use of glucose as an energy source in cells is by either aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration, or fermentation. The first step of glycolysis is the phosphorylation of glucose by a hexokinase to form glucose 6-phosphate. The main reason for the immediate phosphorylation of glucose is to prevent its diffusion out of the cell as the charged phosphate group prevents glucose 6-phosphate from easily crossing the cell membrane. Furthermore, addition of the high-energy phosphate group activates glucose for subsequent breakdown in later steps of glycolysis. At physiological conditions, this initial reaction is irreversible.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In anaerobic respiration, one glucose molecule produces a net gain of two ATP molecules (four ATP molecules are produced during glycolysis through substrate-level phosphorylation, but two are required by enzymes used during the process). In aerobic respiration, a molecule of glucose is much more profitable in that a maximum net production of 30 or 32 ATP molecules (depending on the organism) is generated.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Click on genes, proteins and metabolites below to link to respective articles.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Tumor cells often grow comparatively quickly and consume an above-average amount of glucose by glycolysis, which leads to the formation of lactate, the end product of fermentation in mammals, even in the presence of oxygen. This is called the Warburg effect. For the increased uptake of glucose in tumors various SGLT and GLUT are overly produced.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In yeast, ethanol is fermented at high glucose concentrations, even in the presence of oxygen (which normally leads to respiration rather than fermentation). This is called the Crabtree effect.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Glucose can also degrade to form carbon dioxide through abiotic means. This has been demonstrated to occur experimentally via oxidation and hydrolysis at 22 °C and a pH of 2.5.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Glucose is a ubiquitous fuel in biology. It is used as an energy source in organisms, from bacteria to humans, through either aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration (in bacteria), or fermentation. Glucose is the human body's key source of energy, through aerobic respiration, providing about 3.75 kilocalories (16 kilojoules) of food energy per gram. Breakdown of carbohydrates (e.g., starch) yields mono- and disaccharides, most of which is glucose. Through glycolysis and later in the reactions of the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, glucose is oxidized to eventually form carbon dioxide and water, yielding energy mostly in the form of ATP. The insulin reaction, and other mechanisms, regulate the concentration of glucose in the blood. The physiological caloric value of glucose, depending on the source, is 16.2 kilojoules per gram or 15.7 kJ/g (3.74 kcal/g). The high availability of carbohydrates from plant biomass has led to a variety of methods during evolution, especially in microorganisms, to utilize glucose for energy and carbon storage. Differences exist in which end product can no longer be used for energy production. The presence of individual genes, and their gene products, the enzymes, determine which reactions are possible. The metabolic pathway of glycolysis is used by almost all living beings. An essential difference in the use of glycolysis is the recovery of NADPH as a reductant for anabolism that would otherwise have to be generated indirectly.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Glucose and oxygen supply almost all the energy for the brain, so its availability influences psychological processes. When glucose is low, psychological processes requiring mental effort (e.g., self-control, effortful decision-making) are impaired. In the brain, which is dependent on glucose and oxygen as the major source of energy, the glucose concentration is usually 4 to 6 mM (5 mM equals 90 mg/dL), but decreases to 2 to 3 mM when fasting. Confusion occurs below 1 mM and coma at lower levels.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The glucose in the blood is called blood sugar. Blood sugar levels are regulated by glucose-binding nerve cells in the hypothalamus. In addition, glucose in the brain binds to glucose receptors of the reward system in the nucleus accumbens. The binding of glucose to the sweet receptor on the tongue induces a release of various hormones of energy metabolism, either through glucose or through other sugars, leading to an increased cellular uptake and lower blood sugar levels. Artificial sweeteners do not lower blood sugar levels.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The blood sugar content of a healthy person in the short-time fasting state, e.g. after overnight fasting, is about 70 to 100 mg/dL of blood (4 to 5.5 mM). In blood plasma, the measured values are about 10–15% higher. In addition, the values in the arterial blood are higher than the concentrations in the venous blood since glucose is absorbed into the tissue during the passage of the capillary bed. Also in the capillary blood, which is often used for blood sugar determination, the values are sometimes higher than in the venous blood. The glucose content of the blood is regulated by the hormones insulin, incretin and glucagon. Insulin lowers the glucose level, glucagon increases it. Furthermore, the hormones adrenaline, thyroxine, glucocorticoids, somatotropin and adrenocorticotropin lead to an increase in the glucose level. There is also a hormone-independent regulation, which is referred to as glucose autoregulation. After food intake the blood sugar concentration increases. Values over 180 mg/dL in venous whole blood are pathological and are termed hyperglycemia, values below 40 mg/dL are termed hypoglycaemia. When needed, glucose is released into the bloodstream by glucose-6-phosphatase from glucose-6-phosphate originating from liver and kidney glycogen, thereby regulating the homeostasis of blood glucose concentration. In ruminants, the blood glucose concentration is lower (60 mg/dL in cattle and 40 mg/dL in sheep), because the carbohydrates are converted more by their gut microbiota into short-chain fatty acids.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Some glucose is converted to lactic acid by astrocytes, which is then utilized as an energy source by brain cells; some glucose is used by intestinal cells and red blood cells, while the rest reaches the liver, adipose tissue and muscle cells, where it is absorbed and stored as glycogen (under the influence of insulin). Liver cell glycogen can be converted to glucose and returned to the blood when insulin is low or absent; muscle cell glycogen is not returned to the blood because of a lack of enzymes. In fat cells, glucose is used to power reactions that synthesize some fat types and have other purposes. Glycogen is the body's \"glucose energy storage\" mechanism, because it is much more \"space efficient\" and less reactive than glucose itself.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "As a result of its importance in human health, glucose is an analyte in glucose tests that are common medical blood tests. Eating or fasting prior to taking a blood sample has an effect on analyses for glucose in the blood; a high fasting glucose blood sugar level may be a sign of prediabetes or diabetes mellitus.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The glycemic index is an indicator of the speed of resorption and conversion to blood glucose levels from ingested carbohydrates, measured as the area under the curve of blood glucose levels after consumption in comparison to glucose (glucose is defined as 100). The clinical importance of the glycemic index is controversial, as foods with high fat contents slow the resorption of carbohydrates and lower the glycemic index, e.g. ice cream. An alternative indicator is the insulin index, measured as the impact of carbohydrate consumption on the blood insulin levels. The glycemic load is an indicator for the amount of glucose added to blood glucose levels after consumption, based on the glycemic index and the amount of consumed food.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Organisms use glucose as a precursor for the synthesis of several important substances. Starch, cellulose, and glycogen (\"animal starch\") are common glucose polymers (polysaccharides). Some of these polymers (starch or glycogen) serve as energy stores, while others (cellulose and chitin, which is made from a derivative of glucose) have structural roles. Oligosaccharides of glucose combined with other sugars serve as important energy stores. These include lactose, the predominant sugar in milk, which is a glucose-galactose disaccharide, and sucrose, another disaccharide which is composed of glucose and fructose. Glucose is also added onto certain proteins and lipids in a process called glycosylation. This is often critical for their functioning. The enzymes that join glucose to other molecules usually use phosphorylated glucose to power the formation of the new bond by coupling it with the breaking of the glucose-phosphate bond.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Other than its direct use as a monomer, glucose can be broken down to synthesize a wide variety of other biomolecules. This is important, as glucose serves both as a primary store of energy and as a source of organic carbon. Glucose can be broken down and converted into lipids. It is also a precursor for the synthesis of other important molecules such as vitamin C (ascorbic acid). In living organisms, glucose is converted to several other chemical compounds that are the starting material for various metabolic pathways. Among them, all other monosaccharides such as fructose (via the polyol pathway), mannose (the epimer of glucose at position 2), galactose (the epimer at position 4), fucose, various uronic acids and the amino sugars are produced from glucose. In addition to the phosphorylation to glucose-6-phosphate, which is part of the glycolysis, glucose can be oxidized during its degradation to glucono-1,5-lactone. Glucose is used in some bacteria as a building block in the trehalose or the dextran biosynthesis and in animals as a building block of glycogen. Glucose can also be converted from bacterial xylose isomerase to fructose. In addition, glucose metabolites produce all nonessential amino acids, sugar alcohols such as mannitol and sorbitol, fatty acids, cholesterol and nucleic acids. Finally, glucose is used as a building block in the glycosylation of proteins to glycoproteins, glycolipids, peptidoglycans, glycosides and other substances (catalyzed by glycosyltransferases) and can be cleaved from them by glycosidases.",
"title": "Biochemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Diabetes is a metabolic disorder where the body is unable to regulate levels of glucose in the blood either because of a lack of insulin in the body or the failure, by cells in the body, to respond properly to insulin. Each of these situations can be caused by persistently high elevations of blood glucose levels, through pancreatic burnout and insulin resistance. The pancreas is the organ responsible for the secretion of the hormones insulin and glucagon. Insulin is a hormone that regulates glucose levels, allowing the body's cells to absorb and use glucose. Without it, glucose cannot enter the cell and therefore cannot be used as fuel for the body's functions. If the pancreas is exposed to persistently high elevations of blood glucose levels, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas could be damaged, causing a lack of insulin in the body. Insulin resistance occurs when the pancreas tries to produce more and more insulin in response to persistently elevated blood glucose levels. Eventually, the rest of the body becomes resistant to the insulin that the pancreas is producing, thereby requiring more insulin to achieve the same blood glucose-lowering effect, and forcing the pancreas to produce even more insulin to compete with the resistance. This negative spiral contributes to pancreatic burnout, and the disease progression of diabetes.",
"title": "Pathology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "To monitor the body's response to blood glucose-lowering therapy, glucose levels can be measured. Blood glucose monitoring can be performed by multiple methods, such as the fasting glucose test which measures the level of glucose in the blood after 8 hours of fasting. Another test is the 2-hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) – for this test, the person has a fasting glucose test done, then drinks a 75-gram glucose drink and is retested. This test measures the ability of the person's body to process glucose. Over time the blood glucose levels should decrease as insulin allows it to be taken up by cells and exit the blood stream.",
"title": "Pathology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Individuals with diabetes or other conditions that result in low blood sugar often carry small amounts of sugar in various forms. One sugar commonly used is glucose, often in the form of glucose tablets (glucose pressed into a tablet shape sometimes with one or more other ingredients as a binder), hard candy, or sugar packet.",
"title": "Pathology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Most dietary carbohydrates contain glucose, either as their only building block (as in the polysaccharides starch and glycogen), or together with another monosaccharide (as in the hetero-polysaccharides sucrose and lactose). Unbound glucose is one of the main ingredients of honey. Glucose is extremely abundant and has been isolated from a variety of natural sources across the world, including male cones of the coniferous tree Wollemia nobilis in Rome, the roots of Ilex asprella plants in China, and straws from rice in California.",
"title": "Sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Glucose is produced industrially from starch by enzymatic hydrolysis using glucose amylase or by the use of acids. Enzymatic hydrolysis has largely displaced acid-catalyzed hydrolysis reactions. The result is glucose syrup (enzymatically with more than 90% glucose in the dry matter) with an annual worldwide production volume of 20 million tonnes (as of 2011). This is the reason for the former common name \"starch sugar\". The amylases most often come from Bacillus licheniformis or Bacillus subtilis (strain MN-385), which are more thermostable than the originally used enzymes. Starting in 1982, pullulanases from Aspergillus niger were used in the production of glucose syrup to convert amylopectin to starch (amylose), thereby increasing the yield of glucose. The reaction is carried out at a pH = 4.6–5.2 and a temperature of 55–60 °C. Corn syrup has between 20% and 95% glucose in the dry matter. The Japanese form of the glucose syrup, Mizuame, is made from sweet potato or rice starch. Maltodextrin contains about 20% glucose.",
"title": "Commercial production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Many crops can be used as the source of starch. Maize, rice, wheat, cassava, potato, barley, sweet potato, corn husk and sago are all used in various parts of the world. In the United States, corn starch (from maize) is used almost exclusively. Some commercial glucose occurs as a component of invert sugar, a roughly 1:1 mixture of glucose and fructose that is produced from sucrose. In principle, cellulose could be hydrolyzed to glucose, but this process is not yet commercially practical.",
"title": "Commercial production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In the US, almost exclusively corn (more precisely, corn syrup) is used as glucose source for the production of isoglucose, which is a mixture of glucose and fructose, since fructose has a higher sweetening power – with same physiological calorific value of 374 kilocalories per 100 g. The annual world production of isoglucose is 8 million tonnes (as of 2011). When made from corn syrup, the final product is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).",
"title": "Commercial production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Glucose is mainly used for the production of fructose and of glucose-containing foods. In foods, it is used as a sweetener, humectant, to increase the volume and to create a softer mouthfeel. Various sources of glucose, such as grape juice (for wine) or malt (for beer), are used for fermentation to ethanol during the production of alcoholic beverages. Most soft drinks in the US use HFCS-55 (with a fructose content of 55% in the dry mass), while most other HFCS-sweetened foods in the US use HFCS-42 (with a fructose content of 42% in the dry mass). In Mexico, on the other hand, soft drinks are sweetened by cane sugar, which has a higher sweetening power. In addition, glucose syrup is used, inter alia, in the production of confectionery such as candies, toffee and fondant. Typical chemical reactions of glucose when heated under water-free conditions are caramelization and, in presence of amino acids, the Maillard reaction.",
"title": "Commercial usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In addition, various organic acids can be biotechnologically produced from glucose, for example by fermentation with Clostridium thermoaceticum to produce acetic acid, with Penicillium notatum for the production of araboascorbic acid, with Rhizopus delemar for the production of fumaric acid, with Aspergillus niger for the production of gluconic acid, with Candida brumptii to produce isocitric acid, with Aspergillus terreus for the production of itaconic acid, with Pseudomonas fluorescens for the production of 2-ketogluconic acid, with Gluconobacter suboxydans for the production of 5-ketogluconic acid, with Aspergillus oryzae for the production of kojic acid, with Lactobacillus delbrueckii for the production of lactic acid, with Lactobacillus brevis for the production of malic acid, with Propionibacter shermanii for the production of propionic acid, with Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the production of pyruvic acid and with Gluconobacter suboxydans for the production of tartaric acid. Potent, bioactive natural products like triptolide that inhibit mammalian transcription via inhibition of the XPB subunit of the general transcription factor TFIIH has been recently reported as a glucose conjugate for targeting hypoxic cancer cells with increased glucose transporter expression. Recently, glucose has been gaining commercial use as a key component of \"kits\" containing lactic acid and insulin intended to induce hypoglycemia and hyperlactatemia to combat different cancers and infections.",
"title": "Commercial usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "When a glucose molecule is to be detected at a certain position in a larger molecule, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography analysis or lectin immunostaining is performed with concanavalin A reporter enzyme conjugate, which binds only glucose or mannose.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "These reactions have only historical significance:",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Fehling test is a classic method for the detection of aldoses. Due to mutarotation, glucose is always present to a small extent as an open-chain aldehyde. By adding the Fehling reagents (Fehling (I) solution and Fehling (II) solution), the aldehyde group is oxidized to a carboxylic acid, while the Cu tartrate complex is reduced to Cu and forms a brick red precipitate (Cu2O).",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In the Tollens test, after addition of ammoniacal AgNO3 to the sample solution, glucose reduces Ag to elemental silver.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In Barfoed's test, a solution of dissolved copper acetate, sodium acetate and acetic acid is added to the solution of the sugar to be tested and subsequently heated in a water bath for a few minutes. Glucose and other monosaccharides rapidly produce a reddish color and reddish brown copper(I) oxide (Cu2O).",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "As a reducing sugar, glucose reacts in the Nylander's test.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Upon heating a dilute potassium hydroxide solution with glucose to 100 °C, a strong reddish browning and a caramel-like odor develops. Concentrated sulfuric acid dissolves dry glucose without blackening at room temperature forming sugar sulfuric acid. In a yeast solution, alcoholic fermentation produces carbon dioxide in the ratio of 2.0454 molecules of glucose to one molecule of CO2. Glucose forms a black mass with stannous chloride. In an ammoniacal silver solution, glucose (as well as lactose and dextrin) leads to the deposition of silver. In an ammoniacal lead acetate solution, white lead glycoside is formed in the presence of glucose, which becomes less soluble on cooking and turns brown. In an ammoniacal copper solution, yellow copper oxide hydrate is formed with glucose at room temperature, while red copper oxide is formed during boiling (same with dextrin, except for with an ammoniacal copper acetate solution). With Hager's reagent, glucose forms mercury oxide during boiling. An alkaline bismuth solution is used to precipitate elemental, black-brown bismuth with glucose. Glucose boiled in an ammonium molybdate solution turns the solution blue. A solution with indigo carmine and sodium carbonate destains when boiled with glucose.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In concentrated solutions of glucose with a low proportion of other carbohydrates, its concentration can be determined with a polarimeter. For sugar mixtures, the concentration can be determined with a refractometer, for example in the Oechsle determination in the course of the production of wine.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The enzyme glucose oxidase (GOx) converts glucose into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide while consuming oxygen. Another enzyme, peroxidase, catalyzes a chromogenic reaction (Trinder reaction) of phenol with 4-aminoantipyrine to a purple dye.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The test-strip method employs the above-mentioned enzymatic conversion of glucose to gluconic acid to form hydrogen peroxide. The reagents are immobilised on a polymer matrix, the so-called test strip, which assumes a more or less intense color. This can be measured reflectometrically at 510 nm with the aid of an LED-based handheld photometer. This allows routine blood sugar determination by nonscientists. In addition to the reaction of phenol with 4-aminoantipyrine, new chromogenic reactions have been developed that allow photometry at higher wavelengths (550 nm, 750 nm).",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The electroanalysis of glucose is also based on the enzymatic reaction mentioned above. The produced hydrogen peroxide can be amperometrically quantified by anodic oxidation at a potential of 600 mV. The GOx is immobilized on the electrode surface or in a membrane placed close to the electrode. Precious metals such as platinum or gold are used in electrodes, as well as carbon nanotube electrodes, which e.g. are doped with boron. Cu–CuO nanowires are also used as enzyme-free amperometric electrodes, reaching a detection limit of 50 μmol/L. A particularly promising method is the so-called \"enzyme wiring\", where the electron flowing during the oxidation is transferred via a molecular wire directly from the enzyme to the electrode.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "There are a variety of other chemical sensors for measuring glucose. Given the importance of glucose analysis in the life sciences, numerous optical probes have also been developed for saccharides based on the use of boronic acids, which are particularly useful for intracellular sensory applications where other (optical) methods are not or only conditionally usable. In addition to the organic boronic acid derivatives, which often bind highly specifically to the 1,2-diol groups of sugars, there are also other probe concepts classified by functional mechanisms which use selective glucose-binding proteins (e.g. concanavalin A) as a receptor. Furthermore, methods were developed which indirectly detect the glucose concentration via the concentration of metabolized products, e.g. by the consumption of oxygen using fluorescence-optical sensors. Finally, there are enzyme-based concepts that use the intrinsic absorbance or fluorescence of (fluorescence-labeled) enzymes as reporters.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Glucose can be quantified by copper iodometry.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In particular, for the analysis of complex mixtures containing glucose, e.g. in honey, chromatographic methods such as high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography are often used in combination with mass spectrometry. Taking into account the isotope ratios, it is also possible to reliably detect honey adulteration by added sugars with these methods. Derivatization using silylation reagents is commonly used. Also, the proportions of di- and trisaccharides can be quantified.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Glucose uptake in cells of organisms is measured with 2-deoxy-D-glucose or fluorodeoxyglucose. (F)fluorodeoxyglucose is used as a tracer in positron emission tomography in oncology and neurology, where it is by far the most commonly used diagnostic agent.",
"title": "Analysis"
}
]
| Glucose is a sugar with the molecular formula C6H12O6. Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, using energy from sunlight, where it is used to make cellulose in cell walls, the most abundant carbohydrate in the world. In energy metabolism, glucose is the most important source of energy in all organisms. Glucose for metabolism is stored as a polymer, in plants mainly as starch and amylopectin, and in animals as glycogen. Glucose circulates in the blood of animals as blood sugar. The naturally occurring form of glucose is d-glucose, while its stereoisomer l-glucose is produced synthetically in comparatively small amounts and is less biologically active. Glucose is a monosaccharide containing six carbon atoms and an aldehyde group, and is therefore an aldohexose. The glucose molecule can exist in an open-chain (acyclic) as well as ring (cyclic) form. Glucose is naturally occurring and is found in its free state in fruits and other parts of plants. In animals, glucose is released from the breakdown of glycogen in a process known as glycogenolysis. Glucose, as intravenous sugar solution, is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is also on the list in combination with sodium chloride. The name glucose is derived from Ancient Greek γλεῦκος, from γλυκύς. The suffix "-ose" is a chemical classifier, denoting a sugar. | 2001-12-10T00:08:48Z | 2023-12-19T14:55:28Z | [
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12,955 | George Pólya | George Pólya (/ˈpoʊljə/; Hungarian: Pólya György, pronounced [ˈpoːjɒ ˈɟørɟ]; December 13, 1887 – September 7, 1985) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory. He is also noted for his work in heuristics and mathematics education. He has been described as one of The Martians, an informal category which included one of his most famous students at ETH Zurich, John von Neumann.
Pólya was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, to Anna Deutsch and Jakab Pólya, Hungarian Jews who had converted to Christianity in 1886. Although his parents were religious and he was baptized into the Catholic Church upon birth, George eventually grew up to be an agnostic. He received a PhD under Lipót Fejér in 1912, at Eötvös Loránd University. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He remained a Professor Emeritus at Stanford for the rest of his career, working on a range of mathematical topics, including series, number theory, mathematical analysis, geometry, algebra, combinatorics, and probability. He was invited to speak at the ICM at Bologna in 1928, at Oslo in 1936 and at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1950.
On September 7, 1985, Pólya died in Palo Alto, California, United States. He passed due to complications of a stroke he suffered in the past summer.
Early in his career, Pólya wrote with Gábor Szegő two influential problem books, Problems and Theorems in Analysis (I: Series, Integral Calculus, Theory of Functions and II: Theory of Functions. Zeros. Polynomials. Determinants. Number Theory. Geometry). Later in his career, he spent considerable effort to identify systematic methods of problem-solving to further discovery and invention in mathematics for students, teachers, and researchers. He wrote five books on the subject: How to Solve It, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (Volume I: Induction and Analogy in Mathematics, and Volume II: Patterns of Plausible Inference), and Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Problem Solving (volumes 1 and 2).
In How to Solve It, Pólya provides general heuristics for solving a gamut of problems, including both mathematical and non-mathematical problems. The book includes advice for teaching students of mathematics and a mini-encyclopedia of heuristic terms. It was translated into several languages and has sold over a million copies. The book is still used in mathematical education. Douglas Lenat's Automated Mathematician and Eurisko artificial intelligence programs were inspired by Pólya's work.
In addition to his works directly addressing problem solving, Pólya wrote another short book called Mathematical Methods in Science, based on a 1963 work supported by the National Science Foundation edited by Leon Bowden and published by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in 1977. As Pólya notes in the preface, Bowden carefully followed a tape recording of a course Pólya gave several times at Stanford in order to put the book together. Pólya notes in the preface "that the following pages will be useful, yet they should not be regarded as a finished expression."
There are three prizes named after Pólya, causing occasional confusion of one for another. In 1969 the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) established the George Pólya Prize, given alternately in two categories for "a notable application of combinatorial theory" and for "a notable contribution in another area of interest to George Pólya."
In 1976 the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) established the George Pólya Award "for articles of expository excellence" published in the College Mathematics Journal. In 1987 the London Mathematical Society (LMS) established the Pólya Prize for "outstanding creativity in, imaginative exposition of, or distinguished contribution to, mathematics within the United Kingdom." In 1991, the MAA established the George Pólya Lectureship series.
Stanford University has a Polya Hall named in his honor. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "George Pólya (/ˈpoʊljə/; Hungarian: Pólya György, pronounced [ˈpoːjɒ ˈɟørɟ]; December 13, 1887 – September 7, 1985) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory. He is also noted for his work in heuristics and mathematics education. He has been described as one of The Martians, an informal category which included one of his most famous students at ETH Zurich, John von Neumann.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "Pólya was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, to Anna Deutsch and Jakab Pólya, Hungarian Jews who had converted to Christianity in 1886. Although his parents were religious and he was baptized into the Catholic Church upon birth, George eventually grew up to be an agnostic. He received a PhD under Lipót Fejér in 1912, at Eötvös Loránd University. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He remained a Professor Emeritus at Stanford for the rest of his career, working on a range of mathematical topics, including series, number theory, mathematical analysis, geometry, algebra, combinatorics, and probability. He was invited to speak at the ICM at Bologna in 1928, at Oslo in 1936 and at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1950.",
"title": "Life and works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "On September 7, 1985, Pólya died in Palo Alto, California, United States. He passed due to complications of a stroke he suffered in the past summer.",
"title": "Life and works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Early in his career, Pólya wrote with Gábor Szegő two influential problem books, Problems and Theorems in Analysis (I: Series, Integral Calculus, Theory of Functions and II: Theory of Functions. Zeros. Polynomials. Determinants. Number Theory. Geometry). Later in his career, he spent considerable effort to identify systematic methods of problem-solving to further discovery and invention in mathematics for students, teachers, and researchers. He wrote five books on the subject: How to Solve It, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning (Volume I: Induction and Analogy in Mathematics, and Volume II: Patterns of Plausible Inference), and Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Problem Solving (volumes 1 and 2).",
"title": "Heuristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In How to Solve It, Pólya provides general heuristics for solving a gamut of problems, including both mathematical and non-mathematical problems. The book includes advice for teaching students of mathematics and a mini-encyclopedia of heuristic terms. It was translated into several languages and has sold over a million copies. The book is still used in mathematical education. Douglas Lenat's Automated Mathematician and Eurisko artificial intelligence programs were inspired by Pólya's work.",
"title": "Heuristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In addition to his works directly addressing problem solving, Pólya wrote another short book called Mathematical Methods in Science, based on a 1963 work supported by the National Science Foundation edited by Leon Bowden and published by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in 1977. As Pólya notes in the preface, Bowden carefully followed a tape recording of a course Pólya gave several times at Stanford in order to put the book together. Pólya notes in the preface \"that the following pages will be useful, yet they should not be regarded as a finished expression.\"",
"title": "Heuristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "There are three prizes named after Pólya, causing occasional confusion of one for another. In 1969 the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) established the George Pólya Prize, given alternately in two categories for \"a notable application of combinatorial theory\" and for \"a notable contribution in another area of interest to George Pólya.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1976 the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) established the George Pólya Award \"for articles of expository excellence\" published in the College Mathematics Journal. In 1987 the London Mathematical Society (LMS) established the Pólya Prize for \"outstanding creativity in, imaginative exposition of, or distinguished contribution to, mathematics within the United Kingdom.\" In 1991, the MAA established the George Pólya Lectureship series.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Stanford University has a Polya Hall named in his honor.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| George Pólya was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory. He is also noted for his work in heuristics and mathematics education. He has been described as one of The Martians, an informal category which included one of his most famous students at ETH Zurich, John von Neumann. | 2001-12-10T19:23:43Z | 2023-11-04T11:26:54Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya |
12,956 | OpenGL Utility Toolkit | The OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) is a library of utilities for OpenGL programs, which primarily perform system-level I/O with the host operating system. Functions performed include window definition, window control, and monitoring of keyboard and mouse input. Routines for drawing a number of geometric primitives (both in solid and wireframe mode) are also provided, including cubes, spheres and the Utah teapot. GLUT also has some limited support for creating pop-up menus.
GLUT was written by Mark J. Kilgard, author of OpenGL Programming for the X Window System and The Cg Tutorial: The Definitive Guide to Programmable Real-Time Graphics, while he was working for Silicon Graphics Inc.
The two aims of GLUT are to allow the creation of rather portable code between operating systems (GLUT is cross-platform) and to make learning OpenGL easier. Getting started with OpenGL programming while using GLUT often takes only a few lines of code and does not require knowledge of operating system–specific windowing APIs.
All GLUT functions start with the glut prefix (for example, glutPostRedisplay marks the current window as needing to be redrawn).
The original GLUT library by Mark Kilgard supports the X Window System (GLX) and was ported to Microsoft Windows (WGL) by Nate Robins. Additionally, macOS ships with a GLUT framework that supports its own NSGL/CGL.
Kilgard's GLUT library is no longer maintained, and its license did not permit the redistribution of modified versions of the library. This spurred the need for free software or open source reimplementations of the API from scratch. The first such library was FreeGLUT, which aims to be a reasonably close reproduction, though introducing a small number of new functions to deal with GLUT's limitations. OpenGLUT, a fork of FreeGLUT, adds a number of new features to the original API, but work on it ceased in May 2005.
Mark Kilgard has a GitHub repository for GLUT. The glut.h header file contains the following license:
Some of GLUT's original design decisions made it hard for programmers to perform desired tasks. This led many to create non-canon patches and extensions to GLUT. Some free software or open source reimplementations also include fixes.
Some of the more notable limitations of the original GLUT library include:
Since it is no longer maintained (essentially replaced by the open source FreeGLUT) the above design issues are still not resolved in the original GLUT. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) is a library of utilities for OpenGL programs, which primarily perform system-level I/O with the host operating system. Functions performed include window definition, window control, and monitoring of keyboard and mouse input. Routines for drawing a number of geometric primitives (both in solid and wireframe mode) are also provided, including cubes, spheres and the Utah teapot. GLUT also has some limited support for creating pop-up menus.",
"title": ""
},
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"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The two aims of GLUT are to allow the creation of rather portable code between operating systems (GLUT is cross-platform) and to make learning OpenGL easier. Getting started with OpenGL programming while using GLUT often takes only a few lines of code and does not require knowledge of operating system–specific windowing APIs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "All GLUT functions start with the glut prefix (for example, glutPostRedisplay marks the current window as needing to be redrawn).",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The original GLUT library by Mark Kilgard supports the X Window System (GLX) and was ported to Microsoft Windows (WGL) by Nate Robins. Additionally, macOS ships with a GLUT framework that supports its own NSGL/CGL.",
"title": "Implementations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Kilgard's GLUT library is no longer maintained, and its license did not permit the redistribution of modified versions of the library. This spurred the need for free software or open source reimplementations of the API from scratch. The first such library was FreeGLUT, which aims to be a reasonably close reproduction, though introducing a small number of new functions to deal with GLUT's limitations. OpenGLUT, a fork of FreeGLUT, adds a number of new features to the original API, but work on it ceased in May 2005.",
"title": "Implementations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Mark Kilgard has a GitHub repository for GLUT. The glut.h header file contains the following license:",
"title": "Implementations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Some of GLUT's original design decisions made it hard for programmers to perform desired tasks. This led many to create non-canon patches and extensions to GLUT. Some free software or open source reimplementations also include fixes.",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Some of the more notable limitations of the original GLUT library include:",
"title": "Limitations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Since it is no longer maintained (essentially replaced by the open source FreeGLUT) the above design issues are still not resolved in the original GLUT.",
"title": "Limitations"
}
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| The OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) is a library of utilities for OpenGL programs, which primarily perform system-level I/O with the host operating system. Functions performed include window definition, window control, and monitoring of keyboard and mouse input. Routines for drawing a number of geometric primitives are also provided, including cubes, spheres and the Utah teapot. GLUT also has some limited support for creating pop-up menus. GLUT was written by Mark J. Kilgard, author of OpenGL Programming for the X Window System and The Cg Tutorial: The Definitive Guide to Programmable Real-Time Graphics, while he was working for Silicon Graphics Inc. The two aims of GLUT are to allow the creation of rather portable code between operating systems and to make learning OpenGL easier. Getting started with OpenGL programming while using GLUT often takes only a few lines of code and does not require knowledge of operating system–specific windowing APIs. All GLUT functions start with the glut prefix. | 2022-08-27T01:41:04Z | [
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|
12,957 | Giovanni Boccaccio | Giovanni Boccaccio (UK: /bəˈkætʃioʊ/, US: /boʊˈkɑːtʃ(i)oʊ, bə-/, Italian: [dʒoˈvanni bokˈkattʃo]; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.
His most notable works are The Decameron, a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mostly in Tuscan vernacular, as well as other works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot. The influence of Boccaccio's works was not limited to the Italian cultural scene but extended to the rest of Europe, exerting influence on authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, a key figure in English literature, or later on Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega and the Spanish classical theatre.
Boccaccio, together with Dante Alighieri and Petrarch, is part of the so-called "Three Crowns" of Italian literature. He is remembered for being one of the precursors of humanism, of which he helped lay the foundations in the city of Florence, in conjunction with the activity of his friend and teacher Petrarch. He was the one who initiated Dante's criticism and philology: Boccaccio devoted himself to copying codices of the Divine Comedy and was a promoter of Dante's work and figure.
In the twentieth century, Boccaccio was the subject of critical-philological studies by Vittore Branca and Giuseppe Billanovich, and his Decameron was transposed to the big screen by the director and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini.
The details of Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. He was born in Florence or in a village near Certaldo where his family was from. He was the son of Florentine merchant Boccaccino di Chellino and an unknown woman; he was likely born out of wedlock. Boccaccio's stepmother was called Margherita de' Mardoli.
Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the Compagnia dei Bardi and, in the 1320s, married Margherita dei Mardoli, who was of a well-to-do family. Boccaccio may have been tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. In 1326, his father was appointed head of a bank and moved with his family to Naples. Boccaccio was an apprentice at the bank but disliked the banking profession. He persuaded his father to let him study law at the Studium (the present-day University of Naples), where he studied canon law for the next six years. He also pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies.
His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise (the king of Naples) in the 1330s. At this time, he fell in love with a married daughter of the king, who is portrayed as "Fiammetta" in many of Boccaccio's prose romances, including Il Filocolo (1338). Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from his influence as the administrator, and perhaps the lover, of Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became a counselor to Queen Joanna I of Naples and, eventually, her Grand Seneschal.
It seems that Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of myths called the Collectiones), humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and theologian Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.
In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation of poetry. Works produced in this period include Il Filostrato and Teseida (the sources for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, respectively), The Filocolo (a prose version of an existing French romance), and La caccia di Diana (a poem in terza rima listing Neapolitan women). The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the Sicilian octave, where it influenced Petrarch.
Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the plague of 1340 in that city, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt. His mother died shortly afterwards (possibly, as she was unknown – see above). Boccaccio continued to work, although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, producing Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine in 1341 (also known as Ameto), a mix of prose and poems, completing the fifty-canto allegorical poem Amorosa visione in 1342, and Fiammetta in 1343. The pastoral piece "Ninfale fiesolano" probably dates from this time, also. In 1343, Boccaccio's father remarried Bice del Bostichi. His other children by his first marriage had all died, but he had another son named Iacopo in 1344.
In Florence, the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government of popolo minuto ("small people", workers). It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further in 1348 by the Black Death, which killed some three-quarters of the city's population, later represented in the Decameron.
From 1347, Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage and, despite his claims, it is not certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father was closely associated with the government efforts as minister of supply in the city. His father died in 1349 and Boccaccio was forced into a more active role as head of the family.
Boccaccio began work on The Decameron around 1349. It is probable that the structures of many of the tales date from earlier in his career, but the choice of a hundred tales and the frame-story lieta brigata of three men and seven women dates from this time. The work was largely complete by 1352. It was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in Tuscan vernacular; the only other substantial work was Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote The Decameron in 1370–1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day.
From 1350, Boccaccio became closely involved with Italian humanism (although less of a scholar) and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to Brandenburg, Milan and Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing Barlaam of Calabria, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle. In these years, he also took minor orders.
In October 1350, he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarch as he entered Florence and also to have Petrarch as a guest at Boccaccio's home, during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and magister. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the Genealogia deorum gentilium; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this remained one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. It served as an extended defence for the studies of ancient literature and thought. Despite the Pagan beliefs at its core, Boccaccio believed that much could be learned from antiquity. Thus, he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources to prevent any moral harm to Christian readers. The revival of classical antiquity became a foundation of the Renaissance, and his defence of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development. The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the Decameron to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth-century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359, following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch, it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent (but unsupported) tale that he repudiated his earlier works as profane in 1362, including The Decameron.
In 1360, Boccaccio began work on De mulieribus claris, a book offering biographies of 106 famous women, that he completed in 1374.
A number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the purge following the failed coup of 1361. It was in this year that Boccaccio left Florence to reside in Certaldo, although not directly linked to the conspiracy, where he became less involved in government affairs. He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and travelled to Naples and then on to Padua and Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of Petrarch's library. He later returned to Certaldo. He met Petrarch only once again in Padua in 1368. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (19 July 1374), Boccaccio wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the Rime.
He returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. The papacy returned to Rome from Avignon in 1367, and Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples.
Of his later works, the moralistic biographies gathered as De casibus virorum illustrium (1355–74) and De mulieribus claris (1361–1375) were the most significant. Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature, De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber. He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante. Boccaccio and Petrarch were also two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of archaeology.
Boccaccio's change in writing style in the 1350s was due in part to meeting with Petrarch, but it was mostly due to poor health and a premature weakening of his physical strength. It also was due to disappointments in love. Some such disappointment could explain why Boccaccio came suddenly to write in a bitter Corbaccio style, having previously written mostly in praise of women and love, though elements of misogyny are present in Il Teseida. Petrarch describes how Pietro Petrone (a Carthusian monk) on his deathbed in 1362 sent another Carthusian (Gioacchino Ciani) to urge him to renounce his worldly studies. Petrarch then dissuaded Boccaccio from burning his own works and selling off his personal library, letters, books, and manuscripts. Petrarch even offered to purchase Boccaccio's library, so that it would become part of Petrarch's library. However, upon Boccaccio's death, his entire collection was given to the monastery of Santo Spirito, in Florence, where it still resides.
His final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what often is described as dropsy, severe edema that would be described today as congestive heart failure. He died on 21 December 1375 in Certaldo, where he is buried.
See Consoli's bibliography for an exhaustive listing. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Giovanni Boccaccio (UK: /bəˈkætʃioʊ/, US: /boʊˈkɑːtʃ(i)oʊ, bə-/, Italian: [dʒoˈvanni bokˈkattʃo]; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as \"the Certaldese\" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "His most notable works are The Decameron, a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mostly in Tuscan vernacular, as well as other works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot. The influence of Boccaccio's works was not limited to the Italian cultural scene but extended to the rest of Europe, exerting influence on authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, a key figure in English literature, or later on Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega and the Spanish classical theatre.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Boccaccio, together with Dante Alighieri and Petrarch, is part of the so-called \"Three Crowns\" of Italian literature. He is remembered for being one of the precursors of humanism, of which he helped lay the foundations in the city of Florence, in conjunction with the activity of his friend and teacher Petrarch. He was the one who initiated Dante's criticism and philology: Boccaccio devoted himself to copying codices of the Divine Comedy and was a promoter of Dante's work and figure.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In the twentieth century, Boccaccio was the subject of critical-philological studies by Vittore Branca and Giuseppe Billanovich, and his Decameron was transposed to the big screen by the director and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The details of Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. He was born in Florence or in a village near Certaldo where his family was from. He was the son of Florentine merchant Boccaccino di Chellino and an unknown woman; he was likely born out of wedlock. Boccaccio's stepmother was called Margherita de' Mardoli.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the Compagnia dei Bardi and, in the 1320s, married Margherita dei Mardoli, who was of a well-to-do family. Boccaccio may have been tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. In 1326, his father was appointed head of a bank and moved with his family to Naples. Boccaccio was an apprentice at the bank but disliked the banking profession. He persuaded his father to let him study law at the Studium (the present-day University of Naples), where he studied canon law for the next six years. He also pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise (the king of Naples) in the 1330s. At this time, he fell in love with a married daughter of the king, who is portrayed as \"Fiammetta\" in many of Boccaccio's prose romances, including Il Filocolo (1338). Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from his influence as the administrator, and perhaps the lover, of Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became a counselor to Queen Joanna I of Naples and, eventually, her Grand Seneschal.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "It seems that Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of myths called the Collectiones), humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and theologian Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation of poetry. Works produced in this period include Il Filostrato and Teseida (the sources for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, respectively), The Filocolo (a prose version of an existing French romance), and La caccia di Diana (a poem in terza rima listing Neapolitan women). The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the Sicilian octave, where it influenced Petrarch.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the plague of 1340 in that city, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt. His mother died shortly afterwards (possibly, as she was unknown – see above). Boccaccio continued to work, although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, producing Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine in 1341 (also known as Ameto), a mix of prose and poems, completing the fifty-canto allegorical poem Amorosa visione in 1342, and Fiammetta in 1343. The pastoral piece \"Ninfale fiesolano\" probably dates from this time, also. In 1343, Boccaccio's father remarried Bice del Bostichi. His other children by his first marriage had all died, but he had another son named Iacopo in 1344.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In Florence, the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government of popolo minuto (\"small people\", workers). It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further in 1348 by the Black Death, which killed some three-quarters of the city's population, later represented in the Decameron.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "From 1347, Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage and, despite his claims, it is not certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father was closely associated with the government efforts as minister of supply in the city. His father died in 1349 and Boccaccio was forced into a more active role as head of the family.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Boccaccio began work on The Decameron around 1349. It is probable that the structures of many of the tales date from earlier in his career, but the choice of a hundred tales and the frame-story lieta brigata of three men and seven women dates from this time. The work was largely complete by 1352. It was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in Tuscan vernacular; the only other substantial work was Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote The Decameron in 1370–1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "From 1350, Boccaccio became closely involved with Italian humanism (although less of a scholar) and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to Brandenburg, Milan and Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing Barlaam of Calabria, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle. In these years, he also took minor orders.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In October 1350, he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarch as he entered Florence and also to have Petrarch as a guest at Boccaccio's home, during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and magister. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the Genealogia deorum gentilium; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this remained one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. It served as an extended defence for the studies of ancient literature and thought. Despite the Pagan beliefs at its core, Boccaccio believed that much could be learned from antiquity. Thus, he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources to prevent any moral harm to Christian readers. The revival of classical antiquity became a foundation of the Renaissance, and his defence of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development. The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the Decameron to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth-century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359, following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch, it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent (but unsupported) tale that he repudiated his earlier works as profane in 1362, including The Decameron.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1360, Boccaccio began work on De mulieribus claris, a book offering biographies of 106 famous women, that he completed in 1374.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "A number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the purge following the failed coup of 1361. It was in this year that Boccaccio left Florence to reside in Certaldo, although not directly linked to the conspiracy, where he became less involved in government affairs. He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and travelled to Naples and then on to Padua and Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of Petrarch's library. He later returned to Certaldo. He met Petrarch only once again in Padua in 1368. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (19 July 1374), Boccaccio wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the Rime.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "He returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. The papacy returned to Rome from Avignon in 1367, and Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Of his later works, the moralistic biographies gathered as De casibus virorum illustrium (1355–74) and De mulieribus claris (1361–1375) were the most significant. Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature, De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber. He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante. Boccaccio and Petrarch were also two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of archaeology.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Boccaccio's change in writing style in the 1350s was due in part to meeting with Petrarch, but it was mostly due to poor health and a premature weakening of his physical strength. It also was due to disappointments in love. Some such disappointment could explain why Boccaccio came suddenly to write in a bitter Corbaccio style, having previously written mostly in praise of women and love, though elements of misogyny are present in Il Teseida. Petrarch describes how Pietro Petrone (a Carthusian monk) on his deathbed in 1362 sent another Carthusian (Gioacchino Ciani) to urge him to renounce his worldly studies. Petrarch then dissuaded Boccaccio from burning his own works and selling off his personal library, letters, books, and manuscripts. Petrarch even offered to purchase Boccaccio's library, so that it would become part of Petrarch's library. However, upon Boccaccio's death, his entire collection was given to the monastery of Santo Spirito, in Florence, where it still resides.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "His final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what often is described as dropsy, severe edema that would be described today as congestive heart failure. He died on 21 December 1375 in Certaldo, where he is buried.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "See Consoli's bibliography for an exhaustive listing.",
"title": "Works"
}
]
| Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are The Decameron, a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mostly in Tuscan vernacular, as well as other works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot. The influence of Boccaccio's works was not limited to the Italian cultural scene but extended to the rest of Europe, exerting influence on authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, a key figure in English literature, or later on Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega and the Spanish classical theatre. Boccaccio, together with Dante Alighieri and Petrarch, is part of the so-called "Three Crowns" of Italian literature. He is remembered for being one of the precursors of humanism, of which he helped lay the foundations in the city of Florence, in conjunction with the activity of his friend and teacher Petrarch. He was the one who initiated Dante's criticism and philology: Boccaccio devoted himself to copying codices of the Divine Comedy and was a promoter of Dante's work and figure. In the twentieth century, Boccaccio was the subject of critical-philological studies by Vittore Branca and Giuseppe Billanovich, and his Decameron was transposed to the big screen by the director and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini. | 2001-12-10T20:35:07Z | 2023-12-06T16:13:06Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Boccaccio |
12,958 | Giuseppe Verdi | Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him.
In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.
Verdi, the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (1785–1867) and Luigia Uttini (1787–1851), was born at their home in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro and within the borders of the First French Empire following the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1808. The baptismal register, prepared on 11 October 1813, lists his parents Carlo and Luigia as "innkeeper" and "spinner" respectively. Additionally, it lists Verdi as being "born yesterday", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. Following his mother, Verdi always celebrated his birthday on 9 October, the day he himself believed he was born.
Verdi had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who died aged 17 in 1833. She is said to have been his closest friend during childhood. From the age of four, Verdi was given private lessons in Latin and Italian by the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi, and at six he attended the local school. After learning to play the organ, he showed so much interest in music that his parents finally provided him with a spinet. Verdi's gift for music was already apparent by 1820–21 when he began his association with the local church, serving in the choir, acting as an altar boy for a while, and taking organ lessons. After Baistrocchi's death, Verdi, at the age of eight, became the official paid organist.
The music historian Roger Parker points out that both of Verdi's parents "belonged to families of small landowners and traders, certainly not the illiterate peasants from which Verdi later liked to present himself as having emerged... Carlo Verdi was energetic in furthering his son's education...something which Verdi tended to hide in later life... [T]he picture emerges of youthful precocity eagerly nurtured by an ambitious father and of a sustained, sophisticated and elaborate formal education."
In 1823, when he was 10, Verdi's parents arranged for the boy to attend school in Busseto, enrolling him in a Ginnasio—an upper school for boys—run by Don Pietro Seletti, while they continued to run their inn at Le Roncole. Verdi returned to Busseto regularly to play the organ on Sundays, covering the distance of several kilometres on foot. At age 11, Verdi received schooling in Italian, Latin, the humanities, and rhetoric. By the time he was 12, he began lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, maestro di cappella at San Bartolomeo, director of the municipal music school and co-director of the local Società Filarmonica (Philharmonic Society). Verdi later stated: "From the ages of 13 to 18 I wrote a motley assortment of pieces: marches for band by the hundred, perhaps as many little sinfonie that were used in church, in the theatre and at concerts, five or six concertos and sets of variations for pianoforte, which I played myself at concerts, many serenades, cantatas (arias, duets, very many trios) and various pieces of church music, of which I remember only a Stabat Mater." This information comes from the Autobiographical Sketch which Verdi dictated to the publisher Giulio Ricordi late in life, in 1879, and remains the leading source for his early life and career. Written, understandably, with the benefit of hindsight, it is not always reliable when dealing with issues more contentious than those of his childhood.
The other director of the Philharmonic Society was Antonio Barezzi [it], a wholesale grocer and distiller, who was described by a contemporary as a "manic dilettante" of music. The young Verdi did not immediately become involved with the Philharmonic. By June 1827, he had graduated with honours from the Ginnasio and was able to focus solely on music under Provesi. By chance, when he was 13, Verdi was asked to step in as a replacement to play in what became his first public event in his home town; he was an immediate success mostly playing his own music to the surprise of many and receiving strong local recognition.
By 1829–30, Verdi had established himself as a leader of the Philharmonic: "none of us could rival him" reported the secretary of the organisation, Giuseppe Demaldè. An eight-movement cantata, I deliri di Saul, based on a drama by Vittorio Alfieri, was written by Verdi when he was 15 and performed in Bergamo. It was acclaimed by both Demaldè and Barezzi, who commented: "He shows a vivid imagination, a philosophical outlook, and sound judgment in the arrangement of instrumental parts." In late 1829, Verdi had completed his studies with Provesi, who declared that he had no more to teach him. At the time, Verdi had been giving singing and piano lessons to Barezzi's daughter Margherita; by 1831, they were unofficially engaged.
Verdi set his sights on Milan, then the cultural capital of northern Italy, where he applied unsuccessfully to study at the Conservatory. Barezzi made arrangements for him to become a private pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna [it], who had been maestro concertatore at La Scala, and who described Verdi's compositions as "very promising". Lavigna encouraged Verdi to take out a subscription to La Scala, where he heard Maria Malibran in operas by Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. Verdi began making connections in the Milanese world of music that were to stand him in good stead. These included an introduction by Lavigna to an amateur choral group, the Società Filarmonica, led by Pietro Massini. Attending the Società frequently in 1834, Verdi soon found himself functioning as rehearsal director (for Rossini's La Cenerentola) and continuo player. It was Massini who encouraged him to write his first opera, originally titled Rocester, to a libretto by the journalist Antonio Piazza.
In mid-1834, Verdi sought to acquire Provesi's former post in Busseto but without success. But with Barezzi's help he did obtain the secular post of maestro di musica. He taught, gave lessons, and conducted the Philharmonic for several months before returning to Milan in early 1835. By the following July, he obtained his certification from Lavigna. Eventually in 1835 Verdi became director of the Busseto school with a three-year contract. He married Margherita in May 1836, and by March 1837, she had given birth to their first child, Virginia Maria Luigia on 26 March 1837. Icilio Romano followed on 11 July 1838. Both the children died young, Virginia on 12 August 1838, Icilio on 22 October 1839.
In 1837, the young composer asked for Massini's assistance to stage his opera in Milan. The La Scala impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, agreed to put on Oberto (as the reworked opera was now called, with a libretto rewritten by Temistocle Solera) in November 1839. It achieved a respectable 13 additional performances, following which Merelli offered Verdi a contract for three more works.
While Verdi was working on his second opera Un giorno di regno, Margherita died of encephalitis at the age of 26. Verdi adored his wife and children and was devastated by their early deaths. Un giorno, a comedy, was premiered only a few months later. It was a flop and only given the one performance. Following its failure, it is claimed Verdi vowed never to compose again, but in his Sketch he recounts how Merelli persuaded him to write a new opera.
Verdi was to claim that he gradually began to work on the music for Nabucco, the libretto of which had originally been rejected by the composer Otto Nicolai: "This verse today, tomorrow that, here a note, there a whole phrase, and little by little the opera was written", he later recalled. By the autumn of 1841 it was complete, originally under the title Nabucodonosor. Well received at its first performance on 9 March 1842, Nabucco underpinned Verdi's success until his retirement from the theatre, twenty-nine operas (including some revised and updated versions) later. At its revival in La Scala for the 1842 autumn season it was given an unprecedented (and later unequalled) total of 57 performances; within three years it had reached (among other venues) Vienna, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Hamburg; in 1848 it was heard in New York, in 1850 in Buenos Aires. Porter comments that "similar accounts...could be provided to show how widely and rapidly all [Verdi's] other successful operas were disseminated."
A period of hard work for Verdi—with the creation of twenty operas (excluding revisions and translations)—followed over the next sixteen years, culminating in Un ballo in maschera. This period was not without its frustrations and setbacks for the young composer, and he was frequently demoralised. In April 1845, in connection with I due Foscari, he wrote: "I am happy, no matter what reception it gets, and I am utterly indifferent to everything. I cannot wait for these next three years to pass. I have to write six operas, then addio to everything." In 1858 Verdi complained: "Since Nabucco, you may say, I have never had one hour of peace. Sixteen years in the galleys."
After the initial success of Nabucco, Verdi settled in Milan, making a number of influential acquaintances. He attended the Salotto Maffei, Countess Clara Maffei's salons in Milan, becoming her lifelong friend and correspondent. A revival of Nabucco followed in 1842 at La Scala where it received a run of fifty-seven performances, and this led to a commission from Merelli for a new opera for the 1843 season. I Lombardi alla prima crociata was based on a libretto by Solera and premiered in February 1843. Inevitably, comparisons were made with Nabucco; but one contemporary writer noted: "If [Nabucco] created this young man's reputation, I Lombardi served to confirm it."
Verdi paid close attention to his financial contracts, making sure he was appropriately remunerated as his popularity increased. For I Lombardi and Ernani (1844) in Venice he was paid 12,000 lire (including supervision of the productions); Attila and Macbeth (1847), each brought him 18,000 lire. His contracts with the publishers Ricordi in 1847 were very specific about the amounts he was to receive for new works, first productions, musical arrangements, and so on. He began to use his growing prosperity to invest in land near his birthplace. In 1844 he purchased "Il Pulgaro", 62 acres (23 hectares) of farmland with a farmhouse and outbuildings, providing a home for his parents from May 1844. Later that year, he also bought the Palazzo Cavalli (now known as the Palazzo Orlandi) on the via Roma, Busseto's main street. In May 1848, Verdi signed a contract for land and houses at Sant'Agata in Busseto, which had once belonged to his family. It was here he built his own house, completed in 1880, now known as the Villa Verdi, where he lived from 1851 until his death.
In March 1843, Verdi visited Vienna (where Gaetano Donizetti was musical director) to oversee a production of Nabucco. The older composer, recognising Verdi's talent, noted in a letter of January 1844: "I am very, very happy to give way to people of talent like Verdi... Nothing will prevent the good Verdi from soon reaching one of the most honourable positions in the cohort of composers." Verdi travelled on to Parma, where the Teatro Regio di Parma was producing Nabucco with Giuseppina Strepponi in the cast. For Verdi the performances were a personal triumph in his native region, especially as his father, Carlo, attended the first performance. Verdi remained in Parma for some weeks beyond his intended departure date. This fuelled speculation that the delay was due to Verdi's interest in Strepponi (who stated that their relationship began in 1843). Strepponi was in fact known for her amorous relationships (and many illegitimate children) and her history was an awkward factor in their relationship until they eventually agreed on marriage.
After successful stagings of Nabucco in Venice (with twenty-five performances in the 1842/43 season), Verdi began negotiations with the impresario of La Fenice to stage I Lombardi, and to write a new opera. Eventually, Victor Hugo's Hernani was chosen, with Francesco Maria Piave as librettist. Ernani was successfully premiered in 1844 and within six months had been performed at twenty other theatres in Italy, and also in Vienna. The writer Andrew Porter notes that for the next ten years, Verdi's life "reads like a travel diary—a timetable of visits...to bring new operas to the stage or to supervise local premieres". La Scala premiered none of these new works, except for Giovanna d'Arco. Verdi "never forgave the Milanese for their reception of Un giorno di regno".
During this period, Verdi began to work more consistently with his librettists. He relied on Piave again for I due Foscari, performed in Rome in November 1844, then on Solera once more for Giovanna d'Arco, at La Scala in February 1845, while in August that year he was able to work with Salvadore Cammarano on Alzira for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Solera and Piave worked together on Attila for La Fenice (March 1846).
In April 1844, Verdi took on Emanuele Muzio, eight years his junior, as a pupil and amanuensis. He had known him since about 1828 as another of Barezzi's protégés. Muzio, who in fact was Verdi's only pupil, became indispensable to the composer. He reported to Barezzi that Verdi "has a breadth of spirit, of generosity, a wisdom". In November 1846, Muzio wrote of Verdi: "If you could see us, I seem more like a friend, rather than his pupil. We are always together at dinner, in the cafes, when we play cards...; all in all, he doesn't go anywhere without me at his side; in the house we have a big table and we both write there together, and so I always have his advice." Muzio was to remain associated with Verdi, assisting in the preparation of scores and transcriptions, and later conducting many of his works in their premiere performances in the US and elsewhere outside Italy. He was chosen by Verdi as one of the executors of his will, but predeceased the composer in 1890.
After a period of illness Verdi began work on Macbeth in September 1846. He dedicated the opera to Barezzi: "I have long intended to dedicate an opera to you, as you have been a father, a benefactor and a friend for me. It was a duty I should have fulfilled sooner if imperious circumstances had not prevented me. Now, I send you Macbeth, which I prize above all my other operas, and therefore deem worthier to present to you." In 1997 Martin Chusid wrote that Macbeth was the only one of Verdi's operas of his "early period" to remain regularly in the international repertoire, although in the 21st century Nabucco has also entered the lists.
Strepponi's voice declined and her engagements dried up in the 1845 to 1846 period, and she returned to live in Milan whilst retaining contact with Verdi as his "supporter, promoter, unofficial adviser, and occasional secretary" until she decided to move to Paris in October 1846. Before she left Verdi gave her a letter that pledged his love. On the envelope, Strepponi wrote: "5 or 6 October 1846. They shall lay this letter on my heart when they bury me."
Verdi had completed I masnadieri for London by May 1847 except for the orchestration. This he left until the opera was in rehearsal, since he wanted to hear "la [Jenny] Lind and modify her role to suit her more exactly". Verdi agreed to conduct the premiere on 22 July 1847 at Her Majesty's Theatre, as well as the second performance. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended the first performance, and for the most part, the press was generous in its praise.
For the next two years, except for two visits to Italy during periods of political unrest, Verdi was based in Paris. Within a week of returning to Paris in July 1847, he received his first commission from the Paris Opéra. Verdi agreed to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto; the result was Jérusalem, which contained significant changes to the music and structure of the work (including an extensive ballet scene) to meet Parisian expectations. Verdi was awarded the Order of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. To satisfy his contracts with the publisher Francesco Lucca [it], Verdi dashed off Il Corsaro. Budden comments "In no other opera of his does Verdi appear to have taken so little interest before it was staged."
On hearing the news of the "Cinque Giornate", the "Five Days" of street fighting that took place between 18 and 22 March 1848 and temporarily drove the Austrians out of Milan, Verdi travelled there, arriving on 5 April. He discovered that Piave was now "Citizen Piave" of the newly proclaimed Republic of San Marco. Writing a patriotic letter to him in Venice, Verdi concluded "Banish every petty municipal idea! We must all extend a fraternal hand, and Italy will yet become the first nation of the world...I am drunk with joy! Imagine that there are no more Germans here!!"
Verdi had been admonished by the poet Giuseppe Giusti for turning away from patriotic subjects, the poet pleading with him to "do what you can to nourish the [sorrow of the Italian people], to strengthen it, and direct it to its goal." Cammarano suggested adapting Joseph Méry's 1828 play La Bataille de Toulouse, which he described as a story "that should stir every man with an Italian soul in his breast". The premiere was set for late January 1849. Verdi travelled to Rome before the end of 1848. He found that city on the verge of becoming a (short-lived) republic, which commenced within days of La battaglia di Legnano's enthusiastically received premiere. In the spirit of the time were the tenor hero's final words, "Whoever dies for the fatherland cannot be evil-minded".
Verdi had intended to return to Italy in early 1848, but was prevented by work and illness, as well as, most probably, by his increasing attachment to Strepponi. Verdi and Strepponi left Paris in July 1849, the immediate cause being an outbreak of cholera, and Verdi went directly to Busseto to continue work on completing his latest opera, Luisa Miller, for a production in Naples later in the year.
Verdi was committed to the publisher Giovanni Ricordi for an opera—which became Stiffelio—for Trieste in the Spring of 1850; and, subsequently, following negotiations with La Fenice, developed a libretto with Piave and wrote the music for Rigoletto (based on Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse) for Venice in March 1851. This was the first of a sequence of three operas (followed by Il trovatore and La traviata) which were to cement his fame as a master of opera. The failure of Stiffelio (attributable not least to the censors of the time taking offence at the taboo subject of the supposed adultery of a clergyman's wife and interfering with the text and roles) incited Verdi to take pains to rework it, although even in the completely recycled version of Aroldo (1857) it still failed to please. Rigoletto, with its intended murder of royalty, and its sordid attributes, also upset the censors. Verdi would not compromise:
What does the sack matter to the police? Are they worried about the effect it will produce?...Do they think they know better than I?...I see the hero has been made no longer ugly and hunchbacked!! Why? A singing hunchback...why not?...I think it splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, and inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these very qualities...if they are removed I can no longer set it to music.
Verdi substituted a Duke for the King, and the public response and subsequent success of the opera all over Italy and Europe fully vindicated the composer. Aware that the melody of the Duke's song "La donna è mobile" ("Woman is fickle") would become a popular hit, Verdi excluded it from orchestral rehearsals for the opera, and rehearsed the tenor separately.
For several months Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These stemmed from the way in which the citizens of Busseto were treating Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he was living openly in an unmarried relationship. She was shunned in the town and at church, and while Verdi appeared indifferent, she was certainly not. Furthermore, Verdi was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant'Agata. A growing estrangement between Verdi and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi (the suggestion that this situation was sparked by the birth of a child to Verdi and Strepponi which was given away as a foundling lacks any firm evidence). In January 1851, Verdi broke off relations with his parents, and in April they were ordered to leave Sant'Agata; Verdi found new premises for them and helped them financially to settle into their new home. It may not be coincidental that all six Verdi operas written in the period 1849–1853 (La battaglia, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata), have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman's words, "women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived". Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi.
Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant'Agata on 1 May 1851. May also brought an offer for a new opera from La Fenice, which Verdi eventually realised as La traviata. That was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to present Il trovatore for January 1853. Verdi now had sufficient earnings to retire, had he wished to. He had reached a stage where he could develop his operas as he wished, rather than be dependent on commissions from third parties. Il trovatore was in fact the first opera he wrote without a specific commission (apart from Oberto). At around the same time he began to consider creating an opera from Shakespeare's King Lear. After first (1850) seeking a libretto from Cammarano (which never appeared), Verdi later (1857) commissioned one from Antonio Somma, but this proved intractable, and no music was ever written. Verdi began work on Il trovatore after the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is "the one opera of Verdi's which focuses on a mother rather than a father" is perhaps related to her death.
In the winter of 1851–52 Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he concluded an agreement with the Opéra to write what became Les vêpres siciliennes, his first original work in the style of grand opera. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of Alexander Dumas fils's play The Lady of the Camellias; Verdi immediately began to compose music for what would later become La traviata.
After his visit to Rome for Il trovatore in January 1853, Verdi worked on completing La traviata, but with little hope of its success, due to his lack of confidence in any of the singers engaged for the season. Furthermore, the management insisted that the opera be given a historical, not a contemporary setting. The premiere in March 1853 was indeed a failure: Verdi wrote: "Was the fault mine or the singers'? Time will tell." Subsequent productions (following some rewriting) throughout Europe over the following two years fully vindicated the composer; Roger Parker has written "Il trovatore consistently remains one of the three or four most popular operas in the Verdian repertoire: but it has never pleased the critics".
In the eleven years up to and including Traviata, Verdi had written sixteen operas. Over the next eighteen years (up to Aida), he wrote only six new works for the stage. Verdi was happy to return to Sant'Agata and, in February 1856, was reporting a "total abandonment of music; a little reading; some light occupation with agriculture and horses; that's all". A couple of months later, writing in the same vein to Countess Maffei he stated: "I'm not doing anything. I don't read. I don't write. I walk in the fields from morning to evening, trying to recover, so far without success, from the stomach trouble caused me by I vespri siciliani. Cursed operas!" An 1858 letter by Strepponi to the publisher Léon Escudier describes the kind of lifestyle that increasingly appealed to the composer: "His love for the country has become a mania, madness, rage, and fury—anything you like that is exaggerated. He gets up almost with the dawn, to go and examine the wheat, the maize, the vines, etc....Fortunately our tastes for this sort of life coincide, except in the matter of sunrise, which he likes to see up and dressed, and I from my bed."
Nonetheless on 15 May, Verdi signed a contract with La Fenice for an opera for the following spring. This was to be Simon Boccanegra. The couple stayed in Paris until January 1857 to deal with these proposals, and also the offer to stage the translated version of Il trovatore as a grand opera. Verdi and Strepponi travelled to Venice in March for the premiere of Simon Boccanegra, which turned out to be "a fiasco" (as Verdi reported, although on the second and third nights, the reception improved considerably).
With Strepponi, Verdi went to Naples early in January 1858 to work with Somma on the libretto of the opera Gustave III, which over a year later would become Un ballo in maschera. By this time, Verdi had begun to write about Strepponi as "my wife" and she was signing her letters as "Giuseppina Verdi". Verdi raged against the stringent requirements of the Neapolitan censor stating: "I'm drowning in a sea of troubles. It's almost certain that the censors will forbid our libretto." With no hope of seeing his Gustavo III staged as written, he broke his contract. This resulted in litigation and counter-litigation; with the legal issues resolved, Verdi was free to present the libretto and musical outline of Gustave III to the Rome Opera. There, the censors demanded further changes; at this point, the opera took the title Un ballo in maschera.
Arriving in Sant'Agata in March 1859 Verdi and Strepponi found the nearby city of Piacenza occupied by about 6,000 Austrian troops who had made it their base, to combat the rise of Italian interest in unification in the Piedmont region. In the ensuing Second Italian War of Independence the Austrians abandoned the region and began to leave Lombardy, although they remained in control of the Venice region under the terms of the armistice signed at Villafranca. Verdi was disgusted at this outcome: "[W]here then is the independence of Italy, so long hoped for and promised?...Venice is not Italian? After so many victories, what an outcome... It is enough to drive one mad" he wrote to Clara Maffei.
Verdi and Strepponi now decided on marriage; they travelled to Collonges-sous-Salève, a village then part of Piedmont. On 29 August 1859 the couple were married there, with only the coachman who had driven them there and the church bell-ringer as witnesses. At the end of 1859, Verdi wrote to his friend Cesare De Sanctis "[Since completing Ballo] I have not made any more music, I have not seen any more music, I have not thought anymore about music. I don't even know what colour my last opera is, and I almost don't remember it." He began to remodel Sant'Agata, which took most of 1860 to complete and on which he continued to work for the next twenty years. This included major work on a square room that became his workroom, his bedroom, and his office.
Having achieved some fame and prosperity, Verdi began in 1859 to take an active interest in Italian politics. His early commitment to the Risorgimento movement is difficult to estimate accurately; in the words of the music historian Philip Gossett "myths intensifying and exaggerating [such] sentiment began circulating" during the nineteenth century. An example is the claim that when the "Va, pensiero" chorus in Nabucco was first sung in Milan, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervour, demanded an encore. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. But in fact the piece encored was not "Va, pensiero" but the hymn "Immenso Jehova".
The growth of the "identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics" perhaps began in the 1840s. In 1848, the nationalist leader Giuseppe Mazzini (whom Verdi had met in London the previous year) requested Verdi (who complied) to write a patriotic hymn. The opera historian Charles Osborne describes the 1849 La battaglia di Legnano as "an opera with a purpose" and maintains that "while parts of Verdi's earlier operas had frequently been taken up by the fighters of the Risorgimento...this time the composer had given the movement its own opera" It was not until 1859 in Naples, and only then spreading throughout Italy, that the slogan "Viva Verdi" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Viva Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), (who was then king of Piedmont). After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi's early operas were increasingly re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that perhaps had not been originally intended by either the composer or his librettists.
In 1859, Verdi was elected as a member of the new provincial council, and was appointed to head a group of five who would meet with King Vittorio Emanuele II in Turin. They were enthusiastically greeted along the way and in Turin Verdi himself received much of the publicity. On 17 October Verdi met with Cavour, the architect of the initial stages of Italian unification. Later that year the government of Emilia was subsumed under the United Provinces of Central Italy, and Verdi's political life temporarily came to an end. Whilst still maintaining nationalist feelings, he declined in 1860 the office of provincial council member to which he had been elected in absentia. Cavour however was anxious to convince a man of Verdi's stature that running for political office was essential to strengthening and securing Italy's future. The composer confided to Piave some years later that "I accepted on the condition that after a few months I would resign." Verdi was elected on 3 February 1861 for the town of Borgo San Donnino (Fidenza) to the Parliament of Piedmont-Sardinia in Turin (which from March 1861 became the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy), but following the death of Cavour in 1861, which deeply distressed him, he scarcely attended. Later, in 1874, Verdi was appointed a member of the Italian Senate, but did not participate in its activities.
In the months following the staging of Ballo, Verdi was approached by several opera companies seeking a new work or making offers to stage one of his existing ones, but refused them all. But when, in December 1860, an approach was made from Saint Petersburg's Imperial Theatre, the offer of 60,000 francs plus all expenses was doubtless a strong incentive. Verdi came up with the idea of adapting the 1835 Spanish play Don Alvaro o la fuerza del sino by Angel Saavedra, which became La forza del destino, with Piave writing the libretto. The Verdis arrived in St. Petersburg in December 1861 for the premiere, but casting problems meant that it had to be postponed.
Returning via Paris from Russia on 24 February 1862, Verdi met two young Italian writers, the twenty-year-old Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio. Verdi had been invited to write a piece of music for the 1862 International Exhibition in London, and charged Boito with writing a text, which became the Inno delle nazioni. Boito, as a supporter of the grand opera of Giacomo Meyerbeer and an opera composer in his own right, was later in the 1860s critical of Verdi's "reliance on formula rather than form", incurring the composer's wrath. Nevertheless, he was to become Verdi's close collaborator in his final operas. The St. Petersburg premiere of La forza finally took place in September 1862, and Verdi received the Order of St. Stanislaus.
A revival of Macbeth in Paris in 1865 was not a success, but he obtained a commission for a new work, Don Carlos, based on the play Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller. He and Giuseppina spent late 1866 and much of 1867 in Paris, where they heard, and did not warm to, Giacomo Meyerbeer's last opera, L'Africaine, and Richard Wagner's overture to Tannhäuser. The opera's premiere in 1867 drew mixed comments. While the critic Théophile Gautier praised the work, the composer Georges Bizet was disappointed at Verdi's changing style: "Verdi is no longer Italian. He is following Wagner."
During the 1860s and 1870s, Verdi paid great attention to his estate around Busseto, purchasing additional land, dealing with unsatisfactory (in one case, embezzling) stewards, installing irrigation, and coping with variable harvests and economic slumps. In 1867, both Verdi's father Carlo, with whom he had restored good relations, and his early patron and father-in-law Antonio Barezzi, died. Verdi and Giuseppina decided to adopt Carlo's great-niece Filomena Maria Verdi, then seven years old, as their own child. She was to marry in 1878 the son of Verdi's friend and lawyer Angelo Carrara and her family became eventually the heirs of Verdi's estate.
Aida was commissioned by the Egyptian government for the opera house built by the Khedive Isma'il Pasha to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. The prose libretto in French by Camille du Locle, based on a scenario by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was transformed to Italian verse by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Verdi was offered the enormous sum of 150,000 francs for the opera (even though he confessed that Ancient Egypt was "a civilization I have never been able to admire"), and it was first performed in Cairo in 1871. Verdi spent much of 1872 and 1873 supervising the Italian productions of Aida at Milan, Parma and Naples, effectively acting as producer and demanding high standards and adequate rehearsal time. During the rehearsals for the Naples production he wrote his string quartet, the only chamber music by him to survive, and the only major work in the form by an Italian of the 19th century.
In 1869, Verdi had been asked to compose a section for a requiem mass in memory of Rossini. He compiled and completed the requiem, but its performance was abandoned (and its premiere did not take place until 1988). Five years later, Verdi reworked his "Libera Me" section of the Rossini Requiem and made it a part of his Requiem honouring Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was first performed at the cathedral in Milan on the anniversary of Manzoni's death on 22 May 1874. The spinto soprano Teresa Stolz (1834–1902), who had sung in La Scala productions from 1865 onwards, was the soloist in the first and many later performances of the Requiem; in February 1872, she had created Aida in its European premiere in Milan. She became closely associated personally with Verdi (exactly how closely remains conjectural), to Giuseppina Verdi's initial disquiet; but the women were reconciled and Stolz remained a companion of Verdi after Giuseppina's death in 1897 until his own death.
Verdi conducted his Requiem in Paris, London and Vienna in 1875 and in Cologne in 1876. It seemed that it would be his last work. In the words of his biographer John Rosselli, it "confirmed him as the unique presiding genius of Italian music. No fellow composer...came near him in popularity or reputation". Verdi, now in his sixties, initially seemed to withdraw into retirement. He deliberately shied away from opportunities to publicise himself or to become involved with new productions of his works, but secretly he began work on Otello, which Boito (to whom the composer had been reconciled by Ricordi) had proposed to him privately in 1879. The composition was delayed by a revision of Simon Boccanegra which Verdi undertook with Boito, produced in 1881, and a revision of Don Carlos. Even when Otello was virtually completed, Verdi teased "Shall I finish it? Shall I have it performed? Hard to tell, even for me." As news leaked out, Verdi was pressed by opera houses across Europe with enquiries; eventually the opera was triumphantly premiered at La Scala in February 1887.
Following the success of Otello Verdi commented, "After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little." He had considered a variety of comic subjects but had found none of them wholly suitable and confided his ambition to Boito. The librettist said nothing at the time but secretly began work on a libretto based on The Merry Wives of Windsor with additional material taken from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Verdi received the draft libretto probably in early July 1889 after he had just read Shakespeare's play: "Benissimo! Benissimo!... No one could have done better than you", he wrote back to Boito. But he still had doubts: his age, his health (which he admits to being good) and his ability to complete the project: "If I were not to finish the music?". If the project failed, it would have been a waste of Boito's time, and have distracted him from completing his own new opera. Finally on 10 July 1889 he wrote again: "So be it! So let's do Falstaff! For now, let's not think of obstacles, of age, of illnesses!" Verdi emphasised the need for secrecy, but continued "If you are in the mood, then start to write." Later he wrote to Boito: "What joy to be able to say to the public: HERE WE ARE AGAIN!!! COME AND SEE US!"
The first performance of Falstaff took place at La Scala on 9 February 1893. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times higher than usual. Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present. The performance was a huge success; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour. That was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel de Milan. Even more hectic scenes ensued when he went to Rome in May for the opera's premiere at the Teatro Costanzi, when crowds of well-wishers at the railway station initially forced Verdi to take refuge in a tool-shed. He witnessed the performance from the Royal Box at the side of King Umberto and the Queen.
In his last years Verdi undertook a number of philanthropic ventures, publishing in 1894 a song for the benefit of earthquake victims in Sicily, and from 1895 onwards planning, building and endowing a rest-home for retired musicians in Milan, the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, and building a hospital at Villanova sull'Arda, close to Busseto. His last major composition, the choral set of Four sacred pieces, was published in 1898. In 1900 he was deeply upset at the assassination of King Umberto and sketched a setting of a poem in his memory but was unable to complete it. While staying at the Grand Hotel, Verdi suffered a stroke on 21 January 1901. He gradually grew more feeble over the next week, during which Stolz cared for him, and died on 27 January at the age of 87.
Verdi was initially buried in a private ceremony at Milan's Cimitero Monumentale. A month later, his body was moved to the crypt of the Casa di Riposo. On this occasion, "Va, pensiero" from Nabucco was conducted by Arturo Toscanini with a chorus of 820 singers. A huge crowd was in attendance, estimated at 300,000. Boito wrote to a friend, in words which recall the mysterious final scene of Don Carlos, "[Verdi] sleeps like a King of Spain in his Escurial, under a bronze slab that completely covers him."
Not all of Verdi's personal qualities were amiable. John Rosselli concluded after writing his biography that "I do not very much like the man Verdi, in particular the autocratic rentier-cum-estate owner, part-time composer, and seemingly full-time grumbler and reactionary critic of the later years", yet admits that like other writers, he must "admire him, warts and all...a deep integrity runs beneath his life, and can be felt even when he is being unreasonable or wrong."
Budden suggests that "With Verdi...the man and the artist on many ways developed side by side." Ungainly and awkward in society in his early years, "as he became a man of property and underwent the civilizing influence of Giuseppina,...[he] acquired assurance and authority." He also learnt to keep himself to himself, never discussing his private life and maintaining, when it suited him, legends about his supposed 'peasant' origins, his materialism and his indifference to criticism. Gerald Mendelsohn describes the composer as "an intensely private man who deeply resented efforts to inquire into his personal affairs. He regarded journalists and would-be biographers, as well as his neighbors in Busseto and the operatic public at large, as an intrusive lot, against whose prying attentions he needed constantly to defend himself."
Verdi was never explicit about his religious beliefs. Anti-clerical by nature in his early years, he nonetheless built a chapel at Sant'Agata but is little recorded as attending church. Strepponi wrote in 1871 "I won't say [Verdi] is an atheist, but he is not much of a believer." Rosselli comments that in the Requiem "The prospect of Hell appears to rule...[the Requiem] is troubled to the end," and offers little consolation.
The writer Friedrich Schiller (four of whose plays were adapted as operas by Verdi) distinguished two types of artist in his 1795 essay On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin ranked Verdi in the 'naïve' category—"They are not...self-conscious. They do not...stand aside to contemplate their creations and express their own feelings....They are able...if they have genius, to embody their vision fully." (The 'sentimentals' seek to recreate nature and natural feelings on their own terms—Berlin instances Richard Wagner—"offering not peace, but a sword".) Verdi's operas are not written according to an aesthetic theory, or with a purpose to change the tastes of their audiences. In conversation with a German visitor in 1887 he is recorded as saying that, whilst "there was much to be admired in [Wagner's operas] Tannhäuser and Lohengrin...in his recent operas [Wagner] seemed to be overstepping the bounds of what can be expressed in music. For him "philosophical" music was incomprehensible." Although Verdi's works belong, as Rosselli admits "to the most artificial of genres...[they] ring emotionally true: truth and directness make them exciting, often hugely so."
The earliest study of Verdi's music, published in 1859 by the Italian critic Abramo Basevi, already distinguished four periods in Verdi's music. The early, 'grandiose' period, ended according to Basevi with La battaglia di Legnano (1849), and a 'personal' style began with the next opera Luisa Miller. These two operas are generally agreed today by critics to mark the division between Verdi's 'early' and 'middle' periods. The 'middle' period is felt to end with La traviata (1853) and Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), with a 'late' period commencing with Simon Boccanegra (1857) running through to Aida (1871). The last two operas, Otello and Falstaff, together with the Requiem and the Four Sacred Pieces, then represent a 'final' period.
Verdi was to claim in his Sketch that during his early training with Lavigna "I did nothing but canons and fugues...No-one taught me orchestration or how to handle dramatic music." He is known to have written a variety of music for the Busseto Philharmonic society, including vocal music, band music and chamber works, (and including an alternative overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville) but few of these works survive. (He may have given instructions before his death to destroy his early works).
Verdi uses in his early operas (and, in his own stylized versions, throughout his later work) the standard elements of Italian opera content of the period, referred to by the opera writer Julian Budden as the 'Code Rossini', after the composer who established through his work and popularity the accepted templates of these forms; they were also used by the composers dominant during Verdi's early career, Bellini, Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. Amongst the essential elements are the aria, the duet, the ensemble, and the finale sequence of an act. The aria format, centred on a soloist, typically involved three sections; a slow introduction, marked typically cantabile or adagio, a tempo di mezzo which might involve chorus or other characters, and a cabaletta, an opportunity for bravura singing for the soloist. The duet was similarly formatted. Finales, covering climactic sequences of action, used the various forces of soloists, ensemble and chorus, usually culminating with an exciting stretto section. Verdi was to develop these and the other formulae of the generation preceding him with increasing sophistication during his career.
The operas of the early period show Verdi learning by doing and gradually establishing mastery over the different elements of opera. Oberto is poorly structured, and the orchestration of the first operas is generally simple, sometimes even basic. The musicologist Richard Taruskin suggested "the most striking effect in the early Verdi operas, and the one most obviously allied to the mood of the Risorgimento, was the big choral number sung—crudely or sublimely, according to the ear of the beholder—in unison. The success of "Va, pensiero" in Nabucco (which Rossini approvingly denoted as "a grand aria sung by sopranos, contraltos, tenors and basses"), was replicated in the similar "O Signor, dal tetto natio" in I lombardi and in 1844 in the chorus "Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia" in Ernani, the battle hymn of the conspirators seeking freedom. In I due Foscari Verdi first uses recurring themes identified with main characters; here and in future operas the accent moves away from the 'oratorio' characteristics of the first operas towards individual action and intrigue.
From this period onwards Verdi also develops his instinct for "tinta" (literally 'colour'), a term which he used for characterising elements of an individual opera score—Parker gives as an example "the rising 6th that begins so many lyric pieces in Ernani". Macbeth, even in its original 1847 version, shows many original touches; characterization by key (the Macbeths themselves generally singing in sharp keys, the witches in flat keys), a preponderance of minor key music, and highly original orchestration. In the 'dagger scene' and the duet following the murder of Duncan, the forms transcend the 'Code Rossini' and propel the drama in a compelling fashion. Verdi was to comment in 1868 that Rossini and his followers missed "the golden thread that binds all the parts together and, rather than a set of numbers without coherence, makes an opera". Tinta was for Verdi this "golden thread", an essential unifying factor in his works.
The writer David Kimbell states that in Luisa Miller and Stiffelio (the earliest operas of this period) there appears to be a "growing freedom in the large scale structure...and an acute attention to fine detail". Others echo those feelings. Julian Budden expresses the impact of Rigoletto and its place in Verdi's output as follows: "Just after 1850 at the age of 38, Verdi closed the door on a period of Italian opera with Rigoletto. The so-called ottocento in music is finished. Verdi will continue to draw on certain of its forms for the next few operas, but in a totally new spirit." One example of Verdi's wish to move away from "standard forms" appears in his feelings about the structure of Il trovatore. To his librettist, Cammarano, Verdi plainly states in a letter of April 1851 that if there were no standard forms—"cavatinas, duets, trios, choruses, finales, etc. ... and if you could avoid beginning with an opening chorus....", he would be quite happy.
Two external factors had their impacts on Verdi's compositions of this period. One is that with increasing reputation and financial security he no longer needed to commit himself to the productive treadmill, had more freedom to choose his own subjects, and had more time to develop them according to his own ideas. In the years 1849 to 1859 he wrote eight new operas, compared with fourteen in the previous ten years.
Another factor was the changed political situation; the failure of the 1848 revolutions led both to some diminution of the Risorgimento ethos (at least initially) and a significant increase in theatre censorship. This is reflected both in Verdi's choices of plots dealing more with personal relationships than political conflict, and in a (partly consequent) dramatic reduction in the operas of this period in the number of choruses (of the type which had first made him famous)—not only are there on average 40% fewer choruses in the 'middle' period operas compared to the 'early' period', but whereas virtually all the 'early' operas commence with a chorus, only one (Luisa Miller) of the 'middle' period operas begin this way. Instead, Verdi experiments with a variety of means, e.g. a stage band (Rigoletto), an aria for bass (Stiffelio), a party scene (La traviata). Chusid also notes Verdi's increasing tendency to replace full-scale overtures with shorter orchestral introductions. Parker comments that La traviata, the last opera of the 'middle' period, is "again a new adventure. It gestures towards a level of 'realism'...the contemporary world of waltzes pervades the score, and the heroine's death from disease is graphically depicted in the music." Verdi's increasing command of musical highlighting of changing moods and relationships is exemplified in act 3 of Rigoletto, where Duke's flippant song "La donna è mobile" is followed immediately by the quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore", contrasting the rapacious Duke and his inamorata with the (concealed) indignant Rigoletto and his grieving daughter. Taruskin asserts this is "the most famous ensemble Verdi ever composed".
Chusid notes Strepponi's description of the operas of the 1860s and 1870s as being "modern" whereas Verdi described the pre-1849 works as "the cavatina operas", as further indication that "Verdi became increasingly dissatisfied with the older, familiar conventions of his predecessors that he had adopted at the outset of his career," Parker sees a physical differentiation of the operas from Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) to Aida (1871) is that they are significantly longer, and with larger cast-lists, than previous works. They also reflect a shift towards the French genre of grand opera, notable in more colorful orchestration, counterpointing of serious and comic scenes, and greater spectacle. The opportunities of transforming Italian opera by utilising such resources appealed to him. For a commission from the Paris Opéra he expressly demanded a libretto from Eugène Scribe, the favorite librettist of Meyerbeer, telling him: "I want—in fact, I must have—a grandiose, impassioned and original subject." The result was Les vêpres siciliennes, and the scenarios of Simon Boccanegra (1857), Un ballo in maschera (1859), La forza del destino (1862), Don Carlos (1867) and Aida (1871) all meet the same criteria. Porter notes that Un ballo marks an almost complete synthesis of Verdi's style with the grand opera hallmarks, such that "huge spectacle is not mere decoration but essential to the drama...musical and theatrical lines remain taut [and] the characters still sing as warmly, passionately and personally as in Il trovatore."
When the composer Ferdinand Hiller asked Verdi whether he preferred Aida or Don Carlos, Verdi replied that Aida had "more bite and (if you'll forgive the word), more theatricality". During the rehearsals for the Naples production of Aida Verdi amused himself by writing his only string quartet, a sprightly work which shows in its last movement that he had not lost the skill for fugue-writing that he had learned with Lavigna.
Verdi's three last major works continued to show new development in conveying drama and emotion. The first to appear, in 1874 was his Requiem, scored for operatic forces but by no means an "opera in ecclesiastical dress" (the words in which Hans von Bülow condemned it before even hearing it). Although in the Requiem Verdi puts to use many of the techniques he learned in opera, its musical forms and emotions are not those of the stage. Verdi's tone painting at the opening of the Requiem is vividly described by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, writing in 1941: "in [the words] murmured by an invisible crowd over the slow swaying of a few simple chords, you straightaway sense the fear and sadness of a vast multitude before the mystery of death. In the [following] Et lux perpetuum the melody spreads it wings...before falling back on itself...you hear a sigh for consolation and eternal peace."
By the time Otello premièred in 1887, more than 15 years after Aida, the operas of Verdi's (predeceased) contemporary Richard Wagner had begun their ascendancy in popular taste, and many sought or identified Wagnerian aspects in Verdi's latest composition. Budden points out that there is little in the music of Otello that relates either to the verismo opera of the younger Italian composers, and little if anything which can be construed as a homage to the New German School. Nonetheless there is still much originality, building on the strengths which Verdi had already demonstrated; the powerful storm which opens the opera in medias res, the recollection of the love duet of Act I in Otello's dying words (more an aspect of tinta than leitmotif), imaginative touches of harmony in Iago's "Era la notte" (Act II).
Finally, six years later, appeared Falstaff, Verdi's only comedy apart from the early, ill-fated Un giorno di regno. In this work Roger Parker writes that:
Although Verdi's operas brought him a popular following, not all contemporary critics approved of his work. The English critic Henry Chorley allowed in 1846 that "he is the only modern man...having a style—for better or worse", but found all his output unacceptable. "[His] faults [are] grave ones, calculated to destroy and degrade taste beyond those of any Italian composer in the long list" wrote Chorley, whilst conceding that "howsoever incomplete may have been his training, howsoever mistaken his aspirations may have proved...he has aspired." But by the time of Verdi's death, 55 years later, his reputation was assured, and the 1910 edition of Grove's Dictionary pronounced him "one of the greatest and most popular opera composers of the nineteenth century".
Verdi had no pupils apart from Muzio and no school of composers sought to follow his style which, however much it reflected his own musical direction, was rooted in the period of his own youth. By the time of his death, verismo was the accepted style of young Italian composers. The New York Metropolitan Opera frequently staged Rigoletto, Trovatore and Traviata during this period and featured Aida in every season from 1898 to 1945. Interest in the operas reawakened in mid-1920s Germany and this sparked a revival in England and elsewhere. From the 1930s onward there began to appear scholarly biographies and publications of documentation and correspondence.
In 1959 the Instituto di Studi Verdiani (from 1989 the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani) was founded in Parma and became a leading centre for research and publication of Verdi studies, and in the 1970s the American Institute for Verdi Studies was founded at New York University.
Historians have debated how political Verdi's operas were. In particular, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (known as Va, pensiero) from the third act of the opera Nabucco was used an anthem for Italian patriots, who were seeking to unify their country and free it from foreign control in the years up to 1861 (the chorus's theme of exiles singing about their homeland, and its lines such as O mia patria, si bella e perduta / "O my country, so lovely and so lost" were thought to have resonated with many Italians). Beginning in Naples in 1859 and spreading throughout Italy, the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II. Marco Pizzo argues that after 1815, music became a political tool, and many songwriters expressed ideals of freedom and equality. Pizzo claims that Verdi was part of this movement, for his operas were inspired by the love of country, the struggle for Italian independence, and speak to the sacrifice of patriots and exiles. George Martin claims Verdi was "the greatest artist" of the Risorgimento. "Throughout his work its values, its issues recur constantly, and he expressed them with great power".
But Mary Ann Smart argues that music critics at the time seldom mentioned any political themes. Likewise, Roger Parker argues that the political dimension of Verdi's operas was exaggerated by nationalistic historians looking for a hero in the late 19th century.
From the 1850s onwards, Verdi's operas displayed few patriotic themes because of the heavy censorship by the absolutist regime in power. Verdi later became disillusioned by politics, but he was personally active part in the political world of events of the Risorgimento and was elected to the first Italian parliament in 1861.
Three Italian conservatories, the Milan Conservatory and those in Turin and Como, are named after Verdi, as are many Italian theatres.
Verdi's hometown of Busseto displays Luigi Secchi's statue of a seated Verdi in 1913, next to the Teatro Verdi built in his honour in the 1850s. It is one of many statues to the composer in Italy. The Giuseppe Verdi Monument, a 1906 marble memorial, sculpted by Pasquale Civiletti, is located in Verdi Square in Manhattan, New York City. The monument includes a statue of Verdi himself and life-sized statues of four characters from his operas, (Aida, Otello, and Falstaff from the operas of the same names, and Leonora from La forza del destino).
Verdi has been the subject of a number of film and stage works. These include the 1938 film directed by Carmine Gallone, Giuseppe Verdi, starring Fosco Giachetti; the 1982 miniseries, The Life of Verdi, directed by Renato Castellani, where Verdi was played by Ronald Pickup, with narration by Burt Lancaster in the English version; and the 1985 play After Aida, by Julian Mitchell (1985). He is a character in the 2011 opera Risorgimento! by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification of 1861.
Verdi's operas are frequently staged around the world. All of his operas are available in recordings in a number of versions, and on DVD – Naxos Records offers a complete boxed set.
Modern productions may differ substantially from those originally envisaged by the composer. Jonathan Miller's 1982 version of Rigoletto for English National Opera, set in the world of modern American mafiosi, received critical plaudits. But the same company's staging in 2002 of Un ballo in maschera as A Masked Ball, directed by Calixto Bieito, including "satanic sex rituals, homosexual rape, [and] a demonic dwarf", got a general critical thumbs down.
Meanwhile, the music of Verdi can still evoke a range of cultural and political resonances. Excerpts from the Requiem were featured at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. On 12 March 2011 during a performance of Nabucco at the Opera di Roma celebrating 150 years of Italian unification, the conductor Riccardo Muti paused after "Va pensiero" and turned to address the audience (which included the then Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi) to complain about cuts in state funding of culture; the audience then joined in a repeat of the chorus. In 2014, the pop singer Katy Perry appeared at the Grammy Award wearing a dress designed by Valentino, embroidered with the music of "Dell'invito trascorsa è già l'ora" from the start of La traviata. The bicentenary of Verdi's birth in 2013 was celebrated in numerous events around the world, both in performances and broadcasts. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus \"Va, pensiero\" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Verdi, the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (1785–1867) and Luigia Uttini (1787–1851), was born at their home in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro and within the borders of the First French Empire following the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1808. The baptismal register, prepared on 11 October 1813, lists his parents Carlo and Luigia as \"innkeeper\" and \"spinner\" respectively. Additionally, it lists Verdi as being \"born yesterday\", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. Following his mother, Verdi always celebrated his birthday on 9 October, the day he himself believed he was born.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Verdi had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who died aged 17 in 1833. She is said to have been his closest friend during childhood. From the age of four, Verdi was given private lessons in Latin and Italian by the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi, and at six he attended the local school. After learning to play the organ, he showed so much interest in music that his parents finally provided him with a spinet. Verdi's gift for music was already apparent by 1820–21 when he began his association with the local church, serving in the choir, acting as an altar boy for a while, and taking organ lessons. After Baistrocchi's death, Verdi, at the age of eight, became the official paid organist.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The music historian Roger Parker points out that both of Verdi's parents \"belonged to families of small landowners and traders, certainly not the illiterate peasants from which Verdi later liked to present himself as having emerged... Carlo Verdi was energetic in furthering his son's education...something which Verdi tended to hide in later life... [T]he picture emerges of youthful precocity eagerly nurtured by an ambitious father and of a sustained, sophisticated and elaborate formal education.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1823, when he was 10, Verdi's parents arranged for the boy to attend school in Busseto, enrolling him in a Ginnasio—an upper school for boys—run by Don Pietro Seletti, while they continued to run their inn at Le Roncole. Verdi returned to Busseto regularly to play the organ on Sundays, covering the distance of several kilometres on foot. At age 11, Verdi received schooling in Italian, Latin, the humanities, and rhetoric. By the time he was 12, he began lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, maestro di cappella at San Bartolomeo, director of the municipal music school and co-director of the local Società Filarmonica (Philharmonic Society). Verdi later stated: \"From the ages of 13 to 18 I wrote a motley assortment of pieces: marches for band by the hundred, perhaps as many little sinfonie that were used in church, in the theatre and at concerts, five or six concertos and sets of variations for pianoforte, which I played myself at concerts, many serenades, cantatas (arias, duets, very many trios) and various pieces of church music, of which I remember only a Stabat Mater.\" This information comes from the Autobiographical Sketch which Verdi dictated to the publisher Giulio Ricordi late in life, in 1879, and remains the leading source for his early life and career. Written, understandably, with the benefit of hindsight, it is not always reliable when dealing with issues more contentious than those of his childhood.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The other director of the Philharmonic Society was Antonio Barezzi [it], a wholesale grocer and distiller, who was described by a contemporary as a \"manic dilettante\" of music. The young Verdi did not immediately become involved with the Philharmonic. By June 1827, he had graduated with honours from the Ginnasio and was able to focus solely on music under Provesi. By chance, when he was 13, Verdi was asked to step in as a replacement to play in what became his first public event in his home town; he was an immediate success mostly playing his own music to the surprise of many and receiving strong local recognition.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "By 1829–30, Verdi had established himself as a leader of the Philharmonic: \"none of us could rival him\" reported the secretary of the organisation, Giuseppe Demaldè. An eight-movement cantata, I deliri di Saul, based on a drama by Vittorio Alfieri, was written by Verdi when he was 15 and performed in Bergamo. It was acclaimed by both Demaldè and Barezzi, who commented: \"He shows a vivid imagination, a philosophical outlook, and sound judgment in the arrangement of instrumental parts.\" In late 1829, Verdi had completed his studies with Provesi, who declared that he had no more to teach him. At the time, Verdi had been giving singing and piano lessons to Barezzi's daughter Margherita; by 1831, they were unofficially engaged.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Verdi set his sights on Milan, then the cultural capital of northern Italy, where he applied unsuccessfully to study at the Conservatory. Barezzi made arrangements for him to become a private pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna [it], who had been maestro concertatore at La Scala, and who described Verdi's compositions as \"very promising\". Lavigna encouraged Verdi to take out a subscription to La Scala, where he heard Maria Malibran in operas by Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. Verdi began making connections in the Milanese world of music that were to stand him in good stead. These included an introduction by Lavigna to an amateur choral group, the Società Filarmonica, led by Pietro Massini. Attending the Società frequently in 1834, Verdi soon found himself functioning as rehearsal director (for Rossini's La Cenerentola) and continuo player. It was Massini who encouraged him to write his first opera, originally titled Rocester, to a libretto by the journalist Antonio Piazza.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In mid-1834, Verdi sought to acquire Provesi's former post in Busseto but without success. But with Barezzi's help he did obtain the secular post of maestro di musica. He taught, gave lessons, and conducted the Philharmonic for several months before returning to Milan in early 1835. By the following July, he obtained his certification from Lavigna. Eventually in 1835 Verdi became director of the Busseto school with a three-year contract. He married Margherita in May 1836, and by March 1837, she had given birth to their first child, Virginia Maria Luigia on 26 March 1837. Icilio Romano followed on 11 July 1838. Both the children died young, Virginia on 12 August 1838, Icilio on 22 October 1839.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1837, the young composer asked for Massini's assistance to stage his opera in Milan. The La Scala impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, agreed to put on Oberto (as the reworked opera was now called, with a libretto rewritten by Temistocle Solera) in November 1839. It achieved a respectable 13 additional performances, following which Merelli offered Verdi a contract for three more works.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "While Verdi was working on his second opera Un giorno di regno, Margherita died of encephalitis at the age of 26. Verdi adored his wife and children and was devastated by their early deaths. Un giorno, a comedy, was premiered only a few months later. It was a flop and only given the one performance. Following its failure, it is claimed Verdi vowed never to compose again, but in his Sketch he recounts how Merelli persuaded him to write a new opera.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Verdi was to claim that he gradually began to work on the music for Nabucco, the libretto of which had originally been rejected by the composer Otto Nicolai: \"This verse today, tomorrow that, here a note, there a whole phrase, and little by little the opera was written\", he later recalled. By the autumn of 1841 it was complete, originally under the title Nabucodonosor. Well received at its first performance on 9 March 1842, Nabucco underpinned Verdi's success until his retirement from the theatre, twenty-nine operas (including some revised and updated versions) later. At its revival in La Scala for the 1842 autumn season it was given an unprecedented (and later unequalled) total of 57 performances; within three years it had reached (among other venues) Vienna, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Hamburg; in 1848 it was heard in New York, in 1850 in Buenos Aires. Porter comments that \"similar accounts...could be provided to show how widely and rapidly all [Verdi's] other successful operas were disseminated.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A period of hard work for Verdi—with the creation of twenty operas (excluding revisions and translations)—followed over the next sixteen years, culminating in Un ballo in maschera. This period was not without its frustrations and setbacks for the young composer, and he was frequently demoralised. In April 1845, in connection with I due Foscari, he wrote: \"I am happy, no matter what reception it gets, and I am utterly indifferent to everything. I cannot wait for these next three years to pass. I have to write six operas, then addio to everything.\" In 1858 Verdi complained: \"Since Nabucco, you may say, I have never had one hour of peace. Sixteen years in the galleys.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "After the initial success of Nabucco, Verdi settled in Milan, making a number of influential acquaintances. He attended the Salotto Maffei, Countess Clara Maffei's salons in Milan, becoming her lifelong friend and correspondent. A revival of Nabucco followed in 1842 at La Scala where it received a run of fifty-seven performances, and this led to a commission from Merelli for a new opera for the 1843 season. I Lombardi alla prima crociata was based on a libretto by Solera and premiered in February 1843. Inevitably, comparisons were made with Nabucco; but one contemporary writer noted: \"If [Nabucco] created this young man's reputation, I Lombardi served to confirm it.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Verdi paid close attention to his financial contracts, making sure he was appropriately remunerated as his popularity increased. For I Lombardi and Ernani (1844) in Venice he was paid 12,000 lire (including supervision of the productions); Attila and Macbeth (1847), each brought him 18,000 lire. His contracts with the publishers Ricordi in 1847 were very specific about the amounts he was to receive for new works, first productions, musical arrangements, and so on. He began to use his growing prosperity to invest in land near his birthplace. In 1844 he purchased \"Il Pulgaro\", 62 acres (23 hectares) of farmland with a farmhouse and outbuildings, providing a home for his parents from May 1844. Later that year, he also bought the Palazzo Cavalli (now known as the Palazzo Orlandi) on the via Roma, Busseto's main street. In May 1848, Verdi signed a contract for land and houses at Sant'Agata in Busseto, which had once belonged to his family. It was here he built his own house, completed in 1880, now known as the Villa Verdi, where he lived from 1851 until his death.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In March 1843, Verdi visited Vienna (where Gaetano Donizetti was musical director) to oversee a production of Nabucco. The older composer, recognising Verdi's talent, noted in a letter of January 1844: \"I am very, very happy to give way to people of talent like Verdi... Nothing will prevent the good Verdi from soon reaching one of the most honourable positions in the cohort of composers.\" Verdi travelled on to Parma, where the Teatro Regio di Parma was producing Nabucco with Giuseppina Strepponi in the cast. For Verdi the performances were a personal triumph in his native region, especially as his father, Carlo, attended the first performance. Verdi remained in Parma for some weeks beyond his intended departure date. This fuelled speculation that the delay was due to Verdi's interest in Strepponi (who stated that their relationship began in 1843). Strepponi was in fact known for her amorous relationships (and many illegitimate children) and her history was an awkward factor in their relationship until they eventually agreed on marriage.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After successful stagings of Nabucco in Venice (with twenty-five performances in the 1842/43 season), Verdi began negotiations with the impresario of La Fenice to stage I Lombardi, and to write a new opera. Eventually, Victor Hugo's Hernani was chosen, with Francesco Maria Piave as librettist. Ernani was successfully premiered in 1844 and within six months had been performed at twenty other theatres in Italy, and also in Vienna. The writer Andrew Porter notes that for the next ten years, Verdi's life \"reads like a travel diary—a timetable of visits...to bring new operas to the stage or to supervise local premieres\". La Scala premiered none of these new works, except for Giovanna d'Arco. Verdi \"never forgave the Milanese for their reception of Un giorno di regno\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "During this period, Verdi began to work more consistently with his librettists. He relied on Piave again for I due Foscari, performed in Rome in November 1844, then on Solera once more for Giovanna d'Arco, at La Scala in February 1845, while in August that year he was able to work with Salvadore Cammarano on Alzira for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Solera and Piave worked together on Attila for La Fenice (March 1846).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In April 1844, Verdi took on Emanuele Muzio, eight years his junior, as a pupil and amanuensis. He had known him since about 1828 as another of Barezzi's protégés. Muzio, who in fact was Verdi's only pupil, became indispensable to the composer. He reported to Barezzi that Verdi \"has a breadth of spirit, of generosity, a wisdom\". In November 1846, Muzio wrote of Verdi: \"If you could see us, I seem more like a friend, rather than his pupil. We are always together at dinner, in the cafes, when we play cards...; all in all, he doesn't go anywhere without me at his side; in the house we have a big table and we both write there together, and so I always have his advice.\" Muzio was to remain associated with Verdi, assisting in the preparation of scores and transcriptions, and later conducting many of his works in their premiere performances in the US and elsewhere outside Italy. He was chosen by Verdi as one of the executors of his will, but predeceased the composer in 1890.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "After a period of illness Verdi began work on Macbeth in September 1846. He dedicated the opera to Barezzi: \"I have long intended to dedicate an opera to you, as you have been a father, a benefactor and a friend for me. It was a duty I should have fulfilled sooner if imperious circumstances had not prevented me. Now, I send you Macbeth, which I prize above all my other operas, and therefore deem worthier to present to you.\" In 1997 Martin Chusid wrote that Macbeth was the only one of Verdi's operas of his \"early period\" to remain regularly in the international repertoire, although in the 21st century Nabucco has also entered the lists.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Strepponi's voice declined and her engagements dried up in the 1845 to 1846 period, and she returned to live in Milan whilst retaining contact with Verdi as his \"supporter, promoter, unofficial adviser, and occasional secretary\" until she decided to move to Paris in October 1846. Before she left Verdi gave her a letter that pledged his love. On the envelope, Strepponi wrote: \"5 or 6 October 1846. They shall lay this letter on my heart when they bury me.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Verdi had completed I masnadieri for London by May 1847 except for the orchestration. This he left until the opera was in rehearsal, since he wanted to hear \"la [Jenny] Lind and modify her role to suit her more exactly\". Verdi agreed to conduct the premiere on 22 July 1847 at Her Majesty's Theatre, as well as the second performance. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended the first performance, and for the most part, the press was generous in its praise.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "For the next two years, except for two visits to Italy during periods of political unrest, Verdi was based in Paris. Within a week of returning to Paris in July 1847, he received his first commission from the Paris Opéra. Verdi agreed to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto; the result was Jérusalem, which contained significant changes to the music and structure of the work (including an extensive ballet scene) to meet Parisian expectations. Verdi was awarded the Order of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. To satisfy his contracts with the publisher Francesco Lucca [it], Verdi dashed off Il Corsaro. Budden comments \"In no other opera of his does Verdi appear to have taken so little interest before it was staged.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "On hearing the news of the \"Cinque Giornate\", the \"Five Days\" of street fighting that took place between 18 and 22 March 1848 and temporarily drove the Austrians out of Milan, Verdi travelled there, arriving on 5 April. He discovered that Piave was now \"Citizen Piave\" of the newly proclaimed Republic of San Marco. Writing a patriotic letter to him in Venice, Verdi concluded \"Banish every petty municipal idea! We must all extend a fraternal hand, and Italy will yet become the first nation of the world...I am drunk with joy! Imagine that there are no more Germans here!!\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Verdi had been admonished by the poet Giuseppe Giusti for turning away from patriotic subjects, the poet pleading with him to \"do what you can to nourish the [sorrow of the Italian people], to strengthen it, and direct it to its goal.\" Cammarano suggested adapting Joseph Méry's 1828 play La Bataille de Toulouse, which he described as a story \"that should stir every man with an Italian soul in his breast\". The premiere was set for late January 1849. Verdi travelled to Rome before the end of 1848. He found that city on the verge of becoming a (short-lived) republic, which commenced within days of La battaglia di Legnano's enthusiastically received premiere. In the spirit of the time were the tenor hero's final words, \"Whoever dies for the fatherland cannot be evil-minded\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Verdi had intended to return to Italy in early 1848, but was prevented by work and illness, as well as, most probably, by his increasing attachment to Strepponi. Verdi and Strepponi left Paris in July 1849, the immediate cause being an outbreak of cholera, and Verdi went directly to Busseto to continue work on completing his latest opera, Luisa Miller, for a production in Naples later in the year.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Verdi was committed to the publisher Giovanni Ricordi for an opera—which became Stiffelio—for Trieste in the Spring of 1850; and, subsequently, following negotiations with La Fenice, developed a libretto with Piave and wrote the music for Rigoletto (based on Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse) for Venice in March 1851. This was the first of a sequence of three operas (followed by Il trovatore and La traviata) which were to cement his fame as a master of opera. The failure of Stiffelio (attributable not least to the censors of the time taking offence at the taboo subject of the supposed adultery of a clergyman's wife and interfering with the text and roles) incited Verdi to take pains to rework it, although even in the completely recycled version of Aroldo (1857) it still failed to please. Rigoletto, with its intended murder of royalty, and its sordid attributes, also upset the censors. Verdi would not compromise:",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "What does the sack matter to the police? Are they worried about the effect it will produce?...Do they think they know better than I?...I see the hero has been made no longer ugly and hunchbacked!! Why? A singing hunchback...why not?...I think it splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, and inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these very qualities...if they are removed I can no longer set it to music.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Verdi substituted a Duke for the King, and the public response and subsequent success of the opera all over Italy and Europe fully vindicated the composer. Aware that the melody of the Duke's song \"La donna è mobile\" (\"Woman is fickle\") would become a popular hit, Verdi excluded it from orchestral rehearsals for the opera, and rehearsed the tenor separately.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "For several months Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These stemmed from the way in which the citizens of Busseto were treating Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he was living openly in an unmarried relationship. She was shunned in the town and at church, and while Verdi appeared indifferent, she was certainly not. Furthermore, Verdi was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant'Agata. A growing estrangement between Verdi and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi (the suggestion that this situation was sparked by the birth of a child to Verdi and Strepponi which was given away as a foundling lacks any firm evidence). In January 1851, Verdi broke off relations with his parents, and in April they were ordered to leave Sant'Agata; Verdi found new premises for them and helped them financially to settle into their new home. It may not be coincidental that all six Verdi operas written in the period 1849–1853 (La battaglia, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata), have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman's words, \"women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived\". Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant'Agata on 1 May 1851. May also brought an offer for a new opera from La Fenice, which Verdi eventually realised as La traviata. That was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to present Il trovatore for January 1853. Verdi now had sufficient earnings to retire, had he wished to. He had reached a stage where he could develop his operas as he wished, rather than be dependent on commissions from third parties. Il trovatore was in fact the first opera he wrote without a specific commission (apart from Oberto). At around the same time he began to consider creating an opera from Shakespeare's King Lear. After first (1850) seeking a libretto from Cammarano (which never appeared), Verdi later (1857) commissioned one from Antonio Somma, but this proved intractable, and no music was ever written. Verdi began work on Il trovatore after the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is \"the one opera of Verdi's which focuses on a mother rather than a father\" is perhaps related to her death.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In the winter of 1851–52 Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he concluded an agreement with the Opéra to write what became Les vêpres siciliennes, his first original work in the style of grand opera. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of Alexander Dumas fils's play The Lady of the Camellias; Verdi immediately began to compose music for what would later become La traviata.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "After his visit to Rome for Il trovatore in January 1853, Verdi worked on completing La traviata, but with little hope of its success, due to his lack of confidence in any of the singers engaged for the season. Furthermore, the management insisted that the opera be given a historical, not a contemporary setting. The premiere in March 1853 was indeed a failure: Verdi wrote: \"Was the fault mine or the singers'? Time will tell.\" Subsequent productions (following some rewriting) throughout Europe over the following two years fully vindicated the composer; Roger Parker has written \"Il trovatore consistently remains one of the three or four most popular operas in the Verdian repertoire: but it has never pleased the critics\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the eleven years up to and including Traviata, Verdi had written sixteen operas. Over the next eighteen years (up to Aida), he wrote only six new works for the stage. Verdi was happy to return to Sant'Agata and, in February 1856, was reporting a \"total abandonment of music; a little reading; some light occupation with agriculture and horses; that's all\". A couple of months later, writing in the same vein to Countess Maffei he stated: \"I'm not doing anything. I don't read. I don't write. I walk in the fields from morning to evening, trying to recover, so far without success, from the stomach trouble caused me by I vespri siciliani. Cursed operas!\" An 1858 letter by Strepponi to the publisher Léon Escudier describes the kind of lifestyle that increasingly appealed to the composer: \"His love for the country has become a mania, madness, rage, and fury—anything you like that is exaggerated. He gets up almost with the dawn, to go and examine the wheat, the maize, the vines, etc....Fortunately our tastes for this sort of life coincide, except in the matter of sunrise, which he likes to see up and dressed, and I from my bed.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Nonetheless on 15 May, Verdi signed a contract with La Fenice for an opera for the following spring. This was to be Simon Boccanegra. The couple stayed in Paris until January 1857 to deal with these proposals, and also the offer to stage the translated version of Il trovatore as a grand opera. Verdi and Strepponi travelled to Venice in March for the premiere of Simon Boccanegra, which turned out to be \"a fiasco\" (as Verdi reported, although on the second and third nights, the reception improved considerably).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "With Strepponi, Verdi went to Naples early in January 1858 to work with Somma on the libretto of the opera Gustave III, which over a year later would become Un ballo in maschera. By this time, Verdi had begun to write about Strepponi as \"my wife\" and she was signing her letters as \"Giuseppina Verdi\". Verdi raged against the stringent requirements of the Neapolitan censor stating: \"I'm drowning in a sea of troubles. It's almost certain that the censors will forbid our libretto.\" With no hope of seeing his Gustavo III staged as written, he broke his contract. This resulted in litigation and counter-litigation; with the legal issues resolved, Verdi was free to present the libretto and musical outline of Gustave III to the Rome Opera. There, the censors demanded further changes; at this point, the opera took the title Un ballo in maschera.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Arriving in Sant'Agata in March 1859 Verdi and Strepponi found the nearby city of Piacenza occupied by about 6,000 Austrian troops who had made it their base, to combat the rise of Italian interest in unification in the Piedmont region. In the ensuing Second Italian War of Independence the Austrians abandoned the region and began to leave Lombardy, although they remained in control of the Venice region under the terms of the armistice signed at Villafranca. Verdi was disgusted at this outcome: \"[W]here then is the independence of Italy, so long hoped for and promised?...Venice is not Italian? After so many victories, what an outcome... It is enough to drive one mad\" he wrote to Clara Maffei.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Verdi and Strepponi now decided on marriage; they travelled to Collonges-sous-Salève, a village then part of Piedmont. On 29 August 1859 the couple were married there, with only the coachman who had driven them there and the church bell-ringer as witnesses. At the end of 1859, Verdi wrote to his friend Cesare De Sanctis \"[Since completing Ballo] I have not made any more music, I have not seen any more music, I have not thought anymore about music. I don't even know what colour my last opera is, and I almost don't remember it.\" He began to remodel Sant'Agata, which took most of 1860 to complete and on which he continued to work for the next twenty years. This included major work on a square room that became his workroom, his bedroom, and his office.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Having achieved some fame and prosperity, Verdi began in 1859 to take an active interest in Italian politics. His early commitment to the Risorgimento movement is difficult to estimate accurately; in the words of the music historian Philip Gossett \"myths intensifying and exaggerating [such] sentiment began circulating\" during the nineteenth century. An example is the claim that when the \"Va, pensiero\" chorus in Nabucco was first sung in Milan, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervour, demanded an encore. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. But in fact the piece encored was not \"Va, pensiero\" but the hymn \"Immenso Jehova\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The growth of the \"identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics\" perhaps began in the 1840s. In 1848, the nationalist leader Giuseppe Mazzini (whom Verdi had met in London the previous year) requested Verdi (who complied) to write a patriotic hymn. The opera historian Charles Osborne describes the 1849 La battaglia di Legnano as \"an opera with a purpose\" and maintains that \"while parts of Verdi's earlier operas had frequently been taken up by the fighters of the Risorgimento...this time the composer had given the movement its own opera\" It was not until 1859 in Naples, and only then spreading throughout Italy, that the slogan \"Viva Verdi\" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Viva Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), (who was then king of Piedmont). After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi's early operas were increasingly re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that perhaps had not been originally intended by either the composer or his librettists.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1859, Verdi was elected as a member of the new provincial council, and was appointed to head a group of five who would meet with King Vittorio Emanuele II in Turin. They were enthusiastically greeted along the way and in Turin Verdi himself received much of the publicity. On 17 October Verdi met with Cavour, the architect of the initial stages of Italian unification. Later that year the government of Emilia was subsumed under the United Provinces of Central Italy, and Verdi's political life temporarily came to an end. Whilst still maintaining nationalist feelings, he declined in 1860 the office of provincial council member to which he had been elected in absentia. Cavour however was anxious to convince a man of Verdi's stature that running for political office was essential to strengthening and securing Italy's future. The composer confided to Piave some years later that \"I accepted on the condition that after a few months I would resign.\" Verdi was elected on 3 February 1861 for the town of Borgo San Donnino (Fidenza) to the Parliament of Piedmont-Sardinia in Turin (which from March 1861 became the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy), but following the death of Cavour in 1861, which deeply distressed him, he scarcely attended. Later, in 1874, Verdi was appointed a member of the Italian Senate, but did not participate in its activities.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In the months following the staging of Ballo, Verdi was approached by several opera companies seeking a new work or making offers to stage one of his existing ones, but refused them all. But when, in December 1860, an approach was made from Saint Petersburg's Imperial Theatre, the offer of 60,000 francs plus all expenses was doubtless a strong incentive. Verdi came up with the idea of adapting the 1835 Spanish play Don Alvaro o la fuerza del sino by Angel Saavedra, which became La forza del destino, with Piave writing the libretto. The Verdis arrived in St. Petersburg in December 1861 for the premiere, but casting problems meant that it had to be postponed.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Returning via Paris from Russia on 24 February 1862, Verdi met two young Italian writers, the twenty-year-old Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio. Verdi had been invited to write a piece of music for the 1862 International Exhibition in London, and charged Boito with writing a text, which became the Inno delle nazioni. Boito, as a supporter of the grand opera of Giacomo Meyerbeer and an opera composer in his own right, was later in the 1860s critical of Verdi's \"reliance on formula rather than form\", incurring the composer's wrath. Nevertheless, he was to become Verdi's close collaborator in his final operas. The St. Petersburg premiere of La forza finally took place in September 1862, and Verdi received the Order of St. Stanislaus.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A revival of Macbeth in Paris in 1865 was not a success, but he obtained a commission for a new work, Don Carlos, based on the play Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller. He and Giuseppina spent late 1866 and much of 1867 in Paris, where they heard, and did not warm to, Giacomo Meyerbeer's last opera, L'Africaine, and Richard Wagner's overture to Tannhäuser. The opera's premiere in 1867 drew mixed comments. While the critic Théophile Gautier praised the work, the composer Georges Bizet was disappointed at Verdi's changing style: \"Verdi is no longer Italian. He is following Wagner.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "During the 1860s and 1870s, Verdi paid great attention to his estate around Busseto, purchasing additional land, dealing with unsatisfactory (in one case, embezzling) stewards, installing irrigation, and coping with variable harvests and economic slumps. In 1867, both Verdi's father Carlo, with whom he had restored good relations, and his early patron and father-in-law Antonio Barezzi, died. Verdi and Giuseppina decided to adopt Carlo's great-niece Filomena Maria Verdi, then seven years old, as their own child. She was to marry in 1878 the son of Verdi's friend and lawyer Angelo Carrara and her family became eventually the heirs of Verdi's estate.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Aida was commissioned by the Egyptian government for the opera house built by the Khedive Isma'il Pasha to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. The prose libretto in French by Camille du Locle, based on a scenario by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was transformed to Italian verse by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Verdi was offered the enormous sum of 150,000 francs for the opera (even though he confessed that Ancient Egypt was \"a civilization I have never been able to admire\"), and it was first performed in Cairo in 1871. Verdi spent much of 1872 and 1873 supervising the Italian productions of Aida at Milan, Parma and Naples, effectively acting as producer and demanding high standards and adequate rehearsal time. During the rehearsals for the Naples production he wrote his string quartet, the only chamber music by him to survive, and the only major work in the form by an Italian of the 19th century.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 1869, Verdi had been asked to compose a section for a requiem mass in memory of Rossini. He compiled and completed the requiem, but its performance was abandoned (and its premiere did not take place until 1988). Five years later, Verdi reworked his \"Libera Me\" section of the Rossini Requiem and made it a part of his Requiem honouring Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was first performed at the cathedral in Milan on the anniversary of Manzoni's death on 22 May 1874. The spinto soprano Teresa Stolz (1834–1902), who had sung in La Scala productions from 1865 onwards, was the soloist in the first and many later performances of the Requiem; in February 1872, she had created Aida in its European premiere in Milan. She became closely associated personally with Verdi (exactly how closely remains conjectural), to Giuseppina Verdi's initial disquiet; but the women were reconciled and Stolz remained a companion of Verdi after Giuseppina's death in 1897 until his own death.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Verdi conducted his Requiem in Paris, London and Vienna in 1875 and in Cologne in 1876. It seemed that it would be his last work. In the words of his biographer John Rosselli, it \"confirmed him as the unique presiding genius of Italian music. No fellow composer...came near him in popularity or reputation\". Verdi, now in his sixties, initially seemed to withdraw into retirement. He deliberately shied away from opportunities to publicise himself or to become involved with new productions of his works, but secretly he began work on Otello, which Boito (to whom the composer had been reconciled by Ricordi) had proposed to him privately in 1879. The composition was delayed by a revision of Simon Boccanegra which Verdi undertook with Boito, produced in 1881, and a revision of Don Carlos. Even when Otello was virtually completed, Verdi teased \"Shall I finish it? Shall I have it performed? Hard to tell, even for me.\" As news leaked out, Verdi was pressed by opera houses across Europe with enquiries; eventually the opera was triumphantly premiered at La Scala in February 1887.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Following the success of Otello Verdi commented, \"After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little.\" He had considered a variety of comic subjects but had found none of them wholly suitable and confided his ambition to Boito. The librettist said nothing at the time but secretly began work on a libretto based on The Merry Wives of Windsor with additional material taken from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Verdi received the draft libretto probably in early July 1889 after he had just read Shakespeare's play: \"Benissimo! Benissimo!... No one could have done better than you\", he wrote back to Boito. But he still had doubts: his age, his health (which he admits to being good) and his ability to complete the project: \"If I were not to finish the music?\". If the project failed, it would have been a waste of Boito's time, and have distracted him from completing his own new opera. Finally on 10 July 1889 he wrote again: \"So be it! So let's do Falstaff! For now, let's not think of obstacles, of age, of illnesses!\" Verdi emphasised the need for secrecy, but continued \"If you are in the mood, then start to write.\" Later he wrote to Boito: \"What joy to be able to say to the public: HERE WE ARE AGAIN!!! COME AND SEE US!\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The first performance of Falstaff took place at La Scala on 9 February 1893. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times higher than usual. Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present. The performance was a huge success; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour. That was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel de Milan. Even more hectic scenes ensued when he went to Rome in May for the opera's premiere at the Teatro Costanzi, when crowds of well-wishers at the railway station initially forced Verdi to take refuge in a tool-shed. He witnessed the performance from the Royal Box at the side of King Umberto and the Queen.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In his last years Verdi undertook a number of philanthropic ventures, publishing in 1894 a song for the benefit of earthquake victims in Sicily, and from 1895 onwards planning, building and endowing a rest-home for retired musicians in Milan, the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, and building a hospital at Villanova sull'Arda, close to Busseto. His last major composition, the choral set of Four sacred pieces, was published in 1898. In 1900 he was deeply upset at the assassination of King Umberto and sketched a setting of a poem in his memory but was unable to complete it. While staying at the Grand Hotel, Verdi suffered a stroke on 21 January 1901. He gradually grew more feeble over the next week, during which Stolz cared for him, and died on 27 January at the age of 87.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Verdi was initially buried in a private ceremony at Milan's Cimitero Monumentale. A month later, his body was moved to the crypt of the Casa di Riposo. On this occasion, \"Va, pensiero\" from Nabucco was conducted by Arturo Toscanini with a chorus of 820 singers. A huge crowd was in attendance, estimated at 300,000. Boito wrote to a friend, in words which recall the mysterious final scene of Don Carlos, \"[Verdi] sleeps like a King of Spain in his Escurial, under a bronze slab that completely covers him.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Not all of Verdi's personal qualities were amiable. John Rosselli concluded after writing his biography that \"I do not very much like the man Verdi, in particular the autocratic rentier-cum-estate owner, part-time composer, and seemingly full-time grumbler and reactionary critic of the later years\", yet admits that like other writers, he must \"admire him, warts and all...a deep integrity runs beneath his life, and can be felt even when he is being unreasonable or wrong.\"",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Budden suggests that \"With Verdi...the man and the artist on many ways developed side by side.\" Ungainly and awkward in society in his early years, \"as he became a man of property and underwent the civilizing influence of Giuseppina,...[he] acquired assurance and authority.\" He also learnt to keep himself to himself, never discussing his private life and maintaining, when it suited him, legends about his supposed 'peasant' origins, his materialism and his indifference to criticism. Gerald Mendelsohn describes the composer as \"an intensely private man who deeply resented efforts to inquire into his personal affairs. He regarded journalists and would-be biographers, as well as his neighbors in Busseto and the operatic public at large, as an intrusive lot, against whose prying attentions he needed constantly to defend himself.\"",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Verdi was never explicit about his religious beliefs. Anti-clerical by nature in his early years, he nonetheless built a chapel at Sant'Agata but is little recorded as attending church. Strepponi wrote in 1871 \"I won't say [Verdi] is an atheist, but he is not much of a believer.\" Rosselli comments that in the Requiem \"The prospect of Hell appears to rule...[the Requiem] is troubled to the end,\" and offers little consolation.",
"title": "Personality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The writer Friedrich Schiller (four of whose plays were adapted as operas by Verdi) distinguished two types of artist in his 1795 essay On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin ranked Verdi in the 'naïve' category—\"They are not...self-conscious. They do not...stand aside to contemplate their creations and express their own feelings....They are able...if they have genius, to embody their vision fully.\" (The 'sentimentals' seek to recreate nature and natural feelings on their own terms—Berlin instances Richard Wagner—\"offering not peace, but a sword\".) Verdi's operas are not written according to an aesthetic theory, or with a purpose to change the tastes of their audiences. In conversation with a German visitor in 1887 he is recorded as saying that, whilst \"there was much to be admired in [Wagner's operas] Tannhäuser and Lohengrin...in his recent operas [Wagner] seemed to be overstepping the bounds of what can be expressed in music. For him \"philosophical\" music was incomprehensible.\" Although Verdi's works belong, as Rosselli admits \"to the most artificial of genres...[they] ring emotionally true: truth and directness make them exciting, often hugely so.\"",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The earliest study of Verdi's music, published in 1859 by the Italian critic Abramo Basevi, already distinguished four periods in Verdi's music. The early, 'grandiose' period, ended according to Basevi with La battaglia di Legnano (1849), and a 'personal' style began with the next opera Luisa Miller. These two operas are generally agreed today by critics to mark the division between Verdi's 'early' and 'middle' periods. The 'middle' period is felt to end with La traviata (1853) and Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), with a 'late' period commencing with Simon Boccanegra (1857) running through to Aida (1871). The last two operas, Otello and Falstaff, together with the Requiem and the Four Sacred Pieces, then represent a 'final' period.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Verdi was to claim in his Sketch that during his early training with Lavigna \"I did nothing but canons and fugues...No-one taught me orchestration or how to handle dramatic music.\" He is known to have written a variety of music for the Busseto Philharmonic society, including vocal music, band music and chamber works, (and including an alternative overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville) but few of these works survive. (He may have given instructions before his death to destroy his early works).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Verdi uses in his early operas (and, in his own stylized versions, throughout his later work) the standard elements of Italian opera content of the period, referred to by the opera writer Julian Budden as the 'Code Rossini', after the composer who established through his work and popularity the accepted templates of these forms; they were also used by the composers dominant during Verdi's early career, Bellini, Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. Amongst the essential elements are the aria, the duet, the ensemble, and the finale sequence of an act. The aria format, centred on a soloist, typically involved three sections; a slow introduction, marked typically cantabile or adagio, a tempo di mezzo which might involve chorus or other characters, and a cabaletta, an opportunity for bravura singing for the soloist. The duet was similarly formatted. Finales, covering climactic sequences of action, used the various forces of soloists, ensemble and chorus, usually culminating with an exciting stretto section. Verdi was to develop these and the other formulae of the generation preceding him with increasing sophistication during his career.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The operas of the early period show Verdi learning by doing and gradually establishing mastery over the different elements of opera. Oberto is poorly structured, and the orchestration of the first operas is generally simple, sometimes even basic. The musicologist Richard Taruskin suggested \"the most striking effect in the early Verdi operas, and the one most obviously allied to the mood of the Risorgimento, was the big choral number sung—crudely or sublimely, according to the ear of the beholder—in unison. The success of \"Va, pensiero\" in Nabucco (which Rossini approvingly denoted as \"a grand aria sung by sopranos, contraltos, tenors and basses\"), was replicated in the similar \"O Signor, dal tetto natio\" in I lombardi and in 1844 in the chorus \"Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia\" in Ernani, the battle hymn of the conspirators seeking freedom. In I due Foscari Verdi first uses recurring themes identified with main characters; here and in future operas the accent moves away from the 'oratorio' characteristics of the first operas towards individual action and intrigue.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "From this period onwards Verdi also develops his instinct for \"tinta\" (literally 'colour'), a term which he used for characterising elements of an individual opera score—Parker gives as an example \"the rising 6th that begins so many lyric pieces in Ernani\". Macbeth, even in its original 1847 version, shows many original touches; characterization by key (the Macbeths themselves generally singing in sharp keys, the witches in flat keys), a preponderance of minor key music, and highly original orchestration. In the 'dagger scene' and the duet following the murder of Duncan, the forms transcend the 'Code Rossini' and propel the drama in a compelling fashion. Verdi was to comment in 1868 that Rossini and his followers missed \"the golden thread that binds all the parts together and, rather than a set of numbers without coherence, makes an opera\". Tinta was for Verdi this \"golden thread\", an essential unifying factor in his works.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The writer David Kimbell states that in Luisa Miller and Stiffelio (the earliest operas of this period) there appears to be a \"growing freedom in the large scale structure...and an acute attention to fine detail\". Others echo those feelings. Julian Budden expresses the impact of Rigoletto and its place in Verdi's output as follows: \"Just after 1850 at the age of 38, Verdi closed the door on a period of Italian opera with Rigoletto. The so-called ottocento in music is finished. Verdi will continue to draw on certain of its forms for the next few operas, but in a totally new spirit.\" One example of Verdi's wish to move away from \"standard forms\" appears in his feelings about the structure of Il trovatore. To his librettist, Cammarano, Verdi plainly states in a letter of April 1851 that if there were no standard forms—\"cavatinas, duets, trios, choruses, finales, etc. ... and if you could avoid beginning with an opening chorus....\", he would be quite happy.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Two external factors had their impacts on Verdi's compositions of this period. One is that with increasing reputation and financial security he no longer needed to commit himself to the productive treadmill, had more freedom to choose his own subjects, and had more time to develop them according to his own ideas. In the years 1849 to 1859 he wrote eight new operas, compared with fourteen in the previous ten years.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Another factor was the changed political situation; the failure of the 1848 revolutions led both to some diminution of the Risorgimento ethos (at least initially) and a significant increase in theatre censorship. This is reflected both in Verdi's choices of plots dealing more with personal relationships than political conflict, and in a (partly consequent) dramatic reduction in the operas of this period in the number of choruses (of the type which had first made him famous)—not only are there on average 40% fewer choruses in the 'middle' period operas compared to the 'early' period', but whereas virtually all the 'early' operas commence with a chorus, only one (Luisa Miller) of the 'middle' period operas begin this way. Instead, Verdi experiments with a variety of means, e.g. a stage band (Rigoletto), an aria for bass (Stiffelio), a party scene (La traviata). Chusid also notes Verdi's increasing tendency to replace full-scale overtures with shorter orchestral introductions. Parker comments that La traviata, the last opera of the 'middle' period, is \"again a new adventure. It gestures towards a level of 'realism'...the contemporary world of waltzes pervades the score, and the heroine's death from disease is graphically depicted in the music.\" Verdi's increasing command of musical highlighting of changing moods and relationships is exemplified in act 3 of Rigoletto, where Duke's flippant song \"La donna è mobile\" is followed immediately by the quartet \"Bella figlia dell'amore\", contrasting the rapacious Duke and his inamorata with the (concealed) indignant Rigoletto and his grieving daughter. Taruskin asserts this is \"the most famous ensemble Verdi ever composed\".",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Chusid notes Strepponi's description of the operas of the 1860s and 1870s as being \"modern\" whereas Verdi described the pre-1849 works as \"the cavatina operas\", as further indication that \"Verdi became increasingly dissatisfied with the older, familiar conventions of his predecessors that he had adopted at the outset of his career,\" Parker sees a physical differentiation of the operas from Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) to Aida (1871) is that they are significantly longer, and with larger cast-lists, than previous works. They also reflect a shift towards the French genre of grand opera, notable in more colorful orchestration, counterpointing of serious and comic scenes, and greater spectacle. The opportunities of transforming Italian opera by utilising such resources appealed to him. For a commission from the Paris Opéra he expressly demanded a libretto from Eugène Scribe, the favorite librettist of Meyerbeer, telling him: \"I want—in fact, I must have—a grandiose, impassioned and original subject.\" The result was Les vêpres siciliennes, and the scenarios of Simon Boccanegra (1857), Un ballo in maschera (1859), La forza del destino (1862), Don Carlos (1867) and Aida (1871) all meet the same criteria. Porter notes that Un ballo marks an almost complete synthesis of Verdi's style with the grand opera hallmarks, such that \"huge spectacle is not mere decoration but essential to the drama...musical and theatrical lines remain taut [and] the characters still sing as warmly, passionately and personally as in Il trovatore.\"",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "When the composer Ferdinand Hiller asked Verdi whether he preferred Aida or Don Carlos, Verdi replied that Aida had \"more bite and (if you'll forgive the word), more theatricality\". During the rehearsals for the Naples production of Aida Verdi amused himself by writing his only string quartet, a sprightly work which shows in its last movement that he had not lost the skill for fugue-writing that he had learned with Lavigna.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Verdi's three last major works continued to show new development in conveying drama and emotion. The first to appear, in 1874 was his Requiem, scored for operatic forces but by no means an \"opera in ecclesiastical dress\" (the words in which Hans von Bülow condemned it before even hearing it). Although in the Requiem Verdi puts to use many of the techniques he learned in opera, its musical forms and emotions are not those of the stage. Verdi's tone painting at the opening of the Requiem is vividly described by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, writing in 1941: \"in [the words] murmured by an invisible crowd over the slow swaying of a few simple chords, you straightaway sense the fear and sadness of a vast multitude before the mystery of death. In the [following] Et lux perpetuum the melody spreads it wings...before falling back on itself...you hear a sigh for consolation and eternal peace.\"",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "By the time Otello premièred in 1887, more than 15 years after Aida, the operas of Verdi's (predeceased) contemporary Richard Wagner had begun their ascendancy in popular taste, and many sought or identified Wagnerian aspects in Verdi's latest composition. Budden points out that there is little in the music of Otello that relates either to the verismo opera of the younger Italian composers, and little if anything which can be construed as a homage to the New German School. Nonetheless there is still much originality, building on the strengths which Verdi had already demonstrated; the powerful storm which opens the opera in medias res, the recollection of the love duet of Act I in Otello's dying words (more an aspect of tinta than leitmotif), imaginative touches of harmony in Iago's \"Era la notte\" (Act II).",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Finally, six years later, appeared Falstaff, Verdi's only comedy apart from the early, ill-fated Un giorno di regno. In this work Roger Parker writes that:",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Although Verdi's operas brought him a popular following, not all contemporary critics approved of his work. The English critic Henry Chorley allowed in 1846 that \"he is the only modern man...having a style—for better or worse\", but found all his output unacceptable. \"[His] faults [are] grave ones, calculated to destroy and degrade taste beyond those of any Italian composer in the long list\" wrote Chorley, whilst conceding that \"howsoever incomplete may have been his training, howsoever mistaken his aspirations may have proved...he has aspired.\" But by the time of Verdi's death, 55 years later, his reputation was assured, and the 1910 edition of Grove's Dictionary pronounced him \"one of the greatest and most popular opera composers of the nineteenth century\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Verdi had no pupils apart from Muzio and no school of composers sought to follow his style which, however much it reflected his own musical direction, was rooted in the period of his own youth. By the time of his death, verismo was the accepted style of young Italian composers. The New York Metropolitan Opera frequently staged Rigoletto, Trovatore and Traviata during this period and featured Aida in every season from 1898 to 1945. Interest in the operas reawakened in mid-1920s Germany and this sparked a revival in England and elsewhere. From the 1930s onward there began to appear scholarly biographies and publications of documentation and correspondence.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1959 the Instituto di Studi Verdiani (from 1989 the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani) was founded in Parma and became a leading centre for research and publication of Verdi studies, and in the 1970s the American Institute for Verdi Studies was founded at New York University.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Historians have debated how political Verdi's operas were. In particular, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (known as Va, pensiero) from the third act of the opera Nabucco was used an anthem for Italian patriots, who were seeking to unify their country and free it from foreign control in the years up to 1861 (the chorus's theme of exiles singing about their homeland, and its lines such as O mia patria, si bella e perduta / \"O my country, so lovely and so lost\" were thought to have resonated with many Italians). Beginning in Naples in 1859 and spreading throughout Italy, the slogan \"Viva VERDI\" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II. Marco Pizzo argues that after 1815, music became a political tool, and many songwriters expressed ideals of freedom and equality. Pizzo claims that Verdi was part of this movement, for his operas were inspired by the love of country, the struggle for Italian independence, and speak to the sacrifice of patriots and exiles. George Martin claims Verdi was \"the greatest artist\" of the Risorgimento. \"Throughout his work its values, its issues recur constantly, and he expressed them with great power\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "But Mary Ann Smart argues that music critics at the time seldom mentioned any political themes. Likewise, Roger Parker argues that the political dimension of Verdi's operas was exaggerated by nationalistic historians looking for a hero in the late 19th century.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "From the 1850s onwards, Verdi's operas displayed few patriotic themes because of the heavy censorship by the absolutist regime in power. Verdi later became disillusioned by politics, but he was personally active part in the political world of events of the Risorgimento and was elected to the first Italian parliament in 1861.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Three Italian conservatories, the Milan Conservatory and those in Turin and Como, are named after Verdi, as are many Italian theatres.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Verdi's hometown of Busseto displays Luigi Secchi's statue of a seated Verdi in 1913, next to the Teatro Verdi built in his honour in the 1850s. It is one of many statues to the composer in Italy. The Giuseppe Verdi Monument, a 1906 marble memorial, sculpted by Pasquale Civiletti, is located in Verdi Square in Manhattan, New York City. The monument includes a statue of Verdi himself and life-sized statues of four characters from his operas, (Aida, Otello, and Falstaff from the operas of the same names, and Leonora from La forza del destino).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Verdi has been the subject of a number of film and stage works. These include the 1938 film directed by Carmine Gallone, Giuseppe Verdi, starring Fosco Giachetti; the 1982 miniseries, The Life of Verdi, directed by Renato Castellani, where Verdi was played by Ronald Pickup, with narration by Burt Lancaster in the English version; and the 1985 play After Aida, by Julian Mitchell (1985). He is a character in the 2011 opera Risorgimento! by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification of 1861.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Verdi's operas are frequently staged around the world. All of his operas are available in recordings in a number of versions, and on DVD – Naxos Records offers a complete boxed set.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Modern productions may differ substantially from those originally envisaged by the composer. Jonathan Miller's 1982 version of Rigoletto for English National Opera, set in the world of modern American mafiosi, received critical plaudits. But the same company's staging in 2002 of Un ballo in maschera as A Masked Ball, directed by Calixto Bieito, including \"satanic sex rituals, homosexual rape, [and] a demonic dwarf\", got a general critical thumbs down.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Meanwhile, the music of Verdi can still evoke a range of cultural and political resonances. Excerpts from the Requiem were featured at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. On 12 March 2011 during a performance of Nabucco at the Opera di Roma celebrating 150 years of Italian unification, the conductor Riccardo Muti paused after \"Va pensiero\" and turned to address the audience (which included the then Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi) to complain about cuts in state funding of culture; the audience then joined in a repeat of the chorus. In 2014, the pop singer Katy Perry appeared at the Grammy Award wearing a dress designed by Valentino, embroidered with the music of \"Dell'invito trascorsa è già l'ora\" from the start of La traviata. The bicentenary of Verdi's birth in 2013 was celebrated in numerous events around the world, both in performances and broadcasts.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances. | 2001-12-10T20:39:45Z | 2023-12-25T06:23:01Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Verdi |
12,960 | German Navy | The German Navy (German: Deutsche Marine, pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃə maˈʁiːnə] ) is the navy of Germany and part of the unified Bundeswehr (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the Bundesmarine (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when Deutsche Marine (German Navy) became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German Volksmarine (People's Navy). It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations.
The German Navy traces its roots back to the Reichsflotte (Imperial Fleet) of the revolutionary era of 1848–52. The Reichsflotte was the first German navy to sail under the black-red-gold flag. Founded on 14 June 1848 by the orders of the democratically elected Frankfurt Parliament, the Reichsflotte's brief existence ended with the failure of the revolution and it was disbanded on 2 April 1852; thus, the modern day navy celebrates its birthday on 14 June.
Between May 1945 and 1956, the German Mine Sweeping Administration and its successor organizations, made up of former members of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine (War Navy), became something of a transition stage for the navy, allowing the future Marine to draw on recently experienced personnel upon its formation. Also, from 1949 to 1952 the US Navy had maintained the Naval Historical Team in Bremerhaven. This group of former Kriegsmarine officers acting as historical and tactical consultants to the Americans, was significant in establishing a German element in the NATO senior naval staff. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO, the Bundesmarine (Federal Navy), as the navy was known colloquially, was formally established. In the same year the East German Volkspolizei See (literally People's Police Sea) became the Volksmarine (People's Navy). During the Cold War all of the German Navy's combat vessels were assigned to NATO's Allied Forces Baltic Approaches's naval command NAVBALTAP.
With the accession of East Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 the Volksmarine along with the whole National People's Army became part of the Bundeswehr. Since 1995 the name German Navy is used in international context, while the official name since 1956 remains Marine without any additions. As of April 2020, the strength of the navy is 16,704 men and women.
A number of naval forces have operated in different periods. See
German warships permanently participate in all four NATO Maritime Groups. The German Navy is also engaged in operations against international terrorism such as Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO Operation Active Endeavour.
Presently the largest operation the German Navy is participating in is UNIFIL off the coast of Lebanon. The German contribution to this operation is two frigates, four fast attack craft, and two auxiliary vessels. The naval component of UNIFIL has been under German command.
The navy is operating a number of development and testing installations as part of an inter-service and international network. Among these is the Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters (COE CSW), an affiliated centre of Allied Command Transformation. The COE CSW was established in April 2007 and officially accredited by NATO on 26 May 2009. It is co-located with the staff of the German Flotilla 1 in Kiel whose Commander is double-hatted as Director, COE CSW.
In total, there are about 65 commissioned ships in the German Navy, including; 11 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 minesweepers, 10 minehunters, 6 submarines, 11 replenishment ships and 20 miscellaneous auxiliary vessels. The displacement of the navy is 220,000 tonnes.
Ships of the German Navy include:
In addition, the German Navy and the Royal Danish Navy are in cooperation in the "Ark Project". This agreement made the Ark Project responsible for the strategic sealift of German armed forces where the full-time charter of three roll-on-roll-off cargo and troop ships are ready for deployments. In addition, these ships are also kept available for the use of the other European NATO countries. The three vessels have a combined displacement of 60,000 tonnes. Including these ships, the total ships' displacement available to the Deutsche Marine is 280,000 tonnes.
Procurement of joint support ships (either two JSS800 for an amphibious group of 800 soldiers, or three smaller JSS400), was planned during the 1995–2010 period but the programme appears now to have been abandoned, not having been mentioned in two recent defence reviews. The larger ships would have been tasked for strategic troop transport and amphibious operations, and were to displace 27,000 to 30,000 tons for 800 soldiers.
The naval air arm of the German Navy is called the Marinefliegerkommando. The Marinefliegerkommando operates 56 aircraft, in May 2021 it was announced that the German Navy intended to replace the P-3C aircraft with Boeing P-8 Poseidon MPA aircraft through a FMS agreement from 2025 onwards.
The German Navy is commanded by the Inspector of the Navy (Inspekteur der Marine) supported by the Navy Command (Marinekommando) in Rostock. | [
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"text": "The German Navy (German: Deutsche Marine, pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃə maˈʁiːnə] ) is the navy of Germany and part of the unified Bundeswehr (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the Bundesmarine (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when Deutsche Marine (German Navy) became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German Volksmarine (People's Navy). It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations.",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The German Navy traces its roots back to the Reichsflotte (Imperial Fleet) of the revolutionary era of 1848–52. The Reichsflotte was the first German navy to sail under the black-red-gold flag. Founded on 14 June 1848 by the orders of the democratically elected Frankfurt Parliament, the Reichsflotte's brief existence ended with the failure of the revolution and it was disbanded on 2 April 1852; thus, the modern day navy celebrates its birthday on 14 June.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Between May 1945 and 1956, the German Mine Sweeping Administration and its successor organizations, made up of former members of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine (War Navy), became something of a transition stage for the navy, allowing the future Marine to draw on recently experienced personnel upon its formation. Also, from 1949 to 1952 the US Navy had maintained the Naval Historical Team in Bremerhaven. This group of former Kriegsmarine officers acting as historical and tactical consultants to the Americans, was significant in establishing a German element in the NATO senior naval staff. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO, the Bundesmarine (Federal Navy), as the navy was known colloquially, was formally established. In the same year the East German Volkspolizei See (literally People's Police Sea) became the Volksmarine (People's Navy). During the Cold War all of the German Navy's combat vessels were assigned to NATO's Allied Forces Baltic Approaches's naval command NAVBALTAP.",
"title": "History"
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"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "With the accession of East Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 the Volksmarine along with the whole National People's Army became part of the Bundeswehr. Since 1995 the name German Navy is used in international context, while the official name since 1956 remains Marine without any additions. As of April 2020, the strength of the navy is 16,704 men and women.",
"title": "History"
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{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A number of naval forces have operated in different periods. See",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "German warships permanently participate in all four NATO Maritime Groups. The German Navy is also engaged in operations against international terrorism such as Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO Operation Active Endeavour.",
"title": "Current operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Presently the largest operation the German Navy is participating in is UNIFIL off the coast of Lebanon. The German contribution to this operation is two frigates, four fast attack craft, and two auxiliary vessels. The naval component of UNIFIL has been under German command.",
"title": "Current operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The navy is operating a number of development and testing installations as part of an inter-service and international network. Among these is the Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters (COE CSW), an affiliated centre of Allied Command Transformation. The COE CSW was established in April 2007 and officially accredited by NATO on 26 May 2009. It is co-located with the staff of the German Flotilla 1 in Kiel whose Commander is double-hatted as Director, COE CSW.",
"title": "Current operations"
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{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In total, there are about 65 commissioned ships in the German Navy, including; 11 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 minesweepers, 10 minehunters, 6 submarines, 11 replenishment ships and 20 miscellaneous auxiliary vessels. The displacement of the navy is 220,000 tonnes.",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Ships of the German Navy include:",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In addition, the German Navy and the Royal Danish Navy are in cooperation in the \"Ark Project\". This agreement made the Ark Project responsible for the strategic sealift of German armed forces where the full-time charter of three roll-on-roll-off cargo and troop ships are ready for deployments. In addition, these ships are also kept available for the use of the other European NATO countries. The three vessels have a combined displacement of 60,000 tonnes. Including these ships, the total ships' displacement available to the Deutsche Marine is 280,000 tonnes.",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Procurement of joint support ships (either two JSS800 for an amphibious group of 800 soldiers, or three smaller JSS400), was planned during the 1995–2010 period but the programme appears now to have been abandoned, not having been mentioned in two recent defence reviews. The larger ships would have been tasked for strategic troop transport and amphibious operations, and were to displace 27,000 to 30,000 tons for 800 soldiers.",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The naval air arm of the German Navy is called the Marinefliegerkommando. The Marinefliegerkommando operates 56 aircraft, in May 2021 it was announced that the German Navy intended to replace the P-3C aircraft with Boeing P-8 Poseidon MPA aircraft through a FMS agreement from 2025 onwards.",
"title": "Equipment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The German Navy is commanded by the Inspector of the Navy (Inspekteur der Marine) supported by the Navy Command (Marinekommando) in Rostock.",
"title": "Structure"
}
]
| The German Navy is the navy of Germany and part of the unified Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the Bundesmarine from 1956 to 1995, when Deutsche Marine became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German Volksmarine. It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations. | 2001-12-11T07:43:38Z | 2023-12-09T13:21:21Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Navy |
12,961 | GÉANT | GÉANT is the pan-European data network for the research and education community. It interconnects national research and education networks (NRENs) across Europe, enabling collaboration on projects ranging from biological science, to earth observation, to arts and culture. The GÉANT project combines a high-bandwidth, high-capacity 50,000 km network with a growing range of services. These allow researchers to collaborate, working together wherever they are located. Services include identity and trust, multi-domain monitoring perfSONAR MDM, dynamic circuits and roaming via the eduroam service.
Together with European NRENs, GÉANT connects 50 million users in over 10,000 institutions. Through links to research networks in other regions (such as Internet2 and ESnet in the US, AfricaConnect in Africa, TEIN in Asia-Pacific and RedCLARA in Latin America), GÉANT enables collaboration between researchers in over half the world's countries.
Co-funded by the European Commission and Europe's NRENs, the GÉANT network was built and is operated by the GÉANT Association. The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 41 partners.
The GÉANT project began in November 2000, entered full production operation in December 2001 (fully replacing a network called TEN-155). Originally due to finish in October 2004, it was subsequently extended until April 2005.
The second generation network, named GÉANT2, began in September 2004 and continued through 2009, growing the network to 30 national networks in 34 countries.
The next GÉANT project (GN3) began on 1 April 2009 and continued until April 2013. This was then superseded by the GN3plus project which was scheduled to run for two years. It is funded under the EC's seventh research and development Research Framework Programme (often referred to as FP7).
The Project is now in its fourth iteration (GN4).
As well as providing the high-bandwidth links across Europe, the GÉANT network also acts as a testbed for new technology.
It was the first "hybrid" network deployed on an international scale, combining routed IP and switched infrastructure. This enables the network to offer general traffic alongside virtual "private" network paths for projects, such as the Large Hadron Collider, which have particular requirements involving dedicated bandwidth, security and flexibility.
GÉANT supported native IPv6 since 2002 and multicast IPv6 since 2004. It is involved in network research, in areas such as carrier class network technologies, photonic switching, federated network architectures and virtualisation.
In 2013 a substantial network migration program was completed, meaning users could be offered multiple 100 Gbit/s links, with the core network supporting 500 Gbit/s and a network design that will support up to 8Tbit/s.
Already, over 1 Petabyte of data are transferred every day via the GÉANT backbone network.
The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 50 partners: 37 European NREN, IUCC (representing Israel), NORDUnet (representing the five Nordic countries), and 11 associate members.
The full list of NREN project partners are available on the website.
GÉANT links to research networks in other world regions, including:
These links not only help international research collaboration but also aid with projects that deliver societal benefit, such as e-health, telemedicine and weather forecasting/disaster warning systems. Allowing researchers to work within their own countries also stems migration from less developed countries, helping bridge the digital divide.
GÉANT is used by research communities, such as: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "GÉANT is the pan-European data network for the research and education community. It interconnects national research and education networks (NRENs) across Europe, enabling collaboration on projects ranging from biological science, to earth observation, to arts and culture. The GÉANT project combines a high-bandwidth, high-capacity 50,000 km network with a growing range of services. These allow researchers to collaborate, working together wherever they are located. Services include identity and trust, multi-domain monitoring perfSONAR MDM, dynamic circuits and roaming via the eduroam service.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Together with European NRENs, GÉANT connects 50 million users in over 10,000 institutions. Through links to research networks in other regions (such as Internet2 and ESnet in the US, AfricaConnect in Africa, TEIN in Asia-Pacific and RedCLARA in Latin America), GÉANT enables collaboration between researchers in over half the world's countries.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Co-funded by the European Commission and Europe's NRENs, the GÉANT network was built and is operated by the GÉANT Association. The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 41 partners.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The GÉANT project began in November 2000, entered full production operation in December 2001 (fully replacing a network called TEN-155). Originally due to finish in October 2004, it was subsequently extended until April 2005.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The second generation network, named GÉANT2, began in September 2004 and continued through 2009, growing the network to 30 national networks in 34 countries.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The next GÉANT project (GN3) began on 1 April 2009 and continued until April 2013. This was then superseded by the GN3plus project which was scheduled to run for two years. It is funded under the EC's seventh research and development Research Framework Programme (often referred to as FP7).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Project is now in its fourth iteration (GN4).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As well as providing the high-bandwidth links across Europe, the GÉANT network also acts as a testbed for new technology.",
"title": "Technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "It was the first \"hybrid\" network deployed on an international scale, combining routed IP and switched infrastructure. This enables the network to offer general traffic alongside virtual \"private\" network paths for projects, such as the Large Hadron Collider, which have particular requirements involving dedicated bandwidth, security and flexibility.",
"title": "Technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "GÉANT supported native IPv6 since 2002 and multicast IPv6 since 2004. It is involved in network research, in areas such as carrier class network technologies, photonic switching, federated network architectures and virtualisation.",
"title": "Technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 2013 a substantial network migration program was completed, meaning users could be offered multiple 100 Gbit/s links, with the core network supporting 500 Gbit/s and a network design that will support up to 8Tbit/s.",
"title": "Technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Already, over 1 Petabyte of data are transferred every day via the GÉANT backbone network.",
"title": "Technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 50 partners: 37 European NREN, IUCC (representing Israel), NORDUnet (representing the five Nordic countries), and 11 associate members.",
"title": "Participants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The full list of NREN project partners are available on the website.",
"title": "Participants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "GÉANT links to research networks in other world regions, including:",
"title": "Global links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "These links not only help international research collaboration but also aid with projects that deliver societal benefit, such as e-health, telemedicine and weather forecasting/disaster warning systems. Allowing researchers to work within their own countries also stems migration from less developed countries, helping bridge the digital divide.",
"title": "Global links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "GÉANT is used by research communities, such as:",
"title": "Example projects"
}
]
| GÉANT is the pan-European data network for the research and education community. It interconnects national research and education networks (NRENs) across Europe, enabling collaboration on projects ranging from biological science, to earth observation, to arts and culture. The GÉANT project combines a high-bandwidth, high-capacity 50,000 km network with a growing range of services. These allow researchers to collaborate, working together wherever they are located. Services include identity and trust, multi-domain monitoring perfSONAR MDM, dynamic circuits and roaming via the eduroam service. Together with European NRENs, GÉANT connects 50 million users in over 10,000 institutions. Through links to research networks in other regions, GÉANT enables collaboration between researchers in over half the world's countries. Co-funded by the European Commission and Europe's NRENs, the GÉANT network was built and is operated by the GÉANT Association. The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 41 partners. | 2022-08-05T04:01:51Z | [
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|
12,962 | Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid | gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (or γ-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid) is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter and a depressant drug. It is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas. It acts on the GHB receptor and is a weak agonist at the GABAB receptor. GHB has been used in the medical setting as a general anesthetic and as treatment for cataplexy, narcolepsy, and alcoholism. The substance is also used illicitly for various reasons, including as a performance-enhancing drug, date rape drug, and as a recreational drug.
It is commonly used in the form of a salt, such as sodium γ-hydroxybutyrate (NaGHB, sodium oxybate, or Xyrem) or potassium γ-hydroxybutyrate (KGHB, potassium oxybate). GHB is also produced as a result of fermentation, and is found in small quantities in some beers and wines, beef, and small citrus fruits.
Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency is a disease that causes GHB to accumulate in the blood.
GHB is used for medical purposes in the treatment of narcolepsy and, more rarely, alcohol dependence, although there remains uncertainty about its efficacy relative to other pharmacotherapies for alcohol dependence. The authors of a 2010 Cochrane review concluded that "GHB appears better than NTX and disulfiram in maintaining abstinence and preventing craving in the medium term (3 to 12 months)". It is sometimes used off-label for the treatment of fibromyalgia. GHB is the active ingredient of the prescription medication sodium oxybate (Xyrem). Sodium oxybate is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cataplexy associated with narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) associated with narcolepsy.
GHB has been shown to reliably increase slow-wave sleep and decrease the tendency for REM sleep in modified multiple sleep latency tests.
The FDA-approved labeling for sodium oxybate suggests no evidence GHB has teratogenic, carcinogenic or hepatotoxic properties. Its favorable safety profile relative to ethanol may explain why GHB continues to be investigated as a candidate for alcohol substitution.
GHB is a central nervous system depressant used as an intoxicant. It has many street names. Its effects have been described as comparable with ethanol (alcohol) and MDMA use, such as euphoria, disinhibition, enhanced libido and empathogenic states. A review comparing ethanol to GHB concluded that the dangers of the two drugs were similar. At higher doses, GHB may induce nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, agitation, visual disturbances, depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness, and death. One potential cause of death from GHB consumption is polydrug toxicity. Co-administration with other CNS depressants such as alcohol or benzodiazepines can result in an additive effect (potentiation), as they all bind to gamma-aminobutyric acid (or "GABA") receptor sites. The effects of GHB can last from 1.5 to 4 hours, or longer if large doses have been consumed. Consuming GHB with alcohol can cause respiratory arrest and vomiting in combination with unarousable sleep, which can lead to death.
Recreational doses of 1–2 g generally provide a feeling of euphoria, and larger doses create deleterious effects such as reduced motor function and drowsiness. The sodium salt of GHB has a salty taste. Other salt forms such as calcium GHB and magnesium GHB have also been reported, but the sodium salt is by far the most common.
Some prodrugs, such as γ-butyrolactone (GBL), convert to GHB in the stomach and blood stream. Other prodrugs exist, such as 1,4-butanediol (1,4-B). GBL and 1,4-B are normally found as pure liquids, but they can be mixed with other more harmful solvents when intended for industrial use (e.g. as paint stripper or varnish thinner).
GHB can be manufactured with little knowledge of chemistry, as it involves the mixing of its two precursors, GBL and an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide, to form the GHB salt. Due to the ease of manufacture and the availability of its precursors, it is not usually produced in illicit laboratories like other synthetic drugs, but in private homes by low-level producers.
GHB is colourless and odourless.
GHB has been used as a club drug, apparently starting in the 1990s, as small doses of GHB can act as a euphoriant and are believed to be aphrodisiac. Slang terms for GHB include liquid ecstasy, lollipops, liquid X or liquid E due to its tendency to produce euphoria and sociability and its use in the dance party scene.
Some athletes have used GHB or its analogs because of being marketed as anabolic agents, although there is no evidence that it builds muscle or improves performance.
GHB became known to the general public as a date-rape drug by the late 1990s. GHB is colourless and odorless and has been described as "very easy to add to drinks". When consumed, the victim will quickly feel groggy and sleepy and may become unconscious. Upon recovery they may have an impaired ability to recall events that have occurred during the period of intoxication. In these situations evidence and the identification of the perpetrator of the rape is often difficult.
It is also difficult to establish how often GHB is used to facilitate rape as it is difficult to detect in a urine sample after a day, and many victims may only recall the rape some time after its occurrence; however, a 2006 study suggested that there was "no evidence to suggest widespread date rape drug use" in the UK, and that less than 2% of cases involved GHB, while 17% involved cocaine, and a survey in the Netherlands published in 2010 found that the proportion of drug-related rape where GHB was used appeared to be greatly overestimated by the media.
There have been several high-profile cases of GHB as a date rape drug that received national attention in the United States. In early 1999, a 15-year-old girl, Samantha Reid of Rockwood, Michigan, died from GHB poisoning. Reid's death inspired the legislation titled the "Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act of 2000". This is the law that made GHB a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
The British serial killer Stephen Port administered GHB to his victims.
GHB can be detected in hair. Hair testing can be a useful tool in court cases or for the victim's own information. Most over-the-counter urine test kits test only for date-rape drugs that are benzodiazepines, and GHB is not a benzodiazepine. To detect GHB in urine, the sample must be taken within four hours of GHB ingestion, and cannot be tested at home.
In humans, GHB has been shown to reduce the elimination rate of alcohol. This may explain the respiratory arrest that has been reported after ingestion of both drugs. A review of the details of 194 deaths attributed to or related to GHB over a ten-year period found that most were from respiratory depression caused by interaction with alcohol or other drugs.
One publication has investigated 226 deaths attributed to GHB. Of 226 deaths included, 213 had a cardiorespiratory arrest and 13 had fatal accidents. 71 deaths (34%) had no co-intoxicants. Postmortem blood GHB was 18–4400 mg/L (median=347) in deaths negative for co-intoxicants.
One report has suggested that sodium oxybate overdose might be fatal, based on deaths of three patients who had been prescribed the drug. However, for two of the three cases, post-mortem GHB concentrations were 141 and 110 mg/L, which is within the expected range of concentrations for GHB after death, and the third case was a patient with a history of intentional drug overdose. The toxicity of GHB has been an issue in criminal trials, as in the death of Felicia Tang, where the defense argued that death was due to GHB, not murder.
GHB is produced in the body in very small amounts, and blood levels may climb after death to levels in the range of 30–50 mg/L. Levels higher than this are found in GHB deaths. Levels lower than this may be due to GHB or to postmortem endogenous elevations.
In multiple studies, GHB has been found to impair spatial memory, working memory, learning and memory in rats with chronic administration. These effects are associated with decreased NMDA receptor expression in the cerebral cortex and possibly other areas as well. In addition, the neurotoxicity appears to be caused by oxidative stress.
Addiction occurs when repeated drug use disrupts the normal balance of brain circuits that control rewards, memory and cognition, ultimately leading to compulsive drug taking.
Rats forced to consume massive doses of GHB will intermittently prefer GHB solution to water.
GHB has also been associated with a withdrawal syndrome of insomnia, anxiety, and tremor that usually resolves within three to twenty-one days. The withdrawal syndrome can be severe producing acute delirium and may require hospitalization in an intensive care unit for management. Management of GHB dependence involves considering the person's age, comorbidity and the pharmacological pathways of GHB. The mainstay of treatment for severe withdrawal is supportive care and benzodiazepines for control of acute delirium, but larger doses are often required compared to acute delirium of other causes (e.g. > 100 mg/d of diazepam). Baclofen has been suggested as an alternative or adjunct to benzodiazepines based on anecdotal evidence and some animal data. However, there is less experience with the use of baclofen for GHB withdrawal, and additional research in humans is needed. Baclofen was first suggested as an adjunct because benzodiazepines do not affect GABAB receptors and therefore have no cross-tolerance with GHB while baclofen, which works via GABAB receptors, is cross-tolerant with GHB and may be more effective in alleviating withdrawal effects of GHB.
GHB withdrawal is not widely discussed in textbooks and some psychiatrists, general practitioners, and even hospital emergency physicians may not be familiar with this withdrawal syndrome.
Overdose of GHB can sometimes be difficult to treat because of its multiple effects on the body. GHB tends to cause rapid unconsciousness at doses above 3500 mg, with single doses over 7000 mg often causing life-threatening respiratory depression, and higher doses still inducing bradycardia and cardiac arrest. Other side-effects include convulsions (especially when combined with stimulants), and nausea/vomiting (especially when combined with alcohol).
The greatest life threat due to GHB overdose (with or without other substances) is respiratory arrest. Other relatively common causes of death due to GHB ingestion include aspiration of vomitus, positional asphyxia, and trauma sustained while intoxicated (e.g., motor vehicle accidents while driving under the influence of GHB). The risk of aspiration pneumonia and positional asphyxia risk can be reduced by laying the patient down in the recovery position. People are most likely to vomit as they become unconscious, and as they wake up. It is important to keep the victim awake and moving; the victim must not be left alone due to the risk of death through vomiting. Frequently the victim will be in a good mood but this does not mean the victim is not in danger. GHB overdose is a medical emergency and immediate assessment in an emergency department is needed.
Convulsions from GHB can be treated with the benzodiazepines diazepam or lorazepam. Even though these benzodiazepines are also CNS depressants, they primarily modulate GABAA receptors whereas GHB is primarily a GABAB receptor agonist, and so do not worsen CNS depression as much as might be expected.
Because of the faster and more complete absorption of GBL relative to GHB, its dose-response curve is steeper, and overdoses of GBL tend to be more dangerous and problematic than overdoses involving only GHB or 1,4-B. Any GHB/GBL overdose is a medical emergency and should be cared for by appropriately trained personnel.
A newer synthetic drug SCH-50911, which acts as a selective GABAB antagonist, quickly reverses GHB overdose in mice. However, this treatment has yet to be tried in humans, and it is unlikely that it will be researched for this purpose in humans due to the illegal nature of clinical trials of GHB and the lack of medical indemnity coverage inherent in using an untested treatment for a life-threatening overdose.
GHB may be quantitated in blood or plasma to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalized patients, to provide evidence in an impaired driving, or to assist in a medicolegal death investigation. Blood or plasma GHB concentrations are usually in a range of 50–250 mg/L in persons receiving the drug therapeutically (during general anesthesia), 30–100 mg/L in those arrested for impaired driving, 50–500 mg/L in acutely intoxicated patients and 100–1000 mg/L in victims of fatal overdosage. Urine is often the preferred specimen for routine drug abuse monitoring purposes. Both γ-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol are converted to GHB in the body.
In January 2016, it was announced scientists had developed a way to detect GHB, among other things, in saliva.
Cells produce GHB by reduction of succinic semialdehyde via succinic semialdehyde reductase (SSR). This enzyme appears to be induced by cAMP levels, meaning substances that elevate cAMP, such as forskolin and vinpocetine, may increase GHB synthesis and release. Conversely, endogeneous GHB production in those taking valproic acid will be inhibited via inhibition of the conversion from succinic acid semialdehyde to GHB. People with the disorder known as succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, also known as γ-hydroxybutyric aciduria, have elevated levels of GHB in their urine, blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.
The precise function of GHB in the body is not clear. It is known, however, that the brain expresses a large number of receptors that are activated by GHB. These receptors are excitatory, however, and therefore not responsible for the sedative effects of GHB; they have been shown to elevate the principal excitatory neurotransmitter, glutamate. The benzamide antipsychotics—amisulpride, nemonapride, etc.—have been shown to bind to these GHB-activated receptors in vivo. Other antipsychotics were tested and were not found to have an affinity for this receptor.
GHB is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas.
In spite of its demonstrated neurotoxicity, (see relevant section, above), GHB has neuroprotective properties, and has been found to protect cells from hypoxia.
GHB is also produced as a result of fermentation and so is found in small quantities in some beers and wines, in particular fruit wines. The amount found in wine is pharmacologically insignificant and not sufficient to produce psychoactive effects.
GHB has at least two distinct binding sites in the central nervous system. GHB acts as an agonist at the inhibitory GHB receptor and as a weak agonist at the inhibitory GABAB receptor. GHB is a naturally occurring substance that acts in a similar fashion to some neurotransmitters in the mammalian brain. GHB is probably synthesized from GABA in GABAergic neurons, and released when the neurons fire.
GHB has been found to activate oxytocinergic neurons in the supraoptic nucleus.
If taken orally, GABA itself does not effectively cross the blood–brain barrier.
GHB induces the accumulation of either a derivative of tryptophan or tryptophan itself in the extracellular space, possibly by increasing tryptophan transport across the blood–brain barrier. The blood content of certain neutral amino-acids, including tryptophan, is also increased by peripheral GHB administration. GHB-induced stimulation of tissue serotonin turnover may be due to an increase in tryptophan transport to the brain and in its uptake by serotonergic cells. As the serotonergic system may be involved in the regulation of sleep, mood, and anxiety, the stimulation of this system by high doses of GHB may be involved in certain neuropharmacological events induced by GHB administration.
However, at therapeutic doses, GHB reaches much higher concentrations in the brain and activates GABAB receptors, which are primarily responsible for its sedative effects. GHB's sedative effects are blocked by GABAB antagonists.
The role of the GHB receptor in the behavioural effects induced by GHB is more complex. GHB receptors are densely expressed in many areas of the brain, including the cortex and hippocampus, and these are the receptors that GHB displays the highest affinity for. There has been somewhat limited research into the GHB receptor; however, there is evidence that activation of the GHB receptor in some brain areas results in the release of glutamate, the principal excitatory neurotransmitter. Drugs that selectively activate the GHB receptor cause absence seizures in high doses, as do GHB and GABAB agonists.
Activation of both the GHB receptor and GABAB is responsible for the addictive profile of GHB. GHB's effect on dopamine release is biphasic. Low concentrations stimulate dopamine release via the GHB receptor. Higher concentrations inhibit dopamine release via GABAB receptors as do other GABAB agonists such as baclofen and phenibut. After an initial phase of inhibition, dopamine release is then increased via the GHB receptor. Both the inhibition and increase of dopamine release by GHB are inhibited by opioid antagonists such as naloxone and naltrexone. Dynorphin may play a role in the inhibition of dopamine release via kappa opioid receptors.
This explains the paradoxical mix of sedative and stimulatory properties of GHB, as well as the so-called "rebound" effect, experienced by individuals using GHB as a sleeping agent, wherein they awake suddenly after several hours of GHB-induced deep sleep. That is to say that, over time, the concentration of GHB in the system decreases below the threshold for significant GABAB receptor activation and activates predominantly the GHB receptor, leading to wakefulness.
Recently, analogs of GHB, such as 4-hydroxy-4-methylpentanoic acid (UMB68) have been synthesised and tested on animals, in order to gain a better understanding of GHB's mode of action. Analogues of GHB such as 3-methyl-GHB, 4-methyl-GHB, and 4-phenyl-GHB have been shown to produce similar effects to GHB in some animal studies, but these compounds are even less well researched than GHB itself. Of these analogues, only 4-methyl-GHB (γ-hydroxyvaleric acid, GHV) and a prodrug form γ-valerolactone (GVL) have been reported as drugs of abuse in humans, and on the available evidence seem to be less potent but more toxic than GHB, with a particular tendency to cause nausea and vomiting.
Other prodrug ester forms of GHB have also rarely been encountered by law enforcement, including 1,4-butanediol diacetate (BDDA/DABD), methyl-4-acetoxybutanoate (MAB), and ethyl-4-acetoxybutanoate (EAB), but these are, in general, covered by analogue laws in jurisdictions where GHB is illegal, and little is known about them beyond their delayed onset and longer duration of action. The intermediate compound γ-hydroxybutyraldehyde (GHBAL) is also a prodrug for GHB; however, as with all aliphatic aldehydes this compound is caustic and is strong-smelling and foul-tasting; actual use of this compound as an intoxicant is likely to be unpleasant and result in severe nausea and vomiting.
Both of the metabolic breakdown pathways shown for GHB can run in either direction, depending on the concentrations of the substances involved, so the body can make its own GHB either from GABA or from succinic semialdehyde. Under normal physiological conditions, the concentration of GHB in the body is rather low, and the pathways would run in the reverse direction to what is shown here to produce endogenous GHB. However, when GHB is consumed for recreational or health promotion purposes, its concentration in the body is much higher than normal, which changes the enzyme kinetics so that these pathways operate to metabolise GHB rather than producing it.
Alexander Zaytsev worked on this chemical family and published work on it in 1874. The first extended research into GHB and its use in humans was conducted in the early 1960s by Henri Laborit to use in studying the neurotransmitter GABA. It was studied in a range of uses including obstetric surgery and during childbirth and as an anxiolytic; there were anecdotal reports of it having antidepressant and aphrodisiac effects as well. It was also studied as an intravenous anesthetic agent and was marketed for that purpose starting in 1964 in Europe but it was not widely adopted as it caused seizures; as of 2006 that use was still authorized in France and Italy but not widely used. It was also studied to treat alcohol addiction; while the evidence for this use is weak, however sodium oxybate is marketed for this use in Italy.
GHB and sodium oxybate were also studied for use in narcolepsy from the 1960s onwards.
In May 1990 GHB was introduced as a dietary supplement and was marketed to body builders, for help with weight control and as a sleep aid, and as a "replacement" for l-tryptophan, which was removed from the market in November 1989 when batches contaminated with trace impurities were found to cause eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, although eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome is also tied to tryptophan overload. In 2001 tryptophan supplement sales were allowed to resume, and in 2005 the FDA ban on tryptophan supplement importation was lifted. By November 1989 57 cases of illness caused by the GHB supplements had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with people having taken up to three teaspoons of GHB; there were no deaths but nine people needed care in an intensive care unit. The FDA issued a warning in November 1990 that sale of GHB was illegal. GHB continued to be manufactured and sold illegally and it and analogs were adopted as a club drug and came to be used as a date rape drug, and the DEA made seizures and the FDA reissued warnings several times throughout the 1990s.
At the same time, research on the use of GHB in the form of sodium oxybate had formalized, as a company called Orphan Medical had filed an investigational new drug application and was running clinical trials with the intention of gaining regulatory approval for use to treat narcolepsy.
A popular children's toy, Bindeez (also known as Aqua Dots, in the United States), produced by Melbourne company Moose, was banned in Australia in early November 2007 when it was discovered that 1,4-butanediol (1,4-B), which is metabolized into GHB, had been substituted for the non-toxic plasticiser 1,5-pentanediol in the bead manufacturing process. Three young children were hospitalized as a result of ingesting a large number of the beads, and the toy was recalled.
In the United States, GHB was placed on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in March 2000. However, used in sodium oxybate under an IND or NDA from the US FDA, it is considered a Schedule III substance but with Schedule I trafficking penalties, one of several drugs that are listed in multiple schedules.
On 20 March 2001, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs placed GHB in Schedule IV of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
In the UK GHB was made a class C drug in June 2003. In October 2013 the ACMD recommended upgrading it from schedule IV to schedule II in line with UN recommendations. Their report concluded that the minimal use of Xyrem in the UK meant that prescribers would be minimally inconvenienced by the rescheduling. This advice was followed and GHB was moved to schedule 2 on 7 January 2015. In April 2022 GHB was changed from class C to class B.
In Hong Kong, GHB is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong's Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. It can only be used legally by health professionals and for university research purposes. The substance can be given by pharmacists under a prescription. Anyone who supplies the substance without prescription can be fined HK$10,000. The penalty for trafficking or manufacturing the substance is a HK$150,000 fine and life imprisonment. Possession of the substance for consumption without license from the Department of Health is illegal with a HK$100,000 fine or five years of jail time.
In Canada, GHB has been a Schedule I controlled substance since 6 November 2012 (the same schedule that contains heroin and cocaine). Prior to that date, it was a Schedule III controlled substance (the same schedule that contains amphetamines and LSD).
In New Zealand and Australia, GHB, 1,4-B, and GBL are all Class B illegal drugs, along with any possible esters, ethers, and aldehydes. GABA itself is also listed as an illegal drug in these jurisdictions, which seems unusual given its failure to cross the blood–brain barrier, but there was a perception among legislators that all known analogues should be covered as far as this was possible. Attempts to circumvent the illegal status of GHB have led to the sale of derivatives such as 4-methyl-GHB (γ-hydroxyvaleric acid, GHV) and its prodrug form γ-valerolactone (GVL), but these are also covered under the law by virtue of their being "substantially similar" to GHB or GBL, so importation, sale, possession and use of these compounds is also considered to be illegal.
In Chile, GHB is a controlled drug under the law Ley de substancias psicotrópicas y estupefacientes (psychotropic substances and narcotics).
In Norway and in Switzerland, GHB is considered a narcotic and is only available by prescription under the trade name Xyrem (Union Chimique Belge S.A.).
Sodium oxybate is also used therapeutically in Italy under the brand name Alcover for treatment of alcohol withdrawal and dependence. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (or γ-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid) is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter and a depressant drug. It is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas. It acts on the GHB receptor and is a weak agonist at the GABAB receptor. GHB has been used in the medical setting as a general anesthetic and as treatment for cataplexy, narcolepsy, and alcoholism. The substance is also used illicitly for various reasons, including as a performance-enhancing drug, date rape drug, and as a recreational drug.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It is commonly used in the form of a salt, such as sodium γ-hydroxybutyrate (NaGHB, sodium oxybate, or Xyrem) or potassium γ-hydroxybutyrate (KGHB, potassium oxybate). GHB is also produced as a result of fermentation, and is found in small quantities in some beers and wines, beef, and small citrus fruits.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency is a disease that causes GHB to accumulate in the blood.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "GHB is used for medical purposes in the treatment of narcolepsy and, more rarely, alcohol dependence, although there remains uncertainty about its efficacy relative to other pharmacotherapies for alcohol dependence. The authors of a 2010 Cochrane review concluded that \"GHB appears better than NTX and disulfiram in maintaining abstinence and preventing craving in the medium term (3 to 12 months)\". It is sometimes used off-label for the treatment of fibromyalgia. GHB is the active ingredient of the prescription medication sodium oxybate (Xyrem). Sodium oxybate is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cataplexy associated with narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) associated with narcolepsy.",
"title": "Medical use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "GHB has been shown to reliably increase slow-wave sleep and decrease the tendency for REM sleep in modified multiple sleep latency tests.",
"title": "Medical use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The FDA-approved labeling for sodium oxybate suggests no evidence GHB has teratogenic, carcinogenic or hepatotoxic properties. Its favorable safety profile relative to ethanol may explain why GHB continues to be investigated as a candidate for alcohol substitution.",
"title": "Medical use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "GHB is a central nervous system depressant used as an intoxicant. It has many street names. Its effects have been described as comparable with ethanol (alcohol) and MDMA use, such as euphoria, disinhibition, enhanced libido and empathogenic states. A review comparing ethanol to GHB concluded that the dangers of the two drugs were similar. At higher doses, GHB may induce nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, agitation, visual disturbances, depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness, and death. One potential cause of death from GHB consumption is polydrug toxicity. Co-administration with other CNS depressants such as alcohol or benzodiazepines can result in an additive effect (potentiation), as they all bind to gamma-aminobutyric acid (or \"GABA\") receptor sites. The effects of GHB can last from 1.5 to 4 hours, or longer if large doses have been consumed. Consuming GHB with alcohol can cause respiratory arrest and vomiting in combination with unarousable sleep, which can lead to death.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Recreational doses of 1–2 g generally provide a feeling of euphoria, and larger doses create deleterious effects such as reduced motor function and drowsiness. The sodium salt of GHB has a salty taste. Other salt forms such as calcium GHB and magnesium GHB have also been reported, but the sodium salt is by far the most common.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Some prodrugs, such as γ-butyrolactone (GBL), convert to GHB in the stomach and blood stream. Other prodrugs exist, such as 1,4-butanediol (1,4-B). GBL and 1,4-B are normally found as pure liquids, but they can be mixed with other more harmful solvents when intended for industrial use (e.g. as paint stripper or varnish thinner).",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "GHB can be manufactured with little knowledge of chemistry, as it involves the mixing of its two precursors, GBL and an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide, to form the GHB salt. Due to the ease of manufacture and the availability of its precursors, it is not usually produced in illicit laboratories like other synthetic drugs, but in private homes by low-level producers.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "GHB is colourless and odourless.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "GHB has been used as a club drug, apparently starting in the 1990s, as small doses of GHB can act as a euphoriant and are believed to be aphrodisiac. Slang terms for GHB include liquid ecstasy, lollipops, liquid X or liquid E due to its tendency to produce euphoria and sociability and its use in the dance party scene.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Some athletes have used GHB or its analogs because of being marketed as anabolic agents, although there is no evidence that it builds muscle or improves performance.",
"title": "Recreational use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "GHB became known to the general public as a date-rape drug by the late 1990s. GHB is colourless and odorless and has been described as \"very easy to add to drinks\". When consumed, the victim will quickly feel groggy and sleepy and may become unconscious. Upon recovery they may have an impaired ability to recall events that have occurred during the period of intoxication. In these situations evidence and the identification of the perpetrator of the rape is often difficult.",
"title": "Usage as a date-rape drug"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "It is also difficult to establish how often GHB is used to facilitate rape as it is difficult to detect in a urine sample after a day, and many victims may only recall the rape some time after its occurrence; however, a 2006 study suggested that there was \"no evidence to suggest widespread date rape drug use\" in the UK, and that less than 2% of cases involved GHB, while 17% involved cocaine, and a survey in the Netherlands published in 2010 found that the proportion of drug-related rape where GHB was used appeared to be greatly overestimated by the media.",
"title": "Usage as a date-rape drug"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "There have been several high-profile cases of GHB as a date rape drug that received national attention in the United States. In early 1999, a 15-year-old girl, Samantha Reid of Rockwood, Michigan, died from GHB poisoning. Reid's death inspired the legislation titled the \"Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reid Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act of 2000\". This is the law that made GHB a Schedule 1 controlled substance.",
"title": "Usage as a date-rape drug"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The British serial killer Stephen Port administered GHB to his victims.",
"title": "Usage as a date-rape drug"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "GHB can be detected in hair. Hair testing can be a useful tool in court cases or for the victim's own information. Most over-the-counter urine test kits test only for date-rape drugs that are benzodiazepines, and GHB is not a benzodiazepine. To detect GHB in urine, the sample must be taken within four hours of GHB ingestion, and cannot be tested at home.",
"title": "Usage as a date-rape drug"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In humans, GHB has been shown to reduce the elimination rate of alcohol. This may explain the respiratory arrest that has been reported after ingestion of both drugs. A review of the details of 194 deaths attributed to or related to GHB over a ten-year period found that most were from respiratory depression caused by interaction with alcohol or other drugs.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "One publication has investigated 226 deaths attributed to GHB. Of 226 deaths included, 213 had a cardiorespiratory arrest and 13 had fatal accidents. 71 deaths (34%) had no co-intoxicants. Postmortem blood GHB was 18–4400 mg/L (median=347) in deaths negative for co-intoxicants.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "One report has suggested that sodium oxybate overdose might be fatal, based on deaths of three patients who had been prescribed the drug. However, for two of the three cases, post-mortem GHB concentrations were 141 and 110 mg/L, which is within the expected range of concentrations for GHB after death, and the third case was a patient with a history of intentional drug overdose. The toxicity of GHB has been an issue in criminal trials, as in the death of Felicia Tang, where the defense argued that death was due to GHB, not murder.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "GHB is produced in the body in very small amounts, and blood levels may climb after death to levels in the range of 30–50 mg/L. Levels higher than this are found in GHB deaths. Levels lower than this may be due to GHB or to postmortem endogenous elevations.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In multiple studies, GHB has been found to impair spatial memory, working memory, learning and memory in rats with chronic administration. These effects are associated with decreased NMDA receptor expression in the cerebral cortex and possibly other areas as well. In addition, the neurotoxicity appears to be caused by oxidative stress.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Addiction occurs when repeated drug use disrupts the normal balance of brain circuits that control rewards, memory and cognition, ultimately leading to compulsive drug taking.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Rats forced to consume massive doses of GHB will intermittently prefer GHB solution to water.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "GHB has also been associated with a withdrawal syndrome of insomnia, anxiety, and tremor that usually resolves within three to twenty-one days. The withdrawal syndrome can be severe producing acute delirium and may require hospitalization in an intensive care unit for management. Management of GHB dependence involves considering the person's age, comorbidity and the pharmacological pathways of GHB. The mainstay of treatment for severe withdrawal is supportive care and benzodiazepines for control of acute delirium, but larger doses are often required compared to acute delirium of other causes (e.g. > 100 mg/d of diazepam). Baclofen has been suggested as an alternative or adjunct to benzodiazepines based on anecdotal evidence and some animal data. However, there is less experience with the use of baclofen for GHB withdrawal, and additional research in humans is needed. Baclofen was first suggested as an adjunct because benzodiazepines do not affect GABAB receptors and therefore have no cross-tolerance with GHB while baclofen, which works via GABAB receptors, is cross-tolerant with GHB and may be more effective in alleviating withdrawal effects of GHB.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "GHB withdrawal is not widely discussed in textbooks and some psychiatrists, general practitioners, and even hospital emergency physicians may not be familiar with this withdrawal syndrome.",
"title": "Adverse effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Overdose of GHB can sometimes be difficult to treat because of its multiple effects on the body. GHB tends to cause rapid unconsciousness at doses above 3500 mg, with single doses over 7000 mg often causing life-threatening respiratory depression, and higher doses still inducing bradycardia and cardiac arrest. Other side-effects include convulsions (especially when combined with stimulants), and nausea/vomiting (especially when combined with alcohol).",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The greatest life threat due to GHB overdose (with or without other substances) is respiratory arrest. Other relatively common causes of death due to GHB ingestion include aspiration of vomitus, positional asphyxia, and trauma sustained while intoxicated (e.g., motor vehicle accidents while driving under the influence of GHB). The risk of aspiration pneumonia and positional asphyxia risk can be reduced by laying the patient down in the recovery position. People are most likely to vomit as they become unconscious, and as they wake up. It is important to keep the victim awake and moving; the victim must not be left alone due to the risk of death through vomiting. Frequently the victim will be in a good mood but this does not mean the victim is not in danger. GHB overdose is a medical emergency and immediate assessment in an emergency department is needed.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Convulsions from GHB can be treated with the benzodiazepines diazepam or lorazepam. Even though these benzodiazepines are also CNS depressants, they primarily modulate GABAA receptors whereas GHB is primarily a GABAB receptor agonist, and so do not worsen CNS depression as much as might be expected.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Because of the faster and more complete absorption of GBL relative to GHB, its dose-response curve is steeper, and overdoses of GBL tend to be more dangerous and problematic than overdoses involving only GHB or 1,4-B. Any GHB/GBL overdose is a medical emergency and should be cared for by appropriately trained personnel.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A newer synthetic drug SCH-50911, which acts as a selective GABAB antagonist, quickly reverses GHB overdose in mice. However, this treatment has yet to be tried in humans, and it is unlikely that it will be researched for this purpose in humans due to the illegal nature of clinical trials of GHB and the lack of medical indemnity coverage inherent in using an untested treatment for a life-threatening overdose.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "GHB may be quantitated in blood or plasma to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalized patients, to provide evidence in an impaired driving, or to assist in a medicolegal death investigation. Blood or plasma GHB concentrations are usually in a range of 50–250 mg/L in persons receiving the drug therapeutically (during general anesthesia), 30–100 mg/L in those arrested for impaired driving, 50–500 mg/L in acutely intoxicated patients and 100–1000 mg/L in victims of fatal overdosage. Urine is often the preferred specimen for routine drug abuse monitoring purposes. Both γ-butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-butanediol are converted to GHB in the body.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In January 2016, it was announced scientists had developed a way to detect GHB, among other things, in saliva.",
"title": "Overdose"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Cells produce GHB by reduction of succinic semialdehyde via succinic semialdehyde reductase (SSR). This enzyme appears to be induced by cAMP levels, meaning substances that elevate cAMP, such as forskolin and vinpocetine, may increase GHB synthesis and release. Conversely, endogeneous GHB production in those taking valproic acid will be inhibited via inhibition of the conversion from succinic acid semialdehyde to GHB. People with the disorder known as succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, also known as γ-hydroxybutyric aciduria, have elevated levels of GHB in their urine, blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.",
"title": "Endogenous production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The precise function of GHB in the body is not clear. It is known, however, that the brain expresses a large number of receptors that are activated by GHB. These receptors are excitatory, however, and therefore not responsible for the sedative effects of GHB; they have been shown to elevate the principal excitatory neurotransmitter, glutamate. The benzamide antipsychotics—amisulpride, nemonapride, etc.—have been shown to bind to these GHB-activated receptors in vivo. Other antipsychotics were tested and were not found to have an affinity for this receptor.",
"title": "Endogenous production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "GHB is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas.",
"title": "Endogenous production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In spite of its demonstrated neurotoxicity, (see relevant section, above), GHB has neuroprotective properties, and has been found to protect cells from hypoxia.",
"title": "Endogenous production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "GHB is also produced as a result of fermentation and so is found in small quantities in some beers and wines, in particular fruit wines. The amount found in wine is pharmacologically insignificant and not sufficient to produce psychoactive effects.",
"title": "Natural fermentation by-product"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "GHB has at least two distinct binding sites in the central nervous system. GHB acts as an agonist at the inhibitory GHB receptor and as a weak agonist at the inhibitory GABAB receptor. GHB is a naturally occurring substance that acts in a similar fashion to some neurotransmitters in the mammalian brain. GHB is probably synthesized from GABA in GABAergic neurons, and released when the neurons fire.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "GHB has been found to activate oxytocinergic neurons in the supraoptic nucleus.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "If taken orally, GABA itself does not effectively cross the blood–brain barrier.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "GHB induces the accumulation of either a derivative of tryptophan or tryptophan itself in the extracellular space, possibly by increasing tryptophan transport across the blood–brain barrier. The blood content of certain neutral amino-acids, including tryptophan, is also increased by peripheral GHB administration. GHB-induced stimulation of tissue serotonin turnover may be due to an increase in tryptophan transport to the brain and in its uptake by serotonergic cells. As the serotonergic system may be involved in the regulation of sleep, mood, and anxiety, the stimulation of this system by high doses of GHB may be involved in certain neuropharmacological events induced by GHB administration.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "However, at therapeutic doses, GHB reaches much higher concentrations in the brain and activates GABAB receptors, which are primarily responsible for its sedative effects. GHB's sedative effects are blocked by GABAB antagonists.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The role of the GHB receptor in the behavioural effects induced by GHB is more complex. GHB receptors are densely expressed in many areas of the brain, including the cortex and hippocampus, and these are the receptors that GHB displays the highest affinity for. There has been somewhat limited research into the GHB receptor; however, there is evidence that activation of the GHB receptor in some brain areas results in the release of glutamate, the principal excitatory neurotransmitter. Drugs that selectively activate the GHB receptor cause absence seizures in high doses, as do GHB and GABAB agonists.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Activation of both the GHB receptor and GABAB is responsible for the addictive profile of GHB. GHB's effect on dopamine release is biphasic. Low concentrations stimulate dopamine release via the GHB receptor. Higher concentrations inhibit dopamine release via GABAB receptors as do other GABAB agonists such as baclofen and phenibut. After an initial phase of inhibition, dopamine release is then increased via the GHB receptor. Both the inhibition and increase of dopamine release by GHB are inhibited by opioid antagonists such as naloxone and naltrexone. Dynorphin may play a role in the inhibition of dopamine release via kappa opioid receptors.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "This explains the paradoxical mix of sedative and stimulatory properties of GHB, as well as the so-called \"rebound\" effect, experienced by individuals using GHB as a sleeping agent, wherein they awake suddenly after several hours of GHB-induced deep sleep. That is to say that, over time, the concentration of GHB in the system decreases below the threshold for significant GABAB receptor activation and activates predominantly the GHB receptor, leading to wakefulness.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Recently, analogs of GHB, such as 4-hydroxy-4-methylpentanoic acid (UMB68) have been synthesised and tested on animals, in order to gain a better understanding of GHB's mode of action. Analogues of GHB such as 3-methyl-GHB, 4-methyl-GHB, and 4-phenyl-GHB have been shown to produce similar effects to GHB in some animal studies, but these compounds are even less well researched than GHB itself. Of these analogues, only 4-methyl-GHB (γ-hydroxyvaleric acid, GHV) and a prodrug form γ-valerolactone (GVL) have been reported as drugs of abuse in humans, and on the available evidence seem to be less potent but more toxic than GHB, with a particular tendency to cause nausea and vomiting.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Other prodrug ester forms of GHB have also rarely been encountered by law enforcement, including 1,4-butanediol diacetate (BDDA/DABD), methyl-4-acetoxybutanoate (MAB), and ethyl-4-acetoxybutanoate (EAB), but these are, in general, covered by analogue laws in jurisdictions where GHB is illegal, and little is known about them beyond their delayed onset and longer duration of action. The intermediate compound γ-hydroxybutyraldehyde (GHBAL) is also a prodrug for GHB; however, as with all aliphatic aldehydes this compound is caustic and is strong-smelling and foul-tasting; actual use of this compound as an intoxicant is likely to be unpleasant and result in severe nausea and vomiting.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Both of the metabolic breakdown pathways shown for GHB can run in either direction, depending on the concentrations of the substances involved, so the body can make its own GHB either from GABA or from succinic semialdehyde. Under normal physiological conditions, the concentration of GHB in the body is rather low, and the pathways would run in the reverse direction to what is shown here to produce endogenous GHB. However, when GHB is consumed for recreational or health promotion purposes, its concentration in the body is much higher than normal, which changes the enzyme kinetics so that these pathways operate to metabolise GHB rather than producing it.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Alexander Zaytsev worked on this chemical family and published work on it in 1874. The first extended research into GHB and its use in humans was conducted in the early 1960s by Henri Laborit to use in studying the neurotransmitter GABA. It was studied in a range of uses including obstetric surgery and during childbirth and as an anxiolytic; there were anecdotal reports of it having antidepressant and aphrodisiac effects as well. It was also studied as an intravenous anesthetic agent and was marketed for that purpose starting in 1964 in Europe but it was not widely adopted as it caused seizures; as of 2006 that use was still authorized in France and Italy but not widely used. It was also studied to treat alcohol addiction; while the evidence for this use is weak, however sodium oxybate is marketed for this use in Italy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "GHB and sodium oxybate were also studied for use in narcolepsy from the 1960s onwards.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In May 1990 GHB was introduced as a dietary supplement and was marketed to body builders, for help with weight control and as a sleep aid, and as a \"replacement\" for l-tryptophan, which was removed from the market in November 1989 when batches contaminated with trace impurities were found to cause eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, although eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome is also tied to tryptophan overload. In 2001 tryptophan supplement sales were allowed to resume, and in 2005 the FDA ban on tryptophan supplement importation was lifted. By November 1989 57 cases of illness caused by the GHB supplements had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with people having taken up to three teaspoons of GHB; there were no deaths but nine people needed care in an intensive care unit. The FDA issued a warning in November 1990 that sale of GHB was illegal. GHB continued to be manufactured and sold illegally and it and analogs were adopted as a club drug and came to be used as a date rape drug, and the DEA made seizures and the FDA reissued warnings several times throughout the 1990s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "At the same time, research on the use of GHB in the form of sodium oxybate had formalized, as a company called Orphan Medical had filed an investigational new drug application and was running clinical trials with the intention of gaining regulatory approval for use to treat narcolepsy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "A popular children's toy, Bindeez (also known as Aqua Dots, in the United States), produced by Melbourne company Moose, was banned in Australia in early November 2007 when it was discovered that 1,4-butanediol (1,4-B), which is metabolized into GHB, had been substituted for the non-toxic plasticiser 1,5-pentanediol in the bead manufacturing process. Three young children were hospitalized as a result of ingesting a large number of the beads, and the toy was recalled.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In the United States, GHB was placed on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in March 2000. However, used in sodium oxybate under an IND or NDA from the US FDA, it is considered a Schedule III substance but with Schedule I trafficking penalties, one of several drugs that are listed in multiple schedules.",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "On 20 March 2001, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs placed GHB in Schedule IV of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In the UK GHB was made a class C drug in June 2003. In October 2013 the ACMD recommended upgrading it from schedule IV to schedule II in line with UN recommendations. Their report concluded that the minimal use of Xyrem in the UK meant that prescribers would be minimally inconvenienced by the rescheduling. This advice was followed and GHB was moved to schedule 2 on 7 January 2015. In April 2022 GHB was changed from class C to class B.",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In Hong Kong, GHB is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong's Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. It can only be used legally by health professionals and for university research purposes. The substance can be given by pharmacists under a prescription. Anyone who supplies the substance without prescription can be fined HK$10,000. The penalty for trafficking or manufacturing the substance is a HK$150,000 fine and life imprisonment. Possession of the substance for consumption without license from the Department of Health is illegal with a HK$100,000 fine or five years of jail time.",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In Canada, GHB has been a Schedule I controlled substance since 6 November 2012 (the same schedule that contains heroin and cocaine). Prior to that date, it was a Schedule III controlled substance (the same schedule that contains amphetamines and LSD).",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In New Zealand and Australia, GHB, 1,4-B, and GBL are all Class B illegal drugs, along with any possible esters, ethers, and aldehydes. GABA itself is also listed as an illegal drug in these jurisdictions, which seems unusual given its failure to cross the blood–brain barrier, but there was a perception among legislators that all known analogues should be covered as far as this was possible. Attempts to circumvent the illegal status of GHB have led to the sale of derivatives such as 4-methyl-GHB (γ-hydroxyvaleric acid, GHV) and its prodrug form γ-valerolactone (GVL), but these are also covered under the law by virtue of their being \"substantially similar\" to GHB or GBL, so importation, sale, possession and use of these compounds is also considered to be illegal.",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In Chile, GHB is a controlled drug under the law Ley de substancias psicotrópicas y estupefacientes (psychotropic substances and narcotics).",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In Norway and in Switzerland, GHB is considered a narcotic and is only available by prescription under the trade name Xyrem (Union Chimique Belge S.A.).",
"title": "Legal status"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Sodium oxybate is also used therapeutically in Italy under the brand name Alcover for treatment of alcohol withdrawal and dependence.",
"title": "Legal status"
}
]
| gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter and a depressant drug. It is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas. It acts on the GHB receptor and is a weak agonist at the GABAB receptor. GHB has been used in the medical setting as a general anesthetic and as treatment for cataplexy, narcolepsy, and alcoholism. The substance is also used illicitly for various reasons, including as a performance-enhancing drug, date rape drug, and as a recreational drug. It is commonly used in the form of a salt, such as sodium γ-hydroxybutyrate or potassium γ-hydroxybutyrate. GHB is also produced as a result of fermentation, and is found in small quantities in some beers and wines, beef, and small citrus fruits. Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency is a disease that causes GHB to accumulate in the blood. | 2001-12-11T12:48:23Z | 2023-11-28T23:54:54Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-Hydroxybutyric_acid |
12,963 | Giordano Bruno | Giordano Bruno (/dʒɔːrˈdɑːnoʊ ˈbruːnoʊ/; Italian: [dʒorˈdaːno ˈbruːno]; Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets (exoplanets), and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no center.
While Bruno began as a Dominican friar, he embraced Calvinism during his time in Geneva. He was later tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned alive at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science. However, most historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his religious and afterlife views, although some still contend that the main reason for Bruno's death was indeed his cosmological views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences.
In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the presocratic Empedocles, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Book of Genesis-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of Hermes Trismegistus. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language.
Born Filippo Bruno in Nola (a comune in the modern-day province of Naples, in the Southern Italian region of Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was the son of Giovanni Bruno (1517- c. 1592), a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino (1520-?). In his youth he was sent to Naples to be educated. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the Studium Generale. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his novitiate, and ordained a priest in 1572 at age 24. During his time in Naples, he became known for his skill with the art of memory and on one occasion traveled to Rome to demonstrate his mnemonic system before Pope Pius V and Cardinal Rebiba. In his later years, Bruno claimed that the Pope accepted his dedication to him of the lost work On The Ark of Noah at this time.
While Bruno was distinguished for outstanding ability, his taste for free thinking and forbidden books soon caused him difficulties. Given the controversy he caused in later life, it is surprising that he was able to remain within the monastic system for eleven years. In his testimony to Venetian inquisitors during his trial many years later, he says that proceedings were twice taken against him for having cast away images of the saints, retaining only a crucifix, and for having recommended controversial texts to a novice. Such behavior could perhaps be overlooked, but Bruno's situation became much more serious when he was reported to have defended the Arian heresy, and when a copy of the banned writings of Erasmus, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the monastery latrine. When he learned that an indictment was being prepared against him in Naples he fled, shedding his religious habit, at least for a time.
Bruno first went to the Genoese port of Noli, then to Savona, Turin and finally to Venice, where he published his lost work On the Signs of the Times with the permission (so he claimed at his trial) of the Dominican Remigio Nannini Fiorentino. From Venice he went to Padua, where he met fellow Dominicans who convinced him to wear his religious habit again. From Padua he went to Bergamo and then across the Alps to Chambéry and Lyon. His movements after this time are obscure.
In 1579, Bruno arrived in Geneva. As D. W. Singer, a Bruno biographer, notes, "The question has sometimes been raised as to whether Bruno became a Protestant, and there is evidence he joined a Calvinist church." During his Venetian trial, he told inquisitors that while in Geneva he told the Marchese de Vico of Naples, who was notable for helping Italian refugees in Geneva, "I did not intend to adopt the religion of the city. I desired to stay there only that I might live at liberty and in security." Bruno had a pair of breeches made for himself, and the Marchese and others apparently made Bruno a gift of a sword, hat, cape and other necessities for dressing himself; in such clothing Bruno could no longer be recognized as a priest. Things apparently went well for Bruno for a time, as he entered his name in the Rector's Book of the University of Geneva in May 1579. But in keeping with his personality he could not long remain silent. In August he published an attack on the work of Antoine de la Faye [fr], a distinguished professor. Bruno and the printer, Jean Bergeon, were promptly arrested. Rather than apologizing, Bruno insisted on continuing to defend his publication. He was refused the right to take sacrament. Though this right was soon restored, he left Geneva.
He went to France, arriving first in Lyon, and thereafter settling for a time (1580–1581) in Toulouse, where he took his doctorate in theology and was elected by students to lecture in philosophy. He also attempted at this time to return to Catholicism, but was denied absolution by the Jesuit priest he approached. When religious strife broke out in the summer of 1581, he moved to Paris. There he held a cycle of thirty lectures on theological topics and also began to gain fame for his prodigious memory. His talents attracted the benevolent attention of the king Henry III; Bruno subsequently reported:
"I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned me one day to discover from me if the memory which I possessed was natural or acquired by magic art. I satisfied him that it did not come from sorcery but from organized knowledge; and, following this, I got a book on memory printed, entitled The Shadows of Ideas, which I dedicated to His Majesty. Forthwith he gave me an Extraordinary Lectureship with a salary."
In Paris, Bruno enjoyed the protection of his powerful French patrons. During this period, he published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On the Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars memoriae [it] (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus circaeus (Circe's Song, 1582; described at Circe in the arts § Reasoning beasts). All of these were based on his mnemonic models of organized knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of Petrus Ramus then becoming popular. Bruno also published a comedy summarizing some of his philosophical positions, titled Il Candelaio (The Candlemaker, 1582). In the 16th century dedications were, as a rule, approved beforehand, and hence were a way of placing a work under the protection of an individual. Given that Bruno dedicated various works to the likes of King Henry III, Sir Philip Sidney, Michel de Castelnau (French Ambassador to England), and possibly Pope Pius V, it is apparent that this wanderer had risen sharply in status and moved in powerful circles.
In April 1583, Bruno went to England with letters of recommendation from Henry III as a guest of the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. Bruno lived at the French embassy with the lexicographer John Florio. There he became acquainted with the poet Philip Sidney (to whom he dedicated two books) and other members of the Hermetic circle around John Dee, though there is no evidence that Bruno ever met Dee himself. He also lectured at Oxford, and unsuccessfully sought a teaching position there. His views were controversial, notably with John Underhill, Rector of Lincoln College and subsequently bishop of Oxford, and George Abbot, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot mocked Bruno for supporting "the opinion of Copernicus that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still", and found Bruno had both plagiarized and misrepresented Ficino's work, leading Bruno to return to the continent.
Nevertheless, his stay in England was fruitful. During that time Bruno completed and published some of his most important works, the six "Italian Dialogues", including the cosmological tracts La cena de le ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper, 1584), De la causa, principio et uno (On Cause, Principle and Unity, 1584), De l'infinito, universo et mondi (On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds, 1584) as well as Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, 1584) and De gli eroici furori [it] (On the Heroic Frenzies, 1585). Some of these were printed by John Charlewood. Some of the works that Bruno published in London, notably The Ash Wednesday Supper, appear to have given offense. Once again, Bruno's controversial views and tactless language lost him the support of his friends. John Bossy has advanced the theory that, while staying in the French Embassy in London, Bruno was also spying on Catholic conspirators, under the pseudonym "Henry Fagot", for Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State.
Bruno is sometimes cited as being the first to propose that the universe is infinite, which he did during his time in England, but an English scientist, Thomas Digges, put forth this idea in a published work in 1576, some eight years earlier than Bruno. An infinite universe and the possibility of alien life had also been earlier suggested by German Catholic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in "On Learned Ignorance" published in 1440 and Bruno attributed his understanding of multiple worlds to this earlier scholar, who he called "the divine Cusanus".
In October 1585, Castelnau was recalled to France, and Bruno went with him. In Paris, Bruno found a tense political situation. Moreover, his 120 theses against Aristotelian natural science soon put him in ill favor. In 1586, following a violent quarrel over these theses, he left France for Germany.
In Germany he failed to obtain a teaching position at Marburg, but was granted permission to teach at Wittenberg, where he lectured on Aristotle for two years. However, with a change of intellectual climate there, he was no longer welcome, and went in 1588 to Prague, where he obtained 300 taler from Rudolf II, but no teaching position. He went on to serve briefly as a professor in Helmstedt, but had to flee again in 1590 when he was excommunicated by the Lutherans.
During this period he produced several Latin works, dictated to his friend and secretary Girolamo Besler, including De Magia (On Magic), Theses De Magia (Theses on Magic) and De Vinculis in Genere (A General Account of Bonding). All these were apparently transcribed or recorded by Besler (or Bisler) between 1589 and 1590. He also published De Imaginum, Signorum, Et Idearum Compositione (On the Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas, 1591).
In 1591 he was in Frankfurt, where he received an invitation from the Venetian patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the University of Padua. At the time the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its strictness, and because the Republic of Venice was the most liberal state in the Italian Peninsula, Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy.
He went first to Padua, where he taught briefly, and applied unsuccessfully for the chair of mathematics, which was given instead to Galileo Galilei one year later. Bruno accepted Mocenigo's invitation and moved to Venice in March 1592. For about two months he served as an in-house tutor to Mocenigo, to whom he let slip some of his heterodox ideas. Mocenigo denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition, which had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of blasphemy and heresy brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transfer to Rome. After several months of argument, the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in January 1593.
During the seven years of his trial in Rome, Bruno was held in confinement, lastly in the Tower of Nona. Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:
Bruno defended himself as he had in Venice, insisting that he accepted the Church's dogmatic teachings, but trying to preserve the basis of his cosmological views. In particular, he held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the Inquisitor Cardinal Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. On 20 January 1600, Pope Clement VIII declared Bruno a heretic, and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death. According to the correspondence of Gaspar Schopp of Breslau, he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam ("Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it").
He was turned over to the secular authorities. On 17 February 1600, in the Campo de' Fiori (a central Roman market square), naked, with his "tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words", he was burned alive at the stake. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber river.
All of Bruno's works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. The inquisition cardinals who judged Giordano Bruno were Cardinal Bellarmino (Bellarmine), Cardinal Madruzzo (Madruzzi), Camillo Cardinal Borghese (later Pope Paul V), Domenico Cardinal Pinelli, Pompeio Cardinal Arrigoni, Cardinal Sfondrati, Pedro Cardinal De Deza Manuel and Cardinal Santorio (Archbishop of Santa Severina, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina).
The measures taken to prevent Bruno continuing to speak have resulted in his becoming a symbol for free thought and speech in present-day Rome, where an annual memorial service takes place close to the spot where he was executed.
The earliest likeness of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715 and cited by Salvestrini as "the only known portrait of Bruno". Salvestrini suggests that it is a re-engraving made from a now lost original. This engraving has provided the source for later images.
The records of Bruno's imprisonment by the Venetian inquisition in May 1592 describe him as a man "of average height, with a hazel-coloured beard and the appearance of being about forty years of age". Alternately, a passage in a work by George Abbot indicates that Bruno was of diminutive stature: "When that Italian Didapper, who intituled himselfe Philotheus Iordanus Brunus Nolanus, magis elaboratae Theologiae Doctor, &c. with a name longer than his body...". The word "didapper" used by Abbot is the derisive term which at the time meant "a small diving waterfowl".
In the first half of the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa challenged the then widely accepted philosophies of Aristotelianism, envisioning instead an infinite universe whose center was everywhere and circumference nowhere, and moreover teeming with countless stars. He also predicted that neither were the rotational orbits circular nor were their movements uniform.
In the second half of the 16th century, the theories of Copernicus (1473–1543) began diffusing through Europe. Copernicus conserved the idea of planets fixed to solid spheres, but considered the apparent motion of the stars to be an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis; he also preserved the notion of an immobile center, but it was the Sun rather than the Earth. Copernicus also argued the Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun once every year. However he maintained the Ptolemaic hypothesis that the orbits of the planets were composed of perfect circles—deferents and epicycles—and that the stars were fixed on a stationary outer sphere.
Despite the widespread publication of Copernicus' work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, during Bruno's time most educated Catholics subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that all heavenly bodies revolved around it. The ultimate limit of the universe was the primum mobile, whose diurnal rotation was conferred upon it by a transcendental God, not part of the universe (although, as the kingdom of heaven, adjacent to it), a motionless prime mover and first cause. The fixed stars were part of this celestial sphere, all at the same fixed distance from the immobile Earth at the center of the sphere. Ptolemy had numbered these at 1,022, grouped into 48 constellations. The planets were each fixed to a transparent sphere.
Few astronomers of Bruno's time accepted Copernicus's heliocentric model. Among those who did were the Germans Michael Maestlin (1550–1631), Christoph Rothmann, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630); the Englishman Thomas Digges (c. 1546–1595), author of A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes; and the Italian Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).
In 1584, Bruno published two important philosophical dialogues (La Cena de le Ceneri and De l'infinito universo et mondi) in which he argued against the planetary spheres (Christoph Rothmann did the same in 1586 as did Tycho Brahe in 1587) and affirmed the Copernican principle.
In particular, to support the Copernican view and oppose the objection according to which the motion of the Earth would be perceived by means of the motion of winds, clouds etc., in La Cena de le Ceneri Bruno anticipates some of the arguments of Galilei on the relativity principle. Note that he also uses the example now known as Galileo's ship.
Theophilus – [...] air through which the clouds and winds move are parts of the Earth, [...] to mean under the name of Earth the whole machinery and the entire animated part, which consists of dissimilar parts; so that the rivers, the rocks, the seas, the whole vaporous and turbulent air, which is enclosed within the highest mountains, should belong to the Earth as its members, just as the air [does] in the lungs and in other cavities of animals by which they breathe, widen their arteries, and other similar effects necessary for life are performed. The clouds, too, move through accidents in the body of the Earth and are in its bowels as are the waters. [...] With the Earth move [...] all things that are on the Earth. If, therefore, from a point outside the Earth something were thrown upon the Earth, it would lose, because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would be seen on the ship [...] moving along a river, if someone on point C of the riverbank were to throw a stone along a straight line, and would see the stone miss its target by the amount of the velocity of the ship's motion. But if someone were placed high on the mast of that ship, move as it may however fast, he would not miss his target at all, so that the stone or some other heavy thing thrown downward would not come along a straight line from the point E which is at the top of the mast, or cage, to the point D which is at the bottom of the mast, or at some point in the bowels and body of the ship. Thus, if from the point D to the point E someone who is inside the ship would throw a stone straight up, it would return to the bottom along the same line however far the ship moved, provided it was not subject to any pitch and roll."
Bruno's infinite universe was filled with a substance—a "pure air", aether, or spiritus—that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno's view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own impetus (momentum). Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a hierarchical universe.
The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.
Bruno's cosmology distinguishes between "suns" which produce their own light and heat, and have other bodies moving around them; and "earths" which move around suns and receive light and heat from them. Bruno suggested that some, if not all, of the objects classically known as fixed stars are in fact suns. According to astrophysicist Steven Soter, he was the first person to grasp that "stars are other suns with their own planets."
Bruno wrote that other worlds "have no less virtue nor a nature different from that of our Earth" and, like Earth, "contain animals and inhabitants".
During the late 16th century, and throughout the 17th century, Bruno's ideas were held up for ridicule, debate, or inspiration. Margaret Cavendish, for example, wrote an entire series of poems against "atoms" and "infinite worlds" in Poems and Fancies in 1664. Bruno's true, if partial, vindication would have to wait for the implications and impact of Newtonian cosmology.
Bruno's overall contribution to the birth of modern science is still controversial. Some scholars follow Frances Yates in stressing the importance of Bruno's ideas about the universe being infinite and lacking geocentric structure as a crucial crossing point between the old and the new. Others see in Bruno's idea of multiple worlds instantiating the infinite possibilities of a pristine, indivisible One, a forerunner of Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
While many academics note Bruno's theological position as pantheism, several have described it as pandeism, and some also as panentheism. Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein in his Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature"), wrote that the theological model of pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of Bruno, especially with respect to the vision of a deity for which "the concept of God is not separated from that of the universe." However, Otto Kern takes exception to what he considers Weinstein's overbroad assertions that Bruno, as well as other historical philosophers such as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Mendelssohn, and Lessing, were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism. Discover editor Corey S. Powell also described Bruno's cosmology as pandeistic, writing that it was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology", and this assessment of Bruno as a pandeist was agreed with by science writer Michael Newton Keas, and The Daily Beast writer David Sessions.
The Vatican has published few official statements about Bruno's trial and execution. In 1942, Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, who discovered a number of lost documents relating to Bruno's trial, stated that the Church was perfectly justified in condemning him. On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, in 2000, Cardinal Angelo Sodano declared Bruno's death to be a "sad episode" but, despite his regret, he defended Bruno's prosecutors, maintaining that the Inquisitors "had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life". In the same year, Pope John Paul II made a general apology for "the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth".
Some authors have characterized Bruno as a "martyr of science", suggesting parallels with the Galileo affair which began around 1610. "It should not be supposed," writes A. M. Paterson of Bruno and his "heliocentric solar system", that he "reached his conclusions via some mystical revelation....His work is an essential part of the scientific and philosophical developments that he initiated." Paterson echoes Hegel in writing that Bruno "ushers in a modern theory of knowledge that understands all natural things in the universe to be known by the human mind through the mind's dialectical structure".
Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of Lucretius, "aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods." Characters in Bruno's Cause, Principle and Unity desire "to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things," and to achieve a philosophy "which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature."
Other scholars oppose such views, and claim Bruno's martyrdom to science to be exaggerated, or outright false. For Yates, while "nineteenth century liberals" were thrown "into ecstasies" over Bruno's Copernicanism, "Bruno pushes Copernicus' scientific work back into a prescientific stage, back into Hermeticism, interpreting the Copernican diagram as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries."
According to historian Mordechai Feingold, "Both admirers and critics of Giordano Bruno basically agree that he was pompous and arrogant, highly valuing his opinions and showing little patience with anyone who even mildly disagreed with him." Discussing Bruno's experience of rejection when he visited Oxford University, Feingold suggests that "it might have been Bruno's manner, his language and his self-assertiveness, rather than his ideas" that caused offence.
In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel writes that Bruno's life represented "a bold rejection of all Catholic beliefs resting on mere authority."
Alfonso Ingegno states that Bruno's philosophy "challenges the developments of the Reformation, calls into question the truth-value of the whole of Christianity, and claims that Christ perpetrated a deceit on mankind... Bruno suggests that we can now recognize the universal law which controls the perpetual becoming of all things in an infinite universe." A. M. Paterson says that, while we no longer have a copy of the official papal condemnation of Bruno, his heresies included "the doctrine of the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds" and his beliefs "on the movement of the earth".
Michael White notes that the Inquisition may have pursued Bruno early in his life on the basis of his opposition to Aristotle, interest in Arianism, reading of Erasmus, and possession of banned texts. White considers that Bruno's later heresy was "multifaceted" and may have rested on his conception of infinite worlds. "This was perhaps the most dangerous notion of all... If other worlds existed with intelligent beings living there, did they too have their visitations? The idea was quite unthinkable."
Frances Yates rejects what she describes as the "legend that Bruno was prosecuted as a philosophical thinker, was burned for his daring views on innumerable worlds or on the movement of the earth." Yates however writes that "the Church was... perfectly within its rights if it included philosophical points in its condemnation of Bruno's heresies" because "the philosophical points were quite inseparable from the heresies."
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."
The website of the Vatican Apostolic Archive, discussing a summary of legal proceedings against Bruno in Rome, states:
"In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, at the dawning of the new astronomy and at the decline of Aristotle's philosophy, sixteen years later, Cardinal Bellarmino, who then contested Bruno's heretical theses, summoned Galileo Galilei, who also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, which, luckily for him, ended with a simple abjuration."
Following the 1870 Capture of Rome by the newly created Kingdom of Italy and the end of the Church's temporal power over the city, the erection of a monument to Bruno on the site of his execution became feasible. The monument was sharply opposed by the clerical party, but was finally erected by the Rome Municipality and inaugurated in 1889.
A statue of a stretched human figure standing on its head, designed by Alexander Polzin and depicting Bruno's death at the stake, was placed in Potsdamer Platz station in Berlin on 2 March 2008.
Retrospective iconography of Bruno shows him with a Dominican cowl but not tonsured. Edward Gosselin has suggested that it is likely Bruno kept his tonsure at least until 1579, and it is possible that he wore it again thereafter.
An idealized animated version of Bruno appears in the first episode of the 2014 television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. In this depiction, Bruno is shown with a more modern look, without tonsure and wearing clerical robes and without his hood. Cosmos presents Bruno as an impoverished philosopher who was ultimately executed due to his refusal to recant his belief in other worlds, a portrayal that was criticized by some as simplistic or historically inaccurate. Corey S. Powell, of Discover magazine, says of Bruno, "A major reason he moved around so much is that he was argumentative, sarcastic, and drawn to controversy...He was a brilliant, complicated, difficult man.
Poems that refer to Bruno include:
Bruno and his theory of "the coincidence of contraries" (coincidentia oppositorum) play an important role in James Joyce's 1939 novel Finnegans Wake. Joyce wrote in a letter to his patroness, Harriet Shaw Weaver, "His philosophy is a kind of dualism – every power in nature must evolve an opposite in order to realise itself and opposition brings reunion". Amongst his numerous allusions to Bruno in his novel, including his trial and torture, Joyce plays upon Bruno's notion of coincidentia oppositorum through applying his name to word puns such as "Browne and Nolan" (the name of Dublin printers) and '"brownesberrow in nolandsland".
In 1934 Marjorie Bowen published The Triumphant Beast, a novel about Bruno's life. An electronic edition of the work appears at Project Gutenberg Australia
In 1963 Soviet writer Alexander Volkov published The Wandering, a novel about the childhood and youth of Bruno.
In 1973 the biographical drama Giordano Bruno was released, an Italian/French movie directed by Giuliano Montaldo, starring Gian Maria Volonté as Bruno.
Bruno is a central character, and his philosophy a central theme, in John Crowley’s Aegypt (1987), renamed The Solitudes, and the ensuing series of novels: Love & Sleep (1994), Daemonomania (2000), and Endless Things (2007).
The Last Confession by Morris West is an unfinished, posthumously published fictional autobiography of Bruno, ostensibly written shortly before Bruno's execution.
Bruno features as the hero of the Giordano Bruno series of historical crime novels by S.J. Parris (a pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt). The series consists of the novels Heresy (2010), Prophecy (2011) Sacrilege (2012), Treachery (2014), Conspiracy (2016) and Execution (2020), along with three prequel novellas.
Hans Werner Henze set his large scale cantata for orchestra, choir and four soloists, Novae de infinito laudes to Italian texts by Bruno, recorded in 1972 at the Salzburg Festival reissued on CD Orfeo C609 031B.
The album Numen Lumen (2011) by neofolk group Hautville tracks Bruno's lyrics and is dedicated to the philosopher.
The Italian composer Francesco Filidei wrote an opera, based on a libretto by Stefano Busellato, titled Giordano Bruno. The premiere took place on 12 September 2015 at the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal.
The 2016 song "Roman Sky" by heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold focuses on the death of Bruno.
Bruno is the central character in Roger Doyle’s Heresy - an electronic opera (2017).
The Giordano Bruno Foundation (German: Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung) is a non-profit foundation based in Germany that pursues the "Support of Evolutionary Humanism". It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004. The Giordano Bruno Foundation is critical of religious fundamentalism and nationalism.
The SETI League makes an annual award honoring the memory of Giordano Bruno to a deserving person or persons who have made a significant contribution to the practice of SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). The award was proposed by sociologist Donald Tarter in 1995 on the 395th anniversary of Bruno's death. The trophy presented is called a Bruno.
The 22 km impact crater Giordano Bruno on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor, as are the main belt Asteroids 5148 Giordano and 13223 Cenaceneri; the latter is named after his philosophical dialogue La Cena de le Ceneri ("The Ash Wednesday Supper") (see above).
Radio broadcasting station 2GB in Sydney, Australia is named for Bruno. The two letters "GB" in the call sign were chosen to honor Bruno, who was much admired by Theosophists who were the original holders of the station's licence. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Giordano Bruno (/dʒɔːrˈdɑːnoʊ ˈbruːnoʊ/; Italian: [dʒorˈdaːno ˈbruːno]; Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets (exoplanets), and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no center.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While Bruno began as a Dominican friar, he embraced Calvinism during his time in Geneva. He was later tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned alive at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science. However, most historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his religious and afterlife views, although some still contend that the main reason for Bruno's death was indeed his cosmological views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the presocratic Empedocles, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Book of Genesis-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of Hermes Trismegistus. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Born Filippo Bruno in Nola (a comune in the modern-day province of Naples, in the Southern Italian region of Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was the son of Giovanni Bruno (1517- c. 1592), a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino (1520-?). In his youth he was sent to Naples to be educated. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the Studium Generale. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his novitiate, and ordained a priest in 1572 at age 24. During his time in Naples, he became known for his skill with the art of memory and on one occasion traveled to Rome to demonstrate his mnemonic system before Pope Pius V and Cardinal Rebiba. In his later years, Bruno claimed that the Pope accepted his dedication to him of the lost work On The Ark of Noah at this time.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "While Bruno was distinguished for outstanding ability, his taste for free thinking and forbidden books soon caused him difficulties. Given the controversy he caused in later life, it is surprising that he was able to remain within the monastic system for eleven years. In his testimony to Venetian inquisitors during his trial many years later, he says that proceedings were twice taken against him for having cast away images of the saints, retaining only a crucifix, and for having recommended controversial texts to a novice. Such behavior could perhaps be overlooked, but Bruno's situation became much more serious when he was reported to have defended the Arian heresy, and when a copy of the banned writings of Erasmus, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the monastery latrine. When he learned that an indictment was being prepared against him in Naples he fled, shedding his religious habit, at least for a time.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Bruno first went to the Genoese port of Noli, then to Savona, Turin and finally to Venice, where he published his lost work On the Signs of the Times with the permission (so he claimed at his trial) of the Dominican Remigio Nannini Fiorentino. From Venice he went to Padua, where he met fellow Dominicans who convinced him to wear his religious habit again. From Padua he went to Bergamo and then across the Alps to Chambéry and Lyon. His movements after this time are obscure.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1579, Bruno arrived in Geneva. As D. W. Singer, a Bruno biographer, notes, \"The question has sometimes been raised as to whether Bruno became a Protestant, and there is evidence he joined a Calvinist church.\" During his Venetian trial, he told inquisitors that while in Geneva he told the Marchese de Vico of Naples, who was notable for helping Italian refugees in Geneva, \"I did not intend to adopt the religion of the city. I desired to stay there only that I might live at liberty and in security.\" Bruno had a pair of breeches made for himself, and the Marchese and others apparently made Bruno a gift of a sword, hat, cape and other necessities for dressing himself; in such clothing Bruno could no longer be recognized as a priest. Things apparently went well for Bruno for a time, as he entered his name in the Rector's Book of the University of Geneva in May 1579. But in keeping with his personality he could not long remain silent. In August he published an attack on the work of Antoine de la Faye [fr], a distinguished professor. Bruno and the printer, Jean Bergeon, were promptly arrested. Rather than apologizing, Bruno insisted on continuing to defend his publication. He was refused the right to take sacrament. Though this right was soon restored, he left Geneva.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "He went to France, arriving first in Lyon, and thereafter settling for a time (1580–1581) in Toulouse, where he took his doctorate in theology and was elected by students to lecture in philosophy. He also attempted at this time to return to Catholicism, but was denied absolution by the Jesuit priest he approached. When religious strife broke out in the summer of 1581, he moved to Paris. There he held a cycle of thirty lectures on theological topics and also began to gain fame for his prodigious memory. His talents attracted the benevolent attention of the king Henry III; Bruno subsequently reported:",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "\"I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned me one day to discover from me if the memory which I possessed was natural or acquired by magic art. I satisfied him that it did not come from sorcery but from organized knowledge; and, following this, I got a book on memory printed, entitled The Shadows of Ideas, which I dedicated to His Majesty. Forthwith he gave me an Extraordinary Lectureship with a salary.\"",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In Paris, Bruno enjoyed the protection of his powerful French patrons. During this period, he published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On the Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars memoriae [it] (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus circaeus (Circe's Song, 1582; described at Circe in the arts § Reasoning beasts). All of these were based on his mnemonic models of organized knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of Petrus Ramus then becoming popular. Bruno also published a comedy summarizing some of his philosophical positions, titled Il Candelaio (The Candlemaker, 1582). In the 16th century dedications were, as a rule, approved beforehand, and hence were a way of placing a work under the protection of an individual. Given that Bruno dedicated various works to the likes of King Henry III, Sir Philip Sidney, Michel de Castelnau (French Ambassador to England), and possibly Pope Pius V, it is apparent that this wanderer had risen sharply in status and moved in powerful circles.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In April 1583, Bruno went to England with letters of recommendation from Henry III as a guest of the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. Bruno lived at the French embassy with the lexicographer John Florio. There he became acquainted with the poet Philip Sidney (to whom he dedicated two books) and other members of the Hermetic circle around John Dee, though there is no evidence that Bruno ever met Dee himself. He also lectured at Oxford, and unsuccessfully sought a teaching position there. His views were controversial, notably with John Underhill, Rector of Lincoln College and subsequently bishop of Oxford, and George Abbot, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot mocked Bruno for supporting \"the opinion of Copernicus that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still\", and found Bruno had both plagiarized and misrepresented Ficino's work, leading Bruno to return to the continent.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Nevertheless, his stay in England was fruitful. During that time Bruno completed and published some of his most important works, the six \"Italian Dialogues\", including the cosmological tracts La cena de le ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper, 1584), De la causa, principio et uno (On Cause, Principle and Unity, 1584), De l'infinito, universo et mondi (On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds, 1584) as well as Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, 1584) and De gli eroici furori [it] (On the Heroic Frenzies, 1585). Some of these were printed by John Charlewood. Some of the works that Bruno published in London, notably The Ash Wednesday Supper, appear to have given offense. Once again, Bruno's controversial views and tactless language lost him the support of his friends. John Bossy has advanced the theory that, while staying in the French Embassy in London, Bruno was also spying on Catholic conspirators, under the pseudonym \"Henry Fagot\", for Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Bruno is sometimes cited as being the first to propose that the universe is infinite, which he did during his time in England, but an English scientist, Thomas Digges, put forth this idea in a published work in 1576, some eight years earlier than Bruno. An infinite universe and the possibility of alien life had also been earlier suggested by German Catholic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in \"On Learned Ignorance\" published in 1440 and Bruno attributed his understanding of multiple worlds to this earlier scholar, who he called \"the divine Cusanus\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In October 1585, Castelnau was recalled to France, and Bruno went with him. In Paris, Bruno found a tense political situation. Moreover, his 120 theses against Aristotelian natural science soon put him in ill favor. In 1586, following a violent quarrel over these theses, he left France for Germany.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Germany he failed to obtain a teaching position at Marburg, but was granted permission to teach at Wittenberg, where he lectured on Aristotle for two years. However, with a change of intellectual climate there, he was no longer welcome, and went in 1588 to Prague, where he obtained 300 taler from Rudolf II, but no teaching position. He went on to serve briefly as a professor in Helmstedt, but had to flee again in 1590 when he was excommunicated by the Lutherans.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "During this period he produced several Latin works, dictated to his friend and secretary Girolamo Besler, including De Magia (On Magic), Theses De Magia (Theses on Magic) and De Vinculis in Genere (A General Account of Bonding). All these were apparently transcribed or recorded by Besler (or Bisler) between 1589 and 1590. He also published De Imaginum, Signorum, Et Idearum Compositione (On the Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas, 1591).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 1591 he was in Frankfurt, where he received an invitation from the Venetian patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the University of Padua. At the time the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its strictness, and because the Republic of Venice was the most liberal state in the Italian Peninsula, Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "He went first to Padua, where he taught briefly, and applied unsuccessfully for the chair of mathematics, which was given instead to Galileo Galilei one year later. Bruno accepted Mocenigo's invitation and moved to Venice in March 1592. For about two months he served as an in-house tutor to Mocenigo, to whom he let slip some of his heterodox ideas. Mocenigo denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition, which had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of blasphemy and heresy brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transfer to Rome. After several months of argument, the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in January 1593.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "During the seven years of his trial in Rome, Bruno was held in confinement, lastly in the Tower of Nona. Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Bruno defended himself as he had in Venice, insisting that he accepted the Church's dogmatic teachings, but trying to preserve the basis of his cosmological views. In particular, he held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the Inquisitor Cardinal Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. On 20 January 1600, Pope Clement VIII declared Bruno a heretic, and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death. According to the correspondence of Gaspar Schopp of Breslau, he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam (\"Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it\").",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "He was turned over to the secular authorities. On 17 February 1600, in the Campo de' Fiori (a central Roman market square), naked, with his \"tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words\", he was burned alive at the stake. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber river.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "All of Bruno's works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. The inquisition cardinals who judged Giordano Bruno were Cardinal Bellarmino (Bellarmine), Cardinal Madruzzo (Madruzzi), Camillo Cardinal Borghese (later Pope Paul V), Domenico Cardinal Pinelli, Pompeio Cardinal Arrigoni, Cardinal Sfondrati, Pedro Cardinal De Deza Manuel and Cardinal Santorio (Archbishop of Santa Severina, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina).",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The measures taken to prevent Bruno continuing to speak have resulted in his becoming a symbol for free thought and speech in present-day Rome, where an annual memorial service takes place close to the spot where he was executed.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The earliest likeness of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715 and cited by Salvestrini as \"the only known portrait of Bruno\". Salvestrini suggests that it is a re-engraving made from a now lost original. This engraving has provided the source for later images.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The records of Bruno's imprisonment by the Venetian inquisition in May 1592 describe him as a man \"of average height, with a hazel-coloured beard and the appearance of being about forty years of age\". Alternately, a passage in a work by George Abbot indicates that Bruno was of diminutive stature: \"When that Italian Didapper, who intituled himselfe Philotheus Iordanus Brunus Nolanus, magis elaboratae Theologiae Doctor, &c. with a name longer than his body...\". The word \"didapper\" used by Abbot is the derisive term which at the time meant \"a small diving waterfowl\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In the first half of the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa challenged the then widely accepted philosophies of Aristotelianism, envisioning instead an infinite universe whose center was everywhere and circumference nowhere, and moreover teeming with countless stars. He also predicted that neither were the rotational orbits circular nor were their movements uniform.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In the second half of the 16th century, the theories of Copernicus (1473–1543) began diffusing through Europe. Copernicus conserved the idea of planets fixed to solid spheres, but considered the apparent motion of the stars to be an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis; he also preserved the notion of an immobile center, but it was the Sun rather than the Earth. Copernicus also argued the Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun once every year. However he maintained the Ptolemaic hypothesis that the orbits of the planets were composed of perfect circles—deferents and epicycles—and that the stars were fixed on a stationary outer sphere.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Despite the widespread publication of Copernicus' work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, during Bruno's time most educated Catholics subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that all heavenly bodies revolved around it. The ultimate limit of the universe was the primum mobile, whose diurnal rotation was conferred upon it by a transcendental God, not part of the universe (although, as the kingdom of heaven, adjacent to it), a motionless prime mover and first cause. The fixed stars were part of this celestial sphere, all at the same fixed distance from the immobile Earth at the center of the sphere. Ptolemy had numbered these at 1,022, grouped into 48 constellations. The planets were each fixed to a transparent sphere.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Few astronomers of Bruno's time accepted Copernicus's heliocentric model. Among those who did were the Germans Michael Maestlin (1550–1631), Christoph Rothmann, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630); the Englishman Thomas Digges (c. 1546–1595), author of A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes; and the Italian Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 1584, Bruno published two important philosophical dialogues (La Cena de le Ceneri and De l'infinito universo et mondi) in which he argued against the planetary spheres (Christoph Rothmann did the same in 1586 as did Tycho Brahe in 1587) and affirmed the Copernican principle.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In particular, to support the Copernican view and oppose the objection according to which the motion of the Earth would be perceived by means of the motion of winds, clouds etc., in La Cena de le Ceneri Bruno anticipates some of the arguments of Galilei on the relativity principle. Note that he also uses the example now known as Galileo's ship.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Theophilus – [...] air through which the clouds and winds move are parts of the Earth, [...] to mean under the name of Earth the whole machinery and the entire animated part, which consists of dissimilar parts; so that the rivers, the rocks, the seas, the whole vaporous and turbulent air, which is enclosed within the highest mountains, should belong to the Earth as its members, just as the air [does] in the lungs and in other cavities of animals by which they breathe, widen their arteries, and other similar effects necessary for life are performed. The clouds, too, move through accidents in the body of the Earth and are in its bowels as are the waters. [...] With the Earth move [...] all things that are on the Earth. If, therefore, from a point outside the Earth something were thrown upon the Earth, it would lose, because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would be seen on the ship [...] moving along a river, if someone on point C of the riverbank were to throw a stone along a straight line, and would see the stone miss its target by the amount of the velocity of the ship's motion. But if someone were placed high on the mast of that ship, move as it may however fast, he would not miss his target at all, so that the stone or some other heavy thing thrown downward would not come along a straight line from the point E which is at the top of the mast, or cage, to the point D which is at the bottom of the mast, or at some point in the bowels and body of the ship. Thus, if from the point D to the point E someone who is inside the ship would throw a stone straight up, it would return to the bottom along the same line however far the ship moved, provided it was not subject to any pitch and roll.\"",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Bruno's infinite universe was filled with a substance—a \"pure air\", aether, or spiritus—that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno's view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own impetus (momentum). Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a hierarchical universe.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Bruno's cosmology distinguishes between \"suns\" which produce their own light and heat, and have other bodies moving around them; and \"earths\" which move around suns and receive light and heat from them. Bruno suggested that some, if not all, of the objects classically known as fixed stars are in fact suns. According to astrophysicist Steven Soter, he was the first person to grasp that \"stars are other suns with their own planets.\"",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Bruno wrote that other worlds \"have no less virtue nor a nature different from that of our Earth\" and, like Earth, \"contain animals and inhabitants\".",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "During the late 16th century, and throughout the 17th century, Bruno's ideas were held up for ridicule, debate, or inspiration. Margaret Cavendish, for example, wrote an entire series of poems against \"atoms\" and \"infinite worlds\" in Poems and Fancies in 1664. Bruno's true, if partial, vindication would have to wait for the implications and impact of Newtonian cosmology.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Bruno's overall contribution to the birth of modern science is still controversial. Some scholars follow Frances Yates in stressing the importance of Bruno's ideas about the universe being infinite and lacking geocentric structure as a crucial crossing point between the old and the new. Others see in Bruno's idea of multiple worlds instantiating the infinite possibilities of a pristine, indivisible One, a forerunner of Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "While many academics note Bruno's theological position as pantheism, several have described it as pandeism, and some also as panentheism. Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein in his Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis (\"World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature\"), wrote that the theological model of pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of Bruno, especially with respect to the vision of a deity for which \"the concept of God is not separated from that of the universe.\" However, Otto Kern takes exception to what he considers Weinstein's overbroad assertions that Bruno, as well as other historical philosophers such as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Mendelssohn, and Lessing, were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism. Discover editor Corey S. Powell also described Bruno's cosmology as pandeistic, writing that it was \"a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology\", and this assessment of Bruno as a pandeist was agreed with by science writer Michael Newton Keas, and The Daily Beast writer David Sessions.",
"title": "Cosmology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Vatican has published few official statements about Bruno's trial and execution. In 1942, Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, who discovered a number of lost documents relating to Bruno's trial, stated that the Church was perfectly justified in condemning him. On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, in 2000, Cardinal Angelo Sodano declared Bruno's death to be a \"sad episode\" but, despite his regret, he defended Bruno's prosecutors, maintaining that the Inquisitors \"had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life\". In the same year, Pope John Paul II made a general apology for \"the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth\".",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Some authors have characterized Bruno as a \"martyr of science\", suggesting parallels with the Galileo affair which began around 1610. \"It should not be supposed,\" writes A. M. Paterson of Bruno and his \"heliocentric solar system\", that he \"reached his conclusions via some mystical revelation....His work is an essential part of the scientific and philosophical developments that he initiated.\" Paterson echoes Hegel in writing that Bruno \"ushers in a modern theory of knowledge that understands all natural things in the universe to be known by the human mind through the mind's dialectical structure\".",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of Lucretius, \"aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods.\" Characters in Bruno's Cause, Principle and Unity desire \"to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things,\" and to achieve a philosophy \"which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Other scholars oppose such views, and claim Bruno's martyrdom to science to be exaggerated, or outright false. For Yates, while \"nineteenth century liberals\" were thrown \"into ecstasies\" over Bruno's Copernicanism, \"Bruno pushes Copernicus' scientific work back into a prescientific stage, back into Hermeticism, interpreting the Copernican diagram as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "According to historian Mordechai Feingold, \"Both admirers and critics of Giordano Bruno basically agree that he was pompous and arrogant, highly valuing his opinions and showing little patience with anyone who even mildly disagreed with him.\" Discussing Bruno's experience of rejection when he visited Oxford University, Feingold suggests that \"it might have been Bruno's manner, his language and his self-assertiveness, rather than his ideas\" that caused offence.",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel writes that Bruno's life represented \"a bold rejection of all Catholic beliefs resting on mere authority.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Alfonso Ingegno states that Bruno's philosophy \"challenges the developments of the Reformation, calls into question the truth-value of the whole of Christianity, and claims that Christ perpetrated a deceit on mankind... Bruno suggests that we can now recognize the universal law which controls the perpetual becoming of all things in an infinite universe.\" A. M. Paterson says that, while we no longer have a copy of the official papal condemnation of Bruno, his heresies included \"the doctrine of the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds\" and his beliefs \"on the movement of the earth\".",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Michael White notes that the Inquisition may have pursued Bruno early in his life on the basis of his opposition to Aristotle, interest in Arianism, reading of Erasmus, and possession of banned texts. White considers that Bruno's later heresy was \"multifaceted\" and may have rested on his conception of infinite worlds. \"This was perhaps the most dangerous notion of all... If other worlds existed with intelligent beings living there, did they too have their visitations? The idea was quite unthinkable.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Frances Yates rejects what she describes as the \"legend that Bruno was prosecuted as a philosophical thinker, was burned for his daring views on innumerable worlds or on the movement of the earth.\" Yates however writes that \"the Church was... perfectly within its rights if it included philosophical points in its condemnation of Bruno's heresies\" because \"the philosophical points were quite inseparable from the heresies.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, \"in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The website of the Vatican Apostolic Archive, discussing a summary of legal proceedings against Bruno in Rome, states:",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "\"In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, at the dawning of the new astronomy and at the decline of Aristotle's philosophy, sixteen years later, Cardinal Bellarmino, who then contested Bruno's heretical theses, summoned Galileo Galilei, who also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, which, luckily for him, ended with a simple abjuration.\"",
"title": "Retrospective views of Bruno"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Following the 1870 Capture of Rome by the newly created Kingdom of Italy and the end of the Church's temporal power over the city, the erection of a monument to Bruno on the site of his execution became feasible. The monument was sharply opposed by the clerical party, but was finally erected by the Rome Municipality and inaugurated in 1889.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "A statue of a stretched human figure standing on its head, designed by Alexander Polzin and depicting Bruno's death at the stake, was placed in Potsdamer Platz station in Berlin on 2 March 2008.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Retrospective iconography of Bruno shows him with a Dominican cowl but not tonsured. Edward Gosselin has suggested that it is likely Bruno kept his tonsure at least until 1579, and it is possible that he wore it again thereafter.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "An idealized animated version of Bruno appears in the first episode of the 2014 television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. In this depiction, Bruno is shown with a more modern look, without tonsure and wearing clerical robes and without his hood. Cosmos presents Bruno as an impoverished philosopher who was ultimately executed due to his refusal to recant his belief in other worlds, a portrayal that was criticized by some as simplistic or historically inaccurate. Corey S. Powell, of Discover magazine, says of Bruno, \"A major reason he moved around so much is that he was argumentative, sarcastic, and drawn to controversy...He was a brilliant, complicated, difficult man.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Poems that refer to Bruno include:",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Bruno and his theory of \"the coincidence of contraries\" (coincidentia oppositorum) play an important role in James Joyce's 1939 novel Finnegans Wake. Joyce wrote in a letter to his patroness, Harriet Shaw Weaver, \"His philosophy is a kind of dualism – every power in nature must evolve an opposite in order to realise itself and opposition brings reunion\". Amongst his numerous allusions to Bruno in his novel, including his trial and torture, Joyce plays upon Bruno's notion of coincidentia oppositorum through applying his name to word puns such as \"Browne and Nolan\" (the name of Dublin printers) and '\"brownesberrow in nolandsland\".",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In 1934 Marjorie Bowen published The Triumphant Beast, a novel about Bruno's life. An electronic edition of the work appears at Project Gutenberg Australia",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In 1963 Soviet writer Alexander Volkov published The Wandering, a novel about the childhood and youth of Bruno.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In 1973 the biographical drama Giordano Bruno was released, an Italian/French movie directed by Giuliano Montaldo, starring Gian Maria Volonté as Bruno.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Bruno is a central character, and his philosophy a central theme, in John Crowley’s Aegypt (1987), renamed The Solitudes, and the ensuing series of novels: Love & Sleep (1994), Daemonomania (2000), and Endless Things (2007).",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The Last Confession by Morris West is an unfinished, posthumously published fictional autobiography of Bruno, ostensibly written shortly before Bruno's execution.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Bruno features as the hero of the Giordano Bruno series of historical crime novels by S.J. Parris (a pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt). The series consists of the novels Heresy (2010), Prophecy (2011) Sacrilege (2012), Treachery (2014), Conspiracy (2016) and Execution (2020), along with three prequel novellas.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Hans Werner Henze set his large scale cantata for orchestra, choir and four soloists, Novae de infinito laudes to Italian texts by Bruno, recorded in 1972 at the Salzburg Festival reissued on CD Orfeo C609 031B.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The album Numen Lumen (2011) by neofolk group Hautville tracks Bruno's lyrics and is dedicated to the philosopher.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The Italian composer Francesco Filidei wrote an opera, based on a libretto by Stefano Busellato, titled Giordano Bruno. The premiere took place on 12 September 2015 at the Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The 2016 song \"Roman Sky\" by heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold focuses on the death of Bruno.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Bruno is the central character in Roger Doyle’s Heresy - an electronic opera (2017).",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The Giordano Bruno Foundation (German: Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung) is a non-profit foundation based in Germany that pursues the \"Support of Evolutionary Humanism\". It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004. The Giordano Bruno Foundation is critical of religious fundamentalism and nationalism.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The SETI League makes an annual award honoring the memory of Giordano Bruno to a deserving person or persons who have made a significant contribution to the practice of SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). The award was proposed by sociologist Donald Tarter in 1995 on the 395th anniversary of Bruno's death. The trophy presented is called a Bruno.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The 22 km impact crater Giordano Bruno on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor, as are the main belt Asteroids 5148 Giordano and 13223 Cenaceneri; the latter is named after his philosophical dialogue La Cena de le Ceneri (\"The Ash Wednesday Supper\") (see above).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Radio broadcasting station 2GB in Sydney, Australia is named for Bruno. The two letters \"GB\" in the call sign were chosen to honor Bruno, who was much admired by Theosophists who were the original holders of the station's licence.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets (exoplanets), and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no center. While Bruno began as a Dominican friar, he embraced Calvinism during his time in Geneva. He was later tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned alive at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science. However, most historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his religious and afterlife views, although some still contend that the main reason for Bruno's death was indeed his cosmological views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences. In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the presocratic Empedocles, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Book of Genesis-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of Hermes Trismegistus. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language. | 2001-12-13T04:31:00Z | 2023-12-29T23:34:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno |
12,964 | Geddy Lee | Geddy Lee OC (born Gary Lee Weinrib) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush. Lee joined the band in September 1968, at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones. Lee's solo effort, My Favourite Headache, was released in 2000.
An award-winning musician, Lee's style, technique, and skill on the bass have inspired many rock musicians such as Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament, and Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Along with his Rush bandmates – guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996. The trio was the first rock band to be so honoured as a group. In 2013, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after 14 years of eligibility. In 2006, Lee was ranked 13th by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time.
Lee was born Gary Lee Weinrib on July 29, 1953, in the North York neighbourhood of Willowdale, Toronto, to Morris Weinrib (born Moshe Meir Weinrib; 1920–1965), from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, and Mary "Manya" Rubinstein (born Malka Rubinstein; 1925–2021), who was born in Warsaw and later grew up in Wierzbnik. His parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who had survived the ghetto in Starachowice (where they met), followed by their imprisonments at Auschwitz and later Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during the Holocaust and World War II. They were in their teens when they were initially imprisoned at Auschwitz. "It was kind of surreal pre-teen shit", says Lee, describing how his father bribed guards to bring his mother shoes. After a period, his mother was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and his father to Dachau. When the war ended four years later, and the Allies liberated the camps, Morris set out in search of Manya and found her at a Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. They married there and eventually emigrated to Canada.
Lee grew up thinking his middle name was "Lorne". It wasn't until he saw a copy of his birth certificate as a teenager that he discovered his middle name was "Lee".
Lee's father died young, which forced Lee's mother to work to support three children, running the Newmarket, Ontario, variety store that her husband had owned and managed. Lee feels that not having parents at home during those years was probably a factor in his becoming a musician: "It was a terrible blow that I lost him, but the course of my life changed because my mother couldn't control us." He said that losing his father at such an early age made him aware of how "quickly life can disappear", which inspired him from then on to get the most out of his life and music.
He turned his basement into practice space for a band he formed with high-school friends. After the band began earning income from small performances at high-school shows or other events, he decided to drop out of high school and play rock and roll professionally. His mother was devastated when he told her, and he still feels that he owes her for the disappointments in her life. "All the shit I put her through", he says, "on top of the fact that she just lost her husband. I felt like I had to make sure that it was worth it. I wanted to show her that I was a professional, that I was working hard, and wasn't just a fuckin' lunatic."
Jweekly featured Lee's reflections on his mother's experiences as a refugee and of his own Jewish heritage. Lee's name, Geddy, was derived from his mother's heavy Polish accented pronunciation of his given first name, Gary. This was picked up by his friends in school, leading Lee to adopt it as his stage name and later his legal name. Earlier, another language-related mistake was made as Geddy started school - Lee was incorrectly registered as Lorne, making Geddy believe his name was Gary Lorne Weinrib.
After Rush had become a widely recognized rock group, Lee told the story about his mother's early life to the group's drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, who then wrote the lyrics to "Red Sector A", inspired by her ordeal. The song, for which Lee wrote the music, was released on the band's 1984 album Grace Under Pressure. The lyrics include the following verse:
I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate Are the liberators here? Do I hope or do I fear? For my father and my brother, it's too late But I must help my mother stand up straight.
Lee began playing music in school when he was 10 or 11 and got his first acoustic guitar at 14. In school, he first played drums, trumpet and clarinet. However, learning to play instruments in school was not satisfying to Lee, and he took basic piano lessons independently. His interest increased dramatically after listening to some of the popular rock groups at the time. His early influences included Jack Bruce of Cream, John Entwistle of The Who, Jeff Beck, and Procol Harum. "I was mainly interested in early British progressive rock", said Lee. "That's how I learned to play bass, emulating Jack Bruce and people like that." Bruce's style of music was also noticed by Lee, who liked that "his sound was distinctive – it wasn't boring." Lee has also been influenced by Paul McCartney, Chris Squire, and James Jamerson.
In 1969, Rush began playing professionally in coffeehouses, high school dances and at various outdoor recreational events. By 1971, they were now playing primarily original songs in small clubs and bars, including Toronto's Gasworks and Abbey Road Pub. Lee describes the group during these early years as being "weekend warriors". They were holding down jobs during the weekdays and playing music on weekends: "We longed to break out of the boring surrounding of the suburbs and the endless similarities . . . the shopping plazas and all that stuff. . . the music was a vehicle for us to speak out." He claims that in the beginning, they were simply "a straightforward rock band."
Short of money, they began opening concerts at venues such as Toronto's Victory Burlesque Theatre for the glam rock band New York Dolls. By 1972, Rush began performing full-length concerts, mainly consisting of original songs, in cities including Toronto and Detroit. As they gained more recognition, they began performing as an opening act for groups such as Aerosmith, Kiss, and Blue Öyster Cult.
Like Cream, Rush followed the model of a "power trio", with Lee playing bass and singing. Lee's vocals produced a distinctive, "countertenor" falsetto and resonant sound. Lee possessed a three-octave vocal range, from baritone through tenor, alto, and mezzo-soprano pitch ranges, although it has significantly decreased with age. Lee's playing style is widely regarded for his use of high treble and very hard playing of the strings and for utilizing the bass as a lead instrument, often contrapuntal to Lifeson's guitar. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Lee mostly used a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, with a very noticeable grit in his tone. According to Lee, during the band's "synth era" in the mid-1980s, Lee used Steinberger and later Wal basses, with the latter having more of a "jazzy" tone. From 1993's Counterparts onward, Lee began using the Fender Jazz Bass almost exclusively, returning to his trademark high treble sound. Lee had first used the Jazz Bass to record Moving Pictures on songs such as "Tom Sawyer."
After several early albums and increasing popularity, Rush's status as a rock group soared over the following five years as they consistently toured worldwide and produced successful albums, including 2112 (1976), A Farewell to Kings (1977), Hemispheres (1978), Permanent Waves (1980), and Moving Pictures (1981). Lee began adding synthesizers in 1977, with the release of A Farewell to Kings. Keyboard critic Greg Armbruster says the additional sounds from synthesizers expanded the group's "textural capabilities" and allowed the trio to produce an orchestrated and more complex progressive rock music style. It also gave Lee the ability to play bass simultaneously, as he could control the synthesizer with foot pedals. In 1981, he won Keyboard magazine's poll as "Best New Talent." By the 1984 album Grace Under Pressure, Lee was surrounding himself with stacks of keyboards on stage.
By the 1980s, Rush had become one of the "biggest rock bands on the planet", selling out arena seats when touring. Lee was known for his dynamic stage movements. According to music critic Tom Mulhern, writing in 1980, "it's dazzling to see so much sheer energy expended without a nervous breakdown." By 1996, their Test for Echo Tour began performing without an opening act, their shows lasting nearly three hours.
Music industry writer Christopher Buttner, who interviewed Lee in 1996, described him as a prodigy and "role model" for what every musician wants to be, noting his proficiency on stage. Buttner cited Lee's ability to vary time signatures, play multiple keyboards, use bass pedal controllers and control sequencers, all while singing lead vocals into as many as three microphones. Buttner adds that few musicians of any instrument "can juggle half of what Geddy can do without literally falling on their ass." As a result, notes Mulhern, Lee's instrumentation was the "pulse" of the group and created a "one-man rhythm section", which complemented guitarist Alex Lifeson and percussionist Neil Peart. Bass instructor Allan Slutsky, or "Dr Licks", credits Lee's "biting, high-end bass lines and creative synthesizer work" for helping the group become "one of the most innovative" of all the groups that play arena rock. By 1989, Guitar Player magazine had designated Lee the "Best Rock Bass" player from their reader's poll for the previous five years.
Bass players who have cited Lee as an influence include Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, and Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament.
My Favourite Headache, Lee's first and to-date only solo album, was released on November 14, 2000, while Rush was on a hiatus following the deaths of Neil Peart's daughter and wife. Musicians associated with the project included friend and Rush collaborator Ben Mink, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, and others.
The bulk of Lee's work in music has been with Rush (see Rush discography). However, Lee has also contributed to a body of work outside of his involvement with the band through guest appearances and album production. In 1980, Lee was brought in to produce Toronto-based band Wireless who had previously opened up for Rush and were on the verge of breaking up. With Lee at the helm, the group recorded their third and final album, No Static, released on Rush's label, Anthem Records.
In 1981, Lee was the featured guest for the hit song "Take Off" and its included comedic commentary with Bob and Doug McKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, respectively) for the McKenzie Brothers' comedy album Great White North, which was released on Rush's Anthem label. While Rush has had great success selling albums, "Take Off" is the highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 of Lee's career.
In 1982, Lee produced the first (and only) album from Toronto's new wave band Boys Brigade. On the 1985 album We Are the World, by humanitarian consortium USA for Africa, Lee recorded guest vocals for the song "Tears Are Not Enough". Lee sang "O Canada", the Canadian national anthem, at Baltimore's Camden Yards for the 1993 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Another version of "O Canada", with a rock arrangement, was recorded by Lee and Lifeson for the 1999 film soundtrack South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
Lee also plays bass on Canadian rock band I Mother Earth's track "Good for Sule", which is featured on the group's 1999 album Blue Green Orange.
Lee was an interview subject in the documentary films Metal: A Headbangers Journey and Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, and has appeared in multiple episodes of the VH1 Classic series Metal Evolution.
Along with his bandmates, Lee was a guest musician on the Max Webster song "Battle Scar", from the 1980 album Universal Juveniles.
Lee appeared in Broken Social Scene's music video for their 2006 single "Fire Eye'd Boy", judging the band while performing various musical tasks. In 2006, Lee joined Lifeson's supergroup, the Big Dirty Band, to provide songs accompanying Trailer Park Boys: The Movie.
In 2013, Lee made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the How I Met Your Mother season eight episode "P.S. I Love You".
In 2015, Lee and bandmate Alex Lifeson appeared in the series Chicago Fire, season 4, episode 6, called "2112".
In 2017, Lee performed in place of late bassist Chris Squire with Yes during the band's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, playing bass for the song "Roundabout."
In 2018, Lee published Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass, which highlights his collection of over 250 basses along with interviews with some of the leading bass players and bass technicians.
In 2020, Lee provided guest vocals to an all-star Canadian rendition of the late Bill Withers song "Lean on Me" during the TV special Stronger Together, Tous Ensemble, a Canadian benefit performance simulcast by every major television network in Canada as a benefit for Food Banks Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.Rolling Stone ranked him as the 24th greatest bassists of All Time,
In September 2021, Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson revealed that Barenaked Ladies are working on a "secret project" with Lee.
In 2022, he appeared as a guest star playing Thomas Sawyer on the acclaimed long-running CBC period drama Murdoch Mysteries.
In August 2022, Lee appeared at the South Park 25th Anniversary Concert with Alex Lifeson and performed Rush's "Closer to the Heart" with the members of the band Primus and South Park co-creator Matt Stone.
In November 2023, Lee published an autobiography titled My Effin' Life. The book was promoted with a 19-date tour of the UK and North America.
On December 5, 2023, Paramount+ released a video series, "Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?" Four episodes were aired on Les Claypool, Robert Trujillo, Melissa Auf Der Maur, and Krist Novoselic. Each episode features Lee visiting with and talking to the guest bassist.
Lee is a collector, and has collected baseball ephemera, vintage bass guitars, and wines, with a collection of 5,000 bottles. As a child he claims to have collected stamps, and vinyl records. He went on to collect first edition books. He then also began collecting 6-string guitars.
Lee is also a longtime baseball fan. His favourite team while growing up was the Detroit Tigers, and he later became a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays after they were established. In the 1980s, Lee began reading the works of Bill James, particularly The Bill James Baseball Abstracts, which led to an interest in sabermetrics and participation in a fantasy baseball keeper league. He collects baseball memorabilia, once donating part of his collection to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and threw the ceremonial first pitch to inaugurate the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays season. Lee sang the Canadian national anthem before the 1993 MLB All-Star Game. In 2016, Lee planned to produce an independent film about baseball in Italy. Lee is regularly seen in his seat behind home plate at the Toronto Blue Jays stadium Rogers Centre with his scorecard. He is such a steadfast fan, that when the team was forced to move to Buffalo during the 2020 season, a cardboard cutout of Lee was placed in a seat behind home plate.
Lee also collects guitars and basses late in his career. He has a collection of over 250 vintage basses. He owns a 1961 Fender Precision Bass previously owned by John Entwistle of The Who. He also owns two 1964 rare color (Dakota Red) Fender Jazz Basses.
In 2019 he sent several of his guitars to Mecum Auctions including a 1959 Les Paul Standard, a 1960 Gibson ES-345, a 1955 Fender Stratocaster, a 1960 Gibson ES-335, a 1965 Gibson ES-335 and a 1967 Gibson Flying V.
Lee is also an avid watch collector.
Lee has varied his equipment list continually throughout his career.
In 1998, Fender released the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass, available in Black and 3-Color Sunburst (as of 2009). This signature model is a recreation of Lee's favourite bass, a 1972 Fender Jazz that he bought in a pawn shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1978. In 2015, Fender released a revised USA model of his signature bass, with most of the changes reflecting those Lee had made to his own instrument over the years.
In Rush's early years, Lee's main instrument was a Fender Precision Bass, which he used on the band's debut album in 1974. He later had this bass sanded down into a teardrop shape and refinished with a Jazz Bass bridge pickup added, something which he regretted in later years. He subsequently switched to a modified Rickenbacker 4001, which made its first appearance on Fly by Night (1975). He used his Fender Jazz Bass alongside the Rickenbacker on the albums Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981) and Signals (1982) before moving to it exclusively from Counterparts (1993) onwards. He had also used Steinberger basses on Grace Under Pressure (1984) and Wal basses on Power Windows (1985), Hold Your Fire (1987), Presto (1989) and Roll the Bones (1991).
Lee has been a longtime user of RotoSound strings. He uses Swing Bass RS66LD (.45-.105) on a majority of his basses, but used Funkmaster FM66 (.30-.90) on his Wal basses from 1985 to 1992.
For Rush's 2010 tour, Lee used two Orange AD200 bass heads together with two OBC410 4x10 bass cabinets.
Over the years, Lee has used synthesizers from Oberheim (8-voice, OB-1, OB-X, OB-Xa), PPG (Wave 2.2 and 2.3), Roland (Jupiter 8, D-50, XV-5080, and Fantom X7), Moog (Minimoog, Taurus pedals, Little Phatty), and Yamaha (DX7, KX76). Lee used sequencers early in their development and has continued to use similar innovations as they have developed over the years. Lee has also made use of digital samplers. Combined, these electronic devices have supplied many memorable keyboard sounds, such as the "growl" in "Tom Sawyer" and the percussive melody in the chorus of "The Spirit of Radio."
Following Hold Your Fire (1987), Rush gradually phased the keyboard and synthesizer-derived sounds in their compositions away, with Vapor Trails (2002) marking their first album since Caress of Steel (1975) not to feature any keyboards or synthesizers. On Snakes & Arrows (2007), Lee sparingly adds a Mellotron and bass pedals. On Clockwork Angels (2012), keyboards were used to enhance several compositions once again.
Newer advances in synthesizer and sampler technology have allowed Lee to store familiar sounds from his old synthesizers alongside new ones in combination synthesizer/samplers, such as the Roland XV-5080. For live shows in 2002 and 2004, Lee and his keyboard technician used the playback capabilities of the XV-5080 to generate virtually all of Rush's keyboard sounds to date and additional complex sound passages that previously required several machines at once to produce.
When playing live, Lee and his bandmates recreate their songs as accurately as possible with digital samplers. Using these samplers, the band members can recreate, in real-time, the sounds of non-traditional instruments, accompaniments, vocal harmonies, and other sound "events" that are familiar to those who have heard Rush songs from their albums.
To trigger these sounds in real-time, Lee uses MIDI controllers, placed at the locations on the stage where he has a microphone stand. Lee uses two types of MIDI controllers: one type resembles a traditional synthesizer keyboard on a stand (Yamaha KX76). The second type is a large foot-pedal keyboard placed on the stage floor (Korg MPK-130, Roland PK-5). Combined, they enable Lee to use his free hands and feet to trigger sounds in electronic equipment that has been placed off-stage. With this technology Lee and his bandmates can present their arrangements in a live setting with the level of complexity and fidelity that fans have come to expect and without the need to resort to the use of backing tracks or employing an additional band member. During the Clockwork Angels Tour, a notable exception was when a string ensemble played string parts, originally arranged and conducted by David Campbell on Clockwork Angels.
Lee's (and his bandmates') use of MIDI controllers to trigger sampled instruments and audio events is visible throughout the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour concert DVD (2005).
Lee used a Roland Fantom X7 and a Moog Little Phatty synthesizer from the Snakes and Arrows tour onwards.
In 1996, Lee stopped using traditional bass amplifiers on stage, opting to have the bass guitar signals input directly to the touring front-of-house console to improve control and sound definition. He began using Tech 21 SansAmp units after experimenting with one in the studio intended for Alex Lifeson's guitar and eventually received signature models from the company, most notably the GED-2112 rackmount. Faced with the dilemma of what to do with the empty space left behind by the lack of large amplifier cabinets, Lee chose to decorate his side of the stage with unusual items.
For the 1996–1997 Test for Echo Tour, Lee's side sported a fully stocked old-fashioned household refrigerator. For the 2002 Vapor Trails tour, Lee lined his side of the stage with three coin-operated Maytag dryers. Other large appliances appeared later in the same space. They were "miked" by the sound crew for visual effects, just as a real amplifier would be. The stage crew loaded the dryers with specially-designed Rush-themed T-shirts, different from the shirts on sale to the general public. At the close of each show, Lee and Lifeson tossed these T-shirts into the audience. The dryers can be seen while watching the Rush in Rio DVD, the R40 DVD, and the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour DVD. For the band's R30 tour, one of the three dryers was replaced with a rotating shelf-style vending machine. It, too, was fully stocked and operational during shows. For the R40 Tour in 2015, four dryers were used instead of three for the show's portions that featured them onstage.
The Snakes & Arrows Tour prominently featured three Henhouse brand rotisserie chicken ovens on stage complete with an attendant in a chef's hat and apron to "tend" the chickens during shows. For the 2010–2011 Time Machine Tour, Lee's side of the stage featured a steampunk-inspired combination Time Machine and Sausage Maker. An attendant was occasionally throwing material into its feed hopper during the show. During the 2012–2013 Clockwork Angels Tour, Lee used a different steampunk device called a "Geddison" as a backdrop. This was composed of a giant old-style phonograph horn, an oversized model brain in a jar, a set of brass horns, and a working popcorn popper. The 2015 R40 tour combined several of these elements, except for the chicken ovens used on the Snakes and Arrows tour.
Lee married Nancy Young in 1976. They have a son, and a daughter. He takes annual trips to France, where he indulges in cheese and wine. In 2011, a charitable foundation he supports, Grapes for Humanity, created the Geddy Lee Scholarship for winemaking students at Niagara College. Lee has described himself as a Jewish atheist, explaining to an interviewer, "I consider myself a Jew as a race, but not so much as a religion. I'm not down with religion at all. I'm a Jewish atheist, if that's possible." | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Geddy Lee OC (born Gary Lee Weinrib) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush. Lee joined the band in September 1968, at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones. Lee's solo effort, My Favourite Headache, was released in 2000.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "An award-winning musician, Lee's style, technique, and skill on the bass have inspired many rock musicians such as Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament, and Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Along with his Rush bandmates – guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996. The trio was the first rock band to be so honoured as a group. In 2013, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after 14 years of eligibility. In 2006, Lee was ranked 13th by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Lee was born Gary Lee Weinrib on July 29, 1953, in the North York neighbourhood of Willowdale, Toronto, to Morris Weinrib (born Moshe Meir Weinrib; 1920–1965), from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, and Mary \"Manya\" Rubinstein (born Malka Rubinstein; 1925–2021), who was born in Warsaw and later grew up in Wierzbnik. His parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who had survived the ghetto in Starachowice (where they met), followed by their imprisonments at Auschwitz and later Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during the Holocaust and World War II. They were in their teens when they were initially imprisoned at Auschwitz. \"It was kind of surreal pre-teen shit\", says Lee, describing how his father bribed guards to bring his mother shoes. After a period, his mother was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and his father to Dachau. When the war ended four years later, and the Allies liberated the camps, Morris set out in search of Manya and found her at a Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. They married there and eventually emigrated to Canada.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Lee grew up thinking his middle name was \"Lorne\". It wasn't until he saw a copy of his birth certificate as a teenager that he discovered his middle name was \"Lee\".",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Lee's father died young, which forced Lee's mother to work to support three children, running the Newmarket, Ontario, variety store that her husband had owned and managed. Lee feels that not having parents at home during those years was probably a factor in his becoming a musician: \"It was a terrible blow that I lost him, but the course of my life changed because my mother couldn't control us.\" He said that losing his father at such an early age made him aware of how \"quickly life can disappear\", which inspired him from then on to get the most out of his life and music.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He turned his basement into practice space for a band he formed with high-school friends. After the band began earning income from small performances at high-school shows or other events, he decided to drop out of high school and play rock and roll professionally. His mother was devastated when he told her, and he still feels that he owes her for the disappointments in her life. \"All the shit I put her through\", he says, \"on top of the fact that she just lost her husband. I felt like I had to make sure that it was worth it. I wanted to show her that I was a professional, that I was working hard, and wasn't just a fuckin' lunatic.\"",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Jweekly featured Lee's reflections on his mother's experiences as a refugee and of his own Jewish heritage. Lee's name, Geddy, was derived from his mother's heavy Polish accented pronunciation of his given first name, Gary. This was picked up by his friends in school, leading Lee to adopt it as his stage name and later his legal name. Earlier, another language-related mistake was made as Geddy started school - Lee was incorrectly registered as Lorne, making Geddy believe his name was Gary Lorne Weinrib.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After Rush had become a widely recognized rock group, Lee told the story about his mother's early life to the group's drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, who then wrote the lyrics to \"Red Sector A\", inspired by her ordeal. The song, for which Lee wrote the music, was released on the band's 1984 album Grace Under Pressure. The lyrics include the following verse:",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate Are the liberators here? Do I hope or do I fear? For my father and my brother, it's too late But I must help my mother stand up straight.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Lee began playing music in school when he was 10 or 11 and got his first acoustic guitar at 14. In school, he first played drums, trumpet and clarinet. However, learning to play instruments in school was not satisfying to Lee, and he took basic piano lessons independently. His interest increased dramatically after listening to some of the popular rock groups at the time. His early influences included Jack Bruce of Cream, John Entwistle of The Who, Jeff Beck, and Procol Harum. \"I was mainly interested in early British progressive rock\", said Lee. \"That's how I learned to play bass, emulating Jack Bruce and people like that.\" Bruce's style of music was also noticed by Lee, who liked that \"his sound was distinctive – it wasn't boring.\" Lee has also been influenced by Paul McCartney, Chris Squire, and James Jamerson.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1969, Rush began playing professionally in coffeehouses, high school dances and at various outdoor recreational events. By 1971, they were now playing primarily original songs in small clubs and bars, including Toronto's Gasworks and Abbey Road Pub. Lee describes the group during these early years as being \"weekend warriors\". They were holding down jobs during the weekdays and playing music on weekends: \"We longed to break out of the boring surrounding of the suburbs and the endless similarities . . . the shopping plazas and all that stuff. . . the music was a vehicle for us to speak out.\" He claims that in the beginning, they were simply \"a straightforward rock band.\"",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Short of money, they began opening concerts at venues such as Toronto's Victory Burlesque Theatre for the glam rock band New York Dolls. By 1972, Rush began performing full-length concerts, mainly consisting of original songs, in cities including Toronto and Detroit. As they gained more recognition, they began performing as an opening act for groups such as Aerosmith, Kiss, and Blue Öyster Cult.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Like Cream, Rush followed the model of a \"power trio\", with Lee playing bass and singing. Lee's vocals produced a distinctive, \"countertenor\" falsetto and resonant sound. Lee possessed a three-octave vocal range, from baritone through tenor, alto, and mezzo-soprano pitch ranges, although it has significantly decreased with age. Lee's playing style is widely regarded for his use of high treble and very hard playing of the strings and for utilizing the bass as a lead instrument, often contrapuntal to Lifeson's guitar. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Lee mostly used a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, with a very noticeable grit in his tone. According to Lee, during the band's \"synth era\" in the mid-1980s, Lee used Steinberger and later Wal basses, with the latter having more of a \"jazzy\" tone. From 1993's Counterparts onward, Lee began using the Fender Jazz Bass almost exclusively, returning to his trademark high treble sound. Lee had first used the Jazz Bass to record Moving Pictures on songs such as \"Tom Sawyer.\"",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "After several early albums and increasing popularity, Rush's status as a rock group soared over the following five years as they consistently toured worldwide and produced successful albums, including 2112 (1976), A Farewell to Kings (1977), Hemispheres (1978), Permanent Waves (1980), and Moving Pictures (1981). Lee began adding synthesizers in 1977, with the release of A Farewell to Kings. Keyboard critic Greg Armbruster says the additional sounds from synthesizers expanded the group's \"textural capabilities\" and allowed the trio to produce an orchestrated and more complex progressive rock music style. It also gave Lee the ability to play bass simultaneously, as he could control the synthesizer with foot pedals. In 1981, he won Keyboard magazine's poll as \"Best New Talent.\" By the 1984 album Grace Under Pressure, Lee was surrounding himself with stacks of keyboards on stage.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "By the 1980s, Rush had become one of the \"biggest rock bands on the planet\", selling out arena seats when touring. Lee was known for his dynamic stage movements. According to music critic Tom Mulhern, writing in 1980, \"it's dazzling to see so much sheer energy expended without a nervous breakdown.\" By 1996, their Test for Echo Tour began performing without an opening act, their shows lasting nearly three hours.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Music industry writer Christopher Buttner, who interviewed Lee in 1996, described him as a prodigy and \"role model\" for what every musician wants to be, noting his proficiency on stage. Buttner cited Lee's ability to vary time signatures, play multiple keyboards, use bass pedal controllers and control sequencers, all while singing lead vocals into as many as three microphones. Buttner adds that few musicians of any instrument \"can juggle half of what Geddy can do without literally falling on their ass.\" As a result, notes Mulhern, Lee's instrumentation was the \"pulse\" of the group and created a \"one-man rhythm section\", which complemented guitarist Alex Lifeson and percussionist Neil Peart. Bass instructor Allan Slutsky, or \"Dr Licks\", credits Lee's \"biting, high-end bass lines and creative synthesizer work\" for helping the group become \"one of the most innovative\" of all the groups that play arena rock. By 1989, Guitar Player magazine had designated Lee the \"Best Rock Bass\" player from their reader's poll for the previous five years.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Bass players who have cited Lee as an influence include Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, and Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament.",
"title": "Music career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "My Favourite Headache, Lee's first and to-date only solo album, was released on November 14, 2000, while Rush was on a hiatus following the deaths of Neil Peart's daughter and wife. Musicians associated with the project included friend and Rush collaborator Ben Mink, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, and others.",
"title": "My Favourite Headache"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The bulk of Lee's work in music has been with Rush (see Rush discography). However, Lee has also contributed to a body of work outside of his involvement with the band through guest appearances and album production. In 1980, Lee was brought in to produce Toronto-based band Wireless who had previously opened up for Rush and were on the verge of breaking up. With Lee at the helm, the group recorded their third and final album, No Static, released on Rush's label, Anthem Records.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1981, Lee was the featured guest for the hit song \"Take Off\" and its included comedic commentary with Bob and Doug McKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, respectively) for the McKenzie Brothers' comedy album Great White North, which was released on Rush's Anthem label. While Rush has had great success selling albums, \"Take Off\" is the highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 of Lee's career.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1982, Lee produced the first (and only) album from Toronto's new wave band Boys Brigade. On the 1985 album We Are the World, by humanitarian consortium USA for Africa, Lee recorded guest vocals for the song \"Tears Are Not Enough\". Lee sang \"O Canada\", the Canadian national anthem, at Baltimore's Camden Yards for the 1993 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Another version of \"O Canada\", with a rock arrangement, was recorded by Lee and Lifeson for the 1999 film soundtrack South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Lee also plays bass on Canadian rock band I Mother Earth's track \"Good for Sule\", which is featured on the group's 1999 album Blue Green Orange.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Lee was an interview subject in the documentary films Metal: A Headbangers Journey and Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, and has appeared in multiple episodes of the VH1 Classic series Metal Evolution.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Along with his bandmates, Lee was a guest musician on the Max Webster song \"Battle Scar\", from the 1980 album Universal Juveniles.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Lee appeared in Broken Social Scene's music video for their 2006 single \"Fire Eye'd Boy\", judging the band while performing various musical tasks. In 2006, Lee joined Lifeson's supergroup, the Big Dirty Band, to provide songs accompanying Trailer Park Boys: The Movie.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 2013, Lee made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the How I Met Your Mother season eight episode \"P.S. I Love You\".",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In 2015, Lee and bandmate Alex Lifeson appeared in the series Chicago Fire, season 4, episode 6, called \"2112\".",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2017, Lee performed in place of late bassist Chris Squire with Yes during the band's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, playing bass for the song \"Roundabout.\"",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 2018, Lee published Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass, which highlights his collection of over 250 basses along with interviews with some of the leading bass players and bass technicians.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 2020, Lee provided guest vocals to an all-star Canadian rendition of the late Bill Withers song \"Lean on Me\" during the TV special Stronger Together, Tous Ensemble, a Canadian benefit performance simulcast by every major television network in Canada as a benefit for Food Banks Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.Rolling Stone ranked him as the 24th greatest bassists of All Time,",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In September 2021, Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson revealed that Barenaked Ladies are working on a \"secret project\" with Lee.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 2022, he appeared as a guest star playing Thomas Sawyer on the acclaimed long-running CBC period drama Murdoch Mysteries.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In August 2022, Lee appeared at the South Park 25th Anniversary Concert with Alex Lifeson and performed Rush's \"Closer to the Heart\" with the members of the band Primus and South Park co-creator Matt Stone.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In November 2023, Lee published an autobiography titled My Effin' Life. The book was promoted with a 19-date tour of the UK and North America.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "On December 5, 2023, Paramount+ released a video series, \"Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?\" Four episodes were aired on Les Claypool, Robert Trujillo, Melissa Auf Der Maur, and Krist Novoselic. Each episode features Lee visiting with and talking to the guest bassist.",
"title": "Side projects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Lee is a collector, and has collected baseball ephemera, vintage bass guitars, and wines, with a collection of 5,000 bottles. As a child he claims to have collected stamps, and vinyl records. He went on to collect first edition books. He then also began collecting 6-string guitars.",
"title": "Collections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Lee is also a longtime baseball fan. His favourite team while growing up was the Detroit Tigers, and he later became a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays after they were established. In the 1980s, Lee began reading the works of Bill James, particularly The Bill James Baseball Abstracts, which led to an interest in sabermetrics and participation in a fantasy baseball keeper league. He collects baseball memorabilia, once donating part of his collection to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and threw the ceremonial first pitch to inaugurate the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays season. Lee sang the Canadian national anthem before the 1993 MLB All-Star Game. In 2016, Lee planned to produce an independent film about baseball in Italy. Lee is regularly seen in his seat behind home plate at the Toronto Blue Jays stadium Rogers Centre with his scorecard. He is such a steadfast fan, that when the team was forced to move to Buffalo during the 2020 season, a cardboard cutout of Lee was placed in a seat behind home plate.",
"title": "Collections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Lee also collects guitars and basses late in his career. He has a collection of over 250 vintage basses. He owns a 1961 Fender Precision Bass previously owned by John Entwistle of The Who. He also owns two 1964 rare color (Dakota Red) Fender Jazz Basses.",
"title": "Collections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 2019 he sent several of his guitars to Mecum Auctions including a 1959 Les Paul Standard, a 1960 Gibson ES-345, a 1955 Fender Stratocaster, a 1960 Gibson ES-335, a 1965 Gibson ES-335 and a 1967 Gibson Flying V.",
"title": "Collections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Lee is also an avid watch collector.",
"title": "Collections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Lee has varied his equipment list continually throughout his career.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1998, Fender released the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass, available in Black and 3-Color Sunburst (as of 2009). This signature model is a recreation of Lee's favourite bass, a 1972 Fender Jazz that he bought in a pawn shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1978. In 2015, Fender released a revised USA model of his signature bass, with most of the changes reflecting those Lee had made to his own instrument over the years.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In Rush's early years, Lee's main instrument was a Fender Precision Bass, which he used on the band's debut album in 1974. He later had this bass sanded down into a teardrop shape and refinished with a Jazz Bass bridge pickup added, something which he regretted in later years. He subsequently switched to a modified Rickenbacker 4001, which made its first appearance on Fly by Night (1975). He used his Fender Jazz Bass alongside the Rickenbacker on the albums Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981) and Signals (1982) before moving to it exclusively from Counterparts (1993) onwards. He had also used Steinberger basses on Grace Under Pressure (1984) and Wal basses on Power Windows (1985), Hold Your Fire (1987), Presto (1989) and Roll the Bones (1991).",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Lee has been a longtime user of RotoSound strings. He uses Swing Bass RS66LD (.45-.105) on a majority of his basses, but used Funkmaster FM66 (.30-.90) on his Wal basses from 1985 to 1992.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "For Rush's 2010 tour, Lee used two Orange AD200 bass heads together with two OBC410 4x10 bass cabinets.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Over the years, Lee has used synthesizers from Oberheim (8-voice, OB-1, OB-X, OB-Xa), PPG (Wave 2.2 and 2.3), Roland (Jupiter 8, D-50, XV-5080, and Fantom X7), Moog (Minimoog, Taurus pedals, Little Phatty), and Yamaha (DX7, KX76). Lee used sequencers early in their development and has continued to use similar innovations as they have developed over the years. Lee has also made use of digital samplers. Combined, these electronic devices have supplied many memorable keyboard sounds, such as the \"growl\" in \"Tom Sawyer\" and the percussive melody in the chorus of \"The Spirit of Radio.\"",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Following Hold Your Fire (1987), Rush gradually phased the keyboard and synthesizer-derived sounds in their compositions away, with Vapor Trails (2002) marking their first album since Caress of Steel (1975) not to feature any keyboards or synthesizers. On Snakes & Arrows (2007), Lee sparingly adds a Mellotron and bass pedals. On Clockwork Angels (2012), keyboards were used to enhance several compositions once again.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Newer advances in synthesizer and sampler technology have allowed Lee to store familiar sounds from his old synthesizers alongside new ones in combination synthesizer/samplers, such as the Roland XV-5080. For live shows in 2002 and 2004, Lee and his keyboard technician used the playback capabilities of the XV-5080 to generate virtually all of Rush's keyboard sounds to date and additional complex sound passages that previously required several machines at once to produce.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "When playing live, Lee and his bandmates recreate their songs as accurately as possible with digital samplers. Using these samplers, the band members can recreate, in real-time, the sounds of non-traditional instruments, accompaniments, vocal harmonies, and other sound \"events\" that are familiar to those who have heard Rush songs from their albums.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "To trigger these sounds in real-time, Lee uses MIDI controllers, placed at the locations on the stage where he has a microphone stand. Lee uses two types of MIDI controllers: one type resembles a traditional synthesizer keyboard on a stand (Yamaha KX76). The second type is a large foot-pedal keyboard placed on the stage floor (Korg MPK-130, Roland PK-5). Combined, they enable Lee to use his free hands and feet to trigger sounds in electronic equipment that has been placed off-stage. With this technology Lee and his bandmates can present their arrangements in a live setting with the level of complexity and fidelity that fans have come to expect and without the need to resort to the use of backing tracks or employing an additional band member. During the Clockwork Angels Tour, a notable exception was when a string ensemble played string parts, originally arranged and conducted by David Campbell on Clockwork Angels.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Lee's (and his bandmates') use of MIDI controllers to trigger sampled instruments and audio events is visible throughout the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour concert DVD (2005).",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Lee used a Roland Fantom X7 and a Moog Little Phatty synthesizer from the Snakes and Arrows tour onwards.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 1996, Lee stopped using traditional bass amplifiers on stage, opting to have the bass guitar signals input directly to the touring front-of-house console to improve control and sound definition. He began using Tech 21 SansAmp units after experimenting with one in the studio intended for Alex Lifeson's guitar and eventually received signature models from the company, most notably the GED-2112 rackmount. Faced with the dilemma of what to do with the empty space left behind by the lack of large amplifier cabinets, Lee chose to decorate his side of the stage with unusual items.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "For the 1996–1997 Test for Echo Tour, Lee's side sported a fully stocked old-fashioned household refrigerator. For the 2002 Vapor Trails tour, Lee lined his side of the stage with three coin-operated Maytag dryers. Other large appliances appeared later in the same space. They were \"miked\" by the sound crew for visual effects, just as a real amplifier would be. The stage crew loaded the dryers with specially-designed Rush-themed T-shirts, different from the shirts on sale to the general public. At the close of each show, Lee and Lifeson tossed these T-shirts into the audience. The dryers can be seen while watching the Rush in Rio DVD, the R40 DVD, and the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour DVD. For the band's R30 tour, one of the three dryers was replaced with a rotating shelf-style vending machine. It, too, was fully stocked and operational during shows. For the R40 Tour in 2015, four dryers were used instead of three for the show's portions that featured them onstage.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Snakes & Arrows Tour prominently featured three Henhouse brand rotisserie chicken ovens on stage complete with an attendant in a chef's hat and apron to \"tend\" the chickens during shows. For the 2010–2011 Time Machine Tour, Lee's side of the stage featured a steampunk-inspired combination Time Machine and Sausage Maker. An attendant was occasionally throwing material into its feed hopper during the show. During the 2012–2013 Clockwork Angels Tour, Lee used a different steampunk device called a \"Geddison\" as a backdrop. This was composed of a giant old-style phonograph horn, an oversized model brain in a jar, a set of brass horns, and a working popcorn popper. The 2015 R40 tour combined several of these elements, except for the chicken ovens used on the Snakes and Arrows tour.",
"title": "Equipment used"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Lee married Nancy Young in 1976. They have a son, and a daughter. He takes annual trips to France, where he indulges in cheese and wine. In 2011, a charitable foundation he supports, Grapes for Humanity, created the Geddy Lee Scholarship for winemaking students at Niagara College. Lee has described himself as a Jewish atheist, explaining to an interviewer, \"I consider myself a Jew as a race, but not so much as a religion. I'm not down with religion at all. I'm a Jewish atheist, if that's possible.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
}
]
| Geddy Lee is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush. Lee joined the band in September 1968, at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones. Lee's solo effort, My Favourite Headache, was released in 2000. An award-winning musician, Lee's style, technique, and skill on the bass have inspired many rock musicians such as Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament, and Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Along with his Rush bandmates – guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996. The trio was the first rock band to be so honoured as a group. In 2013, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after 14 years of eligibility. In 2006, Lee was ranked 13th by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time. | 2001-12-13T08:41:11Z | 2023-12-31T17:52:53Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddy_Lee |
12,967 | Geologic time scale | The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochronology (a scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks). It is used primarily by Earth scientists (including geologists, paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists, and paleoclimatologists) to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history. The time scale has been developed through the study of rock layers and the observation of their relationships and identifying features such as lithologies, paleomagnetic properties, and fossils. The definition of standardised international units of geologic time is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), whose primary objective is to precisely define global chronostratigraphic units of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC) that are used to define divisions of geologic time. The chronostratigraphic divisions are in turn used to define geochronologic units.
While some regional terms are still in use, the table of geologic time presented in this article conforms to the nomenclature, ages, and colour codes set forth by the ICS.
The geologic time scale is a way of representing deep time based on events that have occurred throughout Earth's history, a time span of about 4.54 ± 0.05 Ga (4.54 billion years). It chronologically organises strata, and subsequently time, by observing fundamental changes in stratigraphy that correspond to major geological or paleontological events. For example, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, marks the lower boundary of the Paleogene System/Period and thus the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene systems/periods. For divisions prior to the Cryogenian, arbitrary numeric boundary definitions (Global Standard Stratigraphic Ages, GSSAs) are used to divide geologic time. Proposals have been made to better reconcile these divisions with the rock record.
Historically, regional geologic time scales were used due to the litho- and biostratigraphic differences around the world in time equivalent rocks. The ICS has long worked to reconcile conflicting terminology by standardising globally significant and identifiable stratigraphic horizons that can be used to define the lower boundaries of chronostratigraphic units. Defining chronostratigraphic units in such a manner allows for the use of global, standardised nomenclature. The ICC represents this ongoing effort.
The relative relationships of rocks for determining their chronostratigraphic positions use the overriding principles of:
The GTS is divided into chronostratigraphic units and their corresponding geochronologic units. These are represented on the ICC published by the ICS; however, regional terms are still in use in some areas.
Chronostratigraphy is the element of stratigraphy that deals with the relation between rock bodies and the relative measurement of geological time. It is the process where distinct strata between defined stratigraphic horizons are assigned to represent a relative interval of geologic time.
A chronostratigraphic unit is a body of rock, layered or unlayered, that is defined between specified stratigraphic horizons which represent specified intervals of geologic time. They include all rocks representative of a specific interval of geologic time, and only this time span. Eonothem, erathem, system, series, subseries, stage, and substage are the hierarchical chronostratigraphic units. Geochronology is the scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments either through absolute (e.g., radiometric dating) or relative means (e.g., stratigraphic position, paleomagnetism, stable isotope ratios).
A geochronologic unit is a subdivision of geologic time. It is a numeric representation of an intangible property (time). Eon, era, period, epoch, subepoch, age, and subage are the hierarchical geochronologic units. Geochronometry is the field of geochronology that numerically quantifies geologic time.
A Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) is an internationally agreed upon reference point on a stratigraphic section which defines the lower boundaries of stages on the geologic time scale. (Recently this has been used to define the base of a system)
A Global Standard Stratigraphic Age (GSSA) is a numeric only, chronologic reference point used to define the base of geochronologic units prior to the Cryogenian. These points are arbitrarily defined. They are used where GSSPs have not yet been established. Research is ongoing to define GSSPs for the base of all units that are currently defined by GSSAs.
The numeric (geochronometric) representation of a geochronologic unit can, and is more often subject to change when geochronology refines the geochronometry, while the equivalent chronostratigraphic unit remains the same, and their revision is less common. For example, in early 2022 the boundary between the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods (geochronologic units) was revised from 541 Ma to 538.8 Ma but the rock definition of the boundary (GSSP) at the base of the Cambrian, and thus the boundary between the Ediacaran and Cambrian systems (chronostratigraphic units) has not changed, merely the geochronometry has been refined.
The numeric values on the ICC are represented by the unit Ma (megaannum) meaning "million years", i.e., 201.4 ± 0.2 Ma, the lower boundary of the Jurassic Period, is defined as 201,400,000 years old with an uncertainty of 200,000 years. Other SI prefix units commonly used by geologists are Ga (gigaannum, billion years), and ka (kiloannum, thousand years), with the latter often represented in calibrated units (before present).
The Early and Late subdivisions are used as the geochronologic equivalents of the chronostratigraphic Lower and Upper, e.g., Early Triassic Period (geochronologic unit) is used in place of Lower Triassic Series (chronostratigraphic unit).
Rocks representing a given chronostratigraphic unit are that chronostratigraphic unit, and the time they were laid down in is the geochronologic unit, i.e., the rocks that represent the Silurian Series are the Silurian Series and they were deposited during the Silurian Period.
The names of geologic time units are defined for chronostratigraphic units with the corresponding geochronologic unit sharing the same name with a change to the latter (e.g. Phanerozoic Eonothem becomes the Phanerozoic Eon). Names of erathems in the Phanerozoic were chosen to reflect major changes in the history of life on Earth: Paleozoic (old life), Mesozoic (middle life), and Cenozoic (new life). Names of systems are diverse in origin, with some indicating chronologic position (e.g., Paleogene), while others are named for lithology (e.g., Cretaceous), geography (e.g., Permian), or are tribal (e.g., Ordovician) in origin. Most currently recognised series and subseries are named for their position within a system/series (early/middle/late); however, the ICS advocates for all new series and subseries to be named for a geographic feature in the vicinity of its stratotype or type locality. The name of stages should also be derived from a geographic feature in the locality of its stratotype or type locality.
Informally, the time before the Cambrian is often referred to as the Precambrian or pre-Cambrian (Supereon).
While a modern geological time scale was not formulated until 1911 by Arthur Holmes, the broader concept that rocks and time are related can be traced back to (at least) the philosophers of Ancient Greece. Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–487 BCE) observed rock beds with fossils of shells located above the sea-level, viewed them as once living organisms, and used this to imply an unstable relationship in which the sea had at times transgressed over the land and at other times had regressed. This view was shared by a few of Xenophanes' contemporaries and those that followed, including Aristotle (384–322 BCE) who (with additional observations) reasoned that the positions of land and sea had changed over long periods of time. The concept of deep time was also recognised by Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Islamic scientist-philosophers, notably the Brothers of Purity, who wrote on the processes of stratification over the passage of time in their treatises. Their work likely inspired that of the 11th-century Persian polymath Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ, 980–1037) who wrote in The Book of Healing (1027) on the concept of stratification and superposition, pre-dating Nicolas Steno by more than six centuries. Avicenna also recognised fossils as "petrifications of the bodies of plants and animals", with the 13th-century Dominican bishop Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280) extending this into a theory of a petrifying fluid. These works appeared to have little influence on scholars in Medieval Europe who looked to the Bible to explain the origins of fossils and sea-level changes, often attributing these to the 'Deluge', including Ristoro d'Arezzo in 1282. It was not until the Italian Renaissance when Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) would reinvigorate the relationships between stratification, relative sea-level change, and time, denouncing attribution of fossils to the 'Deluge':
Of the stupidity and ignorance of those who imagine that these creatures were carried to such places distant from the sea by the Deluge...Why do we find so many fragments and whole shells between the different layers of stone unless they had been upon the shore and had been covered over by earth newly thrown up by the sea which then became petrified? And if the above-mentioned Deluge had carried them to these places from the sea, you would find the shells at the edge of one layer of rock only, not at the edge of many where may be counted the winters of the years during which the sea multiplied the layers of sand and mud brought down by the neighboring rivers and spread them over its shores. And if you wish to say that there must have been many deluges in order to produce these layers and the shells among them it would then become necessary for you to affirm that such a deluge took place every year.
These views of da Vinci remained unpublished, and thus lacked influence at the time; however, questions of fossils and their significance were pursued and, while views against Genesis were not readily accepted and dissent from religious doctrine was in some places unwise, scholars such as Girolamo Fracastoro shared da Vinci's views, and found the attribution of fossils to the 'Deluge' absurd.
Niels Stensen, more commonly known as Nicolas Steno (1638–1686), is credited with establishing four of the guiding principles of stratigraphy. In De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus Steno states:
Respectively, these are the principles of superposition, original horizontality, lateral continuity, and cross-cutting relationships. From this Steno reasoned that strata were laid down in succession and inferred relative time (in Steno's belief, time from Creation). While Steno's principles were simple and attracted much attention, applying them proved challenging. These basic principles, albeit with improved and more nuanced interpretations, still form the foundational principles of determining the correlation of strata relative to geologic time.
Over the course of the 18th-century geologists realised that:
The apparent, earliest formal division of the geologic record with respect to time was introduced by Thomas Burnet who applied a two-fold terminology to mountains by identifying "montes primarii" for rock formed at the time of the 'Deluge', and younger "monticulos secundarios" formed later from the debris of the "primarii". This attribution to the 'Deluge', while questioned earlier by the likes of da Vinci, was the foundation of Abraham Gottlob Werner's (1749–1817) Neptunism theory in which all rocks precipitated out of a single flood. A competing theory, Plutonism, was developed by Anton Moro (1687–1784) and also used primary and secondary divisions for rock units. In this early version of the Plutonism theory, the interior of Earth was seen as hot, and this drove the creation of primary igneous and metamorphic rocks and secondary rocks formed contorted and fossiliferous sediments. These primary and secondary divisions were expanded on by Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1712–1783) and Giovanni Arduino (1713–1795) to include tertiary and quaternary divisions. These divisions were used to describe both the time during which the rocks were laid down, and the collection of rocks themselves (i.e., it was correct to say Tertiary rocks, and Tertiary Period). Only the Quaternary division is retained in the modern geologic time scale, while the Tertiary division was in use until the early 21st century. The Neptunism and Plutonism theories would compete into the early 19th century with a key driver for resolution of this debate being the work of James Hutton (1726–1797), in particular his Theory of the Earth, first presented before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785. Hutton's theory would later become known as uniformitarianism, popularised by John Playfair (1748–1819) and later Charles Lyell (1797–1875) in his Principles of Geology. Their theories strongly contested the 6,000 year age of the Earth as suggested determined by James Ussher via Biblical chronology that was accepted at the time by western religion. Instead, using geological evidence, they contested Earth to be much older, cementing the concept of deep time.
During the early 19th century William Smith, Georges Cuvier, Jean d'Omalius d'Halloy, and Alexandre Brongniart pioneered the systematic division of rocks by stratigraphy and fossil assemblages. These geologists began to use the local names given to rock units in a wider sense, correlating strata across national and continental boundaries based on their similarity to each other. Many of the names below erathem/era rank in use on the modern ICC/GTS were determined during the early to mid-19th century.
During the 19th century, the debate regarding Earth's age was renewed, with geologists estimating ages based on denudation rates and sedimentary thicknesses or ocean chemistry, and physicists determining ages for the cooling of the Earth or the Sun using basic thermodynamics or orbital physics. These estimations varied from 15,000 million years to 0.075 million years depending on method and author, but the estimations of Lord Kelvin and Clarence King were held in high regard at the time due to their pre-eminence in physics and geology. All of these early geochronometric determinations would later prove to be incorrect.
The discovery of radioactive decay by Henri Becquerel, Marie Curie, and Pierre Curie laid the ground work for radiometric dating, but the knowledge and tools required for accurate determination of radiometric ages would not be in place until the mid-1950s. Early attempts at determining ages of uranium minerals and rocks by Ernest Rutherford, Bertram Boltwood, Robert Strutt, and Arthur Holmes, would culminate in what are considered the first international geological time scales by Holmes in 1911 and 1913. The discovery of isotopes in 1913 by Frederick Soddy, and the developments in mass spectrometry pioneered by Francis William Aston, Arthur Jeffrey Dempster, and Alfred O. C. Nier during the early to mid-20th century would finally allow for the accurate determination of radiometric ages, with Holmes publishing several revisions to his geological time-scale with his final version in 1960.
The establishment of the IUGS in 1961 and acceptance of the Commission on Stratigraphy (applied in 1965) to become a member commission of IUGS led to the founding of the ICS. One of the primary objectives of the ICS is "the establishment, publication and revision of the ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart which is the standard, reference global Geological Time Scale to include the ratified Commission decisions".
Following on from Holmes, several A Geological Time Scale books were published in 1982, 1989, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. However, since 2013, the ICS has taken responsibility for producing and distributing the ICC citing the commercial nature, independent creation, and lack of oversight by the ICS on the prior published GTS versions (GTS books prior to 2013) although these versions were published in close association with the ICS. Subsequent Geologic Time Scale books (2016 and 2020) are commercial publications with no oversight from the ICS, and do not entirely conform to the chart produced by the ICS. The ICS produced GTS charts are versioned (year/month) beginning at v2013/01. At least one new version is published each year incorporating any changes ratified by the ICS since the prior version.
The following five timelines show the geologic time scale to scale. The first shows the entire time from the formation of the Earth to the present, but this gives little space for the most recent eon. The second timeline shows an expanded view of the most recent eon. In a similar way, the most recent era is expanded in the third timeline, the most recent period is expanded in the fourth timeline, and the most recent epoch is expanded in the fifth timeline.
First suggested in 2000, the Anthropocene is a proposed epoch/series for the most recent time in Earth's history. While still informal, it is a widely used term to denote the present geologic time interval, in which many conditions and processes on Earth are profoundly altered by human impact. As of April 2022 the Anthropocene has not been ratified by the ICS; however, in May 2019 the Anthropocene Working Group voted in favour of submitting a formal proposal to the ICS for the establishment of the Anthropocene Series/Epoch. Nevertheless, the definition of the Anthropocene as a geologic time period rather than a geologic event remains controversial and difficult.
An international working group of the ICS on pre-Cryogenian chronostratigraphic subdivision have outlined a template to improve the pre-Cryogenian geologic time scale based on the rock record to bring it in line with the post-Tonian geologic time scale. This work assessed the geologic history of the currently defined eons and eras of the pre-Cambrian, and the proposals in the "Geological Time Scale" books 2004, 2012, and 2020. Their recommend revisions of the pre-Cryogenian geologic time scale were (changes from the current scale [v2023/09] are italicised):
Proposed pre-Cambrian timeline (Shield et al. 2021, ICS working group on pre-Cryogenian chronostratigraphy), shown to scale:
Current ICC pre-Cambrian timeline (v2023/09), shown to scale:
The book, Geologic Time Scale 2012, was the last commercial publication of an international chronostratigraphic chart that was closely associated with the ICS. It included a proposal to substantially revise the pre-Cryogenian time scale to reflect important events such as the formation of the Solar System and the Great Oxidation Event, among others, while at the same time maintaining most of the previous chronostratigraphic nomenclature for the pertinent time span. As of April 2022 these proposed changes have not been accepted by the ICS. The proposed changes (changes from the current scale [v2023/09]) are italicised:
Proposed pre-Cambrian timeline (GTS2012), shown to scale:
Current ICC pre-Cambrian timeline (v2023/09), shown to scale:
The following table summarises the major events and characteristics of the divisions making up the geologic time scale of Earth. This table is arranged with the most recent geologic periods at the top, and the oldest at the bottom. The height of each table entry does not correspond to the duration of each subdivision of time. As such, this table is not to scale and does not accurately represent the relative time-spans of each geochronologic unit. While the Phanerozoic Eon looks longer than the rest, it merely spans ~539 million years (~12% of Earth's history), whilst the previous three eons collectively span ~3,461 million years (~76% of Earth's history). This bias toward the most recent eon is in part due to the relative lack of information about events that occurred during the first three eons compared to the current eon (the Phanerozoic). The use of subseries/subepochs has been ratified by the ICS.
The content of the table is based on the official ICC produced and maintained by the ICS who also provide an online interactive version of this chart. The interactive version is based on a service delivering a machine-readable Resource Description Framework/Web Ontology Language representation of the time scale, which is available through the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information GeoSciML project as a service and at a SPARQL end-point.
Some other planets and satellites in the Solar System have sufficiently rigid structures to have preserved records of their own histories, for example, Venus, Mars and the Earth's Moon. Dominantly fluid planets, such as the gas giants, do not comparably preserve their history. Apart from the Late Heavy Bombardment, events on other planets probably had little direct influence on the Earth, and events on Earth had correspondingly little effect on those planets. Construction of a time scale that links the planets is, therefore, of only limited relevance to the Earth's time scale, except in a Solar System context. The existence, timing, and terrestrial effects of the Late Heavy Bombardment are still a matter of debate.
The geologic history of Earth's Moon has been divided into a time scale based on geomorphological markers, namely impact cratering, volcanism, and erosion. This process of dividing the Moon's history in this manner means that the time scale boundaries do not imply fundamental changes in geological processes, unlike Earth's geologic time scale. Five geologic systems/periods (Pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Eratosthenian, Copernican), with the Imbrian divided into two series/epochs (Early and Late) were defined in the latest Lunar geologic time scale. The Moon is unique in the Solar System in that it is the only other body from which we have rock samples with a known geological context.
The geological history of Mars has been divided into two alternate time scales. The first time scale for Mars was developed by studying the impact crater densities on the Martian surface. Through this method four periods have been defined, the Pre-Noachian (~4,500–4,100 Ma), Noachian (~4,100–3,700 Ma), Hesperian (~3,700–3,000 Ma), and Amazonian (~3,000 Ma to present).
A second time scale based on mineral alteration observed by the OMEGA spectrometer on-board the Mars Express. Using this method, three periods were defined, the Phyllocian (~4,500–4,000 Ma), Theiikian (~4,000–3,500 Ma), and Siderikian (~3,500 Ma to present). | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochronology (a scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks). It is used primarily by Earth scientists (including geologists, paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists, and paleoclimatologists) to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history. The time scale has been developed through the study of rock layers and the observation of their relationships and identifying features such as lithologies, paleomagnetic properties, and fossils. The definition of standardised international units of geologic time is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), whose primary objective is to precisely define global chronostratigraphic units of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC) that are used to define divisions of geologic time. The chronostratigraphic divisions are in turn used to define geochronologic units.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While some regional terms are still in use, the table of geologic time presented in this article conforms to the nomenclature, ages, and colour codes set forth by the ICS.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The geologic time scale is a way of representing deep time based on events that have occurred throughout Earth's history, a time span of about 4.54 ± 0.05 Ga (4.54 billion years). It chronologically organises strata, and subsequently time, by observing fundamental changes in stratigraphy that correspond to major geological or paleontological events. For example, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, marks the lower boundary of the Paleogene System/Period and thus the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene systems/periods. For divisions prior to the Cryogenian, arbitrary numeric boundary definitions (Global Standard Stratigraphic Ages, GSSAs) are used to divide geologic time. Proposals have been made to better reconcile these divisions with the rock record.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Historically, regional geologic time scales were used due to the litho- and biostratigraphic differences around the world in time equivalent rocks. The ICS has long worked to reconcile conflicting terminology by standardising globally significant and identifiable stratigraphic horizons that can be used to define the lower boundaries of chronostratigraphic units. Defining chronostratigraphic units in such a manner allows for the use of global, standardised nomenclature. The ICC represents this ongoing effort.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The relative relationships of rocks for determining their chronostratigraphic positions use the overriding principles of:",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The GTS is divided into chronostratigraphic units and their corresponding geochronologic units. These are represented on the ICC published by the ICS; however, regional terms are still in use in some areas.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Chronostratigraphy is the element of stratigraphy that deals with the relation between rock bodies and the relative measurement of geological time. It is the process where distinct strata between defined stratigraphic horizons are assigned to represent a relative interval of geologic time.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A chronostratigraphic unit is a body of rock, layered or unlayered, that is defined between specified stratigraphic horizons which represent specified intervals of geologic time. They include all rocks representative of a specific interval of geologic time, and only this time span. Eonothem, erathem, system, series, subseries, stage, and substage are the hierarchical chronostratigraphic units. Geochronology is the scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments either through absolute (e.g., radiometric dating) or relative means (e.g., stratigraphic position, paleomagnetism, stable isotope ratios).",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "A geochronologic unit is a subdivision of geologic time. It is a numeric representation of an intangible property (time). Eon, era, period, epoch, subepoch, age, and subage are the hierarchical geochronologic units. Geochronometry is the field of geochronology that numerically quantifies geologic time.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) is an internationally agreed upon reference point on a stratigraphic section which defines the lower boundaries of stages on the geologic time scale. (Recently this has been used to define the base of a system)",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A Global Standard Stratigraphic Age (GSSA) is a numeric only, chronologic reference point used to define the base of geochronologic units prior to the Cryogenian. These points are arbitrarily defined. They are used where GSSPs have not yet been established. Research is ongoing to define GSSPs for the base of all units that are currently defined by GSSAs.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The numeric (geochronometric) representation of a geochronologic unit can, and is more often subject to change when geochronology refines the geochronometry, while the equivalent chronostratigraphic unit remains the same, and their revision is less common. For example, in early 2022 the boundary between the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods (geochronologic units) was revised from 541 Ma to 538.8 Ma but the rock definition of the boundary (GSSP) at the base of the Cambrian, and thus the boundary between the Ediacaran and Cambrian systems (chronostratigraphic units) has not changed, merely the geochronometry has been refined.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The numeric values on the ICC are represented by the unit Ma (megaannum) meaning \"million years\", i.e., 201.4 ± 0.2 Ma, the lower boundary of the Jurassic Period, is defined as 201,400,000 years old with an uncertainty of 200,000 years. Other SI prefix units commonly used by geologists are Ga (gigaannum, billion years), and ka (kiloannum, thousand years), with the latter often represented in calibrated units (before present).",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Early and Late subdivisions are used as the geochronologic equivalents of the chronostratigraphic Lower and Upper, e.g., Early Triassic Period (geochronologic unit) is used in place of Lower Triassic Series (chronostratigraphic unit).",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Rocks representing a given chronostratigraphic unit are that chronostratigraphic unit, and the time they were laid down in is the geochronologic unit, i.e., the rocks that represent the Silurian Series are the Silurian Series and they were deposited during the Silurian Period.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The names of geologic time units are defined for chronostratigraphic units with the corresponding geochronologic unit sharing the same name with a change to the latter (e.g. Phanerozoic Eonothem becomes the Phanerozoic Eon). Names of erathems in the Phanerozoic were chosen to reflect major changes in the history of life on Earth: Paleozoic (old life), Mesozoic (middle life), and Cenozoic (new life). Names of systems are diverse in origin, with some indicating chronologic position (e.g., Paleogene), while others are named for lithology (e.g., Cretaceous), geography (e.g., Permian), or are tribal (e.g., Ordovician) in origin. Most currently recognised series and subseries are named for their position within a system/series (early/middle/late); however, the ICS advocates for all new series and subseries to be named for a geographic feature in the vicinity of its stratotype or type locality. The name of stages should also be derived from a geographic feature in the locality of its stratotype or type locality.",
"title": "Naming of geologic time"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Informally, the time before the Cambrian is often referred to as the Precambrian or pre-Cambrian (Supereon).",
"title": "Naming of geologic time"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "While a modern geological time scale was not formulated until 1911 by Arthur Holmes, the broader concept that rocks and time are related can be traced back to (at least) the philosophers of Ancient Greece. Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–487 BCE) observed rock beds with fossils of shells located above the sea-level, viewed them as once living organisms, and used this to imply an unstable relationship in which the sea had at times transgressed over the land and at other times had regressed. This view was shared by a few of Xenophanes' contemporaries and those that followed, including Aristotle (384–322 BCE) who (with additional observations) reasoned that the positions of land and sea had changed over long periods of time. The concept of deep time was also recognised by Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Islamic scientist-philosophers, notably the Brothers of Purity, who wrote on the processes of stratification over the passage of time in their treatises. Their work likely inspired that of the 11th-century Persian polymath Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ, 980–1037) who wrote in The Book of Healing (1027) on the concept of stratification and superposition, pre-dating Nicolas Steno by more than six centuries. Avicenna also recognised fossils as \"petrifications of the bodies of plants and animals\", with the 13th-century Dominican bishop Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280) extending this into a theory of a petrifying fluid. These works appeared to have little influence on scholars in Medieval Europe who looked to the Bible to explain the origins of fossils and sea-level changes, often attributing these to the 'Deluge', including Ristoro d'Arezzo in 1282. It was not until the Italian Renaissance when Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) would reinvigorate the relationships between stratification, relative sea-level change, and time, denouncing attribution of fossils to the 'Deluge':",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Of the stupidity and ignorance of those who imagine that these creatures were carried to such places distant from the sea by the Deluge...Why do we find so many fragments and whole shells between the different layers of stone unless they had been upon the shore and had been covered over by earth newly thrown up by the sea which then became petrified? And if the above-mentioned Deluge had carried them to these places from the sea, you would find the shells at the edge of one layer of rock only, not at the edge of many where may be counted the winters of the years during which the sea multiplied the layers of sand and mud brought down by the neighboring rivers and spread them over its shores. And if you wish to say that there must have been many deluges in order to produce these layers and the shells among them it would then become necessary for you to affirm that such a deluge took place every year.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "These views of da Vinci remained unpublished, and thus lacked influence at the time; however, questions of fossils and their significance were pursued and, while views against Genesis were not readily accepted and dissent from religious doctrine was in some places unwise, scholars such as Girolamo Fracastoro shared da Vinci's views, and found the attribution of fossils to the 'Deluge' absurd.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Niels Stensen, more commonly known as Nicolas Steno (1638–1686), is credited with establishing four of the guiding principles of stratigraphy. In De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus Steno states:",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Respectively, these are the principles of superposition, original horizontality, lateral continuity, and cross-cutting relationships. From this Steno reasoned that strata were laid down in succession and inferred relative time (in Steno's belief, time from Creation). While Steno's principles were simple and attracted much attention, applying them proved challenging. These basic principles, albeit with improved and more nuanced interpretations, still form the foundational principles of determining the correlation of strata relative to geologic time.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Over the course of the 18th-century geologists realised that:",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The apparent, earliest formal division of the geologic record with respect to time was introduced by Thomas Burnet who applied a two-fold terminology to mountains by identifying \"montes primarii\" for rock formed at the time of the 'Deluge', and younger \"monticulos secundarios\" formed later from the debris of the \"primarii\". This attribution to the 'Deluge', while questioned earlier by the likes of da Vinci, was the foundation of Abraham Gottlob Werner's (1749–1817) Neptunism theory in which all rocks precipitated out of a single flood. A competing theory, Plutonism, was developed by Anton Moro (1687–1784) and also used primary and secondary divisions for rock units. In this early version of the Plutonism theory, the interior of Earth was seen as hot, and this drove the creation of primary igneous and metamorphic rocks and secondary rocks formed contorted and fossiliferous sediments. These primary and secondary divisions were expanded on by Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1712–1783) and Giovanni Arduino (1713–1795) to include tertiary and quaternary divisions. These divisions were used to describe both the time during which the rocks were laid down, and the collection of rocks themselves (i.e., it was correct to say Tertiary rocks, and Tertiary Period). Only the Quaternary division is retained in the modern geologic time scale, while the Tertiary division was in use until the early 21st century. The Neptunism and Plutonism theories would compete into the early 19th century with a key driver for resolution of this debate being the work of James Hutton (1726–1797), in particular his Theory of the Earth, first presented before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785. Hutton's theory would later become known as uniformitarianism, popularised by John Playfair (1748–1819) and later Charles Lyell (1797–1875) in his Principles of Geology. Their theories strongly contested the 6,000 year age of the Earth as suggested determined by James Ussher via Biblical chronology that was accepted at the time by western religion. Instead, using geological evidence, they contested Earth to be much older, cementing the concept of deep time.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "During the early 19th century William Smith, Georges Cuvier, Jean d'Omalius d'Halloy, and Alexandre Brongniart pioneered the systematic division of rocks by stratigraphy and fossil assemblages. These geologists began to use the local names given to rock units in a wider sense, correlating strata across national and continental boundaries based on their similarity to each other. Many of the names below erathem/era rank in use on the modern ICC/GTS were determined during the early to mid-19th century.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the 19th century, the debate regarding Earth's age was renewed, with geologists estimating ages based on denudation rates and sedimentary thicknesses or ocean chemistry, and physicists determining ages for the cooling of the Earth or the Sun using basic thermodynamics or orbital physics. These estimations varied from 15,000 million years to 0.075 million years depending on method and author, but the estimations of Lord Kelvin and Clarence King were held in high regard at the time due to their pre-eminence in physics and geology. All of these early geochronometric determinations would later prove to be incorrect.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The discovery of radioactive decay by Henri Becquerel, Marie Curie, and Pierre Curie laid the ground work for radiometric dating, but the knowledge and tools required for accurate determination of radiometric ages would not be in place until the mid-1950s. Early attempts at determining ages of uranium minerals and rocks by Ernest Rutherford, Bertram Boltwood, Robert Strutt, and Arthur Holmes, would culminate in what are considered the first international geological time scales by Holmes in 1911 and 1913. The discovery of isotopes in 1913 by Frederick Soddy, and the developments in mass spectrometry pioneered by Francis William Aston, Arthur Jeffrey Dempster, and Alfred O. C. Nier during the early to mid-20th century would finally allow for the accurate determination of radiometric ages, with Holmes publishing several revisions to his geological time-scale with his final version in 1960.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The establishment of the IUGS in 1961 and acceptance of the Commission on Stratigraphy (applied in 1965) to become a member commission of IUGS led to the founding of the ICS. One of the primary objectives of the ICS is \"the establishment, publication and revision of the ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart which is the standard, reference global Geological Time Scale to include the ratified Commission decisions\".",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Following on from Holmes, several A Geological Time Scale books were published in 1982, 1989, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. However, since 2013, the ICS has taken responsibility for producing and distributing the ICC citing the commercial nature, independent creation, and lack of oversight by the ICS on the prior published GTS versions (GTS books prior to 2013) although these versions were published in close association with the ICS. Subsequent Geologic Time Scale books (2016 and 2020) are commercial publications with no oversight from the ICS, and do not entirely conform to the chart produced by the ICS. The ICS produced GTS charts are versioned (year/month) beginning at v2013/01. At least one new version is published each year incorporating any changes ratified by the ICS since the prior version.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The following five timelines show the geologic time scale to scale. The first shows the entire time from the formation of the Earth to the present, but this gives little space for the most recent eon. The second timeline shows an expanded view of the most recent eon. In a similar way, the most recent era is expanded in the third timeline, the most recent period is expanded in the fourth timeline, and the most recent epoch is expanded in the fifth timeline.",
"title": "History of the geologic time scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "First suggested in 2000, the Anthropocene is a proposed epoch/series for the most recent time in Earth's history. While still informal, it is a widely used term to denote the present geologic time interval, in which many conditions and processes on Earth are profoundly altered by human impact. As of April 2022 the Anthropocene has not been ratified by the ICS; however, in May 2019 the Anthropocene Working Group voted in favour of submitting a formal proposal to the ICS for the establishment of the Anthropocene Series/Epoch. Nevertheless, the definition of the Anthropocene as a geologic time period rather than a geologic event remains controversial and difficult.",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "An international working group of the ICS on pre-Cryogenian chronostratigraphic subdivision have outlined a template to improve the pre-Cryogenian geologic time scale based on the rock record to bring it in line with the post-Tonian geologic time scale. This work assessed the geologic history of the currently defined eons and eras of the pre-Cambrian, and the proposals in the \"Geological Time Scale\" books 2004, 2012, and 2020. Their recommend revisions of the pre-Cryogenian geologic time scale were (changes from the current scale [v2023/09] are italicised):",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Proposed pre-Cambrian timeline (Shield et al. 2021, ICS working group on pre-Cryogenian chronostratigraphy), shown to scale:",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Current ICC pre-Cambrian timeline (v2023/09), shown to scale:",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The book, Geologic Time Scale 2012, was the last commercial publication of an international chronostratigraphic chart that was closely associated with the ICS. It included a proposal to substantially revise the pre-Cryogenian time scale to reflect important events such as the formation of the Solar System and the Great Oxidation Event, among others, while at the same time maintaining most of the previous chronostratigraphic nomenclature for the pertinent time span. As of April 2022 these proposed changes have not been accepted by the ICS. The proposed changes (changes from the current scale [v2023/09]) are italicised:",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Proposed pre-Cambrian timeline (GTS2012), shown to scale:",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Current ICC pre-Cambrian timeline (v2023/09), shown to scale:",
"title": "Major proposed revisions to the ICC"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The following table summarises the major events and characteristics of the divisions making up the geologic time scale of Earth. This table is arranged with the most recent geologic periods at the top, and the oldest at the bottom. The height of each table entry does not correspond to the duration of each subdivision of time. As such, this table is not to scale and does not accurately represent the relative time-spans of each geochronologic unit. While the Phanerozoic Eon looks longer than the rest, it merely spans ~539 million years (~12% of Earth's history), whilst the previous three eons collectively span ~3,461 million years (~76% of Earth's history). This bias toward the most recent eon is in part due to the relative lack of information about events that occurred during the first three eons compared to the current eon (the Phanerozoic). The use of subseries/subepochs has been ratified by the ICS.",
"title": "Table of geologic time"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The content of the table is based on the official ICC produced and maintained by the ICS who also provide an online interactive version of this chart. The interactive version is based on a service delivering a machine-readable Resource Description Framework/Web Ontology Language representation of the time scale, which is available through the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information GeoSciML project as a service and at a SPARQL end-point.",
"title": "Table of geologic time"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Some other planets and satellites in the Solar System have sufficiently rigid structures to have preserved records of their own histories, for example, Venus, Mars and the Earth's Moon. Dominantly fluid planets, such as the gas giants, do not comparably preserve their history. Apart from the Late Heavy Bombardment, events on other planets probably had little direct influence on the Earth, and events on Earth had correspondingly little effect on those planets. Construction of a time scale that links the planets is, therefore, of only limited relevance to the Earth's time scale, except in a Solar System context. The existence, timing, and terrestrial effects of the Late Heavy Bombardment are still a matter of debate.",
"title": "Non-Earth based geologic time scales"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The geologic history of Earth's Moon has been divided into a time scale based on geomorphological markers, namely impact cratering, volcanism, and erosion. This process of dividing the Moon's history in this manner means that the time scale boundaries do not imply fundamental changes in geological processes, unlike Earth's geologic time scale. Five geologic systems/periods (Pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Eratosthenian, Copernican), with the Imbrian divided into two series/epochs (Early and Late) were defined in the latest Lunar geologic time scale. The Moon is unique in the Solar System in that it is the only other body from which we have rock samples with a known geological context.",
"title": "Non-Earth based geologic time scales"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The geological history of Mars has been divided into two alternate time scales. The first time scale for Mars was developed by studying the impact crater densities on the Martian surface. Through this method four periods have been defined, the Pre-Noachian (~4,500–4,100 Ma), Noachian (~4,100–3,700 Ma), Hesperian (~3,700–3,000 Ma), and Amazonian (~3,000 Ma to present).",
"title": "Non-Earth based geologic time scales"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "A second time scale based on mineral alteration observed by the OMEGA spectrometer on-board the Mars Express. Using this method, three periods were defined, the Phyllocian (~4,500–4,000 Ma), Theiikian (~4,000–3,500 Ma), and Siderikian (~3,500 Ma to present).",
"title": "Non-Earth based geologic time scales"
}
]
| The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy and geochronology. It is used primarily by Earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history. The time scale has been developed through the study of rock layers and the observation of their relationships and identifying features such as lithologies, paleomagnetic properties, and fossils. The definition of standardised international units of geologic time is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), whose primary objective is to precisely define global chronostratigraphic units of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC) that are used to define divisions of geologic time. The chronostratigraphic divisions are in turn used to define geochronologic units. While some regional terms are still in use, the table of geologic time presented in this article conforms to the nomenclature, ages, and colour codes set forth by the ICS. | 2001-09-16T08:52:16Z | 2023-12-19T18:58:12Z | [
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12,969 | Giovanni Arduino | Giovanni Arduino is the name of: | [
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| Giovanni Arduino is the name of: Giovanni Arduino (geologist) (1714–1795), known as the “father of Italian Geology”
Giovanni Arduino (author), Italian writer | 2019-12-28T15:00:09Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Arduino |
|
12,970 | Gambler's fallacy | The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the incorrect belief that, if an event (whose occurrences are independent and identically distributed) has occurred more frequently than expected, it is less likely to happen again in the future (or vice versa). The fallacy is commonly associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the expected number of sixes.
The term "Monte Carlo fallacy" originates from the best known example of the phenomenon, which occurred in the Monte Carlo Casino in 1913.
The gambler's fallacy can be illustrated by considering the repeated toss of a fair coin. The outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of getting heads on a single toss is 1/2 (one in two). The probability of getting two heads in two tosses is 1/4 (one in four) and the probability of getting three heads in three tosses is 1/8 (one in eight). In general, if Ai is the event where toss i of a fair coin comes up heads, then:
If after tossing four heads in a row, the next coin toss also came up heads, it would complete a run of five successive heads. Since the probability of a run of five successive heads is 1/32 (one in thirty-two), a person might believe that the next flip would be more likely to come up tails rather than heads again. This is incorrect and is an example of the gambler's fallacy. The event "5 heads in a row" and the event "first 4 heads, then a tails" are equally likely, each having probability 1/32. Since the first four tosses turn up heads, the probability that the next toss is a head is:
While a run of five heads has a probability of 1/32 = 0.03125 (a little over 3%), the misunderstanding lies in not realizing that this is the case only before the first coin is tossed. After the first four tosses in this example, the results are no longer unknown, so their probabilities are at that point equal to 1 (100%). The probability of a run of coin tosses of any length continuing for one more toss is always 0.5. The reasoning that a fifth toss is more likely to be tails because the previous four tosses were heads, with a run of luck in the past influencing the odds in the future, forms the basis of the fallacy.
If a fair coin is flipped 21 times, the probability of 21 heads is 1 in 2,097,152. The probability of flipping a head after having already flipped 20 heads in a row is 1/2. Assuming a fair coin:
The probability of getting 20 heads then 1 tail, and the probability of getting 20 heads then another head are both 1 in 2,097,152. When flipping a fair coin 21 times, the outcome is equally likely to be 21 heads as 20 heads and then 1 tail. These two outcomes are equally as likely as any of the other combinations that can be obtained from 21 flips of a coin. All of the 21-flip combinations will have probabilities equal to 0.5, or 1 in 2,097,152. Assuming that a change in the probability will occur as a result of the outcome of prior flips is incorrect because every outcome of a 21-flip sequence is as likely as the other outcomes. In accordance with Bayes' theorem, the likely outcome of each flip is the probability of the fair coin, which is 1/2.
The fallacy leads to the incorrect notion that previous failures will create an increased probability of success on subsequent attempts. For a fair 16-sided die, the probability of each outcome occurring is 1/16 (6.25%). If a win is defined as rolling a 1, the probability of a 1 occurring at least once in 16 rolls is:
The probability of a loss on the first roll is 15/16 (93.75%). According to the fallacy, the player should have a higher chance of winning after one loss has occurred. The probability of at least one win is now:
By losing one toss, the player's probability of winning drops by two percentage points. With 5 losses and 11 rolls remaining, the probability of winning drops to around 0.5 (50%). The probability of at least one win does not increase after a series of losses; indeed, the probability of success actually decreases, because there are fewer trials left in which to win. The probability of winning will eventually be equal to the probability of winning a single toss, which is 1/16 (6.25%) and occurs when only one toss is left.
After a consistent tendency towards tails, a gambler may also decide that tails has become a more likely outcome. This is a rational and Bayesian conclusion, bearing in mind the possibility that the coin may not be fair; it is not a fallacy. Believing the odds to favor tails, the gambler sees no reason to change to heads. However it is a fallacy that a sequence of trials carries a memory of past results which tend to favor or disfavor future outcomes.
The inverse gambler's fallacy described by Ian Hacking is a situation where a gambler entering a room and seeing a person rolling a double six on a pair of dice may erroneously conclude that the person must have been rolling the dice for quite a while, as they would be unlikely to get a double six on their first attempt.
Researchers have examined whether a similar bias exists for inferences about unknown past events based upon known subsequent events, calling this the "retrospective gambler's fallacy".
An example of a retrospective gambler's fallacy would be to observe multiple successive "heads" on a coin toss and conclude from this that the previously unknown flip was "tails". Real world examples of retrospective gambler's fallacy have been argued to exist in events such as the origin of the Universe. In his book Universes, John Leslie argues that "the presence of vastly many universes very different in their characters might be our best explanation for why at least one universe has a life-permitting character". Daniel M. Oppenheimer and Benoît Monin argue that "In other words, the 'best explanation' for a low-probability event is that it is only one in a multiple of trials, which is the core intuition of the reverse gambler's fallacy." Philosophical arguments are ongoing about whether such arguments are or are not a fallacy, arguing that the occurrence of our universe says nothing about the existence of other universes or trials of universes. Three studies involving Stanford University students tested the existence of a retrospective gamblers' fallacy. All three studies concluded that people have a gamblers' fallacy retrospectively as well as to future events. The authors of all three studies concluded their findings have significant "methodological implications" but may also have "important theoretical implications" that need investigation and research, saying "[a] thorough understanding of such reasoning processes requires that we not only examine how they influence our predictions of the future, but also our perceptions of the past."
In 1796, Pierre-Simon Laplace described in A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities the ways in which men calculated their probability of having sons: "I have seen men, ardently desirous of having a son, who could learn only with anxiety of the births of boys in the month when they expected to become fathers. Imagining that the ratio of these births to those of girls ought to be the same at the end of each month, they judged that the boys already born would render more probable the births next of girls." The expectant fathers feared that if more sons were born in the surrounding community, then they themselves would be more likely to have a daughter. This essay by Laplace is regarded as one of the earliest descriptions of the fallacy. Likewise, after having multiple children of the same sex, some parents may erroneously believe that they are due to have a child of the opposite sex.
Perhaps the most famous example of the gambler's fallacy occurred in a game of roulette at the Monte Carlo Casino on August 18, 1913, when the ball fell in black 26 times in a row. This was an extremely uncommon occurrence: the probability of a sequence of either red or black occurring 26 times in a row is (18/37) or around 1 in 66.6 million, assuming the mechanism is unbiased. Gamblers lost millions of francs betting against black, reasoning incorrectly that the streak was causing an imbalance in the randomness of the wheel, and that it had to be followed by a long streak of red.
The gambler's fallacy does not apply when the probability of different events is not independent. In such cases, the probability of future events can change based on the outcome of past events, such as the statistical permutation of events. An example is when cards are drawn from a deck without replacement. If an ace is drawn from a deck and not reinserted, the next card drawn is less likely to be an ace and more likely to be of another rank. The probability of drawing another ace, assuming that it was the first card drawn and that there are no jokers, has decreased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 3/51 (5.88%), while the probability for each other rank has increased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 4/51 (7.84%). This effect allows card counting systems to work in games such as blackjack.
In most illustrations of the gambler's fallacy and the reverse gambler's fallacy, the trial (e.g. flipping a coin) is assumed to be fair. In practice, this assumption may not hold. For example, if a coin is flipped 21 times, the probability of 21 heads with a fair coin is 1 in 2,097,152. Since this probability is so small, if it happens, it may well be that the coin is somehow biased towards landing on heads, or that it is being controlled by hidden magnets, or similar. In this case, the smart bet is "heads" because Bayesian inference from the empirical evidence — 21 heads in a row — suggests that the coin is likely to be biased toward heads. Bayesian inference can be used to show that when the long-run proportion of different outcomes is unknown but exchangeable (meaning that the random process from which the outcomes are generated may be biased but is equally likely to be biased in any direction) and that previous observations demonstrate the likely direction of the bias, the outcome which has occurred the most in the observed data is the most likely to occur again.
For example, if the a priori probability of a biased coin is say 1%, and assuming that such a biased coin would come down heads say 60% of the time, then after 21 heads the probability of a biased coin has increased to about 32%.
The opening scene of the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard discusses these issues as one man continually flips heads and the other considers various possible explanations.
If external factors are allowed to change the probability of the events, the gambler's fallacy may not hold. For example, a change in the game rules might favour one player over the other, improving his or her win percentage. Similarly, an inexperienced player's success may decrease after opposing teams learn about and play against their weaknesses. This is another example of bias.
The gambler's fallacy arises out of a belief in a law of small numbers, leading to the erroneous belief that small samples must be representative of the larger population. According to the fallacy, streaks must eventually even out in order to be representative. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first proposed that the gambler's fallacy is a cognitive bias produced by a psychological heuristic called the representativeness heuristic, which states that people evaluate the probability of a certain event by assessing how similar it is to events they have experienced before, and how similar the events surrounding those two processes are. According to this view, "after observing a long run of red on the roulette wheel, for example, most people erroneously believe that black will result in a more representative sequence than the occurrence of an additional red", so people expect that a short run of random outcomes should share properties of a longer run, specifically in that deviations from average should balance out. When people are asked to make up a random-looking sequence of coin tosses, they tend to make sequences where the proportion of heads to tails stays closer to 0.5 in any short segment than would be predicted by chance, a phenomenon known as insensitivity to sample size. Kahneman and Tversky interpret this to mean that people believe short sequences of random events should be representative of longer ones. The representativeness heuristic is also cited behind the related phenomenon of the clustering illusion, according to which people see streaks of random events as being non-random when such streaks are actually much more likely to occur in small samples than people expect.
The gambler's fallacy can also be attributed to the mistaken belief that gambling, or even chance itself, is a fair process that can correct itself in the event of streaks, known as the just-world hypothesis. Other researchers believe that belief in the fallacy may be the result of a mistaken belief in an internal locus of control. When a person believes that gambling outcomes are the result of their own skill, they may be more susceptible to the gambler's fallacy because they reject the idea that chance could overcome skill or talent.
Some researchers believe that it is possible to define two types of gambler's fallacy: type one and type two. Type one is the classic gambler's fallacy, where individuals believe that a particular outcome is due after a long streak of another outcome. Type two gambler's fallacy, as defined by Gideon Keren and Charles Lewis, occurs when a gambler underestimates how many observations are needed to detect a favorable outcome, such as watching a roulette wheel for a length of time and then betting on the numbers that appear most often. For events with a high degree of randomness, detecting a bias that will lead to a favorable outcome takes an impractically large amount of time and is very difficult, if not impossible, to do. The two types differ in that type one wrongly assumes that gambling conditions are fair and perfect, while type two assumes that the conditions are biased, and that this bias can be detected after a certain amount of time.
Another variety, known as the retrospective gambler's fallacy, occurs when individuals judge that a seemingly rare event must come from a longer sequence than a more common event does. The belief that an imaginary sequence of die rolls is more than three times as long when a set of three sixes is observed as opposed to when there are only two sixes. This effect can be observed in isolated instances, or even sequentially. Another example would involve hearing that a teenager has unprotected sex and becomes pregnant on a given night, and concluding that she has been engaging in unprotected sex for longer than if we hear she had unprotected sex but did not become pregnant, when the probability of becoming pregnant as a result of each intercourse is independent of the amount of prior intercourse.
Another psychological perspective states that gambler's fallacy can be seen as the counterpart to basketball's hot-hand fallacy, in which people tend to predict the same outcome as the previous event - known as positive recency - resulting in a belief that a high scorer will continue to score. In the gambler's fallacy, people predict the opposite outcome of the previous event - negative recency - believing that since the roulette wheel has landed on black on the previous six occasions, it is due to land on red the next. Ayton and Fischer have theorized that people display positive recency for the hot-hand fallacy because the fallacy deals with human performance, and that people do not believe that an inanimate object can become "hot." Human performance is not perceived as random, and people are more likely to continue streaks when they believe that the process generating the results is nonrandom. When a person exhibits the gambler's fallacy, they are more likely to exhibit the hot-hand fallacy as well, suggesting that one construct is responsible for the two fallacies.
The difference between the two fallacies is also found in economic decision-making. A study by Huber, Kirchler, and Stockl in 2010 examined how the hot hand and the gambler's fallacy are exhibited in the financial market. The researchers gave their participants a choice: they could either bet on the outcome of a series of coin tosses, use an expert opinion to sway their decision, or choose a risk-free alternative instead for a smaller financial reward. Participants turned to the expert opinion to make their decision 24% of the time based on their past experience of success, which exemplifies the hot-hand. If the expert was correct, 78% of the participants chose the expert's opinion again, as opposed to 57% doing so when the expert was wrong. The participants also exhibited the gambler's fallacy, with their selection of either heads or tails decreasing after noticing a streak of either outcome. This experiment helped bolster Ayton and Fischer's theory that people put more faith in human performance than they do in seemingly random processes.
While the representativeness heuristic and other cognitive biases are the most commonly cited cause of the gambler's fallacy, research suggests that there may also be a neurological component. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that after losing a bet or gamble, known as riskloss, the frontoparietal network of the brain is activated, resulting in more risk-taking behavior. In contrast, there is decreased activity in the amygdala, caudate, and ventral striatum after a riskloss. Activation in the amygdala is negatively correlated with gambler's fallacy, so that the more activity exhibited in the amygdala, the less likely an individual is to fall prey to the gambler's fallacy. These results suggest that gambler's fallacy relies more on the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive, goal-directed processes, and less on the brain areas that control affective decision-making.
The desire to continue gambling or betting is controlled by the striatum, which supports a choice-outcome contingency learning method. The striatum processes the errors in prediction and the behavior changes accordingly. After a win, the positive behavior is reinforced and after a loss, the behavior is conditioned to be avoided. In individuals exhibiting the gambler's fallacy, this choice-outcome contingency method is impaired, and they continue to make risks after a series of losses.
The gambler's fallacy is a deep-seated cognitive bias and can be very hard to overcome. Educating individuals about the nature of randomness has not always proven effective in reducing or eliminating any manifestation of the fallacy. Participants in a study by Beach and Swensson in 1967 were shown a shuffled deck of index cards with shapes on them, and were instructed to guess which shape would come next in a sequence. The experimental group of participants was informed about the nature and existence of the gambler's fallacy, and were explicitly instructed not to rely on run dependency to make their guesses. The control group was not given this information. The response styles of the two groups were similar, indicating that the experimental group still based their choices on the length of the run sequence. This led to the conclusion that instructing individuals about randomness is not sufficient in lessening the gambler's fallacy.
An individual's susceptibility to the gambler's fallacy may decrease with age. A study by Fischbein and Schnarch in 1997 administered a questionnaire to five groups: students in grades 5, 7, 9, 11, and college students specializing in teaching mathematics. None of the participants had received any prior education regarding probability. The question asked was: "Ronni flipped a coin three times and in all cases heads came up. Ronni intends to flip the coin again. What is the chance of getting heads the fourth time?" The results indicated that as the students got older, the less likely they were to answer with "smaller than the chance of getting tails", which would indicate a negative recency effect. 35% of the 5th graders, 35% of the 7th graders, and 20% of the 9th graders exhibited the negative recency effect. Only 10% of the 11th graders answered this way, and none of the college students did. Fischbein and Schnarch theorized that an individual's tendency to rely on the representativeness heuristic and other cognitive biases can be overcome with age.
Another possible solution comes from Roney and Trick, Gestalt psychologists who suggest that the fallacy may be eliminated as a result of grouping. When a future event such as a coin toss is described as part of a sequence, no matter how arbitrarily, a person will automatically consider the event as it relates to the past events, resulting in the gambler's fallacy. When a person considers every event as independent, the fallacy can be greatly reduced.
Roney and Trick told participants in their experiment that they were betting on either two blocks of six coin tosses, or on two blocks of seven coin tosses. The fourth, fifth, and sixth tosses all had the same outcome, either three heads or three tails. The seventh toss was grouped with either the end of one block, or the beginning of the next block. Participants exhibited the strongest gambler's fallacy when the seventh trial was part of the first block, directly after the sequence of three heads or tails. The researchers pointed out that the participants that did not show the gambler's fallacy showed less confidence in their bets and bet fewer times than the participants who picked with the gambler's fallacy. When the seventh trial was grouped with the second block, and was perceived as not being part of a streak, the gambler's fallacy did not occur.
Roney and Trick argued that instead of teaching individuals about the nature of randomness, the fallacy could be avoided by training people to treat each event as if it is a beginning and not a continuation of previous events. They suggested that this would prevent people from gambling when they are losing, in the mistaken hope that their chances of winning are due to increase based on an interaction with previous events.
Within a real-world setting, numerous studies have uncovered that for various decision makers placed in high stakes scenarios, it is likely they will reflect some degree of strong negative autocorrelation in their judgement.
In a study aimed at discovering if the negative autocorrelation that exists with the gambler's fallacy existed in the decision made by U.S. asylum judges, results showed that after two successive asylum grants, a judge would be 5.5% less likely to approve a third grant.
In the game of baseball, decisions are made every minute. One particular decision made by umpires which is often subject to scrutiny is the 'strike zone' decision. Whenever a batter does not swing, the umpire must decide if the ball was within a fair region for the batter, known as the strike zone. If outside of this zone, the ball does not count towards outing the batter. In a study of over 12,000 games, results showed that umpires are 1.3% less likely to call a strike if the previous two balls were also strikes.
In the decision making of loan officers, it can be argued that monetary incentives are a key factor in biased decision making, rendering it harder to examine the gambler's fallacy effect. However, research shows that loan officers who are not incentivised by monetary gain are 8% less likely to approve a loan if they approved one for the previous client.
Lottery play and jackpots entice gamblers around the globe, with the biggest decision for hopeful winners being what numbers to pick. While most people will have their own strategy, evidence shows that after a number is selected as a winner in the current draw, the same number will experience a significant drop in selections in the following lottery. A popular study by Charles Clotfelter and Philip Cook investigated this effect in 1991, where they concluded bettors would cease to select numbers immediately after they were selected, ultimately recovering selection popularity within three months. Soon after, a 1994 study was constructed by Dek Terrell to test the findings of Clotfelter and Cook. The key change in Terrell's study was the examination of a pari-mutuel lottery in which, a number selected with lower total wagers placed on it will result in a higher pay-out. While this examination did conclude that players in both types of lotteries exhibited behaviour in-line with the gambler's fallacy theory, those who took part in pari-mutuel betting seemed to be less influenced.
The effect the of gambler's fallacy can be observed as numbers are chosen far less frequently soon after they are selected as winners, recovering slowly over a two-month period. For example, on the 11th of April 1988, 41 players selected 244 as the winning combination. Three days later only 24 individuals selected 244, a 41.5% decrease. This is the gambler's fallacy in motion, as lottery players believe that the occurrence of a winning combination in previous days will decrease its likelihood of occurring today.
Several video games feature the use of loot boxes, a collection of in-game items awarded on opening with random contents set by rarity metrics, as a monetization scheme. Since around 2018, loot boxes have come under scrutiny from governments and advocates on the basis they are akin to gambling, particularly for games aimed at youth. Some games use a special "pity-timer" mechanism, that if the player has opened several loot boxes in a row without obtaining a high-rarity item, subsequent loot boxes will improve the odds of a higher-rate item drop. This is considered to feed into the gambler's fallacy since it reinforces the idea that a player will eventually obtain a high-rarity item (a win) after only receiving common items from a string of previous loot boxes. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the incorrect belief that, if an event (whose occurrences are independent and identically distributed) has occurred more frequently than expected, it is less likely to happen again in the future (or vice versa). The fallacy is commonly associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the expected number of sixes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The term \"Monte Carlo fallacy\" originates from the best known example of the phenomenon, which occurred in the Monte Carlo Casino in 1913.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy can be illustrated by considering the repeated toss of a fair coin. The outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of getting heads on a single toss is 1/2 (one in two). The probability of getting two heads in two tosses is 1/4 (one in four) and the probability of getting three heads in three tosses is 1/8 (one in eight). In general, if Ai is the event where toss i of a fair coin comes up heads, then:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "If after tossing four heads in a row, the next coin toss also came up heads, it would complete a run of five successive heads. Since the probability of a run of five successive heads is 1/32 (one in thirty-two), a person might believe that the next flip would be more likely to come up tails rather than heads again. This is incorrect and is an example of the gambler's fallacy. The event \"5 heads in a row\" and the event \"first 4 heads, then a tails\" are equally likely, each having probability 1/32. Since the first four tosses turn up heads, the probability that the next toss is a head is:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "While a run of five heads has a probability of 1/32 = 0.03125 (a little over 3%), the misunderstanding lies in not realizing that this is the case only before the first coin is tossed. After the first four tosses in this example, the results are no longer unknown, so their probabilities are at that point equal to 1 (100%). The probability of a run of coin tosses of any length continuing for one more toss is always 0.5. The reasoning that a fifth toss is more likely to be tails because the previous four tosses were heads, with a run of luck in the past influencing the odds in the future, forms the basis of the fallacy.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "If a fair coin is flipped 21 times, the probability of 21 heads is 1 in 2,097,152. The probability of flipping a head after having already flipped 20 heads in a row is 1/2. Assuming a fair coin:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The probability of getting 20 heads then 1 tail, and the probability of getting 20 heads then another head are both 1 in 2,097,152. When flipping a fair coin 21 times, the outcome is equally likely to be 21 heads as 20 heads and then 1 tail. These two outcomes are equally as likely as any of the other combinations that can be obtained from 21 flips of a coin. All of the 21-flip combinations will have probabilities equal to 0.5, or 1 in 2,097,152. Assuming that a change in the probability will occur as a result of the outcome of prior flips is incorrect because every outcome of a 21-flip sequence is as likely as the other outcomes. In accordance with Bayes' theorem, the likely outcome of each flip is the probability of the fair coin, which is 1/2.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The fallacy leads to the incorrect notion that previous failures will create an increased probability of success on subsequent attempts. For a fair 16-sided die, the probability of each outcome occurring is 1/16 (6.25%). If a win is defined as rolling a 1, the probability of a 1 occurring at least once in 16 rolls is:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The probability of a loss on the first roll is 15/16 (93.75%). According to the fallacy, the player should have a higher chance of winning after one loss has occurred. The probability of at least one win is now:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "By losing one toss, the player's probability of winning drops by two percentage points. With 5 losses and 11 rolls remaining, the probability of winning drops to around 0.5 (50%). The probability of at least one win does not increase after a series of losses; indeed, the probability of success actually decreases, because there are fewer trials left in which to win. The probability of winning will eventually be equal to the probability of winning a single toss, which is 1/16 (6.25%) and occurs when only one toss is left.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "After a consistent tendency towards tails, a gambler may also decide that tails has become a more likely outcome. This is a rational and Bayesian conclusion, bearing in mind the possibility that the coin may not be fair; it is not a fallacy. Believing the odds to favor tails, the gambler sees no reason to change to heads. However it is a fallacy that a sequence of trials carries a memory of past results which tend to favor or disfavor future outcomes.",
"title": "Reverse position"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The inverse gambler's fallacy described by Ian Hacking is a situation where a gambler entering a room and seeing a person rolling a double six on a pair of dice may erroneously conclude that the person must have been rolling the dice for quite a while, as they would be unlikely to get a double six on their first attempt.",
"title": "Reverse position"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Researchers have examined whether a similar bias exists for inferences about unknown past events based upon known subsequent events, calling this the \"retrospective gambler's fallacy\".",
"title": "Retrospective gambler's fallacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "An example of a retrospective gambler's fallacy would be to observe multiple successive \"heads\" on a coin toss and conclude from this that the previously unknown flip was \"tails\". Real world examples of retrospective gambler's fallacy have been argued to exist in events such as the origin of the Universe. In his book Universes, John Leslie argues that \"the presence of vastly many universes very different in their characters might be our best explanation for why at least one universe has a life-permitting character\". Daniel M. Oppenheimer and Benoît Monin argue that \"In other words, the 'best explanation' for a low-probability event is that it is only one in a multiple of trials, which is the core intuition of the reverse gambler's fallacy.\" Philosophical arguments are ongoing about whether such arguments are or are not a fallacy, arguing that the occurrence of our universe says nothing about the existence of other universes or trials of universes. Three studies involving Stanford University students tested the existence of a retrospective gamblers' fallacy. All three studies concluded that people have a gamblers' fallacy retrospectively as well as to future events. The authors of all three studies concluded their findings have significant \"methodological implications\" but may also have \"important theoretical implications\" that need investigation and research, saying \"[a] thorough understanding of such reasoning processes requires that we not only examine how they influence our predictions of the future, but also our perceptions of the past.\"",
"title": "Retrospective gambler's fallacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1796, Pierre-Simon Laplace described in A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities the ways in which men calculated their probability of having sons: \"I have seen men, ardently desirous of having a son, who could learn only with anxiety of the births of boys in the month when they expected to become fathers. Imagining that the ratio of these births to those of girls ought to be the same at the end of each month, they judged that the boys already born would render more probable the births next of girls.\" The expectant fathers feared that if more sons were born in the surrounding community, then they themselves would be more likely to have a daughter. This essay by Laplace is regarded as one of the earliest descriptions of the fallacy. Likewise, after having multiple children of the same sex, some parents may erroneously believe that they are due to have a child of the opposite sex.",
"title": "Childbirth"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Perhaps the most famous example of the gambler's fallacy occurred in a game of roulette at the Monte Carlo Casino on August 18, 1913, when the ball fell in black 26 times in a row. This was an extremely uncommon occurrence: the probability of a sequence of either red or black occurring 26 times in a row is (18/37) or around 1 in 66.6 million, assuming the mechanism is unbiased. Gamblers lost millions of francs betting against black, reasoning incorrectly that the streak was causing an imbalance in the randomness of the wheel, and that it had to be followed by a long streak of red.",
"title": "Monte Carlo Casino"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy does not apply when the probability of different events is not independent. In such cases, the probability of future events can change based on the outcome of past events, such as the statistical permutation of events. An example is when cards are drawn from a deck without replacement. If an ace is drawn from a deck and not reinserted, the next card drawn is less likely to be an ace and more likely to be of another rank. The probability of drawing another ace, assuming that it was the first card drawn and that there are no jokers, has decreased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 3/51 (5.88%), while the probability for each other rank has increased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 4/51 (7.84%). This effect allows card counting systems to work in games such as blackjack.",
"title": "Non-examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In most illustrations of the gambler's fallacy and the reverse gambler's fallacy, the trial (e.g. flipping a coin) is assumed to be fair. In practice, this assumption may not hold. For example, if a coin is flipped 21 times, the probability of 21 heads with a fair coin is 1 in 2,097,152. Since this probability is so small, if it happens, it may well be that the coin is somehow biased towards landing on heads, or that it is being controlled by hidden magnets, or similar. In this case, the smart bet is \"heads\" because Bayesian inference from the empirical evidence — 21 heads in a row — suggests that the coin is likely to be biased toward heads. Bayesian inference can be used to show that when the long-run proportion of different outcomes is unknown but exchangeable (meaning that the random process from which the outcomes are generated may be biased but is equally likely to be biased in any direction) and that previous observations demonstrate the likely direction of the bias, the outcome which has occurred the most in the observed data is the most likely to occur again.",
"title": "Non-examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For example, if the a priori probability of a biased coin is say 1%, and assuming that such a biased coin would come down heads say 60% of the time, then after 21 heads the probability of a biased coin has increased to about 32%.",
"title": "Non-examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The opening scene of the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard discusses these issues as one man continually flips heads and the other considers various possible explanations.",
"title": "Non-examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "If external factors are allowed to change the probability of the events, the gambler's fallacy may not hold. For example, a change in the game rules might favour one player over the other, improving his or her win percentage. Similarly, an inexperienced player's success may decrease after opposing teams learn about and play against their weaknesses. This is another example of bias.",
"title": "Non-examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy arises out of a belief in a law of small numbers, leading to the erroneous belief that small samples must be representative of the larger population. According to the fallacy, streaks must eventually even out in order to be representative. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first proposed that the gambler's fallacy is a cognitive bias produced by a psychological heuristic called the representativeness heuristic, which states that people evaluate the probability of a certain event by assessing how similar it is to events they have experienced before, and how similar the events surrounding those two processes are. According to this view, \"after observing a long run of red on the roulette wheel, for example, most people erroneously believe that black will result in a more representative sequence than the occurrence of an additional red\", so people expect that a short run of random outcomes should share properties of a longer run, specifically in that deviations from average should balance out. When people are asked to make up a random-looking sequence of coin tosses, they tend to make sequences where the proportion of heads to tails stays closer to 0.5 in any short segment than would be predicted by chance, a phenomenon known as insensitivity to sample size. Kahneman and Tversky interpret this to mean that people believe short sequences of random events should be representative of longer ones. The representativeness heuristic is also cited behind the related phenomenon of the clustering illusion, according to which people see streaks of random events as being non-random when such streaks are actually much more likely to occur in small samples than people expect.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy can also be attributed to the mistaken belief that gambling, or even chance itself, is a fair process that can correct itself in the event of streaks, known as the just-world hypothesis. Other researchers believe that belief in the fallacy may be the result of a mistaken belief in an internal locus of control. When a person believes that gambling outcomes are the result of their own skill, they may be more susceptible to the gambler's fallacy because they reject the idea that chance could overcome skill or talent.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Some researchers believe that it is possible to define two types of gambler's fallacy: type one and type two. Type one is the classic gambler's fallacy, where individuals believe that a particular outcome is due after a long streak of another outcome. Type two gambler's fallacy, as defined by Gideon Keren and Charles Lewis, occurs when a gambler underestimates how many observations are needed to detect a favorable outcome, such as watching a roulette wheel for a length of time and then betting on the numbers that appear most often. For events with a high degree of randomness, detecting a bias that will lead to a favorable outcome takes an impractically large amount of time and is very difficult, if not impossible, to do. The two types differ in that type one wrongly assumes that gambling conditions are fair and perfect, while type two assumes that the conditions are biased, and that this bias can be detected after a certain amount of time.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Another variety, known as the retrospective gambler's fallacy, occurs when individuals judge that a seemingly rare event must come from a longer sequence than a more common event does. The belief that an imaginary sequence of die rolls is more than three times as long when a set of three sixes is observed as opposed to when there are only two sixes. This effect can be observed in isolated instances, or even sequentially. Another example would involve hearing that a teenager has unprotected sex and becomes pregnant on a given night, and concluding that she has been engaging in unprotected sex for longer than if we hear she had unprotected sex but did not become pregnant, when the probability of becoming pregnant as a result of each intercourse is independent of the amount of prior intercourse.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Another psychological perspective states that gambler's fallacy can be seen as the counterpart to basketball's hot-hand fallacy, in which people tend to predict the same outcome as the previous event - known as positive recency - resulting in a belief that a high scorer will continue to score. In the gambler's fallacy, people predict the opposite outcome of the previous event - negative recency - believing that since the roulette wheel has landed on black on the previous six occasions, it is due to land on red the next. Ayton and Fischer have theorized that people display positive recency for the hot-hand fallacy because the fallacy deals with human performance, and that people do not believe that an inanimate object can become \"hot.\" Human performance is not perceived as random, and people are more likely to continue streaks when they believe that the process generating the results is nonrandom. When a person exhibits the gambler's fallacy, they are more likely to exhibit the hot-hand fallacy as well, suggesting that one construct is responsible for the two fallacies.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The difference between the two fallacies is also found in economic decision-making. A study by Huber, Kirchler, and Stockl in 2010 examined how the hot hand and the gambler's fallacy are exhibited in the financial market. The researchers gave their participants a choice: they could either bet on the outcome of a series of coin tosses, use an expert opinion to sway their decision, or choose a risk-free alternative instead for a smaller financial reward. Participants turned to the expert opinion to make their decision 24% of the time based on their past experience of success, which exemplifies the hot-hand. If the expert was correct, 78% of the participants chose the expert's opinion again, as opposed to 57% doing so when the expert was wrong. The participants also exhibited the gambler's fallacy, with their selection of either heads or tails decreasing after noticing a streak of either outcome. This experiment helped bolster Ayton and Fischer's theory that people put more faith in human performance than they do in seemingly random processes.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "While the representativeness heuristic and other cognitive biases are the most commonly cited cause of the gambler's fallacy, research suggests that there may also be a neurological component. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that after losing a bet or gamble, known as riskloss, the frontoparietal network of the brain is activated, resulting in more risk-taking behavior. In contrast, there is decreased activity in the amygdala, caudate, and ventral striatum after a riskloss. Activation in the amygdala is negatively correlated with gambler's fallacy, so that the more activity exhibited in the amygdala, the less likely an individual is to fall prey to the gambler's fallacy. These results suggest that gambler's fallacy relies more on the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive, goal-directed processes, and less on the brain areas that control affective decision-making.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The desire to continue gambling or betting is controlled by the striatum, which supports a choice-outcome contingency learning method. The striatum processes the errors in prediction and the behavior changes accordingly. After a win, the positive behavior is reinforced and after a loss, the behavior is conditioned to be avoided. In individuals exhibiting the gambler's fallacy, this choice-outcome contingency method is impaired, and they continue to make risks after a series of losses.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The gambler's fallacy is a deep-seated cognitive bias and can be very hard to overcome. Educating individuals about the nature of randomness has not always proven effective in reducing or eliminating any manifestation of the fallacy. Participants in a study by Beach and Swensson in 1967 were shown a shuffled deck of index cards with shapes on them, and were instructed to guess which shape would come next in a sequence. The experimental group of participants was informed about the nature and existence of the gambler's fallacy, and were explicitly instructed not to rely on run dependency to make their guesses. The control group was not given this information. The response styles of the two groups were similar, indicating that the experimental group still based their choices on the length of the run sequence. This led to the conclusion that instructing individuals about randomness is not sufficient in lessening the gambler's fallacy.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "An individual's susceptibility to the gambler's fallacy may decrease with age. A study by Fischbein and Schnarch in 1997 administered a questionnaire to five groups: students in grades 5, 7, 9, 11, and college students specializing in teaching mathematics. None of the participants had received any prior education regarding probability. The question asked was: \"Ronni flipped a coin three times and in all cases heads came up. Ronni intends to flip the coin again. What is the chance of getting heads the fourth time?\" The results indicated that as the students got older, the less likely they were to answer with \"smaller than the chance of getting tails\", which would indicate a negative recency effect. 35% of the 5th graders, 35% of the 7th graders, and 20% of the 9th graders exhibited the negative recency effect. Only 10% of the 11th graders answered this way, and none of the college students did. Fischbein and Schnarch theorized that an individual's tendency to rely on the representativeness heuristic and other cognitive biases can be overcome with age.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Another possible solution comes from Roney and Trick, Gestalt psychologists who suggest that the fallacy may be eliminated as a result of grouping. When a future event such as a coin toss is described as part of a sequence, no matter how arbitrarily, a person will automatically consider the event as it relates to the past events, resulting in the gambler's fallacy. When a person considers every event as independent, the fallacy can be greatly reduced.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Roney and Trick told participants in their experiment that they were betting on either two blocks of six coin tosses, or on two blocks of seven coin tosses. The fourth, fifth, and sixth tosses all had the same outcome, either three heads or three tails. The seventh toss was grouped with either the end of one block, or the beginning of the next block. Participants exhibited the strongest gambler's fallacy when the seventh trial was part of the first block, directly after the sequence of three heads or tails. The researchers pointed out that the participants that did not show the gambler's fallacy showed less confidence in their bets and bet fewer times than the participants who picked with the gambler's fallacy. When the seventh trial was grouped with the second block, and was perceived as not being part of a streak, the gambler's fallacy did not occur.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Roney and Trick argued that instead of teaching individuals about the nature of randomness, the fallacy could be avoided by training people to treat each event as if it is a beginning and not a continuation of previous events. They suggested that this would prevent people from gambling when they are losing, in the mistaken hope that their chances of winning are due to increase based on an interaction with previous events.",
"title": "Psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Within a real-world setting, numerous studies have uncovered that for various decision makers placed in high stakes scenarios, it is likely they will reflect some degree of strong negative autocorrelation in their judgement.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In a study aimed at discovering if the negative autocorrelation that exists with the gambler's fallacy existed in the decision made by U.S. asylum judges, results showed that after two successive asylum grants, a judge would be 5.5% less likely to approve a third grant.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the game of baseball, decisions are made every minute. One particular decision made by umpires which is often subject to scrutiny is the 'strike zone' decision. Whenever a batter does not swing, the umpire must decide if the ball was within a fair region for the batter, known as the strike zone. If outside of this zone, the ball does not count towards outing the batter. In a study of over 12,000 games, results showed that umpires are 1.3% less likely to call a strike if the previous two balls were also strikes.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In the decision making of loan officers, it can be argued that monetary incentives are a key factor in biased decision making, rendering it harder to examine the gambler's fallacy effect. However, research shows that loan officers who are not incentivised by monetary gain are 8% less likely to approve a loan if they approved one for the previous client.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Lottery play and jackpots entice gamblers around the globe, with the biggest decision for hopeful winners being what numbers to pick. While most people will have their own strategy, evidence shows that after a number is selected as a winner in the current draw, the same number will experience a significant drop in selections in the following lottery. A popular study by Charles Clotfelter and Philip Cook investigated this effect in 1991, where they concluded bettors would cease to select numbers immediately after they were selected, ultimately recovering selection popularity within three months. Soon after, a 1994 study was constructed by Dek Terrell to test the findings of Clotfelter and Cook. The key change in Terrell's study was the examination of a pari-mutuel lottery in which, a number selected with lower total wagers placed on it will result in a higher pay-out. While this examination did conclude that players in both types of lotteries exhibited behaviour in-line with the gambler's fallacy theory, those who took part in pari-mutuel betting seemed to be less influenced.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The effect the of gambler's fallacy can be observed as numbers are chosen far less frequently soon after they are selected as winners, recovering slowly over a two-month period. For example, on the 11th of April 1988, 41 players selected 244 as the winning combination. Three days later only 24 individuals selected 244, a 41.5% decrease. This is the gambler's fallacy in motion, as lottery players believe that the occurrence of a winning combination in previous days will decrease its likelihood of occurring today.",
"title": "Users"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Several video games feature the use of loot boxes, a collection of in-game items awarded on opening with random contents set by rarity metrics, as a monetization scheme. Since around 2018, loot boxes have come under scrutiny from governments and advocates on the basis they are akin to gambling, particularly for games aimed at youth. Some games use a special \"pity-timer\" mechanism, that if the player has opened several loot boxes in a row without obtaining a high-rarity item, subsequent loot boxes will improve the odds of a higher-rate item drop. This is considered to feed into the gambler's fallacy since it reinforces the idea that a player will eventually obtain a high-rarity item (a win) after only receiving common items from a string of previous loot boxes.",
"title": "Users"
}
]
| The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the incorrect belief that, if an event has occurred more frequently than expected, it is less likely to happen again in the future. The fallacy is commonly associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the expected number of sixes. The term "Monte Carlo fallacy" originates from the best known example of the phenomenon, which occurred in the Monte Carlo Casino in 1913. | 2001-12-11T19:06:40Z | 2023-12-20T01:55:05Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy |
12,974 | Gilbert Plains | Gilbert Plains is an unincorporated urban community in the Gilbert Plains Municipality, Manitoba, Canada, that was classified as a town prior to January 1, 2015.
It is situated on the Valley River, in the Parkland Region between Riding Mountain National Park and Duck Mountain Provincial Park.
Gilbert Plains was featured during season 3 of the CBC program Still Standing. The episode originally aired on September 5, 2017.
Incorporated in 1906, the original townsite was some miles to the south. The community was named for Gilbert Ross, a Métis man who was living in the region when the first European settler, Glenlyon Campbell, arrived.
On 1 January 2015, the Town of Gilbert Plains relinquished its town status when it amalgamated with the Rural Municipality of Gilbert Plains to form the Gilbert Plains Municipality.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Gilbert Plains had a population of 773 living in 356 of its 407 total private dwellings, a change of -1.5% from its 2016 population of 785. With a land area of 2.74 km (1.06 sq mi), it had a population density of 282.1/km (730.7/sq mi) in 2021.
A local newspaper, The Exponent, serviced both Gilbert Plains and its neighboring town, Grandview. The Exponent closed on 24 February 2017, after 117 years of operation.
The community is located on Highway 5 and the CN railway line between Dauphin and Grandview, approximately 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Winnipeg. Gilbert Plains railway station receives Via Rail service. The community previously had an airport. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gilbert Plains is an unincorporated urban community in the Gilbert Plains Municipality, Manitoba, Canada, that was classified as a town prior to January 1, 2015.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It is situated on the Valley River, in the Parkland Region between Riding Mountain National Park and Duck Mountain Provincial Park.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Gilbert Plains was featured during season 3 of the CBC program Still Standing. The episode originally aired on September 5, 2017.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Incorporated in 1906, the original townsite was some miles to the south. The community was named for Gilbert Ross, a Métis man who was living in the region when the first European settler, Glenlyon Campbell, arrived.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On 1 January 2015, the Town of Gilbert Plains relinquished its town status when it amalgamated with the Rural Municipality of Gilbert Plains to form the Gilbert Plains Municipality.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Gilbert Plains had a population of 773 living in 356 of its 407 total private dwellings, a change of -1.5% from its 2016 population of 785. With a land area of 2.74 km (1.06 sq mi), it had a population density of 282.1/km (730.7/sq mi) in 2021.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A local newspaper, The Exponent, serviced both Gilbert Plains and its neighboring town, Grandview. The Exponent closed on 24 February 2017, after 117 years of operation.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The community is located on Highway 5 and the CN railway line between Dauphin and Grandview, approximately 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Winnipeg. Gilbert Plains railway station receives Via Rail service. The community previously had an airport.",
"title": "Transportation"
}
]
| Gilbert Plains is an unincorporated urban community in the Gilbert Plains Municipality, Manitoba, Canada, that was classified as a town prior to January 1, 2015. It is situated on the Valley River, in the Parkland Region between Riding Mountain National Park and Duck Mountain Provincial Park. Gilbert Plains was featured during season 3 of the CBC program Still Standing. The episode originally aired on September 5, 2017. | 2001-12-15T01:45:03Z | 2023-11-13T23:35:59Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Plains |
12,975 | Gasparo Contarini | Gasparo Contarini (16 October 1483 – 24 August 1542) was an Italian diplomat, cardinal, and Bishop of Belluno. He advocated for dialogue with Protestants during the Reformation. Born in Venice, he served as the Republic's ambassador to Charles V during its war with him. He was the first to explain the time discrepancy in the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation due to Earth's rotation. He participated in diplomatic efforts and reconciliations, and became a cardinal, even though he was initially a layman. Contarini was a leader in the reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church. He played a role in the papal approval of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He was also involved in attempts to restore religious unity in Germany.
Contarini's work, De magistratibus et republica venetorum, praised the Venetian government system for its harmony, fairness, and stability. He described the electoral process, particularly the lottery system for choosing officials, emphasizing fairness and equality. Contarini's depiction of the Doge, Venice's leader, highlighted the balance between symbolic monarchy and the power of civic institutions. He portrayed the Doge as both a regal figure and a representative of the city's republican governance. Contarini's writings aimed to glorify the republican nature of Venice while showcasing its ceremonial and symbolic elements.
He was born in Venice, the eldest son of Alvise Contarini, of the ancient noble House of Contarini, and his wife Polissena Malpiero. After a thorough scientific and philosophical training at the University of Padua, he began his career in the service of his native city. From September 1520 to August 1525 he was the Republic's ambassador to Charles V, with whom Venice was soon at war, instructed to defend the Republic's alliance with Francis I of France. Though he participated at the Diet of Worms, April 1521, he never saw or spoke with Martin Luther. He accompanied Charles in the Netherlands and Spain.
Contarini was in Spain when the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation returned in 1522, bringing with them a cargo of spices from the East as well as a scientific curiosity. Although the sailors had carefully recorded every day of the three-year journey since they left Seville, the ship's log was one day earlier than the actual date when they returned to Seville. Contarini was the first European to give a correct explanation of this phenomenon. Since the ship had sailed westward around the world, in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky, the sailors had experienced one fewer sunrise than a stationary observer.
He participated at the Congress of Ferrara in 1526 as the Republic's representative; at the Congress the League of Cognac was formed against the Emperor, allying France with Venice and several states of Italy. Later, after the Sack of Rome (1527), he assisted in reconciling the emperor with Clement VII, whose release he had obtained, and with the Republic of Bologna. Upon his return to Venice, he was made a senator and a member of the Great Council.
In 1535, Paul III unexpectedly made the secular diplomat a cardinal in order to bind an able man of evangelical disposition to the Roman interests. Contarini accepted, but in his new position did not exhibit his former independence. At the time he was promoted to cardinal, May 21, 1535, he was still a layman. However, already in October 1536 he was appointed Bishop of Belluno. One of the fruits of his diplomatic activity is his De magistratibus et republica Venetorum.
As Cardinal, Contarini figured among the most prominent of the Spirituali, the leaders of the movement for reform within the Roman church. In April 1536 Paul III appointed a commission to devise ways for a reformation, with Contarini presiding. Paul III received favorably Contarini's Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia, which was circulated among the cardinalate, but it remained a dead letter. Contarini in a letter to his friend Cardinal Reginald Pole (dated 11 November 1538) says that his hopes had been wakened anew by the pope's attitude. He and his friends, who formed the Catholic evangelical movement of the Spirituali, thought that all would have been done when the abuses in church life had been put away. What Contarini had to do with it is shown by his letters to the pope in which he complained of the schism in the church, of simony and flattery in the papal court, but above all of papal tyranny, its least grateful passages. Paul's successor Paul IV, once a member on the commission, in 1539 put it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
In 1541 Cardinal Contarini was papal legate at the Conference of Regensburg, the diet and religious debate marking the culmination of attempts to restore religious unity in Germany by means of conferences. There everything was unfavorable; the Catholic states were bitter, the Evangelicals were distant. Contarini's instructions though apparently free were in fact full of papal reservations. But the papal party had gladly sent him, thinking that through him a union in doctrine could be brought about, while the interest of Rome could be attended to later. Though the princes stood aloof, the theologians and the emperor were for peace, so the main articles were put forth in a formula, Evangelical in thought and Catholic in expression. The papal legate had revised the Catholic proposal and assented to the formula agreed upon. All gave their approval, even Johann Eck, though he later regretted it.
Contarini's theological advisor was Tommaso Badia; his own position is shown in a treatise on justification, composed at Regensburg, which in essential points is Evangelical, differing only in the omission of the negative side and in being interwoven with the teaching of Aquinas. Meanwhile, the papal policy had changed, and Contarini was compelled to follow his leader. He advised the emperor, after the conference had broken up, not to renew it, but to submit everything to the pope.
Ignatius Loyola acknowledged that Cardinal Contarini was largely responsible for the papal approbation of the Society of Jesus, on September 27, 1540. Meanwhile, Rome had drifted further into reaction, and Contarini died while legate at Bologna, at a time when the Inquisition had driven many of his friends and fellows in conviction into exile.
Contarini's book De magistratibus et republica venetorum (Paris, 1543) is an important source for the study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice's unique system of government. It was published in an English translation in 1599. This magisterial work, written during his time as an ambassador to Charles V, extols the various institutions of the Venetian state in a manner designed to emphasize harmony, fairness and serenity. Historians have demonstrated that this text represents Contarini's idealization of Venetian reality. Probably written for a foreign, courtly audience, this work functions as the source for the everlasting propagation of the "myth of Venice" as a stable, unchanging and prosperous society.
His depiction of how members of the council were elected to the senate, for example, aimed to emphasise the way the electoral system prevented factionalism from occurring, instead making sure that “public benefits are largely extended among the citizens” rather than narrowly amongst “one family” . An elaborate lottery is described as giving the maximum amount of chance in appointing patricians to particular offices, and care is taken to point out if two of one family are standing for similar posts. Fairness is further emphasised in Contarini's constant references to the equality the members of the council enjoyed. They “sit down where it pleases them, for there is no place appointed to any”, and they “with oath promise to do their utmost diligence, that the laws may be observed” . He creates an image of disparate individuals, with factions broken up by the guiding hand of the law, working to ensure those in positions of importance are fairly chosen from their number and without the capacity to serve the interests of a smaller group.
Contarini's depiction of the Doge lucidly demonstrates the way in which this figure embodies both the conscious illusion of a resplendent monarchical ruler and an equally conscious demonstration of a regime that wishes to portray itself as ruled by many limiting the powers of one. This calculated duality means that Contarini's doge, which the second book of De magistratibus is almost entirely devoted to discussing, represents the closest point in his text to what actually occurred, because the Doge served as a literal embodiment of the idealisation of the reality of Venetian politics. For Contarini, this duality almost defines the greatness of the Venetian constitution. The Doge is the “heart”, under which “all are comprised” . Contarini places him in the centre of his body metaphor, making him synecdochical for the city and the people that reside within it. This means he is to ensure that the disparate, competing interests of the city beat in time with one another, creating in the process the “perfection of civil agreement”. His job as a conductor, rather than a ruler, means therefore that the role takes on the aspect of representative of the entire city. Contarini's description of his vestments, privileges and rituals can therefore be compared to Marin Sanudo’s description of the physical spaces of Venice in his essay In Praise of Venice. Both are designed to extol the virtues of the entire city by describing representative parts. This is apparent in the way both authors treat the chapel of St. Mark. Patron saints were hugely important in terms of civic self-identification in renaissance Italy . Contarini emphasizes this, saying that he is “with exceeding honour solemnized of the Venetians” . His description of the Doge's close relationship with the saint, through the “solemn pomp” with which he attends mass at the saint's chapel, attaches him to the aforementioned “exceeding honour”, in a similar fashion to the way in which Sanudo glorifies Venice as a whole by constantly referring to the beauty and worth of St. Mark's square and chapel as part of his panoramic praise of the city.
At the same time, however, Contarini's overall purpose is, of course, the glorification of the republican nature of his city. Therefore, he cannot avoid referring to “the other side” of the Doge's figure when discussing his “royal appearing show” . Things like the “kingly ornaments” which were “always purple garments or cloth of gold”, both very ostentatious assertions of wealth and power, were to ensure he was “recompensed” for his “limitation of authority” . Contarini thus openly concludes that the Doge is a combination of myth and reality, saying that “in everything you may see the show of a king, but his authority is nothing” . Indeed, as Edward Muir points out, “by the sixteenth century virtually every word, gesture and act that the doge made in public was subject to legal and ceremonial regulation” . He could not buy expensive jewels, own property outside Venice or the Veneto, display his insignia outside the Ducal Palace, decorate his apartment as he wanted, receive people in his ducal dress, send official letters, or have close ties with guilds, amongst a great many other restrictions. Legally, therefore, power in Venice came from the numerous councils, not the figurehead. The Doge thus becomes a brazen republican statement. Venice drew attention to a princely, magnificently adorned figurehead, only to direct most executive power to councils of her citizens. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gasparo Contarini (16 October 1483 – 24 August 1542) was an Italian diplomat, cardinal, and Bishop of Belluno. He advocated for dialogue with Protestants during the Reformation. Born in Venice, he served as the Republic's ambassador to Charles V during its war with him. He was the first to explain the time discrepancy in the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation due to Earth's rotation. He participated in diplomatic efforts and reconciliations, and became a cardinal, even though he was initially a layman. Contarini was a leader in the reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church. He played a role in the papal approval of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He was also involved in attempts to restore religious unity in Germany.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Contarini's work, De magistratibus et republica venetorum, praised the Venetian government system for its harmony, fairness, and stability. He described the electoral process, particularly the lottery system for choosing officials, emphasizing fairness and equality. Contarini's depiction of the Doge, Venice's leader, highlighted the balance between symbolic monarchy and the power of civic institutions. He portrayed the Doge as both a regal figure and a representative of the city's republican governance. Contarini's writings aimed to glorify the republican nature of Venice while showcasing its ceremonial and symbolic elements.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "He was born in Venice, the eldest son of Alvise Contarini, of the ancient noble House of Contarini, and his wife Polissena Malpiero. After a thorough scientific and philosophical training at the University of Padua, he began his career in the service of his native city. From September 1520 to August 1525 he was the Republic's ambassador to Charles V, with whom Venice was soon at war, instructed to defend the Republic's alliance with Francis I of France. Though he participated at the Diet of Worms, April 1521, he never saw or spoke with Martin Luther. He accompanied Charles in the Netherlands and Spain.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Contarini was in Spain when the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation returned in 1522, bringing with them a cargo of spices from the East as well as a scientific curiosity. Although the sailors had carefully recorded every day of the three-year journey since they left Seville, the ship's log was one day earlier than the actual date when they returned to Seville. Contarini was the first European to give a correct explanation of this phenomenon. Since the ship had sailed westward around the world, in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky, the sailors had experienced one fewer sunrise than a stationary observer.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "He participated at the Congress of Ferrara in 1526 as the Republic's representative; at the Congress the League of Cognac was formed against the Emperor, allying France with Venice and several states of Italy. Later, after the Sack of Rome (1527), he assisted in reconciling the emperor with Clement VII, whose release he had obtained, and with the Republic of Bologna. Upon his return to Venice, he was made a senator and a member of the Great Council.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1535, Paul III unexpectedly made the secular diplomat a cardinal in order to bind an able man of evangelical disposition to the Roman interests. Contarini accepted, but in his new position did not exhibit his former independence. At the time he was promoted to cardinal, May 21, 1535, he was still a layman. However, already in October 1536 he was appointed Bishop of Belluno. One of the fruits of his diplomatic activity is his De magistratibus et republica Venetorum.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As Cardinal, Contarini figured among the most prominent of the Spirituali, the leaders of the movement for reform within the Roman church. In April 1536 Paul III appointed a commission to devise ways for a reformation, with Contarini presiding. Paul III received favorably Contarini's Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia, which was circulated among the cardinalate, but it remained a dead letter. Contarini in a letter to his friend Cardinal Reginald Pole (dated 11 November 1538) says that his hopes had been wakened anew by the pope's attitude. He and his friends, who formed the Catholic evangelical movement of the Spirituali, thought that all would have been done when the abuses in church life had been put away. What Contarini had to do with it is shown by his letters to the pope in which he complained of the schism in the church, of simony and flattery in the papal court, but above all of papal tyranny, its least grateful passages. Paul's successor Paul IV, once a member on the commission, in 1539 put it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1541 Cardinal Contarini was papal legate at the Conference of Regensburg, the diet and religious debate marking the culmination of attempts to restore religious unity in Germany by means of conferences. There everything was unfavorable; the Catholic states were bitter, the Evangelicals were distant. Contarini's instructions though apparently free were in fact full of papal reservations. But the papal party had gladly sent him, thinking that through him a union in doctrine could be brought about, while the interest of Rome could be attended to later. Though the princes stood aloof, the theologians and the emperor were for peace, so the main articles were put forth in a formula, Evangelical in thought and Catholic in expression. The papal legate had revised the Catholic proposal and assented to the formula agreed upon. All gave their approval, even Johann Eck, though he later regretted it.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Contarini's theological advisor was Tommaso Badia; his own position is shown in a treatise on justification, composed at Regensburg, which in essential points is Evangelical, differing only in the omission of the negative side and in being interwoven with the teaching of Aquinas. Meanwhile, the papal policy had changed, and Contarini was compelled to follow his leader. He advised the emperor, after the conference had broken up, not to renew it, but to submit everything to the pope.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Ignatius Loyola acknowledged that Cardinal Contarini was largely responsible for the papal approbation of the Society of Jesus, on September 27, 1540. Meanwhile, Rome had drifted further into reaction, and Contarini died while legate at Bologna, at a time when the Inquisition had driven many of his friends and fellows in conviction into exile.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Contarini's book De magistratibus et republica venetorum (Paris, 1543) is an important source for the study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice's unique system of government. It was published in an English translation in 1599. This magisterial work, written during his time as an ambassador to Charles V, extols the various institutions of the Venetian state in a manner designed to emphasize harmony, fairness and serenity. Historians have demonstrated that this text represents Contarini's idealization of Venetian reality. Probably written for a foreign, courtly audience, this work functions as the source for the everlasting propagation of the \"myth of Venice\" as a stable, unchanging and prosperous society.",
"title": "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "His depiction of how members of the council were elected to the senate, for example, aimed to emphasise the way the electoral system prevented factionalism from occurring, instead making sure that “public benefits are largely extended among the citizens” rather than narrowly amongst “one family” . An elaborate lottery is described as giving the maximum amount of chance in appointing patricians to particular offices, and care is taken to point out if two of one family are standing for similar posts. Fairness is further emphasised in Contarini's constant references to the equality the members of the council enjoyed. They “sit down where it pleases them, for there is no place appointed to any”, and they “with oath promise to do their utmost diligence, that the laws may be observed” . He creates an image of disparate individuals, with factions broken up by the guiding hand of the law, working to ensure those in positions of importance are fairly chosen from their number and without the capacity to serve the interests of a smaller group.",
"title": "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Contarini's depiction of the Doge lucidly demonstrates the way in which this figure embodies both the conscious illusion of a resplendent monarchical ruler and an equally conscious demonstration of a regime that wishes to portray itself as ruled by many limiting the powers of one. This calculated duality means that Contarini's doge, which the second book of De magistratibus is almost entirely devoted to discussing, represents the closest point in his text to what actually occurred, because the Doge served as a literal embodiment of the idealisation of the reality of Venetian politics. For Contarini, this duality almost defines the greatness of the Venetian constitution. The Doge is the “heart”, under which “all are comprised” . Contarini places him in the centre of his body metaphor, making him synecdochical for the city and the people that reside within it. This means he is to ensure that the disparate, competing interests of the city beat in time with one another, creating in the process the “perfection of civil agreement”. His job as a conductor, rather than a ruler, means therefore that the role takes on the aspect of representative of the entire city. Contarini's description of his vestments, privileges and rituals can therefore be compared to Marin Sanudo’s description of the physical spaces of Venice in his essay In Praise of Venice. Both are designed to extol the virtues of the entire city by describing representative parts. This is apparent in the way both authors treat the chapel of St. Mark. Patron saints were hugely important in terms of civic self-identification in renaissance Italy . Contarini emphasizes this, saying that he is “with exceeding honour solemnized of the Venetians” . His description of the Doge's close relationship with the saint, through the “solemn pomp” with which he attends mass at the saint's chapel, attaches him to the aforementioned “exceeding honour”, in a similar fashion to the way in which Sanudo glorifies Venice as a whole by constantly referring to the beauty and worth of St. Mark's square and chapel as part of his panoramic praise of the city.",
"title": "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "At the same time, however, Contarini's overall purpose is, of course, the glorification of the republican nature of his city. Therefore, he cannot avoid referring to “the other side” of the Doge's figure when discussing his “royal appearing show” . Things like the “kingly ornaments” which were “always purple garments or cloth of gold”, both very ostentatious assertions of wealth and power, were to ensure he was “recompensed” for his “limitation of authority” . Contarini thus openly concludes that the Doge is a combination of myth and reality, saying that “in everything you may see the show of a king, but his authority is nothing” . Indeed, as Edward Muir points out, “by the sixteenth century virtually every word, gesture and act that the doge made in public was subject to legal and ceremonial regulation” . He could not buy expensive jewels, own property outside Venice or the Veneto, display his insignia outside the Ducal Palace, decorate his apartment as he wanted, receive people in his ducal dress, send official letters, or have close ties with guilds, amongst a great many other restrictions. Legally, therefore, power in Venice came from the numerous councils, not the figurehead. The Doge thus becomes a brazen republican statement. Venice drew attention to a princely, magnificently adorned figurehead, only to direct most executive power to councils of her citizens.",
"title": "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice"
}
]
| Gasparo Contarini was an Italian diplomat, cardinal, and Bishop of Belluno. He advocated for dialogue with Protestants during the Reformation. Born in Venice, he served as the Republic's ambassador to Charles V during its war with him. He was the first to explain the time discrepancy in the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation due to Earth's rotation. He participated in diplomatic efforts and reconciliations, and became a cardinal, even though he was initially a layman. Contarini was a leader in the reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church. He played a role in the papal approval of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He was also involved in attempts to restore religious unity in Germany. Contarini's work, De magistratibus et republica venetorum, praised the Venetian government system for its harmony, fairness, and stability. He described the electoral process, particularly the lottery system for choosing officials, emphasizing fairness and equality. Contarini's depiction of the Doge, Venice's leader, highlighted the balance between symbolic monarchy and the power of civic institutions. He portrayed the Doge as both a regal figure and a representative of the city's republican governance. Contarini's writings aimed to glorify the republican nature of Venice while showcasing its ceremonial and symbolic elements. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-08-10T06:37:53Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasparo_Contarini |
12,976 | Gastroenterology | Gastroenterology (from the Greek gastḗr- "belly", -énteron "intestine", and -logía "study of") is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, sometimes referred to as the GI tract, which includes the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine as well as the accessory organs of digestion which include the pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. The digestive system functions to move material through the GI tract via peristalsis, break down that material via digestion, absorb nutrients for use throughout the body, and remove waste from the body via defecation. Physicians who specialize in the medical specialty of gastroenterology are called gastroenterologists or sometimes GI doctors. Some of the most common conditions managed by gastroenterologists include gastroesophageal reflux disease, gastrointestinal bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, peptic ulcer disease, gallbladder and biliary tract disease, hepatitis, pancreatitis, colitis, colon polyps and cancer, nutritional problems, and many more.
Citing from Egyptian papyri, John F. Nunn identified significant knowledge of gastrointestinal diseases among practicing physicians during the periods of the pharaohs. Irynakhty, of the tenth dynasty, c. 2125 B.C., was a court physician specializing in gastroenterology, sleeping, and proctology.
Among ancient Greeks, Hippocrates attributed digestion to concoction. Galen's concept of the stomach having four faculties was widely accepted up to modernity in the seventeenth century.
1. International Classification of Disease (ICD 2007)/WHO classification:
2. MeSH subject Heading:
3. National Library of Medicine Catalogue (NLM classification 2006):
A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera that is passed through the anus to visualize the rectum and the entire length of the colon. The procedure is performed either to look for colon polyps and/or colon cancer in somebody without symptoms, referred to as screening, or to further evaluate symptoms including rectal bleeding, dark tarry stools, change in bowel habits or stool consistency (diarrhea, pencil-thin stool), abdominal pain, and unexplained weight loss. Before the procedure the physician might ask the patient to stop taking certain medications including blood thinners, aspirin, diabetes medications, or Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. A bowel prep is usually taken the night before and into the morning of the procedure which consists of an enema or laxatives, either pills or powder dissolved in liquid, that will cause diarrhea. The procedure might need to be stopped and rescheduled if there is stool remaining in the colon due to an incomplete bowel prep because the physician can not adequately visualize the colon. During the procedure the patient is sedated and the scope is used to examine the entire length of the colon looking for polyps, bleeding, or abnormal tissue. A biopsy or polyp removal can then be performed and the tissue sent to the lab for evaluation. The procedure usually takes thirty minutes to an hour followed by a one to two hour observation period. Complications include bloating, cramping, a reaction to anesthesia, bleeding, and a hole through the wall of the colon that may require repeat colonoscopy or surgery. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include severe pain in the abdomen, fever, bleeding that does not improve, dizziness, and weakness.
A procedure similar to a colonoscopy using a long thin tube with a camera (scope) passed through the anus but only intended to visualize the rectum and the last part of the colon closest to the rectum. All aspects of the procedure are the same as for a colonoscopy with the exception that this procedure only lasts ten to twenty minutes and is done without sedation. This usually allows for the patient to return to normal activities immediately after the procedure is finished.
A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera that is passed through the mouth to view the esophagus ("esophago-"), stomach ("gastro-"), and the duodenum ("duodeno-"). It is also referred to as upper endoscopy or just endoscopy. The procedure is performed for further evaluation of symptoms including persistent heartburn, indigestion, vomiting blood, dark tarry stools, persistent nausea and vomiting, pain, difficulty swallowing, painful swallowing, and unexplained weight loss. It is also performed for further testing following a lab test that shows low hemoglobin levels without a known cause or an abnormal barium swallow. The procedure can be used to diagnose many disorders through direct visualization or tissue biopsy including esophageal varices, esophageal strictures, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Barrett's esophagus, cancer, celiac disease, gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and a H. pylori infection. Intra-operative techniques can then be used for treatment of certain disorders like banding esophageal varices or dilating esophageal strictures. The patient will likely be required to not eat or drink anything starting 4 hours prior to the procedure. Sedation is usually required for patient comfort. This procedure usually lasts around thirty minutes followed by a one to two hour observation period. Side effects include bloating, nausea, and a sore throat for 1 to 2 days. Complications are rare but include reaction to the anesthesia, bleeding, and a hole through the wall of the esophagus, stomach, or small intestine which could require surgery. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include chest pain, problems breathing, problems swallowing, throat pain that gets worse, vomiting with blood or the appearance of "coffee-grounds", worsening abdominal pain, bloody or black tarry stool, and fever.
A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera passed through the mouth into the first part of the small intestine to locate, diagnose, and treat disorders related to the bile and pancreatic ducts. These ducts carry fluids that help with digesting food from the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas and can become narrowed or blocked as a result of gallstones, infection, inflammation, pancreatic pseudocysts, and tumors of the bile ducts or pancreas. As a result one may experience back pain, yellowing of the skin, and an abnormal lab test showing an elevated bilirubin level which could necessitate this procedure. However, the procedure is not recommended if the patient has acute pancreatitis unless the level of bilirubin remains high or is increasing which could suggest the blockage is still present. The patient will likely be required to not eat or drink anything starting 8 hours prior to the procedure. After the patient is sedated, the physician will pass the scope through the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and into the duodenum to locate the opening where the ducts drain into the small intestine. The physician can then inject dye into these ducts and take X-rays which show a real time view, via fluoroscopy, allowing the physician to locate and relieve the blockage. This is done through multiple techniques including cutting the opening and creating a bigger hole for drainage, removing gallstones and other debris, dilating narrow parts of the ducts, or placing a stent which keeps the ducts open. The physician can also take a biopsy of the ducts to evaluate for cancer, infection, or inflammation. Side effects include bloating, nausea, or a sore throat for 1 to 2 days. Complications include pancreatitis, infection of the bile ducts or gallbladder, bleeding, reaction to the anesthesia, and perforation of any structures that the scope or its instruments pass but particularly the duodenum, bile duct, and pancreatic duct. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include bloody or black tarry stool, chest pain, fever, worsening abdominal pain, worsening throat pain, problems breathing, problems swallowing, vomit that is bloody or looks like coffee-grounds. Most of the time complications from this procedure require hospitalization for treatment.
A condition that is a result of stomach contents consistently coming back up into the esophagus causing troublesome symptoms or complications. Symptoms are considered troublesome based on how disruptive they are to a patient's daily life and well-being. This definition was standardized by the Montreal Consensus in 2006. Symptoms include a painful feeling in the middle of the chest and feeling stomach contents coming back up into the mouth. Other symptoms include chest pain, nausea, difficulty swallowing, painful swallowing, coughing, and hoarseness. Risk factors include obesity, pregnancy, smoking, hiatal hernia, certain medications, and certain foods. Diagnosis is usually based on symptoms and medical history, with further testing only after treatment has been ineffective. Further diagnosis can be achieved by measuring how much acid enters the esophagus or looking into the esophagus with a scope. Treatment and management options include lifestyle modifications, medications, and surgery if there is no improvement with other interventions. Lifestyle modifications include not lying down for three hours after eating, lying down on the left side, elevating head while laying by elevating head of the bed or using extra pillows, losing weight, stopping smoking, and avoiding coffee, mint, alcohol, chocolate, fatty foods, acidic foods, and spicy foods. Medications include antacids, proton pump inhibitors, H2 receptor blockers. Surgery is usually a Nissen fundoplication and is performed by a surgeon. Complications of longstanding GERD can include inflammation of the esophagus that may cause bleeding or ulcer formation, narrowing of the esophagus leading to swallowing issues, a change in the lining of the esophagus that can increase the chances of developing cancer (Barrett's esophagus), chronic cough, asthma, inflammation of the larynx leading to hoarseness, and wearing away of tooth enamel leading to dental issues.
A condition in which the lining of the esophagus changes to look more like the lining of the intestine and increases the risk of developing esophageal cancer. There are no specific symptoms although symptoms of GERD may be present for years prior as it is associated with a 10–15% risk of Barrett's esophagus. Risk factors include chronic GERD for more than 5 years, being age 50 or older, being non-Hispanic white, being male, having a family history of this disorder, belly fat, and a history of smoking. Protective factors include H. pylori infection, frequent use of aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and diets high in fruits and vegetables. Diagnosis can be made by looking into the esophagus with a scope and possibly taking a biopsy of the lining of the esophagus. Treatment includes managing GERD, destroying abnormal parts of the esophagus, removing abnormal tissue in the esophagus, and removing part of the esophagus as performed by a general surgeon. Further management could include periodic surveillance with repeat scopes at certain intervals determined by the physician, likely not more frequently than every three to five years. Complications from this disorder can result in a type of cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma.
Gastroenterology is a subspecialty of internal medicine and therefore requires three years of internal medicine residency training followed by three additional years in a dedicated gastroenterology fellowship. This training is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine (AOBIM) and must be completed at a program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Other national societies that oversee training include the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).
Gastroenterologists see patients both in the clinic and the hospital setting. They can order diagnostic tests, prescribe medications, and perform a number of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures including colonoscopy, esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), and liver biopsy.
Some gastroenterology trainees will complete a "fourth-year" (although this is often their seventh year of graduate medical education) in transplant hepatology, advanced interventional endoscopy, inflammatory bowel disease, motility, or other topics.
Advanced endoscopy, sometimes called interventional or surgical endoscopy, is a sub-specialty of gastroenterology that focuses on advanced endoscopic techniques for the treatment of pancreatic, hepatobiliary, and gastrointestinal disease. Interventional gastroenterologists typically undergo an additional year of rigorous training in advanced endoscopic techniques including endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, endoscopic ultrasound-guided diagnostic and interventional procedures, and advanced resection techniques including endoscopic mucosal resection and endoscopic submucosal dissection. Additionally, the performance of endoscopic bariatric procedures is also performed by some advanced endoscopists.
Hepatology, or hepatobiliary medicine, encompasses the study of the liver, pancreas, and biliary tree, and is traditionally considered a sub-specialty of gastroenterology, while proctology encompasses disorders of the anus, rectum, and colon and is considered a sub-specialty of general surgery. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gastroenterology (from the Greek gastḗr- \"belly\", -énteron \"intestine\", and -logía \"study of\") is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, sometimes referred to as the GI tract, which includes the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine as well as the accessory organs of digestion which include the pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. The digestive system functions to move material through the GI tract via peristalsis, break down that material via digestion, absorb nutrients for use throughout the body, and remove waste from the body via defecation. Physicians who specialize in the medical specialty of gastroenterology are called gastroenterologists or sometimes GI doctors. Some of the most common conditions managed by gastroenterologists include gastroesophageal reflux disease, gastrointestinal bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, peptic ulcer disease, gallbladder and biliary tract disease, hepatitis, pancreatitis, colitis, colon polyps and cancer, nutritional problems, and many more.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Citing from Egyptian papyri, John F. Nunn identified significant knowledge of gastrointestinal diseases among practicing physicians during the periods of the pharaohs. Irynakhty, of the tenth dynasty, c. 2125 B.C., was a court physician specializing in gastroenterology, sleeping, and proctology.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Among ancient Greeks, Hippocrates attributed digestion to concoction. Galen's concept of the stomach having four faculties was widely accepted up to modernity in the seventeenth century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "1. International Classification of Disease (ICD 2007)/WHO classification:",
"title": "Disease classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "2. MeSH subject Heading:",
"title": "Disease classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "3. National Library of Medicine Catalogue (NLM classification 2006):",
"title": "Disease classification"
},
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"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera that is passed through the anus to visualize the rectum and the entire length of the colon. The procedure is performed either to look for colon polyps and/or colon cancer in somebody without symptoms, referred to as screening, or to further evaluate symptoms including rectal bleeding, dark tarry stools, change in bowel habits or stool consistency (diarrhea, pencil-thin stool), abdominal pain, and unexplained weight loss. Before the procedure the physician might ask the patient to stop taking certain medications including blood thinners, aspirin, diabetes medications, or Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. A bowel prep is usually taken the night before and into the morning of the procedure which consists of an enema or laxatives, either pills or powder dissolved in liquid, that will cause diarrhea. The procedure might need to be stopped and rescheduled if there is stool remaining in the colon due to an incomplete bowel prep because the physician can not adequately visualize the colon. During the procedure the patient is sedated and the scope is used to examine the entire length of the colon looking for polyps, bleeding, or abnormal tissue. A biopsy or polyp removal can then be performed and the tissue sent to the lab for evaluation. The procedure usually takes thirty minutes to an hour followed by a one to two hour observation period. Complications include bloating, cramping, a reaction to anesthesia, bleeding, and a hole through the wall of the colon that may require repeat colonoscopy or surgery. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include severe pain in the abdomen, fever, bleeding that does not improve, dizziness, and weakness.",
"title": "Procedures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A procedure similar to a colonoscopy using a long thin tube with a camera (scope) passed through the anus but only intended to visualize the rectum and the last part of the colon closest to the rectum. All aspects of the procedure are the same as for a colonoscopy with the exception that this procedure only lasts ten to twenty minutes and is done without sedation. This usually allows for the patient to return to normal activities immediately after the procedure is finished.",
"title": "Procedures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera that is passed through the mouth to view the esophagus (\"esophago-\"), stomach (\"gastro-\"), and the duodenum (\"duodeno-\"). It is also referred to as upper endoscopy or just endoscopy. The procedure is performed for further evaluation of symptoms including persistent heartburn, indigestion, vomiting blood, dark tarry stools, persistent nausea and vomiting, pain, difficulty swallowing, painful swallowing, and unexplained weight loss. It is also performed for further testing following a lab test that shows low hemoglobin levels without a known cause or an abnormal barium swallow. The procedure can be used to diagnose many disorders through direct visualization or tissue biopsy including esophageal varices, esophageal strictures, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Barrett's esophagus, cancer, celiac disease, gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and a H. pylori infection. Intra-operative techniques can then be used for treatment of certain disorders like banding esophageal varices or dilating esophageal strictures. The patient will likely be required to not eat or drink anything starting 4 hours prior to the procedure. Sedation is usually required for patient comfort. This procedure usually lasts around thirty minutes followed by a one to two hour observation period. Side effects include bloating, nausea, and a sore throat for 1 to 2 days. Complications are rare but include reaction to the anesthesia, bleeding, and a hole through the wall of the esophagus, stomach, or small intestine which could require surgery. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include chest pain, problems breathing, problems swallowing, throat pain that gets worse, vomiting with blood or the appearance of \"coffee-grounds\", worsening abdominal pain, bloody or black tarry stool, and fever.",
"title": "Procedures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A procedure using a long thin tube with a camera passed through the mouth into the first part of the small intestine to locate, diagnose, and treat disorders related to the bile and pancreatic ducts. These ducts carry fluids that help with digesting food from the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas and can become narrowed or blocked as a result of gallstones, infection, inflammation, pancreatic pseudocysts, and tumors of the bile ducts or pancreas. As a result one may experience back pain, yellowing of the skin, and an abnormal lab test showing an elevated bilirubin level which could necessitate this procedure. However, the procedure is not recommended if the patient has acute pancreatitis unless the level of bilirubin remains high or is increasing which could suggest the blockage is still present. The patient will likely be required to not eat or drink anything starting 8 hours prior to the procedure. After the patient is sedated, the physician will pass the scope through the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and into the duodenum to locate the opening where the ducts drain into the small intestine. The physician can then inject dye into these ducts and take X-rays which show a real time view, via fluoroscopy, allowing the physician to locate and relieve the blockage. This is done through multiple techniques including cutting the opening and creating a bigger hole for drainage, removing gallstones and other debris, dilating narrow parts of the ducts, or placing a stent which keeps the ducts open. The physician can also take a biopsy of the ducts to evaluate for cancer, infection, or inflammation. Side effects include bloating, nausea, or a sore throat for 1 to 2 days. Complications include pancreatitis, infection of the bile ducts or gallbladder, bleeding, reaction to the anesthesia, and perforation of any structures that the scope or its instruments pass but particularly the duodenum, bile duct, and pancreatic duct. Signs of a serious complication requiring urgent or emergent medical attention include bloody or black tarry stool, chest pain, fever, worsening abdominal pain, worsening throat pain, problems breathing, problems swallowing, vomit that is bloody or looks like coffee-grounds. Most of the time complications from this procedure require hospitalization for treatment.",
"title": "Procedures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A condition that is a result of stomach contents consistently coming back up into the esophagus causing troublesome symptoms or complications. Symptoms are considered troublesome based on how disruptive they are to a patient's daily life and well-being. This definition was standardized by the Montreal Consensus in 2006. Symptoms include a painful feeling in the middle of the chest and feeling stomach contents coming back up into the mouth. Other symptoms include chest pain, nausea, difficulty swallowing, painful swallowing, coughing, and hoarseness. Risk factors include obesity, pregnancy, smoking, hiatal hernia, certain medications, and certain foods. Diagnosis is usually based on symptoms and medical history, with further testing only after treatment has been ineffective. Further diagnosis can be achieved by measuring how much acid enters the esophagus or looking into the esophagus with a scope. Treatment and management options include lifestyle modifications, medications, and surgery if there is no improvement with other interventions. Lifestyle modifications include not lying down for three hours after eating, lying down on the left side, elevating head while laying by elevating head of the bed or using extra pillows, losing weight, stopping smoking, and avoiding coffee, mint, alcohol, chocolate, fatty foods, acidic foods, and spicy foods. Medications include antacids, proton pump inhibitors, H2 receptor blockers. Surgery is usually a Nissen fundoplication and is performed by a surgeon. Complications of longstanding GERD can include inflammation of the esophagus that may cause bleeding or ulcer formation, narrowing of the esophagus leading to swallowing issues, a change in the lining of the esophagus that can increase the chances of developing cancer (Barrett's esophagus), chronic cough, asthma, inflammation of the larynx leading to hoarseness, and wearing away of tooth enamel leading to dental issues.",
"title": "Disorders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A condition in which the lining of the esophagus changes to look more like the lining of the intestine and increases the risk of developing esophageal cancer. There are no specific symptoms although symptoms of GERD may be present for years prior as it is associated with a 10–15% risk of Barrett's esophagus. Risk factors include chronic GERD for more than 5 years, being age 50 or older, being non-Hispanic white, being male, having a family history of this disorder, belly fat, and a history of smoking. Protective factors include H. pylori infection, frequent use of aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and diets high in fruits and vegetables. Diagnosis can be made by looking into the esophagus with a scope and possibly taking a biopsy of the lining of the esophagus. Treatment includes managing GERD, destroying abnormal parts of the esophagus, removing abnormal tissue in the esophagus, and removing part of the esophagus as performed by a general surgeon. Further management could include periodic surveillance with repeat scopes at certain intervals determined by the physician, likely not more frequently than every three to five years. Complications from this disorder can result in a type of cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma.",
"title": "Disorders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Gastroenterology is a subspecialty of internal medicine and therefore requires three years of internal medicine residency training followed by three additional years in a dedicated gastroenterology fellowship. This training is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine (AOBIM) and must be completed at a program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Other national societies that oversee training include the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).",
"title": "Education and training"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Gastroenterologists see patients both in the clinic and the hospital setting. They can order diagnostic tests, prescribe medications, and perform a number of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures including colonoscopy, esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), and liver biopsy.",
"title": "Scope of practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Some gastroenterology trainees will complete a \"fourth-year\" (although this is often their seventh year of graduate medical education) in transplant hepatology, advanced interventional endoscopy, inflammatory bowel disease, motility, or other topics.",
"title": "Scope of practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Advanced endoscopy, sometimes called interventional or surgical endoscopy, is a sub-specialty of gastroenterology that focuses on advanced endoscopic techniques for the treatment of pancreatic, hepatobiliary, and gastrointestinal disease. Interventional gastroenterologists typically undergo an additional year of rigorous training in advanced endoscopic techniques including endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, endoscopic ultrasound-guided diagnostic and interventional procedures, and advanced resection techniques including endoscopic mucosal resection and endoscopic submucosal dissection. Additionally, the performance of endoscopic bariatric procedures is also performed by some advanced endoscopists.",
"title": "Scope of practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Hepatology, or hepatobiliary medicine, encompasses the study of the liver, pancreas, and biliary tree, and is traditionally considered a sub-specialty of gastroenterology, while proctology encompasses disorders of the anus, rectum, and colon and is considered a sub-specialty of general surgery.",
"title": "Scope of practice"
}
]
| Gastroenterology is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, sometimes referred to as the GI tract, which includes the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine as well as the accessory organs of digestion which include the pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. The digestive system functions to move material through the GI tract via peristalsis, break down that material via digestion, absorb nutrients for use throughout the body, and remove waste from the body via defecation. Physicians who specialize in the medical specialty of gastroenterology are called gastroenterologists or sometimes GI doctors. Some of the most common conditions managed by gastroenterologists include gastroesophageal reflux disease, gastrointestinal bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, peptic ulcer disease, gallbladder and biliary tract disease, hepatitis, pancreatitis, colitis, colon polyps and cancer, nutritional problems, and many more. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-22T03:36:25Z | [
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12,980 | Gulag | The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in the English language the term "gulag" (lowercase) can be used as a generic term in the meaning "Soviet forced labor camp". The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й" (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps), but the full official name of the agency changed several times.
The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. In 1918–1922, the agency was administered by the Cheka, followed by the GPU (1922–1923), the OGPU (1923–1934), later known as the NKVD (1934–1946), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the final years. The Solovki prison camp, the first correctional labour camp which was constructed after the revolution, was opened in 1918 and legalized by a decree, "On the creation of the forced-labor camps", on April 15, 1919.
The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. By the end of 1940, the population of the Gulag camps amounted to 1.5 million. The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million prisoners perished there or they died soon after they were released. Some journalists and writers who question the reliability of such data heavily rely on memoir sources that come to higher estimations. Archival researchers have found "no plan of destruction" of the gulag population and no statement of official intent to kill them, and prisoner releases vastly exceeded the number of deaths in the Gulag. This policy can partially be attributed to the common practice of releasing prisoners who were suffering from incurable diseases as well as prisoners who were near death.
Almost immediately after the death of Stalin, the Soviet establishment started to dismantle the Gulag system. A mass general amnesty was granted in the immediate aftermath of Stalin's death, but it was only offered to non-political prisoners and political prisoners who had been sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. Shortly thereafter, Nikita Khrushchev was elected First Secretary, initiating the processes of de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw, triggering a mass release and rehabilitation of political prisoners. Six years later, on 25 January 1960, the Gulag system was officially abolished when the remains of its administration were dissolved by Khrushchev. The legal practice of sentencing convicts to penal labor continues to exist in the Russian Federation, but its capacity is greatly reduced.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, gave the term its international repute with the publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The author likened the scattered camps to "a chain of islands", and as an eyewitness, he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death. In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates (simply referred to as "camps") and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union. Many mining and industrial towns and cities in northern Russia, eastern Russia and Kazakhstan such as Karaganda, Norilsk, Vorkuta and Magadan, were blocks of camps which were originally built by prisoners and subsequently run by ex-prisoners.
GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й" (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps). It was renamed several times, e.g., to Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies (Главное управление исправительно-трудовых колоний (ГУИТК)), which names can be seen in the documents describing the subordination of various camps.
Some historians estimate that 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953 (the estimates for the period from 1918 to 1929 are more difficult to calculate). Other calculations, by historian Orlando Figes, refer to 25 million prisoners of the Gulag in 1928–1953. A further 6–7 million were deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR, and 4–5 million passed through labor colonies, plus 3.5 million who were already in, or had been sent to, labor settlements.
According to some estimates, the total population of the camps varied from 510,307 in 1934 to 1,727,970 in 1953. According to other estimates, at the beginning of 1953 the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners. Between the years 1934 to 1953, 20% to 40% of the Gulag population in each given year were released.
The institutional analysis of the Soviet concentration system is complicated by the formal distinction between GULAG and GUPVI. GUPVI (ГУПВИ) was the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees (Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных, Glavnoye upravleniye po delam voyennoplennyh i internirovannyh), a department of NKVD (later MVD) in charge of handling of foreign civilian internees and POWs (prisoners of war) in the Soviet Union during and in the aftermath of World War II (1939–1953). In many ways the GUPVI system was similar to GULAG.
Its major function was the organization of foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union. The top management of GUPVI came from the GULAG system. The major memoir noted distinction from GULAG was the absence of convicted criminals in the GUPVI camps. Otherwise the conditions in both camp systems were similar: hard labor, poor nutrition and living conditions, and high mortality rate.
For the Soviet political prisoners, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, all foreign civilian detainees and foreign POWs were imprisoned in the GULAG; the surviving foreign civilians and POWs considered themselves prisoners in the GULAG. According to the estimates, in total, during the whole period of the existence of the GUPVI, there were over 500 POW camps (within the Soviet Union and abroad), which imprisoned over 4,000,000 POW. Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of political prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time.
Petty crimes and jokes about the Soviet government and officials were punishable by imprisonment. About half of political prisoners in the Gulag camps were imprisoned "by administrative means", i.e., without trial at courts; official data suggest that there were over 2.6 million sentences to imprisonment on cases investigated by the secret police throughout 1921–53. Maximum sentences varied depending on the type of crime and changed over time. From 1953 the maximum sentence for petty theft was six months, having previously been one year and seven years. Theft of state property however had a minimum sentence of seven years and a maximum of twenty five. In 1958 the maximum sentence for any crime was reduced from twenty five to fifteen years.
In 1960, the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) ceased to function as the Soviet-wide administration of the camps in favour of individual republic MVD branches. The centralised detention administrations temporarily ceased functioning.
Although the term Gulag was originally used in reference to a government agency, in English and many other languages, the acronym acquired the qualities of a common noun, denoting the Soviet system of prison-based, unfree labor.
Even more broadly, "Gulag" has come to mean the Soviet repressive system itself, the set of procedures that prisoners once called the "meat-grinder": the arrests, the interrogations, the transport in unheated cattle cars, the forced labor, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths.
Western authors use the term Gulag to denote all the prisons and internment camps in the Soviet Union. The term's contemporary usage is at times notably not directly related to the USSR, such as in the expression "North Korea's Gulag" for camps operational today.
The word Gulag was not often used in Russian, either officially or colloquially; the predominant terms were the camps (лагеря, lagerya) and the zone (зона, zona), usually singular, for the labor camp system and for the individual camps. The official term, "correctional labour camp", was suggested for official use by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the session of July 27, 1929.
The Tsar and the Russian Empire both used forced exile and forced labour as forms of judicial punishment. Katorga, a category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment: confinement, simplified facilities (as opposed to the facilities which existed in prisons), and forced labor, usually involving hard, unskilled or semi-skilled work. According to historian Anne Applebaum, katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 katorga convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 in 1916. Under the Imperial Russian penal system, those who were convicted of less serious crimes were sent to corrective prisons and they were also made to work.
Forced exile to Siberia had been in use for a wide range of offenses since the seventeenth century and it was a common punishment for political dissidents and revolutionaries. In the nineteenth century, the members of the failed Decembrist revolt and Polish nobles who resisted Russian rule were sent into exile. Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to die for reading banned literature in 1849, but the sentence was commuted to banishment to Siberia. Members of various socialist revolutionary groups, including Bolsheviks such as Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin were also sent into exile.
Convicts who were serving labor sentences and exiles were sent to the underpopulated areas of Siberia and the Russian Far East – regions that lacked towns or food sources as well as organized transportation systems. Despite the isolated conditions, some prisoners successfully escaped to populated areas. Stalin himself escaped three of the four times after he was sent into exile. Since these times, Siberia gained its fearful connotation as a place of punishment, a reputation which was further enhanced by the Soviet GULAG system. The Bolsheviks' own experiences with exile and forced labor provided them with a model which they could base their own system on, including the importance of strict enforcement.
From 1920 to 1950, the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state considered repression a tool that they should use to secure the normal functioning of the Soviet state system and preserve and strengthen their positions within their social base, the working class (when the Bolsheviks took power, peasants represented 80% of the population).
In the midst of the Russian Civil War, Lenin and the Bolsheviks established a "special" prison camp system, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the Cheka. These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose. These early camps of the GULAG system were introduced in order to isolate and eliminate class-alien, socially dangerous, disruptive, suspicious, and other disloyal elements, whose deeds and thoughts were not contributing to the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Forced labor as a "method of reeducation" was applied in the Solovki prison camp as early as the 1920s, based on Trotsky's experiments with forced labor camps for Czech war prisoners from 1918 and his proposals to introduce "compulsory labor service" voiced in Terrorism and Communism. Various categories of prisoners were defined: petty criminals, POWs of the Russian Civil War, officials accused of corruption, sabotage and embezzlement, political enemies, dissidents and other people deemed dangerous for the state. In the first decade of Soviet rule, the judicial and penal systems were neither unified nor coordinated, and there was a distinction between criminal prisoners and political or "special" prisoners.
The "traditional" judicial and prison system, which dealt with criminal prisoners, were first overseen by The People's Commissariat of Justice until 1922, after which they were overseen by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, also known as the NKVD. The Cheka and its successor organizations, the GPU or State Political Directorate and the OGPU, oversaw political prisoners and the "special" camps to which they were sent. In April 1929, the judicial distinctions between criminal and political prisoners were eliminated, and control of the entire Soviet penal system turned over to the OGPU. In 1928 there were 30,000 individuals interned; the authorities were opposed to compelled labor. In 1927 the official in charge of prison administration wrote:
The exploitation of prison labour, the system of squeezing "golden sweat" from them, the organisation of production in places of confinement, which while profitable from a commercial point of view is fundamentally lacking in corrective significance – these are entirely inadmissible in Soviet places of confinement.
The legal base and the guidance for the creation of the system of "corrective labor camps" (исправи́тельно-трудовые лагеря, Ispravitel'no-trudovye lagerya), the backbone of what is commonly referred to as the "Gulag", was a secret decree from the Sovnarkom of July 11, 1929, about the use of penal labor that duplicated the corresponding appendix to the minutes of the Politburo meeting of June 27, 1929.
One of the Gulag system founders was Naftaly Frenkel. In 1923 he was arrested for illegally crossing borders and smuggling. He was sentenced to 10 years' hard labor at Solovki, which later came to be known as the "first camp of the Gulag". While serving his sentence he wrote a letter to the camp administration detailing a number of "productivity improvement" proposals including the infamous system of labor exploitation whereby the inmates' food rations were to be linked to their rate of production, a proposal known as nourishment scale (шкала питания). This notorious you-eat-as-you-work system would often kill weaker prisoners in weeks and caused countless casualties. The letter caught the attention of a number of high communist officials including Genrikh Yagoda and Frenkel soon went from being an inmate to becoming a camp commander and an important Gulag official. His proposals soon saw widespread adoption in the Gulag system.
After having appeared as an instrument and place for isolating counter-revolutionary and criminal elements, the Gulag, because of its principle of "correction by forced labor", quickly became, in fact, an independent branch of the national economy secured on the cheap labor force presented by prisoners. Hence it is followed by one more important reason for the constancy of the repressive policy, namely, the state's interest in unremitting rates of receiving a cheap labor force that was forcibly used, mainly in the extreme conditions of the east and north. The Gulag possessed both punitive and economic functions.
The Gulag was an administration body that watched over the camps; eventually its name would be used for these camps retrospectively. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin was able to take control of the government, and began to form the gulag system. On June 27, 1929, the Politburo created a system of self-supporting camps that would eventually replace the existing prisons around the country. These prisons were meant to receive inmates that received a prison sentence that exceeded three years. Prisoners that had a shorter prison sentence than three years were to remain in the prison system that was still under the purview of the NKVD.
The purpose of these new camps was to colonise the remote and inhospitable environments throughout the Soviet Union. These changes took place around the same time that Stalin started to institute collectivisation and rapid industrial development. Collectivisation resulted in a large scale purge of peasants and so-called Kulaks. The Kulaks were supposedly wealthy, comparatively to other Soviet peasants, and were considered to be capitalists by the state, and by extension enemies of socialism. The term would also become associated with anyone who opposed or even seemed unsatisfied with the Soviet government.
By late 1929 Stalin began a program known as dekulakization. Stalin demanded that the kulak class be completely wiped out, resulting in the imprisonment and execution of Soviet peasants. In a mere four months, 60,000 people were sent to the camps and another 154,000 exiled. This was only the beginning of the dekulakisation process, however. In 1931 alone 1,803,392 people were exiled.
Although these massive relocation processes were successful in getting a large potential free forced labor work force where they needed to be, that is about all it was successful at doing. The "special settlers", as the Soviet government referred to them, all lived on starvation level rations, and many people starved to death in the camps, and anyone who was healthy enough to escape tried to do just that. This resulted in the government having to give rations to a group of people they were getting hardly any use out of, and was just costing the Soviet government money. The Unified State Political Administration (OGPU) quickly realised the problem, and began to reform the dekulakisation process.
To help prevent the mass escapes the OGPU started to recruit people within the colony to help stop people who attempted to leave, and set up ambushes around known popular escape routes. The OGPU also attempted to raise the living conditions in these camps that would not encourage people to actively try and escape, and Kulaks were promised that they would regain their rights after five years. Even these revisions ultimately failed to resolve the problem, and the dekulakisation process was a failure in providing the government with a steady forced labor force. These prisoners were also lucky to be in the gulag in the early 1930s. Prisoners were relatively well off compared to what the prisoners would have to go through in the final years of the gulag. The Gulag was officially established on April 25, 1930, as the GULAG by the OGPU order 130/63 in accordance with the Sovnarkom order 22 p. 248 dated April 7, 1930. It was renamed as the GULAG in November of that year.
The hypothesis that economic considerations were responsible for mass arrests during the period of Stalinism has been refuted on the grounds of former Soviet archives that have become accessible since the 1990s, although some archival sources also tend to support an economic hypothesis. In any case, the development of the camp system followed economic lines. The growth of the camp system coincided with the peak of the Soviet industrialisation campaign. Most of the camps established to accommodate the masses of incoming prisoners were assigned distinct economic tasks. These included the exploitation of natural resources and the colonization of remote areas, as well as the realisation of enormous infrastructural facilities and industrial construction projects. The plan to achieve these goals with "special settlements" instead of labor camps was dropped after the revealing of the Nazino affair in 1933.
The 1931–32 archives indicate the Gulag had approximately 200,000 prisoners in the camps; while in 1935, approximately 800,000 were in camps and 300,000 in colonies. Gulag population reached a peak value (1.5 million) in 1941, gradually decreased during the war and then started to grow again, achieving a maximum by 1953. Besides Gulag camps, a significant amount of prisoners, which confined prisoners serving short sentence terms.
In the early 1930s, a tightening of the Soviet penal policy caused a significant growth of the prison camp population.
During the Great Purge of 1937–38, mass arrests caused another increase in inmate numbers. Hundreds of thousands of persons were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on the grounds of one of the multiple passages of the notorious Article 58 of the Criminal Codes of the Union republics, which defined punishment for various forms of "counterrevolutionary activities". Under NKVD Order No. 00447, tens of thousands of Gulag inmates were executed in 1937–38 for "continuing counterrevolutionary activities".
Between 1934 and 1941, the number of prisoners with higher education increased more than eight times, and the number of prisoners with high education increased five times. It resulted in their increased share in the overall composition of the camp prisoners. Among the camp prisoners, the number and share of the intelligentsia was growing at the quickest pace. Distrust, hostility, and even hatred for the intelligentsia was a common characteristic of the Soviet leaders. Information regarding the imprisonment trends and consequences for the intelligentsia derive from the extrapolations of Viktor Zemskov from a collection of prison camp population movements data.
On the eve of World War II, Soviet archives indicate a combined camp and colony population upwards of 1.6 million in 1939, according to V. P. Kozlov. Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde estimate that 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in Gulag system's prison camps and colonies when the war started.
After the German invasion of Poland that marked the start of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic. In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) and Bukovina. According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens and inhabitants of the other annexed lands, regardless of their ethnic origin, were arrested and sent to the Gulag camps. However, according to the official data, the total number of sentences for political and anti-state (espionage, terrorism) crimes in the USSR in 1939–41 was 211,106.
Approximately 300,000 Polish prisoners of war were captured by the USSR during and after the "Polish Defensive War". Almost all of the captured officers and a large number of ordinary soldiers were then murdered (see Katyn massacre) or sent to Gulag. Of the 10,000–12,000 Poles sent to Kolyma in 1940–41, most prisoners of war, only 583 men survived, released in 1942 to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East. Out of General Anders' 80,000 evacuees from Soviet Union gathered in Great Britain only 310 volunteered to return to Soviet-controlled Poland in 1947.
During the Great Patriotic War, Gulag populations declined sharply due to a steep rise in mortality in 1942–43. In the winter of 1941 a quarter of the Gulag's population died of starvation. 516,841 prisoners died in prison camps in 1941–43, from a combination of their harsh working conditions and the famine caused by the German invasion. This period accounts for about half of all gulag deaths, according to Russian statistics.
In 1943, the term katorga works (каторжные работы) was reintroduced. They were initially intended for Nazi collaborators, but then other categories of political prisoners (for example, members of deported peoples who fled from exile) were also sentenced to "katorga works". Prisoners sentenced to "katorga works" were sent to Gulag prison camps with the most harsh regime and many of them perished.
Up until World War II, the Gulag system expanded dramatically to create a Soviet "camp economy". Right before the war, forced labor provided 46.5% of the nation's nickel, 76% of its tin, 40% of its cobalt, 40.5% of its chrome-iron ore, 60% of its gold, and 25.3% of its timber. And in preparation for war, the NKVD put up many more factories and built highways and railroads.
The Gulag quickly switched to the production of arms and supplies for the army after fighting began. At first, transportation remained a priority. In 1940 the NKVD focused most of its energy on railroad construction. This would prove extremely important when the German advance into the Soviet Union started in 1941. In addition, factories converted to produce ammunition, uniforms, and other supplies. Moreover, the NKVD gathered skilled workers and specialists from throughout the Gulag into 380 special colonies which produced tanks, aircraft, armaments, and ammunition.
Despite its low capital costs, the camp economy suffered from serious flaws. For one, actual productivity almost never matched estimates: the estimates proved far too optimistic. In addition, scarcity of machinery and tools plagued the camps and the tools that the camps did have quickly broke. The Eastern Siberian Trust of the Chief Administration of Camps for Highway Construction destroyed ninety-four trucks in just three years. But the greatest problem was simple – forced labor was less efficient than free labor. In fact, prisoners in the Gulag were, on average, half as productive as free laborers in the USSR at the time, which may be partially explained by malnutrition.
To make up for this disparity, the NKVD worked prisoners harder than ever. To meet rising demand, prisoners worked longer and longer hours, and on lower food-rations than ever before. A camp administrator said in a meeting: "There are cases when a prisoner is given only four or five hours out of twenty-four for rest, which significantly lowers his productivity." In the words of a former Gulag prisoner: "By the spring of 1942, the camp ceased to function. It was difficult to find people who were even able to gather firewood or bury the dead."
The scarcity of food stemmed in part from the general strain on the entire Soviet Union, but also the lack of central aid to the Gulag during the war. The central government focused all its attention on the military and left the camps to their own devices. In 1942 the Gulag set up the Supply Administration to find their own food and industrial goods. During this time, not only did food become scarce, but the NKVD limited rations in an attempt to motivate the prisoners to work harder for more food, a policy that lasted until 1948.
In addition to food shortages, the Gulag suffered from labor scarcity at the beginning of the war. The Great Terror of 1936–1938 had provided a large supply of free labor, but by the start of World War II the purges had slowed down. In order to complete all of their projects, camp administrators moved prisoners from project to project. To improve the situation, laws were implemented in mid-1940 that allowed giving short camp sentences (4 months or a year) to those convicted of petty theft, hooliganism, or labor-discipline infractions. By January 1941 the Gulag workforce had increased by approximately 300,000 prisoners. But in 1942 serious food shortages began, and camp populations dropped again. The camps lost still more prisoners to the war effort as the Soviet Union went into a total war footing in June 1941. Many laborers received early releases so that they could be drafted and sent to the front.
Even as the pool of workers shrank, demand for outputs continued to grow rapidly. As a result, the Soviet government pushed the Gulag to "do more with less". With fewer able-bodied workers and few supplies from outside the camp system, camp administrators had to find a way to maintain production. The solution they found was to push the remaining prisoners still harder. The NKVD employed a system of setting unrealistically high production goals, straining resources in an attempt to encourage higher productivity. As the Axis armies pushed into Soviet territory from June 1941 on, labor resources became further strained, and many of the camps had to evacuate out of Western Russia.
From the beginning of the war to halfway through 1944, 40 camps were set up, and 69 were disbanded. During evacuations, machinery received priority, leaving prisoners to reach safety on foot. The speed of Operation Barbarossa's advance prevented the evacuation of all prisoners in good time, and the NKVD massacred many to prevent them from falling into German hands. While this practice denied the Germans a source of free labor, it also further restricted the Gulag's capacity to keep up with the Red Army's demands. When the tide of the war turned, however, and the Soviets started pushing the Axis invaders back, fresh batches of laborers replenished the camps. As the Red Army recaptured territories from the Germans, an influx of Soviet ex-POWs greatly increased the Gulag population.
After World War II the number of inmates in prison camps and colonies, again, rose sharply, reaching approximately 2.5 million people by the early 1950s (about 1.7 million of whom were in camps).
When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, as many as two million former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated into the USSR. On February 11, 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the Soviet Union. One interpretation of this agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets. British and United States civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union up to two million former residents of the Soviet Union, including persons who had left the Russian Empire and established different citizenship years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.
Multiple sources state that Soviet POWs, on their return to the Soviet Union, were treated as traitors (see Order No. 270). According to some sources, over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag. However, that is a confusion with two other types of camps. During and after World War II, freed POWs went to special "filtration" camps. Of these, by 1944, more than 90 percent were cleared, and about 8 percent were arrested or condemned to penal battalions. In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by the NKVD.
Furthermore, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated Ostarbeiter, POWs, and other displaced persons, which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, the major part of the population of these camps were cleared by NKVD and either sent home or conscripted (see table for details). 226,127 out of 1,539,475 POWs were transferred to the NKVD, i.e. the Gulag.
After Nazi Germany's defeat, ten NKVD-run "special camps" subordinate to the Gulag were set up in the Soviet Occupation Zone of post-war Germany. These "special camps" were former Stalags, prisons, or Nazi concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen (special camp number 7) and Buchenwald (special camp number 2). According to German government estimates "65,000 people died in those Soviet-run camps or in transportation to them." According to German researchers, Sachsenhausen, where 12,500 Soviet era victims have been uncovered, should be seen as an integral part of the Gulag system.
Yet the major reason for the post-war increase in the number of prisoners was the tightening of legislation on property offences in summer 1947 (at this time there was a famine in some parts of the Soviet Union, claiming about 1 million lives), which resulted in hundreds of thousands of convictions to lengthy prison terms, sometimes on the basis of cases of petty theft or embezzlement. At the beginning of 1953, the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners.
In 1948 the system of "special camps" was established exclusively for a "special contingent" of political prisoners, convicted according to the more severe sub-articles of Article 58 (Enemies of people): treason, espionage, terrorism, etc., for various real political opponents, such as Trotskyites, "nationalists" (Ukrainian nationalism), white émigré, as well as for fabricated ones.
The state continued to maintain the extensive camp system for a while after Stalin's death in March 1953, although the period saw the grip of the camp authorities weaken, and a number of conflicts and uprisings occur (see Bitch Wars; Kengir uprising; Vorkuta uprising).
The amnesty of 1953 was limited to non-political prisoners and for political prisoners sentenced to not more than 5 years, therefore mostly those convicted for common crimes were then freed. The release of political prisoners started in 1954 and became widespread, and also coupled with mass rehabilitations, after Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in his Secret Speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956.
The Gulag institution was closed by the MVD order No 020 of January 25, 1960 but forced labor colonies for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist. Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps Perm-36 until 1987 when it was closed.
The Russian penal system, despite reforms and a reduction in prison population, informally or formally continues many practices endemic to the Gulag system, including forced labor, inmates policing inmates, and prisoner intimidation.
In the late 2000s, some human rights activists accused authorities of gradual removal of Gulag remembrance from places such as Perm-36 and Solovki prison camp.
According to Encyclopædia Britannica,
At its height the Gulag consisted of many hundreds of camps, with the average camp holding 2,000–10,000 prisoners. Most of these camps were "corrective labour colonies" in which prisoners felled timber, laboured on general construction projects (such as the building of canals and railroads), or worked in mines. Most prisoners laboured under the threat of starvation or execution if they refused. It is estimated that the combination of very long working hours, harsh climatic and other working conditions, inadequate food, and summary executions killed tens of thousands of prisoners each year. Western scholarly estimates of the total number of deaths in the Gulag in the period from 1918 to 1956 ranged from 1.2 to 1.7 million.
Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, estimates of Gulag victims ranged from 2.3 to 17.6 million (see History of Gulag population estimates). Mortality in Gulag camps in 1934–40 was 4–6 times higher than average in the Soviet Union. Post-1991 research by historians accessing archival materials brought this range down considerably. In a 1993 study of archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953.
It was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or near death, so a combined statistics on mortality in the camps and mortality caused by the camps was higher. The tentative historical consensus is that, of the 18 million people who passed through the gulag from 1930 to 1953, between 1.6 million and 1.76 million perished as a result of their detention, and about half of all deaths occurred between 1941 and 1943 following the German invasion. If prisoner deaths from labor colonies and special settlements are included, the death toll rises to 2,749,163, according to J. Otto Pohl's incomplete data.
In her 2018 study, Golfo Alexopoulos attempted to challenge this consensus figure by encompassing those whose life was shortened due to GULAG conditions. Alexopoulos concluded from her research that a systematic practice of the Gulag was to release sick prisoners on the verge of death; and that all prisoners who received the health classification "invalid", "light physical labor", "light individualised labor", or "physically defective" that together according to Alexopoulos encompassed at least one third of all inmates who passed through the Gulag died or had their lives shortened due to detention in the Gulag in captivity or shortly after release.
The GULAG mortality estimated in this way yields the figure of 6 million deaths. Historian Orlando Figes and Russian writer Vadim Erlikman have posited similar estimates. The estimate of Alexopoulos, however, has obvious methodological difficulties and is supported by misinterpreted evidence, such as presuming that hundreds of thousands of prisoners "directed to other places of detention" in 1948 was a euphemism for releasing prisoners on the verge of death into labor colonies, when it was really referring to internal transport in the Gulag rather than release.
In a University of Oxford doctoral dissertation, in 2020, the problem of medical release ('aktirovka') and of mortality among 'certified invalids' ('aktirovannye') was considered in detail by Mikhail Nakonechnyi. He concluded that the number of terminally ill people discharged early on medical grounds from the Gulag was about 1 million. Mikhail added 800,000–850,000 excess deaths to the death toll directly caused by the results of GULAG incarceration, which brings the death toll to 2.5 million people.
In 2009, Steven Rosefielde stated more complete archival data increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537, "the best archivally-based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953." Certificates of death in the Gulag system for the period from 1930 to 1956 Dan Healey in 2018 also stated the same thing "New studies using declassified Gulag archives have provisionally established a consensus on mortality and "inhumanity." The tentative consensus says that once secret records of the Gulag administration in Moscow show a lower death toll than expected from memoir sources, generally between 1.5 and 1.7 million (out of 18 million who passed through) for the years from 1930 to 1953."
Certificates of death in the Gulag system for the period from 1930 to 1956
Living and working conditions in the camps varied significantly across time and place, depending, among other things, on the impact of broader events (World War II, countrywide famines and shortages, waves of terror, sudden influx or release of large numbers of prisoners) and the type of crime committed. Instead of being used for economic gain, political prisoners were typically given the worst work or were dumped into the less productive parts of the gulag. For example Victor Herman, in his memoirs, compares the Burepolom [ru] and the Nuksha [ru] 2 camps, which were both near Vyatka.
In Burepolom there were roughly 3,000 prisoners, all non-political, in the central compound. They could walk around at will, were lightly guarded, had unlocked barracks with mattresses and pillows, and watched western movies. However Nuksha 2, which housed serious criminals and political prisoners, featured guard towers with machine guns and locked barracks. In some camps prisoners were only permitted to send one letter a year and were not allowed to have photos of loved ones.
Some prisoners were released early if they displayed good performance. There were several productive activities for prisoners in the camps. For example, in early 1935, a course in livestock raising was held for prisoners at a state farm; those who took it had their workday reduced to four hours. During that year the professional theater group in the camp complex gave 230 performances of plays and concerts to over 115,000 spectators. Camp newspapers also existed.
Andrei Vyshinsky, chief procurator of the Soviet Union, wrote a memorandum to NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov in 1938, during the Great Purge, which stated:
Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food…they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.
According to Yevgenia Ginzburg Gulag inmates could tell when Yezhov was no longer in charge as one day the conditions relaxed. A few days later Beria's name appeared in official prison notices.
In general, the central administrative bodies showed a discernible interest in maintaining the labor force of prisoners in a condition allowing the fulfilment of construction and production plans handed down from above. Besides a wide array of punishments for prisoners refusing to work (which, in practice, were sometimes applied to prisoners that were too enfeebled to meet production quota), they instituted a number of positive incentives intended to boost productivity. These included monetary bonuses (since the early 1930s) and wage payments (from 1950 onward), cuts of individual sentences, general early-release schemes for norm fulfilment and overfulfilment (until 1939, again in selected camps from 1946 onward), preferential treatment, sentence reduction and privileges for the most productive workers (shock workers or Stakhanovites in Soviet parlance).
Inmates were used as camp guards and could purchase camp newspapers as well as bonds. Robert W. Thurston writes that this was "at least an indication that they were still regarded as participants in society to some degree." Sports team, particularly soccer teams were set up by the prison authorities.
Boris Sulim, a former prisoner who had worked in the Omsuchkan camp, close to Magadan, when he was a teenager stated:
I was 18 years old and Magadan seemed a very romantic place to me. I got 880 rubles a month and a 3000 ruble installation grant, which was a hell of a lot of money for a kid like me. I was able to give my mother some of it. They even gave me membership in the Komsomol. There was a mining and ore-processing plant which sent out parties to dig for tin. I worked at the radio station which kept contact with the parties. [...] If the inmates were good and disciplined they had almost the same rights as the free workers. They were trusted and they even went to the movies. As for the reason they were in the camps, well, I never poked my nose into details. We all thought the people were there because they were guilty.
Immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 the conditions in camps worsened drastically: quotas were increased, rations cut, and medical supplies came close to none, all of which led to a sharp increase in mortality. The situation slowly improved in the final period and after the end of the war.
Considering the overall conditions and their influence on inmates, it is important to distinguish three major strata of Gulag inmates:
The Soviet famine of 1932–1933 swept across many different regions of the Soviet Union. During this time, it is estimated that around six to seven million people starved to death. On 7 August 1932, a new decree drafted by Stalin (Law of Spikelets) specified a minimum sentence of ten years or execution for theft from collective farms or of cooperative property. Over the next few months, prosecutions rose fourfold. A large share of cases prosecuted under the law were for the theft of small quantities of grain worth less than fifty rubles. The law was later relaxed on 8 May 1933. Overall, during the first half of 1933, prisons saw more new incoming inmates than the three previous years combined.
Prisoners in the camps faced harsh working conditions. One Soviet report stated that, in early 1933, up to 15% of the prison population in Soviet Uzbekistan died monthly. During this time, prisoners were getting around 300 calories (1,300 kJ) worth of food a day. Many inmates attempted to flee, causing an upsurge in coercive and violent measures. Camps were directed "not to spare bullets".
The convicts in such camps were actively involved in all kinds of labor with one of them being logging. The working territory of logging presented by itself a square and was surrounded by forest clearing. Thus, all attempts to exit or escape from it were well observed from the four towers set at each of its corners.
Locals who captured a runaway were given rewards. It is also said that camps in colder areas were less concerned with finding escaped prisoners as they would die anyhow from the severely cold winters. In such cases prisoners who did escape without getting shot were often found dead kilometres away from the camp.
In the early days of Gulag, the locations for the camps were chosen primarily for the isolated conditions involved. Remote monasteries in particular were frequently reused as sites for new camps. The site on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea is one of the earliest and also most noteworthy, taking root soon after the Revolution in 1918. The colloquial name for the islands, "Solovki", entered the vernacular as a synonym for the labor camp in general. It was presented to the world as an example of the new Soviet method for "re-education of class enemies" and reintegrating them through labor into Soviet society. Initially the inmates, largely Russian intelligentsia, enjoyed relative freedom within the natural confinement of the islands.
Local newspapers and magazines were published. Even some scientific research was carried out, e.g., a local botanical garden was maintained but unfortunately later lost completely. Eventually Solovki turned into an ordinary Gulag camp. Some historians maintain that it was a pilot camp of this type. In 1929 Maxim Gorky visited the camp and published an apology for it. The report of Gorky's trip to Solovki was included in the cycle of impressions titled "Po Soiuzu Sovetov", Part V, subtitled "Solovki." In the report, Gorky wrote that "camps such as 'Solovki' were absolutely necessary."
With the new emphasis on Gulag as the means of concentrating cheap labor, new camps were then constructed throughout the Soviet sphere of influence, wherever the economic task at hand dictated their existence, or was designed specifically to avail itself of them, such as the White Sea–Baltic Canal or the Baikal–Amur Mainline, including facilities in big cities — parts of the famous Moscow Metro and the Moscow State University new campus were built by forced labor. Many more projects during the rapid industrialisation of the 1930s, war-time and post-war periods were fulfilled on the backs of convicts. The activity of Gulag camps spanned a wide cross-section of Soviet industry. Gorky organized in 1933 a trip of 120 writers and artists to the White Sea–Baltic Canal, 36 of them wrote a propaganda book about the construction published in 1934 and destroyed in 1937.
The majority of Gulag camps were positioned in extremely remote areas of northeastern Siberia (the best known clusters are Sevvostlag (The North-East Camps) along Kolyma river and Norillag near Norilsk) and in the southeastern parts of the Soviet Union, mainly in the steppes of Kazakhstan (Luglag, Steplag, Peschanlag). A detailed map was made by the Memorial Foundation.
These were vast and sparsely inhabited regions with no roads or sources of food, but rich in minerals and other natural resources, such as timber. The construction of the roads was assigned to the inmates of specialised railway camps. Camps were generally spread throughout the entire Soviet Union, including the European parts of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
There were several camps outside the Soviet Union, in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Mongolia, which were under the direct control of the Gulag.
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, there were at least 476 separate camp administrations. The Russian researcher Galina Ivanova stated that,
to date, Russian historians have discovered and described 476 camps that existed at different times on the territory of the USSR. It is well known that practically every one of them had several branches, many of which were quite large. In addition to the large numbers of camps, there were no less than 2,000 colonies. It would be virtually impossible to reflect the entire mass of Gulag facilities on a map that would also account for the various times of their existence.
Since many of these existed only for short periods, the number of camp administrations at any given point was lower. It peaked in the early 1950s when there were more than 100 camp administrations across the Soviet Union. Most camp administrations oversaw several single camp units, some as many as dozens or even hundreds. The infamous complexes were those at Kolyma, Norilsk, and Vorkuta, all in arctic or subarctic regions. However, prisoner mortality in Norilsk in most periods was actually lower than across the camp system as a whole.
According to historian Stephen Barnes, the origins and functions of the Gulag can be looked at in four major ways:
Hannah Arendt argues that as part of a totalitarian system of government, the camps of the Gulag system were experiments in "total domination." In her view, the goal of a totalitarian system was not merely to establish limits on liberty, but rather to abolish liberty entirely in service of its ideology. She argues that the Gulag system was not merely political repression because the system survived and grew long after Stalin had wiped out all serious political resistance. Although the various camps were initially filled with criminals and political prisoners, eventually they were filled with prisoners who were arrested irrespective of anything relating to them as individuals, but rather only on the basis of their membership in some ever shifting category of imagined threats to the state.
She also argues that the function of the Gulag system was not truly economic. Although the Soviet government deemed them all "forced labor" camps, this in fact highlighted that the work in the camps was deliberately pointless, since all Russian workers could be subject to forced labor. The only real economic purpose they typically served was financing the cost of their own supervision. Otherwise the work performed was generally useless, either by design or made that way through extremely poor planning and execution; some workers even preferred more difficult work if it was actually productive. She differentiated between "authentic" forced-labor camps, concentration camps, and "annihilation camps".
In authentic labor camps, inmates worked in "relative freedom and are sentenced for limited periods." Concentration camps had extremely high mortality rates and but were still "essentially organized for labor purposes." Annihilation camps were those where the inmates were "systematically wiped out through starvation and neglect." She criticizes other commentators' conclusion that the purpose of the camps was a supply of cheap labor. According to her, the Soviets were able to liquidate the camp system without serious economic consequences, showing that the camps were not an important source of labor and were overall economically irrelevant.
Arendt argues that together with the systematized, arbitrary cruelty inside the camps, this served the purpose of total domination by eliminating the idea that the arrestees had any political or legal rights. Morality was destroyed by maximizing cruelty and by organizing the camps internally to make the inmates and guards complicit. The terror resulting from the operation of the Gulag system caused people outside of the camps to cut all ties with anyone who was arrested or purged and to avoid forming ties with others for fear of being associated with anyone who was targeted. As a result, the camps were essential as the nucleus of a system that destroyed individuality and dissolved all social bonds. Thereby, the system attempted to eliminate any capacity for resistance or self-directed action in the greater population.
Statistical reports made by the OGPU–NKVD–MGB–MVD between the 1930s and 1950s are kept in the State Archive of the Russian Federation formerly called Central State Archive of the October Revolution (CSAOR). These documents were highly classified and inaccessible. Amid glasnost and democratization in the late 1980s, Viktor Zemskov and other Russian researchers managed to gain access to the documents and published the highly classified statistical data collected by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD and related to the number of the Gulag prisoners, special settlers, etc. In 1995, Zemskov wrote that foreign scientists have begun to be admitted to the restricted-access collection of these documents in the State Archive of the Russian Federation since 1992. However, only one historian, namely Zemskov, was admitted to these archives, and later the archives were again "closed", according to Leonid Lopatnikov. Pressure from the Putin administration has exacerbated the difficulties of Gulag researchers.
While considering the issue of reliability of the primary data provided by corrective labor institutions, it is necessary to take into account the following two circumstances. On the one hand, their administration was not interested to understate the number of prisoners in its reports, because it would have automatically led to a decrease in the food supply plan for camps, prisons, and corrective labor colonies. The decrement in food would have been accompanied by an increase in mortality that would have led to wrecking of the vast production program of the Gulag. On the other hand, overstatement of data of the number of prisoners also did not comply with departmental interests, because it was fraught with the same (i.e., impossible) increase in production tasks set by planning bodies. In those days, people were highly responsible for non-fulfilment of plan. It seems that a resultant of these objective departmental interests was a sufficient degree of reliability of the reports.
Between 1990 and 1992, the first precise statistical data on the Gulag based on the Gulag archives were published by Viktor Zemskov. These had been generally accepted by leading Western scholars, despite the fact that a number of inconsistencies were found in this statistics. It is also necessary to note that not all the conclusions drawn by Zemskov based on his data have been generally accepted. Thus, Sergei Maksudov alleged that although literary sources, for example the books of Lev Razgon or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, did not envisage the total number of the camps very well and markedly exaggerated their size. On the other hand, Viktor Zemskov, who published many documents by the NKVD and KGB, was far from understanding of the Gulag essence and the nature of socio-political processes in the country. He added that without distinguishing the degree of accuracy and reliability of certain figures, without making a critical analysis of sources, without comparing new data with already known information, Zemskov absolutizes the published materials by presenting them as the ultimate truth. As a result, Maksudov charges that Zemskov's attempts to make generalized statements with reference to a particular document, as a rule, do not hold water.
In response, Zemskov wrote that the charge that he allegedly did not compare new data with already known information could not be called fair. In his words, the trouble with most western writers is that they do not benefit from such comparisons. Zemskov added that when he tried not to overuse the juxtaposition of new information with "old" one, it was only because of a sense of delicacy, not to once again psychologically traumatize the researchers whose works used incorrect figures, as it turned out after the publication of the statistics by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD.
According to French historian Nicolas Werth, the mountains of the materials of the Gulag archives, which are stored in funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and were being constantly exposed during the last fifteen years, represent only a very small part of bureaucratic prose of immense size left over after the decades of "creativity" by the "dull and reptile" organization managing the Gulag. In many cases, local camp archives, which had been stored in sheds, barracks, or other rapidly disintegrating buildings, simply disappeared in the same way as most of the camp buildings did.
In 2004 and 2005, some archival documents were published in the edition Istoriya Stalinskogo Gulaga. Konets 1920-kh — Pervaya Polovina 1950-kh Godov. Sobranie Dokumentov v 7 Tomakh (The History of Stalin's Gulag. From the Late 1920s to the First Half of the 1950s. Collection of Documents in Seven Volumes), wherein each of its seven volumes covered a particular issue indicated in the title of the volume:
The edition contains the brief introductions by the two "patriarchs of the Gulag science", Robert Conquest and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and 1431 documents, the overwhelming majority of which were obtained from funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation.
During the decades before the dissolution of the USSR, the debates about the population size of GULAG failed to arrive at generally accepted figures; wide-ranging estimates have been offered, and the bias toward higher or lower side was sometimes ascribed to political views of the particular author. Some of those earlier estimates (both high and low) are shown in the table below.
The glasnost political reforms in the late 1980s and the subsequent dissolution of the USSR led to the release of a large amount of formerly classified archival documents, including new demographic and NKVD data. Analysis of the official GULAG statistics by Western scholars immediately demonstrated that, despite their inconsistency, they do not support previously published higher estimates. Importantly, the released documents made possible to clarify terminology used to describe different categories of forced labor population, because the use of the terms "forced labor", "GULAG", "camps" interchangeably by early researchers led to significant confusion and resulted in significant inconsistencies in the earlier estimates.
Archival studies revealed several components of the NKVD penal system in the Stalinist USSR: prisons, labor camps, labor colonies, as well as various "settlements" (exile) and of non-custodial forced labor. Although most of them fit the definition of forced labor, only labor camps, and labor colonies were associated with punitive forced labor in detention. Forced labor camps ("GULAG camps") were hard regime camps, whose inmates were serving more than three-year terms. As a rule, they were situated in remote parts of the USSR, and labor conditions were extremely hard there. They formed a core of the GULAG system. The inmates of "corrective labor colonies" served shorter terms; these colonies were located in less remote parts of the USSR, and they were run by local NKVD administration.
Preliminary analysis of the GULAG camps and colonies statistics (see the chart on the right) demonstrated that the population reached the maximum before the World War II, then dropped sharply, partially due to massive releases, partially due to wartime high mortality, and then was gradually increasing until the end of Stalin era, reaching the global maximum in 1953, when the combined population of GULAG camps and labor colonies amounted to 2,625,000.
The results of these archival studies convinced many scholars, including Robert Conquest or Stephen Wheatcroft to reconsider their earlier estimates of the size of the GULAG population, although the 'high numbers' of arrested and deaths are not radically different from earlier estimates. Although such scholars as Rosefielde or Vishnevsky point at several inconsistencies in archival data with Rosefielde pointing out the archival figure of 1,196,369 for the population of the Gulag and labor colonies combined on December 31, 1936, is less than half the 2.75 million labor camp population given to the Census Board by the NKVD for the 1937 census, it is generally believed that these data provide more reliable and detailed information that the indirect data and literary sources available for the scholars during the Cold War era. Although Conquest cited Beria's report to the Politburo of the labor camp numbers at the end of 1938 stating there were almost 7 million prisoners in the labor camps, more than three times the archival figure for 1938 and an official report to Stalin by the Soviet minister of State Security in 1952 stating there were 12 million prisoners in the labor camps.
These data allowed scholars to conclude that during the period of 1928–53, about 14 million prisoners passed through the system of GULAG labor camps and 4–5 million passed through the labor colonies. Thus, these figures reflect the number of convicted persons, and do not take into account the fact that a significant part of Gulag inmates had been convicted more than one time, so the actual number of convicted is somewhat overstated by these statistics. From other hand, during some periods of Gulag history the official figures of GULAG population reflected the camps' capacity, not the actual number of inmates, so the actual figures were 15% higher in, e.g. 1946.
The USSR implemented a number of labor disciplinary measures, due to the lack of productivity of its labour force in the early 1930s. 1.8 million workers were sentenced to 6 months in forced labor with a quarter of their original pay, 3.3 million faced sanctions, and 60k were imprisoned for absentees in 1940 alone. The conditions of Soviet workers worsened in WW2 as 1.3 million were punished in 1942, and 1 million each were punished in subsequent 1943 and 1944 with the reduction of 25% of food rations. Further more, 460 thousand were imprisoned throughout these years.
The Gulag spanned nearly four decades of Soviet and East European history and affected millions of individuals. Its cultural impact was enormous.
The Gulag has become a major influence on contemporary Russian thinking, and an important part of modern Russian folklore. Many songs by the authors-performers known as the bards, most notably Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich, neither of whom ever served time in the camps, describe life inside the Gulag and glorified the life of "zeks". Words and phrases which originated in the labor camps became part of the Russian/Soviet vernacular in the 1960s and 1970s. The memoirs of Alexander Dolgun, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Varlam Shalamov and Yevgenia Ginzburg, among others, became a symbol of defiance in Soviet society. These writings harshly chastised the Soviet people for their tolerance and apathy regarding the Gulag, but at the same time provided a testament to the courage and resolve of those who were imprisoned.
Another cultural phenomenon in the Soviet Union linked with the Gulag was the forced migration of many artists and other people of culture to Siberia. This resulted in a Renaissance of sorts in places like Magadan, where, for example, the quality of theatre production was comparable to Moscow's and Eddie Rosner played jazz.
Many eyewitness accounts of Gulag prisoners have been published:
Soviet state documents show that the goals of the gulag included colonization of sparsely populated remote areas and exploiting its resources using forced labor. In 1929, OGPU was given the task to colonize these areas. To this end, the notion of "free settlement" was introduced. On 12 April 1930 Genrikh Yagoda wrote to the OGPU Commission:
The camps must be transformed into colonizing settlements, without waiting for the end of periods of confinement... Here is my plan: to turn all the prisoners into a settler population until they have served their sentences.
When well-behaved persons had served the majority of their terms, they could be released for "free settlement" (вольное поселение, volnoye poseleniye) outside the confinement of the camp. They were known as "free settlers" (вольнопоселенцы, volnoposelentsy; not to be confused with the term ссыльнопоселенцы, ssyl'noposelentsy, "exile settlers"). In addition, for persons who served full term, but who were denied the free choice of place of residence, it was recommended to assign them for "free settlement" and give them land in the general vicinity of the place of confinement.
The gulag inherited this approach from the katorga system.
It is estimated that of the 40,000 people collecting state pensions in Vorkuta, 32,000 are trapped former gulag inmates, or their descendants.
Persons who served a term in a camp or prison were restricted from taking a wide range of jobs. Concealment of a previous imprisonment was a triable offence. Persons who served terms as "politicals" were nuisances for "First Departments" (Первый Отдел, Pervyj Otdel, outlets of the secret police at all enterprises and institutions), because former "politicals" had to be monitored.
Many people who were released from camps were restricted from settling in larger cities.
Both Moscow and St. Petersburg have memorials to the victims of the Gulag made of boulders from the Solovki camp — the first prison camp in the Gulag system. Moscow's memorial is on Lubyanka Square, the site of the headquarters of the NKVD. People gather at these memorials every year on the Day of Victims of the Repression (October 30).
Moscow has the State Gulag Museum whose first director was Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko. In 2015, another museum dedicated to the Gulag was opened in Moscow. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in the English language the term \"gulag\" (lowercase) can be used as a generic term in the meaning \"Soviet forced labor camp\". The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for \"Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й\" (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps), but the full official name of the agency changed several times.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. In 1918–1922, the agency was administered by the Cheka, followed by the GPU (1922–1923), the OGPU (1923–1934), later known as the NKVD (1934–1946), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the final years. The Solovki prison camp, the first correctional labour camp which was constructed after the revolution, was opened in 1918 and legalized by a decree, \"On the creation of the forced-labor camps\", on April 15, 1919.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. By the end of 1940, the population of the Gulag camps amounted to 1.5 million. The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million prisoners perished there or they died soon after they were released. Some journalists and writers who question the reliability of such data heavily rely on memoir sources that come to higher estimations. Archival researchers have found \"no plan of destruction\" of the gulag population and no statement of official intent to kill them, and prisoner releases vastly exceeded the number of deaths in the Gulag. This policy can partially be attributed to the common practice of releasing prisoners who were suffering from incurable diseases as well as prisoners who were near death.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Almost immediately after the death of Stalin, the Soviet establishment started to dismantle the Gulag system. A mass general amnesty was granted in the immediate aftermath of Stalin's death, but it was only offered to non-political prisoners and political prisoners who had been sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. Shortly thereafter, Nikita Khrushchev was elected First Secretary, initiating the processes of de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw, triggering a mass release and rehabilitation of political prisoners. Six years later, on 25 January 1960, the Gulag system was officially abolished when the remains of its administration were dissolved by Khrushchev. The legal practice of sentencing convicts to penal labor continues to exist in the Russian Federation, but its capacity is greatly reduced.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, gave the term its international repute with the publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The author likened the scattered camps to \"a chain of islands\", and as an eyewitness, he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death. In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates (simply referred to as \"camps\") and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union. Many mining and industrial towns and cities in northern Russia, eastern Russia and Kazakhstan such as Karaganda, Norilsk, Vorkuta and Magadan, were blocks of camps which were originally built by prisoners and subsequently run by ex-prisoners.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for \"Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й\" (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps). It was renamed several times, e.g., to Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies (Главное управление исправительно-трудовых колоний (ГУИТК)), which names can be seen in the documents describing the subordination of various camps.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Some historians estimate that 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953 (the estimates for the period from 1918 to 1929 are more difficult to calculate). Other calculations, by historian Orlando Figes, refer to 25 million prisoners of the Gulag in 1928–1953. A further 6–7 million were deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR, and 4–5 million passed through labor colonies, plus 3.5 million who were already in, or had been sent to, labor settlements.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "According to some estimates, the total population of the camps varied from 510,307 in 1934 to 1,727,970 in 1953. According to other estimates, at the beginning of 1953 the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners. Between the years 1934 to 1953, 20% to 40% of the Gulag population in each given year were released.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The institutional analysis of the Soviet concentration system is complicated by the formal distinction between GULAG and GUPVI. GUPVI (ГУПВИ) was the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees (Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных, Glavnoye upravleniye po delam voyennoplennyh i internirovannyh), a department of NKVD (later MVD) in charge of handling of foreign civilian internees and POWs (prisoners of war) in the Soviet Union during and in the aftermath of World War II (1939–1953). In many ways the GUPVI system was similar to GULAG.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Its major function was the organization of foreign forced labor in the Soviet Union. The top management of GUPVI came from the GULAG system. The major memoir noted distinction from GULAG was the absence of convicted criminals in the GUPVI camps. Otherwise the conditions in both camp systems were similar: hard labor, poor nutrition and living conditions, and high mortality rate.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "For the Soviet political prisoners, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, all foreign civilian detainees and foreign POWs were imprisoned in the GULAG; the surviving foreign civilians and POWs considered themselves prisoners in the GULAG. According to the estimates, in total, during the whole period of the existence of the GUPVI, there were over 500 POW camps (within the Soviet Union and abroad), which imprisoned over 4,000,000 POW. Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of political prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Petty crimes and jokes about the Soviet government and officials were punishable by imprisonment. About half of political prisoners in the Gulag camps were imprisoned \"by administrative means\", i.e., without trial at courts; official data suggest that there were over 2.6 million sentences to imprisonment on cases investigated by the secret police throughout 1921–53. Maximum sentences varied depending on the type of crime and changed over time. From 1953 the maximum sentence for petty theft was six months, having previously been one year and seven years. Theft of state property however had a minimum sentence of seven years and a maximum of twenty five. In 1958 the maximum sentence for any crime was reduced from twenty five to fifteen years.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1960, the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) ceased to function as the Soviet-wide administration of the camps in favour of individual republic MVD branches. The centralised detention administrations temporarily ceased functioning.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Although the term Gulag was originally used in reference to a government agency, in English and many other languages, the acronym acquired the qualities of a common noun, denoting the Soviet system of prison-based, unfree labor.",
"title": "Contemporary usage of the word and the usage of other terms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Even more broadly, \"Gulag\" has come to mean the Soviet repressive system itself, the set of procedures that prisoners once called the \"meat-grinder\": the arrests, the interrogations, the transport in unheated cattle cars, the forced labor, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths.",
"title": "Contemporary usage of the word and the usage of other terms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Western authors use the term Gulag to denote all the prisons and internment camps in the Soviet Union. The term's contemporary usage is at times notably not directly related to the USSR, such as in the expression \"North Korea's Gulag\" for camps operational today.",
"title": "Contemporary usage of the word and the usage of other terms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The word Gulag was not often used in Russian, either officially or colloquially; the predominant terms were the camps (лагеря, lagerya) and the zone (зона, zona), usually singular, for the labor camp system and for the individual camps. The official term, \"correctional labour camp\", was suggested for official use by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the session of July 27, 1929.",
"title": "Contemporary usage of the word and the usage of other terms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Tsar and the Russian Empire both used forced exile and forced labour as forms of judicial punishment. Katorga, a category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment: confinement, simplified facilities (as opposed to the facilities which existed in prisons), and forced labor, usually involving hard, unskilled or semi-skilled work. According to historian Anne Applebaum, katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 katorga convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 in 1916. Under the Imperial Russian penal system, those who were convicted of less serious crimes were sent to corrective prisons and they were also made to work.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Forced exile to Siberia had been in use for a wide range of offenses since the seventeenth century and it was a common punishment for political dissidents and revolutionaries. In the nineteenth century, the members of the failed Decembrist revolt and Polish nobles who resisted Russian rule were sent into exile. Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to die for reading banned literature in 1849, but the sentence was commuted to banishment to Siberia. Members of various socialist revolutionary groups, including Bolsheviks such as Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin were also sent into exile.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Convicts who were serving labor sentences and exiles were sent to the underpopulated areas of Siberia and the Russian Far East – regions that lacked towns or food sources as well as organized transportation systems. Despite the isolated conditions, some prisoners successfully escaped to populated areas. Stalin himself escaped three of the four times after he was sent into exile. Since these times, Siberia gained its fearful connotation as a place of punishment, a reputation which was further enhanced by the Soviet GULAG system. The Bolsheviks' own experiences with exile and forced labor provided them with a model which they could base their own system on, including the importance of strict enforcement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "From 1920 to 1950, the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state considered repression a tool that they should use to secure the normal functioning of the Soviet state system and preserve and strengthen their positions within their social base, the working class (when the Bolsheviks took power, peasants represented 80% of the population).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the midst of the Russian Civil War, Lenin and the Bolsheviks established a \"special\" prison camp system, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the Cheka. These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose. These early camps of the GULAG system were introduced in order to isolate and eliminate class-alien, socially dangerous, disruptive, suspicious, and other disloyal elements, whose deeds and thoughts were not contributing to the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Forced labor as a \"method of reeducation\" was applied in the Solovki prison camp as early as the 1920s, based on Trotsky's experiments with forced labor camps for Czech war prisoners from 1918 and his proposals to introduce \"compulsory labor service\" voiced in Terrorism and Communism. Various categories of prisoners were defined: petty criminals, POWs of the Russian Civil War, officials accused of corruption, sabotage and embezzlement, political enemies, dissidents and other people deemed dangerous for the state. In the first decade of Soviet rule, the judicial and penal systems were neither unified nor coordinated, and there was a distinction between criminal prisoners and political or \"special\" prisoners.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The \"traditional\" judicial and prison system, which dealt with criminal prisoners, were first overseen by The People's Commissariat of Justice until 1922, after which they were overseen by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, also known as the NKVD. The Cheka and its successor organizations, the GPU or State Political Directorate and the OGPU, oversaw political prisoners and the \"special\" camps to which they were sent. In April 1929, the judicial distinctions between criminal and political prisoners were eliminated, and control of the entire Soviet penal system turned over to the OGPU. In 1928 there were 30,000 individuals interned; the authorities were opposed to compelled labor. In 1927 the official in charge of prison administration wrote:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The exploitation of prison labour, the system of squeezing \"golden sweat\" from them, the organisation of production in places of confinement, which while profitable from a commercial point of view is fundamentally lacking in corrective significance – these are entirely inadmissible in Soviet places of confinement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The legal base and the guidance for the creation of the system of \"corrective labor camps\" (исправи́тельно-трудовые лагеря, Ispravitel'no-trudovye lagerya), the backbone of what is commonly referred to as the \"Gulag\", was a secret decree from the Sovnarkom of July 11, 1929, about the use of penal labor that duplicated the corresponding appendix to the minutes of the Politburo meeting of June 27, 1929.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "One of the Gulag system founders was Naftaly Frenkel. In 1923 he was arrested for illegally crossing borders and smuggling. He was sentenced to 10 years' hard labor at Solovki, which later came to be known as the \"first camp of the Gulag\". While serving his sentence he wrote a letter to the camp administration detailing a number of \"productivity improvement\" proposals including the infamous system of labor exploitation whereby the inmates' food rations were to be linked to their rate of production, a proposal known as nourishment scale (шкала питания). This notorious you-eat-as-you-work system would often kill weaker prisoners in weeks and caused countless casualties. The letter caught the attention of a number of high communist officials including Genrikh Yagoda and Frenkel soon went from being an inmate to becoming a camp commander and an important Gulag official. His proposals soon saw widespread adoption in the Gulag system.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "After having appeared as an instrument and place for isolating counter-revolutionary and criminal elements, the Gulag, because of its principle of \"correction by forced labor\", quickly became, in fact, an independent branch of the national economy secured on the cheap labor force presented by prisoners. Hence it is followed by one more important reason for the constancy of the repressive policy, namely, the state's interest in unremitting rates of receiving a cheap labor force that was forcibly used, mainly in the extreme conditions of the east and north. The Gulag possessed both punitive and economic functions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Gulag was an administration body that watched over the camps; eventually its name would be used for these camps retrospectively. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin was able to take control of the government, and began to form the gulag system. On June 27, 1929, the Politburo created a system of self-supporting camps that would eventually replace the existing prisons around the country. These prisons were meant to receive inmates that received a prison sentence that exceeded three years. Prisoners that had a shorter prison sentence than three years were to remain in the prison system that was still under the purview of the NKVD.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The purpose of these new camps was to colonise the remote and inhospitable environments throughout the Soviet Union. These changes took place around the same time that Stalin started to institute collectivisation and rapid industrial development. Collectivisation resulted in a large scale purge of peasants and so-called Kulaks. The Kulaks were supposedly wealthy, comparatively to other Soviet peasants, and were considered to be capitalists by the state, and by extension enemies of socialism. The term would also become associated with anyone who opposed or even seemed unsatisfied with the Soviet government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "By late 1929 Stalin began a program known as dekulakization. Stalin demanded that the kulak class be completely wiped out, resulting in the imprisonment and execution of Soviet peasants. In a mere four months, 60,000 people were sent to the camps and another 154,000 exiled. This was only the beginning of the dekulakisation process, however. In 1931 alone 1,803,392 people were exiled.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Although these massive relocation processes were successful in getting a large potential free forced labor work force where they needed to be, that is about all it was successful at doing. The \"special settlers\", as the Soviet government referred to them, all lived on starvation level rations, and many people starved to death in the camps, and anyone who was healthy enough to escape tried to do just that. This resulted in the government having to give rations to a group of people they were getting hardly any use out of, and was just costing the Soviet government money. The Unified State Political Administration (OGPU) quickly realised the problem, and began to reform the dekulakisation process.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "To help prevent the mass escapes the OGPU started to recruit people within the colony to help stop people who attempted to leave, and set up ambushes around known popular escape routes. The OGPU also attempted to raise the living conditions in these camps that would not encourage people to actively try and escape, and Kulaks were promised that they would regain their rights after five years. Even these revisions ultimately failed to resolve the problem, and the dekulakisation process was a failure in providing the government with a steady forced labor force. These prisoners were also lucky to be in the gulag in the early 1930s. Prisoners were relatively well off compared to what the prisoners would have to go through in the final years of the gulag. The Gulag was officially established on April 25, 1930, as the GULAG by the OGPU order 130/63 in accordance with the Sovnarkom order 22 p. 248 dated April 7, 1930. It was renamed as the GULAG in November of that year.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The hypothesis that economic considerations were responsible for mass arrests during the period of Stalinism has been refuted on the grounds of former Soviet archives that have become accessible since the 1990s, although some archival sources also tend to support an economic hypothesis. In any case, the development of the camp system followed economic lines. The growth of the camp system coincided with the peak of the Soviet industrialisation campaign. Most of the camps established to accommodate the masses of incoming prisoners were assigned distinct economic tasks. These included the exploitation of natural resources and the colonization of remote areas, as well as the realisation of enormous infrastructural facilities and industrial construction projects. The plan to achieve these goals with \"special settlements\" instead of labor camps was dropped after the revealing of the Nazino affair in 1933.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The 1931–32 archives indicate the Gulag had approximately 200,000 prisoners in the camps; while in 1935, approximately 800,000 were in camps and 300,000 in colonies. Gulag population reached a peak value (1.5 million) in 1941, gradually decreased during the war and then started to grow again, achieving a maximum by 1953. Besides Gulag camps, a significant amount of prisoners, which confined prisoners serving short sentence terms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the early 1930s, a tightening of the Soviet penal policy caused a significant growth of the prison camp population.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "During the Great Purge of 1937–38, mass arrests caused another increase in inmate numbers. Hundreds of thousands of persons were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on the grounds of one of the multiple passages of the notorious Article 58 of the Criminal Codes of the Union republics, which defined punishment for various forms of \"counterrevolutionary activities\". Under NKVD Order No. 00447, tens of thousands of Gulag inmates were executed in 1937–38 for \"continuing counterrevolutionary activities\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Between 1934 and 1941, the number of prisoners with higher education increased more than eight times, and the number of prisoners with high education increased five times. It resulted in their increased share in the overall composition of the camp prisoners. Among the camp prisoners, the number and share of the intelligentsia was growing at the quickest pace. Distrust, hostility, and even hatred for the intelligentsia was a common characteristic of the Soviet leaders. Information regarding the imprisonment trends and consequences for the intelligentsia derive from the extrapolations of Viktor Zemskov from a collection of prison camp population movements data.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "On the eve of World War II, Soviet archives indicate a combined camp and colony population upwards of 1.6 million in 1939, according to V. P. Kozlov. Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde estimate that 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in Gulag system's prison camps and colonies when the war started.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "After the German invasion of Poland that marked the start of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic. In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) and Bukovina. According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens and inhabitants of the other annexed lands, regardless of their ethnic origin, were arrested and sent to the Gulag camps. However, according to the official data, the total number of sentences for political and anti-state (espionage, terrorism) crimes in the USSR in 1939–41 was 211,106.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Approximately 300,000 Polish prisoners of war were captured by the USSR during and after the \"Polish Defensive War\". Almost all of the captured officers and a large number of ordinary soldiers were then murdered (see Katyn massacre) or sent to Gulag. Of the 10,000–12,000 Poles sent to Kolyma in 1940–41, most prisoners of war, only 583 men survived, released in 1942 to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East. Out of General Anders' 80,000 evacuees from Soviet Union gathered in Great Britain only 310 volunteered to return to Soviet-controlled Poland in 1947.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "During the Great Patriotic War, Gulag populations declined sharply due to a steep rise in mortality in 1942–43. In the winter of 1941 a quarter of the Gulag's population died of starvation. 516,841 prisoners died in prison camps in 1941–43, from a combination of their harsh working conditions and the famine caused by the German invasion. This period accounts for about half of all gulag deaths, according to Russian statistics.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1943, the term katorga works (каторжные работы) was reintroduced. They were initially intended for Nazi collaborators, but then other categories of political prisoners (for example, members of deported peoples who fled from exile) were also sentenced to \"katorga works\". Prisoners sentenced to \"katorga works\" were sent to Gulag prison camps with the most harsh regime and many of them perished.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Up until World War II, the Gulag system expanded dramatically to create a Soviet \"camp economy\". Right before the war, forced labor provided 46.5% of the nation's nickel, 76% of its tin, 40% of its cobalt, 40.5% of its chrome-iron ore, 60% of its gold, and 25.3% of its timber. And in preparation for war, the NKVD put up many more factories and built highways and railroads.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Gulag quickly switched to the production of arms and supplies for the army after fighting began. At first, transportation remained a priority. In 1940 the NKVD focused most of its energy on railroad construction. This would prove extremely important when the German advance into the Soviet Union started in 1941. In addition, factories converted to produce ammunition, uniforms, and other supplies. Moreover, the NKVD gathered skilled workers and specialists from throughout the Gulag into 380 special colonies which produced tanks, aircraft, armaments, and ammunition.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Despite its low capital costs, the camp economy suffered from serious flaws. For one, actual productivity almost never matched estimates: the estimates proved far too optimistic. In addition, scarcity of machinery and tools plagued the camps and the tools that the camps did have quickly broke. The Eastern Siberian Trust of the Chief Administration of Camps for Highway Construction destroyed ninety-four trucks in just three years. But the greatest problem was simple – forced labor was less efficient than free labor. In fact, prisoners in the Gulag were, on average, half as productive as free laborers in the USSR at the time, which may be partially explained by malnutrition.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "To make up for this disparity, the NKVD worked prisoners harder than ever. To meet rising demand, prisoners worked longer and longer hours, and on lower food-rations than ever before. A camp administrator said in a meeting: \"There are cases when a prisoner is given only four or five hours out of twenty-four for rest, which significantly lowers his productivity.\" In the words of a former Gulag prisoner: \"By the spring of 1942, the camp ceased to function. It was difficult to find people who were even able to gather firewood or bury the dead.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The scarcity of food stemmed in part from the general strain on the entire Soviet Union, but also the lack of central aid to the Gulag during the war. The central government focused all its attention on the military and left the camps to their own devices. In 1942 the Gulag set up the Supply Administration to find their own food and industrial goods. During this time, not only did food become scarce, but the NKVD limited rations in an attempt to motivate the prisoners to work harder for more food, a policy that lasted until 1948.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In addition to food shortages, the Gulag suffered from labor scarcity at the beginning of the war. The Great Terror of 1936–1938 had provided a large supply of free labor, but by the start of World War II the purges had slowed down. In order to complete all of their projects, camp administrators moved prisoners from project to project. To improve the situation, laws were implemented in mid-1940 that allowed giving short camp sentences (4 months or a year) to those convicted of petty theft, hooliganism, or labor-discipline infractions. By January 1941 the Gulag workforce had increased by approximately 300,000 prisoners. But in 1942 serious food shortages began, and camp populations dropped again. The camps lost still more prisoners to the war effort as the Soviet Union went into a total war footing in June 1941. Many laborers received early releases so that they could be drafted and sent to the front.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Even as the pool of workers shrank, demand for outputs continued to grow rapidly. As a result, the Soviet government pushed the Gulag to \"do more with less\". With fewer able-bodied workers and few supplies from outside the camp system, camp administrators had to find a way to maintain production. The solution they found was to push the remaining prisoners still harder. The NKVD employed a system of setting unrealistically high production goals, straining resources in an attempt to encourage higher productivity. As the Axis armies pushed into Soviet territory from June 1941 on, labor resources became further strained, and many of the camps had to evacuate out of Western Russia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "From the beginning of the war to halfway through 1944, 40 camps were set up, and 69 were disbanded. During evacuations, machinery received priority, leaving prisoners to reach safety on foot. The speed of Operation Barbarossa's advance prevented the evacuation of all prisoners in good time, and the NKVD massacred many to prevent them from falling into German hands. While this practice denied the Germans a source of free labor, it also further restricted the Gulag's capacity to keep up with the Red Army's demands. When the tide of the war turned, however, and the Soviets started pushing the Axis invaders back, fresh batches of laborers replenished the camps. As the Red Army recaptured territories from the Germans, an influx of Soviet ex-POWs greatly increased the Gulag population.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "After World War II the number of inmates in prison camps and colonies, again, rose sharply, reaching approximately 2.5 million people by the early 1950s (about 1.7 million of whom were in camps).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, as many as two million former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated into the USSR. On February 11, 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the Soviet Union. One interpretation of this agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets. British and United States civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union up to two million former residents of the Soviet Union, including persons who had left the Russian Empire and established different citizenship years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Multiple sources state that Soviet POWs, on their return to the Soviet Union, were treated as traitors (see Order No. 270). According to some sources, over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag. However, that is a confusion with two other types of camps. During and after World War II, freed POWs went to special \"filtration\" camps. Of these, by 1944, more than 90 percent were cleared, and about 8 percent were arrested or condemned to penal battalions. In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by the NKVD.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Furthermore, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated Ostarbeiter, POWs, and other displaced persons, which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, the major part of the population of these camps were cleared by NKVD and either sent home or conscripted (see table for details). 226,127 out of 1,539,475 POWs were transferred to the NKVD, i.e. the Gulag.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "After Nazi Germany's defeat, ten NKVD-run \"special camps\" subordinate to the Gulag were set up in the Soviet Occupation Zone of post-war Germany. These \"special camps\" were former Stalags, prisons, or Nazi concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen (special camp number 7) and Buchenwald (special camp number 2). According to German government estimates \"65,000 people died in those Soviet-run camps or in transportation to them.\" According to German researchers, Sachsenhausen, where 12,500 Soviet era victims have been uncovered, should be seen as an integral part of the Gulag system.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Yet the major reason for the post-war increase in the number of prisoners was the tightening of legislation on property offences in summer 1947 (at this time there was a famine in some parts of the Soviet Union, claiming about 1 million lives), which resulted in hundreds of thousands of convictions to lengthy prison terms, sometimes on the basis of cases of petty theft or embezzlement. At the beginning of 1953, the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In 1948 the system of \"special camps\" was established exclusively for a \"special contingent\" of political prisoners, convicted according to the more severe sub-articles of Article 58 (Enemies of people): treason, espionage, terrorism, etc., for various real political opponents, such as Trotskyites, \"nationalists\" (Ukrainian nationalism), white émigré, as well as for fabricated ones.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The state continued to maintain the extensive camp system for a while after Stalin's death in March 1953, although the period saw the grip of the camp authorities weaken, and a number of conflicts and uprisings occur (see Bitch Wars; Kengir uprising; Vorkuta uprising).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The amnesty of 1953 was limited to non-political prisoners and for political prisoners sentenced to not more than 5 years, therefore mostly those convicted for common crimes were then freed. The release of political prisoners started in 1954 and became widespread, and also coupled with mass rehabilitations, after Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism in his Secret Speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The Gulag institution was closed by the MVD order No 020 of January 25, 1960 but forced labor colonies for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist. Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps Perm-36 until 1987 when it was closed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The Russian penal system, despite reforms and a reduction in prison population, informally or formally continues many practices endemic to the Gulag system, including forced labor, inmates policing inmates, and prisoner intimidation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In the late 2000s, some human rights activists accused authorities of gradual removal of Gulag remembrance from places such as Perm-36 and Solovki prison camp.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "According to Encyclopædia Britannica,",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "At its height the Gulag consisted of many hundreds of camps, with the average camp holding 2,000–10,000 prisoners. Most of these camps were \"corrective labour colonies\" in which prisoners felled timber, laboured on general construction projects (such as the building of canals and railroads), or worked in mines. Most prisoners laboured under the threat of starvation or execution if they refused. It is estimated that the combination of very long working hours, harsh climatic and other working conditions, inadequate food, and summary executions killed tens of thousands of prisoners each year. Western scholarly estimates of the total number of deaths in the Gulag in the period from 1918 to 1956 ranged from 1.2 to 1.7 million.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, estimates of Gulag victims ranged from 2.3 to 17.6 million (see History of Gulag population estimates). Mortality in Gulag camps in 1934–40 was 4–6 times higher than average in the Soviet Union. Post-1991 research by historians accessing archival materials brought this range down considerably. In a 1993 study of archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953.",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "It was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or near death, so a combined statistics on mortality in the camps and mortality caused by the camps was higher. The tentative historical consensus is that, of the 18 million people who passed through the gulag from 1930 to 1953, between 1.6 million and 1.76 million perished as a result of their detention, and about half of all deaths occurred between 1941 and 1943 following the German invasion. If prisoner deaths from labor colonies and special settlements are included, the death toll rises to 2,749,163, according to J. Otto Pohl's incomplete data.",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In her 2018 study, Golfo Alexopoulos attempted to challenge this consensus figure by encompassing those whose life was shortened due to GULAG conditions. Alexopoulos concluded from her research that a systematic practice of the Gulag was to release sick prisoners on the verge of death; and that all prisoners who received the health classification \"invalid\", \"light physical labor\", \"light individualised labor\", or \"physically defective\" that together according to Alexopoulos encompassed at least one third of all inmates who passed through the Gulag died or had their lives shortened due to detention in the Gulag in captivity or shortly after release.",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The GULAG mortality estimated in this way yields the figure of 6 million deaths. Historian Orlando Figes and Russian writer Vadim Erlikman have posited similar estimates. The estimate of Alexopoulos, however, has obvious methodological difficulties and is supported by misinterpreted evidence, such as presuming that hundreds of thousands of prisoners \"directed to other places of detention\" in 1948 was a euphemism for releasing prisoners on the verge of death into labor colonies, when it was really referring to internal transport in the Gulag rather than release.",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In a University of Oxford doctoral dissertation, in 2020, the problem of medical release ('aktirovka') and of mortality among 'certified invalids' ('aktirovannye') was considered in detail by Mikhail Nakonechnyi. He concluded that the number of terminally ill people discharged early on medical grounds from the Gulag was about 1 million. Mikhail added 800,000–850,000 excess deaths to the death toll directly caused by the results of GULAG incarceration, which brings the death toll to 2.5 million people.",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In 2009, Steven Rosefielde stated more complete archival data increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537, \"the best archivally-based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953.\" Certificates of death in the Gulag system for the period from 1930 to 1956 Dan Healey in 2018 also stated the same thing \"New studies using declassified Gulag archives have provisionally established a consensus on mortality and \"inhumanity.\" The tentative consensus says that once secret records of the Gulag administration in Moscow show a lower death toll than expected from memoir sources, generally between 1.5 and 1.7 million (out of 18 million who passed through) for the years from 1930 to 1953.\"",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Certificates of death in the Gulag system for the period from 1930 to 1956",
"title": "Death toll"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Living and working conditions in the camps varied significantly across time and place, depending, among other things, on the impact of broader events (World War II, countrywide famines and shortages, waves of terror, sudden influx or release of large numbers of prisoners) and the type of crime committed. Instead of being used for economic gain, political prisoners were typically given the worst work or were dumped into the less productive parts of the gulag. For example Victor Herman, in his memoirs, compares the Burepolom [ru] and the Nuksha [ru] 2 camps, which were both near Vyatka.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In Burepolom there were roughly 3,000 prisoners, all non-political, in the central compound. They could walk around at will, were lightly guarded, had unlocked barracks with mattresses and pillows, and watched western movies. However Nuksha 2, which housed serious criminals and political prisoners, featured guard towers with machine guns and locked barracks. In some camps prisoners were only permitted to send one letter a year and were not allowed to have photos of loved ones.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Some prisoners were released early if they displayed good performance. There were several productive activities for prisoners in the camps. For example, in early 1935, a course in livestock raising was held for prisoners at a state farm; those who took it had their workday reduced to four hours. During that year the professional theater group in the camp complex gave 230 performances of plays and concerts to over 115,000 spectators. Camp newspapers also existed.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Andrei Vyshinsky, chief procurator of the Soviet Union, wrote a memorandum to NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov in 1938, during the Great Purge, which stated:",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food…they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "According to Yevgenia Ginzburg Gulag inmates could tell when Yezhov was no longer in charge as one day the conditions relaxed. A few days later Beria's name appeared in official prison notices.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In general, the central administrative bodies showed a discernible interest in maintaining the labor force of prisoners in a condition allowing the fulfilment of construction and production plans handed down from above. Besides a wide array of punishments for prisoners refusing to work (which, in practice, were sometimes applied to prisoners that were too enfeebled to meet production quota), they instituted a number of positive incentives intended to boost productivity. These included monetary bonuses (since the early 1930s) and wage payments (from 1950 onward), cuts of individual sentences, general early-release schemes for norm fulfilment and overfulfilment (until 1939, again in selected camps from 1946 onward), preferential treatment, sentence reduction and privileges for the most productive workers (shock workers or Stakhanovites in Soviet parlance).",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Inmates were used as camp guards and could purchase camp newspapers as well as bonds. Robert W. Thurston writes that this was \"at least an indication that they were still regarded as participants in society to some degree.\" Sports team, particularly soccer teams were set up by the prison authorities.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Boris Sulim, a former prisoner who had worked in the Omsuchkan camp, close to Magadan, when he was a teenager stated:",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "I was 18 years old and Magadan seemed a very romantic place to me. I got 880 rubles a month and a 3000 ruble installation grant, which was a hell of a lot of money for a kid like me. I was able to give my mother some of it. They even gave me membership in the Komsomol. There was a mining and ore-processing plant which sent out parties to dig for tin. I worked at the radio station which kept contact with the parties. [...] If the inmates were good and disciplined they had almost the same rights as the free workers. They were trusted and they even went to the movies. As for the reason they were in the camps, well, I never poked my nose into details. We all thought the people were there because they were guilty.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 the conditions in camps worsened drastically: quotas were increased, rations cut, and medical supplies came close to none, all of which led to a sharp increase in mortality. The situation slowly improved in the final period and after the end of the war.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Considering the overall conditions and their influence on inmates, it is important to distinguish three major strata of Gulag inmates:",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The Soviet famine of 1932–1933 swept across many different regions of the Soviet Union. During this time, it is estimated that around six to seven million people starved to death. On 7 August 1932, a new decree drafted by Stalin (Law of Spikelets) specified a minimum sentence of ten years or execution for theft from collective farms or of cooperative property. Over the next few months, prosecutions rose fourfold. A large share of cases prosecuted under the law were for the theft of small quantities of grain worth less than fifty rubles. The law was later relaxed on 8 May 1933. Overall, during the first half of 1933, prisons saw more new incoming inmates than the three previous years combined.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Prisoners in the camps faced harsh working conditions. One Soviet report stated that, in early 1933, up to 15% of the prison population in Soviet Uzbekistan died monthly. During this time, prisoners were getting around 300 calories (1,300 kJ) worth of food a day. Many inmates attempted to flee, causing an upsurge in coercive and violent measures. Camps were directed \"not to spare bullets\".",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The convicts in such camps were actively involved in all kinds of labor with one of them being logging. The working territory of logging presented by itself a square and was surrounded by forest clearing. Thus, all attempts to exit or escape from it were well observed from the four towers set at each of its corners.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Locals who captured a runaway were given rewards. It is also said that camps in colder areas were less concerned with finding escaped prisoners as they would die anyhow from the severely cold winters. In such cases prisoners who did escape without getting shot were often found dead kilometres away from the camp.",
"title": "Conditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "In the early days of Gulag, the locations for the camps were chosen primarily for the isolated conditions involved. Remote monasteries in particular were frequently reused as sites for new camps. The site on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea is one of the earliest and also most noteworthy, taking root soon after the Revolution in 1918. The colloquial name for the islands, \"Solovki\", entered the vernacular as a synonym for the labor camp in general. It was presented to the world as an example of the new Soviet method for \"re-education of class enemies\" and reintegrating them through labor into Soviet society. Initially the inmates, largely Russian intelligentsia, enjoyed relative freedom within the natural confinement of the islands.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Local newspapers and magazines were published. Even some scientific research was carried out, e.g., a local botanical garden was maintained but unfortunately later lost completely. Eventually Solovki turned into an ordinary Gulag camp. Some historians maintain that it was a pilot camp of this type. In 1929 Maxim Gorky visited the camp and published an apology for it. The report of Gorky's trip to Solovki was included in the cycle of impressions titled \"Po Soiuzu Sovetov\", Part V, subtitled \"Solovki.\" In the report, Gorky wrote that \"camps such as 'Solovki' were absolutely necessary.\"",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "With the new emphasis on Gulag as the means of concentrating cheap labor, new camps were then constructed throughout the Soviet sphere of influence, wherever the economic task at hand dictated their existence, or was designed specifically to avail itself of them, such as the White Sea–Baltic Canal or the Baikal–Amur Mainline, including facilities in big cities — parts of the famous Moscow Metro and the Moscow State University new campus were built by forced labor. Many more projects during the rapid industrialisation of the 1930s, war-time and post-war periods were fulfilled on the backs of convicts. The activity of Gulag camps spanned a wide cross-section of Soviet industry. Gorky organized in 1933 a trip of 120 writers and artists to the White Sea–Baltic Canal, 36 of them wrote a propaganda book about the construction published in 1934 and destroyed in 1937.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The majority of Gulag camps were positioned in extremely remote areas of northeastern Siberia (the best known clusters are Sevvostlag (The North-East Camps) along Kolyma river and Norillag near Norilsk) and in the southeastern parts of the Soviet Union, mainly in the steppes of Kazakhstan (Luglag, Steplag, Peschanlag). A detailed map was made by the Memorial Foundation.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "These were vast and sparsely inhabited regions with no roads or sources of food, but rich in minerals and other natural resources, such as timber. The construction of the roads was assigned to the inmates of specialised railway camps. Camps were generally spread throughout the entire Soviet Union, including the European parts of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "There were several camps outside the Soviet Union, in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Mongolia, which were under the direct control of the Gulag.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, there were at least 476 separate camp administrations. The Russian researcher Galina Ivanova stated that,",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "to date, Russian historians have discovered and described 476 camps that existed at different times on the territory of the USSR. It is well known that practically every one of them had several branches, many of which were quite large. In addition to the large numbers of camps, there were no less than 2,000 colonies. It would be virtually impossible to reflect the entire mass of Gulag facilities on a map that would also account for the various times of their existence.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Since many of these existed only for short periods, the number of camp administrations at any given point was lower. It peaked in the early 1950s when there were more than 100 camp administrations across the Soviet Union. Most camp administrations oversaw several single camp units, some as many as dozens or even hundreds. The infamous complexes were those at Kolyma, Norilsk, and Vorkuta, all in arctic or subarctic regions. However, prisoner mortality in Norilsk in most periods was actually lower than across the camp system as a whole.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "According to historian Stephen Barnes, the origins and functions of the Gulag can be looked at in four major ways:",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Hannah Arendt argues that as part of a totalitarian system of government, the camps of the Gulag system were experiments in \"total domination.\" In her view, the goal of a totalitarian system was not merely to establish limits on liberty, but rather to abolish liberty entirely in service of its ideology. She argues that the Gulag system was not merely political repression because the system survived and grew long after Stalin had wiped out all serious political resistance. Although the various camps were initially filled with criminals and political prisoners, eventually they were filled with prisoners who were arrested irrespective of anything relating to them as individuals, but rather only on the basis of their membership in some ever shifting category of imagined threats to the state.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "She also argues that the function of the Gulag system was not truly economic. Although the Soviet government deemed them all \"forced labor\" camps, this in fact highlighted that the work in the camps was deliberately pointless, since all Russian workers could be subject to forced labor. The only real economic purpose they typically served was financing the cost of their own supervision. Otherwise the work performed was generally useless, either by design or made that way through extremely poor planning and execution; some workers even preferred more difficult work if it was actually productive. She differentiated between \"authentic\" forced-labor camps, concentration camps, and \"annihilation camps\".",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In authentic labor camps, inmates worked in \"relative freedom and are sentenced for limited periods.\" Concentration camps had extremely high mortality rates and but were still \"essentially organized for labor purposes.\" Annihilation camps were those where the inmates were \"systematically wiped out through starvation and neglect.\" She criticizes other commentators' conclusion that the purpose of the camps was a supply of cheap labor. According to her, the Soviets were able to liquidate the camp system without serious economic consequences, showing that the camps were not an important source of labor and were overall economically irrelevant.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Arendt argues that together with the systematized, arbitrary cruelty inside the camps, this served the purpose of total domination by eliminating the idea that the arrestees had any political or legal rights. Morality was destroyed by maximizing cruelty and by organizing the camps internally to make the inmates and guards complicit. The terror resulting from the operation of the Gulag system caused people outside of the camps to cut all ties with anyone who was arrested or purged and to avoid forming ties with others for fear of being associated with anyone who was targeted. As a result, the camps were essential as the nucleus of a system that destroyed individuality and dissolved all social bonds. Thereby, the system attempted to eliminate any capacity for resistance or self-directed action in the greater population.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Statistical reports made by the OGPU–NKVD–MGB–MVD between the 1930s and 1950s are kept in the State Archive of the Russian Federation formerly called Central State Archive of the October Revolution (CSAOR). These documents were highly classified and inaccessible. Amid glasnost and democratization in the late 1980s, Viktor Zemskov and other Russian researchers managed to gain access to the documents and published the highly classified statistical data collected by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD and related to the number of the Gulag prisoners, special settlers, etc. In 1995, Zemskov wrote that foreign scientists have begun to be admitted to the restricted-access collection of these documents in the State Archive of the Russian Federation since 1992. However, only one historian, namely Zemskov, was admitted to these archives, and later the archives were again \"closed\", according to Leonid Lopatnikov. Pressure from the Putin administration has exacerbated the difficulties of Gulag researchers.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "While considering the issue of reliability of the primary data provided by corrective labor institutions, it is necessary to take into account the following two circumstances. On the one hand, their administration was not interested to understate the number of prisoners in its reports, because it would have automatically led to a decrease in the food supply plan for camps, prisons, and corrective labor colonies. The decrement in food would have been accompanied by an increase in mortality that would have led to wrecking of the vast production program of the Gulag. On the other hand, overstatement of data of the number of prisoners also did not comply with departmental interests, because it was fraught with the same (i.e., impossible) increase in production tasks set by planning bodies. In those days, people were highly responsible for non-fulfilment of plan. It seems that a resultant of these objective departmental interests was a sufficient degree of reliability of the reports.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Between 1990 and 1992, the first precise statistical data on the Gulag based on the Gulag archives were published by Viktor Zemskov. These had been generally accepted by leading Western scholars, despite the fact that a number of inconsistencies were found in this statistics. It is also necessary to note that not all the conclusions drawn by Zemskov based on his data have been generally accepted. Thus, Sergei Maksudov alleged that although literary sources, for example the books of Lev Razgon or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, did not envisage the total number of the camps very well and markedly exaggerated their size. On the other hand, Viktor Zemskov, who published many documents by the NKVD and KGB, was far from understanding of the Gulag essence and the nature of socio-political processes in the country. He added that without distinguishing the degree of accuracy and reliability of certain figures, without making a critical analysis of sources, without comparing new data with already known information, Zemskov absolutizes the published materials by presenting them as the ultimate truth. As a result, Maksudov charges that Zemskov's attempts to make generalized statements with reference to a particular document, as a rule, do not hold water.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "In response, Zemskov wrote that the charge that he allegedly did not compare new data with already known information could not be called fair. In his words, the trouble with most western writers is that they do not benefit from such comparisons. Zemskov added that when he tried not to overuse the juxtaposition of new information with \"old\" one, it was only because of a sense of delicacy, not to once again psychologically traumatize the researchers whose works used incorrect figures, as it turned out after the publication of the statistics by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "According to French historian Nicolas Werth, the mountains of the materials of the Gulag archives, which are stored in funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and were being constantly exposed during the last fifteen years, represent only a very small part of bureaucratic prose of immense size left over after the decades of \"creativity\" by the \"dull and reptile\" organization managing the Gulag. In many cases, local camp archives, which had been stored in sheds, barracks, or other rapidly disintegrating buildings, simply disappeared in the same way as most of the camp buildings did.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "In 2004 and 2005, some archival documents were published in the edition Istoriya Stalinskogo Gulaga. Konets 1920-kh — Pervaya Polovina 1950-kh Godov. Sobranie Dokumentov v 7 Tomakh (The History of Stalin's Gulag. From the Late 1920s to the First Half of the 1950s. Collection of Documents in Seven Volumes), wherein each of its seven volumes covered a particular issue indicated in the title of the volume:",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "The edition contains the brief introductions by the two \"patriarchs of the Gulag science\", Robert Conquest and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and 1431 documents, the overwhelming majority of which were obtained from funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "During the decades before the dissolution of the USSR, the debates about the population size of GULAG failed to arrive at generally accepted figures; wide-ranging estimates have been offered, and the bias toward higher or lower side was sometimes ascribed to political views of the particular author. Some of those earlier estimates (both high and low) are shown in the table below.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The glasnost political reforms in the late 1980s and the subsequent dissolution of the USSR led to the release of a large amount of formerly classified archival documents, including new demographic and NKVD data. Analysis of the official GULAG statistics by Western scholars immediately demonstrated that, despite their inconsistency, they do not support previously published higher estimates. Importantly, the released documents made possible to clarify terminology used to describe different categories of forced labor population, because the use of the terms \"forced labor\", \"GULAG\", \"camps\" interchangeably by early researchers led to significant confusion and resulted in significant inconsistencies in the earlier estimates.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Archival studies revealed several components of the NKVD penal system in the Stalinist USSR: prisons, labor camps, labor colonies, as well as various \"settlements\" (exile) and of non-custodial forced labor. Although most of them fit the definition of forced labor, only labor camps, and labor colonies were associated with punitive forced labor in detention. Forced labor camps (\"GULAG camps\") were hard regime camps, whose inmates were serving more than three-year terms. As a rule, they were situated in remote parts of the USSR, and labor conditions were extremely hard there. They formed a core of the GULAG system. The inmates of \"corrective labor colonies\" served shorter terms; these colonies were located in less remote parts of the USSR, and they were run by local NKVD administration.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Preliminary analysis of the GULAG camps and colonies statistics (see the chart on the right) demonstrated that the population reached the maximum before the World War II, then dropped sharply, partially due to massive releases, partially due to wartime high mortality, and then was gradually increasing until the end of Stalin era, reaching the global maximum in 1953, when the combined population of GULAG camps and labor colonies amounted to 2,625,000.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "The results of these archival studies convinced many scholars, including Robert Conquest or Stephen Wheatcroft to reconsider their earlier estimates of the size of the GULAG population, although the 'high numbers' of arrested and deaths are not radically different from earlier estimates. Although such scholars as Rosefielde or Vishnevsky point at several inconsistencies in archival data with Rosefielde pointing out the archival figure of 1,196,369 for the population of the Gulag and labor colonies combined on December 31, 1936, is less than half the 2.75 million labor camp population given to the Census Board by the NKVD for the 1937 census, it is generally believed that these data provide more reliable and detailed information that the indirect data and literary sources available for the scholars during the Cold War era. Although Conquest cited Beria's report to the Politburo of the labor camp numbers at the end of 1938 stating there were almost 7 million prisoners in the labor camps, more than three times the archival figure for 1938 and an official report to Stalin by the Soviet minister of State Security in 1952 stating there were 12 million prisoners in the labor camps.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "These data allowed scholars to conclude that during the period of 1928–53, about 14 million prisoners passed through the system of GULAG labor camps and 4–5 million passed through the labor colonies. Thus, these figures reflect the number of convicted persons, and do not take into account the fact that a significant part of Gulag inmates had been convicted more than one time, so the actual number of convicted is somewhat overstated by these statistics. From other hand, during some periods of Gulag history the official figures of GULAG population reflected the camps' capacity, not the actual number of inmates, so the actual figures were 15% higher in, e.g. 1946.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "The USSR implemented a number of labor disciplinary measures, due to the lack of productivity of its labour force in the early 1930s. 1.8 million workers were sentenced to 6 months in forced labor with a quarter of their original pay, 3.3 million faced sanctions, and 60k were imprisoned for absentees in 1940 alone. The conditions of Soviet workers worsened in WW2 as 1.3 million were punished in 1942, and 1 million each were punished in subsequent 1943 and 1944 with the reduction of 25% of food rations. Further more, 460 thousand were imprisoned throughout these years.",
"title": "Historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The Gulag spanned nearly four decades of Soviet and East European history and affected millions of individuals. Its cultural impact was enormous.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "The Gulag has become a major influence on contemporary Russian thinking, and an important part of modern Russian folklore. Many songs by the authors-performers known as the bards, most notably Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich, neither of whom ever served time in the camps, describe life inside the Gulag and glorified the life of \"zeks\". Words and phrases which originated in the labor camps became part of the Russian/Soviet vernacular in the 1960s and 1970s. The memoirs of Alexander Dolgun, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Varlam Shalamov and Yevgenia Ginzburg, among others, became a symbol of defiance in Soviet society. These writings harshly chastised the Soviet people for their tolerance and apathy regarding the Gulag, but at the same time provided a testament to the courage and resolve of those who were imprisoned.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Another cultural phenomenon in the Soviet Union linked with the Gulag was the forced migration of many artists and other people of culture to Siberia. This resulted in a Renaissance of sorts in places like Magadan, where, for example, the quality of theatre production was comparable to Moscow's and Eddie Rosner played jazz.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Many eyewitness accounts of Gulag prisoners have been published:",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "Soviet state documents show that the goals of the gulag included colonization of sparsely populated remote areas and exploiting its resources using forced labor. In 1929, OGPU was given the task to colonize these areas. To this end, the notion of \"free settlement\" was introduced. On 12 April 1930 Genrikh Yagoda wrote to the OGPU Commission:",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "The camps must be transformed into colonizing settlements, without waiting for the end of periods of confinement... Here is my plan: to turn all the prisoners into a settler population until they have served their sentences.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "When well-behaved persons had served the majority of their terms, they could be released for \"free settlement\" (вольное поселение, volnoye poseleniye) outside the confinement of the camp. They were known as \"free settlers\" (вольнопоселенцы, volnoposelentsy; not to be confused with the term ссыльнопоселенцы, ssyl'noposelentsy, \"exile settlers\"). In addition, for persons who served full term, but who were denied the free choice of place of residence, it was recommended to assign them for \"free settlement\" and give them land in the general vicinity of the place of confinement.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "The gulag inherited this approach from the katorga system.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "It is estimated that of the 40,000 people collecting state pensions in Vorkuta, 32,000 are trapped former gulag inmates, or their descendants.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "Persons who served a term in a camp or prison were restricted from taking a wide range of jobs. Concealment of a previous imprisonment was a triable offence. Persons who served terms as \"politicals\" were nuisances for \"First Departments\" (Первый Отдел, Pervyj Otdel, outlets of the secret police at all enterprises and institutions), because former \"politicals\" had to be monitored.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "Many people who were released from camps were restricted from settling in larger cities.",
"title": "Impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "Both Moscow and St. Petersburg have memorials to the victims of the Gulag made of boulders from the Solovki camp — the first prison camp in the Gulag system. Moscow's memorial is on Lubyanka Square, the site of the headquarters of the NKVD. People gather at these memorials every year on the Day of Victims of the Repression (October 30).",
"title": "Memorialization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Moscow has the State Gulag Museum whose first director was Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko. In 2015, another museum dedicated to the Gulag was opened in Moscow.",
"title": "Memorialization"
}
]
| The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in the English language the term "gulag" (lowercase) can be used as a generic term in the meaning "Soviet forced labor camp". The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й", but the full official name of the agency changed several times. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. In 1918–1922, the agency was administered by the Cheka, followed by the GPU (1922–1923), the OGPU (1923–1934), later known as the NKVD (1934–1946), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the final years. The Solovki prison camp, the first correctional labour camp which was constructed after the revolution, was opened in 1918 and legalized by a decree, "On the creation of the forced-labor camps", on April 15, 1919. The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. By the end of 1940, the population of the Gulag camps amounted to 1.5 million. The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million prisoners perished there or they died soon after they were released. Some journalists and writers who question the reliability of such data heavily rely on memoir sources that come to higher estimations. Archival researchers have found "no plan of destruction" of the gulag population and no statement of official intent to kill them, and prisoner releases vastly exceeded the number of deaths in the Gulag. This policy can partially be attributed to the common practice of releasing prisoners who were suffering from incurable diseases as well as prisoners who were near death. Almost immediately after the death of Stalin, the Soviet establishment started to dismantle the Gulag system. A mass general amnesty was granted in the immediate aftermath of Stalin's death, but it was only offered to non-political prisoners and political prisoners who had been sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. Shortly thereafter, Nikita Khrushchev was elected First Secretary, initiating the processes of de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw, triggering a mass release and rehabilitation of political prisoners. Six years later, on 25 January 1960, the Gulag system was officially abolished when the remains of its administration were dissolved by Khrushchev. The legal practice of sentencing convicts to penal labor continues to exist in the Russian Federation, but its capacity is greatly reduced. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, gave the term its international repute with the publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The author likened the scattered camps to "a chain of islands", and as an eyewitness, he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death. In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union. Many mining and industrial towns and cities in northern Russia, eastern Russia and Kazakhstan such as Karaganda, Norilsk, Vorkuta and Magadan, were blocks of camps which were originally built by prisoners and subsequently run by ex-prisoners. | 2001-12-16T21:53:08Z | 2023-12-28T13:28:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag |
12,984 | Geiger counter | A Geiger counter (/ˈɡaɪɡər/, GY-gər; also known as a Geiger–Müller counter or G-M counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental physics and the nuclear industry.
It detects ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays using the ionization effect produced in a Geiger–Müller tube, which gives its name to the instrument. In wide and prominent use as a hand-held radiation survey instrument, it is perhaps one of the world's best-known radiation detection instruments.
The original detection principle was realized in 1908 at the University of Manchester, but it was not until the development of the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928 that the Geiger counter could be produced as a practical instrument. Since then, it has been very popular due to its robust sensing element and relatively low cost. However, there are limitations in measuring high radiation rates and the energy of incident radiation.
A Geiger counter consists of a Geiger–Müller tube (the sensing element which detects the radiation) and the processing electronics, which display the result.
The Geiger–Müller tube is filled with an inert gas such as helium, neon, or argon at low pressure, to which a high voltage is applied. The tube briefly conducts electrical charge when high energy particles or gamma radiation make the gas conductive by ionization. The ionization is considerably amplified within the tube by the Townsend discharge effect to produce an easily measured detection pulse, which is fed to the processing and display electronics. This large pulse from the tube makes the Geiger counter relatively cheap to manufacture, as the subsequent electronics are greatly simplified. The electronics also generate the high voltage, typically 400–900 volts, that has to be applied to the Geiger–Müller tube to enable its operation. This voltage must be carefully selected, as too high a voltage will allow for continuous discharge, damaging the instrument and invalidating the results. Conversely, too low a voltage will result in an electric field that is too weak to generate a current pulse. The correct voltage is usually specified by the manufacturer. To stop the discharge in the Geiger–Müller tube a small amount of halogen gas or organic material (alcohol) is added to the gas mixture.
There are two types of detected radiation readout: counts and radiation dose.
The readout can be analog or digital, and modern instruments offer serial communications with a host computer or network.
There is usually an option to produce audible clicks representing the number of ionization events detected. This is the distinctive sound associated with handheld or portable Geiger counters. The purpose of this is to allow the user to concentrate on manipulation of the instrument while retaining auditory feedback on the radiation rate.
There are two main limitations of the Geiger counter:
The intended detection application of a Geiger counter dictates the tube design used. Consequently, there are a great many designs, but they can be generally categorized as "end-window", windowless "thin-walled", "thick-walled", and sometimes hybrids of these types.
The first historical uses of the Geiger principle were to detect α- and β-particles, and the instrument is still used for this purpose today. For α-particles and low energy β-particles, the "end-window" type of a Geiger–Müller tube has to be used, as these particles have a limited range and are easily stopped by a solid material. Therefore, the tube requires a window which is thin enough to allow as many as possible of these particles through to the fill gas. The window is usually made of mica with a density of about 1.5–2.0 mg/cm.
α-particles have the shortest range, and to detect these the window should ideally be within 10 mm of the radiation source due to α-particle attenuation. However, the Geiger–Müller tube produces a pulse output which is the same magnitude for all detected radiation, so a Geiger counter with an end window tube cannot distinguish between α- and β-particles. A skilled operator can use varying distance from a radiation source to differentiate between α- and high energy β-particles.
The "pancake" Geiger–Müller tube is a variant of the end-window probe, but designed with a larger detection area to make checking quicker. However, the pressure of the atmosphere against the low pressure of the fill gas limits the window size due to the limited strength of the window membrane.
Some β-particles can also be detected by a thin-walled "windowless" Geiger–Müller tube, which has no end-window, but allows high energy β-particles to pass through the tube walls. Although the tube walls have a greater stopping power than a thin end-window, they still allow these more energetic particles to reach the fill gas.
End-window Geiger counters are still used as a general purpose, portable, radioactive contamination measurement and detection instrument, owing to their relatively low cost, robustness and relatively high detection efficiency; particularly with high energy β-particles. However, for discrimination between α- and β-particles or provision of particle energy information, scintillation counters or proportional counters should be used. Those instrument types are manufactured with much larger detector areas, which means that checking for surface contamination is quicker than with a Geiger counter.
Geiger counters are widely used to detect gamma radiation and X-rays collectively known as photons, and for this the windowless tube is used. However, detection efficiency is low compared to alpha and beta particles. The article on the Geiger–Müller tube carries a more detailed account of the techniques used to detect photon radiation. For high energy photons the tube relies on the interaction of the radiation with the tube wall, usually a high Z material such as chrome steel of 1–2 mm thickness to produce electrons within the tube wall. These enter and ionize the fill gas.
This is necessary as the low-pressure gas in the tube has little interaction with higher energy photons. However, as photon energies decrease to low levels there is greater gas interaction, and the direct gas interaction increases. At very low energies (less than 25 keV) direct gas ionisation dominates, and a steel tube attenuates the incident photons. Consequently, at these energies, a typical tube design is a long tube with a thin wall which has a larger gas volume, to give an increased chance direct interaction of a particle with the fill gas.
Above these low energy levels, there is a considerable variance in response to different photon energies of the same intensity, and a steel-walled tube employs what is known as "energy compensation" in the form of filter rings around the naked tube, which attempts to compensate for these variations over a large energy range. A chrome steel Geiger–Müller tube is about 1% efficient over a wide range of energies.
A variation of the Geiger tube known as a Bonner sphere can be used to exclusively measure radiation dosage from neutrons rather than from gammas via neutron capture. The tube, which can contain boron trifluoride or helium-3, is surrounded by a plastic moderator that reduces neutron energies prior to capture. Upon capturing on the target gas, the energy released from capture is observed in the tube and a count is registered in the detector.
While "Geiger counter" is practically synonymous with the hand-held variety, the Geiger principle is in wide use in installed "area gamma" alarms for personnel protection, as well as in process measurement and interlock applications. The processing electronics of such installations have a higher degree of sophistication and reliability than those of hand-held meters.
For hand-held units there are two fundamental physical configurations: the "integral" unit with both detector and electronics in the same unit, and the "two-piece" design which has a separate detector probe and an electronics module connected by a short cable.
In the 1930s a mica window was added to the cylindrical design allowing low-penetration radiation to pass through with ease.
The integral unit allows single-handed operation, so the operator can use the other hand for personal security in challenging monitoring positions, but the two piece design allows easier manipulation of the detector, and is commonly used for alpha and beta surface contamination monitoring where careful manipulation of the probe is required or the weight of the electronics module would make operation unwieldy. A number of different sized detectors are available to suit particular situations, such as placing the probe in small apertures or confined spaces.
Gamma and X-Ray detectors generally use an "integral" design so the Geiger–Müller tube is conveniently within the electronics enclosure. This can easily be achieved because the casing usually has little attenuation, and is employed in ambient gamma measurements where distance from the source of radiation is not a significant factor. However, to facilitate more localised measurements such as "surface dose", the position of the tube in the enclosure is sometimes indicated by targets on the enclosure so an accurate measurement can be made with the tube at the correct orientation and a known distance from the surface.
There is a particular type of gamma instrument known as a "hot spot" detector which has the detector tube on the end of a long pole or flexible conduit. These are used to measure high radiation gamma locations whilst protecting the operator by means of distance shielding.
Particle detection of alpha and beta can be used in both integral and two-piece designs. A pancake probe (for alpha/beta) is generally used to increase the area of detection in two-piece instruments whilst being relatively light weight. In integral instruments using an end window tube there is a window in the body of the casing to prevent shielding of particles. There are also hybrid instruments which have a separate probe for particle detection and a gamma detection tube within the electronics module. The detectors are switchable by the operator, depending the radiation type that is being measured.
In the United Kingdom the National Radiological Protection Board issued a user guidance note on selecting the best portable instrument type for the radiation measurement application concerned. This covers all radiation protection instrument technologies and includes a guide to the use of G-M detectors.
In 1908 Hans Geiger, under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford at the Victoria University of Manchester (now the University of Manchester), developed an experimental technique for detecting alpha particles that would later be used to develop the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928. This early counter was only capable of detecting alpha particles and was part of a larger experimental apparatus. The fundamental ionization mechanism used was discovered by John Sealy Townsend between 1897 and 1901, and is known as the Townsend discharge, which is the ionization of molecules by ion impact.
It was not until 1928 that Geiger and Walther Müller (a PhD student of Geiger) developed the sealed Geiger–Müller tube which used basic ionization principles previously used experimentally. Small and rugged, not only could it detect alpha and beta radiation as prior models had done, but also gamma radiation. Now a practical radiation instrument could be produced relatively cheaply, and so the Geiger counter was born. As the tube output required little electronic processing, a distinct advantage in the thermionic valve era due to minimal valve count and low power consumption, the instrument achieved great popularity as a portable radiation detector.
Modern versions of the Geiger counter use halogen quench gases, a technique invented in 1947 by Sidney H. Liebson. Halogen compounds have superseded the organic quench gases because of their much longer life and lower operating voltages; typically 400-900 volts.
Media related to Geiger counters at Wikimedia Commons | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A Geiger counter (/ˈɡaɪɡər/, GY-gər; also known as a Geiger–Müller counter or G-M counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental physics and the nuclear industry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It detects ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays using the ionization effect produced in a Geiger–Müller tube, which gives its name to the instrument. In wide and prominent use as a hand-held radiation survey instrument, it is perhaps one of the world's best-known radiation detection instruments.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The original detection principle was realized in 1908 at the University of Manchester, but it was not until the development of the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928 that the Geiger counter could be produced as a practical instrument. Since then, it has been very popular due to its robust sensing element and relatively low cost. However, there are limitations in measuring high radiation rates and the energy of incident radiation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A Geiger counter consists of a Geiger–Müller tube (the sensing element which detects the radiation) and the processing electronics, which display the result.",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Geiger–Müller tube is filled with an inert gas such as helium, neon, or argon at low pressure, to which a high voltage is applied. The tube briefly conducts electrical charge when high energy particles or gamma radiation make the gas conductive by ionization. The ionization is considerably amplified within the tube by the Townsend discharge effect to produce an easily measured detection pulse, which is fed to the processing and display electronics. This large pulse from the tube makes the Geiger counter relatively cheap to manufacture, as the subsequent electronics are greatly simplified. The electronics also generate the high voltage, typically 400–900 volts, that has to be applied to the Geiger–Müller tube to enable its operation. This voltage must be carefully selected, as too high a voltage will allow for continuous discharge, damaging the instrument and invalidating the results. Conversely, too low a voltage will result in an electric field that is too weak to generate a current pulse. The correct voltage is usually specified by the manufacturer. To stop the discharge in the Geiger–Müller tube a small amount of halogen gas or organic material (alcohol) is added to the gas mixture.",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "There are two types of detected radiation readout: counts and radiation dose.",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The readout can be analog or digital, and modern instruments offer serial communications with a host computer or network.",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "There is usually an option to produce audible clicks representing the number of ionization events detected. This is the distinctive sound associated with handheld or portable Geiger counters. The purpose of this is to allow the user to concentrate on manipulation of the instrument while retaining auditory feedback on the radiation rate.",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "There are two main limitations of the Geiger counter:",
"title": "Principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The intended detection application of a Geiger counter dictates the tube design used. Consequently, there are a great many designs, but they can be generally categorized as \"end-window\", windowless \"thin-walled\", \"thick-walled\", and sometimes hybrids of these types.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The first historical uses of the Geiger principle were to detect α- and β-particles, and the instrument is still used for this purpose today. For α-particles and low energy β-particles, the \"end-window\" type of a Geiger–Müller tube has to be used, as these particles have a limited range and are easily stopped by a solid material. Therefore, the tube requires a window which is thin enough to allow as many as possible of these particles through to the fill gas. The window is usually made of mica with a density of about 1.5–2.0 mg/cm.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "α-particles have the shortest range, and to detect these the window should ideally be within 10 mm of the radiation source due to α-particle attenuation. However, the Geiger–Müller tube produces a pulse output which is the same magnitude for all detected radiation, so a Geiger counter with an end window tube cannot distinguish between α- and β-particles. A skilled operator can use varying distance from a radiation source to differentiate between α- and high energy β-particles.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The \"pancake\" Geiger–Müller tube is a variant of the end-window probe, but designed with a larger detection area to make checking quicker. However, the pressure of the atmosphere against the low pressure of the fill gas limits the window size due to the limited strength of the window membrane.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some β-particles can also be detected by a thin-walled \"windowless\" Geiger–Müller tube, which has no end-window, but allows high energy β-particles to pass through the tube walls. Although the tube walls have a greater stopping power than a thin end-window, they still allow these more energetic particles to reach the fill gas.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "End-window Geiger counters are still used as a general purpose, portable, radioactive contamination measurement and detection instrument, owing to their relatively low cost, robustness and relatively high detection efficiency; particularly with high energy β-particles. However, for discrimination between α- and β-particles or provision of particle energy information, scintillation counters or proportional counters should be used. Those instrument types are manufactured with much larger detector areas, which means that checking for surface contamination is quicker than with a Geiger counter.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Geiger counters are widely used to detect gamma radiation and X-rays collectively known as photons, and for this the windowless tube is used. However, detection efficiency is low compared to alpha and beta particles. The article on the Geiger–Müller tube carries a more detailed account of the techniques used to detect photon radiation. For high energy photons the tube relies on the interaction of the radiation with the tube wall, usually a high Z material such as chrome steel of 1–2 mm thickness to produce electrons within the tube wall. These enter and ionize the fill gas.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "This is necessary as the low-pressure gas in the tube has little interaction with higher energy photons. However, as photon energies decrease to low levels there is greater gas interaction, and the direct gas interaction increases. At very low energies (less than 25 keV) direct gas ionisation dominates, and a steel tube attenuates the incident photons. Consequently, at these energies, a typical tube design is a long tube with a thin wall which has a larger gas volume, to give an increased chance direct interaction of a particle with the fill gas.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Above these low energy levels, there is a considerable variance in response to different photon energies of the same intensity, and a steel-walled tube employs what is known as \"energy compensation\" in the form of filter rings around the naked tube, which attempts to compensate for these variations over a large energy range. A chrome steel Geiger–Müller tube is about 1% efficient over a wide range of energies.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A variation of the Geiger tube known as a Bonner sphere can be used to exclusively measure radiation dosage from neutrons rather than from gammas via neutron capture. The tube, which can contain boron trifluoride or helium-3, is surrounded by a plastic moderator that reduces neutron energies prior to capture. Upon capturing on the target gas, the energy released from capture is observed in the tube and a count is registered in the detector.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "While \"Geiger counter\" is practically synonymous with the hand-held variety, the Geiger principle is in wide use in installed \"area gamma\" alarms for personnel protection, as well as in process measurement and interlock applications. The processing electronics of such installations have a higher degree of sophistication and reliability than those of hand-held meters.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "For hand-held units there are two fundamental physical configurations: the \"integral\" unit with both detector and electronics in the same unit, and the \"two-piece\" design which has a separate detector probe and an electronics module connected by a short cable.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the 1930s a mica window was added to the cylindrical design allowing low-penetration radiation to pass through with ease.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The integral unit allows single-handed operation, so the operator can use the other hand for personal security in challenging monitoring positions, but the two piece design allows easier manipulation of the detector, and is commonly used for alpha and beta surface contamination monitoring where careful manipulation of the probe is required or the weight of the electronics module would make operation unwieldy. A number of different sized detectors are available to suit particular situations, such as placing the probe in small apertures or confined spaces.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Gamma and X-Ray detectors generally use an \"integral\" design so the Geiger–Müller tube is conveniently within the electronics enclosure. This can easily be achieved because the casing usually has little attenuation, and is employed in ambient gamma measurements where distance from the source of radiation is not a significant factor. However, to facilitate more localised measurements such as \"surface dose\", the position of the tube in the enclosure is sometimes indicated by targets on the enclosure so an accurate measurement can be made with the tube at the correct orientation and a known distance from the surface.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "There is a particular type of gamma instrument known as a \"hot spot\" detector which has the detector tube on the end of a long pole or flexible conduit. These are used to measure high radiation gamma locations whilst protecting the operator by means of distance shielding.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Particle detection of alpha and beta can be used in both integral and two-piece designs. A pancake probe (for alpha/beta) is generally used to increase the area of detection in two-piece instruments whilst being relatively light weight. In integral instruments using an end window tube there is a window in the body of the casing to prevent shielding of particles. There are also hybrid instruments which have a separate probe for particle detection and a gamma detection tube within the electronics module. The detectors are switchable by the operator, depending the radiation type that is being measured.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In the United Kingdom the National Radiological Protection Board issued a user guidance note on selecting the best portable instrument type for the radiation measurement application concerned. This covers all radiation protection instrument technologies and includes a guide to the use of G-M detectors.",
"title": "Types and applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In 1908 Hans Geiger, under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford at the Victoria University of Manchester (now the University of Manchester), developed an experimental technique for detecting alpha particles that would later be used to develop the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928. This early counter was only capable of detecting alpha particles and was part of a larger experimental apparatus. The fundamental ionization mechanism used was discovered by John Sealy Townsend between 1897 and 1901, and is known as the Townsend discharge, which is the ionization of molecules by ion impact.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "It was not until 1928 that Geiger and Walther Müller (a PhD student of Geiger) developed the sealed Geiger–Müller tube which used basic ionization principles previously used experimentally. Small and rugged, not only could it detect alpha and beta radiation as prior models had done, but also gamma radiation. Now a practical radiation instrument could be produced relatively cheaply, and so the Geiger counter was born. As the tube output required little electronic processing, a distinct advantage in the thermionic valve era due to minimal valve count and low power consumption, the instrument achieved great popularity as a portable radiation detector.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Modern versions of the Geiger counter use halogen quench gases, a technique invented in 1947 by Sidney H. Liebson. Halogen compounds have superseded the organic quench gases because of their much longer life and lower operating voltages; typically 400-900 volts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Media related to Geiger counters at Wikimedia Commons",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| A Geiger counter is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental physics and the nuclear industry. It detects ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays using the ionization effect produced in a Geiger–Müller tube, which gives its name to the instrument. In wide and prominent use as a hand-held radiation survey instrument, it is perhaps one of the world's best-known radiation detection instruments. The original detection principle was realized in 1908 at the University of Manchester, but it was not until the development of the Geiger–Müller tube in 1928 that the Geiger counter could be produced as a practical instrument. Since then, it has been very popular due to its robust sensing element and relatively low cost. However, there are limitations in measuring high radiation rates and the energy of incident radiation. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-17T05:58:05Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter |
12,985 | General Synod | The General Synod is the title of the governing body of some church organizations.
The General Synod of the Church of England, which was established in 1970 replacing the Church Assembly, is the legislative body of the Church of England.
The equivalent In the Episcopal Church in the United States is the General Convention.
Several other churches in the Anglican Communion also have General Synods:
The United Church of Christ, based in the United States, also calls its main governing body a General Synod. It meets every two years and consists of over 600 delegates from various congregations and conferences.
The Missionary Baptist Conference of the USA calls their main governing body a General Synod. It meets annually to set the theological and missional direction for the denomi-network.
The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) has the General Synod as its highest church court. The ARP General Synod meets yearly and in recent years has, almost without exception, been held at the Bonclarken in North Caroline. The delegates to the General Synod consists of the elder representatives elected from each church's session and all ministers from all presbyteries that comprise the Church (excluding ministers and elders from the independent ARP Synods of Mexico and Pakistan).
The Evangelical Church of Augsburg and Helvetic Confession in Austria and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany each call their main legislative bodies Generalsynode. The legislative body In the Evangelical Church in Prussia was called Generalsynode between 1846 and 1953.
The governing body of the Reformed Church in America, a Calvinist denomination in the United States and Canada, is known as the General Synod.
Kirkemøtet, the governing body of the Church of Norway, is normally translated as General Synod. It convenes once a year, and consists of 85 representatives, of whom seven or eight are sent from each of the dioceses.
The Batak Christian Protestant Church (BPCP), or Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (abbreviated HKBP), held a twice-a-year General Synod (Sinode Godang), to discuss about matters in HKBP, and to elect the new Ephorus (or Board) for the HKBP. The first General Synod of HKBP was held in 1922.
In North American, the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America, often referred to as the General Synod, was a Lutheran church body that existed from 1820 to 1918. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The General Synod is the title of the governing body of some church organizations.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The General Synod of the Church of England, which was established in 1970 replacing the Church Assembly, is the legislative body of the Church of England.",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The equivalent In the Episcopal Church in the United States is the General Convention.",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Several other churches in the Anglican Communion also have General Synods:",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The United Church of Christ, based in the United States, also calls its main governing body a General Synod. It meets every two years and consists of over 600 delegates from various congregations and conferences.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Missionary Baptist Conference of the USA calls their main governing body a General Synod. It meets annually to set the theological and missional direction for the denomi-network.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) has the General Synod as its highest church court. The ARP General Synod meets yearly and in recent years has, almost without exception, been held at the Bonclarken in North Caroline. The delegates to the General Synod consists of the elder representatives elected from each church's session and all ministers from all presbyteries that comprise the Church (excluding ministers and elders from the independent ARP Synods of Mexico and Pakistan).",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Evangelical Church of Augsburg and Helvetic Confession in Austria and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany each call their main legislative bodies Generalsynode. The legislative body In the Evangelical Church in Prussia was called Generalsynode between 1846 and 1953.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The governing body of the Reformed Church in America, a Calvinist denomination in the United States and Canada, is known as the General Synod.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Kirkemøtet, the governing body of the Church of Norway, is normally translated as General Synod. It convenes once a year, and consists of 85 representatives, of whom seven or eight are sent from each of the dioceses.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Batak Christian Protestant Church (BPCP), or Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (abbreviated HKBP), held a twice-a-year General Synod (Sinode Godang), to discuss about matters in HKBP, and to elect the new Ephorus (or Board) for the HKBP. The first General Synod of HKBP was held in 1922.",
"title": "Other churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In North American, the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America, often referred to as the General Synod, was a Lutheran church body that existed from 1820 to 1918.",
"title": "Other uses"
}
]
| The General Synod is the title of the governing body of some church organizations. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-11-09T18:45:30Z | [
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Lang"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Synod |
12,987 | Gerrymandering | In representative democracies, gerrymandering (/ˈdʒɛrimændərɪŋ/, originally /ˈɡɛrimændərɪŋ/) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins, a professor at Morgan State University, describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.
The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations, and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændər, ˈɡɛri-/). The word is also a verb for the process.
The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander; a portmanteau of the name Gerry and the animal salamander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. This word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, later Vice President of the United States. Gerry, who personally disapproved of the practice, signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble a mythological salamander. Appearing with the term, and helping spread and sustain its popularity, was a political cartoon depicting a strange animal with claws, wings and a dragon-like head that supposedly resembled the oddly shaped district.
The cartoon was most likely drawn by Elkanah Tisdale, an early-19th-century painter, designer, and engraver who lived in Boston at the time. Tisdale had the engraving skills to cut the woodblocks to print the original cartoon. These woodblocks survive and are preserved in the Library of Congress. The creator of the term gerrymander, however, may never be definitively established. Historians widely believe that the Federalist newspaper editors Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell coined the term, but there is no definitive evidence as to who created or uttered the word for the first time.
The redistricting was a notable success for Gerry's Democratic-Republican Party. In the 1812 election, both the Massachusetts House and governorship were comfortably won by Federalists, losing Gerry his job, but the redistricted state senate remained firmly in Democratic-Republican hands.
The word gerrymander was reprinted numerous times in Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts, New England, and nationwide for the rest of 1812. This suggests an organized activity by the Federalists to disparage Gerry in particular and the growing Democratic-Republican party in general. Gerrymandering soon began to be used to describe cases of district shape manipulation for partisan gain in other states. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word's acceptance was marked by its publication in a dictionary (1848) and in an encyclopedia (1868). Since the eponymous Gerry is pronounced with a hard g /ɡ/ as in get, the word gerrymander was originally pronounced /ˈɡɛrimændər/, but pronunciation as /ˈdʒɛrimændər/, with a soft g /dʒ/ as in gentle, has become dominant. Residents of Marblehead, Massachusetts, Gerry's hometown, continue to use the original pronunciation.
From time to time, other names have been suffixed with -mander to tie a particular effort to a particular politician or group. Examples are the 1852 "Henry-mandering", "Jerrymander" (referring to California Governor Jerry Brown), "Perrymander" (a reference to Texas Governor Rick Perry), "Tullymander" (after the Irish politician James Tully), and "Bjelkemander" (referencing Australian politician Joh Bjelke-Petersen).
Gerrymandering's primary goals are to maximize the effect of supporters' votes and minimize the effect of opponents' votes. A partisan gerrymander's main purpose is to influence not only the districting statute but the entire corpus of legislative decisions enacted in its path.
These can be accomplished in a number of ways:
These tactics are typically combined in some form, creating a few "forfeit" seats for packed voters of one type in order to secure more seats and greater representation for voters of another type. This results in candidates of one party (the one responsible for the gerrymandering) winning by small majorities in most of the districts, and another party winning by a large majority in only a few. Any party that endeavors to make a district more favorable to voting for it based on the physical boundary is gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect. Wasted votes are votes that did not contribute to electing a candidate, either because they were in excess of the number needed for victory or because the candidate lost. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts they will already win, wasting the extra votes. Other districts are more tightly constructed, with the opposition party allowed a bare minority count, thereby wasting all the minority votes for the losing candidate. These districts constitute the majority of districts and are drawn to produce a result favoring the incumbent party.
A quantitative measure of the effect of gerrymandering is the efficiency gap, computed from the difference in the wasted votes for two different political parties summed over all the districts. Citing in part an efficiency gap of 11.69% to 13%, a U.S. District Court in 2016 ruled against the 2011 drawing of Wisconsin legislative districts. In the 2012 election for the state legislature, that gap in wasted votes meant that one party had 48.6% of the two-party votes but won 61% of the 99 districts.
The wasted vote effect is strongest when a party wins by narrow margins across multiple districts, but gerrymandering narrow margins can be risky when voters are less predictable. To minimize the risk of demographic or political shifts swinging a district to the opposition, politicians can create more packed districts, leading to more comfortable margins in unpacked ones.
Some political science research suggests that, contrary to common belief, gerrymandering does not decrease electoral competition and can even increase it. Some say that, rather than packing the voters of their party into uncompetitive districts, party leaders tend to prefer to spread their party's voters into multiple districts so that their party can win more races. (See scenario (c) in the box.) This may lead to increased competition. Instead of gerrymandering, some researchers find that other factors, such as partisan polarization and the incumbency advantage, have driven the recent decreases in electoral competition. Similarly, a 2009 study found that "congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences."
One state in which gerrymandering has arguably had an adverse effect on electoral competition is California. In 2000, a bipartisan redistricting effort redrew congressional district lines in ways that all but guaranteed incumbent victories; as a result, California saw only one congressional seat change hands between 2000 and 2010. In response to this obvious gerrymandering, a 2010 referendum in California gave the power to redraw congressional district lines to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which had been created to draw California State Senate and Assembly districts by a 2008 referendum. In stark contrast to the redistricting efforts that followed the 2000 census, the redistricting commission has created a number of the most competitive congressional districts in the country.
The effect of gerrymandering for incumbents is particularly advantageous, as they are far more likely to be reelected under conditions of gerrymandering. For example, in 2002, according to political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, only four challengers were able to defeat incumbent members of the U.S. Congress, the lowest number in modern American history. Incumbents are likely to be of the majority party orchestrating a gerrymander, and are usually easily renominated in subsequent elections, including incumbents among the minority.
Mann, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, has also noted that "Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders)". The bipartisan gerrymandering Mann mentions refers to the fact that legislators often draw distorted legislative districts even when doing so does not give their party an advantage.
Gerrymandering of state legislative districts can effectively guarantee an incumbent's victory by "shoring up" a district with higher levels of partisan support, without disproportionately benefiting a particular political party. This can be highly problematic from a governance perspective, because forming districts to ensure high levels of partisanship often leads to higher levels of partisanship in legislative bodies. If a substantial number of districts are designed to be polarized, then those districts' representation will also likely act in a heavily partisan manner, which can create and perpetuate partisan gridlock.
Gerrymandering can thus have a deleterious effect on the principle of democratic accountability. With uncompetitive seats/districts reducing the fear that incumbent politicians may lose office, they have less incentive to represent their constituents' interests, even when those interests conform to majority support for an issue across the electorate as a whole. Incumbent politicians may look out more for their party's interests than for those of their constituents.
Gerrymandering can affect campaign costs for district elections. If districts become increasingly stretched out, candidates may incur higher costs for transportation and campaign advertising across a district. The incumbent's advantage in campaign fundraising is another benefit of having a gerrymandered seat.
Gerrymandering also has significant effects on the representation voters receive in gerrymandered districts. Because gerrymandering can be designed to increase the number of wasted votes among the electorate, the relative representation of particular groups can be drastically altered from their actual share of the voting population. This effect can significantly prevent a gerrymandered system from achieving proportional and descriptive representation, as the winners of elections are increasingly determined by who is drawing the districts, rather than the voters' preferences.
Gerrymandering may be advocated to improve representation within the legislature among otherwise underrepresented minority groups by packing them into a single district. This can be controversial, as it may lead to those groups' remaining marginalized in the government as they become confined to a single district. Candidates outside that district no longer need to represent them to win elections.
As an example, much of the redistricting conducted in the U.S. in the early 1990s involved the intentional creation of additional "majority-minority" districts where racial minorities such as African Americans were packed into the majority. This "maximization policy" drew support from both the Republican Party (which had limited support among African Americans and could concentrate its power elsewhere) and by minority representatives elected as Democrats from these constituencies, who then had safe seats.
The 2012 election provides a number of examples of how partisan gerrymandering can adversely affect the descriptive function of states' congressional delegations. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 83,000 more votes than Republican candidates, yet the Republican-controlled redistricting process in 2010 resulted in Democrats losing to their Republican counterparts in 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 districts.
In the seven states where Republicans had complete control over the redistricting process, Republican House candidates received 16.7 million votes and Democratic House candidates received 16.4 million. The redistricting resulted in Republican victories in 73 out of the 107 affected seats; in those seven states, Republicans received 50.4% of the votes but won in over 68% of the congressional districts. While it is but one example of how gerrymandering can have a significant effect on election outcomes, this kind of disproportional representation of the public will seems problematic for the legitimacy of democratic systems, regardless of one's political affiliation.
In Michigan, redistricting was conducted by a Republican legislature in 2011. Federal congressional districts were designed so that cities such as Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and East Lansing were separated into districts with large conservative-leaning hinterlands that diluted the Democratic votes in those cities in Congressional elections. Since 2010, not one of those cities is within a district in which a Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives has a reasonable chance of winning, short of Democratic landslide.
Gerrymandering can also be done to help incumbents as a whole, effectively making every district a packed one and greatly reducing the potential for competitive elections. This is particularly likely to occur when the minority party has significant obstruction power: unable to enact a partisan gerrymander, the legislature instead agrees to ensure its own reelection.
In an unusual occurrence in 2000, for example, the two dominant parties in the state of California cooperatively redrew both state and federal legislative districts to preserve the status quo, insulating the incumbents from unpredictable voting. This move proved completely effective, as no state or federal legislative office changed party in the 2004 election, although 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 state assembly seats were potentially at risk.
In 2006, the term "70/30 district" came to signify the equitable split of two evenly split (i.e. 50/50) districts. The resulting districts gave each party a guaranteed seat and retained their respective power base.
Since the first handshake deal in 1981, whereby Republicans informally controlled the state senate redistricting process and Democrats informally controlled the state assembly redistricting process, New York has experienced some of the nation's least competitive legislative elections. One study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that over one ten-year period, as many members of the state legislature died in office as were defeated in elections. More than 99% of the incumbents contesting a primary or general election won their races.
Prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted as residents of a district, increasing its population with non-voters when assigning political apportionment. This phenomenon violates the principle of one person, one vote because, although many prisoners come from (and return to) urban communities, they are counted as "residents" of the rural districts that contain large prisons, artificially inflating the political representation in districts with prisons at the expense of voters in districts without them. Others contend that prisoners should not be counted as residents of their original districts when they do not reside there and are not legally eligible to vote.
Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its effect on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. In Spain, they are constitutionally fixed since 1978. Open party-list proportional representation makes gerrymandering obsolete by erasing district lines and empowering voters to rank a list of candidates any party puts forth. This method is used in Austria, Brazil, Sweden, and Switzerland.
In the U.S., such reforms are controversial and face particularly strong opposition from groups that benefit from gerrymandering. In a more neutral system, they might lose considerable influence.
The most commonly advocated electoral reform proposal targeted at gerrymandering is to change the redistricting process. Under these proposals, an independent and presumably objective commission is created specifically for redistricting, rather than having the legislature do it.
This is the system used in the UK, where independent boundary commissions determine the boundaries for constituencies in the House of Commons and the devolved legislatures, subject to ratification by the body in question (almost always granted without debate). A similar situation exists in Australia, where the independent Australian Electoral Commission and its state-based counterparts determine electoral boundaries for federal, state and local jurisdictions.
To help ensure neutrality, members of a redistricting agency may be appointed from relatively apolitical sources, such as retired judges or longstanding members of the civil service, possibly with requirements for adequate representation among competing political parties. Additionally, members of the board can be denied information that might aid in gerrymandering, such as the demographic makeup or voting patterns of the population.
As a further constraint, consensus requirements can be imposed to ensure that the resulting district map reflects a wider perception of fairness, such as a requirement for a supermajority approval of the commission for any district proposal. But consensus requirements can lead to deadlock, as occurred in Missouri following the 2000 census. There, the equally numbered partisan appointees were unable to reach consensus in a reasonable time, and so the courts had to determine district lines.
In the U.S. state of Iowa, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Bureau (LSB, akin to the U.S. Congressional Research Service) determines electoral district boundaries. Aside from satisfying federally mandated contiguity and population equality criteria, the LSB mandates unity of counties and cities. Consideration of political factors such as location of incumbents, previous boundary locations, and political party proportions is specifically forbidden. Since Iowa's counties are chiefly regularly shaped polygons, the LSB process has led to districts that follow county lines.
In 2005, the U.S. state of Ohio had a ballot measure to create an independent commission whose first priority was competitive districts, a sort of "reverse gerrymander". A complex mathematical formula was to be used to determine the competitiveness of a district. The measure failed voter approval chiefly due to voter concerns that communities of interest would be broken up.
In 2017, Representative John Delaney submitted the Open Our Democracy Act of 2017 to the U.S. House of Representatives as a means to implement nonpartisan redistricting.
Many redistricting reforms seek to remove partisanship to ensure fairness in the redistricting process. The I-cut-you-choose method achieves fairness by putting the two major-parties in direct competition. I-cut-you-choose is a fair division method to divide resources amongst two parties, regardless of which party cuts first. This method typically relies on assumptions of contiguity of districts but ignores all other constraints such as keeping communities of interest together. This method has been applied to nominal redistricting problems but it generally has less public interest than other types of redistricting reforms. The I-cut-you-choose concept was popularized by the board game Berrymandering. Problems with this method arise when minor parties are shut-out of the process which will reinforce the two-party system. Additionally, while this method is provably fair to the two parties creating the districts, it is not necessarily fair to the communities they represent.
When a single political party controls both legislative houses of a state during redistricting, both Democrats and Republicans have displayed a marked propensity for couching the process in secrecy; in May 2010, for example, the Republican National Committee held a redistricting training session in Ohio where the theme was "Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe". The need for increased transparency in redistricting processes is clear; a 2012 investigation by The Center for Public Integrity reviewed every state's redistricting processes for both transparency and potential for public input, and ultimately assigned 24 states grades of either D or F.
In response to these types of problems, redistricting transparency legislation has been introduced to US Congress a number of times in recent years, including the Redistricting Transparency Acts of 2010, 2011, and 2013. Such policy proposals aim to increase the transparency and responsiveness of the redistricting systems in the US. The merit of increasing transparency in redistricting processes is based largely on the premise that lawmakers would be less inclined to draw gerrymandered districts if they were forced to defend such districts in a public forum.
As gerrymandering relies on the wasted-vote effect, the use of a different voting system with fewer wasted votes can help reduce gerrymandering. In particular, the use of multi-member districts alongside voting systems establishing proportional representation such as party-list proportional representation or single transferable voting can reduce wasted votes and gerrymandering. Semi-proportional voting systems such as single non-transferable vote or cumulative voting are relatively simple and similar to first past the post and can also reduce the proportion of wasted votes and thus potential gerrymandering. Electoral reformers have advocated all three as replacement systems.
Electoral systems with various forms of proportional representation are now found in nearly all European countries, resulting in multi-party systems (with many parties represented in the parliaments) with higher voter attendance in the elections, fewer wasted votes, and a wider variety of political opinions represented.
Electoral systems with election of just one winner in each district (i.e., "winner-takes-all" electoral systems) and no proportional distribution of extra mandates to smaller parties tend to create two-party systems. This effect, labeled Duverger's law by political scientists, was described by Maurice Duverger.
Another way to avoid gerrymandering is simply to stop redistricting altogether and use existing political boundaries such as state, county, or provincial lines. While this prevents future gerrymandering, any existing advantage may become deeply ingrained. The United States Senate, for instance, has more competitive elections than the House of Representatives due to the use of existing state borders rather than gerrymandered districts—Senators are elected by their entire state, while Representatives are elected in legislatively drawn districts.
The use of fixed districts creates an additional problem, however, in that fixed districts do not take into account changes in population. Individual voters can come to have very different degrees of influence on the legislative process. This malapportionment can greatly affect representation after long periods of time or large population movements. In the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution, several constituencies that had been fixed since they gained representation in the Parliament of England became so small that they could be won with only a handful of voters (rotten boroughs). Similarly, in the U.S. the Alabama Legislature refused to redistrict for more than 60 years, despite major changes in population patterns. By 1960 less than a quarter of the state's population controlled the majority of seats in the legislature. This practice of using fixed districts for state legislatures was effectively banned in the United States after the Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court decision in 1964, establishing a rule of one man, one vote.
Another means to reduce gerrymandering is to create objective, precise criteria with which any district map must comply. Courts in the United States, for instance, have ruled that congressional districts must be contiguous in order to be constitutional. This, however, is not a particularly effective constraint, as very narrow strips of land with few or no voters in them may be used to connect separate regions for inclusion in one district, as is the case in Illinois's 4th congressional district.
Depending on the distribution of voters for a particular party, metrics that maximize compactness can be opposed to metrics that minimize the efficiency gap. For example, in the United States, voters registered with the Democratic Party tend to be concentrated in cities, potentially resulting in a large number of "wasted" votes if compact districts are drawn around city populations. Neither of these metrics take into consideration other possible goals, such as proportional representation based on other demographic characteristics (such as race, ethnicity, gender, or income), maximizing competitiveness of elections (the greatest number of districts where party affiliation is 50/50), avoiding splits of existing government units (like cities and counties), and ensuring representation of major interest groups (like farmers or voters in a specific transportation corridor), though any of these could be incorporated into a more complicated metric.
One method is to define a minimum district to convex polygon ratio. To use this method, every proposed district is circumscribed by the smallest possible convex polygon (its convex hull; think of stretching a rubberband around the outline of the district). Then, the area of the district is divided by the area of the polygon; or, if at the edge of the state, by the portion of the area of the polygon within state boundaries.
The advantages of this method are that it allows a certain amount of human intervention to take place (thus solving the Colorado problem of splitline districting); it allows the borders of the district to follow existing jagged subdivisions, such as neighborhoods or voting districts (something isoperimetric rules would discourage); and it allows concave coastline districts, such as the Florida gulf coast area. It would mostly eliminate bent districts, but still permit long, straight ones. However, since human intervention is still allowed, the gerrymandering issues of packing and cracking would still occur, just to a lesser extent.
The Center for Range Voting has proposed a way to draw districts by a simple algorithm. The algorithm uses only the shape of the state, the number N of districts wanted, and the population distribution as inputs. The algorithm (slightly simplified) is:
This district-drawing algorithm has the advantages of simplicity, ultra-low cost, a single possible result (thus no possibility of human interference), lack of intentional bias, and it produces simple boundaries that do not meander needlessly. It has the disadvantage of ignoring geographic features such as rivers, cliffs, and highways and cultural features such as tribal boundaries. This landscape oversight causes it to produce districts different from those a human would produce. Ignoring geographic features can induce very simple boundaries.
While most districts produced by the method will be fairly compact and either roughly rectangular or triangular, some of the resulting districts can still be long and narrow strips (or triangles) of land.
Like most automatic redistricting rules, the shortest splitline algorithm will fail to create majority-minority districts, for both ethnic and political minorities, if the minority populations are not very compact. This might reduce minority representation.
Another criticism of the system is that splitline districts sometimes divide and diffuse the voters in a large metropolitan area. This condition is most likely to occur when one of the first splitlines cuts through the metropolitan area. It is often considered a drawback of the system because residents of the same agglomeration are assumed to be a community of common interest. This is most evident in the splitline allocation of Colorado. However, in cases when the splitline divides a large metropolitan area, it is usually because that large area has enough population for multiple districts. In cases which the large area only has the population for one district, then the splitline usually results in the urban area being in one district with the other district being rural.
As of July 2007, shortest-splitline redistricting pictures, based on the results of the 2000 census, are available for all 50 states.
It is possible to define a specific minimum isoperimetric quotient, proportional to the ratio between the area and the square of the perimeter of any given congressional voting district. Although technologies presently exist to define districts in this manner, there are no rules in place mandating their use, and no national movement to implement such a policy. One problem with the simplest version of this rule is that it would prevent incorporation of jagged natural boundaries, such as rivers or mountains; when such boundaries are required, such as at the edge of a state, certain districts may not be able to meet the required minima. One way of avoiding this problem is to allow districts which share a border with a state border to replace that border with a polygon or semi-circle enclosing the state boundary as a kind of virtual boundary definition, but using the actual perimeter of the district whenever this occurs inside the state boundaries. Enforcing a minimum isoperimetric quotient would encourage districts with a high ratio between area and perimeter.
The efficiency gap is a simply-calculable measure that can show the effects of gerrymandering. It measures wasted votes for each party: the sum of votes cast in losing districts (losses due to cracking) and excess votes cast in winning districts (losses due to packing). The difference in these wasted votes are divided by total votes cast, and the resulting percentage is the efficiency gap.
In 2017, Boris Alexeev and Dustin Mixon proved that "sometimes, a small efficiency gap is only possible with bizarrely shaped districts". This means that it is mathematically impossible to always devise boundaries which would simultaneously meet certain Polsby–Popper and efficiency gap targets.
The introduction of modern computers alongside the development of elaborate voter databases and special districting software has made gerrymandering a far more precise science. Using such databases, political parties can obtain detailed information about every household including political party registration, previous campaign donations, and the number of times residents voted in previous elections and combine it with other predictors of voting behavior such as age, income, race, or education level. With this data, gerrymandering politicians can predict the voting behavior of each potential district with an astonishing degree of precision, leaving little chance for creating an accidentally competitive district.
On the other hand, the introduction of modern computers would allow the United States Census Bureau to calculate more equal populations in every voting district that are based only on districts being the most compact and equal populations. This could be done easily using their Block Centers based on the Global Positioning System rather than street addresses. With this data, gerrymandering politicians will not be in charge, thus allowing competitive districts again.
Online web apps such as Dave's Redistricting have allowed users to simulate redistricting states into legislative districts as they wish. According to Bradlee, the software was designed to "put power in people's hands," and so that they "can see how the process works, so it's a little less mysterious than it was 10 years ago."
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) can measure the extent to which redistricting plans favor a particular party or group in election, and can support automated redistricting simulators.
Gerrymandering is most likely to emerge in majoritarian systems, where the country is divided into several voting districts and the candidate with the most votes wins the district. If the ruling party is in charge of drawing the district lines, it can abuse the fact that in a majoritarian system all votes that do not go to the winning candidate are essentially irrelevant to the composition of a new government. Even though gerrymandering can be used in other voting systems, it has the most significant impact on voting outcomes in first-past-the-post systems. Partisan redrawing of district lines is particularly harmful to democratic principles in majoritarian two-party systems. In general, two party systems tend to be more polarized than proportional systems. Possible consequences of gerrymandering in such a system can be an amplification of polarization in politics and a lack of representation of minorities, as a large part of the constituency is not represented in policy making. However, not every state using a first-past-the-post system is being confronted with the negative impacts of gerrymandering. Some countries, such as Canada and the UK, authorize non-partisan organizations to set constituency boundaries in attempt to prevent gerrymandering.
The introduction of a proportional system is often proposed as the most effective solution to partisan gerrymandering. In such systems, the entire constituency is being represented proportionally to their votes. Even though voting districts can be part of a proportional system, the redrawing of district lines would not benefit a party, as those districts are mainly of organizational value, except where the district magnitude is small or a system which favors larger parties, such as d'Hondt, is used. For example, instead of having three districts, a single large district would exist where the top three candidates in the election would all represent the district. It would be harder to gerrymander a district where there are multiple winners from that district.
In mixed systems that use proportional and majoritarian voting principles, the usage of gerrymandering is a constitutional obstacle that states have to deal with. In mixed systems, the advantage a political actor can potentially gain from redrawing district lines is much less than in majoritarian systems. In addition, voting districts are mostly being used to avoid that elected parliamentarians are getting too detached from their constituency. The principle that determines the representation in parliament is usually the proportional aspect of the voting system. Seats in parliament are being allocated to each party in accordance to the proportion of their overall votes. In most mixed systems, winning a voting district merely means that a candidate is guaranteed a seat in parliament but does not expand a party's share in the overall seats. Gerrymandering can still be used to manipulate the outcome in voting districts. In most democracies with a mixed system, non-partisan institutions are in charge of drawing district lines and gerrymandering is a less common phenomenon.
Gerrymandering should not be confused with malapportionment, whereby the number of eligible voters per elected representative can vary widely. Nevertheless, the -mander suffix has been applied to particular malapportionments. Sometimes political representatives use both gerrymandering and malapportionment to try to maintain power. One of the earliest examples of malapportionment, rotten boroughs, was practiced in England from the 13th century until the 1832 reform act. A striking modern example of malapportionment is the U.S. senate, where states receive equal representation despite widely varying populations.
Several western democracies, notably Israel, the Netherlands and Slovakia employ an electoral system with only one (nationwide) voting district for election of national representatives. This virtually precludes gerrymandering. Other European countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic or Sweden, among many others, have electoral districts with fixed boundaries (usually one district for each administrative division). The number of representatives for each district can change after a census due to population shifts, but their boundaries do not change. This also effectively eliminates gerrymandering.
Additionally, many countries where the president is directly elected by the citizens (e.g. France, Poland, among others) use only one electoral district for their presidential election with the winner of the popular vote winning the position, despite using multiple districts to elect representatives.
Gerrymandering has not typically been considered a problem in the Australian electoral system largely because drawing of electoral boundaries has typically been done by non-partisan electoral commissions. There have been historical cases of malapportionment, whereby the distribution of electors to electorates was not in proportion to the population in several states.
In the 1998 Australian federal election, the opposition Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley, received 50.98% of the two-party-preferred vote in the House of Representatives, but won only 67/148 seats (45.05%). The incumbent Liberal National Coalition government led by Prime Minister John Howard won 49.02% of the vote and 80 of 148 seats (54.05%). Compared to the previous election, there was a swing of 4.61% against the Coalition, who lost 14 seats. After Howard's victory, many Coalition seats were extremely marginal, having only been won by less than 1% (less than 1200 votes). This election result is generally not attributed to gerrymandering or malapportionment.
In 1996, the High Court of Australia in McGinty v Western Australia confirmed the constitutional legality of electoral systems where different constituencies were differently weighted from others in the same system; in particular, the case approved Western Australia's system.
Sir Thomas Playford was Premier of the state of South Australia from 1938 to 1965 as a result of a system of malapportionment, which became known as the Playmander, despite it not strictly speaking involving a gerrymander.
In the state of Queensland, malapportionment combined with a gerrymander under Country Party Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at his own request) became nicknamed the Bjelkemander in the 1970s and 1980s.
The malapportionment had been originally designed to favor rural areas in the 1930s-1950s by a Labor government who drew their support from agricultural and mine workers in rural areas. This helped Labor to stay in government from 1932 to 1957. As demographics and political views shifted over time, this system came to favor the Country Party instead.
The Country Party led by Frank Nicklin came to power in 1957, deciding to keep the malapportionment that favored them. In 1968, Joh Bjelke-Petersen became leader of the Country Party and Premier. In the 1970s, he further expanded the malapportionment and gerrymandering which then became known as the Bjelkemander. Under the system, electoral boundaries were drawn so that rural electorates had as few as half as many voters as metropolitan ones and regions with high levels of support for the Labor Party were concentrated into fewer electorates, allowing Bjelke-Petersen's government to remain in power for despite attracting substantially less than 50% of the vote.
In the 1986 election, for example, the National Party received 39.64% of the first preference vote and won 49 seats (in the 89 seat Parliament) whilst the Labor Opposition received 41.35% but won only 30 seats. Bjelke-Petersen also used the system to disadvantage Liberal Party (traditionally allied with the Country Party) voters in urban areas, allowing Bjelke-Petersen's Country Party to rule alone, shunning the Liberals.
Bjelke-Petersen also used Queensland Police brutality to quell protests, and Queensland under his government was frequently described as a police state. In 1987 he was eventually forced to resign in disgrace after the Fitzgerald Inquiry revealed wide-ranging corruption in his cabinet and the Queensland Police, resulting in the prosecution and jailing of Country Party members. Before resigning, Bjelke-Petersen asked the Governor of Queensland to sack his own cabinet, in an unsuccessful attempt to cling to power. Labor won the next election, and have remained the dominant party in Queensland since then. The Country Party and Liberal Party eventually merged in Queensland to become the Liberal-National Party, while the Country Party in other states was renamed as the National Party.
The Western Australian Legislative Council was long gerrymandered via a malapportionment that clearly favored the rural conservative National Party, with the state split into electoral regions with significant differences in voter numbers. After the Labor Party won a landslide victory in both houses in the 2021 Western Australian state election, they abolished the electoral region system, replacing it with a single statewide constituency electing 37 members via optional preferential voting that creates a one-vote, one-value system.
In 2014 the conservative Liberal Party NSW State Government gerrymandered the local City of Sydney council elections as part of their continued attempts to remove Clover Moore from elected positions. Moore had already been removed as a state government representative by laws banning serving simultaneously as a state representative and a local council member, and their attempt to remove her from the Council saw the State Government introduce a law giving all businesses in the area two votes and requiring the Council to constantly update the electoral roll and inform each business of its eligibility to vote. Moore called the laws an "undemocratic gerrymander" and election analyst Antony Green said the changes were "clearly an attempt to disadvantage Clover Moore". The laws were specific to the City of Sydney council and not rolled out across the rest of the state councils. The attempt failed, and Moore retained her position as Lord Mayor of Sydney through multiple further elections.
The 1962 Bahamian general election was likely influenced by gerrymandering. The election was the first to allow universal suffrage. The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) received 44% of the vote, while the United Bahamian Party (UBP) won only 36% of the vote. The other 20% was for third parties and independents. Despite receiving a majority of the votes, the PLP won only 8 of the 33 seats in the House of Assembly, while the UBP won 18 seats.
Gerrymandering used to be prominent in Canadian politics, but is no longer prominent, after independent electoral boundary redistribution commissions were established in all provinces. Early in Canadian history, both the federal and provincial levels used gerrymandering to try to maximize partisan power. When Alberta and Saskatchewan were admitted to Confederation in 1905, their original district boundaries were set forth in the respective Alberta and Saskatchewan Acts. Federal Liberal cabinet members devised the boundaries to ensure the election of provincial Liberal governments. British Columbia used a combination of single-member and dual-member constituencies to solidify the power of the center-right British Columbia Social Credit Party until 1991.
Since responsibility for drawing federal and provincial electoral boundaries was handed over to independent agencies, the problem has largely been eliminated at those levels of government. Manitoba was the first province to authorize a non-partisan group to define constituency boundaries in the 1950s. In 1964, the federal government delegated the drawing of boundaries for federal electoral districts to the non-partisan agency Elections Canada which answers to Parliament rather than the government of the day.
As a result, gerrymandering is not generally a major issue in Canada except at the civic level. Although city wards are recommended by independent agencies, city councils occasionally overrule them. That is much more likely if the city is not homogenous and different neighborhoods have sharply different opinions about city policy direction.
In 2006, a controversy arose in Prince Edward Island over the provincial government's decision to throw out an electoral map drawn by an independent commission. Instead, they created two new maps. The government adopted the second of them, which was designed by the caucus of the governing Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Island. Opposition parties and the media attacked Premier Pat Binns for what they saw as gerrymandering of districts. Among other things, the government adopted a map that ensured that every current Member of the Legislative Assembly from the premier's party had a district to run in for re-election, but in the original map, several had been redistricted. However, in the 2007 provincial election only seven of 20 incumbent Members of the Legislative Assembly were re-elected (seven did not run for re-election), and the government was defeated.
The military government which ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 was ousted in a national plebiscite in October 1988. Opponents of General Augusto Pinochet voted NO to remove him from power and to trigger democratic elections, while supporters (mostly from the right-wing) voted YES to keep him in office for another eight years.
Five months prior to the plebiscite, the regime published a law regulating future elections and referendums, but the configuration of electoral districts and the manner in which National Congress seats would be awarded were only added to the law seven months after the referendum.
For the Chamber of Deputies (lower house), 60 districts were drawn by grouping (mostly) neighboring communes (the smallest administrative subdivision in the country) within the same region (the largest). It was established that two deputies would be elected per district, with the most voted coalition needing to outpoll its closest rival by a margin of more than 2-to-1 to take both seats. The results of the 1988 plebiscite show that neither the "NO" side nor the "YES" side outpolled the other by said margin in any of the newly established districts. They also showed that the vote/seat ratio was lower in districts which supported the "YES" side and higher in those where the "NO" was strongest. In spite of this, at the 1989 parliamentary election, the center-left opposition was able to capture both seats (the so-called doblaje) in twelve out of 60 districts, winning control of 60% of the Chamber.
Senate constituencies were created by grouping all lower-chamber districts in a region, or by dividing a region into two constituencies of contiguous lower-chamber districts. The 1980 Constitution allocated a number of seats to appointed senators, making it harder for one side to change the Constitution by itself. The opposition won 22 senate seats in the 1989 election, taking both seats in three out of 19 constituencies, controlling 58% of the elected Senate, but only 47% of the full Senate. The unelected senators were eliminated in the 2005 constitutional reforms, but the electoral map has remained largely untouched (two new regions were created in 2007, one of which altered the composition of two senatorial constituencies; the first election to be affected by this minor change took place in 2013).
During the process of declaration and recognition of independence of Croatia the administrative divisions of the country was reorganized into 20 newly established counties and the city of Zagreb. All of the counties had Croat ethnic majority and were in part established as a gerrymandering effort to delegitimize Republic of Serbian Krajina secession as well as any regionalist requests in the historic provinces of Istria and Dalmatia while at the same time strengthening dominant-party's control over the Chamber of Counties. Following the end of the Croatian War of Independence and during the UNTAES administration in Eastern Slavonia Serb political leader Vojislav Stanimirović accused Croatian authorities of intentional division of the Serb community in the region into Osijek-Baranja and Vukovar-Srijem County with an aim to dilute their political initiatives.
Croatian Parliament electoral districts were also described as a form of gerrymandering preventing genuine political competition with each district selecting the same number of MPs while districts' population varied over the legally permitted ±5 percent. In 2010 Constitutional Court of Croatia stated in a report that population discrepancies among electoral districts is higher than ±5 percent and that districts' borders should be redrawn to address the concern. 2021 Croatian census indicated even further differences in population with the difference in needed number of votes in the smallest (Electoral district IV) and the largest (Electoral district VII) district for a single parliamentary mandate being 10,5 thousands votes. In October 2022 President of the Constitutional Court of Croatia Miroslav Šeparović warned that this situation may jeopardize constitutionality of the following elections in Croatia.
On 30 December 2022, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweeted that he believed that the country's 262 municipalities should be reduced to 50. Opposition politicians accused him of attempting to gerrymander the municipalities and consolidate his power ahead of the 2024 general election. On 20 February 2023, Legislative Assembly President Ernesto Castro announced that the Nuevas Ideas (NI) political party was formally evaluating a proposal to reduce the number of municipalities as suggested by Bukele.
France is one of the few countries to let legislatures redraw the map with no check. In practice, the Parliament of France sets up an executive commission. Districts called arrondissements were used in the Third Republic and under the Fifth Republic they are called circonscriptions. During the Third Republic, some reforms of arrondissements, which were also used for administrative purposes, were largely suspected to have been arranged to favor the kingmaker in the National Assembly, the Radical Party.
The dissolution of Seine and Seine-et-Oise départements by de Gaulle was seen as a case of gerrymandering to counter communist influence around Paris.
In the modern regime, there were three designs: in 1958 (regime change), 1987 (by Charles Pasqua) and 2010 (by Alain Marleix), three times by conservative governments. Pasqua's drawing was known to have been particularly good at gerrymandering, resulting in 80% of the seats with 58% of the vote in 1993, and forcing Socialists in the 1997 snap election to enact multiple pacts with smaller parties in order to win again, this time as a coalition. In 2010, the Sarkozy government created 12 districts for expats.
The Constitutional council was called twice by the opposition to decide about gerrymandering, but it never considered partisan disproportions. However, it forced the Marleix committee to respect an 80–120% population ratio, ending a tradition dating back to the Revolution in which départements, however small in population, would send at least two MPs.
Since Germany utilizes a proportional representation system, gerrymandering is rarely a problem. There is, however, one situation in which gerrymandering can affect an election. In Germany for a party to win any seat, it has to win at least 5% of the vote or three constituencies. This latter rule was applied most recently in the 2021 federal election, in which the Left entered the Bundestag despite winning less than 5% of the vote.
In 2000 the electoral constituencies were redrawn and the PDS, which entered the Bundestag in the elections of 1994 and 1998 with this rule, accused the SPD, who were in power at the time of redrawing the constituencies, of gerrymandering them by breaking up districts in East Berlin, a PDS stronghold, and combining them with West Berlin. In the 2002 federal election the PDS lost their third constituency and entered the Bundestag with only two seats. Had they won a third direct seat, they would have qualified for an additional 25 seats.
Another scenario in which gerrymandering can affect German federal election is when a party wins more constituenies than their overall share of the popular vote—those extra seats, called "Überhangmandate", remain. In the Bundestag election of 2009, Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU gained 24 such extra seats, while no other party gained any; this skewed the result so much that the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany issued two rulings declaring the existing election laws invalid and requiring the Bundestag to pass a new law limiting such extra seats to no more than 15. In 2013, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutionality of Überhangmandate. From then on each other party would receive seats as well to remedy the disproportion, thereby making it impossible to have disproportionate election results.
Gerrymandering has been rather common in Greek history since organized parties with national ballots only appeared after the 1926 Constitution. The only case before that was the creation of the Piraeus electoral district in 1906, in order to give the Theotokis party a safe district.
A notable case of gerrymandering in Greece was in the 1956 legislative election. While in previous elections the districts were based on the prefecture level (νομός), for 1956 the country was split in districts of varying sizes, some being the size of prefectures, some the size of sub-prefectures (επαρχία) and others somewhere in between. In small districts the winning party would take all seats, in intermediate size, it would take most and there was proportional representation in the largest districts. The districts were created in such a way that small districts were those that traditionally voted for the right while large districts were those that voted against the right.
This system has become known as the three-phase (τριφασικό) system or the baklava system (because, as baklava is split into full pieces and corner pieces, the country was also split into disproportionate pieces). The opposition, being composed of the center and the left, formed a coalition with the sole intent of changing the electoral law and then calling new elections. Even though the centrist and leftist opposition won the popular vote (1,620,007 votes against 1,594,992), the right-wing ERE won the majority of seats (165 to 135) and was to lead the country for the next two years.
In Hong Kong, functional constituencies are demarcated by the government and defined in statutes, making them prone to gerrymandering. The functional constituency for the information technology sector was particular criticized for gerrymandering and voteplanting.
There are also gerrymandering concerns in the constituencies of district councils.
In 2011, Fidesz politician János Lázár has proposed a redesign to Hungarian voting districts; considering the territorial results of previous elections, this redesign would favor right-wing politics according to the opposition. Since then, the law has been passed by the Fidesz-majority National Assembly. By the political think tanks and media close to the opposition, it took twice as many votes to gain a seat in some election districts as in some others. However, their findings are controversial. Gerrymandering was seen in the 2018 election results.
Until the 1980s Dáil boundaries in Ireland were drawn not by an independent commission but by government ministers. Successive arrangements by governments of all political characters have been attacked as gerrymandering. Ireland uses the single transferable vote, and as well as the actual boundaries drawn, the main tool of gerrymandering has been the number of seats per constituency used, with three-seat constituencies normally benefiting the strongest parties in an area, whereas four-seat constituencies normally help smaller parties.
In 1947 the rapid rise of new party Clann na Poblachta threatened the position of the governing party Fianna Fáil. The government of Éamon de Valera introduced the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1947, which increased the size of the Dáil from 138 to 147 and increased the number of three-seat constituencies from fifteen to twenty-two. The result was described by the journalist and historian Tim Pat Coogan as "a blatant attempt at gerrymander which no Six County Unionist could have bettered." The following February the 1948 general election was held and Clann na Poblachta secured ten seats instead of the nineteen they would have received proportional to their vote.
In the mid-1970s, the Minister for Local Government, James Tully, attempted to arrange the constituencies to ensure that the governing Fine Gael–Labour Party National Coalition would win a parliamentary majority. The Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974 was planned as a major reversal of previous gerrymandering by Fianna Fáil (then in opposition). Tully ensured that there were as many as possible three-seat constituencies where the governing parties were strong, in the expectation that the governing parties would each win a seat in many constituencies, relegating Fianna Fáil to one out of three.
In areas where the governing parties were weak, four-seat constituencies were used so that the governing parties had a strong chance of still winning two. The election results created substantial change, as there was a larger than expected collapse in the vote. Fianna Fáil won a landslide victory in the 1977 Irish general election, two out of three seats in many cases, relegating the National Coalition parties to fight for the last seat. Consequently, the term "Tullymandering" was used to describe the phenomenon of a failed attempt at gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering in India was claimed in the late 2010s and early 2020s, contributing to the BJP party winning 55% of all seats with only 37% of all votes in India's lower house.
A hypothesis of gerrymandering was theorized by constituencies drawn by the electoral act of 2017, so-called Rosatellum.
From the years 1981 until 2005, Kuwait was divided into 25 electoral districts in order to over-represent the government's supporters (the 'tribes'). In July 2005, a new law for electoral reforms was approved which prevented electoral gerrymandering by cutting the number of electoral districts from 25 to 5. The government of Kuwait found that 5 electoral districts resulted in a powerful parliament with the majority representing the opposition. A new law was crafted by the government of Kuwait and signed by the Amir to gerrymander the districts to 10 allowing the government's supporters to regain the majority.
The practice of gerrymandering has been around in the country since its independence in 1957. The ruling coalition at that time, Barisan Nasional (BN; English: "National Front"), has been accused of controlling the election commission by revising the boundaries of constituencies. For example, during the 13th General Election in 2013, Barisan Nasional won 60% of the seats in the Malaysian Parliament despite only receiving 47% of the popular vote. Malapportionment has also been used at least since 1974, when it was observed that in one state alone (Perak), the parliamentary constituency with the most voters had more than ten times as many voters as the one with the fewest voters. These practices finally failed BN in the 14th General Election on 9 May 2018, when the opposing Pakatan Harapan (PH; English: "Alliance of Hope") won despite perceived efforts of gerrymandering and malapportionment from the incumbent.
The Labour Party that won in 1981, even though the Nationalist Party got the most votes, did so because of its gerrymandering. A 1987 constitutional amendment awarding compensatory seats to make the final seat tally closer reflect actual vote share prevented that situation from reoccurring.
After the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepali politics has well exercised the practice of gerrymandering with the view to take advantage in the election. It was often practiced by Nepali Congress, which remained in power in most of the time. Learning from this, the reshaping of constituency was done for constituent assembly and the opposition now wins elections.
In 2015, the government rewrote the Constitution of Nepal, which included a rewriting of electoral boundaries. Parties in the southern region of Terai believe the new boundaries discriminated against marginalized groups, like the Madhesis, Tharus, and Janajatis, and that the boundaries "packed" the groups. Protesting occurred in Terai and other areas in southern Nepal, raising concern from across the country.
Congressional districts in the Philippines were originally based on an ordinance from the 1987 Constitution, which was created by the Constitutional Commission, which was ultimately based on legislative districts as they were drawn in 1907. The same constitution gave Congress of the Philippines the power to legislate new districts, either through a national redistricting bill or piecemeal redistricting per province or city. Congress has never passed a national redistricting bill since the approval of the 1987 constitution, while it has incrementally created 34 new districts, out of the 200 originally created in 1987.
This allows Congress to create new districts once a place reaches 250,000 inhabitants, the minimum required for its creation. With this, local dynasties, through congressmen, can exert influence in the district-making process by creating bills carving new districts from old ones. In time, as the population of the Philippines increases, these districts, or groups of it, will be the basis of carving new provinces out of existing ones.
An example was in Camarines Sur, where two districts were divided into three districts which allegedly favors the Andaya and the Arroyo families; it caused Rolando Andaya and Dato Arroyo, who would have otherwise run against each other, run in separate districts, with one district allegedly not even surpassing the 250,000-population minimum. The Supreme Court later ruled that the 250,000 population minimum does not apply to an additional district in a province. The resulting splits would later be the cause of another gerrymander, where the province would be split into a new province called Nueva Camarines; the bill was defeated in the Senate in 2013.
In recent decades, critics have accused the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) of unfair electoral practices to maintain significant majorities in the Parliament of Singapore. Among the complaints are that the government uses gerrymandering. The Elections Department was established as part of the executive branch under the Prime Minister of Singapore, rather than as an independent body. Critics have accused it of giving the ruling party the power to decide polling districts and polling sites through electoral engineering, based on poll results in previous elections.
Members of opposition parties claim that the Group Representation Constituency system is "synonymous to gerrymandering", pointing out examples of Cheng San GRC and Eunos GRC which were dissolved by the Elections Department with voters redistributed to other constituencies after opposition parties gained ground in elections.
The landmark 1948 general election was influenced by provisions of the Constitution granting rural areas more constituencies in Parliament than urban areas. Thus the white-supremacist National Party won a plurality against the more moderate United Party despite receiving fewer votes and implemented apartheid.
Until the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, Spain used both single-member and multi-member constituencies in general elections. Multi-member constituencies were only used in some big cities. Some gerrymandering examples included the districts of Vilademuls or Torroella de Montgrí in Catalonia. These districts were created in order to prevent the Federal Democratic Republican Party to win a seat in Figueres or La Bisbal and to secure a seat to the dynastic parties. Since 1931, the constituency boundaries match the province boundaries.
After the Francoist dictatorship, during the transition to democracy, these fixed provincial constituencies were reestablished in Section 68.2 of the current 1978 Spanish Constitution, so gerrymandering is impossible in general elections. There are not winner-takes-all elections in Spain except for the tiny territories of Ceuta and Melilla (which only have one representative each); everywhere else the number of representatives assigned to a constituency is proportional to its population and calculated according to a national law, so tampering with under- or over-representation is difficult too.
European, some regional and municipal elections are held under single, at-large multi-member constituencies with proportional representation and gerrymandering is not possible either.
In fact, there is not even a direct translation of the term "gerrymandering" into Spanish and first-generation Hispanic and Latino Americans have struggled with such an unfamiliar concept in the Spanish-speaking world.
Sri Lanka's new Local Government elections process has been the talking point of gerrymandering since its inception. Even though that talk was more about the ward-level, it is also seen in some local council areas too.
In the election of 2010, there were numerous examples of gerrymandering throughout the entire country of Sudan. A report from the Rift Valley Institute uncovered violations of Sudan's electoral law, where constituencies were created that were well below and above the required limit. According to Sudan's National Elections Act of 2008, no constituency can have a population that is 15% greater or less than the average constituency size. The Rift Valley Report uncovered a number of constituencies that are in violation of this rule. Examples include constituencies in Jonglei, Warrap, South Darfur, and several other states.
Turkey has used gerrymandering in the city of Istanbul in the 2009 municipal elections. Just before the election Istanbul was divided into new districts. Large low income neighborhoods were bundled with the rich neighborhoods to enable the AKP to win the municipal elections.
Prior to the establishment of Home Rule in Northern Ireland, the UK government had installed the single transferable vote (STV) system in Ireland to secure fair elections in terms of proportional representation in its Parliaments. After two elections under that system, in 1929 Stormont changed the electoral system to be the same as the rest of the United Kingdom: a single-member first past the post system. The only exception was for the election of four Stormont MPs to represent the Queen's University of Belfast. Some scholars believe that the boundaries were gerrymandered to under-represent Nationalists. Other geographers and historians, for instance Professor John H. Whyte, disagree. They have argued that the electoral boundaries for the Parliament of Northern Ireland were not gerrymandered to a greater level than that produced by any single-winner election system, and that the actual number of Nationalist MPs barely changed under the revised system (it went from 12 to 11 and later went back up to 12). Most observers have acknowledged that the change to a single-winner system was a key factor, however, in stifling the growth of smaller political parties, such as the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independent Unionists. In the 1967 election, Unionists won 35.5% of the votes and received 60% of the seats, while Nationalists got 27.4% of the votes but received 40% of the seats. This meant that both the Unionist and Nationalist parties were over-represented, while the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independents (amounting to more than 35% of the votes cast) were severely under-represented.
After Westminster reintroduced direct rule in 1973, it restored the single transferable vote (STV) for elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the following year, using the same definitions of constituencies as for the Westminster Parliament. Currently, in Northern Ireland, all elections use STV except those for positions in the Westminster Parliament, which follow the pattern in the rest of the United Kingdom by using "first past the post."
Gerrymandering (in Irish: Claonroinnt) in local elections was introduced in 1923 by the Leech Commission. This was a one-man commission: Sir John Leech, K.C. was appointed by Dawson Bates, Northern Ireland's Minister of Home Affairs, to redraw Northern Ireland's local government electoral boundaries. Leech was also chairman of the Advisory Committee who recommended the release or continued detention of the persons that the Northern Irish government was interning without trial at that time. Leech's changes (gerrymandered electoral boundaries, abolishing proportional representation), together with a resultant boycott by the Irish Nationalist community, resulted in Unionists gaining control of Londonderry County Borough Council, Fermanagh and Tyrone County Councils, and retaking eight rural district councils. These county councils, and most of the district councils, remained under Unionist control despite the majority of their population being Catholic until the UK government imposed Direct Rule in 1972.
Leech's new electoral boundaries for the 1924 Londonderry County Borough Council election reduced the number of wards from four to three, only one of which had a Nationalist majority. This resulted in election of a Unionist council in every election, until the County Borough Council's replacement in 1969 by the unelected Londonderry Development Commission, in a city where Nationalists had a large majority and had won previous elections.
Some critics and supporters spoke at the time of "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People". This passed also into local government, where supporters of the elected majorities were given jobs and appointments. Stephen Gwynn noted as early as 1911 that since the introduction of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898:
In Armagh there are 68,000 Protestants, 56,000 Catholics. The County Council has twenty-two Protestants and eight Catholics. In Tyrone, Catholics are a majority of the population, 82,000 against 68,000; but the electoral districts have been so arranged that Unionists return sixteen as against thirteen Nationalists (one a Protestant). This Council gives to the Unionists two to one majority on its Committees, and out of fifty-two officials employs only five Catholics. In Antrim, which has the largest Protestant majority (196,000 to 40,000), twenty-six Unionists and three Catholics are returned. Sixty officers out of sixty-five are good Unionists and Protestants.
Initially Leech drew the boundaries, but from the 1920s to the 1940s the province-wide government redrew them to reinforce the gerrymander.
Cahir Healy, the long time MP for Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone highlighted the extent of gerrymandering in County Borough Councils elections of the 1930s: Fermanagh reported 30,196 Nationalists and 24,272 Unionists yet Nationalists retained only seven seats while Unionists retained 12. Similar results occurred in County Tyrone: 70,595 Nationalists retained 11 seats while 56,981 Unionists held 16 seats.
The number of electors in a United Kingdom constituency can vary considerably, with the smallest constituency as of 2017 (Scotland's Na h-Eileanan an Iar (21,769 constituents) and Orkney and Shetland (34,552)) having fewer than a fifth of the electors of the largest (England's North West Cambridgeshire (93,223) and Isle of Wight (110,697)). This variation has resulted from:
Under the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the Coalition government planned to review and redraw the parliamentary constituency boundaries for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The review and redistricting was to be carried out by the four UK boundary commissions to produce a reduction from 650 to 600 seats, and more uniform sizes, such that a constituency was to have no fewer than 70,583 and no more than 80,473 electors. The process was intended to address historic malapportionment and be complete by 2015. Preliminary reports suggesting the areas set to lose the fewest seats historically tended to vote Conservative, while other less populous and deindustrialized regions, such as Wales, which would lose a larger proportion of its seats, tending to have more Labour and Liberal Democrat voters, partially correcting the existing malapportionment. In January 2013, an opposition (Labour) motion to suspend the review until after the next general election was tabled in the House of Lords and a vote called in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The motion was passed with the help of the Liberal Democrats, going back on an election pledge. As of October 2016, a new review is in progress and a draft of the new boundaries has been published.
The United States, among the first countries with an elected representative government, was the source of the term gerrymander as stated above.
The practice of gerrymandering the borders of new states continued past the American Civil War and into the late 19th century. The Republican Party used its control of Congress to secure the admission of more states in territories friendly to their party—the admission of Dakota Territory as two states instead of one being a notable example. By the rules for representation in the Electoral College, each new state carried at least three electoral votes regardless of its population.
All redistricting in the United States has been contentious because it has been controlled by political parties vying for power. As a consequence of the decennial census required by the United States Constitution, districts for members of the House of Representatives typically need to be redrawn whenever the number of members in a state changes. In many states, state legislatures redraw boundaries for state legislative districts at the same time.
State legislatures have used gerrymandering along racial lines both to decrease and increase minority representation in state governments and congressional delegations. In Ohio, a conversation between Republican officials was recorded that demonstrated that redistricting was being done to aid their political candidates. Furthermore, the discussions assessed the race of voters as a factor in redistricting, on the premise that African-Americans tend to back Democratic Party candidates. Republicans removed approximately 13,000 African-American voters from the district of Jim Raussen, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, in an apparent attempt to tip the scales in what was once a competitive district for Democratic candidates.
With the Civil Rights Movement and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, federal enforcement and protections of suffrage for all citizens were enacted. Gerrymandering for the purpose of reducing the political influence of a racial or ethnic minority group was prohibited. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, some states created "majority-minority" districts to enhance minority voting strength. This practice, also called "affirmative gerrymandering", was supposed to redress historic discrimination and ensure that ethnic minorities would gain some seats and representation in government. In some states, bipartisan gerrymandering is the norm. State legislators from both parties sometimes agree to draw congressional district boundaries in a way that ensures the re-election of most or all incumbent representatives from both parties.
Rather than allowing more political influence, some states have shifted redistricting authority from politicians and given it to non-partisan redistricting commissions. The states of Washington, Arizona, and California have created standing committees for redistricting following the 2010 census. It has been argued however that in California's case, gerrymandering still continued despite this change. Rhode Island and New Jersey have developed ad hoc committees, but developed the past two decennial reapportionments tied to new census data. Florida's amendments 5 and 6, meanwhile, established rules for the creation of districts but did not mandate an independent commission.
Michigan voters in 2018 approved a proposal to create an independent commission to draw new congressional maps following the 2020 United States Census, thereby removing the responsibility from the state legislature. Additionally, Ohio voters in 2018 modified their existing redistricting statutes to have a commission draw new maps. However, the ability of the state legislature to draw congressional maps remained, and this proposes the risk of gerrymandering. Other states that have implemented commissions in the 2018 midterm cycle include Colorado.
International election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, who were invited to observe and report on the 2004 national elections, expressed criticism of the U.S. congressional redistricting process and made a recommendation that the procedures be reviewed to ensure genuine competitiveness of Congressional election contests.
In 2015, an analyst reported that the two major parties differ in the way they redraw districts. The Democrats construct coalition districts of liberals and minorities together with conservatives which results in Democratic-leaning districts. The Republicans tend to place liberals all together in a district, conservatives in others, creating clear partisan districts.
In June 2019, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges over partisan gerrymandering.
Prior to the 26 September 2010 legislative elections, gerrymandering took place via an addendum to the electoral law by the National Assembly of Venezuela. In the subsequent election, Hugo Chávez's political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela drew 48% of the votes overall, while the opposition parties (the Democratic Unity Roundtable and the Fatherland for All parties) collectively drew 52% of the votes. However, due to the re-allocation of electoral legislative districts prior to the election, Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela was awarded over 60% of the spots in the National Assembly (98 deputies), while 67 deputies were elected for the two opposition parties combined.
In a play on words, the use of race-conscious procedures in jury selection has been termed "jurymandering". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In representative democracies, gerrymandering (/ˈdʒɛrimændərɪŋ/, originally /ˈɡɛrimændərɪŋ/) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve \"cracking\" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or \"packing\" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins, a professor at Morgan State University, describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations, and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændər, ˈɡɛri-/). The word is also a verb for the process.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander; a portmanteau of the name Gerry and the animal salamander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. This word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry, later Vice President of the United States. Gerry, who personally disapproved of the practice, signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble a mythological salamander. Appearing with the term, and helping spread and sustain its popularity, was a political cartoon depicting a strange animal with claws, wings and a dragon-like head that supposedly resembled the oddly shaped district.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The cartoon was most likely drawn by Elkanah Tisdale, an early-19th-century painter, designer, and engraver who lived in Boston at the time. Tisdale had the engraving skills to cut the woodblocks to print the original cartoon. These woodblocks survive and are preserved in the Library of Congress. The creator of the term gerrymander, however, may never be definitively established. Historians widely believe that the Federalist newspaper editors Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell coined the term, but there is no definitive evidence as to who created or uttered the word for the first time.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The redistricting was a notable success for Gerry's Democratic-Republican Party. In the 1812 election, both the Massachusetts House and governorship were comfortably won by Federalists, losing Gerry his job, but the redistricted state senate remained firmly in Democratic-Republican hands.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The word gerrymander was reprinted numerous times in Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts, New England, and nationwide for the rest of 1812. This suggests an organized activity by the Federalists to disparage Gerry in particular and the growing Democratic-Republican party in general. Gerrymandering soon began to be used to describe cases of district shape manipulation for partisan gain in other states. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word's acceptance was marked by its publication in a dictionary (1848) and in an encyclopedia (1868). Since the eponymous Gerry is pronounced with a hard g /ɡ/ as in get, the word gerrymander was originally pronounced /ˈɡɛrimændər/, but pronunciation as /ˈdʒɛrimændər/, with a soft g /dʒ/ as in gentle, has become dominant. Residents of Marblehead, Massachusetts, Gerry's hometown, continue to use the original pronunciation.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "From time to time, other names have been suffixed with -mander to tie a particular effort to a particular politician or group. Examples are the 1852 \"Henry-mandering\", \"Jerrymander\" (referring to California Governor Jerry Brown), \"Perrymander\" (a reference to Texas Governor Rick Perry), \"Tullymander\" (after the Irish politician James Tully), and \"Bjelkemander\" (referencing Australian politician Joh Bjelke-Petersen).",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Gerrymandering's primary goals are to maximize the effect of supporters' votes and minimize the effect of opponents' votes. A partisan gerrymander's main purpose is to influence not only the districting statute but the entire corpus of legislative decisions enacted in its path.",
"title": "Tactics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "These can be accomplished in a number of ways:",
"title": "Tactics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "These tactics are typically combined in some form, creating a few \"forfeit\" seats for packed voters of one type in order to secure more seats and greater representation for voters of another type. This results in candidates of one party (the one responsible for the gerrymandering) winning by small majorities in most of the districts, and another party winning by a large majority in only a few. Any party that endeavors to make a district more favorable to voting for it based on the physical boundary is gerrymandering.",
"title": "Tactics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect. Wasted votes are votes that did not contribute to electing a candidate, either because they were in excess of the number needed for victory or because the candidate lost. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts they will already win, wasting the extra votes. Other districts are more tightly constructed, with the opposition party allowed a bare minority count, thereby wasting all the minority votes for the losing candidate. These districts constitute the majority of districts and are drawn to produce a result favoring the incumbent party.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A quantitative measure of the effect of gerrymandering is the efficiency gap, computed from the difference in the wasted votes for two different political parties summed over all the districts. Citing in part an efficiency gap of 11.69% to 13%, a U.S. District Court in 2016 ruled against the 2011 drawing of Wisconsin legislative districts. In the 2012 election for the state legislature, that gap in wasted votes meant that one party had 48.6% of the two-party votes but won 61% of the 99 districts.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The wasted vote effect is strongest when a party wins by narrow margins across multiple districts, but gerrymandering narrow margins can be risky when voters are less predictable. To minimize the risk of demographic or political shifts swinging a district to the opposition, politicians can create more packed districts, leading to more comfortable margins in unpacked ones.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some political science research suggests that, contrary to common belief, gerrymandering does not decrease electoral competition and can even increase it. Some say that, rather than packing the voters of their party into uncompetitive districts, party leaders tend to prefer to spread their party's voters into multiple districts so that their party can win more races. (See scenario (c) in the box.) This may lead to increased competition. Instead of gerrymandering, some researchers find that other factors, such as partisan polarization and the incumbency advantage, have driven the recent decreases in electoral competition. Similarly, a 2009 study found that \"congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences.\"",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "One state in which gerrymandering has arguably had an adverse effect on electoral competition is California. In 2000, a bipartisan redistricting effort redrew congressional district lines in ways that all but guaranteed incumbent victories; as a result, California saw only one congressional seat change hands between 2000 and 2010. In response to this obvious gerrymandering, a 2010 referendum in California gave the power to redraw congressional district lines to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which had been created to draw California State Senate and Assembly districts by a 2008 referendum. In stark contrast to the redistricting efforts that followed the 2000 census, the redistricting commission has created a number of the most competitive congressional districts in the country.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The effect of gerrymandering for incumbents is particularly advantageous, as they are far more likely to be reelected under conditions of gerrymandering. For example, in 2002, according to political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, only four challengers were able to defeat incumbent members of the U.S. Congress, the lowest number in modern American history. Incumbents are likely to be of the majority party orchestrating a gerrymander, and are usually easily renominated in subsequent elections, including incumbents among the minority.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Mann, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, has also noted that \"Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders)\". The bipartisan gerrymandering Mann mentions refers to the fact that legislators often draw distorted legislative districts even when doing so does not give their party an advantage.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Gerrymandering of state legislative districts can effectively guarantee an incumbent's victory by \"shoring up\" a district with higher levels of partisan support, without disproportionately benefiting a particular political party. This can be highly problematic from a governance perspective, because forming districts to ensure high levels of partisanship often leads to higher levels of partisanship in legislative bodies. If a substantial number of districts are designed to be polarized, then those districts' representation will also likely act in a heavily partisan manner, which can create and perpetuate partisan gridlock.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Gerrymandering can thus have a deleterious effect on the principle of democratic accountability. With uncompetitive seats/districts reducing the fear that incumbent politicians may lose office, they have less incentive to represent their constituents' interests, even when those interests conform to majority support for an issue across the electorate as a whole. Incumbent politicians may look out more for their party's interests than for those of their constituents.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Gerrymandering can affect campaign costs for district elections. If districts become increasingly stretched out, candidates may incur higher costs for transportation and campaign advertising across a district. The incumbent's advantage in campaign fundraising is another benefit of having a gerrymandered seat.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Gerrymandering also has significant effects on the representation voters receive in gerrymandered districts. Because gerrymandering can be designed to increase the number of wasted votes among the electorate, the relative representation of particular groups can be drastically altered from their actual share of the voting population. This effect can significantly prevent a gerrymandered system from achieving proportional and descriptive representation, as the winners of elections are increasingly determined by who is drawing the districts, rather than the voters' preferences.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Gerrymandering may be advocated to improve representation within the legislature among otherwise underrepresented minority groups by packing them into a single district. This can be controversial, as it may lead to those groups' remaining marginalized in the government as they become confined to a single district. Candidates outside that district no longer need to represent them to win elections.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "As an example, much of the redistricting conducted in the U.S. in the early 1990s involved the intentional creation of additional \"majority-minority\" districts where racial minorities such as African Americans were packed into the majority. This \"maximization policy\" drew support from both the Republican Party (which had limited support among African Americans and could concentrate its power elsewhere) and by minority representatives elected as Democrats from these constituencies, who then had safe seats.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The 2012 election provides a number of examples of how partisan gerrymandering can adversely affect the descriptive function of states' congressional delegations. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 83,000 more votes than Republican candidates, yet the Republican-controlled redistricting process in 2010 resulted in Democrats losing to their Republican counterparts in 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 districts.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In the seven states where Republicans had complete control over the redistricting process, Republican House candidates received 16.7 million votes and Democratic House candidates received 16.4 million. The redistricting resulted in Republican victories in 73 out of the 107 affected seats; in those seven states, Republicans received 50.4% of the votes but won in over 68% of the congressional districts. While it is but one example of how gerrymandering can have a significant effect on election outcomes, this kind of disproportional representation of the public will seems problematic for the legitimacy of democratic systems, regardless of one's political affiliation.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In Michigan, redistricting was conducted by a Republican legislature in 2011. Federal congressional districts were designed so that cities such as Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and East Lansing were separated into districts with large conservative-leaning hinterlands that diluted the Democratic votes in those cities in Congressional elections. Since 2010, not one of those cities is within a district in which a Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives has a reasonable chance of winning, short of Democratic landslide.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Gerrymandering can also be done to help incumbents as a whole, effectively making every district a packed one and greatly reducing the potential for competitive elections. This is particularly likely to occur when the minority party has significant obstruction power: unable to enact a partisan gerrymander, the legislature instead agrees to ensure its own reelection.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In an unusual occurrence in 2000, for example, the two dominant parties in the state of California cooperatively redrew both state and federal legislative districts to preserve the status quo, insulating the incumbents from unpredictable voting. This move proved completely effective, as no state or federal legislative office changed party in the 2004 election, although 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 state assembly seats were potentially at risk.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2006, the term \"70/30 district\" came to signify the equitable split of two evenly split (i.e. 50/50) districts. The resulting districts gave each party a guaranteed seat and retained their respective power base.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Since the first handshake deal in 1981, whereby Republicans informally controlled the state senate redistricting process and Democrats informally controlled the state assembly redistricting process, New York has experienced some of the nation's least competitive legislative elections. One study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that over one ten-year period, as many members of the state legislature died in office as were defeated in elections. More than 99% of the incumbents contesting a primary or general election won their races.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted as residents of a district, increasing its population with non-voters when assigning political apportionment. This phenomenon violates the principle of one person, one vote because, although many prisoners come from (and return to) urban communities, they are counted as \"residents\" of the rural districts that contain large prisons, artificially inflating the political representation in districts with prisons at the expense of voters in districts without them. Others contend that prisoners should not be counted as residents of their original districts when they do not reside there and are not legally eligible to vote.",
"title": "Effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its effect on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. In Spain, they are constitutionally fixed since 1978. Open party-list proportional representation makes gerrymandering obsolete by erasing district lines and empowering voters to rank a list of candidates any party puts forth. This method is used in Austria, Brazil, Sweden, and Switzerland.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In the U.S., such reforms are controversial and face particularly strong opposition from groups that benefit from gerrymandering. In a more neutral system, they might lose considerable influence.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The most commonly advocated electoral reform proposal targeted at gerrymandering is to change the redistricting process. Under these proposals, an independent and presumably objective commission is created specifically for redistricting, rather than having the legislature do it.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "This is the system used in the UK, where independent boundary commissions determine the boundaries for constituencies in the House of Commons and the devolved legislatures, subject to ratification by the body in question (almost always granted without debate). A similar situation exists in Australia, where the independent Australian Electoral Commission and its state-based counterparts determine electoral boundaries for federal, state and local jurisdictions.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "To help ensure neutrality, members of a redistricting agency may be appointed from relatively apolitical sources, such as retired judges or longstanding members of the civil service, possibly with requirements for adequate representation among competing political parties. Additionally, members of the board can be denied information that might aid in gerrymandering, such as the demographic makeup or voting patterns of the population.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "As a further constraint, consensus requirements can be imposed to ensure that the resulting district map reflects a wider perception of fairness, such as a requirement for a supermajority approval of the commission for any district proposal. But consensus requirements can lead to deadlock, as occurred in Missouri following the 2000 census. There, the equally numbered partisan appointees were unable to reach consensus in a reasonable time, and so the courts had to determine district lines.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In the U.S. state of Iowa, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Bureau (LSB, akin to the U.S. Congressional Research Service) determines electoral district boundaries. Aside from satisfying federally mandated contiguity and population equality criteria, the LSB mandates unity of counties and cities. Consideration of political factors such as location of incumbents, previous boundary locations, and political party proportions is specifically forbidden. Since Iowa's counties are chiefly regularly shaped polygons, the LSB process has led to districts that follow county lines.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 2005, the U.S. state of Ohio had a ballot measure to create an independent commission whose first priority was competitive districts, a sort of \"reverse gerrymander\". A complex mathematical formula was to be used to determine the competitiveness of a district. The measure failed voter approval chiefly due to voter concerns that communities of interest would be broken up.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 2017, Representative John Delaney submitted the Open Our Democracy Act of 2017 to the U.S. House of Representatives as a means to implement nonpartisan redistricting.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Many redistricting reforms seek to remove partisanship to ensure fairness in the redistricting process. The I-cut-you-choose method achieves fairness by putting the two major-parties in direct competition. I-cut-you-choose is a fair division method to divide resources amongst two parties, regardless of which party cuts first. This method typically relies on assumptions of contiguity of districts but ignores all other constraints such as keeping communities of interest together. This method has been applied to nominal redistricting problems but it generally has less public interest than other types of redistricting reforms. The I-cut-you-choose concept was popularized by the board game Berrymandering. Problems with this method arise when minor parties are shut-out of the process which will reinforce the two-party system. Additionally, while this method is provably fair to the two parties creating the districts, it is not necessarily fair to the communities they represent.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "When a single political party controls both legislative houses of a state during redistricting, both Democrats and Republicans have displayed a marked propensity for couching the process in secrecy; in May 2010, for example, the Republican National Committee held a redistricting training session in Ohio where the theme was \"Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe\". The need for increased transparency in redistricting processes is clear; a 2012 investigation by The Center for Public Integrity reviewed every state's redistricting processes for both transparency and potential for public input, and ultimately assigned 24 states grades of either D or F.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In response to these types of problems, redistricting transparency legislation has been introduced to US Congress a number of times in recent years, including the Redistricting Transparency Acts of 2010, 2011, and 2013. Such policy proposals aim to increase the transparency and responsiveness of the redistricting systems in the US. The merit of increasing transparency in redistricting processes is based largely on the premise that lawmakers would be less inclined to draw gerrymandered districts if they were forced to defend such districts in a public forum.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "As gerrymandering relies on the wasted-vote effect, the use of a different voting system with fewer wasted votes can help reduce gerrymandering. In particular, the use of multi-member districts alongside voting systems establishing proportional representation such as party-list proportional representation or single transferable voting can reduce wasted votes and gerrymandering. Semi-proportional voting systems such as single non-transferable vote or cumulative voting are relatively simple and similar to first past the post and can also reduce the proportion of wasted votes and thus potential gerrymandering. Electoral reformers have advocated all three as replacement systems.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Electoral systems with various forms of proportional representation are now found in nearly all European countries, resulting in multi-party systems (with many parties represented in the parliaments) with higher voter attendance in the elections, fewer wasted votes, and a wider variety of political opinions represented.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Electoral systems with election of just one winner in each district (i.e., \"winner-takes-all\" electoral systems) and no proportional distribution of extra mandates to smaller parties tend to create two-party systems. This effect, labeled Duverger's law by political scientists, was described by Maurice Duverger.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Another way to avoid gerrymandering is simply to stop redistricting altogether and use existing political boundaries such as state, county, or provincial lines. While this prevents future gerrymandering, any existing advantage may become deeply ingrained. The United States Senate, for instance, has more competitive elections than the House of Representatives due to the use of existing state borders rather than gerrymandered districts—Senators are elected by their entire state, while Representatives are elected in legislatively drawn districts.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The use of fixed districts creates an additional problem, however, in that fixed districts do not take into account changes in population. Individual voters can come to have very different degrees of influence on the legislative process. This malapportionment can greatly affect representation after long periods of time or large population movements. In the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution, several constituencies that had been fixed since they gained representation in the Parliament of England became so small that they could be won with only a handful of voters (rotten boroughs). Similarly, in the U.S. the Alabama Legislature refused to redistrict for more than 60 years, despite major changes in population patterns. By 1960 less than a quarter of the state's population controlled the majority of seats in the legislature. This practice of using fixed districts for state legislatures was effectively banned in the United States after the Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court decision in 1964, establishing a rule of one man, one vote.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Another means to reduce gerrymandering is to create objective, precise criteria with which any district map must comply. Courts in the United States, for instance, have ruled that congressional districts must be contiguous in order to be constitutional. This, however, is not a particularly effective constraint, as very narrow strips of land with few or no voters in them may be used to connect separate regions for inclusion in one district, as is the case in Illinois's 4th congressional district.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Depending on the distribution of voters for a particular party, metrics that maximize compactness can be opposed to metrics that minimize the efficiency gap. For example, in the United States, voters registered with the Democratic Party tend to be concentrated in cities, potentially resulting in a large number of \"wasted\" votes if compact districts are drawn around city populations. Neither of these metrics take into consideration other possible goals, such as proportional representation based on other demographic characteristics (such as race, ethnicity, gender, or income), maximizing competitiveness of elections (the greatest number of districts where party affiliation is 50/50), avoiding splits of existing government units (like cities and counties), and ensuring representation of major interest groups (like farmers or voters in a specific transportation corridor), though any of these could be incorporated into a more complicated metric.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "One method is to define a minimum district to convex polygon ratio. To use this method, every proposed district is circumscribed by the smallest possible convex polygon (its convex hull; think of stretching a rubberband around the outline of the district). Then, the area of the district is divided by the area of the polygon; or, if at the edge of the state, by the portion of the area of the polygon within state boundaries.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The advantages of this method are that it allows a certain amount of human intervention to take place (thus solving the Colorado problem of splitline districting); it allows the borders of the district to follow existing jagged subdivisions, such as neighborhoods or voting districts (something isoperimetric rules would discourage); and it allows concave coastline districts, such as the Florida gulf coast area. It would mostly eliminate bent districts, but still permit long, straight ones. However, since human intervention is still allowed, the gerrymandering issues of packing and cracking would still occur, just to a lesser extent.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The Center for Range Voting has proposed a way to draw districts by a simple algorithm. The algorithm uses only the shape of the state, the number N of districts wanted, and the population distribution as inputs. The algorithm (slightly simplified) is:",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "This district-drawing algorithm has the advantages of simplicity, ultra-low cost, a single possible result (thus no possibility of human interference), lack of intentional bias, and it produces simple boundaries that do not meander needlessly. It has the disadvantage of ignoring geographic features such as rivers, cliffs, and highways and cultural features such as tribal boundaries. This landscape oversight causes it to produce districts different from those a human would produce. Ignoring geographic features can induce very simple boundaries.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "While most districts produced by the method will be fairly compact and either roughly rectangular or triangular, some of the resulting districts can still be long and narrow strips (or triangles) of land.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Like most automatic redistricting rules, the shortest splitline algorithm will fail to create majority-minority districts, for both ethnic and political minorities, if the minority populations are not very compact. This might reduce minority representation.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Another criticism of the system is that splitline districts sometimes divide and diffuse the voters in a large metropolitan area. This condition is most likely to occur when one of the first splitlines cuts through the metropolitan area. It is often considered a drawback of the system because residents of the same agglomeration are assumed to be a community of common interest. This is most evident in the splitline allocation of Colorado. However, in cases when the splitline divides a large metropolitan area, it is usually because that large area has enough population for multiple districts. In cases which the large area only has the population for one district, then the splitline usually results in the urban area being in one district with the other district being rural.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "As of July 2007, shortest-splitline redistricting pictures, based on the results of the 2000 census, are available for all 50 states.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "It is possible to define a specific minimum isoperimetric quotient, proportional to the ratio between the area and the square of the perimeter of any given congressional voting district. Although technologies presently exist to define districts in this manner, there are no rules in place mandating their use, and no national movement to implement such a policy. One problem with the simplest version of this rule is that it would prevent incorporation of jagged natural boundaries, such as rivers or mountains; when such boundaries are required, such as at the edge of a state, certain districts may not be able to meet the required minima. One way of avoiding this problem is to allow districts which share a border with a state border to replace that border with a polygon or semi-circle enclosing the state boundary as a kind of virtual boundary definition, but using the actual perimeter of the district whenever this occurs inside the state boundaries. Enforcing a minimum isoperimetric quotient would encourage districts with a high ratio between area and perimeter.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The efficiency gap is a simply-calculable measure that can show the effects of gerrymandering. It measures wasted votes for each party: the sum of votes cast in losing districts (losses due to cracking) and excess votes cast in winning districts (losses due to packing). The difference in these wasted votes are divided by total votes cast, and the resulting percentage is the efficiency gap.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In 2017, Boris Alexeev and Dustin Mixon proved that \"sometimes, a small efficiency gap is only possible with bizarrely shaped districts\". This means that it is mathematically impossible to always devise boundaries which would simultaneously meet certain Polsby–Popper and efficiency gap targets.",
"title": "Changes to achieve competitive elections"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The introduction of modern computers alongside the development of elaborate voter databases and special districting software has made gerrymandering a far more precise science. Using such databases, political parties can obtain detailed information about every household including political party registration, previous campaign donations, and the number of times residents voted in previous elections and combine it with other predictors of voting behavior such as age, income, race, or education level. With this data, gerrymandering politicians can predict the voting behavior of each potential district with an astonishing degree of precision, leaving little chance for creating an accidentally competitive district.",
"title": "Use of databases and computer technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "On the other hand, the introduction of modern computers would allow the United States Census Bureau to calculate more equal populations in every voting district that are based only on districts being the most compact and equal populations. This could be done easily using their Block Centers based on the Global Positioning System rather than street addresses. With this data, gerrymandering politicians will not be in charge, thus allowing competitive districts again.",
"title": "Use of databases and computer technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Online web apps such as Dave's Redistricting have allowed users to simulate redistricting states into legislative districts as they wish. According to Bradlee, the software was designed to \"put power in people's hands,\" and so that they \"can see how the process works, so it's a little less mysterious than it was 10 years ago.\"",
"title": "Use of databases and computer technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) can measure the extent to which redistricting plans favor a particular party or group in election, and can support automated redistricting simulators.",
"title": "Use of databases and computer technology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Gerrymandering is most likely to emerge in majoritarian systems, where the country is divided into several voting districts and the candidate with the most votes wins the district. If the ruling party is in charge of drawing the district lines, it can abuse the fact that in a majoritarian system all votes that do not go to the winning candidate are essentially irrelevant to the composition of a new government. Even though gerrymandering can be used in other voting systems, it has the most significant impact on voting outcomes in first-past-the-post systems. Partisan redrawing of district lines is particularly harmful to democratic principles in majoritarian two-party systems. In general, two party systems tend to be more polarized than proportional systems. Possible consequences of gerrymandering in such a system can be an amplification of polarization in politics and a lack of representation of minorities, as a large part of the constituency is not represented in policy making. However, not every state using a first-past-the-post system is being confronted with the negative impacts of gerrymandering. Some countries, such as Canada and the UK, authorize non-partisan organizations to set constituency boundaries in attempt to prevent gerrymandering.",
"title": "Voting systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The introduction of a proportional system is often proposed as the most effective solution to partisan gerrymandering. In such systems, the entire constituency is being represented proportionally to their votes. Even though voting districts can be part of a proportional system, the redrawing of district lines would not benefit a party, as those districts are mainly of organizational value, except where the district magnitude is small or a system which favors larger parties, such as d'Hondt, is used. For example, instead of having three districts, a single large district would exist where the top three candidates in the election would all represent the district. It would be harder to gerrymander a district where there are multiple winners from that district.",
"title": "Voting systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In mixed systems that use proportional and majoritarian voting principles, the usage of gerrymandering is a constitutional obstacle that states have to deal with. In mixed systems, the advantage a political actor can potentially gain from redrawing district lines is much less than in majoritarian systems. In addition, voting districts are mostly being used to avoid that elected parliamentarians are getting too detached from their constituency. The principle that determines the representation in parliament is usually the proportional aspect of the voting system. Seats in parliament are being allocated to each party in accordance to the proportion of their overall votes. In most mixed systems, winning a voting district merely means that a candidate is guaranteed a seat in parliament but does not expand a party's share in the overall seats. Gerrymandering can still be used to manipulate the outcome in voting districts. In most democracies with a mixed system, non-partisan institutions are in charge of drawing district lines and gerrymandering is a less common phenomenon.",
"title": "Voting systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Gerrymandering should not be confused with malapportionment, whereby the number of eligible voters per elected representative can vary widely. Nevertheless, the -mander suffix has been applied to particular malapportionments. Sometimes political representatives use both gerrymandering and malapportionment to try to maintain power. One of the earliest examples of malapportionment, rotten boroughs, was practiced in England from the 13th century until the 1832 reform act. A striking modern example of malapportionment is the U.S. senate, where states receive equal representation despite widely varying populations.",
"title": "Difference from malapportionment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Several western democracies, notably Israel, the Netherlands and Slovakia employ an electoral system with only one (nationwide) voting district for election of national representatives. This virtually precludes gerrymandering. Other European countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic or Sweden, among many others, have electoral districts with fixed boundaries (usually one district for each administrative division). The number of representatives for each district can change after a census due to population shifts, but their boundaries do not change. This also effectively eliminates gerrymandering.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Additionally, many countries where the president is directly elected by the citizens (e.g. France, Poland, among others) use only one electoral district for their presidential election with the winner of the popular vote winning the position, despite using multiple districts to elect representatives.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Gerrymandering has not typically been considered a problem in the Australian electoral system largely because drawing of electoral boundaries has typically been done by non-partisan electoral commissions. There have been historical cases of malapportionment, whereby the distribution of electors to electorates was not in proportion to the population in several states.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In the 1998 Australian federal election, the opposition Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley, received 50.98% of the two-party-preferred vote in the House of Representatives, but won only 67/148 seats (45.05%). The incumbent Liberal National Coalition government led by Prime Minister John Howard won 49.02% of the vote and 80 of 148 seats (54.05%). Compared to the previous election, there was a swing of 4.61% against the Coalition, who lost 14 seats. After Howard's victory, many Coalition seats were extremely marginal, having only been won by less than 1% (less than 1200 votes). This election result is generally not attributed to gerrymandering or malapportionment.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1996, the High Court of Australia in McGinty v Western Australia confirmed the constitutional legality of electoral systems where different constituencies were differently weighted from others in the same system; in particular, the case approved Western Australia's system.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Sir Thomas Playford was Premier of the state of South Australia from 1938 to 1965 as a result of a system of malapportionment, which became known as the Playmander, despite it not strictly speaking involving a gerrymander.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "In the state of Queensland, malapportionment combined with a gerrymander under Country Party Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at his own request) became nicknamed the Bjelkemander in the 1970s and 1980s.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The malapportionment had been originally designed to favor rural areas in the 1930s-1950s by a Labor government who drew their support from agricultural and mine workers in rural areas. This helped Labor to stay in government from 1932 to 1957. As demographics and political views shifted over time, this system came to favor the Country Party instead.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The Country Party led by Frank Nicklin came to power in 1957, deciding to keep the malapportionment that favored them. In 1968, Joh Bjelke-Petersen became leader of the Country Party and Premier. In the 1970s, he further expanded the malapportionment and gerrymandering which then became known as the Bjelkemander. Under the system, electoral boundaries were drawn so that rural electorates had as few as half as many voters as metropolitan ones and regions with high levels of support for the Labor Party were concentrated into fewer electorates, allowing Bjelke-Petersen's government to remain in power for despite attracting substantially less than 50% of the vote.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In the 1986 election, for example, the National Party received 39.64% of the first preference vote and won 49 seats (in the 89 seat Parliament) whilst the Labor Opposition received 41.35% but won only 30 seats. Bjelke-Petersen also used the system to disadvantage Liberal Party (traditionally allied with the Country Party) voters in urban areas, allowing Bjelke-Petersen's Country Party to rule alone, shunning the Liberals.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Bjelke-Petersen also used Queensland Police brutality to quell protests, and Queensland under his government was frequently described as a police state. In 1987 he was eventually forced to resign in disgrace after the Fitzgerald Inquiry revealed wide-ranging corruption in his cabinet and the Queensland Police, resulting in the prosecution and jailing of Country Party members. Before resigning, Bjelke-Petersen asked the Governor of Queensland to sack his own cabinet, in an unsuccessful attempt to cling to power. Labor won the next election, and have remained the dominant party in Queensland since then. The Country Party and Liberal Party eventually merged in Queensland to become the Liberal-National Party, while the Country Party in other states was renamed as the National Party.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Western Australian Legislative Council was long gerrymandered via a malapportionment that clearly favored the rural conservative National Party, with the state split into electoral regions with significant differences in voter numbers. After the Labor Party won a landslide victory in both houses in the 2021 Western Australian state election, they abolished the electoral region system, replacing it with a single statewide constituency electing 37 members via optional preferential voting that creates a one-vote, one-value system.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "In 2014 the conservative Liberal Party NSW State Government gerrymandered the local City of Sydney council elections as part of their continued attempts to remove Clover Moore from elected positions. Moore had already been removed as a state government representative by laws banning serving simultaneously as a state representative and a local council member, and their attempt to remove her from the Council saw the State Government introduce a law giving all businesses in the area two votes and requiring the Council to constantly update the electoral roll and inform each business of its eligibility to vote. Moore called the laws an \"undemocratic gerrymander\" and election analyst Antony Green said the changes were \"clearly an attempt to disadvantage Clover Moore\". The laws were specific to the City of Sydney council and not rolled out across the rest of the state councils. The attempt failed, and Moore retained her position as Lord Mayor of Sydney through multiple further elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "The 1962 Bahamian general election was likely influenced by gerrymandering. The election was the first to allow universal suffrage. The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) received 44% of the vote, while the United Bahamian Party (UBP) won only 36% of the vote. The other 20% was for third parties and independents. Despite receiving a majority of the votes, the PLP won only 8 of the 33 seats in the House of Assembly, while the UBP won 18 seats.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Gerrymandering used to be prominent in Canadian politics, but is no longer prominent, after independent electoral boundary redistribution commissions were established in all provinces. Early in Canadian history, both the federal and provincial levels used gerrymandering to try to maximize partisan power. When Alberta and Saskatchewan were admitted to Confederation in 1905, their original district boundaries were set forth in the respective Alberta and Saskatchewan Acts. Federal Liberal cabinet members devised the boundaries to ensure the election of provincial Liberal governments. British Columbia used a combination of single-member and dual-member constituencies to solidify the power of the center-right British Columbia Social Credit Party until 1991.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Since responsibility for drawing federal and provincial electoral boundaries was handed over to independent agencies, the problem has largely been eliminated at those levels of government. Manitoba was the first province to authorize a non-partisan group to define constituency boundaries in the 1950s. In 1964, the federal government delegated the drawing of boundaries for federal electoral districts to the non-partisan agency Elections Canada which answers to Parliament rather than the government of the day.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "As a result, gerrymandering is not generally a major issue in Canada except at the civic level. Although city wards are recommended by independent agencies, city councils occasionally overrule them. That is much more likely if the city is not homogenous and different neighborhoods have sharply different opinions about city policy direction.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "In 2006, a controversy arose in Prince Edward Island over the provincial government's decision to throw out an electoral map drawn by an independent commission. Instead, they created two new maps. The government adopted the second of them, which was designed by the caucus of the governing Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Island. Opposition parties and the media attacked Premier Pat Binns for what they saw as gerrymandering of districts. Among other things, the government adopted a map that ensured that every current Member of the Legislative Assembly from the premier's party had a district to run in for re-election, but in the original map, several had been redistricted. However, in the 2007 provincial election only seven of 20 incumbent Members of the Legislative Assembly were re-elected (seven did not run for re-election), and the government was defeated.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "The military government which ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 was ousted in a national plebiscite in October 1988. Opponents of General Augusto Pinochet voted NO to remove him from power and to trigger democratic elections, while supporters (mostly from the right-wing) voted YES to keep him in office for another eight years.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Five months prior to the plebiscite, the regime published a law regulating future elections and referendums, but the configuration of electoral districts and the manner in which National Congress seats would be awarded were only added to the law seven months after the referendum.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "For the Chamber of Deputies (lower house), 60 districts were drawn by grouping (mostly) neighboring communes (the smallest administrative subdivision in the country) within the same region (the largest). It was established that two deputies would be elected per district, with the most voted coalition needing to outpoll its closest rival by a margin of more than 2-to-1 to take both seats. The results of the 1988 plebiscite show that neither the \"NO\" side nor the \"YES\" side outpolled the other by said margin in any of the newly established districts. They also showed that the vote/seat ratio was lower in districts which supported the \"YES\" side and higher in those where the \"NO\" was strongest. In spite of this, at the 1989 parliamentary election, the center-left opposition was able to capture both seats (the so-called doblaje) in twelve out of 60 districts, winning control of 60% of the Chamber.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Senate constituencies were created by grouping all lower-chamber districts in a region, or by dividing a region into two constituencies of contiguous lower-chamber districts. The 1980 Constitution allocated a number of seats to appointed senators, making it harder for one side to change the Constitution by itself. The opposition won 22 senate seats in the 1989 election, taking both seats in three out of 19 constituencies, controlling 58% of the elected Senate, but only 47% of the full Senate. The unelected senators were eliminated in the 2005 constitutional reforms, but the electoral map has remained largely untouched (two new regions were created in 2007, one of which altered the composition of two senatorial constituencies; the first election to be affected by this minor change took place in 2013).",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "During the process of declaration and recognition of independence of Croatia the administrative divisions of the country was reorganized into 20 newly established counties and the city of Zagreb. All of the counties had Croat ethnic majority and were in part established as a gerrymandering effort to delegitimize Republic of Serbian Krajina secession as well as any regionalist requests in the historic provinces of Istria and Dalmatia while at the same time strengthening dominant-party's control over the Chamber of Counties. Following the end of the Croatian War of Independence and during the UNTAES administration in Eastern Slavonia Serb political leader Vojislav Stanimirović accused Croatian authorities of intentional division of the Serb community in the region into Osijek-Baranja and Vukovar-Srijem County with an aim to dilute their political initiatives.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Croatian Parliament electoral districts were also described as a form of gerrymandering preventing genuine political competition with each district selecting the same number of MPs while districts' population varied over the legally permitted ±5 percent. In 2010 Constitutional Court of Croatia stated in a report that population discrepancies among electoral districts is higher than ±5 percent and that districts' borders should be redrawn to address the concern. 2021 Croatian census indicated even further differences in population with the difference in needed number of votes in the smallest (Electoral district IV) and the largest (Electoral district VII) district for a single parliamentary mandate being 10,5 thousands votes. In October 2022 President of the Constitutional Court of Croatia Miroslav Šeparović warned that this situation may jeopardize constitutionality of the following elections in Croatia.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "On 30 December 2022, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweeted that he believed that the country's 262 municipalities should be reduced to 50. Opposition politicians accused him of attempting to gerrymander the municipalities and consolidate his power ahead of the 2024 general election. On 20 February 2023, Legislative Assembly President Ernesto Castro announced that the Nuevas Ideas (NI) political party was formally evaluating a proposal to reduce the number of municipalities as suggested by Bukele.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "France is one of the few countries to let legislatures redraw the map with no check. In practice, the Parliament of France sets up an executive commission. Districts called arrondissements were used in the Third Republic and under the Fifth Republic they are called circonscriptions. During the Third Republic, some reforms of arrondissements, which were also used for administrative purposes, were largely suspected to have been arranged to favor the kingmaker in the National Assembly, the Radical Party.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "The dissolution of Seine and Seine-et-Oise départements by de Gaulle was seen as a case of gerrymandering to counter communist influence around Paris.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "In the modern regime, there were three designs: in 1958 (regime change), 1987 (by Charles Pasqua) and 2010 (by Alain Marleix), three times by conservative governments. Pasqua's drawing was known to have been particularly good at gerrymandering, resulting in 80% of the seats with 58% of the vote in 1993, and forcing Socialists in the 1997 snap election to enact multiple pacts with smaller parties in order to win again, this time as a coalition. In 2010, the Sarkozy government created 12 districts for expats.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "The Constitutional council was called twice by the opposition to decide about gerrymandering, but it never considered partisan disproportions. However, it forced the Marleix committee to respect an 80–120% population ratio, ending a tradition dating back to the Revolution in which départements, however small in population, would send at least two MPs.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Since Germany utilizes a proportional representation system, gerrymandering is rarely a problem. There is, however, one situation in which gerrymandering can affect an election. In Germany for a party to win any seat, it has to win at least 5% of the vote or three constituencies. This latter rule was applied most recently in the 2021 federal election, in which the Left entered the Bundestag despite winning less than 5% of the vote.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "In 2000 the electoral constituencies were redrawn and the PDS, which entered the Bundestag in the elections of 1994 and 1998 with this rule, accused the SPD, who were in power at the time of redrawing the constituencies, of gerrymandering them by breaking up districts in East Berlin, a PDS stronghold, and combining them with West Berlin. In the 2002 federal election the PDS lost their third constituency and entered the Bundestag with only two seats. Had they won a third direct seat, they would have qualified for an additional 25 seats.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Another scenario in which gerrymandering can affect German federal election is when a party wins more constituenies than their overall share of the popular vote—those extra seats, called \"Überhangmandate\", remain. In the Bundestag election of 2009, Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU gained 24 such extra seats, while no other party gained any; this skewed the result so much that the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany issued two rulings declaring the existing election laws invalid and requiring the Bundestag to pass a new law limiting such extra seats to no more than 15. In 2013, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutionality of Überhangmandate. From then on each other party would receive seats as well to remedy the disproportion, thereby making it impossible to have disproportionate election results.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Gerrymandering has been rather common in Greek history since organized parties with national ballots only appeared after the 1926 Constitution. The only case before that was the creation of the Piraeus electoral district in 1906, in order to give the Theotokis party a safe district.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "A notable case of gerrymandering in Greece was in the 1956 legislative election. While in previous elections the districts were based on the prefecture level (νομός), for 1956 the country was split in districts of varying sizes, some being the size of prefectures, some the size of sub-prefectures (επαρχία) and others somewhere in between. In small districts the winning party would take all seats, in intermediate size, it would take most and there was proportional representation in the largest districts. The districts were created in such a way that small districts were those that traditionally voted for the right while large districts were those that voted against the right.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "This system has become known as the three-phase (τριφασικό) system or the baklava system (because, as baklava is split into full pieces and corner pieces, the country was also split into disproportionate pieces). The opposition, being composed of the center and the left, formed a coalition with the sole intent of changing the electoral law and then calling new elections. Even though the centrist and leftist opposition won the popular vote (1,620,007 votes against 1,594,992), the right-wing ERE won the majority of seats (165 to 135) and was to lead the country for the next two years.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "In Hong Kong, functional constituencies are demarcated by the government and defined in statutes, making them prone to gerrymandering. The functional constituency for the information technology sector was particular criticized for gerrymandering and voteplanting.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "There are also gerrymandering concerns in the constituencies of district councils.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "In 2011, Fidesz politician János Lázár has proposed a redesign to Hungarian voting districts; considering the territorial results of previous elections, this redesign would favor right-wing politics according to the opposition. Since then, the law has been passed by the Fidesz-majority National Assembly. By the political think tanks and media close to the opposition, it took twice as many votes to gain a seat in some election districts as in some others. However, their findings are controversial. Gerrymandering was seen in the 2018 election results.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Until the 1980s Dáil boundaries in Ireland were drawn not by an independent commission but by government ministers. Successive arrangements by governments of all political characters have been attacked as gerrymandering. Ireland uses the single transferable vote, and as well as the actual boundaries drawn, the main tool of gerrymandering has been the number of seats per constituency used, with three-seat constituencies normally benefiting the strongest parties in an area, whereas four-seat constituencies normally help smaller parties.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "In 1947 the rapid rise of new party Clann na Poblachta threatened the position of the governing party Fianna Fáil. The government of Éamon de Valera introduced the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1947, which increased the size of the Dáil from 138 to 147 and increased the number of three-seat constituencies from fifteen to twenty-two. The result was described by the journalist and historian Tim Pat Coogan as \"a blatant attempt at gerrymander which no Six County Unionist could have bettered.\" The following February the 1948 general election was held and Clann na Poblachta secured ten seats instead of the nineteen they would have received proportional to their vote.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "In the mid-1970s, the Minister for Local Government, James Tully, attempted to arrange the constituencies to ensure that the governing Fine Gael–Labour Party National Coalition would win a parliamentary majority. The Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974 was planned as a major reversal of previous gerrymandering by Fianna Fáil (then in opposition). Tully ensured that there were as many as possible three-seat constituencies where the governing parties were strong, in the expectation that the governing parties would each win a seat in many constituencies, relegating Fianna Fáil to one out of three.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "In areas where the governing parties were weak, four-seat constituencies were used so that the governing parties had a strong chance of still winning two. The election results created substantial change, as there was a larger than expected collapse in the vote. Fianna Fáil won a landslide victory in the 1977 Irish general election, two out of three seats in many cases, relegating the National Coalition parties to fight for the last seat. Consequently, the term \"Tullymandering\" was used to describe the phenomenon of a failed attempt at gerrymandering.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Gerrymandering in India was claimed in the late 2010s and early 2020s, contributing to the BJP party winning 55% of all seats with only 37% of all votes in India's lower house.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "A hypothesis of gerrymandering was theorized by constituencies drawn by the electoral act of 2017, so-called Rosatellum.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "From the years 1981 until 2005, Kuwait was divided into 25 electoral districts in order to over-represent the government's supporters (the 'tribes'). In July 2005, a new law for electoral reforms was approved which prevented electoral gerrymandering by cutting the number of electoral districts from 25 to 5. The government of Kuwait found that 5 electoral districts resulted in a powerful parliament with the majority representing the opposition. A new law was crafted by the government of Kuwait and signed by the Amir to gerrymander the districts to 10 allowing the government's supporters to regain the majority.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "The practice of gerrymandering has been around in the country since its independence in 1957. The ruling coalition at that time, Barisan Nasional (BN; English: \"National Front\"), has been accused of controlling the election commission by revising the boundaries of constituencies. For example, during the 13th General Election in 2013, Barisan Nasional won 60% of the seats in the Malaysian Parliament despite only receiving 47% of the popular vote. Malapportionment has also been used at least since 1974, when it was observed that in one state alone (Perak), the parliamentary constituency with the most voters had more than ten times as many voters as the one with the fewest voters. These practices finally failed BN in the 14th General Election on 9 May 2018, when the opposing Pakatan Harapan (PH; English: \"Alliance of Hope\") won despite perceived efforts of gerrymandering and malapportionment from the incumbent.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "The Labour Party that won in 1981, even though the Nationalist Party got the most votes, did so because of its gerrymandering. A 1987 constitutional amendment awarding compensatory seats to make the final seat tally closer reflect actual vote share prevented that situation from reoccurring.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "After the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepali politics has well exercised the practice of gerrymandering with the view to take advantage in the election. It was often practiced by Nepali Congress, which remained in power in most of the time. Learning from this, the reshaping of constituency was done for constituent assembly and the opposition now wins elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "In 2015, the government rewrote the Constitution of Nepal, which included a rewriting of electoral boundaries. Parties in the southern region of Terai believe the new boundaries discriminated against marginalized groups, like the Madhesis, Tharus, and Janajatis, and that the boundaries \"packed\" the groups. Protesting occurred in Terai and other areas in southern Nepal, raising concern from across the country.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Congressional districts in the Philippines were originally based on an ordinance from the 1987 Constitution, which was created by the Constitutional Commission, which was ultimately based on legislative districts as they were drawn in 1907. The same constitution gave Congress of the Philippines the power to legislate new districts, either through a national redistricting bill or piecemeal redistricting per province or city. Congress has never passed a national redistricting bill since the approval of the 1987 constitution, while it has incrementally created 34 new districts, out of the 200 originally created in 1987.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "This allows Congress to create new districts once a place reaches 250,000 inhabitants, the minimum required for its creation. With this, local dynasties, through congressmen, can exert influence in the district-making process by creating bills carving new districts from old ones. In time, as the population of the Philippines increases, these districts, or groups of it, will be the basis of carving new provinces out of existing ones.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "An example was in Camarines Sur, where two districts were divided into three districts which allegedly favors the Andaya and the Arroyo families; it caused Rolando Andaya and Dato Arroyo, who would have otherwise run against each other, run in separate districts, with one district allegedly not even surpassing the 250,000-population minimum. The Supreme Court later ruled that the 250,000 population minimum does not apply to an additional district in a province. The resulting splits would later be the cause of another gerrymander, where the province would be split into a new province called Nueva Camarines; the bill was defeated in the Senate in 2013.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "In recent decades, critics have accused the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) of unfair electoral practices to maintain significant majorities in the Parliament of Singapore. Among the complaints are that the government uses gerrymandering. The Elections Department was established as part of the executive branch under the Prime Minister of Singapore, rather than as an independent body. Critics have accused it of giving the ruling party the power to decide polling districts and polling sites through electoral engineering, based on poll results in previous elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Members of opposition parties claim that the Group Representation Constituency system is \"synonymous to gerrymandering\", pointing out examples of Cheng San GRC and Eunos GRC which were dissolved by the Elections Department with voters redistributed to other constituencies after opposition parties gained ground in elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "The landmark 1948 general election was influenced by provisions of the Constitution granting rural areas more constituencies in Parliament than urban areas. Thus the white-supremacist National Party won a plurality against the more moderate United Party despite receiving fewer votes and implemented apartheid.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Until the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, Spain used both single-member and multi-member constituencies in general elections. Multi-member constituencies were only used in some big cities. Some gerrymandering examples included the districts of Vilademuls or Torroella de Montgrí in Catalonia. These districts were created in order to prevent the Federal Democratic Republican Party to win a seat in Figueres or La Bisbal and to secure a seat to the dynastic parties. Since 1931, the constituency boundaries match the province boundaries.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "After the Francoist dictatorship, during the transition to democracy, these fixed provincial constituencies were reestablished in Section 68.2 of the current 1978 Spanish Constitution, so gerrymandering is impossible in general elections. There are not winner-takes-all elections in Spain except for the tiny territories of Ceuta and Melilla (which only have one representative each); everywhere else the number of representatives assigned to a constituency is proportional to its population and calculated according to a national law, so tampering with under- or over-representation is difficult too.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "European, some regional and municipal elections are held under single, at-large multi-member constituencies with proportional representation and gerrymandering is not possible either.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "In fact, there is not even a direct translation of the term \"gerrymandering\" into Spanish and first-generation Hispanic and Latino Americans have struggled with such an unfamiliar concept in the Spanish-speaking world.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Sri Lanka's new Local Government elections process has been the talking point of gerrymandering since its inception. Even though that talk was more about the ward-level, it is also seen in some local council areas too.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "In the election of 2010, there were numerous examples of gerrymandering throughout the entire country of Sudan. A report from the Rift Valley Institute uncovered violations of Sudan's electoral law, where constituencies were created that were well below and above the required limit. According to Sudan's National Elections Act of 2008, no constituency can have a population that is 15% greater or less than the average constituency size. The Rift Valley Report uncovered a number of constituencies that are in violation of this rule. Examples include constituencies in Jonglei, Warrap, South Darfur, and several other states.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "Turkey has used gerrymandering in the city of Istanbul in the 2009 municipal elections. Just before the election Istanbul was divided into new districts. Large low income neighborhoods were bundled with the rich neighborhoods to enable the AKP to win the municipal elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "Prior to the establishment of Home Rule in Northern Ireland, the UK government had installed the single transferable vote (STV) system in Ireland to secure fair elections in terms of proportional representation in its Parliaments. After two elections under that system, in 1929 Stormont changed the electoral system to be the same as the rest of the United Kingdom: a single-member first past the post system. The only exception was for the election of four Stormont MPs to represent the Queen's University of Belfast. Some scholars believe that the boundaries were gerrymandered to under-represent Nationalists. Other geographers and historians, for instance Professor John H. Whyte, disagree. They have argued that the electoral boundaries for the Parliament of Northern Ireland were not gerrymandered to a greater level than that produced by any single-winner election system, and that the actual number of Nationalist MPs barely changed under the revised system (it went from 12 to 11 and later went back up to 12). Most observers have acknowledged that the change to a single-winner system was a key factor, however, in stifling the growth of smaller political parties, such as the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independent Unionists. In the 1967 election, Unionists won 35.5% of the votes and received 60% of the seats, while Nationalists got 27.4% of the votes but received 40% of the seats. This meant that both the Unionist and Nationalist parties were over-represented, while the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independents (amounting to more than 35% of the votes cast) were severely under-represented.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "After Westminster reintroduced direct rule in 1973, it restored the single transferable vote (STV) for elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the following year, using the same definitions of constituencies as for the Westminster Parliament. Currently, in Northern Ireland, all elections use STV except those for positions in the Westminster Parliament, which follow the pattern in the rest of the United Kingdom by using \"first past the post.\"",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "Gerrymandering (in Irish: Claonroinnt) in local elections was introduced in 1923 by the Leech Commission. This was a one-man commission: Sir John Leech, K.C. was appointed by Dawson Bates, Northern Ireland's Minister of Home Affairs, to redraw Northern Ireland's local government electoral boundaries. Leech was also chairman of the Advisory Committee who recommended the release or continued detention of the persons that the Northern Irish government was interning without trial at that time. Leech's changes (gerrymandered electoral boundaries, abolishing proportional representation), together with a resultant boycott by the Irish Nationalist community, resulted in Unionists gaining control of Londonderry County Borough Council, Fermanagh and Tyrone County Councils, and retaking eight rural district councils. These county councils, and most of the district councils, remained under Unionist control despite the majority of their population being Catholic until the UK government imposed Direct Rule in 1972.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "Leech's new electoral boundaries for the 1924 Londonderry County Borough Council election reduced the number of wards from four to three, only one of which had a Nationalist majority. This resulted in election of a Unionist council in every election, until the County Borough Council's replacement in 1969 by the unelected Londonderry Development Commission, in a city where Nationalists had a large majority and had won previous elections.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "Some critics and supporters spoke at the time of \"A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People\". This passed also into local government, where supporters of the elected majorities were given jobs and appointments. Stephen Gwynn noted as early as 1911 that since the introduction of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "In Armagh there are 68,000 Protestants, 56,000 Catholics. The County Council has twenty-two Protestants and eight Catholics. In Tyrone, Catholics are a majority of the population, 82,000 against 68,000; but the electoral districts have been so arranged that Unionists return sixteen as against thirteen Nationalists (one a Protestant). This Council gives to the Unionists two to one majority on its Committees, and out of fifty-two officials employs only five Catholics. In Antrim, which has the largest Protestant majority (196,000 to 40,000), twenty-six Unionists and three Catholics are returned. Sixty officers out of sixty-five are good Unionists and Protestants.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "Initially Leech drew the boundaries, but from the 1920s to the 1940s the province-wide government redrew them to reinforce the gerrymander.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "Cahir Healy, the long time MP for Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone highlighted the extent of gerrymandering in County Borough Councils elections of the 1930s: Fermanagh reported 30,196 Nationalists and 24,272 Unionists yet Nationalists retained only seven seats while Unionists retained 12. Similar results occurred in County Tyrone: 70,595 Nationalists retained 11 seats while 56,981 Unionists held 16 seats.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "The number of electors in a United Kingdom constituency can vary considerably, with the smallest constituency as of 2017 (Scotland's Na h-Eileanan an Iar (21,769 constituents) and Orkney and Shetland (34,552)) having fewer than a fifth of the electors of the largest (England's North West Cambridgeshire (93,223) and Isle of Wight (110,697)). This variation has resulted from:",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "Under the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the Coalition government planned to review and redraw the parliamentary constituency boundaries for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The review and redistricting was to be carried out by the four UK boundary commissions to produce a reduction from 650 to 600 seats, and more uniform sizes, such that a constituency was to have no fewer than 70,583 and no more than 80,473 electors. The process was intended to address historic malapportionment and be complete by 2015. Preliminary reports suggesting the areas set to lose the fewest seats historically tended to vote Conservative, while other less populous and deindustrialized regions, such as Wales, which would lose a larger proportion of its seats, tending to have more Labour and Liberal Democrat voters, partially correcting the existing malapportionment. In January 2013, an opposition (Labour) motion to suspend the review until after the next general election was tabled in the House of Lords and a vote called in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The motion was passed with the help of the Liberal Democrats, going back on an election pledge. As of October 2016, a new review is in progress and a draft of the new boundaries has been published.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "The United States, among the first countries with an elected representative government, was the source of the term gerrymander as stated above.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "The practice of gerrymandering the borders of new states continued past the American Civil War and into the late 19th century. The Republican Party used its control of Congress to secure the admission of more states in territories friendly to their party—the admission of Dakota Territory as two states instead of one being a notable example. By the rules for representation in the Electoral College, each new state carried at least three electoral votes regardless of its population.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "All redistricting in the United States has been contentious because it has been controlled by political parties vying for power. As a consequence of the decennial census required by the United States Constitution, districts for members of the House of Representatives typically need to be redrawn whenever the number of members in a state changes. In many states, state legislatures redraw boundaries for state legislative districts at the same time.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "State legislatures have used gerrymandering along racial lines both to decrease and increase minority representation in state governments and congressional delegations. In Ohio, a conversation between Republican officials was recorded that demonstrated that redistricting was being done to aid their political candidates. Furthermore, the discussions assessed the race of voters as a factor in redistricting, on the premise that African-Americans tend to back Democratic Party candidates. Republicans removed approximately 13,000 African-American voters from the district of Jim Raussen, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, in an apparent attempt to tip the scales in what was once a competitive district for Democratic candidates.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "With the Civil Rights Movement and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, federal enforcement and protections of suffrage for all citizens were enacted. Gerrymandering for the purpose of reducing the political influence of a racial or ethnic minority group was prohibited. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, some states created \"majority-minority\" districts to enhance minority voting strength. This practice, also called \"affirmative gerrymandering\", was supposed to redress historic discrimination and ensure that ethnic minorities would gain some seats and representation in government. In some states, bipartisan gerrymandering is the norm. State legislators from both parties sometimes agree to draw congressional district boundaries in a way that ensures the re-election of most or all incumbent representatives from both parties.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "Rather than allowing more political influence, some states have shifted redistricting authority from politicians and given it to non-partisan redistricting commissions. The states of Washington, Arizona, and California have created standing committees for redistricting following the 2010 census. It has been argued however that in California's case, gerrymandering still continued despite this change. Rhode Island and New Jersey have developed ad hoc committees, but developed the past two decennial reapportionments tied to new census data. Florida's amendments 5 and 6, meanwhile, established rules for the creation of districts but did not mandate an independent commission.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "Michigan voters in 2018 approved a proposal to create an independent commission to draw new congressional maps following the 2020 United States Census, thereby removing the responsibility from the state legislature. Additionally, Ohio voters in 2018 modified their existing redistricting statutes to have a commission draw new maps. However, the ability of the state legislature to draw congressional maps remained, and this proposes the risk of gerrymandering. Other states that have implemented commissions in the 2018 midterm cycle include Colorado.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "International election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, who were invited to observe and report on the 2004 national elections, expressed criticism of the U.S. congressional redistricting process and made a recommendation that the procedures be reviewed to ensure genuine competitiveness of Congressional election contests.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "In 2015, an analyst reported that the two major parties differ in the way they redraw districts. The Democrats construct coalition districts of liberals and minorities together with conservatives which results in Democratic-leaning districts. The Republicans tend to place liberals all together in a district, conservatives in others, creating clear partisan districts.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 150,
"text": "In June 2019, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges over partisan gerrymandering.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 151,
"text": "Prior to the 26 September 2010 legislative elections, gerrymandering took place via an addendum to the electoral law by the National Assembly of Venezuela. In the subsequent election, Hugo Chávez's political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela drew 48% of the votes overall, while the opposition parties (the Democratic Unity Roundtable and the Fatherland for All parties) collectively drew 52% of the votes. However, due to the re-allocation of electoral legislative districts prior to the election, Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela was awarded over 60% of the spots in the National Assembly (98 deputies), while 67 deputies were elected for the two opposition parties combined.",
"title": "Examples"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 152,
"text": "In a play on words, the use of race-conscious procedures in jury selection has been termed \"jurymandering\".",
"title": "Related terms"
}
]
| In representative democracies, gerrymandering is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" or "packing". Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins, a professor at Morgan State University, describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations, and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander. The word is also a verb for the process. | 2001-12-17T15:59:23Z | 2023-12-11T06:34:26Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering |
12,988 | Gin | Gin (/dʒɪn/) is a distilled alcoholic drink that derives its flavour from juniper berries and other botanical ingredients.
Gin originated as a medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe. The modern gin was then modified in Flanders and the Netherlands, to provide aqua vita from distillates of grapes and grains. It then became an object of commerce in the spirits industry. Gin became popular in England after the introduction of jenever, a Dutch and Belgian liquor that was originally a medicine. Although this development had been taking place since the early 17th century, gin became widespread after the 1688 Glorious Revolution led by William of Orange and subsequent import restrictions on French brandy. Gin subsequently emerged as the national alcoholic drink of England during the so-called Gin Craze of 1695–1735.
Gin today is produced in different ways from a wide range of herbal ingredients, giving rise to a number of distinct styles and brands. After juniper, gin tends to be flavoured with herbs, spices, floral or fruit flavours, or often a combination. It is commonly consumed mixed with tonic water in a gin and tonic. Gin is also often used as a base spirit to produce flavoured, gin-based liqueurs, for example sloe gin, traditionally produced by the addition of fruit, flavourings and sugar.
The name gin is a shortened form of the older English word genever, related to the French word genièvre and the Dutch word jenever. All ultimately derive from juniperus, the Latin for juniper.
The earliest known written reference to jenever appears in the 13th-century encyclopaedic work Der Naturen Bloeme (Bruges), with the earliest printed recipe for jenever dating from 16th-century work Een Constelijck Distileerboec (Antwerp).
The monks used it to distill sharp, fiery, alcoholic tonics, one of which was distilled from wine infused with juniper berries. They were making medicines, hence the juniper. As a medicinal herb, juniper had been an essential part of doctors' kits for centuries: the Romans burned juniper branches for purification, and plague doctors stuffed the beaks of their plague masks with juniper to supposedly protect them from the Black Death. Across Europe, apothecaries handed out juniper tonic wines for coughs, colds, pains, strains, ruptures and cramps. These were a popular cure-all, though some thought these tonic wines to be a little too popular, and consumed for enjoyment rather than medicinal purposes.
The physician Franciscus Sylvius has been falsely credited with the invention of gin in the mid-17th century, as the existence of jenever is confirmed in Philip Massinger's play The Duke of Milan (1623), when Sylvius would have been about nine years old. It is further claimed that English soldiers who provided support in Antwerp against the Spanish in 1585, during the Eighty Years' War, were already drinking jenever for its calming effects before battle, from which the term Dutch courage is believed to have originated.
By the mid-17th century, numerous small Dutch and Flemish distillers had popularized the re-distillation of malted barley spirit or malt wine with juniper, anise, caraway, coriander, etc., which were sold in pharmacies and used to treat such medical problems as kidney ailments, lumbago, stomach ailments, gallstones, and gout. Gin emerged in England in varying forms by the early 17th century, and at the time of the Stuart Restoration, enjoyed a brief resurgence. Gin became vastly more popular as an alternative to brandy, when William III and Mary II became co-sovereigns of England, Scotland and Ireland after leading the Glorious Revolution. Particularly in crude, inferior forms, it was more likely to be flavoured with turpentine. Historian Angela McShane has described it as a "Protestant drink" as its rise was brought about by a Protestant king, fuelling his armies fighting the Catholic Irish and French.
Gin drinking in England rose significantly after the government allowed unlicensed gin production, and at the same time imposed a heavy duty on all imported spirits such as French brandy. This created a larger market for poor-quality barley that was unfit for brewing beer, and in 1695–1735 thousands of gin-shops sprang up throughout England, a period known as the Gin Craze. Because of the low price of gin, when compared with other drinks available at the same time, and in the same geographic location, gin began to be consumed regularly by the poor. Of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London, not including coffee shops and drinking chocolate shops, over half were gin shops. Beer maintained a healthy reputation as it was often safer to drink the brewed ale than unclean plain water. Gin, though, was blamed for various social problems, and it may have been a factor in the higher death rates which stabilized London's previously growing population. The reputation of the two drinks was illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751), described by the BBC as "arguably the most potent anti-drug poster ever conceived". The negative reputation of gin survives today in the English language, in terms like gin mills or the American phrase gin joints to describe disreputable bars, or gin-soaked to refer to drunks. The epithet mother's ruin is a common British name for gin, the origin of which is the subject of ongoing debate.
The Gin Act 1736 imposed high taxes on retailers and led to riots in the streets. The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. The Gin Act 1751 was more successful, however; it forced distillers to sell only to licensed retailers and brought gin shops under the jurisdiction of local magistrates. Gin in the 18th century was produced in pot stills, and thus had a maltier profile than the London gin known today.
In London in the early 18th century, much gin was distilled legally in residential houses (there were estimated to be 1,500 residential stills in 1726) and was often flavoured with turpentine to generate resinous woody notes in addition to the juniper. As late as 1913, Webster's Dictionary states without further comment, "'common gin' is usually flavoured with turpentine".
Another common variation was to distill in the presence of sulphuric acid. Although the acid itself does not distil, it imparts the additional aroma of diethyl ether to the resulting gin. Sulphuric acid subtracts one water molecule from two ethanol molecules to create diethyl ether, which also forms an azeotrope with ethanol, and therefore distils with it. The result is a sweeter spirit, and one that may have possessed additional analgesic or even intoxicating effects – see Paracelsus.
Dutch or Belgian gin, also known as jenever or genever, evolved from malt wine spirits, and is a distinctly different drink from later styles of gin. Schiedam, a city in the province of South Holland, is famous for its jenever-producing history. The same for Hasselt in the Belgian province of Limburg. The oude (old) style of jenever remained very popular throughout the 19th century, where it was referred to as Holland or Geneva gin in popular, American, pre-Prohibition bartender guides.
The 18th century gave rise to a style of gin referred to as Old Tom gin, which is a softer, sweeter style of gin, often containing sugar. Old Tom gin faded in popularity by the early 20th century.
The invention and development of the column still (1826 and 1831) made the distillation of neutral spirits practical, thus enabling the creation of the "London dry" style that evolved later in the 19th century.
In tropical British colonies gin was used to mask the bitter flavour of quinine, which was the only effective anti-malarial compound. Quinine was dissolved in carbonated water to form tonic water; the resulting cocktail is gin and tonic, although modern tonic water contains only a trace of quinine as a flavouring. Gin is a common base spirit for many mixed drinks, including the martini. Secretly produced "bathtub gin" was available in the speakeasies and "blind pigs" of Prohibition-era America as a result of the relatively simple production.
Sloe gin is traditionally described as a liqueur made by infusing sloes (the fruit of the blackthorn) in gin, although modern versions are almost always compounded from neutral spirits and flavourings. Similar infusions are possible with other fruits, such as damsons. Another popular gin-based liqueur with a longstanding history is Pimm's No.1 Cup (25% alcohol by volume(ABV)), which is a fruit cup flavoured with citrus and spices.
The National Jenever Museums are located in Hasselt in Belgium, and Schiedam in the Netherlands.
Since 2013, gin has been in a period of ascendancy worldwide, with many new brands and producers entering the category leading to a period of strong growth, innovation and change. More recently gin-based liqueurs have been popularised, reaching a market outside that of traditional gin drinkers, including fruit-flavoured and usually coloured "Pink gin", rhubarb gin, Spiced gin, violet gin, blood orange gin and sloe gin. Surging popularity and unchecked competition has led to consumer's conflation of gin with gin liqueurs and many products are straddling, pushing or breaking the boundaries of established definitions in a period of genesis for the industry.
Some legal classifications (protected denomination of origin) define gin as only originating from specific geographical areas without any further restrictions (e.g. Plymouth gin (PGI now lapsed), Ostfriesischer Korngenever, Slovenská borovička, Kraški Brinjevec, etc.), while other common descriptors refer to classic styles that are culturally recognised, but not legally defined (e.g. Old Tom gin). Sloe gin is also worth mentioning, as although technically a gin-based liqueur, it is unique in that the EU spirit drink regulations stipulate the colloquial term 'sloe gin' can legally be used without the "liqueur" suffix when certain production criteria are met.
According to the Canadian Food and Drug Regulation, gin is produced through redistillation of alcohol from juniper berries or a mixture of more than one such redistilled food products. The Canadian Food and Drug Regulation recognises gin with three different definitions (Genever, Gin, London or Dry gin) that loosely approximate the US definitions. Whereas a more detailed regulation is provided for Holland gin or genever, no distinction is made between compounded gin and distilled gin. Either compounded or distilled gin can be labelled as Dry Gin or London Dry Gin if it does not contain any sweetening agents. For Genever and Gin, they shall not contain more than two percent sweetening agents.
Although many different styles of gin have evolved, it is legally differentiated into four categories in the European Union, as follows.
Juniper-flavoured spirit drinks include the earliest class of gin, which is produced by pot distilling a fermented grain mash to moderate strength, e.g., 68% ABV, and then redistilling it with botanicals to extract the aromatic compounds. It must be bottled at a minimum of 30% ABV. Juniper-flavoured spirit-drinks may also be sold under the names Wacholder or Ginebra.
Gin is a juniper-flavoured spirit made not via the redistillation of botanicals, but by simply adding approved natural flavouring substances to a neutral spirit of agricultural origin. The predominant flavour must be juniper. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.
Distilled gin is produced exclusively by redistilling ethanol of agricultural origin with an initial strength of 96% ABV (the azeotrope of water and ethanol) in stills traditionally used for gin, in the presence of juniper berries and of other natural botanicals, provided that the juniper taste is predominant. Gin obtained simply by adding essences or flavourings to ethanol of agricultural origin is not distilled gin. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.
London gin is obtained exclusively from ethanol of agricultural origin with a maximum methanol content of 5 g (0.18 oz) per hectolitre of 100% ABV equivalent, whose flavour is introduced exclusively through the re-distillation in traditional stills of ethanol in the presence of all the natural plant materials used, the resultant distillate of which is at least 70% ABV. London gin may not contain added sweetening exceeding 0.1 g (0.0035 oz) of sugars per litre of the final product, nor colourants, nor any added ingredients other than water. The predominant flavour must be juniper. The term London gin may be supplemented by the term dry. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.
In the United States of America, "gin" is defined as an alcoholic beverage of no less than 40% ABV (80 proof) that possesses the characteristic flavour of juniper berries. Gin produced only through the redistillation of botanicals can be further distinguished and marketed as "distilled gin".
Gin can be broadly differentiated into three basic styles reflecting modernization in its distillation and flavouring techniques:
Pot distilled gin represents the earliest style of gin, and is traditionally produced by pot distilling a fermented grain mash (malt wine) from barley or other grains, then redistilling it with flavouring botanicals to extract the aromatic compounds. A double gin can be produced by redistilling the first gin again with more botanicals. Due to the use of pot stills, the alcohol content of the distillate is relatively low; around 68% ABV for a single distilled gin or 76% ABV for a double gin. This type of gin is often aged in tanks or wooden casks, and retains a heavier, malty flavour that gives it a marked resemblance to whisky. Korenwijn (grain wine) and the oude (old) style of Geneva gin or Holland gin represent the most prominent gins of this class.
Column distilled gin evolved following the invention of the Coffey still, and is produced by first distilling high proof (e.g. 96% ABV) neutral spirits from a fermented mash or wash using a refluxing still such as a column still. The fermentable base for this spirit may be derived from grain, sugar beets, grapes, potatoes, sugar cane, plain sugar, or any other material of agricultural origin. The highly concentrated spirit is then redistilled with juniper berries and other botanicals in a pot still. Most often, the botanicals are suspended in a "gin basket" positioned within the head of the still, which allows the hot alcoholic vapours to extract flavouring components from the botanical charge. This method yields a gin lighter in flavour than the older pot still method, and results in either a distilled gin or London dry gin, depending largely upon how the spirit is finished.
Compound gin is made by compounding (blending) neutral spirits with essences, other natural flavourings, or ingredients left to infuse in neutral spirit without redistillation.
Popular botanicals or flavouring agents for gin, besides the required juniper, often include citrus elements, such as lemon and bitter orange peel, as well as a combination of other spices, which may include any of anise, angelica root and seed, orris root, cardamom, pine needles and cone, licorice root, cinnamon, almond, cubeb, savory, lime peel, grapefruit peel, dragon eye (longan), saffron, baobab, frankincense, coriander, grains of paradise, nutmeg, cassia bark or others. The different combinations and concentrations of these botanicals in the distillation process cause the variations in taste among gin products.
Chemical research has begun to identify the various chemicals that are extracted in the distillation process and contribute to gin's flavouring. For example, juniper monoterpenes come from juniper berries. Citric and berry flavours come from chemicals such as limonene and gamma-terpinene linalool found in limes, blueberries and hops amongst others. Floral notes come from compounds such as geraniol and euganol. Spice-like flavours come from chemicals such as sabinene, delta-3-carene, and para-cymene.
In 2018, more than half the growth in the UK Gin category was contributed by flavoured gin.
A well known gin cocktail is the martini, traditionally made with gin and dry vermouth. Several other notable gin-based drinks include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gin (/dʒɪn/) is a distilled alcoholic drink that derives its flavour from juniper berries and other botanical ingredients.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gin originated as a medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe. The modern gin was then modified in Flanders and the Netherlands, to provide aqua vita from distillates of grapes and grains. It then became an object of commerce in the spirits industry. Gin became popular in England after the introduction of jenever, a Dutch and Belgian liquor that was originally a medicine. Although this development had been taking place since the early 17th century, gin became widespread after the 1688 Glorious Revolution led by William of Orange and subsequent import restrictions on French brandy. Gin subsequently emerged as the national alcoholic drink of England during the so-called Gin Craze of 1695–1735.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Gin today is produced in different ways from a wide range of herbal ingredients, giving rise to a number of distinct styles and brands. After juniper, gin tends to be flavoured with herbs, spices, floral or fruit flavours, or often a combination. It is commonly consumed mixed with tonic water in a gin and tonic. Gin is also often used as a base spirit to produce flavoured, gin-based liqueurs, for example sloe gin, traditionally produced by the addition of fruit, flavourings and sugar.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name gin is a shortened form of the older English word genever, related to the French word genièvre and the Dutch word jenever. All ultimately derive from juniperus, the Latin for juniper.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The earliest known written reference to jenever appears in the 13th-century encyclopaedic work Der Naturen Bloeme (Bruges), with the earliest printed recipe for jenever dating from 16th-century work Een Constelijck Distileerboec (Antwerp).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The monks used it to distill sharp, fiery, alcoholic tonics, one of which was distilled from wine infused with juniper berries. They were making medicines, hence the juniper. As a medicinal herb, juniper had been an essential part of doctors' kits for centuries: the Romans burned juniper branches for purification, and plague doctors stuffed the beaks of their plague masks with juniper to supposedly protect them from the Black Death. Across Europe, apothecaries handed out juniper tonic wines for coughs, colds, pains, strains, ruptures and cramps. These were a popular cure-all, though some thought these tonic wines to be a little too popular, and consumed for enjoyment rather than medicinal purposes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The physician Franciscus Sylvius has been falsely credited with the invention of gin in the mid-17th century, as the existence of jenever is confirmed in Philip Massinger's play The Duke of Milan (1623), when Sylvius would have been about nine years old. It is further claimed that English soldiers who provided support in Antwerp against the Spanish in 1585, during the Eighty Years' War, were already drinking jenever for its calming effects before battle, from which the term Dutch courage is believed to have originated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "By the mid-17th century, numerous small Dutch and Flemish distillers had popularized the re-distillation of malted barley spirit or malt wine with juniper, anise, caraway, coriander, etc., which were sold in pharmacies and used to treat such medical problems as kidney ailments, lumbago, stomach ailments, gallstones, and gout. Gin emerged in England in varying forms by the early 17th century, and at the time of the Stuart Restoration, enjoyed a brief resurgence. Gin became vastly more popular as an alternative to brandy, when William III and Mary II became co-sovereigns of England, Scotland and Ireland after leading the Glorious Revolution. Particularly in crude, inferior forms, it was more likely to be flavoured with turpentine. Historian Angela McShane has described it as a \"Protestant drink\" as its rise was brought about by a Protestant king, fuelling his armies fighting the Catholic Irish and French.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Gin drinking in England rose significantly after the government allowed unlicensed gin production, and at the same time imposed a heavy duty on all imported spirits such as French brandy. This created a larger market for poor-quality barley that was unfit for brewing beer, and in 1695–1735 thousands of gin-shops sprang up throughout England, a period known as the Gin Craze. Because of the low price of gin, when compared with other drinks available at the same time, and in the same geographic location, gin began to be consumed regularly by the poor. Of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London, not including coffee shops and drinking chocolate shops, over half were gin shops. Beer maintained a healthy reputation as it was often safer to drink the brewed ale than unclean plain water. Gin, though, was blamed for various social problems, and it may have been a factor in the higher death rates which stabilized London's previously growing population. The reputation of the two drinks was illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751), described by the BBC as \"arguably the most potent anti-drug poster ever conceived\". The negative reputation of gin survives today in the English language, in terms like gin mills or the American phrase gin joints to describe disreputable bars, or gin-soaked to refer to drunks. The epithet mother's ruin is a common British name for gin, the origin of which is the subject of ongoing debate.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Gin Act 1736 imposed high taxes on retailers and led to riots in the streets. The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. The Gin Act 1751 was more successful, however; it forced distillers to sell only to licensed retailers and brought gin shops under the jurisdiction of local magistrates. Gin in the 18th century was produced in pot stills, and thus had a maltier profile than the London gin known today.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In London in the early 18th century, much gin was distilled legally in residential houses (there were estimated to be 1,500 residential stills in 1726) and was often flavoured with turpentine to generate resinous woody notes in addition to the juniper. As late as 1913, Webster's Dictionary states without further comment, \"'common gin' is usually flavoured with turpentine\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Another common variation was to distill in the presence of sulphuric acid. Although the acid itself does not distil, it imparts the additional aroma of diethyl ether to the resulting gin. Sulphuric acid subtracts one water molecule from two ethanol molecules to create diethyl ether, which also forms an azeotrope with ethanol, and therefore distils with it. The result is a sweeter spirit, and one that may have possessed additional analgesic or even intoxicating effects – see Paracelsus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Dutch or Belgian gin, also known as jenever or genever, evolved from malt wine spirits, and is a distinctly different drink from later styles of gin. Schiedam, a city in the province of South Holland, is famous for its jenever-producing history. The same for Hasselt in the Belgian province of Limburg. The oude (old) style of jenever remained very popular throughout the 19th century, where it was referred to as Holland or Geneva gin in popular, American, pre-Prohibition bartender guides.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The 18th century gave rise to a style of gin referred to as Old Tom gin, which is a softer, sweeter style of gin, often containing sugar. Old Tom gin faded in popularity by the early 20th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The invention and development of the column still (1826 and 1831) made the distillation of neutral spirits practical, thus enabling the creation of the \"London dry\" style that evolved later in the 19th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In tropical British colonies gin was used to mask the bitter flavour of quinine, which was the only effective anti-malarial compound. Quinine was dissolved in carbonated water to form tonic water; the resulting cocktail is gin and tonic, although modern tonic water contains only a trace of quinine as a flavouring. Gin is a common base spirit for many mixed drinks, including the martini. Secretly produced \"bathtub gin\" was available in the speakeasies and \"blind pigs\" of Prohibition-era America as a result of the relatively simple production.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Sloe gin is traditionally described as a liqueur made by infusing sloes (the fruit of the blackthorn) in gin, although modern versions are almost always compounded from neutral spirits and flavourings. Similar infusions are possible with other fruits, such as damsons. Another popular gin-based liqueur with a longstanding history is Pimm's No.1 Cup (25% alcohol by volume(ABV)), which is a fruit cup flavoured with citrus and spices.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The National Jenever Museums are located in Hasselt in Belgium, and Schiedam in the Netherlands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Since 2013, gin has been in a period of ascendancy worldwide, with many new brands and producers entering the category leading to a period of strong growth, innovation and change. More recently gin-based liqueurs have been popularised, reaching a market outside that of traditional gin drinkers, including fruit-flavoured and usually coloured \"Pink gin\", rhubarb gin, Spiced gin, violet gin, blood orange gin and sloe gin. Surging popularity and unchecked competition has led to consumer's conflation of gin with gin liqueurs and many products are straddling, pushing or breaking the boundaries of established definitions in a period of genesis for the industry.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Some legal classifications (protected denomination of origin) define gin as only originating from specific geographical areas without any further restrictions (e.g. Plymouth gin (PGI now lapsed), Ostfriesischer Korngenever, Slovenská borovička, Kraški Brinjevec, etc.), while other common descriptors refer to classic styles that are culturally recognised, but not legally defined (e.g. Old Tom gin). Sloe gin is also worth mentioning, as although technically a gin-based liqueur, it is unique in that the EU spirit drink regulations stipulate the colloquial term 'sloe gin' can legally be used without the \"liqueur\" suffix when certain production criteria are met.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "According to the Canadian Food and Drug Regulation, gin is produced through redistillation of alcohol from juniper berries or a mixture of more than one such redistilled food products. The Canadian Food and Drug Regulation recognises gin with three different definitions (Genever, Gin, London or Dry gin) that loosely approximate the US definitions. Whereas a more detailed regulation is provided for Holland gin or genever, no distinction is made between compounded gin and distilled gin. Either compounded or distilled gin can be labelled as Dry Gin or London Dry Gin if it does not contain any sweetening agents. For Genever and Gin, they shall not contain more than two percent sweetening agents.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Although many different styles of gin have evolved, it is legally differentiated into four categories in the European Union, as follows.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Juniper-flavoured spirit drinks include the earliest class of gin, which is produced by pot distilling a fermented grain mash to moderate strength, e.g., 68% ABV, and then redistilling it with botanicals to extract the aromatic compounds. It must be bottled at a minimum of 30% ABV. Juniper-flavoured spirit-drinks may also be sold under the names Wacholder or Ginebra.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Gin is a juniper-flavoured spirit made not via the redistillation of botanicals, but by simply adding approved natural flavouring substances to a neutral spirit of agricultural origin. The predominant flavour must be juniper. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Distilled gin is produced exclusively by redistilling ethanol of agricultural origin with an initial strength of 96% ABV (the azeotrope of water and ethanol) in stills traditionally used for gin, in the presence of juniper berries and of other natural botanicals, provided that the juniper taste is predominant. Gin obtained simply by adding essences or flavourings to ethanol of agricultural origin is not distilled gin. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "London gin is obtained exclusively from ethanol of agricultural origin with a maximum methanol content of 5 g (0.18 oz) per hectolitre of 100% ABV equivalent, whose flavour is introduced exclusively through the re-distillation in traditional stills of ethanol in the presence of all the natural plant materials used, the resultant distillate of which is at least 70% ABV. London gin may not contain added sweetening exceeding 0.1 g (0.0035 oz) of sugars per litre of the final product, nor colourants, nor any added ingredients other than water. The predominant flavour must be juniper. The term London gin may be supplemented by the term dry. Minimum bottled strength is 37.5% ABV.",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In the United States of America, \"gin\" is defined as an alcoholic beverage of no less than 40% ABV (80 proof) that possesses the characteristic flavour of juniper berries. Gin produced only through the redistillation of botanicals can be further distinguished and marketed as \"distilled gin\".",
"title": "Legal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Gin can be broadly differentiated into three basic styles reflecting modernization in its distillation and flavouring techniques:",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Pot distilled gin represents the earliest style of gin, and is traditionally produced by pot distilling a fermented grain mash (malt wine) from barley or other grains, then redistilling it with flavouring botanicals to extract the aromatic compounds. A double gin can be produced by redistilling the first gin again with more botanicals. Due to the use of pot stills, the alcohol content of the distillate is relatively low; around 68% ABV for a single distilled gin or 76% ABV for a double gin. This type of gin is often aged in tanks or wooden casks, and retains a heavier, malty flavour that gives it a marked resemblance to whisky. Korenwijn (grain wine) and the oude (old) style of Geneva gin or Holland gin represent the most prominent gins of this class.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Column distilled gin evolved following the invention of the Coffey still, and is produced by first distilling high proof (e.g. 96% ABV) neutral spirits from a fermented mash or wash using a refluxing still such as a column still. The fermentable base for this spirit may be derived from grain, sugar beets, grapes, potatoes, sugar cane, plain sugar, or any other material of agricultural origin. The highly concentrated spirit is then redistilled with juniper berries and other botanicals in a pot still. Most often, the botanicals are suspended in a \"gin basket\" positioned within the head of the still, which allows the hot alcoholic vapours to extract flavouring components from the botanical charge. This method yields a gin lighter in flavour than the older pot still method, and results in either a distilled gin or London dry gin, depending largely upon how the spirit is finished.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Compound gin is made by compounding (blending) neutral spirits with essences, other natural flavourings, or ingredients left to infuse in neutral spirit without redistillation.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Popular botanicals or flavouring agents for gin, besides the required juniper, often include citrus elements, such as lemon and bitter orange peel, as well as a combination of other spices, which may include any of anise, angelica root and seed, orris root, cardamom, pine needles and cone, licorice root, cinnamon, almond, cubeb, savory, lime peel, grapefruit peel, dragon eye (longan), saffron, baobab, frankincense, coriander, grains of paradise, nutmeg, cassia bark or others. The different combinations and concentrations of these botanicals in the distillation process cause the variations in taste among gin products.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Chemical research has begun to identify the various chemicals that are extracted in the distillation process and contribute to gin's flavouring. For example, juniper monoterpenes come from juniper berries. Citric and berry flavours come from chemicals such as limonene and gamma-terpinene linalool found in limes, blueberries and hops amongst others. Floral notes come from compounds such as geraniol and euganol. Spice-like flavours come from chemicals such as sabinene, delta-3-carene, and para-cymene.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 2018, more than half the growth in the UK Gin category was contributed by flavoured gin.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "A well known gin cocktail is the martini, traditionally made with gin and dry vermouth. Several other notable gin-based drinks include:",
"title": "Consumption"
}
]
| Gin is a distilled alcoholic drink that derives its flavour from juniper berries and other botanical ingredients. Gin originated as a medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe. The modern gin was then modified in Flanders and the Netherlands, to provide aqua vita from distillates of grapes and grains. It then became an object of commerce in the spirits industry. Gin became popular in England after the introduction of jenever, a Dutch and Belgian liquor that was originally a medicine. Although this development had been taking place since the early 17th century, gin became widespread after the 1688 Glorious Revolution led by William of Orange and subsequent import restrictions on French brandy. Gin subsequently emerged as the national alcoholic drink of England during the so-called Gin Craze of 1695–1735. Gin today is produced in different ways from a wide range of herbal ingredients, giving rise to a number of distinct styles and brands. After juniper, gin tends to be flavoured with herbs, spices, floral or fruit flavours, or often a combination. It is commonly consumed mixed with tonic water in a gin and tonic. Gin is also often used as a base spirit to produce flavoured, gin-based liqueurs, for example sloe gin, traditionally produced by the addition of fruit, flavourings and sugar. | 2001-12-17T16:21:12Z | 2023-12-31T17:34:15Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin |
12,990 | Gall–Peters projection | The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular, equal-area map projection. Like all equal-area projections, it distorts most shapes. It is a cylindrical equal-area projection with latitudes 45° north and south as the regions on the map that have no distortion.
The projection is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Gall described the projection in 1855 at a science convention and published a paper on it in 1885. Peters brought the projection to a wider audience beginning in the early 1970s through his "Peters World Map". The name "Gall–Peters projection" was first used by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.
Maps based on the projection are promoted by UNESCO, and they are also widely used by British schools. The U.S. state of Massachusetts and Boston Public Schools began phasing in these maps in March 2017, becoming the first public school district and state in the United States to adopt Gall–Peters maps as their standard.
The Gall–Peters projection achieved notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of a controversy about the political implications of map design.
The projection is conventionally defined as:
where λ is the longitude from the central meridian in degrees, φ is the latitude, and R is the radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. For longitude given in radians, remove the π/180° factors.
Stripping out unit conversion and uniform scaling, the formulae may be written:
where λ {\displaystyle \lambda } is the longitude from the central meridian (in radians), φ {\displaystyle \varphi } is the latitude, and R is the radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. Hence the sphere is mapped onto the vertical cylinder, and the cylinder is stretched to double its length. The stretch factor, 2 in this case, is what distinguishes the variations of cylindric equal-area projection.
The various specializations of the cylindric equal-area projection differ only in the ratio of the vertical to horizontal axis. This ratio determines the standard parallel of the projection, which is the parallel at which there is no distortion and along which distances match the stated scale. The standard parallels of the Gall–Peters are 45° N and 45° S. Several other specializations of the equal-area cylindric have been described, promoted, or otherwise named.
The Gall–Peters projection was first described in 1855 by clergyman James Gall, who presented it along with two other projections at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (the BA). He gave it the name "orthographic" and formally published his work in 1885 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine. The projection is suggestive of the Orthographic projection in that distances between parallels of the Gall–Peters are a constant multiple of the distances between the parallels of the orthographic. That constant is √2.
In 1967, German filmmaker Arno Peters independently devised a similar projection, which he presented in 1973 as the "Peters world map". Peters's original description of his projection contained a geometric error that, taken literally, implies standard parallels of 46°02′ N/S. However the text accompanying the description made it clear that he had intended the standard parallels to be 45° N/S, making his projection identical to Gall's orthographic. In any case, the difference is negligible in a world map.
The name "Gall–Peters projection" seems to have been used first by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986. Before 1973 it had been known, when referred to at all, as the "Gall orthographic" or "Gall's orthographic." Most Peters supporters today refer to it only as the "Peters projection." During the years of controversy the cartographic literature tended to mention both attributions, settling on one or the other for the purposes of the article. In recent years "Gall–Peters" seems to dominate.
The Gall–Peters projection initially passed unnoticed when presented by Gall in 1855. It achieved more widespread attention after Arno Peters reintroduced it in 1973. He promoted it as a superior alternative to the commonly used Mercator projection, on the basis that the Mercator projection greatly distorts the relative sizes of regions on a map. In particular, he criticized that the Mercator projection causes wealthy Europe and North America to appear very large relative to poorer Africa and South America. These arguments swayed many socially concerned groups to adopt the Gall–Peters projection, including the National Council of Churches and the magazine New Internationalist.
His campaign was bolstered by the inaccurate claim that the Gall–Peters projection was the only "area-correct" map. In actuality, some of the oldest projections are equal-area (such as the sinusoidal projection), and hundreds have been described. He also inaccurately claimed that it possessed "absolute angle conformality", had "no extreme distortions of form", and was "totally distance-factual". Peters framed his criticisms of the Mercator projection with criticisms of the broader cartographic community. In particular, Peters wrote in The New Cartography,
By the authority of their profession [cartographers] have hindered its development. Since Mercator produced his global map over four hundred years ago for the age of Europeans world domination, cartographers have clung to it despite its having been long outdated by events. They have sought to render it topical by cosmetic corrections.… The cartographic profession is, by its retention of old precepts based on the Eurocentric global concept, incapable of developing this egalitarian world map which alone can demonstrate the parity of all peoples of the earth.
As Peters's promotions gained popularity, the cartographic community reacted with hostility to his criticisms, as well as to the inaccuracy and lack of novelty of his claims. They called attention to the long list of cartographers who, over the preceding century, had formally expressed frustration with publishers' overuse of the Mercator and advocated for alternatives. In addition, several scholars criticized the particularly large distortions present in the Gall–Peters projection, and remarked on the irony of its undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations.
The increasing publicity of Peters's claims in 1986 motivated the American Cartographic Association (now Cartography and Geographic Information Society) to produce a series of booklets (including Which Map Is Best) designed to educate the public about map projections and distortion in maps. In 1989 and 1990, after some internal debate, seven North American geographic organizations adopted a resolution rejecting all rectangular world maps, a category that includes both the Mercator and the Gall–Peters projections, though the North American Cartographic Information Society notably declined to endorse it.
The two camps never made any real attempts toward reconciliation. The Peters camp largely ignored the protests of the cartographers, and did not acknowledge Gall's prior work until the controversy had largely run its course, late in Peters's life. While he likely devised the projection independently, his unscholarly conduct and refusal to engage the cartographic community undoubtedly contributed to the polarization and impasse.
In the ensuing decades, J. Brian Harley credited the Peters phenomenon with demonstrating the social implications of map projections, while Jeremy Crampton considers all maps to be political, and sees the condemnation from the cartographic community as reactionary and perhaps demonstrative of immaturity in the profession.
Notes
Further reading | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular, equal-area map projection. Like all equal-area projections, it distorts most shapes. It is a cylindrical equal-area projection with latitudes 45° north and south as the regions on the map that have no distortion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The projection is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Gall described the projection in 1855 at a science convention and published a paper on it in 1885. Peters brought the projection to a wider audience beginning in the early 1970s through his \"Peters World Map\". The name \"Gall–Peters projection\" was first used by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Maps based on the projection are promoted by UNESCO, and they are also widely used by British schools. The U.S. state of Massachusetts and Boston Public Schools began phasing in these maps in March 2017, becoming the first public school district and state in the United States to adopt Gall–Peters maps as their standard.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Gall–Peters projection achieved notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of a controversy about the political implications of map design.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The projection is conventionally defined as:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "where λ is the longitude from the central meridian in degrees, φ is the latitude, and R is the radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. For longitude given in radians, remove the π/180° factors.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Stripping out unit conversion and uniform scaling, the formulae may be written:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "where λ {\\displaystyle \\lambda } is the longitude from the central meridian (in radians), φ {\\displaystyle \\varphi } is the latitude, and R is the radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. Hence the sphere is mapped onto the vertical cylinder, and the cylinder is stretched to double its length. The stretch factor, 2 in this case, is what distinguishes the variations of cylindric equal-area projection.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The various specializations of the cylindric equal-area projection differ only in the ratio of the vertical to horizontal axis. This ratio determines the standard parallel of the projection, which is the parallel at which there is no distortion and along which distances match the stated scale. The standard parallels of the Gall–Peters are 45° N and 45° S. Several other specializations of the equal-area cylindric have been described, promoted, or otherwise named.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Gall–Peters projection was first described in 1855 by clergyman James Gall, who presented it along with two other projections at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (the BA). He gave it the name \"orthographic\" and formally published his work in 1885 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine. The projection is suggestive of the Orthographic projection in that distances between parallels of the Gall–Peters are a constant multiple of the distances between the parallels of the orthographic. That constant is √2.",
"title": "Origins and naming"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1967, German filmmaker Arno Peters independently devised a similar projection, which he presented in 1973 as the \"Peters world map\". Peters's original description of his projection contained a geometric error that, taken literally, implies standard parallels of 46°02′ N/S. However the text accompanying the description made it clear that he had intended the standard parallels to be 45° N/S, making his projection identical to Gall's orthographic. In any case, the difference is negligible in a world map.",
"title": "Origins and naming"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The name \"Gall–Peters projection\" seems to have been used first by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986. Before 1973 it had been known, when referred to at all, as the \"Gall orthographic\" or \"Gall's orthographic.\" Most Peters supporters today refer to it only as the \"Peters projection.\" During the years of controversy the cartographic literature tended to mention both attributions, settling on one or the other for the purposes of the article. In recent years \"Gall–Peters\" seems to dominate.",
"title": "Origins and naming"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Gall–Peters projection initially passed unnoticed when presented by Gall in 1855. It achieved more widespread attention after Arno Peters reintroduced it in 1973. He promoted it as a superior alternative to the commonly used Mercator projection, on the basis that the Mercator projection greatly distorts the relative sizes of regions on a map. In particular, he criticized that the Mercator projection causes wealthy Europe and North America to appear very large relative to poorer Africa and South America. These arguments swayed many socially concerned groups to adopt the Gall–Peters projection, including the National Council of Churches and the magazine New Internationalist.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "His campaign was bolstered by the inaccurate claim that the Gall–Peters projection was the only \"area-correct\" map. In actuality, some of the oldest projections are equal-area (such as the sinusoidal projection), and hundreds have been described. He also inaccurately claimed that it possessed \"absolute angle conformality\", had \"no extreme distortions of form\", and was \"totally distance-factual\". Peters framed his criticisms of the Mercator projection with criticisms of the broader cartographic community. In particular, Peters wrote in The New Cartography,",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "By the authority of their profession [cartographers] have hindered its development. Since Mercator produced his global map over four hundred years ago for the age of Europeans world domination, cartographers have clung to it despite its having been long outdated by events. They have sought to render it topical by cosmetic corrections.… The cartographic profession is, by its retention of old precepts based on the Eurocentric global concept, incapable of developing this egalitarian world map which alone can demonstrate the parity of all peoples of the earth.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As Peters's promotions gained popularity, the cartographic community reacted with hostility to his criticisms, as well as to the inaccuracy and lack of novelty of his claims. They called attention to the long list of cartographers who, over the preceding century, had formally expressed frustration with publishers' overuse of the Mercator and advocated for alternatives. In addition, several scholars criticized the particularly large distortions present in the Gall–Peters projection, and remarked on the irony of its undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The increasing publicity of Peters's claims in 1986 motivated the American Cartographic Association (now Cartography and Geographic Information Society) to produce a series of booklets (including Which Map Is Best) designed to educate the public about map projections and distortion in maps. In 1989 and 1990, after some internal debate, seven North American geographic organizations adopted a resolution rejecting all rectangular world maps, a category that includes both the Mercator and the Gall–Peters projections, though the North American Cartographic Information Society notably declined to endorse it.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The two camps never made any real attempts toward reconciliation. The Peters camp largely ignored the protests of the cartographers, and did not acknowledge Gall's prior work until the controversy had largely run its course, late in Peters's life. While he likely devised the projection independently, his unscholarly conduct and refusal to engage the cartographic community undoubtedly contributed to the polarization and impasse.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the ensuing decades, J. Brian Harley credited the Peters phenomenon with demonstrating the social implications of map projections, while Jeremy Crampton considers all maps to be political, and sees the condemnation from the cartographic community as reactionary and perhaps demonstrative of immaturity in the profession.",
"title": "Peters world map controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Notes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Further reading",
"title": "References"
}
]
| The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular, equal-area map projection. Like all equal-area projections, it distorts most shapes. It is a cylindrical equal-area projection with latitudes 45° north and south as the regions on the map that have no distortion. The projection is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Gall described the projection in 1855 at a science convention and published a paper on it in 1885. Peters brought the projection to a wider audience beginning in the early 1970s through his "Peters World Map". The name "Gall–Peters projection" was first used by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986. Maps based on the projection are promoted by UNESCO, and they are also widely used by British schools. The U.S. state of Massachusetts and Boston Public Schools began phasing in these maps in March 2017, becoming the first public school district and state in the United States to adopt Gall–Peters maps as their standard. The Gall–Peters projection achieved notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of a controversy about the political implications of map design. | 2001-12-17T20:52:00Z | 2023-10-17T01:55:44Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection |
12,991 | Gram Parsons | Ingram Cecil Connor III (November 5, 1946 – September 19, 1973), known professionally as Gram Parsons, was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He recorded as a solo artist and with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, popularizing what he called "Cosmic American Music", a hybrid of country, rhythm and blues, soul, folk, and rock.
Parsons was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and developed an interest in country music while attending Harvard University. He founded the International Submarine Band in 1966, but the group disbanded prior to the 1968 release of its debut album, Safe at Home. Parsons joined the Byrds in early 1968 and played a pivotal role in the making of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, a pioneering country rock album and a seminal progressive country recording. After leaving the group in late 1968, Parsons and fellow Byrd Chris Hillman formed The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1969; the band released its debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the same year. The album was well received but failed commercially. After a sloppy cross-country tour, the band hastily recorded Burrito Deluxe. Parsons was fired from the band before the album's release in early 1970. Parsons spent the first half of 1971 with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, living in his French villa Nellcôte during the recording sessions for Exile on Main Street, though he contributed very little to the recording process itself. After traveling around Britain with friends in late 1971, he was treated for heroin addiction and returned to the U.S., where he was introduced to Emmylou Harris, who assisted him on vocals for his first solo record, GP, released in 1973. Although it received enthusiastic reviews, the release failed to chart. His health deteriorated due to several years of drug abuse culminating in his death from a toxic combination of morphine and alcohol in 1973 at the age of 26. A posthumous solo album, Grievous Angel, peaked at number 195 on the Billboard chart.
Parsons's relatively short career was described by AllMusic as "enormously influential" for country and rock, "blending the two genres to the point that they became indistinguishable from each other." He has been credited with helping to found the country rock and alt-country genres. His posthumous honors include the Americana Music Association "President's Award" for 2003 and a ranking at No. 87 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."
Ingram Cecil Connor III was born on November 5, 1946, in Winter Haven, Florida, to Ingram Cecil "Coon Dog" (1917–1958) and Avis (née Snively) Connor (1923–1965). The Connors normally resided at their main residence in Waycross, Georgia, but Avis returned to her hometown in Florida to give birth. She was the daughter of citrus fruit magnate John A. Snively, who held extensive properties in Winter Haven and in Waycross. Gram's father, Ingram Connor II was a famous World War II flying ace, decorated with the Air Medal, who was present at the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Biographer David Meyer characterized these parents as loving; he wrote in Twenty Thousand Roads that they are "remembered as affectionate parents and a loving couple".
However, he also notes that "unhappiness was eating away at the Connor family": Avis suffered from depression, and both parents were alcoholics. Ingram Connor II died by suicide two days before Christmas in 1958, devastating the 12-year-old Gram and his younger sister, also named Avis. Avis, Gram's mother, subsequently married Robert Parsons, who adopted Gram and his sister; they took his surname.
Gram Parsons briefly attended the prestigious Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, before transferring to the public Winter Haven High School; after failing his junior year, he returned to Bolles. For a time, the family found a stability of sorts. They were torn apart in early 1965, when Robert became embroiled in an extramarital affair and Avis' heavy drinking led to her death from cirrhosis on June 5, 1965, the day of Gram's graduation from Bolles.
As his family was disintegrating around him, Parsons developed strong musical interests, particularly after seeing Elvis Presley perform in concert on February 22, 1956, in Waycross. Five years later, barely in his teens, he played in rock and roll cover bands such as the Pacers and the Legends, headlining in clubs owned by his stepfather in the Winter Haven/Polk County area. By the age of 16, he graduated to folk music, and in 1963 he teamed up with his first professional outfit, the Shilohs, in Greenville, South Carolina. Heavily influenced by The Kingston Trio and The Journeymen, the band played hootenannies, coffee houses and high school auditoriums; as Parsons was still enrolled in prep school, he performed with the group only in select engagements. Forays into New York City (where Parsons briefly lived with a female folk singer in a loft on Houston Street) included a performance at Florida's exhibition in the 1964 New York World's Fair and regular appearances at the Café Rafio on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1964. Although John Phillips (an acquaintance of Shiloh George Wrigley) arranged an exploratory meeting with Albert Grossman, the impresario balked at booking the group for a Christmas engagement at The Bitter End when he discovered that the Shilohs were still high school students. Following a recording session at the radio station of Bob Jones University, the group reached a creative impasse amid the emergence of folk rock and dissolved in the spring of 1965.
Despite his middling grades and test scores, Parsons was admitted to Harvard University's class of 1966 on the basis of a strong admissions essay (or, more likely, because his family was wealthy--his grandfather owned one-third of all the citrus orchards in Florida). Although he claimed to have studied theology (an oblique reference to his close friendship with his residential tutor, Harvard Divinity School graduate student Jet Thomas) in subsequent interviews, Parsons seldom attended his general education courses before departing in early 1966 after one semester. He did not become seriously interested in country music until his time at Harvard, where he heard Merle Haggard for the first time.
In 1966, he and other musicians from the Boston folk scene formed a group called the International Submarine Band. After briefly residing in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, they relocated to Los Angeles the following year. Following several lineup changes, the band signed to Lee Hazlewood's LHI Records, where they spent late 1967 recording Safe at Home. The album contains one of Parsons' best-known songs, "Luxury Liner," and an early version of "Do You Know How It Feels," which he revised later in his career. Safe at Home would remain unreleased until mid-1968, by which time the International Submarine Band had broken up.
The International Submarine Band appeared in the Peter Fonda film The Trip (1967) as a performing band in one of the clubs. Their song "Lazy Days" was offered for the film's soundtrack, however the soundtrack was later done by Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag. In 1967, Peter Fonda had befriended Parsons through actor Brandon de Wilde. During this time, Fonda had recorded a version of the Parsons' song "November Nights" titled "November Night", dropping the 's'. The song was released as a single in March 1967, featuring "November Night" on the A-Side with the B-Side being a version of Donovan's "Catch the Wind".
By 1968, Parsons had come to the attention of the Byrds' bassist, Chris Hillman, via business manager Larry Spector as a possible replacement band member following the departures of David Crosby and Michael Clarke from the group in late 1967. Parsons had been acquainted with Hillman since the pair had met in a bank during 1967 and in February 1968 he passed an audition for the band, being initially recruited as a jazz pianist but soon switching to rhythm guitar and vocals as well.
Although Parsons was an equal contributor to the band, he was not regarded as a full member of the Byrds by the band's record label, Columbia Records. Consequently, when the Byrds' recording contract was renewed on February 29, 1968, it was only original members Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman who signed it. Parsons, like fellow new recruit Kevin Kelley, was hired as a sideman and received a salary from McGuinn and Hillman. In later years, this led Hillman to state, "Gram was hired. He was not a member of the Byrds, ever. He was on salary; that was the only way we could get him to turn up." However, these comments overlook the fact that Parsons, like Kelley, was given equal billing alongside McGuinn, Hillman, and Kelley on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and in contemporary press coverage of the band.
"Being with The Byrds confused me a little. I couldn't find my place. I didn't have enough say-so. I really wasn't one of The Byrds. I was originally hired because they wanted a keyboard player. But I had experience being a frontman and that came out immediately. And [Roger McGuinn] being a very perceptive fellow saw that it would help the act, and he started sticking me out front."
—Gram Parsons reflecting on his time with the Byrds
Sweetheart of the Rodeo was originally conceived by band leader Roger McGuinn as a sprawling, double album history of American popular music. It was to begin with bluegrass music, then move through country and western, jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music, before finally ending with the most advanced (for the time) form of electronic music. However, as recording plans were made, Parsons exerted a controlling influence over the group, persuading the other members to leave Los Angeles and record the album in Nashville, Tennessee. Along the way, McGuinn's original album concept was jettisoned in favor of a fully fledged country project, which included Parsons' songs such as "One Hundred Years from Now" and "Hickory Wind", along with compositions by Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, and others.
Recording sessions for Sweetheart of the Rodeo commenced at Columbia Records' recording studios in the Music Row area of Nashville on March 9, 1968. Midway through, the sessions moved to Columbia Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles. They finally came to a close on May 27, 1968. However, Parsons was still under contract to LHI Records and consequently, Hazlewood contested Parsons' appearance on the album and threatened legal action. As a result, McGuinn ended up replacing three of Parsons' lead vocals with his own on the finished album, a move that still rankled Parsons as late as 1973, when he told Cameron Crowe in an interview that McGuinn "erased it and did the vocals himself and fucked it up." However, Parsons is still featured as lead vocalist on the songs "You're Still on My Mind", "Life in Prison", and "Hickory Wind".
While in England with the Byrds in the summer of 1968, Parsons left the band due to his concerns over a planned concert tour of South Africa, and after speaking to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards about the tour, he cited opposition to that country's apartheid policies. There has been some doubt expressed by Hillman over the sincerity of Parsons' protest. It appears that Parsons was mostly apolitical, although he did refer to one of the younger African-American butlers in the Connor household as being "like a brother" to him in an interview. During this period Parsons became acquainted with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Before Parsons' departure from the Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge (along with McGuinn and Hillman) in the English county of Wiltshire. Immediately after leaving the band, Parsons stayed at Richards' house and the pair developed a close friendship over the next few years, with Parsons reintroducing the guitarist to country music. According to Stones' confidant and close friend of Parsons, Phil Kaufman, the two would sit around for hours playing obscure country records and trading off on various songs with their guitars.
Returning to Los Angeles, Parsons sought out Hillman, and the two formed The Flying Burrito Brothers with bassist Chris Ethridge and pedal steel player Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Their 1969 album The Gilded Palace of Sin marked the culmination of Parsons' post-1966 musical vision: a modernized variant of the Bakersfield sound that was popularized by Buck Owens amalgamated with strands of soul and psychedelic rock. The band appeared on the album cover wearing Nudie suits emblazoned with all sorts of hippie accoutrements, including marijuana, Tuinal, and Seconal-inspired patches on Parsons' suit. Along with the Parsons-Hillman originals "Christine's Tune" and "Sin City" were versions of the soul music classics "The Dark End of the Street" and "Do Right Woman", the latter featuring David Crosby on high harmony. The album's original songs were the result of a very productive songwriting partnership between Parsons and Hillman, who were sharing a bachelor pad in the San Fernando Valley during this period. The atypically pronounced (for Parsons) gospel-soul influence on this album likely evolved from the ecumenical tastes of bassist Chris Ethridge (who co-wrote "Hot Burrito No. 1 [I'm Your Toy]" and "Hot Burrito No. 2" with Parsons) and frequent jamming with Delaney & Bonnie and Richards during the album's gestation.
Original drummer Eddie Hoh (best known for his work with The Monkees and Al Kooper) proved to be unable to perform adequate takes due to a substance abuse problem and was dismissed after two songs, leading the group to record the remainder of the album with a variety of session drummers, including former International Submarine Band drummer Jon Corneal (who briefly joined the group as an official member, appearing on a plurality of the tracks) and Popeye Phillips of Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Before commencing live performances, the group ultimately settled upon original Byrds drummer Michael Clarke. Technically different in comparison to his predecessors, Clarke's striking physical appearance proved to be the primary criterion in this decision; an associate of the band would later recall that "the Burritos had to be pretty" and "Corneal didn't fit" from that standpoint.
While unsuccessful from a commercial standpoint, the album was measured by rock critic Robert Christgau as "an ominous, obsessive, tongue-in-cheek country-rock synthesis, absorbing rural and urban, traditional and contemporary, at point of impact." Embarking on a cross-country tour via train, as Parsons suffered from periodic bouts of fear of flying, the group squandered most of their money in a perpetual poker game and received bewildered reactions in most cities. Parsons was frequently indulging in massive quantities of psilocybin and cocaine, so his performances were erratic at best, while much of the band's repertoire consisted of vintage honky-tonk and soul standards with few originals. Perhaps the most successful appearance occurred in Philadelphia, where the group opened for the reconstituted Byrds. Midway through their set, Parsons joined the headline act and fronted his former group on renditions of "Hickory Wind" and "You Don't Miss Your Water". The other Burritos surfaced with the exception of Clarke, and the joint aggregation played several songs, including "Long Black Veil" and "Goin' Back".
The Flying Burrito Brothers appeared at the Sky River Rock Festival near Sultan, Washington, at the end of August.
After returning to Los Angeles, the group recorded "The Train Song", written during an increasingly infrequent songwriting session on the train and produced by 1950s R&B legends Larry Williams and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Despite a request from the Burritos that the remnants of their publicity budget be diverted to promotion of the single, it also flopped. During this period, Ethridge realized that he did not share Parsons' and Hillman's affinity for country music, precipitating his departure shortly thereafter. He was replaced by lead guitarist Bernie Leadon, while Hillman reverted to bass.
By this time, Parsons's own use of drugs had increased so much that new songs were rare and much of his time was diverted to partying with the Stones, who briefly relocated to America in the summer of 1969 to finish their forthcoming Let It Bleed album and prepare for an autumn cross-country tour, their first series of regular live engagements in over two years. As the Stones prepared to play the nation's largest basketball arenas and early stadium concerts, the Burritos played to dwindling nightclub audiences; on one occasion, Jagger had to beseech Parsons to fulfill an obligation to his group. As Parsons "became a trust-fund baby when he came of age," he was still receiving about $30,000 per year (equivalent to $210,000 in 2018) from his family trust during this period, "distinguishing him from his many hungry, hard-scrabble peers."
However, the singer's dedication to the Rolling Stones was rewarded when the Burrito Brothers were booked as one of the acts at the infamous Altamont Music Festival. Playing a short set including "Six Days on the Road" and "Bony Moronie," Parsons left on one of the final helicopters and attempted to seduce Michelle Phillips. "Six Days..." was included in Gimme Shelter, a documentary of the event.
With mounting debt incurred, A&M hoped to recoup some of their losses by marketing the Burritos as a straight country group. To this end, manager Jim Dickson instigated a loose session where the band recorded several honky tonk staples from their live act, contemporary pop covers in a countrified vein ("To Love Somebody", "Lodi", "I Shall Be Released", "Honky Tonk Women"), and Larry Williams' "Bony Moronie." This was soon scrapped in favor of a second album of originals on an extremely reduced budget.
Faced with a dearth of new material, most of the album was hastily written in the studio by Leadon, Hillman, and Parsons, with two Gilded Palace of Sin outtakes thrown into the mix. The resulting album, entitled Burrito Deluxe, was released in April 1970. Although it is considered less inspired than its predecessor, it is notable for the Parsons-Hillman-Leadon song "Older Guys" and for its take on Jagger and Richards' "Wild Horses", the first recording released of this famous song. Parsons was inspired to cover the song after hearing an advance tape of the Sticky Fingers track sent to Kleinow, who was scheduled to overdub a pedal steel part; although Kleinow's part was not included on the released Rolling Stones version, it is available on bootlegs. Ultimately—and to the chagrin of Hillman, who was not keen on the song amid the band's creative malaise—Jagger and Richards consented to the cover version.
Like its predecessor, Burrito Deluxe underperformed commercially but also failed to carry the critical cachet of the debut. Disenchanted with the band, Parsons left the Burritos in mutual agreement with Hillman, who was long fatigued by his friend's unprofessionalism. Under Hillman's direction, the group recorded one more studio album before dissolving in the autumn of 1971.
In a recent interview with American Songwriter Chris Hillman explained that "[t]he greatest legacy of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram is we were the alternative country band. We couldn't get on country radio and we couldn't get on rock radio! We were the outlaw country band for a brief period."
Parsons signed a solo deal with A&M Records and moved in with producer Terry Melcher in early 1970. Melcher, who had worked with the Byrds and the Beach Boys, was a member of the successful duo Bruce & Terry, also known as The Rip Chords. The two shared a mutual penchant for cocaine and heroin, and as a result, the sessions were largely unproductive, with Parsons eventually losing interest in the project. "Terry loved Gram and wanted to produce him ... But neither of them could get anything done," recalled writer and mutual friend Eve Babitz. "Long lost, the tapes from this session have gathered a legendary patina," writes David Meyer. The recording stalled, and the master tapes were checked out, but there is conflict as to whether "Gram ... or Melcher took them".
He then accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1971 U.K. tour in the hope of being signed to the newly formed Rolling Stones Records; by this juncture, Parsons and Richards had mulled the possibility of recording a duo album. Moving into Villa Nellcôte with the guitarist during the sessions for Exile on Main Street that commenced thereafter, Parsons remained in a consistently incapacitated state and frequently quarreled with his girlfriend, aspiring actress Gretchen Burrell. Eventually, Parsons was asked to leave by Anita Pallenberg, Richards' longtime domestic partner. Decades later, Richards suggested in his memoir that Jagger may have been the impetus for Parsons' departure because Richards was spending so much time playing music with Parsons. Rumors have persisted that he appears somewhere on the legendary album, and while Richards concedes that it is very likely he is among the chorus of singers on "Sweet Virginia", this has never been substantiated. Parsons attempted to rekindle his relationship with the band on their 1972 American tour to no avail.
He returned to the US for a one-off concert with the Burritos, and at Hillman's request went to hear Emmylou Harris sing in a small club in Washington, D.C. They befriended each other and, within a year, he asked her to join him in Los Angeles for another attempt to record his first solo album. It came as a surprise to many when Parsons was enthusiastically signed to Reprise Records by Mo Ostin in mid-1972. The ensuing GP (1973) featured several members of Elvis Presley's TCB Band, led by lead guitarist James Burton. It included six new songs from a creatively revitalized Parsons alongside several country covers, including Tompall Glaser's "Streets of Baltimore" and George Jones' "That's All It Took".
Parsons, by now featuring Harris as his duet partner, toured across the United States as Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels in February–March 1973. Unable to afford the services of the TCB Band for a month, the group featured the talents of Colorado-based rock guitarist Jock Bartley (soon to climb to fame with Firefall), veteran Nashville session musician Neil Flanz on pedal steel, eclectic bassist Kyle Tullis (best known for his work with Dolly Parton and Larry Coryell) and former Mountain drummer N.D. Smart. The touring party also included Gretchen Parsons—by this point extremely envious of Harris—and Harris' young daughter. Coordinating the spectacle as road manager was Phil Kaufman, who had served time with Charles Manson on Terminal Island in the mid-sixties and first met Parsons while working for the Stones in 1968. Kaufman ensured that the performer stayed away from substance abuse, limiting his alcohol intake during shows and throwing out any drugs smuggled into hotel rooms. At first, the band was under-rehearsed and played poorly; however, they improved markedly with steady gigging and received rapturous responses at several leading countercultural venues, including Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas, Max's Kansas City in New York City, and Liberty Hall in Houston, Texas (where Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt sat in for a filmed performance). According to a number of sources, it was Harris who forced the band to practice and work up an actual set list. Nevertheless, the tour failed to galvanize sales of GP, which never charted in the Billboard 200.
For his next and final album, 1974's posthumously released Grievous Angel, he again used Harris and members of the TCB Band for the sessions. The record generally received more enthusiastic reviews than its predecessor, GP. Although Parsons only contributed two new songs to the album ("In My Hour of Darkness" and "Return of the Grievous Angel"), he was reportedly enthusiastic with his new sound and seemed to have finally adopted a diligent mindset to his musical career, limiting his intake of alcohol and opiates during most of the sessions.
Before recording, Parsons and Harris played a preliminary four-show mini-tour as the headline act in a June 1973 Warner Brothers country rock package with the New Kentucky Colonels and Country Gazette. A shared backing band included former Byrds lead guitarist and Kentucky Colonel Clarence White, Pete Kleinow, and Chris Ethridge. On July 15, 1973, White was killed by a drunk driver in Palmdale, California, while loading equipment in his car for a concert with the New Kentucky Colonels. At White's funeral, Parsons and Bernie Leadon launched into an impromptu touching rendition of "Farther Along"; that evening, Parsons reportedly informed Phil Kaufman of his final wish: to be cremated in Joshua Tree. Despite the almost insurmountable setback, Parsons, Harris, and the other musicians decided to continue with plans for a fall tour.
In the summer of 1973, Parsons' Topanga Canyon home burned to the ground, the result of a stray cigarette. Nearly all of his possessions were destroyed with the exception of a guitar and a prized Jaguar automobile. The fire proved to be the last straw in the relationship between Burrell and Parsons, who moved into a spare room in Kaufman's house. While not recording, he frequently hung out and jammed with members of New Jersey–based country rockers Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends and the proto-punk Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, who were represented by former Byrds manager Eddie Tickner.
In 1967, Nancy Ross gave birth to Gram's daughter Polly Parsons.
In 1971, after leaving the Stones' camp, Parsons married Gretchen Burrell (Gretchen Lisl Berrill Parsons Carpenter), at his stepfather's New Orleans estate. Allegedly, the relationship was far from stable, with Burrell cutting a needy and jealous figure while Parsons quashed her burgeoning film career. Many of the singer's closest associates and friends claim that Parsons was preparing to commence divorce proceedings at the time of his death; the couple had already separated by this point.
Parsons and Burrell enjoyed the most idyllic time of their relationship in the second half of 1971, visiting old cohorts like Ian Dunlop and Family/Blind Faith/Traffic member Ric Grech in England. With the assistance of Grech and one of the bassist's friends, a doctor who also dabbled in country music and is now known as Hank Wangford, Parsons eventually stopped taking heroin; a previous treatment suggested by William Burroughs proved unsuccessful.
Before formally breaking up with Burrell, Parsons already had a woman waiting in the wings. While recording, he saw a photo of a beautiful woman at a friend's home and was instantly smitten. The woman turned out to be Margaret Fisher, a high school sweetheart of the singer from his Waycross, Georgia, days. Like Parsons, Fisher had drifted west and became established in the Bay Area rock scene. A meeting was arranged and the two instantly rekindled their relationship, with Fisher dividing her weeks between Los Angeles and San Francisco at Parsons' expense.
In the late 1960s, Parsons became enamored of and began to vacation at Joshua Tree National Park (then a National Monument) in southeastern California, where he frequently used psychedelics and reportedly experienced several UFO sightings. After splitting from Burrell, Parsons often spent his weekends in the area with Margaret Fisher and Phil Kaufman, with whom he had been living. Scheduled to resume touring in October 1973, Parsons decided to go on another recuperative excursion on September 17. Accompanying him were Fisher, personal assistant Michael Martin, and Martin's girlfriend Dale McElroy. Kaufman later said that Parsons' attorney was preparing divorce papers to serve to Burrell while Parsons remained in Joshua Tree on September 20.
During the trip, Parsons often retreated to the desert, while the group visited bars in the nearby hamlet of Yucca Valley on both nights of their stay. Parsons consumed large amounts of alcohol and barbiturates. On September 18, Martin drove back to Los Angeles to resupply the group with marijuana. That night, after challenging Fisher and McElroy to drink with him (Fisher disliked alcohol and McElroy was recovering from a bout of hepatitis), he said, "I'll drink for the three of us," and proceeded to drink six double tequilas. They then returned to the Joshua Tree Inn, where Parsons purchased morphine from an unknown young woman. After being injected by her in room #1, he overdosed. Fisher gave Parsons an ice-cube suppository, and later, a cold shower. Instead of moving Parsons around the room, she put him to bed in room #8 and went out to buy coffee in the hope of reviving him, leaving McElroy to stand guard. As his respirations became irregular and later ceased, McElroy attempted resuscitation. Her efforts failed and Fisher, watching from outside, was visibly alarmed. After further failed attempts, they decided to call an ambulance. Parsons was declared dead on arrival at Yucca Valley Hospital at 12:15 a.m. on September 19, 1973, in Yucca Valley. The official cause of death was an overdose of morphine and alcohol.
According to Fisher in the 2005 biography Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons, the amount of morphine consumed by Parsons would be lethal to three regular users. Keith Richards stated in the 2004 documentary film Fallen Angel that Parsons understood the danger of combining opiates and alcohol and should have been more cautious. Upon Parsons' death, Fisher and McElroy were returned to Los Angeles by Kaufman, who dispersed the remnants of Parsons' drugs in the desert.
Before his death, Parsons said he wanted his body cremated at Joshua Tree and his ashes spread over Cap Rock, a prominent natural feature there. However, Parsons' stepfather Bob organized a private ceremony back in New Orleans and neglected to invite any of his friends from the music industry. Two accounts state that Bob Parsons stood to inherit Gram's share of his grandfather's estate if he could prove that Gram was a resident of Louisiana, explaining his eagerness to have him buried there.
To fulfill Parsons' funeral wishes, Kaufman and a friend stole his body from Los Angeles International Airport and in a borrowed hearse, they drove it to Joshua Tree. Upon reaching the Cap Rock section of the park, they attempted to cremate Parsons' body by pouring five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and throwing a lit match inside; what resulted was an enormous fireball.
The two were arrested several days later. Since there was no law against stealing a dead body, they were only fined $750 for stealing the coffin and were not prosecuted for leaving 35 pounds (16 kg) of his charred remains in the desert. What remained of Parsons' body was eventually buried in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie, Louisiana.
The site of Parsons' cremation is today known as The Cap Rock Parking Lot. A local myth brings Parsons fans out to a large rock flake known to rock climbers as The Gram Parsons Memorial Hand Traverse. This myth was popularized when someone added a slab that marked Parsons' cremation to the memorial rock. The slab has since been removed by the U.S. National Park Service, and relocated to the Joshua Tree Inn. There is no monument at Cap Rock noting Parsons' cremation at the site. Joshua Tree park guides are given the option to tell the story of Parsons' cremation during tours, but there is no mention of the act in official maps or brochures. Fans regularly assemble simple rock structures and writings on the rock, which the Park Service periodically removes.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes Parsons as "enormously influential" for both country and rock, "blending the two genres to the point that they became indistinguishable from each other. ... His influence could still be heard well into the next millennium." In his 2005 essay on Parsons for Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Artist" list, Keith Richards notes that Parsons' recorded music output was "pretty minimal." Nevertheless, Richards claims that Parsons' "effect on country music is enormous" and adds that this is "why we're talking about him now."
In 2003 the Americana Music Awards awarded the late Gram Parsons with the President’s Award, accepted by his daughter Polly. “My father wanted more than anything to be accepted by Nashville, and tonight he is,” she said. “I’m sure he and Johnny [Cash] are kicking it off right now.”
The 2003 film Grand Theft Parsons stars Johnny Knoxville as Phil Kaufman and chronicles a farcical version of the theft of Parsons' corpse. In 2006, the Gandulf Hennig-directed documentary film titled Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel was released.
Emmylou Harris has continued to champion Parsons' work throughout her career, covering a number of his songs over the years, including "Hickory Wind", "Wheels", "Sin City", "Luxury Liner", and "Hot Burrito No. 2". Harris's songs "Boulder to Birmingham", from her 1975 album Pieces of the Sky, and "The Road", from her 2011 album Hard Bargain, are tributes to Parsons. In addition, her 1985 album The Ballad of Sally Rose is an original concept album that includes many allusions to Parsons in its narrative. The song "My Man", written by Bernie Leadon and performed by the Eagles on their album On the Border, is a tribute to Gram Parsons. Both Leadon and Parsons were members of the Flying Burrito Brothers during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The 1973 album Crazy Eyes by Poco pays homage to Parsons, as Richie Furay composed the title track in honor of him, and sings one of Parsons' own compositions, "Brass Buttons." The album was released four days before Parsons died.
A music festival called Gram Fest or the Cosmic American Music Festival was held annually in honor of Parsons in Joshua Tree, California, between 1996 and 2006. The show featured tunes written by Gram Parsons and Gene Clark as well as influential songs and musical styles from other artists that were part of that era. Performers were also encouraged to showcase their own material. The underlying theme of the event is to inspire the performers to take these musical styles to the next level of the creative process. Past concerts have featured such notable artists as Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Chris Ethridge, Spooner Oldham, John Molo, Jack Royerton, Gib Guilbeau, Counting Crows, Bob Warford, Rosie Flores, David Lowery, Barry and Holly Tashian, George Tomsco, Jann Browne, Lucinda Williams, Polly Parsons, The "Road Mangler" Phil Kaufman, Ben Fong-Torres, Victoria Williams, Mark Olson, and Sid Griffin, as well as a variety of many other bands that had played over the two or three day event. In addition, the Gram Parsons Tribute, in Waycross, Georgia, is a music festival remembering Parsons in the town in which he grew up. Additional tributes spring up every year, the latest being the Southern California "Gram On!" celebration by The Rickenbastards in July, 2013, celebrating the life and legacy of a simple country boy with a dream, Gram Parsons.
In February 2008, Gram's protégée, Emmylou Harris, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Despite his influence, however, Parsons has yet to be inducted. Radley Balko has written that "Parsons may be the most influential artist yet to be inducted to either the Rock and Roll or Country Music Hall(s) of Fame. And it's a damned shame." The Gram Parsons Petition Project (now Gram ParsonsInterNational) was begun in May 2008 in support of an ongoing drive to induct Parsons into the Country Music Hall of Fame. On September 19, 2008, the 35th anniversary of Parsons' death, it was first presented to the Country Music Association (CMA) and Hall as a "List of Supporters" together with the official Nomination Proposal. The online List of Supporters reached 10,000 on the 40th anniversary of his death, with more than 14,000 currently listed. Annual Gram Parsons InterNational concerts in Nashville and various other cities, now in the 14th year, support the petition cause.
In 2004, Gram Parsons' daughter Polly Parsons produced two tribute concerts titled "Return to Sin City: A Tribute to Gram Parsons". Artists included: Keith Richards, James Burton, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Dwight Yoakam, John Doe, Steve Earle, Jim Lauderdale, Kathleen Edwards, Jay Farrar, Jim James, Raul Malo, Susan Marshall, and the Sin City All Stars. The concert produced a DVD. 100% of the proceeds from the tribute concerts were donated through the newly formed Gram Parsons Foundation to the Musician's Assistance Program (now MusiCares Foundation) which aids musicians in crisis.
In November 2009, the musical theatre production Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons premiered, starring Anders Drerup as Gram Parsons and Kelly Prescott as Emmylou Harris. Directed by Michael Bate and co-written by Bate and David McDonald, the production was inspired by a March 1973 interview that Bate conducted with Parsons, which became Parsons' last recorded conversation.
In 2012, Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit released the single "Emmylou" from the album The Lion's Roar. The song's chorus is a lyrical acknowledgment of the Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris singing partnership, and to the romantic relationship between them that never fully developed before his death.
In the fall of 2012 Florida festival promoter and musician Randy Judy presented his bio-musical Farther Along – The Music and Life of Gram Parsons at Magnoliafest at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.
A Cleveland, Ohio area band, New Soft Shoe, performs as a tribute band to Parsons' music.
A St. Paul, Minnesota band, The Gilded Palace Sinners, is another Parsons' tribute group.
In 2022 Dave Prinz, a co-founder of Amoeba Music, rediscovered Gram Parsons “Last Roundup” tapes featuring Emmylou Harris with Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels. Prinz decided to initiate a campaign to fund the release independently, in partnership with daughter Polly Parsons. The campaign launched November 17, 2022, and was fully backed.
Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels' "The Last Roundup: Live from The Bijou Café in Philadelphia 3/16/73" was released Friday November 24, 2023 and was considered one of the record store hits of 2023.
Articles
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{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ingram Cecil Connor III (November 5, 1946 – September 19, 1973), known professionally as Gram Parsons, was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He recorded as a solo artist and with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, popularizing what he called \"Cosmic American Music\", a hybrid of country, rhythm and blues, soul, folk, and rock.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Parsons was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and developed an interest in country music while attending Harvard University. He founded the International Submarine Band in 1966, but the group disbanded prior to the 1968 release of its debut album, Safe at Home. Parsons joined the Byrds in early 1968 and played a pivotal role in the making of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, a pioneering country rock album and a seminal progressive country recording. After leaving the group in late 1968, Parsons and fellow Byrd Chris Hillman formed The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1969; the band released its debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the same year. The album was well received but failed commercially. After a sloppy cross-country tour, the band hastily recorded Burrito Deluxe. Parsons was fired from the band before the album's release in early 1970. Parsons spent the first half of 1971 with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, living in his French villa Nellcôte during the recording sessions for Exile on Main Street, though he contributed very little to the recording process itself. After traveling around Britain with friends in late 1971, he was treated for heroin addiction and returned to the U.S., where he was introduced to Emmylou Harris, who assisted him on vocals for his first solo record, GP, released in 1973. Although it received enthusiastic reviews, the release failed to chart. His health deteriorated due to several years of drug abuse culminating in his death from a toxic combination of morphine and alcohol in 1973 at the age of 26. A posthumous solo album, Grievous Angel, peaked at number 195 on the Billboard chart.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Parsons's relatively short career was described by AllMusic as \"enormously influential\" for country and rock, \"blending the two genres to the point that they became indistinguishable from each other.\" He has been credited with helping to found the country rock and alt-country genres. His posthumous honors include the Americana Music Association \"President's Award\" for 2003 and a ranking at No. 87 on Rolling Stone's list of the \"100 Greatest Artists of All Time.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Ingram Cecil Connor III was born on November 5, 1946, in Winter Haven, Florida, to Ingram Cecil \"Coon Dog\" (1917–1958) and Avis (née Snively) Connor (1923–1965). The Connors normally resided at their main residence in Waycross, Georgia, but Avis returned to her hometown in Florida to give birth. She was the daughter of citrus fruit magnate John A. Snively, who held extensive properties in Winter Haven and in Waycross. Gram's father, Ingram Connor II was a famous World War II flying ace, decorated with the Air Medal, who was present at the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Biographer David Meyer characterized these parents as loving; he wrote in Twenty Thousand Roads that they are \"remembered as affectionate parents and a loving couple\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "However, he also notes that \"unhappiness was eating away at the Connor family\": Avis suffered from depression, and both parents were alcoholics. Ingram Connor II died by suicide two days before Christmas in 1958, devastating the 12-year-old Gram and his younger sister, also named Avis. Avis, Gram's mother, subsequently married Robert Parsons, who adopted Gram and his sister; they took his surname.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Gram Parsons briefly attended the prestigious Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, before transferring to the public Winter Haven High School; after failing his junior year, he returned to Bolles. For a time, the family found a stability of sorts. They were torn apart in early 1965, when Robert became embroiled in an extramarital affair and Avis' heavy drinking led to her death from cirrhosis on June 5, 1965, the day of Gram's graduation from Bolles.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As his family was disintegrating around him, Parsons developed strong musical interests, particularly after seeing Elvis Presley perform in concert on February 22, 1956, in Waycross. Five years later, barely in his teens, he played in rock and roll cover bands such as the Pacers and the Legends, headlining in clubs owned by his stepfather in the Winter Haven/Polk County area. By the age of 16, he graduated to folk music, and in 1963 he teamed up with his first professional outfit, the Shilohs, in Greenville, South Carolina. Heavily influenced by The Kingston Trio and The Journeymen, the band played hootenannies, coffee houses and high school auditoriums; as Parsons was still enrolled in prep school, he performed with the group only in select engagements. Forays into New York City (where Parsons briefly lived with a female folk singer in a loft on Houston Street) included a performance at Florida's exhibition in the 1964 New York World's Fair and regular appearances at the Café Rafio on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1964. Although John Phillips (an acquaintance of Shiloh George Wrigley) arranged an exploratory meeting with Albert Grossman, the impresario balked at booking the group for a Christmas engagement at The Bitter End when he discovered that the Shilohs were still high school students. Following a recording session at the radio station of Bob Jones University, the group reached a creative impasse amid the emergence of folk rock and dissolved in the spring of 1965.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Despite his middling grades and test scores, Parsons was admitted to Harvard University's class of 1966 on the basis of a strong admissions essay (or, more likely, because his family was wealthy--his grandfather owned one-third of all the citrus orchards in Florida). Although he claimed to have studied theology (an oblique reference to his close friendship with his residential tutor, Harvard Divinity School graduate student Jet Thomas) in subsequent interviews, Parsons seldom attended his general education courses before departing in early 1966 after one semester. He did not become seriously interested in country music until his time at Harvard, where he heard Merle Haggard for the first time.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1966, he and other musicians from the Boston folk scene formed a group called the International Submarine Band. After briefly residing in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, they relocated to Los Angeles the following year. Following several lineup changes, the band signed to Lee Hazlewood's LHI Records, where they spent late 1967 recording Safe at Home. The album contains one of Parsons' best-known songs, \"Luxury Liner,\" and an early version of \"Do You Know How It Feels,\" which he revised later in his career. Safe at Home would remain unreleased until mid-1968, by which time the International Submarine Band had broken up.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The International Submarine Band appeared in the Peter Fonda film The Trip (1967) as a performing band in one of the clubs. Their song \"Lazy Days\" was offered for the film's soundtrack, however the soundtrack was later done by Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag. In 1967, Peter Fonda had befriended Parsons through actor Brandon de Wilde. During this time, Fonda had recorded a version of the Parsons' song \"November Nights\" titled \"November Night\", dropping the 's'. The song was released as a single in March 1967, featuring \"November Night\" on the A-Side with the B-Side being a version of Donovan's \"Catch the Wind\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "By 1968, Parsons had come to the attention of the Byrds' bassist, Chris Hillman, via business manager Larry Spector as a possible replacement band member following the departures of David Crosby and Michael Clarke from the group in late 1967. Parsons had been acquainted with Hillman since the pair had met in a bank during 1967 and in February 1968 he passed an audition for the band, being initially recruited as a jazz pianist but soon switching to rhythm guitar and vocals as well.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Although Parsons was an equal contributor to the band, he was not regarded as a full member of the Byrds by the band's record label, Columbia Records. Consequently, when the Byrds' recording contract was renewed on February 29, 1968, it was only original members Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman who signed it. Parsons, like fellow new recruit Kevin Kelley, was hired as a sideman and received a salary from McGuinn and Hillman. In later years, this led Hillman to state, \"Gram was hired. He was not a member of the Byrds, ever. He was on salary; that was the only way we could get him to turn up.\" However, these comments overlook the fact that Parsons, like Kelley, was given equal billing alongside McGuinn, Hillman, and Kelley on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and in contemporary press coverage of the band.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "\"Being with The Byrds confused me a little. I couldn't find my place. I didn't have enough say-so. I really wasn't one of The Byrds. I was originally hired because they wanted a keyboard player. But I had experience being a frontman and that came out immediately. And [Roger McGuinn] being a very perceptive fellow saw that it would help the act, and he started sticking me out front.\"",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "—Gram Parsons reflecting on his time with the Byrds",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Sweetheart of the Rodeo was originally conceived by band leader Roger McGuinn as a sprawling, double album history of American popular music. It was to begin with bluegrass music, then move through country and western, jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music, before finally ending with the most advanced (for the time) form of electronic music. However, as recording plans were made, Parsons exerted a controlling influence over the group, persuading the other members to leave Los Angeles and record the album in Nashville, Tennessee. Along the way, McGuinn's original album concept was jettisoned in favor of a fully fledged country project, which included Parsons' songs such as \"One Hundred Years from Now\" and \"Hickory Wind\", along with compositions by Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, and others.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Recording sessions for Sweetheart of the Rodeo commenced at Columbia Records' recording studios in the Music Row area of Nashville on March 9, 1968. Midway through, the sessions moved to Columbia Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles. They finally came to a close on May 27, 1968. However, Parsons was still under contract to LHI Records and consequently, Hazlewood contested Parsons' appearance on the album and threatened legal action. As a result, McGuinn ended up replacing three of Parsons' lead vocals with his own on the finished album, a move that still rankled Parsons as late as 1973, when he told Cameron Crowe in an interview that McGuinn \"erased it and did the vocals himself and fucked it up.\" However, Parsons is still featured as lead vocalist on the songs \"You're Still on My Mind\", \"Life in Prison\", and \"Hickory Wind\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "While in England with the Byrds in the summer of 1968, Parsons left the band due to his concerns over a planned concert tour of South Africa, and after speaking to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards about the tour, he cited opposition to that country's apartheid policies. There has been some doubt expressed by Hillman over the sincerity of Parsons' protest. It appears that Parsons was mostly apolitical, although he did refer to one of the younger African-American butlers in the Connor household as being \"like a brother\" to him in an interview. During this period Parsons became acquainted with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Before Parsons' departure from the Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge (along with McGuinn and Hillman) in the English county of Wiltshire. Immediately after leaving the band, Parsons stayed at Richards' house and the pair developed a close friendship over the next few years, with Parsons reintroducing the guitarist to country music. According to Stones' confidant and close friend of Parsons, Phil Kaufman, the two would sit around for hours playing obscure country records and trading off on various songs with their guitars.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Returning to Los Angeles, Parsons sought out Hillman, and the two formed The Flying Burrito Brothers with bassist Chris Ethridge and pedal steel player Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Their 1969 album The Gilded Palace of Sin marked the culmination of Parsons' post-1966 musical vision: a modernized variant of the Bakersfield sound that was popularized by Buck Owens amalgamated with strands of soul and psychedelic rock. The band appeared on the album cover wearing Nudie suits emblazoned with all sorts of hippie accoutrements, including marijuana, Tuinal, and Seconal-inspired patches on Parsons' suit. Along with the Parsons-Hillman originals \"Christine's Tune\" and \"Sin City\" were versions of the soul music classics \"The Dark End of the Street\" and \"Do Right Woman\", the latter featuring David Crosby on high harmony. The album's original songs were the result of a very productive songwriting partnership between Parsons and Hillman, who were sharing a bachelor pad in the San Fernando Valley during this period. The atypically pronounced (for Parsons) gospel-soul influence on this album likely evolved from the ecumenical tastes of bassist Chris Ethridge (who co-wrote \"Hot Burrito No. 1 [I'm Your Toy]\" and \"Hot Burrito No. 2\" with Parsons) and frequent jamming with Delaney & Bonnie and Richards during the album's gestation.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Original drummer Eddie Hoh (best known for his work with The Monkees and Al Kooper) proved to be unable to perform adequate takes due to a substance abuse problem and was dismissed after two songs, leading the group to record the remainder of the album with a variety of session drummers, including former International Submarine Band drummer Jon Corneal (who briefly joined the group as an official member, appearing on a plurality of the tracks) and Popeye Phillips of Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Before commencing live performances, the group ultimately settled upon original Byrds drummer Michael Clarke. Technically different in comparison to his predecessors, Clarke's striking physical appearance proved to be the primary criterion in this decision; an associate of the band would later recall that \"the Burritos had to be pretty\" and \"Corneal didn't fit\" from that standpoint.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "While unsuccessful from a commercial standpoint, the album was measured by rock critic Robert Christgau as \"an ominous, obsessive, tongue-in-cheek country-rock synthesis, absorbing rural and urban, traditional and contemporary, at point of impact.\" Embarking on a cross-country tour via train, as Parsons suffered from periodic bouts of fear of flying, the group squandered most of their money in a perpetual poker game and received bewildered reactions in most cities. Parsons was frequently indulging in massive quantities of psilocybin and cocaine, so his performances were erratic at best, while much of the band's repertoire consisted of vintage honky-tonk and soul standards with few originals. Perhaps the most successful appearance occurred in Philadelphia, where the group opened for the reconstituted Byrds. Midway through their set, Parsons joined the headline act and fronted his former group on renditions of \"Hickory Wind\" and \"You Don't Miss Your Water\". The other Burritos surfaced with the exception of Clarke, and the joint aggregation played several songs, including \"Long Black Veil\" and \"Goin' Back\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Flying Burrito Brothers appeared at the Sky River Rock Festival near Sultan, Washington, at the end of August.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "After returning to Los Angeles, the group recorded \"The Train Song\", written during an increasingly infrequent songwriting session on the train and produced by 1950s R&B legends Larry Williams and Johnny \"Guitar\" Watson. Despite a request from the Burritos that the remnants of their publicity budget be diverted to promotion of the single, it also flopped. During this period, Ethridge realized that he did not share Parsons' and Hillman's affinity for country music, precipitating his departure shortly thereafter. He was replaced by lead guitarist Bernie Leadon, while Hillman reverted to bass.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "By this time, Parsons's own use of drugs had increased so much that new songs were rare and much of his time was diverted to partying with the Stones, who briefly relocated to America in the summer of 1969 to finish their forthcoming Let It Bleed album and prepare for an autumn cross-country tour, their first series of regular live engagements in over two years. As the Stones prepared to play the nation's largest basketball arenas and early stadium concerts, the Burritos played to dwindling nightclub audiences; on one occasion, Jagger had to beseech Parsons to fulfill an obligation to his group. As Parsons \"became a trust-fund baby when he came of age,\" he was still receiving about $30,000 per year (equivalent to $210,000 in 2018) from his family trust during this period, \"distinguishing him from his many hungry, hard-scrabble peers.\"",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "However, the singer's dedication to the Rolling Stones was rewarded when the Burrito Brothers were booked as one of the acts at the infamous Altamont Music Festival. Playing a short set including \"Six Days on the Road\" and \"Bony Moronie,\" Parsons left on one of the final helicopters and attempted to seduce Michelle Phillips. \"Six Days...\" was included in Gimme Shelter, a documentary of the event.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "With mounting debt incurred, A&M hoped to recoup some of their losses by marketing the Burritos as a straight country group. To this end, manager Jim Dickson instigated a loose session where the band recorded several honky tonk staples from their live act, contemporary pop covers in a countrified vein (\"To Love Somebody\", \"Lodi\", \"I Shall Be Released\", \"Honky Tonk Women\"), and Larry Williams' \"Bony Moronie.\" This was soon scrapped in favor of a second album of originals on an extremely reduced budget.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Faced with a dearth of new material, most of the album was hastily written in the studio by Leadon, Hillman, and Parsons, with two Gilded Palace of Sin outtakes thrown into the mix. The resulting album, entitled Burrito Deluxe, was released in April 1970. Although it is considered less inspired than its predecessor, it is notable for the Parsons-Hillman-Leadon song \"Older Guys\" and for its take on Jagger and Richards' \"Wild Horses\", the first recording released of this famous song. Parsons was inspired to cover the song after hearing an advance tape of the Sticky Fingers track sent to Kleinow, who was scheduled to overdub a pedal steel part; although Kleinow's part was not included on the released Rolling Stones version, it is available on bootlegs. Ultimately—and to the chagrin of Hillman, who was not keen on the song amid the band's creative malaise—Jagger and Richards consented to the cover version.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Like its predecessor, Burrito Deluxe underperformed commercially but also failed to carry the critical cachet of the debut. Disenchanted with the band, Parsons left the Burritos in mutual agreement with Hillman, who was long fatigued by his friend's unprofessionalism. Under Hillman's direction, the group recorded one more studio album before dissolving in the autumn of 1971.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In a recent interview with American Songwriter Chris Hillman explained that \"[t]he greatest legacy of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram is we were the alternative country band. We couldn't get on country radio and we couldn't get on rock radio! We were the outlaw country band for a brief period.\"",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Parsons signed a solo deal with A&M Records and moved in with producer Terry Melcher in early 1970. Melcher, who had worked with the Byrds and the Beach Boys, was a member of the successful duo Bruce & Terry, also known as The Rip Chords. The two shared a mutual penchant for cocaine and heroin, and as a result, the sessions were largely unproductive, with Parsons eventually losing interest in the project. \"Terry loved Gram and wanted to produce him ... But neither of them could get anything done,\" recalled writer and mutual friend Eve Babitz. \"Long lost, the tapes from this session have gathered a legendary patina,\" writes David Meyer. The recording stalled, and the master tapes were checked out, but there is conflict as to whether \"Gram ... or Melcher took them\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "He then accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1971 U.K. tour in the hope of being signed to the newly formed Rolling Stones Records; by this juncture, Parsons and Richards had mulled the possibility of recording a duo album. Moving into Villa Nellcôte with the guitarist during the sessions for Exile on Main Street that commenced thereafter, Parsons remained in a consistently incapacitated state and frequently quarreled with his girlfriend, aspiring actress Gretchen Burrell. Eventually, Parsons was asked to leave by Anita Pallenberg, Richards' longtime domestic partner. Decades later, Richards suggested in his memoir that Jagger may have been the impetus for Parsons' departure because Richards was spending so much time playing music with Parsons. Rumors have persisted that he appears somewhere on the legendary album, and while Richards concedes that it is very likely he is among the chorus of singers on \"Sweet Virginia\", this has never been substantiated. Parsons attempted to rekindle his relationship with the band on their 1972 American tour to no avail.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "He returned to the US for a one-off concert with the Burritos, and at Hillman's request went to hear Emmylou Harris sing in a small club in Washington, D.C. They befriended each other and, within a year, he asked her to join him in Los Angeles for another attempt to record his first solo album. It came as a surprise to many when Parsons was enthusiastically signed to Reprise Records by Mo Ostin in mid-1972. The ensuing GP (1973) featured several members of Elvis Presley's TCB Band, led by lead guitarist James Burton. It included six new songs from a creatively revitalized Parsons alongside several country covers, including Tompall Glaser's \"Streets of Baltimore\" and George Jones' \"That's All It Took\".",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Parsons, by now featuring Harris as his duet partner, toured across the United States as Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels in February–March 1973. Unable to afford the services of the TCB Band for a month, the group featured the talents of Colorado-based rock guitarist Jock Bartley (soon to climb to fame with Firefall), veteran Nashville session musician Neil Flanz on pedal steel, eclectic bassist Kyle Tullis (best known for his work with Dolly Parton and Larry Coryell) and former Mountain drummer N.D. Smart. The touring party also included Gretchen Parsons—by this point extremely envious of Harris—and Harris' young daughter. Coordinating the spectacle as road manager was Phil Kaufman, who had served time with Charles Manson on Terminal Island in the mid-sixties and first met Parsons while working for the Stones in 1968. Kaufman ensured that the performer stayed away from substance abuse, limiting his alcohol intake during shows and throwing out any drugs smuggled into hotel rooms. At first, the band was under-rehearsed and played poorly; however, they improved markedly with steady gigging and received rapturous responses at several leading countercultural venues, including Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas, Max's Kansas City in New York City, and Liberty Hall in Houston, Texas (where Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt sat in for a filmed performance). According to a number of sources, it was Harris who forced the band to practice and work up an actual set list. Nevertheless, the tour failed to galvanize sales of GP, which never charted in the Billboard 200.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "For his next and final album, 1974's posthumously released Grievous Angel, he again used Harris and members of the TCB Band for the sessions. The record generally received more enthusiastic reviews than its predecessor, GP. Although Parsons only contributed two new songs to the album (\"In My Hour of Darkness\" and \"Return of the Grievous Angel\"), he was reportedly enthusiastic with his new sound and seemed to have finally adopted a diligent mindset to his musical career, limiting his intake of alcohol and opiates during most of the sessions.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Before recording, Parsons and Harris played a preliminary four-show mini-tour as the headline act in a June 1973 Warner Brothers country rock package with the New Kentucky Colonels and Country Gazette. A shared backing band included former Byrds lead guitarist and Kentucky Colonel Clarence White, Pete Kleinow, and Chris Ethridge. On July 15, 1973, White was killed by a drunk driver in Palmdale, California, while loading equipment in his car for a concert with the New Kentucky Colonels. At White's funeral, Parsons and Bernie Leadon launched into an impromptu touching rendition of \"Farther Along\"; that evening, Parsons reportedly informed Phil Kaufman of his final wish: to be cremated in Joshua Tree. Despite the almost insurmountable setback, Parsons, Harris, and the other musicians decided to continue with plans for a fall tour.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In the summer of 1973, Parsons' Topanga Canyon home burned to the ground, the result of a stray cigarette. Nearly all of his possessions were destroyed with the exception of a guitar and a prized Jaguar automobile. The fire proved to be the last straw in the relationship between Burrell and Parsons, who moved into a spare room in Kaufman's house. While not recording, he frequently hung out and jammed with members of New Jersey–based country rockers Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends and the proto-punk Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, who were represented by former Byrds manager Eddie Tickner.",
"title": "Life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 1967, Nancy Ross gave birth to Gram's daughter Polly Parsons.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1971, after leaving the Stones' camp, Parsons married Gretchen Burrell (Gretchen Lisl Berrill Parsons Carpenter), at his stepfather's New Orleans estate. Allegedly, the relationship was far from stable, with Burrell cutting a needy and jealous figure while Parsons quashed her burgeoning film career. Many of the singer's closest associates and friends claim that Parsons was preparing to commence divorce proceedings at the time of his death; the couple had already separated by this point.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Parsons and Burrell enjoyed the most idyllic time of their relationship in the second half of 1971, visiting old cohorts like Ian Dunlop and Family/Blind Faith/Traffic member Ric Grech in England. With the assistance of Grech and one of the bassist's friends, a doctor who also dabbled in country music and is now known as Hank Wangford, Parsons eventually stopped taking heroin; a previous treatment suggested by William Burroughs proved unsuccessful.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Before formally breaking up with Burrell, Parsons already had a woman waiting in the wings. While recording, he saw a photo of a beautiful woman at a friend's home and was instantly smitten. The woman turned out to be Margaret Fisher, a high school sweetheart of the singer from his Waycross, Georgia, days. Like Parsons, Fisher had drifted west and became established in the Bay Area rock scene. A meeting was arranged and the two instantly rekindled their relationship, with Fisher dividing her weeks between Los Angeles and San Francisco at Parsons' expense.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In the late 1960s, Parsons became enamored of and began to vacation at Joshua Tree National Park (then a National Monument) in southeastern California, where he frequently used psychedelics and reportedly experienced several UFO sightings. After splitting from Burrell, Parsons often spent his weekends in the area with Margaret Fisher and Phil Kaufman, with whom he had been living. Scheduled to resume touring in October 1973, Parsons decided to go on another recuperative excursion on September 17. Accompanying him were Fisher, personal assistant Michael Martin, and Martin's girlfriend Dale McElroy. Kaufman later said that Parsons' attorney was preparing divorce papers to serve to Burrell while Parsons remained in Joshua Tree on September 20.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "During the trip, Parsons often retreated to the desert, while the group visited bars in the nearby hamlet of Yucca Valley on both nights of their stay. Parsons consumed large amounts of alcohol and barbiturates. On September 18, Martin drove back to Los Angeles to resupply the group with marijuana. That night, after challenging Fisher and McElroy to drink with him (Fisher disliked alcohol and McElroy was recovering from a bout of hepatitis), he said, \"I'll drink for the three of us,\" and proceeded to drink six double tequilas. They then returned to the Joshua Tree Inn, where Parsons purchased morphine from an unknown young woman. After being injected by her in room #1, he overdosed. Fisher gave Parsons an ice-cube suppository, and later, a cold shower. Instead of moving Parsons around the room, she put him to bed in room #8 and went out to buy coffee in the hope of reviving him, leaving McElroy to stand guard. As his respirations became irregular and later ceased, McElroy attempted resuscitation. Her efforts failed and Fisher, watching from outside, was visibly alarmed. After further failed attempts, they decided to call an ambulance. Parsons was declared dead on arrival at Yucca Valley Hospital at 12:15 a.m. on September 19, 1973, in Yucca Valley. The official cause of death was an overdose of morphine and alcohol.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "According to Fisher in the 2005 biography Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons, the amount of morphine consumed by Parsons would be lethal to three regular users. Keith Richards stated in the 2004 documentary film Fallen Angel that Parsons understood the danger of combining opiates and alcohol and should have been more cautious. Upon Parsons' death, Fisher and McElroy were returned to Los Angeles by Kaufman, who dispersed the remnants of Parsons' drugs in the desert.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Before his death, Parsons said he wanted his body cremated at Joshua Tree and his ashes spread over Cap Rock, a prominent natural feature there. However, Parsons' stepfather Bob organized a private ceremony back in New Orleans and neglected to invite any of his friends from the music industry. Two accounts state that Bob Parsons stood to inherit Gram's share of his grandfather's estate if he could prove that Gram was a resident of Louisiana, explaining his eagerness to have him buried there.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "To fulfill Parsons' funeral wishes, Kaufman and a friend stole his body from Los Angeles International Airport and in a borrowed hearse, they drove it to Joshua Tree. Upon reaching the Cap Rock section of the park, they attempted to cremate Parsons' body by pouring five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and throwing a lit match inside; what resulted was an enormous fireball.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The two were arrested several days later. Since there was no law against stealing a dead body, they were only fined $750 for stealing the coffin and were not prosecuted for leaving 35 pounds (16 kg) of his charred remains in the desert. What remained of Parsons' body was eventually buried in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie, Louisiana.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The site of Parsons' cremation is today known as The Cap Rock Parking Lot. A local myth brings Parsons fans out to a large rock flake known to rock climbers as The Gram Parsons Memorial Hand Traverse. This myth was popularized when someone added a slab that marked Parsons' cremation to the memorial rock. The slab has since been removed by the U.S. National Park Service, and relocated to the Joshua Tree Inn. There is no monument at Cap Rock noting Parsons' cremation at the site. Joshua Tree park guides are given the option to tell the story of Parsons' cremation during tours, but there is no mention of the act in official maps or brochures. Fans regularly assemble simple rock structures and writings on the rock, which the Park Service periodically removes.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes Parsons as \"enormously influential\" for both country and rock, \"blending the two genres to the point that they became indistinguishable from each other. ... His influence could still be heard well into the next millennium.\" In his 2005 essay on Parsons for Rolling Stone magazine's \"100 Greatest Artist\" list, Keith Richards notes that Parsons' recorded music output was \"pretty minimal.\" Nevertheless, Richards claims that Parsons' \"effect on country music is enormous\" and adds that this is \"why we're talking about him now.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 2003 the Americana Music Awards awarded the late Gram Parsons with the President’s Award, accepted by his daughter Polly. “My father wanted more than anything to be accepted by Nashville, and tonight he is,” she said. “I’m sure he and Johnny [Cash] are kicking it off right now.”",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The 2003 film Grand Theft Parsons stars Johnny Knoxville as Phil Kaufman and chronicles a farcical version of the theft of Parsons' corpse. In 2006, the Gandulf Hennig-directed documentary film titled Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel was released.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Emmylou Harris has continued to champion Parsons' work throughout her career, covering a number of his songs over the years, including \"Hickory Wind\", \"Wheels\", \"Sin City\", \"Luxury Liner\", and \"Hot Burrito No. 2\". Harris's songs \"Boulder to Birmingham\", from her 1975 album Pieces of the Sky, and \"The Road\", from her 2011 album Hard Bargain, are tributes to Parsons. In addition, her 1985 album The Ballad of Sally Rose is an original concept album that includes many allusions to Parsons in its narrative. The song \"My Man\", written by Bernie Leadon and performed by the Eagles on their album On the Border, is a tribute to Gram Parsons. Both Leadon and Parsons were members of the Flying Burrito Brothers during the late 1960s and early 1970s.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The 1973 album Crazy Eyes by Poco pays homage to Parsons, as Richie Furay composed the title track in honor of him, and sings one of Parsons' own compositions, \"Brass Buttons.\" The album was released four days before Parsons died.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A music festival called Gram Fest or the Cosmic American Music Festival was held annually in honor of Parsons in Joshua Tree, California, between 1996 and 2006. The show featured tunes written by Gram Parsons and Gene Clark as well as influential songs and musical styles from other artists that were part of that era. Performers were also encouraged to showcase their own material. The underlying theme of the event is to inspire the performers to take these musical styles to the next level of the creative process. Past concerts have featured such notable artists as Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Chris Ethridge, Spooner Oldham, John Molo, Jack Royerton, Gib Guilbeau, Counting Crows, Bob Warford, Rosie Flores, David Lowery, Barry and Holly Tashian, George Tomsco, Jann Browne, Lucinda Williams, Polly Parsons, The \"Road Mangler\" Phil Kaufman, Ben Fong-Torres, Victoria Williams, Mark Olson, and Sid Griffin, as well as a variety of many other bands that had played over the two or three day event. In addition, the Gram Parsons Tribute, in Waycross, Georgia, is a music festival remembering Parsons in the town in which he grew up. Additional tributes spring up every year, the latest being the Southern California \"Gram On!\" celebration by The Rickenbastards in July, 2013, celebrating the life and legacy of a simple country boy with a dream, Gram Parsons.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In February 2008, Gram's protégée, Emmylou Harris, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Despite his influence, however, Parsons has yet to be inducted. Radley Balko has written that \"Parsons may be the most influential artist yet to be inducted to either the Rock and Roll or Country Music Hall(s) of Fame. And it's a damned shame.\" The Gram Parsons Petition Project (now Gram ParsonsInterNational) was begun in May 2008 in support of an ongoing drive to induct Parsons into the Country Music Hall of Fame. On September 19, 2008, the 35th anniversary of Parsons' death, it was first presented to the Country Music Association (CMA) and Hall as a \"List of Supporters\" together with the official Nomination Proposal. The online List of Supporters reached 10,000 on the 40th anniversary of his death, with more than 14,000 currently listed. Annual Gram Parsons InterNational concerts in Nashville and various other cities, now in the 14th year, support the petition cause.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 2004, Gram Parsons' daughter Polly Parsons produced two tribute concerts titled \"Return to Sin City: A Tribute to Gram Parsons\". Artists included: Keith Richards, James Burton, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Dwight Yoakam, John Doe, Steve Earle, Jim Lauderdale, Kathleen Edwards, Jay Farrar, Jim James, Raul Malo, Susan Marshall, and the Sin City All Stars. The concert produced a DVD. 100% of the proceeds from the tribute concerts were donated through the newly formed Gram Parsons Foundation to the Musician's Assistance Program (now MusiCares Foundation) which aids musicians in crisis.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In November 2009, the musical theatre production Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons premiered, starring Anders Drerup as Gram Parsons and Kelly Prescott as Emmylou Harris. Directed by Michael Bate and co-written by Bate and David McDonald, the production was inspired by a March 1973 interview that Bate conducted with Parsons, which became Parsons' last recorded conversation.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In 2012, Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit released the single \"Emmylou\" from the album The Lion's Roar. The song's chorus is a lyrical acknowledgment of the Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris singing partnership, and to the romantic relationship between them that never fully developed before his death.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In the fall of 2012 Florida festival promoter and musician Randy Judy presented his bio-musical Farther Along – The Music and Life of Gram Parsons at Magnoliafest at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "A Cleveland, Ohio area band, New Soft Shoe, performs as a tribute band to Parsons' music.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A St. Paul, Minnesota band, The Gilded Palace Sinners, is another Parsons' tribute group.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In 2022 Dave Prinz, a co-founder of Amoeba Music, rediscovered Gram Parsons “Last Roundup” tapes featuring Emmylou Harris with Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels. Prinz decided to initiate a campaign to fund the release independently, in partnership with daughter Polly Parsons. The campaign launched November 17, 2022, and was fully backed.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels' \"The Last Roundup: Live from The Bijou Café in Philadelphia 3/16/73\" was released Friday November 24, 2023 and was considered one of the record store hits of 2023.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Articles",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Metadata",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Merchandise",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| Ingram Cecil Connor III, known professionally as Gram Parsons, was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He recorded as a solo artist and with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, popularizing what he called "Cosmic American Music", a hybrid of country, rhythm and blues, soul, folk, and rock. Parsons was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and developed an interest in country music while attending Harvard University. He founded the International Submarine Band in 1966, but the group disbanded prior to the 1968 release of its debut album, Safe at Home. Parsons joined the Byrds in early 1968 and played a pivotal role in the making of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, a pioneering country rock album and a seminal progressive country recording. After leaving the group in late 1968, Parsons and fellow Byrd Chris Hillman formed The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1969; the band released its debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the same year. The album was well received but failed commercially. After a sloppy cross-country tour, the band hastily recorded Burrito Deluxe. Parsons was fired from the band before the album's release in early 1970. Parsons spent the first half of 1971 with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, living in his French villa Nellcôte during the recording sessions for Exile on Main Street, though he contributed very little to the recording process itself. After traveling around Britain with friends in late 1971, he was treated for heroin addiction and returned to the U.S., where he was introduced to Emmylou Harris, who assisted him on vocals for his first solo record, GP, released in 1973. Although it received enthusiastic reviews, the release failed to chart. His health deteriorated due to several years of drug abuse culminating in his death from a toxic combination of morphine and alcohol in 1973 at the age of 26. A posthumous solo album, Grievous Angel, peaked at number 195 on the Billboard chart. Parsons's relatively short career was described by AllMusic as "enormously influential" for country and rock, "blending the two genres to the point that they became indistinguishable from each other." He has been credited with helping to found the country rock and alt-country genres. His posthumous honors include the Americana Music Association "President's Award" for 2003 and a ranking at No. 87 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-26T19:32:04Z | [
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12,992 | Go-fast boat | A go-fast boat is a small, fast power boat designed with a long narrow platform and a planing hull.
During the United States alcohol prohibition era, these boats were used in "rum-running", transferring illegal liquor from larger vessels waiting outside US territorial waters to the mainland. Their high speed enabled them to avoid interception by the law enforcement. The present conception of such boats is based largely on designs by Donald Aronow for offshore powerboat racing in the 1960s. During this period, these boats were also used by drug smugglers to transfer drugs across the Caribbean to the United States.
Go-fast boats are also called "cigarette boats" and "cigar boats"—references to their shape, though some report that they are references to items they were used to smuggle.
"Cigarette boat" is especially popular because it is a brand name for a line of go-fast boats that popularized and largely defined the class in the 1960s, made by Don Aronow's Cigarette Racing Team. "Cigar boat" is often preferred because it avoids confusion with that brand.
A typical go-fast is laid-up using a combination of fibreglass, kevlar and carbon fibre, using a deep "V" style offshore racing hull ranging from 6.1 to 15.2 metres (20 to 50 ft) long, narrow in beam, and equipped with two or more powerful engines, often totalling more than 750 kilowatts (1,000 hp). The boats can typically travel at speeds over 80 knots (150 km/h; 92 mph) in calm waters, over 50 knots (93 km/h) in choppy waters, and maintain 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) in the average 1.5-to-2.1-metre (5 to 7 ft) Caribbean seas. They are heavy enough to cut through higher waves, although slower.
Reflecting their racing heritage, accommodations on these five-or-fewer-passenger boats are minimal. A small low cabin under the foredeck is typical, much smaller than a typical motor yacht of similar size. In addition to racing, most buyers buy these boats for their mystique, immense power, high top speeds, and sleek shape.
These boats are difficult to detect by radar except on flat calm seas or at close range. The United States Coast Guard and the DEA found them to be stealthy, fast, seaworthy, and very difficult to intercept using conventional craft. Because of this, Coast Guards have developed their own high-speed craft and use helicopters equipped with anti-materiel rifles used to disable engines of fleeing boats. The US Coast Guard go-fast boat is a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) equipped with radar and powerful engines. The RHIB is armed with several types of non-lethal weapons and an M240 GPMG.
In the 2006 film Miami Vice, go-fast boats are used to smuggle drugs for cartels. | [
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"text": "\"Cigarette boat\" is especially popular because it is a brand name for a line of go-fast boats that popularized and largely defined the class in the 1960s, made by Don Aronow's Cigarette Racing Team. \"Cigar boat\" is often preferred because it avoids confusion with that brand.",
"title": "Name"
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"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A typical go-fast is laid-up using a combination of fibreglass, kevlar and carbon fibre, using a deep \"V\" style offshore racing hull ranging from 6.1 to 15.2 metres (20 to 50 ft) long, narrow in beam, and equipped with two or more powerful engines, often totalling more than 750 kilowatts (1,000 hp). The boats can typically travel at speeds over 80 knots (150 km/h; 92 mph) in calm waters, over 50 knots (93 km/h) in choppy waters, and maintain 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) in the average 1.5-to-2.1-metre (5 to 7 ft) Caribbean seas. They are heavy enough to cut through higher waves, although slower.",
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"text": "Reflecting their racing heritage, accommodations on these five-or-fewer-passenger boats are minimal. A small low cabin under the foredeck is typical, much smaller than a typical motor yacht of similar size. In addition to racing, most buyers buy these boats for their mystique, immense power, high top speeds, and sleek shape.",
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"text": "These boats are difficult to detect by radar except on flat calm seas or at close range. The United States Coast Guard and the DEA found them to be stealthy, fast, seaworthy, and very difficult to intercept using conventional craft. Because of this, Coast Guards have developed their own high-speed craft and use helicopters equipped with anti-materiel rifles used to disable engines of fleeing boats. The US Coast Guard go-fast boat is a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) equipped with radar and powerful engines. The RHIB is armed with several types of non-lethal weapons and an M240 GPMG.",
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| A go-fast boat is a small, fast power boat designed with a long narrow platform and a planing hull. During the United States alcohol prohibition era, these boats were used in "rum-running", transferring illegal liquor from larger vessels waiting outside US territorial waters to the mainland. Their high speed enabled them to avoid interception by the law enforcement. The present conception of such boats is based largely on designs by Donald Aronow for offshore powerboat racing in the 1960s. During this period, these boats were also used by drug smugglers to transfer drugs across the Caribbean to the United States. | 2023-07-23T22:33:19Z | [
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|
12,994 | Glasgow City Chambers | The City Chambers or Municipal Buildings in Glasgow, Scotland, has functioned as the headquarters of Glasgow City Council since 1996, and of preceding forms of municipal government in the city since 1889. It is located on the eastern side of the city's George Square. It is a Category A listed building.
The need for a new city chambers had been apparent since the 18th century, with the old Glasgow Tolbooth at Glasgow Cross becoming insufficient for the purposes of civic government in a growing town with greater political responsibilities. In 1814, the tolbooth was sold – with the exception of the steeple, which still remains – and the council chambers moved to the public buildings in the Saltmarket, near Glasgow Green. A subsequent move took the city council to the city and county buildings between Wilson Street and Ingram Street in 1844. In the early 1880s, City Architect John Carrick was asked to identify a suitable site for a purpose-built City Council Chambers. Carrick identified the east side of George Square, which was then bought.
Following a design competition, the building was designed by the Scottish architect William Young in the Victorian style and construction started in 1882. The building was inaugurated by Queen Victoria in August 1888 and the first council meeting held within the chambers took place in October 1889. An extension connected by pairs of archways across John Street was completed in 1912 and Exchange House in George Street was completed in the mid-1980s.
The new City Chambers initially housed Glasgow Town Council from 1888 to 1895, when that body was replaced by Glasgow Corporation. It remained the corporation's headquarters until it was replaced by Glasgow District Council under the wider Strathclyde Regional Council in May 1975. It then remained the Glasgow District Council headquarters until the abolition of the Strathclyde Region led to the formation of Glasgow City Council in April 1996.
The building is in the Beaux arts style, an interpretation of Renaissance Classicism incorporating Italianate styles with a vast range of ornate decoration, used to express the wealth and industrial export-led economic prosperity of the Second City of the Empire. The exterior sculpture, by James Alexander Ewing, included the central Jubilee Pediment as its centrepiece. Although originally intended to feature a figure symbolising Glasgow 'with the Clyde at her feet sending her manufactures to all the world', the Pediment was redesigned to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. It depicts Victoria enthroned, surrounded by emblematic figures of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, alongside the colonies of the British Empire (mostly British India). Ewing also designed the apex sculptures of Truth, Riches, and Honour, and the statues of The Four Seasons on the Chamber's tower. The central apex figure of Truth is popularly known as Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because of its close resemblance to the similarly posed, but very much larger, statue in New York harbour.
The entrance hall of the Chambers displays a mosaic of the city's coat of arms on the floor, which dates from the 1950s when the city's coat of arms was last modified. The arms reflect legends about Glasgow's patron saint, Saint Mungo, and include four emblems – the bird, tree, bell, and fish – as remembered in the following verse:
The ornate banqueting hall, which is 33.5 m (110 ft) long by 14.6 m (48 ft) wide and 15.8 m (52 ft) high, is decorated with huge murals by the Glasgow Boys. The decoration was co-ordinated by architect William Leiper. The room hosted Nelson Mandela and Sir Alex Ferguson when they received the Freedom of the City in 1993 and 1999, respectively. The Council Chamber is clad in Spanish mahogany panelling and its windows are made of Venetian stained glass.
The building was used as a stand in for the British Embassy in Moscow in the film An Englishman Abroad in 1983, and as the Vatican in Heavenly Pursuits in 1986. It was also used for the film The House of Mirth in 2000 and featured more recently in the television series Outlander. | [
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"text": "The City Chambers or Municipal Buildings in Glasgow, Scotland, has functioned as the headquarters of Glasgow City Council since 1996, and of preceding forms of municipal government in the city since 1889. It is located on the eastern side of the city's George Square. It is a Category A listed building.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The need for a new city chambers had been apparent since the 18th century, with the old Glasgow Tolbooth at Glasgow Cross becoming insufficient for the purposes of civic government in a growing town with greater political responsibilities. In 1814, the tolbooth was sold – with the exception of the steeple, which still remains – and the council chambers moved to the public buildings in the Saltmarket, near Glasgow Green. A subsequent move took the city council to the city and county buildings between Wilson Street and Ingram Street in 1844. In the early 1880s, City Architect John Carrick was asked to identify a suitable site for a purpose-built City Council Chambers. Carrick identified the east side of George Square, which was then bought.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Following a design competition, the building was designed by the Scottish architect William Young in the Victorian style and construction started in 1882. The building was inaugurated by Queen Victoria in August 1888 and the first council meeting held within the chambers took place in October 1889. An extension connected by pairs of archways across John Street was completed in 1912 and Exchange House in George Street was completed in the mid-1980s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The new City Chambers initially housed Glasgow Town Council from 1888 to 1895, when that body was replaced by Glasgow Corporation. It remained the corporation's headquarters until it was replaced by Glasgow District Council under the wider Strathclyde Regional Council in May 1975. It then remained the Glasgow District Council headquarters until the abolition of the Strathclyde Region led to the formation of Glasgow City Council in April 1996.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The building is in the Beaux arts style, an interpretation of Renaissance Classicism incorporating Italianate styles with a vast range of ornate decoration, used to express the wealth and industrial export-led economic prosperity of the Second City of the Empire. The exterior sculpture, by James Alexander Ewing, included the central Jubilee Pediment as its centrepiece. Although originally intended to feature a figure symbolising Glasgow 'with the Clyde at her feet sending her manufactures to all the world', the Pediment was redesigned to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. It depicts Victoria enthroned, surrounded by emblematic figures of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales, alongside the colonies of the British Empire (mostly British India). Ewing also designed the apex sculptures of Truth, Riches, and Honour, and the statues of The Four Seasons on the Chamber's tower. The central apex figure of Truth is popularly known as Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because of its close resemblance to the similarly posed, but very much larger, statue in New York harbour.",
"title": "Architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The entrance hall of the Chambers displays a mosaic of the city's coat of arms on the floor, which dates from the 1950s when the city's coat of arms was last modified. The arms reflect legends about Glasgow's patron saint, Saint Mungo, and include four emblems – the bird, tree, bell, and fish – as remembered in the following verse:",
"title": "Architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The ornate banqueting hall, which is 33.5 m (110 ft) long by 14.6 m (48 ft) wide and 15.8 m (52 ft) high, is decorated with huge murals by the Glasgow Boys. The decoration was co-ordinated by architect William Leiper. The room hosted Nelson Mandela and Sir Alex Ferguson when they received the Freedom of the City in 1993 and 1999, respectively. The Council Chamber is clad in Spanish mahogany panelling and its windows are made of Venetian stained glass.",
"title": "Architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The building was used as a stand in for the British Embassy in Moscow in the film An Englishman Abroad in 1983, and as the Vatican in Heavenly Pursuits in 1986. It was also used for the film The House of Mirth in 2000 and featured more recently in the television series Outlander.",
"title": "In popular culture"
}
]
| The City Chambers or Municipal Buildings in Glasgow, Scotland, has functioned as the headquarters of Glasgow City Council since 1996, and of preceding forms of municipal government in the city since 1889. It is located on the eastern side of the city's George Square. It is a Category A listed building. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-08-10T14:46:32Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_City_Chambers |
12,995 | Gone with the Wind (novel) | Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea". This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem "Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae", written by Ernest Dowson.
Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.
Gone with the Wind is a controversial reference point for subsequent writers of the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.
Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It was adapted into the 1939 film of the same name, which is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made and also received the Academy Award for Best Picture during the 12th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.
On April 15, 1861, it is the eve of a rebellion in which seven southern states declare their secession from the United States (the "Union") over a desire to continue the institution of slavery, which was the economic engine of the South. In one of those states, Georgia, the family of wealthy Irish immigrant Gerald O'Hara owns a plantation (Tara).
The oldest of the three O'Hara daughters, 16-year-old Scarlett, is dismayed to learn that the man she secretly loves, her county neighbor Ashley Wilkes, is set to announce his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton. The next day, the Wilkeses throw an all-day party at their estate ("Twelve Oaks") where Scarlett notices someone leering at her. He turns out to be Rhett Butler, who has a reputation for seducing young women. Throughout the day, Scarlett attempts to turn Ashley's head by flirting with every man present, including Melanie's brother Charles Hamilton. In the afternoon, Scarlett gets Ashley alone and confesses her love for him, convinced he will return it. However, he says only that he cares for her as a friend and intends to marry Melanie. Stung, Scarlett pelts Ashley with insults and accuses him of being too cowardly to submit to his real feelings for her. As Ashley departs, Rhett reveals he has overheard their whole exchange. Scarlett feels humiliated.
Later, war is declared, and the men are going to enlist. Feeling petty and vengeful, Scarlett accepts a marriage proposal from Charles. They marry, and two weeks later, Charles goes to war, where he promptly dies of measles two months later. Scarlett gives birth to his child, Wade Hampton Hamilton. As a widow, she is bound to dye her dresses black, wear a veil in public, and avoid conversations with young men. Scarlett mourns the loss of her youth, not the husband she barely knew.
Scarlett's mother, mistaking Scarlett's depression for grief, suggests that living with Melanie might lift her spirits. Melanie is living in Atlanta with her Aunt Sarah Jane, who is called by her childhood nickname "Pittypat". After moving there, Scarlett's spirit is revived by the excitement of living in a growing city. She busies herself with hospital work and sewing circles for the Confederate Army, although her heart is not in it – she does it mostly to avoid being gossiped about by the other women of Atlanta society. Additionally, she believes her efforts may aid Ashley, with whom she is still in love.
Scarlett is mortified when she runs into Rhett while manning a sales stall at a public dance benefiting the troops. Rhett believes the war is a lost cause but is becoming rich as a blockade runner for profit. He sees through Scarlett's "lady in mourning" disguise and recognizes her longing to dance with the other young people, so he bids a lot of gold to win the honor of leading the first dance and chooses her as his partner. Scarlett scandalizes everyone by dancing joyfully while still dressed in widow's mourning. Her reputation is saved by Melanie, who is now her sister-in-law and highly respected in Atlanta; she argues that Scarlett is supporting the Confederate cause. Scarlett continues to act recklessly, flirting and dating while still in widow's clothes, always protected by Melanie's endorsement. She spends much of her time with Rhett, whose sexual attraction to Scarlett is ever-present. At one point, he enrages her with a silky proposition she become his mistress. Still, she appreciates Rhett for his money, his sophistication, and their shared irritation with the hypocrisy of Atlanta society.
At Christmas (1863), Ashley is granted a furlough from the army and goes to Atlanta. Scarlett struggles to restrain her feelings for him. She remains convinced that he is secretly in love with her and is still married to Melanie out of duty. Scarlett is heartbroken when Melanie becomes pregnant with Ashley's child.
The war is going badly for the Confederacy. By September 1864, Atlanta is besieged from three sides. The city becomes desperate as hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers pour in. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett and a young slave named Prissy to assist, as all the trained doctors are attending to the soldiers. The tattered Confederate States Army sets flame to Atlanta before they abandon it to the Union Army. Amidst the chaos, Melanie gives birth to a boy, Beau.
Scarlett tracks down Rhett and begs him to take her, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at this idea, explaining that Tara has likely been burned by the Yankees. Still, he steals an emaciated horse and a wagon and begins driving them out of Atlanta. At the edge of the city, Rhett has a change of heart and abandons Scarlett to join the army in their final, doomed push. Scarlett drives the wagon to Tara, which has avoided being burned like so many of her neighbors' homes. However, the situation is bleak: Scarlett's mother is dead, her father has lost his mind with grief, her sisters are sick with typhoid fever, the field slaves have left, the Yankees have burned all the cotton, and there is no food.
A long struggle for survival begins, with Scarlett working in the fields. There are several hungry people and animals, along with an ever-present threat from Yankees who steal or burn what little they can find. At one point, Scarlett kills a Yankee soldier who attempts to invade her home and buries his body in the garden. A long post-war succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Eventually, Ashley returns from the war, with his idealistic view of the world shattered. Finding themselves alone one day, he and Scarlett share a kiss. Unable to trust himself with her nearby, Ashley says he will take his family and move away. Scarlett says she can not let them leave when they have nowhere to go and promises to not throw herself at him again.
Life at Tara begins to recover, but exorbitant taxes are levied on the plantation. Scarlett knows only one man with enough money to help her – Rhett. She puts on her only pretty dress (made from the velvet curtains at Tara) and finds him in a jailhouse in Atlanta. He is being held on a murder charge and likely to hang. Although she nearly wins him over with a southern belle routine, he declines to help after realizing her sweetness is an act meant to use his money. Leaving the jailhouse in a snit, Scarlett meets Frank Kennedy, a middle-aged storeowner who is betrothed to her sister, Suellen. Realizing that Frank also has money and that Suellen will turn her back on Tara once she is married, Scarlett hatches a plot to marry Frank. She lies to Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Dazed, Frank succumbs to Scarlett's charms and marries her two weeks later. Wanting to keep his wife happy, Frank gives Scarlett the money to pay the taxes.
While Frank has a cold and is pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett goes over the accounts at Frank's store and finds that many owe him money. Terrified of the possibility of more taxes and irritated with Frank's poor business sense, she takes control of the store; her business practices emasculate Frank and leave many Atlantans resentful of her. With a loan from Rhett, she also buys and runs a small sawmill, which is viewed as even more scandalous conduct. To Frank's relief and Scarlett's dismay, she gets pregnant, which temporarily curtails her business activities. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage her mill, all the while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley reluctantly accepts. Melanie becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to baby Ella Lorena.
Georgia is under martial law, and life has taken on a more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of his buggy. Her lone trips to and from the mill take her past a shanty town where criminals live. While on her way home one evening, she is accosted by two men who try to rob her. However, she escapes with the help of Big Sam, a black former foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge his wife, Frank and the Ku Klux Klan raid the shanty town, where Frank is shot dead in the fracas. Rhett puts on a charade to keep the raiders from being arrested. He enters the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside question Rhett, who says he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett, and his reputation among them improves. Meanwhile, the men's wives – except Melanie – are livid at owing their husbands' lives to the town madam. At Frank's funeral, Rhett asks Scarlett to marry him. She refuses at first, but after a little repartee, he kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment, she accepts. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement, which becomes the talk of the town.
Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Upon returning to Atlanta, they build a gaudy mansion on Peachtree Street. Rhett happily pays for the house to be built to Scarlett's specifications, but describes it as an "architectural horror". Shortly after moving into the house, the sardonic jabs between them turn into quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her and then, "with real hate in her eyes", tells Rhett she is going to have a baby, which she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his half-sister Eugenie Victoria, is born. She has blue eyes, and Melanie nicknames her "Bonnie Blue" in reference to the Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. After feeling well again, Scarlett makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley. In their conversation, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of Rhett. She returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, they sleep separately, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett. Rhett turns his attention completely toward Bonnie, pampering her and working to ensure her a good reputation for when she enters society.
Meanwhile, Melanie plans a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to stall him until the celebration – a rare opportunity to be alone together. The two reminisce about the old days and how far their lives have departed from what they imagined for themselves. They share an innocent embrace but are spotted in the moment by Ashley's sister, India. Before the party has even begun, a rumor of an affair between Ashley and Scarlett explodes across Atlanta, eventually reaching Rhett and Melanie. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of Scarlett, and India is expelled from the Wilkes home. Rhett, drunker than Scarlett has ever seen him, returns home late from the party. Acting more violent than ever, he enjoins Scarlett to drink with him. However, she declines with deliberate rudeness. Rhett pins her to the wall and tells her they could have been happy together. He then takes her in his arms and carries her to her bedroom, where they engage in intercourse. The next morning, a chagrined Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy for three months. Scarlett is uncertain about her feelings surrounding Rhett, for whom she feels a mixture of desire and revulsion. She then learns she is pregnant with her fourth child.
When Rhett returns, he comments on Scarlett's paleness, and she reveals her pregnancy. Rhett sarcastically asks if the father is Ashley; Scarlett calls him a cad and says that no woman would want his baby, to which he replies, "Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage." She lunges at him, but misses and tumbles down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost the baby and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful and fears Scarlett will die. Sobbing and drunk, he seeks consolation from Melanie and confesses he acted out of jealousy. Scarlett goes to Tara with Wade and Ella, seeking to regain her strength and vitality from there. She returns healthy to Atlanta and sells the mills to Ashley. Bonnie is four years old in 1873, and Atlanta society is charmed by Rhett's transformation into a doting father. Rhett buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, teaching her to ride sidesaddle and paying a trainer to teach the pony to jump. One day, Bonnie makes her father raise the bar to one-and-a-half feet. During the jump, she falls and dies of a broken neck.
In the months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though equally bereaved, is more presentable. Melanie conceives a second child but loses the baby and soon dies due to complications. As she comforts the widowed Ashley, Scarlett realizes she stopped loving him long ago and perhaps she never did. She is shocked to realize that she has always loved Rhett, and he has loved her in return. She returns home, brimming with her new love and determined to begin anew with him. She discovers him sitting in the library. In the wake of Melanie's death, Rhett has decided he wants to rediscover the calm Southern dignity he once knew in his youth and is leaving Atlanta to find it. Scarlett tries to persuade Rhett to either stay or take her with him, but he explains that while he once loved Scarlett, the years of hurt and neglect have killed that love. He says he may "come back often enough to keep gossip down" (since they have decided not to get a divorce), but in reply to Scarlett's plea of "What shall I do?" he replies "My dear, I don't give a damn.", and silently goes up the stairs to his bedroom. In the midst of her grief, Scarlett consoles herself with the knowledge that she still has Tara. She plans to return there with the certainty that she can recover and win Rhett back, because "tomorrow is another day."
I made Tara up, just as I made up every character in the book. But nobody will believe me.
—Margaret Mitchell
Born in 1900 in Atlanta, Margaret Mitchell was a Southerner and writer throughout her life. She grew up hearing stories about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction from her Irish-American grandmother, Annie Fitzgerald Stephens, who had endured its suffering while living on the family plantation, Rural Home. Her forceful and intellectual mother, Maybelle Stephens Mitchell, was a suffragist who fought for the rights of women to vote.
As a young woman, Mitchell found love with an army lieutenant. He was killed in World War I, and she would carry his memory for the remainder of her life. After studying at Smith College for a year during which time her mother died from the 1918 pandemic flu, Mitchell returned to Atlanta. She married, but her husband was an abusive bootlegger. Mitchell took a job writing feature articles for the Atlanta Journal at a time when Atlanta debutantes of her class did not work. After divorcing her first husband, she married again to a man who shared her interest in writing and literature. He had been the best man at her first wedding.
Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from a slow-healing injury from an auto crash. In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor looking for new fiction, read her manuscript and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references and rewriting the opening chapter several times. Mitchell and her husband John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first and then wrote the events that led to them. Gone with the Wind was published in June 1936.
The author tentatively titled the novel Tomorrow Is Another Day, from its last line. Other proposed titles included Bugles Sang True, Not in Our Stars, and Tote the Weary Load. The title Mitchell finally chose is from the first line of the third stanza of the poem "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae" by Ernest Dowson:
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind ...
Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders if her home on a plantation called "Tara" is still standing, or if it had "gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia". In a general sense, the title is a metaphor for the demise of a way of life in the South before the Civil War. When taken in the context of Dowson's poem about "Cynara", the phrase "gone with the wind" alludes to erotic loss. The poem expresses the regrets of someone who has lost his feelings for his "old passion", Cynara. Dowson's Cynara, a name that comes from the Greek word for artichoke, represents a lost love.
It is also possible that the author was influenced by the connection of the phrase "Gone with the wind" with Tara in a line of James Joyce’s Ulysses in the chapter "Aeolus".
Margaret Mitchell arranged Gone with the Wind chronologically, focusing it on the life and experiences of the main character, Scarlett O'Hara, as she grew from adolescence into adulthood. During the time span of the novel, from 1861 to 1873, Scarlett ages from sixteen to twenty-eight years. This is a type of Bildungsroman, a novel concerned with the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming-of-age story). Scarlett's development is affected by the events of her time. Mitchell used a smooth linear narrative structure. The novel is known for its exceptional "readability". The plot is rich with vivid characters.
Gone with the Wind is often placed in the literary subgenre of the historical romance novel. Pamela Regis has argued that is more appropriately classified as a historical novel, as it does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre. The novel has been described as an early classic of the erotic historical genre because it is thought to contain some degree of pornography.
Slavery in Gone with the Wind is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things. Southern plantation fiction (also known as Anti-Tom literature, in reference to reactions to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in Gone with the Wind, is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy.
The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black house servant class. The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork, Prissy, and Uncle Peter. House servants are the highest "caste" of slaves in Mitchell's caste system. They choose to stay with their masters after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and subsequent Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 sets them free. Of the servants who stayed at Tara, Scarlett thinks, "There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy."
The field slaves make up the lower class in Mitchell's caste system. The field slaves from the Tara plantation and the foreman, Big Sam, are taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches and never return to the plantation. Mitchell wrote that other field slaves were "loyal" and "refused to avail themselves of the new freedom", but the novel has no field slaves who stay on the plantation to work after they have been emancipated.
American William Wells Brown escaped from slavery and published his memoir, or slave narrative, in 1847. He wrote of the disparity in conditions between the house servant and the field hand:
During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant – a situation preferable to a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing bell, but about a half-hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave.
Way back in the dark days of the Early Sixties, regrettable tho it was – men fought, bled, and died for the freedom of the negro – her freedom! – and she stood by and did her duty to the last ditch –
It was and is her life to serve, and she has done it well.
While shot and shell thundered to release the shackles of slavery from her body and her soul – she loved, fought for, and protected – Us who held her in bondage, her "Marster" and her "Missus!"
—Excerpt from My Old Black Mammy by James W. Elliott, 1914.
Although the novel is more than 1,000 pages long, the character of Mammy never considers what her life might be like away from Tara. She recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases, saying, "Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go", but Mammy remains duty-bound to "Miss Ellen's chile". (No other name for Mammy is given in the novel.)
Eighteen years before the publication of Gone with the Wind, an article titled, "The Old Black Mammy", written in the Confederate Veteran in 1918, discussed the romanticized view of the mammy character persisting in Southern literature:
for her faithfulness and devotion, she has been immortalized in the literature of the South; so the memory of her will never pass, but live on in the tales that are told of those "dear dead days beyond recall".
Micki McElya, in her book Clinging to Mammy, suggests the myth of the faithful slave, in the figure of Mammy, lingered because white Americans wished to live in a world in which African Americans were not angry over the injustice of slavery.
The best-selling anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, is mentioned briefly in Gone with the Wind as being accepted by the Yankees as "revelation second only to the Bible". The enduring interest of both Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone with the Wind has resulted in lingering stereotypes of 19th-century black slaves. Gone with the Wind has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white alike.
Young misses whut frowns an' pushes out dey chins an' says 'Ah will' an' 'Ah woan' mos' gener'ly doan ketch husbands.
—Mammy
The southern belle is an archetype for a young woman of the antebellum American South upper class. The southern belle was believed to be physically attractive but, more importantly, personally charming with sophisticated social skills. She is subject to the correct code of female behavior. The novel's heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, charming though not beautiful, is a classic southern belle.
For young Scarlett, the ideal southern belle is represented by her mother, Ellen O'Hara. In "A Study in Scarlett", published in The New Yorker, Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote:
The Southern belle was bred to conform to a subspecies of the nineteenth-century "lady" ... For Scarlett, the ideal is embodied in her adored mother, the saintly Ellen, whose back is never seen to rest against the back of any chair on which she sits, whose broken spirit everywhere is mistaken for righteous calm
However, Scarlett is not always willing to conform. Kathryn Lee Seidel, in her book, The Southern Belle in the American Novel, wrote:
part of her does try to rebel against the restraints of a code of behavior that relentlessly attempts to mold her into a form to which she is not naturally suited.
The figure of a pampered southern belle, Scarlett lives through an extreme reversal of fortune and wealth and survives to rebuild Tara and her self-esteem. Her bad belle traits (Scarlett's deceitfulness, shrewdness, manipulation, and superficiality), in contrast to Melanie's good belle traits (trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty), enable her to survive in the post-war South and pursue her main interest, which is to make enough money to survive and prosper. Although Scarlett was "born" around 1845, she is portrayed to appeal to modern-day readers for her passionate and independent spirit, determination, and obstinate refusal to feel defeated.
Marriage was supposed to be the goal of all southern belles, as women's status was largely determined by that of their husbands. All social and educational pursuits were directed towards it. Despite the Civil War and the loss of a generation of eligible men, young ladies were still expected to marry. By law and Southern social convention, household heads were adult, white propertied males, and all white women and all African Americans were thought to require protection and guidance because they lacked the capacity for reason and self-control.
The Atlanta Historical Society has produced a number of Gone with the Wind exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled, "Disputed Territories: Gone with the Wind and Southern Myths". The exhibit asked, "Was Scarlett a Lady?", finding that historically most women of the period were not involved in business activities as Scarlett was during Reconstruction when she ran a sawmill. White women performed traditional jobs such as teaching and sewing, and generally disliked work outside the home.
During the Civil War, Southern women played a major role as volunteer nurses working in makeshift hospitals. Many were middle- and upper-class women who had never worked for wages or seen the inside of a hospital. One such nurse was Ada W. Bacot, a young widow who had lost two children. Bacot came from a wealthy South Carolina plantation family that owned 87 slaves.
In the fall of 1862, Confederate laws were changed to permit women to be employed in hospitals as members of the Confederate Medical Department. Twenty-seven-year-old nurse Kate Cumming from Mobile, Alabama, described the primitive hospital conditions in her journal:
They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all.
The Civil War came to an end on April 26, 1865, when Confederate General Johnston surrendered his armies in the Carolinas Campaign to Union General Sherman. Several battles are mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind.
The Atlanta Campaign (May–September 1864) took place in northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta.
Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from Dalton (May 7–13) to Resaca (May 13–15) to Kennesaw Mountain (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the Chattahoochee River where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to Peachtree Creek (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.
The Savannah Campaign was conducted in Georgia during November and December 1864.
Although Abraham Lincoln is mentioned in the novel 14 times, no reference is made to his assassination on April 14, 1865.
Somebody's darling! so young and so brave! Wearing still on his pale, sweet face – Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave – The lingering light of his boyhood's grace!
—Somebody's Darling by Marie La Coste, of Georgia.
Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood in Scarlett's eyes. A planter by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died. However Ashley's name signifies paleness. His "pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death".
Ashley contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other ex-Confederate transplants there. Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been "in a state of suspended animation" since the surrender. He feels he is not "shouldering a man's burden" at Tara and believes he is "much less than a man – much less, indeed, than a woman".
A "young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight", Ashley is like a young girl himself. With his "poet's eye", Ashley has a "feminine sensitivity". Scarlett is angered by the "slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was "born queer". (Mitchell's use of the word "queer" is for its sexual connotation because queer, in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.) Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness and sexual impotency. He rides, plays poker, and drinks like "proper men", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims. The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of Medusa on his cravat pin.
Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands – the "calf-like" Charles Hamilton, and the "old-maid in britches", Frank Kennedy – are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction. Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy, is effeminate or "gay-coded". Charles, Frank and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South. Its power and influence have been diminished.
The word "scallawag" is defined as a loafer, a vagabond, or a rogue. Scallawag had a special meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who accepted and supported Republican reforms. Mitchell defines scallawags as "Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably." Rhett Butler is accused of being a "damned Scallawag". In addition to scallawags, Mitchell portrays other types of scoundrels in the novel: Yankees, carpetbaggers, Republicans, prostitutes, and overseers. In the early years of the Civil War, Rhett is called a "scoundrel" for his "selfish gains" profiteering as a blockade-runner.
As a scallawag, Rhett is despised. He is the "dark, mysterious, and slightly malevolent hero loose in the world". Literary scholars have identified elements of Mitchell's first husband, Berrien "Red" Upshaw, in the character of Rhett. Another sees the image of Italian actor Rudolph Valentino, whom Margaret Mitchell interviewed as a young reporter for The Atlanta Journal. Fictional hero Rhett Butler has a "swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes". He is a "scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor".
If Gone with the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality "gumption." So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't. — Margaret Mitchell, 1936
The sales of Margaret Mitchell's novel in the summer of 1936, as the nation was recovering from the Great Depression and at the virtually unprecedented high price of three dollars, reached about 1 million by the end of December. The book was a bestseller by the time reviews began to appear in national magazines. Herschel Brickell, a critic for the New York Evening Post, lauded Mitchell for the way she "tosses out the window all the thousands of technical tricks our novelists have been playing with for the past twenty years."
Ralph Thompson, a book reviewer for The New York Times, was critical of the length of the novel, and wrote in June 1936:
I happen to feel that the book would have been infinitely better had it been edited down to say, 500 pages, but there speaks the harassed daily reviewer as well as the would-be judicious critic. Very nearly every reader will agree, no doubt, that a more disciplined and less prodigal piece of work would have more nearly done justice to the subject-matter.
Some reviewers compared the book to William Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Mitchell claimed Charles Dickens as an inspiration and called Gone with the Wind a "'Victorian' type novel."
Helen Keller, whose father had owned slaves and fought as a Confederate captain and who had later supported the NAACP and the ACLU, read the 12-volume Braille edition. The book brought her fond memories of her southern infancy but she also felt sadness comparing that with what she knew about the South.
Gone with the Wind has been criticized for its stereotypical and derogatory portrayal of African Americans in the 19th century South. Former field hands during the early days of Reconstruction are described behaving "as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild – either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance."
Commenting on this passage of the novel, Jabari Asim, author of The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why, says it is "one of the more charitable passages in Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell hesitated to blame black 'insolence' during Reconstruction solely on 'mean niggers', of which, she said, there were few even in slavery days."
Critics say that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux Klan and their abuse of freedmen. Author Pat Conroy, in his preface to a later edition of the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having "the same romanticized role it had in The Birth of a Nation and appears to be a benign combination of the Elks Club and a men's equestrian society".
Regarding the historical inaccuracies of the novel, historian Richard N. Current points out:
No doubt it is indeed unfortunate that Gone with the Wind perpetuates many myths about Reconstruction, particularly with respect to blacks. Margaret Mitchell did not originate them and a young novelist can scarcely be faulted for not knowing what the majority of mature, professional historians did not know until many years later.
In Gone with the Wind, Mitchell explores some complexities in racial issues. Scarlett was asked by a Yankee woman for advice on whom to appoint as a nurse for her children; Scarlett suggested a "darky", much to the disgust of the Yankee woman who was seeking an Irish maid, a "Bridget". African Americans and Irish Americans are treated "in precisely the same way" in Gone with the Wind, writes David O'Connell in his 1996 book, The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. Ethnic slurs on the Irish and Irish stereotypes pervade the novel, O'Connell claims, and Scarlett is not an exception to the terminology. Irish scholar Geraldine Higgins notes that Jonas Wilkerson labels Scarlett: "you highflying, bogtrotting Irish". Higgins says that, as the Irish American O'Haras were slaveholders and African Americans were held in bondage, the two ethnic groups are not equivalent in the ethnic hierarchy of the novel.
The novel has been criticized for promoting plantation values and romanticizing the white supremacy of the antebellum south. Mitchell biographer Marianne Walker, author of Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind, believes that those who attack the book on these grounds have not read it. She said that the popular 1939 film "promotes a false notion of the Old South". Mitchell was not involved in the screenplay or film production.
James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, says this novel is "profoundly racist and profoundly wrong". In 1984, an alderman in Waukegan, Illinois, challenged the book's inclusion on the reading list of the Waukegan School District on the grounds of "racism" and "unacceptable language". He objected to the frequent use of the racial slur nigger. He also objected to several other books: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the same reason.
Mitchell's use of color in the novel is symbolic and open to interpretation. Red, green, and a variety of hues of each of these colors, are the predominant palette of colors related to Scarlett.
The novel came under intense criticism for alleged racist and white supremacist themes in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests and focus on systemic racism in the United States.
In 1937, Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gone with the Wind and the second annual National Book Award for Fiction from the American Booksellers Association. It is ranked as the second favorite book by American readers, just behind the Bible, according to a 2008 Harris poll. The poll found the novel has its strongest following among women, those aged 44 or more, both Southerners and Midwesterners, both whites and Hispanics, and those who have not attended college. In a 2014 Harris poll, Mitchell's novel ranked again as second, after the Bible. The novel is on the list of best-selling books. As of 2010, more than 30 million copies have been printed in the United States and abroad. More than 24 editions of Gone with the Wind have been issued in China. Time magazine critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo included the novel on their list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 2003, the book was listed at number 21 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel".
Gone with the Wind frequently has been the center of controversy.
In 1978, the book was banned from English classrooms in the Anaheim Union High School District in Anaheim, California.
In 1984, the book was challenged in the Waukegan, Illinois, School District due to the novel's use of the word nigger.
Gone with the Wind has been adapted several times for stage and screen:
Gone with the Wind has appeared in many places and forms in popular culture:
On June 30, 1986, the 50th anniversary of the day Gone with the Wind went on sale, the U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent stamp showing an image of Margaret Mitchell. The stamp was designed by Ronald Adair and was part of the U.S. Postal Service's Great Americans series.
On September 10, 1998, the U.S. Post Office issued a 32-cent stamp as part of its Celebrate the Century series recalling various important events in the 20th century. The stamp, designed by Howard Paine, displays the book with its original dust jacket, a white Magnolia blossom, and a hilt placed against a background of green velvet.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary (2011) of the publication of Gone with the Wind in 1936, Scribner published a paperback edition featuring the book's original jacket art.
The Windies are ardent Gone with the Wind fans who follow all the latest news and events surrounding the book and film. They gather periodically in costumes from the film or dressed as Margaret Mitchell. Atlanta, Georgia is their meeting place.
One story of the legacy of Gone with the Wind is that people worldwide incorrectly think it was the "true story" of the Old South and how it was changed by the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The film adaptation of the novel "amplified this effect". The plantation legend was "burned" into the mind of the public. Moreover, her fictional account of the war and its aftermath has influenced how the world has viewed the city of Atlanta for successive generations.
Some readers of the novel have seen the film first and read the novel afterward. One difference between the film and the novel is the staircase scene, in which Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs. In the film, Scarlett weakly struggles and does not scream as Rhett starts up the stairs. In the novel, "he hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened."
Earlier in the novel, in an intended rape at Shantytown (Chapter 44), Scarlett is attacked by a black man who rips open her dress while a white man grabs hold of the horse's bridle. She is rescued by another black man, Big Sam. In the film, she is attacked by a white man, while a black man grabs the horse's bridle.
The Library of Congress began a multiyear "Celebration of the Book" in July 2012 with an exhibition on Books That Shaped America, and an initial list of 88 books by American authors that have influenced American lives. Gone with the Wind was included in the Library's list. Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington said:
This list is a starting point. It is not a register of the 'best' American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.
Among books on the list considered to be the Great American Novel were Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Throughout the world, the novel appeals due to its universal themes: war, love, death, racial conflict, class, gender and generation, which speak especially to women. In North Korea, readers relate to the novel's theme of survival, finding it to be "the most compelling message of the novel". Margaret Mitchell's personal collection of nearly 70 foreign language translations of her novel was given to the Atlanta Public Library after her death.
On August 16, 2012, the Archdiocese of Atlanta announced that it had been bequeathed a 50% stake in the trademarks and literary rights to Gone With the Wind from the estate of Margaret Mitchell's deceased nephew, Joseph Mitchell. Margaret Mitchell had separated from the Catholic Church. However, one of Mitchell's biographers, Darden Asbury Pyron, stated that Margaret Mitchell had "an intense relationship" with her mother, who was a Roman Catholic.
Although some of Mitchell's papers and documents related to the writing of Gone with the Wind were burned after her death, many documents, including assorted draft chapters, were preserved. The last four chapters of the novel are held by the Pequot Library of Southport, Connecticut.
The first printing of 10,000 copies contains the original publication date: "Published May, 1936". After the book was chosen as the Book-of-the-Month Club's selection for July, the publication was delayed until June 30. The second printing of 25,000 copies (and subsequent printings) contains the release date: "Published June, 1936". The third printing of 15,000 copies was made in June 1936. Additionally, 50,000 copies were printed for the Book-of-the-Month Club July selection. Gone with the Wind was officially released to the American public on June 30, 1936.
Although Mitchell refused to write a sequel to Gone with the Wind, Mitchell's estate authorized Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel, which was titled Scarlett. The book was subsequently adapted into a television mini-series in 1994. A second sequel was authorized by Mitchell's estate titled Rhett Butler's People, by Donald McCaig. The novel parallels Gone with the Wind from Rhett Butler's perspective. In 2010, Mitchell's estate authorized McCaig to write a prequel, which follows the life of the house servant Mammy, whom McCaig names "Ruth". The novel, Ruth's Journey, was released in 2014.
The copyright holders of Gone with the Wind attempted to suppress publication of The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall, which retold the story from the perspective of the slaves. A federal appeals court denied the plaintiffs an injunction (Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin) against publication on the basis that the book was a parody and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The parties subsequently settled out of court and the book went on to become a New York Times Best Seller.
A book sequel unauthorized by the copyright holders, The Winds of Tara by Katherine Pinotti, was blocked from publication in the United States. The novel was republished in Australia, avoiding U.S. copyright restrictions.
Away from copyright lawsuits, Internet fan fiction has proved to be a fertile medium for sequels (some of them book-length), parodies, and rewritings of Gone with the Wind.
Numerous unauthorized sequels to Gone with the Wind have been published in Russia, mostly under the pseudonym Yuliya Hilpatrik, a cover for a consortium of writers. The New York Times states that most of these have a "Slavic" flavor.
Several sequels were written in Hungarian under the pseudonym Audrey D. Milland or Audrey Dee Milland, by at least four different authors (who are named in the colophon as translators to make the book seem a translation from the English original, a procedure common in the 1990s but prohibited by law since then). The first one picks up where Ripley's Scarlett ended, the next one is about Scarlett's daughter Cat. Other books include a prequel trilogy about Scarlett's grandmother Solange and a three-part miniseries of a supposed illegitimate daughter of Carreen.
Gone with the Wind has been in the public domain in Australia since 1999 (50 years after Margaret Mitchell's death). On January 1, 2020, the book entered the public domain in the European Union (70 years after the author's death). Under an extension of copyright law, Gone with the Wind will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2031. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive \"March to the Sea\". This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem \"Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae\", written by Ernest Dowson.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Gone with the Wind is a controversial reference point for subsequent writers of the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It was adapted into the 1939 film of the same name, which is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made and also received the Academy Award for Best Picture during the 12th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On April 15, 1861, it is the eve of a rebellion in which seven southern states declare their secession from the United States (the \"Union\") over a desire to continue the institution of slavery, which was the economic engine of the South. In one of those states, Georgia, the family of wealthy Irish immigrant Gerald O'Hara owns a plantation (Tara).",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The oldest of the three O'Hara daughters, 16-year-old Scarlett, is dismayed to learn that the man she secretly loves, her county neighbor Ashley Wilkes, is set to announce his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton. The next day, the Wilkeses throw an all-day party at their estate (\"Twelve Oaks\") where Scarlett notices someone leering at her. He turns out to be Rhett Butler, who has a reputation for seducing young women. Throughout the day, Scarlett attempts to turn Ashley's head by flirting with every man present, including Melanie's brother Charles Hamilton. In the afternoon, Scarlett gets Ashley alone and confesses her love for him, convinced he will return it. However, he says only that he cares for her as a friend and intends to marry Melanie. Stung, Scarlett pelts Ashley with insults and accuses him of being too cowardly to submit to his real feelings for her. As Ashley departs, Rhett reveals he has overheard their whole exchange. Scarlett feels humiliated.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Later, war is declared, and the men are going to enlist. Feeling petty and vengeful, Scarlett accepts a marriage proposal from Charles. They marry, and two weeks later, Charles goes to war, where he promptly dies of measles two months later. Scarlett gives birth to his child, Wade Hampton Hamilton. As a widow, she is bound to dye her dresses black, wear a veil in public, and avoid conversations with young men. Scarlett mourns the loss of her youth, not the husband she barely knew.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Scarlett's mother, mistaking Scarlett's depression for grief, suggests that living with Melanie might lift her spirits. Melanie is living in Atlanta with her Aunt Sarah Jane, who is called by her childhood nickname \"Pittypat\". After moving there, Scarlett's spirit is revived by the excitement of living in a growing city. She busies herself with hospital work and sewing circles for the Confederate Army, although her heart is not in it – she does it mostly to avoid being gossiped about by the other women of Atlanta society. Additionally, she believes her efforts may aid Ashley, with whom she is still in love.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Scarlett is mortified when she runs into Rhett while manning a sales stall at a public dance benefiting the troops. Rhett believes the war is a lost cause but is becoming rich as a blockade runner for profit. He sees through Scarlett's \"lady in mourning\" disguise and recognizes her longing to dance with the other young people, so he bids a lot of gold to win the honor of leading the first dance and chooses her as his partner. Scarlett scandalizes everyone by dancing joyfully while still dressed in widow's mourning. Her reputation is saved by Melanie, who is now her sister-in-law and highly respected in Atlanta; she argues that Scarlett is supporting the Confederate cause. Scarlett continues to act recklessly, flirting and dating while still in widow's clothes, always protected by Melanie's endorsement. She spends much of her time with Rhett, whose sexual attraction to Scarlett is ever-present. At one point, he enrages her with a silky proposition she become his mistress. Still, she appreciates Rhett for his money, his sophistication, and their shared irritation with the hypocrisy of Atlanta society.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "At Christmas (1863), Ashley is granted a furlough from the army and goes to Atlanta. Scarlett struggles to restrain her feelings for him. She remains convinced that he is secretly in love with her and is still married to Melanie out of duty. Scarlett is heartbroken when Melanie becomes pregnant with Ashley's child.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The war is going badly for the Confederacy. By September 1864, Atlanta is besieged from three sides. The city becomes desperate as hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers pour in. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett and a young slave named Prissy to assist, as all the trained doctors are attending to the soldiers. The tattered Confederate States Army sets flame to Atlanta before they abandon it to the Union Army. Amidst the chaos, Melanie gives birth to a boy, Beau.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Scarlett tracks down Rhett and begs him to take her, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at this idea, explaining that Tara has likely been burned by the Yankees. Still, he steals an emaciated horse and a wagon and begins driving them out of Atlanta. At the edge of the city, Rhett has a change of heart and abandons Scarlett to join the army in their final, doomed push. Scarlett drives the wagon to Tara, which has avoided being burned like so many of her neighbors' homes. However, the situation is bleak: Scarlett's mother is dead, her father has lost his mind with grief, her sisters are sick with typhoid fever, the field slaves have left, the Yankees have burned all the cotton, and there is no food.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "A long struggle for survival begins, with Scarlett working in the fields. There are several hungry people and animals, along with an ever-present threat from Yankees who steal or burn what little they can find. At one point, Scarlett kills a Yankee soldier who attempts to invade her home and buries his body in the garden. A long post-war succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Eventually, Ashley returns from the war, with his idealistic view of the world shattered. Finding themselves alone one day, he and Scarlett share a kiss. Unable to trust himself with her nearby, Ashley says he will take his family and move away. Scarlett says she can not let them leave when they have nowhere to go and promises to not throw herself at him again.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Life at Tara begins to recover, but exorbitant taxes are levied on the plantation. Scarlett knows only one man with enough money to help her – Rhett. She puts on her only pretty dress (made from the velvet curtains at Tara) and finds him in a jailhouse in Atlanta. He is being held on a murder charge and likely to hang. Although she nearly wins him over with a southern belle routine, he declines to help after realizing her sweetness is an act meant to use his money. Leaving the jailhouse in a snit, Scarlett meets Frank Kennedy, a middle-aged storeowner who is betrothed to her sister, Suellen. Realizing that Frank also has money and that Suellen will turn her back on Tara once she is married, Scarlett hatches a plot to marry Frank. She lies to Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Dazed, Frank succumbs to Scarlett's charms and marries her two weeks later. Wanting to keep his wife happy, Frank gives Scarlett the money to pay the taxes.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "While Frank has a cold and is pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett goes over the accounts at Frank's store and finds that many owe him money. Terrified of the possibility of more taxes and irritated with Frank's poor business sense, she takes control of the store; her business practices emasculate Frank and leave many Atlantans resentful of her. With a loan from Rhett, she also buys and runs a small sawmill, which is viewed as even more scandalous conduct. To Frank's relief and Scarlett's dismay, she gets pregnant, which temporarily curtails her business activities. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage her mill, all the while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley reluctantly accepts. Melanie becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to baby Ella Lorena.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Georgia is under martial law, and life has taken on a more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of his buggy. Her lone trips to and from the mill take her past a shanty town where criminals live. While on her way home one evening, she is accosted by two men who try to rob her. However, she escapes with the help of Big Sam, a black former foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge his wife, Frank and the Ku Klux Klan raid the shanty town, where Frank is shot dead in the fracas. Rhett puts on a charade to keep the raiders from being arrested. He enters the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside question Rhett, who says he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett, and his reputation among them improves. Meanwhile, the men's wives – except Melanie – are livid at owing their husbands' lives to the town madam. At Frank's funeral, Rhett asks Scarlett to marry him. She refuses at first, but after a little repartee, he kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment, she accepts. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement, which becomes the talk of the town.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Upon returning to Atlanta, they build a gaudy mansion on Peachtree Street. Rhett happily pays for the house to be built to Scarlett's specifications, but describes it as an \"architectural horror\". Shortly after moving into the house, the sardonic jabs between them turn into quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her and then, \"with real hate in her eyes\", tells Rhett she is going to have a baby, which she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his half-sister Eugenie Victoria, is born. She has blue eyes, and Melanie nicknames her \"Bonnie Blue\" in reference to the Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. After feeling well again, Scarlett makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley. In their conversation, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of Rhett. She returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, they sleep separately, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett. Rhett turns his attention completely toward Bonnie, pampering her and working to ensure her a good reputation for when she enters society.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Meanwhile, Melanie plans a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to stall him until the celebration – a rare opportunity to be alone together. The two reminisce about the old days and how far their lives have departed from what they imagined for themselves. They share an innocent embrace but are spotted in the moment by Ashley's sister, India. Before the party has even begun, a rumor of an affair between Ashley and Scarlett explodes across Atlanta, eventually reaching Rhett and Melanie. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of Scarlett, and India is expelled from the Wilkes home. Rhett, drunker than Scarlett has ever seen him, returns home late from the party. Acting more violent than ever, he enjoins Scarlett to drink with him. However, she declines with deliberate rudeness. Rhett pins her to the wall and tells her they could have been happy together. He then takes her in his arms and carries her to her bedroom, where they engage in intercourse. The next morning, a chagrined Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy for three months. Scarlett is uncertain about her feelings surrounding Rhett, for whom she feels a mixture of desire and revulsion. She then learns she is pregnant with her fourth child.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "When Rhett returns, he comments on Scarlett's paleness, and she reveals her pregnancy. Rhett sarcastically asks if the father is Ashley; Scarlett calls him a cad and says that no woman would want his baby, to which he replies, \"Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage.\" She lunges at him, but misses and tumbles down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost the baby and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful and fears Scarlett will die. Sobbing and drunk, he seeks consolation from Melanie and confesses he acted out of jealousy. Scarlett goes to Tara with Wade and Ella, seeking to regain her strength and vitality from there. She returns healthy to Atlanta and sells the mills to Ashley. Bonnie is four years old in 1873, and Atlanta society is charmed by Rhett's transformation into a doting father. Rhett buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, teaching her to ride sidesaddle and paying a trainer to teach the pony to jump. One day, Bonnie makes her father raise the bar to one-and-a-half feet. During the jump, she falls and dies of a broken neck.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though equally bereaved, is more presentable. Melanie conceives a second child but loses the baby and soon dies due to complications. As she comforts the widowed Ashley, Scarlett realizes she stopped loving him long ago and perhaps she never did. She is shocked to realize that she has always loved Rhett, and he has loved her in return. She returns home, brimming with her new love and determined to begin anew with him. She discovers him sitting in the library. In the wake of Melanie's death, Rhett has decided he wants to rediscover the calm Southern dignity he once knew in his youth and is leaving Atlanta to find it. Scarlett tries to persuade Rhett to either stay or take her with him, but he explains that while he once loved Scarlett, the years of hurt and neglect have killed that love. He says he may \"come back often enough to keep gossip down\" (since they have decided not to get a divorce), but in reply to Scarlett's plea of \"What shall I do?\" he replies \"My dear, I don't give a damn.\", and silently goes up the stairs to his bedroom. In the midst of her grief, Scarlett consoles herself with the knowledge that she still has Tara. She plans to return there with the certainty that she can recover and win Rhett back, because \"tomorrow is another day.\"",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "I made Tara up, just as I made up every character in the book. But nobody will believe me.",
"title": "Characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "—Margaret Mitchell",
"title": "Characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Born in 1900 in Atlanta, Margaret Mitchell was a Southerner and writer throughout her life. She grew up hearing stories about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction from her Irish-American grandmother, Annie Fitzgerald Stephens, who had endured its suffering while living on the family plantation, Rural Home. Her forceful and intellectual mother, Maybelle Stephens Mitchell, was a suffragist who fought for the rights of women to vote.",
"title": "Biographical background and publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "As a young woman, Mitchell found love with an army lieutenant. He was killed in World War I, and she would carry his memory for the remainder of her life. After studying at Smith College for a year during which time her mother died from the 1918 pandemic flu, Mitchell returned to Atlanta. She married, but her husband was an abusive bootlegger. Mitchell took a job writing feature articles for the Atlanta Journal at a time when Atlanta debutantes of her class did not work. After divorcing her first husband, she married again to a man who shared her interest in writing and literature. He had been the best man at her first wedding.",
"title": "Biographical background and publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Margaret Mitchell began writing Gone with the Wind in 1926 to pass the time while recovering from a slow-healing injury from an auto crash. In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor looking for new fiction, read her manuscript and saw that it could be a best-seller. After Latham agreed to publish the book, Mitchell worked for another six months checking the historical references and rewriting the opening chapter several times. Mitchell and her husband John Marsh, a copy editor by trade, edited the final version of the novel. Mitchell wrote the book's final moments first and then wrote the events that led to them. Gone with the Wind was published in June 1936.",
"title": "Biographical background and publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The author tentatively titled the novel Tomorrow Is Another Day, from its last line. Other proposed titles included Bugles Sang True, Not in Our Stars, and Tote the Weary Load. The title Mitchell finally chose is from the first line of the third stanza of the poem \"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae\" by Ernest Dowson:",
"title": "Title"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind ...",
"title": "Title"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders if her home on a plantation called \"Tara\" is still standing, or if it had \"gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia\". In a general sense, the title is a metaphor for the demise of a way of life in the South before the Civil War. When taken in the context of Dowson's poem about \"Cynara\", the phrase \"gone with the wind\" alludes to erotic loss. The poem expresses the regrets of someone who has lost his feelings for his \"old passion\", Cynara. Dowson's Cynara, a name that comes from the Greek word for artichoke, represents a lost love.",
"title": "Title"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "It is also possible that the author was influenced by the connection of the phrase \"Gone with the wind\" with Tara in a line of James Joyce’s Ulysses in the chapter \"Aeolus\".",
"title": "Title"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Margaret Mitchell arranged Gone with the Wind chronologically, focusing it on the life and experiences of the main character, Scarlett O'Hara, as she grew from adolescence into adulthood. During the time span of the novel, from 1861 to 1873, Scarlett ages from sixteen to twenty-eight years. This is a type of Bildungsroman, a novel concerned with the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming-of-age story). Scarlett's development is affected by the events of her time. Mitchell used a smooth linear narrative structure. The novel is known for its exceptional \"readability\". The plot is rich with vivid characters.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Gone with the Wind is often placed in the literary subgenre of the historical romance novel. Pamela Regis has argued that is more appropriately classified as a historical novel, as it does not contain all of the elements of the romance genre. The novel has been described as an early classic of the erotic historical genre because it is thought to contain some degree of pornography.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Slavery in Gone with the Wind is a backdrop to a story that is essentially about other things. Southern plantation fiction (also known as Anti-Tom literature, in reference to reactions to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin of 1852) from the mid-19th century, culminating in Gone with the Wind, is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The characters in the novel are organized into two basic groups along class lines: the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black house servant class. The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork, Prissy, and Uncle Peter. House servants are the highest \"caste\" of slaves in Mitchell's caste system. They choose to stay with their masters after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and subsequent Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 sets them free. Of the servants who stayed at Tara, Scarlett thinks, \"There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy.\"",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The field slaves make up the lower class in Mitchell's caste system. The field slaves from the Tara plantation and the foreman, Big Sam, are taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches and never return to the plantation. Mitchell wrote that other field slaves were \"loyal\" and \"refused to avail themselves of the new freedom\", but the novel has no field slaves who stay on the plantation to work after they have been emancipated.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "American William Wells Brown escaped from slavery and published his memoir, or slave narrative, in 1847. He wrote of the disparity in conditions between the house servant and the field hand:",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant – a situation preferable to a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing bell, but about a half-hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Way back in the dark days of the Early Sixties, regrettable tho it was – men fought, bled, and died for the freedom of the negro – her freedom! – and she stood by and did her duty to the last ditch –",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "It was and is her life to serve, and she has done it well.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "While shot and shell thundered to release the shackles of slavery from her body and her soul – she loved, fought for, and protected – Us who held her in bondage, her \"Marster\" and her \"Missus!\"",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "—Excerpt from My Old Black Mammy by James W. Elliott, 1914.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Although the novel is more than 1,000 pages long, the character of Mammy never considers what her life might be like away from Tara. She recognizes her freedom to come and go as she pleases, saying, \"Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar Ah doan wanter go\", but Mammy remains duty-bound to \"Miss Ellen's chile\". (No other name for Mammy is given in the novel.)",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Eighteen years before the publication of Gone with the Wind, an article titled, \"The Old Black Mammy\", written in the Confederate Veteran in 1918, discussed the romanticized view of the mammy character persisting in Southern literature:",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "for her faithfulness and devotion, she has been immortalized in the literature of the South; so the memory of her will never pass, but live on in the tales that are told of those \"dear dead days beyond recall\".",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Micki McElya, in her book Clinging to Mammy, suggests the myth of the faithful slave, in the figure of Mammy, lingered because white Americans wished to live in a world in which African Americans were not angry over the injustice of slavery.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The best-selling anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, is mentioned briefly in Gone with the Wind as being accepted by the Yankees as \"revelation second only to the Bible\". The enduring interest of both Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone with the Wind has resulted in lingering stereotypes of 19th-century black slaves. Gone with the Wind has become a reference point for subsequent writers about the South, both black and white alike.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Young misses whut frowns an' pushes out dey chins an' says 'Ah will' an' 'Ah woan' mos' gener'ly doan ketch husbands.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "—Mammy",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The southern belle is an archetype for a young woman of the antebellum American South upper class. The southern belle was believed to be physically attractive but, more importantly, personally charming with sophisticated social skills. She is subject to the correct code of female behavior. The novel's heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, charming though not beautiful, is a classic southern belle.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "For young Scarlett, the ideal southern belle is represented by her mother, Ellen O'Hara. In \"A Study in Scarlett\", published in The New Yorker, Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote:",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Southern belle was bred to conform to a subspecies of the nineteenth-century \"lady\" ... For Scarlett, the ideal is embodied in her adored mother, the saintly Ellen, whose back is never seen to rest against the back of any chair on which she sits, whose broken spirit everywhere is mistaken for righteous calm",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "However, Scarlett is not always willing to conform. Kathryn Lee Seidel, in her book, The Southern Belle in the American Novel, wrote:",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "part of her does try to rebel against the restraints of a code of behavior that relentlessly attempts to mold her into a form to which she is not naturally suited.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The figure of a pampered southern belle, Scarlett lives through an extreme reversal of fortune and wealth and survives to rebuild Tara and her self-esteem. Her bad belle traits (Scarlett's deceitfulness, shrewdness, manipulation, and superficiality), in contrast to Melanie's good belle traits (trust, self-sacrifice, and loyalty), enable her to survive in the post-war South and pursue her main interest, which is to make enough money to survive and prosper. Although Scarlett was \"born\" around 1845, she is portrayed to appeal to modern-day readers for her passionate and independent spirit, determination, and obstinate refusal to feel defeated.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Marriage was supposed to be the goal of all southern belles, as women's status was largely determined by that of their husbands. All social and educational pursuits were directed towards it. Despite the Civil War and the loss of a generation of eligible men, young ladies were still expected to marry. By law and Southern social convention, household heads were adult, white propertied males, and all white women and all African Americans were thought to require protection and guidance because they lacked the capacity for reason and self-control.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Atlanta Historical Society has produced a number of Gone with the Wind exhibits, among them a 1994 exhibit titled, \"Disputed Territories: Gone with the Wind and Southern Myths\". The exhibit asked, \"Was Scarlett a Lady?\", finding that historically most women of the period were not involved in business activities as Scarlett was during Reconstruction when she ran a sawmill. White women performed traditional jobs such as teaching and sewing, and generally disliked work outside the home.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "During the Civil War, Southern women played a major role as volunteer nurses working in makeshift hospitals. Many were middle- and upper-class women who had never worked for wages or seen the inside of a hospital. One such nurse was Ada W. Bacot, a young widow who had lost two children. Bacot came from a wealthy South Carolina plantation family that owned 87 slaves.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In the fall of 1862, Confederate laws were changed to permit women to be employed in hospitals as members of the Confederate Medical Department. Twenty-seven-year-old nurse Kate Cumming from Mobile, Alabama, described the primitive hospital conditions in her journal:",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Civil War came to an end on April 26, 1865, when Confederate General Johnston surrendered his armies in the Carolinas Campaign to Union General Sherman. Several battles are mentioned or depicted in Gone with the Wind.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Atlanta Campaign (May–September 1864) took place in northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Confederate General Johnston fights and retreats from Dalton (May 7–13) to Resaca (May 13–15) to Kennesaw Mountain (June 27). Union General Sherman suffers heavy losses to the entrenched Confederate army. Unable to pass through Kennesaw, Sherman swings his men around to the Chattahoochee River where the Confederate army is waiting on the opposite side of the river. Once again, General Sherman flanks the Confederate army, forcing Johnston to retreat to Peachtree Creek (July 20), five miles northeast of Atlanta.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The Savannah Campaign was conducted in Georgia during November and December 1864.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Although Abraham Lincoln is mentioned in the novel 14 times, no reference is made to his assassination on April 14, 1865.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Somebody's darling! so young and so brave! Wearing still on his pale, sweet face – Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave – The lingering light of his boyhood's grace!",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "—Somebody's Darling by Marie La Coste, of Georgia.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Ashley Wilkes is the beau ideal of Southern manhood in Scarlett's eyes. A planter by inheritance, Ashley knew the Confederate cause had died. However Ashley's name signifies paleness. His \"pallid skin literalizes the idea of Confederate death\".",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Ashley contemplates leaving Georgia for New York City. Had he gone North, he would have joined numerous other ex-Confederate transplants there. Ashley, embittered by war, tells Scarlett he has been \"in a state of suspended animation\" since the surrender. He feels he is not \"shouldering a man's burden\" at Tara and believes he is \"much less than a man – much less, indeed, than a woman\".",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "A \"young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight\", Ashley is like a young girl himself. With his \"poet's eye\", Ashley has a \"feminine sensitivity\". Scarlett is angered by the \"slur of effeminacy flung at Ashley\" when her father tells her the Wilkes family was \"born queer\". (Mitchell's use of the word \"queer\" is for its sexual connotation because queer, in the 1930s, was associated with homosexuality.) Ashley's effeminacy is associated with his appearance, his lack of forcefulness and sexual impotency. He rides, plays poker, and drinks like \"proper men\", but his heart is not in it, Gerald claims. The embodiment of castration, Ashley wears the head of Medusa on his cravat pin.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Scarlett's love interest, Ashley Wilkes, lacks manliness, and her husbands – the \"calf-like\" Charles Hamilton, and the \"old-maid in britches\", Frank Kennedy – are unmanly as well. Mitchell is critiquing masculinity in southern society since Reconstruction. Even Rhett Butler, the well-groomed dandy, is effeminate or \"gay-coded\". Charles, Frank and Ashley represent the impotence of the post-war white South. Its power and influence have been diminished.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The word \"scallawag\" is defined as a loafer, a vagabond, or a rogue. Scallawag had a special meaning after the Civil War as an epithet for a white Southerner who accepted and supported Republican reforms. Mitchell defines scallawags as \"Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably.\" Rhett Butler is accused of being a \"damned Scallawag\". In addition to scallawags, Mitchell portrays other types of scoundrels in the novel: Yankees, carpetbaggers, Republicans, prostitutes, and overseers. In the early years of the Civil War, Rhett is called a \"scoundrel\" for his \"selfish gains\" profiteering as a blockade-runner.",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "As a scallawag, Rhett is despised. He is the \"dark, mysterious, and slightly malevolent hero loose in the world\". Literary scholars have identified elements of Mitchell's first husband, Berrien \"Red\" Upshaw, in the character of Rhett. Another sees the image of Italian actor Rudolph Valentino, whom Margaret Mitchell interviewed as a young reporter for The Atlanta Journal. Fictional hero Rhett Butler has a \"swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes\". He is a \"scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor\".",
"title": "Plot elements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "If Gone with the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality \"gumption.\" So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't. — Margaret Mitchell, 1936",
"title": "Themes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The sales of Margaret Mitchell's novel in the summer of 1936, as the nation was recovering from the Great Depression and at the virtually unprecedented high price of three dollars, reached about 1 million by the end of December. The book was a bestseller by the time reviews began to appear in national magazines. Herschel Brickell, a critic for the New York Evening Post, lauded Mitchell for the way she \"tosses out the window all the thousands of technical tricks our novelists have been playing with for the past twenty years.\"",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Ralph Thompson, a book reviewer for The New York Times, was critical of the length of the novel, and wrote in June 1936:",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "I happen to feel that the book would have been infinitely better had it been edited down to say, 500 pages, but there speaks the harassed daily reviewer as well as the would-be judicious critic. Very nearly every reader will agree, no doubt, that a more disciplined and less prodigal piece of work would have more nearly done justice to the subject-matter.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Some reviewers compared the book to William Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Mitchell claimed Charles Dickens as an inspiration and called Gone with the Wind a \"'Victorian' type novel.\"",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Helen Keller, whose father had owned slaves and fought as a Confederate captain and who had later supported the NAACP and the ACLU, read the 12-volume Braille edition. The book brought her fond memories of her southern infancy but she also felt sadness comparing that with what she knew about the South.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Gone with the Wind has been criticized for its stereotypical and derogatory portrayal of African Americans in the 19th century South. Former field hands during the early days of Reconstruction are described behaving \"as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild – either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance.\"",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Commenting on this passage of the novel, Jabari Asim, author of The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why, says it is \"one of the more charitable passages in Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell hesitated to blame black 'insolence' during Reconstruction solely on 'mean niggers', of which, she said, there were few even in slavery days.\"",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Critics say that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux Klan and their abuse of freedmen. Author Pat Conroy, in his preface to a later edition of the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having \"the same romanticized role it had in The Birth of a Nation and appears to be a benign combination of the Elks Club and a men's equestrian society\".",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Regarding the historical inaccuracies of the novel, historian Richard N. Current points out:",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "No doubt it is indeed unfortunate that Gone with the Wind perpetuates many myths about Reconstruction, particularly with respect to blacks. Margaret Mitchell did not originate them and a young novelist can scarcely be faulted for not knowing what the majority of mature, professional historians did not know until many years later.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "In Gone with the Wind, Mitchell explores some complexities in racial issues. Scarlett was asked by a Yankee woman for advice on whom to appoint as a nurse for her children; Scarlett suggested a \"darky\", much to the disgust of the Yankee woman who was seeking an Irish maid, a \"Bridget\". African Americans and Irish Americans are treated \"in precisely the same way\" in Gone with the Wind, writes David O'Connell in his 1996 book, The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. Ethnic slurs on the Irish and Irish stereotypes pervade the novel, O'Connell claims, and Scarlett is not an exception to the terminology. Irish scholar Geraldine Higgins notes that Jonas Wilkerson labels Scarlett: \"you highflying, bogtrotting Irish\". Higgins says that, as the Irish American O'Haras were slaveholders and African Americans were held in bondage, the two ethnic groups are not equivalent in the ethnic hierarchy of the novel.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The novel has been criticized for promoting plantation values and romanticizing the white supremacy of the antebellum south. Mitchell biographer Marianne Walker, author of Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone with the Wind, believes that those who attack the book on these grounds have not read it. She said that the popular 1939 film \"promotes a false notion of the Old South\". Mitchell was not involved in the screenplay or film production.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, says this novel is \"profoundly racist and profoundly wrong\". In 1984, an alderman in Waukegan, Illinois, challenged the book's inclusion on the reading list of the Waukegan School District on the grounds of \"racism\" and \"unacceptable language\". He objected to the frequent use of the racial slur nigger. He also objected to several other books: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the same reason.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Mitchell's use of color in the novel is symbolic and open to interpretation. Red, green, and a variety of hues of each of these colors, are the predominant palette of colors related to Scarlett.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The novel came under intense criticism for alleged racist and white supremacist themes in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests and focus on systemic racism in the United States.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "In 1937, Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gone with the Wind and the second annual National Book Award for Fiction from the American Booksellers Association. It is ranked as the second favorite book by American readers, just behind the Bible, according to a 2008 Harris poll. The poll found the novel has its strongest following among women, those aged 44 or more, both Southerners and Midwesterners, both whites and Hispanics, and those who have not attended college. In a 2014 Harris poll, Mitchell's novel ranked again as second, after the Bible. The novel is on the list of best-selling books. As of 2010, more than 30 million copies have been printed in the United States and abroad. More than 24 editions of Gone with the Wind have been issued in China. Time magazine critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo included the novel on their list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 2003, the book was listed at number 21 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's \"best-loved novel\".",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Gone with the Wind frequently has been the center of controversy.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In 1978, the book was banned from English classrooms in the Anaheim Union High School District in Anaheim, California.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "In 1984, the book was challenged in the Waukegan, Illinois, School District due to the novel's use of the word nigger.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Gone with the Wind has been adapted several times for stage and screen:",
"title": "Adaptations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Gone with the Wind has appeared in many places and forms in popular culture:",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "On June 30, 1986, the 50th anniversary of the day Gone with the Wind went on sale, the U.S. Post Office issued a 1-cent stamp showing an image of Margaret Mitchell. The stamp was designed by Ronald Adair and was part of the U.S. Postal Service's Great Americans series.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "On September 10, 1998, the U.S. Post Office issued a 32-cent stamp as part of its Celebrate the Century series recalling various important events in the 20th century. The stamp, designed by Howard Paine, displays the book with its original dust jacket, a white Magnolia blossom, and a hilt placed against a background of green velvet.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "To commemorate the 75th anniversary (2011) of the publication of Gone with the Wind in 1936, Scribner published a paperback edition featuring the book's original jacket art.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The Windies are ardent Gone with the Wind fans who follow all the latest news and events surrounding the book and film. They gather periodically in costumes from the film or dressed as Margaret Mitchell. Atlanta, Georgia is their meeting place.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "One story of the legacy of Gone with the Wind is that people worldwide incorrectly think it was the \"true story\" of the Old South and how it was changed by the American Civil War and Reconstruction. The film adaptation of the novel \"amplified this effect\". The plantation legend was \"burned\" into the mind of the public. Moreover, her fictional account of the war and its aftermath has influenced how the world has viewed the city of Atlanta for successive generations.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Some readers of the novel have seen the film first and read the novel afterward. One difference between the film and the novel is the staircase scene, in which Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs. In the film, Scarlett weakly struggles and does not scream as Rhett starts up the stairs. In the novel, \"he hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Earlier in the novel, in an intended rape at Shantytown (Chapter 44), Scarlett is attacked by a black man who rips open her dress while a white man grabs hold of the horse's bridle. She is rescued by another black man, Big Sam. In the film, she is attacked by a white man, while a black man grabs the horse's bridle.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The Library of Congress began a multiyear \"Celebration of the Book\" in July 2012 with an exhibition on Books That Shaped America, and an initial list of 88 books by American authors that have influenced American lives. Gone with the Wind was included in the Library's list. Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington said:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "This list is a starting point. It is not a register of the 'best' American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Among books on the list considered to be the Great American Novel were Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, and To Kill a Mockingbird.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Throughout the world, the novel appeals due to its universal themes: war, love, death, racial conflict, class, gender and generation, which speak especially to women. In North Korea, readers relate to the novel's theme of survival, finding it to be \"the most compelling message of the novel\". Margaret Mitchell's personal collection of nearly 70 foreign language translations of her novel was given to the Atlanta Public Library after her death.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "On August 16, 2012, the Archdiocese of Atlanta announced that it had been bequeathed a 50% stake in the trademarks and literary rights to Gone With the Wind from the estate of Margaret Mitchell's deceased nephew, Joseph Mitchell. Margaret Mitchell had separated from the Catholic Church. However, one of Mitchell's biographers, Darden Asbury Pyron, stated that Margaret Mitchell had \"an intense relationship\" with her mother, who was a Roman Catholic.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Although some of Mitchell's papers and documents related to the writing of Gone with the Wind were burned after her death, many documents, including assorted draft chapters, were preserved. The last four chapters of the novel are held by the Pequot Library of Southport, Connecticut.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "The first printing of 10,000 copies contains the original publication date: \"Published May, 1936\". After the book was chosen as the Book-of-the-Month Club's selection for July, the publication was delayed until June 30. The second printing of 25,000 copies (and subsequent printings) contains the release date: \"Published June, 1936\". The third printing of 15,000 copies was made in June 1936. Additionally, 50,000 copies were printed for the Book-of-the-Month Club July selection. Gone with the Wind was officially released to the American public on June 30, 1936.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Although Mitchell refused to write a sequel to Gone with the Wind, Mitchell's estate authorized Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel, which was titled Scarlett. The book was subsequently adapted into a television mini-series in 1994. A second sequel was authorized by Mitchell's estate titled Rhett Butler's People, by Donald McCaig. The novel parallels Gone with the Wind from Rhett Butler's perspective. In 2010, Mitchell's estate authorized McCaig to write a prequel, which follows the life of the house servant Mammy, whom McCaig names \"Ruth\". The novel, Ruth's Journey, was released in 2014.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "The copyright holders of Gone with the Wind attempted to suppress publication of The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall, which retold the story from the perspective of the slaves. A federal appeals court denied the plaintiffs an injunction (Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin) against publication on the basis that the book was a parody and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The parties subsequently settled out of court and the book went on to become a New York Times Best Seller.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "A book sequel unauthorized by the copyright holders, The Winds of Tara by Katherine Pinotti, was blocked from publication in the United States. The novel was republished in Australia, avoiding U.S. copyright restrictions.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "Away from copyright lawsuits, Internet fan fiction has proved to be a fertile medium for sequels (some of them book-length), parodies, and rewritings of Gone with the Wind.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Numerous unauthorized sequels to Gone with the Wind have been published in Russia, mostly under the pseudonym Yuliya Hilpatrik, a cover for a consortium of writers. The New York Times states that most of these have a \"Slavic\" flavor.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Several sequels were written in Hungarian under the pseudonym Audrey D. Milland or Audrey Dee Milland, by at least four different authors (who are named in the colophon as translators to make the book seem a translation from the English original, a procedure common in the 1990s but prohibited by law since then). The first one picks up where Ripley's Scarlett ended, the next one is about Scarlett's daughter Cat. Other books include a prequel trilogy about Scarlett's grandmother Solange and a three-part miniseries of a supposed illegitimate daughter of Carreen.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Gone with the Wind has been in the public domain in Australia since 1999 (50 years after Margaret Mitchell's death). On January 1, 2020, the book entered the public domain in the European Union (70 years after the author's death). Under an extension of copyright law, Gone with the Wind will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2031.",
"title": "Publication history"
}
]
| Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea". This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem "Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae", written by Ernest Dowson. Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the outset and was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide. Gone with the Wind is a controversial reference point for subsequent writers of the South, both black and white. Scholars at American universities refer to, interpret, and study it in their writings. The novel has been absorbed into American popular culture. Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book in 1937. It was adapted into the 1939 film of the same name, which is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made and also received the Academy Award for Best Picture during the 12th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Gone with the Wind is the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime. | 2001-12-19T00:02:20Z | 2023-12-13T03:10:39Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(novel) |
12,997 | George Washington Carver | George Washington Carver (c. 1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.
While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.
Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo".
Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings.
Carver was born into slavery, in Diamond Grove, (now Diamond, Newton County, Missouri), near Crystal Place, sometime in the early 1860s. The date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver; but it was before slavery was abolished in Missouri, which occurred in January 1865, during the American Civil War. His enslaver, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant, who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700 (~$17,500 in 2022).
Giles died before George was born and when he was a week old, he, his sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the trio in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he found only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife, Susan, raised George and his older brother, James, as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual pursuits, and "Aunt Susan" taught him the basics of reading and writing.
Black people were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south, in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as "Carver's George", as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was "George Carver". George liked Mariah Watkins and her words, "You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people", made a great impression on him.
At age 13, because he wanted to attend the academy there, he moved to the home of another foster family, in Fort Scott, Kansas. After witnessing the killing of a black man by a group of white people, Carver left the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.
During his time spent in Minneapolis, there was another George Carver in town, which caused confusion over receiving mail. Carver chose a middle initial at random and began requesting letters to him be addressed to George W. Carver. Someone once asked if the "W" stood for Washington, and Carver grinned and said, "Why not?" However, he never used Washington as his middle name, and signed his name as either George W. Carver or simply George Carver.
Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, they refused to let him attend because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.
In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 (~$9,771 in 2022) loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.
When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's Bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was "Plants as Modified by Man", dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver received his Master of Science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.
Despite occasionally being addressed as "doctor", Carver never received an official doctorate, and in a personal communication with Pammel, he noted that it was a "misnomer", given to him by others due to his abilities and their assumptions about his education. Though he did not have an earned doctorate, both Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime. In addition, Iowa State awarded him a posthumous doctor of humane letters degree in 1994.
In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.
Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a "Jesup wagon" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.
To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a master's in a scientific field from a "white" institution, some faculty perceived him as arrogant. Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.
One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of farm products to generate revenue for the institute. He soon proved to be a poor administrator. In 1900, Carver complained that the physical work and the letter-writing required were too much.
In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, "Now to be branded as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was] party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal." During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or threatened his resignation several times: when the administration reorganized the agriculture programs, when he disliked a teaching assignment, to manage an experiment station elsewhere, and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14. In each case, Washington smoothed things over.
Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In 1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station. This revealed Washington's micro-management of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and original research but said about his administrative skills:
When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial results, you are wanting again in ability.
In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also complained about Institute committee meetings. Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience. Washington called Carver "one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted". After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.
While a professor at Tuskegee, Carver joined the Gamma Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He spoke at the 1930 Conclave that was held at Tuskegee, Alabama, in which he delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the men in attendance.
From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.
Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes, such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas. These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human consumption.
Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely distributed recipes using the alternative crops.
He founded an industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as promoting applications and recipes, which they collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.
Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends. The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.
The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William C. Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.
In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice.
By 1920, the U.S. peanut farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China. In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff. Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives. Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert witness, but Carver appeared and unpacked numerous exhibits and samples to make his case for greater food and industrial uses for the peanut. Southern congressmen mocked him, but as he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture and manufacturing, committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony. The Fordney–McCumber Tariff was enacted in 1922, and included a duty on imported peanuts. Carver's testimony, including samples of peanut milk, peanut flour, industrial dyes made from peanuts, and other peanut-based products, made him widely known as a public figure.
During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Professor Carver's Advice". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:
At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr. Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products.
In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, "A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest, contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.
From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.
From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.
In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.
Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue agricultural research. He donated nearly US$60,000 (equivalent to $1,247,376 in 2022) in his savings to create the foundation.
Carver headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system. Carver's background for his interest in organic farming sprouted from his father being killed during the Civil War, and when his mother was kidnapped by Confederate slave raiders. Now an orphan, Carver found comfort in botany when he was just 11 years old in Kansas. Carver learned about herbal medicine, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers that yielded plentiful crops from his caretaker. When crops and house plants were dying, he would use his knowledge and go and nurse them back to health. As a teenager, he was termed the "plant doctor".
When his study about infection in soybean reached Booker T. Washington, he invited him to come and teach at the Tuskegee Agricultural school.
Although the emancipation allowed Black families 40 acres and a mule, President Johnson revoked this and gave the land to white plantation owners instead. This prompted Black farmers to exchange what was once their land, and in turn, a small part of the land's harvest. This led to sharecropping. Carver soon realized that farmers were not obtaining enough food to survive, and how the industrialization of cotton had contaminated the soil.
Carver wanted to find a way to organically transform Alabama's failing soil. He found that alternating nitrogen-rich crops would let the soil get back to its natural state. Keeping crops like sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas would produce more food surplus and different types of food for farmers. Carver worked to pioneer organic fertilizers like swamp muck and compost for the farmers to use. These fertilizers were more sustainable to the planet and helped farmers to spend less money on fertilizers since they were recycling products.
Carver pushed for woodland preservation, to help improve the quality of the topsoil. He urged farmers to feed their hogs acorns. The acorns contained natural pesticides and feeding them acorns was cheaper for the farms too. Carver's efforts towards the holistic and organic approach are still in practice today. In his research, Carver discovered Permaculture. Permaculture could be used to produce carbon from the atmosphere, produce a higher quantity of crops, and let crops flourish despite global warming.
Carver never married. At age 40, he began a courtship with Sarah L. Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until she took a teaching job in California. In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his historic period.
When he was 70, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University, had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt. After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.
Upon returning home one day, Carver suffered a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 or 79 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.
On his grave was written, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."
Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O. McMurry noted that he "was a frail and sickly child" who suffered "from a severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called croup". McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that "His stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal cords suggest instead tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ... until his death the high pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from frequent chest congestion and loss of voice."
Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science. Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:
I was just a mere boy when converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be ground into meal.
A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several times before I quit.
My brother and myself were the only colored children in that neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school, or school of any kind.
That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith.
He was not expected to live past his 21st birthday due to failing health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a result. Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.
Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification. He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of "eight cardinal virtues" whose possession defines "a lady or a gentleman":
Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by acting them out. He responded to critics with this: "When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:
The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow against the Axis, it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in this country for full support of our war effort.
The bill passed unanimously in both houses.
On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 (~$407,834 in 2022) for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a 3⁄4-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.
In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but 3 of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his other paintings.
Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on the commemorative Carver-Washington half dollar coin along with Booker T. Washington. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor.
In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the "Father of Chemurgy".
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.
In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.
Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.
Carver has been given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics; US 1522176, issued January 6, 1925 , and two for paints and stains; US 1541478, issued June 9, 1925 , and US 1632365, issued June 14, 1927 ) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.
Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not keep a laboratory notebook. Mackintosh notes that, "Carver did not explicitly claim that he had personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference."
Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially to change Southern agriculture. Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the "appropriate technology" work of E. F. Schumacher.
Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):
Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South': "The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West.
Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products. The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration. Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.
Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter. By the time Carver published "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption" in 1916, many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in the US and Canada. The Aztecs were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded U.S. Patent 306,727 (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.
Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen recipes, "many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U. S. Department of Agriculture". Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses. He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.
During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers. His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato, ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in hot weather, and nature study in schools.
His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916 and was reprinted many times. It gave a short overview of peanut crop production and contained a list of recipes from other agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. Carver's was far from the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts, but his bulletins did seem to be more popular and widespread than previous ones. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "George Washington Carver (c. 1864 – January 5, 1943) was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a \"Black Leonardo\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Carver was born into slavery, in Diamond Grove, (now Diamond, Newton County, Missouri), near Crystal Place, sometime in the early 1860s. The date of his birth is uncertain and was not known to Carver; but it was before slavery was abolished in Missouri, which occurred in January 1865, during the American Civil War. His enslaver, Moses Carver, was a German American immigrant, who had purchased George's parents, Mary and Giles, from William P. McGinnis on October 9, 1855, for $700 (~$17,500 in 2022).",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Giles died before George was born and when he was a week old, he, his sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders from Arkansas. George's brother, James, was rushed to safety from the kidnappers. The kidnappers sold the trio in Kentucky. Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find them, but he found only the infant George. Moses negotiated with the raiders to gain the boy's return and rewarded Bentley. After slavery was abolished, Moses Carver and his wife, Susan, raised George and his older brother, James, as their own children. They encouraged George to continue his intellectual pursuits, and \"Aunt Susan\" taught him the basics of reading and writing.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Black people were not allowed at the public school in Diamond Grove. George decided to go to a school for black children 10 miles (16 km) south, in Neosho. When he reached the town, he found the school closed for the night. He slept in a nearby barn. By his own account, the next morning he met a kind woman, Mariah Watkins, from whom he wished to rent a room. When he identified himself as \"Carver's George\", as he had done his whole life, she replied that from now on his name was \"George Carver\". George liked Mariah Watkins and her words, \"You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people\", made a great impression on him.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "At age 13, because he wanted to attend the academy there, he moved to the home of another foster family, in Fort Scott, Kansas. After witnessing the killing of a black man by a group of white people, Carver left the city. He attended a series of schools before earning his diploma at Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During his time spent in Minneapolis, there was another George Carver in town, which caused confusion over receiving mail. Carver chose a middle initial at random and began requesting letters to him be addressed to George W. Carver. Someone once asked if the \"W\" stood for Washington, and Carver grinned and said, \"Why not?\" However, he never used Washington as his middle name, and signed his name as either George W. Carver or simply George Carver.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Carver applied to several colleges before being accepted at Highland University in Highland, Kansas. When he arrived, they refused to let him attend because of his race. In August 1886, Carver traveled by wagon with J. F. Beeler from Highland to Eden Township in Ness County, Kansas. He homesteaded a claim near Beeler, where he maintained a small conservatory of plants and flowers and a geological collection. He manually plowed 17 acres (69,000 m) of the claim, planting rice, corn, Indian corn and garden produce, as well as various fruit trees, forest trees, and shrubbery. He also earned money by odd jobs in town and worked as a ranch hand.",
"title": "College education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In early 1888, Carver obtained a $300 (~$9,771 in 2022) loan at the Bank of Ness City for education. By June he left the area. In 1890, Carver started studying art and piano at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. His art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants; she encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.",
"title": "College education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "When he began there in 1891, he was the first black student at Iowa State. Carver's Bachelor's thesis for a degree in Agriculture was \"Plants as Modified by Man\", dated 1894. Iowa State University professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel convinced Carver to continue there for his master's degree. Carver did research at the Iowa Experiment Station under Pammel during the next two years. His work at the experiment station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. Carver received his Master of Science degree in 1896. Carver taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.",
"title": "College education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Despite occasionally being addressed as \"doctor\", Carver never received an official doctorate, and in a personal communication with Pammel, he noted that it was a \"misnomer\", given to him by others due to his abilities and their assumptions about his education. Though he did not have an earned doctorate, both Simpson College and Selma University awarded him honorary doctorates of science in his lifetime. In addition, Iowa State awarded him a posthumous doctor of humane letters degree in 1994.",
"title": "College education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Carver designed a mobile classroom to take education out to farmers. He called it a \"Jesup wagon\" after the New York financier and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup, who provided funding to support the program.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "To recruit Carver to Tuskegee, Washington gave him an above average salary and two rooms for his personal use, although both concessions were resented by some other faculty. Because he had earned a master's in a scientific field from a \"white\" institution, some faculty perceived him as arrogant. Unmarried faculty members normally had to share rooms, with two to a room, in the spartan early days of the institute.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "One of Carver's duties was to administer the Agricultural Experiment Station farms. He had to manage the production and sale of farm products to generate revenue for the institute. He soon proved to be a poor administrator. In 1900, Carver complained that the physical work and the letter-writing required were too much.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1904, an Institute committee reported that Carver's reports on yields from the poultry yard were exaggerated, and Washington confronted Carver about the issue. Carver replied in writing, \"Now to be branded as a liar and party to such hellish deception it is more than I can bear, and if your committee feel that I have willfully lied or [was] party to such lies as were told my resignation is at your disposal.\" During Washington's last five years at Tuskegee, Carver submitted or threatened his resignation several times: when the administration reorganized the agriculture programs, when he disliked a teaching assignment, to manage an experiment station elsewhere, and when he did not get summer teaching assignments in 1913–14. In each case, Washington smoothed things over.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Carver started his academic career as a researcher and teacher. In 1911, Washington wrote a letter to him complaining that Carver had not followed orders to plant particular crops at the experiment station. This revealed Washington's micro-management of Carver's department, which he had headed for more than 10 years by then. Washington at the same time refused Carver's requests for a new laboratory, research supplies for his exclusive use, and respite from teaching classes. Washington praised Carver's abilities in teaching and original research but said about his administrative skills:",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "When it comes to the organization of classes, the ability required to secure a properly organized and large school or section of a school, you are wanting in ability. When it comes to the matter of practical farm managing which will secure definite, practical, financial results, you are wanting again in ability.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1911, Carver complained that his laboratory had not received the equipment which Washington had promised 11 months before. He also complained about Institute committee meetings. Washington praised Carver in his 1911 memoir, My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience. Washington called Carver \"one of the most thoroughly scientific men of the Negro race with whom I am acquainted\". After Washington died in 1915, his successor made fewer demands on Carver for administrative tasks.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "While a professor at Tuskegee, Carver joined the Gamma Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He spoke at the 1930 Conclave that was held at Tuskegee, Alabama, in which he delivered a powerful and emotional speech to the men in attendance.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "From 1915 to 1923, Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans, and other crops, as well as having his assistants research and compile existing uses. This work, and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 to support passage of a tariff on imported peanuts, brought him wide publicity and increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his time.",
"title": "Tuskegee Institute"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. Together with other agricultural experts, he urged farmers to restore nitrogen to their soils by practicing systematic crop rotation: alternating cotton crops with plantings of sweet potatoes or legumes, such as peanuts, soybeans and cowpeas. These crops both restored nitrogen to the soil and were good for human consumption.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Following the crop rotation practice resulted in improved cotton yields and gave farmers alternative cash crops. To train farmers to successfully rotate and cultivate the new crops, Carver developed an agricultural extension program for Alabama that was similar to the one at Iowa State. To encourage better nutrition in the South, he widely distributed recipes using the alternative crops.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "He founded an industrial research laboratory, where he and assistants worked to popularize the new crops by developing hundreds of applications for them. They did original research as well as promoting applications and recipes, which they collected from others. Carver distributed his information as agricultural bulletins.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Carver's work was known by officials in the national capital before he became a public figure. President Theodore Roosevelt publicly admired his work. Former professors of Carver's from Iowa State University were appointed to positions as Secretary of Agriculture: James Wilson, a former dean and professor of Carver's, served from 1897 to 1913. Henry Cantwell Wallace served from 1921 to 1924. He knew Carver personally because his son Henry A. Wallace and the researcher were friends. The younger Wallace served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, and as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president from 1941 to 1945.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The American industrialist, farmer, and inventor William C. Edenborn of Winn Parish, Louisiana, grew peanuts on his demonstration farm. He consulted with Carver.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 1916, Carver was made a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England, one of only a handful of Americans at that time to receive this honor. Carver's promotion of peanuts gained him the most notice.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "By 1920, the U.S. peanut farmers were being undercut by low prices on imported peanuts from the Republic of China. In 1921, peanut farmers and industry representatives planned to appear at Congressional hearings to ask for a tariff. Based on the quality of Carver's presentation at their convention, they asked the African-American professor to testify on the tariff issue before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives. Due to segregation, it was highly unusual for an African American to appear as an expert witness, but Carver appeared and unpacked numerous exhibits and samples to make his case for greater food and industrial uses for the peanut. Southern congressmen mocked him, but as he talked about the importance of the peanut and its uses for American agriculture and manufacturing, committee members repeatedly extended the time for his testimony. The Fordney–McCumber Tariff was enacted in 1922, and included a duty on imported peanuts. Carver's testimony, including samples of peanut milk, peanut flour, industrial dyes made from peanuts, and other peanut-based products, made him widely known as a public figure.",
"title": "Rise to fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "During the last two decades of his life, Carver seemed to enjoy his celebrity status. He was often on the road promoting Tuskegee University, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and racial harmony. Although he only published six agricultural bulletins after 1922, he published articles in peanut industry journals and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, \"Professor Carver's Advice\". Business leaders came to seek his help, and he often responded with free advice. Three American presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt—met with him, and the Crown Prince of Sweden studied with him for three weeks. From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "With his increasing notability, Carver became the subject of biographies and articles. Raleigh H. Merritt contacted him for his biography published in 1929. Merritt wrote:",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "At present not a great deal has been done to utilize Dr. Carver's discoveries commercially. He says that he is merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 1932, the writer James Saxon Childers wrote that Carver and his peanut products were almost solely responsible for the rise in U.S. peanut production after the boll weevil devastated the American cotton crop beginning about 1892. His article, \"A Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse\" (1932), in The American Magazine, and its 1937 reprint in Reader's Digest, contributed to this myth about Carver's influence. Other popular media tended to exaggerate Carver's impact on the peanut industry.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately, researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the USDA Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1937, Carver attended two chemurgy conferences, an emerging field in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, concerned with developing new products from crops. He was invited by Henry Ford to speak at the conference held in Dearborn, Michigan, and they developed a friendship. That year Carver's health declined, and Ford later installed an elevator at the Tuskegee dormitory where Carver lived, so that the elderly man would not have to climb stairs.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Carver had been frugal in his life, and in his seventies he established a legacy by creating a museum of his work, as well as the George Washington Carver Foundation at Tuskegee in 1938 to continue agricultural research. He donated nearly US$60,000 (equivalent to $1,247,376 in 2022) in his savings to create the foundation.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Carver headed the modern organic movement in the southern agricultural system. Carver's background for his interest in organic farming sprouted from his father being killed during the Civil War, and when his mother was kidnapped by Confederate slave raiders. Now an orphan, Carver found comfort in botany when he was just 11 years old in Kansas. Carver learned about herbal medicine, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers that yielded plentiful crops from his caretaker. When crops and house plants were dying, he would use his knowledge and go and nurse them back to health. As a teenager, he was termed the \"plant doctor\".",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "When his study about infection in soybean reached Booker T. Washington, he invited him to come and teach at the Tuskegee Agricultural school.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Although the emancipation allowed Black families 40 acres and a mule, President Johnson revoked this and gave the land to white plantation owners instead. This prompted Black farmers to exchange what was once their land, and in turn, a small part of the land's harvest. This led to sharecropping. Carver soon realized that farmers were not obtaining enough food to survive, and how the industrialization of cotton had contaminated the soil.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Carver wanted to find a way to organically transform Alabama's failing soil. He found that alternating nitrogen-rich crops would let the soil get back to its natural state. Keeping crops like sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cowpeas would produce more food surplus and different types of food for farmers. Carver worked to pioneer organic fertilizers like swamp muck and compost for the farmers to use. These fertilizers were more sustainable to the planet and helped farmers to spend less money on fertilizers since they were recycling products.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Carver pushed for woodland preservation, to help improve the quality of the topsoil. He urged farmers to feed their hogs acorns. The acorns contained natural pesticides and feeding them acorns was cheaper for the farms too. Carver's efforts towards the holistic and organic approach are still in practice today. In his research, Carver discovered Permaculture. Permaculture could be used to produce carbon from the atmosphere, produce a higher quantity of crops, and let crops flourish despite global warming.",
"title": "Life while famous"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Carver never married. At age 40, he began a courtship with Sarah L. Hunt, an elementary school teacher and the sister-in-law of Warren Logan, Treasurer of Tuskegee Institute. This lasted three years until she took a teaching job in California. In her 2015 biography, Christina Vella reviews his relationships and suggests that Carver was bisexual and constrained by mores of his historic period.",
"title": "Relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "When he was 70, Carver established a friendship and research partnership with the scientist Austin W. Curtis Jr. This young black man, a graduate of Cornell University, had some teaching experience before coming to Tuskegee. Carver bequeathed to Curtis his royalties from an authorized 1943 biography by Rackham Holt. After Carver died in 1943, Curtis was fired from Tuskegee Institute. He left Alabama and resettled in Detroit. There he manufactured and sold peanut-based personal care products.",
"title": "Relationships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Upon returning home one day, Carver suffered a bad fall down a flight of stairs; he was found unconscious by a maid who took him to a hospital. Carver died January 5, 1943, at the age of 78 or 79 from complications (anemia) resulting from this fall. He was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. Due to his frugality, Carver's life savings totaled $60,000, all of which he donated in his last years and at his death to the Carver Museum and to the George Washington Carver Foundation.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "On his grave was written, \"He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.\"",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Even as an adult Carver spoke with a high pitch. Historian Linda O. McMurry noted that he \"was a frail and sickly child\" who suffered \"from a severe case of whooping cough and frequent bouts of what was called croup\". McMurry contested the diagnosis of croup, holding rather that \"His stunted growth and apparently impaired vocal cords suggest instead tubercular or pneumococcal infection. Frequent infections of that nature could have caused the growth of polyps on the larynx and may have resulted from a gamma globulin deficiency. ... until his death the high pitch of his voice startled all who met him, and he suffered from frequent chest congestion and loss of voice.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Carver believed he could have faith both in God and science and integrated them into his life. He testified on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only mechanism by which he could effectively pursue and perform the art of science. Carver became a Christian when he was still a young boy, as he wrote in connection to his conversion in 1931:",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "I was just a mere boy when converted, hardly ten years old. There isn't much of a story to it. God just came into my heart one afternoon while I was alone in the 'loft' of our big barn while I was shelling corn to carry to the mill to be ground into meal.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "A dear little white boy, one of our neighbors, about my age came by one Saturday morning, and in talking and playing he told me he was going to Sunday school tomorrow morning. I was eager to know what a Sunday school was. He said they sang hymns and prayed. I asked him what prayer was and what they said. I do not remember what he said; only remember that as soon as he left I climbed up into the 'loft,' knelt down by the barrel of corn and prayed as best I could. I do not remember what I said. I only recall that I felt so good that I prayed several times before I quit.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "My brother and myself were the only colored children in that neighborhood and of course, we could not go to church or Sunday school, or school of any kind.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "That was my simple conversion, and I have tried to keep the faith.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "He was not expected to live past his 21st birthday due to failing health. He lived well past the age of 21, and his belief deepened as a result. Throughout his career, he always found friendship with other Christians. He relied on them especially when criticized by the scientific community and media regarding his research methodology.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Carver viewed faith in Jesus Christ as a means of destroying both barriers of racial disharmony and social stratification. He was as concerned with his students' character development as he was with their intellectual development. He compiled a list of \"eight cardinal virtues\" whose possession defines \"a lady or a gentleman\":",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Beginning in 1906 at Tuskegee, Carver led a Bible class on Sundays for several students at their request. He regularly portrayed stories by acting them out. He responded to critics with this: \"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "A movement to establish a U.S. national monument to Carver began before his death. Because of World War II, such non-war expenditures had been banned by presidential order. Missouri senator Harry S. Truman sponsored a bill in favor of a monument. In a committee hearing on the bill, one supporter said:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The bill is not simply a momentary pause on the part of busy men engaged in the conduct of the war, to do honor to one of the truly great Americans of this country, but it is in essence a blow against the Axis, it is in essence a war measure in the sense that it will further unleash and release the energies of roughly 15,000,000 Negro people in this country for full support of our war effort.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The bill passed unanimously in both houses.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated $30,000 (~$407,834 in 2022) for the George Washington Carver National Monument west-southwest of Diamond, Missouri, the area where Carver had spent time in his childhood. This was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and the first to honor someone other than a president. The 210-acre (0.8 km) national monument complex includes a bust of Carver, a 3⁄4-mile nature trail, a museum, the 1881 Moses Carver house, and the Carver cemetery. The national monument opened in July 1953.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In December 1947, a fire broke out in the Carver Museum, and much of the collection was damaged. Time magazine reported that all but 3 of the 48 Carver paintings at the museum were destroyed. His best-known painting, displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, depicts a yucca and cactus. This canvas survived and has undergone conservation. It is displayed together with several of his other paintings.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Carver was featured on U.S. 1948 commemorative stamps. From 1951 to 1954, he was depicted on the commemorative Carver-Washington half dollar coin along with Booker T. Washington. A second stamp honoring Carver, of face value 32¢, was issued on February 3, 1998, as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series. Two ships, the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver and the nuclear submarine USS George Washington Carver (SSBN-656), were named in his honor.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In 1977, Carver was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1994, Iowa State University awarded Carver a Doctor of Humane Letters. In 2000, Carver was a charter inductee in the USDA Hall of Heroes as the \"Father of Chemurgy\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed George Washington Carver as one of 100 Greatest African Americans.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In 2005, Carver's research at the Tuskegee Institute was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. On February 15, 2005, an episode of Modern Marvels included scenes from within Iowa State University's Food Sciences Building and about Carver's work. In 2005, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, opened a George Washington Carver garden in his honor, which includes a life-size statue of him.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Many institutions continue to honor George Washington Carver. Dozens of elementary schools and high schools are named after him. National Basketball Association star David Robinson and his wife, Valerie, founded an academy named after Carver; it opened on September 17, 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. The Carver Community Cultural Center, a historic center located in San Antonio, is named for him.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Carver has been given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. Three patents (one for cosmetics; US 1522176, issued January 6, 1925 , and two for paints and stains; US 1541478, issued June 9, 1925 , and US 1632365, issued June 14, 1927 ) were issued to Carver in 1925 to 1927; however, they were not commercially successful.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Aside from these patents and some recipes for food, Carver left no records of formulae or procedures for making his products. He did not keep a laboratory notebook. Mackintosh notes that, \"Carver did not explicitly claim that he had personally discovered all the peanut attributes and uses he cited, but he said nothing to prevent his audiences from drawing the inference.\"",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Carver's research was intended to produce replacements from common crops for commercial products, which were generally beyond the budget of the small one-horse farmer. A misconception grew that his research on products for subsistence farmers were developed by others commercially to change Southern agriculture. Carver's work to provide small farmers with resources for more independence from the cash economy foreshadowed the \"appropriate technology\" work of E. F. Schumacher.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, wrote in the Leopold Letter (newsletter):",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in 'The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South': \"The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Carver worked for years to create a company to market his products. The most important was the Carver Penol Company, which sold a mixture of creosote and peanuts as a patent medicine for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis. Sales were lackluster and the product was ineffective according to the Food and Drug Administration. Other ventures were The Carver Products Company and the Carvoline Company. Carvoline Antiseptic Hair Dressing was a mix of peanut oil and lanolin. Carvoline Rubbing Oil was a peanut oil for massages.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Carver is often mistakenly credited with the invention of peanut butter. By the time Carver published \"How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption\" in 1916, many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors and food scientists working in the US and Canada. The Aztecs were known to have made peanut butter from ground peanuts as early as the 15th century. Canadian pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded U.S. Patent 306,727 (for its manufacture) in 1884, 12 years before Carver began his work at Tuskegee.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Carver is also associated with developing sweet potato products. In his 1922 sweet potato bulletin, Carver listed a few dozen recipes, \"many of which I have copied verbatim from Bulletin No. 129, U. S. Department of Agriculture\". Carver's records included the following sweet potato products: 73 dyes, 17 wood fillers, 14 candies, 5 library pastes, 5 breakfast foods, 4 starches, 4 flours, and 3 molasses. He also had listings for vinegars, dry coffee and instant coffee, candy, after-dinner mints, orange drops, and lemon drops.",
"title": "Reputed inventions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "During his more than four decades at Tuskegee, Carver's official published work consisted mainly of 44 practical bulletins for farmers. His first bulletin in 1898 was on feeding acorns to farm animals. His final bulletin in 1943 was about the peanut. He also published six bulletins on sweet potatoes, five on cotton, and four on cowpeas. Some other individual bulletins dealt with alfalfa, wild plum, tomato, ornamental plants, corn, poultry, dairying, hogs, preserving meats in hot weather, and nature study in schools.",
"title": "Carver bulletins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "His most popular bulletin, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, was first published in 1916 and was reprinted many times. It gave a short overview of peanut crop production and contained a list of recipes from other agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, such as the Peerless Cookbook, Good Housekeeping, and Berry's Fruit Recipes. Carver's was far from the first American agricultural bulletin devoted to peanuts, but his bulletins did seem to be more popular and widespread than previous ones.",
"title": "Carver bulletins"
}
]
| George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century. While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve types of soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful. Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a "Black Leonardo". Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019. The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings. | 2001-12-19T15:53:05Z | 2023-12-29T22:55:11Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver |
12,998 | Grok | Grok /ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment", Heinlein's concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that "the book's major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term." The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities such as computer science.
Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 "uncut" edition of Stranger, the word grok "was used first without any explicit definition on page 22" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original). He notes that this first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'". Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:
Grok means "to understand", of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, "to drink" and "a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear', it means 'love', it means 'hate' – proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you – then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate – and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.
Grok means "identically equal". The human cliché "This hurts me worse than it does you" has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man.
The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed.
All that groks is God.
Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms, but can be associated with various literal meanings such as "water", "to drink", "to relate", "life", or "to live", and had a much more profound figurative meaning that is hard for terrestrial culture to understand because of its assumption of a singular reality.
According to the book, drinking water is a central focus on Mars, where it is scarce. Martians use the merging of their bodies with water as a simple example or symbol of how two entities can combine to create a new reality greater than the sum of its parts. The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose. Within the book, the statement of divine immanence verbalized among the main characters, "thou art God", is logically derived from the concept inherent in the term grok.
Heinlein describes Martian words as "guttural" and "jarring". Martian speech is described as sounding "like a bullfrog fighting a cat". Accordingly, grok is generally pronounced as a guttural gr terminated by a sharp k with very little or no vowel sound (a narrow IPA transcription might be [ɡɹ̩kʰ]). William Tenn suggests Heinlein in creating the word might have been influenced by Tenn's very similar concept of griggo, earlier introduced in Tenn's story "Venus and the Seven Sexes" (published in 1949). In his later afterword to the story, Tenn says Heinlein considered such influence "very possible".
Uses of the word in the decades after the 1960s are more concentrated in computer culture, such as a 1984 appearance in InfoWorld: "There isn't any software! Only different internal states of hardware. It's all hardware! It's a shame programmers don't grok that better."
The Jargon File, which describes itself as a "Hacker's Dictionary" and has been published under that name three times, puts grok in a programming context:
When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary – but to say you "grok" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is a similar supernatural understanding experienced as a single brief flash.
The entry existed in the very earliest forms of the Jargon File, dating from the early 1980s. A typical tech usage from the Linux Bible, 2005 characterizes the Unix software development philosophy as "one that can make your life a lot simpler once you grok the idea".
The book Perl Best Practices defines grok as understanding a portion of computer code in a profound way. It goes on to suggest that to re-grok code is to reload the intricacies of that portion of code into one's memory after some time has passed and all the details of it are no longer remembered. In that sense, to grok means to load everything into memory for immediate use. It is analogous to the way a processor caches memory for short term use, but the only implication by this reference was that it was something a human (or perhaps a Martian) would do.
The main web page for cURL, an open source tool and programming library, describes the function of cURL as "cURL groks URLs".
The book Cyberia covers its use in this subculture extensively:
This is all latter day usage, the original derivation was from an early text processing utility from so long ago that no one remembers but, grok was the output when it understood the file. K&R would remember.
The keystroke logging software used by the NSA for its remote intelligence gathering operations is named GROK.
One of the most powerful parsing filters used in ElasticSearch software's logstash component is named grok.
A reference book by Carey Bunks on the use of the GNU Image Manipulation Program is titled Grokking the GIMP
A common tool used for cloud development is a tool called ngrok, which stands for 'network grok.' It is a utility that creates a secure tunnel on a local machine along with a public URL for accessing that local machine. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Grok /ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as \"to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with\" and \"to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment\", Heinlein's concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that \"the book's major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term.\" The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities such as computer science.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 \"uncut\" edition of Stranger, the word grok \"was used first without any explicit definition on page 22\" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original). He notes that this first intensional definition is simply \"to drink\", but that this is only a metaphor \"much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'\". Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:",
"title": "Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Grok means \"to understand\", of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, \"to drink\" and \"a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear', it means 'love', it means 'hate' – proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you – then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate – and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.",
"title": "Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Grok means \"identically equal\". The human cliché \"This hurts me worse than it does you\" has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man.",
"title": "Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed.",
"title": "Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "All that groks is God.",
"title": "Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms, but can be associated with various literal meanings such as \"water\", \"to drink\", \"to relate\", \"life\", or \"to live\", and had a much more profound figurative meaning that is hard for terrestrial culture to understand because of its assumption of a singular reality.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "According to the book, drinking water is a central focus on Mars, where it is scarce. Martians use the merging of their bodies with water as a simple example or symbol of how two entities can combine to create a new reality greater than the sum of its parts. The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose. Within the book, the statement of divine immanence verbalized among the main characters, \"thou art God\", is logically derived from the concept inherent in the term grok.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Heinlein describes Martian words as \"guttural\" and \"jarring\". Martian speech is described as sounding \"like a bullfrog fighting a cat\". Accordingly, grok is generally pronounced as a guttural gr terminated by a sharp k with very little or no vowel sound (a narrow IPA transcription might be [ɡɹ̩kʰ]). William Tenn suggests Heinlein in creating the word might have been influenced by Tenn's very similar concept of griggo, earlier introduced in Tenn's story \"Venus and the Seven Sexes\" (published in 1949). In his later afterword to the story, Tenn says Heinlein considered such influence \"very possible\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Uses of the word in the decades after the 1960s are more concentrated in computer culture, such as a 1984 appearance in InfoWorld: \"There isn't any software! Only different internal states of hardware. It's all hardware! It's a shame programmers don't grok that better.\"",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Jargon File, which describes itself as a \"Hacker's Dictionary\" and has been published under that name three times, puts grok in a programming context:",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "When you claim to \"grok\" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you \"know\" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary – but to say you \"grok\" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is a similar supernatural understanding experienced as a single brief flash.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The entry existed in the very earliest forms of the Jargon File, dating from the early 1980s. A typical tech usage from the Linux Bible, 2005 characterizes the Unix software development philosophy as \"one that can make your life a lot simpler once you grok the idea\".",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The book Perl Best Practices defines grok as understanding a portion of computer code in a profound way. It goes on to suggest that to re-grok code is to reload the intricacies of that portion of code into one's memory after some time has passed and all the details of it are no longer remembered. In that sense, to grok means to load everything into memory for immediate use. It is analogous to the way a processor caches memory for short term use, but the only implication by this reference was that it was something a human (or perhaps a Martian) would do.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The main web page for cURL, an open source tool and programming library, describes the function of cURL as \"cURL groks URLs\".",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The book Cyberia covers its use in this subculture extensively:",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "This is all latter day usage, the original derivation was from an early text processing utility from so long ago that no one remembers but, grok was the output when it understood the file. K&R would remember.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The keystroke logging software used by the NSA for its remote intelligence gathering operations is named GROK.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "One of the most powerful parsing filters used in ElasticSearch software's logstash component is named grok.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "A reference book by Carey Bunks on the use of the GNU Image Manipulation Program is titled Grokking the GIMP",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A common tool used for cloud development is a tool called ngrok, which stands for 'network grok.' It is a utility that creates a secure tunnel on a local machine along with a public URL for accessing that local machine.",
"title": "Adoption and modern usage"
}
]
| Grok is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment", Heinlein's concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that "the book's major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term." The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities such as computer science. | 2001-12-19T18:33:15Z | 2023-12-07T14:05:32Z | [
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13,007 | Geelong Football Club | The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 reigning premiers.
The club formed in 1859, making it the second-oldest club in the AFL, after Melbourne, and one of the oldest football clubs in the world.
In the 1860s, Geelong participated in a series of Challenge Cup competitions, and was a foundation member of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897, now the national AFL. The club won the Western District Challenge Cup in 1875, a then-record seven VFA premierships between 1878 and 1886, and six VFL premierships by 1963, after which it experienced a 44-year waiting period until it won its next premiership, a Grand Final-record 119-point victory in 2007. Geelong won a further three premierships in 2009, 2011 and 2022.
Geelong play most of their home games at Kardinia Park (known for sponsorship reasons as GMHBA Stadium) and play the remainder at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Geelong's traditional guernsey colours are white with navy blue hoops. The club's nickname was first used in 1923 after a run of losses prompted a local cartoonist to suggest that the club needed a black cat to bring it good luck. Geelong also field teams in other competitions; a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), a senior women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and a reserves women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competitions. The club's official team song and anthem is "We Are Geelong".
The club was founded in 1859 in the city of Geelong, Australia, and is the second oldest AFL club. It is believed to be the fourth oldest football club in Australia and one of the oldest in the world and one of the most successful. Initially playing under its own rules, some of which, notably, were permanently introduced into Australian Football, it adopted the Laws of Australian Football in the early 1860s after a series of compromises with the Melbourne Football Club.
Geelong went on to play for most of its existence in the premier competitions, the first competition, the Caledonian Society Cup, a foundation club of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897., VFL and continues in the elite Australian Football League (AFL). The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers ten times, with four in the AFL era (since 1990) in 2007, 2009, 2011, and most recently, 2022, to be the second most successful club over that period one behind Hawthorn. They have also won ten McClelland Trophies, the most of any AFL/VFL club.
Many of the club's official records before 1920 have disappeared.
Geelong's traditional navy blue and white hooped guernsey has been worn since the club's inception in the mid-1800s. The design is said to represent the white seagulls and blue water of Corio Bay.
The team has worn various away guernseys since 1998, all featuring the club's logo and traditional colours.
Geelong has been nicknamed the 'Cats' since 1923, when the Herald sporting local cartoonist, "Wells" (Samuel Garnet Wells), suggested that adopting a black cat as a mascot might bring a football club good luck in his Herald cartoon of 6 July 1923.
"We Are Geelong" is the song sung after a game won by the Geelong Football Club. It is sung to the tune of "Toreador" from Carmen. The lyrics were written by former premiership player John Watts. Only the first verse is used at matches and by the team after a victory. The song currently used by the club was recorded by the Fable Singers in April 1972.
Geelong's administrative headquarters is its home stadium, GMHBA Stadium or also known as Kardinia Park. The club trains here during the season, however it also trains at its alternate training venue, the Deakin University Elite Sports Precinct. The latter features an MCG-sized oval and is used often by the club in the pre-season, when Kardinia Park is being used for other events.
The rivalry between Hawthorn and Geelong is defined by two Grand Finals: those of 1989 and 2008. In the 1989 Grand Final, Geelong played the man, resulting in major injuries for several Hawks players, Mark Yeates knocking out Dermott Brereton at the opening bounce; Hawthorn controlled the game, leading by approximately 40 points for most of the match; in the last quarter, Geelong almost managed to come from behind to win, but fell short by six points. In the 2008 Grand Final, Geelong was the heavily backed favourite and had lost only one match for the season, but lost by 26 points; Geelong then won its next eleven matches against Hawthorn over the following five years, under a curse, which was dubbed the "Kennett curse" which was attributed to disrespectful comments made by Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett following the 2008 Grand Final. It was later revealed that after the 2008 grand final, Paul Chapman initiated a pact between other Geelong players to never lose to Hawthorn again. The curse was broken in a preliminary final in 2013, after Paul Chapman played his final match for Geelong the previous week. Hawthorn went on to win the next three premierships. In 2016 Geelong again defeated Hawthorn in the qualifying final. In twenty matches between the two sides between 2008 and 2017, twelve were decided by less than ten points, with Geelong victorious in eleven of those twelve matches.
In 1925, Geelong won their first flag over Collingwood. In 1930, Collingwood defeated Geelong in the grand final making it four flags in-a-row for the Pies. Geelong would later deny Collingwood three successive premierships in 1937, winning a famous grand final by 32 points.
The two sides played against each other in 6 finals between 1951 and 1955, including the 1952 Grand Final when Geelong easily beat Collingwood by 46 points. In 1953, Collingwood ended Geelong's record 23-game winning streak in the home and away season, and later defeated them by 12 points in the grand final, denying the Cats a third successive premiership.
Since 2007, the clubs have again both been at the top of the ladder and have met regularly in finals. Geelong won a memorable preliminary final by five points on their way to their first flag in 44 years. In 2008, Collingwood inflicted Geelong's only home-and-away loss, by a massive 86 points, but the teams did not meet in the finals. They would meet in preliminary finals in 2009 and 2010, each winning one en route to a premiership. They finally met again in a Grand Final in 2011, which Geelong won by 38 points; Geelong inflicted Collingwood's only three losses for the 2011 season.
At 98 years as of 2023, Geelong's sponsorship with the Ford Motor Company is the longest active sports sponsorship of any sports team in the world, with continuous sponsorship dating back to 1925, a record recognised by Guinness.
The Geelong reserves (also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats for sponsorship reasons) are the reserves side of the club, playing in the Victorian Football League.
Geelong's reserves side began competing in the VFL reserves, later known as the AFL reserves, in 1922. The team won thirteen premierships during that time (1923, 1924, 1930, 1937, 1938, 1948, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1975, 1980, 1981 and 1982), the most of any club.
Since the demise of the AFL reserves competition, the Geelong reserves have competed in the Victorian Football League. Unlike all other Victorian AFL clubs, Geelong has never operated in a reserves affiliation with an existing VFL club, having instead operated its stand-alone reserves team continuously. The team is composed of both reserves players from the club's primary and rookie AFL lists, and a separately maintained list of players eligible only for VFL matches. Home games are played at GMHBA Stadium, with some played as curtain-raisers to senior AFL matches.
The side is also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats, referring to the club's commercial partnership with Bendigo Bank.
In 2017, following the inaugural AFL Women's (AFLW) season, Geelong was among eight clubs that applied for licenses to enter the competition from 2019 onwards. In September 2017, the club was announced as one of two clubs, along with North Melbourne, to receive a license to join the competition in 2019. The club has also had a team in the second-tier VFL Women's league since 2017.
^ Denotes the ladder was split into two conferences. Figure refers to the club's overall finishing position in the home-and-away season.
In 2019, the team captaincy rotated through the following 5 players: Kate Darby, Danielle Higgins, Jordan Ivey, Maddy Keryk, Amy McDonald.
Sources: Club historical data Archived 4 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine and VFLW stats
During the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, Geelong supported the Yes vote.
Geelong is a supporter of the Voice to Parliament. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 reigning premiers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The club formed in 1859, making it the second-oldest club in the AFL, after Melbourne, and one of the oldest football clubs in the world.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the 1860s, Geelong participated in a series of Challenge Cup competitions, and was a foundation member of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897, now the national AFL. The club won the Western District Challenge Cup in 1875, a then-record seven VFA premierships between 1878 and 1886, and six VFL premierships by 1963, after which it experienced a 44-year waiting period until it won its next premiership, a Grand Final-record 119-point victory in 2007. Geelong won a further three premierships in 2009, 2011 and 2022.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Geelong play most of their home games at Kardinia Park (known for sponsorship reasons as GMHBA Stadium) and play the remainder at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Geelong's traditional guernsey colours are white with navy blue hoops. The club's nickname was first used in 1923 after a run of losses prompted a local cartoonist to suggest that the club needed a black cat to bring it good luck. Geelong also field teams in other competitions; a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), a senior women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and a reserves women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competitions. The club's official team song and anthem is \"We Are Geelong\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The club was founded in 1859 in the city of Geelong, Australia, and is the second oldest AFL club. It is believed to be the fourth oldest football club in Australia and one of the oldest in the world and one of the most successful. Initially playing under its own rules, some of which, notably, were permanently introduced into Australian Football, it adopted the Laws of Australian Football in the early 1860s after a series of compromises with the Melbourne Football Club.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Geelong went on to play for most of its existence in the premier competitions, the first competition, the Caledonian Society Cup, a foundation club of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897., VFL and continues in the elite Australian Football League (AFL). The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers ten times, with four in the AFL era (since 1990) in 2007, 2009, 2011, and most recently, 2022, to be the second most successful club over that period one behind Hawthorn. They have also won ten McClelland Trophies, the most of any AFL/VFL club.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Many of the club's official records before 1920 have disappeared.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Geelong's traditional navy blue and white hooped guernsey has been worn since the club's inception in the mid-1800s. The design is said to represent the white seagulls and blue water of Corio Bay.",
"title": "Club identity and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The team has worn various away guernseys since 1998, all featuring the club's logo and traditional colours.",
"title": "Club identity and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Geelong has been nicknamed the 'Cats' since 1923, when the Herald sporting local cartoonist, \"Wells\" (Samuel Garnet Wells), suggested that adopting a black cat as a mascot might bring a football club good luck in his Herald cartoon of 6 July 1923.",
"title": "Club identity and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "\"We Are Geelong\" is the song sung after a game won by the Geelong Football Club. It is sung to the tune of \"Toreador\" from Carmen. The lyrics were written by former premiership player John Watts. Only the first verse is used at matches and by the team after a victory. The song currently used by the club was recorded by the Fable Singers in April 1972.",
"title": "Club identity and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Geelong's administrative headquarters is its home stadium, GMHBA Stadium or also known as Kardinia Park. The club trains here during the season, however it also trains at its alternate training venue, the Deakin University Elite Sports Precinct. The latter features an MCG-sized oval and is used often by the club in the pre-season, when Kardinia Park is being used for other events.",
"title": "Stadium and training facilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The rivalry between Hawthorn and Geelong is defined by two Grand Finals: those of 1989 and 2008. In the 1989 Grand Final, Geelong played the man, resulting in major injuries for several Hawks players, Mark Yeates knocking out Dermott Brereton at the opening bounce; Hawthorn controlled the game, leading by approximately 40 points for most of the match; in the last quarter, Geelong almost managed to come from behind to win, but fell short by six points. In the 2008 Grand Final, Geelong was the heavily backed favourite and had lost only one match for the season, but lost by 26 points; Geelong then won its next eleven matches against Hawthorn over the following five years, under a curse, which was dubbed the \"Kennett curse\" which was attributed to disrespectful comments made by Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett following the 2008 Grand Final. It was later revealed that after the 2008 grand final, Paul Chapman initiated a pact between other Geelong players to never lose to Hawthorn again. The curse was broken in a preliminary final in 2013, after Paul Chapman played his final match for Geelong the previous week. Hawthorn went on to win the next three premierships. In 2016 Geelong again defeated Hawthorn in the qualifying final. In twenty matches between the two sides between 2008 and 2017, twelve were decided by less than ten points, with Geelong victorious in eleven of those twelve matches.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1925, Geelong won their first flag over Collingwood. In 1930, Collingwood defeated Geelong in the grand final making it four flags in-a-row for the Pies. Geelong would later deny Collingwood three successive premierships in 1937, winning a famous grand final by 32 points.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The two sides played against each other in 6 finals between 1951 and 1955, including the 1952 Grand Final when Geelong easily beat Collingwood by 46 points. In 1953, Collingwood ended Geelong's record 23-game winning streak in the home and away season, and later defeated them by 12 points in the grand final, denying the Cats a third successive premiership.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Since 2007, the clubs have again both been at the top of the ladder and have met regularly in finals. Geelong won a memorable preliminary final by five points on their way to their first flag in 44 years. In 2008, Collingwood inflicted Geelong's only home-and-away loss, by a massive 86 points, but the teams did not meet in the finals. They would meet in preliminary finals in 2009 and 2010, each winning one en route to a premiership. They finally met again in a Grand Final in 2011, which Geelong won by 38 points; Geelong inflicted Collingwood's only three losses for the 2011 season.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "At 98 years as of 2023, Geelong's sponsorship with the Ford Motor Company is the longest active sports sponsorship of any sports team in the world, with continuous sponsorship dating back to 1925, a record recognised by Guinness.",
"title": "Corporate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Geelong reserves (also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats for sponsorship reasons) are the reserves side of the club, playing in the Victorian Football League.",
"title": "Reserves team"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Geelong's reserves side began competing in the VFL reserves, later known as the AFL reserves, in 1922. The team won thirteen premierships during that time (1923, 1924, 1930, 1937, 1938, 1948, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1975, 1980, 1981 and 1982), the most of any club.",
"title": "Reserves team"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Since the demise of the AFL reserves competition, the Geelong reserves have competed in the Victorian Football League. Unlike all other Victorian AFL clubs, Geelong has never operated in a reserves affiliation with an existing VFL club, having instead operated its stand-alone reserves team continuously. The team is composed of both reserves players from the club's primary and rookie AFL lists, and a separately maintained list of players eligible only for VFL matches. Home games are played at GMHBA Stadium, with some played as curtain-raisers to senior AFL matches.",
"title": "Reserves team"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The side is also known as the Bendigo Bank Cats, referring to the club's commercial partnership with Bendigo Bank.",
"title": "Reserves team"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 2017, following the inaugural AFL Women's (AFLW) season, Geelong was among eight clubs that applied for licenses to enter the competition from 2019 onwards. In September 2017, the club was announced as one of two clubs, along with North Melbourne, to receive a license to join the competition in 2019. The club has also had a team in the second-tier VFL Women's league since 2017.",
"title": "Women's teams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "^ Denotes the ladder was split into two conferences. Figure refers to the club's overall finishing position in the home-and-away season.",
"title": "Women's teams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 2019, the team captaincy rotated through the following 5 players: Kate Darby, Danielle Higgins, Jordan Ivey, Maddy Keryk, Amy McDonald.",
"title": "Women's teams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Sources: Club historical data Archived 4 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine and VFLW stats",
"title": "Women's teams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, Geelong supported the Yes vote.",
"title": "Activism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Geelong is a supporter of the Voice to Parliament.",
"title": "Activism"
}
]
| The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 reigning premiers. The club formed in 1859, making it the second-oldest club in the AFL, after Melbourne, and one of the oldest football clubs in the world. In the 1860s, Geelong participated in a series of Challenge Cup competitions, and was a foundation member of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897, now the national AFL. The club won the Western District Challenge Cup in 1875, a then-record seven VFA premierships between 1878 and 1886, and six VFL premierships by 1963, after which it experienced a 44-year waiting period until it won its next premiership, a Grand Final-record 119-point victory in 2007. Geelong won a further three premierships in 2009, 2011 and 2022. Geelong play most of their home games at Kardinia Park and play the remainder at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Geelong's traditional guernsey colours are white with navy blue hoops. The club's nickname was first used in 1923 after a run of losses prompted a local cartoonist to suggest that the club needed a black cat to bring it good luck. Geelong also field teams in other competitions; a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), a senior women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and a reserves women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competitions. The club's official team song and anthem is "We Are Geelong". | 2002-01-11T02:37:07Z | 2023-12-13T07:16:24Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geelong_Football_Club |
13,009 | Galileo (satellite navigation) | Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that went live in 2016, created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA), operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), headquartered in Prague, Czechia, with two ground operations centres in Fucino, Italy, and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The €10 billion project is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.
One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European political and military authorities do not have to rely on the US GPS, or the Russian GLONASS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services is free and open to everyone. A fully encrypted higher-precision service is available for free to government-authorized users. Galileo is also to provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system.
The first Galileo test satellite GIOVE-A was launched 28 December 2005, while the first satellite to be part of the operational system was launched on 21 October 2011. Galileo started offering Early Operational Capability (EOC) on 15 December 2016, providing initial services with a weak signal. In October 2018, four more Galileo satellites were brought online, increasing the number of active satellites to 18. In November 2018, FCC approves use of Galileo in the US. As of December 2023, there are 23 launched satellites that operate in the constellation, five are not available. It is expected that the next generation of satellites will begin to become operational after 2025 to replace older equipment, which can then be used for backup capabilities.
The Galileo system has a greater accuracy than GPS, having an accuracy of less than 1 m when using broadcast ephemeris (GPS: 3 m) and a signal-in-space ranging error (SISRE) of 1.6 cm (GPS: 2.3 cm, GLONASS and BeiDou: 4–6 cm) when using real-time corrections for satellite orbits and clocks.
In 1999, the different concepts of the three main contributors of the ESA (Germany, France and Italy) for Galileo were compared and reduced to one by a joint team of engineers from all three countries. The first stage of the Galileo programme was agreed upon officially on 26 May 2003 by the European Union and the European Space Agency. The system is intended primarily for civilian use, unlike the more military-oriented systems of the United States (GPS), Russia (GLONASS) and China (BeiDou). The European system will only be subject to shutdown for military purposes in extreme circumstances (such as an armed conflict). Italy and Germany led the development of the first generation of the Galileo programme, while France is playing a more prominent role in the development of the Galileo Second Generation (G2G).
The European Commission had some difficulty funding the project's next stage, after several allegedly "per annum" sales projection graphs for the project were exposed in November 2001 as "cumulative" projections, which for each year projected included all previous years of sales. The attention that was brought to this multi-billion euro growing error in sales forecasts resulted in a general awareness in the commission and elsewhere that it was unlikely that the programme would yield the return on investment that had previously been suggested to investors and decision-makers. On 17 January 2002, a spokesman for the project stated that, as a result of US pressure and economic difficulties, "Galileo is almost dead".
A few months later, however, the situation changed dramatically. European Union member states decided it was important to have a satellite-based positioning and timing infrastructure that the US could not easily turn off in times of political conflict.
The European Union and the European Space Agency agreed in March 2002 to fund the project, pending a review in 2003 (which was completed on 26 May 2003). The starting cost for the period ending in 2005 is estimated at €1.1 billion. The required satellites (the planned number is 30) were to be launched between 2011 and 2014, with the system up and running and under civilian control from 2019. The final cost is estimated at €3 billion, including the infrastructure on Earth, constructed in 2006 and 2007. The plan was for private companies and investors to invest at least two-thirds of the cost of implementation, with the EU and ESA dividing the remaining cost. The base Open Service is to be available without charge to anyone with a Galileo-compatible receiver, with an encrypted higher-bandwidth improved-precision Commercial Service originally planned to be available at a cost, but in February 2018 the high accuracy service (HAS) (providing Precise Point Positioning data on the E6 frequency) was agreed to be made freely available, with the authentication service remaining commercial. By early 2011 costs for the project had run 50% over initial estimates.
Galileo is intended to be an EU civilian GNSS that allows all users access to it. Initially GPS reserved the highest quality signal for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded (Selective Availability). This changed with President Bill Clinton signing a policy directive in 1996 to turn off Selective Availability. Since May 2000 the same precision signal has been provided to both civilians and the military.
Since Galileo was designed to provide the highest possible precision (greater than GPS) to anyone, the US was concerned that an enemy could use Galileo signals in military strikes against the US and its allies (some weapons like missiles use GNSSs for guidance). The frequency initially chosen for Galileo would have made it impossible for the US to block the Galileo signals without also interfering with its own GPS signals. The US did not want to lose their GNSS capability with GPS while denying enemies the use of GNSS. Some US officials became especially concerned when Chinese interest in Galileo was reported.
An anonymous EU official claimed that the US officials implied that they might consider shooting down Galileo satellites in the event of a major conflict in which Galileo was used in attacks against American forces. The EU's stance is that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and everyone. At first, EU officials did not want to change their original plans for Galileo, but they have since reached the compromise that Galileo is to use different frequencies. This allows the blocking or jamming of either GNSS without affecting the other.
One of the reasons given for developing Galileo as an independent system was that position information from GPS can be made significantly inaccurate by the deliberate application of universal selective availability (SA) by the US military. GPS is widely used worldwide for civilian applications; Galileo's proponents argued that civil infrastructure, including aircraft navigation and landing, should not rely solely upon a system with this vulnerability.
On 2 May 2000, the selective availability was disabled by the President of the United States, Bill Clinton; in late 2001 the entity managing the GPS confirmed that it did not intend to enable selective availability ever again. Though Selective Availability capability still exists, on 19 September 2007 the US Department of Defense announced that newer GPS satellites would not be capable of implementing Selective Availability; the wave of Block IIF satellites launched in 2009, and all subsequent GPS satellites, are stated not to support selective availability. As old satellites are replaced in the GPS Block III programme, selective availability will cease to be an option. The modernisation programme also contains standardised features that allow GPS III and Galileo systems to inter-operate, allowing receivers to be developed to utilise GPS and Galileo together to create an even more accurate GNSS.
In June 2004, in a signed agreement with the United States, the European Union agreed to switch to a binary offset carrier modulation 1.1, or BOC(1,1), allowing the coexistence of both GPS and Galileo, and the future combined use of both systems. The European Union also agreed to address the "mutual concerns related to the protection of allied and US national security capabilities".
The first experimental satellite, GIOVE-A, was launched in December 2005 and was followed by a second test satellite, GIOVE-B, launched in April 2008. After successful completion of the In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase, additional satellites were launched. On 30 November 2007, the 27 EU transport ministers involved reached an agreement that Galileo should be operational by 2013, but later press releases suggest it was delayed to 2014.
In mid-2006, the public-private partnership fell apart, and the European Commission decided to nationalise the Galileo programme.
In early 2007, the EU had yet to decide how to pay for the system and the project was said to be "in deep crisis" due to lack of more public funds. German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee was particularly doubtful about the consortium's ability to end the infighting at a time when only one testbed satellite had been successfully launched.
Although a decision was yet to be reached, on 13 July 2007 EU countries discussed cutting €548 million (US$755 million, £370 million) from the union's competitiveness budget for the following year and shifting some of these funds to other parts of the financing pot, a move that could meet part of the cost of the union's Galileo satellite navigation system. European Union research and development projects could be scrapped to overcome a funding shortfall.
In November 2007, it was agreed to reallocate funds from the EU's agriculture and administration budgets and to soften the tendering process in order to invite more EU companies.
In April 2008, the EU transport ministers approved the Galileo Implementation Regulation. This allowed the €3.4 billion to be released from the EU's agriculture and administration budgets to allow the issuing of contracts to start construction of the ground station and the satellites.
In June 2009, the European Court of Auditors published a report, pointing out governance issues, substantial delays and budget overruns that led to project stalling in 2007, leading to further delays and failures.
In October 2009, the European Commission cut the number of satellites definitively planned from 28 to 22, with plans to order the remaining six at a later time. It also announced that the first OS, PRS and SoL signal would be available in 2013, and the CS and SOL some time later. The €3.4 billion budget for the 2006–2013 period was considered insufficient. In 2010, the think-tank Open Europe estimated the total cost of Galileo from start to 20 years after completion at €22.2 billion, borne entirely by taxpayers. Under the original estimates made in 2000, this cost would have been €7.7 billion, with €2.6 billion borne by taxpayers and the rest by private investors.
In November 2009, a ground station for Galileo was inaugurated near Kourou (French Guiana). The launch of the first four in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites was planned for the second half of 2011, and the launch of full operational capability (FOC) satellites was planned to start in late 2012.
In March 2010, it was verified that the budget for Galileo would only be available to provide the 4 IOV and 14 FOC satellites by 2014, with no funds then committed to bring the constellation above this 60% capacity. Paul Verhoef, the satellite navigation program manager at the European Commission, indicated that this limited funding would have serious consequences commenting at one point "To give you an idea, that would mean that for three weeks in the year you will not have satellite navigation" in reference to the proposed 18-vehicle constellation.
In July 2010, the European Commission estimated further delays and additional costs of the project to grow up to €1.5–1.7 billion, and moved the estimated date of completion to 2018. After completion the system will need to be subsidised by governments at €750 million per year. An additional €1.9 billion was planned to be spent bringing the system up to the full complement of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares).
In December 2010, EU ministers in Brussels voted Prague, in the Czech Republic, as the headquarters of the Galileo project.
In January 2011, infrastructure costs up to 2020 were estimated at €5.3 billion. In that same month, Wikileaks revealed that Berry Smutny, the CEO of the German satellite company OHB-System, said that Galileo "is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests". The BBC learned in 2011 that €500 million (£440 million) would become available to make the extra purchase, taking Galileo within a few years from 18 operational satellites to 24.
The first two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites were launched by Soyuz ST-B flown from Centre Spatial Guyanais on 21 October 2011, and the remaining two on 12 October 2012. As of 2017, the satellites are fully useful for precise positioning and geodesy with a limited usability in navigation.
Twenty-two further satellites with Full Operational Capability (FOC) were on order as of 1 January 2018. The first four pairs of satellites were launched on 22 August 2014, 27 March 2015, 11 September 2015 and 17 December 2015.
In January 2017, news agencies reported that six of the passive hydrogen masers (PHM) and three of the rubidium atomic clocks (RAFS) had failed. Four of the full operational satellites have each lost at least one clock; but no satellite has lost more than two. The operation has not been affected as each satellite is launched with four clocks (2 PHM and 2 RAFS). The possibility of a systemic flaw is being considered. SpectraTime, the Swiss producer of both on-board clock types, declined to comment. According to ESA, they concluded with their industrial partners for the rubidium atomic clocks that some implemented testing and operational measures were required. Additionally some refurbishment is required for the rubidium atomic clocks that still have to be launched. For the passive hydrogen masers operational measures are being studied to reduce the risk of failure. China and India use the same SpectraTime-built atomic clocks in their satellite navigation systems. ESA has contacted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who initially reported not having experienced similar failures. However, at the end of January 2017, Indian news outlets reported that all three clocks aboard the IRNSS-1A satellite (launched in July 2013 with a 10-year life expectancy) had failed and that a replacement satellite would be launched in the second half of 2017: these atomic clocks were said to be supplied under a four-million-euro deal.
In July 2017, the European Commission reported that the main causes of the malfunctions have been identified and measures have been put in place to reduce the possibility of further malfunctions of the satellites already in space. According to European sources, ESA took measures to correct both identified sets of problems by replacing a faulty component that can cause a short circuit in the rubidium clocks and improve the passive hydrogen maser clocks as well on satellites still to be launched.
From 11 July till 18 July 2019, the whole constellation experienced an "unexplained" signal outage with all active satellites showing "NOT USABLE" status on the Galileo status page. The cause of the incident was an equipment malfunction in the Galileo ground infrastructure that affected the calculation of time and orbit predictions.
On 14 December 2020, starting at 0:00 UTC, Galileo experienced a system-wide performance degradation lasting for 6 hours. GNSS receivers ignoring a 'marginal' status flag in the Galileo data could have experienced a pseudorange error of up to almost 80 km. The problem was related to an abnormal behaviour of a ground segment atomic clock in the time determination function of the system. In the parallel functioning Precise Timing Facilities in the Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen Galileo Control Centres an issue occurred in Fucino whilst maintenance was performed on the parallel system in Oberpfaffenhofen.
In September 2003, China joined the Galileo project. China was to invest €230 million (US$302 million, £155 million, CNY 2.34 billion) in the project over the following years.
In July 2004, Israel signed an agreement with the EU to become a partner in the Galileo project.
On 3 June 2005, the European Union and Ukraine signed an agreement for Ukraine to join the project, as noted in a press release. As of November 2005, Morocco also joined the programme.
In September 2005, India signed an agreement with the EU to join the project.
In mid-2006, the public–private partnership fell apart and the European Commission decided to nationalise Galileo as an EU programme. In November 2006, China opted instead to upgrade BeiDou navigation system, its then-regional satellite navigation system. The decision was due to security concerns and issues with Galileo financing.
On 30 November 2007, the 27 member states of the European Union unanimously agreed to move forward with the project, with plans for bases in Germany and Italy. Spain did not approve during the initial vote, but approved it later that day. This greatly improved the viability of the Galileo project: "The EU's executive had previously said that if agreement was not reached by January 2008, the long-troubled project would essentially be dead".
On 3 April 2009, Norway too joined the programme pledging €68.9 million toward development costs and allowing its companies to bid for the construction contracts. Norway, while not a member of the EU, is a member of ESA.
On 18 December 2013, Switzerland signed a cooperation agreement to fully participate in the program, and retroactively contributed €80 million for the period 2008–2013. As a member of ESA, it already collaborated in the development of the Galileo satellites, contributing the hydrogen-maser clocks. Switzerland's financial commitment for the period 2014–2020 will be calculated in accordance with the standard formula applied for the Swiss participation in the EU research Framework Programme.
In March 2018, the European Commission announced that the United Kingdom may be excluded from parts of the project (especially relating to the secured service PRS) following its exit from the European Union (EU). As a result, Airbus was to relocate work on the Ground Control Segment (GCS) from its Portsmouth premises to an EU state. British officials have been reported to be seeking legal advice on whether they can reclaim the €1.4 billion invested by the United Kingdom, of the €10 billion spent to date. In a speech at the EU Institute for Security Studies conference, the EU Chief Negotiator in charge of the Brexit negotiations, Michel Barnier, stressed the EU position that the UK had decided to leave the EU and thus all EU programmes, including Galileo. In August 2018, the UK stated that it would look into creating a competing satellite navigation system to Galileo post-Brexit. In December 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the UK would no longer seek to reclaim the investment, and Science Minister Sam Gyimah resigned over the matter.
As of 2012, the system was scheduled to have 15 satellites operational in 2015 and reach full operation in 2020 with the following specifications:
The system's orbit and signal accuracy is controlled by a ground segment consisting of:
The system transmits three signals: E1 (1575.42 MHz), E5 (1191.795 MHz) consisting of E5a (1176.45 MHz) and E5b (1207.14 MHz), and E6 (1278.75 MHz):
The Galileo system will have four main services:
The European GNSS Service Centre provides public quarterly performance reports regarding the Open Service and Search and Rescue Service since 2017. Generally, the reported performance parameters measurements surpass the target values. The Galileo April, May, June 2021 Quarterly Open Service Performance Report by the European GNSS Service Centre reported the UTC Time Dissemination Service Accuracy was ≤ 4.3 nanoseconds, computed by accumulating samples over the previous 12 months and exceeding the ≤ 30 ns target value. The Signal In Space Error (SISE) was also well within the ≤ 2 m (6 ft 7 in) target value for Single and (more accurate) Dual Frequency receivers. The Galileo navigation message includes the differences between Galileo System Time (GST), UTC and GPS Time (GPST) (to promote interoperability). The Galileo April, May, June 2021 Quarterly Search and Rescue Service Performance Report by the European GNSS Service Centre reported the various performance parameters measurements surpassed their target values.
Each Galileo satellite has two master passive hydrogen maser atomic clocks and two secondary rubidium atomic clocks which are independent of one other. As precise and stable space-qualified atomic clocks are critical components to any satellite-navigation system, the employed quadruple redundancy keeps Galileo functioning when onboard atomic clocks fail in space. The onboard passive hydrogen maser clocks' precision is four times better than the onboard rubidium atomic clocks and estimated at 1 second per 3 million years (a timing error of a nanosecond or 1 billionth of a second (10 or 1⁄1,000,000,000 second) translates into a 30 cm positional error on Earth's surface), and will provide an accurate timing signal to allow a receiver to calculate the time that it takes the signal to reach it. The Galileo satellites are configured to run one hydrogen maser clock in primary mode and a rubidium clock as hot backup. Under normal conditions, the operating hydrogen maser clock produces the reference frequency from which the navigation signal is generated. Should the hydrogen maser encounter any problem, an instantaneous switchover to the rubidium clock would be performed. In case of a failure of the primary hydrogen maser the secondary hydrogen maser could be activated by the ground segment to take over within a period of days as part of the redundant system. A clock monitoring and control unit provides the interface between the four clocks and the navigation signal generator unit (NSU). It passes the signal from the active hydrogen master clock to the NSU and also ensures that the frequencies produced by the master clock and the active spare are in phase, so that the spare can take over instantly should the master clock fail. The NSU information is used to calculate the position of the receiver by trilaterating the difference in received signals from multiple satellites.
The onboard passive hydrogen maser and rubidium clocks are very stable over a few hours. If they were left to run indefinitely, though, their timekeeping would drift, so they need to be synchronized regularly with a network of even more stable ground-based reference clocks. These include active hydrogen maser clocks and clocks based on the caesium frequency standard, which show a far better medium and long-term stability than rubidium or passive hydrogen maser clocks. These clocks on the ground are gathered together within the parallel functioning Precise Timing Facilities in the Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen Galileo Control Centres. The ground based clocks also generate a worldwide time reference called Galileo System Time (GST), the standard for the Galileo system and are routinely compared to the local realisations of UTC, the UTC(k) of the European frequency and time laboratories.
For more information of the concept of global satellite navigation systems, see GNSS and GNSS positioning calculation.
The European GNSS Service Centre (GSC), located in Madrid, is an integral part of Galileo and provides the single interface between the Galileo system and Galileo users. GSC publishes Galileo official documentation, promotes Galileo current and future services worldwide, supports standardisation and distributes Galileo almanacs, ephemeris and metadata.
The GSC User Helpdesk is the point of contact for Galileo user's assistance. GSC answers queries and gathers incident notifications from users on Galileo. The helpdesk is continuously available for all worldwide Galileo users through the GSC web portal.
GSC provides updated Galileo constellation status and informs on planned and unplanned events through Notice Advisory to Galileo Users (NAGU). GSC publishes Galileo reference documentation and general information on Galileo services and signals description and Galileo performance reports.
Galileo provides a global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system. Like Russia's Glonass, the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, and some Chinese BeiDou satellites, Galileo satellites are equipped with a transponder which relays 406 MHz distress frequency signals from emergency beacons by a Forward Link Service (FLS) to the Rescue coordination centre, which will then initiate a rescue operation. After receipt of an emergency beacon signal, the Galileo SAR system provides a signal, the Return Link Message (RLM), to the emergency beacon, informing the person(s) in distress that the activated beacon has been detected and help is on the way. This return message feature is new in a satellite constellation and is considered a major upgrade compared to the existing Cospas-Sarsat system, which up to then did not provide feedback to the user. Tests in February 2014 found that for Galileo's search and rescue function, operating as part of the existing International Cospas-Sarsat Programme, 77% of simulated distress locations can be pinpointed within 2 kilometres (1.2 mi), and 95% within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi). The Galileo Return Link Service (RLS) went live in January 2020 for all RLS capable emergency beacons.
In 2004, the Galileo System Test Bed Version 1 (GSTB-V1) project validated the on-ground algorithms for Orbit Determination and Time Synchronisation (OD&TS). This project, led by ESA and European Satellite Navigation Industries, has provided industry with fundamental knowledge to develop the mission segment of the Galileo positioning system.
A third satellite, GIOVE-A2, was originally planned to be built by SSTL for launch in the second half of 2008. Construction of GIOVE-A2 was terminated due to the successful launch and in-orbit operation of GIOVE-B.
The GIOVE Mission segment operated by European Satellite Navigation Industries used the GIOVE-A/B satellites to provide experimental results based on real data to be used for risk mitigation for the IOV satellites that followed on from the testbeds. ESA organised the global network of ground stations to collect the measurements of GIOVE-A/B with the use of the GETR receivers for further systematic study. GETR receivers are supplied by Septentrio as well as the first Galileo navigation receivers to be used to test the functioning of the system at further stages of its deployment. Signal analysis of GIOVE-A/B data confirmed successful operation of all the Galileo signals with the tracking performance as expected.
These testbed satellites were followed by four IOV Galileo satellites that are much closer to the final Galileo satellite design. The search and rescue (SAR) feature is also installed. The first two satellites were launched on 21 October 2011 from Centre Spatial Guyanais using a Soyuz launcher, the other two on 12 October 2012. This enables key validation tests, since earth-based receivers such as those in cars and phones need to "see" a minimum of four satellites in order to calculate their position in three dimensions. Those 4 IOV Galileo satellites were constructed by Astrium GmbH and Thales Alenia Space. On 12 March 2013, a first fix was performed using those four IOV satellites. Once this In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase has been completed, the remaining satellites will be installed to reach the Full Operational Capability.
On 7 January 2010, it was announced that the contract to build the first 14 FOC satellites was awarded to OHB System and for the navigation payload to Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). The first batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as "Batch-1" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM1 to Galileo-FOC FM14 satellites. Fourteen satellites were built at a cost of €566 million (£510 million; US$811 million). Arianespace will launch the satellites for a cost of €397 million (£358 million; US$569 million). The European Commission also announced that the €85 million contract for system support covering industrial services required by ESA for integration and validation of the Galileo system had been awarded to Thales Alenia Space. Thales Alenia Space subcontract performances to Astrium GmbH and security to Thales Communications.
In February 2012, an additional order of 8 FOC satellites was awarded to OHB Systems for €250 million (US$327 million), after outbidding EADS Astrium tender offer. The second batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as "Batch-2" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM15 to Galileo-FOC FM22 satellites. Thus bringing the total to 22 FOC satellites. The satellites were built by OHB, with the contribution of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL).
In June and October 2017, two additional orders for 8 and 4 FOC satellites were awarded to OHB Systems for €324 million and €157.75 million. This third and final batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as "Batch-3" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM23 to Galileo-FOC FM34 satellites. The satellites are being built by OHB in Bremen, Germany, with the contribution of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) in Guildford, United Kingdom. When completed Batch-3 brings the total to 34 FOC satellites.
On 7 May 2014, the first two FOC satellites landed in Guyana for their joint launch planned in summer Originally planned for launch during 2013, problems tooling and establishing the production line for assembly led to a delay of a year in serial production of Galileo satellites. These two satellites (Galileo satellites GSAT-201 and GSAT-202) were launched on 22 August 2014. The names of these satellites are Doresa and Milena named after European children who had previously won a drawing contest. On 23 August 2014, launch service provider Arianespace announced that the flight VS09 experienced an anomaly and the satellites were injected into an incorrect orbit. They ended up in elliptical orbits and thus could not be used for navigation. However, it was later possible to use them to perform a physics experiment, so they were not a complete loss.
Satellites GSAT-203 (Adam) and GSAT-204 (Anastasia) were launched successfully on 27 March 2015 from Guiana Space Centre using a Soyuz four stage launcher.
Satellites GSAT-205 (Alba) and GSAT-206 (Oriana) were launched successfully on 11 September 2015 from Guiana Space Centre using a Soyuz four stage launcher.
Satellites GSAT-208 (Liene) and GSAT-209 (Andriana) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, using the Soyuz four stage launcher on 17 December 2015.
Satellites GSAT-210 (Daniele) and GSAT-211 (Alizée) were launched on 24 May 2016.
Starting in November 2016, deployment of the last twelve satellites will use a modified Ariane 5 launcher, named Ariane 5 ES, capable of placing four Galileo satellites into orbit per launch.
Satellites GSAT-207 (Antonianna), GSAT-212 (Lisa), GSAT-213 (Kimberley), GSAT-214 (Tijmen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 17 November 2016 on an Ariane 5 ES.
On 15 December 2016, Galileo started offering Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The services currently offered are Open Service, Public Regulated Service and Search and Rescue Service.
The first Batch-2 satellites GSAT-215 (Nicole), GSAT-216 (Zofia), GSAT-217 (Alexandre), GSAT-218 (Irina) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 12 December 2017 on an Ariane 5 ES.
Satellites GSAT-219 (Tara), GSAT-220 (Samuel), GSAT-221 (Anna), GSAT-222 (Ellen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 25 July 2018 on an Ariane 5 ES.
The first Batch-3 satellites GSAT-223 (Nikolina) and GSAT-224 (Shriya) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 5 December 2021 on a Soyuz four stage launcher.
Shriya successfully joined the constellation on 29 August 2022.
As of 2014, ESA and its industry partners have begun studies on Galileo Second Generation (G2G) satellites, which were to be presented to the EC for the late 2020s launch period. One idea was to employ electric propulsion, which would eliminate the need for an upper stage during launch and allow satellites from a single batch to be inserted into more than one orbital plane. The new generation satellites are expected to be available by 2025. and serve to augment the existing network. On 20 January 2021, the European Commission announced that it had awarded a €1.47 billion contract to Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and Airbus Defence and Space for 6 spacecraft by each manufacturer. The signing of the contracts to Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space, scheduled on 29 January 2021, was suspended by the European Court of Justice following a protest filed by OHB SE, the losing bidder. The OHB protest at the ECJ's General Court is based on “allegations of theft of trade secrets”, and seeks both a suspension of the contract signatures and the cancellation of the contract award. In May 2021 ESA reported it signed the contracts to design and build the first batch of Galileo Second Generation (G2G) satellites with Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space. The 12 G2G satellites will feature electric propulsion, enhanced navigation signals and capabilities, inter-satellite links and reconfigurability in space.
In July 2006, an international consortium of universities and research institutions embarked on a study of potential scientific applications of the Galileo constellation. This project, named GEO6, is a broad study oriented to the general scientific community, aiming to define and implement new applications of Galileo.
Among the various GNSS users identified by the Galileo Joint Undertaking, the GEO6, project addresses the Scientific User Community (UC). The GEO6 project aims at fostering possible novel applications within the scientific UC of GNSS signals, and particularly of Galileo.
The AGILE project is an EU-funded project devoted to the study of the technical and commercial aspects of location-based services (LBS). It includes technical analysis of the benefits brought by Galileo (and EGNOS) and studies the hybridisation of Galileo with other positioning technologies (network-based, WLAN, etc.). Within these projects, some pilot prototypes were implemented and demonstrated.
On the basis of the potential number of users, potential revenues for Galileo Operating Company or Concessionaire (GOC), international relevance, and level of innovation, a set of Priority Applications (PA) will be selected by the consortium and developed within the time-frame of the same project.
These applications will help to increase and optimise the use of the EGNOS services and the opportunities offered by the Galileo Signal Test-Bed (GSTB-V2) and the Galileo (IOV) phase.
All Galileo satellites are equipped with laser retroreflector arrays which allow them to be tracked by the stations of the International Laser Ranging Service. Satellite laser ranging to Galileo satellites are used for the validation of satellite orbits, determination of Earth rotation parameters and for the combined solutions incorporating laser and microwave observations.
All major GNSS receiver chips support Galileo and hundreds of end-user devices are compatible with Galileo. The first, dual-frequency-GNSS-capable Android devices, which track more than one radio signal from each satellite, E1 and E5a frequencies for Galileo, were the Huawei Mate 20 line, Xiaomi Mi 8, Xiaomi Mi 9 and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3. As of July 2019, there were more than 140 Galileo-enabled smartphones on the market of which 9 were dual-frequency enabled. An extensive list of enabled devices, for various uses, on land, sea and in air is frequently updated at the EU website. On 24 December 2018, the European Commission passed a mandate for all new smartphones to implement Galileo for E112 support.
Effective from 1st April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an accident.
Until late 2018, Galileo was not authorized for use in the United States and, as a consequence, only variably worked on devices that could receive Galileo signals, within United States territory. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) position on the matter was (and remains) that non-GPS radio navigation satellite systems (RNSS) receivers must be granted a licence to receive said signals. A waiver of this requirement for Galileo was requested by the EU and submitted in 2015, and on 6 January 2017, public comment on the matter was requested. On 15 November 2018, the FCC granted the requested waiver, explicitly allowing non-federal consumer devices to access Galileo E1 and E5 frequencies. However, most devices, including smartphones still require operating system updates or similar updates to allow the use of Galileo signals within the United States (most smartphones since the Apple iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy S7 have the hardware capability, and simply require a software modification).
The European Satellite Navigation project was selected as the main motif of a very high-value collectors' coin: the Austrian European Satellite Navigation commemorative coin, minted on 1 March 2006. The coin has a silver ring and gold-brown niobium "pill". In the reverse, the niobium portion depicts navigation satellites orbiting the Earth. The ring shows different modes of transport, for which satellite navigation was developed: an aircraft, a car, a lorry, a train and a container ship. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that went live in 2016, created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA), operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), headquartered in Prague, Czechia, with two ground operations centres in Fucino, Italy, and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The €10 billion project is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European political and military authorities do not have to rely on the US GPS, or the Russian GLONASS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services is free and open to everyone. A fully encrypted higher-precision service is available for free to government-authorized users. Galileo is also to provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The first Galileo test satellite GIOVE-A was launched 28 December 2005, while the first satellite to be part of the operational system was launched on 21 October 2011. Galileo started offering Early Operational Capability (EOC) on 15 December 2016, providing initial services with a weak signal. In October 2018, four more Galileo satellites were brought online, increasing the number of active satellites to 18. In November 2018, FCC approves use of Galileo in the US. As of December 2023, there are 23 launched satellites that operate in the constellation, five are not available. It is expected that the next generation of satellites will begin to become operational after 2025 to replace older equipment, which can then be used for backup capabilities.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Galileo system has a greater accuracy than GPS, having an accuracy of less than 1 m when using broadcast ephemeris (GPS: 3 m) and a signal-in-space ranging error (SISRE) of 1.6 cm (GPS: 2.3 cm, GLONASS and BeiDou: 4–6 cm) when using real-time corrections for satellite orbits and clocks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1999, the different concepts of the three main contributors of the ESA (Germany, France and Italy) for Galileo were compared and reduced to one by a joint team of engineers from all three countries. The first stage of the Galileo programme was agreed upon officially on 26 May 2003 by the European Union and the European Space Agency. The system is intended primarily for civilian use, unlike the more military-oriented systems of the United States (GPS), Russia (GLONASS) and China (BeiDou). The European system will only be subject to shutdown for military purposes in extreme circumstances (such as an armed conflict). Italy and Germany led the development of the first generation of the Galileo programme, while France is playing a more prominent role in the development of the Galileo Second Generation (G2G).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The European Commission had some difficulty funding the project's next stage, after several allegedly \"per annum\" sales projection graphs for the project were exposed in November 2001 as \"cumulative\" projections, which for each year projected included all previous years of sales. The attention that was brought to this multi-billion euro growing error in sales forecasts resulted in a general awareness in the commission and elsewhere that it was unlikely that the programme would yield the return on investment that had previously been suggested to investors and decision-makers. On 17 January 2002, a spokesman for the project stated that, as a result of US pressure and economic difficulties, \"Galileo is almost dead\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A few months later, however, the situation changed dramatically. European Union member states decided it was important to have a satellite-based positioning and timing infrastructure that the US could not easily turn off in times of political conflict.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The European Union and the European Space Agency agreed in March 2002 to fund the project, pending a review in 2003 (which was completed on 26 May 2003). The starting cost for the period ending in 2005 is estimated at €1.1 billion. The required satellites (the planned number is 30) were to be launched between 2011 and 2014, with the system up and running and under civilian control from 2019. The final cost is estimated at €3 billion, including the infrastructure on Earth, constructed in 2006 and 2007. The plan was for private companies and investors to invest at least two-thirds of the cost of implementation, with the EU and ESA dividing the remaining cost. The base Open Service is to be available without charge to anyone with a Galileo-compatible receiver, with an encrypted higher-bandwidth improved-precision Commercial Service originally planned to be available at a cost, but in February 2018 the high accuracy service (HAS) (providing Precise Point Positioning data on the E6 frequency) was agreed to be made freely available, with the authentication service remaining commercial. By early 2011 costs for the project had run 50% over initial estimates.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Galileo is intended to be an EU civilian GNSS that allows all users access to it. Initially GPS reserved the highest quality signal for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded (Selective Availability). This changed with President Bill Clinton signing a policy directive in 1996 to turn off Selective Availability. Since May 2000 the same precision signal has been provided to both civilians and the military.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Since Galileo was designed to provide the highest possible precision (greater than GPS) to anyone, the US was concerned that an enemy could use Galileo signals in military strikes against the US and its allies (some weapons like missiles use GNSSs for guidance). The frequency initially chosen for Galileo would have made it impossible for the US to block the Galileo signals without also interfering with its own GPS signals. The US did not want to lose their GNSS capability with GPS while denying enemies the use of GNSS. Some US officials became especially concerned when Chinese interest in Galileo was reported.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "An anonymous EU official claimed that the US officials implied that they might consider shooting down Galileo satellites in the event of a major conflict in which Galileo was used in attacks against American forces. The EU's stance is that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and everyone. At first, EU officials did not want to change their original plans for Galileo, but they have since reached the compromise that Galileo is to use different frequencies. This allows the blocking or jamming of either GNSS without affecting the other.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "One of the reasons given for developing Galileo as an independent system was that position information from GPS can be made significantly inaccurate by the deliberate application of universal selective availability (SA) by the US military. GPS is widely used worldwide for civilian applications; Galileo's proponents argued that civil infrastructure, including aircraft navigation and landing, should not rely solely upon a system with this vulnerability.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "On 2 May 2000, the selective availability was disabled by the President of the United States, Bill Clinton; in late 2001 the entity managing the GPS confirmed that it did not intend to enable selective availability ever again. Though Selective Availability capability still exists, on 19 September 2007 the US Department of Defense announced that newer GPS satellites would not be capable of implementing Selective Availability; the wave of Block IIF satellites launched in 2009, and all subsequent GPS satellites, are stated not to support selective availability. As old satellites are replaced in the GPS Block III programme, selective availability will cease to be an option. The modernisation programme also contains standardised features that allow GPS III and Galileo systems to inter-operate, allowing receivers to be developed to utilise GPS and Galileo together to create an even more accurate GNSS.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In June 2004, in a signed agreement with the United States, the European Union agreed to switch to a binary offset carrier modulation 1.1, or BOC(1,1), allowing the coexistence of both GPS and Galileo, and the future combined use of both systems. The European Union also agreed to address the \"mutual concerns related to the protection of allied and US national security capabilities\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The first experimental satellite, GIOVE-A, was launched in December 2005 and was followed by a second test satellite, GIOVE-B, launched in April 2008. After successful completion of the In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase, additional satellites were launched. On 30 November 2007, the 27 EU transport ministers involved reached an agreement that Galileo should be operational by 2013, but later press releases suggest it was delayed to 2014.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In mid-2006, the public-private partnership fell apart, and the European Commission decided to nationalise the Galileo programme.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In early 2007, the EU had yet to decide how to pay for the system and the project was said to be \"in deep crisis\" due to lack of more public funds. German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee was particularly doubtful about the consortium's ability to end the infighting at a time when only one testbed satellite had been successfully launched.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Although a decision was yet to be reached, on 13 July 2007 EU countries discussed cutting €548 million (US$755 million, £370 million) from the union's competitiveness budget for the following year and shifting some of these funds to other parts of the financing pot, a move that could meet part of the cost of the union's Galileo satellite navigation system. European Union research and development projects could be scrapped to overcome a funding shortfall.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In November 2007, it was agreed to reallocate funds from the EU's agriculture and administration budgets and to soften the tendering process in order to invite more EU companies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In April 2008, the EU transport ministers approved the Galileo Implementation Regulation. This allowed the €3.4 billion to be released from the EU's agriculture and administration budgets to allow the issuing of contracts to start construction of the ground station and the satellites.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In June 2009, the European Court of Auditors published a report, pointing out governance issues, substantial delays and budget overruns that led to project stalling in 2007, leading to further delays and failures.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In October 2009, the European Commission cut the number of satellites definitively planned from 28 to 22, with plans to order the remaining six at a later time. It also announced that the first OS, PRS and SoL signal would be available in 2013, and the CS and SOL some time later. The €3.4 billion budget for the 2006–2013 period was considered insufficient. In 2010, the think-tank Open Europe estimated the total cost of Galileo from start to 20 years after completion at €22.2 billion, borne entirely by taxpayers. Under the original estimates made in 2000, this cost would have been €7.7 billion, with €2.6 billion borne by taxpayers and the rest by private investors.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In November 2009, a ground station for Galileo was inaugurated near Kourou (French Guiana). The launch of the first four in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites was planned for the second half of 2011, and the launch of full operational capability (FOC) satellites was planned to start in late 2012.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In March 2010, it was verified that the budget for Galileo would only be available to provide the 4 IOV and 14 FOC satellites by 2014, with no funds then committed to bring the constellation above this 60% capacity. Paul Verhoef, the satellite navigation program manager at the European Commission, indicated that this limited funding would have serious consequences commenting at one point \"To give you an idea, that would mean that for three weeks in the year you will not have satellite navigation\" in reference to the proposed 18-vehicle constellation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In July 2010, the European Commission estimated further delays and additional costs of the project to grow up to €1.5–1.7 billion, and moved the estimated date of completion to 2018. After completion the system will need to be subsidised by governments at €750 million per year. An additional €1.9 billion was planned to be spent bringing the system up to the full complement of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In December 2010, EU ministers in Brussels voted Prague, in the Czech Republic, as the headquarters of the Galileo project.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In January 2011, infrastructure costs up to 2020 were estimated at €5.3 billion. In that same month, Wikileaks revealed that Berry Smutny, the CEO of the German satellite company OHB-System, said that Galileo \"is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests\". The BBC learned in 2011 that €500 million (£440 million) would become available to make the extra purchase, taking Galileo within a few years from 18 operational satellites to 24.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The first two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites were launched by Soyuz ST-B flown from Centre Spatial Guyanais on 21 October 2011, and the remaining two on 12 October 2012. As of 2017, the satellites are fully useful for precise positioning and geodesy with a limited usability in navigation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Twenty-two further satellites with Full Operational Capability (FOC) were on order as of 1 January 2018. The first four pairs of satellites were launched on 22 August 2014, 27 March 2015, 11 September 2015 and 17 December 2015.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In January 2017, news agencies reported that six of the passive hydrogen masers (PHM) and three of the rubidium atomic clocks (RAFS) had failed. Four of the full operational satellites have each lost at least one clock; but no satellite has lost more than two. The operation has not been affected as each satellite is launched with four clocks (2 PHM and 2 RAFS). The possibility of a systemic flaw is being considered. SpectraTime, the Swiss producer of both on-board clock types, declined to comment. According to ESA, they concluded with their industrial partners for the rubidium atomic clocks that some implemented testing and operational measures were required. Additionally some refurbishment is required for the rubidium atomic clocks that still have to be launched. For the passive hydrogen masers operational measures are being studied to reduce the risk of failure. China and India use the same SpectraTime-built atomic clocks in their satellite navigation systems. ESA has contacted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who initially reported not having experienced similar failures. However, at the end of January 2017, Indian news outlets reported that all three clocks aboard the IRNSS-1A satellite (launched in July 2013 with a 10-year life expectancy) had failed and that a replacement satellite would be launched in the second half of 2017: these atomic clocks were said to be supplied under a four-million-euro deal.",
"title": "Clock failures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In July 2017, the European Commission reported that the main causes of the malfunctions have been identified and measures have been put in place to reduce the possibility of further malfunctions of the satellites already in space. According to European sources, ESA took measures to correct both identified sets of problems by replacing a faulty component that can cause a short circuit in the rubidium clocks and improve the passive hydrogen maser clocks as well on satellites still to be launched.",
"title": "Clock failures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "From 11 July till 18 July 2019, the whole constellation experienced an \"unexplained\" signal outage with all active satellites showing \"NOT USABLE\" status on the Galileo status page. The cause of the incident was an equipment malfunction in the Galileo ground infrastructure that affected the calculation of time and orbit predictions.",
"title": "Clock failures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "On 14 December 2020, starting at 0:00 UTC, Galileo experienced a system-wide performance degradation lasting for 6 hours. GNSS receivers ignoring a 'marginal' status flag in the Galileo data could have experienced a pseudorange error of up to almost 80 km. The problem was related to an abnormal behaviour of a ground segment atomic clock in the time determination function of the system. In the parallel functioning Precise Timing Facilities in the Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen Galileo Control Centres an issue occurred in Fucino whilst maintenance was performed on the parallel system in Oberpfaffenhofen.",
"title": "Clock failures"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In September 2003, China joined the Galileo project. China was to invest €230 million (US$302 million, £155 million, CNY 2.34 billion) in the project over the following years.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In July 2004, Israel signed an agreement with the EU to become a partner in the Galileo project.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "On 3 June 2005, the European Union and Ukraine signed an agreement for Ukraine to join the project, as noted in a press release. As of November 2005, Morocco also joined the programme.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In September 2005, India signed an agreement with the EU to join the project.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In mid-2006, the public–private partnership fell apart and the European Commission decided to nationalise Galileo as an EU programme. In November 2006, China opted instead to upgrade BeiDou navigation system, its then-regional satellite navigation system. The decision was due to security concerns and issues with Galileo financing.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "On 30 November 2007, the 27 member states of the European Union unanimously agreed to move forward with the project, with plans for bases in Germany and Italy. Spain did not approve during the initial vote, but approved it later that day. This greatly improved the viability of the Galileo project: \"The EU's executive had previously said that if agreement was not reached by January 2008, the long-troubled project would essentially be dead\".",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "On 3 April 2009, Norway too joined the programme pledging €68.9 million toward development costs and allowing its companies to bid for the construction contracts. Norway, while not a member of the EU, is a member of ESA.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "On 18 December 2013, Switzerland signed a cooperation agreement to fully participate in the program, and retroactively contributed €80 million for the period 2008–2013. As a member of ESA, it already collaborated in the development of the Galileo satellites, contributing the hydrogen-maser clocks. Switzerland's financial commitment for the period 2014–2020 will be calculated in accordance with the standard formula applied for the Swiss participation in the EU research Framework Programme.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In March 2018, the European Commission announced that the United Kingdom may be excluded from parts of the project (especially relating to the secured service PRS) following its exit from the European Union (EU). As a result, Airbus was to relocate work on the Ground Control Segment (GCS) from its Portsmouth premises to an EU state. British officials have been reported to be seeking legal advice on whether they can reclaim the €1.4 billion invested by the United Kingdom, of the €10 billion spent to date. In a speech at the EU Institute for Security Studies conference, the EU Chief Negotiator in charge of the Brexit negotiations, Michel Barnier, stressed the EU position that the UK had decided to leave the EU and thus all EU programmes, including Galileo. In August 2018, the UK stated that it would look into creating a competing satellite navigation system to Galileo post-Brexit. In December 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the UK would no longer seek to reclaim the investment, and Science Minister Sam Gyimah resigned over the matter.",
"title": "International involvement"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "As of 2012, the system was scheduled to have 15 satellites operational in 2015 and reach full operation in 2020 with the following specifications:",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The system's orbit and signal accuracy is controlled by a ground segment consisting of:",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The system transmits three signals: E1 (1575.42 MHz), E5 (1191.795 MHz) consisting of E5a (1176.45 MHz) and E5b (1207.14 MHz), and E6 (1278.75 MHz):",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Galileo system will have four main services:",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The European GNSS Service Centre provides public quarterly performance reports regarding the Open Service and Search and Rescue Service since 2017. Generally, the reported performance parameters measurements surpass the target values. The Galileo April, May, June 2021 Quarterly Open Service Performance Report by the European GNSS Service Centre reported the UTC Time Dissemination Service Accuracy was ≤ 4.3 nanoseconds, computed by accumulating samples over the previous 12 months and exceeding the ≤ 30 ns target value. The Signal In Space Error (SISE) was also well within the ≤ 2 m (6 ft 7 in) target value for Single and (more accurate) Dual Frequency receivers. The Galileo navigation message includes the differences between Galileo System Time (GST), UTC and GPS Time (GPST) (to promote interoperability). The Galileo April, May, June 2021 Quarterly Search and Rescue Service Performance Report by the European GNSS Service Centre reported the various performance parameters measurements surpassed their target values.",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Each Galileo satellite has two master passive hydrogen maser atomic clocks and two secondary rubidium atomic clocks which are independent of one other. As precise and stable space-qualified atomic clocks are critical components to any satellite-navigation system, the employed quadruple redundancy keeps Galileo functioning when onboard atomic clocks fail in space. The onboard passive hydrogen maser clocks' precision is four times better than the onboard rubidium atomic clocks and estimated at 1 second per 3 million years (a timing error of a nanosecond or 1 billionth of a second (10 or 1⁄1,000,000,000 second) translates into a 30 cm positional error on Earth's surface), and will provide an accurate timing signal to allow a receiver to calculate the time that it takes the signal to reach it. The Galileo satellites are configured to run one hydrogen maser clock in primary mode and a rubidium clock as hot backup. Under normal conditions, the operating hydrogen maser clock produces the reference frequency from which the navigation signal is generated. Should the hydrogen maser encounter any problem, an instantaneous switchover to the rubidium clock would be performed. In case of a failure of the primary hydrogen maser the secondary hydrogen maser could be activated by the ground segment to take over within a period of days as part of the redundant system. A clock monitoring and control unit provides the interface between the four clocks and the navigation signal generator unit (NSU). It passes the signal from the active hydrogen master clock to the NSU and also ensures that the frequencies produced by the master clock and the active spare are in phase, so that the spare can take over instantly should the master clock fail. The NSU information is used to calculate the position of the receiver by trilaterating the difference in received signals from multiple satellites.",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The onboard passive hydrogen maser and rubidium clocks are very stable over a few hours. If they were left to run indefinitely, though, their timekeeping would drift, so they need to be synchronized regularly with a network of even more stable ground-based reference clocks. These include active hydrogen maser clocks and clocks based on the caesium frequency standard, which show a far better medium and long-term stability than rubidium or passive hydrogen maser clocks. These clocks on the ground are gathered together within the parallel functioning Precise Timing Facilities in the Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen Galileo Control Centres. The ground based clocks also generate a worldwide time reference called Galileo System Time (GST), the standard for the Galileo system and are routinely compared to the local realisations of UTC, the UTC(k) of the European frequency and time laboratories.",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "For more information of the concept of global satellite navigation systems, see GNSS and GNSS positioning calculation.",
"title": "System description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The European GNSS Service Centre (GSC), located in Madrid, is an integral part of Galileo and provides the single interface between the Galileo system and Galileo users. GSC publishes Galileo official documentation, promotes Galileo current and future services worldwide, supports standardisation and distributes Galileo almanacs, ephemeris and metadata.",
"title": "European GNSS Service Centre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The GSC User Helpdesk is the point of contact for Galileo user's assistance. GSC answers queries and gathers incident notifications from users on Galileo. The helpdesk is continuously available for all worldwide Galileo users through the GSC web portal.",
"title": "European GNSS Service Centre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "GSC provides updated Galileo constellation status and informs on planned and unplanned events through Notice Advisory to Galileo Users (NAGU). GSC publishes Galileo reference documentation and general information on Galileo services and signals description and Galileo performance reports.",
"title": "European GNSS Service Centre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Galileo provides a global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system. Like Russia's Glonass, the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, and some Chinese BeiDou satellites, Galileo satellites are equipped with a transponder which relays 406 MHz distress frequency signals from emergency beacons by a Forward Link Service (FLS) to the Rescue coordination centre, which will then initiate a rescue operation. After receipt of an emergency beacon signal, the Galileo SAR system provides a signal, the Return Link Message (RLM), to the emergency beacon, informing the person(s) in distress that the activated beacon has been detected and help is on the way. This return message feature is new in a satellite constellation and is considered a major upgrade compared to the existing Cospas-Sarsat system, which up to then did not provide feedback to the user. Tests in February 2014 found that for Galileo's search and rescue function, operating as part of the existing International Cospas-Sarsat Programme, 77% of simulated distress locations can be pinpointed within 2 kilometres (1.2 mi), and 95% within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi). The Galileo Return Link Service (RLS) went live in January 2020 for all RLS capable emergency beacons.",
"title": "Search and rescue"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In 2004, the Galileo System Test Bed Version 1 (GSTB-V1) project validated the on-ground algorithms for Orbit Determination and Time Synchronisation (OD&TS). This project, led by ESA and European Satellite Navigation Industries, has provided industry with fundamental knowledge to develop the mission segment of the Galileo positioning system.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "A third satellite, GIOVE-A2, was originally planned to be built by SSTL for launch in the second half of 2008. Construction of GIOVE-A2 was terminated due to the successful launch and in-orbit operation of GIOVE-B.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The GIOVE Mission segment operated by European Satellite Navigation Industries used the GIOVE-A/B satellites to provide experimental results based on real data to be used for risk mitigation for the IOV satellites that followed on from the testbeds. ESA organised the global network of ground stations to collect the measurements of GIOVE-A/B with the use of the GETR receivers for further systematic study. GETR receivers are supplied by Septentrio as well as the first Galileo navigation receivers to be used to test the functioning of the system at further stages of its deployment. Signal analysis of GIOVE-A/B data confirmed successful operation of all the Galileo signals with the tracking performance as expected.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "These testbed satellites were followed by four IOV Galileo satellites that are much closer to the final Galileo satellite design. The search and rescue (SAR) feature is also installed. The first two satellites were launched on 21 October 2011 from Centre Spatial Guyanais using a Soyuz launcher, the other two on 12 October 2012. This enables key validation tests, since earth-based receivers such as those in cars and phones need to \"see\" a minimum of four satellites in order to calculate their position in three dimensions. Those 4 IOV Galileo satellites were constructed by Astrium GmbH and Thales Alenia Space. On 12 March 2013, a first fix was performed using those four IOV satellites. Once this In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase has been completed, the remaining satellites will be installed to reach the Full Operational Capability.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "On 7 January 2010, it was announced that the contract to build the first 14 FOC satellites was awarded to OHB System and for the navigation payload to Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). The first batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as \"Batch-1\" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM1 to Galileo-FOC FM14 satellites. Fourteen satellites were built at a cost of €566 million (£510 million; US$811 million). Arianespace will launch the satellites for a cost of €397 million (£358 million; US$569 million). The European Commission also announced that the €85 million contract for system support covering industrial services required by ESA for integration and validation of the Galileo system had been awarded to Thales Alenia Space. Thales Alenia Space subcontract performances to Astrium GmbH and security to Thales Communications.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In February 2012, an additional order of 8 FOC satellites was awarded to OHB Systems for €250 million (US$327 million), after outbidding EADS Astrium tender offer. The second batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as \"Batch-2\" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM15 to Galileo-FOC FM22 satellites. Thus bringing the total to 22 FOC satellites. The satellites were built by OHB, with the contribution of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL).",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In June and October 2017, two additional orders for 8 and 4 FOC satellites were awarded to OHB Systems for €324 million and €157.75 million. This third and final batch of Galileo First Generation satellites known as \"Batch-3\" consists of the Galileo-FOC FM23 to Galileo-FOC FM34 satellites. The satellites are being built by OHB in Bremen, Germany, with the contribution of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) in Guildford, United Kingdom. When completed Batch-3 brings the total to 34 FOC satellites.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "On 7 May 2014, the first two FOC satellites landed in Guyana for their joint launch planned in summer Originally planned for launch during 2013, problems tooling and establishing the production line for assembly led to a delay of a year in serial production of Galileo satellites. These two satellites (Galileo satellites GSAT-201 and GSAT-202) were launched on 22 August 2014. The names of these satellites are Doresa and Milena named after European children who had previously won a drawing contest. On 23 August 2014, launch service provider Arianespace announced that the flight VS09 experienced an anomaly and the satellites were injected into an incorrect orbit. They ended up in elliptical orbits and thus could not be used for navigation. However, it was later possible to use them to perform a physics experiment, so they were not a complete loss.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-203 (Adam) and GSAT-204 (Anastasia) were launched successfully on 27 March 2015 from Guiana Space Centre using a Soyuz four stage launcher.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-205 (Alba) and GSAT-206 (Oriana) were launched successfully on 11 September 2015 from Guiana Space Centre using a Soyuz four stage launcher.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-208 (Liene) and GSAT-209 (Andriana) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, using the Soyuz four stage launcher on 17 December 2015.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-210 (Daniele) and GSAT-211 (Alizée) were launched on 24 May 2016.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Starting in November 2016, deployment of the last twelve satellites will use a modified Ariane 5 launcher, named Ariane 5 ES, capable of placing four Galileo satellites into orbit per launch.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-207 (Antonianna), GSAT-212 (Lisa), GSAT-213 (Kimberley), GSAT-214 (Tijmen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 17 November 2016 on an Ariane 5 ES.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "On 15 December 2016, Galileo started offering Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The services currently offered are Open Service, Public Regulated Service and Search and Rescue Service.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The first Batch-2 satellites GSAT-215 (Nicole), GSAT-216 (Zofia), GSAT-217 (Alexandre), GSAT-218 (Irina) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 12 December 2017 on an Ariane 5 ES.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Satellites GSAT-219 (Tara), GSAT-220 (Samuel), GSAT-221 (Anna), GSAT-222 (Ellen) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 25 July 2018 on an Ariane 5 ES.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The first Batch-3 satellites GSAT-223 (Nikolina) and GSAT-224 (Shriya) were successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on 5 December 2021 on a Soyuz four stage launcher.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Shriya successfully joined the constellation on 29 August 2022.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "As of 2014, ESA and its industry partners have begun studies on Galileo Second Generation (G2G) satellites, which were to be presented to the EC for the late 2020s launch period. One idea was to employ electric propulsion, which would eliminate the need for an upper stage during launch and allow satellites from a single batch to be inserted into more than one orbital plane. The new generation satellites are expected to be available by 2025. and serve to augment the existing network. On 20 January 2021, the European Commission announced that it had awarded a €1.47 billion contract to Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and Airbus Defence and Space for 6 spacecraft by each manufacturer. The signing of the contracts to Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space, scheduled on 29 January 2021, was suspended by the European Court of Justice following a protest filed by OHB SE, the losing bidder. The OHB protest at the ECJ's General Court is based on “allegations of theft of trade secrets”, and seeks both a suspension of the contract signatures and the cancellation of the contract award. In May 2021 ESA reported it signed the contracts to design and build the first batch of Galileo Second Generation (G2G) satellites with Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space. The 12 G2G satellites will feature electric propulsion, enhanced navigation signals and capabilities, inter-satellite links and reconfigurability in space.",
"title": "Constellation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "In July 2006, an international consortium of universities and research institutions embarked on a study of potential scientific applications of the Galileo constellation. This project, named GEO6, is a broad study oriented to the general scientific community, aiming to define and implement new applications of Galileo.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Among the various GNSS users identified by the Galileo Joint Undertaking, the GEO6, project addresses the Scientific User Community (UC). The GEO6 project aims at fostering possible novel applications within the scientific UC of GNSS signals, and particularly of Galileo.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The AGILE project is an EU-funded project devoted to the study of the technical and commercial aspects of location-based services (LBS). It includes technical analysis of the benefits brought by Galileo (and EGNOS) and studies the hybridisation of Galileo with other positioning technologies (network-based, WLAN, etc.). Within these projects, some pilot prototypes were implemented and demonstrated.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "On the basis of the potential number of users, potential revenues for Galileo Operating Company or Concessionaire (GOC), international relevance, and level of innovation, a set of Priority Applications (PA) will be selected by the consortium and developed within the time-frame of the same project.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "These applications will help to increase and optimise the use of the EGNOS services and the opportunities offered by the Galileo Signal Test-Bed (GSTB-V2) and the Galileo (IOV) phase.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "All Galileo satellites are equipped with laser retroreflector arrays which allow them to be tracked by the stations of the International Laser Ranging Service. Satellite laser ranging to Galileo satellites are used for the validation of satellite orbits, determination of Earth rotation parameters and for the combined solutions incorporating laser and microwave observations.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "All major GNSS receiver chips support Galileo and hundreds of end-user devices are compatible with Galileo. The first, dual-frequency-GNSS-capable Android devices, which track more than one radio signal from each satellite, E1 and E5a frequencies for Galileo, were the Huawei Mate 20 line, Xiaomi Mi 8, Xiaomi Mi 9 and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3. As of July 2019, there were more than 140 Galileo-enabled smartphones on the market of which 9 were dual-frequency enabled. An extensive list of enabled devices, for various uses, on land, sea and in air is frequently updated at the EU website. On 24 December 2018, the European Commission passed a mandate for all new smartphones to implement Galileo for E112 support.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Effective from 1st April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an accident.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Until late 2018, Galileo was not authorized for use in the United States and, as a consequence, only variably worked on devices that could receive Galileo signals, within United States territory. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) position on the matter was (and remains) that non-GPS radio navigation satellite systems (RNSS) receivers must be granted a licence to receive said signals. A waiver of this requirement for Galileo was requested by the EU and submitted in 2015, and on 6 January 2017, public comment on the matter was requested. On 15 November 2018, the FCC granted the requested waiver, explicitly allowing non-federal consumer devices to access Galileo E1 and E5 frequencies. However, most devices, including smartphones still require operating system updates or similar updates to allow the use of Galileo signals within the United States (most smartphones since the Apple iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy S7 have the hardware capability, and simply require a software modification).",
"title": "Applications and impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The European Satellite Navigation project was selected as the main motif of a very high-value collectors' coin: the Austrian European Satellite Navigation commemorative coin, minted on 1 March 2006. The coin has a silver ring and gold-brown niobium \"pill\". In the reverse, the niobium portion depicts navigation satellites orbiting the Earth. The ring shows different modes of transport, for which satellite navigation was developed: an aircraft, a car, a lorry, a train and a container ship.",
"title": "Applications and impact"
}
]
| Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that went live in 2016, created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA), operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), headquartered in Prague, Czechia, with two ground operations centres in Fucino, Italy, and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The €10 billion project is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European political and military authorities do not have to rely on the US GPS, or the Russian GLONASS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services is free and open to everyone. A fully encrypted higher-precision service is available for free to government-authorized users. Galileo is also to provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system. The first Galileo test satellite GIOVE-A was launched 28 December 2005, while the first satellite to be part of the operational system was launched on 21 October 2011. Galileo started offering Early Operational Capability (EOC) on 15 December 2016, providing initial services with a weak signal. In October 2018, four more Galileo satellites were brought online, increasing the number of active satellites to 18. In November 2018, FCC approves use of Galileo in the US. As of December 2023, there are 23 launched satellites that operate in the constellation, five are not available. It is expected that the next generation of satellites will begin to become operational after 2025 to replace older equipment, which can then be used for backup capabilities. The Galileo system has a greater accuracy than GPS, having an accuracy of less than 1 m when using broadcast ephemeris and a signal-in-space ranging error (SISRE) of 1.6 cm when using real-time corrections for satellite orbits and clocks. | 2001-12-21T02:14:48Z | 2023-12-31T21:00:13Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) |
13,010 | Gavrilo Princip | Gavrilo Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐntsip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The killing of the Archduke and his wife set off the July Crisis, a chain of events that within one month led to the outbreak of World War I.
Princip was born in western Bosnia to a poor Serb family. At the age of 13, he was sent to Sarajevo, the capital of Austrian-occupied Bosnia, to study at the Merchants' School, before transferring to the gymnasium, where he became politically aware. In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret local society aiming to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and achieve the unification of the South Slavs. After attending anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school and walked to Belgrade, Serbia to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, Princip traveled to Southern Serbia to volunteer with the Serbian army's irregular forces fighting against the Ottoman Empire but was rejected for being too small and weak.
In 1913, following the unexpected success of the Serbians in the war against the Ottomans, the Austrian military governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, imposed martial rule, and banned all Serbian public, cultural, and educational societies. Inspired by a spate of assassination attempts against Imperial officials by Slavic nationalists and anarchists, Princip convinced two other young Bosnians to join a plot to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg Empire during his announced visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with ties to Serbian military intelligence, provided the conspirators with weapons and training before facilitating their re-entry into Bosnia.
On Sunday 28 June 1914 during the royal couple's visit to Sarajevo, the then-teenager Princip mortally wounded both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by firing a pistol into their convertible car that had unexpectedly stopped 5 feet (1.5 m) from him. Princip was arrested immediately and tried alongside twenty-four others, all Bosnians and thus Austro-Hungarian subjects. At his trial, Princip stated: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria." Princip was spared the death penalty because of his age (19) and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was imprisoned at the Terezín fortress. The Serbian government itself did not inspire the assassination but the Austrian Foreign Office and Army used the murders as a reason for a preventive war which led directly to World War I.
Princip died on 28 April 1918 from tuberculosis exacerbated by poor prison conditions which had already caused one of his arms to be amputated.
Gavrilo Princip was born in the remote hamlet of Obljaj, near Bosansko Grahovo, on 25 July [O.S. 13 July] 1894. He was the second of his parents' nine children, six of whom died in infancy. Princip's mother Marija wanted to name him after her late brother, Špiro, but he was named Gavrilo at the insistence of a local Eastern Orthodox priest, who claimed that naming the sickly infant after the Archangel Gabriel would help him survive.
A Serb family, the Princips had lived in northwestern Bosnia for many centuries. His ancestors came from Grahovo, Nikšić in Montenegro, emigrating in the early 1700s, they were members of the Jovičević clan and adhered to the Serbian Orthodox Christian faith. Princip's parents, Petar and Marija (née Mićić), were poor farmers who lived off the little land that they owned. They belonged to a class of Christian peasants known as kmetovi (serfs), who were often oppressed by their Muslim landlords. Petar, who insisted on "strict correctness", never drank or swore and was ridiculed by his neighbours as a result. In his youth, he fought in the Herzegovina Uprising against the Ottoman Empire. Following the revolt, he returned to being a farmer in the Grahovo valley, where he worked approximately 4 acres (1.6 ha; 0.0063 sq mi) of land and was forced to give a third of his income to his landlord. To supplement his income and feed his family, he resorted to transporting mail and passengers across the mountains between northwestern Bosnia and Dalmatia.
Despite his father's initial opposition, as he needed a shepherd to guard his sheep, Princip began attending primary school in 1903, aged nine. He overcame a difficult first year and became very successful in his studies, for which he was awarded a collection of Serbian epic poetry by his headmaster. At the age of 13, Princip moved to Sarajevo, where his elder brother Jovan intended to enroll him at Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian Military Academy. However, by the time Princip reached Sarajevo, Jovan had changed his mind after a shopkeeper advised him not to make his younger brother "an executioner of his own people". Princip was enrolled into the Merchants' School instead. Jovan paid for his tuition with the money he earned performing manual labour, carrying logs from the forests surrounding Sarajevo to mills within the city. After three years of study, Gavrilo transferred to the Sarajevo Gymnasium.
Following the annexation of the region by the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1908, Bosnia, like the other southern Slavic states under imperial rule, yearned for independence. As a result, various student groups emerged interested in movements such as romantic nationalism, nihilism, or anti imperialism, while at school and through his roommate Danilo Ilić, Princip was also exposed to socialist, anarchist, and communist writing. Princip started to associate with like-minded young nationalist revolutionaries and came to admire Bogdan Žerajić, a Bosnian Serb who had attempted to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, before taking his own life. Žerajić, who was from Herzegovina like Princip, came to epitomize, in the eyes of many, the ideal of self sacrifice. On the anniversary of his death, Serb youths from Sarajevo started to visit his grave to lay flowers. According to Luigi Albertini, this is where, after spending nights reflecting at the grave, that Princip resolved to participate in his own attack. In 1911, Princip graduated from the fourth grade and joined Young Bosnia (Serbian: Mlada Bosna), a society with members from all three major Bosnian ethnic groups, that sought the liberation of Bosnia from Austro-Hungarian rule and the unification of all Southern Slavs in a common nation. Some believed that the newly independent Kingdom of Serbia, as the free part of the south Slavs, was obligated to help unify the southern Slavic peoples. Because the local authorities had forbidden students to form organisations and clubs, Princip and other members of Young Bosnia met in secret. During their meetings, they discussed literature, ethics and politics.
On 18 February 1912, Princip took part in a demonstration against the Habsburg authority in Sarajevo, organised by Luka Jukić, a Croat student from Bosnia. The demonstrators burned a Hungarian flag and many were injured and arrested by the police. During the scuffle Princip was hit with a sabre and his clothes were torn. The following day the students declared a general strike, and for the first time in Bosnian history, Croats, Serbs and Muslims took part together. A student present that day claimed that "Princip went from class to class, threatening with his knuckle-duster all the boys who wavered in coming to the new demonstrations." As a result of his conduct and his involvement in the demonstrations against Austro-Hungarian authorities, Princip was expelled from school and in the spring of 1912 decided to go to Belgrade, making the 280-kilometre (170 mi) journey on foot. According to one account, he fell to his knees and kissed the ground upon crossing the border into Serbia. Having left Sarajevo without telling his brother, Princip lived without money and in difficult conditions alongside other Bosnian students. In June 1912, he went to the First Belgrade Gymnasium to take the fifth grade exam which he failed.
When war broke out between the Balkan states and Turkey in October 1912, Princip went to a recruitment office in Belgrade to volunteer his service with the komite, the irregular Serbian units. Upon being rejected because of his small build, he traveled to a different recruitment office this time in Prokuplje, north of the Turkish frontier in southern Serbia. After taking one look at him, Major Vojislav Tankosić, the commander of all Komite units, rejected him for being too small and looking too weak. Humiliated, Princip returned first briefly to Belgrade then back to the village of Hadžići. According to Vladimir Dedijer, his failure to be accepted in the army on the account that he looked weak, was one of the primary motives which pushed Princip to do something exceptionally brave. In the South Slav lands, the unexpected success of the Serbian army resulted in numerous celebrations and demonstrations of support. In reaction on 2 May 1913, while Princip was in Sarajevo, the Austro-Hungarian Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina General Potiorek declared a state of emergency, suspended the 1910 constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, implemented martial law, seized control of all schools, and prohibited all Serb public, cultural, and educational societies.
In the summer of 1913 Princip passed the fifth and sixth grades of high school, then in early 1914 he left Sarajevo for Belgrade, stopping briefly in his village to see his parents. While in Belgrade preparing for his sixth-class examinations in the First Belgrade High School, Princip was shown by his friend Nedeljko Čabrinović a newspaper cutting announcing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria's visit to Bosnia in June. Princip decided to lead a group of assassins back to Bosnia and attack the Archduke during his official visit to Sarajevo. He convinced Čabrinović and his old schoolfriend Trifko Grabež to join the plot. They also talked about killing Oskar Potiorek, the provincial governor, as a means of protest against the emergency régime. To find weapons, Princip asked his Bosnian Muslim friend, Djulaga Bukovac, a veteran of the Balkan wars. Bukovac introduced them to Milan Ciganović, another Bosnian expatriate who had fought under Major Tankošić during the Second Balkan War. Ciganović was also a freemason and an associate of the Black Hand, the secretive, ultra-nationalist Serbian group responsible for the regicide of 1903. Ciganović then approached Tankosić, another Black Hand member of Bosnian descent, from whom he obtained the weapons. On 27 May 1914, Ciganović supplied the three young Bosnians with five Browning pistols, six grenades, and several vials of poison. Ciganović took the would-be assassins to Topčider forest, just outside the centre of Belgrade, training them on how to use the weapons. Princip proved to be the best marksman. The three-man assassination team left Belgrade on 28 May 1914, taking a river boat that took them to Šabac, they then split up crossing separately the border into Bosnia. Each of them was carrying two bombs tied around their waist as well as revolvers, ammunition and a bottle of cyanide in their pockets. Before leaving Serbia, Princip wrote to his former roommate in Sarajevo Danilo Ilić, to notify him of his assassination plan and to ask him to recruit more people. Ilić recruited Muhamed Mehmedbašić, a Bosnian Muslim carpenter, Cvetko Popović, and Vaso Čubrilović, both Bosnian Serb students aged eighteen and seventeen.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Duchess Sophie Chotek, arrived in Sarajevo by train shortly before 10 a.m. on 28 June 1914. Their car was the third car of a six-car motorcade heading towards Sarajevo Town Hall. The car's top was rolled back to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants.
Princip and the five other conspirators lined the route. They were spaced out along the Appel Quay, each one with instructions to assassinate the Archduke when the royal car reached their position. The first conspirator on the route to see the royal car was Muhamed Mehmedbašić. Standing by the Austro-Hungarian Bank, Mehmedbašić lost his nerve and allowed the car to pass without taking action. At 10:15 am, when the motorcade passed the central police station, nineteen-year-old student Nedeljko Čabrinović hurled a hand grenade at the Archduke's car. The driver accelerated when he saw the object flying towards him, and the bomb, which had a 10-second delay, exploded under the fourth car. Two of the occupants were seriously wounded. After Čabrinović's failed attempt, the motorcade sped away and Princip and the remaining conspirators failed to act due to the motorcade's high speed.
After the Archduke gave his scheduled speech at Town Hall, he decided to visit the victims of Čabrinović's grenade attack at the Sarajevo Hospital. To avoid the city centre, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the hospital. However, Potiorek forgot to inform the driver, a Czech named Leopold Lojka, about this decision. On the way to the hospital, Lojka, following the original plan, turned onto a side street where Princip was in front of a local delicatessen. After the Governor shouted at him, Lojka stopped in front of a shop and began to reverse. As he did so the engine stalled and the gears locked. Princip stepped forward, drew a Browning semi-automatic pistol, and at point-blank range fired twice into the car, first hitting the Archduke in the neck, and then hitting the Duchess in the abdomen. They both died shortly after.
The Austro-Hungarian government who saw Serbia's nationalist aspirations as a threat to its own multi-ethnic empire, used the assassination as the perfect pretext to take action against Serbia. A chain of events triggered the July Crisis which led to the outbreak of World War I. On 28 July, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, followed by the declarations of war by Germany, France, Russia and Great Britain.
Before Princip could fire for a third time, the pistol was wrested from his hand and he was pushed to the ground. He managed to swallow a capsule of cyanide, which failed to kill him. The trial opened on 12 October and lasted until 23 October 1914. Princip and twenty-four people were indicted. All six assassins, except Mehmedbašić, were under twenty at the time of the assassination, while the group was dominated by Bosnian Serbs, four of the indicted were Bosnian Croats and all of them were Austro-Hungarian citizens, none being from Serbia. The state's attorney charged twenty-two of the accused with high treason and murder and three with complicity in the murder. Princip stated that he regretted the killing of the Duchess and meant to kill Potiorek, but was nonetheless proud of what he had done. The Austrian police investigators were eager to emphasise the exclusively Serbian nature of the assassination plot for political reasons, but during his trial Princip insisted that, even though he was an ethnic Serb, his commitment was to freeing all south Slavs. All the chief conspirators mentioned the revolutionary destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of the South Slavs as the motivation behind their act.
"I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria... The plan was to unite all South Slavs. It was understood that Serbia as the free part of the South Slavs had the moral duty to help in the unification, to be to the South Slavs as the Piedmont was to Italy... In my opinion every Serb, Croat and Slovene should be an enemy of Austria."
The Austro-Hungarian authorities tried to hide the fact that the conspirators included Croats and Bosniaks, going as far as changing the name of one of them in the press reports, to portray the entire scheme as being of Serbian origin and carried out only by Serbs. Since it provided the weapons to the assassins and helped them cross the border, the Black Hand was implicated in the assassination. This did not prove that the Serbian government knew about the assassination, let alone approved of it, but was enough for Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum, which led up to the outbreak of World War I. According to David Fromkin what the killings gave Vienna was not a reason, but an excuse, for destroying Serbia.
Princip was nineteen years old at the time and too young to be executed, as he was twenty-seven days shy of the twenty-year minimum age limit required by Habsburg law. On Thursday 28 October 1914 the court found Princip guilty of murder and high treason, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, he was to serve out his sentence in a military prison within the Habsburg fortress of Theresienstadt in northern Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic).
Princip was chained to a wall in solitary confinement at the Small Fortress in Terezín, where he lived in harsh conditions and developed tuberculosis. The disease ate away his bones so badly that his right arm had to be amputated. In January 1916, Princip unsuccessfully attempted to hang himself with a towel. From February to June 1916, Princip met with Martin Pappenheim, a psychiatrist in the Austro-Hungarian army, four times. Pappenheim wrote that Princip asserted that the First World War would have occurred even if the assassination had not taken place, and that he "cannot feel himself responsible for the catastrophe".
Princip died on 28 April 1918, three years and ten months after the assassination. At the time of his death, weakened by malnutrition and disease, he weighed around 40 kilograms (88 lb; 6 st 4 lb).
Fearing his bones might become relics for Slavic nationalists, Princip's prison guards secretly took the body to an unmarked grave, but a Czech soldier assigned to the burial remembered the location, and in 1920 Princip and the other "Heroes of Vidovdan" were exhumed and brought to Sarajevo, where they were buried together beneath the Vidovdan Heroes Chapel "built to commemorate for eternity our Serb heroes" at the Holy Archangels Cemetery, which includes a citation from the Montenegrin poet Njegoš: "Blessed is he who lives forever. He had something to be born for."
Long after his death, Princip's legacy is still disputed and he remains a historically significant but polarising figure. For the Habsburg monarchy and its supporters, he was a murderous terrorist; Royal Yugoslavia portrayed him as a Yugoslav hero; during World War II, Nazis and Croatian fascist Ustasha viewed him as a degenerate criminal and a left-wing anarchist; and for socialist Yugoslavia, he represented a youthful hero of armed resistance, a freedom fighter who fought to liberate all the peoples of Yugoslavia from Imperial rule, fighting for the workers and the oppressed. In the 1990s, Princip started to be seen by some as a Serbian nationalist acting for the creation of a Greater Serbia. Political movements and regimes have either praised or demonized him to promote their ideology.
Today he is still celebrated as a hero by numerous Serbs and regarded as a terrorist by many Croats and Bosniaks. Asim Sarajlić, a senior MP of the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action, stated in 2014 that Princip brought an end to "a golden era of history under Austrian rule" and that "we are strongly against the mythology of Princip as a fighter of freedom". Many of Bosnia's Serbs continue to venerate his memory: Nenad Samardžija, the Serb governor of East Sarajevo, said in 2014 that "we once all lived in one state (Yugoslavia), and we never looked on it as any kind of terrorist act" but "a movement of young people who wanted to liberate themselves from colonial slavery".
The house where Princip lived in Sarajevo was destroyed during World War I. After the war, it was rebuilt as a museum in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was conquered by Germany in 1941 and Sarajevo became part of the Independent State of Croatia. The Croatian Ustaše destroyed the house again. After the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia in 1944, the house was rebuilt, became a museum again, and there was another museum dedicated to him within the city of Sarajevo. During the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the house was destroyed again and then rebuilt for the third time in 2015.
Princip's pistol was confiscated by the authorities and eventually given, along with the Archduke's blood-stained undershirt, to Anton Puntigam, a Jesuit priest who was a close friend of the Archduke and had given the Archduke and his wife their last rites. The pistol and shirt remained in the possession of the Austrian Jesuits until they were offered on long-term loan to the Museum of Military History in Vienna in 2004. It is now part of the permanent exhibition there. During the Yugoslavian era, Latin Bridge, the site of the assassination, was renamed Princip's Bridge in remembrance; it reverted to its old name Latinska Cuprija in 1992. In Sarajevo about a half-dozen memorials to Gavrilo Princip have been erected on the site and torn down with each change in power.
In 1917, a pillar was constructed at the corner of where the assassination took place. It was destroyed the following year. In 1941, the 1930 plaque commemorating Princip was removed by the local Germans when the German Army invaded. It was presented to Adolf Hitler as a birthday gift and kept in a museum, only to be lost after 1945. After World War II, a new plaque went up which claimed that "Gavrilo Princip threw off the German occupiers". During the Bosnian War, embossed footprints marking where Princip fired the fatal shots were torn out.
As the centenary of the assassination neared, an apolitical plaque was put up at the corner where the assassination took place, which states: "From this place on 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia." On 21 April 2014, a bust of Princip was unveiled in Tovariševo, and on the centenary itself, a statue was erected in East Sarajevo. A year later, a statue of Princip was unveiled in Belgrade by the President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić and the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, as a gift from Republika Srpska to Serbia. At the unveiling Nikolić gave a speech, saying in part: "Princip was a hero, a symbol of liberation ideas, tyrant-killer, idea-holder of liberation from slavery, which spanned through Europe".
On 11 November 2018, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Princess Anita of Hohenberg, the eldest great-grandchild of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Branislav Princip, grandnephew of Gavrilo Princip, shook hands in a symbolic act of reconciliation in Graz, Austria.
In the German drama film 1914 (1931), Carl Balhaus played Gavrilo Princip. Irfan Mensur played Princip in The Day That Shook the World (1975), based on the assassination. In the Austrian biopic Death of a Schoolboy [de] (1990, original German title Gavre Princip - Himmel unter Steinen) by Peter Patzak about Princip's life, he was portrayed by British actor and director Reuben Pillsbury. He was portrayed by Eugen Knecht in Sarajevo (2014), a German-Austrian television film based on the assassination, and by Joel Basman in The King's Man (2021), the third film in the Kingsman fiction film series. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Gavrilo Princip (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаврило Принцип, pronounced [ɡǎʋrilo prǐntsip]; 25 July 1894 – 28 April 1918) was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The killing of the Archduke and his wife set off the July Crisis, a chain of events that within one month led to the outbreak of World War I.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Princip was born in western Bosnia to a poor Serb family. At the age of 13, he was sent to Sarajevo, the capital of Austrian-occupied Bosnia, to study at the Merchants' School, before transferring to the gymnasium, where he became politically aware. In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret local society aiming to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and achieve the unification of the South Slavs. After attending anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school and walked to Belgrade, Serbia to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, Princip traveled to Southern Serbia to volunteer with the Serbian army's irregular forces fighting against the Ottoman Empire but was rejected for being too small and weak.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1913, following the unexpected success of the Serbians in the war against the Ottomans, the Austrian military governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, imposed martial rule, and banned all Serbian public, cultural, and educational societies. Inspired by a spate of assassination attempts against Imperial officials by Slavic nationalists and anarchists, Princip convinced two other young Bosnians to join a plot to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg Empire during his announced visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with ties to Serbian military intelligence, provided the conspirators with weapons and training before facilitating their re-entry into Bosnia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "On Sunday 28 June 1914 during the royal couple's visit to Sarajevo, the then-teenager Princip mortally wounded both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by firing a pistol into their convertible car that had unexpectedly stopped 5 feet (1.5 m) from him. Princip was arrested immediately and tried alongside twenty-four others, all Bosnians and thus Austro-Hungarian subjects. At his trial, Princip stated: \"I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria.\" Princip was spared the death penalty because of his age (19) and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was imprisoned at the Terezín fortress. The Serbian government itself did not inspire the assassination but the Austrian Foreign Office and Army used the murders as a reason for a preventive war which led directly to World War I.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Princip died on 28 April 1918 from tuberculosis exacerbated by poor prison conditions which had already caused one of his arms to be amputated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Gavrilo Princip was born in the remote hamlet of Obljaj, near Bosansko Grahovo, on 25 July [O.S. 13 July] 1894. He was the second of his parents' nine children, six of whom died in infancy. Princip's mother Marija wanted to name him after her late brother, Špiro, but he was named Gavrilo at the insistence of a local Eastern Orthodox priest, who claimed that naming the sickly infant after the Archangel Gabriel would help him survive.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A Serb family, the Princips had lived in northwestern Bosnia for many centuries. His ancestors came from Grahovo, Nikšić in Montenegro, emigrating in the early 1700s, they were members of the Jovičević clan and adhered to the Serbian Orthodox Christian faith. Princip's parents, Petar and Marija (née Mićić), were poor farmers who lived off the little land that they owned. They belonged to a class of Christian peasants known as kmetovi (serfs), who were often oppressed by their Muslim landlords. Petar, who insisted on \"strict correctness\", never drank or swore and was ridiculed by his neighbours as a result. In his youth, he fought in the Herzegovina Uprising against the Ottoman Empire. Following the revolt, he returned to being a farmer in the Grahovo valley, where he worked approximately 4 acres (1.6 ha; 0.0063 sq mi) of land and was forced to give a third of his income to his landlord. To supplement his income and feed his family, he resorted to transporting mail and passengers across the mountains between northwestern Bosnia and Dalmatia.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Despite his father's initial opposition, as he needed a shepherd to guard his sheep, Princip began attending primary school in 1903, aged nine. He overcame a difficult first year and became very successful in his studies, for which he was awarded a collection of Serbian epic poetry by his headmaster. At the age of 13, Princip moved to Sarajevo, where his elder brother Jovan intended to enroll him at Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian Military Academy. However, by the time Princip reached Sarajevo, Jovan had changed his mind after a shopkeeper advised him not to make his younger brother \"an executioner of his own people\". Princip was enrolled into the Merchants' School instead. Jovan paid for his tuition with the money he earned performing manual labour, carrying logs from the forests surrounding Sarajevo to mills within the city. After three years of study, Gavrilo transferred to the Sarajevo Gymnasium.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Following the annexation of the region by the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1908, Bosnia, like the other southern Slavic states under imperial rule, yearned for independence. As a result, various student groups emerged interested in movements such as romantic nationalism, nihilism, or anti imperialism, while at school and through his roommate Danilo Ilić, Princip was also exposed to socialist, anarchist, and communist writing. Princip started to associate with like-minded young nationalist revolutionaries and came to admire Bogdan Žerajić, a Bosnian Serb who had attempted to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, before taking his own life. Žerajić, who was from Herzegovina like Princip, came to epitomize, in the eyes of many, the ideal of self sacrifice. On the anniversary of his death, Serb youths from Sarajevo started to visit his grave to lay flowers. According to Luigi Albertini, this is where, after spending nights reflecting at the grave, that Princip resolved to participate in his own attack. In 1911, Princip graduated from the fourth grade and joined Young Bosnia (Serbian: Mlada Bosna), a society with members from all three major Bosnian ethnic groups, that sought the liberation of Bosnia from Austro-Hungarian rule and the unification of all Southern Slavs in a common nation. Some believed that the newly independent Kingdom of Serbia, as the free part of the south Slavs, was obligated to help unify the southern Slavic peoples. Because the local authorities had forbidden students to form organisations and clubs, Princip and other members of Young Bosnia met in secret. During their meetings, they discussed literature, ethics and politics.",
"title": "Joining Young Bosnia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On 18 February 1912, Princip took part in a demonstration against the Habsburg authority in Sarajevo, organised by Luka Jukić, a Croat student from Bosnia. The demonstrators burned a Hungarian flag and many were injured and arrested by the police. During the scuffle Princip was hit with a sabre and his clothes were torn. The following day the students declared a general strike, and for the first time in Bosnian history, Croats, Serbs and Muslims took part together. A student present that day claimed that \"Princip went from class to class, threatening with his knuckle-duster all the boys who wavered in coming to the new demonstrations.\" As a result of his conduct and his involvement in the demonstrations against Austro-Hungarian authorities, Princip was expelled from school and in the spring of 1912 decided to go to Belgrade, making the 280-kilometre (170 mi) journey on foot. According to one account, he fell to his knees and kissed the ground upon crossing the border into Serbia. Having left Sarajevo without telling his brother, Princip lived without money and in difficult conditions alongside other Bosnian students. In June 1912, he went to the First Belgrade Gymnasium to take the fifth grade exam which he failed.",
"title": "Joining Young Bosnia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "When war broke out between the Balkan states and Turkey in October 1912, Princip went to a recruitment office in Belgrade to volunteer his service with the komite, the irregular Serbian units. Upon being rejected because of his small build, he traveled to a different recruitment office this time in Prokuplje, north of the Turkish frontier in southern Serbia. After taking one look at him, Major Vojislav Tankosić, the commander of all Komite units, rejected him for being too small and looking too weak. Humiliated, Princip returned first briefly to Belgrade then back to the village of Hadžići. According to Vladimir Dedijer, his failure to be accepted in the army on the account that he looked weak, was one of the primary motives which pushed Princip to do something exceptionally brave. In the South Slav lands, the unexpected success of the Serbian army resulted in numerous celebrations and demonstrations of support. In reaction on 2 May 1913, while Princip was in Sarajevo, the Austro-Hungarian Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina General Potiorek declared a state of emergency, suspended the 1910 constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, implemented martial law, seized control of all schools, and prohibited all Serb public, cultural, and educational societies.",
"title": "Joining Young Bosnia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the summer of 1913 Princip passed the fifth and sixth grades of high school, then in early 1914 he left Sarajevo for Belgrade, stopping briefly in his village to see his parents. While in Belgrade preparing for his sixth-class examinations in the First Belgrade High School, Princip was shown by his friend Nedeljko Čabrinović a newspaper cutting announcing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria's visit to Bosnia in June. Princip decided to lead a group of assassins back to Bosnia and attack the Archduke during his official visit to Sarajevo. He convinced Čabrinović and his old schoolfriend Trifko Grabež to join the plot. They also talked about killing Oskar Potiorek, the provincial governor, as a means of protest against the emergency régime. To find weapons, Princip asked his Bosnian Muslim friend, Djulaga Bukovac, a veteran of the Balkan wars. Bukovac introduced them to Milan Ciganović, another Bosnian expatriate who had fought under Major Tankošić during the Second Balkan War. Ciganović was also a freemason and an associate of the Black Hand, the secretive, ultra-nationalist Serbian group responsible for the regicide of 1903. Ciganović then approached Tankosić, another Black Hand member of Bosnian descent, from whom he obtained the weapons. On 27 May 1914, Ciganović supplied the three young Bosnians with five Browning pistols, six grenades, and several vials of poison. Ciganović took the would-be assassins to Topčider forest, just outside the centre of Belgrade, training them on how to use the weapons. Princip proved to be the best marksman. The three-man assassination team left Belgrade on 28 May 1914, taking a river boat that took them to Šabac, they then split up crossing separately the border into Bosnia. Each of them was carrying two bombs tied around their waist as well as revolvers, ammunition and a bottle of cyanide in their pockets. Before leaving Serbia, Princip wrote to his former roommate in Sarajevo Danilo Ilić, to notify him of his assassination plan and to ask him to recruit more people. Ilić recruited Muhamed Mehmedbašić, a Bosnian Muslim carpenter, Cvetko Popović, and Vaso Čubrilović, both Bosnian Serb students aged eighteen and seventeen.",
"title": "Joining Young Bosnia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Duchess Sophie Chotek, arrived in Sarajevo by train shortly before 10 a.m. on 28 June 1914. Their car was the third car of a six-car motorcade heading towards Sarajevo Town Hall. The car's top was rolled back to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants.",
"title": "Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Princip and the five other conspirators lined the route. They were spaced out along the Appel Quay, each one with instructions to assassinate the Archduke when the royal car reached their position. The first conspirator on the route to see the royal car was Muhamed Mehmedbašić. Standing by the Austro-Hungarian Bank, Mehmedbašić lost his nerve and allowed the car to pass without taking action. At 10:15 am, when the motorcade passed the central police station, nineteen-year-old student Nedeljko Čabrinović hurled a hand grenade at the Archduke's car. The driver accelerated when he saw the object flying towards him, and the bomb, which had a 10-second delay, exploded under the fourth car. Two of the occupants were seriously wounded. After Čabrinović's failed attempt, the motorcade sped away and Princip and the remaining conspirators failed to act due to the motorcade's high speed.",
"title": "Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After the Archduke gave his scheduled speech at Town Hall, he decided to visit the victims of Čabrinović's grenade attack at the Sarajevo Hospital. To avoid the city centre, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the hospital. However, Potiorek forgot to inform the driver, a Czech named Leopold Lojka, about this decision. On the way to the hospital, Lojka, following the original plan, turned onto a side street where Princip was in front of a local delicatessen. After the Governor shouted at him, Lojka stopped in front of a shop and began to reverse. As he did so the engine stalled and the gears locked. Princip stepped forward, drew a Browning semi-automatic pistol, and at point-blank range fired twice into the car, first hitting the Archduke in the neck, and then hitting the Duchess in the abdomen. They both died shortly after.",
"title": "Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Austro-Hungarian government who saw Serbia's nationalist aspirations as a threat to its own multi-ethnic empire, used the assassination as the perfect pretext to take action against Serbia. A chain of events triggered the July Crisis which led to the outbreak of World War I. On 28 July, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, followed by the declarations of war by Germany, France, Russia and Great Britain.",
"title": "Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Before Princip could fire for a third time, the pistol was wrested from his hand and he was pushed to the ground. He managed to swallow a capsule of cyanide, which failed to kill him. The trial opened on 12 October and lasted until 23 October 1914. Princip and twenty-four people were indicted. All six assassins, except Mehmedbašić, were under twenty at the time of the assassination, while the group was dominated by Bosnian Serbs, four of the indicted were Bosnian Croats and all of them were Austro-Hungarian citizens, none being from Serbia. The state's attorney charged twenty-two of the accused with high treason and murder and three with complicity in the murder. Princip stated that he regretted the killing of the Duchess and meant to kill Potiorek, but was nonetheless proud of what he had done. The Austrian police investigators were eager to emphasise the exclusively Serbian nature of the assassination plot for political reasons, but during his trial Princip insisted that, even though he was an ethnic Serb, his commitment was to freeing all south Slavs. All the chief conspirators mentioned the revolutionary destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of the South Slavs as the motivation behind their act.",
"title": "Arrest and trial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "\"I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria... The plan was to unite all South Slavs. It was understood that Serbia as the free part of the South Slavs had the moral duty to help in the unification, to be to the South Slavs as the Piedmont was to Italy... In my opinion every Serb, Croat and Slovene should be an enemy of Austria.\"",
"title": "Arrest and trial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Austro-Hungarian authorities tried to hide the fact that the conspirators included Croats and Bosniaks, going as far as changing the name of one of them in the press reports, to portray the entire scheme as being of Serbian origin and carried out only by Serbs. Since it provided the weapons to the assassins and helped them cross the border, the Black Hand was implicated in the assassination. This did not prove that the Serbian government knew about the assassination, let alone approved of it, but was enough for Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum, which led up to the outbreak of World War I. According to David Fromkin what the killings gave Vienna was not a reason, but an excuse, for destroying Serbia.",
"title": "Arrest and trial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Princip was nineteen years old at the time and too young to be executed, as he was twenty-seven days shy of the twenty-year minimum age limit required by Habsburg law. On Thursday 28 October 1914 the court found Princip guilty of murder and high treason, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, he was to serve out his sentence in a military prison within the Habsburg fortress of Theresienstadt in northern Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic).",
"title": "Arrest and trial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Princip was chained to a wall in solitary confinement at the Small Fortress in Terezín, where he lived in harsh conditions and developed tuberculosis. The disease ate away his bones so badly that his right arm had to be amputated. In January 1916, Princip unsuccessfully attempted to hang himself with a towel. From February to June 1916, Princip met with Martin Pappenheim, a psychiatrist in the Austro-Hungarian army, four times. Pappenheim wrote that Princip asserted that the First World War would have occurred even if the assassination had not taken place, and that he \"cannot feel himself responsible for the catastrophe\".",
"title": "Imprisonment and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Princip died on 28 April 1918, three years and ten months after the assassination. At the time of his death, weakened by malnutrition and disease, he weighed around 40 kilograms (88 lb; 6 st 4 lb).",
"title": "Imprisonment and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Fearing his bones might become relics for Slavic nationalists, Princip's prison guards secretly took the body to an unmarked grave, but a Czech soldier assigned to the burial remembered the location, and in 1920 Princip and the other \"Heroes of Vidovdan\" were exhumed and brought to Sarajevo, where they were buried together beneath the Vidovdan Heroes Chapel \"built to commemorate for eternity our Serb heroes\" at the Holy Archangels Cemetery, which includes a citation from the Montenegrin poet Njegoš: \"Blessed is he who lives forever. He had something to be born for.\"",
"title": "Imprisonment and death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Long after his death, Princip's legacy is still disputed and he remains a historically significant but polarising figure. For the Habsburg monarchy and its supporters, he was a murderous terrorist; Royal Yugoslavia portrayed him as a Yugoslav hero; during World War II, Nazis and Croatian fascist Ustasha viewed him as a degenerate criminal and a left-wing anarchist; and for socialist Yugoslavia, he represented a youthful hero of armed resistance, a freedom fighter who fought to liberate all the peoples of Yugoslavia from Imperial rule, fighting for the workers and the oppressed. In the 1990s, Princip started to be seen by some as a Serbian nationalist acting for the creation of a Greater Serbia. Political movements and regimes have either praised or demonized him to promote their ideology.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Today he is still celebrated as a hero by numerous Serbs and regarded as a terrorist by many Croats and Bosniaks. Asim Sarajlić, a senior MP of the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action, stated in 2014 that Princip brought an end to \"a golden era of history under Austrian rule\" and that \"we are strongly against the mythology of Princip as a fighter of freedom\". Many of Bosnia's Serbs continue to venerate his memory: Nenad Samardžija, the Serb governor of East Sarajevo, said in 2014 that \"we once all lived in one state (Yugoslavia), and we never looked on it as any kind of terrorist act\" but \"a movement of young people who wanted to liberate themselves from colonial slavery\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The house where Princip lived in Sarajevo was destroyed during World War I. After the war, it was rebuilt as a museum in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was conquered by Germany in 1941 and Sarajevo became part of the Independent State of Croatia. The Croatian Ustaše destroyed the house again. After the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia in 1944, the house was rebuilt, became a museum again, and there was another museum dedicated to him within the city of Sarajevo. During the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the house was destroyed again and then rebuilt for the third time in 2015.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Princip's pistol was confiscated by the authorities and eventually given, along with the Archduke's blood-stained undershirt, to Anton Puntigam, a Jesuit priest who was a close friend of the Archduke and had given the Archduke and his wife their last rites. The pistol and shirt remained in the possession of the Austrian Jesuits until they were offered on long-term loan to the Museum of Military History in Vienna in 2004. It is now part of the permanent exhibition there. During the Yugoslavian era, Latin Bridge, the site of the assassination, was renamed Princip's Bridge in remembrance; it reverted to its old name Latinska Cuprija in 1992. In Sarajevo about a half-dozen memorials to Gavrilo Princip have been erected on the site and torn down with each change in power.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In 1917, a pillar was constructed at the corner of where the assassination took place. It was destroyed the following year. In 1941, the 1930 plaque commemorating Princip was removed by the local Germans when the German Army invaded. It was presented to Adolf Hitler as a birthday gift and kept in a museum, only to be lost after 1945. After World War II, a new plaque went up which claimed that \"Gavrilo Princip threw off the German occupiers\". During the Bosnian War, embossed footprints marking where Princip fired the fatal shots were torn out.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As the centenary of the assassination neared, an apolitical plaque was put up at the corner where the assassination took place, which states: \"From this place on 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia.\" On 21 April 2014, a bust of Princip was unveiled in Tovariševo, and on the centenary itself, a statue was erected in East Sarajevo. A year later, a statue of Princip was unveiled in Belgrade by the President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić and the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, as a gift from Republika Srpska to Serbia. At the unveiling Nikolić gave a speech, saying in part: \"Princip was a hero, a symbol of liberation ideas, tyrant-killer, idea-holder of liberation from slavery, which spanned through Europe\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "On 11 November 2018, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Princess Anita of Hohenberg, the eldest great-grandchild of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Branislav Princip, grandnephew of Gavrilo Princip, shook hands in a symbolic act of reconciliation in Graz, Austria.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In the German drama film 1914 (1931), Carl Balhaus played Gavrilo Princip. Irfan Mensur played Princip in The Day That Shook the World (1975), based on the assassination. In the Austrian biopic Death of a Schoolboy [de] (1990, original German title Gavre Princip - Himmel unter Steinen) by Peter Patzak about Princip's life, he was portrayed by British actor and director Reuben Pillsbury. He was portrayed by Eugen Knecht in Sarajevo (2014), a German-Austrian television film based on the assassination, and by Joel Basman in The King's Man (2021), the third film in the Kingsman fiction film series.",
"title": "Portrayals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The killing of the Archduke and his wife set off the July Crisis, a chain of events that within one month led to the outbreak of World War I. Princip was born in western Bosnia to a poor Serb family. At the age of 13, he was sent to Sarajevo, the capital of Austrian-occupied Bosnia, to study at the Merchants' School, before transferring to the gymnasium, where he became politically aware. In 1911, he joined Young Bosnia, a secret local society aiming to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and achieve the unification of the South Slavs. After attending anti-Austrian demonstrations in Sarajevo, he was expelled from school and walked to Belgrade, Serbia to continue his education. During the First Balkan War, Princip traveled to Southern Serbia to volunteer with the Serbian army's irregular forces fighting against the Ottoman Empire but was rejected for being too small and weak. In 1913, following the unexpected success of the Serbians in the war against the Ottomans, the Austrian military governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek, declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, imposed martial rule, and banned all Serbian public, cultural, and educational societies. Inspired by a spate of assassination attempts against Imperial officials by Slavic nationalists and anarchists, Princip convinced two other young Bosnians to join a plot to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg Empire during his announced visit to Sarajevo. The Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with ties to Serbian military intelligence, provided the conspirators with weapons and training before facilitating their re-entry into Bosnia. On Sunday 28 June 1914 during the royal couple's visit to Sarajevo, the then-teenager Princip mortally wounded both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by firing a pistol into their convertible car that had unexpectedly stopped 5 feet (1.5 m) from him. Princip was arrested immediately and tried alongside twenty-four others, all Bosnians and thus Austro-Hungarian subjects. At his trial, Princip stated: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria." Princip was spared the death penalty because of his age (19) and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was imprisoned at the Terezín fortress. The Serbian government itself did not inspire the assassination but the Austrian Foreign Office and Army used the murders as a reason for a preventive war which led directly to World War I. Princip died on 28 April 1918 from tuberculosis exacerbated by poor prison conditions which had already caused one of his arms to be amputated. | 2001-12-21T04:48:53Z | 2023-12-27T09:58:34Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip |
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