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14,268 | Hapworth 16, 1924 | "Hapworth 16, 1924" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.
The story is the last original work Salinger published during his lifetime, and filled almost the entire magazine. It is the "youngest" of his Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the series.
46-year-old Buddy Glass reproduces the contents of a letter written by his older brother Seymour, deceased since his suicide 17 years earlier in 1948. Seymour wrote the letter to their parents while he and Buddy (two years his junior) were attending Camp Simon Hapworth, Maine, in 1924. The literary voice conveyed in the letter is that of a highly articulate and strikingly precocious boy of seven. The letter, written from the camp infirmary (Seymour has injured his leg) is a wide-ranging commentary on the camp personnel, the camp attendees, and his relationships with his family, humanity and God. Seymour and Buddy largely prefer to occupy themselves writing poems and short stories rather than participate in group activities. They therefore meet with some hostility.
Seymour devotes a large part of the letter to enumerating his reading list and requests for further reading material from his parents. He offers critical appraisals of a number of major literary figures. The letter closes with a lengthy discourse on the significance of God.
The circumstances and considerations that led chief fiction editor William Shawn at The New Yorker to devote virtually the entire June 19, 1965, edition to "Hapworth 16, 1924" are obscure. Biographer Kenneth Slawenki writes, "the files of The New Yorker are unusually silent on the details of the novella's reception by the editorial staff and its eventual reception by William Shawn." The correspondence between Salinger and Shawn chronicling the decision may have been deliberately suppressed. Slawenski speculates that the appearance of Salinger's piece in the journal was "a fait accompli rather than a topic of debate".
After the story's appearance in The New Yorker, Salinger—who had already withdrawn to his home in New Hampshire—stopped publishing altogether. Since the story never appeared in book form, readers had to seek out that issue or find it on microfilm. Finally, with the release of The Complete New Yorker on DVD in 2005, the story was once again widely available.
In 1996, Orchises Press, a small Virginia publishing house, started a process of publishing "Hapworth" in book form. Orchises Press owner Roger Lathbury has described the effort in The Washington Post and, three months after Salinger's death, in New York magazine. According to Lathbury, Salinger was deeply concerned with the proposed book's appearance, even visiting Washington to examine the cloth for the binding. Salinger also sent Lathbury numerous "infectious and delightful and loving" letters.
Following publishing norms, Lathbury applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data, unaware of how publicly available the information would be. A writer in Seattle, researching an article on Jeff Bezos, came across the "Hapworth" publication date, and told his sister, a journalist for the Washington Business Journal, who wrote an article about the upcoming book. This led to substantial coverage in the press. Shortly before the books were to be shipped, Salinger changed his mind, and Orchises withdrew the book. New publication dates were repeatedly announced, but it never appeared. Lathbury said, "I never reached back out. I thought about writing some letters, but it wouldn't have done any good."
Crucial to any to any approach to the Glass family stories is a recognition of Salinger's refusal to recast standard literary forms, a tendency that becomes most manifest in the diffuse and digressive Seymour: An Introduction and the shapeless and interminable "Hapworth."—Literary critic John Wenke in J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction (1991).
Both contemporary and later literary critics harshly panned "Hapworth 16, 1924"; writing in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called it "a sour, implausible and, sad to say, completely charmless story .... filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions."
Calling it "virtually unreadable" and "an enigma", critic John Wenke compares "Hapworth" to viewing a neighbor's unedited family home movies. He writes:
Possibly the least structured and most tedious piece of fiction ever produced by an important writer, "Hapworth" seems designed to bore, to tax patience, as if Salinger was trying to torment his readers.
Wenke adds that the story is a striking departure from the "urbane, pithy and wry" short fiction The New Yorker's editors and readership favored.
Biographer Kenneth Slawenski considers the piece "professionally, a disaster" and ponders what may have motivated Salinger to submit the work for publication:
Questions regarding "Hapworth" have plagued Salinger fans ever since. Did he intentionally write the story as his final publication? Why is "Hapworth" so unreadable? The story fostered a suspicion that...Salinger attempted to release himself from the affections of average readers by feeding them a work that was completely indigestible.
Biographer Ian Hamilton concurs that Salinger appears to abandon his loyal readership and retreat into the exclusive realm of his characters. He writes, "The Glass family has, in this last story, become Salinger's subject and his readership, his creatures and his companions. His life is finally made one with art."
Salinger is said to have considered the story a "high point of his writing" and made tentative steps to have it reprinted, though those came to nothing. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "\"Hapworth 16, 1924\" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The story is the last original work Salinger published during his lifetime, and filled almost the entire magazine. It is the \"youngest\" of his Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the series.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "46-year-old Buddy Glass reproduces the contents of a letter written by his older brother Seymour, deceased since his suicide 17 years earlier in 1948. Seymour wrote the letter to their parents while he and Buddy (two years his junior) were attending Camp Simon Hapworth, Maine, in 1924. The literary voice conveyed in the letter is that of a highly articulate and strikingly precocious boy of seven. The letter, written from the camp infirmary (Seymour has injured his leg) is a wide-ranging commentary on the camp personnel, the camp attendees, and his relationships with his family, humanity and God. Seymour and Buddy largely prefer to occupy themselves writing poems and short stories rather than participate in group activities. They therefore meet with some hostility.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Seymour devotes a large part of the letter to enumerating his reading list and requests for further reading material from his parents. He offers critical appraisals of a number of major literary figures. The letter closes with a lengthy discourse on the significance of God.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The circumstances and considerations that led chief fiction editor William Shawn at The New Yorker to devote virtually the entire June 19, 1965, edition to \"Hapworth 16, 1924\" are obscure. Biographer Kenneth Slawenki writes, \"the files of The New Yorker are unusually silent on the details of the novella's reception by the editorial staff and its eventual reception by William Shawn.\" The correspondence between Salinger and Shawn chronicling the decision may have been deliberately suppressed. Slawenski speculates that the appearance of Salinger's piece in the journal was \"a fait accompli rather than a topic of debate\".",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "After the story's appearance in The New Yorker, Salinger—who had already withdrawn to his home in New Hampshire—stopped publishing altogether. Since the story never appeared in book form, readers had to seek out that issue or find it on microfilm. Finally, with the release of The Complete New Yorker on DVD in 2005, the story was once again widely available.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1996, Orchises Press, a small Virginia publishing house, started a process of publishing \"Hapworth\" in book form. Orchises Press owner Roger Lathbury has described the effort in The Washington Post and, three months after Salinger's death, in New York magazine. According to Lathbury, Salinger was deeply concerned with the proposed book's appearance, even visiting Washington to examine the cloth for the binding. Salinger also sent Lathbury numerous \"infectious and delightful and loving\" letters.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Following publishing norms, Lathbury applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data, unaware of how publicly available the information would be. A writer in Seattle, researching an article on Jeff Bezos, came across the \"Hapworth\" publication date, and told his sister, a journalist for the Washington Business Journal, who wrote an article about the upcoming book. This led to substantial coverage in the press. Shortly before the books were to be shipped, Salinger changed his mind, and Orchises withdrew the book. New publication dates were repeatedly announced, but it never appeared. Lathbury said, \"I never reached back out. I thought about writing some letters, but it wouldn't have done any good.\"",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Crucial to any to any approach to the Glass family stories is a recognition of Salinger's refusal to recast standard literary forms, a tendency that becomes most manifest in the diffuse and digressive Seymour: An Introduction and the shapeless and interminable \"Hapworth.\"—Literary critic John Wenke in J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction (1991).",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Both contemporary and later literary critics harshly panned \"Hapworth 16, 1924\"; writing in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called it \"a sour, implausible and, sad to say, completely charmless story .... filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions.\"",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Calling it \"virtually unreadable\" and \"an enigma\", critic John Wenke compares \"Hapworth\" to viewing a neighbor's unedited family home movies. He writes:",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Possibly the least structured and most tedious piece of fiction ever produced by an important writer, \"Hapworth\" seems designed to bore, to tax patience, as if Salinger was trying to torment his readers.",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Wenke adds that the story is a striking departure from the \"urbane, pithy and wry\" short fiction The New Yorker's editors and readership favored.",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Biographer Kenneth Slawenski considers the piece \"professionally, a disaster\" and ponders what may have motivated Salinger to submit the work for publication:",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Questions regarding \"Hapworth\" have plagued Salinger fans ever since. Did he intentionally write the story as his final publication? Why is \"Hapworth\" so unreadable? The story fostered a suspicion that...Salinger attempted to release himself from the affections of average readers by feeding them a work that was completely indigestible.",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Biographer Ian Hamilton concurs that Salinger appears to abandon his loyal readership and retreat into the exclusive realm of his characters. He writes, \"The Glass family has, in this last story, become Salinger's subject and his readership, his creatures and his companions. His life is finally made one with art.\"",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Salinger is said to have considered the story a \"high point of his writing\" and made tentative steps to have it reprinted, though those came to nothing.",
"title": "Reception and assessment"
}
]
| "Hapworth 16, 1924" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker. The story is the last original work Salinger published during his lifetime, and filled almost the entire magazine. It is the "youngest" of his Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the series. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-10-07T15:22:13Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapworth_16,_1924 |
14,269 | Hypnotic | Hypnotic (from Greek Hypnos, sleep), or soporific drugs, commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of (and umbrella term for) psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to induce sleep (or surgical anesthesia) and to treat insomnia (sleeplessness).
This group of drugs is related to sedatives. Whereas the term sedative describes drugs that serve to calm or relieve anxiety, the term hypnotic generally describes drugs whose main purpose is to initiate, sustain, or lengthen sleep. Because these two functions frequently overlap, and because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects (ranging from anxiolysis to loss of consciousness), they are often referred to collectively as sedative–hypnotic drugs.
Hypnotic drugs are regularly prescribed for insomnia and other sleep disorders, with over 95% of insomnia patients being prescribed hypnotics in some countries. Many hypnotic drugs are habit-forming and—due to many factors known to disturb the human sleep pattern—a physician may instead recommend changes in the environment before and during sleep, better sleep hygiene, the avoidance of caffeine and alcohol or other stimulating substances, or behavioral interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), before prescribing medication for sleep. When prescribed, hypnotic medication should be used for the shortest period of time necessary.
Among individuals with sleep disorders, 13.7% are taking or prescribed nonbenzodiazepines, while 10.8% are taking benzodiazepines, as of 2010, in the USA. Early classes of drugs, such as barbiturates, have fallen out of use in most practices but are still prescribed for some patients. In children, prescribing hypnotics is not yet acceptable—unless used to treat night terrors or sleepwalking. Elderly people are more sensitive to potential side effects of daytime fatigue and cognitive impairments, and a meta-analysis found that the risks generally outweigh any marginal benefits of hypnotics in the elderly. A review of the literature regarding benzodiazepine hypnotics and Z-drugs concluded that these drugs can have adverse effects, such as dependence and accidents, and that optimal treatment uses the lowest effective dose for the shortest therapeutic time period, with gradual discontinuation in order to improve health without worsening of sleep.
Falling outside the above-mentioned categories, the neurohormone melatonin and its analogues (such as ramelteon) serve a hypnotic function.
Hypnotica was a class of somniferous drugs and substances tested in medicine of the 1890s and later. These include Urethan, Acetal, Methylal, Sulfonal, paraldehyde, Amylenhydrate, Hypnon, Chloralurethan and Ohloralamid or Chloralimid.
Research about using medications to treat insomnia evolved throughout the last half of the 20th century. Treatment for insomnia in psychiatry dates back to 1869, when chloral hydrate was first used as a soporific. Barbiturates emerged as the first class of drugs in the early 1900s, after which chemical substitution allowed derivative compounds. Although they were the best drug family at the time (with less toxicity and fewer side effects), they were dangerous in overdose and tended to cause physical and psychological dependence.
During the 1970s, quinazolinones and benzodiazepines were introduced as safer alternatives to replace barbiturates; by the late 1970s, benzodiazepines emerged as the safer drug.
Benzodiazepines are not without their drawbacks; substance dependence is possible, and deaths from overdoses sometimes occur, especially in combination with alcohol and/or other depressants. Questions have been raised as to whether they disturb sleep architecture.
Nonbenzodiazepines are the most recent development (1990s–present). Although it is clear that they are less toxic than barbiturates, their predecessors, comparative efficacy over benzodiazepines have not been established. Such efficacy is hard to determine without longitudinal studies. However, some psychiatrists recommend these drugs, citing research suggesting they are equally potent with less potential for abuse.
Other sleep remedies that may be considered "sedative–hypnotics" exist; psychiatrists will sometimes prescribe medicines off-label if they have sedating effects. Examples of these include mirtazapine (an antidepressant), clonidine (an older antihypertensive drug), quetiapine (an antipsychotic), and the over-the-counter allergy and antiemetic medications doxylamine and diphenhydramine. Off-label sleep remedies are particularly useful when first-line treatment is unsuccessful or deemed unsafe (as in patients with a history of substance abuse).
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and anticonvulsalgesic effects; however, these effects are somewhat weak, preventing barbiturates from being used in surgery in the absence of other analgesics. They have dependence liability, both physical and psychological. Barbiturates have now largely been replaced by benzodiazepines in routine medical practice – such as in the treatment of anxiety and insomnia – mainly because benzodiazepines are significantly less dangerous in overdose. However, barbiturates are still used in general anesthesia, for epilepsy, and for assisted suicide. Barbiturates are derivatives of barbituric acid.
The principal mechanism of action of barbiturates is believed to be positive allosteric modulation of GABAA receptors.
Examples include amobarbital, pentobarbital, phenobarbital, secobarbital, and sodium thiopental.
Quinazolinones are also a class of drugs which function as hypnotic/sedatives that contain a 4-quinazolinone core. Their use has also been proposed in the treatment of cancer.
Examples of quinazolinones include cloroqualone, diproqualone, etaqualone (Aolan, Athinazone, Ethinazone), mebroqualone, Afloqualone (Arofuto), mecloqualone (Nubarene, Casfen), and methaqualone (Quaalude).
Benzodiazepines can be useful for short-term treatment of insomnia. Their use beyond 2 to 4 weeks is not recommended due to the risk of dependence. It is preferred that benzodiazepines be taken intermittently—and at the lowest effective dose. They improve sleep-related problems by shortening the time spent in bed before falling asleep, prolonging the sleep time, and, in general, reducing wakefulness. Like alcohol, benzodiazepines are commonly used to treat insomnia in the short-term (both prescribed and self-medicated), but worsen sleep in the long-term. While benzodiazepines can put people to sleep (i.e., inhibit NREM stage 1 and 2 sleep), while asleep, the drugs disrupt sleep architecture by decreasing sleep time, delaying time to REM sleep, and decreasing deep slow-wave sleep (the most restorative part of sleep for both energy and mood).
Other drawbacks of hypnotics, including benzodiazepines, are possible tolerance to their effects, rebound insomnia, and reduced slow-wave sleep and a withdrawal period typified by rebound insomnia and a prolonged period of anxiety and agitation. The list of benzodiazepines approved for the treatment of insomnia is fairly similar among most countries, but which benzodiazepines are officially designated as first-line hypnotics prescribed for the treatment of insomnia can vary distinctly between countries. Longer-acting benzodiazepines such as nitrazepam and diazepam have residual effects that may persist into the next day and are, in general, not recommended.
It is not clear as to whether the new nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics (Z-drugs) are better than the short-acting benzodiazepines. The efficacy of these two groups of medications is similar. According to the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, indirect comparison indicates that side-effects from benzodiazepines may be about twice as frequent as from nonbenzodiazepines. Some experts suggest using nonbenzodiazepines preferentially as a first-line long-term treatment of insomnia. However, the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) did not find any convincing evidence in favor of Z-drugs. A NICE review pointed out that short-acting Z-drugs were inappropriately compared in clinical trials with long-acting benzodiazepines. There have been no trials comparing short-acting Z-drugs with appropriate doses of short-acting benzodiazepines. Based on this, NICE recommended choosing the hypnotic based on cost and the patient's preference.
Older adults should not use benzodiazepines to treat insomnia—unless other treatments have failed to be effective. When benzodiazepines are used, patients, their caretakers, and their physician should discuss the increased risk of harms, including evidence which shows twice the incidence of traffic collisions among driving patients, as well as falls and hip fracture for all older patients.
Their mechanism of action is primarily at GABAA receptors.
Nonbenzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drugs that are very "benzodiazepine-like" in nature. Nonbenzodiazepine pharmacodynamics are almost entirely the same as benzodiazepine drugs, and therefore entail similar benefits, side-effects and risks. Nonbenzodiazepines, however, have dissimilar or entirely different chemical structures, and therefore are unrelated to benzodiazepines on a molecular level.
Examples include zopiclone (Imovane, Zimovane), eszopiclone (Lunesta), zaleplon (Sonata), and zolpidem (Ambien, Stilnox, Stilnoct).
Research on nonbenzodiazepines is new and conflicting. A review by a team of researchers suggests the use of these drugs for people that have trouble falling asleep (but not staying asleep), as next-day impairments were minimal. The team noted that the safety of these drugs had been established, but called for more research into their long-term effectiveness in treating insomnia. Other evidence suggests that tolerance to nonbenzodiazepines may be slower to develop than with benzodiazepines. A different team was more skeptical, finding little benefit over benzodiazepines.
Melatonin, the hormone produced in the pineal gland in the brain and secreted in dim light and darkness, among its other functions, promotes sleep in diurnal mammals. Ramelteon and tasimelteon are synthetic analogues of melatonin which are also used for sleep-related indications.
In common use, the term antihistamine refers only to compounds that inhibit action at the H1 receptor (and not H2, etc.).
Clinically, H1 antagonists are used to treat certain allergies. Sedation is a common side-effect, and some H1 antagonists, such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and doxylamine, are also used to treat insomnia.
Second-generation antihistamines cross the blood–brain barrier to a much lower degree than the first ones. This results in their primarily affecting peripheral histamine receptors, and therefore having a much lower sedative effect. High doses can still induce the central nervous system effect of drowsiness.
Some antidepressants have sedating effects.
Examples include:
While some of these drugs are frequently prescribed for insomnia, such use is not recommended unless the insomnia is due to an underlying mental health condition treatable by antipsychotics as the risks frequently outweigh the benefits. Some of the more serious adverse effects have been observed to occur at the low doses used for this off-label prescribing, such as dyslipidemia and neutropenia, and a recent network meta-analysis of 154 double-blind, randomized controlled trials of drug therapies vs. placebo for insomnia in adults found that quetiapine did not demonstrated any short-term benefits in sleep quality. Examples of antipsychotics with sedation as a side effect that are occasionally used for insomnia:
A major systematic review and network meta-analysis of medications for the treatment of insomnia was published in 2022. It found a wide range of effect sizes (standardized mean difference (SMD)) in terms of efficacy for insomnia. The assessed medications included benzodiazepines (e.g., temazepam, triazolam, many others) (SMDs 0.58 to 0.83), Z-drugs (eszopiclone, zaleplon, zolpidem, zopiclone) (SMDs 0.03 to 0.63), sedative antidepressants and antihistamines (doxepin, doxylamine, trazodone, trimipramine) (SMDs 0.30 to 0.55), the antipsychotic quetiapine (SMD 0.07), orexin receptor antagonists (daridorexant, lemborexant, seltorexant, suvorexant) (SMDs 0.23 to 0.44), and melatonin receptor agonists (melatonin, ramelteon) (SMDs 0.00 to 0.13). The certainty of evidence varied and ranged from high to very low depending on the medication. Certain medications often used as hypnotics, including the antihistamines diphenhydramine, hydroxyzine, and promethazine and the antidepressants amitriptyline and mirtazapine, were not included in analyses due to insufficient data.
The use of sedative medications in older people generally should be avoided. These medications are associated with poorer health outcomes, including cognitive decline.
Therefore, sedatives and hypnotics should be avoided in people with dementia, according to the clinical guidelines known as the Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health Conditions in Dementia (MATCH-D). The use of these medications can further impede cognitive function for people with dementia, who are also more sensitive to side effects of medications. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hypnotic (from Greek Hypnos, sleep), or soporific drugs, commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of (and umbrella term for) psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to induce sleep (or surgical anesthesia) and to treat insomnia (sleeplessness).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "This group of drugs is related to sedatives. Whereas the term sedative describes drugs that serve to calm or relieve anxiety, the term hypnotic generally describes drugs whose main purpose is to initiate, sustain, or lengthen sleep. Because these two functions frequently overlap, and because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects (ranging from anxiolysis to loss of consciousness), they are often referred to collectively as sedative–hypnotic drugs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hypnotic drugs are regularly prescribed for insomnia and other sleep disorders, with over 95% of insomnia patients being prescribed hypnotics in some countries. Many hypnotic drugs are habit-forming and—due to many factors known to disturb the human sleep pattern—a physician may instead recommend changes in the environment before and during sleep, better sleep hygiene, the avoidance of caffeine and alcohol or other stimulating substances, or behavioral interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), before prescribing medication for sleep. When prescribed, hypnotic medication should be used for the shortest period of time necessary.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Among individuals with sleep disorders, 13.7% are taking or prescribed nonbenzodiazepines, while 10.8% are taking benzodiazepines, as of 2010, in the USA. Early classes of drugs, such as barbiturates, have fallen out of use in most practices but are still prescribed for some patients. In children, prescribing hypnotics is not yet acceptable—unless used to treat night terrors or sleepwalking. Elderly people are more sensitive to potential side effects of daytime fatigue and cognitive impairments, and a meta-analysis found that the risks generally outweigh any marginal benefits of hypnotics in the elderly. A review of the literature regarding benzodiazepine hypnotics and Z-drugs concluded that these drugs can have adverse effects, such as dependence and accidents, and that optimal treatment uses the lowest effective dose for the shortest therapeutic time period, with gradual discontinuation in order to improve health without worsening of sleep.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Falling outside the above-mentioned categories, the neurohormone melatonin and its analogues (such as ramelteon) serve a hypnotic function.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hypnotica was a class of somniferous drugs and substances tested in medicine of the 1890s and later. These include Urethan, Acetal, Methylal, Sulfonal, paraldehyde, Amylenhydrate, Hypnon, Chloralurethan and Ohloralamid or Chloralimid.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Research about using medications to treat insomnia evolved throughout the last half of the 20th century. Treatment for insomnia in psychiatry dates back to 1869, when chloral hydrate was first used as a soporific. Barbiturates emerged as the first class of drugs in the early 1900s, after which chemical substitution allowed derivative compounds. Although they were the best drug family at the time (with less toxicity and fewer side effects), they were dangerous in overdose and tended to cause physical and psychological dependence.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the 1970s, quinazolinones and benzodiazepines were introduced as safer alternatives to replace barbiturates; by the late 1970s, benzodiazepines emerged as the safer drug.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Benzodiazepines are not without their drawbacks; substance dependence is possible, and deaths from overdoses sometimes occur, especially in combination with alcohol and/or other depressants. Questions have been raised as to whether they disturb sleep architecture.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Nonbenzodiazepines are the most recent development (1990s–present). Although it is clear that they are less toxic than barbiturates, their predecessors, comparative efficacy over benzodiazepines have not been established. Such efficacy is hard to determine without longitudinal studies. However, some psychiatrists recommend these drugs, citing research suggesting they are equally potent with less potential for abuse.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Other sleep remedies that may be considered \"sedative–hypnotics\" exist; psychiatrists will sometimes prescribe medicines off-label if they have sedating effects. Examples of these include mirtazapine (an antidepressant), clonidine (an older antihypertensive drug), quetiapine (an antipsychotic), and the over-the-counter allergy and antiemetic medications doxylamine and diphenhydramine. Off-label sleep remedies are particularly useful when first-line treatment is unsuccessful or deemed unsafe (as in patients with a history of substance abuse).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and anticonvulsalgesic effects; however, these effects are somewhat weak, preventing barbiturates from being used in surgery in the absence of other analgesics. They have dependence liability, both physical and psychological. Barbiturates have now largely been replaced by benzodiazepines in routine medical practice – such as in the treatment of anxiety and insomnia – mainly because benzodiazepines are significantly less dangerous in overdose. However, barbiturates are still used in general anesthesia, for epilepsy, and for assisted suicide. Barbiturates are derivatives of barbituric acid.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The principal mechanism of action of barbiturates is believed to be positive allosteric modulation of GABAA receptors.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Examples include amobarbital, pentobarbital, phenobarbital, secobarbital, and sodium thiopental.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Quinazolinones are also a class of drugs which function as hypnotic/sedatives that contain a 4-quinazolinone core. Their use has also been proposed in the treatment of cancer.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Examples of quinazolinones include cloroqualone, diproqualone, etaqualone (Aolan, Athinazone, Ethinazone), mebroqualone, Afloqualone (Arofuto), mecloqualone (Nubarene, Casfen), and methaqualone (Quaalude).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Benzodiazepines can be useful for short-term treatment of insomnia. Their use beyond 2 to 4 weeks is not recommended due to the risk of dependence. It is preferred that benzodiazepines be taken intermittently—and at the lowest effective dose. They improve sleep-related problems by shortening the time spent in bed before falling asleep, prolonging the sleep time, and, in general, reducing wakefulness. Like alcohol, benzodiazepines are commonly used to treat insomnia in the short-term (both prescribed and self-medicated), but worsen sleep in the long-term. While benzodiazepines can put people to sleep (i.e., inhibit NREM stage 1 and 2 sleep), while asleep, the drugs disrupt sleep architecture by decreasing sleep time, delaying time to REM sleep, and decreasing deep slow-wave sleep (the most restorative part of sleep for both energy and mood).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Other drawbacks of hypnotics, including benzodiazepines, are possible tolerance to their effects, rebound insomnia, and reduced slow-wave sleep and a withdrawal period typified by rebound insomnia and a prolonged period of anxiety and agitation. The list of benzodiazepines approved for the treatment of insomnia is fairly similar among most countries, but which benzodiazepines are officially designated as first-line hypnotics prescribed for the treatment of insomnia can vary distinctly between countries. Longer-acting benzodiazepines such as nitrazepam and diazepam have residual effects that may persist into the next day and are, in general, not recommended.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "It is not clear as to whether the new nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics (Z-drugs) are better than the short-acting benzodiazepines. The efficacy of these two groups of medications is similar. According to the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, indirect comparison indicates that side-effects from benzodiazepines may be about twice as frequent as from nonbenzodiazepines. Some experts suggest using nonbenzodiazepines preferentially as a first-line long-term treatment of insomnia. However, the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) did not find any convincing evidence in favor of Z-drugs. A NICE review pointed out that short-acting Z-drugs were inappropriately compared in clinical trials with long-acting benzodiazepines. There have been no trials comparing short-acting Z-drugs with appropriate doses of short-acting benzodiazepines. Based on this, NICE recommended choosing the hypnotic based on cost and the patient's preference.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Older adults should not use benzodiazepines to treat insomnia—unless other treatments have failed to be effective. When benzodiazepines are used, patients, their caretakers, and their physician should discuss the increased risk of harms, including evidence which shows twice the incidence of traffic collisions among driving patients, as well as falls and hip fracture for all older patients.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Their mechanism of action is primarily at GABAA receptors.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Nonbenzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drugs that are very \"benzodiazepine-like\" in nature. Nonbenzodiazepine pharmacodynamics are almost entirely the same as benzodiazepine drugs, and therefore entail similar benefits, side-effects and risks. Nonbenzodiazepines, however, have dissimilar or entirely different chemical structures, and therefore are unrelated to benzodiazepines on a molecular level.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Examples include zopiclone (Imovane, Zimovane), eszopiclone (Lunesta), zaleplon (Sonata), and zolpidem (Ambien, Stilnox, Stilnoct).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Research on nonbenzodiazepines is new and conflicting. A review by a team of researchers suggests the use of these drugs for people that have trouble falling asleep (but not staying asleep), as next-day impairments were minimal. The team noted that the safety of these drugs had been established, but called for more research into their long-term effectiveness in treating insomnia. Other evidence suggests that tolerance to nonbenzodiazepines may be slower to develop than with benzodiazepines. A different team was more skeptical, finding little benefit over benzodiazepines.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Melatonin, the hormone produced in the pineal gland in the brain and secreted in dim light and darkness, among its other functions, promotes sleep in diurnal mammals. Ramelteon and tasimelteon are synthetic analogues of melatonin which are also used for sleep-related indications.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In common use, the term antihistamine refers only to compounds that inhibit action at the H1 receptor (and not H2, etc.).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Clinically, H1 antagonists are used to treat certain allergies. Sedation is a common side-effect, and some H1 antagonists, such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and doxylamine, are also used to treat insomnia.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Second-generation antihistamines cross the blood–brain barrier to a much lower degree than the first ones. This results in their primarily affecting peripheral histamine receptors, and therefore having a much lower sedative effect. High doses can still induce the central nervous system effect of drowsiness.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Some antidepressants have sedating effects.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Examples include:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "While some of these drugs are frequently prescribed for insomnia, such use is not recommended unless the insomnia is due to an underlying mental health condition treatable by antipsychotics as the risks frequently outweigh the benefits. Some of the more serious adverse effects have been observed to occur at the low doses used for this off-label prescribing, such as dyslipidemia and neutropenia, and a recent network meta-analysis of 154 double-blind, randomized controlled trials of drug therapies vs. placebo for insomnia in adults found that quetiapine did not demonstrated any short-term benefits in sleep quality. Examples of antipsychotics with sedation as a side effect that are occasionally used for insomnia:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A major systematic review and network meta-analysis of medications for the treatment of insomnia was published in 2022. It found a wide range of effect sizes (standardized mean difference (SMD)) in terms of efficacy for insomnia. The assessed medications included benzodiazepines (e.g., temazepam, triazolam, many others) (SMDs 0.58 to 0.83), Z-drugs (eszopiclone, zaleplon, zolpidem, zopiclone) (SMDs 0.03 to 0.63), sedative antidepressants and antihistamines (doxepin, doxylamine, trazodone, trimipramine) (SMDs 0.30 to 0.55), the antipsychotic quetiapine (SMD 0.07), orexin receptor antagonists (daridorexant, lemborexant, seltorexant, suvorexant) (SMDs 0.23 to 0.44), and melatonin receptor agonists (melatonin, ramelteon) (SMDs 0.00 to 0.13). The certainty of evidence varied and ranged from high to very low depending on the medication. Certain medications often used as hypnotics, including the antihistamines diphenhydramine, hydroxyzine, and promethazine and the antidepressants amitriptyline and mirtazapine, were not included in analyses due to insufficient data.",
"title": "Effectiveness"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The use of sedative medications in older people generally should be avoided. These medications are associated with poorer health outcomes, including cognitive decline.",
"title": "Risks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Therefore, sedatives and hypnotics should be avoided in people with dementia, according to the clinical guidelines known as the Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health Conditions in Dementia (MATCH-D). The use of these medications can further impede cognitive function for people with dementia, who are also more sensitive to side effects of medications.",
"title": "Risks"
}
]
| Hypnotic, or soporific drugs, commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to induce sleep and to treat insomnia (sleeplessness). This group of drugs is related to sedatives. Whereas the term sedative describes drugs that serve to calm or relieve anxiety, the term hypnotic generally describes drugs whose main purpose is to initiate, sustain, or lengthen sleep. Because these two functions frequently overlap, and because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects, they are often referred to collectively as sedative–hypnotic drugs. Hypnotic drugs are regularly prescribed for insomnia and other sleep disorders, with over 95% of insomnia patients being prescribed hypnotics in some countries. Many hypnotic drugs are habit-forming and—due to many factors known to disturb the human sleep pattern—a physician may instead recommend changes in the environment before and during sleep, better sleep hygiene, the avoidance of caffeine and alcohol or other stimulating substances, or behavioral interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), before prescribing medication for sleep. When prescribed, hypnotic medication should be used for the shortest period of time necessary. Among individuals with sleep disorders, 13.7% are taking or prescribed nonbenzodiazepines, while 10.8% are taking benzodiazepines, as of 2010, in the USA. Early classes of drugs, such as barbiturates, have fallen out of use in most practices but are still prescribed for some patients. In children, prescribing hypnotics is not yet acceptable—unless used to treat night terrors or sleepwalking. Elderly people are more sensitive to potential side effects of daytime fatigue and cognitive impairments, and a meta-analysis found that the risks generally outweigh any marginal benefits of hypnotics in the elderly. A review of the literature regarding benzodiazepine hypnotics and Z-drugs concluded that these drugs can have adverse effects, such as dependence and accidents, and that optimal treatment uses the lowest effective dose for the shortest therapeutic time period, with gradual discontinuation in order to improve health without worsening of sleep. Falling outside the above-mentioned categories, the neurohormone melatonin and its analogues serve a hypnotic function. | 2001-12-10T21:21:43Z | 2023-12-24T04:39:13Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotic |
14,273 | HMS Dunraven | HMS Dunraven was a Q-Ship of the Royal Navy during World War I.
On 8 August 1917, 130 miles southwest of Ushant in the Bay of Biscay, disguised as the collier Boverton and commanded by Gordon Campbell, VC, Dunraven spotted UC-71, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel. Saltzwedel believed the disguised ship was a merchant vessel. The U-boat submerged and closed with Dunraven before surfacing astern at 11:43 am and opening fire at long range. Dunraven made smoke and sent off a panic party (a small number of men who "abandon ship" during an attack to continue the impersonation of a merchant).
Shells began hitting Dunraven, detonating her depth charges and setting her stern afire. Her crew remained hidden letting the fires burn. Then a 4-inch (102 mm) gun and crew were blown away revealing Dunraven's identity as a warship, and UC-71 submerged. A second "panic party" abandoned ship. Dunraven was hit by a torpedo. A third "panic party" went over the side, leaving only two guns manned. UC-71 surfaced, shelled Dunraven and again submerged. Campbell replied with two torpedoes that missed, and around 3 pm, the undamaged U-boat left that area. Only one of Dunraven's crew was killed, but the Q-Ship was sinking.
The British destroyer HMS Christopher picked up Dunraven's survivors and took her in tow for Plymouth, but Dunraven sank at 1:30 am early on 10 August 1917 to the north of Ushant.
In recognition, two Victoria Crosses were awarded, one to the ship's First Lieutenant, Lt. Charles George Bonner RNR, and the other, by ballot, to a gunlayer, Petty Officer Ernest Herbert Pitcher.
Captain Campbell later wrote:
Captain Campbell had been previously awarded the Victoria Cross, in February 1917, for the sinking of U-83. 48°36′18″N 5°24′36″W / 48.60500°N 5.41000°W / 48.60500; -5.41000 | [
{
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"text": "HMS Dunraven was a Q-Ship of the Royal Navy during World War I.",
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"text": "On 8 August 1917, 130 miles southwest of Ushant in the Bay of Biscay, disguised as the collier Boverton and commanded by Gordon Campbell, VC, Dunraven spotted UC-71, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel. Saltzwedel believed the disguised ship was a merchant vessel. The U-boat submerged and closed with Dunraven before surfacing astern at 11:43 am and opening fire at long range. Dunraven made smoke and sent off a panic party (a small number of men who \"abandon ship\" during an attack to continue the impersonation of a merchant).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Shells began hitting Dunraven, detonating her depth charges and setting her stern afire. Her crew remained hidden letting the fires burn. Then a 4-inch (102 mm) gun and crew were blown away revealing Dunraven's identity as a warship, and UC-71 submerged. A second \"panic party\" abandoned ship. Dunraven was hit by a torpedo. A third \"panic party\" went over the side, leaving only two guns manned. UC-71 surfaced, shelled Dunraven and again submerged. Campbell replied with two torpedoes that missed, and around 3 pm, the undamaged U-boat left that area. Only one of Dunraven's crew was killed, but the Q-Ship was sinking.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The British destroyer HMS Christopher picked up Dunraven's survivors and took her in tow for Plymouth, but Dunraven sank at 1:30 am early on 10 August 1917 to the north of Ushant.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In recognition, two Victoria Crosses were awarded, one to the ship's First Lieutenant, Lt. Charles George Bonner RNR, and the other, by ballot, to a gunlayer, Petty Officer Ernest Herbert Pitcher.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Captain Campbell later wrote:",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Captain Campbell had been previously awarded the Victoria Cross, in February 1917, for the sinking of U-83. 48°36′18″N 5°24′36″W / 48.60500°N 5.41000°W / 48.60500; -5.41000",
"title": ""
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| HMS Dunraven was a Q-Ship of the Royal Navy during World War I. On 8 August 1917, 130 miles southwest of Ushant in the Bay of Biscay, disguised as the collier Boverton and commanded by Gordon Campbell, VC, Dunraven spotted UC-71, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel. Saltzwedel believed the disguised ship was a merchant vessel. The U-boat submerged and closed with Dunraven before surfacing astern at 11:43 am and opening fire at long range. Dunraven made smoke and sent off a panic party. Shells began hitting Dunraven, detonating her depth charges and setting her stern afire. Her crew remained hidden letting the fires burn. Then a 4-inch (102 mm) gun and crew were blown away revealing Dunraven's identity as a warship, and UC-71 submerged. A second "panic party" abandoned ship. Dunraven was hit by a torpedo. A third "panic party" went over the side, leaving only two guns manned. UC-71 surfaced, shelled Dunraven and again submerged. Campbell replied with two torpedoes that missed, and around 3 pm, the undamaged U-boat left that area. Only one of Dunraven's crew was killed, but the Q-Ship was sinking. The British destroyer HMS Christopher picked up Dunraven's survivors and took her in tow for Plymouth, but Dunraven sank at 1:30 am early on 10 August 1917 to the north of Ushant. In recognition, two Victoria Crosses were awarded, one to the ship's First Lieutenant, Lt. Charles George Bonner RNR, and the other, by ballot, to a gunlayer, Petty Officer Ernest Herbert Pitcher. Captain Campbell later wrote: Captain Campbell had been previously awarded the Victoria Cross, in February 1917, for the sinking of U-83. | 2022-06-28T11:35:51Z | [
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|
14,275 | Hacker ethic | The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, as well as the political theories of anti-authoritarianism, socialism, liberalism, anarchism, and libertarianism.
While some tenets of the hacker ethic were described in other texts like Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) by Ted Nelson, the term hacker ethic is generally attributed to journalist Steven Levy, who appears to have been the first to document both the philosophy and the founders of the philosophy in his 1984 book titled Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
The hacker ethic originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s–1960s. The term "hacker" has long been used there to describe college pranks that MIT students would regularly devise, and was used more generally to describe a project undertaken or a product built to fulfill some constructive goal, but also out of pleasure for mere involvement.
MIT housed an early IBM 704 computer inside the Electronic Accounting Machinery (EAM) room in 1959. This room became the staging grounds for early hackers, as MIT students from the Tech Model Railroad Club sneaked inside the EAM room after hours to attempt programming the 30-ton, 9-foot-tall (2.7 m) computer.
The hacker ethic was described as a "new way of life, with a philosophy, an ethic and a dream". However, the elements of the hacker ethic were not openly debated and discussed; rather they were implicitly accepted and silently agreed upon.
The Free software movement was born in the early 1980s from followers of the hacker ethic. Its founder, Richard Stallman, is referred to by Steven Levy as "the last true hacker".
Richard Stallman describes:
"The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had—that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilised rather than wasted."
and states more precisely that hacking (which Stallman defines as playful cleverness) and ethics are two separate issues:
"Just because someone enjoys hacking does not mean he has an ethical commitment to treating other people properly. Some hackers care about ethics—I do, for instance—but that is not part of being a hacker, it is a separate trait. [...] Hacking is not primarily about an ethical issue. [...] hacking tends to lead a significant number of hackers to think about ethical questions in a certain way. I would not want to completely deny all connection between hacking and views on ethics."
The hacker culture has been compared to early Protestantism. Protestant sectarians emphasized individualism and loneliness, similar to hackers who have been considered loners and nonjudgmental individuals. The notion of moral indifference between hackers characterized the persistent actions of computer culture in the 1970s and early 1980s. According to Kirkpatrick, author of The Hacker Ethic, the "computer plays the role of God, whose requirements took priority over the human ones of sentiment when it came to assessing one's duty to others."
According to Kirkpatrick's The Hacker Ethic:
"Exceptional single-mindedness and determination to keep plugging away at a problem until the optimal solution had been found are well-documented traits of the early hackers. Willingness to work right through the night on a single programming problem are widely cited as features of the early 'hacker' computer culture."
The hacker culture is placed in the context of 1960s youth culture when American youth culture challenged the concept of capitalism and big, centralized structures. The hacker culture was a subculture within 1960s counterculture. The hackers' main concern was challenging the idea of technological expertise and authority. The 1960s hippy period attempted to "overturn the machine." Although hackers appreciated technology, they wanted regular citizens, and not big corporations, to have power over technology "as a weapon that might actually undermine the authority of the expert and the hold of the monolithic system."
As Levy summarized in the preface of Hackers, the general tenets or principles of hacker ethic include:
In addition to those principles, Levy also described more specific hacker ethics and beliefs in chapter 2, The Hacker Ethic: The ethics he described in chapter 2 are:
From the early days of modern computing through to the 1970s, it was far more common for computer users to have the freedoms that are provided by an ethic of open sharing and collaboration. Software, including source code, was commonly shared by individuals who used computers. Most companies had a business model based on hardware sales, and provided or bundled the associated software free of charge. According to Levy's account, sharing was the norm and expected within the non-corporate hacker culture. The principle of sharing stemmed from the open atmosphere and informal access to resources at MIT. During the early days of computers and programming, the hackers at MIT would develop a program and share it with other computer users.
If the hack was deemed particularly good, then the program might be posted on a board somewhere near one of the computers. Other programs that could be built upon it and improved it were saved to tapes and added to a drawer of programs, readily accessible to all the other hackers. At any time, a fellow hacker might reach into the drawer, pick out the program, and begin adding to it or "bumming" it to make it better. Bumming referred to the process of making the code more concise so that more can be done in fewer instructions, saving precious memory for further enhancements.
In the second generation of hackers, sharing was about sharing with the general public in addition to sharing with other hackers. A particular organization of hackers that was concerned with sharing computers with the general public was a group called Community Memory. This group of hackers and idealists put computers in public places for anyone to use. The first community computer was placed outside of Leopold's Records in Berkeley, California.
Another sharing of resources occurred when Bob Albrecht provided considerable resources for a non-profit organization called the People's Computer Company (PCC). PCC opened a computer center where anyone could use the computers there for fifty cents per hour.
This second generation practice of sharing contributed to the battles of free and open software. In fact, when Bill Gates' version of BASIC for the Altair was shared among the hacker community, Gates claimed to have lost a considerable sum of money because few users paid for the software. As a result, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists. This letter was published by several computer magazines and newsletters, most notably that of the Homebrew Computer Club where much of the sharing occurred.
According to Brent K. Jesiek in "Democratizing Software: Open Source, the Hacker Ethic, and Beyond," technology is being associated with social views and goals. Jesiek refers to Gisle Hannemyr's views on open source vs. commercialized software. Hannemyr concludes that when a hacker constructs software, the software is flexible, tailorable, modular in nature and is open-ended. A hacker's software contrasts mainstream hardware which favors control, a sense of being whole, and be immutable (Hannemyr, 1999).
Furthermore, he concludes that 'the difference between the hacker's approach and those of the industrial programmer is one of outlook: between an agoric, integrated and holistic attitude towards the creation of artifacts and a proprietary, fragmented and reductionist one' (Hannemyr, 1999). As Hannemyr's analysis reveals, the characteristics of a given piece of software frequently reflect the attitude and outlook of the programmers and organizations from which it emerges."
As copyright and patent laws limit the ability to share software, opposition to software patents is widespread in the hacker and free software community.
Many of the principles and tenets of hacker ethic contribute to a common goal: the Hands-On Imperative. As Levy described in Chapter 2, "Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems—about the world—from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and more interesting things."
Employing the Hands-On Imperative requires free access, open information, and the sharing of knowledge. To a true hacker, if the Hands-On Imperative is restricted, then the ends justify the means to make it unrestricted so that improvements can be made. When these principles are not present, hackers tend to work around them. For example, when the computers at MIT were protected either by physical locks or login programs, the hackers there systematically worked around them in order to have access to the machines. Hackers assumed a "willful blindness" in the pursuit of perfection.
This behavior was not malicious in nature: the MIT hackers did not seek to harm the systems or their users. This deeply contrasts with the modern, media-encouraged image of hackers who crack secure systems in order to steal information or complete an act of cyber-vandalism.
Throughout writings about hackers and their work processes, a common value of community and collaboration is present. For example, in Levy's Hackers, each generation of hackers had geographically based communities where collaboration and sharing occurred. For the hackers at MIT, it was the labs where the computers were running. For the hardware hackers (second generation) and the game hackers (third generation) the geographic area was centered in Silicon Valley where the Homebrew Computer Club and the People's Computer Company helped hackers network, collaborate, and share their work.
The concept of community and collaboration is still relevant today, although hackers are no longer limited to collaboration in geographic regions. Now collaboration takes place via the Internet. Eric S. Raymond identifies and explains this conceptual shift in The Cathedral and the Bazaar:
Before cheap Internet, there were some geographically compact communities where the culture encouraged Weinberg's egoless programming, and a developer could easily attract a lot of skilled kibitzers and co-developers. Bell Labs, the MIT AI and LCS labs, UC Berkeley: these became the home of innovations that are legendary and still potent.
Raymond also notes that the success of Linux coincided with the wide availability of the World Wide Web. The value of community is still in high practice and use today.
Levy identifies several "true hackers" who significantly influenced the hacker ethic. Some well-known "true hackers" include:
Levy also identified the "hardware hackers" (the "second generation", mostly centered in Silicon Valley) and the "game hackers" (or the "third generation"). All three generations of hackers, according to Levy, embodied the principles of the hacker ethic. Some of Levy's "second-generation" hackers include:
Levy's "third generation" practitioners of hacker ethic include:
In 2001, Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen promoted the hacker ethic in opposition to the Protestant work ethic. In Himanen's opinion, the hacker ethic is more closely related to the virtue ethics found in the writings of Plato and of Aristotle. Himanen explained these ideas in a book, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, with a prologue contributed by Linus Torvalds and an epilogue by Manuel Castells.
In this manifesto, the authors wrote about a hacker ethic centering on passion, hard work, creativity and joy in creating software. Both Himanen and Torvalds were inspired by the Sampo in Finnish mythology. The Sampo, described in the Kalevala saga, was a magical artifact constructed by Ilmarinen, the blacksmith god, that brought good fortune to its holder; nobody knows exactly what it was supposed to be. The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a compass or astrolabe, a chest containing a treasure, a Byzantine coin die, a decorated Vendel period shield, a Christian relic, etc. Kalevala saga compiler Lönnrot interpreted it to be a "quern" or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and wealth. | [
{
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"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "While some tenets of the hacker ethic were described in other texts like Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) by Ted Nelson, the term hacker ethic is generally attributed to journalist Steven Levy, who appears to have been the first to document both the philosophy and the founders of the philosophy in his 1984 book titled Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.",
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},
{
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"title": "History"
},
{
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"text": "MIT housed an early IBM 704 computer inside the Electronic Accounting Machinery (EAM) room in 1959. This room became the staging grounds for early hackers, as MIT students from the Tech Model Railroad Club sneaked inside the EAM room after hours to attempt programming the 30-ton, 9-foot-tall (2.7 m) computer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The hacker ethic was described as a \"new way of life, with a philosophy, an ethic and a dream\". However, the elements of the hacker ethic were not openly debated and discussed; rather they were implicitly accepted and silently agreed upon.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Free software movement was born in the early 1980s from followers of the hacker ethic. Its founder, Richard Stallman, is referred to by Steven Levy as \"the last true hacker\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Richard Stallman describes:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "\"The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had—that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilised rather than wasted.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "and states more precisely that hacking (which Stallman defines as playful cleverness) and ethics are two separate issues:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "\"Just because someone enjoys hacking does not mean he has an ethical commitment to treating other people properly. Some hackers care about ethics—I do, for instance—but that is not part of being a hacker, it is a separate trait. [...] Hacking is not primarily about an ethical issue. [...] hacking tends to lead a significant number of hackers to think about ethical questions in a certain way. I would not want to completely deny all connection between hacking and views on ethics.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The hacker culture has been compared to early Protestantism. Protestant sectarians emphasized individualism and loneliness, similar to hackers who have been considered loners and nonjudgmental individuals. The notion of moral indifference between hackers characterized the persistent actions of computer culture in the 1970s and early 1980s. According to Kirkpatrick, author of The Hacker Ethic, the \"computer plays the role of God, whose requirements took priority over the human ones of sentiment when it came to assessing one's duty to others.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "According to Kirkpatrick's The Hacker Ethic:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "\"Exceptional single-mindedness and determination to keep plugging away at a problem until the optimal solution had been found are well-documented traits of the early hackers. Willingness to work right through the night on a single programming problem are widely cited as features of the early 'hacker' computer culture.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The hacker culture is placed in the context of 1960s youth culture when American youth culture challenged the concept of capitalism and big, centralized structures. The hacker culture was a subculture within 1960s counterculture. The hackers' main concern was challenging the idea of technological expertise and authority. The 1960s hippy period attempted to \"overturn the machine.\" Although hackers appreciated technology, they wanted regular citizens, and not big corporations, to have power over technology \"as a weapon that might actually undermine the authority of the expert and the hold of the monolithic system.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As Levy summarized in the preface of Hackers, the general tenets or principles of hacker ethic include:",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In addition to those principles, Levy also described more specific hacker ethics and beliefs in chapter 2, The Hacker Ethic: The ethics he described in chapter 2 are:",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "From the early days of modern computing through to the 1970s, it was far more common for computer users to have the freedoms that are provided by an ethic of open sharing and collaboration. Software, including source code, was commonly shared by individuals who used computers. Most companies had a business model based on hardware sales, and provided or bundled the associated software free of charge. According to Levy's account, sharing was the norm and expected within the non-corporate hacker culture. The principle of sharing stemmed from the open atmosphere and informal access to resources at MIT. During the early days of computers and programming, the hackers at MIT would develop a program and share it with other computer users.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "If the hack was deemed particularly good, then the program might be posted on a board somewhere near one of the computers. Other programs that could be built upon it and improved it were saved to tapes and added to a drawer of programs, readily accessible to all the other hackers. At any time, a fellow hacker might reach into the drawer, pick out the program, and begin adding to it or \"bumming\" it to make it better. Bumming referred to the process of making the code more concise so that more can be done in fewer instructions, saving precious memory for further enhancements.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the second generation of hackers, sharing was about sharing with the general public in addition to sharing with other hackers. A particular organization of hackers that was concerned with sharing computers with the general public was a group called Community Memory. This group of hackers and idealists put computers in public places for anyone to use. The first community computer was placed outside of Leopold's Records in Berkeley, California.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Another sharing of resources occurred when Bob Albrecht provided considerable resources for a non-profit organization called the People's Computer Company (PCC). PCC opened a computer center where anyone could use the computers there for fifty cents per hour.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "This second generation practice of sharing contributed to the battles of free and open software. In fact, when Bill Gates' version of BASIC for the Altair was shared among the hacker community, Gates claimed to have lost a considerable sum of money because few users paid for the software. As a result, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists. This letter was published by several computer magazines and newsletters, most notably that of the Homebrew Computer Club where much of the sharing occurred.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "According to Brent K. Jesiek in \"Democratizing Software: Open Source, the Hacker Ethic, and Beyond,\" technology is being associated with social views and goals. Jesiek refers to Gisle Hannemyr's views on open source vs. commercialized software. Hannemyr concludes that when a hacker constructs software, the software is flexible, tailorable, modular in nature and is open-ended. A hacker's software contrasts mainstream hardware which favors control, a sense of being whole, and be immutable (Hannemyr, 1999).",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Furthermore, he concludes that 'the difference between the hacker's approach and those of the industrial programmer is one of outlook: between an agoric, integrated and holistic attitude towards the creation of artifacts and a proprietary, fragmented and reductionist one' (Hannemyr, 1999). As Hannemyr's analysis reveals, the characteristics of a given piece of software frequently reflect the attitude and outlook of the programmers and organizations from which it emerges.\"",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "As copyright and patent laws limit the ability to share software, opposition to software patents is widespread in the hacker and free software community.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Many of the principles and tenets of hacker ethic contribute to a common goal: the Hands-On Imperative. As Levy described in Chapter 2, \"Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems—about the world—from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and more interesting things.\"",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Employing the Hands-On Imperative requires free access, open information, and the sharing of knowledge. To a true hacker, if the Hands-On Imperative is restricted, then the ends justify the means to make it unrestricted so that improvements can be made. When these principles are not present, hackers tend to work around them. For example, when the computers at MIT were protected either by physical locks or login programs, the hackers there systematically worked around them in order to have access to the machines. Hackers assumed a \"willful blindness\" in the pursuit of perfection.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "This behavior was not malicious in nature: the MIT hackers did not seek to harm the systems or their users. This deeply contrasts with the modern, media-encouraged image of hackers who crack secure systems in order to steal information or complete an act of cyber-vandalism.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Throughout writings about hackers and their work processes, a common value of community and collaboration is present. For example, in Levy's Hackers, each generation of hackers had geographically based communities where collaboration and sharing occurred. For the hackers at MIT, it was the labs where the computers were running. For the hardware hackers (second generation) and the game hackers (third generation) the geographic area was centered in Silicon Valley where the Homebrew Computer Club and the People's Computer Company helped hackers network, collaborate, and share their work.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The concept of community and collaboration is still relevant today, although hackers are no longer limited to collaboration in geographic regions. Now collaboration takes place via the Internet. Eric S. Raymond identifies and explains this conceptual shift in The Cathedral and the Bazaar:",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Before cheap Internet, there were some geographically compact communities where the culture encouraged Weinberg's egoless programming, and a developer could easily attract a lot of skilled kibitzers and co-developers. Bell Labs, the MIT AI and LCS labs, UC Berkeley: these became the home of innovations that are legendary and still potent.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Raymond also notes that the success of Linux coincided with the wide availability of the World Wide Web. The value of community is still in high practice and use today.",
"title": "The hacker ethics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Levy identifies several \"true hackers\" who significantly influenced the hacker ethic. Some well-known \"true hackers\" include:",
"title": "Levy's \"true hackers\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Levy also identified the \"hardware hackers\" (the \"second generation\", mostly centered in Silicon Valley) and the \"game hackers\" (or the \"third generation\"). All three generations of hackers, according to Levy, embodied the principles of the hacker ethic. Some of Levy's \"second-generation\" hackers include:",
"title": "Levy's \"true hackers\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Levy's \"third generation\" practitioners of hacker ethic include:",
"title": "Levy's \"true hackers\""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 2001, Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen promoted the hacker ethic in opposition to the Protestant work ethic. In Himanen's opinion, the hacker ethic is more closely related to the virtue ethics found in the writings of Plato and of Aristotle. Himanen explained these ideas in a book, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, with a prologue contributed by Linus Torvalds and an epilogue by Manuel Castells.",
"title": "Other descriptions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In this manifesto, the authors wrote about a hacker ethic centering on passion, hard work, creativity and joy in creating software. Both Himanen and Torvalds were inspired by the Sampo in Finnish mythology. The Sampo, described in the Kalevala saga, was a magical artifact constructed by Ilmarinen, the blacksmith god, that brought good fortune to its holder; nobody knows exactly what it was supposed to be. The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a compass or astrolabe, a chest containing a treasure, a Byzantine coin die, a decorated Vendel period shield, a Christian relic, etc. Kalevala saga compiler Lönnrot interpreted it to be a \"quern\" or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and wealth.",
"title": "Other descriptions"
}
]
| The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, as well as the political theories of anti-authoritarianism, socialism, liberalism, anarchism, and libertarianism. While some tenets of the hacker ethic were described in other texts like Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) by Ted Nelson, the term hacker ethic is generally attributed to journalist Steven Levy, who appears to have been the first to document both the philosophy and the founders of the philosophy in his 1984 book titled Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-27T10:36:17Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic |
14,276 | Hotel | A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a refrigerator, and other kitchen facilities, upholstered chairs, a flat-screen television, and en-suite bathrooms. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities. Larger, higher-priced hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a swimming pool, a business center with computers, printers, and other office equipment, childcare, conference and event facilities, tennis or basketball courts, gymnasium, restaurants, day spa, and social function services. Hotel rooms are usually numbered (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms. Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities.
The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travelers. Inns began to cater to wealthier clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a modern sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, and luxury hotels began to spring up in the later part of the 19th century, paricularly in the United States.
Hotel operations vary in size, function, complexity, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify hotel types. An upscale full-service hotel facility offers luxury amenities, full-service accommodations, an on-site restaurant, and the highest level of personalized service, such as a concierge, room service, and clothes-ironing staff. Full-service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with many full-service accommodations, an on-site full-service restaurant, and a variety of on-site amenities. Boutique hotels are smaller independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities. Economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel.
Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to individual rooms from the car parking area. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels and motels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture. Some hotels are built specifically as destinations in themselves, for example casinos and holiday resorts.
Most hotel establishments are run by a general manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the "hotel manager"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel (e.g., food service), middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function and class, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.
The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from the same origin as hospital), which referred to a French version of a building seeing frequent visitors, and providing care, rather than a place offering accommodation. In contemporary French usage, hôtel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hôtel particulier is used for the old meaning, as well as "hôtel" in some place names such as Hôtel-Dieu (in Paris), which has been a hospital since the Middle Ages. The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare. The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article – hence "The Astoria Hotel" or simply "The Astoria".
Facilities offering hospitality to travellers featured in early civilizations. In Greco-Roman culture and in ancient Persia, hospitals for recuperation and rest were built at thermal baths. Guinness World Records officially recognised Japan's Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, founded in 705, as the oldest hotel in the world. During the Middle Ages, various religious orders at monasteries and abbeys would offer accommodation for travellers on the road.
The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe, possibly dating back to the rule of Ancient Rome. These would provide for the needs of travellers, including food and lodging, stabling and fodder for the traveller's horses and fresh horses for mail coaches. Famous London examples of inns include the George and the Tabard. A typical layout of an inn featured an inner court with bedrooms on the two sides, with the kitchen and parlour at the front and the stables at the back.
For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travellers (in other words, a roadhouse). Coaching inns stabled teams of horses for stagecoaches and mail coaches and replaced tired teams with fresh teams. Traditionally they were seven miles apart, but this depended very much on the terrain.
Some English towns had as many as ten such inns and rivalry between them became intense, not only for the income from the stagecoach operators but for the revenue from the food and drink supplied to the wealthy passengers. By the end of the century, coaching inns were being run more professionally, with a regular timetable being followed and fixed menus for food.
Inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century, and consequently grew in grandeur and in the level of service provided. Sudhir Andrews traces "the birth of an organised hotel industry" to Europe's chalets and small hotels which catered primarily to aristocrats. One of the first hotels in a modern sense, the Royal Clarence, opened in Exeter in 1768, although the idea only really caught on in the early-19th century. In 1812 Mivart's Hotel opened its doors in London, later changing its name to Claridge's.
Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the 19th century. Luxury hotels, including the 1829 Tremont House in Boston, the 1836 Astor House in New York City, the 1889 Savoy Hotel in London, and the Ritz chain of hotels in London and Paris in the late 1890s, catered to an ever more-wealthy clientele.
Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is part of a United States law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation. Hotels are included as types of public accommodation in the Act.
Hotels cater to travelers from many countries and languages, since no one country dominates the travel industry.
Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types. General categories include the following:
International luxury hotels offer high-quality amenities, full-service accommodations, on-site full-service restaurants, and the highest level of personalized and professional service in major or capital cities. International luxury hotels are classified with at least a Five Diamond rating or Five Star hotel rating depending on the country and local classification standards. Example brands include: Grand Hyatt, Conrad, InterContinental, Sofitel, Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons, The Peninsula, Rosewood, JW Marriott and The Ritz-Carlton.
Lifestyle luxury resorts are branded hotels that appeal to a guest with lifestyle or personal image in specific locations. They are typically full-service and classified as luxury. A key characteristic of lifestyle resorts is focus on providing a unique guest experience as opposed to simply providing lodging. Lifestyle luxury resorts are classified with a Five Star hotel rating depending on the country and local classification standards. Example brands include: Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, Shangri-La, Oberoi, Belmond, Jumeirah, Aman, Taj Hotels, Hoshino, Raffles, Fairmont, Banyan Tree, Regent and Park Hyatt.
Upscale full-service hotels often provide a wide array of guest services and on-site facilities. Commonly found amenities may include: on-site food and beverage (room service and restaurants), meeting and conference services and facilities, fitness center, and business center. Upscale full-service hotels range in quality from upscale to luxury. This classification is based upon the quality of facilities and amenities offered by the hotel. Examples include: W Hotels, Sheraton, Langham, Kempinski, Pullman, Kimpton Hotels, Hilton, Swissôtel, Lotte, Renaissance, Marriott and Hyatt Regency brands.
Boutique hotels are smaller independent non-branded hotels that often contain mid-scale to upscale facilities of varying size in unique or intimate settings with full-service accommodations. These hotels are generally 100 rooms or fewer.
Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a limited number of on-site amenities that only cater and market to a specific demographic of travelers, such as the single business traveler. Most focused or select service hotels may still offer full-service accommodations but may lack leisure amenities such as an on-site restaurant or a swimming pool. Examples include Hyatt Place, Holiday Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.
Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a very limited number of on-site amenities and often only offer basic accommodations with little to no services, catering to the budget-minded traveler seeking a "no frills" accommodation. Limited service hotels often lack an on-site restaurant but in return may offer a limited complimentary food and beverage amenity such as on-site continental breakfast service. Examples include Ibis Budget, Hampton Inn, Aloft, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, and Four Points by Sheraton.
Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Extended stay hotels may offer non-traditional pricing methods such as a weekly rate that caters towards travelers in need of short-term accommodations for an extended period of time. Similar to limited and select service hotels, on-site amenities are normally limited and most extended stay hotels lack an on-site restaurant. Examples include Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Home2 Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, Element, and Extended Stay America.
Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership also referred to as a vacation ownership involving the purchase and ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage during a specified period of time. Timeshare resorts often offer amenities similar that of a full-service hotel with on-site restaurants, swimming pools, recreation grounds, and other leisure-oriented amenities. Destination clubs on the other hand may offer more exclusive private accommodations such as private houses in a neighborhood-style setting. Examples of timeshare brands include Hilton Grand Vacations, Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, Disney Vacation Club, and Holiday Inn Club Vacations.
A motel, an abbreviation for "motor hotel", is a small-sized low-rise lodging establishment similar to a limited service, lower-cost hotel, but typically with direct access to individual rooms from the car park. Motels were built to serve road travellers, including travellers on road trip vacations and workers who drive for their job (travelling salespeople, truck drivers, etc.). Common during the 1950s and 1960s, motels were often located adjacent to a major highway, where they were built on inexpensive land at the edge of towns or along stretches of freeway.
New motel construction is rare in the 2000s as hotel chains have been building economy-priced, limited-service franchised properties at freeway exits which compete for largely the same clientele, largely saturating the market by the 1990s. Motels are still useful in less populated areas for driving travelers, but the more populated an area becomes, the more hotels move in to meet the demand for accommodation. While many motels are unbranded and independent, many of the other motels which remain in operation joined national franchise chains, often rebranding themselves as hotels, inns or lodges. Some examples of chains with motels include EconoLodge, Motel 6, Super 8, and Travelodge.
Motels in some parts of the world are more often regarded as places for romantic assignations where rooms are often rented by the hour. This is fairly common in parts of Latin America.
Hotels may offer rooms for microstays, a type of booking for less than 24 hours where the customer chooses the check in time and the length of the stay. This allows the hotel increased revenue by reselling the same room several times a day. They first gained popularity in Europe but are now common in major global tourist centers.
Hotel management is a globally accepted professional career field and academic field of study. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs formally prepare hotel managers for industry practice.
Most hotel establishments consist of a general manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the "hotel manager"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.
Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. Some hotels have gained their renown through tradition, by hosting significant events or persons, such as Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam, Germany, which derives its fame from the Potsdam Conference of the World War II allies Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai is one of India's most famous and historic hotels because of its association with the Indian independence movement. Some establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, United States where the Waldorf Salad was first created or the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, Austria, home of the Sachertorte. Others have achieved fame by association with dishes or cocktails created on their premises, such as the Hotel de Paris where the crêpe Suzette was invented or the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was devised.
A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, through its association with Irving Berlin's song, "Puttin' on the Ritz". The Algonquin Hotel in New York City is famed as the meeting place of the literary group, the Algonquin Round Table, and Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, has been the subject of a number of songs and the scene of the stabbing of Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend Sid Vicious).
Some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself to create a captive trade, example at casinos, amusement parks and holiday resorts. Though hotels have always been built in popular destinations, the defining characteristic of a resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners.
On the Las Vegas Strip there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area. This trend now has extended to other resorts worldwide, but the concentration in Las Vegas is still the world's highest: nineteen of the world's twenty-five largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms.
The Null Stern Hotel in Teufen, Appenzellerland, Switzerland, and the Concrete Mushrooms in Albania are former nuclear bunkers transformed into hotels.
The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (named after the author) in Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey, are notable for being built into natural cave formations, some with rooms underground. The Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, South Australia, is built into the remains of an opal mine.
Located on the coast but high above sea level, these hotels offer unobstructed panoramic views and a great sense of privacy without the feeling of total isolation. Some examples from around the globe are the Riosol Hotel in Gran Canaria, Caruso Belvedere Hotel in Amalfi Coast (Italy), Aman Resorts Amankila in Bali, Birkenhead House in Hermanus (South Africa), The Caves in Jamaica and Caesar Augustus in Capri.
Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel first introduced in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers. In the sleeping capsules, beside the bed, the customer can watch TV, put the valuable items in the mini safes, and the customers also can use the wireless internet.
Some hotels fill daytime occupancy with day rooms, for example, Rodeway Inn and Suites near Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Day rooms are booked in a block of hours typically between 8 am and 5 pm, before the typical night shift. These are similar to transit hotels in that they appeal to travelers, however, unlike transit hotels, they do not eliminate the need to go through Customs.
Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.
The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, was the first ice hotel in the world; first built in 1990, it is built each winter and melts every spring. The Hotel de Glace in Duschenay, Canada, opened in 2001 and it is North America's only ice hotel. It is redesigned and rebuilt in its entirety every year. Ice hotels can also be included within larger ice complexes; for example, the Mammut Snow Hotel in Finland is located within the walls of the Kemi snow castle; and the Lainio Snow Hotel is part of a snow village near Ylläs, Finland. There is an arctic snowhotel in Rovaniemi in Lapland, Finland, along with glass igloos. The first glass igloos were built in 1999 in Finland, they became the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort with 65 buildings, 53 small ones for two people and 12 large ones for four people. Glass igloos, with their roof made of thermal glass, allow guests to admire auroras comfortably from their beds.
A love hotel (also 'love motel', especially in Taiwan) is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world, operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities, typically for one to three hours, but with overnight as an option. Styles of premises vary from extremely low-end to extravagantly appointed. In Japan, love hotels have a history of over 400 years.
In 2021 a New York-based company introduced new modular and movable hotel rooms which allow landowners and hospitality groups to create and easily scale hotel accommodations. The portable units can be built in three to five months and can be stacked to create multi-floor units.
A referral hotel is a hotel chain that offers branding to independently operated hotels; the chain itself is founded by or owned by the member hotels as a group. Many former referral chains have been converted to franchises; the largest surviving member-owned chain is Best Western.
The first recorded purpose-built railway hotel was the Great Western Hotel, which opened adjacent to Reading railway station in 1844, shortly after the Great Western Railway opened its line from London. The building still exists, and although it has been used for other purposes over the years, it is now again a hotel and a member of the Malmaison hotel chain.
Frequently, expanding railway companies built grand hotels at their termini, such as the Midland Hotel, Manchester next to the former Manchester Central Station, and in London the ones above St Pancras railway station and Charing Cross railway station. London also has the Chiltern Court Hotel above Baker Street tube station, there are also Canada's grand railway hotels. They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those traveling by rail.
The Maya Guesthouse in Nax Mont-Noble in the Swiss Alps, is the first hotel in Europe built entirely with straw bales. Due to the insulation values of the walls it needs no conventional heating or air conditioning system, although the Maya Guesthouse is built at an altitude of 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in the Alps.
Transit hotels are short stay hotels typically used at international airports where passengers can stay while waiting to change airplanes. The hotels are typically on the airside and do not require a visa for a stay or re-admission through security checkpoints.
Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Treehotel near Piteå, Sweden, the Costa Rica Tree House near the Jairo Mora Sandoval Gandoca-Manzanillo Mixed Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica; the Treetops Hotel in Aberdare National Park, Kenya; the Ariau Towers near Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro in the Amazon; and Bayram's Tree Houses in Olympos, Turkey.
Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as Utter Inn in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Hydropolis, project in Dubai, would have had suites on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida, requires scuba diving to access its rooms.
A resort island is an island or an archipelago that contains resorts, hotels, overwater bungalows, restaurants, tourist attractions and its amenities. Maldives has the most overwater bungalows resorts.
Yurts are circular, self-supporting structures with long rafters coalescing toward a central dome. During the day, the dome allows sunlight to illuminate the entire yurt interior, while moonlight and starlight shine through the dome at night.
In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia, as the world's largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms (and which has now expanded to 7,351 rooms). The Izmailovo Hotel in Moscow has the most beds, with 7,500, followed by The Venetian and The Palazzo complex in Las Vegas (7,117 rooms) and MGM Grand Las Vegas complex (6,852 rooms).
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel in operation is the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Yamanashi, Japan. The hotel, first opened in AD 707, has been operated by the same family for forty-six generations. The title was held until 2011 by the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan, which opened in the year 718, as the history of the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan was virtually unknown.
The Rosewood Guangzhou located on the top floors of the 108-story Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China. Soaring to 530-meters at its highest point, earns the singular status as the world's highest hotel.
In October 2014, the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan for US$1.95 billion, making it the world's most expensive hotel ever sold.
A number of public figures have notably chosen to take up semi-permanent or permanent residence in hotels. | [
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"text": "A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a refrigerator, and other kitchen facilities, upholstered chairs, a flat-screen television, and en-suite bathrooms. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities. Larger, higher-priced hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a swimming pool, a business center with computers, printers, and other office equipment, childcare, conference and event facilities, tennis or basketball courts, gymnasium, restaurants, day spa, and social function services. Hotel rooms are usually numbered (or named in some smaller hotels and B&Bs) to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms. Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travelers. Inns began to cater to wealthier clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a modern sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, and luxury hotels began to spring up in the later part of the 19th century, paricularly in the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hotel operations vary in size, function, complexity, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify hotel types. An upscale full-service hotel facility offers luxury amenities, full-service accommodations, an on-site restaurant, and the highest level of personalized service, such as a concierge, room service, and clothes-ironing staff. Full-service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with many full-service accommodations, an on-site full-service restaurant, and a variety of on-site amenities. Boutique hotels are smaller independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities. Economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to individual rooms from the car parking area. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels and motels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture. Some hotels are built specifically as destinations in themselves, for example casinos and holiday resorts.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Most hotel establishments are run by a general manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the \"hotel manager\"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel (e.g., food service), middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function and class, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from the same origin as hospital), which referred to a French version of a building seeing frequent visitors, and providing care, rather than a place offering accommodation. In contemporary French usage, hôtel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hôtel particulier is used for the old meaning, as well as \"hôtel\" in some place names such as Hôtel-Dieu (in Paris), which has been a hospital since the Middle Ages. The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare. The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article – hence \"The Astoria Hotel\" or simply \"The Astoria\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Facilities offering hospitality to travellers featured in early civilizations. In Greco-Roman culture and in ancient Persia, hospitals for recuperation and rest were built at thermal baths. Guinness World Records officially recognised Japan's Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, founded in 705, as the oldest hotel in the world. During the Middle Ages, various religious orders at monasteries and abbeys would offer accommodation for travellers on the road.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe, possibly dating back to the rule of Ancient Rome. These would provide for the needs of travellers, including food and lodging, stabling and fodder for the traveller's horses and fresh horses for mail coaches. Famous London examples of inns include the George and the Tabard. A typical layout of an inn featured an inner court with bedrooms on the two sides, with the kitchen and parlour at the front and the stables at the back.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travellers (in other words, a roadhouse). Coaching inns stabled teams of horses for stagecoaches and mail coaches and replaced tired teams with fresh teams. Traditionally they were seven miles apart, but this depended very much on the terrain.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Some English towns had as many as ten such inns and rivalry between them became intense, not only for the income from the stagecoach operators but for the revenue from the food and drink supplied to the wealthy passengers. By the end of the century, coaching inns were being run more professionally, with a regular timetable being followed and fixed menus for food.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century, and consequently grew in grandeur and in the level of service provided. Sudhir Andrews traces \"the birth of an organised hotel industry\" to Europe's chalets and small hotels which catered primarily to aristocrats. One of the first hotels in a modern sense, the Royal Clarence, opened in Exeter in 1768, although the idea only really caught on in the early-19th century. In 1812 Mivart's Hotel opened its doors in London, later changing its name to Claridge's.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the 19th century. Luxury hotels, including the 1829 Tremont House in Boston, the 1836 Astor House in New York City, the 1889 Savoy Hotel in London, and the Ritz chain of hotels in London and Paris in the late 1890s, catered to an ever more-wealthy clientele.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is part of a United States law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation. Hotels are included as types of public accommodation in the Act.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hotels cater to travelers from many countries and languages, since no one country dominates the travel industry.",
"title": "International scale"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types. General categories include the following:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "International luxury hotels offer high-quality amenities, full-service accommodations, on-site full-service restaurants, and the highest level of personalized and professional service in major or capital cities. International luxury hotels are classified with at least a Five Diamond rating or Five Star hotel rating depending on the country and local classification standards. Example brands include: Grand Hyatt, Conrad, InterContinental, Sofitel, Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons, The Peninsula, Rosewood, JW Marriott and The Ritz-Carlton.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Lifestyle luxury resorts are branded hotels that appeal to a guest with lifestyle or personal image in specific locations. They are typically full-service and classified as luxury. A key characteristic of lifestyle resorts is focus on providing a unique guest experience as opposed to simply providing lodging. Lifestyle luxury resorts are classified with a Five Star hotel rating depending on the country and local classification standards. Example brands include: Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, Shangri-La, Oberoi, Belmond, Jumeirah, Aman, Taj Hotels, Hoshino, Raffles, Fairmont, Banyan Tree, Regent and Park Hyatt.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Upscale full-service hotels often provide a wide array of guest services and on-site facilities. Commonly found amenities may include: on-site food and beverage (room service and restaurants), meeting and conference services and facilities, fitness center, and business center. Upscale full-service hotels range in quality from upscale to luxury. This classification is based upon the quality of facilities and amenities offered by the hotel. Examples include: W Hotels, Sheraton, Langham, Kempinski, Pullman, Kimpton Hotels, Hilton, Swissôtel, Lotte, Renaissance, Marriott and Hyatt Regency brands.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Boutique hotels are smaller independent non-branded hotels that often contain mid-scale to upscale facilities of varying size in unique or intimate settings with full-service accommodations. These hotels are generally 100 rooms or fewer.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a limited number of on-site amenities that only cater and market to a specific demographic of travelers, such as the single business traveler. Most focused or select service hotels may still offer full-service accommodations but may lack leisure amenities such as an on-site restaurant or a swimming pool. Examples include Hyatt Place, Holiday Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer a very limited number of on-site amenities and often only offer basic accommodations with little to no services, catering to the budget-minded traveler seeking a \"no frills\" accommodation. Limited service hotels often lack an on-site restaurant but in return may offer a limited complimentary food and beverage amenity such as on-site continental breakfast service. Examples include Ibis Budget, Hampton Inn, Aloft, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inn, and Four Points by Sheraton.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Extended stay hotels may offer non-traditional pricing methods such as a weekly rate that caters towards travelers in need of short-term accommodations for an extended period of time. Similar to limited and select service hotels, on-site amenities are normally limited and most extended stay hotels lack an on-site restaurant. Examples include Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Home2 Suites by Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott, Element, and Extended Stay America.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership also referred to as a vacation ownership involving the purchase and ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage during a specified period of time. Timeshare resorts often offer amenities similar that of a full-service hotel with on-site restaurants, swimming pools, recreation grounds, and other leisure-oriented amenities. Destination clubs on the other hand may offer more exclusive private accommodations such as private houses in a neighborhood-style setting. Examples of timeshare brands include Hilton Grand Vacations, Marriott Vacation Club International, Westgate Resorts, Disney Vacation Club, and Holiday Inn Club Vacations.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A motel, an abbreviation for \"motor hotel\", is a small-sized low-rise lodging establishment similar to a limited service, lower-cost hotel, but typically with direct access to individual rooms from the car park. Motels were built to serve road travellers, including travellers on road trip vacations and workers who drive for their job (travelling salespeople, truck drivers, etc.). Common during the 1950s and 1960s, motels were often located adjacent to a major highway, where they were built on inexpensive land at the edge of towns or along stretches of freeway.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "New motel construction is rare in the 2000s as hotel chains have been building economy-priced, limited-service franchised properties at freeway exits which compete for largely the same clientele, largely saturating the market by the 1990s. Motels are still useful in less populated areas for driving travelers, but the more populated an area becomes, the more hotels move in to meet the demand for accommodation. While many motels are unbranded and independent, many of the other motels which remain in operation joined national franchise chains, often rebranding themselves as hotels, inns or lodges. Some examples of chains with motels include EconoLodge, Motel 6, Super 8, and Travelodge.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Motels in some parts of the world are more often regarded as places for romantic assignations where rooms are often rented by the hour. This is fairly common in parts of Latin America.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Hotels may offer rooms for microstays, a type of booking for less than 24 hours where the customer chooses the check in time and the length of the stay. This allows the hotel increased revenue by reselling the same room several times a day. They first gained popularity in Europe but are now common in major global tourist centers.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Hotel management is a globally accepted professional career field and academic field of study. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs formally prepare hotel managers for industry practice.",
"title": "Management"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Most hotel establishments consist of a general manager who serves as the head executive (often referred to as the \"hotel manager\"), department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies.",
"title": "Management"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. Some hotels have gained their renown through tradition, by hosting significant events or persons, such as Schloss Cecilienhof in Potsdam, Germany, which derives its fame from the Potsdam Conference of the World War II allies Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai is one of India's most famous and historic hotels because of its association with the Indian independence movement. Some establishments have given name to a particular meal or beverage, as is the case with the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, United States where the Waldorf Salad was first created or the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, Austria, home of the Sachertorte. Others have achieved fame by association with dishes or cocktails created on their premises, such as the Hotel de Paris where the crêpe Suzette was invented or the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was devised.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, such as the Ritz Hotel in London, through its association with Irving Berlin's song, \"Puttin' on the Ritz\". The Algonquin Hotel in New York City is famed as the meeting place of the literary group, the Algonquin Round Table, and Hotel Chelsea, also in New York City, has been the subject of a number of songs and the scene of the stabbing of Nancy Spungen (allegedly by her boyfriend Sid Vicious).",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself to create a captive trade, example at casinos, amusement parks and holiday resorts. Though hotels have always been built in popular destinations, the defining characteristic of a resort hotel is that it exists purely to serve another attraction, the two having the same owners.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "On the Las Vegas Strip there is a tradition of one-upmanship with luxurious and extravagant hotels in a concentrated area. This trend now has extended to other resorts worldwide, but the concentration in Las Vegas is still the world's highest: nineteen of the world's twenty-five largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Null Stern Hotel in Teufen, Appenzellerland, Switzerland, and the Concrete Mushrooms in Albania are former nuclear bunkers transformed into hotels.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Cuevas Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (named after the author) in Guadix, Spain, as well as several hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey, are notable for being built into natural cave formations, some with rooms underground. The Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, South Australia, is built into the remains of an opal mine.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Located on the coast but high above sea level, these hotels offer unobstructed panoramic views and a great sense of privacy without the feeling of total isolation. Some examples from around the globe are the Riosol Hotel in Gran Canaria, Caruso Belvedere Hotel in Amalfi Coast (Italy), Aman Resorts Amankila in Bali, Birkenhead House in Hermanus (South Africa), The Caves in Jamaica and Caesar Augustus in Capri.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotel first introduced in Japan, where people sleep in stacks of rectangular containers. In the sleeping capsules, beside the bed, the customer can watch TV, put the valuable items in the mini safes, and the customers also can use the wireless internet.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Some hotels fill daytime occupancy with day rooms, for example, Rodeway Inn and Suites near Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Day rooms are booked in a block of hours typically between 8 am and 5 pm, before the typical night shift. These are similar to transit hotels in that they appeal to travelers, however, unlike transit hotels, they do not eliminate the need to go through Customs.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Garden hotels, famous for their gardens before they became hotels, include Gravetye Manor, the home of garden designer William Robinson, and Cliveden, designed by Charles Barry with a rose garden by Geoffrey Jellicoe.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, was the first ice hotel in the world; first built in 1990, it is built each winter and melts every spring. The Hotel de Glace in Duschenay, Canada, opened in 2001 and it is North America's only ice hotel. It is redesigned and rebuilt in its entirety every year. Ice hotels can also be included within larger ice complexes; for example, the Mammut Snow Hotel in Finland is located within the walls of the Kemi snow castle; and the Lainio Snow Hotel is part of a snow village near Ylläs, Finland. There is an arctic snowhotel in Rovaniemi in Lapland, Finland, along with glass igloos. The first glass igloos were built in 1999 in Finland, they became the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort with 65 buildings, 53 small ones for two people and 12 large ones for four people. Glass igloos, with their roof made of thermal glass, allow guests to admire auroras comfortably from their beds.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "A love hotel (also 'love motel', especially in Taiwan) is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world, operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities, typically for one to three hours, but with overnight as an option. Styles of premises vary from extremely low-end to extravagantly appointed. In Japan, love hotels have a history of over 400 years.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In 2021 a New York-based company introduced new modular and movable hotel rooms which allow landowners and hospitality groups to create and easily scale hotel accommodations. The portable units can be built in three to five months and can be stacked to create multi-floor units.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "A referral hotel is a hotel chain that offers branding to independently operated hotels; the chain itself is founded by or owned by the member hotels as a group. Many former referral chains have been converted to franchises; the largest surviving member-owned chain is Best Western.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The first recorded purpose-built railway hotel was the Great Western Hotel, which opened adjacent to Reading railway station in 1844, shortly after the Great Western Railway opened its line from London. The building still exists, and although it has been used for other purposes over the years, it is now again a hotel and a member of the Malmaison hotel chain.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Frequently, expanding railway companies built grand hotels at their termini, such as the Midland Hotel, Manchester next to the former Manchester Central Station, and in London the ones above St Pancras railway station and Charing Cross railway station. London also has the Chiltern Court Hotel above Baker Street tube station, there are also Canada's grand railway hotels. They are or were mostly, but not exclusively, used by those traveling by rail.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Maya Guesthouse in Nax Mont-Noble in the Swiss Alps, is the first hotel in Europe built entirely with straw bales. Due to the insulation values of the walls it needs no conventional heating or air conditioning system, although the Maya Guesthouse is built at an altitude of 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in the Alps.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Transit hotels are short stay hotels typically used at international airports where passengers can stay while waiting to change airplanes. The hotels are typically on the airside and do not require a visa for a stay or re-admission through security checkpoints.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Some hotels are built with living trees as structural elements, for example the Treehotel near Piteå, Sweden, the Costa Rica Tree House near the Jairo Mora Sandoval Gandoca-Manzanillo Mixed Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica; the Treetops Hotel in Aberdare National Park, Kenya; the Ariau Towers near Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro in the Amazon; and Bayram's Tree Houses in Olympos, Turkey.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Some hotels have accommodation underwater, such as Utter Inn in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Hydropolis, project in Dubai, would have had suites on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida, requires scuba diving to access its rooms.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "A resort island is an island or an archipelago that contains resorts, hotels, overwater bungalows, restaurants, tourist attractions and its amenities. Maldives has the most overwater bungalows resorts.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Yurts are circular, self-supporting structures with long rafters coalescing toward a central dome. During the day, the dome allows sunlight to illuminate the entire yurt interior, while moonlight and starlight shine through the dome at night.",
"title": "Unique and specialty hotels"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia, as the world's largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms (and which has now expanded to 7,351 rooms). The Izmailovo Hotel in Moscow has the most beds, with 7,500, followed by The Venetian and The Palazzo complex in Las Vegas (7,117 rooms) and MGM Grand Las Vegas complex (6,852 rooms).",
"title": "Records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel in operation is the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Yamanashi, Japan. The hotel, first opened in AD 707, has been operated by the same family for forty-six generations. The title was held until 2011 by the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan, which opened in the year 718, as the history of the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan was virtually unknown.",
"title": "Records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Rosewood Guangzhou located on the top floors of the 108-story Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China. Soaring to 530-meters at its highest point, earns the singular status as the world's highest hotel.",
"title": "Records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In October 2014, the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan for US$1.95 billion, making it the world's most expensive hotel ever sold.",
"title": "Records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "A number of public figures have notably chosen to take up semi-permanent or permanent residence in hotels.",
"title": "Long term residence"
}
]
| A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a refrigerator, and other kitchen facilities, upholstered chairs, a flat-screen television, and en-suite bathrooms. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities. Larger, higher-priced hotels may provide additional guest facilities such as a swimming pool, a business center with computers, printers, and other office equipment, childcare, conference and event facilities, tennis or basketball courts, gymnasium, restaurants, day spa, and social function services. Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms. Some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the modern hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, coaching inns served as a place for lodging for coach travelers. Inns began to cater to wealthier clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a modern sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, and luxury hotels began to spring up in the later part of the 19th century, paricularly in the United States. Hotel operations vary in size, function, complexity, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify hotel types. An upscale full-service hotel facility offers luxury amenities, full-service accommodations, an on-site restaurant, and the highest level of personalized service, such as a concierge, room service, and clothes-ironing staff. Full-service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with many full-service accommodations, an on-site full-service restaurant, and a variety of on-site amenities. Boutique hotels are smaller independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities. Economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer longer-term full-service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of an individual unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to individual rooms from the car parking area. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with a unique environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels and motels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture. Some hotels are built specifically as destinations in themselves, for example casinos and holiday resorts. Most hotel establishments are run by a general manager who serves as the head executive, department heads who oversee various departments within a hotel, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by hotel size, function and class, and is often determined by hotel ownership and managing companies. | 2001-12-12T20:09:20Z | 2023-12-11T11:40:55Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel |
14,277 | Hebrew mythology | Hebrew mythology may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hebrew mythology may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Hebrew mythology may refer to: Canaanite religion
Jewish mythology | 2022-06-04T17:59:37Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_mythology |
|
14,279 | Hugh Hefner | Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles that provoked charges of obscenity.
Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest. He was an advocate for the causes of First Amendment rights, animal rescue, and the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He was a highly controversial figure in popular culture, accused of perpetrating and fostering sexual abuse and exploitation stretching back decades, and Playboy has since distanced itself from association with him.
Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the first child of Glenn Lucius Hefner (1896–1976), an accountant, and his wife Grace Caroline (Swanson) Hefner (1895–1997) who worked as a teacher. His parents were from Nebraska. He had a younger brother, Keith (1929–2016). His mother was of Swedish ancestry, and his father was German and English.
Through his father's line, Hefner was a descendant of Plymouth governor William Bradford. He described his family as "conservative, Midwestern, [and] Methodist". His mother had wanted him to become a missionary.
He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School, then served from 1944 to 1946 as a U.S. Army writer for a military newspaper. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art, having earned his degree in two and a half years. After graduation, he took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University, but dropped out soon after.
In January 1952, Hefner left his job as a copywriter for Esquire after he was denied a $5 raise. In 1953, he took out a mortgage loan of $600 and raised $8,000 from 45 investors (including $1,000 from his mother—"not because she believed in the venture," he told E! in 2006, "but because she believed in her son") to launch Playboy, which was initially going to be called Stag Party. The first issue was published in December 1953 and featured Marilyn Monroe from a 1949 nude calendar shoot she did under a pseudonym. That first issue sold more than 50,000 copies, but Monroe was not paid by Playboy or Hefner for the photos. (Hefner never met Monroe, but he bought the crypt next to hers at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in 1992 for $75,000.)
Esquire magazine rejected Charles Beaumont's science fiction story "The Crooked Man" in 1955, so Hefner agreed to publish it in Playboy. The story highlighted straight men being persecuted in a world where homosexuality was the norm. The magazine received angry letters, so Hefner responded, "If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too." In 1961, Hefner watched Dick Gregory perform at the Herman Roberts Show Bar in Chicago, and he hired Gregory to work at the Chicago Playboy Club. Gregory attributed the launch of his career to that night.
Hefner promoted a bon vivant lifestyle in his magazine and in the television shows that he hosted Playboy's Penthouse (1959–1960) and Playboy After Dark (1969–1970). He was also the chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises, the publishing group which operates the magazine.
On June 4, 1963, Hefner was arrested for promoting obscene literature after he published an issue of Playboy featuring nude shots of Jayne Mansfield in bed with a man present. The case went to trial and resulted in a hung jury.
In the 1960s, Hefner created "private key" clubs that were racially diverse. During the civil rights movement in 1966, Hefner sent Alex Haley to interview American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, much to Rockwell's shock because Haley was black. Rockwell agreed to meet with Haley only after gaining assurance that he was not Jewish, although Rockwell kept a handgun on the table throughout the interview. In Roots: The Next Generations (1979), the interview was recreated with James Earl Jones as Haley and Marlon Brando as Rockwell. Haley had also interviewed Malcolm X in 1963 and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 for the newly established 1962 "playboy interview".
In 1970, Hefner stated that "militant feminists" are "unalterably opposed to the romantic boy-girl society that Playboy promotes" and ordered an article in his magazine against them.
In his later years, Hefner's star dimmed, but he remained a well-known personality, often appearing in cameo roles. In the 1993 The Simpsons episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled", Hefner voiced himself. In 1999, Hefner financed the Clara Bow documentary Discovering the It Girl. "Nobody has what Clara had," he said. "She defined an era and made her mark on the nation". Hefner guest-starred as himself in the 2000 Sex and the City episode "Sex and Another City". In 2005, he guest-starred on the HBO shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage. He guest-starred as himself in a 2006 episode of Seth Green's Robot Chicken on the late-night programming block Adult Swim. In the 2007 Family Guy episode "Airport '07", he voiced himself. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television and made several movie appearances as himself. In 2009, he received a "worst supporting actor" nomination for a Razzie award for his performance as himself in Miss March. On his official Twitter account, he joked about this nomination: "Maybe I didn't understand the character."
Brigitte Berman's documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel was released on July 30, 2010. He had previously granted full access to documentary filmmaker and television producer Kevin Burns for the A&E Biography special Hugh Hefner: American Playboy in 1996. Hefner and Burns later collaborated on numerous other television projects, most notably on The Girls Next Door, a reality series that ran for six seasons (2005–2009) and 90 episodes. Hefner also made a voice-only appearance as himself in the 2011 film Hop.
In 2012, Hefner announced that his youngest son Cooper would succeed him as the public face of Playboy.
Hefner was known to friends and family simply as "Hef". He married Northwestern University student Mildred ("Millie") Williams in 1949. They had a daughter named Christie (b. 1952) and a son, David (b. 1955). Before the wedding, Mildred confessed that she'd had an affair while he was away in the army. He called the admission "the most devastating moment of my life." A 2006 E! True Hollywood Story profile of Hefner revealed that Mildred allowed him to have sex with other women, out of guilt for her own infidelity and in the hope that it would preserve their marriage. The couple divorced in 1959.
Hefner remade himself as a bon vivant and man about town, a lifestyle that he promoted in his magazine and TV shows. He admitted to being "'involved' with maybe eleven out of twelve months' worth of Playmates" during some years. Donna Michelle, Marilyn Cole, Lillian Müller, Shannon Tweed, Barbi Benton, Karen Christy, Sondra Theodore, and Carrie Leigh were a few of his many lovers; Leigh filed a $35 million palimony suit against him. In 1971, he acknowledged that he experimented in bisexuality. Also in 1971, he established a second residence in Los Angeles with the acquisition of Playboy Mansion West, and moved there permanently from Chicago in 1975.
On March 7, 1985, Hefner had a minor stroke at age 58, whereupon he re-evaluated his lifestyle, making several changes. He toned down the wild, all-night parties; also, daughter Christie took over the operation of Playboy's commercial operations in 1988. The following year, he married Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad; they were 36 years apart in age. The couple had sons Marston Glenn (b. 1990) and Cooper (b. 1991). The E! True Hollywood Story profile noted that the Playboy Mansion had been transformed into a family-friendly homestead. He and Conrad separated in 1998, after which she moved into the house next door to the mansion. Hefner filed for divorce from Conrad in 2009 after an 11-year separation, citing irreconcilable differences. He stated that he only remained nominally married to her for the sake of their children, and their youngest child had just turned 18. The divorce was finalized in 2010.
Hefner became known for moving an ever-changing coterie of young women into the Playboy Mansion, including twins Mandy and Sandy Bentley. He dated as many as seven women concurrently. He also dated Brande Roderick, Izabella St. James, Tina Marie Jordan, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson. Madison, Wilkinson, and Marquardt appeared on The Girls Next Door depicting their lives at the Playboy Mansion. In October 2008, all three of them decided to leave the mansion.
In January 2009, Hefner began a relationship with Crystal Harris; she joined the Shannon Twins after his previous "number one girlfriend" Holly Madison had ended their seven-year relationship. On December 24, 2010, he became engaged to Harris, but she broke off their engagement on June 14, 2011, five days before their planned wedding. The July issue of Playboy reached store shelves and customers' homes within days of the wedding date; it featured Harris on the cover, and in a photo spread as well. The headline on the cover read "Introducing America's Princess, Mrs. Crystal Hefner". Hefner and Harris subsequently reconciled and married on December 31, 2012.
Hefner was very distantly related to the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively. Hefner's brother Keith died at age 87 on April 8, 2016, one day before Hefner's 90th birthday.
In January 2016, the Playboy Mansion was put on the market for $200 million, on condition that Hugh Hefner would continue to work and live in the mansion. Later that year it was sold to Daren Metropoulos, a principal at private equity firm Metropoulos & Company, for $100 million. Metropoulos planned to reconnect the Playboy Mansion property with a neighboring estate that he purchased in 2009, combining the two for a 7.3 acre (3-hectare) compound as his own private residence.
In May 2017, Eugena Washington was the last Playmate of the Year to be announced by Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.
Hefner debated The Playboy Philosophy with William F. Buckley Jr., on Firing Line in Episode 26, recorded on September 12, 1966.
The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award was created by Christie Hefner "to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans."
He donated and raised money for the Democratic Party. In 2011, he referred to himself as an independent due to dissatisfaction with both the Democratic and Republican parties. Nonetheless, in 2012, he supported Barack Obama's reelection campaign.
In 1978, Hefner helped organize fund-raising efforts that led to the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He hosted a gala fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion and contributed $27,000 (or 1/9 of the total restoration costs) by purchasing the letter Y in a ceremonial auction.
Hefner stated in a 2000 interview with Playboy, "It’s perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It’s something we have invented to explain the inexplicable." Lee Strobel, a Christian author who interviewed Hefner regarding his theological positions, later described Hefner as having a "very minimalistic, deistic view of God."
Hefner donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts to create a course called "Censorship in Cinema", and $2 million to endow a chair for the study of American film. In 2007, the university's audiovisual archive at the Norris Theater received a donation from Hefner and was renamed to the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive in his honor.
Both through his charitable foundation and individually, Hefner also contributed to charities and other organizations outside the sphere of politics and publishing, throwing fundraiser events for Much Love Animal Rescue as well as Generation Rescue, an anti-vaccinationist campaign organization supported by Jenny McCarthy.
On November 18, 2010, Children of the Night founder and president Dr. Lois Lee presented Hefner with the organization's first-ever Founder's Hero of the Heart Award in appreciation for his unwavering dedication, commitment and generosity.
On April 26, 2010, Hefner donated the last $900,000 sought by a conservation group for a land purchase needed to stop the development of the vista of the Hollywood Sign. Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, an endangered subspecies of marsh rabbit, is named after him in honor of financial support that he provided.
The Barbi Twins, who are among a notable cohort of celebrity Playmates, including Pamela Anderson and Hefner's third wife Crystal Harris, praised the publishing icon for providing centerfolds and extended members of the Playboy family with a platform for activism and advocacy on behalf of animal populations in need.
Hefner supported legalizing same-sex marriage, calling it "a fight for all our rights. Without it, we will turn back the sexual revolution and return to an earlier, puritanical time."
Hefner died at the Playboy Mansion on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91. The cause was sepsis brought on by an E. coli infection.
He is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, in the crypt beside Marilyn Monroe, for which he paid $75,000 in 1992. "Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up," Hefner had told the Los Angeles Times in 2009.
Suzanne Moore wrote in The Guardian that Hefner threatened to file a lawsuit against her for calling him a "pimp". Defending her position, Moore argued that "he was a man who bought and sold women to other men". She further stated that "part of Hefner's business acumen was to make the selling of female flesh respectable and hip, to make soft porn acceptable." Julie Bindel argued in The Independent that Hefner "caused immeasurable damage by turning porn—and therefore the buying and selling of women's bodies—into a legitimate business."
Robin Abcarian wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Quoting Wendy Hamilton, that Hefner "probably did more to mainstream the exploitation of women's bodies than any other figure in American history," adding that he "managed to convince many women that taking off their clothes for men's pleasure was not just empowering, but a worthy goal in itself." She further stated that Hefner "embodied the aesthetic notion that images of women—and women themselves—exist to please men."
Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison said that he "would encourage competition—and body image issues—between his multiple live-in girlfriends. His legacy is full of evidence of the exploitation of women for professional gain." Ed Stetzer wrote in Christianity Today that Hefner would have the residence systematically cleaned whenever Christie Hefner visited in order "to keep the realities from his own daughter". Stetzer further lamented the consequences of Hefner's role as a "general" of the "sexual revolution":
It's hard to fathom that anyone would have known what this would have turned into. Parents growing up today are fighting to keep their children pure. Spouses are fighting to keep their marriages intact. And many enslaved and trapped in the adult entertainment industry have been figuratively and literally stripped not only of their clothes, but their very value as people made in the image of God. If this does not concern us, what will?
A 12-part television documentary series, Secrets of Playboy, debuted on A&E January 24, 2022, in which Hefner's former male and female employees and partners made claims of systematic sexual misconduct and manipulation, recreational and manipulative drug use, peer pressure, sextortion blackmail, rape, forced and violent anal sex, sexual assault without consent and/or while victims were in a state of drug-induced stupor or unconsciousness, spying, video taping without consent, and illegal sex with minors by Hefner and his celebrity friends and guests at the Playboy Mansion and other locations.
The PLBY group, now publicly owned, distanced itself from Hefner in a statement released shortly before the first episode was broadcast, saying, "Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy. We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences."
The Amazon original series American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story was released in April 2017. It stars Matt Whelan in the title role, along with Emmett Skilton and Chelsie Preston Crayford. The first season was released on April 7, composed of ten episodes. The series is a combination of interviews, archival footage (including moments found in Hefner's vast personal collection), and cinematic re-enactments that cover the launch of the magazine as well as the next six decades of Hefner's personal life and career. The series was filmed in Auckland.
On October 3, 2017, Playboy Enterprises announced that a Hugh Hefner biopic directed by Brett Ratner with the screenplay by Jeff Nathanson was greenlit with Jared Leto rumored to play Hefner. It was indefinitely put on hold following sexual harassment allegations against Ratner on November 2, 2017, and Leto's representatives stated that reports of him being attached to the film at any point were false. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles that provoked charges of obscenity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest. He was an advocate for the causes of First Amendment rights, animal rescue, and the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He was a highly controversial figure in popular culture, accused of perpetrating and fostering sexual abuse and exploitation stretching back decades, and Playboy has since distanced itself from association with him.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the first child of Glenn Lucius Hefner (1896–1976), an accountant, and his wife Grace Caroline (Swanson) Hefner (1895–1997) who worked as a teacher. His parents were from Nebraska. He had a younger brother, Keith (1929–2016). His mother was of Swedish ancestry, and his father was German and English.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Through his father's line, Hefner was a descendant of Plymouth governor William Bradford. He described his family as \"conservative, Midwestern, [and] Methodist\". His mother had wanted him to become a missionary.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School, then served from 1944 to 1946 as a U.S. Army writer for a military newspaper. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art, having earned his degree in two and a half years. After graduation, he took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University, but dropped out soon after.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In January 1952, Hefner left his job as a copywriter for Esquire after he was denied a $5 raise. In 1953, he took out a mortgage loan of $600 and raised $8,000 from 45 investors (including $1,000 from his mother—\"not because she believed in the venture,\" he told E! in 2006, \"but because she believed in her son\") to launch Playboy, which was initially going to be called Stag Party. The first issue was published in December 1953 and featured Marilyn Monroe from a 1949 nude calendar shoot she did under a pseudonym. That first issue sold more than 50,000 copies, but Monroe was not paid by Playboy or Hefner for the photos. (Hefner never met Monroe, but he bought the crypt next to hers at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in 1992 for $75,000.)",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Esquire magazine rejected Charles Beaumont's science fiction story \"The Crooked Man\" in 1955, so Hefner agreed to publish it in Playboy. The story highlighted straight men being persecuted in a world where homosexuality was the norm. The magazine received angry letters, so Hefner responded, \"If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too.\" In 1961, Hefner watched Dick Gregory perform at the Herman Roberts Show Bar in Chicago, and he hired Gregory to work at the Chicago Playboy Club. Gregory attributed the launch of his career to that night.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Hefner promoted a bon vivant lifestyle in his magazine and in the television shows that he hosted Playboy's Penthouse (1959–1960) and Playboy After Dark (1969–1970). He was also the chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises, the publishing group which operates the magazine.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On June 4, 1963, Hefner was arrested for promoting obscene literature after he published an issue of Playboy featuring nude shots of Jayne Mansfield in bed with a man present. The case went to trial and resulted in a hung jury.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the 1960s, Hefner created \"private key\" clubs that were racially diverse. During the civil rights movement in 1966, Hefner sent Alex Haley to interview American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, much to Rockwell's shock because Haley was black. Rockwell agreed to meet with Haley only after gaining assurance that he was not Jewish, although Rockwell kept a handgun on the table throughout the interview. In Roots: The Next Generations (1979), the interview was recreated with James Earl Jones as Haley and Marlon Brando as Rockwell. Haley had also interviewed Malcolm X in 1963 and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 for the newly established 1962 \"playboy interview\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1970, Hefner stated that \"militant feminists\" are \"unalterably opposed to the romantic boy-girl society that Playboy promotes\" and ordered an article in his magazine against them.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In his later years, Hefner's star dimmed, but he remained a well-known personality, often appearing in cameo roles. In the 1993 The Simpsons episode \"Krusty Gets Kancelled\", Hefner voiced himself. In 1999, Hefner financed the Clara Bow documentary Discovering the It Girl. \"Nobody has what Clara had,\" he said. \"She defined an era and made her mark on the nation\". Hefner guest-starred as himself in the 2000 Sex and the City episode \"Sex and Another City\". In 2005, he guest-starred on the HBO shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage. He guest-starred as himself in a 2006 episode of Seth Green's Robot Chicken on the late-night programming block Adult Swim. In the 2007 Family Guy episode \"Airport '07\", he voiced himself. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television and made several movie appearances as himself. In 2009, he received a \"worst supporting actor\" nomination for a Razzie award for his performance as himself in Miss March. On his official Twitter account, he joked about this nomination: \"Maybe I didn't understand the character.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Brigitte Berman's documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel was released on July 30, 2010. He had previously granted full access to documentary filmmaker and television producer Kevin Burns for the A&E Biography special Hugh Hefner: American Playboy in 1996. Hefner and Burns later collaborated on numerous other television projects, most notably on The Girls Next Door, a reality series that ran for six seasons (2005–2009) and 90 episodes. Hefner also made a voice-only appearance as himself in the 2011 film Hop.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 2012, Hefner announced that his youngest son Cooper would succeed him as the public face of Playboy.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hefner was known to friends and family simply as \"Hef\". He married Northwestern University student Mildred (\"Millie\") Williams in 1949. They had a daughter named Christie (b. 1952) and a son, David (b. 1955). Before the wedding, Mildred confessed that she'd had an affair while he was away in the army. He called the admission \"the most devastating moment of my life.\" A 2006 E! True Hollywood Story profile of Hefner revealed that Mildred allowed him to have sex with other women, out of guilt for her own infidelity and in the hope that it would preserve their marriage. The couple divorced in 1959.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hefner remade himself as a bon vivant and man about town, a lifestyle that he promoted in his magazine and TV shows. He admitted to being \"'involved' with maybe eleven out of twelve months' worth of Playmates\" during some years. Donna Michelle, Marilyn Cole, Lillian Müller, Shannon Tweed, Barbi Benton, Karen Christy, Sondra Theodore, and Carrie Leigh were a few of his many lovers; Leigh filed a $35 million palimony suit against him. In 1971, he acknowledged that he experimented in bisexuality. Also in 1971, he established a second residence in Los Angeles with the acquisition of Playboy Mansion West, and moved there permanently from Chicago in 1975.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On March 7, 1985, Hefner had a minor stroke at age 58, whereupon he re-evaluated his lifestyle, making several changes. He toned down the wild, all-night parties; also, daughter Christie took over the operation of Playboy's commercial operations in 1988. The following year, he married Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad; they were 36 years apart in age. The couple had sons Marston Glenn (b. 1990) and Cooper (b. 1991). The E! True Hollywood Story profile noted that the Playboy Mansion had been transformed into a family-friendly homestead. He and Conrad separated in 1998, after which she moved into the house next door to the mansion. Hefner filed for divorce from Conrad in 2009 after an 11-year separation, citing irreconcilable differences. He stated that he only remained nominally married to her for the sake of their children, and their youngest child had just turned 18. The divorce was finalized in 2010.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hefner became known for moving an ever-changing coterie of young women into the Playboy Mansion, including twins Mandy and Sandy Bentley. He dated as many as seven women concurrently. He also dated Brande Roderick, Izabella St. James, Tina Marie Jordan, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson. Madison, Wilkinson, and Marquardt appeared on The Girls Next Door depicting their lives at the Playboy Mansion. In October 2008, all three of them decided to leave the mansion.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In January 2009, Hefner began a relationship with Crystal Harris; she joined the Shannon Twins after his previous \"number one girlfriend\" Holly Madison had ended their seven-year relationship. On December 24, 2010, he became engaged to Harris, but she broke off their engagement on June 14, 2011, five days before their planned wedding. The July issue of Playboy reached store shelves and customers' homes within days of the wedding date; it featured Harris on the cover, and in a photo spread as well. The headline on the cover read \"Introducing America's Princess, Mrs. Crystal Hefner\". Hefner and Harris subsequently reconciled and married on December 31, 2012.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Hefner was very distantly related to the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively. Hefner's brother Keith died at age 87 on April 8, 2016, one day before Hefner's 90th birthday.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In January 2016, the Playboy Mansion was put on the market for $200 million, on condition that Hugh Hefner would continue to work and live in the mansion. Later that year it was sold to Daren Metropoulos, a principal at private equity firm Metropoulos & Company, for $100 million. Metropoulos planned to reconnect the Playboy Mansion property with a neighboring estate that he purchased in 2009, combining the two for a 7.3 acre (3-hectare) compound as his own private residence.",
"title": "Playboy Mansion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In May 2017, Eugena Washington was the last Playmate of the Year to be announced by Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.",
"title": "Playboy Mansion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Hefner debated The Playboy Philosophy with William F. Buckley Jr., on Firing Line in Episode 26, recorded on September 12, 1966.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award was created by Christie Hefner \"to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans.\"",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "He donated and raised money for the Democratic Party. In 2011, he referred to himself as an independent due to dissatisfaction with both the Democratic and Republican parties. Nonetheless, in 2012, he supported Barack Obama's reelection campaign.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1978, Hefner helped organize fund-raising efforts that led to the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He hosted a gala fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion and contributed $27,000 (or 1/9 of the total restoration costs) by purchasing the letter Y in a ceremonial auction.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Hefner stated in a 2000 interview with Playboy, \"It’s perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It’s something we have invented to explain the inexplicable.\" Lee Strobel, a Christian author who interviewed Hefner regarding his theological positions, later described Hefner as having a \"very minimalistic, deistic view of God.\"",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Hefner donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts to create a course called \"Censorship in Cinema\", and $2 million to endow a chair for the study of American film. In 2007, the university's audiovisual archive at the Norris Theater received a donation from Hefner and was renamed to the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive in his honor.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Both through his charitable foundation and individually, Hefner also contributed to charities and other organizations outside the sphere of politics and publishing, throwing fundraiser events for Much Love Animal Rescue as well as Generation Rescue, an anti-vaccinationist campaign organization supported by Jenny McCarthy.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "On November 18, 2010, Children of the Night founder and president Dr. Lois Lee presented Hefner with the organization's first-ever Founder's Hero of the Heart Award in appreciation for his unwavering dedication, commitment and generosity.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "On April 26, 2010, Hefner donated the last $900,000 sought by a conservation group for a land purchase needed to stop the development of the vista of the Hollywood Sign. Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, an endangered subspecies of marsh rabbit, is named after him in honor of financial support that he provided.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Barbi Twins, who are among a notable cohort of celebrity Playmates, including Pamela Anderson and Hefner's third wife Crystal Harris, praised the publishing icon for providing centerfolds and extended members of the Playboy family with a platform for activism and advocacy on behalf of animal populations in need.",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Hefner supported legalizing same-sex marriage, calling it \"a fight for all our rights. Without it, we will turn back the sexual revolution and return to an earlier, puritanical time.\"",
"title": "Politics and philanthropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Hefner died at the Playboy Mansion on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91. The cause was sepsis brought on by an E. coli infection.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "He is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, in the crypt beside Marilyn Monroe, for which he paid $75,000 in 1992. \"Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up,\" Hefner had told the Los Angeles Times in 2009.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Suzanne Moore wrote in The Guardian that Hefner threatened to file a lawsuit against her for calling him a \"pimp\". Defending her position, Moore argued that \"he was a man who bought and sold women to other men\". She further stated that \"part of Hefner's business acumen was to make the selling of female flesh respectable and hip, to make soft porn acceptable.\" Julie Bindel argued in The Independent that Hefner \"caused immeasurable damage by turning porn—and therefore the buying and selling of women's bodies—into a legitimate business.\"",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Robin Abcarian wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Quoting Wendy Hamilton, that Hefner \"probably did more to mainstream the exploitation of women's bodies than any other figure in American history,\" adding that he \"managed to convince many women that taking off their clothes for men's pleasure was not just empowering, but a worthy goal in itself.\" She further stated that Hefner \"embodied the aesthetic notion that images of women—and women themselves—exist to please men.\"",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison said that he \"would encourage competition—and body image issues—between his multiple live-in girlfriends. His legacy is full of evidence of the exploitation of women for professional gain.\" Ed Stetzer wrote in Christianity Today that Hefner would have the residence systematically cleaned whenever Christie Hefner visited in order \"to keep the realities from his own daughter\". Stetzer further lamented the consequences of Hefner's role as a \"general\" of the \"sexual revolution\":",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "It's hard to fathom that anyone would have known what this would have turned into. Parents growing up today are fighting to keep their children pure. Spouses are fighting to keep their marriages intact. And many enslaved and trapped in the adult entertainment industry have been figuratively and literally stripped not only of their clothes, but their very value as people made in the image of God. If this does not concern us, what will?",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "A 12-part television documentary series, Secrets of Playboy, debuted on A&E January 24, 2022, in which Hefner's former male and female employees and partners made claims of systematic sexual misconduct and manipulation, recreational and manipulative drug use, peer pressure, sextortion blackmail, rape, forced and violent anal sex, sexual assault without consent and/or while victims were in a state of drug-induced stupor or unconsciousness, spying, video taping without consent, and illegal sex with minors by Hefner and his celebrity friends and guests at the Playboy Mansion and other locations.",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The PLBY group, now publicly owned, distanced itself from Hefner in a statement released shortly before the first episode was broadcast, saying, \"Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy. We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences.\"",
"title": "Reputation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Amazon original series American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story was released in April 2017. It stars Matt Whelan in the title role, along with Emmett Skilton and Chelsie Preston Crayford. The first season was released on April 7, composed of ten episodes. The series is a combination of interviews, archival footage (including moments found in Hefner's vast personal collection), and cinematic re-enactments that cover the launch of the magazine as well as the next six decades of Hefner's personal life and career. The series was filmed in Auckland.",
"title": "Depictions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On October 3, 2017, Playboy Enterprises announced that a Hugh Hefner biopic directed by Brett Ratner with the screenplay by Jeff Nathanson was greenlit with Jared Leto rumored to play Hefner. It was indefinitely put on hold following sexual harassment allegations against Ratner on November 2, 2017, and Leto's representatives stated that reports of him being attached to the film at any point were false.",
"title": "Depictions"
}
]
| Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles that provoked charges of obscenity. Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest. He was an advocate for the causes of First Amendment rights, animal rescue, and the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He was a highly controversial figure in popular culture, accused of perpetrating and fostering sexual abuse and exploitation stretching back decades, and Playboy has since distanced itself from association with him. | 2001-12-13T01:56:36Z | 2023-12-17T06:09:19Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Hefner |
14,280 | Hafizullah Amin | Hafizullah Amin (Pashto: حفيظ الله امين; 1 August 1929 – 27 December 1979) was an Afghan communist head of state, who served from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), ruling Afghanistan as General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.
Born in the town of Paghman in Kabul Province, Amin studied at Kabul University and started his career as a teacher before he twice went to the United States to study. During this time, Amin became attracted to Marxism and became involved in radical student movements at the University of Wisconsin. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he used his teaching position to spread socialist ideologies to students, and he later joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a new far-left organization co-founded by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat, but in 1969 became the only Khalqist elected to parliament, increasing his standing within the party.
Amin was the main organizer of the April 1978 Saur Revolution, which overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Khan and formed a pro-Soviet state based on socialist ideals. Being second in chief of the Democratic Republic, Amin soon became the regime's strongman, the main architect of the state's programs including mass persecution of those deemed counter-revolutionary. A growing personal struggle with General Secretary Taraki eventually led to Amin wrestling power away then successfully deposing him and later ordering his execution; on 16 September 1979, Amin named himself Chairman of the Council of Ministers (head of government), Chairman of the Revolutionary Council (head of state), and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee (supreme leader).
Amin's short-lived leadership featured controversies from beginning to end. His government failed to solve the problem of the population revolting against the regime as the situation rapidly worsened and army desertions and defections continued. He tried to change things with friendly overtures to Pakistan and the United States, and considered a trade-off of recognizing the Durand Line border in exchange for Pakistan halting support to anti-regime guerillas. Many Afghans held Amin responsible for the regime's harshest measures, such as ordering thousands of executions. Thousands of people disappeared without trace during his time in office. The Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev was dissatisfied with and mistrusted Amin; they intervened in Afghanistan, invoking the 1978 Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Soviet operatives assassinated Amin at the Tajbeg Palace on 27 December 1979 as part of Operation Storm-333, kickstarting the 10-year Soviet–Afghan War; he had ruled for slightly longer than three months.
Hafizullah Amin was born to a Ghilji Pashtun family in the Qazi Khel village in Paghman on 1 August 1929. His father, a civil servant, died in 1937 when he was 8. Thanks to his brother Abdullah, a primary school teacher, Amin was able to attend both primary and secondary school, which in turn allowed him to attend Kabul University (KU). After studying mathematics there, he also graduated from the Darul Mualimeen Teachers College in Kabul, and became a teacher. Amin later became vice-principal of the Darul Mualimeen College, and then principal of the prestigious Avesina High School, and in 1957 left Afghanistan for Columbia University in New York City, where he earned MA in education. It was at Columbia that Amin became attracted to Marxism, and in 1958 he became a member of the university's Socialist Progressive Club. When he returned to Afghanistan, Amin became a teacher at Kabul University, and later, for the second time, the principal of Avesina High School. During this period Amin became acquainted with Nur Muhammad Taraki, a communist. Around this time, Amin quit his position as principal of Avesina High School to become principal of the Darul Mualimeen College.
It is alleged that Amin became radicalised during his second stay in the United States in 1962, when he enrolled in a work-study group at the University of Wisconsin. Amin studied in the doctoral programme at the Columbia University Teachers College, but started to neglect his studies in favour of politics; in 1963 he became head of the Afghan students' association at the college. The association was funded by the Asia Foundation, known to be a CIA pass-through group, or front. When he returned to Afghanistan in the mid-1960s, the route flew to Afghanistan by way of Moscow. There, Amin met the Afghan ambassador to the Soviet Union, his old friend Ali Ahmad Popel, a previous Afghan Minister of Education. During his short stay, Amin became even more radicalised. Some people, Nabi Misdaq for instance, do not believe he travelled through Moscow, but rather West Germany and Lebanon. By the time he had returned to Afghanistan, the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had already held its founding congress, which was in 1965. Amin ran as a candidate for the PDPA in the 1965 parliamentary election, and lost by a margin of less than fifty votes. In 1966, when the PDPA Central Committee was expanded, Amin was elected as a non-voting member, and in the spring of 1967 he gained full membership. Amin's standing in the Khalq faction of the PDPA increased when he was the only Khalqist elected to parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election. When the PDPA split along factional lines in 1967, between Khalqists led by Nur and Parchamites led by Babrak Karmal, Amin joined the Khalqists. As a member of parliament, Amin tried to win over support from the Pashtun people in the armed forces. According to a biography about Amin, he used his position as member of parliament to fight against imperialism, feudalism, and Reactionary tendencies, and fought against the "rotten" regime, the monarchy. Amin himself said that he used his membership in parliament to pursue the class struggle against the bourgeoisie. Relations between Khalqists and Parchamites deteriorated during this period. Amin, the only Khalq member of parliament, and Babrak Karmal, the only Parcham member of parliament, did not cooperate with each other. Amin would later, during his short stint in power, mention these events with bitterness. Following the arrest of fellow PDPA members Dastagir Panjsheri and Saleh Mohammad Zeary in 1969, Amin became one of the party's leading members, and was still a pre-eminent party member by the time of their release in 1973.
From 1973 until the PDPA unification in 1977, Amin was second only to Taraki in the Khalqist PDPA. When the PDPA ruled Afghanistan, their relationship was referred to as a disciple (Amin) following his mentor (Taraki). This official portrayal of the situation was misleading; their relationship was more work-oriented. Taraki needed Amin's "tactical and strategic talents"; Amin's motivations are more uncertain, but it is commonly believed that he associated with Taraki to protect his own position. Amin had attracted many enemies during his career, the most notable being Karmal. According to the official version of events, Taraki protected Amin from party members or others who wanted to hurt the PDPA and the country. When Mohammed Daoud Khan ousted the monarchy, and established the Republic of Afghanistan, the Khalqist PDPA offered its support for the new regime if it established a National Front which presumably included the Khalqist PDPA itself. The Parchamite PDPA had already established an alliance with Daoud at the beginning of his regime, and Karmal called for the dissolution of the Khalqist PDPA. Karmal's call for dissolution only worsened relations between the Khalqist and Parchamite PDPA. However, Taraki and Amin were lucky; Karmal's alliance actually hurt the Parchamites' standing in Afghan politics. Some communists in the armed forces became disillusioned with the government of Daoud, and turned to the Khalqist PDPA because of its apparent independence. Parchamite association with the Daoud government indirectly led to the Khalqist-led PDPA coup of 1978, popularly referred to as the Saur Revolution. From 1973 until the 1978 coup, Amin was responsible for organising party work in the Afghan armed forces. According to the official version, Amin "met patriotic liaison officers day or night, in the desert or the mountains, in the fields or the forests, enlightening them on the basis of the principles of the working class ideology." Amin's success in recruiting military officers lay in the fact that Daoud "betrayed the left" soon after taking power. When Amin began recruiting military officers for the PDPA, it was not difficult for him to find disgruntled military officers. In the meantime, relations between the Parchamite and Khalqist PDPA deteriorated; in 1973 it was rumoured that Major Zia Mohammadzai, a Parchamite and head of the Republican Guard, planned to assassinate the entire Khalqist leadership. The plan, if true, failed because the Khalqists found out about it. The assassination attempt proved to be a further blow to relations between the Parchamites and Khalqists. The Parchamites deny that they ever planned to assassinate the Khalqist leadership, but historian Beverley Male argues that Karmal's subsequent activities give credence to the Khalqist view of events. Because of the Parchamite assassination attempt, Amin pressed the Khalqist PDPA to seize power in 1976 by ousting Daoud. The majority of the PDPA leadership voted against such a move. The following year, in 1977, the Parchamites and Khalqists officially reconciled, and the PDPA was unified. The Parchamite and Khalqist PDPAs, which had separate general secretaries, politburos, central committees and other organisational structures, were officially unified in the summer of 1977. One reason for unification was that the international communist movement, represented by the Communist Party of India, Iraqi Communist Party and the Communist Party of Australia, called for party unification.
On 18 April 1978 Mir Akbar Khyber, the chief ideologue of the Parcham faction, was killed; he was commonly believed to have been assassinated by the Daoud government. Khyber's assassination initiated a chain of events which led to the PDPA taking power eleven days later, on 27 April. The assassin was never caught, but Anahita Ratebzad, a Parchamite, believed that Amin had ordered the assassination. Khyber's funeral evolved into a large anti-government demonstration. Daoud, who did not understand the significance of the events, began a mass arrest of PDPA members seven days after Khyber's funeral. Amin, who organised the subsequent revolution against Daoud, was one of the last Central Committee members to be arrested by the authorities. His late arrest can be considered as proof of the regime's lack of information; Amin was the leading revolutionary party organiser. The government's lack of awareness was proven by the arrest of Taraki – Taraki's arrest was the pre-arranged signal for the revolution to commence. When Amin found out that Taraki had been arrested, he ordered the revolution to begin at 9 am on 27 April. Amin, in contrast to Taraki, was not imprisoned, but instead put under house arrest. His son, Abdur Rahman, was still allowed freedom of movement. The revolution was successful, thanks to overwhelming support from the Afghan military; for instance, it was supported by Defence Minister Ghulam Haidar Rasuli, Aslam Watanjar the commander of the ground forces, and the Chief of Staff of the Afghan Air Force, Abdul Qadir.
After the Saur revolution, Taraki was appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and retained his post as PDPA general secretary. Taraki initially formed a government which consisted of both Khalqists and Parchamites; Karmal became Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council while Amin became Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Deputy Prime Minister, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar became a Deputy Prime Minister. The two Parchamites Abdul Qadir and Mohammad Rafi became Minister of National Defence and Minister of Public Works respectively. According to Angel Rasanayagam, the appointment of Amin, Karmal and Watanjar as Deputy Prime Ministers led to the establishment of three cabinets; the Khalqists were answerable to Amin, the Parchamites were answerable to Karmal, and the military officers (who were Parchamites) were answerable to Watanjar. The first conflict between the Khalqists and Parchamites arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to the military officers who participated in the Saur Revolution. Amin, who had previously opposed the appointment of military officers to the PDPA leadership, switched sides; he now supported their elevation. The PDPA Politburo voted in favour of giving membership to the military officers; the victors (the Khalqists) portrayed the Parchamites as opportunists, implying that the Parchamites had ridden the revolutionary wave, but not actually participated in the revolution. To make matters worse for the Parchamites, the term Parcham was, according to Taraki, a word synonymous with factionalism.
There is only one leading force in the country - Hafizullah Amin. In the Politburo, everybody fears Amin.
On 27 June 1978, three months after the revolution, Amin managed to outmaneuver the Parchamites at a Central Committee meeting. The meeting decided that the Khalqists had exclusive rights to formulate and decide policy, a policy which left the Parchamites impotent. Karmal was exiled, but was able to establish a network with the remaining Parchamites in government. A coup to overthrow Amin was planned for September. Its leading members in Afghanistan were Qadir, the defence minister, and Army Chief of Staff General Shahpur Ahmedzai. The coup was planned for 4 September, on the Festival of Eid, because soldiers and officers would be off duty. The conspiracy failed when the Afghan ambassador to India told the Afghan leadership about the plan. A purge was initiated, and Parchamite ambassadors were recalled; few returned, for example Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah both stayed in their assigned countries.
The Afghan people revolted against the PDPA government when the government introduced several socialist reforms, including land reforms. By early 1979, twenty-five out of Afghanistan's twenty-eight provinces were unsafe because of armed resistance against the government. On 29 March 1979, the Herat uprising began; the uprising turned the revolt into an open war between the Afghan government and anti-regime resistance. It was during this period that Amin became Kabul's strongman. Shortly after the Herat uprising had been crushed, the Revolutionary Council convened to ratify the new Five-Year Plan, the Afghan–Soviet Friendship Treaty, and to vote on whether or not to reorganise the cabinet and to enhance the power of the executive (the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council). While the official version of events said that all issues were voted on democratically at the meeting, the Revolutionary Council held another meeting the following day to ratify the new Five-Year Plan and to discuss the reorganisation of the cabinet.
As one of our slogans is 'to everyone according to his capacity and work', therefore as a result of past performances and services he has won our greater trust and assurances. I have full confidence in him and in the light of this confidence I entrust him with this job...
— Taraki telling his colleagues why Amin should be appointed Prime Minister.
Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, was able to persuade Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Sherjan Mazdoryar to become part of a conspiracy against Amin. These three men put pressure on Taraki, who by this time believed that "he really was the 'great leader'", to sack Amin from office. It is unknown if Amin knew anything about the conspiracy against him, but it was after the cabinet reorganisation that he talked about his dissatisfaction. On 26 March the PDPA Politburo and the Council of Ministers approved the extension of the powers of the executive branch, and the establishment of the Homeland Higher Defence Council (HHDC) to handle security matters. Many analysts of the day regarded Amin's appointment as Prime Minister as an increase in his powers at the expense of Taraki. However, the reorganisation of the cabinet and the strengthening of Taraki's position as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, had reduced the authority of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was, due to the strengthening of the executive, now appointed by the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. While Amin could appoint and dismiss new ministers, he needed Taraki's consent to actually do so. Another problem for Amin was that while the Council of Ministers was responsible to the Revolutionary Council and its chairman, individual ministers were only responsible to Taraki. When Amin became Prime Minister, he was responsible for planning, finance and budgetary matters, the conduct of foreign policy, and for order and security. The order and security responsibilities had been taken over by the HHDC, which was chaired by Taraki. While Amin was HHDC Deputy chairman, the majority of HHDC members were members of the anti-Amin faction. For instance, the HHDC membership included Watanjar the Minister of National Defence, Interior Minister Mazdoryar, the President of the Political Affairs of the Armed Forces Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Yaqub, the Chief of the General Staff, the Commander of the Afghan Air Force Nazar Mohammad and Assadullah Sarwari the head of ASGA, the Afghan secret police.
The order of precedence had been institutionalised, whereby Taraki was responsible for defence and Amin responsible for assisting Taraki in defence related matters. Amin's position was given a further blow by the democratisation of the decision-making process, which allowed its members to contribute; most of them were against Amin. Another problem for Amin was that the office of HHDC Deputy chairman had no specific functions or powers, and the appointment of a new defence minister who opposed him drastically weakened his control over the Ministry of National Defence. The reorganisation of ministers was a further blow to Amin's position; he had lost control of the defence ministry, the interior ministry and the ASGA. Amin still had allies at the top, many of them in strategically important positions, for instance, Yaqub was his brother-in-law and the Security Chief in the Ministry of Interior was Sayed Daoud Taroon, who was also later appointed to the HHDC as an ordinary member in April. Amin succeeded in appointing two more of his allies to important positions; Mohammad Sediq Alemyar as Minister of Planning and Khayal Mohammad Katawazi as Minister of Information and Culture; and Faqir Mohammad Faqir was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in April 1978. Amin's political position was not secure when Alexei Yepishev, the Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, visited Kabul. Yepishev met personally with Taraki on 7 April, but never met with Amin. The Soviets were becoming increasingly worried about Amin's control over the Afghan military. Even so, during Yepishev's visit Amin's position was actually strengthened; Taroon was appointed Taraki's aide-de-camp.
Our homeland's enemies, the enemies of the working class movement all over the world are trying to penetrate into the PDPA leadership and above all woo the working class party leader but the people of Afghanistan and the PDPA both take great pride in the fact that the PDPA and its General-Secretary enjoys a great personality which render him impossible to woo.
— Amin in a speech in which he warns of inter-party sectarianism.
Soon after, at two cabinet meetings, the strengthening of the executive powers of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council was proven. Even though Amin was Prime Minister, Taraki chaired the meetings instead of him. Amin's presence at these two meetings was not mentioned at all, and it was made clear that Taraki, through his office as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, also chaired the Council of Ministers. Another problem facing Amin was Taraki's policy of autocracy; he tried to deprive the PDPA Politburo of its powers as a party and state decision-making organ. The situation deteriorated when Amin personally warned Taraki that "the prestige and popularity of leaders among the people has no common aspect with a personality cult."
Factionalism within the PDPA made it ill-prepared to handle the intensified counter-revolutionary activities in the country. Amin tried to win support for the communist government by depicting himself as a devout Muslim. Taraki and Amin blamed different countries for helping the counter-revolutionaries; Amin attacked the United Kingdom and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and played down American and Chinese involvement, while Taraki blamed American imperialism and Iran and Pakistan for supporting the uprising. Amin's criticism of the United Kingdom and the BBC fed on the traditional anti-British sentiments held by rural Afghans. In contrast to Taraki, "Amin bent over backwards to avoid making hostile reference to", China, the United States or other foreign governments. Amin's cautious behavior was in deep contrast to the Soviet Union's official stance on the situation; it seemed, according to Beverley Male, that the Soviet leadership tried to force a confrontation between Afghanistan and its enemies. Amin also tried to appease the Shia communities by meeting with their leaders; despite this, a section of the Shia leadership called for the continuation of the resistance. Subsequently, a revolt broke out in a Shia populated district in Kabul; this was the first sign of unrest in Kabul since the Saur Revolution. To add to the government's problems, Taraki's ability to lead the country was questioned – he was a heavy drinker and was not in good health. Amin on the other hand was characterised in this period by portrayals of strong self-discipline. In the summer of 1979 Amin began to disassociate himself from Taraki. On 27 June Amin became a member of the PDPA Politburo, the leading decision-making body in Afghanistan.
In-mid July the Soviets made their view official when Pravda wrote an article about the situation in Afghanistan; the Soviets did not wish to see Amin become leader of Afghanistan. This triggered a political crisis in Afghanistan, as Amin initiated a policy of extreme repression, which became one of the main reasons for the Soviet intervention later that year. On 28 July, a vote in the PDPA Politburo approved Amin's proposal of creating a collective leadership with collective decision-making; this was a blow to Taraki, and many of his supporters were replaced by pro-Amin PDPA members. Ivan Pavlovsky, the Commander of the Soviet Ground Forces, visited Kabul in mid-August to study the situation in Afghanistan. Amin, in a speech just a few days after Pavlovsky's arrival, said that he wanted closer relations between Afghanistan and the People's Republic of China; in the same speech he hinted that he had reservations about Soviet meddling in Afghanistan. He likened Soviet assistance to Afghanistan with Vladimir Lenin's assistance to the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Taraki, a delegate to the conference held by the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, met personally with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the Afghanistan situation on 9 September. Shah Wali, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was a supporter of Amin, did not participate in the meeting. This, according to Beverley Male, "suggested that some plot against Amin was in preparation".
Taraki was instructed to stop-over in Moscow, where the Soviet leaders urged him to remove Amin from power as per the KGB's decision, because Amin posed danger. Amin's trusted aid, Daoud Taroon, informed Amin of the meeting and the KGB's plan. In Kabul, Taraki's aides, the Gang of Four (consisting of Watanjar, Mazdoryar, Gulabzoi and Sarwari), planned to assassinate Amin but failed as Amin was informed of their plot. Within hours of Taraki's return to Kabul on 11 September, Taraki convened the cabinet "ostensibly to report on the Havana Summit". Instead of reporting on the summit, Taraki tried to dismiss Amin as Prime Minister. Amin, aware of the murder plot, demanded the Gang of Four to be removed from their posts, but Taraki laughed it off. Taraki sought to neutralise Amin's power and influence by requesting that he serve overseas as an ambassador. Amin turned down the proposal, shouting "You are the one who should quit! Because of drink and old age you have taken leave of your senses."
On 13 September, Taraki invited Amin to the presidential palace for lunch with him and the Gang of Four. Amin turned down the offer, stating he would prefer their resignation rather than lunching with them. Soviet ambassador Puzanov persuaded Amin to make the visit to the Presidential Palace along with Taroon, the Chief of Police, and Nawab Ali, an intelligence officer. Inside the palace on 14 September, bodyguards within the building opened fire on the visitors. Taroon was killed but Amin only sustained an injury and escaped. Amin drove to the Ministry of Defence building, put the Army on high alert and ordered Taraki's arrest. At 6:30 pm tanks from the 4th Armoured Corps entered the city and stood at government buildings. Shortly afterwards, Amin returned to the palace with a contingent of Army officers, and placed Taraki under arrest. The Gang of Four, however, had "disappeared" and sought refuge in the Soviet Embassy.
After Taraki's arrest, the Soviets tried to rescue Taraki (or, according to other sources, kidnap Amin) via the embassy or Bagram Air Base but the strength of Amin's officers repelled their decision to make a move. Amin was told by the Soviets not to punish Taraki and strip him and his comrades of their positions, but Amin ignored them. Amin reportedly discussed the incident with Leonid Brezhnev, and indirectly asked for the permission to kill Taraki, to which Brezhnev replied that it was his choice. Amin, who now believed he had the full support of the Soviets, ordered the death of Taraki. It is believed Taraki was suffocated with pillows on 8 October 1979. The Afghan media would report that the ailing Taraki had died, omitting any mention of his murder. Taraki's murder shocked and upset Brezhnev.
Following Taraki's fall from power, Amin was elected Chairman of the Presidum of the Revolutionary Council and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee by the PDPA Politburo. The election of Amin as PDPA General Secretary and the removal of Taraki from all party posts was unanimous. The only members of the cabinet replaced when Amin took power were the Gang of Four – Beverley Male saw this as "a clear indication that he had their [the ministers'] support". Amin's rise to power was followed by a policy of moderation, and attempts to persuade the Afghan people that the regime was not anti-Islamic. Amin's government began to invest in the reconstruction, or reparation, of mosques. He also promised the Afghan people freedom of religion. Religious groups were given copies of the Quran, and Amin began to refer to Allah in speeches. He even claimed that the Saur Revolution was "totally based on the principles of Islam". The campaign proved to be unsuccessful, and many Afghans held Amin responsible for the regime's totalitarian behavior. Amin's rise to power was officially endorsed by the Jamiatul Ulama on 20 September 1979. Their endorsement led to the official announcement that Amin was a pious Muslim – Amin thus scored a point against the counter-revolutionary propaganda which claimed the communist regime was atheist. Amin also tried to increase his popularity with tribal groups, a feat Taraki had been unable or unwilling to achieve. In a speech to tribal elders Amin was defensive about the Western way he dressed; an official biography was published which depicted Amin in traditional Pashtun clothes. During his short stay in power, Amin became committed to establishing a collective leadership; when Taraki was ousted, Amin promised "from now on there will be no one-man government..."
We will not leave a backward country for future generations
— Amin, as quoted in the New Kabul Times, September 30, 1979
Attempting to pacify the population, Amin released a list of 18,000 people who had been executed, and blamed the executions on Taraki. The total number of arrested during Taraki's and Amin's combined reign number between 17,000 and 45,000. Amin was not liked by the Afghan people. During his rule, opposition to the communist regime increased, and the government lost control of the countryside. The state of the Afghan military deteriorated; due to desertions the number of military personnel in the Afghan army decreased from 100,000 in the immediate aftermath of the Saur Revolution, to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000. Another problem Amin faced was the KGB's penetration of the PDPA, the military and the government bureaucracy. While Amin's position in Afghanistan was becoming more perilous by the day, his enemies who were exiled in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were agitating for his removal. Babrak Karmal, the Parchamite leader, met several leading Eastern Bloc figures during this period, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Assadullah Sarwari wanted to exact revenge upon Amin.
When Amin became leader, he tried to reduce Afghanistan's dependence on the Soviet Union. To accomplish this, he aimed to balance Afghanistan's relations with the Soviet Union by strengthening relations with Pakistan and Iran. The Soviets were concerned when they received reports that Amin had met personally with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading anti-communists in Afghanistan. His general untrustworthiness and his unpopularity amongst Afghans made it more difficult for Amin to find new "foreign patrons". Amin's involvement in the death of Adolph Dubs, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, strained his relations with the United States. He tried to improve relations by reestablishing contact, met with three different American chargé d'affaires, and was interviewed by an American correspondent. But this did not improve Afghanistan's standing in the eyes of the United States Government. After the third meeting with Amin, J. Bruce Amstutz, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1979 to 1980, believed the wisest thing to do was to maintain "a low profile, trying to avoid issues, and waiting to see what happens". In early December 1979, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed a joint summit meeting between Amin and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan. The Pakistani Government, accepting a modified version of the offer, agreed to send Agha Shahi, the Pakistani foreign minister, to Kabul for talks. In the meanwhile, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistani's secret police, continued to train Mujahideen fighters who opposed the communist regime.
Any person and any element who harms the friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union will be considered the enemy of the country, enemy of our people and enemy of our revolution. We will not allow anybody in Afghanistan to act against the friendship of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
— Amin reassuring the Soviets about his intentions.
Contrary to popular belief, the Soviet leadership headed by Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin and the Politburo, were not eager to send troops to Afghanistan. The Soviet Politburo decisions were guided by a Special Commission on Afghanistan, which consisted of Yuri Andropov the KGB chairman, Andrei Gromyko the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov, and Boris Ponomarev, the head of the International Department of the Central Committee. The Politburo was opposed to the removal of Taraki and his subsequent murder. According to Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "Events developed so swiftly in Afghanistan that essentially there was little opportunity to somehow interfere in them. Right now our mission is to determine our further actions, so as to preserve our position in Afghanistan and to secure our influence there." Although Afghan–Soviet relations deteriorated during Amin's short stint in power, he was invited on an official visit to Moscow by Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, because of the Soviet leadership's satisfaction with his party and state-building policy. Not everything went as planned, and Andropov talked about "the undesirable turn of events" taking place in Afghanistan under Amin's rule. Andropov also brought up the ongoing political shift in Afghanistan under Amin; the Soviets were afraid that Amin would move Afghanistan's foreign policy from a pro-Soviet position to a pro-United States position. By early-to-mid December 1979, the Soviet leadership had established an alliance with Babrak Karmal and Assadullah Sarwari.
Those who boast of friendship with us, they can really be our friend when they respect our independence, our soil and our prideful traditions.
— Amin stressing the importance of Afghan independence.
Amin kept a portrait of Joseph Stalin on his desk. When Soviet officials criticized him of his brutality, Amin replied "Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country."
As it turned out, the relationship between Puzanov and Amin broke down. Amin started a smear campaign to discredit Puzanov. This in turn led to an assassination attempt against Amin, in which Puzanov participated. The situation was worsened by the KGB accusing Amin of misrepresenting the Soviet position on Afghanistan in the PDPA Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council. The KGB also noted an increase in anti-Soviet agitation by the government during Amin's rule, and harassment against Soviet citizens increased under Amin. A group of senior politicians reported to the Soviet Central Committee that it was necessary to do "everything possible" to prevent a change in political orientation in Afghanistan. However, the Soviet leadership did not advocate intervention at this time, and instead called for increasing its influence in the Amin leadership to expose his "true intentions". A Soviet Politburo assessment referred to Amin as "a power-hungry leader who is distinguished by brutality and treachery". Amongst the many sins they alleged were his "insincerity and duplicity" when dealing with the Soviet Union, creating fictitious accusations against PDPA-members who opposed him, indulging in a policy of nepotism, and his tendency to conduct a more "balanced policy" towards First World countries. According to the former senior Soviet diplomat, Oleg Grinevsky, the KGB was becoming increasingly convinced that Amin couldn't be counted on to effectively deal with the insurgency and preserve the survival of the Afghan Marxist state.
By the end of October the Special Commission on Afghanistan, which consisted of Andropov, Gromyko, Ustinov and Ponomarev, wanted to end the impression that the Soviet government supported Amin's leadership and policy. The KGB's First Chief Directorate was put under orders that something had to be done about Afghanistan, and several of its personnel were assembled to deal with the task. Andropov fought hard for Soviet intervention, saying to Brezhnev that Amin's policies had destroyed the military and the government's capabilities to handle the crisis by use of mass repression. The plan, according to Andropov, was to assemble a small force to intervene and remove Amin from power and replace him with Karmal. The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene in Afghanistan on 12 December 1979; large numbers of Soviet airborne troops landed in Kabul on 25 December, with the approval of Amin who miscalculated their intentions. Soviet leadership initiated Operation Storm-333 (the first phase of the intervention) on 27 December 1979.
The leadership of the USSR had no need for Amin to remain alive. Andropov's special representative in Afghanistan, General Boris Ivanov, recommended for Amin to attend a conciliatory dinner with his political mentor, who had become an enemy of Amin, so that Amin's chef could poison Amin. However, Amin survived the poisoning after being treated by doctors at the Soviet embassy, who did not know that "special reconnaissance officers" were trying to kill Amin. Since Amin, who was very loyal to the USSR, had survived two attempted assassinations that had been approved by the USSR, the decision was made to eliminate him through a bloody coup at Amin's residence, the Taj Beck Palace.
Amin trusted the Soviet Union until the very end, despite the deterioration of official relations, and was unaware that the tide in Moscow had turned against him since he ordered Taraki's death. When the Afghan intelligence service handed Amin a report that the Soviet Union would invade the country and topple him, Amin claimed that the report was a product of imperialism. His view can be explained by the fact that the Soviet Union, after several months, finally gave in to Amin's demands and sent troops into Afghanistan to secure the PDPA government. Contrary to common Western belief, Amin was informed of the Soviet decision to send troops into Afghanistan. General Tukharinov, commander of the 40th Army, met with Afghan Major General Babadzhan to talk about Soviet troop movements before the Soviet army's intervention. On 25 December, Dmitry Ustinov issued a formal order, stating that "[t]he state frontier of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is to be crossed on the ground and in the air by forces of the 40th Army and the Air Force at 1500 hrs on 25 December". This was the formal beginning of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Concerned for his safety, on 20 December Amin moved from the Presidential Palace, located in the centre of Kabul, to the Tajbeg Palace, which had previously been the headquarters of the Central Corps of the Afghan Army. The palace was formidable, with walls strong enough to withstand artillery fire. According to Rodric Braithwaite, "its defences had been carefully and intelligently organised". All roads to the palace had been mined, with the exception of one, which had heavy machine guns and artillery positioned to defend it. To make matters worse for the Soviets, the Afghans had established a second line of defence which consisted of seven posts, "each manned by four sentries armed with a machine gun, a mortar, and automatic rifles". The external defences of the palace were handled by the Presidential Guard, which consisted of 2,500 troops and three T-54 tanks. Several Soviet commanders involved in the assassination of Amin thought the plan to attack the palace was "crazy". Although the military had been informed by the Soviet leadership through their commanders, Yuri Drozdov and Vasily Kolesnik, that the leader was a "CIA agent" who had betrayed the Saur Revolution, many Soviet soldiers hesitated; despite what their commanders had told them, it seemed implausible that Amin, the leader of the PDPA government, was an American double agent. Despite several objections, the plan to assassinate Amin went ahead.
Before resorting to killing Amin by brute force, the Soviets had tried to poison him as early as 13 December (but nearly killed his nephew instead) and to kill him with a sniper shot on his way to work (this proved impossible as the Afghans had improved their security measures). They even tried to poison Amin just hours before the assault on the Presidential Palace on 27 December. Amin had organised a lunch for party members to show guests his palace and to celebrate Ghulam Dastagir Panjsheri's return from Moscow. Panjsheri's return improved the mood even further; he boasted that he and Gromyko always kept in contact with each other. During the meal, Amin and several of his guests lost consciousness as they had been poisoned. Amin survived his encounter with death, because the carbonation of the Coca-Cola he was drinking diluted the toxic agent. Mikhail Talybov, a KGB agent, was given responsibility for the poisonings.
The assault on the palace began shortly afterward. During the attack Amin still believed the Soviet Union was on his side, and told his adjutant, "The Soviets will help us". The adjutant replied that it was the Soviets who were attacking them; Amin initially replied that this was a lie. Only after he tried but failed to contact the Chief of the General Staff, he muttered, "I guessed it. It's all true". There are various accounts of how Amin died, but the exact details have never been confirmed. Amin was either killed by a deliberate attack or died by a "random burst of fire". Amin's son was fatally wounded and died shortly after. His daughter was wounded, but survived. It was Gulabzoy who had been given orders to kill Amin and Watanjar who later confirmed his death. The men of Amin's family were all executed either immediately or shortly thereafter (his brother Abdullah and nephew Asadullah were executed in June 1980) The women including his daughter were imprisoned at Pul-e-Charkhi prison until being released by President Najibullah in early 1992. After Amin's death on 27 December 1979, Radio Kabul broadcast Babrak Karmal's pre-recorded speech to the Afghan people, saying: "Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed". Karmal was installed by the Soviets as the new leader while the Soviet Army began its intervention in Afghanistan that would last for nine years.
On 2 January 1980 on the PDPA's 15th anniversary, Karmal who was now the new General Secretary called Amin a "conspirator, professional criminal and recognised spy of the U.S.", as reported in the Kabul New Times. Anahita Ratebzad, the education minister, said about Amin:
"Did Stalin make the revolution in white gloves?"
— Hafizullah Amin when questioned on his extreme ways of building a new country.
"Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country; it's painful to begin with, but afterwards everything turns out just fine"
— Hafizullah Amin's response to Soviet criticism | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hafizullah Amin (Pashto: حفيظ الله امين; 1 August 1929 – 27 December 1979) was an Afghan communist head of state, who served from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), ruling Afghanistan as General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in the town of Paghman in Kabul Province, Amin studied at Kabul University and started his career as a teacher before he twice went to the United States to study. During this time, Amin became attracted to Marxism and became involved in radical student movements at the University of Wisconsin. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he used his teaching position to spread socialist ideologies to students, and he later joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a new far-left organization co-founded by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat, but in 1969 became the only Khalqist elected to parliament, increasing his standing within the party.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Amin was the main organizer of the April 1978 Saur Revolution, which overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Khan and formed a pro-Soviet state based on socialist ideals. Being second in chief of the Democratic Republic, Amin soon became the regime's strongman, the main architect of the state's programs including mass persecution of those deemed counter-revolutionary. A growing personal struggle with General Secretary Taraki eventually led to Amin wrestling power away then successfully deposing him and later ordering his execution; on 16 September 1979, Amin named himself Chairman of the Council of Ministers (head of government), Chairman of the Revolutionary Council (head of state), and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee (supreme leader).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Amin's short-lived leadership featured controversies from beginning to end. His government failed to solve the problem of the population revolting against the regime as the situation rapidly worsened and army desertions and defections continued. He tried to change things with friendly overtures to Pakistan and the United States, and considered a trade-off of recognizing the Durand Line border in exchange for Pakistan halting support to anti-regime guerillas. Many Afghans held Amin responsible for the regime's harshest measures, such as ordering thousands of executions. Thousands of people disappeared without trace during his time in office. The Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev was dissatisfied with and mistrusted Amin; they intervened in Afghanistan, invoking the 1978 Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Soviet operatives assassinated Amin at the Tajbeg Palace on 27 December 1979 as part of Operation Storm-333, kickstarting the 10-year Soviet–Afghan War; he had ruled for slightly longer than three months.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hafizullah Amin was born to a Ghilji Pashtun family in the Qazi Khel village in Paghman on 1 August 1929. His father, a civil servant, died in 1937 when he was 8. Thanks to his brother Abdullah, a primary school teacher, Amin was able to attend both primary and secondary school, which in turn allowed him to attend Kabul University (KU). After studying mathematics there, he also graduated from the Darul Mualimeen Teachers College in Kabul, and became a teacher. Amin later became vice-principal of the Darul Mualimeen College, and then principal of the prestigious Avesina High School, and in 1957 left Afghanistan for Columbia University in New York City, where he earned MA in education. It was at Columbia that Amin became attracted to Marxism, and in 1958 he became a member of the university's Socialist Progressive Club. When he returned to Afghanistan, Amin became a teacher at Kabul University, and later, for the second time, the principal of Avesina High School. During this period Amin became acquainted with Nur Muhammad Taraki, a communist. Around this time, Amin quit his position as principal of Avesina High School to become principal of the Darul Mualimeen College.",
"title": "Early life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "It is alleged that Amin became radicalised during his second stay in the United States in 1962, when he enrolled in a work-study group at the University of Wisconsin. Amin studied in the doctoral programme at the Columbia University Teachers College, but started to neglect his studies in favour of politics; in 1963 he became head of the Afghan students' association at the college. The association was funded by the Asia Foundation, known to be a CIA pass-through group, or front. When he returned to Afghanistan in the mid-1960s, the route flew to Afghanistan by way of Moscow. There, Amin met the Afghan ambassador to the Soviet Union, his old friend Ali Ahmad Popel, a previous Afghan Minister of Education. During his short stay, Amin became even more radicalised. Some people, Nabi Misdaq for instance, do not believe he travelled through Moscow, but rather West Germany and Lebanon. By the time he had returned to Afghanistan, the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had already held its founding congress, which was in 1965. Amin ran as a candidate for the PDPA in the 1965 parliamentary election, and lost by a margin of less than fifty votes. In 1966, when the PDPA Central Committee was expanded, Amin was elected as a non-voting member, and in the spring of 1967 he gained full membership. Amin's standing in the Khalq faction of the PDPA increased when he was the only Khalqist elected to parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election. When the PDPA split along factional lines in 1967, between Khalqists led by Nur and Parchamites led by Babrak Karmal, Amin joined the Khalqists. As a member of parliament, Amin tried to win over support from the Pashtun people in the armed forces. According to a biography about Amin, he used his position as member of parliament to fight against imperialism, feudalism, and Reactionary tendencies, and fought against the \"rotten\" regime, the monarchy. Amin himself said that he used his membership in parliament to pursue the class struggle against the bourgeoisie. Relations between Khalqists and Parchamites deteriorated during this period. Amin, the only Khalq member of parliament, and Babrak Karmal, the only Parcham member of parliament, did not cooperate with each other. Amin would later, during his short stint in power, mention these events with bitterness. Following the arrest of fellow PDPA members Dastagir Panjsheri and Saleh Mohammad Zeary in 1969, Amin became one of the party's leading members, and was still a pre-eminent party member by the time of their release in 1973.",
"title": "Early life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "From 1973 until the PDPA unification in 1977, Amin was second only to Taraki in the Khalqist PDPA. When the PDPA ruled Afghanistan, their relationship was referred to as a disciple (Amin) following his mentor (Taraki). This official portrayal of the situation was misleading; their relationship was more work-oriented. Taraki needed Amin's \"tactical and strategic talents\"; Amin's motivations are more uncertain, but it is commonly believed that he associated with Taraki to protect his own position. Amin had attracted many enemies during his career, the most notable being Karmal. According to the official version of events, Taraki protected Amin from party members or others who wanted to hurt the PDPA and the country. When Mohammed Daoud Khan ousted the monarchy, and established the Republic of Afghanistan, the Khalqist PDPA offered its support for the new regime if it established a National Front which presumably included the Khalqist PDPA itself. The Parchamite PDPA had already established an alliance with Daoud at the beginning of his regime, and Karmal called for the dissolution of the Khalqist PDPA. Karmal's call for dissolution only worsened relations between the Khalqist and Parchamite PDPA. However, Taraki and Amin were lucky; Karmal's alliance actually hurt the Parchamites' standing in Afghan politics. Some communists in the armed forces became disillusioned with the government of Daoud, and turned to the Khalqist PDPA because of its apparent independence. Parchamite association with the Daoud government indirectly led to the Khalqist-led PDPA coup of 1978, popularly referred to as the Saur Revolution. From 1973 until the 1978 coup, Amin was responsible for organising party work in the Afghan armed forces. According to the official version, Amin \"met patriotic liaison officers day or night, in the desert or the mountains, in the fields or the forests, enlightening them on the basis of the principles of the working class ideology.\" Amin's success in recruiting military officers lay in the fact that Daoud \"betrayed the left\" soon after taking power. When Amin began recruiting military officers for the PDPA, it was not difficult for him to find disgruntled military officers. In the meantime, relations between the Parchamite and Khalqist PDPA deteriorated; in 1973 it was rumoured that Major Zia Mohammadzai, a Parchamite and head of the Republican Guard, planned to assassinate the entire Khalqist leadership. The plan, if true, failed because the Khalqists found out about it. The assassination attempt proved to be a further blow to relations between the Parchamites and Khalqists. The Parchamites deny that they ever planned to assassinate the Khalqist leadership, but historian Beverley Male argues that Karmal's subsequent activities give credence to the Khalqist view of events. Because of the Parchamite assassination attempt, Amin pressed the Khalqist PDPA to seize power in 1976 by ousting Daoud. The majority of the PDPA leadership voted against such a move. The following year, in 1977, the Parchamites and Khalqists officially reconciled, and the PDPA was unified. The Parchamite and Khalqist PDPAs, which had separate general secretaries, politburos, central committees and other organisational structures, were officially unified in the summer of 1977. One reason for unification was that the international communist movement, represented by the Communist Party of India, Iraqi Communist Party and the Communist Party of Australia, called for party unification.",
"title": "Early life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On 18 April 1978 Mir Akbar Khyber, the chief ideologue of the Parcham faction, was killed; he was commonly believed to have been assassinated by the Daoud government. Khyber's assassination initiated a chain of events which led to the PDPA taking power eleven days later, on 27 April. The assassin was never caught, but Anahita Ratebzad, a Parchamite, believed that Amin had ordered the assassination. Khyber's funeral evolved into a large anti-government demonstration. Daoud, who did not understand the significance of the events, began a mass arrest of PDPA members seven days after Khyber's funeral. Amin, who organised the subsequent revolution against Daoud, was one of the last Central Committee members to be arrested by the authorities. His late arrest can be considered as proof of the regime's lack of information; Amin was the leading revolutionary party organiser. The government's lack of awareness was proven by the arrest of Taraki – Taraki's arrest was the pre-arranged signal for the revolution to commence. When Amin found out that Taraki had been arrested, he ordered the revolution to begin at 9 am on 27 April. Amin, in contrast to Taraki, was not imprisoned, but instead put under house arrest. His son, Abdur Rahman, was still allowed freedom of movement. The revolution was successful, thanks to overwhelming support from the Afghan military; for instance, it was supported by Defence Minister Ghulam Haidar Rasuli, Aslam Watanjar the commander of the ground forces, and the Chief of Staff of the Afghan Air Force, Abdul Qadir.",
"title": "Early life and career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "After the Saur revolution, Taraki was appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and retained his post as PDPA general secretary. Taraki initially formed a government which consisted of both Khalqists and Parchamites; Karmal became Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council while Amin became Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Deputy Prime Minister, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar became a Deputy Prime Minister. The two Parchamites Abdul Qadir and Mohammad Rafi became Minister of National Defence and Minister of Public Works respectively. According to Angel Rasanayagam, the appointment of Amin, Karmal and Watanjar as Deputy Prime Ministers led to the establishment of three cabinets; the Khalqists were answerable to Amin, the Parchamites were answerable to Karmal, and the military officers (who were Parchamites) were answerable to Watanjar. The first conflict between the Khalqists and Parchamites arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to the military officers who participated in the Saur Revolution. Amin, who had previously opposed the appointment of military officers to the PDPA leadership, switched sides; he now supported their elevation. The PDPA Politburo voted in favour of giving membership to the military officers; the victors (the Khalqists) portrayed the Parchamites as opportunists, implying that the Parchamites had ridden the revolutionary wave, but not actually participated in the revolution. To make matters worse for the Parchamites, the term Parcham was, according to Taraki, a word synonymous with factionalism.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There is only one leading force in the country - Hafizullah Amin. In the Politburo, everybody fears Amin.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "On 27 June 1978, three months after the revolution, Amin managed to outmaneuver the Parchamites at a Central Committee meeting. The meeting decided that the Khalqists had exclusive rights to formulate and decide policy, a policy which left the Parchamites impotent. Karmal was exiled, but was able to establish a network with the remaining Parchamites in government. A coup to overthrow Amin was planned for September. Its leading members in Afghanistan were Qadir, the defence minister, and Army Chief of Staff General Shahpur Ahmedzai. The coup was planned for 4 September, on the Festival of Eid, because soldiers and officers would be off duty. The conspiracy failed when the Afghan ambassador to India told the Afghan leadership about the plan. A purge was initiated, and Parchamite ambassadors were recalled; few returned, for example Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah both stayed in their assigned countries.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Afghan people revolted against the PDPA government when the government introduced several socialist reforms, including land reforms. By early 1979, twenty-five out of Afghanistan's twenty-eight provinces were unsafe because of armed resistance against the government. On 29 March 1979, the Herat uprising began; the uprising turned the revolt into an open war between the Afghan government and anti-regime resistance. It was during this period that Amin became Kabul's strongman. Shortly after the Herat uprising had been crushed, the Revolutionary Council convened to ratify the new Five-Year Plan, the Afghan–Soviet Friendship Treaty, and to vote on whether or not to reorganise the cabinet and to enhance the power of the executive (the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council). While the official version of events said that all issues were voted on democratically at the meeting, the Revolutionary Council held another meeting the following day to ratify the new Five-Year Plan and to discuss the reorganisation of the cabinet.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "As one of our slogans is 'to everyone according to his capacity and work', therefore as a result of past performances and services he has won our greater trust and assurances. I have full confidence in him and in the light of this confidence I entrust him with this job...",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "— Taraki telling his colleagues why Amin should be appointed Prime Minister.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, was able to persuade Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Sherjan Mazdoryar to become part of a conspiracy against Amin. These three men put pressure on Taraki, who by this time believed that \"he really was the 'great leader'\", to sack Amin from office. It is unknown if Amin knew anything about the conspiracy against him, but it was after the cabinet reorganisation that he talked about his dissatisfaction. On 26 March the PDPA Politburo and the Council of Ministers approved the extension of the powers of the executive branch, and the establishment of the Homeland Higher Defence Council (HHDC) to handle security matters. Many analysts of the day regarded Amin's appointment as Prime Minister as an increase in his powers at the expense of Taraki. However, the reorganisation of the cabinet and the strengthening of Taraki's position as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, had reduced the authority of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was, due to the strengthening of the executive, now appointed by the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. While Amin could appoint and dismiss new ministers, he needed Taraki's consent to actually do so. Another problem for Amin was that while the Council of Ministers was responsible to the Revolutionary Council and its chairman, individual ministers were only responsible to Taraki. When Amin became Prime Minister, he was responsible for planning, finance and budgetary matters, the conduct of foreign policy, and for order and security. The order and security responsibilities had been taken over by the HHDC, which was chaired by Taraki. While Amin was HHDC Deputy chairman, the majority of HHDC members were members of the anti-Amin faction. For instance, the HHDC membership included Watanjar the Minister of National Defence, Interior Minister Mazdoryar, the President of the Political Affairs of the Armed Forces Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Yaqub, the Chief of the General Staff, the Commander of the Afghan Air Force Nazar Mohammad and Assadullah Sarwari the head of ASGA, the Afghan secret police.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The order of precedence had been institutionalised, whereby Taraki was responsible for defence and Amin responsible for assisting Taraki in defence related matters. Amin's position was given a further blow by the democratisation of the decision-making process, which allowed its members to contribute; most of them were against Amin. Another problem for Amin was that the office of HHDC Deputy chairman had no specific functions or powers, and the appointment of a new defence minister who opposed him drastically weakened his control over the Ministry of National Defence. The reorganisation of ministers was a further blow to Amin's position; he had lost control of the defence ministry, the interior ministry and the ASGA. Amin still had allies at the top, many of them in strategically important positions, for instance, Yaqub was his brother-in-law and the Security Chief in the Ministry of Interior was Sayed Daoud Taroon, who was also later appointed to the HHDC as an ordinary member in April. Amin succeeded in appointing two more of his allies to important positions; Mohammad Sediq Alemyar as Minister of Planning and Khayal Mohammad Katawazi as Minister of Information and Culture; and Faqir Mohammad Faqir was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in April 1978. Amin's political position was not secure when Alexei Yepishev, the Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, visited Kabul. Yepishev met personally with Taraki on 7 April, but never met with Amin. The Soviets were becoming increasingly worried about Amin's control over the Afghan military. Even so, during Yepishev's visit Amin's position was actually strengthened; Taroon was appointed Taraki's aide-de-camp.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Our homeland's enemies, the enemies of the working class movement all over the world are trying to penetrate into the PDPA leadership and above all woo the working class party leader but the people of Afghanistan and the PDPA both take great pride in the fact that the PDPA and its General-Secretary enjoys a great personality which render him impossible to woo.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "— Amin in a speech in which he warns of inter-party sectarianism.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Soon after, at two cabinet meetings, the strengthening of the executive powers of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council was proven. Even though Amin was Prime Minister, Taraki chaired the meetings instead of him. Amin's presence at these two meetings was not mentioned at all, and it was made clear that Taraki, through his office as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, also chaired the Council of Ministers. Another problem facing Amin was Taraki's policy of autocracy; he tried to deprive the PDPA Politburo of its powers as a party and state decision-making organ. The situation deteriorated when Amin personally warned Taraki that \"the prestige and popularity of leaders among the people has no common aspect with a personality cult.\"",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Factionalism within the PDPA made it ill-prepared to handle the intensified counter-revolutionary activities in the country. Amin tried to win support for the communist government by depicting himself as a devout Muslim. Taraki and Amin blamed different countries for helping the counter-revolutionaries; Amin attacked the United Kingdom and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and played down American and Chinese involvement, while Taraki blamed American imperialism and Iran and Pakistan for supporting the uprising. Amin's criticism of the United Kingdom and the BBC fed on the traditional anti-British sentiments held by rural Afghans. In contrast to Taraki, \"Amin bent over backwards to avoid making hostile reference to\", China, the United States or other foreign governments. Amin's cautious behavior was in deep contrast to the Soviet Union's official stance on the situation; it seemed, according to Beverley Male, that the Soviet leadership tried to force a confrontation between Afghanistan and its enemies. Amin also tried to appease the Shia communities by meeting with their leaders; despite this, a section of the Shia leadership called for the continuation of the resistance. Subsequently, a revolt broke out in a Shia populated district in Kabul; this was the first sign of unrest in Kabul since the Saur Revolution. To add to the government's problems, Taraki's ability to lead the country was questioned – he was a heavy drinker and was not in good health. Amin on the other hand was characterised in this period by portrayals of strong self-discipline. In the summer of 1979 Amin began to disassociate himself from Taraki. On 27 June Amin became a member of the PDPA Politburo, the leading decision-making body in Afghanistan.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In-mid July the Soviets made their view official when Pravda wrote an article about the situation in Afghanistan; the Soviets did not wish to see Amin become leader of Afghanistan. This triggered a political crisis in Afghanistan, as Amin initiated a policy of extreme repression, which became one of the main reasons for the Soviet intervention later that year. On 28 July, a vote in the PDPA Politburo approved Amin's proposal of creating a collective leadership with collective decision-making; this was a blow to Taraki, and many of his supporters were replaced by pro-Amin PDPA members. Ivan Pavlovsky, the Commander of the Soviet Ground Forces, visited Kabul in mid-August to study the situation in Afghanistan. Amin, in a speech just a few days after Pavlovsky's arrival, said that he wanted closer relations between Afghanistan and the People's Republic of China; in the same speech he hinted that he had reservations about Soviet meddling in Afghanistan. He likened Soviet assistance to Afghanistan with Vladimir Lenin's assistance to the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Taraki, a delegate to the conference held by the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, met personally with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the Afghanistan situation on 9 September. Shah Wali, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was a supporter of Amin, did not participate in the meeting. This, according to Beverley Male, \"suggested that some plot against Amin was in preparation\".",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Taraki was instructed to stop-over in Moscow, where the Soviet leaders urged him to remove Amin from power as per the KGB's decision, because Amin posed danger. Amin's trusted aid, Daoud Taroon, informed Amin of the meeting and the KGB's plan. In Kabul, Taraki's aides, the Gang of Four (consisting of Watanjar, Mazdoryar, Gulabzoi and Sarwari), planned to assassinate Amin but failed as Amin was informed of their plot. Within hours of Taraki's return to Kabul on 11 September, Taraki convened the cabinet \"ostensibly to report on the Havana Summit\". Instead of reporting on the summit, Taraki tried to dismiss Amin as Prime Minister. Amin, aware of the murder plot, demanded the Gang of Four to be removed from their posts, but Taraki laughed it off. Taraki sought to neutralise Amin's power and influence by requesting that he serve overseas as an ambassador. Amin turned down the proposal, shouting \"You are the one who should quit! Because of drink and old age you have taken leave of your senses.\"",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "On 13 September, Taraki invited Amin to the presidential palace for lunch with him and the Gang of Four. Amin turned down the offer, stating he would prefer their resignation rather than lunching with them. Soviet ambassador Puzanov persuaded Amin to make the visit to the Presidential Palace along with Taroon, the Chief of Police, and Nawab Ali, an intelligence officer. Inside the palace on 14 September, bodyguards within the building opened fire on the visitors. Taroon was killed but Amin only sustained an injury and escaped. Amin drove to the Ministry of Defence building, put the Army on high alert and ordered Taraki's arrest. At 6:30 pm tanks from the 4th Armoured Corps entered the city and stood at government buildings. Shortly afterwards, Amin returned to the palace with a contingent of Army officers, and placed Taraki under arrest. The Gang of Four, however, had \"disappeared\" and sought refuge in the Soviet Embassy.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "After Taraki's arrest, the Soviets tried to rescue Taraki (or, according to other sources, kidnap Amin) via the embassy or Bagram Air Base but the strength of Amin's officers repelled their decision to make a move. Amin was told by the Soviets not to punish Taraki and strip him and his comrades of their positions, but Amin ignored them. Amin reportedly discussed the incident with Leonid Brezhnev, and indirectly asked for the permission to kill Taraki, to which Brezhnev replied that it was his choice. Amin, who now believed he had the full support of the Soviets, ordered the death of Taraki. It is believed Taraki was suffocated with pillows on 8 October 1979. The Afghan media would report that the ailing Taraki had died, omitting any mention of his murder. Taraki's murder shocked and upset Brezhnev.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Following Taraki's fall from power, Amin was elected Chairman of the Presidum of the Revolutionary Council and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee by the PDPA Politburo. The election of Amin as PDPA General Secretary and the removal of Taraki from all party posts was unanimous. The only members of the cabinet replaced when Amin took power were the Gang of Four – Beverley Male saw this as \"a clear indication that he had their [the ministers'] support\". Amin's rise to power was followed by a policy of moderation, and attempts to persuade the Afghan people that the regime was not anti-Islamic. Amin's government began to invest in the reconstruction, or reparation, of mosques. He also promised the Afghan people freedom of religion. Religious groups were given copies of the Quran, and Amin began to refer to Allah in speeches. He even claimed that the Saur Revolution was \"totally based on the principles of Islam\". The campaign proved to be unsuccessful, and many Afghans held Amin responsible for the regime's totalitarian behavior. Amin's rise to power was officially endorsed by the Jamiatul Ulama on 20 September 1979. Their endorsement led to the official announcement that Amin was a pious Muslim – Amin thus scored a point against the counter-revolutionary propaganda which claimed the communist regime was atheist. Amin also tried to increase his popularity with tribal groups, a feat Taraki had been unable or unwilling to achieve. In a speech to tribal elders Amin was defensive about the Western way he dressed; an official biography was published which depicted Amin in traditional Pashtun clothes. During his short stay in power, Amin became committed to establishing a collective leadership; when Taraki was ousted, Amin promised \"from now on there will be no one-man government...\"",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "We will not leave a backward country for future generations",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "— Amin, as quoted in the New Kabul Times, September 30, 1979",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Attempting to pacify the population, Amin released a list of 18,000 people who had been executed, and blamed the executions on Taraki. The total number of arrested during Taraki's and Amin's combined reign number between 17,000 and 45,000. Amin was not liked by the Afghan people. During his rule, opposition to the communist regime increased, and the government lost control of the countryside. The state of the Afghan military deteriorated; due to desertions the number of military personnel in the Afghan army decreased from 100,000 in the immediate aftermath of the Saur Revolution, to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000. Another problem Amin faced was the KGB's penetration of the PDPA, the military and the government bureaucracy. While Amin's position in Afghanistan was becoming more perilous by the day, his enemies who were exiled in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were agitating for his removal. Babrak Karmal, the Parchamite leader, met several leading Eastern Bloc figures during this period, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Assadullah Sarwari wanted to exact revenge upon Amin.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "When Amin became leader, he tried to reduce Afghanistan's dependence on the Soviet Union. To accomplish this, he aimed to balance Afghanistan's relations with the Soviet Union by strengthening relations with Pakistan and Iran. The Soviets were concerned when they received reports that Amin had met personally with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading anti-communists in Afghanistan. His general untrustworthiness and his unpopularity amongst Afghans made it more difficult for Amin to find new \"foreign patrons\". Amin's involvement in the death of Adolph Dubs, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, strained his relations with the United States. He tried to improve relations by reestablishing contact, met with three different American chargé d'affaires, and was interviewed by an American correspondent. But this did not improve Afghanistan's standing in the eyes of the United States Government. After the third meeting with Amin, J. Bruce Amstutz, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1979 to 1980, believed the wisest thing to do was to maintain \"a low profile, trying to avoid issues, and waiting to see what happens\". In early December 1979, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed a joint summit meeting between Amin and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan. The Pakistani Government, accepting a modified version of the offer, agreed to send Agha Shahi, the Pakistani foreign minister, to Kabul for talks. In the meanwhile, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistani's secret police, continued to train Mujahideen fighters who opposed the communist regime.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Any person and any element who harms the friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union will be considered the enemy of the country, enemy of our people and enemy of our revolution. We will not allow anybody in Afghanistan to act against the friendship of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "— Amin reassuring the Soviets about his intentions.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Contrary to popular belief, the Soviet leadership headed by Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin and the Politburo, were not eager to send troops to Afghanistan. The Soviet Politburo decisions were guided by a Special Commission on Afghanistan, which consisted of Yuri Andropov the KGB chairman, Andrei Gromyko the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov, and Boris Ponomarev, the head of the International Department of the Central Committee. The Politburo was opposed to the removal of Taraki and his subsequent murder. According to Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, \"Events developed so swiftly in Afghanistan that essentially there was little opportunity to somehow interfere in them. Right now our mission is to determine our further actions, so as to preserve our position in Afghanistan and to secure our influence there.\" Although Afghan–Soviet relations deteriorated during Amin's short stint in power, he was invited on an official visit to Moscow by Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, because of the Soviet leadership's satisfaction with his party and state-building policy. Not everything went as planned, and Andropov talked about \"the undesirable turn of events\" taking place in Afghanistan under Amin's rule. Andropov also brought up the ongoing political shift in Afghanistan under Amin; the Soviets were afraid that Amin would move Afghanistan's foreign policy from a pro-Soviet position to a pro-United States position. By early-to-mid December 1979, the Soviet leadership had established an alliance with Babrak Karmal and Assadullah Sarwari.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Those who boast of friendship with us, they can really be our friend when they respect our independence, our soil and our prideful traditions.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "— Amin stressing the importance of Afghan independence.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Amin kept a portrait of Joseph Stalin on his desk. When Soviet officials criticized him of his brutality, Amin replied \"Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country.\"",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "As it turned out, the relationship between Puzanov and Amin broke down. Amin started a smear campaign to discredit Puzanov. This in turn led to an assassination attempt against Amin, in which Puzanov participated. The situation was worsened by the KGB accusing Amin of misrepresenting the Soviet position on Afghanistan in the PDPA Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council. The KGB also noted an increase in anti-Soviet agitation by the government during Amin's rule, and harassment against Soviet citizens increased under Amin. A group of senior politicians reported to the Soviet Central Committee that it was necessary to do \"everything possible\" to prevent a change in political orientation in Afghanistan. However, the Soviet leadership did not advocate intervention at this time, and instead called for increasing its influence in the Amin leadership to expose his \"true intentions\". A Soviet Politburo assessment referred to Amin as \"a power-hungry leader who is distinguished by brutality and treachery\". Amongst the many sins they alleged were his \"insincerity and duplicity\" when dealing with the Soviet Union, creating fictitious accusations against PDPA-members who opposed him, indulging in a policy of nepotism, and his tendency to conduct a more \"balanced policy\" towards First World countries. According to the former senior Soviet diplomat, Oleg Grinevsky, the KGB was becoming increasingly convinced that Amin couldn't be counted on to effectively deal with the insurgency and preserve the survival of the Afghan Marxist state.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "By the end of October the Special Commission on Afghanistan, which consisted of Andropov, Gromyko, Ustinov and Ponomarev, wanted to end the impression that the Soviet government supported Amin's leadership and policy. The KGB's First Chief Directorate was put under orders that something had to be done about Afghanistan, and several of its personnel were assembled to deal with the task. Andropov fought hard for Soviet intervention, saying to Brezhnev that Amin's policies had destroyed the military and the government's capabilities to handle the crisis by use of mass repression. The plan, according to Andropov, was to assemble a small force to intervene and remove Amin from power and replace him with Karmal. The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene in Afghanistan on 12 December 1979; large numbers of Soviet airborne troops landed in Kabul on 25 December, with the approval of Amin who miscalculated their intentions. Soviet leadership initiated Operation Storm-333 (the first phase of the intervention) on 27 December 1979.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The leadership of the USSR had no need for Amin to remain alive. Andropov's special representative in Afghanistan, General Boris Ivanov, recommended for Amin to attend a conciliatory dinner with his political mentor, who had become an enemy of Amin, so that Amin's chef could poison Amin. However, Amin survived the poisoning after being treated by doctors at the Soviet embassy, who did not know that \"special reconnaissance officers\" were trying to kill Amin. Since Amin, who was very loyal to the USSR, had survived two attempted assassinations that had been approved by the USSR, the decision was made to eliminate him through a bloody coup at Amin's residence, the Taj Beck Palace.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Amin trusted the Soviet Union until the very end, despite the deterioration of official relations, and was unaware that the tide in Moscow had turned against him since he ordered Taraki's death. When the Afghan intelligence service handed Amin a report that the Soviet Union would invade the country and topple him, Amin claimed that the report was a product of imperialism. His view can be explained by the fact that the Soviet Union, after several months, finally gave in to Amin's demands and sent troops into Afghanistan to secure the PDPA government. Contrary to common Western belief, Amin was informed of the Soviet decision to send troops into Afghanistan. General Tukharinov, commander of the 40th Army, met with Afghan Major General Babadzhan to talk about Soviet troop movements before the Soviet army's intervention. On 25 December, Dmitry Ustinov issued a formal order, stating that \"[t]he state frontier of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is to be crossed on the ground and in the air by forces of the 40th Army and the Air Force at 1500 hrs on 25 December\". This was the formal beginning of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Concerned for his safety, on 20 December Amin moved from the Presidential Palace, located in the centre of Kabul, to the Tajbeg Palace, which had previously been the headquarters of the Central Corps of the Afghan Army. The palace was formidable, with walls strong enough to withstand artillery fire. According to Rodric Braithwaite, \"its defences had been carefully and intelligently organised\". All roads to the palace had been mined, with the exception of one, which had heavy machine guns and artillery positioned to defend it. To make matters worse for the Soviets, the Afghans had established a second line of defence which consisted of seven posts, \"each manned by four sentries armed with a machine gun, a mortar, and automatic rifles\". The external defences of the palace were handled by the Presidential Guard, which consisted of 2,500 troops and three T-54 tanks. Several Soviet commanders involved in the assassination of Amin thought the plan to attack the palace was \"crazy\". Although the military had been informed by the Soviet leadership through their commanders, Yuri Drozdov and Vasily Kolesnik, that the leader was a \"CIA agent\" who had betrayed the Saur Revolution, many Soviet soldiers hesitated; despite what their commanders had told them, it seemed implausible that Amin, the leader of the PDPA government, was an American double agent. Despite several objections, the plan to assassinate Amin went ahead.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Before resorting to killing Amin by brute force, the Soviets had tried to poison him as early as 13 December (but nearly killed his nephew instead) and to kill him with a sniper shot on his way to work (this proved impossible as the Afghans had improved their security measures). They even tried to poison Amin just hours before the assault on the Presidential Palace on 27 December. Amin had organised a lunch for party members to show guests his palace and to celebrate Ghulam Dastagir Panjsheri's return from Moscow. Panjsheri's return improved the mood even further; he boasted that he and Gromyko always kept in contact with each other. During the meal, Amin and several of his guests lost consciousness as they had been poisoned. Amin survived his encounter with death, because the carbonation of the Coca-Cola he was drinking diluted the toxic agent. Mikhail Talybov, a KGB agent, was given responsibility for the poisonings.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The assault on the palace began shortly afterward. During the attack Amin still believed the Soviet Union was on his side, and told his adjutant, \"The Soviets will help us\". The adjutant replied that it was the Soviets who were attacking them; Amin initially replied that this was a lie. Only after he tried but failed to contact the Chief of the General Staff, he muttered, \"I guessed it. It's all true\". There are various accounts of how Amin died, but the exact details have never been confirmed. Amin was either killed by a deliberate attack or died by a \"random burst of fire\". Amin's son was fatally wounded and died shortly after. His daughter was wounded, but survived. It was Gulabzoy who had been given orders to kill Amin and Watanjar who later confirmed his death. The men of Amin's family were all executed either immediately or shortly thereafter (his brother Abdullah and nephew Asadullah were executed in June 1980) The women including his daughter were imprisoned at Pul-e-Charkhi prison until being released by President Najibullah in early 1992. After Amin's death on 27 December 1979, Radio Kabul broadcast Babrak Karmal's pre-recorded speech to the Afghan people, saying: \"Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed\". Karmal was installed by the Soviets as the new leader while the Soviet Army began its intervention in Afghanistan that would last for nine years.",
"title": "PDPA rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On 2 January 1980 on the PDPA's 15th anniversary, Karmal who was now the new General Secretary called Amin a \"conspirator, professional criminal and recognised spy of the U.S.\", as reported in the Kabul New Times. Anahita Ratebzad, the education minister, said about Amin:",
"title": "Post-death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "\"Did Stalin make the revolution in white gloves?\"",
"title": "Quotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "— Hafizullah Amin when questioned on his extreme ways of building a new country.",
"title": "Quotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "\"Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country; it's painful to begin with, but afterwards everything turns out just fine\"",
"title": "Quotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "— Hafizullah Amin's response to Soviet criticism",
"title": "Quotes"
}
]
| Hafizullah Amin was an Afghan communist head of state, who served from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), ruling Afghanistan as General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party. Born in the town of Paghman in Kabul Province, Amin studied at Kabul University and started his career as a teacher before he twice went to the United States to study. During this time, Amin became attracted to Marxism and became involved in radical student movements at the University of Wisconsin. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he used his teaching position to spread socialist ideologies to students, and he later joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a new far-left organization co-founded by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat, but in 1969 became the only Khalqist elected to parliament, increasing his standing within the party. Amin was the main organizer of the April 1978 Saur Revolution, which overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Khan and formed a pro-Soviet state based on socialist ideals. Being second in chief of the Democratic Republic, Amin soon became the regime's strongman, the main architect of the state's programs including mass persecution of those deemed counter-revolutionary. A growing personal struggle with General Secretary Taraki eventually led to Amin wrestling power away then successfully deposing him and later ordering his execution; on 16 September 1979, Amin named himself Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee. Amin's short-lived leadership featured controversies from beginning to end. His government failed to solve the problem of the population revolting against the regime as the situation rapidly worsened and army desertions and defections continued. He tried to change things with friendly overtures to Pakistan and the United States, and considered a trade-off of recognizing the Durand Line border in exchange for Pakistan halting support to anti-regime guerillas. Many Afghans held Amin responsible for the regime's harshest measures, such as ordering thousands of executions. Thousands of people disappeared without trace during his time in office. The Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev was dissatisfied with and mistrusted Amin; they intervened in Afghanistan, invoking the 1978 Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Soviet operatives assassinated Amin at the Tajbeg Palace on 27 December 1979 as part of Operation Storm-333, kickstarting the 10-year Soviet–Afghan War; he had ruled for slightly longer than three months. | 2001-12-13T21:30:24Z | 2023-12-22T01:54:55Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafizullah_Amin |
14,282 | Hubris | Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/; from Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris) 'pride, insolence, outrage'), or less frequently hybris (/ˈhaɪbrɪs/), describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning "to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people". To arrogate means "to claim or seize without justification... To make undue claims to having", or "to claim or seize without right... to ascribe or attribute without reason". The term pretension is also associated with the term hubris, but is not synonymous with it.
According to studies, hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for victory (even if it does not always mean winning) instead of reconciliation, which "friendly" groups might promote. Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful acts. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments, or capabilities. The adjectival form of the noun hubris/hybris is hubristic/hybristic.
The term hubris originated in Ancient Greek, where it had several different meanings depending on the context. In legal usage, it meant assault or sexual crimes and theft of public property, and in religious usage it meant emulation of divinity or transgression against a god.
In ancient Greek, hubris referred to "outrage": actions that violated natural order, or which shamed and humiliated the victim, sometimes for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser.
Hesiod and Aeschylus used the word "hubris" to describe transgressions against the gods. A common way that hubris was committed was when a mortal claimed to be better than a god in a particular skill or attribute. Claims like these were rarely left unpunished, and so Arachne, a talented young weaver, was transformed into a spider when she said that her skills exceeded those of the goddess Athena, even though her claim was true. Additional examples include Icarus, Phaethon, Salmoneus, Niobe, Cassiopeia, Tantalus, and Tereus.
The goddess Hybris is described in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition as having "insolent encroachment upon the rights of others".
These events were not limited to myth, and certain figures in history were considered to have been punished for committing hubris through their arrogance. One such person was king Xerxes as portrayed in Aeschylus's play The Persians, and who allegedly threw chains to bind the Hellespont sea as punishment for daring to destroy his fleet.
What is common to all these examples is the breaching of limits, as the Greeks believed that the Fates (Μοῖραι) had assigned each being with a particular area of freedom, an area that even the gods could not breach.
In ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim (this sense of hubris could also characterize rape). In legal terms, hubristic violations of the law included what might today be termed assault-and-battery, sexual crimes, or the theft of public or sacred property. In some contexts, the term had a sexual connotation. Shame was frequently reflected upon the perpetrator, as well.
Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour (τιμή, timē) and shame (αἰδώς, aidōs). The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. This concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the contemporary concept of "insolence, contempt, and excessive violence".
Two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre (Against Midias), and second when (in Against Conon) a defendant allegedly assaulted a man and crowed over the victim. Yet another example of hubris appears in Aeschines' Against Timarchus, where the defendant, Timarchus, is accused of breaking the law of hubris by submitting himself to prostitution and anal intercourse. Aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded.Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for that committer's own gratification:
to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.
In the Septuagint, the "hubris is overweening pride, superciliousness or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or nemesis". The word hubris as used in the New Testament parallels the Hebrew word pasha, meaning "transgression". It represents a pride that "makes a man defy God", sometimes to the degree that he considers himself an equal.
In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance. Hubris is also referred to as "pride that blinds" because it often causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.
Hubris has also been presented as a positive trait: Larry Wall promoted "the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris".
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "arrogance" in terms of "high or inflated opinion of one's own abilities, importance, etc., that gives rise to presumption or excessive self-confidence, or to a feeling or attitude of being superior to others [...]." Adrian Davies sees arrogance as more generic and less severe than hubris. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/; from Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris) 'pride, insolence, outrage'), or less frequently hybris (/ˈhaɪbrɪs/), describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning \"to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people\". To arrogate means \"to claim or seize without justification... To make undue claims to having\", or \"to claim or seize without right... to ascribe or attribute without reason\". The term pretension is also associated with the term hubris, but is not synonymous with it.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "According to studies, hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for victory (even if it does not always mean winning) instead of reconciliation, which \"friendly\" groups might promote. Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful acts. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments, or capabilities. The adjectival form of the noun hubris/hybris is hubristic/hybristic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The term hubris originated in Ancient Greek, where it had several different meanings depending on the context. In legal usage, it meant assault or sexual crimes and theft of public property, and in religious usage it meant emulation of divinity or transgression against a god.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In ancient Greek, hubris referred to \"outrage\": actions that violated natural order, or which shamed and humiliated the victim, sometimes for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hesiod and Aeschylus used the word \"hubris\" to describe transgressions against the gods. A common way that hubris was committed was when a mortal claimed to be better than a god in a particular skill or attribute. Claims like these were rarely left unpunished, and so Arachne, a talented young weaver, was transformed into a spider when she said that her skills exceeded those of the goddess Athena, even though her claim was true. Additional examples include Icarus, Phaethon, Salmoneus, Niobe, Cassiopeia, Tantalus, and Tereus.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The goddess Hybris is described in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition as having \"insolent encroachment upon the rights of others\".",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "These events were not limited to myth, and certain figures in history were considered to have been punished for committing hubris through their arrogance. One such person was king Xerxes as portrayed in Aeschylus's play The Persians, and who allegedly threw chains to bind the Hellespont sea as punishment for daring to destroy his fleet.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "What is common to all these examples is the breaching of limits, as the Greeks believed that the Fates (Μοῖραι) had assigned each being with a particular area of freedom, an area that even the gods could not breach.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim (this sense of hubris could also characterize rape). In legal terms, hubristic violations of the law included what might today be termed assault-and-battery, sexual crimes, or the theft of public or sacred property. In some contexts, the term had a sexual connotation. Shame was frequently reflected upon the perpetrator, as well.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour (τιμή, timē) and shame (αἰδώς, aidōs). The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. This concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the contemporary concept of \"insolence, contempt, and excessive violence\".",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre (Against Midias), and second when (in Against Conon) a defendant allegedly assaulted a man and crowed over the victim. Yet another example of hubris appears in Aeschines' Against Timarchus, where the defendant, Timarchus, is accused of breaking the law of hubris by submitting himself to prostitution and anal intercourse. Aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded.Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for that committer's own gratification:",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the Septuagint, the \"hubris is overweening pride, superciliousness or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or nemesis\". The word hubris as used in the New Testament parallels the Hebrew word pasha, meaning \"transgression\". It represents a pride that \"makes a man defy God\", sometimes to the degree that he considers himself an equal.",
"title": "Ancient Greek origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance. Hubris is also referred to as \"pride that blinds\" because it often causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.",
"title": "Modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hubris has also been presented as a positive trait: Larry Wall promoted \"the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris\".",
"title": "Modern usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Oxford English Dictionary defines \"arrogance\" in terms of \"high or inflated opinion of one's own abilities, importance, etc., that gives rise to presumption or excessive self-confidence, or to a feeling or attitude of being superior to others [...].\" Adrian Davies sees arrogance as more generic and less severe than hubris.",
"title": "Modern usage"
}
]
| Hubris, or less frequently hybris, describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with arrogance. The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning "to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people". To arrogate means "to claim or seize without justification... To make undue claims to having", or "to claim or seize without right... to ascribe or attribute without reason". The term pretension is also associated with the term hubris, but is not synonymous with it. According to studies, hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for victory instead of reconciliation, which "friendly" groups might promote. Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful acts. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments, or capabilities. The adjectival form of the noun hubris/hybris is hubristic/hybristic. The term hubris originated in Ancient Greek, where it had several different meanings depending on the context. In legal usage, it meant assault or sexual crimes and theft of public property, and in religious usage it meant emulation of divinity or transgression against a god. | 2001-12-14T01:35:55Z | 2023-12-25T07:29:14Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris |
14,283 | Heavy water | Heavy water (deuterium oxide, H2O, D2O) is a form of water whose hydrogen atoms are all deuterium (H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (H or H, also called protium) that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of the heavier hydrogen isotope gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase in mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water.
Deuterium is a heavy hydrogen isotope. Heavy water contains deuterium atoms and is used in nuclear reactors. Semiheavy water (HDO) is more common than pure heavy water, while heavy-oxygen water is denser but lacks unique properties. Tritiated water is radioactive due to tritium content.
Heavy water (D2O) has different physical properties than regular water, such as being 10.6% denser and having a higher melting point. Heavy water is less dissociated at a given temperature, and it does not have the slightly blue color of regular water. While it has no significant taste difference, it can taste slightly sweet. Heavy water affects biological systems by altering enzymes, hydrogen bonds, and cell division in eukaryotes. It can be lethal to multicellular organisms at concentrations over 50%. However, some prokaryotes like bacteria can survive in a heavy hydrogen environment. Heavy water can be toxic to humans, but a large amount would be needed for poisoning to occur.
Deuterated water (HDO) occurs naturally in normal water and can be separated through distillation, electrolysis, or chemical exchange processes. The most cost-effective process for producing heavy water is the Girdler sulfide process. Heavy water is used in various industries and is sold in different grades of purity. Some of its applications include nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, neutron moderation, neutrino detection, metabolic rate testing, neutron capture therapy, and the production of radioactive materials such as plutonium and tritium.
Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with a nucleus containing a neutron and a proton; the nucleus of a protium (normal hydrogen) atom consists of just a proton. The additional neutron makes a deuterium atom roughly twice as heavy as a protium atom.
A molecule of heavy water has two deuterium atoms in place of the two protium atoms of ordinary "light" water. The term heavy water as defined by the IUPAC Gold Book can also refer to water in which a higher than usual proportion of hydrogen atoms are deuterium rather than protium. For comparison, ordinary water (the "ordinary water" used for a deuterium standard) contains only about 156 deuterium atoms per million hydrogen atoms, meaning that 0.0156% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type. Thus heavy water as defined by the Gold Book includes hydrogen-deuterium oxide (HDO) and other mixtures of D2O, H2O, and HDO in which the proportion of deuterium is greater than usual. For instance, the heavy water used in CANDU reactors is a highly enriched water mixture that contains mostly deuterium oxide D2O, but also some hydrogen-deuterium oxide and a smaller amount of ordinary hydrogen oxide H2O. It is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction—meaning that 99.75% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type; however, heavy water in the Gold Book sense need not be so highly enriched. The weight of a heavy water molecule, however, is not substantially different from that of a normal water molecule, because about 89% of the molecular weight of water comes from the single oxygen atom rather than the two hydrogen atoms.
Heavy water is not radioactive. In its pure form, it has a density about 11% greater than water, but is otherwise physically and chemically similar. Nevertheless, the various differences in deuterium-containing water (especially affecting the biological properties) are larger than in any other commonly occurring isotope-substituted compound because deuterium is unique among heavy stable isotopes in being twice as heavy as the lightest isotope. This difference increases the strength of water's hydrogen–oxygen bonds, and this in turn is enough to cause differences that are important to some biochemical reactions. The human body naturally contains deuterium equivalent to about five grams of heavy water, which is harmless. When a large fraction of water (> 50%) in higher organisms is replaced by heavy water, the result is cell dysfunction and death.
Heavy water was first produced in 1932, a few months after the discovery of deuterium. With the discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938, and the need for a neutron moderator that captured few neutrons, heavy water became a component of early nuclear energy research. Since then, heavy water has been an essential component in some types of reactors, both those that generate power and those designed to produce isotopes for nuclear weapons. These heavy water reactors have the advantage of being able to run on natural uranium without using graphite moderators that pose radiological and dust explosion hazards in the decommissioning phase. The graphite moderated Soviet RBMK design tried to avoid using either enriched uranium or heavy water (being cooled with ordinary "light" water instead) which produced the positive void coefficient that was one of a series of flaws in reactor design leading to the Chernobyl disaster. Most modern reactors use enriched uranium with ordinary water as the moderator.
Semiheavy water, HDO, exists whenever there is water with light hydrogen (protium, H) and deuterium (D or H) in the mix. This is because hydrogen atoms (hydrogen-1 and deuterium) are rapidly exchanged between water molecules. Water containing 50% H and 50% D in its hydrogen actually contains about 50% HDO and 25% each of H2O and D2O, in dynamic equilibrium. In normal water, about 1 molecule in 3,200 is HDO (one hydrogen in 6,400 is in the form of D), and heavy water molecules (D2O) only occur in a proportion of about 1 molecule in 41 million (i.e. one in 6,400). Thus semiheavy water molecules are far more common than "pure" (homoisotopic) heavy water molecules.
Water enriched in the heavier oxygen isotopes O and O is also commercially available. It is "heavy water" as it is denser than normal water (H2O is approximately as dense as D2O, H2O is about halfway between H2O and D2O)—but is rarely called heavy water, since it does not contain the deuterium that gives D2O its unusual nuclear and biological properties. It is more expensive than D2O due to the more difficult separation of O and O. H2O is also used for production of fluorine-18 in radiopharmaceuticals and radiotracers, and positron emission tomography. Small amounts of O and O are naturally present in water, and most processes enriching heavy water also enrich heavier isotopes of oxygen as a side-effect. This is undesirable if the heavy water is to be used as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors, as O can undergo neutron capture, followed by emission of an alpha particle, producing radioactive C. However, doubly labeled water, containing both a heavy oxygen and hydrogen, is useful as a non-radioactive isotopic tracer.
Compared to the isotopic change of hydrogen atoms, the isotopic change of oxygen has a smaller effect on the physical properties.
Tritiated water contains tritium (H) in place of protium (H) or deuterium (H), and, as tritium itself is radioactive, tritiated water is also radioactive.
The physical properties of water and heavy water differ in several respects. Heavy water is less dissociated than light water at given temperature, and the true concentration of D ions is less than H ions would be for a light water sample at the same temperature. The same is true of OD vs. OH ions. For heavy water Kw D2O (25.0 °C) = 1.35 × 10, and [D ] must equal [OD ] for neutral water. Thus pKw D2O = p[OD] + p[D] = 7.44 + 7.44 = 14.87 (25.0 °C), and the p[D] of neutral heavy water at 25.0 °C is 7.44.
The pD of heavy water is generally measured using pH electrodes giving a pH (apparent) value, or pHa, and at various temperatures a true acidic pD can be estimated from the directly pH meter measured pHa, such that pD+ = pHa (apparent reading from pH meter) + 0.41. The electrode correction for alkaline conditions is 0.456 for heavy water. The alkaline correction is then pD+ = pHa(apparent reading from pH meter) + 0.456. These corrections are slightly different from the differences in p[D+] and p[OD-] of 0.44 from the corresponding ones in heavy water.
Heavy water is 10.6% denser than ordinary water, and heavy water's physically different properties can be seen without equipment if a frozen sample is dropped into normal water, as it will sink. If the water is ice-cold the higher melting temperature of heavy ice can also be observed: it melts at 3.7 °C, and thus does not melt in ice-cold normal water.
A 1935 experiment reported not the "slightest difference" in taste between ordinary and heavy water. However, a more recent study appears to confirm anecdotal observation that heavy water tastes slightly sweet to humans, with the effect mediated by the TAS1R2/TAS1R3 taste receptor. Rats given a choice between distilled normal water and heavy water were able to avoid the heavy water based on smell, and it may have a different taste. Some people report that minerals in water affect taste, e.g. potassium lending a sweet taste to hard water, but there are many factors of a perceived taste in water besides mineral contents.
Heavy water lacks the characteristic blue color of light water; this is because the molecular vibration harmonics, which in light water cause weak absorption in the red part of the visible spectrum, are shifted into the infrared and thus heavy water does not absorb red light.
No physical properties are listed for "pure" semi-heavy water, because it is unstable as a bulk liquid. In the liquid state, a few water molecules are always in an ionised state, which means the hydrogen atoms can exchange among different oxygen atoms. Semi-heavy water could, in theory, be created via a chemical method, but it would rapidly transform into a dynamic mixture of 25% light water, 25% heavy water, and 50% semi-heavy water. However, if it were made in the gas phase and directly deposited into a solid, semi-heavy water in the form of ice could be stable. This is due to collisions between water vapor molecules being almost completely negligible in the gas phase at standard temperatures, and once crystallized, collisions between the molecules cease altogether due to the rigid lattice structure of solid ice.
The US scientist and Nobel laureate Harold Urey discovered the isotope deuterium in 1931 and was later able to concentrate it in water. Urey's mentor Gilbert Newton Lewis isolated the first sample of pure heavy water by electrolysis in 1933. George de Hevesy and Erich Hofer used heavy water in 1934 in one of the first biological tracer experiments, to estimate the rate of turnover of water in the human body. The history of large-quantity production and use of heavy water, in early nuclear experiments, is described below.
Emilian Bratu and Otto Redlich studied the autodissociation of heavy water in 1934.
Different isotopes of chemical elements have slightly different chemical behaviors, but for most elements the differences are far too small to have a biological effect. In the case of hydrogen, larger differences in chemical properties among protium (light hydrogen), deuterium, and tritium occur, because chemical bond energy depends on the reduced mass of the nucleus–electron system; this is altered in heavy-hydrogen compounds (hydrogen-deuterium oxide is the most common species) more than for heavy-isotope substitution involving other chemical elements. The isotope effects are especially relevant in biological systems, which are very sensitive to even the smaller changes, due to isotopically influenced properties of water when it acts as a solvent.
To perform their tasks, enzymes rely on their finely tuned networks of hydrogen bonds, both in the active center with their substrates, and outside the active center, to stabilize their tertiary structures. As a hydrogen bond with deuterium is slightly stronger than one involving ordinary hydrogen, in a highly deuterated environment, some normal reactions in cells are disrupted.
Particularly hard-hit by heavy water are the delicate assemblies of mitotic spindle formations necessary for cell division in eukaryotes. Plants stop growing and seeds do not germinate when given only heavy water, because heavy water stops eukaryotic cell division. The deuterium cell is larger and is a modification of the direction of division. The cell membrane also changes, and it reacts first to the impact of heavy water. In 1972, it was demonstrated that an increase in the percentage content of deuterium in water reduces plant growth. Research conducted on the growth of prokaryote microorganisms in artificial conditions of a heavy hydrogen environment showed that in this environment, all the hydrogen atoms of water could be replaced with deuterium. Experiments showed that bacteria can live in 98% heavy water. Concentrations over 50% are lethal to multicellular organisms, however a few exceptions are known such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) which is able to grow on 50% D2O; the plant Arabidopsis thaliana (70% D2O); the plant Vesicularia dubyana (85% D2O); the plant Funaria hygrometrica (90% D2O); and the anhydrobiotic species of nematode Panagrolaimus superbus (nearly 100% D2O). A comprehensive study of heavy water on the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe showed that the cells displayed an altered glucose metabolism and slow growth at high concentrations of heavy water. In addition, the cells activated the heat-shock response pathway and the cell integrity pathway, and mutants in the cell integrity pathway displayed increased tolerance to heavy water.
Heavy water affects the period of circadian oscillations, consistently increasing the length of each cycle. The effect has been demonstrated in unicellular organisms, green plants, isopods, insects, birds, mice, and hamsters. The mechanism is unknown.
Despite its toxicity at high levels, heavy water has also been observed to extend lifespan of certain yeasts by up to 85%, with the hypothesized mechanism being the reduction of reactive oxygen species turnover.
Experiments with mice, rats, and dogs have shown that a degree of 25% deuteration causes (sometimes irreversible) sterility, because neither gametes nor zygotes can develop. High concentrations of heavy water (90%) rapidly kill fish, tadpoles, flatworms, and Drosophila. The only known exception is the anhydrobiotic nematode Panagrolaimus superbus, which is able to survive and reproduce in 99.9% D2O. Mammals (for example, rats) given heavy water to drink die after a week, at a time when their body water approaches about 50% deuteration. The mode of death appears to be the same as that in cytotoxic poisoning (such as chemotherapy) or in acute radiation syndrome (though deuterium is not radioactive), and is due to deuterium's action in generally inhibiting cell division. It is more toxic to malignant cells than normal cells, but the concentrations needed are too high for regular use. As may occur in chemotherapy, deuterium-poisoned mammals die of a failure of bone marrow (producing bleeding and infections) and of intestinal-barrier functions (producing diarrhea and loss of fluids).
Despite the problems of plants and animals in living with too much deuterium, prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria, which do not have the mitotic problems induced by deuterium, may be grown and propagated in fully deuterated conditions, resulting in replacement of all hydrogen atoms in the bacterial proteins and DNA with the deuterium isotope.
In higher organisms, full replacement with heavy isotopes can be accomplished with other non-radioactive heavy isotopes (such as carbon-13, nitrogen-15, and oxygen-18), but this cannot be done for deuterium. This is a consequence of the ratio of nuclear masses between the isotopes of hydrogen, which is much greater than for any other element.
Deuterium oxide is used to enhance boron neutron capture therapy, but this effect does not rely on the biological or chemical effects of deuterium, but instead on deuterium's ability to moderate (slow) neutrons without capturing them.
Recent experimental evidence indicates that systemic administration of deuterium oxide (30% drinking water supplementation) suppresses tumor growth in a standard mouse model of human melanoma, an effect attributed to selective induction of cellular stress signaling and gene expression in tumor cells.
Because it would take a very large amount of heavy water to replace 25% to 50% of a human being's body water (water being in turn 50–75% of body weight) with heavy water, accidental or intentional poisoning with heavy water is unlikely to the point of practical disregard. Poisoning would require that the victim ingest large amounts of heavy water without significant normal water intake for many days to produce any noticeable toxic effects.
Oral doses of heavy water in the range of several grams, as well as heavy oxygen O, are routinely used in human metabolic experiments. (See doubly labeled water testing.) Since one in about every 6,400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium, a 50-kilogram (110 lb) human containing 32 kilograms (71 lb) of body water would normally contain enough deuterium (about 1.1 grams or 0.039 ounces) to make 5.5 grams (0.19 oz) of pure heavy water, so roughly this dose is required to double the amount of deuterium in the body.
A loss of blood pressure may partially explain the reported incidence of dizziness upon ingestion of heavy water. However, it is more likely that this symptom can be attributed to altered vestibular function.
Although many people associate heavy water primarily with its use in nuclear reactors, pure heavy water is not radioactive. Commercial-grade heavy water is slightly radioactive due to the presence of minute traces of natural tritium, but the same is true of ordinary water. Heavy water that has been used as a coolant in nuclear power plants contains substantially more tritium as a result of neutron bombardment of the deuterium in the heavy water (tritium is a health risk when ingested in large quantities).
In 1990, a disgruntled employee at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in Canada obtained a sample (estimated as about a "half cup") of heavy water from the primary heat transport loop of the nuclear reactor, and loaded it into a cafeteria drink dispenser. Eight employees drank some of the contaminated water. The incident was discovered when employees began leaving bioassay urine samples with elevated tritium levels. The quantity of heavy water involved was far below levels that could induce heavy water toxicity, but several employees received elevated radiation doses from tritium and neutron-activated chemicals in the water. This was not an incident of heavy water poisoning, but rather radiation poisoning from other isotopes in the heavy water.
Some news services were not careful to distinguish these points, and some of the public were left with the impression that heavy water is normally radioactive and more severely toxic than it actually is. Even if pure heavy water had been used in the water cooler indefinitely, it is not likely the incident would have been detected or caused harm, since no employee would be expected to get much more than 25% of their daily drinking water from such a source.
On Earth, deuterated water, HDO, occurs naturally in normal water at a proportion of about 1 molecule in 3,200. This means that 1 in 6,400 hydrogen atoms in water is deuterium, which is 1 part in 3,200 by weight (hydrogen weight). The HDO may be separated from normal water by distillation or electrolysis and also by various chemical exchange processes, all of which exploit a kinetic isotope effect, with the partial enrichment also occurring in natural bodies of water under particular evaporation conditions. (For more information about the isotopic distribution of deuterium in water, see Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water.) In theory, deuterium for heavy water could be created in a nuclear reactor, but separation from ordinary water is the cheapest bulk production process.
The difference in mass between the two hydrogen isotopes translates into a difference in the zero-point energy and thus into a slight difference in the speed of the reaction. Once HDO becomes a significant fraction of the water, heavy water becomes more prevalent as water molecules trade hydrogen atoms very frequently. Production of pure heavy water by distillation or electrolysis requires a large cascade of stills or electrolysis chambers and consumes large amounts of power, so the chemical methods are generally preferred.
The most cost-effective process for producing heavy water is the dual temperature exchange sulfide process (known as the Girdler sulfide process) developed in parallel by Karl-Hermann Geib and Jerome S. Spevack in 1943.
An alternative process, patented by Graham M. Keyser, uses lasers to selectively dissociate deuterated hydrofluorocarbons to form deuterium fluoride, which can then be separated by physical means. Although the energy consumption for this process is much less than for the Girdler sulfide process, this method is currently uneconomical due to the expense of procuring the necessary hydrofluorocarbons.
As noted, modern commercial heavy water is almost universally referred to, and sold as, deuterium oxide. It is most often sold in various grades of purity, from 98% enrichment to 99.75–99.98% deuterium enrichment (nuclear reactor grade) and occasionally even higher isotopic purity.
Argentina was the main producer of heavy water, using an ammonia/hydrogen exchange based plant supplied by Switzerland's Sulzer company. It was also a major exporter to Canada, Germany, the US and other countries. The heavy water production facility located in Arroyito was the world's largest heavy water production facility. Argentina produced 200 short tons (180 tonnes) of heavy water per year in 2015 using the monothermal ammonia-hydrogen isotopic exchange method. Since 2017, the Arroyito plant has not been operational.
In October 1939, Soviet physicists Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Yulii Borisovich Khariton concluded that heavy water and carbon were the only feasible moderators for a natural uranium reactor, and in August 1940, along with Georgy Flyorov, submitted a plan to the Russian Academy of Sciences calculating that 15 tons of heavy water were needed for a reactor. With the Soviet Union having no uranium mines at the time, young Academy workers were sent to Leningrad photographic shops to buy uranium nitrate, but the entire heavy water project was halted in 1941 when German forces invaded during Operation Barbarossa.
By 1943, Soviet scientists had discovered that all scientific literature relating to heavy water had disappeared from the West, which Flyorov in a letter warned Soviet leader Joseph Stalin about, and at which time there was only 2–3 kg of heavy water in the entire country. In late 1943, the Soviet purchasing commission in the U.S. obtained 1 kg of heavy water and a further 100 kg in February 1945, and upon World War II ending, the NKVD took over the project.
In October 1946, as part of the Russian Alsos, the NKVD deported to the Soviet Union from Germany the German scientists who had worked on heavy water production during the war, including Karl-Hermann Geib, the inventor of the Girdler sulfide process. These German scientists worked under the supervision of German physical chemist Max Volmer at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Moscow with the plant they constructed producing large quantities of heavy water by 1948.
During the Manhattan Project the United States constructed three heavy water production plants as part of the P-9 Project at Morgantown Ordnance Works, near Morgantown, West Virginia; at the Wabash River Ordnance Works, near Dana and Newport, Indiana; and at the Alabama Ordnance Works, near Childersburg and Sylacauga, Alabama. Heavy water was also acquired from the Cominco plant in Trail, British Columbia, Canada. The Chicago Pile-3 experimental reactor used heavy water as a moderator and went critical in 1944. The three domestic production plants were shut down in 1945 after producing around 81,470lb of product. The Wabash plant resumed heavy water production in 1952.
In 1953, the United States began using heavy water in plutonium production reactors at the Savannah River Site. The first of the five heavy water reactors came online in 1953, and the last was placed in cold shutdown in 1996. The SRS reactors were heavy water reactors so that they could produce both plutonium and tritium for the US nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. developed the Girdler sulfide chemical exchange production process—which was first demonstrated on a large scale at the Dana, Indiana plant in 1945 and at the Savannah River Plant, South Carolina, in 1952. DuPont operated the SRP for the USDOE until 1 April 1989, when Westinghouse took it over.
India is one of the world's largest producers of heavy water through its Heavy Water Board. It exports heavy water to countries including the Republic of Korea, China, and the United States.
In the 1930s, it was suspected by the United States and Soviet Union that Austrian chemist Fritz Johann Hansgirg built a pilot plant for the Empire of Japan in Japanese ruled northern Korea to produce heavy water by using a new process he had invented.
In 1934, Norsk Hydro built the first commercial heavy water plant at Vemork, Tinn, eventually producing 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) per day. From 1940 and throughout World War II, the plant was under German control and the Allies decided to destroy the plant and its heavy water to inhibit German development of nuclear weapons. In late 1942, a planned raid called Operation Freshman by British airborne troops failed, both gliders crashing. The raiders were killed in the crash or subsequently executed by the Germans.
On the night of 27 February 1943 Operation Gunnerside succeeded. Norwegian commandos and local resistance managed to demolish small, but key parts of the electrolytic cells, dumping the accumulated heavy water down the factory drains.
On 16 November 1943, the Allied air forces dropped more than 400 bombs on the site. The Allied air raid prompted the Nazi government to move all available heavy water to Germany for safekeeping. On 20 February 1944, a Norwegian partisan sank the ferry M/F Hydro carrying heavy water across Lake Tinn, at the cost of 14 Norwegian civilian lives, and most of the heavy water was presumably lost. A few of the barrels were only half full, hence buoyant, and may have been salvaged and transported to Germany.
Recent investigation of production records at Norsk Hydro and analysis of an intact barrel that was salvaged in 2004 revealed that although the barrels in this shipment contained water of pH 14—indicative of the alkaline electrolytic refinement process—they did not contain high concentrations of D2O. Despite the apparent size of the shipment, the total quantity of pure heavy water was quite small, most barrels only containing 0.5–1% pure heavy water. The Germans would have needed a total of about 5 tons of heavy water to get a nuclear reactor running. The manifest clearly indicated that there was only half a ton of heavy water being transported to Germany. Hydro was carrying far too little heavy water for one reactor, let alone the 10 or more tons needed to make enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon. The German nuclear weapons program was much less advanced than the Manhattan project and no reactor constructed in Nazi Germany ever came close to reaching criticality. No amount of heavy water would have changed that.
Israel admitted running the Dimona reactor with Norwegian heavy water sold to it in 1959. Through re-export using Romania and Germany, India probably also used Norwegian heavy water.
During the second World War, the company Fosfatbolaget in Ljungaverk, Sweden, produced 2,300 liters per year of heavy water. The heavy water was then sold both to Germany and to the Manhattan project in the USA for the price of 1,40 SEK per gram of heavy water.
As part of its contribution to the Manhattan Project, Canada built and operated a 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to 1,200 pounds (540 kg) per month (design capacity) electrolytic heavy water plant at Trail, British Columbia, which started operation in 1943.
The Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) design of power reactor requires large quantities of heavy water to act as a neutron moderator and coolant. AECL ordered two heavy water plants, which were built and operated in Atlantic Canada at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia (by Deuterium of Canada Limited) and Point Tupper, Richmond County, Nova Scotia (by General Electric Canada). These plants proved to have significant design, construction and production problems. Consequently, AECL built the Bruce Heavy Water Plant (44°11′07″N 81°21′42″W / 44.1854°N 81.3618°W / 44.1854; -81.3618 (Bruce Heavy Water Plant)), which it later sold to Ontario Hydro, to ensure a reliable supply of heavy water for future power plants. The two Nova Scotia plants were shut down in 1985 when their production proved unnecessary.
The Bruce Heavy Water Plant (BHWP) in Ontario was the world's largest heavy water production plant with a capacity of 1600 tonnes per year at its peak (800 tonnes per year per full plant, two fully operational plants at its peak). It used the Girdler sulfide process to produce heavy water, and required 340,000 tonnes of feed water to produce one tonne of heavy water. It was part of a complex that included eight CANDU reactors, which provided heat and power for the heavy water plant. The site was located at Douglas Point/Bruce Nuclear Generating Station near Tiverton, Ontario, on Lake Huron where it had access to the waters of the Great Lakes.
AECL issued the construction contract in 1969 for the first BHWP unit (BHWP A). Commissioning of BHWP A was done by Ontario Hydro from 1971 through 1973, with the plant entering service on 28 June 1973, and design production capacity being achieved in April 1974. Due to the success of BHWP A and the large amount of heavy water that would be required for the large numbers of upcoming planned CANDU nuclear power plant construction projects, Ontario Hydro commissioned three additional heavy water production plants for the Bruce site (BHWP B, C, and D). BHWP B was placed into service in 1979. These first two plants were significantly more efficient than planned, and the number of CANDU construction projects ended up being significantly lower than originally planned, which led to the cancellation of construction on BHWP C & D. In 1984, BHWP A was shut down. By 1993 Ontario Hydro had produced enough heavy water to meet all of its anticipated domestic needs (which were lower than expected due to improved efficiency in the use and recycling of heavy water), so they shut down and demolished half of the capacity of BHWP B. The remaining capacity continued to operate in order to fulfil demand for heavy water exports until it was permanently shut down in 1997, after which the plant was gradually dismantled and the site cleared.
AECL is currently researching other more efficient and environmentally benign processes for creating heavy water. This is relevant for CANDU reactors since heavy water represented about 15–20% of the total capital cost of each CANDU plant in the 1970s and 1980s.
Since 1996 a plant for production of heavy water was being constructed at Khondab near Arak. On 26 August 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad inaugurated the expansion of the country's heavy-water plant. Iran has indicated that the heavy-water production facility will operate in tandem with a 40 MW research reactor that had a scheduled completion date in 2009.
Iran produced deuterated solvents in early 2011 for the first time.
The core of the IR-40 is supposed to be re-designed based on the nuclear agreement in July 2015.
Iran is permitted to store only 130 tonnes (140 short tons) of heavy water. Iran exports excess production after exceeding their allotment making Iran the world's third largest exporter of heavy water.
In 2023, Iran sells heavy water; customers have proposed a price over 1000 dollars per liter.
The 50 MWth heavy water and natural uranium research reactor at Khushab, in Punjab province, is a central element of Pakistan's program for production of plutonium, deuterium and tritium for advanced compact warheads (i.e. thermonuclear weapons). Pakistan succeeded in acquiring a tritium purification and storage plant and deuterium and tritium precursor materials from two German firms.
Romania produced heavy water at the now-decommissioned Drobeta Girdler sulfide plant for domestic and export purposes.
France operated a small plant during the 1950s and 1960s.
Heavy water exists in elevated concentration in the hypolimnion of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. It is likely that similar elevated concentrations exist in lakes with similar limnology, but this is only 4% enrichment (24 vs. 28) and surface waters are usually enriched in D2O by evaporation to an even greater extent by faster H2O evaporation.
Deuterium oxide is used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy when using water as solvent if the nuclide of interest is hydrogen. This is because the signal from light-water (H2O) solvent molecules interferes with the signal from the molecule of interest dissolved in it. Deuterium has a different magnetic moment and therefore does not contribute to the H-NMR signal at the hydrogen-1 resonance frequency.
For some experiments, it may be desirable to identify the labile hydrogens on a compound, that is hydrogens that can easily exchange away as H ions on some positions in a molecule. With addition of D2O, sometimes referred to as a D2O shake, labile hydrogens exchange away and are substituted by deuterium (H) atoms. These positions in the molecule then do not appear in the H-NMR spectrum.
Deuterium oxide is often used as the source of deuterium for preparing specifically labelled isotopologues of organic compounds. For example, C-H bonds adjacent to ketonic carbonyl groups can be replaced by C-D bonds, using acid or base catalysis. Trimethylsulfoxonium iodide, made from dimethyl sulfoxide and methyl iodide can be recrystallized from deuterium oxide, and then dissociated to regenerate methyl iodide and dimethyl sulfoxide, both deuterium labelled. In cases where specific double labelling by deuterium and tritium is contemplated, the researcher must be aware that deuterium oxide, depending upon age and origin, can contain some tritium.
Deuterium oxide is often used instead of water when collecting FTIR spectra of proteins in solution. H2O creates a strong band that overlaps with the amide I region of proteins. The band from D2O is shifted away from the amide I region.
Heavy water is used in certain types of nuclear reactors, where it acts as a neutron moderator to slow down neutrons so that they are more likely to react with the fissile uranium-235 than with uranium-238, which captures neutrons without fissioning. The CANDU reactor uses this design. Light water also acts as a moderator, but because light water absorbs more neutrons than heavy water, reactors using light water for a reactor moderator must use enriched uranium rather than natural uranium, otherwise criticality is impossible. A significant fraction of outdated power reactors, such as the RBMK reactors in the USSR, were constructed using normal water for cooling but graphite as a moderator. However, the danger of graphite in power reactors (graphite fires in part led to the Chernobyl disaster) has led to the discontinuation of graphite in standard reactor designs.
The breeding and extraction of plutonium can be a relatively rapid and cheap route to building a nuclear weapon, as chemical separation of plutonium from fuel is easier than isotopic separation of U-235 from natural uranium. Among current and past nuclear weapons states, Israel, India, and North Korea first used plutonium from heavy water moderated reactors burning natural uranium, while China, South Africa and Pakistan first built weapons using highly enriched uranium.
The Nazi nuclear program, operating with more modest means than the contemporary Manhattan Project and hampered by many leading scientists having been driven into exile (many of them ending up working for the Manhattan Project), as well as continuous infighting, wrongly dismissed graphite as a moderator due to not recognizing the effect of impurities. Given that isotope separation of uranium was deemed too big a hurdle, this left heavy water as a potential moderator. Other problems were the ideological aversion regarding what propaganda dismissed as "Jewish physics" and the mistrust between those who had been enthusiastic Nazis even before 1933 and those who were Mitläufer or trying to keep a low profile. In part due to allied sabotage and commando raids on Norsk Hydro (then the world's largest producer of heavy water) as well as the aforementioned infighting, the German nuclear program never managed to assemble enough uranium and heavy water in one place to achieve criticality despite possessing enough of both by the end of the war.
In the U.S., however, the first experimental atomic reactor (1942), as well as the Manhattan Project Hanford production reactors that produced the plutonium for the Trinity test and Fat Man bombs, all used pure carbon (graphite) neutron moderators combined with normal water cooling pipes. They functioned with neither enriched uranium nor heavy water. Russian and British plutonium production also used graphite-moderated reactors.
There is no evidence that civilian heavy water power reactors—such as the CANDU or Atucha designs—have been used to produce military fissile materials. In nations that do not already possess nuclear weapons, nuclear material at these facilities is under IAEA safeguards to discourage any diversion.
Due to its potential for use in nuclear weapons programs, the possession or import/export of large industrial quantities of heavy water are subject to government control in several countries. Suppliers of heavy water and heavy water production technology typically apply IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) administered safeguards and material accounting to heavy water. (In Australia, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987.) In the U.S. and Canada, non-industrial quantities of heavy water (i.e., in the gram to kg range) are routinely available without special license through chemical supply dealers and commercial companies such as the world's former major producer Ontario Hydro.
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Sudbury, Ontario uses 1,000 tonnes of heavy water on loan from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The neutrino detector is 6,800 feet (2,100 m) underground in a mine, to shield it from muons produced by cosmic rays. SNO was built to answer the question of whether or not electron-type neutrinos produced by fusion in the Sun (the only type the Sun should be producing directly, according to theory) might be able to turn into other types of neutrinos on the way to Earth. SNO detects the Cherenkov radiation in the water from high-energy electrons produced from electron-type neutrinos as they undergo charged current (CC) interactions with neutrons in deuterium, turning them into protons and electrons (however, only the electrons are fast enough to produce Cherenkov radiation for detection).
SNO also detects neutrino electron scattering (ES) events, where the neutrino transfers energy to the electron, which then proceeds to generate Cherenkov radiation distinguishable from that produced by CC events. The first of these two reactions is produced only by electron-type neutrinos, while the second can be caused by all of the neutrino flavors. The use of deuterium is critical to the SNO function, because all three "flavours" (types) of neutrinos may be detected in a third type of reaction as well, neutrino-disintegration, in which a neutrino of any type (electron, muon, or tau) scatters from a deuterium nucleus (deuteron), transferring enough energy to break up the loosely bound deuteron into a free neutron and proton via a neutral current (NC) interaction.
This event is detected when the free neutron is absorbed by Cl present from NaCl deliberately dissolved in the heavy water, causing emission of characteristic capture gamma rays. Thus, in this experiment, heavy water not only provides the transparent medium necessary to produce and visualize Cherenkov radiation, but it also provides deuterium to detect exotic mu type (μ) and tau (τ) neutrinos, as well as a non-absorbent moderator medium to preserve free neutrons from this reaction, until they can be absorbed by an easily detected neutron-activated isotope.
Heavy water is employed as part of a mixture with H2O for a common and safe test of mean metabolic rate in humans and animals undergoing their normal activities.The elimination rate of deuterium alone is a measure of body water turnover. This is highly variable between individuals and depends on environmental conditions as well as subject size, sex, age and physical activity.
Tritium is the active substance in self-powered lighting and controlled nuclear fusion, its other uses including autoradiography and radioactive labeling. It is also used in nuclear weapon design for boosted fission weapons and initiators. Tritium undergoes beta decay into Helium-3, which is a stable, but rare, isotope of Helium that is itself highly sought after. Some tritium is created in heavy water moderated reactors when deuterium captures a neutron. This reaction has a small cross-section (probability of a single neutron-capture event) and produces only small amounts of tritium, although enough to justify cleaning tritium from the moderator every few years to reduce the environmental risk of tritium escape. Given that Helium-3 is a neutron poison with orders of magnitude higher capture cross section than any component of heavy or tritiated water, its accumulation in a heavy water neutron moderator or target for tritium production must be kept to a minimum.
Producing a lot of tritium in this way would require reactors with very high neutron fluxes, or with a very high proportion of heavy water to nuclear fuel and very low neutron absorption by other reactor material. The tritium would then have to be recovered by isotope separation from a much larger quantity of deuterium, unlike production from lithium-6 (the present method), where only chemical separation is needed.
Deuterium's absorption cross section for thermal neutrons is 0.52 millibarns (5.2 × 10 m; 1 barn = 10 m), while those of oxygen-16 and oxygen-17 are 0.19 and 0.24 millibarns, respectively. O makes up 0.038% of natural oxygen, making the overall cross section 0.28 millibarns. Therefore, in D2O with natural oxygen, 21% of neutron captures are on oxygen, rising higher as O builds up from neutron capture on O. Also, O may emit an alpha particle on neutron capture, producing radioactive carbon-14. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Heavy water (deuterium oxide, H2O, D2O) is a form of water whose hydrogen atoms are all deuterium (H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (H or H, also called protium) that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of the heavier hydrogen isotope gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase in mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Deuterium is a heavy hydrogen isotope. Heavy water contains deuterium atoms and is used in nuclear reactors. Semiheavy water (HDO) is more common than pure heavy water, while heavy-oxygen water is denser but lacks unique properties. Tritiated water is radioactive due to tritium content.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Heavy water (D2O) has different physical properties than regular water, such as being 10.6% denser and having a higher melting point. Heavy water is less dissociated at a given temperature, and it does not have the slightly blue color of regular water. While it has no significant taste difference, it can taste slightly sweet. Heavy water affects biological systems by altering enzymes, hydrogen bonds, and cell division in eukaryotes. It can be lethal to multicellular organisms at concentrations over 50%. However, some prokaryotes like bacteria can survive in a heavy hydrogen environment. Heavy water can be toxic to humans, but a large amount would be needed for poisoning to occur.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Deuterated water (HDO) occurs naturally in normal water and can be separated through distillation, electrolysis, or chemical exchange processes. The most cost-effective process for producing heavy water is the Girdler sulfide process. Heavy water is used in various industries and is sold in different grades of purity. Some of its applications include nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, neutron moderation, neutrino detection, metabolic rate testing, neutron capture therapy, and the production of radioactive materials such as plutonium and tritium.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with a nucleus containing a neutron and a proton; the nucleus of a protium (normal hydrogen) atom consists of just a proton. The additional neutron makes a deuterium atom roughly twice as heavy as a protium atom.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A molecule of heavy water has two deuterium atoms in place of the two protium atoms of ordinary \"light\" water. The term heavy water as defined by the IUPAC Gold Book can also refer to water in which a higher than usual proportion of hydrogen atoms are deuterium rather than protium. For comparison, ordinary water (the \"ordinary water\" used for a deuterium standard) contains only about 156 deuterium atoms per million hydrogen atoms, meaning that 0.0156% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type. Thus heavy water as defined by the Gold Book includes hydrogen-deuterium oxide (HDO) and other mixtures of D2O, H2O, and HDO in which the proportion of deuterium is greater than usual. For instance, the heavy water used in CANDU reactors is a highly enriched water mixture that contains mostly deuterium oxide D2O, but also some hydrogen-deuterium oxide and a smaller amount of ordinary hydrogen oxide H2O. It is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction—meaning that 99.75% of the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy type; however, heavy water in the Gold Book sense need not be so highly enriched. The weight of a heavy water molecule, however, is not substantially different from that of a normal water molecule, because about 89% of the molecular weight of water comes from the single oxygen atom rather than the two hydrogen atoms.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Heavy water is not radioactive. In its pure form, it has a density about 11% greater than water, but is otherwise physically and chemically similar. Nevertheless, the various differences in deuterium-containing water (especially affecting the biological properties) are larger than in any other commonly occurring isotope-substituted compound because deuterium is unique among heavy stable isotopes in being twice as heavy as the lightest isotope. This difference increases the strength of water's hydrogen–oxygen bonds, and this in turn is enough to cause differences that are important to some biochemical reactions. The human body naturally contains deuterium equivalent to about five grams of heavy water, which is harmless. When a large fraction of water (> 50%) in higher organisms is replaced by heavy water, the result is cell dysfunction and death.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Heavy water was first produced in 1932, a few months after the discovery of deuterium. With the discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938, and the need for a neutron moderator that captured few neutrons, heavy water became a component of early nuclear energy research. Since then, heavy water has been an essential component in some types of reactors, both those that generate power and those designed to produce isotopes for nuclear weapons. These heavy water reactors have the advantage of being able to run on natural uranium without using graphite moderators that pose radiological and dust explosion hazards in the decommissioning phase. The graphite moderated Soviet RBMK design tried to avoid using either enriched uranium or heavy water (being cooled with ordinary \"light\" water instead) which produced the positive void coefficient that was one of a series of flaws in reactor design leading to the Chernobyl disaster. Most modern reactors use enriched uranium with ordinary water as the moderator.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Semiheavy water, HDO, exists whenever there is water with light hydrogen (protium, H) and deuterium (D or H) in the mix. This is because hydrogen atoms (hydrogen-1 and deuterium) are rapidly exchanged between water molecules. Water containing 50% H and 50% D in its hydrogen actually contains about 50% HDO and 25% each of H2O and D2O, in dynamic equilibrium. In normal water, about 1 molecule in 3,200 is HDO (one hydrogen in 6,400 is in the form of D), and heavy water molecules (D2O) only occur in a proportion of about 1 molecule in 41 million (i.e. one in 6,400). Thus semiheavy water molecules are far more common than \"pure\" (homoisotopic) heavy water molecules.",
"title": "Other heavy forms of water"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Water enriched in the heavier oxygen isotopes O and O is also commercially available. It is \"heavy water\" as it is denser than normal water (H2O is approximately as dense as D2O, H2O is about halfway between H2O and D2O)—but is rarely called heavy water, since it does not contain the deuterium that gives D2O its unusual nuclear and biological properties. It is more expensive than D2O due to the more difficult separation of O and O. H2O is also used for production of fluorine-18 in radiopharmaceuticals and radiotracers, and positron emission tomography. Small amounts of O and O are naturally present in water, and most processes enriching heavy water also enrich heavier isotopes of oxygen as a side-effect. This is undesirable if the heavy water is to be used as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors, as O can undergo neutron capture, followed by emission of an alpha particle, producing radioactive C. However, doubly labeled water, containing both a heavy oxygen and hydrogen, is useful as a non-radioactive isotopic tracer.",
"title": "Other heavy forms of water"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Compared to the isotopic change of hydrogen atoms, the isotopic change of oxygen has a smaller effect on the physical properties.",
"title": "Other heavy forms of water"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Tritiated water contains tritium (H) in place of protium (H) or deuterium (H), and, as tritium itself is radioactive, tritiated water is also radioactive.",
"title": "Other heavy forms of water"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The physical properties of water and heavy water differ in several respects. Heavy water is less dissociated than light water at given temperature, and the true concentration of D ions is less than H ions would be for a light water sample at the same temperature. The same is true of OD vs. OH ions. For heavy water Kw D2O (25.0 °C) = 1.35 × 10, and [D ] must equal [OD ] for neutral water. Thus pKw D2O = p[OD] + p[D] = 7.44 + 7.44 = 14.87 (25.0 °C), and the p[D] of neutral heavy water at 25.0 °C is 7.44.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The pD of heavy water is generally measured using pH electrodes giving a pH (apparent) value, or pHa, and at various temperatures a true acidic pD can be estimated from the directly pH meter measured pHa, such that pD+ = pHa (apparent reading from pH meter) + 0.41. The electrode correction for alkaline conditions is 0.456 for heavy water. The alkaline correction is then pD+ = pHa(apparent reading from pH meter) + 0.456. These corrections are slightly different from the differences in p[D+] and p[OD-] of 0.44 from the corresponding ones in heavy water.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Heavy water is 10.6% denser than ordinary water, and heavy water's physically different properties can be seen without equipment if a frozen sample is dropped into normal water, as it will sink. If the water is ice-cold the higher melting temperature of heavy ice can also be observed: it melts at 3.7 °C, and thus does not melt in ice-cold normal water.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A 1935 experiment reported not the \"slightest difference\" in taste between ordinary and heavy water. However, a more recent study appears to confirm anecdotal observation that heavy water tastes slightly sweet to humans, with the effect mediated by the TAS1R2/TAS1R3 taste receptor. Rats given a choice between distilled normal water and heavy water were able to avoid the heavy water based on smell, and it may have a different taste. Some people report that minerals in water affect taste, e.g. potassium lending a sweet taste to hard water, but there are many factors of a perceived taste in water besides mineral contents.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Heavy water lacks the characteristic blue color of light water; this is because the molecular vibration harmonics, which in light water cause weak absorption in the red part of the visible spectrum, are shifted into the infrared and thus heavy water does not absorb red light.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "No physical properties are listed for \"pure\" semi-heavy water, because it is unstable as a bulk liquid. In the liquid state, a few water molecules are always in an ionised state, which means the hydrogen atoms can exchange among different oxygen atoms. Semi-heavy water could, in theory, be created via a chemical method, but it would rapidly transform into a dynamic mixture of 25% light water, 25% heavy water, and 50% semi-heavy water. However, if it were made in the gas phase and directly deposited into a solid, semi-heavy water in the form of ice could be stable. This is due to collisions between water vapor molecules being almost completely negligible in the gas phase at standard temperatures, and once crystallized, collisions between the molecules cease altogether due to the rigid lattice structure of solid ice.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The US scientist and Nobel laureate Harold Urey discovered the isotope deuterium in 1931 and was later able to concentrate it in water. Urey's mentor Gilbert Newton Lewis isolated the first sample of pure heavy water by electrolysis in 1933. George de Hevesy and Erich Hofer used heavy water in 1934 in one of the first biological tracer experiments, to estimate the rate of turnover of water in the human body. The history of large-quantity production and use of heavy water, in early nuclear experiments, is described below.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Emilian Bratu and Otto Redlich studied the autodissociation of heavy water in 1934.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Different isotopes of chemical elements have slightly different chemical behaviors, but for most elements the differences are far too small to have a biological effect. In the case of hydrogen, larger differences in chemical properties among protium (light hydrogen), deuterium, and tritium occur, because chemical bond energy depends on the reduced mass of the nucleus–electron system; this is altered in heavy-hydrogen compounds (hydrogen-deuterium oxide is the most common species) more than for heavy-isotope substitution involving other chemical elements. The isotope effects are especially relevant in biological systems, which are very sensitive to even the smaller changes, due to isotopically influenced properties of water when it acts as a solvent.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "To perform their tasks, enzymes rely on their finely tuned networks of hydrogen bonds, both in the active center with their substrates, and outside the active center, to stabilize their tertiary structures. As a hydrogen bond with deuterium is slightly stronger than one involving ordinary hydrogen, in a highly deuterated environment, some normal reactions in cells are disrupted.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Particularly hard-hit by heavy water are the delicate assemblies of mitotic spindle formations necessary for cell division in eukaryotes. Plants stop growing and seeds do not germinate when given only heavy water, because heavy water stops eukaryotic cell division. The deuterium cell is larger and is a modification of the direction of division. The cell membrane also changes, and it reacts first to the impact of heavy water. In 1972, it was demonstrated that an increase in the percentage content of deuterium in water reduces plant growth. Research conducted on the growth of prokaryote microorganisms in artificial conditions of a heavy hydrogen environment showed that in this environment, all the hydrogen atoms of water could be replaced with deuterium. Experiments showed that bacteria can live in 98% heavy water. Concentrations over 50% are lethal to multicellular organisms, however a few exceptions are known such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) which is able to grow on 50% D2O; the plant Arabidopsis thaliana (70% D2O); the plant Vesicularia dubyana (85% D2O); the plant Funaria hygrometrica (90% D2O); and the anhydrobiotic species of nematode Panagrolaimus superbus (nearly 100% D2O). A comprehensive study of heavy water on the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe showed that the cells displayed an altered glucose metabolism and slow growth at high concentrations of heavy water. In addition, the cells activated the heat-shock response pathway and the cell integrity pathway, and mutants in the cell integrity pathway displayed increased tolerance to heavy water.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Heavy water affects the period of circadian oscillations, consistently increasing the length of each cycle. The effect has been demonstrated in unicellular organisms, green plants, isopods, insects, birds, mice, and hamsters. The mechanism is unknown.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Despite its toxicity at high levels, heavy water has also been observed to extend lifespan of certain yeasts by up to 85%, with the hypothesized mechanism being the reduction of reactive oxygen species turnover.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Experiments with mice, rats, and dogs have shown that a degree of 25% deuteration causes (sometimes irreversible) sterility, because neither gametes nor zygotes can develop. High concentrations of heavy water (90%) rapidly kill fish, tadpoles, flatworms, and Drosophila. The only known exception is the anhydrobiotic nematode Panagrolaimus superbus, which is able to survive and reproduce in 99.9% D2O. Mammals (for example, rats) given heavy water to drink die after a week, at a time when their body water approaches about 50% deuteration. The mode of death appears to be the same as that in cytotoxic poisoning (such as chemotherapy) or in acute radiation syndrome (though deuterium is not radioactive), and is due to deuterium's action in generally inhibiting cell division. It is more toxic to malignant cells than normal cells, but the concentrations needed are too high for regular use. As may occur in chemotherapy, deuterium-poisoned mammals die of a failure of bone marrow (producing bleeding and infections) and of intestinal-barrier functions (producing diarrhea and loss of fluids).",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Despite the problems of plants and animals in living with too much deuterium, prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria, which do not have the mitotic problems induced by deuterium, may be grown and propagated in fully deuterated conditions, resulting in replacement of all hydrogen atoms in the bacterial proteins and DNA with the deuterium isotope.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In higher organisms, full replacement with heavy isotopes can be accomplished with other non-radioactive heavy isotopes (such as carbon-13, nitrogen-15, and oxygen-18), but this cannot be done for deuterium. This is a consequence of the ratio of nuclear masses between the isotopes of hydrogen, which is much greater than for any other element.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Deuterium oxide is used to enhance boron neutron capture therapy, but this effect does not rely on the biological or chemical effects of deuterium, but instead on deuterium's ability to moderate (slow) neutrons without capturing them.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Recent experimental evidence indicates that systemic administration of deuterium oxide (30% drinking water supplementation) suppresses tumor growth in a standard mouse model of human melanoma, an effect attributed to selective induction of cellular stress signaling and gene expression in tumor cells.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Because it would take a very large amount of heavy water to replace 25% to 50% of a human being's body water (water being in turn 50–75% of body weight) with heavy water, accidental or intentional poisoning with heavy water is unlikely to the point of practical disregard. Poisoning would require that the victim ingest large amounts of heavy water without significant normal water intake for many days to produce any noticeable toxic effects.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Oral doses of heavy water in the range of several grams, as well as heavy oxygen O, are routinely used in human metabolic experiments. (See doubly labeled water testing.) Since one in about every 6,400 hydrogen atoms is deuterium, a 50-kilogram (110 lb) human containing 32 kilograms (71 lb) of body water would normally contain enough deuterium (about 1.1 grams or 0.039 ounces) to make 5.5 grams (0.19 oz) of pure heavy water, so roughly this dose is required to double the amount of deuterium in the body.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "A loss of blood pressure may partially explain the reported incidence of dizziness upon ingestion of heavy water. However, it is more likely that this symptom can be attributed to altered vestibular function.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Although many people associate heavy water primarily with its use in nuclear reactors, pure heavy water is not radioactive. Commercial-grade heavy water is slightly radioactive due to the presence of minute traces of natural tritium, but the same is true of ordinary water. Heavy water that has been used as a coolant in nuclear power plants contains substantially more tritium as a result of neutron bombardment of the deuterium in the heavy water (tritium is a health risk when ingested in large quantities).",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 1990, a disgruntled employee at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in Canada obtained a sample (estimated as about a \"half cup\") of heavy water from the primary heat transport loop of the nuclear reactor, and loaded it into a cafeteria drink dispenser. Eight employees drank some of the contaminated water. The incident was discovered when employees began leaving bioassay urine samples with elevated tritium levels. The quantity of heavy water involved was far below levels that could induce heavy water toxicity, but several employees received elevated radiation doses from tritium and neutron-activated chemicals in the water. This was not an incident of heavy water poisoning, but rather radiation poisoning from other isotopes in the heavy water.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some news services were not careful to distinguish these points, and some of the public were left with the impression that heavy water is normally radioactive and more severely toxic than it actually is. Even if pure heavy water had been used in the water cooler indefinitely, it is not likely the incident would have been detected or caused harm, since no employee would be expected to get much more than 25% of their daily drinking water from such a source.",
"title": "Effect on biological systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "On Earth, deuterated water, HDO, occurs naturally in normal water at a proportion of about 1 molecule in 3,200. This means that 1 in 6,400 hydrogen atoms in water is deuterium, which is 1 part in 3,200 by weight (hydrogen weight). The HDO may be separated from normal water by distillation or electrolysis and also by various chemical exchange processes, all of which exploit a kinetic isotope effect, with the partial enrichment also occurring in natural bodies of water under particular evaporation conditions. (For more information about the isotopic distribution of deuterium in water, see Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water.) In theory, deuterium for heavy water could be created in a nuclear reactor, but separation from ordinary water is the cheapest bulk production process.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The difference in mass between the two hydrogen isotopes translates into a difference in the zero-point energy and thus into a slight difference in the speed of the reaction. Once HDO becomes a significant fraction of the water, heavy water becomes more prevalent as water molecules trade hydrogen atoms very frequently. Production of pure heavy water by distillation or electrolysis requires a large cascade of stills or electrolysis chambers and consumes large amounts of power, so the chemical methods are generally preferred.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The most cost-effective process for producing heavy water is the dual temperature exchange sulfide process (known as the Girdler sulfide process) developed in parallel by Karl-Hermann Geib and Jerome S. Spevack in 1943.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "An alternative process, patented by Graham M. Keyser, uses lasers to selectively dissociate deuterated hydrofluorocarbons to form deuterium fluoride, which can then be separated by physical means. Although the energy consumption for this process is much less than for the Girdler sulfide process, this method is currently uneconomical due to the expense of procuring the necessary hydrofluorocarbons.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "As noted, modern commercial heavy water is almost universally referred to, and sold as, deuterium oxide. It is most often sold in various grades of purity, from 98% enrichment to 99.75–99.98% deuterium enrichment (nuclear reactor grade) and occasionally even higher isotopic purity.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Argentina was the main producer of heavy water, using an ammonia/hydrogen exchange based plant supplied by Switzerland's Sulzer company. It was also a major exporter to Canada, Germany, the US and other countries. The heavy water production facility located in Arroyito was the world's largest heavy water production facility. Argentina produced 200 short tons (180 tonnes) of heavy water per year in 2015 using the monothermal ammonia-hydrogen isotopic exchange method. Since 2017, the Arroyito plant has not been operational.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In October 1939, Soviet physicists Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Yulii Borisovich Khariton concluded that heavy water and carbon were the only feasible moderators for a natural uranium reactor, and in August 1940, along with Georgy Flyorov, submitted a plan to the Russian Academy of Sciences calculating that 15 tons of heavy water were needed for a reactor. With the Soviet Union having no uranium mines at the time, young Academy workers were sent to Leningrad photographic shops to buy uranium nitrate, but the entire heavy water project was halted in 1941 when German forces invaded during Operation Barbarossa.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "By 1943, Soviet scientists had discovered that all scientific literature relating to heavy water had disappeared from the West, which Flyorov in a letter warned Soviet leader Joseph Stalin about, and at which time there was only 2–3 kg of heavy water in the entire country. In late 1943, the Soviet purchasing commission in the U.S. obtained 1 kg of heavy water and a further 100 kg in February 1945, and upon World War II ending, the NKVD took over the project.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In October 1946, as part of the Russian Alsos, the NKVD deported to the Soviet Union from Germany the German scientists who had worked on heavy water production during the war, including Karl-Hermann Geib, the inventor of the Girdler sulfide process. These German scientists worked under the supervision of German physical chemist Max Volmer at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Moscow with the plant they constructed producing large quantities of heavy water by 1948.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "During the Manhattan Project the United States constructed three heavy water production plants as part of the P-9 Project at Morgantown Ordnance Works, near Morgantown, West Virginia; at the Wabash River Ordnance Works, near Dana and Newport, Indiana; and at the Alabama Ordnance Works, near Childersburg and Sylacauga, Alabama. Heavy water was also acquired from the Cominco plant in Trail, British Columbia, Canada. The Chicago Pile-3 experimental reactor used heavy water as a moderator and went critical in 1944. The three domestic production plants were shut down in 1945 after producing around 81,470lb of product. The Wabash plant resumed heavy water production in 1952.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In 1953, the United States began using heavy water in plutonium production reactors at the Savannah River Site. The first of the five heavy water reactors came online in 1953, and the last was placed in cold shutdown in 1996. The SRS reactors were heavy water reactors so that they could produce both plutonium and tritium for the US nuclear weapons program.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The U.S. developed the Girdler sulfide chemical exchange production process—which was first demonstrated on a large scale at the Dana, Indiana plant in 1945 and at the Savannah River Plant, South Carolina, in 1952. DuPont operated the SRP for the USDOE until 1 April 1989, when Westinghouse took it over.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "India is one of the world's largest producers of heavy water through its Heavy Water Board. It exports heavy water to countries including the Republic of Korea, China, and the United States.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In the 1930s, it was suspected by the United States and Soviet Union that Austrian chemist Fritz Johann Hansgirg built a pilot plant for the Empire of Japan in Japanese ruled northern Korea to produce heavy water by using a new process he had invented.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In 1934, Norsk Hydro built the first commercial heavy water plant at Vemork, Tinn, eventually producing 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) per day. From 1940 and throughout World War II, the plant was under German control and the Allies decided to destroy the plant and its heavy water to inhibit German development of nuclear weapons. In late 1942, a planned raid called Operation Freshman by British airborne troops failed, both gliders crashing. The raiders were killed in the crash or subsequently executed by the Germans.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "On the night of 27 February 1943 Operation Gunnerside succeeded. Norwegian commandos and local resistance managed to demolish small, but key parts of the electrolytic cells, dumping the accumulated heavy water down the factory drains.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "On 16 November 1943, the Allied air forces dropped more than 400 bombs on the site. The Allied air raid prompted the Nazi government to move all available heavy water to Germany for safekeeping. On 20 February 1944, a Norwegian partisan sank the ferry M/F Hydro carrying heavy water across Lake Tinn, at the cost of 14 Norwegian civilian lives, and most of the heavy water was presumably lost. A few of the barrels were only half full, hence buoyant, and may have been salvaged and transported to Germany.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Recent investigation of production records at Norsk Hydro and analysis of an intact barrel that was salvaged in 2004 revealed that although the barrels in this shipment contained water of pH 14—indicative of the alkaline electrolytic refinement process—they did not contain high concentrations of D2O. Despite the apparent size of the shipment, the total quantity of pure heavy water was quite small, most barrels only containing 0.5–1% pure heavy water. The Germans would have needed a total of about 5 tons of heavy water to get a nuclear reactor running. The manifest clearly indicated that there was only half a ton of heavy water being transported to Germany. Hydro was carrying far too little heavy water for one reactor, let alone the 10 or more tons needed to make enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon. The German nuclear weapons program was much less advanced than the Manhattan project and no reactor constructed in Nazi Germany ever came close to reaching criticality. No amount of heavy water would have changed that.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Israel admitted running the Dimona reactor with Norwegian heavy water sold to it in 1959. Through re-export using Romania and Germany, India probably also used Norwegian heavy water.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "During the second World War, the company Fosfatbolaget in Ljungaverk, Sweden, produced 2,300 liters per year of heavy water. The heavy water was then sold both to Germany and to the Manhattan project in the USA for the price of 1,40 SEK per gram of heavy water.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "As part of its contribution to the Manhattan Project, Canada built and operated a 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to 1,200 pounds (540 kg) per month (design capacity) electrolytic heavy water plant at Trail, British Columbia, which started operation in 1943.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) design of power reactor requires large quantities of heavy water to act as a neutron moderator and coolant. AECL ordered two heavy water plants, which were built and operated in Atlantic Canada at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia (by Deuterium of Canada Limited) and Point Tupper, Richmond County, Nova Scotia (by General Electric Canada). These plants proved to have significant design, construction and production problems. Consequently, AECL built the Bruce Heavy Water Plant (44°11′07″N 81°21′42″W / 44.1854°N 81.3618°W / 44.1854; -81.3618 (Bruce Heavy Water Plant)), which it later sold to Ontario Hydro, to ensure a reliable supply of heavy water for future power plants. The two Nova Scotia plants were shut down in 1985 when their production proved unnecessary.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Bruce Heavy Water Plant (BHWP) in Ontario was the world's largest heavy water production plant with a capacity of 1600 tonnes per year at its peak (800 tonnes per year per full plant, two fully operational plants at its peak). It used the Girdler sulfide process to produce heavy water, and required 340,000 tonnes of feed water to produce one tonne of heavy water. It was part of a complex that included eight CANDU reactors, which provided heat and power for the heavy water plant. The site was located at Douglas Point/Bruce Nuclear Generating Station near Tiverton, Ontario, on Lake Huron where it had access to the waters of the Great Lakes.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "AECL issued the construction contract in 1969 for the first BHWP unit (BHWP A). Commissioning of BHWP A was done by Ontario Hydro from 1971 through 1973, with the plant entering service on 28 June 1973, and design production capacity being achieved in April 1974. Due to the success of BHWP A and the large amount of heavy water that would be required for the large numbers of upcoming planned CANDU nuclear power plant construction projects, Ontario Hydro commissioned three additional heavy water production plants for the Bruce site (BHWP B, C, and D). BHWP B was placed into service in 1979. These first two plants were significantly more efficient than planned, and the number of CANDU construction projects ended up being significantly lower than originally planned, which led to the cancellation of construction on BHWP C & D. In 1984, BHWP A was shut down. By 1993 Ontario Hydro had produced enough heavy water to meet all of its anticipated domestic needs (which were lower than expected due to improved efficiency in the use and recycling of heavy water), so they shut down and demolished half of the capacity of BHWP B. The remaining capacity continued to operate in order to fulfil demand for heavy water exports until it was permanently shut down in 1997, after which the plant was gradually dismantled and the site cleared.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "AECL is currently researching other more efficient and environmentally benign processes for creating heavy water. This is relevant for CANDU reactors since heavy water represented about 15–20% of the total capital cost of each CANDU plant in the 1970s and 1980s.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Since 1996 a plant for production of heavy water was being constructed at Khondab near Arak. On 26 August 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad inaugurated the expansion of the country's heavy-water plant. Iran has indicated that the heavy-water production facility will operate in tandem with a 40 MW research reactor that had a scheduled completion date in 2009.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Iran produced deuterated solvents in early 2011 for the first time.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The core of the IR-40 is supposed to be re-designed based on the nuclear agreement in July 2015.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Iran is permitted to store only 130 tonnes (140 short tons) of heavy water. Iran exports excess production after exceeding their allotment making Iran the world's third largest exporter of heavy water.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In 2023, Iran sells heavy water; customers have proposed a price over 1000 dollars per liter.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The 50 MWth heavy water and natural uranium research reactor at Khushab, in Punjab province, is a central element of Pakistan's program for production of plutonium, deuterium and tritium for advanced compact warheads (i.e. thermonuclear weapons). Pakistan succeeded in acquiring a tritium purification and storage plant and deuterium and tritium precursor materials from two German firms.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Romania produced heavy water at the now-decommissioned Drobeta Girdler sulfide plant for domestic and export purposes.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "France operated a small plant during the 1950s and 1960s.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Heavy water exists in elevated concentration in the hypolimnion of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. It is likely that similar elevated concentrations exist in lakes with similar limnology, but this is only 4% enrichment (24 vs. 28) and surface waters are usually enriched in D2O by evaporation to an even greater extent by faster H2O evaporation.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Deuterium oxide is used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy when using water as solvent if the nuclide of interest is hydrogen. This is because the signal from light-water (H2O) solvent molecules interferes with the signal from the molecule of interest dissolved in it. Deuterium has a different magnetic moment and therefore does not contribute to the H-NMR signal at the hydrogen-1 resonance frequency.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "For some experiments, it may be desirable to identify the labile hydrogens on a compound, that is hydrogens that can easily exchange away as H ions on some positions in a molecule. With addition of D2O, sometimes referred to as a D2O shake, labile hydrogens exchange away and are substituted by deuterium (H) atoms. These positions in the molecule then do not appear in the H-NMR spectrum.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Deuterium oxide is often used as the source of deuterium for preparing specifically labelled isotopologues of organic compounds. For example, C-H bonds adjacent to ketonic carbonyl groups can be replaced by C-D bonds, using acid or base catalysis. Trimethylsulfoxonium iodide, made from dimethyl sulfoxide and methyl iodide can be recrystallized from deuterium oxide, and then dissociated to regenerate methyl iodide and dimethyl sulfoxide, both deuterium labelled. In cases where specific double labelling by deuterium and tritium is contemplated, the researcher must be aware that deuterium oxide, depending upon age and origin, can contain some tritium.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Deuterium oxide is often used instead of water when collecting FTIR spectra of proteins in solution. H2O creates a strong band that overlaps with the amide I region of proteins. The band from D2O is shifted away from the amide I region.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Heavy water is used in certain types of nuclear reactors, where it acts as a neutron moderator to slow down neutrons so that they are more likely to react with the fissile uranium-235 than with uranium-238, which captures neutrons without fissioning. The CANDU reactor uses this design. Light water also acts as a moderator, but because light water absorbs more neutrons than heavy water, reactors using light water for a reactor moderator must use enriched uranium rather than natural uranium, otherwise criticality is impossible. A significant fraction of outdated power reactors, such as the RBMK reactors in the USSR, were constructed using normal water for cooling but graphite as a moderator. However, the danger of graphite in power reactors (graphite fires in part led to the Chernobyl disaster) has led to the discontinuation of graphite in standard reactor designs.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "The breeding and extraction of plutonium can be a relatively rapid and cheap route to building a nuclear weapon, as chemical separation of plutonium from fuel is easier than isotopic separation of U-235 from natural uranium. Among current and past nuclear weapons states, Israel, India, and North Korea first used plutonium from heavy water moderated reactors burning natural uranium, while China, South Africa and Pakistan first built weapons using highly enriched uranium.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The Nazi nuclear program, operating with more modest means than the contemporary Manhattan Project and hampered by many leading scientists having been driven into exile (many of them ending up working for the Manhattan Project), as well as continuous infighting, wrongly dismissed graphite as a moderator due to not recognizing the effect of impurities. Given that isotope separation of uranium was deemed too big a hurdle, this left heavy water as a potential moderator. Other problems were the ideological aversion regarding what propaganda dismissed as \"Jewish physics\" and the mistrust between those who had been enthusiastic Nazis even before 1933 and those who were Mitläufer or trying to keep a low profile. In part due to allied sabotage and commando raids on Norsk Hydro (then the world's largest producer of heavy water) as well as the aforementioned infighting, the German nuclear program never managed to assemble enough uranium and heavy water in one place to achieve criticality despite possessing enough of both by the end of the war.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In the U.S., however, the first experimental atomic reactor (1942), as well as the Manhattan Project Hanford production reactors that produced the plutonium for the Trinity test and Fat Man bombs, all used pure carbon (graphite) neutron moderators combined with normal water cooling pipes. They functioned with neither enriched uranium nor heavy water. Russian and British plutonium production also used graphite-moderated reactors.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "There is no evidence that civilian heavy water power reactors—such as the CANDU or Atucha designs—have been used to produce military fissile materials. In nations that do not already possess nuclear weapons, nuclear material at these facilities is under IAEA safeguards to discourage any diversion.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Due to its potential for use in nuclear weapons programs, the possession or import/export of large industrial quantities of heavy water are subject to government control in several countries. Suppliers of heavy water and heavy water production technology typically apply IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) administered safeguards and material accounting to heavy water. (In Australia, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987.) In the U.S. and Canada, non-industrial quantities of heavy water (i.e., in the gram to kg range) are routinely available without special license through chemical supply dealers and commercial companies such as the world's former major producer Ontario Hydro.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Sudbury, Ontario uses 1,000 tonnes of heavy water on loan from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. The neutrino detector is 6,800 feet (2,100 m) underground in a mine, to shield it from muons produced by cosmic rays. SNO was built to answer the question of whether or not electron-type neutrinos produced by fusion in the Sun (the only type the Sun should be producing directly, according to theory) might be able to turn into other types of neutrinos on the way to Earth. SNO detects the Cherenkov radiation in the water from high-energy electrons produced from electron-type neutrinos as they undergo charged current (CC) interactions with neutrons in deuterium, turning them into protons and electrons (however, only the electrons are fast enough to produce Cherenkov radiation for detection).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "SNO also detects neutrino electron scattering (ES) events, where the neutrino transfers energy to the electron, which then proceeds to generate Cherenkov radiation distinguishable from that produced by CC events. The first of these two reactions is produced only by electron-type neutrinos, while the second can be caused by all of the neutrino flavors. The use of deuterium is critical to the SNO function, because all three \"flavours\" (types) of neutrinos may be detected in a third type of reaction as well, neutrino-disintegration, in which a neutrino of any type (electron, muon, or tau) scatters from a deuterium nucleus (deuteron), transferring enough energy to break up the loosely bound deuteron into a free neutron and proton via a neutral current (NC) interaction.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "This event is detected when the free neutron is absorbed by Cl present from NaCl deliberately dissolved in the heavy water, causing emission of characteristic capture gamma rays. Thus, in this experiment, heavy water not only provides the transparent medium necessary to produce and visualize Cherenkov radiation, but it also provides deuterium to detect exotic mu type (μ) and tau (τ) neutrinos, as well as a non-absorbent moderator medium to preserve free neutrons from this reaction, until they can be absorbed by an easily detected neutron-activated isotope.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Heavy water is employed as part of a mixture with H2O for a common and safe test of mean metabolic rate in humans and animals undergoing their normal activities.The elimination rate of deuterium alone is a measure of body water turnover. This is highly variable between individuals and depends on environmental conditions as well as subject size, sex, age and physical activity.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Tritium is the active substance in self-powered lighting and controlled nuclear fusion, its other uses including autoradiography and radioactive labeling. It is also used in nuclear weapon design for boosted fission weapons and initiators. Tritium undergoes beta decay into Helium-3, which is a stable, but rare, isotope of Helium that is itself highly sought after. Some tritium is created in heavy water moderated reactors when deuterium captures a neutron. This reaction has a small cross-section (probability of a single neutron-capture event) and produces only small amounts of tritium, although enough to justify cleaning tritium from the moderator every few years to reduce the environmental risk of tritium escape. Given that Helium-3 is a neutron poison with orders of magnitude higher capture cross section than any component of heavy or tritiated water, its accumulation in a heavy water neutron moderator or target for tritium production must be kept to a minimum.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Producing a lot of tritium in this way would require reactors with very high neutron fluxes, or with a very high proportion of heavy water to nuclear fuel and very low neutron absorption by other reactor material. The tritium would then have to be recovered by isotope separation from a much larger quantity of deuterium, unlike production from lithium-6 (the present method), where only chemical separation is needed.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Deuterium's absorption cross section for thermal neutrons is 0.52 millibarns (5.2 × 10 m; 1 barn = 10 m), while those of oxygen-16 and oxygen-17 are 0.19 and 0.24 millibarns, respectively. O makes up 0.038% of natural oxygen, making the overall cross section 0.28 millibarns. Therefore, in D2O with natural oxygen, 21% of neutron captures are on oxygen, rising higher as O builds up from neutron capture on O. Also, O may emit an alpha particle on neutron capture, producing radioactive carbon-14.",
"title": "Applications"
}
]
| Heavy water is a form of water whose hydrogen atoms are all deuterium rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of the heavier hydrogen isotope gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase in mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water. Deuterium is a heavy hydrogen isotope. Heavy water contains deuterium atoms and is used in nuclear reactors. Semiheavy water (HDO) is more common than pure heavy water, while heavy-oxygen water is denser but lacks unique properties. Tritiated water is radioactive due to tritium content. Heavy water (D2O) has different physical properties than regular water, such as being 10.6% denser and having a higher melting point. Heavy water is less dissociated at a given temperature, and it does not have the slightly blue color of regular water. While it has no significant taste difference, it can taste slightly sweet. Heavy water affects biological systems by altering enzymes, hydrogen bonds, and cell division in eukaryotes. It can be lethal to multicellular organisms at concentrations over 50%. However, some prokaryotes like bacteria can survive in a heavy hydrogen environment. Heavy water can be toxic to humans, but a large amount would be needed for poisoning to occur. Deuterated water (HDO) occurs naturally in normal water and can be separated through distillation, electrolysis, or chemical exchange processes. The most cost-effective process for producing heavy water is the Girdler sulfide process. Heavy water is used in various industries and is sold in different grades of purity. Some of its applications include nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy, neutron moderation, neutrino detection, metabolic rate testing, neutron capture therapy, and the production of radioactive materials such as plutonium and tritium. | 2001-12-14T02:31:17Z | 2023-12-26T09:27:41Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water |
14,285 | History of science and technology | The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the understanding of the natural world (science) and the ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of and contexts for scientific practices.
History of science is an academic discipline with an international community of specialists. Main professional organizations for this field include the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and the European Society for the History of Science.
Much of the study of the history of science has been devoted to answering questions about what science is, how it functions, and whether it exhibits large-scale patterns and trends.
Histories of science were originally written by practicing and retired scientists, starting primarily with William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), as a way to communicate the virtues of science to the public.
Auguste Comte proposed that there should be a specific discipline to deal with the history of science.
The development of the distinct academic discipline of the history of science and technology did not occur until the early 20th century. Historians have suggested that this was bound to the changing role of science during the same time period.
After World War I, extensive resources were put into teaching and researching the discipline, with the hopes that it would help the public better understand both Science and Technology as they came to play an exceedingly prominent role in the world.
In the decades since the end of World War II, history of science became an academic discipline, with graduate schools, research institutes, public and private patronage, peer-reviewed journals, and professional societies.
In the United States, a more formal study of the history of science as an independent discipline was initiated by George Sarton's publications, Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the journal Isis (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th-century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress.
The study of the history of science continued to be a small effort until the rise of Big Science after World War II. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of science began to become an established subdiscipline of history in the United States.
In the United States, the influential bureaucrat Vannevar Bush, and the president of Harvard, James Conant, both encouraged the study of the history of science as a way of improving general knowledge about how science worked, and why it was essential to maintain a large scientific workforce.
History of science and technology is a well-developed field in India. At least three generations of scholars can be identified. The first generation includes D.D.Kosambi, Dharmpal, Debiprasad Chattopadhyay and Rahman. The second generation mainly consists of Ashis Nandy, Deepak Kumar, Dhruv Raina, S. Irfan Habib, Shiv Visvanathan, Gyan Prakash, Stan Lourdswamy, V.V. Krishna, Itty Abraham, Richard Grove, Kavita Philip, Mira Nanda and Rob Anderson. There is an emergent third generation that includes scholars like Abha Sur and Jahnavi Phalkey.
Departments and Programmes
The National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies had a research group active in the 1990s which consolidated social history of science as a field of research in India. Currently there are several institutes and university departments offering HST programmes.
Ukraine
Academic study of the history of science as an independent discipline was launched by George Sarton at Harvard with his book Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the Isis journal (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress. The History of Science was not a recognized subfield of American history in this period, and most of the work was carried out by interested Scientists and Physicians rather than professional Historians. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of Science became an established subdiscipline of history after 1945.
See also the list of George Sarton medalists.
Historiography of science
History of science as a discipline | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the understanding of the natural world (science) and the ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of and contexts for scientific practices.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "History of science is an academic discipline with an international community of specialists. Main professional organizations for this field include the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and the European Society for the History of Science.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Much of the study of the history of science has been devoted to answering questions about what science is, how it functions, and whether it exhibits large-scale patterns and trends.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Histories of science were originally written by practicing and retired scientists, starting primarily with William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), as a way to communicate the virtues of science to the public.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Auguste Comte proposed that there should be a specific discipline to deal with the history of science.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The development of the distinct academic discipline of the history of science and technology did not occur until the early 20th century. Historians have suggested that this was bound to the changing role of science during the same time period.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After World War I, extensive resources were put into teaching and researching the discipline, with the hopes that it would help the public better understand both Science and Technology as they came to play an exceedingly prominent role in the world.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the decades since the end of World War II, history of science became an academic discipline, with graduate schools, research institutes, public and private patronage, peer-reviewed journals, and professional societies.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the United States, a more formal study of the history of science as an independent discipline was initiated by George Sarton's publications, Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the journal Isis (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th-century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The study of the history of science continued to be a small effort until the rise of Big Science after World War II. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of science began to become an established subdiscipline of history in the United States.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In the United States, the influential bureaucrat Vannevar Bush, and the president of Harvard, James Conant, both encouraged the study of the history of science as a way of improving general knowledge about how science worked, and why it was essential to maintain a large scientific workforce.",
"title": "Academic study of history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "History of science and technology is a well-developed field in India. At least three generations of scholars can be identified. The first generation includes D.D.Kosambi, Dharmpal, Debiprasad Chattopadhyay and Rahman. The second generation mainly consists of Ashis Nandy, Deepak Kumar, Dhruv Raina, S. Irfan Habib, Shiv Visvanathan, Gyan Prakash, Stan Lourdswamy, V.V. Krishna, Itty Abraham, Richard Grove, Kavita Philip, Mira Nanda and Rob Anderson. There is an emergent third generation that includes scholars like Abha Sur and Jahnavi Phalkey.",
"title": "Universities with history of science and technology programs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Departments and Programmes",
"title": "Universities with history of science and technology programs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies had a research group active in the 1990s which consolidated social history of science as a field of research in India. Currently there are several institutes and university departments offering HST programmes.",
"title": "Universities with history of science and technology programs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Ukraine",
"title": "Universities with history of science and technology programs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Academic study of the history of science as an independent discipline was launched by George Sarton at Harvard with his book Introduction to the History of Science (1927) and the Isis journal (founded in 1912). Sarton exemplified the early 20th century view of the history of science as the history of great men and great ideas. He shared with many of his contemporaries a Whiggish belief in history as a record of the advances and delays in the march of progress. The History of Science was not a recognized subfield of American history in this period, and most of the work was carried out by interested Scientists and Physicians rather than professional Historians. With the work of I. Bernard Cohen at Harvard, the history of Science became an established subdiscipline of history after 1945.",
"title": "Universities with history of science and technology programs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "See also the list of George Sarton medalists.",
"title": "Prominent historians of the field"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Historiography of science",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "History of science as a discipline",
"title": "Bibliography"
}
]
| The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history that examines the understanding of the natural world (science) and the ability to manipulate it (technology) at different points in time. This academic discipline also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of and contexts for scientific practices. | 2001-11-04T02:29:49Z | 2023-12-28T16:56:00Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology |
14,286 | Holographic principle | The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string theoretic interpretation by Leonard Susskind, who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. Leonard Susskind said, “The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface." As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence.
The holographic principle was inspired by black hole thermodynamics, which conjectures that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared, and not cubed as might be expected. In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the information content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. The holographic principle resolves the black hole information paradox within the framework of string theory. However, there exist classical solutions to the Einstein equations that allow values of the entropy larger than those allowed by an area law (radius squared), hence in principle larger than those of a black hole. These are the so-called "Wheeler's bags of gold". The existence of such solutions conflicts with the holographic interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity including the holographic principle are not yet fully understood.
The anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality (after ref.) or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) which are used in theories of quantum gravity, formulated in terms of string theory or M-theory. On the other side of the correspondence are conformal field theories (CFT) which are quantum field theories, including theories similar to the Yang–Mills theories that describe elementary particles.
The duality represents a major advance in our understanding of string theory and quantum gravity. This is because it provides a non-perturbative formulation of string theory with certain boundary conditions and because it is the most successful realization of the holographic principle.
It also provides a powerful toolkit for studying strongly coupled quantum field theories. Much of the usefulness of the duality results from the fact that it is a strong-weak duality: when the fields of the quantum field theory are strongly interacting, the ones in the gravitational theory are weakly interacting and thus more mathematically tractable. This fact has been used to study many aspects of nuclear and condensed matter physics by translating problems in those subjects into more mathematically tractable problems in string theory.
The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by Juan Maldacena in late 1997. Important aspects of the correspondence were elaborated in articles by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov, and Alexander Markovich Polyakov, and by Edward Witten. By 2015, Maldacena's article had over 10,000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy physics.
An object with relatively high entropy is microscopically random, like a hot gas. A known configuration of classical fields has zero entropy: there is nothing random about electric and magnetic fields, or gravitational waves. Since black holes are exact solutions of Einstein's equations, they were thought not to have any entropy either.
But Jacob Bekenstein noted that this leads to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If one throws a hot gas with entropy into a black hole, once it crosses the event horizon, the entropy would disappear. The random properties of the gas would no longer be seen once the black hole had absorbed the gas and settled down. One way of salvaging the second law is if black holes are in fact random objects with an entropy that increases by an amount greater than the entropy of the consumed gas.
Given a fixed volume, a black hole whose event horizon encompasses that volume should be the object with the highest amount of entropy. Otherwise, suppose we have something with a larger entropy, then by throwing more mass into that something, we obtain a black hole with less entropy, violating the second law.
In a sphere of radius R, the entropy in a relativistic gas increases as the energy increases. The only known limit is gravitational; when there is too much energy the gas collapses into a black hole. Bekenstein used this to put an upper bound on the entropy in a region of space, and the bound was proportional to the area of the region. He concluded that the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon. Gravitational time dilation causes time, from the perspective of a remote observer, to stop at the event horizon. Due to the natural limit on maximum speed of motion, this prevents falling objects from crossing the event horizon no matter how close they get to it. Since any change in quantum state requires time to flow, all objects and their quantum information state stay imprinted on the event horizon. Bekenstein concluded that from the perspective of any remote observer, the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon.
Stephen Hawking had shown earlier that the total horizon area of a collection of black holes always increases with time. The horizon is a boundary defined by light-like geodesics; it is those light rays that are just barely unable to escape. If neighboring geodesics start moving toward each other they eventually collide, at which point their extension is inside the black hole. So the geodesics are always moving apart, and the number of geodesics which generate the boundary, the area of the horizon, always increases. Hawking's result was called the second law of black hole thermodynamics, by analogy with the law of entropy increase.
At first, Hawking did not take the analogy too seriously. He argued that the black hole must have zero temperature, since black holes do not radiate and therefore cannot be in thermal equilibrium with any black body of positive temperature. Then he discovered that black holes do radiate. When heat is added to a thermal system, the change in entropy is the increase in mass–energy divided by temperature:
(Here the term δM c is substituted for the thermal energy added to the system, generally by non-integrable random processes, in contrast to dS, which is a function of a few "state variables" only, i.e. in conventional thermodynamics only of the Kelvin temperature T and a few additional state variables, such as the pressure.)
If black holes have a finite entropy, they should also have a finite temperature. In particular, they would come to equilibrium with a thermal gas of photons. This means that black holes would not only absorb photons, but they would also have to emit them in the right amount to maintain detailed balance.
Time-independent solutions to field equations do not emit radiation, because a time-independent background conserves energy. Based on this principle, Hawking set out to show that black holes do not radiate. But, to his surprise, a careful analysis convinced him that they do, and in just the right way to come to equilibrium with a gas at a finite temperature. Hawking's calculation fixed the constant of proportionality at 1/4; the entropy of a black hole is one quarter its horizon area in Planck units.
The entropy is proportional to the logarithm of the number of microstates, the enumerated ways a system can be configured microscopically while leaving the macroscopic description unchanged. Black hole entropy is deeply puzzling – it says that the logarithm of the number of states of a black hole is proportional to the area of the horizon, not the volume in the interior.
Later, Raphael Bousso came up with a covariant version of the bound based upon null sheets.
Hawking's calculation suggested that the radiation which black holes emit is not related in any way to the matter that they absorb. The outgoing light rays start exactly at the edge of the black hole and spend a long time near the horizon, while the infalling matter only reaches the horizon much later. The infalling and outgoing mass/energy interact only when they cross. It is implausible that the outgoing state would be completely determined by some tiny residual scattering.
Hawking interpreted this to mean that when black holes absorb some photons in a pure state described by a wave function, they re-emit new photons in a thermal mixed state described by a density matrix. This would mean that quantum mechanics would have to be modified because, in quantum mechanics, states which are superpositions with probability amplitudes never become states which are probabilistic mixtures of different possibilities.
Troubled by this paradox, Gerard 't Hooft analyzed the emission of Hawking radiation in more detail. He noted that when Hawking radiation escapes, there is a way in which incoming particles can modify the outgoing particles. Their gravitational field would deform the horizon of the black hole, and the deformed horizon could produce different outgoing particles than the undeformed horizon. When a particle falls into a black hole, it is boosted relative to an outside observer, and its gravitational field assumes a universal form. 't Hooft showed that this field makes a logarithmic tent-pole shaped bump on the horizon of a black hole, and like a shadow, the bump is an alternative description of the particle's location and mass. For a four-dimensional spherical uncharged black hole, the deformation of the horizon is similar to the type of deformation which describes the emission and absorption of particles on a string-theory world sheet. Since the deformations on the surface are the only imprint of the incoming particle, and since these deformations would have to completely determine the outgoing particles, 't Hooft believed that the correct description of the black hole would be by some form of string theory.
This idea was made more precise by Leonard Susskind, who had also been developing holography, largely independently. Susskind argued that the oscillation of the horizon of a black hole is a complete description of both the infalling and outgoing matter, because the world-sheet theory of string theory was just such a holographic description. While short strings have zero entropy, he could identify long highly excited string states with ordinary black holes. This was a deep advance because it revealed that strings have a classical interpretation in terms of black holes.
This work showed that the black hole information paradox is resolved when quantum gravity is described in an unusual string-theoretic way assuming the string-theoretical description is complete, unambiguous and non-redundant. The space-time in quantum gravity would emerge as an effective description of the theory of oscillations of a lower-dimensional black-hole horizon, and suggest that any black hole with appropriate properties, not just strings, would serve as a basis for a description of string theory.
In 1995, Susskind, along with collaborators Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, and Stephen Shenker, presented a formulation of the new M-theory using a holographic description in terms of charged point black holes, the D0 branes of type IIA string theory. The matrix theory they proposed was first suggested as a description of two branes in 11-dimensional supergravity by Bernard de Wit, Jens Hoppe, and Hermann Nicolai. The later authors reinterpreted the same matrix models as a description of the dynamics of point black holes in particular limits. Holography allowed them to conclude that the dynamics of these black holes give a complete non-perturbative formulation of M-theory. In 1997, Juan Maldacena gave the first holographic descriptions of a higher-dimensional object, the 3+1-dimensional type IIB membrane, which resolved a long-standing problem of finding a string description which describes a gauge theory. These developments simultaneously explained how string theory is related to some forms of supersymmetric quantum field theories.
Information content is defined as the logarithm of the reciprocal of the probability that a system is in a specific microstate, and the information entropy of a system is the expected value of the system's information content. This definition of entropy is equivalent to the standard Gibbs entropy used in classical physics. Applying this definition to a physical system leads to the conclusion that, for a given energy in a given volume, there is an upper limit to the density of information (the Bekenstein bound) about the whereabouts of all the particles which compose matter in that volume. In particular, a given volume has an upper limit of information it can contain, at which it will collapse into a black hole.
This suggests that matter itself cannot be subdivided infinitely many times and there must be an ultimate level of fundamental particles. As the degrees of freedom of a particle are the product of all the degrees of freedom of its sub-particles, were a particle to have infinite subdivisions into lower-level particles, the degrees of freedom of the original particle would be infinite, violating the maximal limit of entropy density. The holographic principle thus implies that the subdivisions must stop at some level.
The most rigorous realization of the holographic principle is the AdS/CFT correspondence by Juan Maldacena. However, J. David Brown and Marc Henneaux had rigorously proved already in 1986, that the asymptotic symmetry of 2+1 dimensional gravity gives rise to a Virasoro algebra, whose corresponding quantum theory is a 2-dimensional conformal field theory.
The physical universe is widely seen to be composed of "matter" and "energy". In his 2003 article published in Scientific American magazine, Jacob Bekenstein speculatively summarized a current trend started by John Archibald Wheeler, which suggests scientists may "regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals". Bekenstein asks "Could we, as William Blake memorably penned, 'see a world in a grain of sand', or is that idea no more than 'poetic license'?", referring to the holographic principle.
Bekenstein's topical overview "A Tale of Two Entropies" describes potentially profound implications of Wheeler's trend, in part by noting a previously unexpected connection between the world of information theory and classical physics. This connection was first described shortly after the seminal 1948 papers of American applied mathematician Claude E. Shannon introduced today's most widely used measure of information content, now known as Shannon entropy. As an objective measure of the quantity of information, Shannon entropy has been enormously useful, as the design of all modern communications and data storage devices, from cellular phones to modems to hard disk drives and DVDs, rely on Shannon entropy.
In thermodynamics (the branch of physics dealing with heat), entropy is popularly described as a measure of the "disorder" in a physical system of matter and energy. In 1877, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann described it more precisely in terms of the number of distinct microscopic states that the particles composing a macroscopic "chunk" of matter could be in, while still "looking" like the same macroscopic "chunk". As an example, for the air in a room, its thermodynamic entropy would equal the logarithm of the count of all the ways that the individual gas molecules could be distributed in the room, and all the ways they could be moving.
Shannon's efforts to find a way to quantify the information contained in, for example, a telegraph message, led him unexpectedly to a formula with the same form as Boltzmann's. In an article in the August 2003 issue of Scientific American titled "Information in the Holographic Universe", Bekenstein summarizes that "Thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy are conceptually equivalent: the number of arrangements that are counted by Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information one would need to implement any particular arrangement" of matter and energy. The only salient difference between the thermodynamic entropy of physics and Shannon's entropy of information is in the units of measure; the former is expressed in units of energy divided by temperature, the latter in essentially dimensionless "bits" of information.
The holographic principle states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information "inscribed" on the surface of its boundary.
The Fermilab physicist Craig Hogan claims that the holographic principle would imply quantum fluctuations in spatial position that would lead to apparent background noise or "holographic noise" measurable at gravitational wave detectors, in particular GEO 600. However these claims have not been widely accepted, or cited, among quantum gravity researchers and appear to be in direct conflict with string theory calculations.
Analyses in 2011 of measurements of gamma ray burst GRB 041219A in 2004 by the INTEGRAL space observatory launched in 2002 by the European Space Agency shows that Craig Hogan's noise is absent down to a scale of 10 meters, as opposed to the scale of 10 meters predicted by Hogan, and the scale of 10 meters found in measurements of the GEO 600 instrument. Research continued at Fermilab under Hogan as of 2013.
Jacob Bekenstein claimed to have found a way to test the holographic principle with a tabletop photon experiment. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string theoretic interpretation by Leonard Susskind, who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. Leonard Susskind said, “The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface.\" As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The holographic principle was inspired by black hole thermodynamics, which conjectures that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared, and not cubed as might be expected. In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the information content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. The holographic principle resolves the black hole information paradox within the framework of string theory. However, there exist classical solutions to the Einstein equations that allow values of the entropy larger than those allowed by an area law (radius squared), hence in principle larger than those of a black hole. These are the so-called \"Wheeler's bags of gold\". The existence of such solutions conflicts with the holographic interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity including the holographic principle are not yet fully understood.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality (after ref.) or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) which are used in theories of quantum gravity, formulated in terms of string theory or M-theory. On the other side of the correspondence are conformal field theories (CFT) which are quantum field theories, including theories similar to the Yang–Mills theories that describe elementary particles.",
"title": "The AdS/CFT correspondence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The duality represents a major advance in our understanding of string theory and quantum gravity. This is because it provides a non-perturbative formulation of string theory with certain boundary conditions and because it is the most successful realization of the holographic principle.",
"title": "The AdS/CFT correspondence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "It also provides a powerful toolkit for studying strongly coupled quantum field theories. Much of the usefulness of the duality results from the fact that it is a strong-weak duality: when the fields of the quantum field theory are strongly interacting, the ones in the gravitational theory are weakly interacting and thus more mathematically tractable. This fact has been used to study many aspects of nuclear and condensed matter physics by translating problems in those subjects into more mathematically tractable problems in string theory.",
"title": "The AdS/CFT correspondence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by Juan Maldacena in late 1997. Important aspects of the correspondence were elaborated in articles by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov, and Alexander Markovich Polyakov, and by Edward Witten. By 2015, Maldacena's article had over 10,000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy physics.",
"title": "The AdS/CFT correspondence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "An object with relatively high entropy is microscopically random, like a hot gas. A known configuration of classical fields has zero entropy: there is nothing random about electric and magnetic fields, or gravitational waves. Since black holes are exact solutions of Einstein's equations, they were thought not to have any entropy either.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "But Jacob Bekenstein noted that this leads to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If one throws a hot gas with entropy into a black hole, once it crosses the event horizon, the entropy would disappear. The random properties of the gas would no longer be seen once the black hole had absorbed the gas and settled down. One way of salvaging the second law is if black holes are in fact random objects with an entropy that increases by an amount greater than the entropy of the consumed gas.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Given a fixed volume, a black hole whose event horizon encompasses that volume should be the object with the highest amount of entropy. Otherwise, suppose we have something with a larger entropy, then by throwing more mass into that something, we obtain a black hole with less entropy, violating the second law.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In a sphere of radius R, the entropy in a relativistic gas increases as the energy increases. The only known limit is gravitational; when there is too much energy the gas collapses into a black hole. Bekenstein used this to put an upper bound on the entropy in a region of space, and the bound was proportional to the area of the region. He concluded that the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon. Gravitational time dilation causes time, from the perspective of a remote observer, to stop at the event horizon. Due to the natural limit on maximum speed of motion, this prevents falling objects from crossing the event horizon no matter how close they get to it. Since any change in quantum state requires time to flow, all objects and their quantum information state stay imprinted on the event horizon. Bekenstein concluded that from the perspective of any remote observer, the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Stephen Hawking had shown earlier that the total horizon area of a collection of black holes always increases with time. The horizon is a boundary defined by light-like geodesics; it is those light rays that are just barely unable to escape. If neighboring geodesics start moving toward each other they eventually collide, at which point their extension is inside the black hole. So the geodesics are always moving apart, and the number of geodesics which generate the boundary, the area of the horizon, always increases. Hawking's result was called the second law of black hole thermodynamics, by analogy with the law of entropy increase.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "At first, Hawking did not take the analogy too seriously. He argued that the black hole must have zero temperature, since black holes do not radiate and therefore cannot be in thermal equilibrium with any black body of positive temperature. Then he discovered that black holes do radiate. When heat is added to a thermal system, the change in entropy is the increase in mass–energy divided by temperature:",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "(Here the term δM c is substituted for the thermal energy added to the system, generally by non-integrable random processes, in contrast to dS, which is a function of a few \"state variables\" only, i.e. in conventional thermodynamics only of the Kelvin temperature T and a few additional state variables, such as the pressure.)",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "If black holes have a finite entropy, they should also have a finite temperature. In particular, they would come to equilibrium with a thermal gas of photons. This means that black holes would not only absorb photons, but they would also have to emit them in the right amount to maintain detailed balance.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Time-independent solutions to field equations do not emit radiation, because a time-independent background conserves energy. Based on this principle, Hawking set out to show that black holes do not radiate. But, to his surprise, a careful analysis convinced him that they do, and in just the right way to come to equilibrium with a gas at a finite temperature. Hawking's calculation fixed the constant of proportionality at 1/4; the entropy of a black hole is one quarter its horizon area in Planck units.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The entropy is proportional to the logarithm of the number of microstates, the enumerated ways a system can be configured microscopically while leaving the macroscopic description unchanged. Black hole entropy is deeply puzzling – it says that the logarithm of the number of states of a black hole is proportional to the area of the horizon, not the volume in the interior.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Later, Raphael Bousso came up with a covariant version of the bound based upon null sheets.",
"title": "Black hole entropy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hawking's calculation suggested that the radiation which black holes emit is not related in any way to the matter that they absorb. The outgoing light rays start exactly at the edge of the black hole and spend a long time near the horizon, while the infalling matter only reaches the horizon much later. The infalling and outgoing mass/energy interact only when they cross. It is implausible that the outgoing state would be completely determined by some tiny residual scattering.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hawking interpreted this to mean that when black holes absorb some photons in a pure state described by a wave function, they re-emit new photons in a thermal mixed state described by a density matrix. This would mean that quantum mechanics would have to be modified because, in quantum mechanics, states which are superpositions with probability amplitudes never become states which are probabilistic mixtures of different possibilities.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Troubled by this paradox, Gerard 't Hooft analyzed the emission of Hawking radiation in more detail. He noted that when Hawking radiation escapes, there is a way in which incoming particles can modify the outgoing particles. Their gravitational field would deform the horizon of the black hole, and the deformed horizon could produce different outgoing particles than the undeformed horizon. When a particle falls into a black hole, it is boosted relative to an outside observer, and its gravitational field assumes a universal form. 't Hooft showed that this field makes a logarithmic tent-pole shaped bump on the horizon of a black hole, and like a shadow, the bump is an alternative description of the particle's location and mass. For a four-dimensional spherical uncharged black hole, the deformation of the horizon is similar to the type of deformation which describes the emission and absorption of particles on a string-theory world sheet. Since the deformations on the surface are the only imprint of the incoming particle, and since these deformations would have to completely determine the outgoing particles, 't Hooft believed that the correct description of the black hole would be by some form of string theory.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "This idea was made more precise by Leonard Susskind, who had also been developing holography, largely independently. Susskind argued that the oscillation of the horizon of a black hole is a complete description of both the infalling and outgoing matter, because the world-sheet theory of string theory was just such a holographic description. While short strings have zero entropy, he could identify long highly excited string states with ordinary black holes. This was a deep advance because it revealed that strings have a classical interpretation in terms of black holes.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "This work showed that the black hole information paradox is resolved when quantum gravity is described in an unusual string-theoretic way assuming the string-theoretical description is complete, unambiguous and non-redundant. The space-time in quantum gravity would emerge as an effective description of the theory of oscillations of a lower-dimensional black-hole horizon, and suggest that any black hole with appropriate properties, not just strings, would serve as a basis for a description of string theory.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1995, Susskind, along with collaborators Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, and Stephen Shenker, presented a formulation of the new M-theory using a holographic description in terms of charged point black holes, the D0 branes of type IIA string theory. The matrix theory they proposed was first suggested as a description of two branes in 11-dimensional supergravity by Bernard de Wit, Jens Hoppe, and Hermann Nicolai. The later authors reinterpreted the same matrix models as a description of the dynamics of point black holes in particular limits. Holography allowed them to conclude that the dynamics of these black holes give a complete non-perturbative formulation of M-theory. In 1997, Juan Maldacena gave the first holographic descriptions of a higher-dimensional object, the 3+1-dimensional type IIB membrane, which resolved a long-standing problem of finding a string description which describes a gauge theory. These developments simultaneously explained how string theory is related to some forms of supersymmetric quantum field theories.",
"title": "Black hole information paradox"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Information content is defined as the logarithm of the reciprocal of the probability that a system is in a specific microstate, and the information entropy of a system is the expected value of the system's information content. This definition of entropy is equivalent to the standard Gibbs entropy used in classical physics. Applying this definition to a physical system leads to the conclusion that, for a given energy in a given volume, there is an upper limit to the density of information (the Bekenstein bound) about the whereabouts of all the particles which compose matter in that volume. In particular, a given volume has an upper limit of information it can contain, at which it will collapse into a black hole.",
"title": "Limit on information density"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "This suggests that matter itself cannot be subdivided infinitely many times and there must be an ultimate level of fundamental particles. As the degrees of freedom of a particle are the product of all the degrees of freedom of its sub-particles, were a particle to have infinite subdivisions into lower-level particles, the degrees of freedom of the original particle would be infinite, violating the maximal limit of entropy density. The holographic principle thus implies that the subdivisions must stop at some level.",
"title": "Limit on information density"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The most rigorous realization of the holographic principle is the AdS/CFT correspondence by Juan Maldacena. However, J. David Brown and Marc Henneaux had rigorously proved already in 1986, that the asymptotic symmetry of 2+1 dimensional gravity gives rise to a Virasoro algebra, whose corresponding quantum theory is a 2-dimensional conformal field theory.",
"title": "Limit on information density"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The physical universe is widely seen to be composed of \"matter\" and \"energy\". In his 2003 article published in Scientific American magazine, Jacob Bekenstein speculatively summarized a current trend started by John Archibald Wheeler, which suggests scientists may \"regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals\". Bekenstein asks \"Could we, as William Blake memorably penned, 'see a world in a grain of sand', or is that idea no more than 'poetic license'?\", referring to the holographic principle.",
"title": "High-level summary"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Bekenstein's topical overview \"A Tale of Two Entropies\" describes potentially profound implications of Wheeler's trend, in part by noting a previously unexpected connection between the world of information theory and classical physics. This connection was first described shortly after the seminal 1948 papers of American applied mathematician Claude E. Shannon introduced today's most widely used measure of information content, now known as Shannon entropy. As an objective measure of the quantity of information, Shannon entropy has been enormously useful, as the design of all modern communications and data storage devices, from cellular phones to modems to hard disk drives and DVDs, rely on Shannon entropy.",
"title": "High-level summary"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In thermodynamics (the branch of physics dealing with heat), entropy is popularly described as a measure of the \"disorder\" in a physical system of matter and energy. In 1877, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann described it more precisely in terms of the number of distinct microscopic states that the particles composing a macroscopic \"chunk\" of matter could be in, while still \"looking\" like the same macroscopic \"chunk\". As an example, for the air in a room, its thermodynamic entropy would equal the logarithm of the count of all the ways that the individual gas molecules could be distributed in the room, and all the ways they could be moving.",
"title": "High-level summary"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Shannon's efforts to find a way to quantify the information contained in, for example, a telegraph message, led him unexpectedly to a formula with the same form as Boltzmann's. In an article in the August 2003 issue of Scientific American titled \"Information in the Holographic Universe\", Bekenstein summarizes that \"Thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy are conceptually equivalent: the number of arrangements that are counted by Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information one would need to implement any particular arrangement\" of matter and energy. The only salient difference between the thermodynamic entropy of physics and Shannon's entropy of information is in the units of measure; the former is expressed in units of energy divided by temperature, the latter in essentially dimensionless \"bits\" of information.",
"title": "High-level summary"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The holographic principle states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information \"inscribed\" on the surface of its boundary.",
"title": "High-level summary"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Fermilab physicist Craig Hogan claims that the holographic principle would imply quantum fluctuations in spatial position that would lead to apparent background noise or \"holographic noise\" measurable at gravitational wave detectors, in particular GEO 600. However these claims have not been widely accepted, or cited, among quantum gravity researchers and appear to be in direct conflict with string theory calculations.",
"title": "Experimental tests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Analyses in 2011 of measurements of gamma ray burst GRB 041219A in 2004 by the INTEGRAL space observatory launched in 2002 by the European Space Agency shows that Craig Hogan's noise is absent down to a scale of 10 meters, as opposed to the scale of 10 meters predicted by Hogan, and the scale of 10 meters found in measurements of the GEO 600 instrument. Research continued at Fermilab under Hogan as of 2013.",
"title": "Experimental tests"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Jacob Bekenstein claimed to have found a way to test the holographic principle with a tabletop photon experiment.",
"title": "Experimental tests"
}
]
| The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string theoretic interpretation by Leonard Susskind, who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. Leonard Susskind said, “The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface." As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence. The holographic principle was inspired by black hole thermodynamics, which conjectures that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared, and not cubed as might be expected. In the case of a black hole, the insight was that the information content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. The holographic principle resolves the black hole information paradox within the framework of string theory.
However, there exist classical solutions to the Einstein equations that allow values of the entropy larger than those allowed by an area law, hence in principle larger than those of a black hole. These are the so-called "Wheeler's bags of gold". The existence of such solutions conflicts with the holographic interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity including the holographic principle are not yet fully understood. | 2002-02-07T18:54:21Z | 2023-12-14T19:22:54Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle |
14,288 | Hamilton, Ontario | Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which encompasses Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is situated approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) southwest of Toronto in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).
Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, the town of Hamilton became the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe. On January 1, 2001, the current boundaries of Hamilton were created through the amalgamation of the original city with other municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth. Residents of the city are known as Hamiltonians.
Traditionally, the local economy has been led by the steel and heavy manufacturing industries. During the 2010s, a shift toward the service sector occurred, such as health and sciences. Hamilton is home to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Bruce Trail, McMaster University, Mohawk College, and Redeemer University. McMaster University is ranked 4th in Canada and 69th in the world by Times Higher Education Rankings 2021.
In pre-colonial times, the Neutral First Nation used much of the land. They were gradually driven out by the Five (later Six) Nations (Iroquois) who were allied with the British against the Huron and their French allies. The hamlet of Westover was built in an area that was originally a Seneca Iroquois tribal village, Tinawatawa, which was first visited by the French in September 1699.
After the American Revolutionary War, about 10,000 United Empire Loyalists left the United States to settle in Upper Canada, now southern Ontario. In 1792, the Crown purchased the land on which Hamilton now stands from the Mississaugas in Treaty 3, also known as the Between the Lakes Purchase. The Crown granted the Loyalists lands from this purchase to encourage settlement in the region. These new settlers were soon followed by many more Americans, attracted by the availability of inexpensive, arable land. At the same time, large numbers of Iroquois who had allied with Britain arrived from the United States and were settled on reserves west of Lake Ontario as compensation for lands they lost in what was now the United States. During the War of 1812, British regulars and local militia defeated invading American troops at the Battle of Stoney Creek, fought in what is now a park in eastern Hamilton.
The town of Hamilton was conceived by George Hamilton (a son of a Queenston entrepreneur and founder, Robert Hamilton), when he purchased farm holdings of James Durand, the local member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, shortly after the War of 1812. Nathaniel Hughson, a property owner to the north, cooperated with George Hamilton to prepare a proposal for a courthouse and jail on Hamilton's property. Hamilton offered the land to the crown for the future site. Durand was empowered by Hughson and Hamilton to sell property holdings which later became the site of the town. As he had been instructed, Durand circulated the offers at York during a session of the Legislative Assembly, which established a new Gore District, of which the Hamilton townsite was a member.
Initially, this town was not the most important centre of the Gore District. An early indication of Hamilton's sudden prosperity occurred in 1816 when it was chosen over Ancaster, Ontario to be the new Gore District's administrative centre. Another dramatic economic turnabout for Hamilton occurred in 1832 when a canal was finally cut through the outer sand bar that enabled Hamilton to become a major port. A permanent jail was not constructed until 1832, when a cut-stone design was completed on Prince's Square, one of the two squares created in 1816. Subsequently, the first police board and the town limits were defined by statute on February 13, 1833. Official city status was achieved on June 9, 1846, by an act of Parliament of the Province of Canada.
By 1845, the population was 6,475. In 1846, there were useful roads to many communities as well as stagecoaches and steamboats to Toronto, Queenston, and Niagara. Eleven cargo schooners were owned in Hamilton. Eleven churches were in operation. A reading room provided access to newspapers from other cities and from England and the U.S. In addition to stores of all types, four banks, tradesmen of various types, and sixty-five taverns, industry in the community included three breweries, ten importers of dry goods and groceries, five importers of hardware, two tanneries, three coachmakers, and a marble and a stone works.
As the city grew, several prominent buildings were constructed in the late 19th century, including the Grand Lodge of Canada in 1855, West Flamboro Methodist Church in 1879 (later purchased by Dufferin Masonic Lodge in 1893), a public library in 1890, and the Right House department store in 1893. The first commercial telephone service in Canada, the first telephone exchange in the British Empire, and the second telephone exchange in all of North America were each established in the city between 1877 and 1878. The city had several interurban electric street railways and two inclines, all powered by the Cataract Power Co.
Though suffering through the Hamilton Street Railway strike of 1906, with industrial businesses expanding, Hamilton's population doubled between 1900 and 1914. Two steel manufacturing companies, Stelco and Dofasco, were formed in 1910 and 1912, respectively. Procter & Gamble and the Beech-Nut Packing Company opened manufacturing plants in 1914 and 1922, respectively, their first outside the US. In June and July 1916, the a strike of up to 2,000 machinists was caused by a failure of employers to improve working conditions or pay during a booming World War I economy. The strike disrupted production at many of the largest manufacturers and was the largest dispute in the city's history. Population and economic growth continued until the 1960s. In 1929 the city's first high-rise building, the Pigott Building, was constructed; in 1930 McMaster University moved from Toronto to Hamilton, in 1934 the second Canadian Tire store in Canada opened here; in 1940 the airport was completed; and in 1948, the Studebaker assembly line was constructed. Infrastructure and retail development continued, with the Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway opening in 1958, and the first Tim Hortons store in 1964.
Since then, many of the large industries have moved or shut down operations in a restructuring that also affected the United States. In 1997, there was a devastating fire at the Plastimet plastics plant. Approximately 300 firefighters battled the blaze, and many sustained severe chemical burns and inhaled volatile organic compounds when at least 400 tonnes of PVC plastic were consumed in the fire.
On January 1, 2001, the new city of Hamilton was formed from the amalgamation of Hamilton and its five neighbouring municipalities: Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook, and Stoney Creek. Before amalgamation, the "old" City of Hamilton had 331,121 residents and was divided into 100 neighbourhoods. The former region of Hamilton-Wentworth had a population of 490,268. The amalgamation created a single-tier municipal government ending subsidization of its suburbs. The new amalgamated city had 519,949 people in more than 100 neighbourhoods, and surrounding communities.
The city was impacted by a widespread blackout in 2003 and a tornado in 2005. In 2007, the Red Hill Valley Parkway opened after extensive delays. The Stelco mills were idled in 2010 and permanently closed in 2013. This closure capped a significant shift in the city's economy: the percentage of the population employed in manufacturing declined from 22 to 12 percent between 2003 and 2013.
Hamilton is in Southern Ontario on the western end of the Niagara Peninsula and wraps around the westernmost part of Lake Ontario; most of the city, including the downtown section, is on the south shore. Hamilton is in the geographic centre of the Golden Horseshoe. Its major physical features are Hamilton Harbour, marking the northern limit of the city, and the Niagara Escarpment running through the middle of the city across its entire breadth, bisecting the city into "upper" and "lower" parts. The maximum high point is 250m (820') above the level of Lake Ontario.
According to all records from local historians, this district was called Attiwandaronia by the native Neutral people. Hamilton is one of 11 cities showcased in the book, Green City: People, Nature & Urban Places by Quebec author Mary Soderstrom, which examines the city as an example of an industrial powerhouse co-existing with nature. Soderstrom credits Thomas McQuesten and family in the 1930s who "became champions of parks, greenspace and roads" in Hamilton.
Hamilton Harbour is a natural harbour with a large sandbar called the Beachstrip. This sandbar was deposited during a period of higher lake levels during the last ice age and extends southeast through the central lower city to the escarpment. Hamilton's deep sea port is accessed by ship canal through the beach strip into the harbour and is traversed by two bridges, the QEW's Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway and the lower Canal Lift Bridge.
Between 1788 and 1793, the townships at the Head-of-the-Lake were surveyed and named. The area was first known as The Head-of-the-Lake for its location at the western end of Lake Ontario. John Ryckman, born in Barton township (where present day downtown Hamilton is), described the area in 1803 as he remembered it: "The city in 1803 was all forest. The shores of the bay were difficult to reach or see because they were hidden by a thick, almost impenetrable mass of trees and undergrowth".
George Hamilton, a settler and local politician, established a town site in the northern portion of Barton Township in 1815. He kept several east–west roads which were originally Indian trails, but the north–south streets were on a regular grid pattern. Streets were designated "East" or "West" if they crossed James Street or Highway 6. Streets were designated "North" or "South" if they crossed King Street or Highway 8. The townsite's design, likely conceived in 1816, was commonplace. George Hamilton employed a grid street pattern used in most towns in Upper Canada and throughout the American frontier. The eighty original lots had frontages of fifty feet; each lot faced a broad street and backed onto a twelve-foot lane. It took at least a decade to sell all the original lots, but the construction of the Burlington Canal in 1823, and a new court-house in 1827 encouraged Hamilton to add more blocks around 1828–9. At this time he included a market square in an effort to draw commercial activity onto his lands, but the town's natural growth occurred to the north of Hamilton's plot.
The Hamilton Conservation Authority owns, leases or manages about 4,500 hectares (11,100 acres) of land with the city operating 1,077 hectares (2,661 acres) of parkland at 310 locations. Many of the parks are along the Niagara Escarpment, which runs from Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula in the north, to Queenston at the Niagara River in the south, and provides views of the cities and towns at Lake Ontario's western end. The hiking path Bruce Trail runs the length of the escarpment. Hamilton is home to more than 100 waterfalls and cascades, most of which are on or near the Bruce Trail as it winds through the Niagara Escarpment. Visitors can often be seen swimming in the waterfalls during the summertime, although it is strongly recommended to stay away from the water: much of the watershed of the Chedoke and Red Hill creeks originates in storm sewers running beneath neighbourhoods atop the Niagara escarpment, and water quality in many of Hamilton's waterfalls is seriously degraded. High e. coli counts are regularly observed through testing by McMaster University near many of Hamilton's waterfalls, sometimes exceeding the provincial limits for recreational water use by as much as 400 times. The storm sewers in upstream neighbourhoods carry polluted runoff from streets and parking lots, as well as occasional raw sewage from sanitary lines that were improperly connected to the storm sewers instead of the separate sanitary sewer system. Notably, in March 2020, it was revealed that as much as 24 billion litres of untreated wastewater has been leaking into the Chedoke creek and Cootes' Paradise areas since at least 2014 due to insufficiencies in the city's sewerage and storm water management systems.
Hamilton's climate is humid-continental, characterized by changeable weather patterns. In the Köppen classification, Hamilton it is on the Dfb/Dfa border found in southern Ontario because the average temperature in July is 22.0 °C (71.6 °F). However, its climate is moderate compared with most of Canada. The airport's open, rural location and higher altitude results in lower temperatures, generally windier conditions, and higher snowfall amounts than lower, built-up areas of the city. The highest temperature ever recorded in Hamilton was 41.1 °C (106 °F) on July 14, 1868. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −30.6 °C (−23 °F) on January 25, 1884. In 2023, it was found that the city has areas of poor air quality with a high concentration of benzo(a)pyrene, particularly in neighbourhoods near industrial sites.
Manufacturing is important to Ontario's economy, and the Toronto–Hamilton region is Canada's most industrialized area. The area from Oshawa, Ontario around the west end of Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls, with Hamilton at its centre, is known as the Golden Horseshoe and had a population of approximately 8.1 million people in 2006.
With sixty percent of Canada's steel produced in Hamilton by Stelco and Dofasco, the city has become known as the Steel Capital of Canada. After nearly declaring bankruptcy, Stelco returned to profitability in 2004. On August 26, 2007 United States Steel Corporation acquired Stelco for C$38.50 in cash per share, owning more than 76 percent of Stelco's outstanding shares. On September 17, 2014, US Steel Canada announced it was applying for bankruptcy protection and it would close its Hamilton operations.
A stand-alone subsidiary of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel producer, Dofasco produces products for the automotive, construction, energy, manufacturing, pipe and tube, appliance, packaging, and steel distribution industries. It has approximately 7,300 employees at its Hamilton plant, and the four million tons of steel it produces each year is about 30% of Canada's flat-rolled sheet steel shipments. Dofasco was North America's most profitable steel producer in 1999, the most profitable in Canada in 2000, and a long-time member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. Ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice to divest itself of the Canadian company, ArcelorMittal has been allowed to retain Dofasco provided it sells several of its American assets.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Hamilton had a population of 569,353 living in 222,807 of its 233,564 total private dwellings, a change of 6% from its 2016 population of 536,917. With a land area of 1,118.31 km (431.78 sq mi), it had a population density of 509.1/km (1,318.6/sq mi) in 2021.
At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the Hamilton CMA had a population of 785,184 living in 307,382 of its 320,081 total private dwellings, a change of 5% from its 2016 population of 747,545. With a land area of 1,373.15 km (530.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 571.8/km (1,481.0/sq mi) in 2021.
In the 2016 Canadian census, 24.69% of the city's population was not born in Canada. Hamilton is home to 26,330 immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2010 and 13,150 immigrants who arrived between 2011 and 2016. In February 2014, the city's council voted to declare Hamilton a sanctuary city, offering municipal services to undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.
Children aged 14 years and under accounted for 16.23% of the city's population, a decline of 1.57% from the 2011 census. Hamiltonians aged 65 years and older constituted 17.3% of the population, an increase of 2.4% since 2011. The city's average age is 41.3 years. 54.9% of Hamiltonians are married or in a common-law relationship, while 6.4% of city residents are divorced. Same-sex couples (married or in common-law relationships) constitute 0.8% (2,710 individuals) of the partnered population in Hamilton.
Environics Analytics, a geodemographic marketing firm that created 66 different "clusters" of people complete with profiles of how they live, what they think and what they consume, sees a future Hamilton with younger upscale Hamiltonians — who are tech-savvy and university-educated — choosing to live in the downtown and surrounding areas rather than just visiting intermittently. More two and three-storey townhouses and apartments will be built on downtown lots; small condos will be built on vacant spaces in areas such as Dundas, Ainslie Wood and Westdale to accommodate newly retired seniors. Furthermore, additional retail and commercial zones will be created.
Hamilton maintains significant Italian, English, Scottish, German and Irish ancestry. 130,705 Hamiltonians claim English heritage, while 98,765 indicate their ancestors arrived from Scotland, 87,825 from Ireland, 62,335 from Italy, and 50,400 from Germany. The top countries of birth for the newcomers living in Hamilton in the 1990s were: former Yugoslavia, Poland, India, China, the Philippines, and Iraq.
Hamilton also has a notable French community for which provincial services are offered in French. In Ontario, urban centres where there are at least 5,000 Francophones are designated areas where bilingual provincial services have to be offered. As per the 2016 census, the Francophone community maintains a population of 6,760, while 30,530 residents, or 5.8% of the city's population, have knowledge of both official languages. The Franco-Ontarian community of Hamilton boasts two school boards, the public Conseil scolaire Viamonde and the Catholic Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, which operate five schools (2 secondary and 3 elementary). Additionally, the city maintains a Francophone community health centre that is part of the LHIN (Centre de santé communautaire Hamilton/Niagara), a cultural centre (Centre français Hamilton), three daycare centres, a provincially funded employment centre (Options Emploi), a community college site (Collège Boréal) and a community organization that supports the development of the francophone community in Hamilton (ACFO Régionale Hamilton).
According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Hamilton included:
The most described religion in Hamilton is Christianity although other religions brought by immigrants are also growing. The 2011 census indicates that 67.6% of the population adheres to a Christian denomination, with Catholics being the largest at 34.3% of the city's population. The Christ the King Cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of Hamilton. Other denominations include the United Church (6.5%), Anglican (6.4%), Presbyterian (3.1%), Christian Orthodox (2.9%), and other denominations (9.8%). Other religions with significant populations include Islam (3.7%), Buddhist (0.9%), Sikh (0.8%), Hindu (0.8%), and Jewish (0.7%). Those with no religious affiliation accounted for 24.9% of the population.
Citizens of Hamilton are represented at all three levels of Canadian government: federal, provincial, and municipal. Hamilton is represented in the Parliament of Canada by five members of Parliament and in the Legislature of Ontario by five members of Provincial Parliament.
Hamilton's municipal government has a mayor, elected citywide, and 15 city councillors—one per city ward—to serve on the Hamilton City Council. The province grants the Hamilton City Council authority to govern through the Municipal Act of Ontario. Hamilton's current mayor is Andrea Horwath, elected on October 24, 2022. Hamilton's next municipal election will be held in 2026.
Hamilton is served by four school boards: the English language Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board and the French language Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir. Each school board is governed by trustees. The English language school boards are represented by trustees elected from wards in Hamilton. The HWDSB has 11 trustees and the HWCDB has 9 trustees. The French language school boards are represented by one trustee each from Hamilton and the surrounding area.
The Canadian Military maintains a presence in Hamilton, with the John Weir Foote Armoury in the downtown core on James Street North, housing the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry as well as the 11th Field Hamilton-Wentworth Battery and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. The Hamilton Reserve Barracks on Pier Nine houses the naval reserve division HMCS Star, 23 Service Battalion and the 23 Field Ambulance.
The Criminal Code of Canada is the chief piece of legislation defining criminal conduct and penalty. The Hamilton Police Service is chiefly responsible for the enforcement of federal and provincial law. Although the Hamilton Police Service has authority to enforce, bylaws passed by the Hamilton City Council are mainly enforced by Provincial Offences Officers employed by the City of Hamilton.
In 2020, the city saw 18 murders and 51 shootings (up from 47 in 2019), the most shootings the city seen in at least a decade. 2021 saw the homicides in the city increase to 20, giving the city a rate of around 3.5 per 100,000 residents. Hamilton ranked first in Canada for police-reported hate crimes in 2016, with 12.5 hate crimes per 100,000 population. Organized crime also has a notable presence in Hamilton with three centralized Mafia organizations: the Luppino crime family, the Papalia crime family, and the Musitano crime family. Street gangs such as the Original/Oriental Blood Brothers & the Oriole Crescent Crips, and biker crews such as Satan's Choice MC and the Hells Angels also have presence in Hamilton.
Hamilton's local attractions include the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the HMCS Haida National Historic Site, Dundurn Castle (the residence of an Allan MacNab, the 8th Premier of Canada West), the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the African Lion Safari Park, the Cathedral of Christ the King, the Workers' Arts and Heritage Centre, and the Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology.
As of September 2018, there are 40 pieces in the city's Public Art Collection. The works are owned and maintained by the city. Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is Ontario's third largest public art gallery. The gallery has over 9,000 works in its permanent collection that focus on three areas: 19th-century European, Historical Canadian and Contemporary Canadian. The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA), founded at McMaster University in 1967, houses and exhibits the university's art collection of more than 7,000 objects.
Supercrawl is a large community arts and music festival that takes place in September in the James Street North area of the city. In 2018, Supercrawl celebrated its 10th anniversary with over 220,000 visitors. In March 2015, Hamilton was host to the JUNO Awards.
Growth in the arts and culture sector has garnered media attention for Hamilton. A 2006 article in The Globe and Mail, entitled "Go West, Young Artist", focused on Hamilton's growing art scene. The Factory: Hamilton Media Arts Centre, opened a new home on James Street North in 2006. Art galleries have sprung up on streets across the city: James Street, King William Street, Locke Street and King Street. The opening of the Downtown Arts Centre on Rebecca Street has spurred creative activities in the core. The Community Centre for Media Arts (CCMA) continues to operate in downtown Hamilton. The CCMA works with marginalized populations and combines new media services with arts education and skills development programming.
Hamilton hosted Canada's first major international athletic event, the first Commonwealth Games (then called the British Empire Games) in 1930. Hamilton bid for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 but lost to New Delhi. On November 7, 2009, in Guadalajara, Mexico, it was announced Toronto would host the 2015 Pan Am Games after beating out two rival South American cities, Lima, Peru, and Bogotá, Colombia. The city of Hamilton co-hosted the Games with Toronto. Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger said "the Pan Am Games will provide a 'unique opportunity for Hamilton to renew major sport facilities giving Hamiltonians a multi-purpose stadium, a 50-metre swimming pool, and an international-calibre velodrome to enjoy for generations to come'." Hamilton's major sports complexes include Tim Hortons Field and FirstOntario Centre.
Hamilton is represented by the Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League. The team traces its origins to the 1869 "Hamilton Foot Ball Club". Hamilton is also home to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame museum. The museum hosts an annual induction event in a week-long celebration that includes school visits, a golf tournament, a formal induction dinner and concludes with the Hall of Fame game involving the local CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Tim Hortons Field. The 109th championship game of the Canadian Football League, the Grey Cup, is scheduled to be played in Hamilton in 2021.
In 2019, Forge FC debuted as Hamilton's soccer team in the Canadian Premier League. The team plays at Tim Hortons Field and shares the venue with the Tiger-Cats. They finished their inaugural season as champions of the league.
In 2019, the Hamilton Honey Badgers debuted as Hamilton's basketball team in the Canadian Elite Basketball League. The team played its home games at the FirstOntario Centre. In 2022, the Honey Badgers relocated to Brampton, Ontario due to the renovations occurring at FirstOntarioCentre.
Since 1958, the Hamilton Cardinals have been Hamilton's baseball team in the Intercounty Baseball League. The team has played its home games at Bernie Arbour Memorial Stadium since 1971.
The Around the Bay Road Race circumnavigates Hamilton Harbour. Although it is not a marathon distance, it is the longest continuously held long-distance foot race in North America. The local newspaper also hosts the amateur Spectator Indoor Games.
In addition to team sports, Hamilton is home to an auto race track, Flamboro Speedway and Canada's fastest half-mile harness horse racing track, Flamboro Downs. Another auto race track, Cayuga International Speedway, is near Hamilton in the Haldimand County community of Nelles Corners, between Hagersville and Cayuga.
Hamilton is home to several post-secondary institutions.
Four school boards administer public education for students from kindergarten through high school. The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board manages 93 public schools, while the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board operates 57 schools in the greater Hamilton area. The Conseil scolaire Viamonde operates one elementary and one secondary school (École secondaire Georges-P.-Vanier) in the area, and the Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates two elementary schools and one secondary school.
Calvin Christian School, Providence Christian School and Timothy Christian School are independent Christian elementary schools. Hamilton District Christian High School, Rehoboth Christian High School and Guido de Bres Christian High School are independent Christian high schools in the area. Both HDCH and Guido de Brès participate in the city's interscholastic athletics. Hillfield Strathallan College is on the West Hamilton mountain and is a CAIS member, non-profit school for children from early Montessori ages through grade twelve and has around 1,300 students. Columbia International College is Canada's largest private boarding high school, with 1,700 students from 73 countries.
The Dundas Valley School of Art is an independent art school founded in the city in 1964. In 1998, as a joint venture with McMaster University, a full-time diploma program was launched for students. The Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts is home to many of the area's young actors, dancers, musicians, singers and visual artists. The school is known for having a keyboard studio, dance studios, art and sculpting studios, gallery space and a 300-seat recital hall.
Hamilton is home to two think tanks, the Centre for Cultural Renewal and Cardus, which deals with social architecture, culture, urbanology, economics and education and also publishes the LexView Policy Journal and Comment Magazine.
The primary highways serving Hamilton are Highway 403, the QEW, the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, and the Red Hill Valley Parkway. Other highways connecting Hamilton include Highway 5, Highway 6 and Highway 8. Public transportation is provided by the Hamilton Street Railway, which operates an extensive local bus system. Hamilton and Metrolinx will build a provincially-funded LRT line (Hamilton LRT) in the early 2020s. Intercity public transportation, including frequent service to Toronto, is provided by GO Transit. The Hamilton GO Centre, formerly the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway station, is a commuter rail station on the Lakeshore West line of GO Transit. While Hamilton is not directly served by intercity rail, the Lakeshore West line does offer an off-peak bus connection and a peak-hours rail connection to Aldershot station in Burlington, which doubles as the VIA Rail station for both Burlington and Hamilton.
In the 1940s, the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport was a wartime air force training station. Today, managed by TradePort International Corporation, passenger traffic at the Hamilton terminal has grown from 90,000 in 1996 to approximately 900,000 in 2002 with mostly domestic and vacation destinations in the United States, Mexico and Central America. The airport's mid-term growth target for its passenger service is five million air travellers annually. The airport's air cargo sector has 24–7 operational capability and strategic geographic location, allowing its capacity to increase by 50% since 1996; 91,000 metric tonnes (100,000 tons) of cargo passed through the airport in 2002. Courier companies with operations at the airport include United Parcel Service and Cargojet Canada. In 2003, the city began developing a 30-year growth management strategy which called, in part, for a massive aerotropolis industrial park centred on Hamilton Airport. Advocates of the aerotropolis proposal, now known as the Airport Employment Growth District, tout it as a solution to the city's shortage of employment lands. The closest other international airport to Hamilton is Toronto Pearson International Airport, located northeast of the city in Mississauga.
A report by Hemson Consulting identified an opportunity to develop 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of greenfields (the size of the Royal Botanical Gardens) that could create an estimated 90,000 jobs by 2031. A proposed aerotropolis industrial park at Highway 6 and 403, has been debated at City Hall for years. Opponents feel the city needs to do more investigation about the cost to taxpayers.
Hamilton also plays a major role in Ontario's marine shipping industry as the Port of Hamilton is Ontario's busiest port handling between 9 and 12 million tonnes of cargo annually.
The city is served by the Hamilton Health Sciences hospital network of five hospitals with more than 1,100 beds: Hamilton General Hospital, Juravinski Hospital, McMaster University Medical Centre (which includes McMaster Children's Hospital), St. Peter's Hospital and West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. Other buildings under Hamilton Health Sciences include Juravinski Cancer Centre, Regional Rehabilitation Centre, Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre, and the West End Clinic and Urgent Care Centre. Hamilton Health Sciences is the largest employer in the Hamilton area and serves as academic teaching hospital affiliated with McMaster University and Mohawk College. The only hospital in Hamilton not under Hamilton Health Sciences is St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, which has 777 beds and three campuses. This healthcare group provides inpatient and outpatient services, and mental illness or addiction help.
The City of Hamilton is twinned with ten sister cities: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which encompasses Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is situated approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) southwest of Toronto in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, the town of Hamilton became the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe. On January 1, 2001, the current boundaries of Hamilton were created through the amalgamation of the original city with other municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth. Residents of the city are known as Hamiltonians.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Traditionally, the local economy has been led by the steel and heavy manufacturing industries. During the 2010s, a shift toward the service sector occurred, such as health and sciences. Hamilton is home to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Bruce Trail, McMaster University, Mohawk College, and Redeemer University. McMaster University is ranked 4th in Canada and 69th in the world by Times Higher Education Rankings 2021.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In pre-colonial times, the Neutral First Nation used much of the land. They were gradually driven out by the Five (later Six) Nations (Iroquois) who were allied with the British against the Huron and their French allies. The hamlet of Westover was built in an area that was originally a Seneca Iroquois tribal village, Tinawatawa, which was first visited by the French in September 1699.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "After the American Revolutionary War, about 10,000 United Empire Loyalists left the United States to settle in Upper Canada, now southern Ontario. In 1792, the Crown purchased the land on which Hamilton now stands from the Mississaugas in Treaty 3, also known as the Between the Lakes Purchase. The Crown granted the Loyalists lands from this purchase to encourage settlement in the region. These new settlers were soon followed by many more Americans, attracted by the availability of inexpensive, arable land. At the same time, large numbers of Iroquois who had allied with Britain arrived from the United States and were settled on reserves west of Lake Ontario as compensation for lands they lost in what was now the United States. During the War of 1812, British regulars and local militia defeated invading American troops at the Battle of Stoney Creek, fought in what is now a park in eastern Hamilton.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The town of Hamilton was conceived by George Hamilton (a son of a Queenston entrepreneur and founder, Robert Hamilton), when he purchased farm holdings of James Durand, the local member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, shortly after the War of 1812. Nathaniel Hughson, a property owner to the north, cooperated with George Hamilton to prepare a proposal for a courthouse and jail on Hamilton's property. Hamilton offered the land to the crown for the future site. Durand was empowered by Hughson and Hamilton to sell property holdings which later became the site of the town. As he had been instructed, Durand circulated the offers at York during a session of the Legislative Assembly, which established a new Gore District, of which the Hamilton townsite was a member.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Initially, this town was not the most important centre of the Gore District. An early indication of Hamilton's sudden prosperity occurred in 1816 when it was chosen over Ancaster, Ontario to be the new Gore District's administrative centre. Another dramatic economic turnabout for Hamilton occurred in 1832 when a canal was finally cut through the outer sand bar that enabled Hamilton to become a major port. A permanent jail was not constructed until 1832, when a cut-stone design was completed on Prince's Square, one of the two squares created in 1816. Subsequently, the first police board and the town limits were defined by statute on February 13, 1833. Official city status was achieved on June 9, 1846, by an act of Parliament of the Province of Canada.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "By 1845, the population was 6,475. In 1846, there were useful roads to many communities as well as stagecoaches and steamboats to Toronto, Queenston, and Niagara. Eleven cargo schooners were owned in Hamilton. Eleven churches were in operation. A reading room provided access to newspapers from other cities and from England and the U.S. In addition to stores of all types, four banks, tradesmen of various types, and sixty-five taverns, industry in the community included three breweries, ten importers of dry goods and groceries, five importers of hardware, two tanneries, three coachmakers, and a marble and a stone works.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As the city grew, several prominent buildings were constructed in the late 19th century, including the Grand Lodge of Canada in 1855, West Flamboro Methodist Church in 1879 (later purchased by Dufferin Masonic Lodge in 1893), a public library in 1890, and the Right House department store in 1893. The first commercial telephone service in Canada, the first telephone exchange in the British Empire, and the second telephone exchange in all of North America were each established in the city between 1877 and 1878. The city had several interurban electric street railways and two inclines, all powered by the Cataract Power Co.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Though suffering through the Hamilton Street Railway strike of 1906, with industrial businesses expanding, Hamilton's population doubled between 1900 and 1914. Two steel manufacturing companies, Stelco and Dofasco, were formed in 1910 and 1912, respectively. Procter & Gamble and the Beech-Nut Packing Company opened manufacturing plants in 1914 and 1922, respectively, their first outside the US. In June and July 1916, the a strike of up to 2,000 machinists was caused by a failure of employers to improve working conditions or pay during a booming World War I economy. The strike disrupted production at many of the largest manufacturers and was the largest dispute in the city's history. Population and economic growth continued until the 1960s. In 1929 the city's first high-rise building, the Pigott Building, was constructed; in 1930 McMaster University moved from Toronto to Hamilton, in 1934 the second Canadian Tire store in Canada opened here; in 1940 the airport was completed; and in 1948, the Studebaker assembly line was constructed. Infrastructure and retail development continued, with the Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway opening in 1958, and the first Tim Hortons store in 1964.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Since then, many of the large industries have moved or shut down operations in a restructuring that also affected the United States. In 1997, there was a devastating fire at the Plastimet plastics plant. Approximately 300 firefighters battled the blaze, and many sustained severe chemical burns and inhaled volatile organic compounds when at least 400 tonnes of PVC plastic were consumed in the fire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On January 1, 2001, the new city of Hamilton was formed from the amalgamation of Hamilton and its five neighbouring municipalities: Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook, and Stoney Creek. Before amalgamation, the \"old\" City of Hamilton had 331,121 residents and was divided into 100 neighbourhoods. The former region of Hamilton-Wentworth had a population of 490,268. The amalgamation created a single-tier municipal government ending subsidization of its suburbs. The new amalgamated city had 519,949 people in more than 100 neighbourhoods, and surrounding communities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The city was impacted by a widespread blackout in 2003 and a tornado in 2005. In 2007, the Red Hill Valley Parkway opened after extensive delays. The Stelco mills were idled in 2010 and permanently closed in 2013. This closure capped a significant shift in the city's economy: the percentage of the population employed in manufacturing declined from 22 to 12 percent between 2003 and 2013.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hamilton is in Southern Ontario on the western end of the Niagara Peninsula and wraps around the westernmost part of Lake Ontario; most of the city, including the downtown section, is on the south shore. Hamilton is in the geographic centre of the Golden Horseshoe. Its major physical features are Hamilton Harbour, marking the northern limit of the city, and the Niagara Escarpment running through the middle of the city across its entire breadth, bisecting the city into \"upper\" and \"lower\" parts. The maximum high point is 250m (820') above the level of Lake Ontario.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "According to all records from local historians, this district was called Attiwandaronia by the native Neutral people. Hamilton is one of 11 cities showcased in the book, Green City: People, Nature & Urban Places by Quebec author Mary Soderstrom, which examines the city as an example of an industrial powerhouse co-existing with nature. Soderstrom credits Thomas McQuesten and family in the 1930s who \"became champions of parks, greenspace and roads\" in Hamilton.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hamilton Harbour is a natural harbour with a large sandbar called the Beachstrip. This sandbar was deposited during a period of higher lake levels during the last ice age and extends southeast through the central lower city to the escarpment. Hamilton's deep sea port is accessed by ship canal through the beach strip into the harbour and is traversed by two bridges, the QEW's Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway and the lower Canal Lift Bridge.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Between 1788 and 1793, the townships at the Head-of-the-Lake were surveyed and named. The area was first known as The Head-of-the-Lake for its location at the western end of Lake Ontario. John Ryckman, born in Barton township (where present day downtown Hamilton is), described the area in 1803 as he remembered it: \"The city in 1803 was all forest. The shores of the bay were difficult to reach or see because they were hidden by a thick, almost impenetrable mass of trees and undergrowth\".",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "George Hamilton, a settler and local politician, established a town site in the northern portion of Barton Township in 1815. He kept several east–west roads which were originally Indian trails, but the north–south streets were on a regular grid pattern. Streets were designated \"East\" or \"West\" if they crossed James Street or Highway 6. Streets were designated \"North\" or \"South\" if they crossed King Street or Highway 8. The townsite's design, likely conceived in 1816, was commonplace. George Hamilton employed a grid street pattern used in most towns in Upper Canada and throughout the American frontier. The eighty original lots had frontages of fifty feet; each lot faced a broad street and backed onto a twelve-foot lane. It took at least a decade to sell all the original lots, but the construction of the Burlington Canal in 1823, and a new court-house in 1827 encouraged Hamilton to add more blocks around 1828–9. At this time he included a market square in an effort to draw commercial activity onto his lands, but the town's natural growth occurred to the north of Hamilton's plot.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Hamilton Conservation Authority owns, leases or manages about 4,500 hectares (11,100 acres) of land with the city operating 1,077 hectares (2,661 acres) of parkland at 310 locations. Many of the parks are along the Niagara Escarpment, which runs from Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula in the north, to Queenston at the Niagara River in the south, and provides views of the cities and towns at Lake Ontario's western end. The hiking path Bruce Trail runs the length of the escarpment. Hamilton is home to more than 100 waterfalls and cascades, most of which are on or near the Bruce Trail as it winds through the Niagara Escarpment. Visitors can often be seen swimming in the waterfalls during the summertime, although it is strongly recommended to stay away from the water: much of the watershed of the Chedoke and Red Hill creeks originates in storm sewers running beneath neighbourhoods atop the Niagara escarpment, and water quality in many of Hamilton's waterfalls is seriously degraded. High e. coli counts are regularly observed through testing by McMaster University near many of Hamilton's waterfalls, sometimes exceeding the provincial limits for recreational water use by as much as 400 times. The storm sewers in upstream neighbourhoods carry polluted runoff from streets and parking lots, as well as occasional raw sewage from sanitary lines that were improperly connected to the storm sewers instead of the separate sanitary sewer system. Notably, in March 2020, it was revealed that as much as 24 billion litres of untreated wastewater has been leaking into the Chedoke creek and Cootes' Paradise areas since at least 2014 due to insufficiencies in the city's sewerage and storm water management systems.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Hamilton's climate is humid-continental, characterized by changeable weather patterns. In the Köppen classification, Hamilton it is on the Dfb/Dfa border found in southern Ontario because the average temperature in July is 22.0 °C (71.6 °F). However, its climate is moderate compared with most of Canada. The airport's open, rural location and higher altitude results in lower temperatures, generally windier conditions, and higher snowfall amounts than lower, built-up areas of the city. The highest temperature ever recorded in Hamilton was 41.1 °C (106 °F) on July 14, 1868. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −30.6 °C (−23 °F) on January 25, 1884. In 2023, it was found that the city has areas of poor air quality with a high concentration of benzo(a)pyrene, particularly in neighbourhoods near industrial sites.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Manufacturing is important to Ontario's economy, and the Toronto–Hamilton region is Canada's most industrialized area. The area from Oshawa, Ontario around the west end of Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls, with Hamilton at its centre, is known as the Golden Horseshoe and had a population of approximately 8.1 million people in 2006.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "With sixty percent of Canada's steel produced in Hamilton by Stelco and Dofasco, the city has become known as the Steel Capital of Canada. After nearly declaring bankruptcy, Stelco returned to profitability in 2004. On August 26, 2007 United States Steel Corporation acquired Stelco for C$38.50 in cash per share, owning more than 76 percent of Stelco's outstanding shares. On September 17, 2014, US Steel Canada announced it was applying for bankruptcy protection and it would close its Hamilton operations.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "A stand-alone subsidiary of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel producer, Dofasco produces products for the automotive, construction, energy, manufacturing, pipe and tube, appliance, packaging, and steel distribution industries. It has approximately 7,300 employees at its Hamilton plant, and the four million tons of steel it produces each year is about 30% of Canada's flat-rolled sheet steel shipments. Dofasco was North America's most profitable steel producer in 1999, the most profitable in Canada in 2000, and a long-time member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. Ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice to divest itself of the Canadian company, ArcelorMittal has been allowed to retain Dofasco provided it sells several of its American assets.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Hamilton had a population of 569,353 living in 222,807 of its 233,564 total private dwellings, a change of 6% from its 2016 population of 536,917. With a land area of 1,118.31 km (431.78 sq mi), it had a population density of 509.1/km (1,318.6/sq mi) in 2021.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the Hamilton CMA had a population of 785,184 living in 307,382 of its 320,081 total private dwellings, a change of 5% from its 2016 population of 747,545. With a land area of 1,373.15 km (530.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 571.8/km (1,481.0/sq mi) in 2021.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In the 2016 Canadian census, 24.69% of the city's population was not born in Canada. Hamilton is home to 26,330 immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2010 and 13,150 immigrants who arrived between 2011 and 2016. In February 2014, the city's council voted to declare Hamilton a sanctuary city, offering municipal services to undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Children aged 14 years and under accounted for 16.23% of the city's population, a decline of 1.57% from the 2011 census. Hamiltonians aged 65 years and older constituted 17.3% of the population, an increase of 2.4% since 2011. The city's average age is 41.3 years. 54.9% of Hamiltonians are married or in a common-law relationship, while 6.4% of city residents are divorced. Same-sex couples (married or in common-law relationships) constitute 0.8% (2,710 individuals) of the partnered population in Hamilton.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Environics Analytics, a geodemographic marketing firm that created 66 different \"clusters\" of people complete with profiles of how they live, what they think and what they consume, sees a future Hamilton with younger upscale Hamiltonians — who are tech-savvy and university-educated — choosing to live in the downtown and surrounding areas rather than just visiting intermittently. More two and three-storey townhouses and apartments will be built on downtown lots; small condos will be built on vacant spaces in areas such as Dundas, Ainslie Wood and Westdale to accommodate newly retired seniors. Furthermore, additional retail and commercial zones will be created.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Hamilton maintains significant Italian, English, Scottish, German and Irish ancestry. 130,705 Hamiltonians claim English heritage, while 98,765 indicate their ancestors arrived from Scotland, 87,825 from Ireland, 62,335 from Italy, and 50,400 from Germany. The top countries of birth for the newcomers living in Hamilton in the 1990s were: former Yugoslavia, Poland, India, China, the Philippines, and Iraq.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Hamilton also has a notable French community for which provincial services are offered in French. In Ontario, urban centres where there are at least 5,000 Francophones are designated areas where bilingual provincial services have to be offered. As per the 2016 census, the Francophone community maintains a population of 6,760, while 30,530 residents, or 5.8% of the city's population, have knowledge of both official languages. The Franco-Ontarian community of Hamilton boasts two school boards, the public Conseil scolaire Viamonde and the Catholic Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, which operate five schools (2 secondary and 3 elementary). Additionally, the city maintains a Francophone community health centre that is part of the LHIN (Centre de santé communautaire Hamilton/Niagara), a cultural centre (Centre français Hamilton), three daycare centres, a provincially funded employment centre (Options Emploi), a community college site (Collège Boréal) and a community organization that supports the development of the francophone community in Hamilton (ACFO Régionale Hamilton).",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Hamilton included:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The most described religion in Hamilton is Christianity although other religions brought by immigrants are also growing. The 2011 census indicates that 67.6% of the population adheres to a Christian denomination, with Catholics being the largest at 34.3% of the city's population. The Christ the King Cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of Hamilton. Other denominations include the United Church (6.5%), Anglican (6.4%), Presbyterian (3.1%), Christian Orthodox (2.9%), and other denominations (9.8%). Other religions with significant populations include Islam (3.7%), Buddhist (0.9%), Sikh (0.8%), Hindu (0.8%), and Jewish (0.7%). Those with no religious affiliation accounted for 24.9% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Citizens of Hamilton are represented at all three levels of Canadian government: federal, provincial, and municipal. Hamilton is represented in the Parliament of Canada by five members of Parliament and in the Legislature of Ontario by five members of Provincial Parliament.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Hamilton's municipal government has a mayor, elected citywide, and 15 city councillors—one per city ward—to serve on the Hamilton City Council. The province grants the Hamilton City Council authority to govern through the Municipal Act of Ontario. Hamilton's current mayor is Andrea Horwath, elected on October 24, 2022. Hamilton's next municipal election will be held in 2026.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Hamilton is served by four school boards: the English language Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board and the French language Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir. Each school board is governed by trustees. The English language school boards are represented by trustees elected from wards in Hamilton. The HWDSB has 11 trustees and the HWCDB has 9 trustees. The French language school boards are represented by one trustee each from Hamilton and the surrounding area.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Canadian Military maintains a presence in Hamilton, with the John Weir Foote Armoury in the downtown core on James Street North, housing the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry as well as the 11th Field Hamilton-Wentworth Battery and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. The Hamilton Reserve Barracks on Pier Nine houses the naval reserve division HMCS Star, 23 Service Battalion and the 23 Field Ambulance.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Criminal Code of Canada is the chief piece of legislation defining criminal conduct and penalty. The Hamilton Police Service is chiefly responsible for the enforcement of federal and provincial law. Although the Hamilton Police Service has authority to enforce, bylaws passed by the Hamilton City Council are mainly enforced by Provincial Offences Officers employed by the City of Hamilton.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 2020, the city saw 18 murders and 51 shootings (up from 47 in 2019), the most shootings the city seen in at least a decade. 2021 saw the homicides in the city increase to 20, giving the city a rate of around 3.5 per 100,000 residents. Hamilton ranked first in Canada for police-reported hate crimes in 2016, with 12.5 hate crimes per 100,000 population. Organized crime also has a notable presence in Hamilton with three centralized Mafia organizations: the Luppino crime family, the Papalia crime family, and the Musitano crime family. Street gangs such as the Original/Oriental Blood Brothers & the Oriole Crescent Crips, and biker crews such as Satan's Choice MC and the Hells Angels also have presence in Hamilton.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Hamilton's local attractions include the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the HMCS Haida National Historic Site, Dundurn Castle (the residence of an Allan MacNab, the 8th Premier of Canada West), the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the African Lion Safari Park, the Cathedral of Christ the King, the Workers' Arts and Heritage Centre, and the Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "As of September 2018, there are 40 pieces in the city's Public Art Collection. The works are owned and maintained by the city. Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is Ontario's third largest public art gallery. The gallery has over 9,000 works in its permanent collection that focus on three areas: 19th-century European, Historical Canadian and Contemporary Canadian. The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA), founded at McMaster University in 1967, houses and exhibits the university's art collection of more than 7,000 objects.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Supercrawl is a large community arts and music festival that takes place in September in the James Street North area of the city. In 2018, Supercrawl celebrated its 10th anniversary with over 220,000 visitors. In March 2015, Hamilton was host to the JUNO Awards.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Growth in the arts and culture sector has garnered media attention for Hamilton. A 2006 article in The Globe and Mail, entitled \"Go West, Young Artist\", focused on Hamilton's growing art scene. The Factory: Hamilton Media Arts Centre, opened a new home on James Street North in 2006. Art galleries have sprung up on streets across the city: James Street, King William Street, Locke Street and King Street. The opening of the Downtown Arts Centre on Rebecca Street has spurred creative activities in the core. The Community Centre for Media Arts (CCMA) continues to operate in downtown Hamilton. The CCMA works with marginalized populations and combines new media services with arts education and skills development programming.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Hamilton hosted Canada's first major international athletic event, the first Commonwealth Games (then called the British Empire Games) in 1930. Hamilton bid for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 but lost to New Delhi. On November 7, 2009, in Guadalajara, Mexico, it was announced Toronto would host the 2015 Pan Am Games after beating out two rival South American cities, Lima, Peru, and Bogotá, Colombia. The city of Hamilton co-hosted the Games with Toronto. Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger said \"the Pan Am Games will provide a 'unique opportunity for Hamilton to renew major sport facilities giving Hamiltonians a multi-purpose stadium, a 50-metre swimming pool, and an international-calibre velodrome to enjoy for generations to come'.\" Hamilton's major sports complexes include Tim Hortons Field and FirstOntario Centre.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hamilton is represented by the Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League. The team traces its origins to the 1869 \"Hamilton Foot Ball Club\". Hamilton is also home to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame museum. The museum hosts an annual induction event in a week-long celebration that includes school visits, a golf tournament, a formal induction dinner and concludes with the Hall of Fame game involving the local CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Tim Hortons Field. The 109th championship game of the Canadian Football League, the Grey Cup, is scheduled to be played in Hamilton in 2021.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 2019, Forge FC debuted as Hamilton's soccer team in the Canadian Premier League. The team plays at Tim Hortons Field and shares the venue with the Tiger-Cats. They finished their inaugural season as champions of the league.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 2019, the Hamilton Honey Badgers debuted as Hamilton's basketball team in the Canadian Elite Basketball League. The team played its home games at the FirstOntario Centre. In 2022, the Honey Badgers relocated to Brampton, Ontario due to the renovations occurring at FirstOntarioCentre.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Since 1958, the Hamilton Cardinals have been Hamilton's baseball team in the Intercounty Baseball League. The team has played its home games at Bernie Arbour Memorial Stadium since 1971.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Around the Bay Road Race circumnavigates Hamilton Harbour. Although it is not a marathon distance, it is the longest continuously held long-distance foot race in North America. The local newspaper also hosts the amateur Spectator Indoor Games.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In addition to team sports, Hamilton is home to an auto race track, Flamboro Speedway and Canada's fastest half-mile harness horse racing track, Flamboro Downs. Another auto race track, Cayuga International Speedway, is near Hamilton in the Haldimand County community of Nelles Corners, between Hagersville and Cayuga.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Hamilton is home to several post-secondary institutions.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Four school boards administer public education for students from kindergarten through high school. The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board manages 93 public schools, while the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board operates 57 schools in the greater Hamilton area. The Conseil scolaire Viamonde operates one elementary and one secondary school (École secondaire Georges-P.-Vanier) in the area, and the Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates two elementary schools and one secondary school.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Calvin Christian School, Providence Christian School and Timothy Christian School are independent Christian elementary schools. Hamilton District Christian High School, Rehoboth Christian High School and Guido de Bres Christian High School are independent Christian high schools in the area. Both HDCH and Guido de Brès participate in the city's interscholastic athletics. Hillfield Strathallan College is on the West Hamilton mountain and is a CAIS member, non-profit school for children from early Montessori ages through grade twelve and has around 1,300 students. Columbia International College is Canada's largest private boarding high school, with 1,700 students from 73 countries.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The Dundas Valley School of Art is an independent art school founded in the city in 1964. In 1998, as a joint venture with McMaster University, a full-time diploma program was launched for students. The Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts is home to many of the area's young actors, dancers, musicians, singers and visual artists. The school is known for having a keyboard studio, dance studios, art and sculpting studios, gallery space and a 300-seat recital hall.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Hamilton is home to two think tanks, the Centre for Cultural Renewal and Cardus, which deals with social architecture, culture, urbanology, economics and education and also publishes the LexView Policy Journal and Comment Magazine.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The primary highways serving Hamilton are Highway 403, the QEW, the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, and the Red Hill Valley Parkway. Other highways connecting Hamilton include Highway 5, Highway 6 and Highway 8. Public transportation is provided by the Hamilton Street Railway, which operates an extensive local bus system. Hamilton and Metrolinx will build a provincially-funded LRT line (Hamilton LRT) in the early 2020s. Intercity public transportation, including frequent service to Toronto, is provided by GO Transit. The Hamilton GO Centre, formerly the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway station, is a commuter rail station on the Lakeshore West line of GO Transit. While Hamilton is not directly served by intercity rail, the Lakeshore West line does offer an off-peak bus connection and a peak-hours rail connection to Aldershot station in Burlington, which doubles as the VIA Rail station for both Burlington and Hamilton.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In the 1940s, the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport was a wartime air force training station. Today, managed by TradePort International Corporation, passenger traffic at the Hamilton terminal has grown from 90,000 in 1996 to approximately 900,000 in 2002 with mostly domestic and vacation destinations in the United States, Mexico and Central America. The airport's mid-term growth target for its passenger service is five million air travellers annually. The airport's air cargo sector has 24–7 operational capability and strategic geographic location, allowing its capacity to increase by 50% since 1996; 91,000 metric tonnes (100,000 tons) of cargo passed through the airport in 2002. Courier companies with operations at the airport include United Parcel Service and Cargojet Canada. In 2003, the city began developing a 30-year growth management strategy which called, in part, for a massive aerotropolis industrial park centred on Hamilton Airport. Advocates of the aerotropolis proposal, now known as the Airport Employment Growth District, tout it as a solution to the city's shortage of employment lands. The closest other international airport to Hamilton is Toronto Pearson International Airport, located northeast of the city in Mississauga.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "A report by Hemson Consulting identified an opportunity to develop 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of greenfields (the size of the Royal Botanical Gardens) that could create an estimated 90,000 jobs by 2031. A proposed aerotropolis industrial park at Highway 6 and 403, has been debated at City Hall for years. Opponents feel the city needs to do more investigation about the cost to taxpayers.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Hamilton also plays a major role in Ontario's marine shipping industry as the Port of Hamilton is Ontario's busiest port handling between 9 and 12 million tonnes of cargo annually.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The city is served by the Hamilton Health Sciences hospital network of five hospitals with more than 1,100 beds: Hamilton General Hospital, Juravinski Hospital, McMaster University Medical Centre (which includes McMaster Children's Hospital), St. Peter's Hospital and West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. Other buildings under Hamilton Health Sciences include Juravinski Cancer Centre, Regional Rehabilitation Centre, Ron Joyce Children's Health Centre, and the West End Clinic and Urgent Care Centre. Hamilton Health Sciences is the largest employer in the Hamilton area and serves as academic teaching hospital affiliated with McMaster University and Mohawk College. The only hospital in Hamilton not under Hamilton Health Sciences is St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, which has 777 beds and three campuses. This healthcare group provides inpatient and outpatient services, and mental illness or addiction help.",
"title": "Infrastructure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The City of Hamilton is twinned with ten sister cities:",
"title": "Sister cities"
}
]
| Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which encompasses Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is situated approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) southwest of Toronto in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, the town of Hamilton became the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe. On January 1, 2001, the current boundaries of Hamilton were created through the amalgamation of the original city with other municipalities of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth. Residents of the city are known as Hamiltonians. Traditionally, the local economy has been led by the steel and heavy manufacturing industries. During the 2010s, a shift toward the service sector occurred, such as health and sciences. Hamilton is home to the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Bruce Trail, McMaster University, Mohawk College, and Redeemer University. McMaster University is ranked 4th in Canada and 69th in the world by Times Higher Education Rankings 2021. | 2001-12-15T22:28:52Z | 2023-12-31T03:56:42Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton,_Ontario |
14,291 | Hussites | The Hussites (Czech: Husité or Kališníci; "Chalice People" Latin: Hussitae or Calixtinism) were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus (fl. 1401-1415), who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.
After the execution of Hus at the Council of Constance, a series of crusades, civil wars, victories and compromises between various factions with different theological agendas broke out. At the end of the Hussite Wars (1420–1434), the now Catholic-supported Utraquist side came out victorious from conflict with the Taborites and became the dominant Hussite group in Bohemia.
Catholics and Utraquists were given legal equality in Bohemia after the religious peace of Kutná Hora in 1485. Bohemia and Moravia, or what is now the territory of the Czech Republic, remained majority Hussite for two centuries until Roman Catholicism was reimposed by the Holy Roman Emperor after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War.
The Hussite tradition continues in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren and the refounded Czechoslovak Hussite churches.
The Hussite movement began in the Kingdom of Bohemia and quickly spread throughout the remaining Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including Moravia and Silesia. It also made inroads into the northern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia), but was rejected and gained infamy for the plundering behaviour of the Hussite soldiers. There were also very small temporary communities in Poland-Lithuania and Transylvania which moved to Bohemia after being confronted with religious intolerance. It was a regional movement that failed to expand anywhere farther. Hussites emerged as a majority Utraquist movement with a significant Taborite faction, and smaller regional ones that included Adamites, Orebites and Orphans.
Major Hussite theologians included Petr Chelčický, Jerome of Prague, and others. A number of Czech national heroes were Hussite, including Jan Žižka, who led a fierce resistance to five consecutive crusades proclaimed on Hussite Bohemia by the Papacy. Hussites were one of the most important forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. This predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and strengthened Czech national awareness.
The Council of Constance lured Jan Hus in with a letter of indemnity, then tried him for heresy and put him to death at the stake on 6 July 1415.
The arrest of Hus in 1414 caused considerable resentment in Czech lands. The authorities of both countries appealed urgently and repeatedly to King Sigismund to release Jan Hus.
When news of his death at the Council of Constance arrived, disturbances broke out, directed primarily against the clergy and especially against the monks. Even the Archbishop narrowly escaped from the effects of this popular anger. The treatment of Hus was felt to be a disgrace inflicted upon the whole country and his death was seen as a criminal act. King Wenceslaus IV., prompted by his grudge against Sigismund, at first gave free vent to his indignation at the course of events in Constance. His wife openly favoured the friends of Hus. Avowed Hussites stood at the head of the government.
A league was formed by certain lords, who pledged themselves to protect the free preaching of the Gospel upon all their possessions and estates and to obey the power of the Bishops only where their orders accorded with the injunctions of the Bible. The university would arbitrate any disputed points. The entire Hussite nobility joined the league. Other than verbal protest of the council's treatment of Hus, there was little evidence of any actions taken by the nobility until 1417. At that point several of the lesser nobility and some barons, signatories of the 1415 protest letter, removed Catholic priests from their parishes, replacing them with priests willing to give communion in both wine and bread. The chalice of wine became the central identifying symbol of the Hussite movement. If the king had joined, its resolutions would have received the sanction of the law; but he refused, and approached the newly formed Roman Catholic League of lords, whose members pledged themselves to support the king, the Catholic Church, and the council. The prospect of a civil war began to emerge.
Prior to becoming pope, Martin V, then known as Cardinal Otto of Colonna had attacked Hus with relentless severity. He energetically resumed the battle against Hus's teaching after the enactments of the Council of Constance. He wished to eradicate completely the doctrine of Hus, for which purpose the co-operation of King Wenceslaus had to be obtained. In 1418, Sigismund succeeded in winning his brother over to the standpoint of the council by pointing out the inevitability of a religious war if the heretics in Bohemia found further protection. Hussite statesmen and army leaders had to leave the country and Roman Catholic priests were reinstated. These measures caused a general commotion which hastened the death of King Wenceslaus by a paralytic stroke in 1419. His heir was Sigismund.
The news of the death of King Wenceslaus in 1419 produced a great commotion among the people of Prague. A revolution swept over the country: churches and monasteries were destroyed, and church property was seized by the Hussite nobility. It was then, and remained till much later, in question whether Bohemia was a hereditary or an elective monarchy, especially as the line through which Sigismund claimed the throne had accepted that the Kingdom of Bohemia was an elective monarchy elected by the nobles, and thus the regent of the kingdom (Čeněk of Wartenberg) also explicitly stated that Sigismund had not been elected as reason for Sigismund's claim to not be accepted. Sigismund could get possession of "his" kingdom only by force of arms. Pope Martin V called upon Catholics of the West to take up arms against the Hussites, declaring a crusade, and there followed twelve years of warfare.
The Hussites initially campaigned defensively, but after 1427 they assumed the offensive. Apart from their religious aims, they fought for the national interests of the Czechs. The moderate and radical parties were united, and they not only repelled the attacks of the army of crusaders but crossed the borders into neighboring countries. On March 23, 1430, Joan of Arc dictated a letter that threatened to lead a crusading army against the Hussites unless they returned to the Catholic faith, but her capture by English and Burgundian troops two months later would keep her from carrying out this threat.
Eventually, the opponents of the Hussites found themselves forced to consider an amicable settlement. The Hussites were sent an invitation to attend the ecumenical Council of Basel on October 15, 1431. The discussions began on 10 January 1432, focusing chiefly on the four articles of Prague. No agreement emerged. After repeated negotiations between the Basel Council and Bohemia, a Bohemian–Moravian state assembly in Prague accepted the "Compactata" of Prague on 30 November 1433. The agreement granted communion in both kinds to all who desired it, but with the understanding that Christ was entirely present in each kind, though on the condition that the rest of the Hussite reforms would no longer be emphasised. Free preaching was granted conditionally: the Church hierarchy had to approve and place priests, and the power of the bishop must be considered. The article which prohibited the secular power of the clergy was almost reversed.
The Taborites refused to conform. The Calixtines united with the Roman Catholics and destroyed the Taborites at the Battle of Lipany on 30 May 1434. From that time, the Taborites lost their importance, though the Hussite movement would continue in Poland for another five years, until the Royalist forces of Poland defeated the Polish Hussites at the Battle of Grotniki. The state assembly of Jihlava in 1436 confirmed the "Compactata" and gave them the sanction of law. This accomplished the reconciliation of Bohemia with Rome and the Western Church, and at last Sigismund obtained possession of the Bohemian crown. His reactionary measures caused a ferment in the whole country, but he died in 1437. The state assembly in Prague rejected Wyclif's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which was obnoxious to the Utraquists, as heresy in 1444. Most of the Taborites now went over to the party of the Utraquists; the rest joined the "Brothers of the Law of Christ" (Latin: "Unitas Fratrum") (see history of the Moravian Church).
In 1462, Pope Pius II declared the "Compacta" null and void, prohibited communion in both kinds, and acknowledged King George of Podebrady as king on condition that he would promise an unconditional harmony with the Roman Church. This he refused, leading to the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–1478). His successor, King Vladislaus II, favored the Roman Catholics and proceeded against some zealous clergymen of the Calixtines. The troubles of the Utraquists increased from year to year. In 1485, at the Diet of Kutná Hora, an agreement was made between the Roman Catholics and Utraquists that lasted for thirty-one years. It was only later, at the Diet of 1512, that the equal rights of both religions were permanently established. The appearance of Martin Luther was hailed by the Utraquist clergy, and Luther himself was astonished to find so many points of agreement between the doctrines of Hus and his own. But not all Utraquists approved of the German Reformation; a schism arose among them, and many returned to the Roman doctrine, while other elements had organised the "Unitas Fratrum" already in 1457.
Under Emperor Maximilian II, the Bohemian state assembly established the "Confessio Bohemica", upon which Lutherans, Reformed, and Bohemian Brethren agreed. From that time forward Hussitism began to die out. After the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620 the Roman Catholic Faith was re-established with vigour, which fundamentally changed the religious conditions of the Czech lands.
Leaders and members of Unitas Fratrum were forced to choose to either leave the many and varied southeastern principalities of what was the Holy Roman Empire (mainly Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and parts of Germany and its many states), or to practice their beliefs secretly. As a result, members were forced underground and dispersed across northwestern Europe. The largest remaining communities of the Brethren were located in Lissa (Leszno) in Poland, which had historically strong ties with the Czechs, and in small, isolated groups in Moravia. Some, among them Jan Amos Comenius, fled to western Europe, mainly the Low Countries. A settlement of Hussites in Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany, in 1722 caused the emergence of the Moravian Church.
In 1918, as a result of World War I, the Czech lands regained independence from Austria-Hungary controlled by the Habsburg monarchy as Czechoslovakia (due to Masaryk and Czechoslovak legions with Hussite tradition, in the name of the troops).
Today, the Hussite tradition is represented in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren, and Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
Hussitism organised itself during the years 1415–1419. Hussites were not a unitary movement, but a diverse one with multiple factions that held different views and opposed each other in the Hussite Wars. From the beginning, there formed two parties, with a smaller number of people withdrawing from both parties around the pacifist Petr Chelčický, whose teachings would form the foundation of the Unitas Fratrum. Hussites can be divided into:
The more conservative Hussites (the moderate party, or Ultraquists), who followed Hus more closely, sought to conduct reform while leaving the whole hierarchical and liturgical order of the Church untouched. Their programme is contained in the Four Articles of Prague, which were written by Jacob of Mies and agreed upon in July 1420, promulgated in the Latin, Czech, and German languages. The full text is about two pages long, but they are often summarized as:
The views of the moderate Hussites were widely represented at the university and among the citizens of Prague; they were therefore called the Prague Party, but also Calixtines (Latin calix chalice) or Utraquists (Latin utraque both), because they emphasized the second article of Prague, and the chalice became their emblem.
The more radical parties, the Taborites, Orebites and Orphans, identified itself more boldly with the doctrines of John Wycliffe, sharing his passionate hatred of the monastic clergy, and his desire to return the Church to its supposed condition during the time of the apostles. This required the removal of the existing hierarchy and the secularisation of ecclesiastical possessions. Above all they clung to Wycliffe's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, denying transubstantiation, and this is the principal point by which they are distinguished from the moderate party, the Ultraquists.
The radicals preached the "sufficientia legis Christi"—the divine law (i.e. the Bible) is the sole rule and canon for human society, not only in the church, but also in political and civil matters. They rejected therefore, as early as 1416, everything that they believed had no basis in the Bible, such as the veneration of saints and images, fasts, superfluous holidays, the oath, intercession for the dead, auricular Confession, indulgences, the sacraments of Confirmation and the Anointing of the Sick, and chose their own priests.
The radicals had their gathering-places all around the country. Their first armed assault fell on the small town of Ústí, on the river Lužnice, south of Prague (today's Sezimovo Ústí). However, as the place did not prove to be defensible, they settled in the remains of an older town upon a hill not far away and founded a new town, which they named Tábor (a play on words, as "Tábor" not only meant "camp" or "encampment" in Czech, but is also the traditional name of the mountain on which Jesus was expected to return; see Mark 13); hence they were called Táborité (Taborites). They comprised the essential force of the radical Hussites.
Their aim was to destroy the enemies of the law of God, and to defend his kingdom (which had been expected to come in a short time) by the sword. Their end-of-world visions did not come true. In order to preserve their settlement and spread their ideology, they waged bloody wars; in the beginning they observed a strict regime, inflicting the severest punishment equally for murder, as for less severe faults as adultery, perjury and usury, and also tried to apply rigid Biblical standards to the social order of the time. The Taborites usually had the support of the Orebites (later called Orphans), an eastern Bohemian sect of Hussitism based in Hradec Králové. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Hussites (Czech: Husité or Kališníci; \"Chalice People\" Latin: Hussitae or Calixtinism) were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus (fl. 1401-1415), who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "After the execution of Hus at the Council of Constance, a series of crusades, civil wars, victories and compromises between various factions with different theological agendas broke out. At the end of the Hussite Wars (1420–1434), the now Catholic-supported Utraquist side came out victorious from conflict with the Taborites and became the dominant Hussite group in Bohemia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Catholics and Utraquists were given legal equality in Bohemia after the religious peace of Kutná Hora in 1485. Bohemia and Moravia, or what is now the territory of the Czech Republic, remained majority Hussite for two centuries until Roman Catholicism was reimposed by the Holy Roman Emperor after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Hussite tradition continues in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren and the refounded Czechoslovak Hussite churches.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Hussite movement began in the Kingdom of Bohemia and quickly spread throughout the remaining Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including Moravia and Silesia. It also made inroads into the northern parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia), but was rejected and gained infamy for the plundering behaviour of the Hussite soldiers. There were also very small temporary communities in Poland-Lithuania and Transylvania which moved to Bohemia after being confronted with religious intolerance. It was a regional movement that failed to expand anywhere farther. Hussites emerged as a majority Utraquist movement with a significant Taborite faction, and smaller regional ones that included Adamites, Orebites and Orphans.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Major Hussite theologians included Petr Chelčický, Jerome of Prague, and others. A number of Czech national heroes were Hussite, including Jan Žižka, who led a fierce resistance to five consecutive crusades proclaimed on Hussite Bohemia by the Papacy. Hussites were one of the most important forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. This predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and strengthened Czech national awareness.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Council of Constance lured Jan Hus in with a letter of indemnity, then tried him for heresy and put him to death at the stake on 6 July 1415.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The arrest of Hus in 1414 caused considerable resentment in Czech lands. The authorities of both countries appealed urgently and repeatedly to King Sigismund to release Jan Hus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "When news of his death at the Council of Constance arrived, disturbances broke out, directed primarily against the clergy and especially against the monks. Even the Archbishop narrowly escaped from the effects of this popular anger. The treatment of Hus was felt to be a disgrace inflicted upon the whole country and his death was seen as a criminal act. King Wenceslaus IV., prompted by his grudge against Sigismund, at first gave free vent to his indignation at the course of events in Constance. His wife openly favoured the friends of Hus. Avowed Hussites stood at the head of the government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A league was formed by certain lords, who pledged themselves to protect the free preaching of the Gospel upon all their possessions and estates and to obey the power of the Bishops only where their orders accorded with the injunctions of the Bible. The university would arbitrate any disputed points. The entire Hussite nobility joined the league. Other than verbal protest of the council's treatment of Hus, there was little evidence of any actions taken by the nobility until 1417. At that point several of the lesser nobility and some barons, signatories of the 1415 protest letter, removed Catholic priests from their parishes, replacing them with priests willing to give communion in both wine and bread. The chalice of wine became the central identifying symbol of the Hussite movement. If the king had joined, its resolutions would have received the sanction of the law; but he refused, and approached the newly formed Roman Catholic League of lords, whose members pledged themselves to support the king, the Catholic Church, and the council. The prospect of a civil war began to emerge.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Prior to becoming pope, Martin V, then known as Cardinal Otto of Colonna had attacked Hus with relentless severity. He energetically resumed the battle against Hus's teaching after the enactments of the Council of Constance. He wished to eradicate completely the doctrine of Hus, for which purpose the co-operation of King Wenceslaus had to be obtained. In 1418, Sigismund succeeded in winning his brother over to the standpoint of the council by pointing out the inevitability of a religious war if the heretics in Bohemia found further protection. Hussite statesmen and army leaders had to leave the country and Roman Catholic priests were reinstated. These measures caused a general commotion which hastened the death of King Wenceslaus by a paralytic stroke in 1419. His heir was Sigismund.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The news of the death of King Wenceslaus in 1419 produced a great commotion among the people of Prague. A revolution swept over the country: churches and monasteries were destroyed, and church property was seized by the Hussite nobility. It was then, and remained till much later, in question whether Bohemia was a hereditary or an elective monarchy, especially as the line through which Sigismund claimed the throne had accepted that the Kingdom of Bohemia was an elective monarchy elected by the nobles, and thus the regent of the kingdom (Čeněk of Wartenberg) also explicitly stated that Sigismund had not been elected as reason for Sigismund's claim to not be accepted. Sigismund could get possession of \"his\" kingdom only by force of arms. Pope Martin V called upon Catholics of the West to take up arms against the Hussites, declaring a crusade, and there followed twelve years of warfare.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Hussites initially campaigned defensively, but after 1427 they assumed the offensive. Apart from their religious aims, they fought for the national interests of the Czechs. The moderate and radical parties were united, and they not only repelled the attacks of the army of crusaders but crossed the borders into neighboring countries. On March 23, 1430, Joan of Arc dictated a letter that threatened to lead a crusading army against the Hussites unless they returned to the Catholic faith, but her capture by English and Burgundian troops two months later would keep her from carrying out this threat.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Eventually, the opponents of the Hussites found themselves forced to consider an amicable settlement. The Hussites were sent an invitation to attend the ecumenical Council of Basel on October 15, 1431. The discussions began on 10 January 1432, focusing chiefly on the four articles of Prague. No agreement emerged. After repeated negotiations between the Basel Council and Bohemia, a Bohemian–Moravian state assembly in Prague accepted the \"Compactata\" of Prague on 30 November 1433. The agreement granted communion in both kinds to all who desired it, but with the understanding that Christ was entirely present in each kind, though on the condition that the rest of the Hussite reforms would no longer be emphasised. Free preaching was granted conditionally: the Church hierarchy had to approve and place priests, and the power of the bishop must be considered. The article which prohibited the secular power of the clergy was almost reversed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Taborites refused to conform. The Calixtines united with the Roman Catholics and destroyed the Taborites at the Battle of Lipany on 30 May 1434. From that time, the Taborites lost their importance, though the Hussite movement would continue in Poland for another five years, until the Royalist forces of Poland defeated the Polish Hussites at the Battle of Grotniki. The state assembly of Jihlava in 1436 confirmed the \"Compactata\" and gave them the sanction of law. This accomplished the reconciliation of Bohemia with Rome and the Western Church, and at last Sigismund obtained possession of the Bohemian crown. His reactionary measures caused a ferment in the whole country, but he died in 1437. The state assembly in Prague rejected Wyclif's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which was obnoxious to the Utraquists, as heresy in 1444. Most of the Taborites now went over to the party of the Utraquists; the rest joined the \"Brothers of the Law of Christ\" (Latin: \"Unitas Fratrum\") (see history of the Moravian Church).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1462, Pope Pius II declared the \"Compacta\" null and void, prohibited communion in both kinds, and acknowledged King George of Podebrady as king on condition that he would promise an unconditional harmony with the Roman Church. This he refused, leading to the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–1478). His successor, King Vladislaus II, favored the Roman Catholics and proceeded against some zealous clergymen of the Calixtines. The troubles of the Utraquists increased from year to year. In 1485, at the Diet of Kutná Hora, an agreement was made between the Roman Catholics and Utraquists that lasted for thirty-one years. It was only later, at the Diet of 1512, that the equal rights of both religions were permanently established. The appearance of Martin Luther was hailed by the Utraquist clergy, and Luther himself was astonished to find so many points of agreement between the doctrines of Hus and his own. But not all Utraquists approved of the German Reformation; a schism arose among them, and many returned to the Roman doctrine, while other elements had organised the \"Unitas Fratrum\" already in 1457.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Under Emperor Maximilian II, the Bohemian state assembly established the \"Confessio Bohemica\", upon which Lutherans, Reformed, and Bohemian Brethren agreed. From that time forward Hussitism began to die out. After the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620 the Roman Catholic Faith was re-established with vigour, which fundamentally changed the religious conditions of the Czech lands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Leaders and members of Unitas Fratrum were forced to choose to either leave the many and varied southeastern principalities of what was the Holy Roman Empire (mainly Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and parts of Germany and its many states), or to practice their beliefs secretly. As a result, members were forced underground and dispersed across northwestern Europe. The largest remaining communities of the Brethren were located in Lissa (Leszno) in Poland, which had historically strong ties with the Czechs, and in small, isolated groups in Moravia. Some, among them Jan Amos Comenius, fled to western Europe, mainly the Low Countries. A settlement of Hussites in Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany, in 1722 caused the emergence of the Moravian Church.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1918, as a result of World War I, the Czech lands regained independence from Austria-Hungary controlled by the Habsburg monarchy as Czechoslovakia (due to Masaryk and Czechoslovak legions with Hussite tradition, in the name of the troops).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Today, the Hussite tradition is represented in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren, and Czechoslovak Hussite Church.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Hussitism organised itself during the years 1415–1419. Hussites were not a unitary movement, but a diverse one with multiple factions that held different views and opposed each other in the Hussite Wars. From the beginning, there formed two parties, with a smaller number of people withdrawing from both parties around the pacifist Petr Chelčický, whose teachings would form the foundation of the Unitas Fratrum. Hussites can be divided into:",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The more conservative Hussites (the moderate party, or Ultraquists), who followed Hus more closely, sought to conduct reform while leaving the whole hierarchical and liturgical order of the Church untouched. Their programme is contained in the Four Articles of Prague, which were written by Jacob of Mies and agreed upon in July 1420, promulgated in the Latin, Czech, and German languages. The full text is about two pages long, but they are often summarized as:",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The views of the moderate Hussites were widely represented at the university and among the citizens of Prague; they were therefore called the Prague Party, but also Calixtines (Latin calix chalice) or Utraquists (Latin utraque both), because they emphasized the second article of Prague, and the chalice became their emblem.",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The more radical parties, the Taborites, Orebites and Orphans, identified itself more boldly with the doctrines of John Wycliffe, sharing his passionate hatred of the monastic clergy, and his desire to return the Church to its supposed condition during the time of the apostles. This required the removal of the existing hierarchy and the secularisation of ecclesiastical possessions. Above all they clung to Wycliffe's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, denying transubstantiation, and this is the principal point by which they are distinguished from the moderate party, the Ultraquists.",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The radicals preached the \"sufficientia legis Christi\"—the divine law (i.e. the Bible) is the sole rule and canon for human society, not only in the church, but also in political and civil matters. They rejected therefore, as early as 1416, everything that they believed had no basis in the Bible, such as the veneration of saints and images, fasts, superfluous holidays, the oath, intercession for the dead, auricular Confession, indulgences, the sacraments of Confirmation and the Anointing of the Sick, and chose their own priests.",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The radicals had their gathering-places all around the country. Their first armed assault fell on the small town of Ústí, on the river Lužnice, south of Prague (today's Sezimovo Ústí). However, as the place did not prove to be defensible, they settled in the remains of an older town upon a hill not far away and founded a new town, which they named Tábor (a play on words, as \"Tábor\" not only meant \"camp\" or \"encampment\" in Czech, but is also the traditional name of the mountain on which Jesus was expected to return; see Mark 13); hence they were called Táborité (Taborites). They comprised the essential force of the radical Hussites.",
"title": "Factions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Their aim was to destroy the enemies of the law of God, and to defend his kingdom (which had been expected to come in a short time) by the sword. Their end-of-world visions did not come true. In order to preserve their settlement and spread their ideology, they waged bloody wars; in the beginning they observed a strict regime, inflicting the severest punishment equally for murder, as for less severe faults as adultery, perjury and usury, and also tried to apply rigid Biblical standards to the social order of the time. The Taborites usually had the support of the Orebites (later called Orphans), an eastern Bohemian sect of Hussitism based in Hradec Králové.",
"title": "Factions"
}
]
| The Hussites were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation. After the execution of Hus at the Council of Constance, a series of crusades, civil wars, victories and compromises between various factions with different theological agendas broke out. At the end of the Hussite Wars (1420–1434), the now Catholic-supported Utraquist side came out victorious from conflict with the Taborites and became the dominant Hussite group in Bohemia. Catholics and Utraquists were given legal equality in Bohemia after the religious peace of Kutná Hora in 1485. Bohemia and Moravia, or what is now the territory of the Czech Republic, remained majority Hussite for two centuries until Roman Catholicism was reimposed by the Holy Roman Emperor after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War. The Hussite tradition continues in the Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren and the refounded Czechoslovak Hussite churches. | 2001-12-16T23:01:33Z | 2023-11-18T01:39:41Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussites |
14,292 | HMS Ark Royal | Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Ark Royal: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Ark Royal:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Ark Royal: Ark Royal (1587), the flagship of the English fleet during the Spanish Armada campaign of 1588
HMS Ark Royal (1914), planned as freighter, built as seaplane carrier during the First World War, renamed Pegasus in 1934
HMS Ark Royal (91), British aircraft carrier launched in 1937 that participated in the Second World War and was sunk by a U-boat in 1941
HMS Ark Royal (R09), an Audacious-class aircraft carrier launched in 1950, decommissioned in 1979
HMS Ark Royal (R07), an Invincible-class aircraft carrier, launched in 1981, decommissioned in 2011 | 2021-08-15T12:56:18Z | [
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]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal |
|
14,293 | Herman of Alaska | Herman of Alaska (Russian: Преподобный Ге́рман Аляскинский, tr. Prepodobny German Alaskinsky; c. 1756 – November 15, 1837) was a Russian Orthodox monk and missionary to Alaska, which was then part of Russian America. His gentle approach and ascetic life earned him the love and respect of both the native Alaskans and the Russian colonists. He is considered by many Orthodox Christians to be the patron saint of North America.
Biographers disagree about Herman's early life. His official biography, which Valaam Monastery published in 1867, said that his pre-monastic name was unknown, but that Herman was born into a merchant's family in Serpukhov, a city in Moscow Governorate. He was said to later become a novice at the Trinity-St. Sergius Hermitage near St. Petersburg before going to Valaam to complete his training and receive full tonsure as a monk. But, modern biographer Sergei Korsun found this account to be based on erroneous information provided by Semyon Yanovsky, an administrator from 1818 through part of 1820 of the Russian-American Company (RAC) in Alaska. He confused Herman's biographical information with that of another monk, Joseph (Telepnev).
Another former RAC Chief Manager, Ferdinand von Wrangel, stated Herman was originally from a prosperous peasant family in the Voronezh Governorate and served in the military. He then entered monastic life as a novice at Sarov Monastery. This concurred with testimony of Archimandrite Theophan (Sokolov), and a letter written by Herman himself. These agree that Herman began his monastic life as a novice at Sarov, and later received the full tonsure at Valaam. A young military clerk named Egor Ivanovich Popov, from the Voronezh Governorate, was tonsured with the name 'Herman' at Valaam in 1782.
All biographers agree that at Valaam, Herman studied under Abbot Nazarius, previously of Sarov Monastery. The abbot had been influenced by the hesychastic tradition of Paisius Velichkovsky. Herman undertook various obediences and was well-liked by the brethren, but wanted a more solitary life. He became a hermit with Abbot Nazarius' blessing. His hermitage, which later became known as "Herman's field" or Germanovo, was two kilometers from the monastery. Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg offered to ordain Herman to the priesthood and twice offered to send him to lead the Russian Orthodox Mission in China, but he refused, preferring the solitary life and remaining a simple monk. Years after he left for North America, Herman continued to keep in touch with his spiritual home. In a letter to Abbot Nazarius, he wrote, "in my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam, and constantly behold it across the great ocean."
The Russian colonization of the Americas began when Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov discovered Alaska on behalf of the Russian Empire in 1741. The expedition harvested 1,500 sea otter pelts, which Chinese merchants bought for 1,000 rubles each at their trading post near Lake Baikal. This spurred a "fur rush" from 1741 to 1798 in which frontiersmen known as promyshlenniki explored Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. They alternately fought with and intermarried the native peoples.
Grigory Shelikhov, a fur-trader, subjugated the native population of Kodiak Island. With Ivan Golikov, he founded a fur-trading company that eventually received a monopoly from the Imperial government; it became known as the Russian-American Company. Shelikhov founded a school for the natives, and many were converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity.
The Shelikhov-Golikov Company appealed to the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to provide a priest for the natives. Catherine the Great decided instead to send an entire mission to America. She entrusted the task of recruiting missionaries to Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg, who sent ten monks from Valaam, including Herman. The missionaries arrived on Kodiak on September 24, 1794.
Herman and the other missionaries encountered a harsh reality at Kodiak that did not correspond to Shelikhov's rosy descriptions. The native Kodiak population, called "Americans" by the Russian settlers, were subject to harsh treatment by the Russian-American Company, which was being overseen by Shelikhov's manager Alexander Baranov. He later became the first governor of the colony.
The men were forced to hunt for sea otter even during harsh weather, and women and children were abused. The monks were also shocked at the widespread alcoholism in the Russian population, and the fact that most of the settlers had taken native mistresses. The monks themselves were not given the supplies that Shelikhov promised them, and had to till the ground with wooden implements.
Despite these difficulties, the monks baptized more than 7,000 natives in the Kodiak region, and set about building a church and monastery. Herman was assigned in the bakery and acted as the mission's steward (ekonom).
The monks became the defenders of the native Kodiak population. Herman was especially noted for his zeal in protecting them from the excessive demands of the RAC, and Baranov disparaged him in a letter as a "hack writer and chatterer." A contemporary historian compares him to Bartolomé de las Casas, the Roman Catholic friar who defended the rights of native South Americans against the Spanish colonists.
After over a decade spent in Alaska, Herman became the head of the mission in 1807, although he was not ordained to the priesthood. The local population loved and respected him, and he had established good relations with Baranov. Herman ran the mission school, where he taught church subjects such as singing and catechism, alongside reading and writing. He also taught agriculture on Spruce Island. But, because he still longed for the life of a hermit, he retired from active duty in the mission and moved to Spruce Island.
Herman moved to Spruce Island around 1811 to 1817. The island is separated from Kodiak by a mile-wide strait, making it ideal for eremitic life. Herman named his hermitage "New Valaam." He wore simple clothes and slept on a bench covered with a deerskin. When asked how he could bear to be alone in the forest, he replied, "I am not alone. God is here, as God is everywhere."
Despite his solitary life, he soon gained a following. He received many visitors—especially native Aleuts —on Sundays and church feasts. Soon a chapel and guesthouse were built next to his hermitage, and then a school for orphans. Herman had a few disciples, including the Creole orphan Gerasim Ivanovich Zyrianov, a young Aleut woman named Sofia Vlasova, and others.
Entire families moved to the island in order to be closer to the Elder, who helped to sort out their disputes. Herman had a deep love for the native Aleuts: he stood up for them against the excesses of the Russian-American Company, and once during an epidemic, he was the only Russian to visit them, working tirelessly to care for the sick and console the dying. Herman spent the rest of his life on Spruce Island, where he died on November 15, 1837.
On March 11, 1969, the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) formally declared their intention to canonize Herman, "as a sublime example of the Holy Life, for our spiritual benefit, inspiration, comfort, and the confirmation of our Faith." On August 9, 1970, Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish) of the OCA along with Archbishop Paul (Olmari) of Finland and other hierarchs and clergy presided over the canonization service, which was held at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island. His relics were transferred from his grave underneath the Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel (i.e., the Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel), on Spruce Island, to the Holy Resurrection Cathedral.
On the same date, the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) also canonized Herman at the Holy Virgin Cathedral ("Joy of All Who Sorrow") in San Francisco. At the all-night vigil, the canon to Herman was read for the first time by Gleb Podmoshensky, one of the founding brothers of the St. Herman of Alaska Serbian Orthodox Brotherhood in 1963. He, Eugene (Seraphim) Rose, and Lawrence Campbell gathered material for the Synod of Bishops in order to support the glorification of Herman, and also helped compose the liturgical service in his honor.
There are several feast days throughout the year on which Saint Herman of Alaska is commemorated. Since there are two different calendars currently in use among various Orthodox churches, two dates are listed: the first date is the date on the traditional Julian Calendar, the second date, after the slash, is the same day on the modern Gregorian Calendar:
The major portion of his relics are preserved at Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Kodiak, Alaska, His burial site at the Sts. Sergius and Herman Chapel, Spruce Island, Alaska is an important pilgrimage site. The devout will often take soil from his grave and water from the spring named in his honour.
A portion of his relics are enshrined at the St. Ignatius Chapel at the Antiochan Village in Pennsylvania, a conference and retreat center of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He is regarded as one of their patron saints.
In 1963, with the blessing of John Maximovitch, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, a community of Orthodox booksellers and publishers called the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood was formed to publish Orthodox missionary information in English.
One of the founders was Father Seraphim Rose. The Brotherhood did much to advance the cause of Herman's glorification as a saint. Saint Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska is named in his honor, as are numerous parish churches throughout the world.
On Tuesday, August 4, 1970, the 91st Congress of the United States acknowledged the glorification of Herman of Alaska with a speech in the Senate, and his biography was formally entered into the Congressional Record.
In 1993, Patriarch Alexis II visited Kodiak to venerate the relics of Saint Herman. He left as a gift an ornate lampada (oil lamp) which burns constantly over the reliquary. Pilgrims from all over the world are anointed with holy oil from this lampada.
In 2022, Herman was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 15 November.
Finnish Orthodox Espoo Church in Tapiola, Espoo, is dedicated to St. Herman of Alaska. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Herman of Alaska (Russian: Преподобный Ге́рман Аляскинский, tr. Prepodobny German Alaskinsky; c. 1756 – November 15, 1837) was a Russian Orthodox monk and missionary to Alaska, which was then part of Russian America. His gentle approach and ascetic life earned him the love and respect of both the native Alaskans and the Russian colonists. He is considered by many Orthodox Christians to be the patron saint of North America.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Biographers disagree about Herman's early life. His official biography, which Valaam Monastery published in 1867, said that his pre-monastic name was unknown, but that Herman was born into a merchant's family in Serpukhov, a city in Moscow Governorate. He was said to later become a novice at the Trinity-St. Sergius Hermitage near St. Petersburg before going to Valaam to complete his training and receive full tonsure as a monk. But, modern biographer Sergei Korsun found this account to be based on erroneous information provided by Semyon Yanovsky, an administrator from 1818 through part of 1820 of the Russian-American Company (RAC) in Alaska. He confused Herman's biographical information with that of another monk, Joseph (Telepnev).",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Another former RAC Chief Manager, Ferdinand von Wrangel, stated Herman was originally from a prosperous peasant family in the Voronezh Governorate and served in the military. He then entered monastic life as a novice at Sarov Monastery. This concurred with testimony of Archimandrite Theophan (Sokolov), and a letter written by Herman himself. These agree that Herman began his monastic life as a novice at Sarov, and later received the full tonsure at Valaam. A young military clerk named Egor Ivanovich Popov, from the Voronezh Governorate, was tonsured with the name 'Herman' at Valaam in 1782.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "All biographers agree that at Valaam, Herman studied under Abbot Nazarius, previously of Sarov Monastery. The abbot had been influenced by the hesychastic tradition of Paisius Velichkovsky. Herman undertook various obediences and was well-liked by the brethren, but wanted a more solitary life. He became a hermit with Abbot Nazarius' blessing. His hermitage, which later became known as \"Herman's field\" or Germanovo, was two kilometers from the monastery. Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg offered to ordain Herman to the priesthood and twice offered to send him to lead the Russian Orthodox Mission in China, but he refused, preferring the solitary life and remaining a simple monk. Years after he left for North America, Herman continued to keep in touch with his spiritual home. In a letter to Abbot Nazarius, he wrote, \"in my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam, and constantly behold it across the great ocean.\"",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Russian colonization of the Americas began when Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov discovered Alaska on behalf of the Russian Empire in 1741. The expedition harvested 1,500 sea otter pelts, which Chinese merchants bought for 1,000 rubles each at their trading post near Lake Baikal. This spurred a \"fur rush\" from 1741 to 1798 in which frontiersmen known as promyshlenniki explored Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. They alternately fought with and intermarried the native peoples.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Grigory Shelikhov, a fur-trader, subjugated the native population of Kodiak Island. With Ivan Golikov, he founded a fur-trading company that eventually received a monopoly from the Imperial government; it became known as the Russian-American Company. Shelikhov founded a school for the natives, and many were converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Shelikhov-Golikov Company appealed to the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to provide a priest for the natives. Catherine the Great decided instead to send an entire mission to America. She entrusted the task of recruiting missionaries to Metropolitan Gabriel of St. Petersburg, who sent ten monks from Valaam, including Herman. The missionaries arrived on Kodiak on September 24, 1794.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Herman and the other missionaries encountered a harsh reality at Kodiak that did not correspond to Shelikhov's rosy descriptions. The native Kodiak population, called \"Americans\" by the Russian settlers, were subject to harsh treatment by the Russian-American Company, which was being overseen by Shelikhov's manager Alexander Baranov. He later became the first governor of the colony.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The men were forced to hunt for sea otter even during harsh weather, and women and children were abused. The monks were also shocked at the widespread alcoholism in the Russian population, and the fact that most of the settlers had taken native mistresses. The monks themselves were not given the supplies that Shelikhov promised them, and had to till the ground with wooden implements.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Despite these difficulties, the monks baptized more than 7,000 natives in the Kodiak region, and set about building a church and monastery. Herman was assigned in the bakery and acted as the mission's steward (ekonom).",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The monks became the defenders of the native Kodiak population. Herman was especially noted for his zeal in protecting them from the excessive demands of the RAC, and Baranov disparaged him in a letter as a \"hack writer and chatterer.\" A contemporary historian compares him to Bartolomé de las Casas, the Roman Catholic friar who defended the rights of native South Americans against the Spanish colonists.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After over a decade spent in Alaska, Herman became the head of the mission in 1807, although he was not ordained to the priesthood. The local population loved and respected him, and he had established good relations with Baranov. Herman ran the mission school, where he taught church subjects such as singing and catechism, alongside reading and writing. He also taught agriculture on Spruce Island. But, because he still longed for the life of a hermit, he retired from active duty in the mission and moved to Spruce Island.",
"title": "Mission in Alaska"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Herman moved to Spruce Island around 1811 to 1817. The island is separated from Kodiak by a mile-wide strait, making it ideal for eremitic life. Herman named his hermitage \"New Valaam.\" He wore simple clothes and slept on a bench covered with a deerskin. When asked how he could bear to be alone in the forest, he replied, \"I am not alone. God is here, as God is everywhere.\"",
"title": "Life on Spruce Island"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Despite his solitary life, he soon gained a following. He received many visitors—especially native Aleuts —on Sundays and church feasts. Soon a chapel and guesthouse were built next to his hermitage, and then a school for orphans. Herman had a few disciples, including the Creole orphan Gerasim Ivanovich Zyrianov, a young Aleut woman named Sofia Vlasova, and others.",
"title": "Life on Spruce Island"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Entire families moved to the island in order to be closer to the Elder, who helped to sort out their disputes. Herman had a deep love for the native Aleuts: he stood up for them against the excesses of the Russian-American Company, and once during an epidemic, he was the only Russian to visit them, working tirelessly to care for the sick and console the dying. Herman spent the rest of his life on Spruce Island, where he died on November 15, 1837.",
"title": "Life on Spruce Island"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On March 11, 1969, the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) formally declared their intention to canonize Herman, \"as a sublime example of the Holy Life, for our spiritual benefit, inspiration, comfort, and the confirmation of our Faith.\" On August 9, 1970, Metropolitan Ireney (Bekish) of the OCA along with Archbishop Paul (Olmari) of Finland and other hierarchs and clergy presided over the canonization service, which was held at Holy Resurrection Cathedral on Kodiak Island. His relics were transferred from his grave underneath the Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel (i.e., the Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam Chapel), on Spruce Island, to the Holy Resurrection Cathedral.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On the same date, the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) also canonized Herman at the Holy Virgin Cathedral (\"Joy of All Who Sorrow\") in San Francisco. At the all-night vigil, the canon to Herman was read for the first time by Gleb Podmoshensky, one of the founding brothers of the St. Herman of Alaska Serbian Orthodox Brotherhood in 1963. He, Eugene (Seraphim) Rose, and Lawrence Campbell gathered material for the Synod of Bishops in order to support the glorification of Herman, and also helped compose the liturgical service in his honor.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "There are several feast days throughout the year on which Saint Herman of Alaska is commemorated. Since there are two different calendars currently in use among various Orthodox churches, two dates are listed: the first date is the date on the traditional Julian Calendar, the second date, after the slash, is the same day on the modern Gregorian Calendar:",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The major portion of his relics are preserved at Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Kodiak, Alaska, His burial site at the Sts. Sergius and Herman Chapel, Spruce Island, Alaska is an important pilgrimage site. The devout will often take soil from his grave and water from the spring named in his honour.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "A portion of his relics are enshrined at the St. Ignatius Chapel at the Antiochan Village in Pennsylvania, a conference and retreat center of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He is regarded as one of their patron saints.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1963, with the blessing of John Maximovitch, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, a community of Orthodox booksellers and publishers called the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood was formed to publish Orthodox missionary information in English.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "One of the founders was Father Seraphim Rose. The Brotherhood did much to advance the cause of Herman's glorification as a saint. Saint Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska is named in his honor, as are numerous parish churches throughout the world.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "On Tuesday, August 4, 1970, the 91st Congress of the United States acknowledged the glorification of Herman of Alaska with a speech in the Senate, and his biography was formally entered into the Congressional Record.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1993, Patriarch Alexis II visited Kodiak to venerate the relics of Saint Herman. He left as a gift an ornate lampada (oil lamp) which burns constantly over the reliquary. Pilgrims from all over the world are anointed with holy oil from this lampada.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 2022, Herman was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 15 November.",
"title": "Sainthood"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Finnish Orthodox Espoo Church in Tapiola, Espoo, is dedicated to St. Herman of Alaska.",
"title": "Sainthood"
}
]
| Herman of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox monk and missionary to Alaska, which was then part of Russian America. His gentle approach and ascetic life earned him the love and respect of both the native Alaskans and the Russian colonists. He is considered by many Orthodox Christians to be the patron saint of North America. | 2001-12-17T03:51:40Z | 2023-11-30T16:46:54Z | [
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"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Commonscat-inline",
"Template:Authority control",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Lang-rus",
"Template:Reflist"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_of_Alaska |
14,294 | Hausdorff dimension | In mathematics, Hausdorff dimension is a measure of roughness, or more specifically, fractal dimension, that was introduced in 1918 by mathematician Felix Hausdorff. For instance, the Hausdorff dimension of a single point is zero, of a line segment is 1, of a square is 2, and of a cube is 3. That is, for sets of points that define a smooth shape or a shape that has a small number of corners—the shapes of traditional geometry and science—the Hausdorff dimension is an integer agreeing with the usual sense of dimension, also known as the topological dimension. However, formulas have also been developed that allow calculation of the dimension of other less simple objects, where, solely on the basis of their properties of scaling and self-similarity, one is led to the conclusion that particular objects—including fractals—have non-integer Hausdorff dimensions. Because of the significant technical advances made by Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch allowing computation of dimensions for highly irregular or "rough" sets, this dimension is also commonly referred to as the Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension.
More specifically, the Hausdorff dimension is a dimensional number associated with a metric space, i.e. a set where the distances between all members are defined. The dimension is drawn from the extended real numbers, R ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {\mathbb {R} }}} , as opposed to the more intuitive notion of dimension, which is not associated to general metric spaces, and only takes values in the non-negative integers.
In mathematical terms, the Hausdorff dimension generalizes the notion of the dimension of a real vector space. That is, the Hausdorff dimension of an n-dimensional inner product space equals n. This underlies the earlier statement that the Hausdorff dimension of a point is zero, of a line is one, etc., and that irregular sets can have noninteger Hausdorff dimensions. For instance, the Koch snowflake shown at right is constructed from an equilateral triangle; in each iteration, its component line segments are divided into 3 segments of unit length, the newly created middle segment is used as the base of a new equilateral triangle that points outward, and this base segment is then deleted to leave a final object from the iteration of unit length of 4. That is, after the first iteration, each original line segment has been replaced with N=4, where each self-similar copy is 1/S = 1/3 as long as the original. Stated another way, we have taken an object with Euclidean dimension, D, and reduced its linear scale by 1/3 in each direction, so that its length increases to N=S. This equation is easily solved for D, yielding the ratio of logarithms (or natural logarithms) appearing in the figures, and giving—in the Koch and other fractal cases—non-integer dimensions for these objects.
The Hausdorff dimension is a successor to the simpler, but usually equivalent, box-counting or Minkowski–Bouligand dimension.
The intuitive concept of dimension of a geometric object X is the number of independent parameters one needs to pick out a unique point inside. However, any point specified by two parameters can be instead specified by one, because the cardinality of the real plane is equal to the cardinality of the real line (this can be seen by an argument involving interweaving the digits of two numbers to yield a single number encoding the same information). The example of a space-filling curve shows that one can even map the real line to the real plane surjectively (taking one real number into a pair of real numbers in a way so that all pairs of numbers are covered) and continuously, so that a one-dimensional object completely fills up a higher-dimensional object.
Every space-filling curve hits some points multiple times and does not have a continuous inverse. It is impossible to map two dimensions onto one in a way that is continuous and continuously invertible. The topological dimension, also called Lebesgue covering dimension, explains why. This dimension is the greatest integer n such that in every covering of X by small open balls there is at least one point where n + 1 balls overlap. For example, when one covers a line with short open intervals, some points must be covered twice, giving dimension n = 1.
But topological dimension is a very crude measure of the local size of a space (size near a point). A curve that is almost space-filling can still have topological dimension one, even if it fills up most of the area of a region. A fractal has an integer topological dimension, but in terms of the amount of space it takes up, it behaves like a higher-dimensional space.
The Hausdorff dimension measures the local size of a space taking into account the distance between points, the metric. Consider the number N(r) of balls of radius at most r required to cover X completely. When r is very small, N(r) grows polynomially with 1/r. For a sufficiently well-behaved X, the Hausdorff dimension is the unique number d such that N(r) grows as 1/r as r approaches zero. More precisely, this defines the box-counting dimension, which equals the Hausdorff dimension when the value d is a critical boundary between growth rates that are insufficient to cover the space, and growth rates that are overabundant.
For shapes that are smooth, or shapes with a small number of corners, the shapes of traditional geometry and science, the Hausdorff dimension is an integer agreeing with the topological dimension. But Benoit Mandelbrot observed that fractals, sets with noninteger Hausdorff dimensions, are found everywhere in nature. He observed that the proper idealization of most rough shapes you see around you is not in terms of smooth idealized shapes, but in terms of fractal idealized shapes:
Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.
For fractals that occur in nature, the Hausdorff and box-counting dimension coincide. The packing dimension is yet another similar notion which gives the same value for many shapes, but there are well-documented exceptions where all these dimensions differ.
The formal definition of the Hausdorff dimension is arrived at by defining first the d-dimensional Hausdorff measure, a fractional-dimension analogue of the Lebesgue measure. First, an outer measure is constructed: Let X {\displaystyle X} be a metric space. If S ⊂ X {\displaystyle S\subset X} and d ∈ [ 0 , ∞ ) {\displaystyle d\in [0,\infty )} ,
where the infimum is taken over all countable covers U {\displaystyle U} of S {\displaystyle S} . The Hausdorff d-dimensional outer measure is then defined as H d ( S ) = lim δ → 0 H δ d ( S ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {H}}^{d}(S)=\lim _{\delta \to 0}H_{\delta }^{d}(S)} , and the restriction of the mapping to measurable sets justifies it as a measure, called the d {\displaystyle d} -dimensional Hausdorff Measure.
The Hausdorff dimension dim H ( X ) {\displaystyle \dim _{\operatorname {H} }{(X)}} of X {\displaystyle X} is defined by
This is the same as the supremum of the set of d ∈ [ 0 , ∞ ) {\displaystyle d\in [0,\infty )} such that the d {\displaystyle d} -dimensional Hausdorff measure of X {\displaystyle X} is infinite (except that when this latter set of numbers d {\displaystyle d} is empty the Hausdorff dimension is zero).
The d {\displaystyle d} -dimensional unlimited Hausdorff content of S {\displaystyle S} is defined by
In other words, C H d ( S ) {\displaystyle C_{H}^{d}(S)} has the construction of the Hausdorff measure where the covering sets are allowed to have arbitrarily large sizes (Here, we use the standard convention that inf ∅ = ∞ {\displaystyle \inf \varnothing =\infty } ). The Hausdorff measure and the Hausdorff content can both be used to determine the dimension of a set, but if the measure of the set is non-zero, their actual values may disagree.
Let X be an arbitrary separable metric space. There is a topological notion of inductive dimension for X which is defined recursively. It is always an integer (or +∞) and is denoted dimind(X).
Theorem. Suppose X is non-empty. Then
Moreover,
where Y ranges over metric spaces homeomorphic to X. In other words, X and Y have the same underlying set of points and the metric dY of Y is topologically equivalent to dX.
These results were originally established by Edward Szpilrajn (1907–1976), e.g., see Hurewicz and Wallman, Chapter VII.
The Minkowski dimension is similar to, and at least as large as, the Hausdorff dimension, and they are equal in many situations. However, the set of rational points in [0, 1] has Hausdorff dimension zero and Minkowski dimension one. There are also compact sets for which the Minkowski dimension is strictly larger than the Hausdorff dimension.
If there is a measure μ defined on Borel subsets of a metric space X such that μ(X) > 0 and μ(B(x, r)) ≤ r holds for some constant s > 0 and for every ball B(x, r) in X, then dimHaus(X) ≥ s. A partial converse is provided by Frostman's lemma.
If X = ⋃ i ∈ I X i {\displaystyle X=\bigcup _{i\in I}X_{i}} is a finite or countable union, then
This can be verified directly from the definition.
If X and Y are non-empty metric spaces, then the Hausdorff dimension of their product satisfies
This inequality can be strict. It is possible to find two sets of dimension 0 whose product has dimension 1. In the opposite direction, it is known that when X and Y are Borel subsets of R, the Hausdorff dimension of X × Y is bounded from above by the Hausdorff dimension of X plus the upper packing dimension of Y. These facts are discussed in Mattila (1995).
Many sets defined by a self-similarity condition have dimensions which can be determined explicitly. Roughly, a set E is self-similar if it is the fixed point of a set-valued transformation ψ, that is ψ(E) = E, although the exact definition is given below.
Theorem. Suppose
are each a contraction mapping on R with contraction constant ri < 1. Then there is a unique non-empty compact set A such that
The theorem follows from Stefan Banach's contractive mapping fixed point theorem applied to the complete metric space of non-empty compact subsets of R with the Hausdorff distance.
To determine the dimension of the self-similar set A (in certain cases), we need a technical condition called the open set condition (OSC) on the sequence of contractions ψi.
There is an open set V with compact closure, such that
where the sets in union on the left are pairwise disjoint.
The open set condition is a separation condition that ensures the images ψi(V) do not overlap "too much".
Theorem. Suppose the open set condition holds and each ψi is a similitude, that is a composition of an isometry and a dilatation around some point. Then the unique fixed point of ψ is a set whose Hausdorff dimension is s where s is the unique solution of
The contraction coefficient of a similitude is the magnitude of the dilatation.
In general, a set E which is carried onto itself by a mapping
is self-similar if and only if the intersections satisfy the following condition:
where s is the Hausdorff dimension of E and H denotes s-dimensional Hausdorff measure. This is clear in the case of the Sierpinski gasket (the intersections are just points), but is also true more generally:
Theorem. Under the same conditions as the previous theorem, the unique fixed point of ψ is self-similar. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In mathematics, Hausdorff dimension is a measure of roughness, or more specifically, fractal dimension, that was introduced in 1918 by mathematician Felix Hausdorff. For instance, the Hausdorff dimension of a single point is zero, of a line segment is 1, of a square is 2, and of a cube is 3. That is, for sets of points that define a smooth shape or a shape that has a small number of corners—the shapes of traditional geometry and science—the Hausdorff dimension is an integer agreeing with the usual sense of dimension, also known as the topological dimension. However, formulas have also been developed that allow calculation of the dimension of other less simple objects, where, solely on the basis of their properties of scaling and self-similarity, one is led to the conclusion that particular objects—including fractals—have non-integer Hausdorff dimensions. Because of the significant technical advances made by Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch allowing computation of dimensions for highly irregular or \"rough\" sets, this dimension is also commonly referred to as the Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "More specifically, the Hausdorff dimension is a dimensional number associated with a metric space, i.e. a set where the distances between all members are defined. The dimension is drawn from the extended real numbers, R ¯ {\\displaystyle {\\overline {\\mathbb {R} }}} , as opposed to the more intuitive notion of dimension, which is not associated to general metric spaces, and only takes values in the non-negative integers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In mathematical terms, the Hausdorff dimension generalizes the notion of the dimension of a real vector space. That is, the Hausdorff dimension of an n-dimensional inner product space equals n. This underlies the earlier statement that the Hausdorff dimension of a point is zero, of a line is one, etc., and that irregular sets can have noninteger Hausdorff dimensions. For instance, the Koch snowflake shown at right is constructed from an equilateral triangle; in each iteration, its component line segments are divided into 3 segments of unit length, the newly created middle segment is used as the base of a new equilateral triangle that points outward, and this base segment is then deleted to leave a final object from the iteration of unit length of 4. That is, after the first iteration, each original line segment has been replaced with N=4, where each self-similar copy is 1/S = 1/3 as long as the original. Stated another way, we have taken an object with Euclidean dimension, D, and reduced its linear scale by 1/3 in each direction, so that its length increases to N=S. This equation is easily solved for D, yielding the ratio of logarithms (or natural logarithms) appearing in the figures, and giving—in the Koch and other fractal cases—non-integer dimensions for these objects.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Hausdorff dimension is a successor to the simpler, but usually equivalent, box-counting or Minkowski–Bouligand dimension.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The intuitive concept of dimension of a geometric object X is the number of independent parameters one needs to pick out a unique point inside. However, any point specified by two parameters can be instead specified by one, because the cardinality of the real plane is equal to the cardinality of the real line (this can be seen by an argument involving interweaving the digits of two numbers to yield a single number encoding the same information). The example of a space-filling curve shows that one can even map the real line to the real plane surjectively (taking one real number into a pair of real numbers in a way so that all pairs of numbers are covered) and continuously, so that a one-dimensional object completely fills up a higher-dimensional object.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Every space-filling curve hits some points multiple times and does not have a continuous inverse. It is impossible to map two dimensions onto one in a way that is continuous and continuously invertible. The topological dimension, also called Lebesgue covering dimension, explains why. This dimension is the greatest integer n such that in every covering of X by small open balls there is at least one point where n + 1 balls overlap. For example, when one covers a line with short open intervals, some points must be covered twice, giving dimension n = 1.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "But topological dimension is a very crude measure of the local size of a space (size near a point). A curve that is almost space-filling can still have topological dimension one, even if it fills up most of the area of a region. A fractal has an integer topological dimension, but in terms of the amount of space it takes up, it behaves like a higher-dimensional space.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Hausdorff dimension measures the local size of a space taking into account the distance between points, the metric. Consider the number N(r) of balls of radius at most r required to cover X completely. When r is very small, N(r) grows polynomially with 1/r. For a sufficiently well-behaved X, the Hausdorff dimension is the unique number d such that N(r) grows as 1/r as r approaches zero. More precisely, this defines the box-counting dimension, which equals the Hausdorff dimension when the value d is a critical boundary between growth rates that are insufficient to cover the space, and growth rates that are overabundant.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "For shapes that are smooth, or shapes with a small number of corners, the shapes of traditional geometry and science, the Hausdorff dimension is an integer agreeing with the topological dimension. But Benoit Mandelbrot observed that fractals, sets with noninteger Hausdorff dimensions, are found everywhere in nature. He observed that the proper idealization of most rough shapes you see around you is not in terms of smooth idealized shapes, but in terms of fractal idealized shapes:",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "For fractals that occur in nature, the Hausdorff and box-counting dimension coincide. The packing dimension is yet another similar notion which gives the same value for many shapes, but there are well-documented exceptions where all these dimensions differ.",
"title": "Intuition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The formal definition of the Hausdorff dimension is arrived at by defining first the d-dimensional Hausdorff measure, a fractional-dimension analogue of the Lebesgue measure. First, an outer measure is constructed: Let X {\\displaystyle X} be a metric space. If S ⊂ X {\\displaystyle S\\subset X} and d ∈ [ 0 , ∞ ) {\\displaystyle d\\in [0,\\infty )} ,",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "where the infimum is taken over all countable covers U {\\displaystyle U} of S {\\displaystyle S} . The Hausdorff d-dimensional outer measure is then defined as H d ( S ) = lim δ → 0 H δ d ( S ) {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {H}}^{d}(S)=\\lim _{\\delta \\to 0}H_{\\delta }^{d}(S)} , and the restriction of the mapping to measurable sets justifies it as a measure, called the d {\\displaystyle d} -dimensional Hausdorff Measure.",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Hausdorff dimension dim H ( X ) {\\displaystyle \\dim _{\\operatorname {H} }{(X)}} of X {\\displaystyle X} is defined by",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "This is the same as the supremum of the set of d ∈ [ 0 , ∞ ) {\\displaystyle d\\in [0,\\infty )} such that the d {\\displaystyle d} -dimensional Hausdorff measure of X {\\displaystyle X} is infinite (except that when this latter set of numbers d {\\displaystyle d} is empty the Hausdorff dimension is zero).",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The d {\\displaystyle d} -dimensional unlimited Hausdorff content of S {\\displaystyle S} is defined by",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In other words, C H d ( S ) {\\displaystyle C_{H}^{d}(S)} has the construction of the Hausdorff measure where the covering sets are allowed to have arbitrarily large sizes (Here, we use the standard convention that inf ∅ = ∞ {\\displaystyle \\inf \\varnothing =\\infty } ). The Hausdorff measure and the Hausdorff content can both be used to determine the dimension of a set, but if the measure of the set is non-zero, their actual values may disagree.",
"title": "Formal definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Let X be an arbitrary separable metric space. There is a topological notion of inductive dimension for X which is defined recursively. It is always an integer (or +∞) and is denoted dimind(X).",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Theorem. Suppose X is non-empty. Then",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Moreover,",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "where Y ranges over metric spaces homeomorphic to X. In other words, X and Y have the same underlying set of points and the metric dY of Y is topologically equivalent to dX.",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "These results were originally established by Edward Szpilrajn (1907–1976), e.g., see Hurewicz and Wallman, Chapter VII.",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Minkowski dimension is similar to, and at least as large as, the Hausdorff dimension, and they are equal in many situations. However, the set of rational points in [0, 1] has Hausdorff dimension zero and Minkowski dimension one. There are also compact sets for which the Minkowski dimension is strictly larger than the Hausdorff dimension.",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "If there is a measure μ defined on Borel subsets of a metric space X such that μ(X) > 0 and μ(B(x, r)) ≤ r holds for some constant s > 0 and for every ball B(x, r) in X, then dimHaus(X) ≥ s. A partial converse is provided by Frostman's lemma.",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "If X = ⋃ i ∈ I X i {\\displaystyle X=\\bigcup _{i\\in I}X_{i}} is a finite or countable union, then",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "This can be verified directly from the definition.",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "If X and Y are non-empty metric spaces, then the Hausdorff dimension of their product satisfies",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "This inequality can be strict. It is possible to find two sets of dimension 0 whose product has dimension 1. In the opposite direction, it is known that when X and Y are Borel subsets of R, the Hausdorff dimension of X × Y is bounded from above by the Hausdorff dimension of X plus the upper packing dimension of Y. These facts are discussed in Mattila (1995).",
"title": "Properties of Hausdorff dimension"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Many sets defined by a self-similarity condition have dimensions which can be determined explicitly. Roughly, a set E is self-similar if it is the fixed point of a set-valued transformation ψ, that is ψ(E) = E, although the exact definition is given below.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Theorem. Suppose",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "are each a contraction mapping on R with contraction constant ri < 1. Then there is a unique non-empty compact set A such that",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The theorem follows from Stefan Banach's contractive mapping fixed point theorem applied to the complete metric space of non-empty compact subsets of R with the Hausdorff distance.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "To determine the dimension of the self-similar set A (in certain cases), we need a technical condition called the open set condition (OSC) on the sequence of contractions ψi.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "There is an open set V with compact closure, such that",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "where the sets in union on the left are pairwise disjoint.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The open set condition is a separation condition that ensures the images ψi(V) do not overlap \"too much\".",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Theorem. Suppose the open set condition holds and each ψi is a similitude, that is a composition of an isometry and a dilatation around some point. Then the unique fixed point of ψ is a set whose Hausdorff dimension is s where s is the unique solution of",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The contraction coefficient of a similitude is the magnitude of the dilatation.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In general, a set E which is carried onto itself by a mapping",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "is self-similar if and only if the intersections satisfy the following condition:",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "where s is the Hausdorff dimension of E and H denotes s-dimensional Hausdorff measure. This is clear in the case of the Sierpinski gasket (the intersections are just points), but is also true more generally:",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Theorem. Under the same conditions as the previous theorem, the unique fixed point of ψ is self-similar.",
"title": "Self-similar sets"
}
]
| In mathematics, Hausdorff dimension is a measure of roughness, or more specifically, fractal dimension, that was introduced in 1918 by mathematician Felix Hausdorff. For instance, the Hausdorff dimension of a single point is zero, of a line segment is 1, of a square is 2, and of a cube is 3. That is, for sets of points that define a smooth shape or a shape that has a small number of corners—the shapes of traditional geometry and science—the Hausdorff dimension is an integer agreeing with the usual sense of dimension, also known as the topological dimension. However, formulas have also been developed that allow calculation of the dimension of other less simple objects, where, solely on the basis of their properties of scaling and self-similarity, one is led to the conclusion that particular objects—including fractals—have non-integer Hausdorff dimensions. Because of the significant technical advances made by Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch allowing computation of dimensions for highly irregular or "rough" sets, this dimension is also commonly referred to as the Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension. More specifically, the Hausdorff dimension is a dimensional number associated with a metric space, i.e. a set where the distances between all members are defined. The dimension is drawn from the extended real numbers, R ¯ , as opposed to the more intuitive notion of dimension, which is not associated to general metric spaces, and only takes values in the non-negative integers. In mathematical terms, the Hausdorff dimension generalizes the notion of the dimension of a real vector space. That is, the Hausdorff dimension of an n-dimensional inner product space equals n. This underlies the earlier statement that the Hausdorff dimension of a point is zero, of a line is one, etc., and that irregular sets can have noninteger Hausdorff dimensions. For instance, the Koch snowflake shown at right is constructed from an equilateral triangle; in each iteration, its component line segments are divided into 3 segments of unit length, the newly created middle segment is used as the base of a new equilateral triangle that points outward, and this base segment is then deleted to leave a final object from the iteration of unit length of 4. That is, after the first iteration, each original line segment has been replaced with N=4, where each self-similar copy is 1/S = 1/3 as long as the original. Stated another way, we have taken an object with Euclidean dimension, D, and reduced its linear scale by 1/3 in each direction, so that its length increases to N=SD. This equation is easily solved for D, yielding the ratio of logarithms appearing in the figures, and giving—in the Koch and other fractal cases—non-integer dimensions for these objects. The Hausdorff dimension is a successor to the simpler, but usually equivalent, box-counting or Minkowski–Bouligand dimension. | 2001-12-17T07:08:15Z | 2023-09-01T16:11:25Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausdorff_dimension |
14,296 | Heckler & Koch | Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK; German pronunciation: [ˌhɛklɐ ʔʊnt ˈkɔx]) is a German armaments manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France and the United States.
The Heckler & Koch Group comprises Heckler & Koch GmbH, Heckler & Koch Defense, NSAF Ltd., and Heckler & Koch France SAS. The company's motto is "Keine Kompromisse!" (No Compromises!). HK provides firearms for many military and paramilitary units, including the SAS, KMar, the US Navy SEALs, Delta Force, HRT, Canada's Joint Task Force 2, the German KSK and GSG 9, and many other counter-terrorist and hostage rescue teams.
Their products include the MP5, UMP submachine guns, the G3, HK417 battle rifles, the HK33, G36, HK416 assault rifles, the MG5, HK21 General-purpose machine guns, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the USP series of handguns, and the PSG1 sniper rifle. All HK firearms are named by a prefix and the official designation, with suffixes used for variants.
HK has a history of innovation in firearms, such as the use of polymers in weapon designs and the use of an integral rail for flashlights on handguns. HK also developed modern polygonal rifling, noted for its high accuracy, increased muzzle velocity and barrel life. Not all its technologically ambitious designs have become commercially successful products (for instance, the prototype G11 military rifle, which fired caseless high-velocity ammunition). In its extensive product range, HK has used the following operating systems for small arms: blowback operation, short-recoil, roller-delayed blowback, gas-delayed blowback, and gas operation (via short-stroke piston).
With the fall of Germany at the end of World War II, Oberndorf came under French control, and the entire Waffenfabrik Mauser AG factory was dismantled by French occupying forces. All factory records were destroyed on orders of the local French Army commander. In 1948, three former Mauser engineers, Edmund Heckler, Theodor Koch, and Alex Seidel, saved what they could from the factory and used what they salvaged to start a machine tool plant in the vacant factory that became known as the Engineering Office Heckler & Co.
On December 28, 1949, the Engineering Office Heckler & Co. changed its name and was registered officially as Heckler & Koch GmbH. Initially the new company manufactured machine tools, bicycle and sewing machine parts, gauges and other precision parts.
In 1956, Heckler & Koch responded to the West German government's tender for a new infantry rifle for the Bundeswehr (German Federal Army) with the proposal of the G3 battle rifle, which was based on the Spanish CETME rifle. The German government awarded Heckler & Koch the tender and by 1959 declared the G3 the standard rifle of the Bundeswehr. Later on in 1961, Heckler & Koch developed the 7.62×51mm HK21 general-purpose machine gun, based on the G3 battle rifle.
In 1966, Heckler & Koch introduced the HK54 machine pistol, which eventually launched in 1969 as the MP5 submachine gun. Two years later, the company introduced the 5.56×45mm HK33 assault rifle, a smaller version of the G3 battle rifle chambered in 5.56mm NATO.
In 1974, Heckler & Koch diversified into two more areas, HK Defense and Law Enforcement Technology and HK Hunting and Sports Firearms. Since then HK has designed and manufactured more than 100 different types of firearms and devices for the world's military and law enforcement organizations as well as sports shooters and hunters.
In 1990, Heckler & Koch completed two decades of development of their revolutionary caseless weapon system and produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G11. The company also produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G41 intended for the Bundeswehr. Due to the international political climate at the time (East and West Germany uniting and defense budget cuts) the company was unable to secure funded contracts from the German government to support production of either weapon system and became financially vulnerable. The next year, Heckler & Koch was sold to British Aerospace's Royal Ordnance division.
During 1994 and 1995, the German government awarded Heckler & Koch contracts for producing an updated standard assault rifle and updated standard sidearm for the Bundeswehr. Heckler & Koch developed and produced the Project HK50, a lightweight carbon fiber assault rifle, which became the HK G36 assault rifle. In addition, Heckler & Koch produced the Heckler & Koch USP derived as a variant of its Universale Selbstladepistole (USP) series of handguns (which had been in production since 1989). The P8 was adopted as the standard handgun for the Bundeswehr in 1994 and the G36 in 1995.
As the result of a 1999 merger between British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, Heckler & Koch was owned by the resulting BAE Systems; it was contracted to refurbish the British Army's SA80 rifles (which had been built by Royal Ordnance) This contract entailed a modification programme to the SA80 series of rifles to address a number of reliability issues with the design. In 2002, BAE Systems restructured and sold Heckler & Koch to a group of private investors, who created the German group holding company HK Beteiligungs GmbH.
In 2003, HK Beteiligungs GmbH's business organization restructured as Heckler & Koch Jagd und Sportwaffen GmbH (HKJS) and its business was separated into the two business areas similar to the 1974 business mission areas, Defense and Law Enforcement and Sporting Firearms.
In 2004, Heckler & Koch was awarded a major handgun contract for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, worth a potential $26.2 million for up to 65,000 handguns. This contract ranks as the single largest handgun procurement contract in US law enforcement history.
HK was contracted by the United States Army to produce the kinetic energy subsystem (see: kinetic projectiles or kinetic energy penetrator) of the Objective Individual Combat Weapon, a planned replacement for the M16/M203 grenade launcher combination. The OICW was designed to fire 5.56 mm bullets and 25 mm grenades. The kinetic energy component was also developed separately as the XM8, though both the OICW and XM8 are now indefinitely suspended.
Heckler & Koch developed an AR-15/M4 carbine variant, marketed as the HK416. HK replaced the direct impingement system used by the Stoner design on the original M16 with a short-stroke piston operating system. The civilian models are named the MR223 and, in the US, the MR556A1.
There is no indication that the rifle will be adopted by the United States Armed Forces other than in the Marine Corps as the IAR or M27, but the elite Delta Force and other United States special operations units have fielded the HK416 in combat, and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has called for "free and open competition" to determine whether the army should buy the HK416 or continue to purchase more M4 carbines. Incoming United States Secretary of the Army Pete Geren agreed in July 2007 to hold a "dust chamber" test pitting the M4 against the Heckler & Koch HK416 and XM8, as well as the rival FN SCAR design. Coburn had threatened to stop Geren's Senate confirmation if he did not agree to the test. The Heckler & Koch XM8 and FN SCAR had the fewest failures in the test, closely followed by the HK416, while the M4 had by far the most. In 2007, the Norwegian Army became the first to field the HK416 as a standard-issue rifle.
HK sells its pistols in the United States to both law enforcement and civilian markets. The company has locations in Virginia, New Hampshire, and Georgia.
H&K has been accused of shipping small arms to conflict regions such as Bosnia and Nepal, and has licensed its weapons for production by governments with poor human rights records such as Sudan, Thailand and Myanmar. It has been argued that the company effectively evaded EU export restrictions when these licensees sold HK weapons to conflict zones including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone.
According to the newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten (31 August 2011), as well as the state broadcaster ARD, a large stockpile of G36 assault rifles fell into rebel hands during the August 2011 attack on Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli. It is unclear how many were exported to Libya and by whom.
On December 11, 2011, federal, state and local Mexican police officers used battle rifles to fire on Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College students and peasant organizations to disperse a blockade on Mexican Federal Highway 95D, resulting in the deaths of students Jorge Alexis Herrera and Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús. According to media reports, 7.62×51mm NATO round cases were found at the crime scene which were of the same caliber as rounds spent by H&K G3 rifles.
In Iguala and Cocula, corrupt police officers and cartelmen are known to have used H&K G36 rifles during the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping on September 26–27, 2013. At least six teaching students were murdered by cartelmen and corrupt local police, and 43 others are missing and presumed dead. Other than the six identified persons, no other bodies have been found, and they are believed to have been incinerated.
As a result of efforts by civil society and human rights organizations in Mexico and Germany, H&K and two of its former employees were brought before the Provincial Court of Stuttgart. After ten months of trial, on February 21, 2019, the court convicted them of illegally selling arms to Mexican governmental institutions which failed to acknowledge their due observance of human rights. The two former employees (sales manager Sahlmann and administrative employee Beuter) had been found to have used fraudulent permits in the sale of 4,700 rifles and large quantities of ammunition. H&K was issued a fine of 3.7 million euros, and the two men received suspended sentences of 17 and 22 months. The spokesman of the Presidency of the Republic of Mexico, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, said that the amount of the fine should go to the victims and their families.
On March 30, 2021, Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) upheld the lower court's decision, finding that H&K employees knowingly falsified information on the nature and destination of arms sold by the company in order to attain federal export licenses.
The Werknummern system dates back to the first HK rifles. It uses two or three digits, and as such is also referred to as the "HK 3-digit system" Exceptions like the Heckler & Koch HK416 exist, but those are almost always for marketing reasons, and do actually have in-house designations that fit the system. For example, the HK416 (originally marketed as the HK M4 and HK M16) was intended to replace the M4 and M16, and so, the different models were amalgamated into simply the HK416, but internally was the HK333. The M320 Grenade Launcher Module is a designation assigned by the US military, the HK product name is the HK 269 and 279.
First digit: generation
Second digit: form factor
Third digit: caliber
Format: Abbreviation = German Text ("English Text")
H&K uses a letter combination to represent the year a pistol is manufactured.
The letter J is not used as a date marker. If an H&K pistol has the letter combination of BH it was manufactured in 2017 or CA in 2020. The letter combination of DE represents manufacturing in the country of Germany. Pistols manufactured in Germany before 2008 and those produced at US facilities do not incorporate these letter combinations. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK; German pronunciation: [ˌhɛklɐ ʔʊnt ˈkɔx]) is a German armaments manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France and the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Heckler & Koch Group comprises Heckler & Koch GmbH, Heckler & Koch Defense, NSAF Ltd., and Heckler & Koch France SAS. The company's motto is \"Keine Kompromisse!\" (No Compromises!). HK provides firearms for many military and paramilitary units, including the SAS, KMar, the US Navy SEALs, Delta Force, HRT, Canada's Joint Task Force 2, the German KSK and GSG 9, and many other counter-terrorist and hostage rescue teams.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Their products include the MP5, UMP submachine guns, the G3, HK417 battle rifles, the HK33, G36, HK416 assault rifles, the MG5, HK21 General-purpose machine guns, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the USP series of handguns, and the PSG1 sniper rifle. All HK firearms are named by a prefix and the official designation, with suffixes used for variants.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "HK has a history of innovation in firearms, such as the use of polymers in weapon designs and the use of an integral rail for flashlights on handguns. HK also developed modern polygonal rifling, noted for its high accuracy, increased muzzle velocity and barrel life. Not all its technologically ambitious designs have become commercially successful products (for instance, the prototype G11 military rifle, which fired caseless high-velocity ammunition). In its extensive product range, HK has used the following operating systems for small arms: blowback operation, short-recoil, roller-delayed blowback, gas-delayed blowback, and gas operation (via short-stroke piston).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "With the fall of Germany at the end of World War II, Oberndorf came under French control, and the entire Waffenfabrik Mauser AG factory was dismantled by French occupying forces. All factory records were destroyed on orders of the local French Army commander. In 1948, three former Mauser engineers, Edmund Heckler, Theodor Koch, and Alex Seidel, saved what they could from the factory and used what they salvaged to start a machine tool plant in the vacant factory that became known as the Engineering Office Heckler & Co.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "On December 28, 1949, the Engineering Office Heckler & Co. changed its name and was registered officially as Heckler & Koch GmbH. Initially the new company manufactured machine tools, bicycle and sewing machine parts, gauges and other precision parts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1956, Heckler & Koch responded to the West German government's tender for a new infantry rifle for the Bundeswehr (German Federal Army) with the proposal of the G3 battle rifle, which was based on the Spanish CETME rifle. The German government awarded Heckler & Koch the tender and by 1959 declared the G3 the standard rifle of the Bundeswehr. Later on in 1961, Heckler & Koch developed the 7.62×51mm HK21 general-purpose machine gun, based on the G3 battle rifle.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1966, Heckler & Koch introduced the HK54 machine pistol, which eventually launched in 1969 as the MP5 submachine gun. Two years later, the company introduced the 5.56×45mm HK33 assault rifle, a smaller version of the G3 battle rifle chambered in 5.56mm NATO.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1974, Heckler & Koch diversified into two more areas, HK Defense and Law Enforcement Technology and HK Hunting and Sports Firearms. Since then HK has designed and manufactured more than 100 different types of firearms and devices for the world's military and law enforcement organizations as well as sports shooters and hunters.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1990, Heckler & Koch completed two decades of development of their revolutionary caseless weapon system and produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G11. The company also produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G41 intended for the Bundeswehr. Due to the international political climate at the time (East and West Germany uniting and defense budget cuts) the company was unable to secure funded contracts from the German government to support production of either weapon system and became financially vulnerable. The next year, Heckler & Koch was sold to British Aerospace's Royal Ordnance division.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "During 1994 and 1995, the German government awarded Heckler & Koch contracts for producing an updated standard assault rifle and updated standard sidearm for the Bundeswehr. Heckler & Koch developed and produced the Project HK50, a lightweight carbon fiber assault rifle, which became the HK G36 assault rifle. In addition, Heckler & Koch produced the Heckler & Koch USP derived as a variant of its Universale Selbstladepistole (USP) series of handguns (which had been in production since 1989). The P8 was adopted as the standard handgun for the Bundeswehr in 1994 and the G36 in 1995.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "As the result of a 1999 merger between British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, Heckler & Koch was owned by the resulting BAE Systems; it was contracted to refurbish the British Army's SA80 rifles (which had been built by Royal Ordnance) This contract entailed a modification programme to the SA80 series of rifles to address a number of reliability issues with the design. In 2002, BAE Systems restructured and sold Heckler & Koch to a group of private investors, who created the German group holding company HK Beteiligungs GmbH.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 2003, HK Beteiligungs GmbH's business organization restructured as Heckler & Koch Jagd und Sportwaffen GmbH (HKJS) and its business was separated into the two business areas similar to the 1974 business mission areas, Defense and Law Enforcement and Sporting Firearms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 2004, Heckler & Koch was awarded a major handgun contract for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, worth a potential $26.2 million for up to 65,000 handguns. This contract ranks as the single largest handgun procurement contract in US law enforcement history.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "HK was contracted by the United States Army to produce the kinetic energy subsystem (see: kinetic projectiles or kinetic energy penetrator) of the Objective Individual Combat Weapon, a planned replacement for the M16/M203 grenade launcher combination. The OICW was designed to fire 5.56 mm bullets and 25 mm grenades. The kinetic energy component was also developed separately as the XM8, though both the OICW and XM8 are now indefinitely suspended.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Heckler & Koch developed an AR-15/M4 carbine variant, marketed as the HK416. HK replaced the direct impingement system used by the Stoner design on the original M16 with a short-stroke piston operating system. The civilian models are named the MR223 and, in the US, the MR556A1.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "There is no indication that the rifle will be adopted by the United States Armed Forces other than in the Marine Corps as the IAR or M27, but the elite Delta Force and other United States special operations units have fielded the HK416 in combat, and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has called for \"free and open competition\" to determine whether the army should buy the HK416 or continue to purchase more M4 carbines. Incoming United States Secretary of the Army Pete Geren agreed in July 2007 to hold a \"dust chamber\" test pitting the M4 against the Heckler & Koch HK416 and XM8, as well as the rival FN SCAR design. Coburn had threatened to stop Geren's Senate confirmation if he did not agree to the test. The Heckler & Koch XM8 and FN SCAR had the fewest failures in the test, closely followed by the HK416, while the M4 had by far the most. In 2007, the Norwegian Army became the first to field the HK416 as a standard-issue rifle.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "HK sells its pistols in the United States to both law enforcement and civilian markets. The company has locations in Virginia, New Hampshire, and Georgia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "H&K has been accused of shipping small arms to conflict regions such as Bosnia and Nepal, and has licensed its weapons for production by governments with poor human rights records such as Sudan, Thailand and Myanmar. It has been argued that the company effectively evaded EU export restrictions when these licensees sold HK weapons to conflict zones including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "According to the newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten (31 August 2011), as well as the state broadcaster ARD, a large stockpile of G36 assault rifles fell into rebel hands during the August 2011 attack on Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli. It is unclear how many were exported to Libya and by whom.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On December 11, 2011, federal, state and local Mexican police officers used battle rifles to fire on Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College students and peasant organizations to disperse a blockade on Mexican Federal Highway 95D, resulting in the deaths of students Jorge Alexis Herrera and Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús. According to media reports, 7.62×51mm NATO round cases were found at the crime scene which were of the same caliber as rounds spent by H&K G3 rifles.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In Iguala and Cocula, corrupt police officers and cartelmen are known to have used H&K G36 rifles during the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping on September 26–27, 2013. At least six teaching students were murdered by cartelmen and corrupt local police, and 43 others are missing and presumed dead. Other than the six identified persons, no other bodies have been found, and they are believed to have been incinerated.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "As a result of efforts by civil society and human rights organizations in Mexico and Germany, H&K and two of its former employees were brought before the Provincial Court of Stuttgart. After ten months of trial, on February 21, 2019, the court convicted them of illegally selling arms to Mexican governmental institutions which failed to acknowledge their due observance of human rights. The two former employees (sales manager Sahlmann and administrative employee Beuter) had been found to have used fraudulent permits in the sale of 4,700 rifles and large quantities of ammunition. H&K was issued a fine of 3.7 million euros, and the two men received suspended sentences of 17 and 22 months. The spokesman of the Presidency of the Republic of Mexico, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, said that the amount of the fine should go to the victims and their families.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "On March 30, 2021, Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) upheld the lower court's decision, finding that H&K employees knowingly falsified information on the nature and destination of arms sold by the company in order to attain federal export licenses.",
"title": "Trafficking"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Werknummern system dates back to the first HK rifles. It uses two or three digits, and as such is also referred to as the \"HK 3-digit system\" Exceptions like the Heckler & Koch HK416 exist, but those are almost always for marketing reasons, and do actually have in-house designations that fit the system. For example, the HK416 (originally marketed as the HK M4 and HK M16) was intended to replace the M4 and M16, and so, the different models were amalgamated into simply the HK416, but internally was the HK333. The M320 Grenade Launcher Module is a designation assigned by the US military, the HK product name is the HK 269 and 279.",
"title": "Werknummern designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "First digit: generation",
"title": "Werknummern designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Second digit: form factor",
"title": "Werknummern designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Third digit: caliber",
"title": "Werknummern designations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Format: Abbreviation = German Text (\"English Text\")",
"title": "Abbreviations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "H&K uses a letter combination to represent the year a pistol is manufactured.",
"title": "Date and country codes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The letter J is not used as a date marker. If an H&K pistol has the letter combination of BH it was manufactured in 2017 or CA in 2020. The letter combination of DE represents manufacturing in the country of Germany. Pistols manufactured in Germany before 2008 and those produced at US facilities do not incorporate these letter combinations.",
"title": "Date and country codes"
}
]
| Heckler & Koch GmbH is a German armaments manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The Heckler & Koch Group comprises Heckler & Koch GmbH, Heckler & Koch Defense, NSAF Ltd., and Heckler & Koch France SAS. The company's motto is "Keine Kompromisse!". HK provides firearms for many military and paramilitary units, including the SAS, KMar, the US Navy SEALs, Delta Force, HRT, Canada's Joint Task Force 2, the German KSK and GSG 9, and many other counter-terrorist and hostage rescue teams. Their products include the MP5, UMP submachine guns, the G3, HK417 battle rifles, the HK33, G36, HK416 assault rifles, the MG5, HK21 General-purpose machine guns, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the USP series of handguns, and the PSG1 sniper rifle. All HK firearms are named by a prefix and the official designation, with suffixes used for variants. HK has a history of innovation in firearms, such as the use of polymers in weapon designs and the use of an integral rail for flashlights on handguns. HK also developed modern polygonal rifling, noted for its high accuracy, increased muzzle velocity and barrel life. Not all its technologically ambitious designs have become commercially successful products. In its extensive product range, HK has used the following operating systems for small arms: blowback operation, short-recoil, roller-delayed blowback, gas-delayed blowback, and gas operation. | 2001-12-17T11:10:33Z | 2023-12-23T13:08:45Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch |
14,297 | Heckler & Koch MP5 | The Heckler & Koch MP5 (German: Maschinenpistole 5) is a submachine gun that fires 9x19mm Parabellum cartridges, developed in the 1960s by Heckler & Koch. There are over 100 variants and clones of the MP5, including some semi-automatic versions. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security organizations.
In 1999, Heckler & Koch developed the UMP, the MP5's successor. As of 2019, despite its higher cost, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two options, as its roller-delayed system was considered better at "reduc[ing] recoil... making it easier to stay on target" than the UMP's straight blowback system.
Heckler & Koch, encouraged by the success of the G3 automatic rifle, developed a family of small arms consisting of four types of firearms all based on a common G3 design layout and operating principle. The first type was chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO, the second for the 7.62×39mm M43 round, the third for the intermediate 5.56×45mm NATO caliber, and the fourth type for the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge. The MP5 was created within the fourth group of firearms and was initially known as the HK54.
Work on the MP5 began in 1964 and two years later it was adopted by the German Federal Police, border guard and army special forces, referring to as the "MP64" or later "MP5". The MP5A1 was introduced in the late '60s, which is the first model to have the iconic ring front sight and the slimline handguard. In 1970, the MP5A2 and MP5A3 were introduced. In 1974, the MP5SD was introduced, which is a suppressed variant of the MP5. In 1976, the MP5K was introduced as a request for a variant for South America. In 1977, the standard 20 & 30 round, curved steel magazines were introduced for the MP5A2 and MP5A3 design. In 1978, the Tropical forearm was introduced to be produced with the MP5.
In 1980, the MP5 achieved iconic status as a result of British special forces regiment the SAS when they stormed the Iranian Embassy in London, live on television, rescuing hostages and killing five terrorists during Operation Nimrod.
The MP5 has become a mainstay of SWAT units of law enforcement agencies in the United States since then. However, in the late 1990s, as a result of the North Hollywood shootout, police special response teams replaced most MP5s with AR-15-based rifles.
The MP5 is manufactured under license in several nations including Greece (formerly at EBO – Hellenic Arms Industry, currently at ΕΑΣ – Hellenic Defense Systems), Iran (Defense Industries Organization), Mexico (SEDENA), Pakistan (Pakistan Ordnance Factories), Saudi Arabia, Sudan (Military Industry Corporation), Turkey (MKEK), and the United Kingdom (initially at Royal Ordnance, later diverted to Heckler & Koch Great Britain).
The primary version of the MP5 family is the MP5A2, which is a lightweight, air-cooled, selective fire delayed blowback operated 9×19mm Parabellum weapon with a roller-delayed bolt. It fires from a closed bolt (bolt forward) position.
The fixed, free-floating, cold hammer-forged barrel has six right-hand grooves with a 1 in 250 mm (1:10 in) rifling twist rate and is pressed and pinned into the receiver.
The first MP5 models used a double-column straight box magazine, but since 1977, slightly curved, steel magazines have been used with a 15-round capacity (weighing 0.12 kg) or a 30-round capacity (0.17 kg empty).
The adjustable iron sights (closed type) consist of a rotating rear diopter drum and a front post installed in a hooded ring. The rear sight is mechanically adjustable for both windage and elevation with the use of a special tool, being adjusted at the factory for firing at 25 metres (27 yd) with standard 8 grams (123 gr) FMJ 9×19mm NATO ammunition. The rear sight drum provides four apertures of varying diameters used to adjust the diopter system, according to the user's preference and tactical situation. Changing between apertures does not change the point of impact down range.
The MP5 has a hammer firing mechanism. The trigger group is housed inside an interchangeable polymer trigger module (with an integrated pistol grip) and equipped with a three-position fire mode selector that serves as the manual safety toggle. The "S" or Sicher position in white denotes weapon safe, "E" or Einzelfeuer in red represents single fire, and "F" or Feuerstoß (also marked in red) designates continuous fire. The SEF symbols appear on both sides of the plastic trigger group. The selector lever is actuated with the thumb of the shooting hand and is located only on the left side of the original SEF trigger group or on both sides of the ambidextrous trigger groups. The safety/selector is rotated into the various firing settings or safety position by depressing the tail end of the lever. Tactile clicks (stops) are present at each position to provide a positive stop and prevent inadvertent rotation. The "safe" setting disables the trigger by blocking the hammer release with a solid section of the safety axle located inside the trigger housing.
The non-reciprocating cocking handle is located above the handguard and protrudes from the cocking handle tube at approximately a 45° angle. This rigid control is attached to a tubular piece within the cocking lever housing called the cocking lever support, which in turn makes contact with the forward extension of the bolt group. It is not however connected to the bolt carrier and therefore cannot be used as a forward assist to fully seat the bolt group. The cocking handle is held in a forward position by a spring detent located in the front end of the cocking lever support which engages in the cocking lever housing. The lever is locked back by pulling it fully to the rear and rotating it slightly clockwise where it can be hooked into an indent in the cocking lever tube.
The bolt rigidly engages the barrel extension—a cylindrical component welded to the receiver into which the barrel is pinned. The delay mechanism is of the same design as that used in the G3 rifle. The two-part bolt consists of a bolt head with rollers and a bolt carrier. The heavier bolt carrier lies up against the bolt head when the weapon is ready to fire and inclined planes on the front locking piece lie between the rollers and force them out into recesses in the barrel extension.
When fired, expanding propellant gases produced from the burning powder in the cartridge exert rearward pressure on the bolt head transferred through the base of the cartridge case as it is propelled out of the chamber. A portion of this force is transmitted through the rollers projecting from the bolt head, which are cammed inward against the inclined flanks of the locking recesses in the barrel extension and to the angled shoulders of the locking piece. The selected angles of the recesses and the incline on the locking piece produce a velocity ratio of about 4:1 between the bolt carrier and the bolt head. This results in a calculated delay, allowing the projectile to exit the barrel and gas pressure to drop to a safe level before the case is extracted from the chamber.
The delay results from the amount of time it takes for enough recoil energy to be transferred through to the bolt carrier in a sufficient quantity for it to be driven to the rear against the force of inertia of the bolt carrier and the forward pressure exerted against the bolt by the recoil spring. As the rollers are forced inward they displace the locking piece and propel the bolt carrier to the rear. The bolt carrier's rearward velocity is four times that of the bolt head since the cartridge remains in the chamber for a short period of time during the initial recoil impulse. After the bolt carrier has travelled rearward 4 mm, the locking piece is withdrawn fully from the bolt head and the rollers are compressed into the bolt head. Only once the locking rollers are fully cammed into the bolt head can the entire bolt group continue its rearward movement in the receiver, breaking the seal in the chamber and continuing the feeding cycle.
Since the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge is relatively low powered, the bolt does not have an anti-bounce device like the G3, but instead the bolt carrier contains 32.5 g (1.15 oz) of tungsten granules that prevent the bolt group from bouncing back after impacting the barrel extension. The weapon has a fluted chamber that enhances extraction reliability by bleeding gases backwards into the shallow flutes running along the length of the chamber to prevent the cartridge case from expanding and sticking to the chamber walls (since the bolt is opened under relatively high barrel pressure). A spring extractor is installed inside the bolt head and holds the case securely until it strikes the ejector arm and is thrown out of the ejection port to the right of the receiver. The lever-type ejector is located inside the trigger housing (activated by the movement of the recoiling bolt).
In the early 1970s, HK introduced a conversion kit for the MP5 that enables it to use rimfire ammunition (.22 LR). This unit consists of a barrel insert, a bolt group and two 20-round magazines. This modification reduces the cyclic rate to 650 rounds per minute. It was sold mostly to law enforcement agencies as a way to train recruits on handling the MP5. It used ammunition that was cheaper and had a lower recoil than 9×19mm Parabellum. This reduced training costs and built up skill and confidence in the operators before transitioning them to the full-bore model.
Threading is provided at the muzzle to work with certain muzzle devices made by Heckler & Koch, including: a slotted flash suppressor, blank firing attachment (marked with a red-painted band denoting use with blank ammunition only), an adapter for launching rifle grenades (for use with rifle-style grenades with an inside diameter of 22 mm using a special grenade launching cartridge) and a cup-type attachment used to launch tear gas grenades. An optional three-lugged barrel is also available for mounting a quick-detachable suppressor.
The receiver housing has a proprietary claw-rail mounting system that permits the attachment of a standard Heckler & Koch quick-detachable scope mount (also used with the G3, HK33 and G3SG/1). It can be used to mount daytime optical sights (telescopic 4×24), night sights, reflex sights and laser pointers. The mount features two spring-actuated bolts, positioned along the base of the mount, which exert pressure on the receiver to hold the mount in the same position at all times assuring zero retention. All versions of the quick-detachable scope mount provide a sighting tunnel through the mount so that the shooter can continue to use the fixed iron sights with the scope mount attached to the top of the receiver.
A Picatinny rail adapter can be placed on top that locks into the claw rails. This allows the mounting of STANAG scopes and has a lower profile than the claw-rail system.
Aftermarket replacement handguards with Picatinny rails are available. Single-rail models have a Picatinny rail along the bottom and triple-rail models have rails along the bottom and sides. They allow the mounting of accessories like flashlights, laser pointers, target designators, vertical foregrips, and bipods.
The stockless MP5A1 has a buttcap with a sling mount for concealed carry; the MP5K series was a further development of this idea. The MP5A2 has a fixed buttstock (made of a synthetic polymer), whereas the compact MP5A3 has a retractable metal stock.
The MP5A4 (fixed stock) and MP5A5 (sliding stock) models, which were introduced in 1974, are available with four-position trigger groups. The pistol grips are straight, lacking the contoured grip and thumb groove of the MP5A1, MP5A2, and MP5A3. The selector lever stops are marked with bullet pictograms rather than letters or numbers (each symbol represents the number of bullets that will be fired when the trigger is pulled and held rearward with a full magazine inserted in the weapon) and are fully ambidextrous (the selector lever is present on each side of the trigger housing). The additional setting of the fire selector, one place before the fully automatic setting, enables a two or three-shot burst firing mode.
Heckler & Koch offers dedicated training variants of these weapons, designated MP5A4PT and MP5A5PT (PT—Plastic Training), modified to fire a plastic 9×19mm PT training cartridge produced by Dynamit Nobel of Germany. These weapons operate like the standard MP5 but have a floating chamber and both rollers have been omitted from the bolt to function properly when firing the lighter plastic projectiles. To help identify these weapons blue dots were painted on their cocking handles and additional lettering provided. The PT variant can be configured with various buttstocks and trigger groups and was developed for the West German Police and Border Guard.
A variant with the last trigger group designated the MP5-N (N—Navy) was developed in 1986 for the United States Navy. This model has a collapsible stock, a tritium-illuminated front sight post and a 225 mm (8.9 in) threaded barrel for use with a stainless steel sound suppressor made by Knight's Armament Company together with quieter subsonic ammunition. It had ambidextrous controls, a straight pistol grip, pictogram markings, and originally had a four-position selector (Safe, Semi-Auto, 3-Round Burst, Full Auto). This was replaced with a similar three-position ambidextrous selector after an improperly-reassembled trigger group spontaneously fired during an exercise. The "Navy"-style ambidextrous trigger group later became standard, replacing the classic "SEF" trigger group.
In late 2013, Heckler & Koch unveiled the MLI (Mid Life Improvement) version of the MP5. It is fitted with a tri-rail foregrip, a quick-release-optic mount, an MP5F stock standard, and comes in with the new RAL8000 (Yellow-Brown) colour scheme.
The MP5SD was created in 1974, Heckler & Koch initiated design work on a sound-suppressed variant of the MP5, designated the MP5SD (SD—Schalldämpfer, German for "sound suppressor"), which features an integral but detachable aluminium sound suppressor and a lightweight bolt. The weapon's 146 mm (5.7 in) barrel has 30 2.5 mm (0.1 in) ports drilled forward of the chamber through which escaping gases are diverted to the surrounding sealed tubular casing that is screwed onto threading on the barrel's external surface just prior to the ported segment. The suppressor itself is divided into two stages; the initial segment surrounding the ported barrel serves as an expansion chamber for the propellant gases, reducing gas pressure to slow down the acceleration of the projectile. The second, decompression stage occupies the remaining length of the suppressor tube and contains a stamped metal helix separator with several compartments which increase the gas volume and decrease its temperature, deflecting the gases as they exit the muzzle, so muffling the exit report. The bullet leaves the muzzle at subsonic velocity, so it does not generate a sonic shock wave in flight. As a result of reducing the barrel's length and venting propellant gases into the suppressor, the bullet's muzzle velocity was lowered anywhere from 16% to 26% (depending on the ammunition used) while maintaining the weapon's automation and reliability. The weapon was designed to be used with standard supersonic ammunition with the suppressor on at all times. The cyclic rate of fire of the MP5SD is around 700 rounds per minute.
The MP5SD is produced exclusively by Heckler & Koch in several versions: the MP5SD1 and MP5SD4 (both have a receiver end cap instead of a buttstock), MP5SD2 and MP5SD5 (equipped with a fixed synthetic buttstock) and the MP5SD3 and MP5SD6 (fitted with a collapsible metal stock). The MP5SD1, MP5SD2 and MP5SD3 use a standard 'SEF' trigger group (from the MP5A2 and MP5A3), while the MP5SD4, MP5SD5, and MP5SD6 use the 'Navy' trigger group—a trigger module with a mechanically limited 3-round burst mode and ambidextrous selector controls (from the MP5A4 and MP5A5). A suppressed version was produced for the U.S. Navy—designated the MP5SD-N, which is a version of the MP5SD3 with a retractable metal stock, front sight post with tritium-illuminated dot and a stainless steel suppressor. This model has a modified cocking handle support to account for the slightly larger outside diameter of the suppressor. The design of the suppressor allows the weapon to be fired with water inside, should water enter the device during operation in or near water.
In 1976, a shortened version of the MP5A2 was introduced; the MP5K (K from the German word Kurz = "short") was designed for close quarters battle use by clandestine operations and special services. The MP5K does not have a shoulder stock (the receiver end was covered with a flat end cap, featuring a buffer on the inside and a sling loop on the outside), and the bolt and receiver were shortened at the rear. There are no MP5KA2 or MP5KA3 models because it does not come with a fixed or retractable stock. The resultant lighter bolt led to a higher rate of fire than the standard MP5 at around 900 rounds per minute. It has a shortened 4.5 in (114 mm) barrel, a shorter trigger group frame, the charging handle and its cover were shortened and a vertical foregrip was used to replace the standard handguard. The barrel ends at the base of the front sight, which prevents the use of any sort of muzzle device.
The MP5K is produced (by Heckler & Koch and under license in Iran and Turkey) in four different versions: the MP5K, MP5KA4, MP5KA1, MP5KA5, where the first two variants have adjustable, open-type iron sights (with a notched rotary drum), and the two remaining variants – fixed open sights; however, the front sight post was changed and a notch was cut into the receiver top cover. The MP5K retained the capability to use optical sights through the use of an adapter.
A civilian semiautomatic derivative of the MP5K known as the SP89 was produced that had a foregrip with a muzzle guard in place of the vertical grip.
In 1991, a further variant of the MP5K was developed, designated the MP5K-PDW (PDW—Personal Defense Weapon) that retained the compact dimensions of the MP5K but restored the fire handling characteristics of the full-size MP5A2. The MP5K-PDW uses a side-folding synthetic shoulder stock (made by the U.S. company Choate Machine and Tool), a "Navy" trigger group, a front sight post with a built-in tritium insert and a slightly lengthened threaded, three-lug barrel (analogous to the MP5-N). The stock can be removed and replaced with a receiver endplate; a rotary drum with apertures from the MP5A2 can also be used.
In 1992, Heckler & Koch introduced the MP5/10 (chambered in 10mm Auto) and MP5/40 (chambered for the .40 S&W cartridge), which are based on the MP5A4 and MP5A5. These weapons were assembled in fixed and retractable stock configurations (without a separate designation) and are fed from translucent 30-round polymer box magazines. These weapons include a bolt hold-open device, which captures the bolt group in its rear position after expending the last cartridge from the magazine. The bolt is then released by pressing a lever positioned on the left side of the receiver. Both weapons use a barrel with 6 right-hand grooves and a 380 mm (1:15 in) twist rate, and like the MP5-N, both have a 3-lugged muzzle device and a tritium-illuminated front sight aiming dot.
Problems with the MP5/10 and MP5/40 led to their discontinuation in 2000, although Heckler & Koch continues to provide support and spare parts. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Heckler & Koch MP5 (German: Maschinenpistole 5) is a submachine gun that fires 9x19mm Parabellum cartridges, developed in the 1960s by Heckler & Koch. There are over 100 variants and clones of the MP5, including some semi-automatic versions. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security organizations.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In 1999, Heckler & Koch developed the UMP, the MP5's successor. As of 2019, despite its higher cost, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two options, as its roller-delayed system was considered better at \"reduc[ing] recoil... making it easier to stay on target\" than the UMP's straight blowback system.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Heckler & Koch, encouraged by the success of the G3 automatic rifle, developed a family of small arms consisting of four types of firearms all based on a common G3 design layout and operating principle. The first type was chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO, the second for the 7.62×39mm M43 round, the third for the intermediate 5.56×45mm NATO caliber, and the fourth type for the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge. The MP5 was created within the fourth group of firearms and was initially known as the HK54.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Work on the MP5 began in 1964 and two years later it was adopted by the German Federal Police, border guard and army special forces, referring to as the \"MP64\" or later \"MP5\". The MP5A1 was introduced in the late '60s, which is the first model to have the iconic ring front sight and the slimline handguard. In 1970, the MP5A2 and MP5A3 were introduced. In 1974, the MP5SD was introduced, which is a suppressed variant of the MP5. In 1976, the MP5K was introduced as a request for a variant for South America. In 1977, the standard 20 & 30 round, curved steel magazines were introduced for the MP5A2 and MP5A3 design. In 1978, the Tropical forearm was introduced to be produced with the MP5.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1980, the MP5 achieved iconic status as a result of British special forces regiment the SAS when they stormed the Iranian Embassy in London, live on television, rescuing hostages and killing five terrorists during Operation Nimrod.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The MP5 has become a mainstay of SWAT units of law enforcement agencies in the United States since then. However, in the late 1990s, as a result of the North Hollywood shootout, police special response teams replaced most MP5s with AR-15-based rifles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The MP5 is manufactured under license in several nations including Greece (formerly at EBO – Hellenic Arms Industry, currently at ΕΑΣ – Hellenic Defense Systems), Iran (Defense Industries Organization), Mexico (SEDENA), Pakistan (Pakistan Ordnance Factories), Saudi Arabia, Sudan (Military Industry Corporation), Turkey (MKEK), and the United Kingdom (initially at Royal Ordnance, later diverted to Heckler & Koch Great Britain).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The primary version of the MP5 family is the MP5A2, which is a lightweight, air-cooled, selective fire delayed blowback operated 9×19mm Parabellum weapon with a roller-delayed bolt. It fires from a closed bolt (bolt forward) position.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The fixed, free-floating, cold hammer-forged barrel has six right-hand grooves with a 1 in 250 mm (1:10 in) rifling twist rate and is pressed and pinned into the receiver.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The first MP5 models used a double-column straight box magazine, but since 1977, slightly curved, steel magazines have been used with a 15-round capacity (weighing 0.12 kg) or a 30-round capacity (0.17 kg empty).",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The adjustable iron sights (closed type) consist of a rotating rear diopter drum and a front post installed in a hooded ring. The rear sight is mechanically adjustable for both windage and elevation with the use of a special tool, being adjusted at the factory for firing at 25 metres (27 yd) with standard 8 grams (123 gr) FMJ 9×19mm NATO ammunition. The rear sight drum provides four apertures of varying diameters used to adjust the diopter system, according to the user's preference and tactical situation. Changing between apertures does not change the point of impact down range.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The MP5 has a hammer firing mechanism. The trigger group is housed inside an interchangeable polymer trigger module (with an integrated pistol grip) and equipped with a three-position fire mode selector that serves as the manual safety toggle. The \"S\" or Sicher position in white denotes weapon safe, \"E\" or Einzelfeuer in red represents single fire, and \"F\" or Feuerstoß (also marked in red) designates continuous fire. The SEF symbols appear on both sides of the plastic trigger group. The selector lever is actuated with the thumb of the shooting hand and is located only on the left side of the original SEF trigger group or on both sides of the ambidextrous trigger groups. The safety/selector is rotated into the various firing settings or safety position by depressing the tail end of the lever. Tactile clicks (stops) are present at each position to provide a positive stop and prevent inadvertent rotation. The \"safe\" setting disables the trigger by blocking the hammer release with a solid section of the safety axle located inside the trigger housing.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The non-reciprocating cocking handle is located above the handguard and protrudes from the cocking handle tube at approximately a 45° angle. This rigid control is attached to a tubular piece within the cocking lever housing called the cocking lever support, which in turn makes contact with the forward extension of the bolt group. It is not however connected to the bolt carrier and therefore cannot be used as a forward assist to fully seat the bolt group. The cocking handle is held in a forward position by a spring detent located in the front end of the cocking lever support which engages in the cocking lever housing. The lever is locked back by pulling it fully to the rear and rotating it slightly clockwise where it can be hooked into an indent in the cocking lever tube.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The bolt rigidly engages the barrel extension—a cylindrical component welded to the receiver into which the barrel is pinned. The delay mechanism is of the same design as that used in the G3 rifle. The two-part bolt consists of a bolt head with rollers and a bolt carrier. The heavier bolt carrier lies up against the bolt head when the weapon is ready to fire and inclined planes on the front locking piece lie between the rollers and force them out into recesses in the barrel extension.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "When fired, expanding propellant gases produced from the burning powder in the cartridge exert rearward pressure on the bolt head transferred through the base of the cartridge case as it is propelled out of the chamber. A portion of this force is transmitted through the rollers projecting from the bolt head, which are cammed inward against the inclined flanks of the locking recesses in the barrel extension and to the angled shoulders of the locking piece. The selected angles of the recesses and the incline on the locking piece produce a velocity ratio of about 4:1 between the bolt carrier and the bolt head. This results in a calculated delay, allowing the projectile to exit the barrel and gas pressure to drop to a safe level before the case is extracted from the chamber.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The delay results from the amount of time it takes for enough recoil energy to be transferred through to the bolt carrier in a sufficient quantity for it to be driven to the rear against the force of inertia of the bolt carrier and the forward pressure exerted against the bolt by the recoil spring. As the rollers are forced inward they displace the locking piece and propel the bolt carrier to the rear. The bolt carrier's rearward velocity is four times that of the bolt head since the cartridge remains in the chamber for a short period of time during the initial recoil impulse. After the bolt carrier has travelled rearward 4 mm, the locking piece is withdrawn fully from the bolt head and the rollers are compressed into the bolt head. Only once the locking rollers are fully cammed into the bolt head can the entire bolt group continue its rearward movement in the receiver, breaking the seal in the chamber and continuing the feeding cycle.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Since the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge is relatively low powered, the bolt does not have an anti-bounce device like the G3, but instead the bolt carrier contains 32.5 g (1.15 oz) of tungsten granules that prevent the bolt group from bouncing back after impacting the barrel extension. The weapon has a fluted chamber that enhances extraction reliability by bleeding gases backwards into the shallow flutes running along the length of the chamber to prevent the cartridge case from expanding and sticking to the chamber walls (since the bolt is opened under relatively high barrel pressure). A spring extractor is installed inside the bolt head and holds the case securely until it strikes the ejector arm and is thrown out of the ejection port to the right of the receiver. The lever-type ejector is located inside the trigger housing (activated by the movement of the recoiling bolt).",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the early 1970s, HK introduced a conversion kit for the MP5 that enables it to use rimfire ammunition (.22 LR). This unit consists of a barrel insert, a bolt group and two 20-round magazines. This modification reduces the cyclic rate to 650 rounds per minute. It was sold mostly to law enforcement agencies as a way to train recruits on handling the MP5. It used ammunition that was cheaper and had a lower recoil than 9×19mm Parabellum. This reduced training costs and built up skill and confidence in the operators before transitioning them to the full-bore model.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Threading is provided at the muzzle to work with certain muzzle devices made by Heckler & Koch, including: a slotted flash suppressor, blank firing attachment (marked with a red-painted band denoting use with blank ammunition only), an adapter for launching rifle grenades (for use with rifle-style grenades with an inside diameter of 22 mm using a special grenade launching cartridge) and a cup-type attachment used to launch tear gas grenades. An optional three-lugged barrel is also available for mounting a quick-detachable suppressor.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The receiver housing has a proprietary claw-rail mounting system that permits the attachment of a standard Heckler & Koch quick-detachable scope mount (also used with the G3, HK33 and G3SG/1). It can be used to mount daytime optical sights (telescopic 4×24), night sights, reflex sights and laser pointers. The mount features two spring-actuated bolts, positioned along the base of the mount, which exert pressure on the receiver to hold the mount in the same position at all times assuring zero retention. All versions of the quick-detachable scope mount provide a sighting tunnel through the mount so that the shooter can continue to use the fixed iron sights with the scope mount attached to the top of the receiver.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A Picatinny rail adapter can be placed on top that locks into the claw rails. This allows the mounting of STANAG scopes and has a lower profile than the claw-rail system.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Aftermarket replacement handguards with Picatinny rails are available. Single-rail models have a Picatinny rail along the bottom and triple-rail models have rails along the bottom and sides. They allow the mounting of accessories like flashlights, laser pointers, target designators, vertical foregrips, and bipods.",
"title": "Design details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The stockless MP5A1 has a buttcap with a sling mount for concealed carry; the MP5K series was a further development of this idea. The MP5A2 has a fixed buttstock (made of a synthetic polymer), whereas the compact MP5A3 has a retractable metal stock.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The MP5A4 (fixed stock) and MP5A5 (sliding stock) models, which were introduced in 1974, are available with four-position trigger groups. The pistol grips are straight, lacking the contoured grip and thumb groove of the MP5A1, MP5A2, and MP5A3. The selector lever stops are marked with bullet pictograms rather than letters or numbers (each symbol represents the number of bullets that will be fired when the trigger is pulled and held rearward with a full magazine inserted in the weapon) and are fully ambidextrous (the selector lever is present on each side of the trigger housing). The additional setting of the fire selector, one place before the fully automatic setting, enables a two or three-shot burst firing mode.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Heckler & Koch offers dedicated training variants of these weapons, designated MP5A4PT and MP5A5PT (PT—Plastic Training), modified to fire a plastic 9×19mm PT training cartridge produced by Dynamit Nobel of Germany. These weapons operate like the standard MP5 but have a floating chamber and both rollers have been omitted from the bolt to function properly when firing the lighter plastic projectiles. To help identify these weapons blue dots were painted on their cocking handles and additional lettering provided. The PT variant can be configured with various buttstocks and trigger groups and was developed for the West German Police and Border Guard.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A variant with the last trigger group designated the MP5-N (N—Navy) was developed in 1986 for the United States Navy. This model has a collapsible stock, a tritium-illuminated front sight post and a 225 mm (8.9 in) threaded barrel for use with a stainless steel sound suppressor made by Knight's Armament Company together with quieter subsonic ammunition. It had ambidextrous controls, a straight pistol grip, pictogram markings, and originally had a four-position selector (Safe, Semi-Auto, 3-Round Burst, Full Auto). This was replaced with a similar three-position ambidextrous selector after an improperly-reassembled trigger group spontaneously fired during an exercise. The \"Navy\"-style ambidextrous trigger group later became standard, replacing the classic \"SEF\" trigger group.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In late 2013, Heckler & Koch unveiled the MLI (Mid Life Improvement) version of the MP5. It is fitted with a tri-rail foregrip, a quick-release-optic mount, an MP5F stock standard, and comes in with the new RAL8000 (Yellow-Brown) colour scheme.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The MP5SD was created in 1974, Heckler & Koch initiated design work on a sound-suppressed variant of the MP5, designated the MP5SD (SD—Schalldämpfer, German for \"sound suppressor\"), which features an integral but detachable aluminium sound suppressor and a lightweight bolt. The weapon's 146 mm (5.7 in) barrel has 30 2.5 mm (0.1 in) ports drilled forward of the chamber through which escaping gases are diverted to the surrounding sealed tubular casing that is screwed onto threading on the barrel's external surface just prior to the ported segment. The suppressor itself is divided into two stages; the initial segment surrounding the ported barrel serves as an expansion chamber for the propellant gases, reducing gas pressure to slow down the acceleration of the projectile. The second, decompression stage occupies the remaining length of the suppressor tube and contains a stamped metal helix separator with several compartments which increase the gas volume and decrease its temperature, deflecting the gases as they exit the muzzle, so muffling the exit report. The bullet leaves the muzzle at subsonic velocity, so it does not generate a sonic shock wave in flight. As a result of reducing the barrel's length and venting propellant gases into the suppressor, the bullet's muzzle velocity was lowered anywhere from 16% to 26% (depending on the ammunition used) while maintaining the weapon's automation and reliability. The weapon was designed to be used with standard supersonic ammunition with the suppressor on at all times. The cyclic rate of fire of the MP5SD is around 700 rounds per minute.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The MP5SD is produced exclusively by Heckler & Koch in several versions: the MP5SD1 and MP5SD4 (both have a receiver end cap instead of a buttstock), MP5SD2 and MP5SD5 (equipped with a fixed synthetic buttstock) and the MP5SD3 and MP5SD6 (fitted with a collapsible metal stock). The MP5SD1, MP5SD2 and MP5SD3 use a standard 'SEF' trigger group (from the MP5A2 and MP5A3), while the MP5SD4, MP5SD5, and MP5SD6 use the 'Navy' trigger group—a trigger module with a mechanically limited 3-round burst mode and ambidextrous selector controls (from the MP5A4 and MP5A5). A suppressed version was produced for the U.S. Navy—designated the MP5SD-N, which is a version of the MP5SD3 with a retractable metal stock, front sight post with tritium-illuminated dot and a stainless steel suppressor. This model has a modified cocking handle support to account for the slightly larger outside diameter of the suppressor. The design of the suppressor allows the weapon to be fired with water inside, should water enter the device during operation in or near water.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 1976, a shortened version of the MP5A2 was introduced; the MP5K (K from the German word Kurz = \"short\") was designed for close quarters battle use by clandestine operations and special services. The MP5K does not have a shoulder stock (the receiver end was covered with a flat end cap, featuring a buffer on the inside and a sling loop on the outside), and the bolt and receiver were shortened at the rear. There are no MP5KA2 or MP5KA3 models because it does not come with a fixed or retractable stock. The resultant lighter bolt led to a higher rate of fire than the standard MP5 at around 900 rounds per minute. It has a shortened 4.5 in (114 mm) barrel, a shorter trigger group frame, the charging handle and its cover were shortened and a vertical foregrip was used to replace the standard handguard. The barrel ends at the base of the front sight, which prevents the use of any sort of muzzle device.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The MP5K is produced (by Heckler & Koch and under license in Iran and Turkey) in four different versions: the MP5K, MP5KA4, MP5KA1, MP5KA5, where the first two variants have adjustable, open-type iron sights (with a notched rotary drum), and the two remaining variants – fixed open sights; however, the front sight post was changed and a notch was cut into the receiver top cover. The MP5K retained the capability to use optical sights through the use of an adapter.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A civilian semiautomatic derivative of the MP5K known as the SP89 was produced that had a foregrip with a muzzle guard in place of the vertical grip.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1991, a further variant of the MP5K was developed, designated the MP5K-PDW (PDW—Personal Defense Weapon) that retained the compact dimensions of the MP5K but restored the fire handling characteristics of the full-size MP5A2. The MP5K-PDW uses a side-folding synthetic shoulder stock (made by the U.S. company Choate Machine and Tool), a \"Navy\" trigger group, a front sight post with a built-in tritium insert and a slightly lengthened threaded, three-lug barrel (analogous to the MP5-N). The stock can be removed and replaced with a receiver endplate; a rotary drum with apertures from the MP5A2 can also be used.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 1992, Heckler & Koch introduced the MP5/10 (chambered in 10mm Auto) and MP5/40 (chambered for the .40 S&W cartridge), which are based on the MP5A4 and MP5A5. These weapons were assembled in fixed and retractable stock configurations (without a separate designation) and are fed from translucent 30-round polymer box magazines. These weapons include a bolt hold-open device, which captures the bolt group in its rear position after expending the last cartridge from the magazine. The bolt is then released by pressing a lever positioned on the left side of the receiver. Both weapons use a barrel with 6 right-hand grooves and a 380 mm (1:15 in) twist rate, and like the MP5-N, both have a 3-lugged muzzle device and a tritium-illuminated front sight aiming dot.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Problems with the MP5/10 and MP5/40 led to their discontinuation in 2000, although Heckler & Koch continues to provide support and spare parts.",
"title": "Variants"
}
]
| The Heckler & Koch MP5 is a submachine gun that fires 9x19mm Parabellum cartridges, developed in the 1960s by Heckler & Koch. There are over 100 variants and clones of the MP5, including some semi-automatic versions. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security organizations. In 1999, Heckler & Koch developed the UMP, the MP5's successor. As of 2019, despite its higher cost, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two options, as its roller-delayed system was considered better at "reduc[ing] recoil... making it easier to stay on target" than the UMP's straight blowback system. | 2001-12-17T14:14:30Z | 2023-12-30T18:50:39Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_MP5 |
14,298 | Henry Middleton | Henry Middleton (1717 – June 13, 1784) was a planter, public official from South Carolina. A member of the colonial legislature, during the American Revolution he attended the First Continental Congress and served as that body's president for four days in 1774 after the passage of the Continental Association, which he signed. He left the Second Continental Congress before it declared independence. Back in South Carolina, he served as president of the provincial congress and senator in the newly created state government. After his capture by the British in 1780, he accepted defeat and returned to the status of a British subject until the end of the war.
Henry Middleton was born in 1717 on the family plantation, "The Oaks", near Charleston, Province of South Carolina. He was the second son of Susan (née Amory) Middleton (1690-1722) and Arthur Middleton (1681–1737), a wealthy planter who had served as an acting governor of South Carolina. His grandfather, Edward Middleton, emigrated from England via Barbados. He was educated in England before returning to South Carolina to inherit his father's plantation. He became one of the largest landowners in the colony, owning 50,000 acres (200 km) and about 800 slaves.
Middleton served in a variety of public offices in South Carolina. He was a justice of the peace and a member of the Commons House of Assembly, where he was elected speaker in 1747, 1754, and 1755. He was a member of provincial council but resigned in 1770 in opposition to British policy.
In 1774, at the outset of the American Revolution, Middleton was selected as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He served as that body's president during the last few days of the First Continental Congress, following the departure of Peyton Randolph. Middleton opposed declaring independence from Great Britain and resigned from the Second Continental Congress in February 1776 when more radical delegates began pushing for independence. He was succeeded in Congress by his son Arthur who was more radical than his father and became a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
After Middleton's return to South Carolina, he was elected president of the provincial congress and, beginning on November 16, 1775, served on the council of safety. In 1776, he and his son Arthur helped frame a temporary state constitution. In 1779, he became a state senator in the new government.
When Charleston was captured by the British at the Siege of Charleston in 1780, Middleton accepted defeat and status as a British subject. This reversal apparently did not damage his reputation in the long run, because of his previous support of the Revolution, and he did not suffer the fate of having his estates confiscated, as many Loyalists did after the war.
In 1741, Middleton was married to Mary Baker Williams (1721–1761), the daughter of John Williams, an early South Carolina planter who began building what is today known as Middleton Place around 1730. Together, Henry and Mary were the parents of five sons and seven daughters, seven of whom survived to adulthood, including:
After his wife's death in 1761, Middleton would go on to marry twice more. His second marriage was to Maria Henrietta Bull (1722–1772), daughter of William Bull Sr., the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, in 1762. His second wife's sister, Charlotta (née Bull) Drayton, was the mother of Continental Congressman William Henry Drayton, and her brother, William Bull II, served as governor of South Carolina before leaving the colony in 1782 when British troops were evacuated at the end of the War.
After his second wife's death in 1772, he married for the third time, although it was her fourth marriage, to Lady Mary McKenzie, the daughter of George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, in 1776. Among Lady Mary's brothers were John Mackenzie, Lord MacLeod and George Mackenzie. Her father was a Scottish nobleman who followed Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite Pretender. The Earl of Cromartie was tried and sentenced to death, but he obtained a conditional pardon although his peerage was forfeited.
Middleton died on June 13, 1784, in Charleston. He was buried at Goosecreek Churchyard, St. James Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina.
His grandson, also named Henry (1770–1846), had a long career in politics. He was governor of South Carolina (1810–1812), U.S. Representative (1815–1819), and the minister to Russia (1820–1830). Henry had fourteen children, including Williams Middleton and Edward Middleton. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Henry Middleton (1717 – June 13, 1784) was a planter, public official from South Carolina. A member of the colonial legislature, during the American Revolution he attended the First Continental Congress and served as that body's president for four days in 1774 after the passage of the Continental Association, which he signed. He left the Second Continental Congress before it declared independence. Back in South Carolina, he served as president of the provincial congress and senator in the newly created state government. After his capture by the British in 1780, he accepted defeat and returned to the status of a British subject until the end of the war.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Henry Middleton was born in 1717 on the family plantation, \"The Oaks\", near Charleston, Province of South Carolina. He was the second son of Susan (née Amory) Middleton (1690-1722) and Arthur Middleton (1681–1737), a wealthy planter who had served as an acting governor of South Carolina. His grandfather, Edward Middleton, emigrated from England via Barbados. He was educated in England before returning to South Carolina to inherit his father's plantation. He became one of the largest landowners in the colony, owning 50,000 acres (200 km) and about 800 slaves.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Middleton served in a variety of public offices in South Carolina. He was a justice of the peace and a member of the Commons House of Assembly, where he was elected speaker in 1747, 1754, and 1755. He was a member of provincial council but resigned in 1770 in opposition to British policy.",
"title": "Public career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1774, at the outset of the American Revolution, Middleton was selected as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He served as that body's president during the last few days of the First Continental Congress, following the departure of Peyton Randolph. Middleton opposed declaring independence from Great Britain and resigned from the Second Continental Congress in February 1776 when more radical delegates began pushing for independence. He was succeeded in Congress by his son Arthur who was more radical than his father and became a signer of the Declaration of Independence.",
"title": "Public career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "After Middleton's return to South Carolina, he was elected president of the provincial congress and, beginning on November 16, 1775, served on the council of safety. In 1776, he and his son Arthur helped frame a temporary state constitution. In 1779, he became a state senator in the new government.",
"title": "Public career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "When Charleston was captured by the British at the Siege of Charleston in 1780, Middleton accepted defeat and status as a British subject. This reversal apparently did not damage his reputation in the long run, because of his previous support of the Revolution, and he did not suffer the fate of having his estates confiscated, as many Loyalists did after the war.",
"title": "Public career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1741, Middleton was married to Mary Baker Williams (1721–1761), the daughter of John Williams, an early South Carolina planter who began building what is today known as Middleton Place around 1730. Together, Henry and Mary were the parents of five sons and seven daughters, seven of whom survived to adulthood, including:",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After his wife's death in 1761, Middleton would go on to marry twice more. His second marriage was to Maria Henrietta Bull (1722–1772), daughter of William Bull Sr., the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, in 1762. His second wife's sister, Charlotta (née Bull) Drayton, was the mother of Continental Congressman William Henry Drayton, and her brother, William Bull II, served as governor of South Carolina before leaving the colony in 1782 when British troops were evacuated at the end of the War.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "After his second wife's death in 1772, he married for the third time, although it was her fourth marriage, to Lady Mary McKenzie, the daughter of George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, in 1776. Among Lady Mary's brothers were John Mackenzie, Lord MacLeod and George Mackenzie. Her father was a Scottish nobleman who followed Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite Pretender. The Earl of Cromartie was tried and sentenced to death, but he obtained a conditional pardon although his peerage was forfeited.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Middleton died on June 13, 1784, in Charleston. He was buried at Goosecreek Churchyard, St. James Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "His grandson, also named Henry (1770–1846), had a long career in politics. He was governor of South Carolina (1810–1812), U.S. Representative (1815–1819), and the minister to Russia (1820–1830). Henry had fourteen children, including Williams Middleton and Edward Middleton.",
"title": "Personal life"
}
]
| Henry Middleton was a planter, public official from South Carolina. A member of the colonial legislature, during the American Revolution he attended the First Continental Congress and served as that body's president for four days in 1774 after the passage of the Continental Association, which he signed. He left the Second Continental Congress before it declared independence. Back in South Carolina, he served as president of the provincial congress and senator in the newly created state government. After his capture by the British in 1780, he accepted defeat and returned to the status of a British subject until the end of the war. | 2001-12-18T04:53:35Z | 2023-12-30T22:45:44Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Middleton |
14,299 | Ham | Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. As a processed meat, the term "ham" includes both whole cuts of meat and ones that have been mechanically formed.
Ham is made around the world, including a number of regional specialties, such as Westphalian ham and some varieties of Spanish jamón. In addition, numerous ham products such as stringed ham have specific geographical naming protection, such as prosciutto di Parma in Europe, and Smithfield ham in the US.
The preserving of pork leg as ham has a long history, with traces of production of cured ham among the Etruscan civilization known in the 6th and 5th century BC.
Cato the Elder wrote about the "salting of hams" in his De agri cultura tome around 160 BC.
There are claims that the Chinese were the first people to mention the production of cured ham. Larousse Gastronomique claims an origin from Gaul. It was certainly well established by the Roman period, as evidenced by an import trade from Gaul mentioned by Marcus Terentius Varro in his writings.
The modern word "ham" is derived from the Old English ham or hom meaning the hollow or bend of the knee, from a Germanic base where it meant "crooked". It began to refer to the cut of pork derived from the hind leg of a pig around the 15th century.
Because of the preservation process, ham is a compound foodstuff or ingredient, being made up of the original meat, as well as the remnants of the preserving agent(s), such as salt, but it is still recognised as a food in its own right.
Ham is produced by curing raw pork by salting, also known as dry curing, or brining, also known as wet curing. Additionally, smoking may be employed, and seasonings may be added.
Traditional dry cure hams may use only salt as the curative agent, such as with San Daniele or Parma hams, although this is comparatively rare. This process involves cleaning the raw meat, covering it in salt while it is gradually pressed draining all the blood. Specific herbs and spices may be used to add flavour during this step. The hams are then washed and hung in a dark, temperature-regulated place until dry. It is then hung to air for another period of time.
The duration of the curing process varies by the type of ham. For example, Jinhua ham takes approximately 8 to 10 months to complete, Serrano ham cures in 9–12 months, Parma ham takes more than 12 months, and Iberian ham can take up to 2 years to reach the desired flavor characteristics.
Most modern dry cure hams also use nitrites (either sodium nitrite or potassium nitrite), which are added along with the salt. Nitrites are used because they prevent bacterial growth and, in a reaction with the meat's myoglobin, give the product a desirable dark red color. The amount and mixture of salt and nitrites used have an effect on the shrinkage of the meat. Because of the toxicity of nitrite, some areas specify a maximum allowable content of nitrite in the final product. Under certain conditions, especially during cooking, nitrites in meat can react with degradation products of amino acids, forming nitrosamines, which are known carcinogens.
The dry curing of ham involves a number of enzymatic reactions. The enzymes involved are proteinases (cathepsins – B, D, H & L, and calpains) and exopeptidases (peptidase and aminopeptidase). These enzymes cause proteolysis of muscle tissue, which creates large numbers of small peptides and free amino acids, while the adipose tissue undergoes lipolysis to create free fatty acids. Salt and phosphates act as strong inhibitors of proteolytic activity. Animal factors influencing enzymatic activity include age, weight, and breed. During the process itself, conditions such as temperature, duration, water content, redox potential, and salt content all have an effect on the meat.
The salt content in dry-cured ham varies throughout a piece of meat, with gradients determinable through sampling and testing or non-invasively through CT scanning.
Dry-cured ham is usually eaten without being cooked.
Wet-cured hams are brined, which involves the immersion of the meat in a brine, sometimes with other ingredients such as sugar also added for flavour. The meat is typically kept in the brine for around 3 to 14 days. Wet curing also has the effect of increasing volume and weight of the finished product, by about 4%.
The wet curing process can also be achieved by pumping the curing solution into the meat. This can be quicker, increase the weight of the finished product by more than immersion, and ensure a more even distribution of salt through the meat. This process is quicker than traditional brining, normally being completed in a few days.
Wet-cured ham is usually cooked, either during processing, or after ageing.
The Italian version of cooked, wet-cured ham is called prosciutto cotto, as are similar hams made outside Italy. It is first brined, then cooked in a container and finally surface pasteurized. Italian regulations allow it to contain salt, nitrites, sugar, dextrose, fructose, lactose, maltodextrin, milk protein, soy protein, natural or modified starches, spices, gelatin, and flavorings.
Ham can also be additionally preserved through smoking, in which the meat is placed in a smokehouse (or equivalent) to be cured by the action of smoke.
The main flavor compounds of smoked ham are guaiacol, and its 4-, 5-, and 6-methyl derivatives as well as 2,6-dimethylphenol. These compounds are produced by combustion of lignin, a major constituent of wood used in the smokehouse.
In many countries the term is now protected by statute, with a specific definition. For instance, in the United States, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) says that "the word 'ham', without any prefix indicating the species of animal from which derived, shall be used in labeling only in connection with the hind legs of swine".
In addition to the main categories, some processing choices can affect legal labeling. For instance, in the United States, a "smoked" ham must have been smoked by hanging over burning wood chips in a smokehouse or an atomized spray of liquid smoke such that the product appearance is equivalent; a "hickory-smoked" ham must have been smoked using only hickory. However, injecting "smoke flavor" is not legal grounds for claiming the ham was "smoked"; these are labeled "smoke flavor added". Hams can only be labeled "honey-cured" if honey was at least 50% of the sweetener used, is at least 3% of the formula, and has a discernible effect on flavor. So-called "lean" and "extra lean" hams must adhere to maximum levels of fat and cholesterol per 100 grams of product.
Whole fresh pork leg can be labeled as fresh ham in the United States.
A number of hams worldwide have some level of protection of their unique characteristics, usually relating to their method of preservation or location of production or processing. Dependent on jurisdiction, rules may prevent any other product being sold with the particular appellation, such as through the European protected geographical indication.
Ham is typically used in its sliced form, often as a filling for sandwiches and similar foods, such as in the ham sandwich and ham and cheese sandwich. Other variations include toasted sandwiches such as the croque-monsieur and the Cubano. It is also a popular topping for pizza in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, a pork leg cut, either whole or sliced, that has been cured but requires additional cooking is known as gammon. Gammons were traditionally cured before being cut from a side of pork along with bacon. When cooked, gammon is ham. Such roasts are a traditional part of British Christmas dinners.
As a processed meat, there has been concern over the health effects of ham consumption. A meta-analysis study from 2012 has shown a statistically relevant correlation between processed meat consumption and the risk of pancreatic cancer, with an increase in consumption of 50 grams (1.8 oz) per day leading to a 19% increase in risk.
This supported earlier studies, including the 2007 study "Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective", by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, which reviewed more than 7,000 studies published worldwide. Among the recommendations was that, except for very rare occasions, people should avoid eating ham or other processed meats – cured, smoked, salted or chemically preserved meat products such as bacon, hot dogs, sausage, salami, and pastrami. The report states that once an individual reaches the 510 grams (18 oz) weekly limit for red meat, every 48 grams (1.7 oz) of processed meat consumed a day increases cancer risk by 21%.
A European cohort study from 2013 also positively correlated processed meat consumption with higher all-cause mortality, with an estimation that 3.3% of the deaths amongst participants could have been prevented by consuming an average of less than 20 grams (0.71 oz) of processed meat per day over the course of the study. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. As a processed meat, the term \"ham\" includes both whole cuts of meat and ones that have been mechanically formed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Ham is made around the world, including a number of regional specialties, such as Westphalian ham and some varieties of Spanish jamón. In addition, numerous ham products such as stringed ham have specific geographical naming protection, such as prosciutto di Parma in Europe, and Smithfield ham in the US.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The preserving of pork leg as ham has a long history, with traces of production of cured ham among the Etruscan civilization known in the 6th and 5th century BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Cato the Elder wrote about the \"salting of hams\" in his De agri cultura tome around 160 BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There are claims that the Chinese were the first people to mention the production of cured ham. Larousse Gastronomique claims an origin from Gaul. It was certainly well established by the Roman period, as evidenced by an import trade from Gaul mentioned by Marcus Terentius Varro in his writings.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The modern word \"ham\" is derived from the Old English ham or hom meaning the hollow or bend of the knee, from a Germanic base where it meant \"crooked\". It began to refer to the cut of pork derived from the hind leg of a pig around the 15th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Because of the preservation process, ham is a compound foodstuff or ingredient, being made up of the original meat, as well as the remnants of the preserving agent(s), such as salt, but it is still recognised as a food in its own right.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Ham is produced by curing raw pork by salting, also known as dry curing, or brining, also known as wet curing. Additionally, smoking may be employed, and seasonings may be added.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Traditional dry cure hams may use only salt as the curative agent, such as with San Daniele or Parma hams, although this is comparatively rare. This process involves cleaning the raw meat, covering it in salt while it is gradually pressed draining all the blood. Specific herbs and spices may be used to add flavour during this step. The hams are then washed and hung in a dark, temperature-regulated place until dry. It is then hung to air for another period of time.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The duration of the curing process varies by the type of ham. For example, Jinhua ham takes approximately 8 to 10 months to complete, Serrano ham cures in 9–12 months, Parma ham takes more than 12 months, and Iberian ham can take up to 2 years to reach the desired flavor characteristics.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Most modern dry cure hams also use nitrites (either sodium nitrite or potassium nitrite), which are added along with the salt. Nitrites are used because they prevent bacterial growth and, in a reaction with the meat's myoglobin, give the product a desirable dark red color. The amount and mixture of salt and nitrites used have an effect on the shrinkage of the meat. Because of the toxicity of nitrite, some areas specify a maximum allowable content of nitrite in the final product. Under certain conditions, especially during cooking, nitrites in meat can react with degradation products of amino acids, forming nitrosamines, which are known carcinogens.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The dry curing of ham involves a number of enzymatic reactions. The enzymes involved are proteinases (cathepsins – B, D, H & L, and calpains) and exopeptidases (peptidase and aminopeptidase). These enzymes cause proteolysis of muscle tissue, which creates large numbers of small peptides and free amino acids, while the adipose tissue undergoes lipolysis to create free fatty acids. Salt and phosphates act as strong inhibitors of proteolytic activity. Animal factors influencing enzymatic activity include age, weight, and breed. During the process itself, conditions such as temperature, duration, water content, redox potential, and salt content all have an effect on the meat.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The salt content in dry-cured ham varies throughout a piece of meat, with gradients determinable through sampling and testing or non-invasively through CT scanning.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Dry-cured ham is usually eaten without being cooked.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Wet-cured hams are brined, which involves the immersion of the meat in a brine, sometimes with other ingredients such as sugar also added for flavour. The meat is typically kept in the brine for around 3 to 14 days. Wet curing also has the effect of increasing volume and weight of the finished product, by about 4%.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The wet curing process can also be achieved by pumping the curing solution into the meat. This can be quicker, increase the weight of the finished product by more than immersion, and ensure a more even distribution of salt through the meat. This process is quicker than traditional brining, normally being completed in a few days.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Wet-cured ham is usually cooked, either during processing, or after ageing.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Italian version of cooked, wet-cured ham is called prosciutto cotto, as are similar hams made outside Italy. It is first brined, then cooked in a container and finally surface pasteurized. Italian regulations allow it to contain salt, nitrites, sugar, dextrose, fructose, lactose, maltodextrin, milk protein, soy protein, natural or modified starches, spices, gelatin, and flavorings.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Ham can also be additionally preserved through smoking, in which the meat is placed in a smokehouse (or equivalent) to be cured by the action of smoke.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The main flavor compounds of smoked ham are guaiacol, and its 4-, 5-, and 6-methyl derivatives as well as 2,6-dimethylphenol. These compounds are produced by combustion of lignin, a major constituent of wood used in the smokehouse.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In many countries the term is now protected by statute, with a specific definition. For instance, in the United States, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) says that \"the word 'ham', without any prefix indicating the species of animal from which derived, shall be used in labeling only in connection with the hind legs of swine\".",
"title": "Labeling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In addition to the main categories, some processing choices can affect legal labeling. For instance, in the United States, a \"smoked\" ham must have been smoked by hanging over burning wood chips in a smokehouse or an atomized spray of liquid smoke such that the product appearance is equivalent; a \"hickory-smoked\" ham must have been smoked using only hickory. However, injecting \"smoke flavor\" is not legal grounds for claiming the ham was \"smoked\"; these are labeled \"smoke flavor added\". Hams can only be labeled \"honey-cured\" if honey was at least 50% of the sweetener used, is at least 3% of the formula, and has a discernible effect on flavor. So-called \"lean\" and \"extra lean\" hams must adhere to maximum levels of fat and cholesterol per 100 grams of product.",
"title": "Labeling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Whole fresh pork leg can be labeled as fresh ham in the United States.",
"title": "Labeling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "A number of hams worldwide have some level of protection of their unique characteristics, usually relating to their method of preservation or location of production or processing. Dependent on jurisdiction, rules may prevent any other product being sold with the particular appellation, such as through the European protected geographical indication.",
"title": "Labeling"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Ham is typically used in its sliced form, often as a filling for sandwiches and similar foods, such as in the ham sandwich and ham and cheese sandwich. Other variations include toasted sandwiches such as the croque-monsieur and the Cubano. It is also a popular topping for pizza in the United States.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In the United Kingdom, a pork leg cut, either whole or sliced, that has been cured but requires additional cooking is known as gammon. Gammons were traditionally cured before being cut from a side of pork along with bacon. When cooked, gammon is ham. Such roasts are a traditional part of British Christmas dinners.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "As a processed meat, there has been concern over the health effects of ham consumption. A meta-analysis study from 2012 has shown a statistically relevant correlation between processed meat consumption and the risk of pancreatic cancer, with an increase in consumption of 50 grams (1.8 oz) per day leading to a 19% increase in risk.",
"title": "Health effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "This supported earlier studies, including the 2007 study \"Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective\", by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, which reviewed more than 7,000 studies published worldwide. Among the recommendations was that, except for very rare occasions, people should avoid eating ham or other processed meats – cured, smoked, salted or chemically preserved meat products such as bacon, hot dogs, sausage, salami, and pastrami. The report states that once an individual reaches the 510 grams (18 oz) weekly limit for red meat, every 48 grams (1.7 oz) of processed meat consumed a day increases cancer risk by 21%.",
"title": "Health effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "A European cohort study from 2013 also positively correlated processed meat consumption with higher all-cause mortality, with an estimation that 3.3% of the deaths amongst participants could have been prevented by consuming an average of less than 20 grams (0.71 oz) of processed meat per day over the course of the study.",
"title": "Health effects"
}
]
| Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. As a processed meat, the term "ham" includes both whole cuts of meat and ones that have been mechanically formed. Ham is made around the world, including a number of regional specialties, such as Westphalian ham and some varieties of Spanish jamón. In addition, numerous ham products such as stringed ham have specific geographical naming protection, such as prosciutto di Parma in Europe, and Smithfield ham in the US. | 2001-12-18T05:01:15Z | 2023-11-14T01:45:12Z | [
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14,300 | Henry Laurens | Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 [O.S. February 24, 1723] – December 8, 1792) was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and, as president, presided over its passage.
Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America, Austin and Laurens. In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans. Laurens served for a time as vice president of South Carolina and as the United States minister to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War. He was captured at sea by the British and imprisoned for a little more than a year in the Tower of London. His oldest son, John Laurens, was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and a colonel in the Continental Army.
Laurens' forebears were Huguenots who fled France after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. His grandfather Andre Laurens left earlier, in 1682, and eventually made his way to America, settling first in New York City and then Charleston, South Carolina. Andre's son John married Hester (or Esther) Grasset, also a Huguenot refugee. Henry was their third child and eldest son. John Laurens became a saddler, and his business eventually grew to be the largest of its kind in the colonies.
In 1744, Laurens was sent to London to augment his business training. This took place in the company of Richard Oswald. His father died in 1747, bequeathing a considerable estate to 23-year-old Henry.
Laurens married Eleanor Ball, also of a South Carolina rice planter family, on June 25, 1750. They had thirteen children, many of whom died in infancy or childhood. Eleanor died in 1770, one month after giving birth to their last child. Laurens took their three sons to England for their education, encouraging their oldest, John Laurens, to study law. Instead of completing his studies, John Laurens returned to the United States in 1776 to serve in the American Revolutionary War.
Laurens served in the militia, as did most able-bodied men in his time. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the campaigns against the Cherokee Indians in 1757–1761, during the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War).
In 1757, he was elected to South Carolina's colonial assembly. Laurens was elected again every year but one until the Revolution replaced the assembly with a state convention as an interim government. The year he missed was 1773, when he visited England to arrange for his sons' educations. He was named to the colony's council in 1764 and 1768 but declined both times. In 1772, he joined the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia and carried on extensive correspondence with other members.
As the American Revolution neared, Laurens was at first inclined to support reconciliation with the British Crown. But as conditions deteriorated, he came to fully support the American position. When Carolina began to create a revolutionary government, Laurens was elected to the Provincial Congress, which first met on January 9, 1775. He was president of the Committee of Safety and presiding officer of that congress from June until March 1776. When South Carolina installed a fully independent government, he served as the vice president of South Carolina from March 1776 to June 27, 1777. Laurens was first named a delegate to the Continental Congress on January 10, 1777. He served in the Congress until 1780. He was the president of the Continental Congress from November 1, 1777, to December 9, 1778.
In the fall of 1779, the Congress named Laurens their minister to the Netherlands. In early 1780, he took up that post and successfully negotiated Dutch support for the war. But on his return voyage to Amsterdam that fall, the British frigate Vestal intercepted his ship, the continental packet Mercury, off the banks of Newfoundland. Although his dispatches were tossed in the water, they were retrieved by the British, who discovered the draft of a possible U.S.-Dutch treaty prepared in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1778 by William Lee and the Amsterdam banker Jean de Neufville. This prompted Britain to declare war on the Dutch Republic, becoming known as the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.
The British charged Laurens with treason, transported him to England, and imprisoned him in the Tower of London (he is the only American to have been held prisoner in the tower). His imprisonment was protested by the Americans. In the field, most captives were regarded as prisoners of war, and while conditions were frequently appalling, prisoner exchanges and mail privileges were accepted practice. During his imprisonment, Laurens was assisted by Richard Oswald, his former business partner and the principal owner of Bunce Island, a slave-trading island base in the Sierra Leone River. Oswald argued on Laurens' behalf to the British government. Finally, on December 31, 1781, he was released in exchange for General Lord Cornwallis and completed his voyage to Amsterdam. He helped raise funds for the American effort.
Laurens' oldest son, Colonel John Laurens, was killed in 1782 in the Battle of the Combahee River, as one of the last casualties of the Revolutionary War. He had supported enlisting and freeing slaves for the war effort and suggested to his father that he begin with the 40 he stood to inherit. He had urged his father to free the family's slaves, but although conflicted, Henry Laurens never manumitted his 260 slaves.
In 1783, Laurens was sent to Paris as one of the peace commissioners for the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris. While he was not a signatory of the primary treaty, he was instrumental in reaching the secondary accords that resolved issues related to the Netherlands and Spain. Richard Oswald, a former partner of Laurens in the slave trade, was the principal negotiator for the British during the Paris peace talks.
Laurens generally retired from public life in 1784. He was sought for a return to the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the state assembly, but he declined all of these positions. He did serve in the state convention of 1788, where he voted to ratify the United States Constitution.
British forces, during their occupation of Charleston, had burned the Laurens home at Mepkin during the war. When Laurens and his family returned in 1784, they lived in an outbuilding while the great house was rebuilt. He lived on the estate the rest of his life, working to recover the estimated £40,000 that the revolution had cost him (equivalent to about $6.15 million in 2019).
Laurens suffered from gout starting in his 40s and the affliction plagued him throughout the rest of his life. Laurens died on December 8, 1792, at his estate, Mepkin, in South Carolina. In his will he stated he wished to be cremated and his ashes be interred at his estate. It is reported that he was the first Caucasian cremation in the United States, which he chose because of a fear of being buried alive. Afterward, the estate passed through several hands. Large portions of the estate still exist. Part of the original estate was donated to the Roman Catholic Church in 1949 and is now the location of Mepkin Abbey, a monastery of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappist monks).
The city of Laurens, South Carolina, and its county are named for him. The town and the village of Laurens, New York, are named for him. Laurens County, Georgia, is named for his son John. General Lachlan McIntosh, who worked for Laurens as a clerk and became close friends with him, named Fort Laurens in Ohio after him. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 [O.S. February 24, 1723] – December 8, 1792) was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and, as president, presided over its passage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America, Austin and Laurens. In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans. Laurens served for a time as vice president of South Carolina and as the United States minister to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War. He was captured at sea by the British and imprisoned for a little more than a year in the Tower of London. His oldest son, John Laurens, was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and a colonel in the Continental Army.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Laurens' forebears were Huguenots who fled France after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. His grandfather Andre Laurens left earlier, in 1682, and eventually made his way to America, settling first in New York City and then Charleston, South Carolina. Andre's son John married Hester (or Esther) Grasset, also a Huguenot refugee. Henry was their third child and eldest son. John Laurens became a saddler, and his business eventually grew to be the largest of its kind in the colonies.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1744, Laurens was sent to London to augment his business training. This took place in the company of Richard Oswald. His father died in 1747, bequeathing a considerable estate to 23-year-old Henry.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Laurens married Eleanor Ball, also of a South Carolina rice planter family, on June 25, 1750. They had thirteen children, many of whom died in infancy or childhood. Eleanor died in 1770, one month after giving birth to their last child. Laurens took their three sons to England for their education, encouraging their oldest, John Laurens, to study law. Instead of completing his studies, John Laurens returned to the United States in 1776 to serve in the American Revolutionary War.",
"title": "Marriage and family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Laurens served in the militia, as did most able-bodied men in his time. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the campaigns against the Cherokee Indians in 1757–1761, during the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War).",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1757, he was elected to South Carolina's colonial assembly. Laurens was elected again every year but one until the Revolution replaced the assembly with a state convention as an interim government. The year he missed was 1773, when he visited England to arrange for his sons' educations. He was named to the colony's council in 1764 and 1768 but declined both times. In 1772, he joined the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia and carried on extensive correspondence with other members.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As the American Revolution neared, Laurens was at first inclined to support reconciliation with the British Crown. But as conditions deteriorated, he came to fully support the American position. When Carolina began to create a revolutionary government, Laurens was elected to the Provincial Congress, which first met on January 9, 1775. He was president of the Committee of Safety and presiding officer of that congress from June until March 1776. When South Carolina installed a fully independent government, he served as the vice president of South Carolina from March 1776 to June 27, 1777. Laurens was first named a delegate to the Continental Congress on January 10, 1777. He served in the Congress until 1780. He was the president of the Continental Congress from November 1, 1777, to December 9, 1778.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the fall of 1779, the Congress named Laurens their minister to the Netherlands. In early 1780, he took up that post and successfully negotiated Dutch support for the war. But on his return voyage to Amsterdam that fall, the British frigate Vestal intercepted his ship, the continental packet Mercury, off the banks of Newfoundland. Although his dispatches were tossed in the water, they were retrieved by the British, who discovered the draft of a possible U.S.-Dutch treaty prepared in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1778 by William Lee and the Amsterdam banker Jean de Neufville. This prompted Britain to declare war on the Dutch Republic, becoming known as the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The British charged Laurens with treason, transported him to England, and imprisoned him in the Tower of London (he is the only American to have been held prisoner in the tower). His imprisonment was protested by the Americans. In the field, most captives were regarded as prisoners of war, and while conditions were frequently appalling, prisoner exchanges and mail privileges were accepted practice. During his imprisonment, Laurens was assisted by Richard Oswald, his former business partner and the principal owner of Bunce Island, a slave-trading island base in the Sierra Leone River. Oswald argued on Laurens' behalf to the British government. Finally, on December 31, 1781, he was released in exchange for General Lord Cornwallis and completed his voyage to Amsterdam. He helped raise funds for the American effort.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Laurens' oldest son, Colonel John Laurens, was killed in 1782 in the Battle of the Combahee River, as one of the last casualties of the Revolutionary War. He had supported enlisting and freeing slaves for the war effort and suggested to his father that he begin with the 40 he stood to inherit. He had urged his father to free the family's slaves, but although conflicted, Henry Laurens never manumitted his 260 slaves.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1783, Laurens was sent to Paris as one of the peace commissioners for the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris. While he was not a signatory of the primary treaty, he was instrumental in reaching the secondary accords that resolved issues related to the Netherlands and Spain. Richard Oswald, a former partner of Laurens in the slave trade, was the principal negotiator for the British during the Paris peace talks.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Laurens generally retired from public life in 1784. He was sought for a return to the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the state assembly, but he declined all of these positions. He did serve in the state convention of 1788, where he voted to ratify the United States Constitution.",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "British forces, during their occupation of Charleston, had burned the Laurens home at Mepkin during the war. When Laurens and his family returned in 1784, they lived in an outbuilding while the great house was rebuilt. He lived on the estate the rest of his life, working to recover the estimated £40,000 that the revolution had cost him (equivalent to about $6.15 million in 2019).",
"title": "Political career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Laurens suffered from gout starting in his 40s and the affliction plagued him throughout the rest of his life. Laurens died on December 8, 1792, at his estate, Mepkin, in South Carolina. In his will he stated he wished to be cremated and his ashes be interred at his estate. It is reported that he was the first Caucasian cremation in the United States, which he chose because of a fear of being buried alive. Afterward, the estate passed through several hands. Large portions of the estate still exist. Part of the original estate was donated to the Roman Catholic Church in 1949 and is now the location of Mepkin Abbey, a monastery of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappist monks).",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The city of Laurens, South Carolina, and its county are named for him. The town and the village of Laurens, New York, are named for him. Laurens County, Georgia, is named for his son John. General Lachlan McIntosh, who worked for Laurens as a clerk and became close friends with him, named Fort Laurens in Ohio after him.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
}
]
| Henry Laurens was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and, as president, presided over its passage. Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America, Austin and Laurens. In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans. Laurens served for a time as vice president of South Carolina and as the United States minister to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War. He was captured at sea by the British and imprisoned for a little more than a year in the Tower of London. His oldest son, John Laurens, was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and a colonel in the Continental Army. | 2001-12-18T05:02:07Z | 2023-11-01T01:32:57Z | [
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14,301 | British Aerospace HOTOL | HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a 1980s British design for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spaceplane that was to be powered by an airbreathing jet engine. Development was being conducted by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace (BAe).
Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable winged launch vehicle, HOTOL was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 or Swallow, that was under development by British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce. The propellant for the engine technically consisted of a combination of liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen; however, it was to employ a new means of dramatically reducing the amount of oxidizer needed to be carried on board by utilising atmospheric oxygen as the spacecraft climbed through the lower atmosphere. Since the oxidizer typically represents the majority of the takeoff weight of a rocket, HOTOL was to be considerably smaller than normal pure-rocket designs, roughly the size of a medium-haul airliner such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9/MD-80.
While HOTOL's proof-of-concept design study was being carried out, attempts were made by both industry and the British government to establish international cooperation to develop, produce, and deploy the spacecraft. In spite of American interest in the programme, there was little appetite amongst the members of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the British government was not prepared to depart from ESA cooperation. Additionally, technical issues were encountered, and there were allegations that comparisons with alternative launch systems such as conventional rocket vehicle using similar construction techniques failed to show much advantage to HOTOL. In 1989, funding for the project ended. The termination of development work on HOTOL led to the formation of Reaction Engines Limited (REL) to develop and produce Skylon, a proposed spacecraft based on HOTOL technologies, including its air-breathing engine.
The ideas behind HOTOL originated from work done by British Engineer Alan Bond in the field of pre-cooled jet engines. Bond had specifically performed this research with the intention of producing a viable engine for powering a space launch system. In 1982, British Aerospace (BAe), which was Europe's principal satellite-builder, began studying a prospective new launch system with the aim of providing launch costs that were 20 per cent of the American Space Shuttle operated by NASA. BAe became aware of work by British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce on a suitable engine, and soon conceived of an unmanned, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) winged spaceplane as a launch vehicle.
Thus, the project had soon become a joint venture between BAe and Rolls-Royce, led by John Scott-Scott and Dr Bob Parkinson. Early on, there was an ambition to 'Europeanise' the project and to involve other nations in its development and manufacture as it was recognised that an estimated £4 billion would be needed to fund full-scale development. In August 1984, BAe unveiled a public display of the HOTOL satellite launcher project and released details on its proposed operations.
In December 1984, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) memorandum noted that West Germany was interested in the programme, while France had adopted a critical attitude towards HOTOL, which the ministry viewed as potentially due to it being seen as a competitor to French-led projects. According to the Minister of Trade and Industry Geoffrey Pattie, French diplomatic pressure to gather support for its own proposed Hermes space vehicle had inadvertently generated support and interest amongst European Space Agency (ESA) members in the HOTOL project. Despite this climate of tentative interest and possible European support, there was a general attitude of reluctance within the British government to take the lead on a new space launcher.
In March 1985, there were claims that Rolls-Royce was in the process of conducting licensing talks for HOTOL engine technology with American propulsion company Rocketdyne. In April 1985, Pattie wrote to Secretary of State for Defence Michael Heseltine to propose a two-year £3 million proof of concept study be performed under a public-private partnership arrangement, consisting of £1 million provided by the UK government and the remainder being financed by Rolls-Royce and BAe themselves. Pattie reasoned that the project would serve Britain's "strategic capability, and that tests of key technologies could foster international collaboration. According to aerospace publication Flight International, the support of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) was critical as the design of HOTOL's engine had been classified.
In July 1985, Rolls-Royce's technical director Gordon Lewis stated that the firm sought the involvement of the Royal Aircraft Establishment's (RAE) propulsion group, and that Rolls-Royce was not prepared to invest its own funds into engine development for HOTOL. By the second half of 1985, work had commenced on the two-year concept-of-proof study. Early on, there was considerable pressure to demonstrate the project's feasibility and credibility in advance of final decisions being taken by ESA on the Hermes and what would become the Ariane 5 launch system, thus the work concentrated on the validation of critical technologies involved.
By November 1985, DTI and RAE discussions noted that Rolls-Royce were seeking American data on ramjet technology to support their work on the engine, which it referred to by the name Swallow. Reportedly, the United States Air Force were interested in the technology used in the Swallow engine for its own purposes. In November 1985, discussions between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Minister without portfolio David Young and US President Ronald Reagan's scientific advisor George Keyworth noted American interest in collaboration on developing hypersonic vehicles such as HOTOL, and that a prototype could be flying as early as 1990.
According to British government files, neither BAe nor the MoD were enthusiastic for the prospects of American involvement in the programme, expressing reluctance out of a belief that the outcome of such a move could result in the UK becoming a junior member in a project that it once led. There was also a belief that if Britain chose to pair up with the United States, it would find itself frozen out of work on future European launchers. However, Rolls-Royce viewed transatlantic cooperation as necessary. BAe's head of future business, Peter Conchie, stated that, if possible, HOTOL should become a part of the European space framework. In early 1986, the British government formally approved the two-year study.
In December 1984, project management consultant David Andrews issued an eight-page critique of the programme, noting that the design was optimised for the ascent while exposing itself to extended thermal loads during descent due to a low level of drag. He also claimed that the vehicle offered no capability that was not already available; BAe responded that the criticisms made had been answered. In April 1985, the Ministry of Defence's research and development department deputy controller James Barnes claimed that HOTOL lacked a justification, and that there was no defence requirement for such vehicles. He also noted that the "engineering problems are considerable" and that it was unlikely to enter service until the 2020s; Barnes also observed the HOTOL engine to be "ingenious".
In November 1985, the RAE issued an assessment of HOTOL's study proposal; the organisation believed that HOTOL would take up to 20 years to develop, rather than the 12-year timetable that had been envisioned by industry. The RAE also projected that the project would have an estimated total cost of £5 billion (as of its value in 1985), £750 million of which would be required in a six-year definition phase and an estimated £25 million in a pre-definition feasibility study.
During development, it was found that the comparatively heavy rear-mounted engine moved the centre of mass of the vehicle rearwards. This meant that the vehicle had to be designed to push the centre of drag as far rearward as possible to ensure stability during the entire flight regime. Redesign of the vehicle to do this required a large mass of hydraulic systems, which cost a significant proportion of the payload, and made the economics unclear. In particular, some of the analysis seemed to indicate that similar technology applied to a pure rocket approach would give approximately the same performance at less cost.
By 1989, the outlook for HOTOL had become bleak; from the onset of the project, support between the British government and industrial partners had been uneven, while the United States had emerged as the only foreign nation that showed willingness to contribute to the programme, in part because of the secrecy surrounding it. There was little prospect for European involvement, ESA having elected to pursue development of what would become the Ariane 5, a conventional space launch system. Rolls-Royce withdrew from the project, judging the eventual market for the engine was unlikely to be large enough to repay the development costs. The British government declined to offer further funding for HOTOL. The project was almost at the end of its design phase while much of the plans remained in a speculative state; the craft was reportedly still dogged with aerodynamic problems and operational disadvantages at this point.
A cheaper redesign, Interim HOTOL or HOTOL 2, which was to be launched from the back of a modified Antonov An-225 transport aircraft, specifically was promoted by BAe in 1991; however, this proposal was rejected as well. The design for Interim HOTOL was to have dispensed with an air-breathing engine cycle and was designed to use a more conventional mix of LOX and liquid hydrogen as fuel instead.
In 1989, HOTOL co-creator Alan Bond and engineers John Scott-Scott and Richard Varvill formed Reaction Engines Limited (REL) which has since been working on a new air-breathing engine, SABRE, which used alternative designs to work around (and improve upon) the Rolls-Royce patents, and the Skylon vehicle intended to solve the problems of HOTOL. They first published these engine and spacecraft concepts in 1993, and have since been developing the core technologies, particularly the engine and its frost-controlled pre-cooler; initially supported by private funding, but latterly with support from the European Space Agency, the British National Space Centre, the United Kingdom Space Agency, BAe, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. As of 2017 REL plan to demonstrate a flight-ready pre-cooler operating under simulated flight conditions in 2018, and statically test a demonstration engine core in 2020.
HOTOL was envisioned as an unmanned, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) winged spaceplane. The unmanned craft was intended to put a payload of around 7 to 8 tonnes in orbit, at 300 km altitude. It was intended to take off from a runway, mounted on the back of a large rocket-boosted trolley that would help get the craft up to "working speed". The engine was intended to switch from jet propulsion to pure rocket propulsion at 26–32 km high, by which time the craft would be travelling at Mach 5 to 7. After reaching low Earth orbit (LEO), HOTOL was intended to re-enter the atmosphere and glide down to land on a conventional runway (approx 1,500 metres minimum). Only a single payload would have been carried at a time as BAe had judged this to be more economic as it removed any need for satellite interfacing and allowed for missions to be tailored to individual requirements.
During its high-altitude phase, its flight control system would have been linked to ground stations and to space-based global navigation system navigation, while radar would have been used during the take-off and landing phases. In addition to the placing of satellites into geosynchronous orbit or LOE, HOTOL was also projected as being able to also perform the retrieval of satellites and hardware from LOE. BAe promotional material depicts HOTOL docking with the International Space Station (ISS), a feat that the company claimed would have required manned operation as automated systems were not capable of performing such docking manoeuvres at that time. HOTOL was designed to conduct fully automated unmanned flights; however, it had been intended at a later stage to potentially re-introduce a pilot. Manned operations would have required the installation of a dedicated pressurised module within the payload bay.
As designed, HOTOL would have been 62 metres long, 12.8 metres high, a fuselage diameter of 5.7 metres and a wingspan of 19.7 metres. It featured a wing design that had been derived from that of Concorde; its large area resulted in relatively low wing loading, which would have resulted in lower reentry temperatures (never rising above 1,400 °C). Built out of carbon composite materials, there would have been no need for the use of insulating tiles akin to those that comprised the Space Shuttle thermal protection system. The internally stowed landing gear would have been too small to carry the weight of the fully fuelled rocket, so emergency landings would have required the fuel to be dumped.
The RB545, which was given the name "Swallow" by its manufacturer, British engine maker Rolls-Royce, was an air-breathing rocket engine. It would have functioned as an integrated dual-role powerplant, having been capable of air-breathing while operating within the atmosphere and operating in a similar manner to that of a rocket when having attained close to and within LEO. This engine would have also been capable of powering the spacecraft to hypersonic speeds. It was a crucial element of the programme, having been publicly attributed as "the heart of Hotol's very low launch costs".
The exact details of this engine were covered by the Official Secrets Act of the United Kingdom; consequently, there is relatively little public information about its development and on its operation. However, material was later declassified when government policy changed to prevent the keeping of secret patents without an attributed justification.
Within the atmosphere, air is taken in through two vertically mounted intake ramps, then the flow would be split, passing the correct amount to the pre-coolers, and the excess to spill ducts. Hydrogen from the fuel tanks would be passed through two heat exchangers to pre-cool the air prior to entering a high overall pressure-ratio turbojet-like engine cycle — the heated hydrogen driving a turbine to compress and feed the cooled air into the rocket engine, where it was combusted with some of the hydrogen used to cool the air. The majority of the remaining hot hydrogen was released from the back of the engine, with a small amount drawn off to reheat the air in the spill ducts in a ramjet arrangement to produce "negative intake momentum drag."
To prevent the pre-coolers from icing up, the first pre-cooler cooled the air to around 10 degrees above freezing point, to liquefy the water vapour in the air. Then liquid oxygen (LOX) would have been injected into the airflow to drop the temperature to −50 °C (−58 °F) flash freezing the water into microscopic ice crystals, sufficiently cold that they wouldn't melt due to kinetic heating if they struck the second pre-cooler elements. A water trap could have been added after the first pre-cooler if operating conditions resulted in an excess of moisture.
When it was no longer possible to use the atmosphere for combustion, the RB545 would switch to using on-board LOX to burn with the hydrogen as a high-efficiency hydrogen/oxygen rocket. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a 1980s British design for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spaceplane that was to be powered by an airbreathing jet engine. Development was being conducted by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace (BAe).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable winged launch vehicle, HOTOL was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 or Swallow, that was under development by British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce. The propellant for the engine technically consisted of a combination of liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen; however, it was to employ a new means of dramatically reducing the amount of oxidizer needed to be carried on board by utilising atmospheric oxygen as the spacecraft climbed through the lower atmosphere. Since the oxidizer typically represents the majority of the takeoff weight of a rocket, HOTOL was to be considerably smaller than normal pure-rocket designs, roughly the size of a medium-haul airliner such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9/MD-80.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "While HOTOL's proof-of-concept design study was being carried out, attempts were made by both industry and the British government to establish international cooperation to develop, produce, and deploy the spacecraft. In spite of American interest in the programme, there was little appetite amongst the members of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the British government was not prepared to depart from ESA cooperation. Additionally, technical issues were encountered, and there were allegations that comparisons with alternative launch systems such as conventional rocket vehicle using similar construction techniques failed to show much advantage to HOTOL. In 1989, funding for the project ended. The termination of development work on HOTOL led to the formation of Reaction Engines Limited (REL) to develop and produce Skylon, a proposed spacecraft based on HOTOL technologies, including its air-breathing engine.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The ideas behind HOTOL originated from work done by British Engineer Alan Bond in the field of pre-cooled jet engines. Bond had specifically performed this research with the intention of producing a viable engine for powering a space launch system. In 1982, British Aerospace (BAe), which was Europe's principal satellite-builder, began studying a prospective new launch system with the aim of providing launch costs that were 20 per cent of the American Space Shuttle operated by NASA. BAe became aware of work by British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce on a suitable engine, and soon conceived of an unmanned, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) winged spaceplane as a launch vehicle.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Thus, the project had soon become a joint venture between BAe and Rolls-Royce, led by John Scott-Scott and Dr Bob Parkinson. Early on, there was an ambition to 'Europeanise' the project and to involve other nations in its development and manufacture as it was recognised that an estimated £4 billion would be needed to fund full-scale development. In August 1984, BAe unveiled a public display of the HOTOL satellite launcher project and released details on its proposed operations.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In December 1984, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) memorandum noted that West Germany was interested in the programme, while France had adopted a critical attitude towards HOTOL, which the ministry viewed as potentially due to it being seen as a competitor to French-led projects. According to the Minister of Trade and Industry Geoffrey Pattie, French diplomatic pressure to gather support for its own proposed Hermes space vehicle had inadvertently generated support and interest amongst European Space Agency (ESA) members in the HOTOL project. Despite this climate of tentative interest and possible European support, there was a general attitude of reluctance within the British government to take the lead on a new space launcher.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In March 1985, there were claims that Rolls-Royce was in the process of conducting licensing talks for HOTOL engine technology with American propulsion company Rocketdyne. In April 1985, Pattie wrote to Secretary of State for Defence Michael Heseltine to propose a two-year £3 million proof of concept study be performed under a public-private partnership arrangement, consisting of £1 million provided by the UK government and the remainder being financed by Rolls-Royce and BAe themselves. Pattie reasoned that the project would serve Britain's \"strategic capability, and that tests of key technologies could foster international collaboration. According to aerospace publication Flight International, the support of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) was critical as the design of HOTOL's engine had been classified.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In July 1985, Rolls-Royce's technical director Gordon Lewis stated that the firm sought the involvement of the Royal Aircraft Establishment's (RAE) propulsion group, and that Rolls-Royce was not prepared to invest its own funds into engine development for HOTOL. By the second half of 1985, work had commenced on the two-year concept-of-proof study. Early on, there was considerable pressure to demonstrate the project's feasibility and credibility in advance of final decisions being taken by ESA on the Hermes and what would become the Ariane 5 launch system, thus the work concentrated on the validation of critical technologies involved.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "By November 1985, DTI and RAE discussions noted that Rolls-Royce were seeking American data on ramjet technology to support their work on the engine, which it referred to by the name Swallow. Reportedly, the United States Air Force were interested in the technology used in the Swallow engine for its own purposes. In November 1985, discussions between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Minister without portfolio David Young and US President Ronald Reagan's scientific advisor George Keyworth noted American interest in collaboration on developing hypersonic vehicles such as HOTOL, and that a prototype could be flying as early as 1990.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "According to British government files, neither BAe nor the MoD were enthusiastic for the prospects of American involvement in the programme, expressing reluctance out of a belief that the outcome of such a move could result in the UK becoming a junior member in a project that it once led. There was also a belief that if Britain chose to pair up with the United States, it would find itself frozen out of work on future European launchers. However, Rolls-Royce viewed transatlantic cooperation as necessary. BAe's head of future business, Peter Conchie, stated that, if possible, HOTOL should become a part of the European space framework. In early 1986, the British government formally approved the two-year study.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In December 1984, project management consultant David Andrews issued an eight-page critique of the programme, noting that the design was optimised for the ascent while exposing itself to extended thermal loads during descent due to a low level of drag. He also claimed that the vehicle offered no capability that was not already available; BAe responded that the criticisms made had been answered. In April 1985, the Ministry of Defence's research and development department deputy controller James Barnes claimed that HOTOL lacked a justification, and that there was no defence requirement for such vehicles. He also noted that the \"engineering problems are considerable\" and that it was unlikely to enter service until the 2020s; Barnes also observed the HOTOL engine to be \"ingenious\".",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In November 1985, the RAE issued an assessment of HOTOL's study proposal; the organisation believed that HOTOL would take up to 20 years to develop, rather than the 12-year timetable that had been envisioned by industry. The RAE also projected that the project would have an estimated total cost of £5 billion (as of its value in 1985), £750 million of which would be required in a six-year definition phase and an estimated £25 million in a pre-definition feasibility study.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "During development, it was found that the comparatively heavy rear-mounted engine moved the centre of mass of the vehicle rearwards. This meant that the vehicle had to be designed to push the centre of drag as far rearward as possible to ensure stability during the entire flight regime. Redesign of the vehicle to do this required a large mass of hydraulic systems, which cost a significant proportion of the payload, and made the economics unclear. In particular, some of the analysis seemed to indicate that similar technology applied to a pure rocket approach would give approximately the same performance at less cost.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "By 1989, the outlook for HOTOL had become bleak; from the onset of the project, support between the British government and industrial partners had been uneven, while the United States had emerged as the only foreign nation that showed willingness to contribute to the programme, in part because of the secrecy surrounding it. There was little prospect for European involvement, ESA having elected to pursue development of what would become the Ariane 5, a conventional space launch system. Rolls-Royce withdrew from the project, judging the eventual market for the engine was unlikely to be large enough to repay the development costs. The British government declined to offer further funding for HOTOL. The project was almost at the end of its design phase while much of the plans remained in a speculative state; the craft was reportedly still dogged with aerodynamic problems and operational disadvantages at this point.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A cheaper redesign, Interim HOTOL or HOTOL 2, which was to be launched from the back of a modified Antonov An-225 transport aircraft, specifically was promoted by BAe in 1991; however, this proposal was rejected as well. The design for Interim HOTOL was to have dispensed with an air-breathing engine cycle and was designed to use a more conventional mix of LOX and liquid hydrogen as fuel instead.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1989, HOTOL co-creator Alan Bond and engineers John Scott-Scott and Richard Varvill formed Reaction Engines Limited (REL) which has since been working on a new air-breathing engine, SABRE, which used alternative designs to work around (and improve upon) the Rolls-Royce patents, and the Skylon vehicle intended to solve the problems of HOTOL. They first published these engine and spacecraft concepts in 1993, and have since been developing the core technologies, particularly the engine and its frost-controlled pre-cooler; initially supported by private funding, but latterly with support from the European Space Agency, the British National Space Centre, the United Kingdom Space Agency, BAe, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. As of 2017 REL plan to demonstrate a flight-ready pre-cooler operating under simulated flight conditions in 2018, and statically test a demonstration engine core in 2020.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "HOTOL was envisioned as an unmanned, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) winged spaceplane. The unmanned craft was intended to put a payload of around 7 to 8 tonnes in orbit, at 300 km altitude. It was intended to take off from a runway, mounted on the back of a large rocket-boosted trolley that would help get the craft up to \"working speed\". The engine was intended to switch from jet propulsion to pure rocket propulsion at 26–32 km high, by which time the craft would be travelling at Mach 5 to 7. After reaching low Earth orbit (LEO), HOTOL was intended to re-enter the atmosphere and glide down to land on a conventional runway (approx 1,500 metres minimum). Only a single payload would have been carried at a time as BAe had judged this to be more economic as it removed any need for satellite interfacing and allowed for missions to be tailored to individual requirements.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "During its high-altitude phase, its flight control system would have been linked to ground stations and to space-based global navigation system navigation, while radar would have been used during the take-off and landing phases. In addition to the placing of satellites into geosynchronous orbit or LOE, HOTOL was also projected as being able to also perform the retrieval of satellites and hardware from LOE. BAe promotional material depicts HOTOL docking with the International Space Station (ISS), a feat that the company claimed would have required manned operation as automated systems were not capable of performing such docking manoeuvres at that time. HOTOL was designed to conduct fully automated unmanned flights; however, it had been intended at a later stage to potentially re-introduce a pilot. Manned operations would have required the installation of a dedicated pressurised module within the payload bay.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As designed, HOTOL would have been 62 metres long, 12.8 metres high, a fuselage diameter of 5.7 metres and a wingspan of 19.7 metres. It featured a wing design that had been derived from that of Concorde; its large area resulted in relatively low wing loading, which would have resulted in lower reentry temperatures (never rising above 1,400 °C). Built out of carbon composite materials, there would have been no need for the use of insulating tiles akin to those that comprised the Space Shuttle thermal protection system. The internally stowed landing gear would have been too small to carry the weight of the fully fuelled rocket, so emergency landings would have required the fuel to be dumped.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The RB545, which was given the name \"Swallow\" by its manufacturer, British engine maker Rolls-Royce, was an air-breathing rocket engine. It would have functioned as an integrated dual-role powerplant, having been capable of air-breathing while operating within the atmosphere and operating in a similar manner to that of a rocket when having attained close to and within LEO. This engine would have also been capable of powering the spacecraft to hypersonic speeds. It was a crucial element of the programme, having been publicly attributed as \"the heart of Hotol's very low launch costs\".",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The exact details of this engine were covered by the Official Secrets Act of the United Kingdom; consequently, there is relatively little public information about its development and on its operation. However, material was later declassified when government policy changed to prevent the keeping of secret patents without an attributed justification.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Within the atmosphere, air is taken in through two vertically mounted intake ramps, then the flow would be split, passing the correct amount to the pre-coolers, and the excess to spill ducts. Hydrogen from the fuel tanks would be passed through two heat exchangers to pre-cool the air prior to entering a high overall pressure-ratio turbojet-like engine cycle — the heated hydrogen driving a turbine to compress and feed the cooled air into the rocket engine, where it was combusted with some of the hydrogen used to cool the air. The majority of the remaining hot hydrogen was released from the back of the engine, with a small amount drawn off to reheat the air in the spill ducts in a ramjet arrangement to produce \"negative intake momentum drag.\"",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "To prevent the pre-coolers from icing up, the first pre-cooler cooled the air to around 10 degrees above freezing point, to liquefy the water vapour in the air. Then liquid oxygen (LOX) would have been injected into the airflow to drop the temperature to −50 °C (−58 °F) flash freezing the water into microscopic ice crystals, sufficiently cold that they wouldn't melt due to kinetic heating if they struck the second pre-cooler elements. A water trap could have been added after the first pre-cooler if operating conditions resulted in an excess of moisture.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "When it was no longer possible to use the atmosphere for combustion, the RB545 would switch to using on-board LOX to burn with the hydrogen as a high-efficiency hydrogen/oxygen rocket.",
"title": "Design"
}
]
| HOTOL, for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, was a 1980s British design for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spaceplane that was to be powered by an airbreathing jet engine. Development was being conducted by a consortium led by Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace (BAe). Designed as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable winged launch vehicle, HOTOL was to be fitted with a unique air-breathing engine, the RB545 or Swallow, that was under development by British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce. The propellant for the engine technically consisted of a combination of liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen; however, it was to employ a new means of dramatically reducing the amount of oxidizer needed to be carried on board by utilising atmospheric oxygen as the spacecraft climbed through the lower atmosphere. Since the oxidizer typically represents the majority of the takeoff weight of a rocket, HOTOL was to be considerably smaller than normal pure-rocket designs, roughly the size of a medium-haul airliner such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9/MD-80. While HOTOL's proof-of-concept design study was being carried out, attempts were made by both industry and the British government to establish international cooperation to develop, produce, and deploy the spacecraft. In spite of American interest in the programme, there was little appetite amongst the members of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the British government was not prepared to depart from ESA cooperation. Additionally, technical issues were encountered, and there were allegations that comparisons with alternative launch systems such as conventional rocket vehicle using similar construction techniques failed to show much advantage to HOTOL. In 1989, funding for the project ended. The termination of development work on HOTOL led to the formation of Reaction Engines Limited (REL) to develop and produce Skylon, a proposed spacecraft based on HOTOL technologies, including its air-breathing engine. | 2001-12-19T14:29:00Z | 2023-11-04T18:00:28Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_HOTOL |
14,306 | Hammerhead shark | The hammerhead sharks are a group of sharks that form the family Sphyrnidae, named for the unusual and distinctive form of their heads, which are flattened and laterally extended into a cephalofoil (a T-shape or "hammer"). The shark's eyes are placed one on either end of this T-shaped structure, with their small mouths directly centered and underneath. Most hammerhead species are placed in the genus Sphyrna, while the winghead shark is placed in its own genus, Eusphyra. Many different— but not necessarily mutually exclusive—functions have been postulated for the cephalofoil, including sensory reception, manoeuvering, and prey manipulation. The cephalofoil gives the shark superior binocular vision and depth perception.
Hammerheads are found worldwide, preferring life in warmer waters along coastlines and continental shelves. Unlike most sharks, some hammerhead species will congregate and swim in large schools during the day, becoming solitary hunters at night.
The known species range from 0.9 to 6.0 m (2 ft 11 in to 19 ft 8 in) in length and weigh 3–580 kg (6.6–1,300 lb). One specimen caught off the Florida coast in 1906 weighed over 680 kg (1,500 lb). They are usually light gray and have a greenish tint. Their bellies are white, which allows them to blend into the background when viewed from below and sneak up to their prey. Their heads have lateral projections that give them a hammer-like shape. While overall similar, this shape differs somewhat between species; examples are: a distinct T-shape in the great hammerhead, a rounded head with a central notch in the scalloped hammerhead, and an unnotched rounded head in the smooth hammerhead.
Hammerheads have disproportionately small mouths compared to other shark species. Some species are also known to form schools. In the evening, like most other sharks, they become solitary hunters. National Geographic explained that hammerheads can be found in warm, tropical waters, but during the summer, they participate in a mass migration to search for cooler waters.
Since sharks do not have mineralized bones and rarely fossilize, only their teeth are commonly found as fossils. Their closest relatives are the requiem sharks (Carcharinidae). Based on DNA studies and fossils, the ancestor of the hammerheads probably lived in the Early Miocene epoch about 20 million years ago.
Using mitochondrial DNA, a phylogenetic tree of the hammerhead sharks showed the winghead shark as its most basal member. As the winghead shark has proportionately the largest "hammer" of the hammerhead sharks, this suggests that the first ancestral hammerhead sharks also had large hammers.
The hammer-like shape of the head may have evolved at least in part to enhance the animal's vision. The positioning of the eyes, mounted on the sides of the shark's distinctive hammer head, allows 360° of vision in the vertical plane, meaning the animals can see above and below them at all times. They also have an increased binocular vision and depth of visual field as a result of the cephalofoil. The shape of the head was previously thought to help the shark find food, aiding in close-quarters maneuverability, and allowing sharp turning movement without losing stability. The unusual structure of its vertebrae, though, has been found to be instrumental in making the turns correctly, more often than the shape of its head, though it would also shift and provide lift. From what is known about the winghead shark, the shape of the hammerhead apparently has to do with an evolved sensory function. Like all sharks, hammerheads have electroreceptory sensory pores called ampullae of Lorenzini. The pores on the shark's head lead to sensory tubes, which detect electric fields generated by other living creatures. By distributing the receptors over a wider area, like a larger radio antenna, hammerheads can sweep for prey more effectively.
Reproduction occurs only once a year for hammerhead sharks, and usually occurs with the male shark biting the female shark violently until she agrees to mate with him. The hammerhead sharks exhibit a viviparous mode of reproduction with females giving birth to live young. Like other sharks, fertilization is internal, with the male transferring sperm to the female through one of two intromittent organs called claspers. The developing embryos are at first sustained by a yolk sac. When the supply of yolk is exhausted, the depleted yolk sac transforms into a structure analogous to a mammalian placenta (called a "yolk sac placenta" or "pseudoplacenta"), through which the mother delivers sustenance until birth. Once the baby sharks are born, they are not taken care of by the parents in any way. Usually, a litter consists of 12 to 15 pups, except for the great hammerhead, which gives birth to litters of 20 to 40 pups. These baby sharks huddle together and swim toward warmer water until they are old enough and large enough to survive on their own.
In 2007, the bonnethead shark was found to be capable of asexual reproduction via automictic parthenogenesis, in which a female's ovum fuses with a polar body to form a zygote without the need for a male. This was the first shark known to do this.
Hammerhead sharks eat a large range of prey such as fish (including other sharks), squid, octopus, and crustaceans. Stingrays are a particular favorite, with the positioning of their (comparatively) smaller, crescent-shaped mouths underneath their T-shaped heads allowing for skilled skate, ray, and flounder hunting, among other seafloor-dwellers. These sharks will often be found swimming above the sand along the bottom of the ocean, stalking their prey. Their unique heads are further utilized as a tool (or weapon) if hunting rays and flatfishes; the shark uses its head to pin down and briefly stun the prey, and only eats once their quarry is clearly weakened and in shock. The great hammerhead, tending to be larger and more aggressive to its own kind than other hammerheads, occasionally engages in cannibalism, eating other hammerhead sharks, including mothers consuming their own young. In addition to the typical animal prey, bonnetheads have been found to feed on seagrass, which sometimes makes up as much as half their stomach contents. They may swallow it unintentionally, but they are able to partially digest it. At the time of discovery, this was the only known case of a potentially omnivorous species of shark (since then, whale sharks were also found to be omnivorous).
There are nine distinct species of Hammerhead shark in the wild:
According to the International Shark Attack File, humans have been subjects of 17 documented, unprovoked attacks by hammerhead sharks within the genus Sphyrna since AD 1580. No human fatalities have been recorded. Most hammerhead shark species are too small to inflict serious damage to humans.
The great and the scalloped hammerheads are listed on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) 2008 Red List as endangered, whereas the smalleye hammerhead is listed as vulnerable. The status given to these sharks is as a result of overfishing and demand for their fins, an expensive delicacy. Among others, scientists expressed their concern about the plight of the scalloped hammerhead at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston. The young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.
Shark fins are prized as a delicacy in certain countries in Asia (such as China), and overfishing is putting many hammerhead sharks at risk of extinction. Fishermen who harvest the animals typically cut off the fins and toss the remainder of the fish, which is often still alive, back into the sea. This practice, known as finning, is lethal to the shark.
The relatively small bonnethead is regular at public aquariums, as it has proven easier to keep in captivity than the larger hammerhead species, and it has been bred at a handful of facilities. Nevertheless, at up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in length and with highly specialized requirements, very few private aquarists have the experience and resources necessary to maintain a bonnethead in captivity. The larger hammerhead species can reach more than twice that size and are considered difficult, even compared to most other similar-sized sharks (such as Carcharhinus species, lemon shark, and sand tiger shark) regularly kept by public aquariums. They are particularly vulnerable during transport between facilities, may rub on surfaces in tanks, and may collide with rocks, causing injuries to their heads, so they require very large, specially adapted tanks. As a consequence, relatively few public aquaria have kept them for long periods. The scalloped hammerhead is the most frequently maintained large species, and it has been kept long term at public aquaria in most continents, but primarily in North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2014, fewer than 15 public aquaria in the world kept scalloped hammerheads. Great hammerheads have been kept at a few facilities in North America, including Atlantis Paradise Island Resort (Bahamas), Adventure Aquarium (New Jersey), Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta), Mote Marine Laboratory (Florida), and the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas). Smooth hammerheads have also been kept in the past.
Humans are the number one threat to hammerhead sharks. Although they are not usually the primary target, hammerhead sharks are caught in fisheries all over the world. Tropical fisheries are the most common place for hammerheads to be caught because of their preference to reside in warm waters. The total number of hammerheads caught in fisheries is recorded in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Global Capture Production dataset. The number steadily increased from 75 metric tons in 1990, to 6,313 metric tons by 2010.
Shark fin traders say that hammerheads have some of the best quality fin needles which makes them good to eat when prepared properly. Hong Kong is the world's largest fin trade market and accounts for about 1.5% of the total annual amount of fins traded. It is estimated that around 375,000 great hammerhead sharks alone are traded per year which is equivalent to 21,000 metric tons of biomass. However, it is important to note that most sharks that are caught are only used for their fins and then discarded. The actual meat of hammerheads is generally unwanted. Consumption of regular hammerhead meat has been recorded in countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Kenya, and Japan.
In March 2013, three endangered, commercially valuable sharks, the hammerheads, the oceanic whitetip, and porbeagle, were added to Appendix II of CITES, bringing shark fishing and commerce of these species under licensing and regulation.
Among Torres Strait Islanders, the hammerhead shark, known as the beizam, is a common family totem and often represented in cultural artefacts such as the elaborate headdresses worn for ceremonial dances, known as dhari (dari). They are associated with law and order. Renowned artist Ken Thaiday Snr is known for his representations of beizam in his sculptural dari and other works.
In native Hawaiian culture, sharks are considered to be gods of the sea, protectors of humans, and cleaners of excessive ocean life. Some of these sharks are believed to be family members who died and have been reincarnated into shark form, but others are considered man-eaters, also known as niuhi. These sharks include great white sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks. The hammerhead shark, also known as mano kihikihi, is not considered a man-eater or niuhi; it is considered to be one of the most respected sharks of the ocean, an aumakua. Many Hawaiian families believe that they have an aumakua watching over them and protecting them from the niuhi. The hammerhead shark is thought to be the birth animal of some children. Hawaiian children who are born with the hammerhead shark as an animal sign are believed to be warriors and are meant to sail the oceans. Hammerhead sharks rarely pass through the waters of Maui, but many Maui natives believe that their swimming by is a sign that the gods are watching over the families, and the oceans are clean and balanced. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The hammerhead sharks are a group of sharks that form the family Sphyrnidae, named for the unusual and distinctive form of their heads, which are flattened and laterally extended into a cephalofoil (a T-shape or \"hammer\"). The shark's eyes are placed one on either end of this T-shaped structure, with their small mouths directly centered and underneath. Most hammerhead species are placed in the genus Sphyrna, while the winghead shark is placed in its own genus, Eusphyra. Many different— but not necessarily mutually exclusive—functions have been postulated for the cephalofoil, including sensory reception, manoeuvering, and prey manipulation. The cephalofoil gives the shark superior binocular vision and depth perception.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hammerheads are found worldwide, preferring life in warmer waters along coastlines and continental shelves. Unlike most sharks, some hammerhead species will congregate and swim in large schools during the day, becoming solitary hunters at night.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The known species range from 0.9 to 6.0 m (2 ft 11 in to 19 ft 8 in) in length and weigh 3–580 kg (6.6–1,300 lb). One specimen caught off the Florida coast in 1906 weighed over 680 kg (1,500 lb). They are usually light gray and have a greenish tint. Their bellies are white, which allows them to blend into the background when viewed from below and sneak up to their prey. Their heads have lateral projections that give them a hammer-like shape. While overall similar, this shape differs somewhat between species; examples are: a distinct T-shape in the great hammerhead, a rounded head with a central notch in the scalloped hammerhead, and an unnotched rounded head in the smooth hammerhead.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hammerheads have disproportionately small mouths compared to other shark species. Some species are also known to form schools. In the evening, like most other sharks, they become solitary hunters. National Geographic explained that hammerheads can be found in warm, tropical waters, but during the summer, they participate in a mass migration to search for cooler waters.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Since sharks do not have mineralized bones and rarely fossilize, only their teeth are commonly found as fossils. Their closest relatives are the requiem sharks (Carcharinidae). Based on DNA studies and fossils, the ancestor of the hammerheads probably lived in the Early Miocene epoch about 20 million years ago.",
"title": "Taxonomy and evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Using mitochondrial DNA, a phylogenetic tree of the hammerhead sharks showed the winghead shark as its most basal member. As the winghead shark has proportionately the largest \"hammer\" of the hammerhead sharks, this suggests that the first ancestral hammerhead sharks also had large hammers.",
"title": "Taxonomy and evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The hammer-like shape of the head may have evolved at least in part to enhance the animal's vision. The positioning of the eyes, mounted on the sides of the shark's distinctive hammer head, allows 360° of vision in the vertical plane, meaning the animals can see above and below them at all times. They also have an increased binocular vision and depth of visual field as a result of the cephalofoil. The shape of the head was previously thought to help the shark find food, aiding in close-quarters maneuverability, and allowing sharp turning movement without losing stability. The unusual structure of its vertebrae, though, has been found to be instrumental in making the turns correctly, more often than the shape of its head, though it would also shift and provide lift. From what is known about the winghead shark, the shape of the hammerhead apparently has to do with an evolved sensory function. Like all sharks, hammerheads have electroreceptory sensory pores called ampullae of Lorenzini. The pores on the shark's head lead to sensory tubes, which detect electric fields generated by other living creatures. By distributing the receptors over a wider area, like a larger radio antenna, hammerheads can sweep for prey more effectively.",
"title": "Taxonomy and evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Reproduction occurs only once a year for hammerhead sharks, and usually occurs with the male shark biting the female shark violently until she agrees to mate with him. The hammerhead sharks exhibit a viviparous mode of reproduction with females giving birth to live young. Like other sharks, fertilization is internal, with the male transferring sperm to the female through one of two intromittent organs called claspers. The developing embryos are at first sustained by a yolk sac. When the supply of yolk is exhausted, the depleted yolk sac transforms into a structure analogous to a mammalian placenta (called a \"yolk sac placenta\" or \"pseudoplacenta\"), through which the mother delivers sustenance until birth. Once the baby sharks are born, they are not taken care of by the parents in any way. Usually, a litter consists of 12 to 15 pups, except for the great hammerhead, which gives birth to litters of 20 to 40 pups. These baby sharks huddle together and swim toward warmer water until they are old enough and large enough to survive on their own.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 2007, the bonnethead shark was found to be capable of asexual reproduction via automictic parthenogenesis, in which a female's ovum fuses with a polar body to form a zygote without the need for a male. This was the first shark known to do this.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hammerhead sharks eat a large range of prey such as fish (including other sharks), squid, octopus, and crustaceans. Stingrays are a particular favorite, with the positioning of their (comparatively) smaller, crescent-shaped mouths underneath their T-shaped heads allowing for skilled skate, ray, and flounder hunting, among other seafloor-dwellers. These sharks will often be found swimming above the sand along the bottom of the ocean, stalking their prey. Their unique heads are further utilized as a tool (or weapon) if hunting rays and flatfishes; the shark uses its head to pin down and briefly stun the prey, and only eats once their quarry is clearly weakened and in shock. The great hammerhead, tending to be larger and more aggressive to its own kind than other hammerheads, occasionally engages in cannibalism, eating other hammerhead sharks, including mothers consuming their own young. In addition to the typical animal prey, bonnetheads have been found to feed on seagrass, which sometimes makes up as much as half their stomach contents. They may swallow it unintentionally, but they are able to partially digest it. At the time of discovery, this was the only known case of a potentially omnivorous species of shark (since then, whale sharks were also found to be omnivorous).",
"title": "Diet"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "There are nine distinct species of Hammerhead shark in the wild:",
"title": "Species"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "According to the International Shark Attack File, humans have been subjects of 17 documented, unprovoked attacks by hammerhead sharks within the genus Sphyrna since AD 1580. No human fatalities have been recorded. Most hammerhead shark species are too small to inflict serious damage to humans.",
"title": "Relationship with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The great and the scalloped hammerheads are listed on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) 2008 Red List as endangered, whereas the smalleye hammerhead is listed as vulnerable. The status given to these sharks is as a result of overfishing and demand for their fins, an expensive delicacy. Among others, scientists expressed their concern about the plight of the scalloped hammerhead at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston. The young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.",
"title": "Relationship with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Shark fins are prized as a delicacy in certain countries in Asia (such as China), and overfishing is putting many hammerhead sharks at risk of extinction. Fishermen who harvest the animals typically cut off the fins and toss the remainder of the fish, which is often still alive, back into the sea. This practice, known as finning, is lethal to the shark.",
"title": "Relationship with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The relatively small bonnethead is regular at public aquariums, as it has proven easier to keep in captivity than the larger hammerhead species, and it has been bred at a handful of facilities. Nevertheless, at up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in length and with highly specialized requirements, very few private aquarists have the experience and resources necessary to maintain a bonnethead in captivity. The larger hammerhead species can reach more than twice that size and are considered difficult, even compared to most other similar-sized sharks (such as Carcharhinus species, lemon shark, and sand tiger shark) regularly kept by public aquariums. They are particularly vulnerable during transport between facilities, may rub on surfaces in tanks, and may collide with rocks, causing injuries to their heads, so they require very large, specially adapted tanks. As a consequence, relatively few public aquaria have kept them for long periods. The scalloped hammerhead is the most frequently maintained large species, and it has been kept long term at public aquaria in most continents, but primarily in North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2014, fewer than 15 public aquaria in the world kept scalloped hammerheads. Great hammerheads have been kept at a few facilities in North America, including Atlantis Paradise Island Resort (Bahamas), Adventure Aquarium (New Jersey), Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta), Mote Marine Laboratory (Florida), and the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas). Smooth hammerheads have also been kept in the past.",
"title": "Relationship with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Humans are the number one threat to hammerhead sharks. Although they are not usually the primary target, hammerhead sharks are caught in fisheries all over the world. Tropical fisheries are the most common place for hammerheads to be caught because of their preference to reside in warm waters. The total number of hammerheads caught in fisheries is recorded in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Global Capture Production dataset. The number steadily increased from 75 metric tons in 1990, to 6,313 metric tons by 2010.",
"title": "Protection"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Shark fin traders say that hammerheads have some of the best quality fin needles which makes them good to eat when prepared properly. Hong Kong is the world's largest fin trade market and accounts for about 1.5% of the total annual amount of fins traded. It is estimated that around 375,000 great hammerhead sharks alone are traded per year which is equivalent to 21,000 metric tons of biomass. However, it is important to note that most sharks that are caught are only used for their fins and then discarded. The actual meat of hammerheads is generally unwanted. Consumption of regular hammerhead meat has been recorded in countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Kenya, and Japan.",
"title": "Protection"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In March 2013, three endangered, commercially valuable sharks, the hammerheads, the oceanic whitetip, and porbeagle, were added to Appendix II of CITES, bringing shark fishing and commerce of these species under licensing and regulation.",
"title": "Protection"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Among Torres Strait Islanders, the hammerhead shark, known as the beizam, is a common family totem and often represented in cultural artefacts such as the elaborate headdresses worn for ceremonial dances, known as dhari (dari). They are associated with law and order. Renowned artist Ken Thaiday Snr is known for his representations of beizam in his sculptural dari and other works.",
"title": "Cultural significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In native Hawaiian culture, sharks are considered to be gods of the sea, protectors of humans, and cleaners of excessive ocean life. Some of these sharks are believed to be family members who died and have been reincarnated into shark form, but others are considered man-eaters, also known as niuhi. These sharks include great white sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks. The hammerhead shark, also known as mano kihikihi, is not considered a man-eater or niuhi; it is considered to be one of the most respected sharks of the ocean, an aumakua. Many Hawaiian families believe that they have an aumakua watching over them and protecting them from the niuhi. The hammerhead shark is thought to be the birth animal of some children. Hawaiian children who are born with the hammerhead shark as an animal sign are believed to be warriors and are meant to sail the oceans. Hammerhead sharks rarely pass through the waters of Maui, but many Maui natives believe that their swimming by is a sign that the gods are watching over the families, and the oceans are clean and balanced.",
"title": "Cultural significance"
}
]
| The hammerhead sharks are a group of sharks that form the family Sphyrnidae, named for the unusual and distinctive form of their heads, which are flattened and laterally extended into a cephalofoil. The shark's eyes are placed one on either end of this T-shaped structure, with their small mouths directly centered and underneath. Most hammerhead species are placed in the genus Sphyrna, while the winghead shark is placed in its own genus, Eusphyra. Many different— but not necessarily mutually exclusive—functions have been postulated for the cephalofoil, including sensory reception, manoeuvering, and prey manipulation. The cephalofoil gives the shark superior binocular vision and depth perception. Hammerheads are found worldwide, preferring life in warmer waters along coastlines and continental shelves. Unlike most sharks, some hammerhead species will congregate and swim in large schools during the day, becoming solitary hunters at night. | 2001-12-20T14:25:20Z | 2023-12-11T06:59:37Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerhead_shark |
14,307 | Hall effect | The Hall effect is the production of a potential difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879.
The Hall coefficient is defined as the ratio of the induced electric field to the product of the current density and the applied magnetic field. It is a characteristic of the material from which the conductor is made, since its value depends on the type, number, and properties of the charge carriers that constitute the current.
Wires carrying current in a magnetic field experience a mechanical force perpendicular to both the current and magnetic field. André-Marie Ampère in the 1820s observed this underlying mechanism that led to the discovery of the Hall effect.
But it wasn't until a solid mathematical basis for electromagnetism was systematized by James Clerk Maxwell's "On Physical Lines of Force" (published in 1861–1862) that details of the interaction between magnets and electric current could be understood.
Edwin Hall then explored the question of whether magnetic fields interacted with the conductors or the electric current, and reasoned that if the force was specifically acting on the current, it should crowd current to one side of the wire, producing a small measurable voltage. In 1879, he discovered this Hall effect while was working on his doctoral degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Eighteen years before the electron was discovered, his measurements of the tiny effect produced in the apparatus he used were an experimental tour de force, published under the name "On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Currents".
The term ordinary Hall effect can be used to distinguish the effect described in the introduction from a related effect which occurs across a void or hole in a semiconductor or metal plate when current is injected via contacts that lie on the boundary or edge of the void. The charge then flows outside the void, within the metal or semiconductor material. The effect becomes observable, in a perpendicular applied magnetic field, as a Hall voltage appearing on either side of a line connecting the current-contacts. It exhibits apparent sign reversal in comparison to the "ordinary" effect occurring in the simply connected specimen. It depends only on the current injected from within the void.
Superposition of these two forms of the effect, the ordinary and void effects, can also be realized. First imagine the "ordinary" configuration, a simply connected (void-less) thin rectangular homogeneous element with current-contacts on the (external) boundary. This develops a Hall voltage, in a perpendicular magnetic field. Next, imagine placing a rectangular void within this ordinary configuration, with current-contacts, as mentioned above, on the interior boundary of the void. (For simplicity, imagine the contacts on the boundary of the void lined up with the ordinary-configuration contacts on the exterior boundary.) In such a combined configuration, the two Hall effects may be realized and observed simultaneously in the same doubly connected device: A Hall effect on the external boundary that is proportional to the current injected only via the outer boundary, and an apparently sign-reversed Hall effect on the interior boundary that is proportional to the current injected only via the interior boundary. The superposition of multiple Hall effects may be realized by placing multiple voids within the Hall element, with current and voltage contacts on the boundary of each void.
Further "Hall effects" may have additional physical mechanisms but are built on these basics.
The Hall effect is due to the nature of the current in a conductor. Current consists of the movement of many small charge carriers, typically electrons, holes, ions (see Electromigration) or all three. When a magnetic field is present, these charges experience a force, called the Lorentz force. When such a magnetic field is absent, the charges follow approximately straight paths between collisions with impurities, phonons, etc. However, when a magnetic field with a perpendicular component is applied, their paths between collisions are curved; thus, moving charges accumulate on one face of the material. This leaves equal and opposite charges exposed on the other face, where there is a scarcity of mobile charges. The result is an asymmetric distribution of charge density across the Hall element, arising from a force that is perpendicular to both the straight path and the applied magnetic field. The separation of charge establishes an electric field that opposes the migration of further charge, so a steady electric potential is established for as long as the charge is flowing.
In classical electromagnetism electrons move in the opposite direction of the current I (by convention "current" describes a theoretical "hole flow"). In some metals and semiconductors it appears "holes" are actually flowing because the direction of the voltage is opposite to the derivation below.
For a simple metal where there is only one type of charge carrier (electrons), the Hall voltage VH can be derived by using the Lorentz force and seeing that, in the steady-state condition, charges are not moving in the y-axis direction. Thus, the magnetic force on each electron in the y-axis direction is cancelled by a y-axis electrical force due to the buildup of charges. The vx term is the drift velocity of the current which is assumed at this point to be holes by convention. The vxBz term is negative in the y-axis direction by the right hand rule.
In steady state, F = 0, so 0 = Ey − vxBz, where Ey is assigned in the direction of the y-axis, (and not with the arrow of the induced electric field ξy as in the image (pointing in the −y direction), which tells you where the field caused by the electrons is pointing).
In wires, electrons instead of holes are flowing, so vx → −vx and q → −q. Also Ey = −VH/w. Substituting these changes gives
The conventional "hole" current is in the negative direction of the electron current and the negative of the electrical charge which gives Ix = ntw(−vx)(−e) where n is charge carrier density, tw is the cross-sectional area, and −e is the charge of each electron. Solving for w {\displaystyle w} and plugging into the above gives the Hall voltage:
If the charge build up had been positive (as it appears in some metals and semiconductors), then the VH assigned in the image would have been negative (positive charge would have built up on the left side).
The Hall coefficient is defined as
or
where j is the current density of the carrier electrons, and Ey is the induced electric field. In SI units, this becomes
(The units of RH are usually expressed as m/C, or Ω·cm/G, or other variants.) As a result, the Hall effect is very useful as a means to measure either the carrier density or the magnetic field.
One very important feature of the Hall effect is that it differentiates between positive charges moving in one direction and negative charges moving in the opposite. In the diagram above, the Hall effect with a negative charge carrier (the electron) is presented. But consider the same magnetic field and current are applied but the current is carried inside the Hall effect device by a positive particle. The particle would of course have to be moving in the opposite direction of the electron in order for the current to be the same—down in the diagram, not up like the electron is. And thus, mnemonically speaking, your thumb in the Lorentz force law, representing (conventional) current, would be pointing the same direction as before, because current is the same—an electron moving up is the same current as a positive charge moving down. And with the fingers (magnetic field) also being the same, interestingly the charge carrier gets deflected to the left in the diagram regardless of whether it is positive or negative. But if positive carriers are deflected to the left, they would build a relatively positive voltage on the left whereas if negative carriers (namely electrons) are, they build up a negative voltage on the left as shown in the diagram. Thus for the same current and magnetic field, the electric polarity of the Hall voltage is dependent on the internal nature of the conductor and is useful to elucidate its inner workings.
This property of the Hall effect offered the first real proof that electric currents in most metals are carried by moving electrons, not by protons. It also showed that in some substances (especially p-type semiconductors), it is contrarily more appropriate to think of the current as positive "holes" moving rather than negative electrons. A common source of confusion with the Hall effect in such materials is that holes moving one way are really electrons moving the opposite way, so one expects the Hall voltage polarity to be the same as if electrons were the charge carriers as in most metals and n-type semiconductors. Yet we observe the opposite polarity of Hall voltage, indicating positive charge carriers. However, of course there are no actual positrons or other positive elementary particles carrying the charge in p-type semiconductors, hence the name "holes". In the same way as the oversimplistic picture of light in glass as photons being absorbed and re-emitted to explain refraction breaks down upon closer scrutiny, this apparent contradiction too can only be resolved by the modern quantum mechanical theory of quasiparticles wherein the collective quantized motion of multiple particles can, in a real physical sense, be considered to be a particle in its own right (albeit not an elementary one).
Unrelatedly, inhomogeneity in the conductive sample can result in a spurious sign of the Hall effect, even in ideal van der Pauw configuration of electrodes. For example, a Hall effect consistent with positive carriers was observed in evidently n-type semiconductors. Another source of artefact, in uniform materials, occurs when the sample's aspect ratio is not long enough: the full Hall voltage only develops far away from the current-introducing contacts, since at the contacts the transverse voltage is shorted out to zero.
When a current-carrying semiconductor is kept in a magnetic field, the charge carriers of the semiconductor experience a force in a direction perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the current. At equilibrium, a voltage appears at the semiconductor edges.
The simple formula for the Hall coefficient given above is usually a good explanation when conduction is dominated by a single charge carrier. However, in semiconductors and many metals the theory is more complex, because in these materials conduction can involve significant, simultaneous contributions from both electrons and holes, which may be present in different concentrations and have different mobilities. For moderate magnetic fields the Hall coefficient is
or equivalently
with
Here n is the electron concentration, p the hole concentration, μe the electron mobility, μh the hole mobility and e the elementary charge.
For large applied fields the simpler expression analogous to that for a single carrier type holds.
Although it is well known that magnetic fields play an important role in star formation, research models indicate that Hall diffusion critically influences the dynamics of gravitational collapse that forms protostars.
For a two-dimensional electron system which can be produced in a MOSFET, in the presence of large magnetic field strength and low temperature, one can observe the quantum Hall effect, in which the Hall conductance σ undergoes quantum Hall transitions to take on the quantized values.
The spin Hall effect consists in the spin accumulation on the lateral boundaries of a current-carrying sample. No magnetic field is needed. It was predicted by Mikhail Dyakonov and V. I. Perel in 1971 and observed experimentally more than 30 years later, both in semiconductors and in metals, at cryogenic as well as at room temperatures.
The quantity describing the strength of the Spin Hall effect is known as Spin Hall angle, and it is defined as:
θ S H = 2 e ℏ | j s | | j e | {\displaystyle \theta _{SH}={\frac {2e}{\hbar }}{\frac {|j_{s}|}{|j_{e}|}}}
Where j s {\displaystyle j_{s}} is the spin current generated by the applied current density j e {\displaystyle j_{e}} .
For mercury telluride two dimensional quantum wells with strong spin-orbit coupling, in zero magnetic field, at low temperature, the quantum spin Hall effect has been observed in 2007.
In ferromagnetic materials (and paramagnetic materials in a magnetic field), the Hall resistivity includes an additional contribution, known as the anomalous Hall effect (or the extraordinary Hall effect), which depends directly on the magnetization of the material, and is often much larger than the ordinary Hall effect. (Note that this effect is not due to the contribution of the magnetization to the total magnetic field.) For example, in nickel, the anomalous Hall coefficient is about 100 times larger than the ordinary Hall coefficient near the Curie temperature, but the two are similar at very low temperatures. Although a well-recognized phenomenon, there is still debate about its origins in the various materials. The anomalous Hall effect can be either an extrinsic (disorder-related) effect due to spin-dependent scattering of the charge carriers, or an intrinsic effect which can be described in terms of the Berry phase effect in the crystal momentum space (k-space).
The Hall effect in an ionized gas (plasma) is significantly different from the Hall effect in solids (where the Hall parameter is always much less than unity). In a plasma, the Hall parameter can take any value. The Hall parameter, β, in a plasma is the ratio between the electron gyrofrequency, Ωe, and the electron-heavy particle collision frequency, ν:
where
The Hall parameter value increases with the magnetic field strength.
Physically, the trajectories of electrons are curved by the Lorentz force. Nevertheless, when the Hall parameter is low, their motion between two encounters with heavy particles (neutral or ion) is almost linear. But if the Hall parameter is high, the electron movements are highly curved. The current density vector, J, is no longer collinear with the electric field vector, E. The two vectors J and E make the Hall angle, θ, which also gives the Hall parameter:
The Hall Effects family has expanded to encompass other quasi-particles in semiconductor nanostructures. Specifically, a set of Hall Effects has emerged based on excitons and exciton-polaritons n 2D materials and quantum wells.
Hall sensors use the Hall effect for a variety of sensing applications.
Hall effect magnetometers (also called teslameters or gaussmeters) use a Hall probe with a Hall element to measure magnetic fields or inspect materials (such as tubing or pipelines) using the principles of magnetic flux leakage.
Hall effect devices produce a very low signal level and thus require amplification. While suitable for laboratory instruments, the vacuum tube amplifiers available in the first half of the 20th century were too expensive, power consuming, and unreliable for everyday applications. It was only with the development of the low cost integrated circuit that the Hall effect sensor became suitable for mass application. Many devices now sold as Hall effect sensors in fact contain both the sensor as described above plus a high gain integrated circuit (IC) amplifier in a single package. Recent advances have further added into one package an analog-to-digital converter and I²C (Inter-integrated circuit communication protocol) IC for direct connection to a microcontroller's I/O port.
Hall effect devices (when appropriately packaged) are immune to dust, dirt, mud, and water. These characteristics make Hall effect devices better for position sensing than alternative means such as optical and electromechanical sensing.
When electrons flow through a conductor, a magnetic field is produced. Thus, it is possible to create a non-contacting current sensor. The device has three terminals. A sensor voltage is applied across two terminals and the third provides a voltage proportional to the current being sensed. This has several advantages; no additional resistance (a shunt, required for the most common current sensing method) need to be inserted in the primary circuit. Also, the voltage present on the line to be sensed is not transmitted to the sensor, which enhances the safety of measuring equipment.
Magnetic flux from the surroundings (such as other wires) may diminish or enhance the field the Hall probe intends to detect, rendering the results inaccurate. Ways to measure mechanical positions within an electromagnetic system, such as a brushless direct current motor, include (1) the Hall effect, (2) optical position encoder (e.g., absolute and incremental encoders) and (3) induced voltage by moving the amount of metal core inserted into a transformer. When Hall is compared to photo-sensitive methods, it is harder to get absolute position with Hall. Hall detection is also sensitive to stray magnetic fields.
Hall effect sensors are readily available from a number of different manufacturers, and may be used in various sensors such as rotating speed sensors (bicycle wheels, gear-teeth, automotive speedometers, electronic ignition systems), fluid flow sensors, current sensors, and pressure sensors. Common applications are often found where a robust and contactless switch or potentiometer is required. These include: electric airsoft guns, triggers of electropneumatic paintball guns, go-cart speed controls, smart phones, and some global positioning systems.
Hall sensors can detect stray magnetic fields easily, including that of Earth, so they work well as electronic compasses: but this also means that such stray fields can hinder accurate measurements of small magnetic fields. To solve this problem, Hall sensors are often integrated with magnetic shielding of some kind.
Also, integrating a Hall sensor into a ferrite ring (as shown) concentrates the flux density of the current's magnetic field along the ferrite ring and through the sensor (because flux flows through ferrite much better than through air), which greatly reduces the relative influence of stray fields by a factor of 100 or better.
This configuration also provides an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio and drift effects of over 20 times that of a bare Hall device.
The range of a given feedthrough sensor may be extended upward and downward by appropriate wiring. To extend the range to lower currents, multiple turns of the current-carrying wire may be made through the opening, each turn adding to the sensor output the same quantity; when the sensor is installed onto a printed circuit board, the turns can be carried out by a staple on the board. To extend the range to higher currents, a current divider may be used. The divider splits the current across two wires of differing widths and the thinner wire, carrying a smaller proportion of the total current, passes through the sensor.
A variation on the ring sensor uses a split sensor which is clamped onto the line enabling the device to be used in temporary test equipment. If used in a permanent installation, a split sensor allows the electric current to be tested without dismantling the existing circuit.
The output is proportional to both the applied magnetic field and the applied sensor voltage. If the magnetic field is applied by a solenoid, the sensor output is proportional to the product of the current through the solenoid and the sensor voltage. As most applications requiring computation are now performed by small digital computers, the remaining useful application is in power sensing, which combines current sensing with voltage sensing in a single Hall effect device.
By sensing the current provided to a load and using the device's applied voltage as a sensor voltage it is possible to determine the power dissipated by a device.
Hall effect devices used in motion sensing and motion limit switches can offer enhanced reliability in extreme environments. As there are no moving parts involved within the sensor or magnet, typical life expectancy is improved compared to traditional electromechanical switches. Additionally, the sensor and magnet may be encapsulated in an appropriate protective material. This application is used in brushless DC motors.
Hall effect sensors, affixed to mechanical gauges that have magnetized indicator needles, can translate the physical position or orientation of the mechanical indicator needle into an electrical signal that can be used by electronic indicators, controls or communications devices.
Commonly used in distributors for ignition timing (and in some types of crank- and camshaft-position sensors for injection pulse timing, speed sensing, etc.) the Hall Effect sensor is used as a direct replacement for the mechanical breaker points used in earlier automotive applications. Its use as an ignition timing device in various distributor types is as follows: a stationary permanent magnet and semiconductor Hall Effect chip are mounted next to each other separated by an air gap, forming the Hall Effect sensor. A metal rotor consisting of windows and/or tabs is mounted to a shaft and arranged so that during shaft rotation, the windows and/or tabs pass through the air gap between the permanent magnet and semiconductor Hall chip. This effectively shields and exposes the Hall chip to the permanent magnet's field respective to whether a tab or window is passing through the Hall sensor. For ignition timing purposes, the metal rotor will have a number of equal-sized tabs and/or windows matching the number of engine cylinders (#1 cylinder tab will always be unique for discernment by the Engine Control Unit). This produces a uniform square wave output since the on/off (shielding and exposure) time is equal. This signal is used by the engine computer or ECU to control ignition timing. Many automotive Hall Effect sensors have a built-in internal NPN transistor with an open collector and grounded emitter, meaning that rather than a voltage being produced at the Hall sensor signal output wire, the transistor is turned on, providing a circuit to ground through the signal output wire.
The sensing of wheel rotation is especially useful in anti-lock braking systems. The principles of such systems have been extended and refined to offer more than anti-skid functions, now providing extended vehicle handling enhancements.
Some types of brushless DC electric motors use Hall effect sensors to detect the position of the rotor and feed that information to the motor controller. This allows for more precise motor control.
Applications for Hall effect sensing have also expanded to industrial applications, which now use Hall effect joysticks to control hydraulic valves, replacing the traditional mechanical levers with contactless sensing. Such applications include mining trucks, backhoe loaders, cranes, diggers, scissor lifts, etc.
A Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a device that is used to propel some spacecraft, after it gets into orbit or farther out into space. In the HET, atoms are ionized and accelerated by an electric field. A radial magnetic field established by magnets on the thruster is used to trap electrons which then orbit and create an electric field due to the Hall effect. A large potential is established between the end of the thruster where neutral propellant is fed, and the part where electrons are produced; so, electrons trapped in the magnetic field cannot drop to the lower potential. They are thus extremely energetic, which means that they can ionize neutral atoms. Neutral propellant is pumped into the chamber and is ionized by the trapped electrons. Positive ions and electrons are then ejected from the thruster as a quasineutral plasma, creating thrust. The thrust produced is extremely small, with a very low mass flow rate and a very high effective exhaust velocity/specific impulse. This is achieved at the cost of very high electrical power requirements, on the order of 4 kW for a few hundred millinewtons of thrust.
Hall effect sensors can also be found on some high-performance gaming keyboards (made by companies such as SteelSeries, Wooting, Corsair). With the switches themselves containing magnets.
The Corbino effect, named after its discoverer Orso Mario Corbino, is a phenomenon involving the Hall effect, but a disc-shaped metal sample is used in place of a rectangular one. Because of its shape the Corbino disc allows the observation of Hall effect–based magnetoresistance without the associated Hall voltage.
A radial current through a circular disc, subjected to a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the disc, produces a "circular" current through the disc.
The absence of the free transverse boundaries renders the interpretation of the Corbino effect simpler than that of the Hall effect. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Hall effect is the production of a potential difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Hall coefficient is defined as the ratio of the induced electric field to the product of the current density and the applied magnetic field. It is a characteristic of the material from which the conductor is made, since its value depends on the type, number, and properties of the charge carriers that constitute the current.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Wires carrying current in a magnetic field experience a mechanical force perpendicular to both the current and magnetic field. André-Marie Ampère in the 1820s observed this underlying mechanism that led to the discovery of the Hall effect.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "But it wasn't until a solid mathematical basis for electromagnetism was systematized by James Clerk Maxwell's \"On Physical Lines of Force\" (published in 1861–1862) that details of the interaction between magnets and electric current could be understood.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Edwin Hall then explored the question of whether magnetic fields interacted with the conductors or the electric current, and reasoned that if the force was specifically acting on the current, it should crowd current to one side of the wire, producing a small measurable voltage. In 1879, he discovered this Hall effect while was working on his doctoral degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Eighteen years before the electron was discovered, his measurements of the tiny effect produced in the apparatus he used were an experimental tour de force, published under the name \"On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Currents\".",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The term ordinary Hall effect can be used to distinguish the effect described in the introduction from a related effect which occurs across a void or hole in a semiconductor or metal plate when current is injected via contacts that lie on the boundary or edge of the void. The charge then flows outside the void, within the metal or semiconductor material. The effect becomes observable, in a perpendicular applied magnetic field, as a Hall voltage appearing on either side of a line connecting the current-contacts. It exhibits apparent sign reversal in comparison to the \"ordinary\" effect occurring in the simply connected specimen. It depends only on the current injected from within the void.",
"title": "Hall effect within voids"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Superposition of these two forms of the effect, the ordinary and void effects, can also be realized. First imagine the \"ordinary\" configuration, a simply connected (void-less) thin rectangular homogeneous element with current-contacts on the (external) boundary. This develops a Hall voltage, in a perpendicular magnetic field. Next, imagine placing a rectangular void within this ordinary configuration, with current-contacts, as mentioned above, on the interior boundary of the void. (For simplicity, imagine the contacts on the boundary of the void lined up with the ordinary-configuration contacts on the exterior boundary.) In such a combined configuration, the two Hall effects may be realized and observed simultaneously in the same doubly connected device: A Hall effect on the external boundary that is proportional to the current injected only via the outer boundary, and an apparently sign-reversed Hall effect on the interior boundary that is proportional to the current injected only via the interior boundary. The superposition of multiple Hall effects may be realized by placing multiple voids within the Hall element, with current and voltage contacts on the boundary of each void.",
"title": "Hall effect within voids"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Further \"Hall effects\" may have additional physical mechanisms but are built on these basics.",
"title": "Hall effect within voids"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Hall effect is due to the nature of the current in a conductor. Current consists of the movement of many small charge carriers, typically electrons, holes, ions (see Electromigration) or all three. When a magnetic field is present, these charges experience a force, called the Lorentz force. When such a magnetic field is absent, the charges follow approximately straight paths between collisions with impurities, phonons, etc. However, when a magnetic field with a perpendicular component is applied, their paths between collisions are curved; thus, moving charges accumulate on one face of the material. This leaves equal and opposite charges exposed on the other face, where there is a scarcity of mobile charges. The result is an asymmetric distribution of charge density across the Hall element, arising from a force that is perpendicular to both the straight path and the applied magnetic field. The separation of charge establishes an electric field that opposes the migration of further charge, so a steady electric potential is established for as long as the charge is flowing.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In classical electromagnetism electrons move in the opposite direction of the current I (by convention \"current\" describes a theoretical \"hole flow\"). In some metals and semiconductors it appears \"holes\" are actually flowing because the direction of the voltage is opposite to the derivation below.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "For a simple metal where there is only one type of charge carrier (electrons), the Hall voltage VH can be derived by using the Lorentz force and seeing that, in the steady-state condition, charges are not moving in the y-axis direction. Thus, the magnetic force on each electron in the y-axis direction is cancelled by a y-axis electrical force due to the buildup of charges. The vx term is the drift velocity of the current which is assumed at this point to be holes by convention. The vxBz term is negative in the y-axis direction by the right hand rule.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In steady state, F = 0, so 0 = Ey − vxBz, where Ey is assigned in the direction of the y-axis, (and not with the arrow of the induced electric field ξy as in the image (pointing in the −y direction), which tells you where the field caused by the electrons is pointing).",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In wires, electrons instead of holes are flowing, so vx → −vx and q → −q. Also Ey = −VH/w. Substituting these changes gives",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The conventional \"hole\" current is in the negative direction of the electron current and the negative of the electrical charge which gives Ix = ntw(−vx)(−e) where n is charge carrier density, tw is the cross-sectional area, and −e is the charge of each electron. Solving for w {\\displaystyle w} and plugging into the above gives the Hall voltage:",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "If the charge build up had been positive (as it appears in some metals and semiconductors), then the VH assigned in the image would have been negative (positive charge would have built up on the left side).",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Hall coefficient is defined as",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "or",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "where j is the current density of the carrier electrons, and Ey is the induced electric field. In SI units, this becomes",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "(The units of RH are usually expressed as m/C, or Ω·cm/G, or other variants.) As a result, the Hall effect is very useful as a means to measure either the carrier density or the magnetic field.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "One very important feature of the Hall effect is that it differentiates between positive charges moving in one direction and negative charges moving in the opposite. In the diagram above, the Hall effect with a negative charge carrier (the electron) is presented. But consider the same magnetic field and current are applied but the current is carried inside the Hall effect device by a positive particle. The particle would of course have to be moving in the opposite direction of the electron in order for the current to be the same—down in the diagram, not up like the electron is. And thus, mnemonically speaking, your thumb in the Lorentz force law, representing (conventional) current, would be pointing the same direction as before, because current is the same—an electron moving up is the same current as a positive charge moving down. And with the fingers (magnetic field) also being the same, interestingly the charge carrier gets deflected to the left in the diagram regardless of whether it is positive or negative. But if positive carriers are deflected to the left, they would build a relatively positive voltage on the left whereas if negative carriers (namely electrons) are, they build up a negative voltage on the left as shown in the diagram. Thus for the same current and magnetic field, the electric polarity of the Hall voltage is dependent on the internal nature of the conductor and is useful to elucidate its inner workings.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "This property of the Hall effect offered the first real proof that electric currents in most metals are carried by moving electrons, not by protons. It also showed that in some substances (especially p-type semiconductors), it is contrarily more appropriate to think of the current as positive \"holes\" moving rather than negative electrons. A common source of confusion with the Hall effect in such materials is that holes moving one way are really electrons moving the opposite way, so one expects the Hall voltage polarity to be the same as if electrons were the charge carriers as in most metals and n-type semiconductors. Yet we observe the opposite polarity of Hall voltage, indicating positive charge carriers. However, of course there are no actual positrons or other positive elementary particles carrying the charge in p-type semiconductors, hence the name \"holes\". In the same way as the oversimplistic picture of light in glass as photons being absorbed and re-emitted to explain refraction breaks down upon closer scrutiny, this apparent contradiction too can only be resolved by the modern quantum mechanical theory of quasiparticles wherein the collective quantized motion of multiple particles can, in a real physical sense, be considered to be a particle in its own right (albeit not an elementary one).",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Unrelatedly, inhomogeneity in the conductive sample can result in a spurious sign of the Hall effect, even in ideal van der Pauw configuration of electrodes. For example, a Hall effect consistent with positive carriers was observed in evidently n-type semiconductors. Another source of artefact, in uniform materials, occurs when the sample's aspect ratio is not long enough: the full Hall voltage only develops far away from the current-introducing contacts, since at the contacts the transverse voltage is shorted out to zero.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "When a current-carrying semiconductor is kept in a magnetic field, the charge carriers of the semiconductor experience a force in a direction perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the current. At equilibrium, a voltage appears at the semiconductor edges.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The simple formula for the Hall coefficient given above is usually a good explanation when conduction is dominated by a single charge carrier. However, in semiconductors and many metals the theory is more complex, because in these materials conduction can involve significant, simultaneous contributions from both electrons and holes, which may be present in different concentrations and have different mobilities. For moderate magnetic fields the Hall coefficient is",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "or equivalently",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "with",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Here n is the electron concentration, p the hole concentration, μe the electron mobility, μh the hole mobility and e the elementary charge.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "For large applied fields the simpler expression analogous to that for a single carrier type holds.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Although it is well known that magnetic fields play an important role in star formation, research models indicate that Hall diffusion critically influences the dynamics of gravitational collapse that forms protostars.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "For a two-dimensional electron system which can be produced in a MOSFET, in the presence of large magnetic field strength and low temperature, one can observe the quantum Hall effect, in which the Hall conductance σ undergoes quantum Hall transitions to take on the quantized values.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The spin Hall effect consists in the spin accumulation on the lateral boundaries of a current-carrying sample. No magnetic field is needed. It was predicted by Mikhail Dyakonov and V. I. Perel in 1971 and observed experimentally more than 30 years later, both in semiconductors and in metals, at cryogenic as well as at room temperatures.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The quantity describing the strength of the Spin Hall effect is known as Spin Hall angle, and it is defined as:",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "θ S H = 2 e ℏ | j s | | j e | {\\displaystyle \\theta _{SH}={\\frac {2e}{\\hbar }}{\\frac {|j_{s}|}{|j_{e}|}}}",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Where j s {\\displaystyle j_{s}} is the spin current generated by the applied current density j e {\\displaystyle j_{e}} .",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "For mercury telluride two dimensional quantum wells with strong spin-orbit coupling, in zero magnetic field, at low temperature, the quantum spin Hall effect has been observed in 2007.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In ferromagnetic materials (and paramagnetic materials in a magnetic field), the Hall resistivity includes an additional contribution, known as the anomalous Hall effect (or the extraordinary Hall effect), which depends directly on the magnetization of the material, and is often much larger than the ordinary Hall effect. (Note that this effect is not due to the contribution of the magnetization to the total magnetic field.) For example, in nickel, the anomalous Hall coefficient is about 100 times larger than the ordinary Hall coefficient near the Curie temperature, but the two are similar at very low temperatures. Although a well-recognized phenomenon, there is still debate about its origins in the various materials. The anomalous Hall effect can be either an extrinsic (disorder-related) effect due to spin-dependent scattering of the charge carriers, or an intrinsic effect which can be described in terms of the Berry phase effect in the crystal momentum space (k-space).",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Hall effect in an ionized gas (plasma) is significantly different from the Hall effect in solids (where the Hall parameter is always much less than unity). In a plasma, the Hall parameter can take any value. The Hall parameter, β, in a plasma is the ratio between the electron gyrofrequency, Ωe, and the electron-heavy particle collision frequency, ν:",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "where",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Hall parameter value increases with the magnetic field strength.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Physically, the trajectories of electrons are curved by the Lorentz force. Nevertheless, when the Hall parameter is low, their motion between two encounters with heavy particles (neutral or ion) is almost linear. But if the Hall parameter is high, the electron movements are highly curved. The current density vector, J, is no longer collinear with the electric field vector, E. The two vectors J and E make the Hall angle, θ, which also gives the Hall parameter:",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Hall Effects family has expanded to encompass other quasi-particles in semiconductor nanostructures. Specifically, a set of Hall Effects has emerged based on excitons and exciton-polaritons n 2D materials and quantum wells.",
"title": "Theory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Hall sensors use the Hall effect for a variety of sensing applications.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Hall effect magnetometers (also called teslameters or gaussmeters) use a Hall probe with a Hall element to measure magnetic fields or inspect materials (such as tubing or pipelines) using the principles of magnetic flux leakage.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hall effect devices produce a very low signal level and thus require amplification. While suitable for laboratory instruments, the vacuum tube amplifiers available in the first half of the 20th century were too expensive, power consuming, and unreliable for everyday applications. It was only with the development of the low cost integrated circuit that the Hall effect sensor became suitable for mass application. Many devices now sold as Hall effect sensors in fact contain both the sensor as described above plus a high gain integrated circuit (IC) amplifier in a single package. Recent advances have further added into one package an analog-to-digital converter and I²C (Inter-integrated circuit communication protocol) IC for direct connection to a microcontroller's I/O port.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Hall effect devices (when appropriately packaged) are immune to dust, dirt, mud, and water. These characteristics make Hall effect devices better for position sensing than alternative means such as optical and electromechanical sensing.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "When electrons flow through a conductor, a magnetic field is produced. Thus, it is possible to create a non-contacting current sensor. The device has three terminals. A sensor voltage is applied across two terminals and the third provides a voltage proportional to the current being sensed. This has several advantages; no additional resistance (a shunt, required for the most common current sensing method) need to be inserted in the primary circuit. Also, the voltage present on the line to be sensed is not transmitted to the sensor, which enhances the safety of measuring equipment.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Magnetic flux from the surroundings (such as other wires) may diminish or enhance the field the Hall probe intends to detect, rendering the results inaccurate. Ways to measure mechanical positions within an electromagnetic system, such as a brushless direct current motor, include (1) the Hall effect, (2) optical position encoder (e.g., absolute and incremental encoders) and (3) induced voltage by moving the amount of metal core inserted into a transformer. When Hall is compared to photo-sensitive methods, it is harder to get absolute position with Hall. Hall detection is also sensitive to stray magnetic fields.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Hall effect sensors are readily available from a number of different manufacturers, and may be used in various sensors such as rotating speed sensors (bicycle wheels, gear-teeth, automotive speedometers, electronic ignition systems), fluid flow sensors, current sensors, and pressure sensors. Common applications are often found where a robust and contactless switch or potentiometer is required. These include: electric airsoft guns, triggers of electropneumatic paintball guns, go-cart speed controls, smart phones, and some global positioning systems.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hall sensors can detect stray magnetic fields easily, including that of Earth, so they work well as electronic compasses: but this also means that such stray fields can hinder accurate measurements of small magnetic fields. To solve this problem, Hall sensors are often integrated with magnetic shielding of some kind.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Also, integrating a Hall sensor into a ferrite ring (as shown) concentrates the flux density of the current's magnetic field along the ferrite ring and through the sensor (because flux flows through ferrite much better than through air), which greatly reduces the relative influence of stray fields by a factor of 100 or better.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "This configuration also provides an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio and drift effects of over 20 times that of a bare Hall device.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The range of a given feedthrough sensor may be extended upward and downward by appropriate wiring. To extend the range to lower currents, multiple turns of the current-carrying wire may be made through the opening, each turn adding to the sensor output the same quantity; when the sensor is installed onto a printed circuit board, the turns can be carried out by a staple on the board. To extend the range to higher currents, a current divider may be used. The divider splits the current across two wires of differing widths and the thinner wire, carrying a smaller proportion of the total current, passes through the sensor.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "A variation on the ring sensor uses a split sensor which is clamped onto the line enabling the device to be used in temporary test equipment. If used in a permanent installation, a split sensor allows the electric current to be tested without dismantling the existing circuit.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The output is proportional to both the applied magnetic field and the applied sensor voltage. If the magnetic field is applied by a solenoid, the sensor output is proportional to the product of the current through the solenoid and the sensor voltage. As most applications requiring computation are now performed by small digital computers, the remaining useful application is in power sensing, which combines current sensing with voltage sensing in a single Hall effect device.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "By sensing the current provided to a load and using the device's applied voltage as a sensor voltage it is possible to determine the power dissipated by a device.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Hall effect devices used in motion sensing and motion limit switches can offer enhanced reliability in extreme environments. As there are no moving parts involved within the sensor or magnet, typical life expectancy is improved compared to traditional electromechanical switches. Additionally, the sensor and magnet may be encapsulated in an appropriate protective material. This application is used in brushless DC motors.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Hall effect sensors, affixed to mechanical gauges that have magnetized indicator needles, can translate the physical position or orientation of the mechanical indicator needle into an electrical signal that can be used by electronic indicators, controls or communications devices.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Commonly used in distributors for ignition timing (and in some types of crank- and camshaft-position sensors for injection pulse timing, speed sensing, etc.) the Hall Effect sensor is used as a direct replacement for the mechanical breaker points used in earlier automotive applications. Its use as an ignition timing device in various distributor types is as follows: a stationary permanent magnet and semiconductor Hall Effect chip are mounted next to each other separated by an air gap, forming the Hall Effect sensor. A metal rotor consisting of windows and/or tabs is mounted to a shaft and arranged so that during shaft rotation, the windows and/or tabs pass through the air gap between the permanent magnet and semiconductor Hall chip. This effectively shields and exposes the Hall chip to the permanent magnet's field respective to whether a tab or window is passing through the Hall sensor. For ignition timing purposes, the metal rotor will have a number of equal-sized tabs and/or windows matching the number of engine cylinders (#1 cylinder tab will always be unique for discernment by the Engine Control Unit). This produces a uniform square wave output since the on/off (shielding and exposure) time is equal. This signal is used by the engine computer or ECU to control ignition timing. Many automotive Hall Effect sensors have a built-in internal NPN transistor with an open collector and grounded emitter, meaning that rather than a voltage being produced at the Hall sensor signal output wire, the transistor is turned on, providing a circuit to ground through the signal output wire.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The sensing of wheel rotation is especially useful in anti-lock braking systems. The principles of such systems have been extended and refined to offer more than anti-skid functions, now providing extended vehicle handling enhancements.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Some types of brushless DC electric motors use Hall effect sensors to detect the position of the rotor and feed that information to the motor controller. This allows for more precise motor control.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Applications for Hall effect sensing have also expanded to industrial applications, which now use Hall effect joysticks to control hydraulic valves, replacing the traditional mechanical levers with contactless sensing. Such applications include mining trucks, backhoe loaders, cranes, diggers, scissor lifts, etc.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "A Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a device that is used to propel some spacecraft, after it gets into orbit or farther out into space. In the HET, atoms are ionized and accelerated by an electric field. A radial magnetic field established by magnets on the thruster is used to trap electrons which then orbit and create an electric field due to the Hall effect. A large potential is established between the end of the thruster where neutral propellant is fed, and the part where electrons are produced; so, electrons trapped in the magnetic field cannot drop to the lower potential. They are thus extremely energetic, which means that they can ionize neutral atoms. Neutral propellant is pumped into the chamber and is ionized by the trapped electrons. Positive ions and electrons are then ejected from the thruster as a quasineutral plasma, creating thrust. The thrust produced is extremely small, with a very low mass flow rate and a very high effective exhaust velocity/specific impulse. This is achieved at the cost of very high electrical power requirements, on the order of 4 kW for a few hundred millinewtons of thrust.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Hall effect sensors can also be found on some high-performance gaming keyboards (made by companies such as SteelSeries, Wooting, Corsair). With the switches themselves containing magnets.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Corbino effect, named after its discoverer Orso Mario Corbino, is a phenomenon involving the Hall effect, but a disc-shaped metal sample is used in place of a rectangular one. Because of its shape the Corbino disc allows the observation of Hall effect–based magnetoresistance without the associated Hall voltage.",
"title": "Corbino effect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "A radial current through a circular disc, subjected to a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the disc, produces a \"circular\" current through the disc.",
"title": "Corbino effect"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The absence of the free transverse boundaries renders the interpretation of the Corbino effect simpler than that of the Hall effect.",
"title": "Corbino effect"
}
]
| The Hall effect is the production of a potential difference across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879. The Hall coefficient is defined as the ratio of the induced electric field to the product of the current density and the applied magnetic field. It is a characteristic of the material from which the conductor is made, since its value depends on the type, number, and properties of the charge carriers that constitute the current. | 2001-12-20T15:39:55Z | 2023-12-30T16:44:28Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_effect |
14,308 | Hoover Dam | Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. It was referred to as the Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction; it was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.
Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction, with 7 million tourists a year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado River was seen as a potential source of irrigation water. An initial attempt at diverting the river for irrigation purposes occurred in the late 1890s, when land speculator William Beatty built the Alamo Canal just north of the Mexican border; the canal dipped into Mexico before running to a desolate area Beatty named the Imperial Valley. Though water from the Imperial Canal allowed for the widespread settlement of the valley, the canal proved expensive to operate. After a catastrophic breach that caused the Colorado River to fill the Salton Sea, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent $3 million in 1906–07 to stabilize the waterway, an amount it hoped in vain would be reimbursed by the federal government. Even after the waterway was stabilized, it proved unsatisfactory because of constant disputes with landowners on the Mexican side of the border.
As the technology of electric power transmission improved, the Lower Colorado was considered for its hydroelectric-power potential. In 1902, the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles surveyed the river in the hope of building a 40-foot (12 m) rock dam which could generate 10,000 horsepower (7,500 kW). However, at the time, the limit of transmission of electric power was 80 miles (130 km), and there were few customers (mostly mines) within that limit. Edison allowed land options it held on the river to lapse—including an option for what became the site of Hoover Dam.
In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.
In 1922, the Reclamation Service presented a report calling for the development of a dam on the Colorado River for flood control and electric power generation. The report was principally authored by Davis, and was called the Fall-Davis report after Interior Secretary Albert Fall. The Fall-Davis report cited use of the Colorado River as a federal concern because the river's basin covered several states, and the river eventually entered Mexico. Though the Fall-Davis report called for a dam "at or near Boulder Canyon", the Reclamation Service (which was renamed the Bureau of Reclamation the following year) found that canyon unsuitable. One potential site at Boulder Canyon was bisected by a geologic fault; two others were so narrow there was no space for a construction camp at the bottom of the canyon or for a spillway. The Service investigated Black Canyon and found it ideal; a railway could be laid from the railhead in Las Vegas to the top of the dam site. Despite the site change, the dam project was referred to as the "Boulder Canyon Project".
With little guidance on water allocation from the Supreme Court, proponents of the dam feared endless litigation. Delph Carpenter, a Colorado attorney, proposed that the seven states which fell within the river's basin (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming) form an interstate compact, with the approval of Congress. Such compacts were authorized by Article I of the United States Constitution but had never been concluded among more than two states. In 1922, representatives of seven states met with then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Initial talks produced no result, but when the Supreme Court handed down the Wyoming v. Colorado decision undermining the claims of the upstream states, they became anxious to reach an agreement. The resulting Colorado River Compact was signed on November 24, 1922.
Legislation to authorize the dam was introduced repeatedly by two California Republicans, Representative Phil Swing and Senator Hiram Johnson, but representatives from other parts of the country considered the project as hugely expensive and one that would mostly benefit California. The 1927 Mississippi flood made Midwestern and Southern congressmen and senators more sympathetic toward the dam project. On March 12, 1928, the failure of the St. Francis Dam, constructed by the city of Los Angeles, caused a disastrous flood that killed up to 600 people. As that dam was a curved-gravity type, similar in design to the arch-gravity as was proposed for the Black Canyon dam, opponents claimed that the Black Canyon dam's safety could not be guaranteed. Congress authorized a board of engineers to review plans for the proposed dam. The Colorado River Board found the project feasible, but warned that should the dam fail, every downstream Colorado River community would be destroyed, and that the river might change course and empty into the Salton Sea. The Board cautioned: "To avoid such possibilities, the proposed dam should be constructed on conservative if not ultra-conservative lines."
On December 21, 1928, President Coolidge signed the bill authorizing the dam. The Boulder Canyon Project Act appropriated $165 million for the project along with the downstream Imperial Dam and All-American Canal, a replacement for Beatty's canal entirely on the U.S. side of the border. It also permitted the compact to go into effect when at least six of the seven states approved it. This occurred on March 6, 1929, with Utah's ratification; Arizona did not approve it until 1944.
Even before Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Project, the Bureau of Reclamation was considering what kind of dam should be used. Officials eventually decided on a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, the design of which was overseen by the Bureau's chief design engineer John L. Savage. The monolithic dam would be thick at the bottom and thin near the top, and would present a convex face towards the water above the dam. The curving arch of the dam would transmit the water's force into the abutments, in this case the rock walls of the canyon. The wedge-shaped dam would be 660 ft (200 m) thick at the bottom, narrowing to 45 ft (14 m) at the top, leaving room for a highway connecting Nevada and Arizona.
On January 10, 1931, the Bureau made the bid documents available to interested parties, at five dollars a copy. The government was to provide the materials, and the contractor was to prepare the site and build the dam. The dam was described in minute detail, covering 100 pages of text and 76 drawings. A $2 million bid bond was to accompany each bid; the winner would have to post a $5 million performance bond. The contractor had seven years to build the dam, or penalties would ensue.
The Wattis Brothers, heads of the Utah Construction Company, were interested in bidding on the project, but lacked the money for the performance bond. They lacked sufficient resources even in combination with their longtime partners, Morrison-Knudsen, which employed the nation's leading dam builder, Frank Crowe. They formed a joint venture to bid for the project with Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Oregon; Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco; MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. of Los Angeles; and the J.F. Shea Company of Portland, Oregon. The joint venture was called Six Companies, Inc. as Bechtel and Kaiser were considered one company for purposes of Six in the name. The name was descriptive and was an inside joke among the San Franciscans in the bid, where "Six Companies" was also a Chinese benevolent association in the city. There were three valid bids, and Six Companies' bid of $48,890,955 was the lowest, within $24,000 of the confidential government estimate of what the dam would cost to build, and five million dollars less than the next-lowest bid.
The city of Las Vegas had lobbied hard to be the headquarters for the dam construction, closing its many speakeasies when the decision maker, Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur, came to town. Instead, Wilbur announced in early 1930 that a model city was to be built in the desert near the dam site. This town became known as Boulder City, Nevada. Construction of a rail line joining Las Vegas and the dam site began in September 1930.
Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of black people employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.
As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp. Workers with families were left to provide their own accommodations until Boulder City could be completed, and many lived in Ragtown. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, and the summer of 1931 was especially torrid, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C). Sixteen workers and other riverbank residents died of heat prostration between June 25 and July 26, 1931.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies"), though much-reduced from their heyday as militant labor organizers in the early years of the century, hoped to unionize the Six Companies workers by capitalizing on their discontent. They sent eleven organizers, several of whom were arrested by Las Vegas police. On August 7, 1931, the company cut wages for all tunnel workers. Although the workers sent the organizers away, not wanting to be associated with the "Wobblies", they formed a committee to represent them with the company. The committee drew up a list of demands that evening and presented them to Crowe the following morning. He was noncommittal. The workers hoped that Crowe, the general superintendent of the job, would be sympathetic; instead, he gave a scathing interview to a newspaper, describing the workers as "malcontents".
On the morning of the 9th, Crowe met with the committee and told them that management refused their demands, was stopping all work, and was laying off the entire work force, except for a few office workers and carpenters. The workers were given until 5 p.m. to vacate the premises. Concerned that a violent confrontation was imminent, most workers took their paychecks and left for Las Vegas to await developments. Two days later, the remainder were talked into leaving by law enforcement. On August 13, the company began hiring workers again, and two days later, the strike was called off. While the workers received none of their demands, the company guaranteed there would be no further reductions in wages. Living conditions began to improve as the first residents moved into Boulder City in late 1931.
A second labor action took place in July 1935, as construction on the dam wound down. When a Six Companies manager altered working times to force workers to take lunch on their own time, workers responded with a strike. Emboldened by Crowe's reversal of the lunch decree, workers raised their demands to include a $1-per-day raise. The company agreed to ask the Federal government to supplement the pay, but no money was forthcoming from Washington. The strike ended.
Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 ft (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than 3 miles (5 km). The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.
Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterward, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is 3 feet (1 m) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 ft (15 m). The river was diverted into the two Arizona tunnels on November 13, 1932; the Nevada tunnels were kept in reserve for high water. This was done by exploding a temporary cofferdam protecting the Arizona tunnels while at the same time dumping rubble into the river until its natural course was blocked.
Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and halfway through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The inner diversion tunnels were plugged at approximately one-third of their length, beyond which they now carry steel pipes connecting the intake towers to the power plant and outlet works. The inner tunnels' outlets are equipped with gates that can be closed to drain the tunnels for maintenance.
To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was 96 ft (29 m) high, and 750 feet (230 m) thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m) of material.
When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately 1,500,000 cu yd (1,100,000 m) of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were also excavated to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company.
The men who removed this rock were called "high scalers". While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes, the high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. Falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site; the high scalers' work thus helped ensure worker safety. One high scaler was able to save a life in a more direct manner: when a government inspector lost his grip on a safety line and began tumbling down a slope towards almost certain death, a high scaler was able to intercept him and pull him into the air. The construction site had become a magnet for tourists. The high scalers were prime attractions and showed off for the watchers. The high scalers received considerable media attention, with one worker dubbed the "Human Pendulum" for swinging co-workers (and, at other times, cases of dynamite) across the canyon. To protect themselves against falling objects, some high scalers dipped cloth hats in tar and allowed them to harden. When workers wearing such headgear were struck hard enough to inflict broken jaws, they sustained no skull damage. Six Companies ordered thousands of what initially were called "hard boiled hats" (later "hard hats") and strongly encouraged their use.
The cleared, underlying rock foundation of the dam site was reinforced with grout, forming a grout curtain. Holes were driven into the walls and base of the canyon, as deep as 150 feet (46 m) into the rock, and any cavities encountered were to be filled with grout. This was done to stabilize the rock, to prevent water from seeping past the dam through the canyon rock, and to limit "uplift"—upward pressure from water seeping under the dam. The workers were under severe time constraints due to the beginning of the concrete pour. When they encountered hot springs or cavities too large to readily fill, they moved on without resolving the problem. A total of 58 of the 393 holes were incompletely filled. After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks caused the Bureau of Reclamation to examine the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock. It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy to complete the supplemental grout curtain.
The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 ft square (15 m) and 5 feet (1.5 m) high. Each five-foot form contained a set of 1-inch (25 mm) steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints.
The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet high (2.1 m) and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inches [230 mm] stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cu yd (6.1 m) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only 1 inch (25 mm), and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.
A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 cubic meters) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cu yd (850,000 m) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete". Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR), as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.
With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of 102 °F (39 °C), 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony. To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name "Boulder Dam", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas.
Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government. Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.
There were 112 deaths reported as associated with the construction of the dam. The first was Bureau of Reclamation employee Harold Connelly who died on May 15, 1921, after falling from a barge while surveying the Colorado River for an ideal spot for the dam. Surveyor John Gregory ("J.G.") Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, in a flash flood while looking for an ideal spot for the dam was the second person. The official list's final death occurred on December 20, 1935, when Patrick Tierney, electrician's helper and the son of J.G. Tierney, fell from one of the two Arizona-side intake towers. Included in the fatality list are three workers who took their own lives on site, one in 1932 and two in 1933. Of the 112 fatalities, 91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site; the remainder were employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies.
Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Not included in the official number of fatalities were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning (brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels), and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims. The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia and were not included in the above total; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.
The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project. He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year.
At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist. With the assistance of the National Laboratory of Anthropology, True researched authentic decorative motifs from Indian sand paintings, textiles, baskets and ceramics. The images and colors are based on Native American visions of rain, lightning, water, clouds, and local animals—lizards, serpents, birds—and on the Southwestern landscape of stepped mesas. In these works, which are integrated into the walkways and interior halls of the dam, True also reflected on the machinery of the operation, making the symbolic patterns appear both ancient and modern.
With the agreement of Kaufmann and the engineers, True also devised for the pipes and machinery an innovative color-coding which was implemented throughout all BOR projects. True's consulting artist job lasted through 1942; it was extended so he could complete design work for the Parker, Shasta and Grand Coulee dams and power plants. True's work on the Hoover Dam was humorously referred to in a poem published in The New Yorker, part of which read, "lose the spark, and justify the dream; but also worthy of remark will be the color scheme".
Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam. His works include the monument of dedication plaza, a plaque to memorialize the workers killed and the bas-reliefs on the elevator towers. In his words, Hansen wanted his work to express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment", because "[t]he building of Hoover Dam belongs to the sagas of the daring." Hansen's dedication plaza, on the Nevada abutment, contains a sculpture of two winged figures flanking a flagpole.
Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a "star map". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication. The 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze figures, dubbed "Winged Figures of the Republic", were both formed in a continuous pour. To put such large bronzes into place without marring the highly polished bronze surface, they were placed on ice and guided into position as the ice melted. Hansen's bas-relief on the Nevada elevator tower depicts the benefits of the dam: flood control, navigation, irrigation, water storage, and power. The bas-relief on the Arizona elevator depicts, in his words, "the visages of those Indian tribes who have inhabited mountains and plains from ages distant."
Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about 3.5 feet (1.1 m), topped with layers of sand and tar.
In the latter half of 1936, water levels in Lake Mead were high enough to permit power generation, and the first three Allis Chalmers built Francis turbine-generators, all on the Nevada side, began operating. In March 1937, one more Nevada generator went online and the first Arizona generator by August. By September 1939, four more generators were operating, and the dam's power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. The final generator was not placed in service until 1961, bringing the maximum generating capacity to 1,345 megawatts at the time. Original plans called for 16 large generators, eight on each side of the river, but two smaller generators were installed instead of one large one on the Arizona side for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller communities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a single municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.
Before water from Lake Mead reaches the turbines, it enters the intake towers and then four gradually narrowing penstocks which funnel the water down towards the powerhouse. The intakes provide a maximum hydraulic head (water pressure) of 590 ft (180 m) as the water reaches a speed of about 85 mph (140 km/h). The entire flow of the Colorado River usually passes through the turbines. The spillways and outlet works (jet-flow gates) are rarely used. The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures 180 feet (55 m) above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956. The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.
The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought since year 2000 and high demand for the Colorado River's water. By 2014 its generating capacity was downrated by 23% to 1592 MW and was providing power only during periods of peak demand. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam would no longer be able to generate power once the water level fell below 1,050 feet (320 m), which might have occurred in 2017 had water restrictions not been enforced. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, were installed. Water levels were maintained at over 1,075 feet (328 m) in 2018 and 2019, but fell to a new record low of 1,071.55 feet (326.61 m) on June 10, 2021 and were projected to fall below 1,066 feet (325 m) by the end of 2021.
Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation has allowed the dam project to be self-sustaining: proceeds from the sale of power repaid the 50-year construction loan, and those revenues also finance the multimillion-dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.
Lake Mead and downstream releases from the dam also provide water for both municipal and irrigation uses. Water released from the Hoover Dam eventually reaches several canals. The Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project branch off Lake Havasu while the All-American Canal is supplied by the Imperial Dam. In total, water from Lake Mead serves 18 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California and supplies the irrigation of over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) proposed a $3 billion pumped-storage hydroelectricity project—a "battery" of sorts—that would use wind and solar power to recirculate water back up to Lake Mead from a pumping station 20 miles (32 km) downriver.
Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities. The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017.
The Bureau of Reclamation reports that the energy generated under the contracts ending in 2017 was allocated as follows:
The dam is protected against over-topping by two spillways. The spillway entrances are located behind each dam abutment, running roughly parallel to the canyon walls. The spillway entrance arrangement forms a classic side-flow weir with each spillway containing four 100-foot-long (30 m) and 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) steel-drum gates. Each gate weighs 5,000,000 pounds (2,300 metric tons) and can be operated manually or automatically. Gates are raised and lowered depending on water levels in the reservoir and flood conditions. The gates cannot entirely prevent water from entering the spillways but can maintain an extra 16 ft (4.9 m) of lake level.
Water flowing over the spillways falls dramatically into 600-foot-long (180 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) spillway tunnels before connecting to the outer diversion tunnels, and reentering the main river channel below the dam. This complex spillway entrance arrangement combined with the approximate 700-foot (210 m) elevation drop from the top of the reservoir to the river below was a difficult engineering problem and posed numerous design challenges. Each spillway's capacity of 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m/s) was empirically verified in post-construction tests in 1941.
The large spillway tunnels have only been used twice, for testing in 1941 and because of flooding in 1983. Both times, when inspecting the tunnels after the spillways were used, engineers found major damage to the concrete linings and underlying rock. The 1941 damage was attributed to a slight misalignment of the tunnel invert (or base), which caused cavitation, a phenomenon in fast-flowing liquids in which vapor bubbles collapse with explosive force. In response to this finding, the tunnels were patched with special heavy-duty concrete and the surface of the concrete was polished mirror-smooth. The spillways were modified in 1947 by adding flip buckets, which both slow the water and decrease the spillway's effective capacity, in an attempt to eliminate conditions thought to have contributed to the 1941 damage. The 1983 damage, also due to cavitation, led to the installation of aerators in the spillways. Tests at Grand Coulee Dam showed that the technique worked, in principle.
There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam, which formerly served as the Colorado River crossing for U.S. Route 93. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, authorities expressed security concerns and the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Pending the completion of the bypass, restricted traffic was permitted over Hoover Dam. Some types of vehicles were inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 ft (12 m) long were not allowed on the dam at all, and were diverted to U.S. Route 95 or Nevada State Routes 163/68. The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, 1,500 ft (460 m) downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side.
Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion, but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure's being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.
The changes in water flow and use caused by Hoover Dam's construction and operation have had a large impact on the Colorado River Delta. The construction of the dam has been implicated in causing the decline of this estuarine ecosystem. For six years after the construction of the dam, while Lake Mead filled, virtually no water reached the mouth of the river. The delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 40 miles (64 km) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was higher close to the river's mouth.
The Colorado River had experienced natural flooding before the construction of the Hoover Dam. The dam eliminated the natural flooding, threatening many species adapted to the flooding, including both plants and animals. The construction of the dam devastated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam. Four species of fish native to the Colorado River, the Bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, Humpback chub, and Razorback sucker, are listed as endangered.
During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon".
When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country."
After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as Boulder Dam. Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name "Hoover Dam" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name "Hoover Dam" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.
When Ickes spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 30, 1935, he was determined, as he recorded in his diary, "to try to nail down for good and all the name Boulder Dam." At one point in the speech, he spoke the words "Boulder Dam" five times within thirty seconds. Further, he suggested that if the dam were to be named after any one person, it should be for California Senator Hiram Johnson, a lead sponsor of the authorizing legislation. Roosevelt also referred to the dam as Boulder Dam, and the Republican-leaning Los Angeles Times, which at the time of Ickes' name change had run an editorial cartoon showing Ickes ineffectively chipping away at an enormous sign "HOOVER DAM", reran it showing Roosevelt reinforcing Ickes, but having no greater success.
In the following years, the name "Boulder Dam" failed to fully take hold, with many Americans using both names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to which name should be printed. Memories of the Great Depression faded, and Hoover to some extent rehabilitated himself through good works during and after World War II. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name "Hoover Dam." Ickes, who was by then a private citizen, opposed the change, stating, "I didn't know Hoover was that small a man to take credit for something he had nothing to do with."
Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. It was referred to as the Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction; it was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction, with 7 million tourists a year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado River was seen as a potential source of irrigation water. An initial attempt at diverting the river for irrigation purposes occurred in the late 1890s, when land speculator William Beatty built the Alamo Canal just north of the Mexican border; the canal dipped into Mexico before running to a desolate area Beatty named the Imperial Valley. Though water from the Imperial Canal allowed for the widespread settlement of the valley, the canal proved expensive to operate. After a catastrophic breach that caused the Colorado River to fill the Salton Sea, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent $3 million in 1906–07 to stabilize the waterway, an amount it hoped in vain would be reimbursed by the federal government. Even after the waterway was stabilized, it proved unsatisfactory because of constant disputes with landowners on the Mexican side of the border.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "As the technology of electric power transmission improved, the Lower Colorado was considered for its hydroelectric-power potential. In 1902, the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles surveyed the river in the hope of building a 40-foot (12 m) rock dam which could generate 10,000 horsepower (7,500 kW). However, at the time, the limit of transmission of electric power was 80 miles (130 km), and there were few customers (mostly mines) within that limit. Edison allowed land options it held on the river to lapse—including an option for what became the site of Hoover Dam.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1922, the Reclamation Service presented a report calling for the development of a dam on the Colorado River for flood control and electric power generation. The report was principally authored by Davis, and was called the Fall-Davis report after Interior Secretary Albert Fall. The Fall-Davis report cited use of the Colorado River as a federal concern because the river's basin covered several states, and the river eventually entered Mexico. Though the Fall-Davis report called for a dam \"at or near Boulder Canyon\", the Reclamation Service (which was renamed the Bureau of Reclamation the following year) found that canyon unsuitable. One potential site at Boulder Canyon was bisected by a geologic fault; two others were so narrow there was no space for a construction camp at the bottom of the canyon or for a spillway. The Service investigated Black Canyon and found it ideal; a railway could be laid from the railhead in Las Vegas to the top of the dam site. Despite the site change, the dam project was referred to as the \"Boulder Canyon Project\".",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "With little guidance on water allocation from the Supreme Court, proponents of the dam feared endless litigation. Delph Carpenter, a Colorado attorney, proposed that the seven states which fell within the river's basin (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming) form an interstate compact, with the approval of Congress. Such compacts were authorized by Article I of the United States Constitution but had never been concluded among more than two states. In 1922, representatives of seven states met with then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Initial talks produced no result, but when the Supreme Court handed down the Wyoming v. Colorado decision undermining the claims of the upstream states, they became anxious to reach an agreement. The resulting Colorado River Compact was signed on November 24, 1922.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Legislation to authorize the dam was introduced repeatedly by two California Republicans, Representative Phil Swing and Senator Hiram Johnson, but representatives from other parts of the country considered the project as hugely expensive and one that would mostly benefit California. The 1927 Mississippi flood made Midwestern and Southern congressmen and senators more sympathetic toward the dam project. On March 12, 1928, the failure of the St. Francis Dam, constructed by the city of Los Angeles, caused a disastrous flood that killed up to 600 people. As that dam was a curved-gravity type, similar in design to the arch-gravity as was proposed for the Black Canyon dam, opponents claimed that the Black Canyon dam's safety could not be guaranteed. Congress authorized a board of engineers to review plans for the proposed dam. The Colorado River Board found the project feasible, but warned that should the dam fail, every downstream Colorado River community would be destroyed, and that the river might change course and empty into the Salton Sea. The Board cautioned: \"To avoid such possibilities, the proposed dam should be constructed on conservative if not ultra-conservative lines.\"",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On December 21, 1928, President Coolidge signed the bill authorizing the dam. The Boulder Canyon Project Act appropriated $165 million for the project along with the downstream Imperial Dam and All-American Canal, a replacement for Beatty's canal entirely on the U.S. side of the border. It also permitted the compact to go into effect when at least six of the seven states approved it. This occurred on March 6, 1929, with Utah's ratification; Arizona did not approve it until 1944.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Even before Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Project, the Bureau of Reclamation was considering what kind of dam should be used. Officials eventually decided on a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, the design of which was overseen by the Bureau's chief design engineer John L. Savage. The monolithic dam would be thick at the bottom and thin near the top, and would present a convex face towards the water above the dam. The curving arch of the dam would transmit the water's force into the abutments, in this case the rock walls of the canyon. The wedge-shaped dam would be 660 ft (200 m) thick at the bottom, narrowing to 45 ft (14 m) at the top, leaving room for a highway connecting Nevada and Arizona.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On January 10, 1931, the Bureau made the bid documents available to interested parties, at five dollars a copy. The government was to provide the materials, and the contractor was to prepare the site and build the dam. The dam was described in minute detail, covering 100 pages of text and 76 drawings. A $2 million bid bond was to accompany each bid; the winner would have to post a $5 million performance bond. The contractor had seven years to build the dam, or penalties would ensue.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Wattis Brothers, heads of the Utah Construction Company, were interested in bidding on the project, but lacked the money for the performance bond. They lacked sufficient resources even in combination with their longtime partners, Morrison-Knudsen, which employed the nation's leading dam builder, Frank Crowe. They formed a joint venture to bid for the project with Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Oregon; Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco; MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. of Los Angeles; and the J.F. Shea Company of Portland, Oregon. The joint venture was called Six Companies, Inc. as Bechtel and Kaiser were considered one company for purposes of Six in the name. The name was descriptive and was an inside joke among the San Franciscans in the bid, where \"Six Companies\" was also a Chinese benevolent association in the city. There were three valid bids, and Six Companies' bid of $48,890,955 was the lowest, within $24,000 of the confidential government estimate of what the dam would cost to build, and five million dollars less than the next-lowest bid.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The city of Las Vegas had lobbied hard to be the headquarters for the dam construction, closing its many speakeasies when the decision maker, Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur, came to town. Instead, Wilbur announced in early 1930 that a model city was to be built in the desert near the dam site. This town became known as Boulder City, Nevada. Construction of a rail line joining Las Vegas and the dam site began in September 1930.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as \"Ragtown\". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. \"Mongolian\" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of black people employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp. Workers with families were left to provide their own accommodations until Boulder City could be completed, and many lived in Ragtown. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, and the summer of 1931 was especially torrid, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C). Sixteen workers and other riverbank residents died of heat prostration between June 25 and July 26, 1931.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or \"Wobblies\"), though much-reduced from their heyday as militant labor organizers in the early years of the century, hoped to unionize the Six Companies workers by capitalizing on their discontent. They sent eleven organizers, several of whom were arrested by Las Vegas police. On August 7, 1931, the company cut wages for all tunnel workers. Although the workers sent the organizers away, not wanting to be associated with the \"Wobblies\", they formed a committee to represent them with the company. The committee drew up a list of demands that evening and presented them to Crowe the following morning. He was noncommittal. The workers hoped that Crowe, the general superintendent of the job, would be sympathetic; instead, he gave a scathing interview to a newspaper, describing the workers as \"malcontents\".",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On the morning of the 9th, Crowe met with the committee and told them that management refused their demands, was stopping all work, and was laying off the entire work force, except for a few office workers and carpenters. The workers were given until 5 p.m. to vacate the premises. Concerned that a violent confrontation was imminent, most workers took their paychecks and left for Las Vegas to await developments. Two days later, the remainder were talked into leaving by law enforcement. On August 13, the company began hiring workers again, and two days later, the strike was called off. While the workers received none of their demands, the company guaranteed there would be no further reductions in wages. Living conditions began to improve as the first residents moved into Boulder City in late 1931.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A second labor action took place in July 1935, as construction on the dam wound down. When a Six Companies manager altered working times to force workers to take lunch on their own time, workers responded with a strike. Emboldened by Crowe's reversal of the lunch decree, workers raised their demands to include a $1-per-day raise. The company agreed to ask the Federal government to supplement the pay, but no money was forthcoming from Washington. The strike ended.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 ft (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than 3 miles (5 km). The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterward, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is 3 feet (1 m) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 ft (15 m). The river was diverted into the two Arizona tunnels on November 13, 1932; the Nevada tunnels were kept in reserve for high water. This was done by exploding a temporary cofferdam protecting the Arizona tunnels while at the same time dumping rubble into the river until its natural course was blocked.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and halfway through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The inner diversion tunnels were plugged at approximately one-third of their length, beyond which they now carry steel pipes connecting the intake towers to the power plant and outlet works. The inner tunnels' outlets are equipped with gates that can be closed to drain the tunnels for maintenance.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was 96 ft (29 m) high, and 750 feet (230 m) thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m) of material.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately 1,500,000 cu yd (1,100,000 m) of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were also excavated to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The men who removed this rock were called \"high scalers\". While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes, the high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. Falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site; the high scalers' work thus helped ensure worker safety. One high scaler was able to save a life in a more direct manner: when a government inspector lost his grip on a safety line and began tumbling down a slope towards almost certain death, a high scaler was able to intercept him and pull him into the air. The construction site had become a magnet for tourists. The high scalers were prime attractions and showed off for the watchers. The high scalers received considerable media attention, with one worker dubbed the \"Human Pendulum\" for swinging co-workers (and, at other times, cases of dynamite) across the canyon. To protect themselves against falling objects, some high scalers dipped cloth hats in tar and allowed them to harden. When workers wearing such headgear were struck hard enough to inflict broken jaws, they sustained no skull damage. Six Companies ordered thousands of what initially were called \"hard boiled hats\" (later \"hard hats\") and strongly encouraged their use.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The cleared, underlying rock foundation of the dam site was reinforced with grout, forming a grout curtain. Holes were driven into the walls and base of the canyon, as deep as 150 feet (46 m) into the rock, and any cavities encountered were to be filled with grout. This was done to stabilize the rock, to prevent water from seeping past the dam through the canyon rock, and to limit \"uplift\"—upward pressure from water seeping under the dam. The workers were under severe time constraints due to the beginning of the concrete pour. When they encountered hot springs or cavities too large to readily fill, they moved on without resolving the problem. A total of 58 of the 393 holes were incompletely filled. After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks caused the Bureau of Reclamation to examine the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock. It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy to complete the supplemental grout curtain.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 ft square (15 m) and 5 feet (1.5 m) high. Each five-foot form contained a set of 1-inch (25 mm) steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet high (2.1 m) and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inches [230 mm] stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cu yd (6.1 m) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only 1 inch (25 mm), and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 cubic meters) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cu yd (850,000 m) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that \"Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength\" and the dam is composed of a \"durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete\". Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR), as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of 102 °F (39 °C), 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony. To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name \"Boulder Dam\", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government. Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "There were 112 deaths reported as associated with the construction of the dam. The first was Bureau of Reclamation employee Harold Connelly who died on May 15, 1921, after falling from a barge while surveying the Colorado River for an ideal spot for the dam. Surveyor John Gregory (\"J.G.\") Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, in a flash flood while looking for an ideal spot for the dam was the second person. The official list's final death occurred on December 20, 1935, when Patrick Tierney, electrician's helper and the son of J.G. Tierney, fell from one of the two Arizona-side intake towers. Included in the fatality list are three workers who took their own lives on site, one in 1932 and two in 1933. Of the 112 fatalities, 91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site; the remainder were employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Not included in the official number of fatalities were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning (brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels), and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims. The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia and were not included in the above total; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project. He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist. With the assistance of the National Laboratory of Anthropology, True researched authentic decorative motifs from Indian sand paintings, textiles, baskets and ceramics. The images and colors are based on Native American visions of rain, lightning, water, clouds, and local animals—lizards, serpents, birds—and on the Southwestern landscape of stepped mesas. In these works, which are integrated into the walkways and interior halls of the dam, True also reflected on the machinery of the operation, making the symbolic patterns appear both ancient and modern.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "With the agreement of Kaufmann and the engineers, True also devised for the pipes and machinery an innovative color-coding which was implemented throughout all BOR projects. True's consulting artist job lasted through 1942; it was extended so he could complete design work for the Parker, Shasta and Grand Coulee dams and power plants. True's work on the Hoover Dam was humorously referred to in a poem published in The New Yorker, part of which read, \"lose the spark, and justify the dream; but also worthy of remark will be the color scheme\".",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam. His works include the monument of dedication plaza, a plaque to memorialize the workers killed and the bas-reliefs on the elevator towers. In his words, Hansen wanted his work to express \"the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment\", because \"[t]he building of Hoover Dam belongs to the sagas of the daring.\" Hansen's dedication plaza, on the Nevada abutment, contains a sculpture of two winged figures flanking a flagpole.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a \"star map\". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication. The 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze figures, dubbed \"Winged Figures of the Republic\", were both formed in a continuous pour. To put such large bronzes into place without marring the highly polished bronze surface, they were placed on ice and guided into position as the ice melted. Hansen's bas-relief on the Nevada elevator tower depicts the benefits of the dam: flood control, navigation, irrigation, water storage, and power. The bas-relief on the Arizona elevator depicts, in his words, \"the visages of those Indian tribes who have inhabited mountains and plains from ages distant.\"",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about 3.5 feet (1.1 m), topped with layers of sand and tar.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In the latter half of 1936, water levels in Lake Mead were high enough to permit power generation, and the first three Allis Chalmers built Francis turbine-generators, all on the Nevada side, began operating. In March 1937, one more Nevada generator went online and the first Arizona generator by August. By September 1939, four more generators were operating, and the dam's power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. The final generator was not placed in service until 1961, bringing the maximum generating capacity to 1,345 megawatts at the time. Original plans called for 16 large generators, eight on each side of the river, but two smaller generators were installed instead of one large one on the Arizona side for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller communities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a single municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Before water from Lake Mead reaches the turbines, it enters the intake towers and then four gradually narrowing penstocks which funnel the water down towards the powerhouse. The intakes provide a maximum hydraulic head (water pressure) of 590 ft (180 m) as the water reaches a speed of about 85 mph (140 km/h). The entire flow of the Colorado River usually passes through the turbines. The spillways and outlet works (jet-flow gates) are rarely used. The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures 180 feet (55 m) above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956. The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought since year 2000 and high demand for the Colorado River's water. By 2014 its generating capacity was downrated by 23% to 1592 MW and was providing power only during periods of peak demand. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam would no longer be able to generate power once the water level fell below 1,050 feet (320 m), which might have occurred in 2017 had water restrictions not been enforced. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, were installed. Water levels were maintained at over 1,075 feet (328 m) in 2018 and 2019, but fell to a new record low of 1,071.55 feet (326.61 m) on June 10, 2021 and were projected to fall below 1,066 feet (325 m) by the end of 2021.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation has allowed the dam project to be self-sustaining: proceeds from the sale of power repaid the 50-year construction loan, and those revenues also finance the multimillion-dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Lake Mead and downstream releases from the dam also provide water for both municipal and irrigation uses. Water released from the Hoover Dam eventually reaches several canals. The Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project branch off Lake Havasu while the All-American Canal is supplied by the Imperial Dam. In total, water from Lake Mead serves 18 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California and supplies the irrigation of over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) proposed a $3 billion pumped-storage hydroelectricity project—a \"battery\" of sorts—that would use wind and solar power to recirculate water back up to Lake Mead from a pumping station 20 miles (32 km) downriver.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities. The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The Bureau of Reclamation reports that the energy generated under the contracts ending in 2017 was allocated as follows:",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The dam is protected against over-topping by two spillways. The spillway entrances are located behind each dam abutment, running roughly parallel to the canyon walls. The spillway entrance arrangement forms a classic side-flow weir with each spillway containing four 100-foot-long (30 m) and 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) steel-drum gates. Each gate weighs 5,000,000 pounds (2,300 metric tons) and can be operated manually or automatically. Gates are raised and lowered depending on water levels in the reservoir and flood conditions. The gates cannot entirely prevent water from entering the spillways but can maintain an extra 16 ft (4.9 m) of lake level.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Water flowing over the spillways falls dramatically into 600-foot-long (180 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) spillway tunnels before connecting to the outer diversion tunnels, and reentering the main river channel below the dam. This complex spillway entrance arrangement combined with the approximate 700-foot (210 m) elevation drop from the top of the reservoir to the river below was a difficult engineering problem and posed numerous design challenges. Each spillway's capacity of 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m/s) was empirically verified in post-construction tests in 1941.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The large spillway tunnels have only been used twice, for testing in 1941 and because of flooding in 1983. Both times, when inspecting the tunnels after the spillways were used, engineers found major damage to the concrete linings and underlying rock. The 1941 damage was attributed to a slight misalignment of the tunnel invert (or base), which caused cavitation, a phenomenon in fast-flowing liquids in which vapor bubbles collapse with explosive force. In response to this finding, the tunnels were patched with special heavy-duty concrete and the surface of the concrete was polished mirror-smooth. The spillways were modified in 1947 by adding flip buckets, which both slow the water and decrease the spillway's effective capacity, in an attempt to eliminate conditions thought to have contributed to the 1941 damage. The 1983 damage, also due to cavitation, led to the installation of aerators in the spillways. Tests at Grand Coulee Dam showed that the technique worked, in principle.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam, which formerly served as the Colorado River crossing for U.S. Route 93. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, authorities expressed security concerns and the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Pending the completion of the bypass, restricted traffic was permitted over Hoover Dam. Some types of vehicles were inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 ft (12 m) long were not allowed on the dam at all, and were diverted to U.S. Route 95 or Nevada State Routes 163/68. The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, 1,500 ft (460 m) downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion, but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new \"Discovery Tour\" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure's being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The changes in water flow and use caused by Hoover Dam's construction and operation have had a large impact on the Colorado River Delta. The construction of the dam has been implicated in causing the decline of this estuarine ecosystem. For six years after the construction of the dam, while Lake Mead filled, virtually no water reached the mouth of the river. The delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 40 miles (64 km) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was higher close to the river's mouth.",
"title": "Environmental impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Colorado River had experienced natural flooding before the construction of the Hoover Dam. The dam eliminated the natural flooding, threatening many species adapted to the flooding, including both plants and animals. The construction of the dam devastated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam. Four species of fish native to the Colorado River, the Bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, Humpback chub, and Razorback sucker, are listed as endangered.",
"title": "Environmental impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as \"Boulder Dam\" or as \"Boulder Canyon Dam\", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to \"construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon\".",
"title": "Naming controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam \"Hoover Dam\", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was \"the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible\". One writer complained in response that \"the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country.\"",
"title": "Naming controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as Boulder Dam. Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name \"Hoover Dam\" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name \"Hoover Dam\" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.",
"title": "Naming controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "When Ickes spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 30, 1935, he was determined, as he recorded in his diary, \"to try to nail down for good and all the name Boulder Dam.\" At one point in the speech, he spoke the words \"Boulder Dam\" five times within thirty seconds. Further, he suggested that if the dam were to be named after any one person, it should be for California Senator Hiram Johnson, a lead sponsor of the authorizing legislation. Roosevelt also referred to the dam as Boulder Dam, and the Republican-leaning Los Angeles Times, which at the time of Ickes' name change had run an editorial cartoon showing Ickes ineffectively chipping away at an enormous sign \"HOOVER DAM\", reran it showing Roosevelt reinforcing Ickes, but having no greater success.",
"title": "Naming controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In the following years, the name \"Boulder Dam\" failed to fully take hold, with many Americans using both names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to which name should be printed. Memories of the Great Depression faded, and Hoover to some extent rehabilitated himself through good works during and after World War II. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name \"Hoover Dam.\" Ickes, who was by then a private citizen, opposed the change, stating, \"I didn't know Hoover was that small a man to take credit for something he had nothing to do with.\"",
"title": "Naming controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations.",
"title": "Recognition"
}
]
| Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. It was referred to as the Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction; it was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947. Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule. Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction, with 7 million tourists a year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened. | 2001-12-20T15:55:05Z | 2023-12-17T11:29:29Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam |
14,309 | Holger Pedersen | Holger Pedersen may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
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| Holger Pedersen may refer to: Holger Pedersen (linguist) (1867–1953), Danish linguist
Holger Pedersen (astronomer), Danish astronomer, at the European Southern Observatory
Holger Petersen, Canadian radio personality | 2022-05-18T15:44:43Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Pedersen |
|
14,311 | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and freedom.
Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist, criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".
In St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, during the 1830s–1840s, Huckleberry "Huck" Finn has come into a considerable sum of money following The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and is placed under the strict guardianship of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson who attempt to civilize him. Despite missing the liberty of his life as a errant boy, Huck stays with the Widow Douglas to be a part of Tom Sawyer's gang. His father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic, returns to town and tries to appropriate Huck's fortune. When this fails, Pap kidnaps Huck and imprisons him in a cabin in the woods.
After a delirium tremens crisis, in which Pap tries to kill Huck, he decide to escape him. To escape his father, Huck elaborately fakes his own murder and sets off downriver. He settles on Jackson's Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck decides to go downriver with Jim to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After heavy flooding, the two find a timber raft and an entire house floating down the river. Inside, Jim finds a body that has been shot to death but prevents Huck from viewing the corpse. Huck sneaks into town and discovers there is a reward out for Jim, who is suspected of killing Huck; the two flee on their raft.
Huck and Jim come across a grounded steamer, the Walter Scott, where two thieves are discussing murdering a third. Finding that their own raft has drifted away, Huck and Jim flee in the thieves' boat before being noticed. They find their own raft again and sink the thieves' boat, keeping their loot. Huck tricks a watchman into going to rescue the stranded thieves to assuage his conscience. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog, and when they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the entire incident. Jim is disappointed when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim's strong feelings and apologizes.
Huck is conflicted about supporting a runaway slave, which he has been taught is a sin. He decides to turn Jim in, but when two white men seeking runaway slaves come upon the raft, he lies to them and they leave. Jim and Huck realize they have passed Cairo. With no way of getting back upriver, they decide to continue downriver. The raft is struck by a passing steamship, again separating the two.
On the riverbank, Huck meets the Grangerford family, who are engaged in a 30-year blood feud with the Shepherdson family, although no one remembers why the feud originally started. After a Grangerford daughter elopes with a Shepherdson boy, the feud boils over and all the Grangerford males are shot and killed in a Shepherdson ambush. Huck escapes and is reunited with Jim, who has recovered and repaired the raft.
Downriver, Jim and Huck are joined by two confidence men claiming to be a King and a Duke. The swindlers rope Huck and Jim into playing along with a series of scams. In one town, the swindlers scam the townsfolk with a short and overpriced performance. On the third night, the grifters flee before the townsfolk can take revenge. In the next town, the swindlers impersonate brothers of recently-deceased Peter Wilks to steal his estate. Huck tries to retrieve the money for Wilks's orphaned nieces. Two men claiming to be Wilks' real brothers arrive, causing an uproar. Huck tries to flee in the confusion, but is caught by the grifters. Eventually he escapes, but finds that the swindlers have sold Jim to the Phelps family plantation. Huck vows to free Jim, despite believing he will go to hell as a consequence.
The Phelps family mistakes Huck for their nephew Tom, who is expected for a visit, and Huck plays along. It turns out their nephew is Tom Sawyer. When he arrives, he plays along with Huck's story and develops a theatrical plan to free Jim. During the escape, Tom is wounded. Jim tends to him instead of escaping, and is arrested and returned to the plantation. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals the boys' true identities. She explains that Miss Watson has died, freeing Jim in her will. Tom admits he knew this, but wanted to "rescue" Jim in style. Jim says that Huck's father was the dead man they found in the floating house, so Huck may return safely to St. Petersburg. Huck declares that he intends to flee west to Indian Territory to escape being adopted by the Phelps family.
In order of appearance:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores themes of race and identity; what it means to be free and civilized; and the ideas of humanity and social responsibility in the changing landscape of America. A complexity exists concerning Jim's character. While some scholars point out that Jim is good-hearted and moral, and he is not unintelligent (in contrast to several of the more negatively depicted white characters), others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word "nigger" and emphasizing the stereotypically "comic" treatment of Jim's lack of education, superstition and ignorance. This argument is supported by incidents early in the novel where Huck deliberately "tricks" Jim, taking advantage of his gullibility and Jim still remains loyal to him.
But this novel is also Huck's 'coming of age' story where he overcomes his initial biases and forms a deeper bond with Jim. Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives. Huck is unable consciously to rebut those values even in his thoughts but he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Twain, in his lecture notes, proposes that "a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience" and goes on to describe the novel as "a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat".
To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has Huck's father enslave his son, isolate him and beat him. When Huck escapes, he immediately encounters Jim "illegally" doing the same thing. The treatments both of them receive are radically different, especially in an encounter with Mrs. Judith Loftus who takes pity on who she presumes to be a runaway apprentice, Huck, yet boasts about her husband sending the hounds after a runaway slave, Jim.
Some scholars discuss Huck's own character, and the novel itself, in the context of its relation to African-American culture as a whole. John Alberti quotes Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes in her 1990s book Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices, "by limiting their field of inquiry to the periphery," white scholars "have missed the ways in which African-American voices shaped Twain's creative imagination at its core." It is suggested that the character of Huckleberry Finn illustrates the correlation, and even interrelatedness, between white and Black culture in the United States.
The original illustrations were done by E. W. Kemble, at the time a young artist working for Life magazine. Kemble was hand-picked by Twain, who admired his work. Hearn suggests that Twain and Kemble had a similar skill, writing that:
Whatever he may have lacked in technical grace ... Kemble shared with the greatest illustrators the ability to give even the minor individual in a text his own distinct visual personality; just as Twain so deftly defined a full-rounded character in a few phrases, so too did Kemble depict with a few strokes of his pen that same entire personage.
As Kemble could afford only one model, most of his illustrations produced for the book were done by guesswork. When the novel was published, the illustrations were praised even as the novel was harshly criticized. E.W. Kemble produced another set of illustrations for Harper's and the American Publishing Company in 1898 and 1899 after Twain lost the copyright.
Twain initially conceived of the work as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that would follow Huckleberry Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a few pages he had removed from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next several years, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Hudson River, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade).
Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, "What you see is [Clemens'] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing". For example, Twain revised the opening line of Huck Finn three times. He initially wrote, "You will not know about me", which he changed to, "You do not know about me", before settling on the final version, "You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter." The revisions also show how Twain reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huck and Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the then-current debate over literacy and voting.
A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.
Demand for the book spread outside of the United States. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and the United Kingdom, and on February 18, 1885, in the United States. The illustration on page 283 became a point of issue after an engraver, whose identity was never discovered, made a last-minute addition to the printing plate of Kemble's picture of old Silas Phelps, which drew attention to Phelps' groin. Thirty thousand copies of the book had been printed before the obscenity was discovered. A new plate was made to correct the illustration and repair the existing copies.
In 1885, the Buffalo Public Library's curator, James Fraser Gluck, approached Twain to donate the manuscript to the library. Twain did so. Later it was believed that half of the pages had been misplaced by the printer. In 1991, the missing first half turned up in a steamer trunk owned by descendants of Gluck's. The library successfully claimed possession and, in 1994, opened the Mark Twain Room to showcase the treasure.
In relation to the literary climate at the time of the book's publication in 1885, Henry Nash Smith describes the importance of Mark Twain's already established reputation as a "professional humorist", having already published over a dozen other works. Smith suggests that while the "dismantling of the decadent Romanticism of the later nineteenth century was a necessary operation," Adventures of Huckleberry Finn illustrated "previously inaccessible resources of imaginative power, but also made vernacular language, with its new sources of pleasure and new energy, available for American prose and poetry in the twentieth century."
While it is clear that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was controversial from the outset, Norman Mailer, writing in The New York Times in 1984, concluded that Twain's novel was not initially "too unpleasantly regarded." In fact, Mailer writes: "the critical climate could hardly anticipate T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway's encomiums 50 years later," reviews that would remain longstanding in the American consciousness.
Alberti suggests that the academic establishment responded to the book's challenges both dismissively and with confusion. During Twain's time and today, defenders of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "lump all nonacademic critics of the book together as extremists and 'censors', thus equating the complaints about the book's 'coarseness' from the genteel bourgeois trustees of the Concord Public Library in the 1880s with more recent objections based on race and civil rights."
Upon issue of the American edition in 1885, several libraries banned it from their shelves. The early criticism focused on what was perceived as the book's crudeness. One incident was recounted in the newspaper the Boston Transcript:
The Concord (Mass.) Public Library committee has decided to exclude Mark Twain's latest book from the library. One member of the committee says that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest trash. The library and the other members of the committee entertain similar views, characterizing it as rough, coarse, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people.
Writer Louisa May Alcott criticized the book's publication as well, saying that if Twain "[could not] think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them".
In 1905, New York's Brooklyn Public Library also banned the book due to "bad word choice" and Huck's having "not only itched but scratched" within the novel, which was considered obscene. When asked by a Brooklyn librarian about the situation, Twain sardonically replied:
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
Many subsequent critics, Ernest Hemingway among them, have deprecated the final chapters, claiming the book "devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" after Jim is detained. Although Hemingway declared, "All modern American literature comes from" Huck Finn, and hailed it as "the best book we've had", he cautioned, "If you must read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys [sic]. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating." The African-American writer Ralph Ellison argued that "Hemingway missed completely the structural, symbolic and moral necessity for that part of the plot in which the boys rescue Jim. Yet it is precisely this part which gives the novel its significance." Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers states in his Twain biography (Mark Twain: A Life) that "Huckleberry Finn endures as a consensus masterpiece despite these final chapters", in which Tom Sawyer leads Huck through elaborate machinations to rescue Jim.
In his introduction to The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, Michael Patrick Hearn writes that Twain "could be uninhibitedly vulgar", and quotes critic William Dean Howells, a Twain contemporary, who wrote that the author's "humor was not for most women". However, Hearn continues by explaining that "the reticent Howells found nothing in the proofs of Huckleberry Finn so offensive that it needed to be struck out".
Much of modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim. According to Professor Stephen Railton of the University of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the stereotypes of Black people that White readers of his era expected and enjoyed, and, therefore, resorted to minstrel show-style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense, and ended up confirming rather than challenging late 19th-century racist stereotypes.
In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically altered interpretation of the text: in 1955, CBS tried to avoid controversial material in a televised version of the book, by deleting all mention of slavery and omitting the character of Jim entirely.
Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or anti-racist, and because the word "nigger" is frequently used in the novel (a commonly used word in Twain's time that has since become vulgar and taboo), many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the word "nigger" is illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the "most grotesque example of racism I've ever seen in my life". According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth-most frequently challenged book in the United States during the 1990s.
There have been several more recent cases involving protests for the banning of the novel. In 2003, high school student Calista Phair and her grandmother, Beatrice Clark, in Renton, Washington, proposed banning the book from classroom learning in the Renton School District, though not from any public libraries, because of the word "nigger". The two curriculum committees that considered her request eventually decided to keep the novel on the 11th grade curriculum, though they suspended it until a panel had time to review the novel and set a specific teaching procedure for the novel's controversial topics.
In 2009, a white Washington state high school teacher, John Foley, called for replacing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a more modern novel. In an opinion column that Foley wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, he states that all "novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go." He states that teaching the novel is not only unnecessary, but difficult due to the offensive language within the novel with many students becoming uncomfortable at "just hear[ing] the N-word."
In 2016, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was removed from a public school district in Virginia, along with the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, due to their use of racial slurs.
Publishers have made their own attempts at easing the controversy by way of releasing editions of the book with the word "nigger" replaced by less controversial words. A 2011 edition of the book, published by NewSouth Books, employed the word "slave" (although the word is not properly applied to a freed man). Their argument for making the change was to offer the reader a choice of reading a "sanitized" version if they were not comfortable with the original. Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben said he hoped the edition would be more friendly for use in classrooms, rather than have the work banned outright from classroom reading lists due to its language.
According to publisher Suzanne La Rosa, "At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain's works will be more emphatically fulfilled." Another scholar, Thomas Wortham, criticized the changes, saying the new edition "doesn't challenge children to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'" | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry \"Huck\" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The book is noted for \"changing the course of children's literature\" in the United States for the \"deeply felt portrayal of boyhood\". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and freedom.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist, criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur \"nigger\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, during the 1830s–1840s, Huckleberry \"Huck\" Finn has come into a considerable sum of money following The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and is placed under the strict guardianship of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson who attempt to civilize him. Despite missing the liberty of his life as a errant boy, Huck stays with the Widow Douglas to be a part of Tom Sawyer's gang. His father, \"Pap\", an abusive alcoholic, returns to town and tries to appropriate Huck's fortune. When this fails, Pap kidnaps Huck and imprisons him in a cabin in the woods.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "After a delirium tremens crisis, in which Pap tries to kill Huck, he decide to escape him. To escape his father, Huck elaborately fakes his own murder and sets off downriver. He settles on Jackson's Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck decides to go downriver with Jim to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After heavy flooding, the two find a timber raft and an entire house floating down the river. Inside, Jim finds a body that has been shot to death but prevents Huck from viewing the corpse. Huck sneaks into town and discovers there is a reward out for Jim, who is suspected of killing Huck; the two flee on their raft.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Huck and Jim come across a grounded steamer, the Walter Scott, where two thieves are discussing murdering a third. Finding that their own raft has drifted away, Huck and Jim flee in the thieves' boat before being noticed. They find their own raft again and sink the thieves' boat, keeping their loot. Huck tricks a watchman into going to rescue the stranded thieves to assuage his conscience. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog, and when they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the entire incident. Jim is disappointed when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim's strong feelings and apologizes.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Huck is conflicted about supporting a runaway slave, which he has been taught is a sin. He decides to turn Jim in, but when two white men seeking runaway slaves come upon the raft, he lies to them and they leave. Jim and Huck realize they have passed Cairo. With no way of getting back upriver, they decide to continue downriver. The raft is struck by a passing steamship, again separating the two.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On the riverbank, Huck meets the Grangerford family, who are engaged in a 30-year blood feud with the Shepherdson family, although no one remembers why the feud originally started. After a Grangerford daughter elopes with a Shepherdson boy, the feud boils over and all the Grangerford males are shot and killed in a Shepherdson ambush. Huck escapes and is reunited with Jim, who has recovered and repaired the raft.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Downriver, Jim and Huck are joined by two confidence men claiming to be a King and a Duke. The swindlers rope Huck and Jim into playing along with a series of scams. In one town, the swindlers scam the townsfolk with a short and overpriced performance. On the third night, the grifters flee before the townsfolk can take revenge. In the next town, the swindlers impersonate brothers of recently-deceased Peter Wilks to steal his estate. Huck tries to retrieve the money for Wilks's orphaned nieces. Two men claiming to be Wilks' real brothers arrive, causing an uproar. Huck tries to flee in the confusion, but is caught by the grifters. Eventually he escapes, but finds that the swindlers have sold Jim to the Phelps family plantation. Huck vows to free Jim, despite believing he will go to hell as a consequence.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Phelps family mistakes Huck for their nephew Tom, who is expected for a visit, and Huck plays along. It turns out their nephew is Tom Sawyer. When he arrives, he plays along with Huck's story and develops a theatrical plan to free Jim. During the escape, Tom is wounded. Jim tends to him instead of escaping, and is arrested and returned to the plantation. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals the boys' true identities. She explains that Miss Watson has died, freeing Jim in her will. Tom admits he knew this, but wanted to \"rescue\" Jim in style. Jim says that Huck's father was the dead man they found in the floating house, so Huck may return safely to St. Petersburg. Huck declares that he intends to flee west to Indian Territory to escape being adopted by the Phelps family.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In order of appearance:",
"title": "Characters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores themes of race and identity; what it means to be free and civilized; and the ideas of humanity and social responsibility in the changing landscape of America. A complexity exists concerning Jim's character. While some scholars point out that Jim is good-hearted and moral, and he is not unintelligent (in contrast to several of the more negatively depicted white characters), others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word \"nigger\" and emphasizing the stereotypically \"comic\" treatment of Jim's lack of education, superstition and ignorance. This argument is supported by incidents early in the novel where Huck deliberately \"tricks\" Jim, taking advantage of his gullibility and Jim still remains loyal to him.",
"title": "Themes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "But this novel is also Huck's 'coming of age' story where he overcomes his initial biases and forms a deeper bond with Jim. Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives. Huck is unable consciously to rebut those values even in his thoughts but he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Twain, in his lecture notes, proposes that \"a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience\" and goes on to describe the novel as \"a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat\".",
"title": "Themes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has Huck's father enslave his son, isolate him and beat him. When Huck escapes, he immediately encounters Jim \"illegally\" doing the same thing. The treatments both of them receive are radically different, especially in an encounter with Mrs. Judith Loftus who takes pity on who she presumes to be a runaway apprentice, Huck, yet boasts about her husband sending the hounds after a runaway slave, Jim.",
"title": "Themes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Some scholars discuss Huck's own character, and the novel itself, in the context of its relation to African-American culture as a whole. John Alberti quotes Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes in her 1990s book Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices, \"by limiting their field of inquiry to the periphery,\" white scholars \"have missed the ways in which African-American voices shaped Twain's creative imagination at its core.\" It is suggested that the character of Huckleberry Finn illustrates the correlation, and even interrelatedness, between white and Black culture in the United States.",
"title": "Themes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The original illustrations were done by E. W. Kemble, at the time a young artist working for Life magazine. Kemble was hand-picked by Twain, who admired his work. Hearn suggests that Twain and Kemble had a similar skill, writing that:",
"title": "Illustrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Whatever he may have lacked in technical grace ... Kemble shared with the greatest illustrators the ability to give even the minor individual in a text his own distinct visual personality; just as Twain so deftly defined a full-rounded character in a few phrases, so too did Kemble depict with a few strokes of his pen that same entire personage.",
"title": "Illustrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As Kemble could afford only one model, most of his illustrations produced for the book were done by guesswork. When the novel was published, the illustrations were praised even as the novel was harshly criticized. E.W. Kemble produced another set of illustrations for Harper's and the American Publishing Company in 1898 and 1899 after Twain lost the copyright.",
"title": "Illustrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Twain initially conceived of the work as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that would follow Huckleberry Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a few pages he had removed from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next several years, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Hudson River, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade).",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, \"What you see is [Clemens'] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing\". For example, Twain revised the opening line of Huck Finn three times. He initially wrote, \"You will not know about me\", which he changed to, \"You do not know about me\", before settling on the final version, \"You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter.\" The revisions also show how Twain reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huck and Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the then-current debate over literacy and voting.",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Demand for the book spread outside of the United States. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and the United Kingdom, and on February 18, 1885, in the United States. The illustration on page 283 became a point of issue after an engraver, whose identity was never discovered, made a last-minute addition to the printing plate of Kemble's picture of old Silas Phelps, which drew attention to Phelps' groin. Thirty thousand copies of the book had been printed before the obscenity was discovered. A new plate was made to correct the illustration and repair the existing copies.",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1885, the Buffalo Public Library's curator, James Fraser Gluck, approached Twain to donate the manuscript to the library. Twain did so. Later it was believed that half of the pages had been misplaced by the printer. In 1991, the missing first half turned up in a steamer trunk owned by descendants of Gluck's. The library successfully claimed possession and, in 1994, opened the Mark Twain Room to showcase the treasure.",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In relation to the literary climate at the time of the book's publication in 1885, Henry Nash Smith describes the importance of Mark Twain's already established reputation as a \"professional humorist\", having already published over a dozen other works. Smith suggests that while the \"dismantling of the decadent Romanticism of the later nineteenth century was a necessary operation,\" Adventures of Huckleberry Finn illustrated \"previously inaccessible resources of imaginative power, but also made vernacular language, with its new sources of pleasure and new energy, available for American prose and poetry in the twentieth century.\"",
"title": "Publication's effect on literary climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "While it is clear that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was controversial from the outset, Norman Mailer, writing in The New York Times in 1984, concluded that Twain's novel was not initially \"too unpleasantly regarded.\" In fact, Mailer writes: \"the critical climate could hardly anticipate T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway's encomiums 50 years later,\" reviews that would remain longstanding in the American consciousness.",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Alberti suggests that the academic establishment responded to the book's challenges both dismissively and with confusion. During Twain's time and today, defenders of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn \"lump all nonacademic critics of the book together as extremists and 'censors', thus equating the complaints about the book's 'coarseness' from the genteel bourgeois trustees of the Concord Public Library in the 1880s with more recent objections based on race and civil rights.\"",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Upon issue of the American edition in 1885, several libraries banned it from their shelves. The early criticism focused on what was perceived as the book's crudeness. One incident was recounted in the newspaper the Boston Transcript:",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Concord (Mass.) Public Library committee has decided to exclude Mark Twain's latest book from the library. One member of the committee says that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest trash. The library and the other members of the committee entertain similar views, characterizing it as rough, coarse, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people.",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Writer Louisa May Alcott criticized the book's publication as well, saying that if Twain \"[could not] think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them\".",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1905, New York's Brooklyn Public Library also banned the book due to \"bad word choice\" and Huck's having \"not only itched but scratched\" within the novel, which was considered obscene. When asked by a Brooklyn librarian about the situation, Twain sardonically replied:",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Many subsequent critics, Ernest Hemingway among them, have deprecated the final chapters, claiming the book \"devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy\" after Jim is detained. Although Hemingway declared, \"All modern American literature comes from\" Huck Finn, and hailed it as \"the best book we've had\", he cautioned, \"If you must read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys [sic]. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.\" The African-American writer Ralph Ellison argued that \"Hemingway missed completely the structural, symbolic and moral necessity for that part of the plot in which the boys rescue Jim. Yet it is precisely this part which gives the novel its significance.\" Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers states in his Twain biography (Mark Twain: A Life) that \"Huckleberry Finn endures as a consensus masterpiece despite these final chapters\", in which Tom Sawyer leads Huck through elaborate machinations to rescue Jim.",
"title": "Critical reception and banning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In his introduction to The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, Michael Patrick Hearn writes that Twain \"could be uninhibitedly vulgar\", and quotes critic William Dean Howells, a Twain contemporary, who wrote that the author's \"humor was not for most women\". However, Hearn continues by explaining that \"the reticent Howells found nothing in the proofs of Huckleberry Finn so offensive that it needed to be struck out\".",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Much of modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim. According to Professor Stephen Railton of the University of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the stereotypes of Black people that White readers of his era expected and enjoyed, and, therefore, resorted to minstrel show-style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense, and ended up confirming rather than challenging late 19th-century racist stereotypes.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically altered interpretation of the text: in 1955, CBS tried to avoid controversial material in a televised version of the book, by deleting all mention of slavery and omitting the character of Jim entirely.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or anti-racist, and because the word \"nigger\" is frequently used in the novel (a commonly used word in Twain's time that has since become vulgar and taboo), many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the word \"nigger\" is illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the \"most grotesque example of racism I've ever seen in my life\". According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth-most frequently challenged book in the United States during the 1990s.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "There have been several more recent cases involving protests for the banning of the novel. In 2003, high school student Calista Phair and her grandmother, Beatrice Clark, in Renton, Washington, proposed banning the book from classroom learning in the Renton School District, though not from any public libraries, because of the word \"nigger\". The two curriculum committees that considered her request eventually decided to keep the novel on the 11th grade curriculum, though they suspended it until a panel had time to review the novel and set a specific teaching procedure for the novel's controversial topics.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 2009, a white Washington state high school teacher, John Foley, called for replacing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a more modern novel. In an opinion column that Foley wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, he states that all \"novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go.\" He states that teaching the novel is not only unnecessary, but difficult due to the offensive language within the novel with many students becoming uncomfortable at \"just hear[ing] the N-word.\"",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 2016, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was removed from a public school district in Virginia, along with the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, due to their use of racial slurs.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Publishers have made their own attempts at easing the controversy by way of releasing editions of the book with the word \"nigger\" replaced by less controversial words. A 2011 edition of the book, published by NewSouth Books, employed the word \"slave\" (although the word is not properly applied to a freed man). Their argument for making the change was to offer the reader a choice of reading a \"sanitized\" version if they were not comfortable with the original. Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben said he hoped the edition would be more friendly for use in classrooms, rather than have the work banned outright from classroom reading lists due to its language.",
"title": "Controversy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "According to publisher Suzanne La Rosa, \"At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain's works will be more emphatically fulfilled.\" Another scholar, Thomas Wortham, criticized the changes, saying the new edition \"doesn't challenge children to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'\"",
"title": "Controversy"
}
]
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and freedom. Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist, criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger". | 2001-12-20T19:35:07Z | 2023-12-11T16:31:11Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn |
14,312 | Harpsichord | A harpsichord (Italian: clavicembalo; French: clavecin; German: Cembalo; Spanish: clavecín; Portuguese: cravo; Russian: Клавеси́н; Dutch: klavecimbel; Polish: klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop buttons which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute.
The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. The harpsichord was widely used in Renaissance and Baroque music, both as an accompaniment instrument and as a soloing instrument. During the Baroque era, the harpsichord was a standard part of the continuo group. The basso continuo part acted as the foundation for many musical pieces in this era. During the late 18th century, with the development of the fortepiano (and then the increasing use of the piano in the 19th century) the harpsichord gradually disappeared from the musical scene (except in opera, where it continued to be used to accompany recitative). In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in historically informed performances of older music, in new compositions, and, in rare cases, in certain styles of popular music (e.g., Baroque pop).
The harpsichord was most likely invented in the late Middle Ages. By the 16th century, harpsichord makers in Italy were making lightweight instruments with low tension brass stringing. A different approach was taken in the Southern Netherlands starting in the late 16th century, notably by the Ruckers family. Their harpsichords used a heavier construction and produced a more powerful and distinctive tone with higher tension steel treble stringing. These included the first harpsichords with two keyboards, used for transposition.
The Flemish instruments served as the model for 18th-century harpsichord construction in other nations. In France, the double keyboards were adapted to control different choirs of strings, making a more musically flexible instrument (so-called 'expressive doubles'). Instruments from the peak of the French tradition, by makers such as the Blanchet family and Pascal Taskin, are among the most widely admired of all harpsichords, and are frequently used as models for the construction of modern instruments. In England, the Kirkman and Shudi firms produced sophisticated harpsichords of great power and sonority. German builders such as Hieronymus Albrecht Hass extended the sound repertoire of the instrument by adding sixteen-foot and two-foot choirs; these instruments have recently served as models for modern builders.
Around the year 1700 the first fortepiano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori. The early fortepiano uses percussion, the strings being struck with leathered paper hammers instead of being plucked. The fortepiano is capable of changes in dynamic volume, giving it its name. This is unlike the harpsichord. By the late 18th century the harpsichord was supplanted by the piano and almost disappeared from view for most of the 19th century: an exception was its continued use in opera for accompanying recitative, but the piano sometimes displaced it even there.
Twentieth-century efforts to revive the harpsichord began with instruments that used piano technology, with heavy strings and metal frames. Starting in the middle of the 20th century, ideas about harpsichord making underwent a major change, when builders such as Frank Hubbard, William Dowd, and Martin Skowroneck sought to re-establish the building traditions of the Baroque period. Harpsichords of this type of historically informed building practice dominate the current scene.
Harpsichords vary in size and shape, but all have the same basic mechanism. The player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length. The other end of the key lifts a jack (a long strip of wood) that holds a small plectrum (a wedge-shaped piece of quill, often made of plastic in the 21st century), which plucks the string. When the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, and the jack falls back; the plectrum, mounted on a tongue mechanism that can swivel backwards away from the string, passes the string without plucking it again. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the string's vibrations. These basic principles are explained in detail below.
Each string is wound around a tuning pin (also known as a wrest pin) at the end nearest the player. When rotated with a wrench or tuning hammer, the tuning pin adjusts the tension so that the string sounds the correct pitch. Tuning pins are held tightly in holes drilled in the pinblock or wrestplank, an oblong hardwood plank. Proceeding from the tuning pin, a string next passes over the nut, a sharp edge that is made of hardwood and is normally attached to the wrestplank. The section of the string beyond the nut forms its vibrating length, which is plucked and creates sound.
At the other end of its vibrating length, the string passes over the bridge, another sharp edge made of hardwood. As with the nut, the horizontal position of the string along the bridge is determined by a vertical metal pin inserted into the bridge, against which the string rests. The bridge itself rests on a soundboard, a thin panel of wood usually made of spruce, fir or—in some Italian harpsichords—cypress. The soundboard efficiently transmits the vibrations of the strings into vibrations in the air; without a soundboard, the strings would produce only a very feeble sound. A string is attached at its far end by a loop to a hitchpin that secures it to the case.
While many harpsichords have one string per note, more elaborate harpsichords can have two or more strings for each note. When there are multiple strings for each note, these additional strings are called "choirs" of strings. This provides two advantages: the ability to vary volume and ability to vary tonal quality. Volume is increased when the mechanism of the instrument is set up by the player (see below) so that the press of a single key plucks more than one string. Tonal quality can be varied in two ways. First, different choirs of strings can be designed to have distinct tonal qualities, usually by having one set of strings plucked closer to the nut, which emphasizes the higher harmonics, and produces a "nasal" sound quality. The mechanism of the instrument, called "stops" (following the use of the term in pipe organs) permits the player to select one choir or the other. Second, having one key pluck two strings at once changes not just volume but also tonal quality; for instance, when two strings tuned to the same pitch are plucked simultaneously, the note is not just louder but also richer and more complex.
A particularly vivid effect is obtained when the strings plucked simultaneously are an octave apart. This is normally heard by the ear not as two pitches but as one: the sound of the higher string is blended with that of the lower one, and the ear hears the lower pitch, enriched in tonal quality by the additional strength in the upper harmonics of the note sounded by the higher string.
When describing a harpsichord it is customary to specify its choirs of strings, often called its disposition. To describe the pitch of the choirs of strings, pipe organ terminology is used. Strings at eight-foot pitch (8') sound at the normal expected pitch, strings at four-foot pitch (4') sound an octave higher. Harpsichords occasionally include a sixteen-foot (16') choir (one octave lower than eight-foot) or a two-foot (2') choir (two octaves higher; quite rare). When there are multiple choirs of strings, the player is often able to control which choirs sound. This is usually done by having a set of jacks for each choir, and a mechanism for "turning off" each set, often by moving the upper register (through which the jacks slide) sideways a short distance, so that their plectra miss the strings. In simpler instruments this is done by manually moving the registers, but as the harpsichord evolved, builders invented levers, knee levers and pedal mechanisms to make it easier to change registration.
Harpsichords with more than one keyboard (this usually means two keyboards, stacked one on top of the other in a step-wise fashion, as with pipe organs) provide flexibility in selecting which strings play, since each manual can be set to control the plucking of a different set of strings. This means that a player can have, for instance, an 8' manual and a 4' manual ready for use, enabling him to switch between them to obtain higher (or lower) pitches or different tone. In addition, such harpsichords often have a mechanism (the "coupler") that couples manuals together, so that a single manual plays both sets of strings.
The most flexible system is the French "shove coupler", in which the lower manual slides forward and backward. In the backward position, "dogs" attached to the upper surface of the lower manual engage the lower surface of the upper manual's keys. Depending on choice of keyboard and coupler position, the player can select any of the sets of jacks labeled in "figure 4" as A, or B and C, or all three.
The English "dogleg" jack system (also used in Baroque Flanders) does not require a coupler. The jacks labeled A in Figure 5 have a "dogleg" shape that permits either keyboard to play A. If the player wishes to play the upper 8' from the upper manual only and not from the lower manual, a stop handle disengages the jacks labeled A and engages instead an alternative row of jacks called "lute stop" (not shown in the Figure). A lute stop is used to imitate the gentle sound of a plucked lute.
The use of multiple manuals in a harpsichord was not originally provided for the flexibility in choosing which strings would sound, but rather for transposition of the instrument to play in different keys (see History of the harpsichord).
Some early harpsichords used a short octave for the lowest register. The rationale behind this system was that the low notes F♯ and G♯ are seldom needed in early music. Deep bass notes typically form the root of the chord, and F♯ and G♯ chords were seldom used at this time. In contrast, low C and D, both roots of very common chords, are sorely missed if a harpsichord with lowest key E is tuned to match the keyboard layout. When scholars specify the pitch range of instruments with this kind of short octave, they write "C/E", meaning that the lowest note is a C, played on a key that normally would sound E. In another arrangement, known as "G/B', the apparent lowest key B is tuned to G, and apparent C-sharp and D-sharp are tuned to A and B respectively.
The wooden case holds in position all of the important structural members: pinblock, soundboard, hitchpins, keyboard, and the jack action. It usually includes a solid bottom, and also internal bracing to maintain its form without warping under the tension of the strings. Cases vary greatly in weight and sturdiness: Italian harpsichords are often of light construction; heavier construction is found in the later Flemish instruments and those derived from them.
The case also gives the harpsichord its external appearance and protects the instrument. A large harpsichord is, in a sense, a piece of furniture, as it stands alone on legs and may be styled in the manner of other furniture of its place and period. Early Italian instruments, on the other hand, were so light in construction that they were treated rather like a violin: kept for storage in a protective outer case, and played after taking it out of its case and placing it on a table. Such tables were often quite high – until the late 18th century people usually played standing up. Eventually, harpsichords came to be built with just a single case, though an intermediate stage also existed: the false inner–outer, which for purely aesthetic reasons was built to look as if the outer case contained an inner one, in the old style. Even after harpsichords became self-encased objects, they often were supported by separate stands, and some modern harpsichords have separate legs for improved portability.
Many harpsichords have a lid that can be raised, a cover for the keyboard, and a music stand for holding sheet music and scores.
Harpsichords have been decorated in a great many different ways: with plain buff paint (e.g. some Flemish instruments), with paper printed with patterns, with leather or velvet coverings, with chinoiserie, or occasionally with highly elaborate painted artwork.
The virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord having only one string per note; the strings run parallel to the keyboard, which is on the long side of the case.
A spinet is a harpsichord with the strings set at an angle (usually about 30 degrees) to the keyboard. The strings are too close together for the jacks to fit between them. Instead, the strings are arranged in pairs, and the jacks are in the larger gaps between the pairs. The two jacks in each gap face in opposite directions, and each plucks a string adjacent to the gap.
The English diarist Samuel Pepys mentions his "tryangle" several times. This was not the percussion instrument that we call triangle today; rather, it was a name for octave-pitched spinets, which were triangular in shape.
A clavicytherium is a harpsichord with the soundboard and strings mounted vertically facing the player, the same space-saving principle as an upright piano. In a clavicytherium, the jacks move horizontally without the assistance of gravity, so that clavicytherium actions are more complex than those of other harpsichords.
Ottavini are small spinets or virginals at four-foot pitch. Harpsichords at octave pitch were more common in the early Renaissance, but lessened in popularity later on. However, the ottavino remained very popular as a domestic instrument in Italy until the 19th century. In the Low Countries, an ottavino was commonly paired with an 8' virginals, encased in a small cubby under the soundboard of the larger instrument. The ottavino could be removed and placed on top of the virginal, making, in effect, a double manual instrument. These are sometimes called 'mother-and-child' or 'double' virginals.
Occasionally, harpsichords were built which included another set or sets of strings underneath and played by foot-operated pedal keyboard which trigger the plucking of the lowest-pitched keys of the harpsichord. Although there are no known extant pedal harpsichords from the 18th century or before, from Adlung (1758): the lower set of usually 8' strings "...is built like an ordinary harpsichord, but with an extent of two octaves only. The jacks are similar, but they will benefit from being arranged back to back, since the two [bass] octaves take as much space as four in an ordinary harpsichord Prior to 1980 when Keith Hill introduced his design for a pedal harpsichord, most pedal harpsichords were built based on the designs of extant pedal pianos from the 19th century, in which the instrument is as wide as the pedalboard. While these were mostly intended as practice instruments for organists, a few pieces are believed to have been written specifically for the pedal harpsichord. However, the set of pedals can augment the sound from any piece performed on the instrument, as demonstrated on several albums by E. Power Biggs.
The archicembalo, built in the 16th century, had an unusual keyboard layout, designed to accommodate variant tuning systems demanded by compositional practice and theoretical experimentation. More common were instruments with split sharps, also designed to accommodate the tuning systems of the time.
The folding harpsichord was an instrument that could be folded up to make it more compact, thus facilitating travelling with it.
On the whole, earlier harpsichords have smaller ranges than later ones, although there are many exceptions. The largest harpsichords have a range of just over five octaves, and the smallest have under four. Usually, the shortest keyboards were given extended range in the bass with a "short octave". The traditional pitch range for a 5-octave instrument is F1–F6 (FF–f‴).
Tuning pitch is often taken to be A4 = 415 Hz, roughly a semitone lower than the modern standard concert pitch of A4 = 440 Hz. An accepted exception is for French baroque repertoire, which is often performed with a = 392 Hz, approximately a semitone lower again. See Jean-Philippe Rameau's Treatise on Harmony (1722) [Dover Publications], Book One, chapter five, for insight into French baroque tuning; "Since most of these semitones are absolutely necessary in the tuning of organs and other similar instruments, the following chromatic system has been drawn up." Tuning an instrument nowadays usually starts with setting an A; historically it would commence from a C or an F.
Some modern instruments are built with keyboards that can shift sideways, allowing the player to align the mechanism with strings at either A = 415 Hz or A = 440 Hz. If a tuning other than equal temperament is used, the instrument requires retuning once the keyboard is shifted.
The great bulk of the standard repertoire for the harpsichord was written during its first historical flowering, the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
The first music written specifically for solo harpsichord was published around the early 16th century. Composers who wrote solo harpsichord music were numerous during the whole Baroque era in European countries including Italy, Germany, England and France. Solo harpsichord compositions included dance suites, fantasias, and fugues. Among the most famous composers who wrote for the harpsichord were the members of English virginal school of the late Renaissance, notably William Byrd (c. 1540–1623). In France, a great number of highly characteristic solo works were created and compiled into four books of ordres by François Couperin (1668–1733). Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) began his career in Italy but wrote most of his solo harpsichord works in Spain; his most famous work is his series of 555 harpsichord sonatas. Perhaps the most celebrated composers who wrote for the harpsichord were Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759), who composed numerous suites for harpsichord, and especially J. S. Bach (1685–1750), whose solo works (for instance, The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations), continue to be performed very widely, often on the piano. Bach was also a pioneer of the harpsichord concerto, both in works designated as such, and in the harpsichord part of his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.
Two of the most prominent composers of the Classical era, Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), wrote harpsichord music. For both, the instrument featured in the earlier period of their careers, and although they had come into contact with the piano later on, they nonetheless continued to play the harpsichord and clavichord for the rest of their lives. Mozart was noted to have played his second last keyboard concerto (the "Coronation") on the harpsichord.
Through the 19th century, the harpsichord was almost completely supplanted by the piano. In the 20th century, composers returned to the instrument, as they sought out variation in the sounds available to them. Under the influence of Arnold Dolmetsch, the harpsichordists Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (1872–1951) and in France, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), were at the forefront of the instrument's renaissance. Concertos for the instrument were written by Francis Poulenc (the Concert champêtre, 1927–28), and Manuel de Falla. Elliott Carter's Double Concerto is scored for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras. For a detailed account of music composed for the revived harpsichord, see Contemporary harpsichord.
Instruments
History
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Images
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Music
Technical | [
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"text": "A harpsichord (Italian: clavicembalo; French: clavecin; German: Cembalo; Spanish: clavecín; Portuguese: cravo; Russian: Клавеси́н; Dutch: klavecimbel; Polish: klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop buttons which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. The harpsichord was widely used in Renaissance and Baroque music, both as an accompaniment instrument and as a soloing instrument. During the Baroque era, the harpsichord was a standard part of the continuo group. The basso continuo part acted as the foundation for many musical pieces in this era. During the late 18th century, with the development of the fortepiano (and then the increasing use of the piano in the 19th century) the harpsichord gradually disappeared from the musical scene (except in opera, where it continued to be used to accompany recitative). In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in historically informed performances of older music, in new compositions, and, in rare cases, in certain styles of popular music (e.g., Baroque pop).",
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},
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"text": "The harpsichord was most likely invented in the late Middle Ages. By the 16th century, harpsichord makers in Italy were making lightweight instruments with low tension brass stringing. A different approach was taken in the Southern Netherlands starting in the late 16th century, notably by the Ruckers family. Their harpsichords used a heavier construction and produced a more powerful and distinctive tone with higher tension steel treble stringing. These included the first harpsichords with two keyboards, used for transposition.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Flemish instruments served as the model for 18th-century harpsichord construction in other nations. In France, the double keyboards were adapted to control different choirs of strings, making a more musically flexible instrument (so-called 'expressive doubles'). Instruments from the peak of the French tradition, by makers such as the Blanchet family and Pascal Taskin, are among the most widely admired of all harpsichords, and are frequently used as models for the construction of modern instruments. In England, the Kirkman and Shudi firms produced sophisticated harpsichords of great power and sonority. German builders such as Hieronymus Albrecht Hass extended the sound repertoire of the instrument by adding sixteen-foot and two-foot choirs; these instruments have recently served as models for modern builders.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Around the year 1700 the first fortepiano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori. The early fortepiano uses percussion, the strings being struck with leathered paper hammers instead of being plucked. The fortepiano is capable of changes in dynamic volume, giving it its name. This is unlike the harpsichord. By the late 18th century the harpsichord was supplanted by the piano and almost disappeared from view for most of the 19th century: an exception was its continued use in opera for accompanying recitative, but the piano sometimes displaced it even there.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Twentieth-century efforts to revive the harpsichord began with instruments that used piano technology, with heavy strings and metal frames. Starting in the middle of the 20th century, ideas about harpsichord making underwent a major change, when builders such as Frank Hubbard, William Dowd, and Martin Skowroneck sought to re-establish the building traditions of the Baroque period. Harpsichords of this type of historically informed building practice dominate the current scene.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Harpsichords vary in size and shape, but all have the same basic mechanism. The player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length. The other end of the key lifts a jack (a long strip of wood) that holds a small plectrum (a wedge-shaped piece of quill, often made of plastic in the 21st century), which plucks the string. When the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, and the jack falls back; the plectrum, mounted on a tongue mechanism that can swivel backwards away from the string, passes the string without plucking it again. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the string's vibrations. These basic principles are explained in detail below.",
"title": "Mechanism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Each string is wound around a tuning pin (also known as a wrest pin) at the end nearest the player. When rotated with a wrench or tuning hammer, the tuning pin adjusts the tension so that the string sounds the correct pitch. Tuning pins are held tightly in holes drilled in the pinblock or wrestplank, an oblong hardwood plank. Proceeding from the tuning pin, a string next passes over the nut, a sharp edge that is made of hardwood and is normally attached to the wrestplank. The section of the string beyond the nut forms its vibrating length, which is plucked and creates sound.",
"title": "Strings, tuning, and soundboard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "At the other end of its vibrating length, the string passes over the bridge, another sharp edge made of hardwood. As with the nut, the horizontal position of the string along the bridge is determined by a vertical metal pin inserted into the bridge, against which the string rests. The bridge itself rests on a soundboard, a thin panel of wood usually made of spruce, fir or—in some Italian harpsichords—cypress. The soundboard efficiently transmits the vibrations of the strings into vibrations in the air; without a soundboard, the strings would produce only a very feeble sound. A string is attached at its far end by a loop to a hitchpin that secures it to the case.",
"title": "Strings, tuning, and soundboard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "While many harpsichords have one string per note, more elaborate harpsichords can have two or more strings for each note. When there are multiple strings for each note, these additional strings are called \"choirs\" of strings. This provides two advantages: the ability to vary volume and ability to vary tonal quality. Volume is increased when the mechanism of the instrument is set up by the player (see below) so that the press of a single key plucks more than one string. Tonal quality can be varied in two ways. First, different choirs of strings can be designed to have distinct tonal qualities, usually by having one set of strings plucked closer to the nut, which emphasizes the higher harmonics, and produces a \"nasal\" sound quality. The mechanism of the instrument, called \"stops\" (following the use of the term in pipe organs) permits the player to select one choir or the other. Second, having one key pluck two strings at once changes not just volume but also tonal quality; for instance, when two strings tuned to the same pitch are plucked simultaneously, the note is not just louder but also richer and more complex.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A particularly vivid effect is obtained when the strings plucked simultaneously are an octave apart. This is normally heard by the ear not as two pitches but as one: the sound of the higher string is blended with that of the lower one, and the ear hears the lower pitch, enriched in tonal quality by the additional strength in the upper harmonics of the note sounded by the higher string.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "When describing a harpsichord it is customary to specify its choirs of strings, often called its disposition. To describe the pitch of the choirs of strings, pipe organ terminology is used. Strings at eight-foot pitch (8') sound at the normal expected pitch, strings at four-foot pitch (4') sound an octave higher. Harpsichords occasionally include a sixteen-foot (16') choir (one octave lower than eight-foot) or a two-foot (2') choir (two octaves higher; quite rare). When there are multiple choirs of strings, the player is often able to control which choirs sound. This is usually done by having a set of jacks for each choir, and a mechanism for \"turning off\" each set, often by moving the upper register (through which the jacks slide) sideways a short distance, so that their plectra miss the strings. In simpler instruments this is done by manually moving the registers, but as the harpsichord evolved, builders invented levers, knee levers and pedal mechanisms to make it easier to change registration.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Harpsichords with more than one keyboard (this usually means two keyboards, stacked one on top of the other in a step-wise fashion, as with pipe organs) provide flexibility in selecting which strings play, since each manual can be set to control the plucking of a different set of strings. This means that a player can have, for instance, an 8' manual and a 4' manual ready for use, enabling him to switch between them to obtain higher (or lower) pitches or different tone. In addition, such harpsichords often have a mechanism (the \"coupler\") that couples manuals together, so that a single manual plays both sets of strings.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The most flexible system is the French \"shove coupler\", in which the lower manual slides forward and backward. In the backward position, \"dogs\" attached to the upper surface of the lower manual engage the lower surface of the upper manual's keys. Depending on choice of keyboard and coupler position, the player can select any of the sets of jacks labeled in \"figure 4\" as A, or B and C, or all three.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The English \"dogleg\" jack system (also used in Baroque Flanders) does not require a coupler. The jacks labeled A in Figure 5 have a \"dogleg\" shape that permits either keyboard to play A. If the player wishes to play the upper 8' from the upper manual only and not from the lower manual, a stop handle disengages the jacks labeled A and engages instead an alternative row of jacks called \"lute stop\" (not shown in the Figure). A lute stop is used to imitate the gentle sound of a plucked lute.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The use of multiple manuals in a harpsichord was not originally provided for the flexibility in choosing which strings would sound, but rather for transposition of the instrument to play in different keys (see History of the harpsichord).",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Some early harpsichords used a short octave for the lowest register. The rationale behind this system was that the low notes F♯ and G♯ are seldom needed in early music. Deep bass notes typically form the root of the chord, and F♯ and G♯ chords were seldom used at this time. In contrast, low C and D, both roots of very common chords, are sorely missed if a harpsichord with lowest key E is tuned to match the keyboard layout. When scholars specify the pitch range of instruments with this kind of short octave, they write \"C/E\", meaning that the lowest note is a C, played on a key that normally would sound E. In another arrangement, known as \"G/B', the apparent lowest key B is tuned to G, and apparent C-sharp and D-sharp are tuned to A and B respectively.",
"title": "Multiple manuals and choirs of strings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The wooden case holds in position all of the important structural members: pinblock, soundboard, hitchpins, keyboard, and the jack action. It usually includes a solid bottom, and also internal bracing to maintain its form without warping under the tension of the strings. Cases vary greatly in weight and sturdiness: Italian harpsichords are often of light construction; heavier construction is found in the later Flemish instruments and those derived from them.",
"title": "Case"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The case also gives the harpsichord its external appearance and protects the instrument. A large harpsichord is, in a sense, a piece of furniture, as it stands alone on legs and may be styled in the manner of other furniture of its place and period. Early Italian instruments, on the other hand, were so light in construction that they were treated rather like a violin: kept for storage in a protective outer case, and played after taking it out of its case and placing it on a table. Such tables were often quite high – until the late 18th century people usually played standing up. Eventually, harpsichords came to be built with just a single case, though an intermediate stage also existed: the false inner–outer, which for purely aesthetic reasons was built to look as if the outer case contained an inner one, in the old style. Even after harpsichords became self-encased objects, they often were supported by separate stands, and some modern harpsichords have separate legs for improved portability.",
"title": "Case"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Many harpsichords have a lid that can be raised, a cover for the keyboard, and a music stand for holding sheet music and scores.",
"title": "Case"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Harpsichords have been decorated in a great many different ways: with plain buff paint (e.g. some Flemish instruments), with paper printed with patterns, with leather or velvet coverings, with chinoiserie, or occasionally with highly elaborate painted artwork.",
"title": "Case"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord having only one string per note; the strings run parallel to the keyboard, which is on the long side of the case.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "A spinet is a harpsichord with the strings set at an angle (usually about 30 degrees) to the keyboard. The strings are too close together for the jacks to fit between them. Instead, the strings are arranged in pairs, and the jacks are in the larger gaps between the pairs. The two jacks in each gap face in opposite directions, and each plucks a string adjacent to the gap.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The English diarist Samuel Pepys mentions his \"tryangle\" several times. This was not the percussion instrument that we call triangle today; rather, it was a name for octave-pitched spinets, which were triangular in shape.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "A clavicytherium is a harpsichord with the soundboard and strings mounted vertically facing the player, the same space-saving principle as an upright piano. In a clavicytherium, the jacks move horizontally without the assistance of gravity, so that clavicytherium actions are more complex than those of other harpsichords.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Ottavini are small spinets or virginals at four-foot pitch. Harpsichords at octave pitch were more common in the early Renaissance, but lessened in popularity later on. However, the ottavino remained very popular as a domestic instrument in Italy until the 19th century. In the Low Countries, an ottavino was commonly paired with an 8' virginals, encased in a small cubby under the soundboard of the larger instrument. The ottavino could be removed and placed on top of the virginal, making, in effect, a double manual instrument. These are sometimes called 'mother-and-child' or 'double' virginals.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Occasionally, harpsichords were built which included another set or sets of strings underneath and played by foot-operated pedal keyboard which trigger the plucking of the lowest-pitched keys of the harpsichord. Although there are no known extant pedal harpsichords from the 18th century or before, from Adlung (1758): the lower set of usually 8' strings \"...is built like an ordinary harpsichord, but with an extent of two octaves only. The jacks are similar, but they will benefit from being arranged back to back, since the two [bass] octaves take as much space as four in an ordinary harpsichord Prior to 1980 when Keith Hill introduced his design for a pedal harpsichord, most pedal harpsichords were built based on the designs of extant pedal pianos from the 19th century, in which the instrument is as wide as the pedalboard. While these were mostly intended as practice instruments for organists, a few pieces are believed to have been written specifically for the pedal harpsichord. However, the set of pedals can augment the sound from any piece performed on the instrument, as demonstrated on several albums by E. Power Biggs.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The archicembalo, built in the 16th century, had an unusual keyboard layout, designed to accommodate variant tuning systems demanded by compositional practice and theoretical experimentation. More common were instruments with split sharps, also designed to accommodate the tuning systems of the time.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The folding harpsichord was an instrument that could be folded up to make it more compact, thus facilitating travelling with it.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "On the whole, earlier harpsichords have smaller ranges than later ones, although there are many exceptions. The largest harpsichords have a range of just over five octaves, and the smallest have under four. Usually, the shortest keyboards were given extended range in the bass with a \"short octave\". The traditional pitch range for a 5-octave instrument is F1–F6 (FF–f‴).",
"title": "Compass and pitch range"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Tuning pitch is often taken to be A4 = 415 Hz, roughly a semitone lower than the modern standard concert pitch of A4 = 440 Hz. An accepted exception is for French baroque repertoire, which is often performed with a = 392 Hz, approximately a semitone lower again. See Jean-Philippe Rameau's Treatise on Harmony (1722) [Dover Publications], Book One, chapter five, for insight into French baroque tuning; \"Since most of these semitones are absolutely necessary in the tuning of organs and other similar instruments, the following chromatic system has been drawn up.\" Tuning an instrument nowadays usually starts with setting an A; historically it would commence from a C or an F.",
"title": "Compass and pitch range"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Some modern instruments are built with keyboards that can shift sideways, allowing the player to align the mechanism with strings at either A = 415 Hz or A = 440 Hz. If a tuning other than equal temperament is used, the instrument requires retuning once the keyboard is shifted.",
"title": "Compass and pitch range"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The great bulk of the standard repertoire for the harpsichord was written during its first historical flowering, the Renaissance and Baroque eras.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The first music written specifically for solo harpsichord was published around the early 16th century. Composers who wrote solo harpsichord music were numerous during the whole Baroque era in European countries including Italy, Germany, England and France. Solo harpsichord compositions included dance suites, fantasias, and fugues. Among the most famous composers who wrote for the harpsichord were the members of English virginal school of the late Renaissance, notably William Byrd (c. 1540–1623). In France, a great number of highly characteristic solo works were created and compiled into four books of ordres by François Couperin (1668–1733). Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) began his career in Italy but wrote most of his solo harpsichord works in Spain; his most famous work is his series of 555 harpsichord sonatas. Perhaps the most celebrated composers who wrote for the harpsichord were Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759), who composed numerous suites for harpsichord, and especially J. S. Bach (1685–1750), whose solo works (for instance, The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations), continue to be performed very widely, often on the piano. Bach was also a pioneer of the harpsichord concerto, both in works designated as such, and in the harpsichord part of his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Two of the most prominent composers of the Classical era, Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), wrote harpsichord music. For both, the instrument featured in the earlier period of their careers, and although they had come into contact with the piano later on, they nonetheless continued to play the harpsichord and clavichord for the rest of their lives. Mozart was noted to have played his second last keyboard concerto (the \"Coronation\") on the harpsichord.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Through the 19th century, the harpsichord was almost completely supplanted by the piano. In the 20th century, composers returned to the instrument, as they sought out variation in the sounds available to them. Under the influence of Arnold Dolmetsch, the harpsichordists Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (1872–1951) and in France, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), were at the forefront of the instrument's renaissance. Concertos for the instrument were written by Francis Poulenc (the Concert champêtre, 1927–28), and Manuel de Falla. Elliott Carter's Double Concerto is scored for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras. For a detailed account of music composed for the revived harpsichord, see Contemporary harpsichord.",
"title": "Music"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Instruments",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "History",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Listen",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Images",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Organisations",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Craftsman insights",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Music",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Technical",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop buttons which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute. The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. The harpsichord was widely used in Renaissance and Baroque music, both as an accompaniment instrument and as a soloing instrument. During the Baroque era, the harpsichord was a standard part of the continuo group. The basso continuo part acted as the foundation for many musical pieces in this era. During the late 18th century, with the development of the fortepiano the harpsichord gradually disappeared from the musical scene. In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in historically informed performances of older music, in new compositions, and, in rare cases, in certain styles of popular music. | 2001-12-21T08:04:39Z | 2023-12-27T05:02:22Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpsichord |
14,313 | Hair | Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and fine vellus hair. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types, and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial primarily composed of protein, notably alpha-keratin.
Attitudes towards different forms of hair, such as hairstyles and hair removal, vary widely across different cultures and historical periods, but it is often used to indicate a person's personal beliefs or social position, such as their age, gender, or religion.
The word "hair" usually refers to two distinct structures:
Hair fibers have a structure consisting of several layers, starting from the outside:
Each strand of hair is made up of the medulla, cortex, and cuticle. The innermost region, the medulla, is an open and unstructured region which is not always present. The highly structural and organized cortex, or second of three layers of the hair, is the primary source of mechanical strength and water uptake. The cortex contains melanin, which colors the fiber based on the number, distribution and types of melanin granules. The melanin may be evenly spaced or cluster around the edges of the hair. The shape of the follicle determines the shape of the cortex, and the shape of the fiber is related to how straight or curly the hair is. People with straight hair have round hair fibers. Oval and other shaped fibers are generally more wavy or curly. The cuticle is the outer covering. Its complex structure slides as the hair swells and is covered with a single molecular layer of lipid that makes the hair repel water. The diameter of human hair varies from 0.017 to 0.18 millimeters (0.00067 to 0.00709 in). Some of these characteristics in humans' head hair vary by race: people of mostly African ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 60-90 μm and a flat cross-section, while people of mostly European or Middle Eastern ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 70-100 μm and an oval cross-section, and people of mostly Asian or Native American ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 90-120 μm and a round cross-section. There are roughly two million small, tubular glands and sweat glands that produce watery fluids that cool the body by evaporation. The glands at the opening of the hair produce a fatty secretion that lubricates the hair.
Hair growth begins inside the hair follicle. The only "living" portion of the hair is found in the follicle. The hair that is visible is the hair shaft, which exhibits no biochemical activity and is considered "dead". The base of a hair's root (the "bulb") contains the cells that produce the hair shaft. Other structures of the hair follicle include the oil producing sebaceous gland which lubricates the hair and the arrector pili muscles, which are responsible for causing hairs to stand up. In humans with little body hair, the effect results in goose bumps.
The root of the hair ends in an enlargement, the hair bulb, which is whiter in color and softer in texture than the shaft and is lodged in a follicular involution of the epidermis called the hair follicle. The bulb of hair consists of fibrous connective tissue, glassy membrane, external root sheath, internal root sheath composed of epithelium stratum (Henle's layer) and granular stratum (Huxley's layer), cuticle, cortex and medulla.
All natural hair colors are the result of two types of hair pigments. Both of these pigments are melanin types, produced inside the hair follicle and packed into granules found in the fibers. Eumelanin is the dominant pigment in brown hair and black hair, while pheomelanin is dominant in red hair. Blond hair is the result of having little pigmentation in the hair strand. Gray hair occurs when melanin production decreases or stops, while poliosis is white hair (and often the skin to which the hair is attached), typically in spots that never possessed melanin at all, or ceased for natural reasons, generally genetic, in the first years of life.
Hair grows everywhere on the external body except for mucus membranes and glabrous skin, such as that found on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and lips.
The body has different types of hair, including vellus hair and androgenic hair, each with its own type of cellular construction. The different construction gives the hair unique characteristics, serving specific purposes, mainly, warmth and protection.
The three stages of hair growth are the anagen, catagen, and telogen phases. Each strand of hair on the human body is at its own stage of development. Once the cycle is complete, it restarts and a new strand of hair begins to form. The growth rate of hair varies from individual to individual depending on their age, genetic predisposition and a number of environmental factors. It is commonly stated that hair grows about 1 cm per month on average; however reality is more complex, since not all hair grows at once. Scalp hair was reported to grow between 0.6 cm and 3.36 cm per month. The growth rate of scalp hair somewhat depends on age (hair tends to grow more slowly with age), sex, and ethnicity. Thicker hair (>60 µm) grows generally faster (11.4 mm per month) than thinner (20-30 µm) hair (7.6 mm per month).
It was previously thought that Caucasian hair grew more quickly than Asian hair and that the growth rate of women's hair was faster than that of men. However, more recent research has shown that the growth rate of hair in men and women does not significantly differ and that the hair of Chinese people grew more quickly than the hair of French Caucasians and West and Central Africans. The quantity of hair hovers in a certain range depending on hair colour. An average blonde person has 150,000 hairs, a brown-haired person has 110,000, a black-haired person has 100,000, and a redhead has 90,000. Hair growth stops after a human's death. Visible growth of hair on the dead body happens only because of skin drying out due to water loss.
The world record for longest hair on a living person stands with Smita Srivastava of Uttar Pradesh, India. At 7 feet and 9 inches long, she broke a Guinness World Record in November 2023, having grown her hair for 32 years.
Hair exists in a variety of textures. Three main aspects of hair texture are the curl pattern, volume, and consistency. All mammalian hair is composed of keratin, so the make-up of hair follicles is not the source of varying hair patterns. There are a range of theories pertaining to the curl patterns of hair. Scientists have come to believe that the shape of the hair shaft has an effect on the curliness of the individual's hair. A very round shaft allows for fewer disulfide bonds to be present in the hair strand. This means the bonds present are directly in line with one another, resulting in straight hair.
The flatter the hair shaft becomes, the curlier hair gets, because the shape allows more cysteines to become compacted together resulting in a bent shape that, with every additional disulfide bond, becomes curlier in form. As the hair follicle shape determines curl pattern, the hair follicle size determines thickness. While the circumference of the hair follicle expands, so does the thickness of the hair follicle. An individual's hair volume, as a result, can be thin, normal, or thick. The consistency of hair can almost always be grouped into three categories: fine, medium, and coarse. This trait is determined by the hair follicle volume and the condition of the strand. Fine hair has the smallest circumference, coarse hair has the largest circumference, and medium hair is anywhere between the other two. Coarse hair has a more open cuticle than thin or medium hair causing it to be the most porous.
There are various systems that people use to classify their curl patterns. Being knowledgeable of an individual's hair type is a good start to knowing how to take care of one's hair. There is not just one method to discovering one's hair type. Additionally it is possible, and quite normal to have more than one kind of hair type, for instance having a mixture of both type 3a & 3b curls.
The Andre Walker Hair Typing System is the most widely used system to classify hair. The system was created by the hairstylist of Oprah Winfrey, Andre Walker. According to this system there are four types of hair: straight, wavy, curly, kinky.
This is a method which classifies the hair by curl pattern, hair-strand thickness and overall hair volume.
Hair is mainly composed of keratin proteins and keratin-associated proteins (KRTAPs). The human genome encodes 54 different keratin proteins which are present in various amounts in hair. Similarly, humans encode more than 100 different KRTAPs which crosslink keratins in hair. The content of KRTAPs ranges from less than 3% in human hair to 30–40% in echidna quill.
Many mammals have fur and other hairs that serve different functions. Hair provides thermal regulation and camouflage for many animals; for others it provides signals to other animals such as warnings, mating, or other communicative displays; and for some animals hair provides defensive functions and, rarely, even offensive protection. Hair also has a sensory function, extending the sense of touch beyond the surface of the skin. Guard hairs give warnings that may trigger a recoiling reaction.
While humans have developed clothing and other means of keeping warm, the hair found on the head serves primarily as a source of heat insulation and cooling (when sweat evaporates from soaked hair) as well as protection from ultra-violet radiation exposure. The function of hair in other locations is debated. Hats and coats are still required while doing outdoor activities in cold weather to prevent frostbite and hypothermia, but the hair on the human body does help to keep the internal temperature regulated. When the body is too cold, the arrector pili muscles found attached to hair follicles stand up, causing the hair in these follicles to do the same. These hairs then form a heat-trapping layer above the epidermis. This process is formally called piloerection, derived from the Latin words 'pilus' ('hair') and 'erectio' ('rising up'), but is more commonly known as 'having goose bumps' in English. This is more effective in other mammals whose fur fluffs up to create air pockets between hairs that insulate the body from the cold. The opposite actions occur when the body is too warm; the arrector muscles make the hair lie flat on the skin which allows heat to leave.
In some mammals, such as hedgehogs and porcupines, the hairs have been modified into hard spines or quills. These are covered with thick plates of keratin and serve as protection against predators. Thick hair such as that of the lion's mane and grizzly bear's fur do offer some protection from physical damages such as bites and scratches.
Displacement and vibration of hair shafts are detected by hair follicle nerve receptors and nerve receptors within the skin. Hairs can sense movements of air as well as touch by physical objects and they provide sensory awareness of the presence of ectoparasites. Some hairs, such as eyelashes, are especially sensitive to the presence of potentially harmful matter.
The eyebrows provide moderate protection to the eyes from dirt, sweat and rain. They also play a key role in non-verbal communication by displaying emotions such as sadness, anger, surprise and excitement. In many other mammals, they contain much longer, whisker-like hairs that act as tactile sensors.
The eyelash grows at the edges of the eyelid and protects the eye from dirt. The eyelash is to humans, camels, horses, ostriches etc., what whiskers are to cats; they are used to sense when dirt, dust, or any other potentially harmful object is too close to the eye. The eye reflexively closes as a result of this sensation.
Hair has its origins in the common ancestor of mammals, the synapsids, about 300 million years ago. It is currently unknown at what stage the synapsids acquired mammalian characteristics such as body hair and mammary glands, as the fossils only rarely provide direct evidence for soft tissues. Skin impression of the belly and lower tail of a pelycosaur, possibly Haptodus shows the basal synapsid stock bore transverse rows of rectangular scutes, similar to those of a modern crocodile, so the age of acquirement of hair logically could not have been earlier than ~299 ma, based on the current understanding of the animal's phylogeny. An exceptionally well-preserved skull of Estemmenosuchus, a therapsid from the Upper Permian, shows smooth, hairless skin with what appears to be glandular depressions, though as a semi-aquatic species it might not have been particularly useful to determine the integument of terrestrial species. The oldest undisputed known fossils showing unambiguous imprints of hair are the Callovian (late middle Jurassic) Castorocauda and several contemporary haramiyidans, both near-mammal cynodonts, giving the age as no later than ~220 ma based on the modern phylogenetic understanding of these clades. More recently, studies on terminal Permian Russian coprolites may suggest that non-mammalian synapsids from that era had fur. If this is the case, these are the oldest hair remnants known, showcasing that fur occurred as far back as the latest Paleozoic.
Some modern mammals have a special gland in front of each orbit used to preen the fur, called the harderian gland. Imprints of this structure are found in the skull of the small early mammals like Morganucodon, but not in their cynodont ancestors like Thrinaxodon.
The hairs of the fur in modern animals are all connected to nerves, and so the fur also serves as a transmitter for sensory input. Fur could have evolved from sensory hair (whiskers). The signals from this sensory apparatus is interpreted in the neocortex, a section of the brain that expanded markedly in animals like Morganucodon and Hadrocodium. The more advanced therapsids could have had a combination of naked skin, whiskers, and scutes. A full pelage likely did not evolve until the therapsid-mammal transition. The more advanced, smaller therapsids could have had a combination of hair and scutes, a combination still found in some modern mammals, such as rodents and the opossum.
The high interspecific variability of the size, color, and microstructure of hair often enables the identification of species based on single hair filaments.
In varying degrees most mammals have some skin areas without natural hair. On the human body, glabrous skin is found on the ventral portion of the fingers, palms, soles of feet and lips, which are all parts of the body most closely associated with interacting with the world around us, as are the labia minora and glans penis. There are four main types of mechanoreceptors in the glabrous skin of humans: Pacinian corpuscles, Meissner's corpuscles, Merkel's discs, and Ruffini corpuscles.
The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) has evolved skin lacking in general, pelagic hair covering, yet has retained long, very sparsely scattered tactile hairs over its body. Glabrousness is a trait that may be associated with neoteny.
Primates are relatively hairless compared to other mammals, and hominini such as chimpanzees, have less dense hair than would be expected given their body size for a primate. Evolutionary biologists suggest that the genus Homo arose in East Africa approximately 2 million years ago. Part of this evolution was the development of endurance running and venturing out during the hot times of the day that required efficient thermoregulation through perspiration. The loss of heat through heat of evaporation by means of sweat glands is aided by air currents next to the skin surface, which are facilitated by the loss of body hair.
Another factor in human evolution that also occurred in the prehistoric past was a preferential selection for neoteny, particularly in females. The idea that adult humans exhibit certain neotenous (juvenile) features, not evinced in the other great apes, is about a century old. Louis Bolk made a long list of such traits, and Stephen Jay Gould published a short list in Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In addition, paedomorphic characteristics in women are often acknowledged as desirable by men in developed countries. For instance, vellus hair is a juvenile characteristic. However, while men develop longer, coarser, thicker, and darker terminal hair through sexual differentiation, women do not, leaving their vellus hair visible.
Jablonski asserts head hair was evolutionarily advantageous for pre-humans to retain because it protected the scalp as they walked upright in the intense African (equatorial) UV light. While some might argue that, by this logic, humans should also express hairy shoulders because these body parts would putatively be exposed to similar conditions, the protection of the head, the seat of the brain that enabled humanity to become one of the most successful species on the planet (and which also is very vulnerable at birth) was arguably a more urgent issue (axillary hair in the underarms and groin were also retained as signs of sexual maturity). Sometime during the gradual process by which Homo erectus began a transition from furry skin to the naked skin expressed by Homo sapiens, hair texture putatively gradually changed from straight hair (the condition of most mammals, including humanity's closest cousins—chimpanzees) to Afro-textured hair or 'kinky' (i.e. tightly coiled). This argument assumes that curly hair better impedes the passage of UV light into the body relative to straight hair (thus curly or coiled hair would be particularly advantageous for light-skinned hominids living at the equator).
It is substantiated by Iyengar's findings (1998) that UV light can enter into straight human hair roots (and thus into the body through the skin) via the hair shaft. Specifically, the results of that study suggest that this phenomenon resembles the passage of light through fiber optic tubes (which do not function as effectively when kinked or sharply curved or coiled). In this sense, when hominids (i.e. Homo erectus) were gradually losing their straight body hair and thereby exposing the initially pale skin underneath their fur to the sun, straight hair would have been an adaptive liability. By inverse logic, later, as humans traveled farther from Africa and/or the equator, straight hair may have (initially) evolved to aid the entry of UV light into the body during the transition from dark, UV-protected skin to paler skin.
Jablonski's assertions suggest that the adjective "woolly" in reference to Afro-hair is a misnomer in connoting the high heat insulation derivable from the true wool of sheep. Instead, the relatively sparse density of Afro-hair, combined with its springy coils actually results in an airy, almost sponge-like structure that in turn, Jablonski argues, more likely facilitates an increase in the circulation of cool air onto the scalp. Further, wet Afro-hair does not stick to the neck and scalp unless totally drenched and instead tends to retain its basic springy puffiness because it less easily responds to moisture and sweat than straight hair does. In this sense, the trait may enhance comfort levels in intense equatorial climates more than straight hair (which, on the other hand, tends to naturally fall over the ears and neck to a degree that provides slightly enhanced comfort levels in cold climates relative to tightly coiled hair).
Further, it is notable that the most pervasive expression of this hair texture can be found in sub-Saharan Africa; a region of the world that abundant genetic and paleo-anthropological evidence suggests, was the relatively recent (≈200,000-year-old) point of origin for modern humanity. In fact, although genetic findings (Tishkoff, 2009) suggest that sub-Saharan Africans are the most genetically diverse continental group on Earth, Afro-textured hair approaches ubiquity in this region. This points to a strong, long-term selective pressure that, in stark contrast to most other regions of the genomes of sub-Saharan groups, left little room for genetic variation at the determining loci. Such a pattern, again, does not seem to support human sexual aesthetics as being the sole or primary cause of this distribution.
A group of studies have recently shown that genetic patterns at the EDAR locus, a region of the modern human genome that contributes to hair texture variation among most individuals of East Asian descent, support the hypothesis that (East Asian) straight hair likely developed in this branch of the modern human lineage subsequent to the original expression of tightly coiled natural afro-hair. Specifically, the relevant findings indicate that the EDAR mutation coding for the predominant East Asian 'coarse' or thick, straight hair texture arose within the past ≈65,000 years, which is a time frame that covers from the earliest of the 'Out of Africa' migrations up to now.
Ringworm is a fungal disease that targets hairy skin.
Premature greying of hair is another condition that results in greying before the age of 20 years in Europeans, before 25 years in Asians, and before 30 years in Africans.
Hair care involves the hygiene and cosmetology of hair including hair on the scalp, facial hair (beard and moustache), pubic hair and other body hair. Hair care routines differ according to an individual's culture and the physical characteristics of one's hair. Hair may be colored, trimmed, shaved, plucked, or otherwise removed with treatments such as waxing, sugaring, and threading.
Depilation is the removal of hair from the surface of the skin. This can be achieved through methods such as shaving. Epilation is the removal of the entire hair strand, including the part of the hair that has not yet left the follicle. A popular way to epilate hair is through waxing.
Shaving is accomplished with bladed instruments, such as razors. The blade is brought close to the skin and stroked over the hair in the desired area to cut the terminal hairs and leave the skin feeling smooth. Depending upon the rate of growth, one can begin to feel the hair growing back within hours of shaving. This is especially evident in men who develop a five o'clock shadow after having shaved their faces. This new growth is called stubble. Stubble typically appears to grow back thicker because the shaved hairs are blunted instead of tapered off at the end, although the hair never actually grows back thicker.
Waxing involves using a sticky wax and strip of paper or cloth to pull hair from the root. Waxing is the ideal hair removal technique to keep an area hair-free for long periods of time. It can take three to five weeks for waxed hair to begin to resurface again. Hair in areas that have been waxed consistently is known to grow back finer and thinner, especially compared to hair that has been shaved with a razor.
Laser hair removal is a cosmetic method where a small laser beam pulses selective heat on dark target matter in the area that causes hair growth without harming the skin tissue. This process is repeated several times over the course of many months to a couple of years with hair regrowing less frequently until it finally stops; this is used as a more permanent solution to waxing or shaving. Laser removal is practiced in many clinics along with many at-home products.
Because the hair on one's head is normally longer than other types of body hair, it is cut with scissors or clippers. People with longer hair will most often use scissors to cut their hair, whereas shorter hair is maintained using a trimmer. Depending on the desired length and overall health of the hair, periods without cutting or trimming the hair can vary.
Cut hair may be used in wigs. Global imports of hair in 2010 was worth $US 1.24 billion.
Hair has great social significance for human beings. It can grow on most external areas of the human body, except on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet (among other areas). Hair is most noticeable on most people in a small number of areas, which are also the ones that are most commonly trimmed, plucked, or shaved. These include the face, ears, head, eyebrows, legs, and armpits, as well as the pubic region. The highly visible differences between male and female body and facial hair are a notable secondary sex characteristic.
The world's longest documented hair belongs to Xie Qiuping (in China), at 5.627 m (18 ft 5.54 in) when measured on 8 May 2004. She has been growing her hair since 1973, from the age of 13.
Healthy hair indicates health and youth (important in evolutionary biology). Hair color and texture can be a sign of ethnic ancestry. Facial hair is a sign of puberty in men. White or gray hair is a sign of age or genetics, which may be concealed with hair dye (not easily for some), although many prefer to assume it (especially if it is a poliosis characteristic of the person since childhood). Male pattern baldness is a sign of age, which may be concealed with a toupee, hats, or religious and cultural adornments. Although drugs and medical procedures exist for the treatment of baldness, many balding men simply shave their heads. In early modern China, the queue was a male hairstyle worn by the Manchus from central Manchuria and the Han Chinese during the Qing dynasty; hair on the front of the head was shaved off above the temples every ten days, mimicking male-pattern baldness, and the rest of the hair braided into a long pigtail.
Hairstyle may be an indicator of group membership. During the English Civil War, the followers of Oliver Cromwell decided to crop their hair close to their head, as an act of defiance to the curls and ringlets of the king's men. This led to the Parliamentary faction being nicknamed Roundheads. Recent isotopic analysis of hair is helping to shed further light on sociocultural interaction, giving information on food procurement and consumption in the 19th century. Having bobbed hair was popular among the flappers in the 1920s as a sign of rebellion against traditional roles for women. Female art students known as the "cropheads" also adopted the style, notably at the Slade School in London, England. Regional variations in hirsutism cause practices regarding hair on the arms and legs to differ. Some religious groups may follow certain rules regarding hair as part of religious observance. The rules often differ for men and women.
Many subcultures have hairstyles which may indicate an unofficial membership. Many hippies, metalheads, and Indian sadhus have long hair, as well many older indie kids. Many punks wear a hairstyle known as a mohawk or other spiked and dyed hairstyles; skinheads have short-cropped or completely shaved heads. Long stylized bangs were very common for emos, scene kids and younger indie kids in the 2000s and early 2010s, among people of both genders.
Heads were shaved in concentration camps, and head-shaving has been used as punishment, especially for women with long hair. The shaven head is common in military haircuts, while Western monks are known for the tonsure. By contrast, among some Indian holy men, the hair is worn extremely long.
In the time of Confucius (5th century BCE), the Chinese grew out their hair and often tied it, as a symbol of filial piety. Regular hairdressing in some cultures is considered a sign of wealth or status. The dreadlocks of the Rastafari movement were despised early in the movement's history. In some cultures, having one's hair cut can symbolize a liberation from one's past, usually after a trying time in one's life. Cutting the hair also may be a sign of mourning.
Tightly coiled hair in its natural state may be worn in an Afro. This hairstyle was once worn among African Americans as a symbol of racial pride. Given that the coiled texture is the natural state of some African Americans' hair, or perceived as being more "African", this simple style is now often seen as a sign of self-acceptance and an affirmation that the beauty norms of the (eurocentric) dominant culture are not absolute. African Americans as a whole have a variety of hair textures, as they are not an ethnically homogeneous group, but an ad-hoc of different racial admixtures.
The film Easy Rider (1969) includes the assumption that the two main characters could have their long hairs forcibly shaved with a rusty razor when jailed, symbolizing the intolerance of some conservative groups toward members of the counterculture. At the conclusion of the Oz obscenity trials in the UK in 1971, the defendants had their heads shaved by the police, causing public outcry. During the appeal trial, they appeared in the dock wearing wigs. A case where a 14-year-old student was expelled from school in Brazil in the mid-2000s, allegedly because of his fauxhawk haircut, sparked national debate and legal action resulting in compensation.
Women's hair may be hidden using headscarves, a common part of the hijab in Islam and a symbol of modesty required for certain religious rituals in Eastern Orthodoxy. Russian Orthodox Church requires all married women to wear headscarves inside the church; this tradition is often extended to all women, regardless of marital status. Orthodox Judaism also commands the use of scarves and other head coverings for married women for modesty reasons. Certain Hindu sects also wear head scarves for religious reasons. Sikhs have an obligation not to cut hair (a Sikh cutting hair becomes 'apostate' which means fallen from religion) and men keep it tied in a bun on the head, which is then covered appropriately using a turban. Multiple religions, both ancient and contemporary, require or advise one to allow their hair to become dreadlocks, though people also wear them for fashion. For men, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and other religious groups have at various times recommended or required the covering of the head and sections of the hair of men, and some have dictates relating to the cutting of men's facial and head hair. Some Christian sects throughout history and up to modern times have also religiously proscribed the cutting of women's hair. For some Sunni madhabs, the donning of a kufi or topi is a form of sunnah.
Since ancient times, women's long, thick, wavy hair has featured prominently in Arabic poetry. Pre-Islamic poets used only limited imagery to describe women's hair. For example, al-A'sha wrote a verse comparing a lover's hair to "a garden whose grapes dangle down upon me", but Bashar ibn Burd considered this unusual. One comparison used by early poets, such as Imru al-Qays, was to bunches of dates. In Abbasid times, however, the imagery for hair expanded significantly - particularly for the then-fashionable "love-locks" (sudgh) framing the temples, which came into style at the court of the caliph al-Amin. Hair curls were compared to hooks and chains, letters (such as fa, waw, lam, and nun), scorpions, annelids, and polo sticks. An example was the poet Ibn al-Mu'tazz, who compared a lock of hair and a birthmark to a polo stick driving a ball. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and fine vellus hair. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types, and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial primarily composed of protein, notably alpha-keratin.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Attitudes towards different forms of hair, such as hairstyles and hair removal, vary widely across different cultures and historical periods, but it is often used to indicate a person's personal beliefs or social position, such as their age, gender, or religion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The word \"hair\" usually refers to two distinct structures:",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hair fibers have a structure consisting of several layers, starting from the outside:",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Each strand of hair is made up of the medulla, cortex, and cuticle. The innermost region, the medulla, is an open and unstructured region which is not always present. The highly structural and organized cortex, or second of three layers of the hair, is the primary source of mechanical strength and water uptake. The cortex contains melanin, which colors the fiber based on the number, distribution and types of melanin granules. The melanin may be evenly spaced or cluster around the edges of the hair. The shape of the follicle determines the shape of the cortex, and the shape of the fiber is related to how straight or curly the hair is. People with straight hair have round hair fibers. Oval and other shaped fibers are generally more wavy or curly. The cuticle is the outer covering. Its complex structure slides as the hair swells and is covered with a single molecular layer of lipid that makes the hair repel water. The diameter of human hair varies from 0.017 to 0.18 millimeters (0.00067 to 0.00709 in). Some of these characteristics in humans' head hair vary by race: people of mostly African ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 60-90 μm and a flat cross-section, while people of mostly European or Middle Eastern ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 70-100 μm and an oval cross-section, and people of mostly Asian or Native American ancestry tend to have hair with a diameter of 90-120 μm and a round cross-section. There are roughly two million small, tubular glands and sweat glands that produce watery fluids that cool the body by evaporation. The glands at the opening of the hair produce a fatty secretion that lubricates the hair.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hair growth begins inside the hair follicle. The only \"living\" portion of the hair is found in the follicle. The hair that is visible is the hair shaft, which exhibits no biochemical activity and is considered \"dead\". The base of a hair's root (the \"bulb\") contains the cells that produce the hair shaft. Other structures of the hair follicle include the oil producing sebaceous gland which lubricates the hair and the arrector pili muscles, which are responsible for causing hairs to stand up. In humans with little body hair, the effect results in goose bumps.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The root of the hair ends in an enlargement, the hair bulb, which is whiter in color and softer in texture than the shaft and is lodged in a follicular involution of the epidermis called the hair follicle. The bulb of hair consists of fibrous connective tissue, glassy membrane, external root sheath, internal root sheath composed of epithelium stratum (Henle's layer) and granular stratum (Huxley's layer), cuticle, cortex and medulla.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "All natural hair colors are the result of two types of hair pigments. Both of these pigments are melanin types, produced inside the hair follicle and packed into granules found in the fibers. Eumelanin is the dominant pigment in brown hair and black hair, while pheomelanin is dominant in red hair. Blond hair is the result of having little pigmentation in the hair strand. Gray hair occurs when melanin production decreases or stops, while poliosis is white hair (and often the skin to which the hair is attached), typically in spots that never possessed melanin at all, or ceased for natural reasons, generally genetic, in the first years of life.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hair grows everywhere on the external body except for mucus membranes and glabrous skin, such as that found on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and lips.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The body has different types of hair, including vellus hair and androgenic hair, each with its own type of cellular construction. The different construction gives the hair unique characteristics, serving specific purposes, mainly, warmth and protection.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The three stages of hair growth are the anagen, catagen, and telogen phases. Each strand of hair on the human body is at its own stage of development. Once the cycle is complete, it restarts and a new strand of hair begins to form. The growth rate of hair varies from individual to individual depending on their age, genetic predisposition and a number of environmental factors. It is commonly stated that hair grows about 1 cm per month on average; however reality is more complex, since not all hair grows at once. Scalp hair was reported to grow between 0.6 cm and 3.36 cm per month. The growth rate of scalp hair somewhat depends on age (hair tends to grow more slowly with age), sex, and ethnicity. Thicker hair (>60 µm) grows generally faster (11.4 mm per month) than thinner (20-30 µm) hair (7.6 mm per month).",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "It was previously thought that Caucasian hair grew more quickly than Asian hair and that the growth rate of women's hair was faster than that of men. However, more recent research has shown that the growth rate of hair in men and women does not significantly differ and that the hair of Chinese people grew more quickly than the hair of French Caucasians and West and Central Africans. The quantity of hair hovers in a certain range depending on hair colour. An average blonde person has 150,000 hairs, a brown-haired person has 110,000, a black-haired person has 100,000, and a redhead has 90,000. Hair growth stops after a human's death. Visible growth of hair on the dead body happens only because of skin drying out due to water loss.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The world record for longest hair on a living person stands with Smita Srivastava of Uttar Pradesh, India. At 7 feet and 9 inches long, she broke a Guinness World Record in November 2023, having grown her hair for 32 years.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hair exists in a variety of textures. Three main aspects of hair texture are the curl pattern, volume, and consistency. All mammalian hair is composed of keratin, so the make-up of hair follicles is not the source of varying hair patterns. There are a range of theories pertaining to the curl patterns of hair. Scientists have come to believe that the shape of the hair shaft has an effect on the curliness of the individual's hair. A very round shaft allows for fewer disulfide bonds to be present in the hair strand. This means the bonds present are directly in line with one another, resulting in straight hair.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The flatter the hair shaft becomes, the curlier hair gets, because the shape allows more cysteines to become compacted together resulting in a bent shape that, with every additional disulfide bond, becomes curlier in form. As the hair follicle shape determines curl pattern, the hair follicle size determines thickness. While the circumference of the hair follicle expands, so does the thickness of the hair follicle. An individual's hair volume, as a result, can be thin, normal, or thick. The consistency of hair can almost always be grouped into three categories: fine, medium, and coarse. This trait is determined by the hair follicle volume and the condition of the strand. Fine hair has the smallest circumference, coarse hair has the largest circumference, and medium hair is anywhere between the other two. Coarse hair has a more open cuticle than thin or medium hair causing it to be the most porous.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "There are various systems that people use to classify their curl patterns. Being knowledgeable of an individual's hair type is a good start to knowing how to take care of one's hair. There is not just one method to discovering one's hair type. Additionally it is possible, and quite normal to have more than one kind of hair type, for instance having a mixture of both type 3a & 3b curls.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Andre Walker Hair Typing System is the most widely used system to classify hair. The system was created by the hairstylist of Oprah Winfrey, Andre Walker. According to this system there are four types of hair: straight, wavy, curly, kinky.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "This is a method which classifies the hair by curl pattern, hair-strand thickness and overall hair volume.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hair is mainly composed of keratin proteins and keratin-associated proteins (KRTAPs). The human genome encodes 54 different keratin proteins which are present in various amounts in hair. Similarly, humans encode more than 100 different KRTAPs which crosslink keratins in hair. The content of KRTAPs ranges from less than 3% in human hair to 30–40% in echidna quill.",
"title": "Composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Many mammals have fur and other hairs that serve different functions. Hair provides thermal regulation and camouflage for many animals; for others it provides signals to other animals such as warnings, mating, or other communicative displays; and for some animals hair provides defensive functions and, rarely, even offensive protection. Hair also has a sensory function, extending the sense of touch beyond the surface of the skin. Guard hairs give warnings that may trigger a recoiling reaction.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "While humans have developed clothing and other means of keeping warm, the hair found on the head serves primarily as a source of heat insulation and cooling (when sweat evaporates from soaked hair) as well as protection from ultra-violet radiation exposure. The function of hair in other locations is debated. Hats and coats are still required while doing outdoor activities in cold weather to prevent frostbite and hypothermia, but the hair on the human body does help to keep the internal temperature regulated. When the body is too cold, the arrector pili muscles found attached to hair follicles stand up, causing the hair in these follicles to do the same. These hairs then form a heat-trapping layer above the epidermis. This process is formally called piloerection, derived from the Latin words 'pilus' ('hair') and 'erectio' ('rising up'), but is more commonly known as 'having goose bumps' in English. This is more effective in other mammals whose fur fluffs up to create air pockets between hairs that insulate the body from the cold. The opposite actions occur when the body is too warm; the arrector muscles make the hair lie flat on the skin which allows heat to leave.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In some mammals, such as hedgehogs and porcupines, the hairs have been modified into hard spines or quills. These are covered with thick plates of keratin and serve as protection against predators. Thick hair such as that of the lion's mane and grizzly bear's fur do offer some protection from physical damages such as bites and scratches.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Displacement and vibration of hair shafts are detected by hair follicle nerve receptors and nerve receptors within the skin. Hairs can sense movements of air as well as touch by physical objects and they provide sensory awareness of the presence of ectoparasites. Some hairs, such as eyelashes, are especially sensitive to the presence of potentially harmful matter.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The eyebrows provide moderate protection to the eyes from dirt, sweat and rain. They also play a key role in non-verbal communication by displaying emotions such as sadness, anger, surprise and excitement. In many other mammals, they contain much longer, whisker-like hairs that act as tactile sensors.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The eyelash grows at the edges of the eyelid and protects the eye from dirt. The eyelash is to humans, camels, horses, ostriches etc., what whiskers are to cats; they are used to sense when dirt, dust, or any other potentially harmful object is too close to the eye. The eye reflexively closes as a result of this sensation.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Hair has its origins in the common ancestor of mammals, the synapsids, about 300 million years ago. It is currently unknown at what stage the synapsids acquired mammalian characteristics such as body hair and mammary glands, as the fossils only rarely provide direct evidence for soft tissues. Skin impression of the belly and lower tail of a pelycosaur, possibly Haptodus shows the basal synapsid stock bore transverse rows of rectangular scutes, similar to those of a modern crocodile, so the age of acquirement of hair logically could not have been earlier than ~299 ma, based on the current understanding of the animal's phylogeny. An exceptionally well-preserved skull of Estemmenosuchus, a therapsid from the Upper Permian, shows smooth, hairless skin with what appears to be glandular depressions, though as a semi-aquatic species it might not have been particularly useful to determine the integument of terrestrial species. The oldest undisputed known fossils showing unambiguous imprints of hair are the Callovian (late middle Jurassic) Castorocauda and several contemporary haramiyidans, both near-mammal cynodonts, giving the age as no later than ~220 ma based on the modern phylogenetic understanding of these clades. More recently, studies on terminal Permian Russian coprolites may suggest that non-mammalian synapsids from that era had fur. If this is the case, these are the oldest hair remnants known, showcasing that fur occurred as far back as the latest Paleozoic.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Some modern mammals have a special gland in front of each orbit used to preen the fur, called the harderian gland. Imprints of this structure are found in the skull of the small early mammals like Morganucodon, but not in their cynodont ancestors like Thrinaxodon.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The hairs of the fur in modern animals are all connected to nerves, and so the fur also serves as a transmitter for sensory input. Fur could have evolved from sensory hair (whiskers). The signals from this sensory apparatus is interpreted in the neocortex, a section of the brain that expanded markedly in animals like Morganucodon and Hadrocodium. The more advanced therapsids could have had a combination of naked skin, whiskers, and scutes. A full pelage likely did not evolve until the therapsid-mammal transition. The more advanced, smaller therapsids could have had a combination of hair and scutes, a combination still found in some modern mammals, such as rodents and the opossum.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The high interspecific variability of the size, color, and microstructure of hair often enables the identification of species based on single hair filaments.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In varying degrees most mammals have some skin areas without natural hair. On the human body, glabrous skin is found on the ventral portion of the fingers, palms, soles of feet and lips, which are all parts of the body most closely associated with interacting with the world around us, as are the labia minora and glans penis. There are four main types of mechanoreceptors in the glabrous skin of humans: Pacinian corpuscles, Meissner's corpuscles, Merkel's discs, and Ruffini corpuscles.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) has evolved skin lacking in general, pelagic hair covering, yet has retained long, very sparsely scattered tactile hairs over its body. Glabrousness is a trait that may be associated with neoteny.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Primates are relatively hairless compared to other mammals, and hominini such as chimpanzees, have less dense hair than would be expected given their body size for a primate. Evolutionary biologists suggest that the genus Homo arose in East Africa approximately 2 million years ago. Part of this evolution was the development of endurance running and venturing out during the hot times of the day that required efficient thermoregulation through perspiration. The loss of heat through heat of evaporation by means of sweat glands is aided by air currents next to the skin surface, which are facilitated by the loss of body hair.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Another factor in human evolution that also occurred in the prehistoric past was a preferential selection for neoteny, particularly in females. The idea that adult humans exhibit certain neotenous (juvenile) features, not evinced in the other great apes, is about a century old. Louis Bolk made a long list of such traits, and Stephen Jay Gould published a short list in Ontogeny and Phylogeny. In addition, paedomorphic characteristics in women are often acknowledged as desirable by men in developed countries. For instance, vellus hair is a juvenile characteristic. However, while men develop longer, coarser, thicker, and darker terminal hair through sexual differentiation, women do not, leaving their vellus hair visible.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Jablonski asserts head hair was evolutionarily advantageous for pre-humans to retain because it protected the scalp as they walked upright in the intense African (equatorial) UV light. While some might argue that, by this logic, humans should also express hairy shoulders because these body parts would putatively be exposed to similar conditions, the protection of the head, the seat of the brain that enabled humanity to become one of the most successful species on the planet (and which also is very vulnerable at birth) was arguably a more urgent issue (axillary hair in the underarms and groin were also retained as signs of sexual maturity). Sometime during the gradual process by which Homo erectus began a transition from furry skin to the naked skin expressed by Homo sapiens, hair texture putatively gradually changed from straight hair (the condition of most mammals, including humanity's closest cousins—chimpanzees) to Afro-textured hair or 'kinky' (i.e. tightly coiled). This argument assumes that curly hair better impedes the passage of UV light into the body relative to straight hair (thus curly or coiled hair would be particularly advantageous for light-skinned hominids living at the equator).",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "It is substantiated by Iyengar's findings (1998) that UV light can enter into straight human hair roots (and thus into the body through the skin) via the hair shaft. Specifically, the results of that study suggest that this phenomenon resembles the passage of light through fiber optic tubes (which do not function as effectively when kinked or sharply curved or coiled). In this sense, when hominids (i.e. Homo erectus) were gradually losing their straight body hair and thereby exposing the initially pale skin underneath their fur to the sun, straight hair would have been an adaptive liability. By inverse logic, later, as humans traveled farther from Africa and/or the equator, straight hair may have (initially) evolved to aid the entry of UV light into the body during the transition from dark, UV-protected skin to paler skin.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Jablonski's assertions suggest that the adjective \"woolly\" in reference to Afro-hair is a misnomer in connoting the high heat insulation derivable from the true wool of sheep. Instead, the relatively sparse density of Afro-hair, combined with its springy coils actually results in an airy, almost sponge-like structure that in turn, Jablonski argues, more likely facilitates an increase in the circulation of cool air onto the scalp. Further, wet Afro-hair does not stick to the neck and scalp unless totally drenched and instead tends to retain its basic springy puffiness because it less easily responds to moisture and sweat than straight hair does. In this sense, the trait may enhance comfort levels in intense equatorial climates more than straight hair (which, on the other hand, tends to naturally fall over the ears and neck to a degree that provides slightly enhanced comfort levels in cold climates relative to tightly coiled hair).",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Further, it is notable that the most pervasive expression of this hair texture can be found in sub-Saharan Africa; a region of the world that abundant genetic and paleo-anthropological evidence suggests, was the relatively recent (≈200,000-year-old) point of origin for modern humanity. In fact, although genetic findings (Tishkoff, 2009) suggest that sub-Saharan Africans are the most genetically diverse continental group on Earth, Afro-textured hair approaches ubiquity in this region. This points to a strong, long-term selective pressure that, in stark contrast to most other regions of the genomes of sub-Saharan groups, left little room for genetic variation at the determining loci. Such a pattern, again, does not seem to support human sexual aesthetics as being the sole or primary cause of this distribution.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "A group of studies have recently shown that genetic patterns at the EDAR locus, a region of the modern human genome that contributes to hair texture variation among most individuals of East Asian descent, support the hypothesis that (East Asian) straight hair likely developed in this branch of the modern human lineage subsequent to the original expression of tightly coiled natural afro-hair. Specifically, the relevant findings indicate that the EDAR mutation coding for the predominant East Asian 'coarse' or thick, straight hair texture arose within the past ≈65,000 years, which is a time frame that covers from the earliest of the 'Out of Africa' migrations up to now.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Ringworm is a fungal disease that targets hairy skin.",
"title": "Disease"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Premature greying of hair is another condition that results in greying before the age of 20 years in Europeans, before 25 years in Asians, and before 30 years in Africans.",
"title": "Disease"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Hair care involves the hygiene and cosmetology of hair including hair on the scalp, facial hair (beard and moustache), pubic hair and other body hair. Hair care routines differ according to an individual's culture and the physical characteristics of one's hair. Hair may be colored, trimmed, shaved, plucked, or otherwise removed with treatments such as waxing, sugaring, and threading.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Depilation is the removal of hair from the surface of the skin. This can be achieved through methods such as shaving. Epilation is the removal of the entire hair strand, including the part of the hair that has not yet left the follicle. A popular way to epilate hair is through waxing.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Shaving is accomplished with bladed instruments, such as razors. The blade is brought close to the skin and stroked over the hair in the desired area to cut the terminal hairs and leave the skin feeling smooth. Depending upon the rate of growth, one can begin to feel the hair growing back within hours of shaving. This is especially evident in men who develop a five o'clock shadow after having shaved their faces. This new growth is called stubble. Stubble typically appears to grow back thicker because the shaved hairs are blunted instead of tapered off at the end, although the hair never actually grows back thicker.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Waxing involves using a sticky wax and strip of paper or cloth to pull hair from the root. Waxing is the ideal hair removal technique to keep an area hair-free for long periods of time. It can take three to five weeks for waxed hair to begin to resurface again. Hair in areas that have been waxed consistently is known to grow back finer and thinner, especially compared to hair that has been shaved with a razor.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Laser hair removal is a cosmetic method where a small laser beam pulses selective heat on dark target matter in the area that causes hair growth without harming the skin tissue. This process is repeated several times over the course of many months to a couple of years with hair regrowing less frequently until it finally stops; this is used as a more permanent solution to waxing or shaving. Laser removal is practiced in many clinics along with many at-home products.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Because the hair on one's head is normally longer than other types of body hair, it is cut with scissors or clippers. People with longer hair will most often use scissors to cut their hair, whereas shorter hair is maintained using a trimmer. Depending on the desired length and overall health of the hair, periods without cutting or trimming the hair can vary.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Cut hair may be used in wigs. Global imports of hair in 2010 was worth $US 1.24 billion.",
"title": "Hair care"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hair has great social significance for human beings. It can grow on most external areas of the human body, except on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet (among other areas). Hair is most noticeable on most people in a small number of areas, which are also the ones that are most commonly trimmed, plucked, or shaved. These include the face, ears, head, eyebrows, legs, and armpits, as well as the pubic region. The highly visible differences between male and female body and facial hair are a notable secondary sex characteristic.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The world's longest documented hair belongs to Xie Qiuping (in China), at 5.627 m (18 ft 5.54 in) when measured on 8 May 2004. She has been growing her hair since 1973, from the age of 13.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Healthy hair indicates health and youth (important in evolutionary biology). Hair color and texture can be a sign of ethnic ancestry. Facial hair is a sign of puberty in men. White or gray hair is a sign of age or genetics, which may be concealed with hair dye (not easily for some), although many prefer to assume it (especially if it is a poliosis characteristic of the person since childhood). Male pattern baldness is a sign of age, which may be concealed with a toupee, hats, or religious and cultural adornments. Although drugs and medical procedures exist for the treatment of baldness, many balding men simply shave their heads. In early modern China, the queue was a male hairstyle worn by the Manchus from central Manchuria and the Han Chinese during the Qing dynasty; hair on the front of the head was shaved off above the temples every ten days, mimicking male-pattern baldness, and the rest of the hair braided into a long pigtail.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Hairstyle may be an indicator of group membership. During the English Civil War, the followers of Oliver Cromwell decided to crop their hair close to their head, as an act of defiance to the curls and ringlets of the king's men. This led to the Parliamentary faction being nicknamed Roundheads. Recent isotopic analysis of hair is helping to shed further light on sociocultural interaction, giving information on food procurement and consumption in the 19th century. Having bobbed hair was popular among the flappers in the 1920s as a sign of rebellion against traditional roles for women. Female art students known as the \"cropheads\" also adopted the style, notably at the Slade School in London, England. Regional variations in hirsutism cause practices regarding hair on the arms and legs to differ. Some religious groups may follow certain rules regarding hair as part of religious observance. The rules often differ for men and women.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Many subcultures have hairstyles which may indicate an unofficial membership. Many hippies, metalheads, and Indian sadhus have long hair, as well many older indie kids. Many punks wear a hairstyle known as a mohawk or other spiked and dyed hairstyles; skinheads have short-cropped or completely shaved heads. Long stylized bangs were very common for emos, scene kids and younger indie kids in the 2000s and early 2010s, among people of both genders.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Heads were shaved in concentration camps, and head-shaving has been used as punishment, especially for women with long hair. The shaven head is common in military haircuts, while Western monks are known for the tonsure. By contrast, among some Indian holy men, the hair is worn extremely long.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In the time of Confucius (5th century BCE), the Chinese grew out their hair and often tied it, as a symbol of filial piety. Regular hairdressing in some cultures is considered a sign of wealth or status. The dreadlocks of the Rastafari movement were despised early in the movement's history. In some cultures, having one's hair cut can symbolize a liberation from one's past, usually after a trying time in one's life. Cutting the hair also may be a sign of mourning.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Tightly coiled hair in its natural state may be worn in an Afro. This hairstyle was once worn among African Americans as a symbol of racial pride. Given that the coiled texture is the natural state of some African Americans' hair, or perceived as being more \"African\", this simple style is now often seen as a sign of self-acceptance and an affirmation that the beauty norms of the (eurocentric) dominant culture are not absolute. African Americans as a whole have a variety of hair textures, as they are not an ethnically homogeneous group, but an ad-hoc of different racial admixtures.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The film Easy Rider (1969) includes the assumption that the two main characters could have their long hairs forcibly shaved with a rusty razor when jailed, symbolizing the intolerance of some conservative groups toward members of the counterculture. At the conclusion of the Oz obscenity trials in the UK in 1971, the defendants had their heads shaved by the police, causing public outcry. During the appeal trial, they appeared in the dock wearing wigs. A case where a 14-year-old student was expelled from school in Brazil in the mid-2000s, allegedly because of his fauxhawk haircut, sparked national debate and legal action resulting in compensation.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Women's hair may be hidden using headscarves, a common part of the hijab in Islam and a symbol of modesty required for certain religious rituals in Eastern Orthodoxy. Russian Orthodox Church requires all married women to wear headscarves inside the church; this tradition is often extended to all women, regardless of marital status. Orthodox Judaism also commands the use of scarves and other head coverings for married women for modesty reasons. Certain Hindu sects also wear head scarves for religious reasons. Sikhs have an obligation not to cut hair (a Sikh cutting hair becomes 'apostate' which means fallen from religion) and men keep it tied in a bun on the head, which is then covered appropriately using a turban. Multiple religions, both ancient and contemporary, require or advise one to allow their hair to become dreadlocks, though people also wear them for fashion. For men, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and other religious groups have at various times recommended or required the covering of the head and sections of the hair of men, and some have dictates relating to the cutting of men's facial and head hair. Some Christian sects throughout history and up to modern times have also religiously proscribed the cutting of women's hair. For some Sunni madhabs, the donning of a kufi or topi is a form of sunnah.",
"title": "Social role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Since ancient times, women's long, thick, wavy hair has featured prominently in Arabic poetry. Pre-Islamic poets used only limited imagery to describe women's hair. For example, al-A'sha wrote a verse comparing a lover's hair to \"a garden whose grapes dangle down upon me\", but Bashar ibn Burd considered this unusual. One comparison used by early poets, such as Imru al-Qays, was to bunches of dates. In Abbasid times, however, the imagery for hair expanded significantly - particularly for the then-fashionable \"love-locks\" (sudgh) framing the temples, which came into style at the court of the caliph al-Amin. Hair curls were compared to hooks and chains, letters (such as fa, waw, lam, and nun), scorpions, annelids, and polo sticks. An example was the poet Ibn al-Mu'tazz, who compared a lock of hair and a birthmark to a polo stick driving a ball.",
"title": "Social role"
}
]
| Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals.
The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and fine vellus hair. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types, and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial primarily composed of protein, notably alpha-keratin. Attitudes towards different forms of hair, such as hairstyles and hair removal, vary widely across different cultures and historical periods, but it is often used to indicate a person's personal beliefs or social position, such as their age, gender, or religion. | 2001-12-21T11:26:40Z | 2023-12-26T22:01:29Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair |
14,314 | Hawker Siddeley Harrier | The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a jet-powered attack aircraft designed and produced by the British aerospace company Hawker Siddeley. It was the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities and the only truly successful V/STOL design of that era.
It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft, being developed directly from the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel prototype aircraft following the cancellation of a more advanced supersonic aircraft, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154. In the mid 1960s, the Harrier GR.1 and GR.3 variants were ordered by the British government for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Harrier GR.1 made its first flight on 28 December 1967, and entered RAF service in April 1967. During the 1970s, the United States opted to procure the aircraft as the AV-8A, it was operated by the US Marine Corps (USMC).
Introduced to service amid the Cold War, the RAF positioned the bulk of their Harriers across West Germany to defend against a potential invasion of Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact forces; the unique abilities of the Harrier allowed the RAF to disperse their forces away from vulnerable airbases. The USMC used their Harriers primarily for close air support, operating from amphibious assault ships, and, if needed, forward operating bases. Harrier squadrons saw several deployments overseas. Its ability to operate with minimal ground facilities and very short runways allowed it to be used at locations unavailable to other fixed-wing aircraft. The Harrier received criticism for having a high accident rate and for a time-consuming maintenance process.
In the 1970s, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier was developed from the Harrier for use by the Royal Navy (RN) on Invincible-class aircraft carriers. Both the Sea Harrier and the Harrier fought in the 1982 Falklands War, in which the aircraft proved to be crucial and versatile. The RN Sea Harriers provided fixed-wing air defence while the RAF Harriers focused on ground-attack missions in support of the advancing British land force. The Harrier was also extensively redesigned as the AV-8B Harrier II and British Aerospace Harrier II by the team of McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the first-generation aircraft were gradually replaced by the newer Harrier IIs.
The Harrier's design was derived from the Hawker P.1127. Prior to developing the P.1127, Hawker Aircraft had been working on a replacement for the Hawker Hunter, the Hawker P.1121. The P.1121 was cancelled after the release of the British Government's 1957 Defence White Paper, which advocated a policy shift away from manned aircraft and towards missiles. This policy resulted in the termination of the majority of aircraft development projects then underway for the British military. Hawker sought to quickly move on to a new project and became interested in Vertical Take Off/Landing (VTOL) aircraft, which did not need runways. According to Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine this interest may have been stimulated by the presence of Air Staff Requirement 345, which sought a V/STOL ground attack fighter for the Royal Air Force.
Design work on the P.1127 was formally started in 1957 by Sir Sydney Camm, Ralph Hooper of Hawker Aircraft, and Stanley Hooker (later Sir Stanley Hooker) of the Bristol Engine Company. The close cooperation between Hawker, the airframe company, and Bristol, the engine company, was viewed by project engineer Gordon Lewis as one of the key factors that allowed the development of the Harrier to continue in spite of technical obstacles and political setbacks. Rather than using rotors or a direct jet thrust, the P.1127 had an innovative vectored thrust turbofan engine, the Pegasus. The Pegasus I was rated at 9,000 pounds (40 kN) of thrust and first ran in September 1959. A contract for two development prototypes was signed in June 1960 and the first flight followed in October 1960. Of the six prototypes built, three crashed, including one during an air display at the 1963 Paris Air Show.
In 1961, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Germany jointly agreed to purchase nine aircraft developed from the P.1127, for the evaluation of the performance and potential of V/STOL aircraft. These aircraft were built by Hawker Siddeley and were designated Kestrel FGA.1 by the UK. The Kestrel was strictly an evaluation aircraft and to save money the Pegasus 5 engine was not fully developed as intended, only having 15,000 pounds (67 kN) of thrust instead of the projected 18,200 pounds (81 kN). The Tripartite Evaluation Squadron numbered ten pilots; four each from the UK and US and two from West Germany. The Kestrel's first flight took place on 7 March 1964.
A total of 960 sorties had been made during the trials, including 1,366 takeoffs and landings, by the end of evaluations in November 1965. One aircraft was destroyed in an accident and six others were transferred to the United States, assigned the US designation XV-6A Kestrel, and underwent further testing. The two remaining British-based Kestrels were assigned to further trials and experimentation at RAE Bedford with one being modified to use the uprated Pegasus 6 engine.
At the time of the development of the P.1127 Hawker and Bristol had also undertaken considerable development work on a supersonic version, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154, to meet a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) requirement issued for such an aircraft. The design used a single Bristol Siddeley BS100 engine with four swivelling nozzles, in a fashion similar to the P.1127, and required the use of plenum chamber burning (PCB) to achieve supersonic speeds. The P.1154 won the competition to meet the requirement against strong competition from other aircraft manufacturers such as Dassault Aviation's Mirage IIIV. The French government did not accept the decision and withdrew; the NATO requirement was cancelled shortly after in 1965.
The Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy planned to develop and introduce the supersonic P.1154 independently of the cancelled NATO requirement. This ambition was complicated by the conflicting requirements between the two services—while the RAF wanted a low-level supersonic strike aircraft, the Navy sought a twin-engine air defence fighter. Following the election of the Labour Government of 1964 the P.1154 was cancelled, as the Royal Navy had already begun procurement of the McDonnell Douglas Phantom II and the RAF placed a greater importance on the BAC TSR-2's ongoing development. Work continued on elements of the project, such as a supersonic PCB-equipped Pegasus engine, with the intention of developing a future Harrier variant for the decades following cancellation.
Following the collapse of the P.1154's development the RAF began considering a simple upgrade of the existing subsonic Kestrel and issued Requirement ASR 384 for a V/STOL ground attack jet. Hawker Siddeley received an order for six pre-production aircraft in 1965, designated P.1127 (RAF), of which the first made its maiden flight on 31 August 1966. An order for 60 production aircraft, designated as Harrier GR.1, was received in early 1967. The aircraft was named after the Harrier, a small bird of prey.
The Harrier GR.1 made its first flight on 28 December 1967. It officially entered service with the RAF on 1 April 1969 and the Harrier Conversion Unit at RAF Wittering received its first aircraft on 18 April. The aircraft were built in two factories—one in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, and the other at Dunsfold Aerodrome, Surrey—and underwent initial testing at Dunsfold. The ski-jump technique for launching Harriers from Royal Navy aircraft carriers was extensively trialled at RNAS Yeovilton from 1977. Following these tests ski-jumps were added to the flight decks of all RN carriers from 1979 onwards, in preparation for the new variant for the navy, the Sea Harrier.
In the late 1960s the British and American governments held talks on producing Harriers in the United States. Hawker Siddeley and McDonnell Douglas formed a partnership in 1969 in preparation for American production, but Congressman Mendel Rivers and the House Appropriations Committee held that it would be cheaper to produce the AV-8A on the pre-existing production lines in the United Kingdom—hence all AV-8A Harriers were purchased from Hawker Siddeley. Improved Harrier versions with better sensors and more powerful engines were developed in later years. The USMC received 102 AV-8A and 8 TAV-8A Harriers between 1971 and 1976.
The Harrier was typically used as a ground attack aircraft, though its manoeuvrability also allows it to effectively engage other aircraft at short ranges. The Harrier is powered by a single Pegasus turbofan engine mounted in the fuselage. The engine is fitted with two air intakes and four vectoring nozzles for directing the thrust generated: two for the bypass flow and two for the jet exhaust. Several small reaction nozzles are also fitted, in the nose, tail and wingtips, for the purpose of balancing during vertical flight. It has two landing gear units on the fuselage and two outrigger landing gear units, one near each wing tip. The Harrier is equipped with four wing and three fuselage pylons for carrying a variety of weapons and external fuel tanks.
The Kestrel and the Harrier were similar in appearance, though approximately 90 per cent of the Kestrel's airframe was redesigned for the Harrier. The Harrier was powered by the more powerful Pegasus 6 engine; new air intakes with auxiliary blow-in doors were added to produce the required airflow at low speed. Its wing was modified to increase area and the landing gear was strengthened. Several hardpoints were installed, two under each wing and one underneath the fuselage; two 30 mm (1.2 in) ADEN cannon gun pods could also be fitted to the underside of the fuselage. The Harrier was outfitted with updated avionics to replace the basic systems used in the Kestrel; a navigational-attack system incorporating an inertial navigation system, originally for the P.1154, was installed and information was presented to the pilot by a head-up display and a moving map display.
The Harrier's VTOL abilities allowed it to be deployed from very small prepared clearings or helipads as well as normal airfields. It was believed that, in a high-intensity conflict, air bases would be vulnerable and likely to be quickly knocked out. The capability to scatter Harrier squadrons to dozens of small "alert pads" on the front lines was highly prized by military strategists and the USMC procured the aircraft because of this ability. Hawker Siddeley noted that STOL operation provided additional benefits over VTOL operation, saving fuel and allowing the aircraft to carry more ordnance.
I still don't believe the Harrier. Think of the millions that have been spent on VTO in America and Russia, and quite a bit in Europe, and yet the only vertical take-off aircraft which you can call a success is the Harrier. When I saw the Harrier hovering and flying backwards under control, I reckoned I'd seen everything. And it's not difficult to fly.
The Harrier, while serving for many decades in various forms, has been criticised on multiple issues; in particular a high accident rate, though Nordeen notes that several conventional single-engine strike aircraft like the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and LTV A-7 Corsair II had worse accident rates. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2003 that the Harrier "...has amassed the highest major accident rate of any military plane now in service. Forty-five Marines have died in 148 noncombat accidents". Colonel Lee Buland of the USMC declared the maintenance of a Harrier to be a "challenge"; the need to remove the wings before performing most work upon the engine, including engine replacements, meant the Harrier required considerable man-hours in maintenance, more than most aircraft. Buland noted however that the maintenance difficulties were unavoidable in order to create a V/STOL aircraft.
The Pegasus turbofan jet engine, developed in tandem with the P.1127 then the Harrier, was designed specifically for V/STOL manoeuvring. Bristol Siddeley developed it from their earlier conventional Orpheus turbofan engine as the core with Olympus compressor blades for the fan. The engine's thrust is directed through the four rotatable nozzles. The engine is equipped for water injection to increase thrust and takeoff performance in hot and high altitude conditions; in normal V/STOL operations the system would be used in landing vertically with a heavy weapons load. The water injection function had originally been added following the input of US Air Force Colonel Bill Chapman, who worked for the Mutual Weapons Development Team. Water injection was necessary in order to generate maximum thrust, if only for a limited time, and was typically used during landing, especially in high ambient temperatures.
The aircraft was initially powered by the Pegasus 6 engine which was replaced by the more powerful Pegasus 11 during the Harrier GR.1 to GR.3 upgrade process. The primary focus throughout the engine's development was on achieving high performance with as little weight as possible, tempered by the amount of funding that was available. Following the Harrier's entry to service the focus switched to improving reliability and extending engine life; a formal joint US–UK Pegasus Support Program operated for many years and spent a £3-million annual budget to develop engine improvements. Several variants have been released; the latest is the Pegasus 11–61 (Mk 107), which provides 23,800 lbf (106 kN) thrust, more than any previous engine.
The Harrier has been described by pilots as "unforgiving". The aircraft is capable of both forward flight (where it behaves in the manner of a typical fixed-wing aircraft above its stall speed), as well as VTOL and STOL manoeuvres (where the traditional lift and control surfaces are useless) requiring skills and technical knowledge usually associated with helicopters. Most services demand great aptitude and extensive training for Harrier pilots, as well as experience in piloting both types of aircraft. Trainee pilots are often drawn from highly experienced and skilled helicopter pilots.
In addition to normal flight controls, the Harrier has a lever for controlling the direction of the four vectoring nozzles. It is viewed by senior RAF officers as a significant design success, that to enable and control the aircraft's vertical flight required only a single lever added in the cockpit. For horizontal flight, the nozzles are directed rearwards by shifting the lever to the forward position; for short or vertical takeoffs and landings, the lever is pulled back to point the nozzles downwards.
The Harrier has two control elements not found in conventional fixed-wing aircraft: the thrust vector and the reaction control system. The thrust vector refers to the slant of the four engine nozzles and can be set between 0° (horizontal, pointing directly backwards) and 98° (pointing down and slightly forwards). The 90° vector is normally deployed for VTOL manoeuvring. The reaction control is achieved by manipulating the control stick and is similar in action to the cyclic control of a helicopter. While irrelevant during forward flight mode, these controls are essential during VTOL and STOL manoeuvres.
The wind direction is a critical factor in VTOL manoeuvres. The procedure for vertical takeoff involves facing the aircraft into the wind. The thrust vector is set to 90° and the throttle is brought up to maximum, at which point the aircraft leaves the ground. The throttle is trimmed until a hover state is achieved at the desired altitude. The short-takeoff procedure involves proceeding with normal takeoff and then applying a thrust vector (less than 90°) at a runway speed below normal takeoff speed; usually the point of application is around 65 knots (120 km/h). For lower takeoff speeds the thrust vector is greater. The reaction control system involves a thrusters at key points in the aircraft's fuselage and nose, also the wingtips. Thrust from the engine can be temporarily syphoned to control and correct the aircraft's pitch and roll during vertical flight.
Rotating the vectored thrust nozzles into a forward-facing position during normal flight is called vectoring in forward flight, or "VIFFing". This is a dog-fighting tactic, allowing for more sudden braking and higher turn rates. Braking could cause a chasing aircraft to overshoot and present itself as a target for the Harrier it was chasing, a combat technique formally developed by the USMC for the Harrier in the early 1970s.
The two largest users of the Harrier were the Royal Air Force and the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The exported model of the aircraft operated by the USMC was designated the AV-8A Harrier, which was broadly similar to the RAF's Harrier GR.1. Changes included the removal of all magnesium components, which corroded quickly at sea, and the integration of American radios and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems; furthermore the outer pylons, unlike the RAF aircraft, were designed from delivery to be equipped with self-defence AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. Most of the AV-8As had been delivered with the more powerful Pegasus engine used in the GR.3 instead of the one used in the earlier GR.1. Two-seat Harriers were operated for training purposes; the body was stretched and a taller tail fin added. The RAF trained in the T.2 and T.4 versions, while T.4N and T.8 were training versions the Navy's Sea Harrier, with appropriate fittings. The US and Spain flew the TAV-8A and TAV-8S, respectively.
All RAF GR.1s and the initial AV-8As were fitted with the Ferranti FE541 inertial navigation/attack suite, but these were replaced in the USMC Harriers by a simpler Interface/Weapon Aiming Computer to aid quick turnaround between missions. The Martin-Baker ejection seats were also replaced by the Stencel SEU-3A in the American aircraft. The RAF had their GR.1 aircraft upgraded to the GR.3 standard, which featured improved sensors, a nose-mounted laser tracker, the integration of electronic countermeasure (ECM) systems and a further upgraded Pegasus Mk 103. The USMC upgraded their AV-8As to the AV-8C configuration; this programme involved the installation of ECM equipment and adding a new inertial navigation system to the aircraft's avionics. Substantial changes were the Lift Improvement Devices, to increase VTOL performance; at the same time several airframe components were restored or replaced to extend the life of the aircraft. Spain's Harriers, designated AV-8S or VA.1 Matador for the single-seater and TAV-8S or VAE.1 for the two-seater, were almost identical to USMC Harriers differing only in the radios fitted.
The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) operated a substantially modified variant of the Harrier, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier. The Sea Harrier was intended for multiple naval roles and was equipped with radar and Sidewinder missiles for air combat duties as part of fleet air defence. The Sea Harrier was also fitted with navigational aids for carrier landings, modifications to reduce corrosion by seawater and a raised bubble-canopy covered cockpit for better visibility. The aircraft were later equipped to use AIM-120 AMRAAM beyond-visual-range anti-aircraft missiles and the more advanced Blue Vixen radar for longer range air-to-air combat, as well as Sea Eagle missiles for conducting anti-ship missions.
The McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II is the latest Harrier variant, a second-generation series to replace the first generation of Harrier jets already in service; all the above variants of the Harrier have mainly been retired with the Harrier II taking their place in the RAF, USMC and FAA. In the 1970s the United Kingdom considered two options for replacing their existing Harriers: joining McDonnell Douglas (MDC) in developing the BAE Harrier II, or the independent development of a "Big Wing" Harrier. This proposal would have increased the wing area from 200 to 250 square feet (19 to 23 m), allowing for significant increases in weapons load and internal fuel reserves. The option of cooperation with MDC was chosen in 1982 over the more risky isolated approach. The original Harrier served as the basis for the British Aerospace Sea Harrier as it was required to fill the fighter role.
The first RAF squadron to be equipped with the Harrier GR.1, No. 1 Squadron, started to convert to the aircraft at RAF Wittering in April 1969. An early demonstration of the Harrier's capabilities was the participation of two aircraft in the Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race in May 1969, flying between St Pancras railway station, London and central Manhattan with the use of aerial refuelling. The Harrier completed the journey in 6 hours 11 minutes. Two Harrier squadrons were established in 1970 at the RAF's air base in Wildenrath to be part of its air force in Germany; another squadron was formed there two years later. In 1977, these three squadrons were moved forward to the air base at Gütersloh, closer to the prospective front line in the event of an outbreak of a European war. One of the squadrons was disbanded and its aircraft distributed between the other two.
In RAF service, the Harrier was used in close air support (CAS), reconnaissance, and other ground-attack roles. The flexibility of the Harrier led to a long-term heavy deployment in West Germany as a conventional deterrent and potential strike weapon against Soviet aggression; from camouflaged rough bases the Harrier was expected to launch attacks on advancing armour columns from East Germany. Harriers were also deployed to bases in Norway and Belize, a former British colony. No. 1 Squadron was specifically earmarked for Norwegian operations in the event of war, operating as part of Allied Forces Northern Europe. The Harrier's capabilities were necessary in the Belize deployment, as it was the only RAF combat aircraft capable of safely operating from the airport's short runway; British forces had been stationed in Belize for several years due to tensions over a Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory; the forces were withdrawn in 1993, two years after Guatemala recognized the independence of Belize.
In the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) in 1982, 10 Harrier GR.3s of No. 1 Squadron operated from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. As the RAF Harrier GR.3 had not been designed for naval service, the 10 aircraft had to be rapidly modified prior to the departure of the task force. Special sealants against corrosion were applied and a new deck-based inertial guidance aid was devised to allow the RAF Harrier to land on a carrier as easily as the Sea Harrier. Transponders to guide aircraft back to the carriers during night-time operations were also installed, along with flares and chaff dispensers.
As there was little space on the carriers, two requisitioned merchant container ships, Atlantic Conveyor and Atlantic Causeway, were modified with temporary flight decks and used to carry Harriers and helicopters to the South Atlantic. The Harrier GR.3s focused on providing close air support to the ground forces on the Falklands and attacking Argentine positions; suppressing enemy artillery was often a high priority. Sea Harriers were also used in the war, primarily conducting fleet air defence and combat air patrols against the threat of attacking Argentine fighters. However, both Sea Harriers and Harrier GR.3s were used in ground-attack missions against the main airfield and runway at Stanley.
If most of the Sea Harriers had been lost, the GR.3s would have replaced them in air patrol duties, even though the Harrier GR.3 was not designed for air defence operations; as such the GR.3s quickly had their outboard weapons pylons modified to take air-to-air Sidewinder missiles. From 10 to 24 May 1982, prior to British forces landing in the Falklands, a detachment of three GR.3s provided air defence for Ascension Island until three F-4 Phantom IIs arrived to take on this responsibility. During the Falklands War, the greatest threats to the Harriers were deemed to be surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and small arms fire from the ground. In total, four Harrier GR.3s and six Sea Harriers were lost to ground fire, accidents, or mechanical failure. More than 2,000 Harrier sorties were conducted during the conflict—equivalent to six sorties per day per aircraft.
Following the Falklands War, British Aerospace explored the Skyhook, a new technique to operate Harriers from smaller ships. Skyhook would have allowed the launching and landing of Harriers from smaller ships by holding the aircraft in midair by a crane; secondary cranes were to hold weapons for rapid re-arming. This would potentially have saved fuel and allowed for operations in rougher seas. The system was marketed to foreign customers, and it was speculated that Skyhook could be applied to large submarines such as the Russian Typhoon class, but the system attracted no interest.
The first generation of Harriers did not see further combat with the RAF after the Falklands War, although they continued to serve for years afterwards. As a deterrent against further Argentine invasion attempts, No. 1453 Flight RAF was deployed to the Falkland Islands from August 1983 to June 1985. However the second generation Harrier IIs saw action in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The first generation Hawker Siddeley airframes were replaced by the improved Harrier II, which had been developed jointly between McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace.
"In my mind the AV-8A Harrier was like the helicopter in Korea. [It] had limited capability, but that's how the first-generation automobile, boat, or other major systems evolved... it brought us into the world of flexible basing and the Marine Corps into the concept of vertical development"
Major General Joe Anderson.
The United States Marine Corps began showing a significant interest in the aircraft around the time the first RAF Harrier squadron was established in 1969, and this motivated Hawker Siddeley to further develop the aircraft to encourage a purchase. Although there were concerns in Congress about multiple coinciding projects in the close air support role, the Marine Corps were enthusiastic about the Harrier and managed to overcome efforts to obstruct its procurement.
The Marine Corps accepted its first AV-8A on 6 January 1971, at the Dunsfold Aerodrome, England and began testing it at Naval Air Station Patuxent River on 26 January. The AV-8A entered service with the Marine Corps in 1971, replacing other aircraft in the Marines' attack squadrons. The service became interested in performing ship-borne operations with the Harrier. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt promoted the concept of a Sea Control Ship, a 15,000-ton light carrier equipped with Harriers and helicopters, to supplement the larger aircraft carriers of the US Navy. An amphibious assault ship, USS Guam, was converted into the Interim Sea Control Ship and operated as such between 1971 and 1973 with the purpose of studying the limits and possible obstacles for operating such a vessel. Since then the Sea Control Ship concept has been subject to periodic re-examinations and studies, often in the light of budget cuts and questions over the use of supercarriers.
Other exercises were performed to demonstrate the AV-8A's suitability for operating from various amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers, including a deployment of 14 Harriers aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt for six months in 1976. The tests showed, amongst other things, that the Harrier was capable of performing in weather where conventional carrier aircraft could not. In support of naval operations, the USMC devised and studied several methods to further integrate the Harrier. One result was Arapaho, a stand-by system to rapidly convert civilian cargo ships into seagoing platforms for operating and maintaining a handful of Harriers, to be used to augment the number of available ships to deploy upon.
When the reactivation of the Iowa-class battleships was under consideration, a radical design for a battleship-carrier hybrid emerged that would have replaced the ship's rear turret with a flight deck, complete with a hangar and two ski jumps, for operating several Harriers. However, the USMC considered the need for naval gunfire support to be a greater priority than additional platforms for carrier operations, while the cost and delay associated with such elaborate conversions was significant, and the concept was dropped.
The Marines Corps' concept for deploying the Harriers in a land-based expeditionary role focused on aggressive speed. Harrier forward bases and light maintenance facilities were to be set up in under 24 hours on any prospective battle area. The forward bases, containing one to four aircraft, were to be located 20 miles (32 km) from the forward edge of battle (FEBA), while a more established permanent airbase would be located around 50 miles (80 km) from the FEBA. The close proximity of forward bases allowed for a far greater sortie rate and reduced fuel consumption.
The AV-8A's abilities in air-to-air combat were tested by the Marine Corps by conducting mock dogfights with McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs; these exercises trained pilots to use the vectoring-in-forward-flight (VIFF) capability to outmanoeuvre their opponents and showed that the Harriers could act as effective air-to-air fighters at close range. The success of Harrier operations countered scepticism of V/STOL aircraft, which had been judged to be expensive failures in the past. Marine Corps officers became convinced of the military advantages of the Harrier and pursued extensive development of the aircraft.
Starting in 1979, the USMC began upgrading their AV-8As to the AV-8C configuration—the work focused mainly on extending useful service lives and improving VTOL performance. The AV-8C and the remaining AV-8A Harriers were retired by 1987. These were replaced by the Harrier II, designated as the AV-8B, which was introduced into service in 1985. The performance of the Harrier in USMC service led to calls for the United States Air Force to procure Harrier IIs in addition to the USMC's own plans, but these never resulted in Air Force orders. Since the late 1990s, the AV-8B has been slated to be replaced by the F-35B variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, a more modern V/STOL jet aircraft.
Like the next generation AV-8Bs, nevertheless, the AV-8A/C Harriers suffered many accidents, with around 40 aircraft lost and some 30 pilots killed during the 1970s and 1980s.
Due to the Harrier's unique characteristics it attracted a large amount of interest from other nations, often as attempts to make their own V/STOL jets were unsuccessful, such as in the cases of the American XV-4 Hummingbird and the German VFW VAK 191B. Operations by the USMC aboard USS Nassau in 1981 and by British Harriers and Sea Harriers in the Falklands War proved that the aircraft was highly effective in combat. These operations also demonstrated that "Harrier Carriers" provided a powerful presence at sea without the expense of big deck carriers.
Following the display of Harrier operations from small carriers, the navies of Spain and later Thailand bought the Harrier for use as their main carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. Spain's purchase of Harriers was complicated by long-standing political friction between the British and Spanish governments of the era; even though the Harriers were manufactured in the UK they were sold to Spain with the US acting as an intermediary. During tests in November 1972, the British pilot John Farley showed that the wooden deck of Dédalo was able to withstand the temperature of the gases generated by the Harrier. Since 1976, the Spanish Navy operated the AV-8S Matador from their aircraft carrier Dédalo (formerly the USS Cabot); the aircraft provided both air defence and strike capabilities for the Spanish fleet. Spain later purchased five Harriers directly from the British government mainly to replace losses.
Hawker Siddeley aggressively marketed the Harrier for export. At one point the company was holding talks with Australia, Brazil, Switzerland, India and Japan. Of these only India became a customer, purchasing the Sea Harrier. At one point China came very close to becoming an operator of the first generation Harrier. Following an overture by the UK in the early 1970s, when relations with the West were warming, China became interested in the aircraft as it sought to modernise its armed forces; British Prime Minister James Callaghan noted significant hostility from the USSR over the sales bid. The deal was later cancelled by the UK as part of a diplomatic backlash after China invaded Vietnam in 1979.
The Spanish Navy, Thai Navy, Royal Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps have all retired their first-generation Harriers. Spain sold seven single-seat and two twin-seat Harriers to Thailand in 1998. The Royal Thai Navy's AV-8S Matadors were delivered as part of the air wing deployed on the new light aircraft carrier HTMS Chakri Naruebet. The Thai Navy had from the start significant logistical problems keeping the Harriers operational due to a shortage of funds for spare parts and equipment, leaving only a few Harriers serviceable at a time. In 1999, two years after being delivered, only one airframe was in airworthy condition. Around 2003, Thailand considered acquiring former Royal Navy Sea Harriers, which were more suitable for maritime operations and better equipped for air defence, to replace their AV-8S Harriers; this investigation did not progress to a purchase. The last first-generation Harriers were retired by Thailand in 2006.
Some countries almost purchased Harriers. British Aerospace held talks with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Switzerland, India, and Japan.
When the Argentinian Navy looked for newer fighters in 1968 the US government only offered old A-4A planes instead of the A-4Fs Argentina wanted. Argentina contacted the British government in 1969 and expressed interest in buying from six to twelve Harrier GR.1s. In 1969 the Argentinian Navy received its second carrier, ARA 25 de Mayo, from the Netherlands. On her voyage home, Hawker Siddeley demonstrated a RAF Harrier GR.Mk.1 (XV757) but Argentina opted for the A-4Q Skyhawk instead. There were several problems to supply Argentina with Harrier jets and engines that prevented the deal from being closed, and when the US knew about the Harrier negotiations they quickly offered a better deal to Argentina. Some years later, before the 1982 war, British officials offered Argentina an aircraft carrier and Sea Harrier aircraft.
Planning for a HMAS Melbourne aircraft carrier replacement began in 1981. After considering American, Italian, and Spanish designs, the Australian government accepted a British offer to sell HMS Invincible, which would be operated with Harriers and helicopters. However, the Royal Navy withdrew the offer after the Falklands War, and the 1983 election of the Australian Labor Party led to the cancellation of plans to replace Melbourne.
As early as 1972 the Chinese government started negotiating a purchase of up to 200 Harrier aircraft. Due to internal political issues, China put the negotiations on hold. In 1977 Li Chiang, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade, visited the UK and British Aerospace organised a Harrier flying demonstration. In November 1978, the Harrier-demonstration was repeated for the Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Chen during his UK visit. The Harrier deal would have meant British Government ignored United States laws that prohibited such sales to communist countries. The Soviet Union was also actively opposed to the UK selling weapons to the Chinese. In spite of that, British Aerospace convinced China that the Harrier was an effective close-support fighter and was good enough to act in a defensive role. In 1979, the Anglo-Sino deal was almost done before being cancelled by the Sino-Vietnamese War.
The Swiss Air Force was interested in purchasing some Harriers as its doctrine was to operate in hidden and dispersed locations during the Cold War. British Aerospace held talks with Switzerland offering AV-8s to replace De Havilland Venoms. A demonstration was made by test pilot John Farley and XV742/G-VSTO in 1971.
No. 1417 Flight RAF
Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1988–89
General characteristics
Performance
Armament
Avionics
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a jet-powered attack aircraft designed and produced by the British aerospace company Hawker Siddeley. It was the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities and the only truly successful V/STOL design of that era.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft, being developed directly from the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel prototype aircraft following the cancellation of a more advanced supersonic aircraft, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154. In the mid 1960s, the Harrier GR.1 and GR.3 variants were ordered by the British government for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Harrier GR.1 made its first flight on 28 December 1967, and entered RAF service in April 1967. During the 1970s, the United States opted to procure the aircraft as the AV-8A, it was operated by the US Marine Corps (USMC).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Introduced to service amid the Cold War, the RAF positioned the bulk of their Harriers across West Germany to defend against a potential invasion of Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact forces; the unique abilities of the Harrier allowed the RAF to disperse their forces away from vulnerable airbases. The USMC used their Harriers primarily for close air support, operating from amphibious assault ships, and, if needed, forward operating bases. Harrier squadrons saw several deployments overseas. Its ability to operate with minimal ground facilities and very short runways allowed it to be used at locations unavailable to other fixed-wing aircraft. The Harrier received criticism for having a high accident rate and for a time-consuming maintenance process.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In the 1970s, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier was developed from the Harrier for use by the Royal Navy (RN) on Invincible-class aircraft carriers. Both the Sea Harrier and the Harrier fought in the 1982 Falklands War, in which the aircraft proved to be crucial and versatile. The RN Sea Harriers provided fixed-wing air defence while the RAF Harriers focused on ground-attack missions in support of the advancing British land force. The Harrier was also extensively redesigned as the AV-8B Harrier II and British Aerospace Harrier II by the team of McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the first-generation aircraft were gradually replaced by the newer Harrier IIs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Harrier's design was derived from the Hawker P.1127. Prior to developing the P.1127, Hawker Aircraft had been working on a replacement for the Hawker Hunter, the Hawker P.1121. The P.1121 was cancelled after the release of the British Government's 1957 Defence White Paper, which advocated a policy shift away from manned aircraft and towards missiles. This policy resulted in the termination of the majority of aircraft development projects then underway for the British military. Hawker sought to quickly move on to a new project and became interested in Vertical Take Off/Landing (VTOL) aircraft, which did not need runways. According to Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine this interest may have been stimulated by the presence of Air Staff Requirement 345, which sought a V/STOL ground attack fighter for the Royal Air Force.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Design work on the P.1127 was formally started in 1957 by Sir Sydney Camm, Ralph Hooper of Hawker Aircraft, and Stanley Hooker (later Sir Stanley Hooker) of the Bristol Engine Company. The close cooperation between Hawker, the airframe company, and Bristol, the engine company, was viewed by project engineer Gordon Lewis as one of the key factors that allowed the development of the Harrier to continue in spite of technical obstacles and political setbacks. Rather than using rotors or a direct jet thrust, the P.1127 had an innovative vectored thrust turbofan engine, the Pegasus. The Pegasus I was rated at 9,000 pounds (40 kN) of thrust and first ran in September 1959. A contract for two development prototypes was signed in June 1960 and the first flight followed in October 1960. Of the six prototypes built, three crashed, including one during an air display at the 1963 Paris Air Show.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1961, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Germany jointly agreed to purchase nine aircraft developed from the P.1127, for the evaluation of the performance and potential of V/STOL aircraft. These aircraft were built by Hawker Siddeley and were designated Kestrel FGA.1 by the UK. The Kestrel was strictly an evaluation aircraft and to save money the Pegasus 5 engine was not fully developed as intended, only having 15,000 pounds (67 kN) of thrust instead of the projected 18,200 pounds (81 kN). The Tripartite Evaluation Squadron numbered ten pilots; four each from the UK and US and two from West Germany. The Kestrel's first flight took place on 7 March 1964.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A total of 960 sorties had been made during the trials, including 1,366 takeoffs and landings, by the end of evaluations in November 1965. One aircraft was destroyed in an accident and six others were transferred to the United States, assigned the US designation XV-6A Kestrel, and underwent further testing. The two remaining British-based Kestrels were assigned to further trials and experimentation at RAE Bedford with one being modified to use the uprated Pegasus 6 engine.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "At the time of the development of the P.1127 Hawker and Bristol had also undertaken considerable development work on a supersonic version, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154, to meet a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) requirement issued for such an aircraft. The design used a single Bristol Siddeley BS100 engine with four swivelling nozzles, in a fashion similar to the P.1127, and required the use of plenum chamber burning (PCB) to achieve supersonic speeds. The P.1154 won the competition to meet the requirement against strong competition from other aircraft manufacturers such as Dassault Aviation's Mirage IIIV. The French government did not accept the decision and withdrew; the NATO requirement was cancelled shortly after in 1965.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy planned to develop and introduce the supersonic P.1154 independently of the cancelled NATO requirement. This ambition was complicated by the conflicting requirements between the two services—while the RAF wanted a low-level supersonic strike aircraft, the Navy sought a twin-engine air defence fighter. Following the election of the Labour Government of 1964 the P.1154 was cancelled, as the Royal Navy had already begun procurement of the McDonnell Douglas Phantom II and the RAF placed a greater importance on the BAC TSR-2's ongoing development. Work continued on elements of the project, such as a supersonic PCB-equipped Pegasus engine, with the intention of developing a future Harrier variant for the decades following cancellation.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Following the collapse of the P.1154's development the RAF began considering a simple upgrade of the existing subsonic Kestrel and issued Requirement ASR 384 for a V/STOL ground attack jet. Hawker Siddeley received an order for six pre-production aircraft in 1965, designated P.1127 (RAF), of which the first made its maiden flight on 31 August 1966. An order for 60 production aircraft, designated as Harrier GR.1, was received in early 1967. The aircraft was named after the Harrier, a small bird of prey.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Harrier GR.1 made its first flight on 28 December 1967. It officially entered service with the RAF on 1 April 1969 and the Harrier Conversion Unit at RAF Wittering received its first aircraft on 18 April. The aircraft were built in two factories—one in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, and the other at Dunsfold Aerodrome, Surrey—and underwent initial testing at Dunsfold. The ski-jump technique for launching Harriers from Royal Navy aircraft carriers was extensively trialled at RNAS Yeovilton from 1977. Following these tests ski-jumps were added to the flight decks of all RN carriers from 1979 onwards, in preparation for the new variant for the navy, the Sea Harrier.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the late 1960s the British and American governments held talks on producing Harriers in the United States. Hawker Siddeley and McDonnell Douglas formed a partnership in 1969 in preparation for American production, but Congressman Mendel Rivers and the House Appropriations Committee held that it would be cheaper to produce the AV-8A on the pre-existing production lines in the United Kingdom—hence all AV-8A Harriers were purchased from Hawker Siddeley. Improved Harrier versions with better sensors and more powerful engines were developed in later years. The USMC received 102 AV-8A and 8 TAV-8A Harriers between 1971 and 1976.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Harrier was typically used as a ground attack aircraft, though its manoeuvrability also allows it to effectively engage other aircraft at short ranges. The Harrier is powered by a single Pegasus turbofan engine mounted in the fuselage. The engine is fitted with two air intakes and four vectoring nozzles for directing the thrust generated: two for the bypass flow and two for the jet exhaust. Several small reaction nozzles are also fitted, in the nose, tail and wingtips, for the purpose of balancing during vertical flight. It has two landing gear units on the fuselage and two outrigger landing gear units, one near each wing tip. The Harrier is equipped with four wing and three fuselage pylons for carrying a variety of weapons and external fuel tanks.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Kestrel and the Harrier were similar in appearance, though approximately 90 per cent of the Kestrel's airframe was redesigned for the Harrier. The Harrier was powered by the more powerful Pegasus 6 engine; new air intakes with auxiliary blow-in doors were added to produce the required airflow at low speed. Its wing was modified to increase area and the landing gear was strengthened. Several hardpoints were installed, two under each wing and one underneath the fuselage; two 30 mm (1.2 in) ADEN cannon gun pods could also be fitted to the underside of the fuselage. The Harrier was outfitted with updated avionics to replace the basic systems used in the Kestrel; a navigational-attack system incorporating an inertial navigation system, originally for the P.1154, was installed and information was presented to the pilot by a head-up display and a moving map display.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Harrier's VTOL abilities allowed it to be deployed from very small prepared clearings or helipads as well as normal airfields. It was believed that, in a high-intensity conflict, air bases would be vulnerable and likely to be quickly knocked out. The capability to scatter Harrier squadrons to dozens of small \"alert pads\" on the front lines was highly prized by military strategists and the USMC procured the aircraft because of this ability. Hawker Siddeley noted that STOL operation provided additional benefits over VTOL operation, saving fuel and allowing the aircraft to carry more ordnance.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "I still don't believe the Harrier. Think of the millions that have been spent on VTO in America and Russia, and quite a bit in Europe, and yet the only vertical take-off aircraft which you can call a success is the Harrier. When I saw the Harrier hovering and flying backwards under control, I reckoned I'd seen everything. And it's not difficult to fly.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Harrier, while serving for many decades in various forms, has been criticised on multiple issues; in particular a high accident rate, though Nordeen notes that several conventional single-engine strike aircraft like the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and LTV A-7 Corsair II had worse accident rates. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2003 that the Harrier \"...has amassed the highest major accident rate of any military plane now in service. Forty-five Marines have died in 148 noncombat accidents\". Colonel Lee Buland of the USMC declared the maintenance of a Harrier to be a \"challenge\"; the need to remove the wings before performing most work upon the engine, including engine replacements, meant the Harrier required considerable man-hours in maintenance, more than most aircraft. Buland noted however that the maintenance difficulties were unavoidable in order to create a V/STOL aircraft.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Pegasus turbofan jet engine, developed in tandem with the P.1127 then the Harrier, was designed specifically for V/STOL manoeuvring. Bristol Siddeley developed it from their earlier conventional Orpheus turbofan engine as the core with Olympus compressor blades for the fan. The engine's thrust is directed through the four rotatable nozzles. The engine is equipped for water injection to increase thrust and takeoff performance in hot and high altitude conditions; in normal V/STOL operations the system would be used in landing vertically with a heavy weapons load. The water injection function had originally been added following the input of US Air Force Colonel Bill Chapman, who worked for the Mutual Weapons Development Team. Water injection was necessary in order to generate maximum thrust, if only for a limited time, and was typically used during landing, especially in high ambient temperatures.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The aircraft was initially powered by the Pegasus 6 engine which was replaced by the more powerful Pegasus 11 during the Harrier GR.1 to GR.3 upgrade process. The primary focus throughout the engine's development was on achieving high performance with as little weight as possible, tempered by the amount of funding that was available. Following the Harrier's entry to service the focus switched to improving reliability and extending engine life; a formal joint US–UK Pegasus Support Program operated for many years and spent a £3-million annual budget to develop engine improvements. Several variants have been released; the latest is the Pegasus 11–61 (Mk 107), which provides 23,800 lbf (106 kN) thrust, more than any previous engine.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Harrier has been described by pilots as \"unforgiving\". The aircraft is capable of both forward flight (where it behaves in the manner of a typical fixed-wing aircraft above its stall speed), as well as VTOL and STOL manoeuvres (where the traditional lift and control surfaces are useless) requiring skills and technical knowledge usually associated with helicopters. Most services demand great aptitude and extensive training for Harrier pilots, as well as experience in piloting both types of aircraft. Trainee pilots are often drawn from highly experienced and skilled helicopter pilots.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In addition to normal flight controls, the Harrier has a lever for controlling the direction of the four vectoring nozzles. It is viewed by senior RAF officers as a significant design success, that to enable and control the aircraft's vertical flight required only a single lever added in the cockpit. For horizontal flight, the nozzles are directed rearwards by shifting the lever to the forward position; for short or vertical takeoffs and landings, the lever is pulled back to point the nozzles downwards.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Harrier has two control elements not found in conventional fixed-wing aircraft: the thrust vector and the reaction control system. The thrust vector refers to the slant of the four engine nozzles and can be set between 0° (horizontal, pointing directly backwards) and 98° (pointing down and slightly forwards). The 90° vector is normally deployed for VTOL manoeuvring. The reaction control is achieved by manipulating the control stick and is similar in action to the cyclic control of a helicopter. While irrelevant during forward flight mode, these controls are essential during VTOL and STOL manoeuvres.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The wind direction is a critical factor in VTOL manoeuvres. The procedure for vertical takeoff involves facing the aircraft into the wind. The thrust vector is set to 90° and the throttle is brought up to maximum, at which point the aircraft leaves the ground. The throttle is trimmed until a hover state is achieved at the desired altitude. The short-takeoff procedure involves proceeding with normal takeoff and then applying a thrust vector (less than 90°) at a runway speed below normal takeoff speed; usually the point of application is around 65 knots (120 km/h). For lower takeoff speeds the thrust vector is greater. The reaction control system involves a thrusters at key points in the aircraft's fuselage and nose, also the wingtips. Thrust from the engine can be temporarily syphoned to control and correct the aircraft's pitch and roll during vertical flight.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Rotating the vectored thrust nozzles into a forward-facing position during normal flight is called vectoring in forward flight, or \"VIFFing\". This is a dog-fighting tactic, allowing for more sudden braking and higher turn rates. Braking could cause a chasing aircraft to overshoot and present itself as a target for the Harrier it was chasing, a combat technique formally developed by the USMC for the Harrier in the early 1970s.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The two largest users of the Harrier were the Royal Air Force and the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The exported model of the aircraft operated by the USMC was designated the AV-8A Harrier, which was broadly similar to the RAF's Harrier GR.1. Changes included the removal of all magnesium components, which corroded quickly at sea, and the integration of American radios and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems; furthermore the outer pylons, unlike the RAF aircraft, were designed from delivery to be equipped with self-defence AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. Most of the AV-8As had been delivered with the more powerful Pegasus engine used in the GR.3 instead of the one used in the earlier GR.1. Two-seat Harriers were operated for training purposes; the body was stretched and a taller tail fin added. The RAF trained in the T.2 and T.4 versions, while T.4N and T.8 were training versions the Navy's Sea Harrier, with appropriate fittings. The US and Spain flew the TAV-8A and TAV-8S, respectively.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "All RAF GR.1s and the initial AV-8As were fitted with the Ferranti FE541 inertial navigation/attack suite, but these were replaced in the USMC Harriers by a simpler Interface/Weapon Aiming Computer to aid quick turnaround between missions. The Martin-Baker ejection seats were also replaced by the Stencel SEU-3A in the American aircraft. The RAF had their GR.1 aircraft upgraded to the GR.3 standard, which featured improved sensors, a nose-mounted laser tracker, the integration of electronic countermeasure (ECM) systems and a further upgraded Pegasus Mk 103. The USMC upgraded their AV-8As to the AV-8C configuration; this programme involved the installation of ECM equipment and adding a new inertial navigation system to the aircraft's avionics. Substantial changes were the Lift Improvement Devices, to increase VTOL performance; at the same time several airframe components were restored or replaced to extend the life of the aircraft. Spain's Harriers, designated AV-8S or VA.1 Matador for the single-seater and TAV-8S or VAE.1 for the two-seater, were almost identical to USMC Harriers differing only in the radios fitted.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) operated a substantially modified variant of the Harrier, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier. The Sea Harrier was intended for multiple naval roles and was equipped with radar and Sidewinder missiles for air combat duties as part of fleet air defence. The Sea Harrier was also fitted with navigational aids for carrier landings, modifications to reduce corrosion by seawater and a raised bubble-canopy covered cockpit for better visibility. The aircraft were later equipped to use AIM-120 AMRAAM beyond-visual-range anti-aircraft missiles and the more advanced Blue Vixen radar for longer range air-to-air combat, as well as Sea Eagle missiles for conducting anti-ship missions.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II is the latest Harrier variant, a second-generation series to replace the first generation of Harrier jets already in service; all the above variants of the Harrier have mainly been retired with the Harrier II taking their place in the RAF, USMC and FAA. In the 1970s the United Kingdom considered two options for replacing their existing Harriers: joining McDonnell Douglas (MDC) in developing the BAE Harrier II, or the independent development of a \"Big Wing\" Harrier. This proposal would have increased the wing area from 200 to 250 square feet (19 to 23 m), allowing for significant increases in weapons load and internal fuel reserves. The option of cooperation with MDC was chosen in 1982 over the more risky isolated approach. The original Harrier served as the basis for the British Aerospace Sea Harrier as it was required to fill the fighter role.",
"title": "Design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The first RAF squadron to be equipped with the Harrier GR.1, No. 1 Squadron, started to convert to the aircraft at RAF Wittering in April 1969. An early demonstration of the Harrier's capabilities was the participation of two aircraft in the Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race in May 1969, flying between St Pancras railway station, London and central Manhattan with the use of aerial refuelling. The Harrier completed the journey in 6 hours 11 minutes. Two Harrier squadrons were established in 1970 at the RAF's air base in Wildenrath to be part of its air force in Germany; another squadron was formed there two years later. In 1977, these three squadrons were moved forward to the air base at Gütersloh, closer to the prospective front line in the event of an outbreak of a European war. One of the squadrons was disbanded and its aircraft distributed between the other two.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In RAF service, the Harrier was used in close air support (CAS), reconnaissance, and other ground-attack roles. The flexibility of the Harrier led to a long-term heavy deployment in West Germany as a conventional deterrent and potential strike weapon against Soviet aggression; from camouflaged rough bases the Harrier was expected to launch attacks on advancing armour columns from East Germany. Harriers were also deployed to bases in Norway and Belize, a former British colony. No. 1 Squadron was specifically earmarked for Norwegian operations in the event of war, operating as part of Allied Forces Northern Europe. The Harrier's capabilities were necessary in the Belize deployment, as it was the only RAF combat aircraft capable of safely operating from the airport's short runway; British forces had been stationed in Belize for several years due to tensions over a Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory; the forces were withdrawn in 1993, two years after Guatemala recognized the independence of Belize.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) in 1982, 10 Harrier GR.3s of No. 1 Squadron operated from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. As the RAF Harrier GR.3 had not been designed for naval service, the 10 aircraft had to be rapidly modified prior to the departure of the task force. Special sealants against corrosion were applied and a new deck-based inertial guidance aid was devised to allow the RAF Harrier to land on a carrier as easily as the Sea Harrier. Transponders to guide aircraft back to the carriers during night-time operations were also installed, along with flares and chaff dispensers.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As there was little space on the carriers, two requisitioned merchant container ships, Atlantic Conveyor and Atlantic Causeway, were modified with temporary flight decks and used to carry Harriers and helicopters to the South Atlantic. The Harrier GR.3s focused on providing close air support to the ground forces on the Falklands and attacking Argentine positions; suppressing enemy artillery was often a high priority. Sea Harriers were also used in the war, primarily conducting fleet air defence and combat air patrols against the threat of attacking Argentine fighters. However, both Sea Harriers and Harrier GR.3s were used in ground-attack missions against the main airfield and runway at Stanley.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "If most of the Sea Harriers had been lost, the GR.3s would have replaced them in air patrol duties, even though the Harrier GR.3 was not designed for air defence operations; as such the GR.3s quickly had their outboard weapons pylons modified to take air-to-air Sidewinder missiles. From 10 to 24 May 1982, prior to British forces landing in the Falklands, a detachment of three GR.3s provided air defence for Ascension Island until three F-4 Phantom IIs arrived to take on this responsibility. During the Falklands War, the greatest threats to the Harriers were deemed to be surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and small arms fire from the ground. In total, four Harrier GR.3s and six Sea Harriers were lost to ground fire, accidents, or mechanical failure. More than 2,000 Harrier sorties were conducted during the conflict—equivalent to six sorties per day per aircraft.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Following the Falklands War, British Aerospace explored the Skyhook, a new technique to operate Harriers from smaller ships. Skyhook would have allowed the launching and landing of Harriers from smaller ships by holding the aircraft in midair by a crane; secondary cranes were to hold weapons for rapid re-arming. This would potentially have saved fuel and allowed for operations in rougher seas. The system was marketed to foreign customers, and it was speculated that Skyhook could be applied to large submarines such as the Russian Typhoon class, but the system attracted no interest.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The first generation of Harriers did not see further combat with the RAF after the Falklands War, although they continued to serve for years afterwards. As a deterrent against further Argentine invasion attempts, No. 1453 Flight RAF was deployed to the Falkland Islands from August 1983 to June 1985. However the second generation Harrier IIs saw action in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The first generation Hawker Siddeley airframes were replaced by the improved Harrier II, which had been developed jointly between McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "\"In my mind the AV-8A Harrier was like the helicopter in Korea. [It] had limited capability, but that's how the first-generation automobile, boat, or other major systems evolved... it brought us into the world of flexible basing and the Marine Corps into the concept of vertical development\"",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Major General Joe Anderson.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The United States Marine Corps began showing a significant interest in the aircraft around the time the first RAF Harrier squadron was established in 1969, and this motivated Hawker Siddeley to further develop the aircraft to encourage a purchase. Although there were concerns in Congress about multiple coinciding projects in the close air support role, the Marine Corps were enthusiastic about the Harrier and managed to overcome efforts to obstruct its procurement.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Marine Corps accepted its first AV-8A on 6 January 1971, at the Dunsfold Aerodrome, England and began testing it at Naval Air Station Patuxent River on 26 January. The AV-8A entered service with the Marine Corps in 1971, replacing other aircraft in the Marines' attack squadrons. The service became interested in performing ship-borne operations with the Harrier. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt promoted the concept of a Sea Control Ship, a 15,000-ton light carrier equipped with Harriers and helicopters, to supplement the larger aircraft carriers of the US Navy. An amphibious assault ship, USS Guam, was converted into the Interim Sea Control Ship and operated as such between 1971 and 1973 with the purpose of studying the limits and possible obstacles for operating such a vessel. Since then the Sea Control Ship concept has been subject to periodic re-examinations and studies, often in the light of budget cuts and questions over the use of supercarriers.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Other exercises were performed to demonstrate the AV-8A's suitability for operating from various amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers, including a deployment of 14 Harriers aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt for six months in 1976. The tests showed, amongst other things, that the Harrier was capable of performing in weather where conventional carrier aircraft could not. In support of naval operations, the USMC devised and studied several methods to further integrate the Harrier. One result was Arapaho, a stand-by system to rapidly convert civilian cargo ships into seagoing platforms for operating and maintaining a handful of Harriers, to be used to augment the number of available ships to deploy upon.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "When the reactivation of the Iowa-class battleships was under consideration, a radical design for a battleship-carrier hybrid emerged that would have replaced the ship's rear turret with a flight deck, complete with a hangar and two ski jumps, for operating several Harriers. However, the USMC considered the need for naval gunfire support to be a greater priority than additional platforms for carrier operations, while the cost and delay associated with such elaborate conversions was significant, and the concept was dropped.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Marines Corps' concept for deploying the Harriers in a land-based expeditionary role focused on aggressive speed. Harrier forward bases and light maintenance facilities were to be set up in under 24 hours on any prospective battle area. The forward bases, containing one to four aircraft, were to be located 20 miles (32 km) from the forward edge of battle (FEBA), while a more established permanent airbase would be located around 50 miles (80 km) from the FEBA. The close proximity of forward bases allowed for a far greater sortie rate and reduced fuel consumption.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The AV-8A's abilities in air-to-air combat were tested by the Marine Corps by conducting mock dogfights with McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs; these exercises trained pilots to use the vectoring-in-forward-flight (VIFF) capability to outmanoeuvre their opponents and showed that the Harriers could act as effective air-to-air fighters at close range. The success of Harrier operations countered scepticism of V/STOL aircraft, which had been judged to be expensive failures in the past. Marine Corps officers became convinced of the military advantages of the Harrier and pursued extensive development of the aircraft.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Starting in 1979, the USMC began upgrading their AV-8As to the AV-8C configuration—the work focused mainly on extending useful service lives and improving VTOL performance. The AV-8C and the remaining AV-8A Harriers were retired by 1987. These were replaced by the Harrier II, designated as the AV-8B, which was introduced into service in 1985. The performance of the Harrier in USMC service led to calls for the United States Air Force to procure Harrier IIs in addition to the USMC's own plans, but these never resulted in Air Force orders. Since the late 1990s, the AV-8B has been slated to be replaced by the F-35B variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, a more modern V/STOL jet aircraft.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Like the next generation AV-8Bs, nevertheless, the AV-8A/C Harriers suffered many accidents, with around 40 aircraft lost and some 30 pilots killed during the 1970s and 1980s.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Due to the Harrier's unique characteristics it attracted a large amount of interest from other nations, often as attempts to make their own V/STOL jets were unsuccessful, such as in the cases of the American XV-4 Hummingbird and the German VFW VAK 191B. Operations by the USMC aboard USS Nassau in 1981 and by British Harriers and Sea Harriers in the Falklands War proved that the aircraft was highly effective in combat. These operations also demonstrated that \"Harrier Carriers\" provided a powerful presence at sea without the expense of big deck carriers.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Following the display of Harrier operations from small carriers, the navies of Spain and later Thailand bought the Harrier for use as their main carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. Spain's purchase of Harriers was complicated by long-standing political friction between the British and Spanish governments of the era; even though the Harriers were manufactured in the UK they were sold to Spain with the US acting as an intermediary. During tests in November 1972, the British pilot John Farley showed that the wooden deck of Dédalo was able to withstand the temperature of the gases generated by the Harrier. Since 1976, the Spanish Navy operated the AV-8S Matador from their aircraft carrier Dédalo (formerly the USS Cabot); the aircraft provided both air defence and strike capabilities for the Spanish fleet. Spain later purchased five Harriers directly from the British government mainly to replace losses.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hawker Siddeley aggressively marketed the Harrier for export. At one point the company was holding talks with Australia, Brazil, Switzerland, India and Japan. Of these only India became a customer, purchasing the Sea Harrier. At one point China came very close to becoming an operator of the first generation Harrier. Following an overture by the UK in the early 1970s, when relations with the West were warming, China became interested in the aircraft as it sought to modernise its armed forces; British Prime Minister James Callaghan noted significant hostility from the USSR over the sales bid. The deal was later cancelled by the UK as part of a diplomatic backlash after China invaded Vietnam in 1979.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Spanish Navy, Thai Navy, Royal Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps have all retired their first-generation Harriers. Spain sold seven single-seat and two twin-seat Harriers to Thailand in 1998. The Royal Thai Navy's AV-8S Matadors were delivered as part of the air wing deployed on the new light aircraft carrier HTMS Chakri Naruebet. The Thai Navy had from the start significant logistical problems keeping the Harriers operational due to a shortage of funds for spare parts and equipment, leaving only a few Harriers serviceable at a time. In 1999, two years after being delivered, only one airframe was in airworthy condition. Around 2003, Thailand considered acquiring former Royal Navy Sea Harriers, which were more suitable for maritime operations and better equipped for air defence, to replace their AV-8S Harriers; this investigation did not progress to a purchase. The last first-generation Harriers were retired by Thailand in 2006.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Some countries almost purchased Harriers. British Aerospace held talks with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Switzerland, India, and Japan.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "When the Argentinian Navy looked for newer fighters in 1968 the US government only offered old A-4A planes instead of the A-4Fs Argentina wanted. Argentina contacted the British government in 1969 and expressed interest in buying from six to twelve Harrier GR.1s. In 1969 the Argentinian Navy received its second carrier, ARA 25 de Mayo, from the Netherlands. On her voyage home, Hawker Siddeley demonstrated a RAF Harrier GR.Mk.1 (XV757) but Argentina opted for the A-4Q Skyhawk instead. There were several problems to supply Argentina with Harrier jets and engines that prevented the deal from being closed, and when the US knew about the Harrier negotiations they quickly offered a better deal to Argentina. Some years later, before the 1982 war, British officials offered Argentina an aircraft carrier and Sea Harrier aircraft.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Planning for a HMAS Melbourne aircraft carrier replacement began in 1981. After considering American, Italian, and Spanish designs, the Australian government accepted a British offer to sell HMS Invincible, which would be operated with Harriers and helicopters. However, the Royal Navy withdrew the offer after the Falklands War, and the 1983 election of the Australian Labor Party led to the cancellation of plans to replace Melbourne.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "As early as 1972 the Chinese government started negotiating a purchase of up to 200 Harrier aircraft. Due to internal political issues, China put the negotiations on hold. In 1977 Li Chiang, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade, visited the UK and British Aerospace organised a Harrier flying demonstration. In November 1978, the Harrier-demonstration was repeated for the Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Chen during his UK visit. The Harrier deal would have meant British Government ignored United States laws that prohibited such sales to communist countries. The Soviet Union was also actively opposed to the UK selling weapons to the Chinese. In spite of that, British Aerospace convinced China that the Harrier was an effective close-support fighter and was good enough to act in a defensive role. In 1979, the Anglo-Sino deal was almost done before being cancelled by the Sino-Vietnamese War.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Swiss Air Force was interested in purchasing some Harriers as its doctrine was to operate in hidden and dispersed locations during the Cold War. British Aerospace held talks with Switzerland offering AV-8s to replace De Havilland Venoms. A demonstration was made by test pilot John Farley and XV742/G-VSTO in 1971.",
"title": "Operational history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "No. 1417 Flight RAF",
"title": "Aircraft on display"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1988–89",
"title": "Specifications (Harrier GR.3)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "General characteristics",
"title": "Specifications (Harrier GR.3)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Performance",
"title": "Specifications (Harrier GR.3)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Armament",
"title": "Specifications (Harrier GR.3)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Avionics",
"title": "Specifications (Harrier GR.3)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "",
"title": "See also"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a jet-powered attack aircraft designed and produced by the British aerospace company Hawker Siddeley. It was the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities and the only truly successful V/STOL design of that era. It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft, being developed directly from the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel prototype aircraft following the cancellation of a more advanced supersonic aircraft, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154. In the mid 1960s, the Harrier GR.1 and GR.3 variants were ordered by the British government for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Harrier GR.1 made its first flight on 28 December 1967, and entered RAF service in April 1967. During the 1970s, the United States opted to procure the aircraft as the AV-8A, it was operated by the US Marine Corps (USMC). Introduced to service amid the Cold War, the RAF positioned the bulk of their Harriers across West Germany to defend against a potential invasion of Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact forces; the unique abilities of the Harrier allowed the RAF to disperse their forces away from vulnerable airbases. The USMC used their Harriers primarily for close air support, operating from amphibious assault ships, and, if needed, forward operating bases. Harrier squadrons saw several deployments overseas. Its ability to operate with minimal ground facilities and very short runways allowed it to be used at locations unavailable to other fixed-wing aircraft. The Harrier received criticism for having a high accident rate and for a time-consuming maintenance process. In the 1970s, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier was developed from the Harrier for use by the Royal Navy (RN) on Invincible-class aircraft carriers. Both the Sea Harrier and the Harrier fought in the 1982 Falklands War, in which the aircraft proved to be crucial and versatile. The RN Sea Harriers provided fixed-wing air defence while the RAF Harriers focused on ground-attack missions in support of the advancing British land force. The Harrier was also extensively redesigned as the AV-8B Harrier II and British Aerospace Harrier II by the team of McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the first-generation aircraft were gradually replaced by the newer Harrier IIs. | 2001-12-21T11:56:39Z | 2023-12-11T14:58:45Z | [
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14,315 | Hawker Harrier | The Hawker Harrier was a British experimental biplane torpedo bomber aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft to a specification issued in the 1920s for the Royal Air Force.
In 1925, the British Air Ministry laid down specifications for a high altitude bomber to replace the Hawker Horsley and for a coastal torpedo bomber (Specifications 23/25 and 24/25). As these specifications were similar, the Air Ministry announced that a single competition would be held to study aircraft submitted for both specifications.
Sydney Camm of Hawker Aircraft designed the Harrier to meet the requirements of Specification 23/25, with the prototype (J8325) first flying in February 1927, the first of the competitors for the two specifications to fly. The Harrier was a two-seat biplane with single-bay wings powered by a geared Bristol Jupiter VIII radial engine. It was armed with one .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine gun and one .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun carrying a maximum of 1,000 lb (450 kg) of bombs.
The prototype Harrier was tested at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A & AEE) at Martlesham Heath in November 1927, where, while it met the requirements of Specification 23/25 and had satisfactory handling, the geared engine meant that it was underpowered, and it had an inferior bombload to the Hawker Horsley, the aircraft it was meant to replace. It was therefore modified to carry a torpedo. On testing the modified aircraft, however, it was found to still be underpowered, being incapable of taking off with a torpedo, gunner and full fuel load. It was therefore not considered further, the competition ultimately being won by the Vickers Vildebeest.
The prototype was used by Bristol as an engine testbed, flying with the 870 hp (650 kW) Bristol Hydra and the 495 hp (369 kW) Bristol Orion engines.
Data from Mason, The British Bomber since 1914
General characteristics
Performance
Armament
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era | [
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14,317 | Hergé | Georges Prosper Remi (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pʁɔspɛʁ ʁəmi]; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (/ɛərˈʒeɪ/; French: [ɛʁʒe] ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, Quick & Flupke (1930–1940) and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinctive ligne claire drawing style.
Born to a lower-middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, Hergé began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines, developing his first comic series, The Adventures of Totor, for Le Boy-Scout Belge in 1926. Working for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, he created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 on the advice of its editor Norbert Wallez. Revolving around the actions of boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, the series' early instalments — Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America — were designed as conservative propaganda for children. Domestically successful, after serialisation the stories were published in book form, with Hergé continuing the series and also developing both the Quick & Flupke and Jo, Zette and Jocko series for Le Vingtième Siècle. Influenced by his friend Zhang Chongren, from 1934 Hergé placed far greater emphasis on conducting background research for his stories, resulting in increased realism from The Blue Lotus onward. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, Le Vingtième Siècle was closed, but Hergé continued his series in Le Soir, a popular newspaper controlled by the Nazi administration.
After the Allied liberation of Belgium in 1944, Le Soir was shut down and its staff — including Hergé — accused of having been collaborators. An official investigation was launched, and although no charges were brought against Hergé, in subsequent years he repeatedly faced accusations of having been a traitor and collaborator. With Raymond Leblanc he established Tintin magazine in 1946, through which he serialised new Adventures of Tintin stories. As the magazine's artistic director, he also oversaw the publication of other successful comics series, such as Edgar P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer. In 1950 he established Studios Hergé as a team to aid him in his ongoing projects; prominent staff members Jacques Martin and Bob de Moor greatly contributed to subsequent volumes of The Adventures of Tintin. Amid personal turmoil following the collapse of his first marriage, he produced Tintin in Tibet, his personal favourite of his works. In later years he became less prolific, and unsuccessfully attempted to establish himself as an abstract artist.
Hergé's works have been widely acclaimed for their clarity of draughtsmanship and meticulous, well-researched plots. They have been the source of a wide range of adaptations, in theatre, radio, television, cinema, and computer gaming. He remains a strong influence on the comic book medium, particularly in Europe. He is widely celebrated in Belgium: a Hergé Museum was established in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009.
Georges Prosper Remi was born on 22 May 1907 in his parental home in Etterbeek, a central suburb in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. His was a lower-middle-class family. His Walloon father, Alexis Remi, worked in a confectionery factory, whilst his Flemish mother, Elisabeth Dufour, was a housewife. Married on 18 January 1905, they moved into a house at 25 rue Cranz (now 33 rue Philippe Baucq), where Georges was born, although a year later they moved to a house at 34 rue de Theux. His primary language was his father's French, but growing up in the bilingual Brussels, he also learned Dutch, developing a Marollien accent from his maternal grandmother. A younger brother, Paul, was born five years after Georges. Like most Belgians, his family belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, though they were not particularly devout. He later characterised his life in Etterbeek as dominated by a monochrome grey, considering it extremely boring. Biographer Benoît Peeters suggested that this childhood melancholy might have been exacerbated through being sexually abused by a maternal uncle, Charles Arthur Dufour.
Remi developed a love of cinema, favouring Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton; his later work in the comic strip medium displayed an obvious influence from them in style and content. Although not a keen reader, he enjoyed the novels of British and US authors, such as Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and The Pickwick Papers, as well as the novels of Frenchman Alexandre Dumas. Drawing as a hobby, he sketched out scenes from daily life along the edges of his school books. Some of these illustrations were of German soldiers, because his four years of primary schooling at the Ixelles Municipal School No. 3 coincided with World War I, during which Brussels was occupied by the German army. In 1919, his secondary education began at the secular Place de Londres in Ixelles, but in 1920 he was moved to Saint-Boniface School, an institution controlled by the archbishop where the teachers were Roman Catholic priests. Remi proved a successful student, being awarded prizes for excellence. He completed his secondary education in July 1925 at the top of his class.
My childhood was extremely ordinary. It happened in a very average place, with average events and average thoughts. For me, the poet's "green paradise" was rather gray ... My childhood, my adolescence, Boy Scouting, military service — all of it was gray. Neither a sad boyhood nor a happy one — rather a lackluster one.
Hergé
Aged 12, Remi joined the Boy Scout brigade attached to Saint-Boniface School, becoming troop leader of the Squirrel Patrol and earning the name "Curious Fox" (Renard curieux). With the Scouts, he travelled to summer camps in Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, and in the summer of 1923 his troop hiked 200 miles across the Pyrenees. His experiences with Scouting would have a significant influence on the rest of his life, sparking his love of camping and the natural world, and providing him with a moral compass that stressed personal loyalty and keeping one's promises.
His Scoutmaster, Rene Weverbergh, encouraged his artistic ability, and published one of Remi's drawings in the newsletter of the Saint-Boniface Scouts, Jamais Assez (Never Enough): his first published work. When Weverbergh became involved in the publication of Boy-Scout, the newsletter of the Federation of Scouts, he published more of Remi's illustrations, the first of which appeared in the fifth issue, from 1922. Remi continued publishing cartoons, drawings and woodcuts in subsequent issues of the newsletter, which was soon renamed Le Boy-Scout Belge (The Belgian Boy Scout). During this time, he experimented with different pseudonyms, using "Jérémie" and "Jérémiades" before settling on "Hergé", the French pronunciation of his reversed initials (R.G.) His work was first published under this name in December 1924.
Alongside his stand-alone illustrations, in July 1926 Hergé began production of a comic strip for Le Boy-Scout Belge, Les Aventures de Totor (The Adventures of Totor), which continued intermittent publication until 1929. Revolving around the adventures of a Boy Scout patrol leader, the comic initially featured written captions underneath the scenes, but Hergé began to experiment with other forms of conveying information, including speech balloons. Illustrations were also published in Le Blé qui lève (The Wheat That Grows) and other publications of the Catholic Action for the Belgian Youth [fr] (Action catholique de la jeunesse belge), and Hergé produced a book jacket for Weverbergh's novel, The Soul of the Sea. Being young and inexperienced, still learning his craft, Hergé sought guidance from an older cartoonist, Pierre Ickx, and together they founded the short-lived Atelier de la Fleur de Lys (AFL), an organisation for Christian cartoonists.
After graduating from secondary school in 1925, Hergé enrolled in the École Saint-Luc art school, but finding the teaching boring, he left after one lesson. He hoped for a job as an illustrator alongside Ickx at Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century) — a conservative "Catholic Newspaper of Doctrine and Information" — but no positions were available. Instead he got a job in the paper's subscriptions department, starting in September 1925. Despising the boredom of this position, he enlisted for military service before he was called up, and in August 1926 was assigned to the Dailly barracks at Schaerbeek. Joining the first infantry regiment, he was also bored by his military training, but continued sketching and producing episodes of Totor.
Toward the end of his military service, in August 1927, Hergé met the editor of Le Vingtième Siècle, the Abbé Norbert Wallez, a vocal fascist who kept a signed photograph of the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini on his desk. Impressed by Hergé's repertoire, Wallez agreed to give him a job as a photographic reporter and cartoonist for the paper, something for which Hergé always remained grateful, coming to view the Abbé as a father figure. Supplemented by commissions for other publications, Hergé illustrated a number of texts for "The Children's Corner" and the literary pages; the illustrations of this period show his interest in woodcuts and the early prototype of his ligne claire style.
Beginning a series of newspaper supplements in late 1928, Wallez founded a supplement for children, Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), which subsequently appeared in Le Vingtième Siècle every Thursday. Carrying strong Catholic and fascist messages, many of its passages were explicitly anti-semitic. For this new venture, Hergé illustrated L'Extraordinaire Aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet (The Extraordinary Adventure of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet), a comic strip authored by one of the paper's sport columnists, which told the story of two boys, one of their little sisters, and her inflatable rubber pig. Hergé was unsatisfied, and eager to write and draw a comic strip of his own. He was fascinated by new techniques in the medium — such as the systematic use of speech bubbles — found in such US comics as George McManus' Bringing Up Father, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Rudolph Dirks's The Katzenjammer Kids, copies of which had been sent to him from Mexico by the paper's reporter Léon Degrelle, stationed there to report on the Cristero War.
Hergé developed a character named Tintin as a Belgian boy reporter who could travel the world with his fox terrier, Snowy — "Milou" in the original French — basing him in large part on his earlier character of Totor and also on his own brother, Paul. Degrelle later falsely claimed that Tintin had been based on him, while he and Hergé fell out when Degrelle used one of his designs without permission; they settled out-of-court. Although Hergé wanted to send his character to the United States, Wallez instead ordered him to set his adventure in the Soviet Union, acting as a work of anti-socialist propaganda for children. The result, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, began serialisation in Le Petit Vingtième on 10 January 1929, and ran until 8 May 1930. Popular in Francophone Belgium, Wallez organized a publicity stunt at the Gare de Nord station, following which he organized the publication of the story in book form. The popularity of the story led to an increase in sales, and so Wallez granted Hergé two assistants, Eugène Van Nyverseel and Paul "Jam" Jamin.
In January 1930, Hergé introduced Quick & Flupke (Quick et Flupke), a new comic strip about two street kids from Brussels, in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième. At Wallez's direction, in June he began serialisation of the second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo, designed to encourage colonial sentiment towards the Belgian Congo. Authored in a paternalistic style that depicted the Congolese as childlike idiots, in later decades it would be accused of racism; however, at the time it was un-controversial and popular, with further publicity stunts held to increase sales. For the third adventure, Tintin in America, serialised from September 1931 to October 1932, Hergé finally got to deal with a scenario of his own choice, although he used the work to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist agenda in keeping with the paper's ultra-conservative ideology. Although the Adventures of Tintin had been serialised in the French Catholic Cœurs Vaillants ("Brave Hearts") since 1930, he was soon receiving syndication requests from Swiss and Portuguese newspapers too. Though wealthier than most Belgians at his age, and despite increasing success, he remained an unfazed "conservative young man" dedicated to his work.
Hergé sought work elsewhere too, creating The Lovable Mr. Mops cartoon for the Bon Marché department store, and The Adventures of Tim the Squirrel Out West for the rival L'Innovation department store.
At the offices of Le Petit Vingtième in 1928, Hergé met the woman who would become his first wife, Germaine Kieckens (1906 – 26 October 1995). A redhead described by Pierre Assouline as "elegant and popular", she had obtained work as the secretary for Norbert Wallez. At the time of her birth, her parents were relatively elderly and, having lost an earlier child, they were particularly overprotective of her. Greatly admiring Wallez, whom she looked up to as a father figure, she adopted his fascist political beliefs. She was appointed editor of Votre Vingtième, Madame, a supplement for women for which Hergé sometimes drew the cover. She also began writing articles for Le Petit Vingtième using the pseudonym Tantine. The first 500 copies of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets were numbered and signed by Hergé using Tintin's signature, with Snowy's paw print being drawn next to it by Kieckens.
In 1930, Hergé escorted her home from work almost every night, though she expressed little romantic interest in him at the time. Instead she desired an older, or more mature man, such as the Abbé himself. Wallez however encouraged the two to enter into a relationship, and one evening at the Taverne du Palace she indicated to Hergé that she would be interested in a relationship.
On 20 July 1932 Hergé and Kieckens were married; although neither of them was entirely happy with the union, they had been encouraged to do so by Wallez, who insisted that all his single staff married and who personally carried out the wedding ceremony at the Saint-Roch Church in Laeken. Spending their honeymoon in Vianden, Luxembourg, the couple moved into an apartment in the rue Knapen, Schaerbeek.
In November 1932 Hergé announced that the following month he would send Tintin on an adventure to Asia. Although initially titled The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient, it would later be renamed Cigars of the Pharaoh. A mystery story, the plot began in Egypt before proceeding to Arabia and India, during which the recurring characters of Thomson and Thompson and Rastapopoulos were introduced. Through his friend Charles Lesne, Hergé was hired to produce illustrations for the company Casterman, and in late 1933 they proposed taking over the publication of both The Adventures of Tintin and Quick and Flupke in book form, to which Hergé agreed; the first Casterman book was the collected volume of Cigars. Continuing to subsidise his comic work with commercial advertising, in January 1934 he also founded the "Atelier Hergé" advertising company with two partners, but it was liquidated after six months.
After Wallez was removed from the paper's editorship in August 1933 following a scandal, Hergé became despondent; in March 1934 he tried to resign, but was encouraged to stay after his monthly salary was increased from 2000 to 3000 francs and his workload was reduced, with Jamin taking responsibility for the day-to-day running of Le Petit Vingtième.
From February to August 1934 Hergé serialised Popol Out West in Le Petit Vingtième, a story using animal characters that was a development of the earlier Tim the Squirrel comic.
From August 1934 to October 1935, Le Petit Vingtième serialised Tintin's next adventure, The Blue Lotus, which was set in China and dealt with the recent Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Hergé had been greatly influenced in the production of the work by his friend Zhang Chongren, a Catholic Chinese student studying at Brussels' Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, to whom he had been introduced in May 1934. Zhang gave him lessons in Taoist philosophy, Chinese art and Chinese calligraphy, influencing not only his artistic style, but also his general outlook on life. As a token of appreciation Hergé added a fictional "Chang Chong-Chen" to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. For The Blue Lotus, Hergé devoted far more attention to accuracy, resulting in a largely realistic portrayal of China. As a result, The Blue Lotus has been widely hailed as "Hergé's first masterpiece" and a benchmark in the series' development. Casterman published it in book form, also insisting that Hergé include colour plates in both the volume and in reprints of America and Cigars. In 1936, they also began production of Tintin merchandise, something Hergé supported, having ideas of an entire shop devoted to The Adventures of Tintin, something that would come to fruition 50 years later. Nevertheless, while his serialised comics proved lucrative, the collected volumes sold less well, something Hergé blamed on Casterman, urging them to do more to market his books.
Hergé's next Tintin story, The Broken Ear (1935–1937), was the first for which the plot synopsis had been outlined from the start, being a detective story that took Tintin to South America. It introduced the character of General Alcazar, and also saw Hergé introduce the first fictional countries into the series, San Theodoros and Nuevo Rico, two republics based largely on Bolivia and Paraguay. The violent elements within The Broken Ear upset the publishers of Cœurs Vaillants, who asked Hergé to create a more child-appropriate story for them. The result was The Adventures of Jo, Zette, and Jocko, a series about a young brother and sister, plus their pet monkey and the parents. The series began with The Secret Ray, which was serialised in Cœurs Vaillants and then Le Petit Vingtième, and continued with The Stratoship H-22 and finally The Valley of the Cobras. Hergé nevertheless disliked the series, commenting that the characters "bored me terribly." Now writing three series simultaneously, Hergé was working every day of the year, and felt stressed.
The next Tintin adventure was The Black Island (1937–1938), which saw the character travel to Britain to battle counterfeiters and introduced a new antagonist, the German Dr. Müller. Hergé followed this with King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939), in which Tintin saves the fictional Eastern European country of Syldavia from being invaded by its expansionist neighbour, Borduria; the event was an anti-fascist satire of Nazi Germany's expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia. In May 1939, Hergé moved to a new house in Watermael-Boitsfort, although following the German invasion of Poland, he was conscripted into the Belgian army and temporarily stationed in Herenthout. Demobbed within the month, he returned to Brussels and adopted a more explicit anti-German stance when beginning his next Tintin adventure, Land of Black Gold, which was set in the Middle East and featured Dr. Müller sabotaging oil lines.
During this period, Hergé also contributed to L'Ouest (The West), a newspaper run by his friend Raymond De Becker. L'Ouest urged Belgium to remain neutral in World War II, a stance Hergé supported, creating the Mr Bellum strip to argue this position. Hergé was invited to visit China by Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had enjoyed The Blue Lotus, although due to the political situation in Europe, this was not possible. He was re-mobilized in December, and stationed in Antwerp, from where he continued to send the Tintin strip to Le Petit Vingtième. However, he fell ill with sinusitis and boils and was declared unfit for military service in May 1940. That same day, Germany invaded Belgium. Le Vingtième Siècle was shut down, part way through the serialisation of Land of Black Gold.
It is certain that Raymond De Becker sympathized with the National Socialist system, and on this point he was in agreement with Henri de Man. I admit that I believed myself that the future of the West could depend on the New Order. For many people democracy had proven deceptive, and the New Order brought fresh hope. In Catholic circles such views were widely held. Given everything that happened, it was naturally a terrible error to have believed even for an instant in the New Order.
Hergé, 1973
As the Belgian Army clashed with the invading Germans, Hergé and his wife fled by car to France along with tens of thousands of other Belgians, first staying in Paris and then heading south to Puy-de-Dôme, where they remained for six weeks. On 28 May, King Leopold III of the Belgians surrendered the country to the German army to prevent further killing; a move that Hergé supported. He followed the king's request that all of those Belgians who had fled the country return, arriving back in Brussels on 30 June. There, he found that his house had been occupied as an office for the German army's Propagandastaffel, and also faced financial trouble, as he owed back taxes yet was unable to access his financial reserves. All Belgian publications were now under the control of the German occupying force, who refused Le Petit Vingtième permission to continue publication. Instead, Hergé was offered employment as a cartoonist for Le Pays Réel by its editor, the Rexist Victor Matthys, but Hergé perceived Le Pays Réel as an explicitly political publication, and thus declined the position.
Instead, he took up a position with Le Soir, Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, the German authorities had permitted Le Soir to be re-opened under the directorship of De Doncker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism. After joining the Le Soir team on 15 October, Hergé was involved in the creation of a children's supplement, Soir-Jeunesse, aided by Jamin and Jacques Van Melkebeke. He relaunched The Adventures of Tintin with a new story, The Crab with the Golden Claws, in which Tintin pursued drug smugglers in North Africa; the story was a turning point in the series for its introduction of Captain Haddock, who would become a major character in the rest of the Adventures. This story, like the subsequent Adventures of Tintin published in Le Soir, would reject the political themes present in earlier stories, instead remaining firmly neutral. Hergé also included new Quick & Flupke gags in the supplement, as well as illustrations for serialised stories by Edgar Allan Poe and the Brothers Grimm.
In May 1941, a paper shortage led to the Soir-Jeunesse being reduced to four pages, with the length of the Tintin strip being cut by two thirds. Several weeks later the supplement disappeared altogether, with The Crab with the Golden Claws being moved into Le Soir itself, where it became a daily strip. While some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration, he was heavily enticed by the size of Le Soir's readership, which reached 600,000. With Van Melkebeke, Hergé put together two Tintin plays. The first, Tintin in the Indies, appeared at Brussels' Theatre des Galeries in April 1941, while the second, Mr Boullock's Disappearance, was performed there in December. From October 1941 to May 1942, Le Soir serialised Hergé's next Tintin adventure, The Shooting Star, followed by publication as a single volume by Casterman. In keeping with Le Soir's editorial standpoint, The Shooting Star espoused an anti-Semitic and anti-American attitude, with the antagonist being a wealthy Jewish American businessman; it would thus prove particularly controversial in the post-war period, although Hergé denied any malicious anti-Semitic intention.
Casterman felt that the black-and-white volumes of The Adventures of Tintin were not selling as well as colour comic books, and thus that the series should be produced in colour. At the same time, Belgium was facing a paper-shortage, with Casterman wishing to cut down the volumes from 120-pages in length to 62. Hergé was initially sceptical, but ultimately agreed to their demands in February 1942. For these new editions, Casterman introduced a four-colour system, although Hergé insisted that colour should remain secondary to line, and that it would not be used for shading. To cope with this additional workload, Hergé approached a friend whom he had met through Van Melkebeke, Edgar P. Jacobs, to aid him as a cartoonist and colourist. Jacobs could only work on the project part-time, and so in March 1942, Hergé also employed a woman named Alice Devos to aid him. In July 1942, Hergé then procured an agent, Bernard Thièry, who took 40% of his commissions; their working relationship would be strained. With their assistance, from 1942 to 1947, Hergé adapted most of his previous Adventures of Tintin into 62-page colour versions.
Hergé's next Adventure of Tintin would be The Secret of the Unicorn, serialised in Le Soir from June 1942. He had collaborated closely with Van Melkebeke on this project, who had introduced many elements from the work of Jules Verne into the detective story, in which Tintin and Haddock searched for parchments revealing the location of hidden pirate treasure. The Secret of the Unicorn marked the first half of a story arc that was completed in Red Rackham's Treasure, serialised in Le Soir from February 1943; in this story, Tintin and Haddock search for the pirate's treasure in the Caribbean, with the character of Professor Calculus being introduced to the series. Following Red Rackham's Treasure, Hergé drew illustrations for a serialised story titled Dupont et Dupond, détectives ("Thomson and Thompson, Detectives"), authored by the newspaper's crime editor, Paul Kinnet.
In September 1943, De Becker was removed as editor of Le Soir for stating that although the Nazis were motivated "by undoubted good will, [they were also] extremely out of touch with reality". Although Hergé was close to De Becker, he decided to remain at the newspaper, which came under the editorship of Max Hodeige. In autumn 1943, Hergé had decided that he wanted Jacobs to collaborate with him on The Adventures of Tintin. Although initially hesitant, Jacobs eventually agreed, adopting the paid position in January 1944. Jacobs and Hergé became close collaborators and greatly influenced each other, while together they developed the plot for the next Adventure of Tintin, The Seven Crystal Balls, which began serialisation in Le Soir in December 1943.
As the Allied troops liberated Brussels from German occupation, Le Soir ceased publication on 2 September 1944, partway through its serialisation of The Seven Crystal Balls. Hergé was arrested on 3 September, having been named as a collaborator in a Resistance document known as the "Gallery of Traitors". This would be the first of four incidents in which Hergé was arrested — by the State Security, the Judiciary Police, the Belgian National Movement, and the Front for Independence respectively — during the course of which he spent one night in jail. On 5 September the entire staff of Le Soir were fired and a new editorial team introduced, while on 8 September the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) issued a proclamation announcing that "any journalist who had helped produce a newspaper during the occupation was for the time being barred from practising his profession." Blacklisted, Hergé was now unemployed. Further, he was publicly lampooned as a collaborator by a newspaper closely associated with the Belgian Resistance, La Patrie, which issued a satirical strip titled The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Nazis.
The period witnessed widespread recriminations against accused collaborators, with military courts condemning 30,000 on minor charges and 25,000 on more serious charges; of those, 5,500 were sentenced to life imprisonment or capital punishment. A judiciary inquiry into Hergé's case was launched by the deputy public prosecutor, Mr Vinçotte, although in his report he urged lenience, stating that "I am inclined to close the case. I believe it would bring ridicule on the judicial system to go after an inoffensive children's book author and illustrator. On the other hand, Hergé worked for Le Soir during the war, and his illustrations are what made people buy the newspaper." Although unable to work for the press, Hergé continued to re-draw and colour the older Adventures of Tintin for publication in book form by Casterman, completing the second version of Tintin in the Congo and starting on King Ottokar's Sceptre. Casterman supported Hergé throughout his ordeal, for which he always remained grateful. Attempting to circumvent his blacklisting, with Jacobs he began producing comics under the anonymous pseudonym of "Olav", but upon sending them to publishers found none who would accept them. Although this period allowed him an escape from the pressure of daily production which had affected most of his working life, he also had to deal with family problems: His brother Paul returned to Brussels from a German prisoner-of-war camp, although their mother had become highly delusional and was moved to a psychiatric hospital.
[During the occupation] I worked, just like a miner, a tram driver or baker! But, while one found it normal for an engineer to operate a train, members of the press were labelled as 'traitors'.
Hergé
In October 1945, Hergé was approached by Raymond Leblanc, a former member of a conservative Resistance group, the National Royalist Movement, and his associates André Sinave and Albert Debaty. The trio were planning on launching a weekly magazine for children, and Leblanc — who had fond childhood memories of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets — thought Hergé would be ideal for it. Hergé agreed, and Leblanc obtained clearance papers for him, allowing him to work. Concerned about the judicial investigation into Hergé's wartime affiliations, Leblanc convinced William Ugeux, a leader of the Belgian Resistance who was now in charge of censorship and certificates of good citizenship, to look into the comic creator's file. Ugeux concluded that Hergé had been "a blunderer rather than a traitor" for his work at Le Soir. The decision as to whether Hergé would stand trial belonged to the general auditor of the Military Tribunal, Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch. He closed the case on 22 December 1945, declaring that "in regard to the particularly inoffensive character of the drawings published by Remi, bringing him before a war tribunal would be inappropriate and risky".
Now free from threat of prosecution, Hergé continued to support his colleagues at Le Soir who were being charged as collaborators; six of them were sentenced to death, and others to lengthy prison sentences. Among those sentenced to death was Hergé's friend, Jamin, although his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In May 1946, Hergé was issued a certificate of good citizenship, which became largely necessary to obtain employment in post-war Belgium. Celebrations were marred by his mother's death in April 1946; she was aged 60. Harry Thompson has described this post-war period as the "greatest upheaval" of Hergé's life. Hergé later described it as "an experience of absolute intolerance. It was horrible, horrible!" He considered the post-war trials of alleged collaborators a great injustice inflicted upon many innocent people, and never forgave Belgian society for the way that he had been treated, although he hid this from his public persona.
Sinave devised the idea of naming their new magazine Tintin, believing that this would attract a wide audience. The Dutch-language edition produced for release in Belgium's Flemish north was titled Kuifje after the character's Dutch-language name. Adopting the slogan of "The Newspaper for the Young Aged 7 to 77", the magazine also used a logo featuring the Tintin character himself. The capital for the project had been put up by those involved: as executive director, Leblanc provided 50%, while its managing director Georges Lallemand provided 40% and Hergé, its artistic director, provided 10%. Hergé assembled a group of associates to aid him, including Van Melkebeke, Jacobs, Paul Cuvelier, and Jacques Laudy. Van Melkebeke was initially appointed editor-in-chief, although he was arrested for having worked for the collaborationist Le Nouveau journal shortly after, with his involvement in the project thus being kept secret so as to avoid further controversy. Van Melkebeke continued to provide work for the magazine under pseudonyms, although this ceased during his imprisonment from December 1947 to October 1949.
The first issue of Tintin magazine was published on 26 September 1946. Hergé was assigned to produce a two-page spread each week, and began by concluding The Seven Crystal Balls before embarking on its successor story, Prisoners of the Sun. Alongside Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, the magazine also included Laudy's The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers and Jacobs' The Secret of the Swordfish, the first in his new Blake and Mortimer series. While the magazine was in competition with a number of rivals, most notably Spirou, famous for serialising the Lucky Luke and Buck Danny comics, it proved an immediate success, with 60,000 copies being sold in three days of its release. Its publication resulted in a massive boost to Hergé's book sales too.
In 1947 a Belgian film adaptation of The Crab with the Golden Claws was produced, and believing that cinematic adaptations were a good way to proceed, Hergé contacted Disney Studios in the United States; they declined his offer to adapt The Adventures of Tintin for the silver screen. In May 1947 the artistic collaboration between Hergé and Jacobs ended after an argument. Hergé had been jealous of the immediate success of Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer series, and had turned down Jacobs' request that he be credited as co-creator of the new Adventures of Tintin. That same month, Hergé broke from his manager, Thiery, after discovering that the latter had been siphoning off money for himself.
Many Belgians were highly critical of the magazine due to its connections with Hergé, who was still deemed a collaborator and traitor by many; La Soir and La Cité publicly criticised the decision without referring to him by name while Le Quotidien and Le Drapeau Rouge specifically singled him out for denunciation. Hergé believed that the children's author Jeanne Cappe was behind many of these accusations, and threatened her with a lawsuit. Unhappy with life in Belgium, Hergé made plans to emigrate to Argentina, a nation that was welcoming many Europeans who had supported the defeated Axis powers and which had a thriving comic book scene. Ultimately, he changed his mind, for reasons that have remained unknown; it is possible that he was unable to secure any promise of work in the South American country.
I've just discovered ... that Tintin is no longer me, and that though he continued to live it is through a sort of artificial respiration that I must keep up constantly, and that is exhausting me more and more.
Hergé, in a letter to his wife, 1947
In May, Hergé and Germaine holidayed near to Gland on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where they were accompanied by a friend of theirs, a young woman named Rosane. During the holiday, Hergé and Rosane embarked on an extra-marital affair. He felt guilty, and returned to Brussels in June. Privately, he expressed the view that he had been led to commit such an act, which he viewed as immoral, through the influence of "amoral friends" with whom he was associating. Hoping to reignite the passion and stability of his marriage, he arranged to return to Switzerland with Germaine soon after; here they argued and embarked on a temporary separation. Remaining in Switzerland, he visited King Leopold III, who was then holidaying in Prégny, before briefly returning to Brussels in July. Back in Switzerland, he embarked on an affair with a married woman, although again informed Germaine before setting off to spend time in the Ardennes. In August, the couple sought to reunite by holidaying together in Brittany, but there they broke up again and Hergé returned to his lover in Switzerland. In September he finally returned to Brussels, but he then spent time with his close friend Marcel Dehaye in a retreat at the Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Scourmont. That month, he revived Land of Black Gold — the Adventure of Tintin that had been interrupted by the German invasion of 1940 — and began serialising it in Tintin magazine. However, the story was again interrupted, this time for 12 weeks as Hergé took a further unannounced holiday to Gland, greatly annoying many of his colleagues.
Although they retained respect for each other, Hergé's repeated absences had created a tense situation between himself and Leblanc. After a lengthy search, Leblanc had found a publisher willing to produce an edition of Tintin magazine in France: Georges Dargaud's Le Lombard, which began production of a French edition in October 1948. However, Hergé was unhappy that Leblanc had appointed André Frenez as Van Melkebeke's replacement as editor-in-chief, describing Frenez as "a cold functionary". Hergé was stubborn and uncompromising as the magazine's artistic director, known for strongly criticising the work of old friends like Pierre Ickx if he felt that they did not meet his exacting standards. He was particularly critical of the work of two of the newly hired staff at Tintin and Kuifje, Jacques Martin and Willy Vandersteen, encouraging them to change their artistic style to better reflect his own preferences. To Leblanc, he expressed the concern that most of those working at Tintin were better illustrators than storytellers. He also opined that Tintin was not keeping up with the times and what he perceived as the increased maturity of children, encouraging the magazine to better reflect current events and scientific developments.
On 6 April 1950 Hergé established Studios Hergé as a public company. The Studios were based in his Avenue Delleur house in Brussels, with Hergé making a newly purchased country house in Céroux-Mousty his and Germaine's main residence. The Studios would provide both personal support to Hergé and technical support for his ongoing work. The Studio initially had only three employees; the staff would increase to 15, all of whom were working on Hergé's projects. He hired Bob de Moor as his primary apprentice at the Studios in March 1951. Impressed by Jacques Martin's work on The Golden Sphinx, Hergé persuaded Martin to join the Studios in January 1954; Martin insisted on bringing with him his own two assistants, Roger Leloup and Michel Demarets. During the early 1950s, a number of those convicted for collaborating with the Nazi occupiers were freed from prison. Sympathetic to their plight, Hergé lent money to some and aided others in getting jobs at Tintin magazine, much to Leblanc's annoyance. For instance, as well as lending him money, Hergé used his connections to secure Raymond de Becker a job in Switzerland as a book shop sales inspector. He also hired those associated with collaboration for his Studios; his new colourist, Josette Baujot, was the wife of a recently assassinated member of the Walloon Legion, and his new secretary, Baudouin van der Branden de Reeth, had served a prison sentence for working at Le Nouveau Journal during the occupation.
Hergé had developed the idea of setting an Adventure of Tintin on the moon while producing Prisoners of the Sun. He began serialisation of Destination Moon, the first of a two part arc followed by Explorers on the Moon, in Tintin magazine in March 1950. In September 1950, Hergé broke off the story, feeling the need for a break from work, having fallen back into clinical depression. He and Germaine went on holiday to Gland before returning to Brussels in late September. Many readers sent letters to Tintin asking why Explorers on the Moon was no longer being serialised, with a rumour emerging that Hergé had died. Explorers of the Moon would resume after an eighteen-month hiatus, returning in April 1952. Alongside his work on the new stories, Hergé also made use of the Studios in revising more of his early works.
In February 1952, Hergé was involved in a car crash in which Germaine's leg was shattered; she had to have a steel rod implanted in it, and was confined to a wheelchair for several months. Their relationship was further strained when they received news of Wallez' death in September 1952. His friendship with Van Melkebeke also broke apart in this period, in part due to advice gained from an alleged clairvoyant, Bertje Janueneau, upon whom both Hergé and Germaine were increasingly relying for guidance. In January 1955 a young woman named Fanny Vlamynck (fr) was hired as a colourist at the Studios. Hergé embarked on an extramarital affair with her in November 1956, with the rest of the studio staff soon finding out. Germaine grew suspicious of her husband's affections for Fanny, but was also experiencing a strong romantic attraction to her ballroom dance partner. Hergé and Germaine went on a cruise for the former's 50th birthday in May 1957, during which they visited Casablanca, Rabat, Palermo, and Rome. They went on a second holiday to Ostend in October. Following the trip to Ostend, he revealed his affair with Fanny to Germaine. He began experiencing traumatic dreams dominated by the colour white and, seeking to explain them, he visited Franz Ricklin, a psychoanalyst who was a student of Carl Jung in Zürich in May 1959. In February 1960 he returned to Switzerland, and upon his return to Brussels he began renting an apartment in Uccle, away from Germaine. His relationship with Germaine had ended, although due to restrictions under Belgian law he was unable to obtain a divorce until 17 years later.
In September 1958, Tintin magazine moved its headquarters to a newly constructed building near the Gare du Midi. Hergé continued to feud with Leblanc over the direction of the magazine; his constant absences had led to him being replaced as artistic director, and he demanded that he be reinstated. Leblanc relented in early 1965, although Hergé soon departed to Sardinia for six weeks. In October 1965 Leblanc appointed the cartoonist Greg to be editor-in-chief of the magazine, believing him capable of reforming the paper to remain relevant to the youth of the day. By this point, Tintin magazine was at its commercial peak, with sales of 600,000 a week, although Hergé had lost much of his interest in it.
Supported by his studio, Hergé produced The Calculus Affair in 1954–1956 and The Red Sea Sharks in 1956–1957. Hergé's book sales were higher than ever, and translations were being produced for the British, Spanish, and Scandinavian markets. He was receiving international press attention, with articles on his work appearing in France-Observateur, The Listener, and The Times Literary Supplement. Paul Vandromme authored an uncritical book on Hergé, Le Monde de Tintin ("The World of Tintin"), published by Éditions Gallimard in 1959; Hergé vetoed the inclusion of a proposed preface by Roger Nimier after finding its praise for his own work too embarrassing. Radio adaptations of The Adventures of Tintin were produced, as was an animated cartoon series produced by Belvision Studios, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin. Two live-action films were also produced, Tintin and the Golden Fleece (1961) and Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964), the former of which Hergé had been closely involved with.
Developing an interest in modern art, in the early 1960s Hergé befriended the art dealer Marcel Stal, owner of the Carrefour gallery in Brussels. He was a particular fan of the work of Constant Permeke, Jakob Smits, Lucio Fontana, and Jean-Pierre Raynaurd, as well as the pop art movement, in particular the work of Roy Lichtenstein. He built up his own personal collection, which consisted of both modern paintings as well as African art and Chinese ceramics. In 1962, Hergé decided he wanted to paint. He chose Louis Van Lint, one of the most respected Belgian abstract painters at the time, whose work he liked a lot, to be his private teacher. Hergé took up painting as a hobby, producing abstract art works which were influenced by the styles of Joan Miró and Serge Poliakoff. He showed his work to the art historian Léo Van Puyvelde, who was the chief conservator of the Musées des Beaux-Arts, who believed that they showed promise, but that Hergé's real talent lay with cartooning. Hergé abandoned painting shortly after, having produced 37 paintings in all. Spending less time on new Adventures of Tintin, from June to December 1965 Tintin magazine serialised a redrawn and newly coloured version of The Black Island prepared by staff at Studios Hergé.
In the 1960s, Hergé became increasingly annoyed at the success of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's Asterix comic book series, which various commentators had described as eclipsing The Adventures of Tintin as the foremost comic in the Franco-Belgian tradition. Hoping to imitate the success of the recent animated films Asterix the Gaul (1967) and Asterix and Cleopatra (1968), Hergé agreed to the production of two animated Belvision films based on the Adventures of Tintin. The first, Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969), was based on pre-existing comics, whereas the second, Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972) was an original story written by Greg. In 1982, the US filmmaker Steven Spielberg requested the film rights for a live-action adaptation of one of The Adventures of Tintin, a prospect that excited Hergé, but the project never came to fruition at the time.
In a wide-ranging interview with the journalist Numa Sadoul in October 1971, Hergé opened up about many of the problems he had experienced in his personal life. Sadoul planned to publish the interview as a book, but Hergé made many alterations to the transcript, both to improve its prose and to remove sections which cast him in a negative light. Editors at Casterman then removed even further sections, particularly those in which Hergé expressed a negative view of Catholicism. The interview was published as Tintin et moi ("Tintin and Me") in 1975. Hergé followed this by agreeing to be the subject of a documentary film produced by Henri Roane, Moi, Tintin ("I, Tintin"), which premiered in 1975. In January 1977 he attended an early comic book convention at Angoulême, where he was widely heralded as one of the masters of the discipline. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of The Adventures of Tintin in 1979, a celebratory event was held at Brussels' Hilton hotel, while an exhibit on "Le Musée imaginaire de Tintin" ("The Imaginary Museum of Tintin") was held at the Palais de Beaux-Arts.
In April 1971 Hergé visited the U.S. for the first time, primarily to visit a liver specialist in Rochester, Minnesota; however, on the trip he also visited a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, but was shocked at the conditions in which their inhabitants lived. On this visit he also spent time in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. In April 1972 he travelled to New York City for an international conference on the strip cartoon, and there presented Mayor John Lindsay with a cartoon of Tintin visiting the city and also met with the pop artist Andy Warhol. Several years later, in 1977, Warhol visited Europe, where he produced a pop art portrait of Hergé. In April 1973, Hergé took up an invitation to visit Taiwan by the nation's government, in recognition of his promotion of Chinese culture in The Blue Lotus. During the visit he also spent time in Thailand and Bali.
Hergé had long sought to regain contact with his old friend Zhang Chongren, with whom he had lost contact. He regularly asked any Chinese people that he met if they knew of Zhang, and in 1979 had some success when a staff member in a Brussels Chinese restaurant revealed that he was Zhang's godson. Hergé was thus able to re-establish contact with his old friend. The journalist Gérard Valet organised for Zhang to visit Brussels so that he and Hergé could be re-united. The event took place in March 1981, and was heavily publicised; Hergé however found the situation difficult, disliking the press attention and finding that he and Zhang had grown distant during the intervening years.
In June 1970, Hergé's father died, and after the funeral he holidayed near Lake Geneva. In 1974, his assistant Branden suffered a stroke and was left unable to write, with Hergé replacing him with a young man, Alain Baran, who Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline later termed Hergé's "surrogate son". In March 1977, Hergé's divorce with Germaine was finalised; although Hergé continued to visit her and financially support her, Germaine took the divorce badly, viewing it as a further betrayal. Hergé was then able to marry Fanny several weeks later, in a low-key ceremony on 20 May; he was 70 years old and she was 42.
In 1979, Hergé was diagnosed with osteomyelofibrosis, necessitating a complete blood transfusion. His need for blood transfusions had increased, as he came to require them every two weeks, and then every week.
On 25 February 1983, Hergé suffered cardiac arrest and was hospitalised in intensive care at Brussels' Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc. He had been scheduled to meet with Steven Spielberg, who later made The Adventures of Tintin (2011). He died at Saint-Luc on 3 March. His death received front page coverage in numerous francophone newspapers, including Libération and Le Monde. In his will, he had left Fanny as his sole heir.
In November 1986, Fanny closed Studios Hergé, replacing it with the Hergé Foundation.
In 1988, Tintin magazine was discontinued.
Only the works marked * have been translated into English
Hergé was a highly private person, being described by biographer Harry Thompson as "reserved [and] unostentatious". According to his biographer Pierre Sterckx, Hergé appeared "very conventional" in public, but in reality was "extremely erudite, with an insatiable curiosity, constantly on the watch". He greatly enjoyed walking in the countryside, gardening, and art collecting, and he was a fan of jazz music. Although he disliked making public or press appearances, Hergé insisted on personally responding to all fan mail received, which took up a considerable part of his time. He stated that "not replying to children's letters would be to betray their dreams." Friends described him as a humorous man, known particularly for his self-deprecating jokes. Colleagues described Hergé as egocentric, an assessment he agreed with. He was known to be authoritarian in dealing with his assistants and refused to share credit with them for their part in his work. Sterckx noted that "on the one hand he could be distant, even frosty, but on the other he was affectionate".
Throughout his first marriage he had a number of affairs with other women. He had no children, having been rendered sterile by radiation treatment, but in the 1950s offered to adopt his brother Paul's two children, Denise and George, when their parents were experiencing trouble in their relationship. Paul declined the offer, with Denise and George later noting that they had no great affection for their uncle, deeming him awkward around children. Hergé was raised as a Catholic, although he was never a devout practitioner of the religion. His adherence to Catholicism declined in later life as he developed a keen interest in Taoism, and became an agnostic. He was a fan of the Tao Te Ching and Arnaud Desjardins' The Path to Wisdom, as well as Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics and the work of Jean-Émile Charon.
Politically, Hergé was a fervent royalist, and remained so throughout his life, also believing in the unity of Belgium. In his early life, Hergé was "close to the traditional right-wing" of Belgian society, with Sterckx noting that through his work he was "plunged into rightist, even extreme right-wing circles". According to Harry Thompson, such political ideas were not unusual in middle-class circles in Belgium of the 1920s and early 1930s, where "patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline and naivety were so inextricably bound together in everyone's lives that right-wing politics were an almost inevitable by-product. It was a world view shared by everyone, distinguished principally by its complete ignorance of the world." When Hergé took responsibility for Le Petit Vingtième, he followed Wallez's instruction and allowed the newspaper to contain explicitly pro-fascist and anti-semitic sentiment. Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès noted that the character of Tintin was a personification of the "New Youth" concept which was promoted by the European far-right. Under Wallez's guidance, the early Adventures of Tintin contained explicit political messages for its young readership. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was a work of anti-socialist propaganda, while Tintin in the Congo was designed to encourage colonialist sentiment toward the Belgian Congo, and Tintin in America was designed as a work of anti-Americanism heavily critical of capitalism, commercialism, and industrialisation.
In contrast to Hergé's involvement in Belgium's right-wing, Sterckx thought the cartoonist to have been "a liberal and independent spirit", someone who was "the very opposite of a conservative [or] a reactionary of the right". Michael Farr asserted that Hergé had "an acute political conscience" during his earlier days, as exemplified by his condemnation of racism in the United States evident in Tintin in America. Literary critic Tom McCarthy went further, remarking that Tintin in America represented the emergence of a "left-wing counter tendency" in Hergé's work that rebelled against his right-wing milieu and which was particularly critical of wealthy capitalists and industrialists. This was furthered in The Blue Lotus, in which Hergé rejected his "classically right-wing" ideas to embrace an anti-imperialist stance, and in a contemporary Quick & Flupke strip in which he lampooned the far-right leaders of Germany and Italy, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Although many of his friends and colleagues did so in the mid-1930s, Hergé did not join the far-right Rexist Party, later asserting that he "had always had an aversion to it" and commenting that "to throw my heart and soul into an ideology is the opposite of who I am."
Hergé faced repeated accusations of racism due to his portrayal of diverse ethnic groups throughout The Adventures of Tintin. According to McCarthy, in Tintin in the Congo Hergé represented the Congolese as "good at heart, but backwards and lazy, in need of European mastery". Thompson argued that Hergé had not written the book to be "deliberately racist" and that it reflected the average early 20th-century Belgian view of the Congolese, which was more patronising than malevolent. The book provoked no controversy at the time, coming to be perceived as racist only in the latter half of the 20th century.
In the following adventure, Tintin in America, Hergé depicted members of the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans as "gullible, even naive", though it was nevertheless "broadly sympathetic" to their culture and plight, depicting their oppression at the hands of the United States Army. The Blue Lotus received both criticism for depicting the Japanese as militaristic and buck-toothed and praise for representing a less stereotypical vision of China than was the norm in Europe at the time.
Hergé has also been accused of utilising anti-semitic stereotypes, despite Hergé's protestations that the character of Rastapopoulos was Greek, and not Jewish.
From his early years, Hergé was openly critical of racism. He lambasted the pervasive racism of U.S. society in a prelude comment to Tintin in America published in Le Petit Vingtième on 20 August 1931, and ridiculed racist attitudes toward the Chinese in The Blue Lotus. Peeters asserted that "Hergé was no more racist than the next man", an assessment shared by Farr, who after meeting Hergé in the 1980s commented that "you couldn't have met someone who was more open and less racist". In contrast, Laurence Grove, president of the International Bande Dessinée Society, opined that Hergé adhered to prevailing societal trends in his work, noting, "When it was fashionable to be a Nazi, he was a Nazi. When it was fashionable to be a colonial racist, that's what he was." Discussing Tintin's racist elements, the Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen observed that "Hergé's work is deeply flawed, and yet riveting narratively and aesthetically. I have forgotten all the well-intentioned, moralistic children's literature that I have read, but I haven't forgotten Hergé."
Assouline described Hergé as "the personification of Belgium".
According to the UNESCO's Index Translationum, Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author, the second-most-often-translated Belgian author after Georges Simenon, and the second-most-often-translated French-language comics author behind René Goscinny. He also had an asteroid, 1652 Hergé, within the main belt, named after him in 1953.
A cartoon version of Hergé makes a number of cameo appearances in the 1990s animated television series The Adventures of Tintin. An animated version of Hergé also makes a cameo appearance at the start of the 2011 motion capture film, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, where he is depicted as a street cartoonist drawing a portrait of Tintin in the style of the comic at the start of the film.
The Musée Hergé is located in the centre of Louvain-la-Neuve, a city to the south of Brussels. This location was originally chosen for the museum in 2001. The futuristic building was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc and cost €15 million to build. On the centenary of the birth of Hergé, 22 May 2007, the museum's first stone was laid. The museum opened its doors in June 2009.
The idea of a museum dedicated to the work of Hergé can be traced back to the end of the 1970s, when Hergé was still alive. After his death in 1983, Hergé's widow, Fanny, led the efforts, undertaken at first by the Hergé Foundation and then by the new Studios Hergé, to catalogue and choose the artwork and elements that would become part of the museum's exhibitions.
The Hergé Museum contains eight permanent galleries displaying original artwork by Hergé, and telling the story of his life and career which had not previously been visible to the public. The museum also houses a temporary exhibition gallery. Although Tintin features prominently in the museum, Hergé's other comic strip characters, such as Jo, Zette and Jocko, and Quick and Flupke, as well as his work as a graphic designer, are also present. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Georges Prosper Remi (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pʁɔspɛʁ ʁəmi]; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (/ɛərˈʒeɪ/; French: [ɛʁʒe] ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, Quick & Flupke (1930–1940) and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinctive ligne claire drawing style.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born to a lower-middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, Hergé began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines, developing his first comic series, The Adventures of Totor, for Le Boy-Scout Belge in 1926. Working for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, he created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 on the advice of its editor Norbert Wallez. Revolving around the actions of boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, the series' early instalments — Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America — were designed as conservative propaganda for children. Domestically successful, after serialisation the stories were published in book form, with Hergé continuing the series and also developing both the Quick & Flupke and Jo, Zette and Jocko series for Le Vingtième Siècle. Influenced by his friend Zhang Chongren, from 1934 Hergé placed far greater emphasis on conducting background research for his stories, resulting in increased realism from The Blue Lotus onward. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, Le Vingtième Siècle was closed, but Hergé continued his series in Le Soir, a popular newspaper controlled by the Nazi administration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "After the Allied liberation of Belgium in 1944, Le Soir was shut down and its staff — including Hergé — accused of having been collaborators. An official investigation was launched, and although no charges were brought against Hergé, in subsequent years he repeatedly faced accusations of having been a traitor and collaborator. With Raymond Leblanc he established Tintin magazine in 1946, through which he serialised new Adventures of Tintin stories. As the magazine's artistic director, he also oversaw the publication of other successful comics series, such as Edgar P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer. In 1950 he established Studios Hergé as a team to aid him in his ongoing projects; prominent staff members Jacques Martin and Bob de Moor greatly contributed to subsequent volumes of The Adventures of Tintin. Amid personal turmoil following the collapse of his first marriage, he produced Tintin in Tibet, his personal favourite of his works. In later years he became less prolific, and unsuccessfully attempted to establish himself as an abstract artist.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hergé's works have been widely acclaimed for their clarity of draughtsmanship and meticulous, well-researched plots. They have been the source of a wide range of adaptations, in theatre, radio, television, cinema, and computer gaming. He remains a strong influence on the comic book medium, particularly in Europe. He is widely celebrated in Belgium: a Hergé Museum was established in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Georges Prosper Remi was born on 22 May 1907 in his parental home in Etterbeek, a central suburb in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. His was a lower-middle-class family. His Walloon father, Alexis Remi, worked in a confectionery factory, whilst his Flemish mother, Elisabeth Dufour, was a housewife. Married on 18 January 1905, they moved into a house at 25 rue Cranz (now 33 rue Philippe Baucq), where Georges was born, although a year later they moved to a house at 34 rue de Theux. His primary language was his father's French, but growing up in the bilingual Brussels, he also learned Dutch, developing a Marollien accent from his maternal grandmother. A younger brother, Paul, was born five years after Georges. Like most Belgians, his family belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, though they were not particularly devout. He later characterised his life in Etterbeek as dominated by a monochrome grey, considering it extremely boring. Biographer Benoît Peeters suggested that this childhood melancholy might have been exacerbated through being sexually abused by a maternal uncle, Charles Arthur Dufour.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Remi developed a love of cinema, favouring Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton; his later work in the comic strip medium displayed an obvious influence from them in style and content. Although not a keen reader, he enjoyed the novels of British and US authors, such as Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and The Pickwick Papers, as well as the novels of Frenchman Alexandre Dumas. Drawing as a hobby, he sketched out scenes from daily life along the edges of his school books. Some of these illustrations were of German soldiers, because his four years of primary schooling at the Ixelles Municipal School No. 3 coincided with World War I, during which Brussels was occupied by the German army. In 1919, his secondary education began at the secular Place de Londres in Ixelles, but in 1920 he was moved to Saint-Boniface School, an institution controlled by the archbishop where the teachers were Roman Catholic priests. Remi proved a successful student, being awarded prizes for excellence. He completed his secondary education in July 1925 at the top of his class.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "My childhood was extremely ordinary. It happened in a very average place, with average events and average thoughts. For me, the poet's \"green paradise\" was rather gray ... My childhood, my adolescence, Boy Scouting, military service — all of it was gray. Neither a sad boyhood nor a happy one — rather a lackluster one.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Hergé",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Aged 12, Remi joined the Boy Scout brigade attached to Saint-Boniface School, becoming troop leader of the Squirrel Patrol and earning the name \"Curious Fox\" (Renard curieux). With the Scouts, he travelled to summer camps in Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, and in the summer of 1923 his troop hiked 200 miles across the Pyrenees. His experiences with Scouting would have a significant influence on the rest of his life, sparking his love of camping and the natural world, and providing him with a moral compass that stressed personal loyalty and keeping one's promises.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "His Scoutmaster, Rene Weverbergh, encouraged his artistic ability, and published one of Remi's drawings in the newsletter of the Saint-Boniface Scouts, Jamais Assez (Never Enough): his first published work. When Weverbergh became involved in the publication of Boy-Scout, the newsletter of the Federation of Scouts, he published more of Remi's illustrations, the first of which appeared in the fifth issue, from 1922. Remi continued publishing cartoons, drawings and woodcuts in subsequent issues of the newsletter, which was soon renamed Le Boy-Scout Belge (The Belgian Boy Scout). During this time, he experimented with different pseudonyms, using \"Jérémie\" and \"Jérémiades\" before settling on \"Hergé\", the French pronunciation of his reversed initials (R.G.) His work was first published under this name in December 1924.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Alongside his stand-alone illustrations, in July 1926 Hergé began production of a comic strip for Le Boy-Scout Belge, Les Aventures de Totor (The Adventures of Totor), which continued intermittent publication until 1929. Revolving around the adventures of a Boy Scout patrol leader, the comic initially featured written captions underneath the scenes, but Hergé began to experiment with other forms of conveying information, including speech balloons. Illustrations were also published in Le Blé qui lève (The Wheat That Grows) and other publications of the Catholic Action for the Belgian Youth [fr] (Action catholique de la jeunesse belge), and Hergé produced a book jacket for Weverbergh's novel, The Soul of the Sea. Being young and inexperienced, still learning his craft, Hergé sought guidance from an older cartoonist, Pierre Ickx, and together they founded the short-lived Atelier de la Fleur de Lys (AFL), an organisation for Christian cartoonists.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After graduating from secondary school in 1925, Hergé enrolled in the École Saint-Luc art school, but finding the teaching boring, he left after one lesson. He hoped for a job as an illustrator alongside Ickx at Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century) — a conservative \"Catholic Newspaper of Doctrine and Information\" — but no positions were available. Instead he got a job in the paper's subscriptions department, starting in September 1925. Despising the boredom of this position, he enlisted for military service before he was called up, and in August 1926 was assigned to the Dailly barracks at Schaerbeek. Joining the first infantry regiment, he was also bored by his military training, but continued sketching and producing episodes of Totor.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Toward the end of his military service, in August 1927, Hergé met the editor of Le Vingtième Siècle, the Abbé Norbert Wallez, a vocal fascist who kept a signed photograph of the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini on his desk. Impressed by Hergé's repertoire, Wallez agreed to give him a job as a photographic reporter and cartoonist for the paper, something for which Hergé always remained grateful, coming to view the Abbé as a father figure. Supplemented by commissions for other publications, Hergé illustrated a number of texts for \"The Children's Corner\" and the literary pages; the illustrations of this period show his interest in woodcuts and the early prototype of his ligne claire style.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Beginning a series of newspaper supplements in late 1928, Wallez founded a supplement for children, Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), which subsequently appeared in Le Vingtième Siècle every Thursday. Carrying strong Catholic and fascist messages, many of its passages were explicitly anti-semitic. For this new venture, Hergé illustrated L'Extraordinaire Aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet (The Extraordinary Adventure of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet), a comic strip authored by one of the paper's sport columnists, which told the story of two boys, one of their little sisters, and her inflatable rubber pig. Hergé was unsatisfied, and eager to write and draw a comic strip of his own. He was fascinated by new techniques in the medium — such as the systematic use of speech bubbles — found in such US comics as George McManus' Bringing Up Father, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Rudolph Dirks's The Katzenjammer Kids, copies of which had been sent to him from Mexico by the paper's reporter Léon Degrelle, stationed there to report on the Cristero War.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hergé developed a character named Tintin as a Belgian boy reporter who could travel the world with his fox terrier, Snowy — \"Milou\" in the original French — basing him in large part on his earlier character of Totor and also on his own brother, Paul. Degrelle later falsely claimed that Tintin had been based on him, while he and Hergé fell out when Degrelle used one of his designs without permission; they settled out-of-court. Although Hergé wanted to send his character to the United States, Wallez instead ordered him to set his adventure in the Soviet Union, acting as a work of anti-socialist propaganda for children. The result, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, began serialisation in Le Petit Vingtième on 10 January 1929, and ran until 8 May 1930. Popular in Francophone Belgium, Wallez organized a publicity stunt at the Gare de Nord station, following which he organized the publication of the story in book form. The popularity of the story led to an increase in sales, and so Wallez granted Hergé two assistants, Eugène Van Nyverseel and Paul \"Jam\" Jamin.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In January 1930, Hergé introduced Quick & Flupke (Quick et Flupke), a new comic strip about two street kids from Brussels, in the pages of Le Petit Vingtième. At Wallez's direction, in June he began serialisation of the second Tintin adventure, Tintin in the Congo, designed to encourage colonial sentiment towards the Belgian Congo. Authored in a paternalistic style that depicted the Congolese as childlike idiots, in later decades it would be accused of racism; however, at the time it was un-controversial and popular, with further publicity stunts held to increase sales. For the third adventure, Tintin in America, serialised from September 1931 to October 1932, Hergé finally got to deal with a scenario of his own choice, although he used the work to push an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist agenda in keeping with the paper's ultra-conservative ideology. Although the Adventures of Tintin had been serialised in the French Catholic Cœurs Vaillants (\"Brave Hearts\") since 1930, he was soon receiving syndication requests from Swiss and Portuguese newspapers too. Though wealthier than most Belgians at his age, and despite increasing success, he remained an unfazed \"conservative young man\" dedicated to his work.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Hergé sought work elsewhere too, creating The Lovable Mr. Mops cartoon for the Bon Marché department store, and The Adventures of Tim the Squirrel Out West for the rival L'Innovation department store.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "At the offices of Le Petit Vingtième in 1928, Hergé met the woman who would become his first wife, Germaine Kieckens (1906 – 26 October 1995). A redhead described by Pierre Assouline as \"elegant and popular\", she had obtained work as the secretary for Norbert Wallez. At the time of her birth, her parents were relatively elderly and, having lost an earlier child, they were particularly overprotective of her. Greatly admiring Wallez, whom she looked up to as a father figure, she adopted his fascist political beliefs. She was appointed editor of Votre Vingtième, Madame, a supplement for women for which Hergé sometimes drew the cover. She also began writing articles for Le Petit Vingtième using the pseudonym Tantine. The first 500 copies of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets were numbered and signed by Hergé using Tintin's signature, with Snowy's paw print being drawn next to it by Kieckens.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1930, Hergé escorted her home from work almost every night, though she expressed little romantic interest in him at the time. Instead she desired an older, or more mature man, such as the Abbé himself. Wallez however encouraged the two to enter into a relationship, and one evening at the Taverne du Palace she indicated to Hergé that she would be interested in a relationship.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "On 20 July 1932 Hergé and Kieckens were married; although neither of them was entirely happy with the union, they had been encouraged to do so by Wallez, who insisted that all his single staff married and who personally carried out the wedding ceremony at the Saint-Roch Church in Laeken. Spending their honeymoon in Vianden, Luxembourg, the couple moved into an apartment in the rue Knapen, Schaerbeek.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In November 1932 Hergé announced that the following month he would send Tintin on an adventure to Asia. Although initially titled The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in the Orient, it would later be renamed Cigars of the Pharaoh. A mystery story, the plot began in Egypt before proceeding to Arabia and India, during which the recurring characters of Thomson and Thompson and Rastapopoulos were introduced. Through his friend Charles Lesne, Hergé was hired to produce illustrations for the company Casterman, and in late 1933 they proposed taking over the publication of both The Adventures of Tintin and Quick and Flupke in book form, to which Hergé agreed; the first Casterman book was the collected volume of Cigars. Continuing to subsidise his comic work with commercial advertising, in January 1934 he also founded the \"Atelier Hergé\" advertising company with two partners, but it was liquidated after six months.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "After Wallez was removed from the paper's editorship in August 1933 following a scandal, Hergé became despondent; in March 1934 he tried to resign, but was encouraged to stay after his monthly salary was increased from 2000 to 3000 francs and his workload was reduced, with Jamin taking responsibility for the day-to-day running of Le Petit Vingtième.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "From February to August 1934 Hergé serialised Popol Out West in Le Petit Vingtième, a story using animal characters that was a development of the earlier Tim the Squirrel comic.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "From August 1934 to October 1935, Le Petit Vingtième serialised Tintin's next adventure, The Blue Lotus, which was set in China and dealt with the recent Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Hergé had been greatly influenced in the production of the work by his friend Zhang Chongren, a Catholic Chinese student studying at Brussels' Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, to whom he had been introduced in May 1934. Zhang gave him lessons in Taoist philosophy, Chinese art and Chinese calligraphy, influencing not only his artistic style, but also his general outlook on life. As a token of appreciation Hergé added a fictional \"Chang Chong-Chen\" to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. For The Blue Lotus, Hergé devoted far more attention to accuracy, resulting in a largely realistic portrayal of China. As a result, The Blue Lotus has been widely hailed as \"Hergé's first masterpiece\" and a benchmark in the series' development. Casterman published it in book form, also insisting that Hergé include colour plates in both the volume and in reprints of America and Cigars. In 1936, they also began production of Tintin merchandise, something Hergé supported, having ideas of an entire shop devoted to The Adventures of Tintin, something that would come to fruition 50 years later. Nevertheless, while his serialised comics proved lucrative, the collected volumes sold less well, something Hergé blamed on Casterman, urging them to do more to market his books.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Hergé's next Tintin story, The Broken Ear (1935–1937), was the first for which the plot synopsis had been outlined from the start, being a detective story that took Tintin to South America. It introduced the character of General Alcazar, and also saw Hergé introduce the first fictional countries into the series, San Theodoros and Nuevo Rico, two republics based largely on Bolivia and Paraguay. The violent elements within The Broken Ear upset the publishers of Cœurs Vaillants, who asked Hergé to create a more child-appropriate story for them. The result was The Adventures of Jo, Zette, and Jocko, a series about a young brother and sister, plus their pet monkey and the parents. The series began with The Secret Ray, which was serialised in Cœurs Vaillants and then Le Petit Vingtième, and continued with The Stratoship H-22 and finally The Valley of the Cobras. Hergé nevertheless disliked the series, commenting that the characters \"bored me terribly.\" Now writing three series simultaneously, Hergé was working every day of the year, and felt stressed.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The next Tintin adventure was The Black Island (1937–1938), which saw the character travel to Britain to battle counterfeiters and introduced a new antagonist, the German Dr. Müller. Hergé followed this with King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939), in which Tintin saves the fictional Eastern European country of Syldavia from being invaded by its expansionist neighbour, Borduria; the event was an anti-fascist satire of Nazi Germany's expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia. In May 1939, Hergé moved to a new house in Watermael-Boitsfort, although following the German invasion of Poland, he was conscripted into the Belgian army and temporarily stationed in Herenthout. Demobbed within the month, he returned to Brussels and adopted a more explicit anti-German stance when beginning his next Tintin adventure, Land of Black Gold, which was set in the Middle East and featured Dr. Müller sabotaging oil lines.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "During this period, Hergé also contributed to L'Ouest (The West), a newspaper run by his friend Raymond De Becker. L'Ouest urged Belgium to remain neutral in World War II, a stance Hergé supported, creating the Mr Bellum strip to argue this position. Hergé was invited to visit China by Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had enjoyed The Blue Lotus, although due to the political situation in Europe, this was not possible. He was re-mobilized in December, and stationed in Antwerp, from where he continued to send the Tintin strip to Le Petit Vingtième. However, he fell ill with sinusitis and boils and was declared unfit for military service in May 1940. That same day, Germany invaded Belgium. Le Vingtième Siècle was shut down, part way through the serialisation of Land of Black Gold.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It is certain that Raymond De Becker sympathized with the National Socialist system, and on this point he was in agreement with Henri de Man. I admit that I believed myself that the future of the West could depend on the New Order. For many people democracy had proven deceptive, and the New Order brought fresh hope. In Catholic circles such views were widely held. Given everything that happened, it was naturally a terrible error to have believed even for an instant in the New Order.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Hergé, 1973",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "As the Belgian Army clashed with the invading Germans, Hergé and his wife fled by car to France along with tens of thousands of other Belgians, first staying in Paris and then heading south to Puy-de-Dôme, where they remained for six weeks. On 28 May, King Leopold III of the Belgians surrendered the country to the German army to prevent further killing; a move that Hergé supported. He followed the king's request that all of those Belgians who had fled the country return, arriving back in Brussels on 30 June. There, he found that his house had been occupied as an office for the German army's Propagandastaffel, and also faced financial trouble, as he owed back taxes yet was unable to access his financial reserves. All Belgian publications were now under the control of the German occupying force, who refused Le Petit Vingtième permission to continue publication. Instead, Hergé was offered employment as a cartoonist for Le Pays Réel by its editor, the Rexist Victor Matthys, but Hergé perceived Le Pays Réel as an explicitly political publication, and thus declined the position.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Instead, he took up a position with Le Soir, Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, the German authorities had permitted Le Soir to be re-opened under the directorship of De Doncker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism. After joining the Le Soir team on 15 October, Hergé was involved in the creation of a children's supplement, Soir-Jeunesse, aided by Jamin and Jacques Van Melkebeke. He relaunched The Adventures of Tintin with a new story, The Crab with the Golden Claws, in which Tintin pursued drug smugglers in North Africa; the story was a turning point in the series for its introduction of Captain Haddock, who would become a major character in the rest of the Adventures. This story, like the subsequent Adventures of Tintin published in Le Soir, would reject the political themes present in earlier stories, instead remaining firmly neutral. Hergé also included new Quick & Flupke gags in the supplement, as well as illustrations for serialised stories by Edgar Allan Poe and the Brothers Grimm.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In May 1941, a paper shortage led to the Soir-Jeunesse being reduced to four pages, with the length of the Tintin strip being cut by two thirds. Several weeks later the supplement disappeared altogether, with The Crab with the Golden Claws being moved into Le Soir itself, where it became a daily strip. While some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration, he was heavily enticed by the size of Le Soir's readership, which reached 600,000. With Van Melkebeke, Hergé put together two Tintin plays. The first, Tintin in the Indies, appeared at Brussels' Theatre des Galeries in April 1941, while the second, Mr Boullock's Disappearance, was performed there in December. From October 1941 to May 1942, Le Soir serialised Hergé's next Tintin adventure, The Shooting Star, followed by publication as a single volume by Casterman. In keeping with Le Soir's editorial standpoint, The Shooting Star espoused an anti-Semitic and anti-American attitude, with the antagonist being a wealthy Jewish American businessman; it would thus prove particularly controversial in the post-war period, although Hergé denied any malicious anti-Semitic intention.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Casterman felt that the black-and-white volumes of The Adventures of Tintin were not selling as well as colour comic books, and thus that the series should be produced in colour. At the same time, Belgium was facing a paper-shortage, with Casterman wishing to cut down the volumes from 120-pages in length to 62. Hergé was initially sceptical, but ultimately agreed to their demands in February 1942. For these new editions, Casterman introduced a four-colour system, although Hergé insisted that colour should remain secondary to line, and that it would not be used for shading. To cope with this additional workload, Hergé approached a friend whom he had met through Van Melkebeke, Edgar P. Jacobs, to aid him as a cartoonist and colourist. Jacobs could only work on the project part-time, and so in March 1942, Hergé also employed a woman named Alice Devos to aid him. In July 1942, Hergé then procured an agent, Bernard Thièry, who took 40% of his commissions; their working relationship would be strained. With their assistance, from 1942 to 1947, Hergé adapted most of his previous Adventures of Tintin into 62-page colour versions.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Hergé's next Adventure of Tintin would be The Secret of the Unicorn, serialised in Le Soir from June 1942. He had collaborated closely with Van Melkebeke on this project, who had introduced many elements from the work of Jules Verne into the detective story, in which Tintin and Haddock searched for parchments revealing the location of hidden pirate treasure. The Secret of the Unicorn marked the first half of a story arc that was completed in Red Rackham's Treasure, serialised in Le Soir from February 1943; in this story, Tintin and Haddock search for the pirate's treasure in the Caribbean, with the character of Professor Calculus being introduced to the series. Following Red Rackham's Treasure, Hergé drew illustrations for a serialised story titled Dupont et Dupond, détectives (\"Thomson and Thompson, Detectives\"), authored by the newspaper's crime editor, Paul Kinnet.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In September 1943, De Becker was removed as editor of Le Soir for stating that although the Nazis were motivated \"by undoubted good will, [they were also] extremely out of touch with reality\". Although Hergé was close to De Becker, he decided to remain at the newspaper, which came under the editorship of Max Hodeige. In autumn 1943, Hergé had decided that he wanted Jacobs to collaborate with him on The Adventures of Tintin. Although initially hesitant, Jacobs eventually agreed, adopting the paid position in January 1944. Jacobs and Hergé became close collaborators and greatly influenced each other, while together they developed the plot for the next Adventure of Tintin, The Seven Crystal Balls, which began serialisation in Le Soir in December 1943.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "As the Allied troops liberated Brussels from German occupation, Le Soir ceased publication on 2 September 1944, partway through its serialisation of The Seven Crystal Balls. Hergé was arrested on 3 September, having been named as a collaborator in a Resistance document known as the \"Gallery of Traitors\". This would be the first of four incidents in which Hergé was arrested — by the State Security, the Judiciary Police, the Belgian National Movement, and the Front for Independence respectively — during the course of which he spent one night in jail. On 5 September the entire staff of Le Soir were fired and a new editorial team introduced, while on 8 September the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) issued a proclamation announcing that \"any journalist who had helped produce a newspaper during the occupation was for the time being barred from practising his profession.\" Blacklisted, Hergé was now unemployed. Further, he was publicly lampooned as a collaborator by a newspaper closely associated with the Belgian Resistance, La Patrie, which issued a satirical strip titled The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Nazis.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The period witnessed widespread recriminations against accused collaborators, with military courts condemning 30,000 on minor charges and 25,000 on more serious charges; of those, 5,500 were sentenced to life imprisonment or capital punishment. A judiciary inquiry into Hergé's case was launched by the deputy public prosecutor, Mr Vinçotte, although in his report he urged lenience, stating that \"I am inclined to close the case. I believe it would bring ridicule on the judicial system to go after an inoffensive children's book author and illustrator. On the other hand, Hergé worked for Le Soir during the war, and his illustrations are what made people buy the newspaper.\" Although unable to work for the press, Hergé continued to re-draw and colour the older Adventures of Tintin for publication in book form by Casterman, completing the second version of Tintin in the Congo and starting on King Ottokar's Sceptre. Casterman supported Hergé throughout his ordeal, for which he always remained grateful. Attempting to circumvent his blacklisting, with Jacobs he began producing comics under the anonymous pseudonym of \"Olav\", but upon sending them to publishers found none who would accept them. Although this period allowed him an escape from the pressure of daily production which had affected most of his working life, he also had to deal with family problems: His brother Paul returned to Brussels from a German prisoner-of-war camp, although their mother had become highly delusional and was moved to a psychiatric hospital.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "[During the occupation] I worked, just like a miner, a tram driver or baker! But, while one found it normal for an engineer to operate a train, members of the press were labelled as 'traitors'.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Hergé",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In October 1945, Hergé was approached by Raymond Leblanc, a former member of a conservative Resistance group, the National Royalist Movement, and his associates André Sinave and Albert Debaty. The trio were planning on launching a weekly magazine for children, and Leblanc — who had fond childhood memories of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets — thought Hergé would be ideal for it. Hergé agreed, and Leblanc obtained clearance papers for him, allowing him to work. Concerned about the judicial investigation into Hergé's wartime affiliations, Leblanc convinced William Ugeux, a leader of the Belgian Resistance who was now in charge of censorship and certificates of good citizenship, to look into the comic creator's file. Ugeux concluded that Hergé had been \"a blunderer rather than a traitor\" for his work at Le Soir. The decision as to whether Hergé would stand trial belonged to the general auditor of the Military Tribunal, Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch. He closed the case on 22 December 1945, declaring that \"in regard to the particularly inoffensive character of the drawings published by Remi, bringing him before a war tribunal would be inappropriate and risky\".",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Now free from threat of prosecution, Hergé continued to support his colleagues at Le Soir who were being charged as collaborators; six of them were sentenced to death, and others to lengthy prison sentences. Among those sentenced to death was Hergé's friend, Jamin, although his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In May 1946, Hergé was issued a certificate of good citizenship, which became largely necessary to obtain employment in post-war Belgium. Celebrations were marred by his mother's death in April 1946; she was aged 60. Harry Thompson has described this post-war period as the \"greatest upheaval\" of Hergé's life. Hergé later described it as \"an experience of absolute intolerance. It was horrible, horrible!\" He considered the post-war trials of alleged collaborators a great injustice inflicted upon many innocent people, and never forgave Belgian society for the way that he had been treated, although he hid this from his public persona.",
"title": "Rising fame"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Sinave devised the idea of naming their new magazine Tintin, believing that this would attract a wide audience. The Dutch-language edition produced for release in Belgium's Flemish north was titled Kuifje after the character's Dutch-language name. Adopting the slogan of \"The Newspaper for the Young Aged 7 to 77\", the magazine also used a logo featuring the Tintin character himself. The capital for the project had been put up by those involved: as executive director, Leblanc provided 50%, while its managing director Georges Lallemand provided 40% and Hergé, its artistic director, provided 10%. Hergé assembled a group of associates to aid him, including Van Melkebeke, Jacobs, Paul Cuvelier, and Jacques Laudy. Van Melkebeke was initially appointed editor-in-chief, although he was arrested for having worked for the collaborationist Le Nouveau journal shortly after, with his involvement in the project thus being kept secret so as to avoid further controversy. Van Melkebeke continued to provide work for the magazine under pseudonyms, although this ceased during his imprisonment from December 1947 to October 1949.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The first issue of Tintin magazine was published on 26 September 1946. Hergé was assigned to produce a two-page spread each week, and began by concluding The Seven Crystal Balls before embarking on its successor story, Prisoners of the Sun. Alongside Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, the magazine also included Laudy's The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers and Jacobs' The Secret of the Swordfish, the first in his new Blake and Mortimer series. While the magazine was in competition with a number of rivals, most notably Spirou, famous for serialising the Lucky Luke and Buck Danny comics, it proved an immediate success, with 60,000 copies being sold in three days of its release. Its publication resulted in a massive boost to Hergé's book sales too.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1947 a Belgian film adaptation of The Crab with the Golden Claws was produced, and believing that cinematic adaptations were a good way to proceed, Hergé contacted Disney Studios in the United States; they declined his offer to adapt The Adventures of Tintin for the silver screen. In May 1947 the artistic collaboration between Hergé and Jacobs ended after an argument. Hergé had been jealous of the immediate success of Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer series, and had turned down Jacobs' request that he be credited as co-creator of the new Adventures of Tintin. That same month, Hergé broke from his manager, Thiery, after discovering that the latter had been siphoning off money for himself.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Many Belgians were highly critical of the magazine due to its connections with Hergé, who was still deemed a collaborator and traitor by many; La Soir and La Cité publicly criticised the decision without referring to him by name while Le Quotidien and Le Drapeau Rouge specifically singled him out for denunciation. Hergé believed that the children's author Jeanne Cappe was behind many of these accusations, and threatened her with a lawsuit. Unhappy with life in Belgium, Hergé made plans to emigrate to Argentina, a nation that was welcoming many Europeans who had supported the defeated Axis powers and which had a thriving comic book scene. Ultimately, he changed his mind, for reasons that have remained unknown; it is possible that he was unable to secure any promise of work in the South American country.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "I've just discovered ... that Tintin is no longer me, and that though he continued to live it is through a sort of artificial respiration that I must keep up constantly, and that is exhausting me more and more.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Hergé, in a letter to his wife, 1947",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In May, Hergé and Germaine holidayed near to Gland on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where they were accompanied by a friend of theirs, a young woman named Rosane. During the holiday, Hergé and Rosane embarked on an extra-marital affair. He felt guilty, and returned to Brussels in June. Privately, he expressed the view that he had been led to commit such an act, which he viewed as immoral, through the influence of \"amoral friends\" with whom he was associating. Hoping to reignite the passion and stability of his marriage, he arranged to return to Switzerland with Germaine soon after; here they argued and embarked on a temporary separation. Remaining in Switzerland, he visited King Leopold III, who was then holidaying in Prégny, before briefly returning to Brussels in July. Back in Switzerland, he embarked on an affair with a married woman, although again informed Germaine before setting off to spend time in the Ardennes. In August, the couple sought to reunite by holidaying together in Brittany, but there they broke up again and Hergé returned to his lover in Switzerland. In September he finally returned to Brussels, but he then spent time with his close friend Marcel Dehaye in a retreat at the Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Scourmont. That month, he revived Land of Black Gold — the Adventure of Tintin that had been interrupted by the German invasion of 1940 — and began serialising it in Tintin magazine. However, the story was again interrupted, this time for 12 weeks as Hergé took a further unannounced holiday to Gland, greatly annoying many of his colleagues.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Although they retained respect for each other, Hergé's repeated absences had created a tense situation between himself and Leblanc. After a lengthy search, Leblanc had found a publisher willing to produce an edition of Tintin magazine in France: Georges Dargaud's Le Lombard, which began production of a French edition in October 1948. However, Hergé was unhappy that Leblanc had appointed André Frenez as Van Melkebeke's replacement as editor-in-chief, describing Frenez as \"a cold functionary\". Hergé was stubborn and uncompromising as the magazine's artistic director, known for strongly criticising the work of old friends like Pierre Ickx if he felt that they did not meet his exacting standards. He was particularly critical of the work of two of the newly hired staff at Tintin and Kuifje, Jacques Martin and Willy Vandersteen, encouraging them to change their artistic style to better reflect his own preferences. To Leblanc, he expressed the concern that most of those working at Tintin were better illustrators than storytellers. He also opined that Tintin was not keeping up with the times and what he perceived as the increased maturity of children, encouraging the magazine to better reflect current events and scientific developments.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "On 6 April 1950 Hergé established Studios Hergé as a public company. The Studios were based in his Avenue Delleur house in Brussels, with Hergé making a newly purchased country house in Céroux-Mousty his and Germaine's main residence. The Studios would provide both personal support to Hergé and technical support for his ongoing work. The Studio initially had only three employees; the staff would increase to 15, all of whom were working on Hergé's projects. He hired Bob de Moor as his primary apprentice at the Studios in March 1951. Impressed by Jacques Martin's work on The Golden Sphinx, Hergé persuaded Martin to join the Studios in January 1954; Martin insisted on bringing with him his own two assistants, Roger Leloup and Michel Demarets. During the early 1950s, a number of those convicted for collaborating with the Nazi occupiers were freed from prison. Sympathetic to their plight, Hergé lent money to some and aided others in getting jobs at Tintin magazine, much to Leblanc's annoyance. For instance, as well as lending him money, Hergé used his connections to secure Raymond de Becker a job in Switzerland as a book shop sales inspector. He also hired those associated with collaboration for his Studios; his new colourist, Josette Baujot, was the wife of a recently assassinated member of the Walloon Legion, and his new secretary, Baudouin van der Branden de Reeth, had served a prison sentence for working at Le Nouveau Journal during the occupation.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Hergé had developed the idea of setting an Adventure of Tintin on the moon while producing Prisoners of the Sun. He began serialisation of Destination Moon, the first of a two part arc followed by Explorers on the Moon, in Tintin magazine in March 1950. In September 1950, Hergé broke off the story, feeling the need for a break from work, having fallen back into clinical depression. He and Germaine went on holiday to Gland before returning to Brussels in late September. Many readers sent letters to Tintin asking why Explorers on the Moon was no longer being serialised, with a rumour emerging that Hergé had died. Explorers of the Moon would resume after an eighteen-month hiatus, returning in April 1952. Alongside his work on the new stories, Hergé also made use of the Studios in revising more of his early works.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In February 1952, Hergé was involved in a car crash in which Germaine's leg was shattered; she had to have a steel rod implanted in it, and was confined to a wheelchair for several months. Their relationship was further strained when they received news of Wallez' death in September 1952. His friendship with Van Melkebeke also broke apart in this period, in part due to advice gained from an alleged clairvoyant, Bertje Janueneau, upon whom both Hergé and Germaine were increasingly relying for guidance. In January 1955 a young woman named Fanny Vlamynck (fr) was hired as a colourist at the Studios. Hergé embarked on an extramarital affair with her in November 1956, with the rest of the studio staff soon finding out. Germaine grew suspicious of her husband's affections for Fanny, but was also experiencing a strong romantic attraction to her ballroom dance partner. Hergé and Germaine went on a cruise for the former's 50th birthday in May 1957, during which they visited Casablanca, Rabat, Palermo, and Rome. They went on a second holiday to Ostend in October. Following the trip to Ostend, he revealed his affair with Fanny to Germaine. He began experiencing traumatic dreams dominated by the colour white and, seeking to explain them, he visited Franz Ricklin, a psychoanalyst who was a student of Carl Jung in Zürich in May 1959. In February 1960 he returned to Switzerland, and upon his return to Brussels he began renting an apartment in Uccle, away from Germaine. His relationship with Germaine had ended, although due to restrictions under Belgian law he was unable to obtain a divorce until 17 years later.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In September 1958, Tintin magazine moved its headquarters to a newly constructed building near the Gare du Midi. Hergé continued to feud with Leblanc over the direction of the magazine; his constant absences had led to him being replaced as artistic director, and he demanded that he be reinstated. Leblanc relented in early 1965, although Hergé soon departed to Sardinia for six weeks. In October 1965 Leblanc appointed the cartoonist Greg to be editor-in-chief of the magazine, believing him capable of reforming the paper to remain relevant to the youth of the day. By this point, Tintin magazine was at its commercial peak, with sales of 600,000 a week, although Hergé had lost much of his interest in it.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Supported by his studio, Hergé produced The Calculus Affair in 1954–1956 and The Red Sea Sharks in 1956–1957. Hergé's book sales were higher than ever, and translations were being produced for the British, Spanish, and Scandinavian markets. He was receiving international press attention, with articles on his work appearing in France-Observateur, The Listener, and The Times Literary Supplement. Paul Vandromme authored an uncritical book on Hergé, Le Monde de Tintin (\"The World of Tintin\"), published by Éditions Gallimard in 1959; Hergé vetoed the inclusion of a proposed preface by Roger Nimier after finding its praise for his own work too embarrassing. Radio adaptations of The Adventures of Tintin were produced, as was an animated cartoon series produced by Belvision Studios, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin. Two live-action films were also produced, Tintin and the Golden Fleece (1961) and Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964), the former of which Hergé had been closely involved with.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Developing an interest in modern art, in the early 1960s Hergé befriended the art dealer Marcel Stal, owner of the Carrefour gallery in Brussels. He was a particular fan of the work of Constant Permeke, Jakob Smits, Lucio Fontana, and Jean-Pierre Raynaurd, as well as the pop art movement, in particular the work of Roy Lichtenstein. He built up his own personal collection, which consisted of both modern paintings as well as African art and Chinese ceramics. In 1962, Hergé decided he wanted to paint. He chose Louis Van Lint, one of the most respected Belgian abstract painters at the time, whose work he liked a lot, to be his private teacher. Hergé took up painting as a hobby, producing abstract art works which were influenced by the styles of Joan Miró and Serge Poliakoff. He showed his work to the art historian Léo Van Puyvelde, who was the chief conservator of the Musées des Beaux-Arts, who believed that they showed promise, but that Hergé's real talent lay with cartooning. Hergé abandoned painting shortly after, having produced 37 paintings in all. Spending less time on new Adventures of Tintin, from June to December 1965 Tintin magazine serialised a redrawn and newly coloured version of The Black Island prepared by staff at Studios Hergé.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In the 1960s, Hergé became increasingly annoyed at the success of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's Asterix comic book series, which various commentators had described as eclipsing The Adventures of Tintin as the foremost comic in the Franco-Belgian tradition. Hoping to imitate the success of the recent animated films Asterix the Gaul (1967) and Asterix and Cleopatra (1968), Hergé agreed to the production of two animated Belvision films based on the Adventures of Tintin. The first, Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969), was based on pre-existing comics, whereas the second, Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972) was an original story written by Greg. In 1982, the US filmmaker Steven Spielberg requested the film rights for a live-action adaptation of one of The Adventures of Tintin, a prospect that excited Hergé, but the project never came to fruition at the time.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In a wide-ranging interview with the journalist Numa Sadoul in October 1971, Hergé opened up about many of the problems he had experienced in his personal life. Sadoul planned to publish the interview as a book, but Hergé made many alterations to the transcript, both to improve its prose and to remove sections which cast him in a negative light. Editors at Casterman then removed even further sections, particularly those in which Hergé expressed a negative view of Catholicism. The interview was published as Tintin et moi (\"Tintin and Me\") in 1975. Hergé followed this by agreeing to be the subject of a documentary film produced by Henri Roane, Moi, Tintin (\"I, Tintin\"), which premiered in 1975. In January 1977 he attended an early comic book convention at Angoulême, where he was widely heralded as one of the masters of the discipline. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of The Adventures of Tintin in 1979, a celebratory event was held at Brussels' Hilton hotel, while an exhibit on \"Le Musée imaginaire de Tintin\" (\"The Imaginary Museum of Tintin\") was held at the Palais de Beaux-Arts.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In April 1971 Hergé visited the U.S. for the first time, primarily to visit a liver specialist in Rochester, Minnesota; however, on the trip he also visited a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, but was shocked at the conditions in which their inhabitants lived. On this visit he also spent time in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. In April 1972 he travelled to New York City for an international conference on the strip cartoon, and there presented Mayor John Lindsay with a cartoon of Tintin visiting the city and also met with the pop artist Andy Warhol. Several years later, in 1977, Warhol visited Europe, where he produced a pop art portrait of Hergé. In April 1973, Hergé took up an invitation to visit Taiwan by the nation's government, in recognition of his promotion of Chinese culture in The Blue Lotus. During the visit he also spent time in Thailand and Bali.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Hergé had long sought to regain contact with his old friend Zhang Chongren, with whom he had lost contact. He regularly asked any Chinese people that he met if they knew of Zhang, and in 1979 had some success when a staff member in a Brussels Chinese restaurant revealed that he was Zhang's godson. Hergé was thus able to re-establish contact with his old friend. The journalist Gérard Valet organised for Zhang to visit Brussels so that he and Hergé could be re-united. The event took place in March 1981, and was heavily publicised; Hergé however found the situation difficult, disliking the press attention and finding that he and Zhang had grown distant during the intervening years.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In June 1970, Hergé's father died, and after the funeral he holidayed near Lake Geneva. In 1974, his assistant Branden suffered a stroke and was left unable to write, with Hergé replacing him with a young man, Alain Baran, who Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline later termed Hergé's \"surrogate son\". In March 1977, Hergé's divorce with Germaine was finalised; although Hergé continued to visit her and financially support her, Germaine took the divorce badly, viewing it as a further betrayal. Hergé was then able to marry Fanny several weeks later, in a low-key ceremony on 20 May; he was 70 years old and she was 42.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In 1979, Hergé was diagnosed with osteomyelofibrosis, necessitating a complete blood transfusion. His need for blood transfusions had increased, as he came to require them every two weeks, and then every week.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "On 25 February 1983, Hergé suffered cardiac arrest and was hospitalised in intensive care at Brussels' Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc. He had been scheduled to meet with Steven Spielberg, who later made The Adventures of Tintin (2011). He died at Saint-Luc on 3 March. His death received front page coverage in numerous francophone newspapers, including Libération and Le Monde. In his will, he had left Fanny as his sole heir.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In November 1986, Fanny closed Studios Hergé, replacing it with the Hergé Foundation.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In 1988, Tintin magazine was discontinued.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Only the works marked * have been translated into English",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Hergé was a highly private person, being described by biographer Harry Thompson as \"reserved [and] unostentatious\". According to his biographer Pierre Sterckx, Hergé appeared \"very conventional\" in public, but in reality was \"extremely erudite, with an insatiable curiosity, constantly on the watch\". He greatly enjoyed walking in the countryside, gardening, and art collecting, and he was a fan of jazz music. Although he disliked making public or press appearances, Hergé insisted on personally responding to all fan mail received, which took up a considerable part of his time. He stated that \"not replying to children's letters would be to betray their dreams.\" Friends described him as a humorous man, known particularly for his self-deprecating jokes. Colleagues described Hergé as egocentric, an assessment he agreed with. He was known to be authoritarian in dealing with his assistants and refused to share credit with them for their part in his work. Sterckx noted that \"on the one hand he could be distant, even frosty, but on the other he was affectionate\".",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Throughout his first marriage he had a number of affairs with other women. He had no children, having been rendered sterile by radiation treatment, but in the 1950s offered to adopt his brother Paul's two children, Denise and George, when their parents were experiencing trouble in their relationship. Paul declined the offer, with Denise and George later noting that they had no great affection for their uncle, deeming him awkward around children. Hergé was raised as a Catholic, although he was never a devout practitioner of the religion. His adherence to Catholicism declined in later life as he developed a keen interest in Taoism, and became an agnostic. He was a fan of the Tao Te Ching and Arnaud Desjardins' The Path to Wisdom, as well as Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics and the work of Jean-Émile Charon.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Politically, Hergé was a fervent royalist, and remained so throughout his life, also believing in the unity of Belgium. In his early life, Hergé was \"close to the traditional right-wing\" of Belgian society, with Sterckx noting that through his work he was \"plunged into rightist, even extreme right-wing circles\". According to Harry Thompson, such political ideas were not unusual in middle-class circles in Belgium of the 1920s and early 1930s, where \"patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline and naivety were so inextricably bound together in everyone's lives that right-wing politics were an almost inevitable by-product. It was a world view shared by everyone, distinguished principally by its complete ignorance of the world.\" When Hergé took responsibility for Le Petit Vingtième, he followed Wallez's instruction and allowed the newspaper to contain explicitly pro-fascist and anti-semitic sentiment. Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès noted that the character of Tintin was a personification of the \"New Youth\" concept which was promoted by the European far-right. Under Wallez's guidance, the early Adventures of Tintin contained explicit political messages for its young readership. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was a work of anti-socialist propaganda, while Tintin in the Congo was designed to encourage colonialist sentiment toward the Belgian Congo, and Tintin in America was designed as a work of anti-Americanism heavily critical of capitalism, commercialism, and industrialisation.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In contrast to Hergé's involvement in Belgium's right-wing, Sterckx thought the cartoonist to have been \"a liberal and independent spirit\", someone who was \"the very opposite of a conservative [or] a reactionary of the right\". Michael Farr asserted that Hergé had \"an acute political conscience\" during his earlier days, as exemplified by his condemnation of racism in the United States evident in Tintin in America. Literary critic Tom McCarthy went further, remarking that Tintin in America represented the emergence of a \"left-wing counter tendency\" in Hergé's work that rebelled against his right-wing milieu and which was particularly critical of wealthy capitalists and industrialists. This was furthered in The Blue Lotus, in which Hergé rejected his \"classically right-wing\" ideas to embrace an anti-imperialist stance, and in a contemporary Quick & Flupke strip in which he lampooned the far-right leaders of Germany and Italy, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Although many of his friends and colleagues did so in the mid-1930s, Hergé did not join the far-right Rexist Party, later asserting that he \"had always had an aversion to it\" and commenting that \"to throw my heart and soul into an ideology is the opposite of who I am.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Hergé faced repeated accusations of racism due to his portrayal of diverse ethnic groups throughout The Adventures of Tintin. According to McCarthy, in Tintin in the Congo Hergé represented the Congolese as \"good at heart, but backwards and lazy, in need of European mastery\". Thompson argued that Hergé had not written the book to be \"deliberately racist\" and that it reflected the average early 20th-century Belgian view of the Congolese, which was more patronising than malevolent. The book provoked no controversy at the time, coming to be perceived as racist only in the latter half of the 20th century.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In the following adventure, Tintin in America, Hergé depicted members of the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans as \"gullible, even naive\", though it was nevertheless \"broadly sympathetic\" to their culture and plight, depicting their oppression at the hands of the United States Army. The Blue Lotus received both criticism for depicting the Japanese as militaristic and buck-toothed and praise for representing a less stereotypical vision of China than was the norm in Europe at the time.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Hergé has also been accused of utilising anti-semitic stereotypes, despite Hergé's protestations that the character of Rastapopoulos was Greek, and not Jewish.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "From his early years, Hergé was openly critical of racism. He lambasted the pervasive racism of U.S. society in a prelude comment to Tintin in America published in Le Petit Vingtième on 20 August 1931, and ridiculed racist attitudes toward the Chinese in The Blue Lotus. Peeters asserted that \"Hergé was no more racist than the next man\", an assessment shared by Farr, who after meeting Hergé in the 1980s commented that \"you couldn't have met someone who was more open and less racist\". In contrast, Laurence Grove, president of the International Bande Dessinée Society, opined that Hergé adhered to prevailing societal trends in his work, noting, \"When it was fashionable to be a Nazi, he was a Nazi. When it was fashionable to be a colonial racist, that's what he was.\" Discussing Tintin's racist elements, the Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen observed that \"Hergé's work is deeply flawed, and yet riveting narratively and aesthetically. I have forgotten all the well-intentioned, moralistic children's literature that I have read, but I haven't forgotten Hergé.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Assouline described Hergé as \"the personification of Belgium\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "According to the UNESCO's Index Translationum, Hergé is the ninth-most-often-translated French-language author, the second-most-often-translated Belgian author after Georges Simenon, and the second-most-often-translated French-language comics author behind René Goscinny. He also had an asteroid, 1652 Hergé, within the main belt, named after him in 1953.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "A cartoon version of Hergé makes a number of cameo appearances in the 1990s animated television series The Adventures of Tintin. An animated version of Hergé also makes a cameo appearance at the start of the 2011 motion capture film, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, where he is depicted as a street cartoonist drawing a portrait of Tintin in the style of the comic at the start of the film.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The Musée Hergé is located in the centre of Louvain-la-Neuve, a city to the south of Brussels. This location was originally chosen for the museum in 2001. The futuristic building was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc and cost €15 million to build. On the centenary of the birth of Hergé, 22 May 2007, the museum's first stone was laid. The museum opened its doors in June 2009.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The idea of a museum dedicated to the work of Hergé can be traced back to the end of the 1970s, when Hergé was still alive. After his death in 1983, Hergé's widow, Fanny, led the efforts, undertaken at first by the Hergé Foundation and then by the new Studios Hergé, to catalogue and choose the artwork and elements that would become part of the museum's exhibitions.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The Hergé Museum contains eight permanent galleries displaying original artwork by Hergé, and telling the story of his life and career which had not previously been visible to the public. The museum also houses a temporary exhibition gallery. Although Tintin features prominently in the museum, Hergé's other comic strip characters, such as Jo, Zette and Jocko, and Quick and Flupke, as well as his work as a graphic designer, are also present.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Georges Prosper Remi, known by the pen name Hergé, from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian comic strip artist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, Quick & Flupke (1930–1940) and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinctive ligne claire drawing style. Born to a lower-middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, Hergé began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines, developing his first comic series, The Adventures of Totor, for Le Boy-Scout Belge in 1926. Working for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, he created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929 on the advice of its editor Norbert Wallez. Revolving around the actions of boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, the series' early instalments — Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America — were designed as conservative propaganda for children. Domestically successful, after serialisation the stories were published in book form, with Hergé continuing the series and also developing both the Quick & Flupke and Jo, Zette and Jocko series for Le Vingtième Siècle. Influenced by his friend Zhang Chongren, from 1934 Hergé placed far greater emphasis on conducting background research for his stories, resulting in increased realism from The Blue Lotus onward. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, Le Vingtième Siècle was closed, but Hergé continued his series in Le Soir, a popular newspaper controlled by the Nazi administration. After the Allied liberation of Belgium in 1944, Le Soir was shut down and its staff — including Hergé — accused of having been collaborators. An official investigation was launched, and although no charges were brought against Hergé, in subsequent years he repeatedly faced accusations of having been a traitor and collaborator. With Raymond Leblanc he established Tintin magazine in 1946, through which he serialised new Adventures of Tintin stories. As the magazine's artistic director, he also oversaw the publication of other successful comics series, such as Edgar P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer. In 1950 he established Studios Hergé as a team to aid him in his ongoing projects; prominent staff members Jacques Martin and Bob de Moor greatly contributed to subsequent volumes of The Adventures of Tintin. Amid personal turmoil following the collapse of his first marriage, he produced Tintin in Tibet, his personal favourite of his works. In later years he became less prolific, and unsuccessfully attempted to establish himself as an abstract artist. Hergé's works have been widely acclaimed for their clarity of draughtsmanship and meticulous, well-researched plots. They have been the source of a wide range of adaptations, in theatre, radio, television, cinema, and computer gaming. He remains a strong influence on the comic book medium, particularly in Europe. He is widely celebrated in Belgium: a Hergé Museum was established in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009. | 2001-12-21T17:02:03Z | 2023-12-03T00:42:02Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herg%C3%A9 |
14,318 | Horned God | The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities.
The Horned God represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the consort of the female Triple goddess of the Moon or other Mother goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting, and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horns or antlers upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic (having a beast's head), in this way emphasizing "the union of the divine and the animal", the latter of which includes humanity.
In traditional Wicca (British Traditional Wicca), he is generally regarded as a dualistic god of twofold aspects: bright and dark, night and day, summer and winter, the Oak King and the Holly King. In this dualistic view, his two horns symbolize, in part, his dual nature. (The use of horns to symbolize duality is also reflected in the phrase "on the horns of a dilemma.") The three aspects of the Goddess and the two aspects of the Horned god are sometimes mapped on to the five points of the Pentagram or Pentacle, although which points correspond to which deity aspects varies. In some other systems, he is represented as a triune god, split into three aspects that reflect those of the Triple goddess: the Youth (Warrior), the Father, and the Sage.
The Horned God has been explored within several psychological theories and has become a recurrent theme in fantasy literature.
In traditional and mainstream Wicca, the Horned God is viewed as the divine male principality, being both equal and opposite to the Goddess. The Wiccan god himself can be represented in many forms, including as the Sun God, the Sacrificed God and the Vegetation God, although the Horned God is the most popular representation. The pioneers of the various Wiccan or Witchcraft traditions, such as Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente and Robert Cochrane, all claimed that their religion was a continuation of the pagan religion of the Witch-Cult following historians who had purported the Witch-Cult's existence, such as Jules Michelet and Margaret Murray.
For Wiccans, the Horned God is "the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild" and is associated with the wilderness, virility and the hunt. Doreen Valiente writes that the Horned God also carries the souls of the dead to the underworld.
Wiccans generally, as well as some other neopagans, tend to conceive of the universe as polarized into gender opposites of male and female energies. In traditional Wicca, the Horned God and the Goddess are seen as equal and opposite in gender polarity. However, in some of the newer traditions of Wicca, and especially those influenced by feminist ideology, there is more emphasis on the Goddess, and consequently the symbolism of the Horned God is less developed than that of the Goddess. In Wicca the cycle of the seasons is celebrated during eight sabbats called The Wheel of the Year. The seasonal cycle is imagined to follow the relationship between the Horned God and the Goddess. The Horned God is born in winter, impregnates the Goddess and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is then reborn by the Goddess at Yule. The different relationships throughout the year are sometimes distinguished by splitting the god into aspects, the Oak King and the Holly King. The relationships between the Goddess and the Horned God are mirrored by Wiccans in seasonal rituals. There is some variation between Wiccan groups as to which sabbat corresponds to which part of the cycle. Some Wiccans regard the Horned God as dying at Lammas, August 1; also known as Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest sabbat. Others may see him dying at Mabon, the autumn equinox, or the second harvest festival. Still other Wiccans conceive of the Horned God dying on October 31, which Wiccans call Samhain, the ritual of which is focused on death. He is then reborn on Winter Solstice, December 21.
Other important dates for the Horned God include Imbolc when, according to Valiente, he leads a wild hunt. In Gardnerian Wicca, the Dryghten prayer recited at the end of every ritual meeting contains the lines referring to the Horned God:
In the name of the Lady of the Moon, and the Horned Lord of Death and Resurrection
According to Sabina Magliocco, Gerald Gardner says (in 1959's The Meaning of Witchcraft) that The Horned God is an Under-god, a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people. (In Wiccan liturgy in the Book of Shadows, this conception of an unknowable supreme deity is referred to as "Dryghtyn." It is not a personal god, but rather an impersonal divinity similar to the Tao of Taoism.)
Whilst the Horned God is the most common depiction of masculine divinity in Wicca, he is not the only representation. Other examples include the Green Man and the Sun God. In traditional Wicca, however, these other representations of the Wiccan god are subsumed or amalgamated into the Horned God, as aspects or expressions of him. Sometimes this is shown by adding horns or antlers to the iconography. The Green Man, for example, may be shown with branches resembling antlers; and the Sun God may be depicted with a crown or halo of solar rays, that may resemble horns. These other conceptions of the Wiccan god should not be regarded as displacing the Horned God, but rather as elaborating on various facets of his nature. Doreen Valiente has called the Horned God "the eldest of gods" in both The Witches Creed and also in her Invocation To The Horned God.
Wiccans believe that The Horned God, as Lord of Death, is their "comforter and consoler" after death and before reincarnation; and that he rules the Underworld or Summerland where the souls of the dead reside as they await rebirth. Some, such as Joanne Pearson, believe that this is based on the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld, though this has not been confirmed.
Doreen Valiente, a former High Priestess of the Gardnerian tradition, claimed that Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven referred to the god as Cernunnos, or Kernunno, which is a Latin word, discovered on a stone carving found in France, meaning "the Horned One". Valiente claimed that the coven also referred to the god as Janicot, which she theorised was of Basque origin, and Gardner also used this name in his novel High Magic's Aid.
Stewart Farrar, a High Priest of the Alexandrian tradition referred to the Horned God as Karnayna, which he believed was a corruption of Cernunnos. The historian Ronald Hutton suggests the term derived instead from the Arabic Dhul-Qarnayn meaning "Horned One", as Murray offered in her 1931 book The God of the Witches, a source that likely influenced Alex Sanders. Prudence Jones has suggested that the name may instead derive from Karneios, a Spartan deity conflated with Apollo as a subordinate consort to Diana.
In the writings of Charles Cardell and Raymond Howard, the god was referred to as Atho. Howard had a wooden statue of Atho's head which he claimed was 2200 years old, but the statue was stolen in April 1967. Howard's son later admitted that his father had carved the statue himself.
In Cochrane's Craft, which was founded by Robert Cochrane, the Horned God was often referred to by a Biblical name; Tubal-cain, who, according to the Bible was the first blacksmith. In this neopagan concept, the god is also referred to as Brân, a Welsh mythological figure, Wayland, the smith in Germanic mythology, and Herne, a horned figure from English folklore.
In the neopagan tradition of Stregheria, founded by Raven Grimassi and loosely inspired by the works of Charles Godfrey Leland, the Horned God goes by several names, including Dianus, Faunus, Cern, and Actaeon.
In the Hinduism, the Horned God is referred to Pashupati, See Pashupati seal.
Sherry Salman considers the image of the Horned God in Jungian terms, as an archetypal protector and mediator of the outside world to the objective psyche. In her theory the male psyche's 'Horned God' frequently compensates for inadequate fathering.
When first encountered, the figure is a dangerous, 'hairy chthonic wildman' possessed of kindness and intelligence. If repressed, later in life The Horned God appears as the lord of the Otherworld, or Hades. If split off entirely, he leads to violence, substance abuse and sexual perversion. When integrated he gives the male an ego 'in possession of its own destructiveness' and for the female psyche gives an effective animus relating to both the physical body and the psyche.
In considering the Horned God as a symbol recurring in women's literature, Richard Sugg suggests the Horned God represents the 'natural Eros', a masculine lover subjugating the social-conformist nature of the female shadow, thus encompassing a combination of the shadow and animus. One such example is Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Sugg goes on to note that female characters who are paired with this character usually end up socially ostracised, or worse – in an inverted ending to the male hero-story.
Following the work of Robert Bly in the Mythopoetic men's movement, John Rowan proposes the Horned God as a "Wild Man" be used as a fantasy image or "sub-personality" helpful to men in humanistic psychology, and escaping from "narrow societal images of masculinity" encompassing excessive deference to women and paraphillia.
Many horned deities are known to have been worshipped in various cultures throughout history. Evidence for horned gods appear very early in the human record. The so-called Sorcerer dates from perhaps 13,000 BCE. Twenty-one red deer headdresses, made from the skulls of the red deer and likely fitted with leather laces, have been uncovered at the Mesolithic site of Star Carr. They are thought to date from roughly 9,000 BCE. Several theories have been created to establish historical roots for modern Neopagan worship of a Horned God.
Following the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage and others, Margaret Murray, in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, proposed the theory that the witches of the early-modern period were remnants of a pagan cult and that the Christian Church had declared the god of the witches was in fact the Devil. Without recourse to any specific representation of this deity, Murray speculates that the head coverings common in inquisition-derived descriptions of the devil "may throw light on one of the possible origins of the cult."
In 1931 Murray published a sequel, The God of the Witches, which tries to gather evidence in support of her witch-cult theory. In Chapter 1 "The Horned God". Murray claims that various depictions of humans with horns from European and Indian sources, ranging from the paleolithic French cave painting of "The Sorcerer" to the Indic Pashupati to the modern English Dorset Ooser, are evidence for an unbroken, Europe-wide tradition of worship of a singular Horned God. Murray derived this model of a horned god cult from James Frazer and Jules Michelet.
In dealing with "The Sorcerer", the earliest evidence claimed, Murray based her observations on a drawing by Henri Breuil, which some modern scholars such as Ronald Hutton claim is inaccurate. Hutton states that modern photographs show the original cave art lacks horns, a human torso or any other significant detail on its upper half. However, others, such as celebrated prehistorian Jean Clottes, assert that Breuil's sketch is indeed accurate. Clottes stated that "I have seen it myself perhaps 20 times over the years".
Breuil considered his drawing to represent a shaman or magician – an interpretation which gives the image its name. Murray having seen the drawing called Breuil's image "the first depiction of a deity", an idea which Breuil and others later adopted.
Murray also used an inaccurate drawing of a mesolithic rock-painting at Cogul in northeast Spain as evidence of group religious ceremony of the cult, although the central male figure is not horned. The illustration she used of the Cogul painting leaves out a number of figures, human and animal, and the original is more likely a sequence of superimposed but unrelated illustrations, rather than a depiction of a single scene.
Despite widespread criticism of Murray's scholarship some minor aspects of her work continued to have supporters.
The popular image of the Greek god Pan was removed from its classical context in the writings of the Romantics of the 18th century and connected with their ideals of a pastoral England. This, along with the general public's increasing lack of familiarity of Greek mythology at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a 'horned god', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.
The reception of Aradia amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of Leo Martello and Raven Grimassi, must be "match[ed] against", and compared with the claims in Aradia. He further suggests that a lack of comfort with Aradia may be due to an "insecurity" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.
Valiente offers another explanation for the negative reaction of some neopagans; that the identification of Lucifer as the god of the witches in Aradia was "too strong meat" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism.
In 1985 Classical historian Georg Luck, in his Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the Devil, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
Eliphas Levi's image of "Baphomet" serves as an example of the transformation of the Devil into a benevolent fertility deity and provided the prototype for Murray's horned god. Murray's central thesis that images of the Devil were actually of deities and that Christianity had demonised these worshippers as following Satan, is first recorded in the work of Levi in the fashionable 19th-century Occultist circles of England and France. Levi created his image of Baphomet, published in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), by combining symbolism from diverse traditions, including the Diable card of the 16th and 17th century Tarot of Marseille. Lévi called his image "The Goat of Mendes", possibly following Herodotus' account that the god of Mendes—the Greek name for Djedet, Egypt—was depicted with a goat's face and legs. Herodotus relates how all male goats were held in great reverence by the Mendesians, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat. E. A. Wallis Budge writes,
At several places in the Delta, e.g. Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, the god Pan and a goat were worshipped; Strabo, quoting (xvii. 1, 19) Pindar, says that in these places goats had intercourse with women, and Herodotus (ii. 46) instances a case which was said to have taken place in the open day. The Mendisians, according to this last writer, paid reverence to all goats, and more to the males than to the females, and particularly to one he-goat, on the death of which public mourning is observed throughout the whole Mendesian district; they call both Pan and the goat Mendes, and both were worshipped as gods of generation and fecundity. Diodorus (i. 88) compares the cult of the goat of Mendes with that of Priapus, and groups the god with the Pans and the Satyrs. The goat referred to by all these writers is the famous Mendean Ram, or Ram of Mendes, the cult of which was, according to Manetho, established by Kakau, the king of the IInd dynasty.
Historically, the deity that was venerated at Egyptian Mendes was a ram deity Banebdjedet (literally Ba of the lord of djed, and titled "the Lord of Mendes"), who was the soul of Osiris. Lévi combined the images of the Tarot of Marseilles Devil card and refigured the ram Banebdjed as a he-goat, further imagined by him as "copulator in Anep and inseminator in the district of Mendes".
Margaret Murray's theory of the historical origins of the Horned God has been used by Wiccans to create a myth of historical origins for their religion. There is no verifiable evidence to support claims that the religion originates earlier than the mid-20th century.
Modern scholarship has disproved Margaret Murray's theory, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early Medieval periods.
The "father of Wicca", Gerald Gardner, who adopted Margaret Murray's thesis, claimed Wicca was a modern survival of an ancient pan-European pagan religion. Gardner states that he had reconstructed elements of the religion from fragments, incorporating elements from Freemasonry, the Occult, and Theosophy, which came together in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where Gardner met Aleister Crowley, whose influence became the basis for Wiccan magical practices.
Gerald Gardner was initiated into the O.T.O. by Aleister Crowley and subsequently went on to found the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Various scholars on early Wiccan history, such as Ronald Hutton, Philip Heselton, and Leo Ruickbie concur that witchcraft's early rituals, as devised by Gardner, contained much from Crowley's writings such as the Gnostic Mass. The third degree initiation ceremony in Gardnerian Wicca (including the Great Rite) is derived almost completely from the Gnostic Mass.
Georg Luck, repeats part of Murray's theory, stating that the Horned God may have appeared in late antiquity, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos, an antlered god of the Continental Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the devil, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
In 1908's The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, in Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", Ratty and Mole meet a mystical horned being, powerful, fearsome and kind. Grahame's work was a significant part of the cultural milieu which stripped the Greek god Pan of his cultural identity in favor of an unnamed, generic horned deity which led to Murray's thesis of historical origins.
Outside of works that predate the publication of Murray's thesis, horned god motifs and characters appear in fantasy literature that draws upon her work and that of her followers.
In the novel Childhood's End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke, all humans have a collective premonition, also described as a memory of the future, of horned aliens which arrive to usher in a new phase of human evolution. The collective subconscious image of the horned aliens is what accounts for mankind's image of the devil or Satan. This theme is also explored in the Doctor Who story The Dæmons in 1971, where the local superstitions around a landmark known as The Devil's Hump prove to be based on reality, as aliens from the planet Dæmos have been affecting man's progress over the millennia and the Hump actually contains a spacecraft. The only Dæmon to appear is a classic interpretation of a horned satyr-like being with hooves.
In the critically acclaimed and influential 1950s TV series created by Nigel Kneale, Quatermass and the Pit, depictions of supernatural horned entities, with specific reference to prehistoric cave-art and shamanistic horned head-dress are revealed to be a "race-memory" of psychic Martian grasshoppers, manifested at the climax of the film by a fiery horned god.
Murray's theories have been seen to have had influence on the horror film The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), where a murderous female-led cult worships a horned deity named Behemoth.
Marion Zimmer Bradley, who acknowledges the influence of Murray, uses the figure of the "horned god" in her feminist fantasy transformation of Arthurian myth, Mists of Avalon (1984), and portrays ritualistic incest between King Arthur as the representative of the horned god and his sister Morgaine as the "spring maiden".
In the Richard Carpenter television series Robin of Sherwood (1984), Robin Hood is taught and guided by a shaman-like figure called Herne the Hunter (a figure from English legend). Herne wears a headdress of a horned stag's head. Carpenter stated in an interview that Herne was based on the Pagan idea of the Horned God.
In the popular video game Morrowind, its expansion Bloodmoon has a plot enemy known as Hircine, the Daedric god of the Hunt, who appears as a horned man with the face of a deer skull. He condemned his "hounds" (werewolves) to walk the mortal ground during the Bloodmoon until a champion defeats him or Bloodmoon falls. When in combat, Hircine appears as a horned wolf or bear.
The 1992 Discworld novel Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett, features a King of the Elves who is strongly reminiscent of the Horned God. Although not worshipped by the witches who are the heroines of the book (indeed, quite the reverse), they temporarily ally themselves with him out of necessity.
The 2015 film The Witch, which takes place in 17th century New England during the latter end of the early modern inquisition against witchcraft that swept across Europe, deals with an interpretation of the Horned God, which takes the form of Black Phillip, the family goat.
In June, 1986, the comic book 2000AD published the first part of a serial story called Slàine and the Horned God, written by Pat Mills and illustrated by Simon Bisley. Based in Celtic mythology, the Horned God is identified with Cernunnos and is the primary antagonist in a story rich with antagonists. He presents as a Fertility God who has largely lost his mind and become nihilistic. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Horned God represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the consort of the female Triple goddess of the Moon or other Mother goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting, and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horns or antlers upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic (having a beast's head), in this way emphasizing \"the union of the divine and the animal\", the latter of which includes humanity.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In traditional Wicca (British Traditional Wicca), he is generally regarded as a dualistic god of twofold aspects: bright and dark, night and day, summer and winter, the Oak King and the Holly King. In this dualistic view, his two horns symbolize, in part, his dual nature. (The use of horns to symbolize duality is also reflected in the phrase \"on the horns of a dilemma.\") The three aspects of the Goddess and the two aspects of the Horned god are sometimes mapped on to the five points of the Pentagram or Pentacle, although which points correspond to which deity aspects varies. In some other systems, he is represented as a triune god, split into three aspects that reflect those of the Triple goddess: the Youth (Warrior), the Father, and the Sage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Horned God has been explored within several psychological theories and has become a recurrent theme in fantasy literature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In traditional and mainstream Wicca, the Horned God is viewed as the divine male principality, being both equal and opposite to the Goddess. The Wiccan god himself can be represented in many forms, including as the Sun God, the Sacrificed God and the Vegetation God, although the Horned God is the most popular representation. The pioneers of the various Wiccan or Witchcraft traditions, such as Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente and Robert Cochrane, all claimed that their religion was a continuation of the pagan religion of the Witch-Cult following historians who had purported the Witch-Cult's existence, such as Jules Michelet and Margaret Murray.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "For Wiccans, the Horned God is \"the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild\" and is associated with the wilderness, virility and the hunt. Doreen Valiente writes that the Horned God also carries the souls of the dead to the underworld.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Wiccans generally, as well as some other neopagans, tend to conceive of the universe as polarized into gender opposites of male and female energies. In traditional Wicca, the Horned God and the Goddess are seen as equal and opposite in gender polarity. However, in some of the newer traditions of Wicca, and especially those influenced by feminist ideology, there is more emphasis on the Goddess, and consequently the symbolism of the Horned God is less developed than that of the Goddess. In Wicca the cycle of the seasons is celebrated during eight sabbats called The Wheel of the Year. The seasonal cycle is imagined to follow the relationship between the Horned God and the Goddess. The Horned God is born in winter, impregnates the Goddess and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is then reborn by the Goddess at Yule. The different relationships throughout the year are sometimes distinguished by splitting the god into aspects, the Oak King and the Holly King. The relationships between the Goddess and the Horned God are mirrored by Wiccans in seasonal rituals. There is some variation between Wiccan groups as to which sabbat corresponds to which part of the cycle. Some Wiccans regard the Horned God as dying at Lammas, August 1; also known as Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest sabbat. Others may see him dying at Mabon, the autumn equinox, or the second harvest festival. Still other Wiccans conceive of the Horned God dying on October 31, which Wiccans call Samhain, the ritual of which is focused on death. He is then reborn on Winter Solstice, December 21.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Other important dates for the Horned God include Imbolc when, according to Valiente, he leads a wild hunt. In Gardnerian Wicca, the Dryghten prayer recited at the end of every ritual meeting contains the lines referring to the Horned God:",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the name of the Lady of the Moon, and the Horned Lord of Death and Resurrection",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "According to Sabina Magliocco, Gerald Gardner says (in 1959's The Meaning of Witchcraft) that The Horned God is an Under-god, a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people. (In Wiccan liturgy in the Book of Shadows, this conception of an unknowable supreme deity is referred to as \"Dryghtyn.\" It is not a personal god, but rather an impersonal divinity similar to the Tao of Taoism.)",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Whilst the Horned God is the most common depiction of masculine divinity in Wicca, he is not the only representation. Other examples include the Green Man and the Sun God. In traditional Wicca, however, these other representations of the Wiccan god are subsumed or amalgamated into the Horned God, as aspects or expressions of him. Sometimes this is shown by adding horns or antlers to the iconography. The Green Man, for example, may be shown with branches resembling antlers; and the Sun God may be depicted with a crown or halo of solar rays, that may resemble horns. These other conceptions of the Wiccan god should not be regarded as displacing the Horned God, but rather as elaborating on various facets of his nature. Doreen Valiente has called the Horned God \"the eldest of gods\" in both The Witches Creed and also in her Invocation To The Horned God.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Wiccans believe that The Horned God, as Lord of Death, is their \"comforter and consoler\" after death and before reincarnation; and that he rules the Underworld or Summerland where the souls of the dead reside as they await rebirth. Some, such as Joanne Pearson, believe that this is based on the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld, though this has not been confirmed.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Doreen Valiente, a former High Priestess of the Gardnerian tradition, claimed that Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven referred to the god as Cernunnos, or Kernunno, which is a Latin word, discovered on a stone carving found in France, meaning \"the Horned One\". Valiente claimed that the coven also referred to the god as Janicot, which she theorised was of Basque origin, and Gardner also used this name in his novel High Magic's Aid.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Stewart Farrar, a High Priest of the Alexandrian tradition referred to the Horned God as Karnayna, which he believed was a corruption of Cernunnos. The historian Ronald Hutton suggests the term derived instead from the Arabic Dhul-Qarnayn meaning \"Horned One\", as Murray offered in her 1931 book The God of the Witches, a source that likely influenced Alex Sanders. Prudence Jones has suggested that the name may instead derive from Karneios, a Spartan deity conflated with Apollo as a subordinate consort to Diana.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In the writings of Charles Cardell and Raymond Howard, the god was referred to as Atho. Howard had a wooden statue of Atho's head which he claimed was 2200 years old, but the statue was stolen in April 1967. Howard's son later admitted that his father had carved the statue himself.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In Cochrane's Craft, which was founded by Robert Cochrane, the Horned God was often referred to by a Biblical name; Tubal-cain, who, according to the Bible was the first blacksmith. In this neopagan concept, the god is also referred to as Brân, a Welsh mythological figure, Wayland, the smith in Germanic mythology, and Herne, a horned figure from English folklore.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the neopagan tradition of Stregheria, founded by Raven Grimassi and loosely inspired by the works of Charles Godfrey Leland, the Horned God goes by several names, including Dianus, Faunus, Cern, and Actaeon.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the Hinduism, the Horned God is referred to Pashupati, See Pashupati seal.",
"title": "In Wicca"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Sherry Salman considers the image of the Horned God in Jungian terms, as an archetypal protector and mediator of the outside world to the objective psyche. In her theory the male psyche's 'Horned God' frequently compensates for inadequate fathering.",
"title": "In psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "When first encountered, the figure is a dangerous, 'hairy chthonic wildman' possessed of kindness and intelligence. If repressed, later in life The Horned God appears as the lord of the Otherworld, or Hades. If split off entirely, he leads to violence, substance abuse and sexual perversion. When integrated he gives the male an ego 'in possession of its own destructiveness' and for the female psyche gives an effective animus relating to both the physical body and the psyche.",
"title": "In psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In considering the Horned God as a symbol recurring in women's literature, Richard Sugg suggests the Horned God represents the 'natural Eros', a masculine lover subjugating the social-conformist nature of the female shadow, thus encompassing a combination of the shadow and animus. One such example is Heathcliff from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Sugg goes on to note that female characters who are paired with this character usually end up socially ostracised, or worse – in an inverted ending to the male hero-story.",
"title": "In psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Following the work of Robert Bly in the Mythopoetic men's movement, John Rowan proposes the Horned God as a \"Wild Man\" be used as a fantasy image or \"sub-personality\" helpful to men in humanistic psychology, and escaping from \"narrow societal images of masculinity\" encompassing excessive deference to women and paraphillia.",
"title": "In psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Many horned deities are known to have been worshipped in various cultures throughout history. Evidence for horned gods appear very early in the human record. The so-called Sorcerer dates from perhaps 13,000 BCE. Twenty-one red deer headdresses, made from the skulls of the red deer and likely fitted with leather laces, have been uncovered at the Mesolithic site of Star Carr. They are thought to date from roughly 9,000 BCE. Several theories have been created to establish historical roots for modern Neopagan worship of a Horned God.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Following the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage and others, Margaret Murray, in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, proposed the theory that the witches of the early-modern period were remnants of a pagan cult and that the Christian Church had declared the god of the witches was in fact the Devil. Without recourse to any specific representation of this deity, Murray speculates that the head coverings common in inquisition-derived descriptions of the devil \"may throw light on one of the possible origins of the cult.\"",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1931 Murray published a sequel, The God of the Witches, which tries to gather evidence in support of her witch-cult theory. In Chapter 1 \"The Horned God\". Murray claims that various depictions of humans with horns from European and Indian sources, ranging from the paleolithic French cave painting of \"The Sorcerer\" to the Indic Pashupati to the modern English Dorset Ooser, are evidence for an unbroken, Europe-wide tradition of worship of a singular Horned God. Murray derived this model of a horned god cult from James Frazer and Jules Michelet.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In dealing with \"The Sorcerer\", the earliest evidence claimed, Murray based her observations on a drawing by Henri Breuil, which some modern scholars such as Ronald Hutton claim is inaccurate. Hutton states that modern photographs show the original cave art lacks horns, a human torso or any other significant detail on its upper half. However, others, such as celebrated prehistorian Jean Clottes, assert that Breuil's sketch is indeed accurate. Clottes stated that \"I have seen it myself perhaps 20 times over the years\".",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Breuil considered his drawing to represent a shaman or magician – an interpretation which gives the image its name. Murray having seen the drawing called Breuil's image \"the first depiction of a deity\", an idea which Breuil and others later adopted.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Murray also used an inaccurate drawing of a mesolithic rock-painting at Cogul in northeast Spain as evidence of group religious ceremony of the cult, although the central male figure is not horned. The illustration she used of the Cogul painting leaves out a number of figures, human and animal, and the original is more likely a sequence of superimposed but unrelated illustrations, rather than a depiction of a single scene.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Despite widespread criticism of Murray's scholarship some minor aspects of her work continued to have supporters.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The popular image of the Greek god Pan was removed from its classical context in the writings of the Romantics of the 18th century and connected with their ideals of a pastoral England. This, along with the general public's increasing lack of familiarity of Greek mythology at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a 'horned god', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The reception of Aradia amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of Leo Martello and Raven Grimassi, must be \"match[ed] against\", and compared with the claims in Aradia. He further suggests that a lack of comfort with Aradia may be due to an \"insecurity\" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Valiente offers another explanation for the negative reaction of some neopagans; that the identification of Lucifer as the god of the witches in Aradia was \"too strong meat\" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1985 Classical historian Georg Luck, in his Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the Devil, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Eliphas Levi's image of \"Baphomet\" serves as an example of the transformation of the Devil into a benevolent fertility deity and provided the prototype for Murray's horned god. Murray's central thesis that images of the Devil were actually of deities and that Christianity had demonised these worshippers as following Satan, is first recorded in the work of Levi in the fashionable 19th-century Occultist circles of England and France. Levi created his image of Baphomet, published in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), by combining symbolism from diverse traditions, including the Diable card of the 16th and 17th century Tarot of Marseille. Lévi called his image \"The Goat of Mendes\", possibly following Herodotus' account that the god of Mendes—the Greek name for Djedet, Egypt—was depicted with a goat's face and legs. Herodotus relates how all male goats were held in great reverence by the Mendesians, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat. E. A. Wallis Budge writes,",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "At several places in the Delta, e.g. Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, the god Pan and a goat were worshipped; Strabo, quoting (xvii. 1, 19) Pindar, says that in these places goats had intercourse with women, and Herodotus (ii. 46) instances a case which was said to have taken place in the open day. The Mendisians, according to this last writer, paid reverence to all goats, and more to the males than to the females, and particularly to one he-goat, on the death of which public mourning is observed throughout the whole Mendesian district; they call both Pan and the goat Mendes, and both were worshipped as gods of generation and fecundity. Diodorus (i. 88) compares the cult of the goat of Mendes with that of Priapus, and groups the god with the Pans and the Satyrs. The goat referred to by all these writers is the famous Mendean Ram, or Ram of Mendes, the cult of which was, according to Manetho, established by Kakau, the king of the IInd dynasty.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Historically, the deity that was venerated at Egyptian Mendes was a ram deity Banebdjedet (literally Ba of the lord of djed, and titled \"the Lord of Mendes\"), who was the soul of Osiris. Lévi combined the images of the Tarot of Marseilles Devil card and refigured the ram Banebdjed as a he-goat, further imagined by him as \"copulator in Anep and inseminator in the district of Mendes\".",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Margaret Murray's theory of the historical origins of the Horned God has been used by Wiccans to create a myth of historical origins for their religion. There is no verifiable evidence to support claims that the religion originates earlier than the mid-20th century.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Modern scholarship has disproved Margaret Murray's theory, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early Medieval periods.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The \"father of Wicca\", Gerald Gardner, who adopted Margaret Murray's thesis, claimed Wicca was a modern survival of an ancient pan-European pagan religion. Gardner states that he had reconstructed elements of the religion from fragments, incorporating elements from Freemasonry, the Occult, and Theosophy, which came together in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where Gardner met Aleister Crowley, whose influence became the basis for Wiccan magical practices.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Gerald Gardner was initiated into the O.T.O. by Aleister Crowley and subsequently went on to found the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Various scholars on early Wiccan history, such as Ronald Hutton, Philip Heselton, and Leo Ruickbie concur that witchcraft's early rituals, as devised by Gardner, contained much from Crowley's writings such as the Gnostic Mass. The third degree initiation ceremony in Gardnerian Wicca (including the Great Rite) is derived almost completely from the Gnostic Mass.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Georg Luck, repeats part of Murray's theory, stating that the Horned God may have appeared in late antiquity, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos, an antlered god of the Continental Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the devil, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.",
"title": "Theories of historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In 1908's The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, in Chapter 7, \"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn\", Ratty and Mole meet a mystical horned being, powerful, fearsome and kind. Grahame's work was a significant part of the cultural milieu which stripped the Greek god Pan of his cultural identity in favor of an unnamed, generic horned deity which led to Murray's thesis of historical origins.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Outside of works that predate the publication of Murray's thesis, horned god motifs and characters appear in fantasy literature that draws upon her work and that of her followers.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In the novel Childhood's End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke, all humans have a collective premonition, also described as a memory of the future, of horned aliens which arrive to usher in a new phase of human evolution. The collective subconscious image of the horned aliens is what accounts for mankind's image of the devil or Satan. This theme is also explored in the Doctor Who story The Dæmons in 1971, where the local superstitions around a landmark known as The Devil's Hump prove to be based on reality, as aliens from the planet Dæmos have been affecting man's progress over the millennia and the Hump actually contains a spacecraft. The only Dæmon to appear is a classic interpretation of a horned satyr-like being with hooves.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In the critically acclaimed and influential 1950s TV series created by Nigel Kneale, Quatermass and the Pit, depictions of supernatural horned entities, with specific reference to prehistoric cave-art and shamanistic horned head-dress are revealed to be a \"race-memory\" of psychic Martian grasshoppers, manifested at the climax of the film by a fiery horned god.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Murray's theories have been seen to have had influence on the horror film The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), where a murderous female-led cult worships a horned deity named Behemoth.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Marion Zimmer Bradley, who acknowledges the influence of Murray, uses the figure of the \"horned god\" in her feminist fantasy transformation of Arthurian myth, Mists of Avalon (1984), and portrays ritualistic incest between King Arthur as the representative of the horned god and his sister Morgaine as the \"spring maiden\".",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In the Richard Carpenter television series Robin of Sherwood (1984), Robin Hood is taught and guided by a shaman-like figure called Herne the Hunter (a figure from English legend). Herne wears a headdress of a horned stag's head. Carpenter stated in an interview that Herne was based on the Pagan idea of the Horned God.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In the popular video game Morrowind, its expansion Bloodmoon has a plot enemy known as Hircine, the Daedric god of the Hunt, who appears as a horned man with the face of a deer skull. He condemned his \"hounds\" (werewolves) to walk the mortal ground during the Bloodmoon until a champion defeats him or Bloodmoon falls. When in combat, Hircine appears as a horned wolf or bear.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The 1992 Discworld novel Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett, features a King of the Elves who is strongly reminiscent of the Horned God. Although not worshipped by the witches who are the heroines of the book (indeed, quite the reverse), they temporarily ally themselves with him out of necessity.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The 2015 film The Witch, which takes place in 17th century New England during the latter end of the early modern inquisition against witchcraft that swept across Europe, deals with an interpretation of the Horned God, which takes the form of Black Phillip, the family goat.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In June, 1986, the comic book 2000AD published the first part of a serial story called Slàine and the Horned God, written by Pat Mills and illustrated by Simon Bisley. Based in Celtic mythology, the Horned God is identified with Cernunnos and is the primary antagonist in a story rich with antagonists. He presents as a Fertility God who has largely lost his mind and become nihilistic.",
"title": "Art, fantasy and science fiction"
}
]
| The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities. The Horned God represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the consort of the female Triple goddess of the Moon or other Mother goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting, and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horns or antlers upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic, in this way emphasizing "the union of the divine and the animal", the latter of which includes humanity. In traditional Wicca, he is generally regarded as a dualistic god of twofold aspects: bright and dark, night and day, summer and winter, the Oak King and the Holly King. In this dualistic view, his two horns symbolize, in part, his dual nature. The three aspects of the Goddess and the two aspects of the Horned god are sometimes mapped on to the five points of the Pentagram or Pentacle, although which points correspond to which deity aspects varies. In some other systems, he is represented as a triune god, split into three aspects that reflect those of the Triple goddess: the Youth (Warrior), the Father, and the Sage. The Horned God has been explored within several psychological theories and has become a recurrent theme in fantasy literature. | 2001-12-21T23:09:59Z | 2023-12-15T16:32:29Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_God |
14,320 | Haggis | Haggis (Scottish Gaelic: taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".
It is believed that food similar to haggis—perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt—was eaten from ancient times.
Although the name "hagws" or "hagese" was first recorded in England c. 1430, the dish is considered traditionally of Scottish origin. It is even the national dish, as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis" of 1786. Haggis is traditionally served with "neeps and tatties", boiled and mashed separately, and a dram (a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper.
Haggis is popularly assumed to be of Scottish origin, but many countries have produced similar dishes, albeit with different names. However, the recipes as known and standardised now are distinctly Scottish. The first known written recipes for a dish of the name, made with offal and herbs, are as "hagese", in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire, north west England, and, as "hagws of a schepe" from an English cookbook also of c. 1430.
For hagese'. Þe hert of schepe, þe nere þou take, Þo bowel noght þou shalle forsake, On þe turbilen made, and boyled wele, Hacke alle togeder with gode persole,
The Scottish poem "Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy", which is dated before 1520 (the generally accepted date prior to the death of William Dunbar, one of the composers), refers to "haggeis".
Thy fowll front had, and he that Bartilmo flaid; The gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill, As thow wald for ane haggeis, hungry gled. — William Dunbar, Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy
An early printed recipe for haggis appears in 1615 in The English Huswife by Gervase Markham. It contains a section entitled "Skill in Oate meale": "The use and vertues of these two severall kinds of Oate-meales in maintaining the Family, they are so many (according to the many customes of many Nations) that it is almost impossible to recken all"; and then proceeds to give a description of "oat-meale mixed with blood, and the Liver of either Sheepe, Calfe or Swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is in vaine to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect them." (Gervase Markham, The English Huswife)
Food writer Alan Davidson suggests that the ancient Romans were the first known to have made products of the haggis type. Haggis was "born of necessity, as a way to utilize the least expensive cuts of meat and the innards as well".
Clarissa Dickson Wright says that it "came to Scotland in a longship [i.e., from Scandinavia] even before Scotland was a single nation". She cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– element of the word is derived from the Old Norse haggw or the Old Icelandic hoggva (höggva meaning 'to chop' in modern Icelandic), Modern Scots hag, meaning 'to hew' or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish.
In her book The Haggis: A Little History, Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly – probably in a vessel made from the animal's hide – was one way to make sure these parts were not wasted.
In the absence of hard facts as to haggis' origins, popular folklore has provided some notions. One is that the dish originates from the days of the old Scottish cattle drovers. When the men left the Highlands to drive their cattle to market in Edinburgh, the women would prepare rations for them to eat during the long journey down through the glens. They used the ingredients that were most readily available in their homes and conveniently packaged them in a sheep's stomach allowing for easy transportation during the journey. Other speculations have been based on Scottish slaughtering practices. When a chieftain or laird required an animal to be slaughtered for meat (whether sheep or cattle) the workmen were allowed to keep the offal as their share.
A joke sometimes maintained is that a haggis is a small Scottish animal with longer legs on one side, so that it can run around the steep hills of the Scottish highlands without falling over. According to one poll, 33 percent of American visitors to Scotland believed haggis to be an animal.
Haggis is traditionally served as part of the Burns supper on or near January 25, the birthday of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns. Burns wrote the poem "Address to a Haggis", which starts "Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!" In Burns's lifetime haggis was a common dish of the poor as it was nourishing yet very cheap, being made from leftover parts of sheep otherwise discarded.
Haggis is widely available in supermarkets in Scotland all year, with cheaper brands normally packed in artificial casings, rather than stomachs. Sometimes haggis is sold in tins or a container which can be cooked in a microwave or conventional oven. Some commercial haggis is largely made from pig, rather than sheep, offal. Kosher haggis, not only pork-free but fully conformant to Jewish dietary laws, is produced.
Haggis is often served in Scottish fast-food establishments, in the shape of a large sausage and deep fried in batter. Together with chips, this comprises a "haggis supper". A "haggis burger" is a patty of fried haggis served on a bun. A "haggis pakora" is another deep fried variant, available in some Indian restaurants in Scotland. Haggis can be used as an ingredient in other dishes, even pizza, rather than the main part of a dish.
A traditional haggis recipe describes haggis as "sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and boiled". Ingredients are sheep stomach, heart and lungs of one lamb, onions, oatmeal, salt, pepper, stock, and water, with optional ingredients dried coriander, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It can be boiled, baked, or deep fried.
In the north-east of Scotland, from Aberdeen northwards, in addition to the customary neeps and tatties, haggis is commonly served with mince.
Vegetarian haggis was first available commercially in 1984, and now can account for between 25% and 40% of haggis sales. It substitutes various pulses, nuts and vegetables for the meat. Oats and barley may be included as may different types of lentils, split peas, adzuki beans, kidney beans, borlotti beans, peanuts, other nuts and mushrooms, onions, and carrots.
Haggis remains popular with Scottish immigrants in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, owing to the strong influence of Scottish culture, especially for Burns Suppers. It can easily be made in any country but is sometimes imported from Scotland. A recipe from the Canadian province of New Brunswick uses pork and bakes it in a loaf pan.
In 1971 it became illegal to import haggis into the US from the UK due to a ban on food containing sheep lung, which constitutes 10–15% of the traditional recipe. The ban encompasses all lungs, as fluids such as stomach acid and phlegm may enter the lung during slaughter. The situation was further complicated in 1989 when all UK beef and lamb was banned from importation to the US due to a BSE crisis. In 2010 a spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture stated that they were reviewing the ban on beef and lamb products, but that the ban on food containing sheep lung would remain in force.
As haggis cannot be exported to the United States, it is instead made there, sometimes by Scottish companies. In one such use, which is stated to be the same 150-year-old recipe having the same ingredients as in Scotland, sheep lung is not used and the casing is artificial rather than stomach. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Haggis (Scottish Gaelic: taigeis) is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: \"Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It is believed that food similar to haggis—perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt—was eaten from ancient times.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Although the name \"hagws\" or \"hagese\" was first recorded in England c. 1430, the dish is considered traditionally of Scottish origin. It is even the national dish, as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns' poem \"Address to a Haggis\" of 1786. Haggis is traditionally served with \"neeps and tatties\", boiled and mashed separately, and a dram (a glass of Scotch whisky), especially as the main course of a Burns supper.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Haggis is popularly assumed to be of Scottish origin, but many countries have produced similar dishes, albeit with different names. However, the recipes as known and standardised now are distinctly Scottish. The first known written recipes for a dish of the name, made with offal and herbs, are as \"hagese\", in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire, north west England, and, as \"hagws of a schepe\" from an English cookbook also of c. 1430.",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "For hagese'. Þe hert of schepe, þe nere þou take, Þo bowel noght þou shalle forsake, On þe turbilen made, and boyled wele, Hacke alle togeder with gode persole,",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Scottish poem \"Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy\", which is dated before 1520 (the generally accepted date prior to the death of William Dunbar, one of the composers), refers to \"haggeis\".",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Thy fowll front had, and he that Bartilmo flaid; The gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill, As thow wald for ane haggeis, hungry gled. — William Dunbar, Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "An early printed recipe for haggis appears in 1615 in The English Huswife by Gervase Markham. It contains a section entitled \"Skill in Oate meale\": \"The use and vertues of these two severall kinds of Oate-meales in maintaining the Family, they are so many (according to the many customes of many Nations) that it is almost impossible to recken all\"; and then proceeds to give a description of \"oat-meale mixed with blood, and the Liver of either Sheepe, Calfe or Swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is in vaine to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect them.\" (Gervase Markham, The English Huswife)",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Food writer Alan Davidson suggests that the ancient Romans were the first known to have made products of the haggis type. Haggis was \"born of necessity, as a way to utilize the least expensive cuts of meat and the innards as well\".",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Clarissa Dickson Wright says that it \"came to Scotland in a longship [i.e., from Scandinavia] even before Scotland was a single nation\". She cites etymologist Walter William Skeat as further suggestion of possible Scandinavian origins: Skeat claimed that the hag– element of the word is derived from the Old Norse haggw or the Old Icelandic hoggva (höggva meaning 'to chop' in modern Icelandic), Modern Scots hag, meaning 'to hew' or strike with a sharp weapon, relating to the chopped-up contents of the dish.",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In her book The Haggis: A Little History, Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly – probably in a vessel made from the animal's hide – was one way to make sure these parts were not wasted.",
"title": "History and etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the absence of hard facts as to haggis' origins, popular folklore has provided some notions. One is that the dish originates from the days of the old Scottish cattle drovers. When the men left the Highlands to drive their cattle to market in Edinburgh, the women would prepare rations for them to eat during the long journey down through the glens. They used the ingredients that were most readily available in their homes and conveniently packaged them in a sheep's stomach allowing for easy transportation during the journey. Other speculations have been based on Scottish slaughtering practices. When a chieftain or laird required an animal to be slaughtered for meat (whether sheep or cattle) the workmen were allowed to keep the offal as their share.",
"title": "Folklore"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "A joke sometimes maintained is that a haggis is a small Scottish animal with longer legs on one side, so that it can run around the steep hills of the Scottish highlands without falling over. According to one poll, 33 percent of American visitors to Scotland believed haggis to be an animal.",
"title": "Folklore"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Haggis is traditionally served as part of the Burns supper on or near January 25, the birthday of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns. Burns wrote the poem \"Address to a Haggis\", which starts \"Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!\" In Burns's lifetime haggis was a common dish of the poor as it was nourishing yet very cheap, being made from leftover parts of sheep otherwise discarded.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Haggis is widely available in supermarkets in Scotland all year, with cheaper brands normally packed in artificial casings, rather than stomachs. Sometimes haggis is sold in tins or a container which can be cooked in a microwave or conventional oven. Some commercial haggis is largely made from pig, rather than sheep, offal. Kosher haggis, not only pork-free but fully conformant to Jewish dietary laws, is produced.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Haggis is often served in Scottish fast-food establishments, in the shape of a large sausage and deep fried in batter. Together with chips, this comprises a \"haggis supper\". A \"haggis burger\" is a patty of fried haggis served on a bun. A \"haggis pakora\" is another deep fried variant, available in some Indian restaurants in Scotland. Haggis can be used as an ingredient in other dishes, even pizza, rather than the main part of a dish.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "A traditional haggis recipe describes haggis as \"sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and boiled\". Ingredients are sheep stomach, heart and lungs of one lamb, onions, oatmeal, salt, pepper, stock, and water, with optional ingredients dried coriander, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It can be boiled, baked, or deep fried.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the north-east of Scotland, from Aberdeen northwards, in addition to the customary neeps and tatties, haggis is commonly served with mince.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Vegetarian haggis was first available commercially in 1984, and now can account for between 25% and 40% of haggis sales. It substitutes various pulses, nuts and vegetables for the meat. Oats and barley may be included as may different types of lentils, split peas, adzuki beans, kidney beans, borlotti beans, peanuts, other nuts and mushrooms, onions, and carrots.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Haggis remains popular with Scottish immigrants in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, owing to the strong influence of Scottish culture, especially for Burns Suppers. It can easily be made in any country but is sometimes imported from Scotland. A recipe from the Canadian province of New Brunswick uses pork and bakes it in a loaf pan.",
"title": "Outside Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1971 it became illegal to import haggis into the US from the UK due to a ban on food containing sheep lung, which constitutes 10–15% of the traditional recipe. The ban encompasses all lungs, as fluids such as stomach acid and phlegm may enter the lung during slaughter. The situation was further complicated in 1989 when all UK beef and lamb was banned from importation to the US due to a BSE crisis. In 2010 a spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture stated that they were reviewing the ban on beef and lamb products, but that the ban on food containing sheep lung would remain in force.",
"title": "Outside Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "As haggis cannot be exported to the United States, it is instead made there, sometimes by Scottish companies. In one such use, which is stated to be the same 150-year-old recipe having the same ingredients as in Scotland, sheep lung is not used and the casing is artificial rather than stomach.",
"title": "Outside Scotland"
}
]
| Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour". It is believed that food similar to haggis—perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal's stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt—was eaten from ancient times. Although the name "hagws" or "hagese" was first recorded in England c. 1430, the dish is considered traditionally of Scottish origin. It is even the national dish, as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis" of 1786. Haggis is traditionally served with "neeps and tatties", boiled and mashed separately, and a dram, especially as the main course of a Burns supper. | 2001-12-21T21:32:33Z | 2023-12-31T14:11:32Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis |
14,321 | Hank Aaron | Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder and designated hitter who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. Considered one of the greatest baseball players in history, he spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL). At the time of his retirement, Aaron held most of the game's key career power-hitting records. He broke the long-standing MLB record for career home runs held by Babe Ruth and remained the career leader for 33 years, until Barry Bonds surpassed his famous total of 755 in 2007. He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973 and is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.
Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (RBIs) (2,297), extra base hits (1,477), and total bases (6,856). Aaron is also third all-time for career hits (3,771) and fifth in runs scored (2,174). He is one of only four players to have at least 17 seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron's ability as a hitter can be illustrated by his still having over 3,000 hits even without counting any of his home runs. He was an NL All-Star for 20 seasons and an AL All-Star for one season, and he holds the record for the most All-Star selections (25), while sharing the record for most All-Star Games played (24) with Willie Mays and Stan Musial. He was a three-time Gold Glove winner, and in 1957, he won the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award when the Milwaukee Braves won the World Series.
Aaron was born and raised in and around Mobile, Alabama, one of seven children. He appeared briefly in the Negro American League and in minor league baseball before starting his major league career. By his final MLB season, Aaron was the last former Negro league baseball player on a major league roster. During his time in Major League Baseball, and especially during his run for the home run record, Aaron and his family endured extensive racist threats. His experiences fueled his activism during the civil rights movement.
Aaron was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1982 and Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1999, MLB introduced the Hank Aaron Award to recognize the top offensive players in each league. That same year, he was one of 30 baseball players elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. After his retirement, Aaron held front office roles with the Atlanta Braves, including the senior vice president, and resided near Atlanta until his death in 2021.
Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, to Herbert Aaron Sr. and Estella (Pritchett) Aaron. He had seven siblings. Tommie Aaron, one of his brothers, also went on to play Major League Baseball. By the time Aaron retired, he and his brother held the record for most career home runs by a pair of siblings (768).
While he was born in a section of Mobile referred to as "Down the Bay", he spent most of his youth in Toulminville. Aaron grew up in a poor family. His family could not afford baseball equipment, so he practiced by hitting bottle caps with sticks. He would create his own bats and balls out of materials he found on the streets. His boyhood idol was baseball star Jackie Robinson. Aaron attended Central High School as a freshman and a sophomore. Like most high schools, they did not have organized baseball, so he played outfield and third base for the Mobile Black Bears, a semipro team. Aaron was a member of the Boy Scouts of America.
Although he batted cross-handed (as a right-handed hitter, with his left hand above his right), Aaron established himself as a power hitter. As a result, in 1949, at the age of 15, Aaron had his first tryout with an MLB franchise, the Brooklyn Dodgers; however, he did not make the team. After this, Aaron returned to school to finish his secondary education, attending the Josephine Allen Institute, a private high school in Alabama. During his junior year, Aaron joined the Prichard Athletics, an independent Negro league team, followed by the Mobile Black Bears, another independent Negro league team. While on the Bears, Aaron earned $3 per game ($30 today), which was a dollar more than he got while on the Athletics.
On November 20, 1951, baseball scout Ed Scott signed Aaron to a contract on behalf of the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League, where he played for three months.
He started play as a 6 ft (180 cm), 180 lb (82 kg) shortstop, and earned $200 per month. As a result of his standout play with the Indianapolis Clowns, Aaron received two offers from MLB teams via telegram, one from the New York Giants and the other from the Boston Braves. Years later, Aaron remembered:
I had the Giants' contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That's the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars.
While with the Clowns he experienced racism. Of a time his team was in Washington, D.C. Aaron recalled:
We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they'd have washed them.
The Howe Sports Bureau credits Aaron with a .366 batting average in 26 official Negro league games, with five home runs, 33 runs batted in (RBIs), 41 hits, and nine stolen bases.
The Braves purchased Aaron's contract from the Clowns for $10,000, which GM John Quinn thought was a steal, as he stated that he felt that Aaron was a $100,000 property. On June 12, 1952, Aaron signed with Braves' scout Dewey Griggs. During this time, he picked up the nickname "pork chops" because it "was the only thing I knew to order off the menu". A teammate later said, "the man ate pork chops three meals a day, two for breakfast".
The Braves assigned Aaron to the Eau Claire Bears, the Braves' Northern League Class-C farm team. The 1952 season proved to be very beneficial for Aaron. Playing in the infield, Aaron continued to develop as a ballplayer and made the Northern League's All-Star team. He broke his habit of hitting cross-handed and adopted the standard hitting technique. By the end of the season, he had performed so well that the league made him the unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year. Although he appeared in just 87 games, he scored 89 runs, had 116 hits, nine home runs, and 61 RBIs. In addition, Aaron hit for a .336 batting average. During his minor league experience, he was very homesick and faced constant racism, but his brother, Herbert Jr., told him not to give up the opportunity.
In 1953, the Braves promoted him to the Jacksonville Braves, their Class-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. Helped by Aaron's performance, the Braves won the league championship that year. Aaron led the league in runs (115), hits (208), doubles (36), RBIs (125), total bases (338), and batting average (.362). He won the league's Most Valuable Player Award, and had such a dominant year that one sportswriter was prompted to say, "Henry Aaron led the league in everything except hotel accommodations." Aaron's time with the Braves did not come without problems. He was one of the first African Americans to play in the league. The 1950s were a period of racial segregation in parts of the United States, especially the southeastern portion of the country. When Aaron traveled around Jacksonville, Florida, and the surrounding areas, he was often separated from his team because of Jim Crow laws. In most circumstances, the team was responsible for arranging housing and meals for its players, but Aaron often had to make his own arrangements. The Braves' manager, Ben Geraghty, tried his best to help Aaron on and off the field. Former Braves minor league player and sportswriter Pat Jordan said, "Aaron gave [Geraghty] much of the credit for his own swift rise to stardom."
That same year, Aaron met his future wife, Barbara Lucas. The night they met, Lucas decided to attend the Braves' game. Aaron singled, doubled, and hit a home run in the game. On October 6, Aaron and Lucas married. In 1958, Aaron's wife noted that during the off-season he liked "to sit and watch those shooting westerns". He also enjoyed cooking and fishing.
Aaron spent the winter of 1953 playing in Puerto Rico. Mickey Owen, the team's manager, helped Aaron with his batting stance. Until then, Aaron had hit most pitches to left field or center field, but after working with Owen, Aaron was able to hit the ball more effectively all over the field. During his stay in Puerto Rico, Owen also helped Aaron transition from second base to the outfield. Aaron had not played well at second base, but Owen noted that Aaron could catch fly balls and throw them well from the outfield to the infield.
The stint in Puerto Rico also allowed Aaron to avoid being drafted into military service. Though the Korean War was over, people were still being drafted. The Braves were able to speak to the draft board, making the case that Aaron could be the player to integrate the Southern Association the following season with the Atlanta Crackers. The board appears to have been convinced, as Aaron was not drafted.
In 1954, Aaron attended spring training with the major league club. Although he was on the roster of its farm club, Milwaukee manager Charley Grimm later stated, "From the start, he did so well I knew we were going to have to carry him." On March 13, 1954, Milwaukee Braves left fielder Bobby Thomson fractured his ankle while sliding into second base during a spring training game. The next day, Aaron made his first spring training start for the Braves major league team, playing in left field and hitting a home run. This led Hank Aaron to a major league contract, signed on the final day of spring training, and a Braves uniform with the number five. On April 13, Aaron made his major league debut and was hitless in five at-bats against the Cincinnati Reds' left-hander Joe Nuxhall. In the same game, Eddie Mathews hit two home runs, the first of a record 863 home runs the pair would hit as teammates. On April 15, Aaron collected his first major league hit, a double off Cardinals' pitcher Vic Raschi. Aaron hit his first major league home run on April 23, also off Raschi. Over the next 122 games, Aaron batted .280 with 13 homers before he suffered a fractured ankle on September 5. He then changed his number to 44, which would turn out to look like a "lucky number" for the slugger. Aaron would hit 44 home runs in four different seasons, and he hit his record-breaking 715th career home run off Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, who coincidentally also wore number 44.
At this point, Aaron was known to family and friends primarily as "Henry". Braves' public relations director Don Davidson, observing Aaron's quiet, reserved nature, began referring to him publicly as "Hank" in order to suggest more accessibility. The nickname quickly gained currency, but "Henry" continued to be cited frequently in the media, both sometimes appearing in the same article, and Aaron would answer to either one. During his rookie year, his other well-known nicknames, "Hammerin' Hank" (by teammates) and "Bad Henry" (by opposing pitchers) are reported to have arisen.
Considerably later in his career, Aaron coined "Stone-fingers", which would prove a popular handle for one of baseball's more colorful characters, the famously distance-hitting but defensively challenged first baseman Dick Stuart, reportedly "delight[ing]" even its recipient.
Sal Maglie recommended throwing low curveballs to Aaron. "He's going to swing and he'll go after almost anything," Maglie said of the Braves' slugger. "And he'll hit almost anything, so you have to be careful."
Aaron hit .314 with 27 home runs and 106 RBIs, in 1955. He was named to the NL All-Star roster for the first time; it was the first of a record 21 All-Star selections and first of a record 25 All-Star Game appearances. In 1956, Aaron hit .328 and captured the first of two NL batting titles. He was also named The Sporting News NL Player of the Year. In 1957, Aaron won his only NL MVP Award, as he had his first brush with the triple crown. He batted .322, placing third, and led the league in home runs and runs batted in. On September 23, 1957, in Milwaukee, Aaron hit a two-run walk-off home run against the St. Louis Cardinals, clinching the pennant for the Braves. After touching home plate he was carried off the field by his teammates. It is as of yet the only pennant-clinching walk-off home run in major league history in a non-playoff regular-season game. Milwaukee went on to win the World Series against the New York Yankees, the defending champions, 4 games to 3. Aaron did his part by hitting .393 with three homers and seven RBIs. On December 15, 1957, his wife Barbara gave birth to twins. Two days later, one of the children died. In 1958, Aaron hit .326, with 30 home runs and 95 RBIs. He led the Braves to another pennant, but this time they lost a seven-game World Series to the Yankees. Aaron finished third in the MVP race and he received his first of three Gold Glove Awards. During the next several years, Aaron had some of his best games and best seasons as a major league player. On June 21, 1959, against the San Francisco Giants, he hit three two-run home runs. It was the only time in his career that he hit three home runs in a game.
In 1963, Aaron nearly won the triple crown. He led the league with 44 home runs and 130 RBIs and finished third in batting average. In that season, Aaron became the third player to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a single season, and the first player to record 40 home runs and 30 steals in a season. He again finished third in National League MVP voting. The Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season. On May 10, 1967, he hit an inside-the-park home run against Jim Bunning in Philadelphia. It was the only inside-the-park home run of his career. In 1968, Aaron was the first Atlanta Braves player to hit his 500th career home run, and in 1970, he was the first Atlanta Brave to reach 3,000 career hits.
During his days in Atlanta, Aaron reached several milestones; he was only the eighth player ever to hit 500 career home runs, with his 500th coming against Mike McCormick of the San Francisco Giants on July 14, 1968—exactly one year after former Milwaukee Braves teammate Eddie Mathews had hit his 500th. Aaron was, at the time, the second-youngest player to reach the milestone. On July 31, 1969, Aaron hit his 537th home run, passing Mickey Mantle's total; this moved Aaron into third place on the career home run list, after Willie Mays and Babe Ruth. At the end of the 1969 season, Aaron again finished third in the MVP voting.
In 1970, Aaron reached two more career milestones. On May 17, Aaron collected his 3,000th hit, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds, the team against which he played in his first major-league game. Aaron established the record for most seasons with thirty or more home runs in the National League. On April 27, 1971, Aaron hit his 600th career home run, the third major league player ever to do so. On July 13, Aaron hit a home run in the All-Star Game (played at Detroit's Tiger Stadium) for the first time. He hit his 40th home run of the season against the Giants' Jerry Johnson on August 10, which established a National League record for most seasons with 40 or more home runs (seven). At age 37, he hit a career-high 47 home runs during the season (along with a career-high .669 slugging percentage) and finished third in MVP voting for the sixth time. During the strike-shortened season of 1972, Aaron tied and then surpassed Willie Mays for second place on the career home run list. Aaron also drove in the 2,000th run of his career and hit a home run in the first All-Star game played in Atlanta. As the year came to a close, Aaron broke Stan Musial's major-league record for total bases (6,134). He finished the season with 673 career home runs.
Aaron himself downplayed the "chase" to surpass Babe Ruth, while baseball enthusiasts and the national media grew increasingly excited as he closed in on the 714 career home runs record. Aaron received thousands of letters every week during the summer of 1973, including hate mail; the Braves ended up hiring a secretary to help him sort through it.
Aaron (then age 39) hit 40 home runs in 392 at-bats, ending the 1973 season one home run short of the record. He hit home run number 713 on September 29, 1973, and with one day remaining in the season, many expected him to tie the record. But in his final game that year, playing against the Houston Astros (managed by Leo Durocher, who had once roomed with Babe Ruth), he was unable to achieve this. After the game, Aaron said his only fear was that he might not live to see the 1974 season.
He was the recipient of death threats and a large assortment of hate mail during the 1973–1974 offseason from people who did not want to see Aaron break Ruth's nearly sacrosanct home run record. The threats extended to those providing positive press coverage of Aaron. Lewis Grizzard, then-executive sports editor of The Atlanta Journal, reported receiving numerous phone calls calling journalists "nigger lovers" for covering Aaron's chase. While preparing the massive coverage of the home run record, Grizzard quietly had an obituary written, afraid that Aaron might be murdered.
Sports Illustrated pointedly summarized the racist vitriol that Aaron was forced to endure:
Is this to be the year in which Aaron, at the age of thirty-nine, takes a moon walk above one of the most hallowed individual records in American sport ...? Or will it be remembered as the season in which Aaron, the most dignified of athletes, was besieged with hate mail and trapped by the cobwebs and goblins that lurk in baseball's attic?
At the end of the 1973 season, Aaron received a plaque from the U.S. Postal Service for receiving more mail (930,000 pieces) than any person excluding politicians. Aaron received an outpouring of public support in response to the bigotry. In August, 1973, Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz drew a series of strips in which Snoopy attempts to break Babe Ruth's record, only to be besieged with hate mail. In the strip published August 11, Lucy remarked to Snoopy: "Hank Aaron is a great player ... but you! If you break Babe Ruth's record, it'll be a disgrace!" Coincidentally, Snoopy was only one home run short of tying the record (and finished the season as such when Charlie Brown got picked off second base during Snoopy's last at-bat), and as it turned out, Aaron finished the 1973 season one home run short of Ruth. Babe Ruth's widow, Claire Hodgson, denounced the racism and declared that her husband would have enthusiastically cheered Aaron's attempt at the record. As the 1974 season began, Aaron's pursuit of the record caused a small controversy. The Braves opened the season on the road in Cincinnati with a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. Braves management wanted him to break the record in Atlanta and was therefore going to have Aaron sit out the first three games of the season. But Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled that he had to play two games in the first series. He played two out of three and tied Babe Ruth's record on April 4, 1974, in his very first at-bat on his first swing of the season—off Reds pitcher Jack Billingham, but did not hit another home run in the series.
The Braves returned to Atlanta, and on April 8, 1974, a crowd of 53,775 people showed up for the game—a Braves attendance record. The game was also broadcast nationally on NBC. In the fourth inning, Aaron hit home run number 715 off Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing. Although Dodgers outfielder Bill Buckner nearly went over the outfield fence trying to catch it, the ball flew into the Braves' bullpen, where relief pitcher Tom House caught it. While cannons were fired in celebration, two college students sprinted onto the field and jogged alongside Aaron for part of his circuit around the bases, temporarily startling him. As the fans cheered wildly, Aaron's parents ran onto the field as well. Braves announcer Milo Hamilton, calling the game on WSB radio, described the scene as Aaron broke the record:
Henry Aaron, in the second inning walked and scored. He's sittin' on 714. Here's the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There's a drive into left-center field. That ball is gonna be-eee ... Outta here! It's gone! It's 715! There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron! The fireworks are going. Henry Aaron is coming around third. His teammates are at home plate. And listen to this crowd!
Meanwhile, Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully addressed the racial tension—or apparent lack thereof—in his call of the home run:
What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron ... And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.
On October 2, 1974, Aaron hit his 733rd home run in his last at-bat as a Braves player. Aaron commented after the game that it was his last time as a player in Atlanta as his contract had expired. While he considered retirement, he said that he was willing to return to baseball for another year. He had also said that he would be interested in serving as a team's general manager, someone who would make decisions and not a “house boy”. The Braves offered Aaron a position with the team when he retired, but the role would be more in public relations, rather than one where he could evaluate talent.
At the end of the season, Aaron, who had a prior relationship with Brewers owner Bud Selig, requested a trade to Milwaukee. He was acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers for Dave May thirty-one days later on November 2. Minor league right-handed pitcher Roger Alexander was sent to the Braves to complete the transaction at the Winter Meetings one month later on December 2. The trade re-united Aaron with former teammate Del Crandall, who was now managing the Brewers. He signed a two-year contract with the Brewers for $240,000 per year. Playing in the American League allowed Aaron to serve as a designated hitter rather than play in the field.
On May 1, 1975, Aaron broke baseball's all-time RBI record, previously held by Ruth with 2,213. That year, he also played in his last and 24th All-Star Game (25th All-Star Game selection); he lined out to Dave Concepción as a pinch-hitter in the second inning. This All-Star Game, like the first one he played in 1955, was before a home crowd at Milwaukee County Stadium.
Aaron hit his 755th and final home run on July 20, 1976, at Milwaukee County Stadium off Dick Drago of the California Angels, which stood as the MLB career home run record for 31 years until it was broken in 2007 by Barry Bonds. Over the course of his record-breaking 23-year career, Aaron had a batting average of .305 and 163 hits a season, while averaging just over 32 home runs and 99 RBIs a year. He had 100+ RBIs in a season 15 times, including a record of 13 in a row.
After the 1976 season, Aaron rejoined the Braves as an executive. On August 1, 1982, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, having received votes on 97.8 percent of the ballots, second only to Ty Cobb, who had received votes on 98.2% of the ballot in the inaugural 1936 Hall of Fame election. Aaron was then named the Braves' vice president and director of player development. This made him one of the first minorities in Major League Baseball upper-level management.
In December 1980, Aaron became senior vice president and assistant to the Braves' president. He was the corporate vice president of community relations for Turner Broadcasting System, a member of the company's board of directors, and the vice president of business development for The Airport Network. On January 21, 2007, Major League Baseball announced the sale of the Atlanta Braves. In that announcement, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig also announced that Aaron would be playing a major role in the management of the Braves, forming programs through major league baseball that will encourage the influx of minorities into baseball. Aaron founded the Hank Aaron Rookie League program.
Shortly before the start of the 2002 baseball season, Aaron joined San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds—on the heels of his record-shattering performance the season before—to make a television commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVI, in which Aaron jokingly tried to persuade Bonds to retire before breaking the record. As Bonds began to close in on the record during the 2007 season, Aaron let it be known that, although he recognized Bonds' achievements, he would not be present when Bonds broke the record. There was considerable speculation that this was a snubbing of Bonds based on the widespread belief that Bonds had used performance-enhancing drugs and steroids to aid his achievement. However, some observers looked back on Aaron's personal history, pointing out that he had downplayed his own breaking of Babe Ruth's all-time record and suggesting Aaron was simply treating Bonds in a similar fashion. In a later interview with Atlanta sportscasting personality Chris Dimino, Aaron made it clear his reluctance to attend any celebration of a new home run record was based upon his personal conviction that baseball is not about breaking records, but simply playing to the best of one's potential. After Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run on August 7, 2007, Aaron made a surprise appearance on the JumboTron video screen at AT&T Park in San Francisco to congratulate Bonds on his accomplishment:
I would like to offer my congratulations to Barry Bonds on becoming baseball's career home run leader. It is a great accomplishment that required skill, longevity, and determination. Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement. My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.
Aaron's autobiography, I Had A Hammer, co-written with the help of writer Lonnie Wheeler, was published in 1990 and was a finalist for the Casey Award. The book's title is a play on his nickname, "The Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", and the title of the folk song "If I Had a Hammer". Aaron owned Hank Aaron BMW of south Atlanta in Union City, Georgia, where he included an autographed baseball with every car sold. Aaron also owned Mini, Land Rover, Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda dealerships throughout Georgia, as part of the Hank Aaron Automotive Group. Aaron sold all but the Toyota dealership in McDonough in 2007. Additionally, Aaron owned a chain of 30 restaurants around the country.
Aaron's first marriage was to Barbara Lucas in 1953. They had five children: Gary, Lary, Dorinda, Gaile, and Hank Jr. He divorced Barbara in 1971 and married Billye Suber Williams on November 13, 1973. With his second wife, he had one child, Ceci.
Despite being publicly and professionally known as "Hank," Aaron preferred to go by his given name, "Henry."
Born and raised a Baptist, Aaron converted to Catholicism in 1959 at age 25, together with his family. He and his wife first became interested in the faith after the birth of their first child, whom they baptized immediately. A friendship with a Roman Catholic priest later helped lead to Hank and his wife's conversion. Aaron was known to frequently read Thomas à Kempis' 15th-century book The Imitation of Christ, which he kept in his locker.
In an interview in 1991, Aaron credited the priest, Fr. Michael Sablica, with helping him grow as a person in the 1950s. "He taught me what life was all about. But he was more than just a religious friend of mine, he was a friend because he talked as if he was not a priest sometimes." Active in the civil rights movement, the priest encouraged Aaron to be more publicly vocal about causes he believed in.
Sablica also encouraged him to "attend Mass every Sunday" during Spring Training, to which he responded with the racist realities of the day: "[In Bradenton], they won't let me go to Mass." Sablica said in an interview that he wouldn't have blamed Aaron if he stopped practicing. Aaron indeed attended Friendship Baptist Church toward the end of his life, noting in his autobiography that he didn't remain Catholic for very long after converting.
Aaron was a long-time fan of the Cleveland Browns, having attended many games in disguise in their "Dawg Pound" seating section.
In 1986, Hank Aaron made a guest appearance in "Just Another Fox in the Crowd", episode 30 of Crazy Like a Fox.
Aaron lived in the Atlanta area. In July 2013, media reported that his home was burglarized with jewelry and two BMW vehicles having been stolen. The cars were later recovered.
Aaron suffered from arthritis and had a partial hip replacement after a fall in 2014.
On January 5, 2021, Aaron publicly received a COVID-19 vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Morehouse School of Medicine at Atlanta, Georgia. He and several other African American public figures, including activist Joe Beasley, Andrew Young, and Louis Sullivan, did so to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine and encourage other black Americans to do the same.
Aaron died in his sleep in his Atlanta residence on January 22, 2021 at the age of 86. The manner of death was listed as natural causes.
His funeral was held on January 27, followed by his burial at South-View Cemetery.
Upon Aaron's death, the sports world expressed their condolences to him. Many current or former athletes and team owners such as MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, Magic Johnson, David Ortiz, Dusty Baker, Eduardo Pérez, Mike Trout, and Baseball Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark paid tribute to him. Fans paid tribute to Aaron by placing flowers in front of the home run wall where he hit his 715th home run at the former site of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and in front of his statue at Truist Park.
Politicians also paid tribute to him. The Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms released the following statement on his death:
“Derek, our family and I join the nation in sending heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Billye Aaron, the beautiful wife of Henry “Hank” Aaron for nearly 50 years, and the entire family. This is a considerable loss for the entire city of Atlanta. While the world knew him as ‘Hammering Hank Aaron’ because of his incredible, record-setting baseball career, he was a cornerstone of our village, graciously and freely joining Mrs. Aaron in giving their presence and resources toward making our city a better place. As an adopted son of Atlanta, Mr. Aaron was part of the fabric that helped place Atlanta on the world stage. Our gratitude, thoughts and prayers are with the Aaron family.”
Georgia governor Brian Kemp ordered flags in the state of Georgia to be lowered half-staff in honor of him.
U.S. President Joe Biden paid tribute to Aaron by releasing a statement calling him "an American hero". He also received tributes from former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
The Atlanta Braves honored Hank Aaron during the 2021 season by including his jersey number 44 on the back of the team caps along with Phil Niekro's jersey number, 35 (who died one month earlier in December 2020). They also painted 44 in the midfield at Truist Park.
At Game 3 of the 2021 World Series in Truist Park, a pregame ceremony was held honoring Aaron where his son Hank Aaron Jr. threw out a ceremonial first pitch. After the Braves won the 2021 World Series, Aaron was honored in the design of the team's World Series championship ring, which includes 755 total diamonds to commemorate Aaron's career home runs, and 44 emerald-cut diamonds to represent Aaron's jersey number with the Braves.
In 1982, Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during his first year of eligibility.
Aaron was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1976, from the NAACP. In 1977, Aaron received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award. In 1988, Aaron was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame for his time spent on the Eau Claire Bears, Milwaukee Braves, and Milwaukee Brewers.
In 1999, major league baseball created the Hank Aaron Award, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Aaron's surpassing of Babe Ruth's career home run mark of 714 home runs and to honor Aaron's contributions to baseball. The award is given annually to the baseball hitters voted the most effective in each respective league. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Aaron on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
When the city of Atlanta was converting Centennial Olympic Stadium into a new baseball stadium, many local residents hoped the stadium would be named for Aaron. When the stadium was instead named Turner Field (after Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner), a section of Capitol Avenue running past the stadium was renamed Hank Aaron Drive. The stadium's street number is 755, after Aaron's total number of home runs; the 755 street number was retained for Turner Field's replacement, Truist Park. In April 1997, a new baseball facility for the AA Mobile Bay Bears constructed in Aaron's hometown of Mobile, Alabama was named Hank Aaron Stadium. Georgia State University acquired Turner Field and has since rebuilt it as Center Parc Stadium, in 2017, and university officials plan to build a new baseball park on the former Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium site, incorporating the left field wall where Aaron hit his record-breaking home run.
He was honored before the third game of 2021 World Series.
On February 5, 1999, at his 65th birthday celebration, Major League Baseball announced the introduction of the Hank Aaron Award. The award honors the best overall offensive performer in the American and National League. It was the first major award to be introduced in more than thirty years and had the distinction of being the first award named after a player who was still alive. Later that year, he ranked fifth on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
In June 2000, Tufts University awarded Aaron an honorary Doctor of Public Service. In July 2000 and again in July 2002, Aaron threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, played at Turner Field and Miller Park now named American Family Field, respectively.
On January 8, 2001, Aaron was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush in June 2002. In 2001, a recreational trail in Milwaukee connecting American Family Field with Lake Michigan along the Menomonee River was dedicated as the Hank Aaron State Trail. Aaron attended the dedication. Aaron was on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.
In 2002, Aaron was honored with the "Lombardi Award of Excellence" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation. The award was created to honor Vince Lombardi's legacy and is awarded annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of the coach.
Aaron dedicated the new exhibit "Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream" at the Baseball Hall of Fame on April 25, 2009. Statues of Aaron stand outside the front entrance of both Turner Field and American Family Field. There is also a statue of him as an 18-year-old shortstop outside Carson Park in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he played his first season in the Braves' minor league system.
He was named a 2010 Georgia Trustee by the Georgia Historical Society, in conjunction with the Governor of Georgia, to recognize accomplishments and community service that reflect the ideals of the founding body of Trustees, which governed the Georgia colony from 1732 to 1752.
In 2011, the President of Princeton University Shirley M. Tilghman awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree to Aaron.
In November 2015, Aaron was one of the five inaugural recipients of the Portrait of a Nation Prize, an award granted by the National Portrait Gallery in recognition of "exemplary achievements in the fields of civil rights, business, entertainment, science, and sports."
In January 2016, Aaron received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette from Akihito, the Emperor of Japan.
On April 14, 2017, Aaron threw out the first pitch at SunTrust Park (now called Truist Park) at 83 years old.
The Elite Development Invitational, a youth baseball tournament organized by the Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association to increase diversity in the sport, was renamed the Hank Aaron Invitational for the 2019 season.
After Aaron's death, the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL and Atlanta United of MLS retired his No. 44 for the 2021 season (the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA had already retired No. 44 for Pete Maravich). Additionally, Gwinnett County minor league baseball teams, the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers (2021 season) and Double-A Atlanta Gladiators (2021–22 season), also temporarily retired No. 44 in Aaron's honor, as did the Braves' other minor league affiliates.
In April 2021, the Forrest Hill Academy was renamed the Hank Aaron New Beginnings Academy. The alternative high school had been named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a general in the Confederate Army and the Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard.
In 2022, a recording of the WSB broadcast of the April 8, 1974, Braves–Dodgers game in which Aaron hit his 715th home run was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry. In May of the same year, Tulane University gave Aaron a posthumous honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, the first posthumous honorary degree ever awarded by the university. It was presented during the university's unified commencement ceremony and was accepted on his behalf by his widow Billye. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed \"Hammer\" or \"Hammerin' Hank\", was an American professional baseball right fielder and designated hitter who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. Considered one of the greatest baseball players in history, he spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL). At the time of his retirement, Aaron held most of the game's key career power-hitting records. He broke the long-standing MLB record for career home runs held by Babe Ruth and remained the career leader for 33 years, until Barry Bonds surpassed his famous total of 755 in 2007. He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973 and is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (RBIs) (2,297), extra base hits (1,477), and total bases (6,856). Aaron is also third all-time for career hits (3,771) and fifth in runs scored (2,174). He is one of only four players to have at least 17 seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron's ability as a hitter can be illustrated by his still having over 3,000 hits even without counting any of his home runs. He was an NL All-Star for 20 seasons and an AL All-Star for one season, and he holds the record for the most All-Star selections (25), while sharing the record for most All-Star Games played (24) with Willie Mays and Stan Musial. He was a three-time Gold Glove winner, and in 1957, he won the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award when the Milwaukee Braves won the World Series.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Aaron was born and raised in and around Mobile, Alabama, one of seven children. He appeared briefly in the Negro American League and in minor league baseball before starting his major league career. By his final MLB season, Aaron was the last former Negro league baseball player on a major league roster. During his time in Major League Baseball, and especially during his run for the home run record, Aaron and his family endured extensive racist threats. His experiences fueled his activism during the civil rights movement.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Aaron was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1982 and Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1999, MLB introduced the Hank Aaron Award to recognize the top offensive players in each league. That same year, he was one of 30 baseball players elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. After his retirement, Aaron held front office roles with the Atlanta Braves, including the senior vice president, and resided near Atlanta until his death in 2021.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, to Herbert Aaron Sr. and Estella (Pritchett) Aaron. He had seven siblings. Tommie Aaron, one of his brothers, also went on to play Major League Baseball. By the time Aaron retired, he and his brother held the record for most career home runs by a pair of siblings (768).",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "While he was born in a section of Mobile referred to as \"Down the Bay\", he spent most of his youth in Toulminville. Aaron grew up in a poor family. His family could not afford baseball equipment, so he practiced by hitting bottle caps with sticks. He would create his own bats and balls out of materials he found on the streets. His boyhood idol was baseball star Jackie Robinson. Aaron attended Central High School as a freshman and a sophomore. Like most high schools, they did not have organized baseball, so he played outfield and third base for the Mobile Black Bears, a semipro team. Aaron was a member of the Boy Scouts of America.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Although he batted cross-handed (as a right-handed hitter, with his left hand above his right), Aaron established himself as a power hitter. As a result, in 1949, at the age of 15, Aaron had his first tryout with an MLB franchise, the Brooklyn Dodgers; however, he did not make the team. After this, Aaron returned to school to finish his secondary education, attending the Josephine Allen Institute, a private high school in Alabama. During his junior year, Aaron joined the Prichard Athletics, an independent Negro league team, followed by the Mobile Black Bears, another independent Negro league team. While on the Bears, Aaron earned $3 per game ($30 today), which was a dollar more than he got while on the Athletics.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "On November 20, 1951, baseball scout Ed Scott signed Aaron to a contract on behalf of the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League, where he played for three months.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He started play as a 6 ft (180 cm), 180 lb (82 kg) shortstop, and earned $200 per month. As a result of his standout play with the Indianapolis Clowns, Aaron received two offers from MLB teams via telegram, one from the New York Giants and the other from the Boston Braves. Years later, Aaron remembered:",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "I had the Giants' contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That's the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "While with the Clowns he experienced racism. Of a time his team was in Washington, D.C. Aaron recalled:",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they'd have washed them.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Howe Sports Bureau credits Aaron with a .366 batting average in 26 official Negro league games, with five home runs, 33 runs batted in (RBIs), 41 hits, and nine stolen bases.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Braves purchased Aaron's contract from the Clowns for $10,000, which GM John Quinn thought was a steal, as he stated that he felt that Aaron was a $100,000 property. On June 12, 1952, Aaron signed with Braves' scout Dewey Griggs. During this time, he picked up the nickname \"pork chops\" because it \"was the only thing I knew to order off the menu\". A teammate later said, \"the man ate pork chops three meals a day, two for breakfast\".",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Braves assigned Aaron to the Eau Claire Bears, the Braves' Northern League Class-C farm team. The 1952 season proved to be very beneficial for Aaron. Playing in the infield, Aaron continued to develop as a ballplayer and made the Northern League's All-Star team. He broke his habit of hitting cross-handed and adopted the standard hitting technique. By the end of the season, he had performed so well that the league made him the unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year. Although he appeared in just 87 games, he scored 89 runs, had 116 hits, nine home runs, and 61 RBIs. In addition, Aaron hit for a .336 batting average. During his minor league experience, he was very homesick and faced constant racism, but his brother, Herbert Jr., told him not to give up the opportunity.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1953, the Braves promoted him to the Jacksonville Braves, their Class-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. Helped by Aaron's performance, the Braves won the league championship that year. Aaron led the league in runs (115), hits (208), doubles (36), RBIs (125), total bases (338), and batting average (.362). He won the league's Most Valuable Player Award, and had such a dominant year that one sportswriter was prompted to say, \"Henry Aaron led the league in everything except hotel accommodations.\" Aaron's time with the Braves did not come without problems. He was one of the first African Americans to play in the league. The 1950s were a period of racial segregation in parts of the United States, especially the southeastern portion of the country. When Aaron traveled around Jacksonville, Florida, and the surrounding areas, he was often separated from his team because of Jim Crow laws. In most circumstances, the team was responsible for arranging housing and meals for its players, but Aaron often had to make his own arrangements. The Braves' manager, Ben Geraghty, tried his best to help Aaron on and off the field. Former Braves minor league player and sportswriter Pat Jordan said, \"Aaron gave [Geraghty] much of the credit for his own swift rise to stardom.\"",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "That same year, Aaron met his future wife, Barbara Lucas. The night they met, Lucas decided to attend the Braves' game. Aaron singled, doubled, and hit a home run in the game. On October 6, Aaron and Lucas married. In 1958, Aaron's wife noted that during the off-season he liked \"to sit and watch those shooting westerns\". He also enjoyed cooking and fishing.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Aaron spent the winter of 1953 playing in Puerto Rico. Mickey Owen, the team's manager, helped Aaron with his batting stance. Until then, Aaron had hit most pitches to left field or center field, but after working with Owen, Aaron was able to hit the ball more effectively all over the field. During his stay in Puerto Rico, Owen also helped Aaron transition from second base to the outfield. Aaron had not played well at second base, but Owen noted that Aaron could catch fly balls and throw them well from the outfield to the infield.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The stint in Puerto Rico also allowed Aaron to avoid being drafted into military service. Though the Korean War was over, people were still being drafted. The Braves were able to speak to the draft board, making the case that Aaron could be the player to integrate the Southern Association the following season with the Atlanta Crackers. The board appears to have been convinced, as Aaron was not drafted.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 1954, Aaron attended spring training with the major league club. Although he was on the roster of its farm club, Milwaukee manager Charley Grimm later stated, \"From the start, he did so well I knew we were going to have to carry him.\" On March 13, 1954, Milwaukee Braves left fielder Bobby Thomson fractured his ankle while sliding into second base during a spring training game. The next day, Aaron made his first spring training start for the Braves major league team, playing in left field and hitting a home run. This led Hank Aaron to a major league contract, signed on the final day of spring training, and a Braves uniform with the number five. On April 13, Aaron made his major league debut and was hitless in five at-bats against the Cincinnati Reds' left-hander Joe Nuxhall. In the same game, Eddie Mathews hit two home runs, the first of a record 863 home runs the pair would hit as teammates. On April 15, Aaron collected his first major league hit, a double off Cardinals' pitcher Vic Raschi. Aaron hit his first major league home run on April 23, also off Raschi. Over the next 122 games, Aaron batted .280 with 13 homers before he suffered a fractured ankle on September 5. He then changed his number to 44, which would turn out to look like a \"lucky number\" for the slugger. Aaron would hit 44 home runs in four different seasons, and he hit his record-breaking 715th career home run off Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, who coincidentally also wore number 44.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "At this point, Aaron was known to family and friends primarily as \"Henry\". Braves' public relations director Don Davidson, observing Aaron's quiet, reserved nature, began referring to him publicly as \"Hank\" in order to suggest more accessibility. The nickname quickly gained currency, but \"Henry\" continued to be cited frequently in the media, both sometimes appearing in the same article, and Aaron would answer to either one. During his rookie year, his other well-known nicknames, \"Hammerin' Hank\" (by teammates) and \"Bad Henry\" (by opposing pitchers) are reported to have arisen.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Considerably later in his career, Aaron coined \"Stone-fingers\", which would prove a popular handle for one of baseball's more colorful characters, the famously distance-hitting but defensively challenged first baseman Dick Stuart, reportedly \"delight[ing]\" even its recipient.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Sal Maglie recommended throwing low curveballs to Aaron. \"He's going to swing and he'll go after almost anything,\" Maglie said of the Braves' slugger. \"And he'll hit almost anything, so you have to be careful.\"",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Aaron hit .314 with 27 home runs and 106 RBIs, in 1955. He was named to the NL All-Star roster for the first time; it was the first of a record 21 All-Star selections and first of a record 25 All-Star Game appearances. In 1956, Aaron hit .328 and captured the first of two NL batting titles. He was also named The Sporting News NL Player of the Year. In 1957, Aaron won his only NL MVP Award, as he had his first brush with the triple crown. He batted .322, placing third, and led the league in home runs and runs batted in. On September 23, 1957, in Milwaukee, Aaron hit a two-run walk-off home run against the St. Louis Cardinals, clinching the pennant for the Braves. After touching home plate he was carried off the field by his teammates. It is as of yet the only pennant-clinching walk-off home run in major league history in a non-playoff regular-season game. Milwaukee went on to win the World Series against the New York Yankees, the defending champions, 4 games to 3. Aaron did his part by hitting .393 with three homers and seven RBIs. On December 15, 1957, his wife Barbara gave birth to twins. Two days later, one of the children died. In 1958, Aaron hit .326, with 30 home runs and 95 RBIs. He led the Braves to another pennant, but this time they lost a seven-game World Series to the Yankees. Aaron finished third in the MVP race and he received his first of three Gold Glove Awards. During the next several years, Aaron had some of his best games and best seasons as a major league player. On June 21, 1959, against the San Francisco Giants, he hit three two-run home runs. It was the only time in his career that he hit three home runs in a game.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1963, Aaron nearly won the triple crown. He led the league with 44 home runs and 130 RBIs and finished third in batting average. In that season, Aaron became the third player to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a single season, and the first player to record 40 home runs and 30 steals in a season. He again finished third in National League MVP voting. The Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season. On May 10, 1967, he hit an inside-the-park home run against Jim Bunning in Philadelphia. It was the only inside-the-park home run of his career. In 1968, Aaron was the first Atlanta Braves player to hit his 500th career home run, and in 1970, he was the first Atlanta Brave to reach 3,000 career hits.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During his days in Atlanta, Aaron reached several milestones; he was only the eighth player ever to hit 500 career home runs, with his 500th coming against Mike McCormick of the San Francisco Giants on July 14, 1968—exactly one year after former Milwaukee Braves teammate Eddie Mathews had hit his 500th. Aaron was, at the time, the second-youngest player to reach the milestone. On July 31, 1969, Aaron hit his 537th home run, passing Mickey Mantle's total; this moved Aaron into third place on the career home run list, after Willie Mays and Babe Ruth. At the end of the 1969 season, Aaron again finished third in the MVP voting.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 1970, Aaron reached two more career milestones. On May 17, Aaron collected his 3,000th hit, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds, the team against which he played in his first major-league game. Aaron established the record for most seasons with thirty or more home runs in the National League. On April 27, 1971, Aaron hit his 600th career home run, the third major league player ever to do so. On July 13, Aaron hit a home run in the All-Star Game (played at Detroit's Tiger Stadium) for the first time. He hit his 40th home run of the season against the Giants' Jerry Johnson on August 10, which established a National League record for most seasons with 40 or more home runs (seven). At age 37, he hit a career-high 47 home runs during the season (along with a career-high .669 slugging percentage) and finished third in MVP voting for the sixth time. During the strike-shortened season of 1972, Aaron tied and then surpassed Willie Mays for second place on the career home run list. Aaron also drove in the 2,000th run of his career and hit a home run in the first All-Star game played in Atlanta. As the year came to a close, Aaron broke Stan Musial's major-league record for total bases (6,134). He finished the season with 673 career home runs.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Aaron himself downplayed the \"chase\" to surpass Babe Ruth, while baseball enthusiasts and the national media grew increasingly excited as he closed in on the 714 career home runs record. Aaron received thousands of letters every week during the summer of 1973, including hate mail; the Braves ended up hiring a secretary to help him sort through it.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Aaron (then age 39) hit 40 home runs in 392 at-bats, ending the 1973 season one home run short of the record. He hit home run number 713 on September 29, 1973, and with one day remaining in the season, many expected him to tie the record. But in his final game that year, playing against the Houston Astros (managed by Leo Durocher, who had once roomed with Babe Ruth), he was unable to achieve this. After the game, Aaron said his only fear was that he might not live to see the 1974 season.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "He was the recipient of death threats and a large assortment of hate mail during the 1973–1974 offseason from people who did not want to see Aaron break Ruth's nearly sacrosanct home run record. The threats extended to those providing positive press coverage of Aaron. Lewis Grizzard, then-executive sports editor of The Atlanta Journal, reported receiving numerous phone calls calling journalists \"nigger lovers\" for covering Aaron's chase. While preparing the massive coverage of the home run record, Grizzard quietly had an obituary written, afraid that Aaron might be murdered.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Sports Illustrated pointedly summarized the racist vitriol that Aaron was forced to endure:",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Is this to be the year in which Aaron, at the age of thirty-nine, takes a moon walk above one of the most hallowed individual records in American sport ...? Or will it be remembered as the season in which Aaron, the most dignified of athletes, was besieged with hate mail and trapped by the cobwebs and goblins that lurk in baseball's attic?",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "At the end of the 1973 season, Aaron received a plaque from the U.S. Postal Service for receiving more mail (930,000 pieces) than any person excluding politicians. Aaron received an outpouring of public support in response to the bigotry. In August, 1973, Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz drew a series of strips in which Snoopy attempts to break Babe Ruth's record, only to be besieged with hate mail. In the strip published August 11, Lucy remarked to Snoopy: \"Hank Aaron is a great player ... but you! If you break Babe Ruth's record, it'll be a disgrace!\" Coincidentally, Snoopy was only one home run short of tying the record (and finished the season as such when Charlie Brown got picked off second base during Snoopy's last at-bat), and as it turned out, Aaron finished the 1973 season one home run short of Ruth. Babe Ruth's widow, Claire Hodgson, denounced the racism and declared that her husband would have enthusiastically cheered Aaron's attempt at the record. As the 1974 season began, Aaron's pursuit of the record caused a small controversy. The Braves opened the season on the road in Cincinnati with a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. Braves management wanted him to break the record in Atlanta and was therefore going to have Aaron sit out the first three games of the season. But Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled that he had to play two games in the first series. He played two out of three and tied Babe Ruth's record on April 4, 1974, in his very first at-bat on his first swing of the season—off Reds pitcher Jack Billingham, but did not hit another home run in the series.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Braves returned to Atlanta, and on April 8, 1974, a crowd of 53,775 people showed up for the game—a Braves attendance record. The game was also broadcast nationally on NBC. In the fourth inning, Aaron hit home run number 715 off Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing. Although Dodgers outfielder Bill Buckner nearly went over the outfield fence trying to catch it, the ball flew into the Braves' bullpen, where relief pitcher Tom House caught it. While cannons were fired in celebration, two college students sprinted onto the field and jogged alongside Aaron for part of his circuit around the bases, temporarily startling him. As the fans cheered wildly, Aaron's parents ran onto the field as well. Braves announcer Milo Hamilton, calling the game on WSB radio, described the scene as Aaron broke the record:",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Henry Aaron, in the second inning walked and scored. He's sittin' on 714. Here's the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There's a drive into left-center field. That ball is gonna be-eee ... Outta here! It's gone! It's 715! There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron! The fireworks are going. Henry Aaron is coming around third. His teammates are at home plate. And listen to this crowd!",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Meanwhile, Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully addressed the racial tension—or apparent lack thereof—in his call of the home run:",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron ... And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On October 2, 1974, Aaron hit his 733rd home run in his last at-bat as a Braves player. Aaron commented after the game that it was his last time as a player in Atlanta as his contract had expired. While he considered retirement, he said that he was willing to return to baseball for another year. He had also said that he would be interested in serving as a team's general manager, someone who would make decisions and not a “house boy”. The Braves offered Aaron a position with the team when he retired, but the role would be more in public relations, rather than one where he could evaluate talent.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "At the end of the season, Aaron, who had a prior relationship with Brewers owner Bud Selig, requested a trade to Milwaukee. He was acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers for Dave May thirty-one days later on November 2. Minor league right-handed pitcher Roger Alexander was sent to the Braves to complete the transaction at the Winter Meetings one month later on December 2. The trade re-united Aaron with former teammate Del Crandall, who was now managing the Brewers. He signed a two-year contract with the Brewers for $240,000 per year. Playing in the American League allowed Aaron to serve as a designated hitter rather than play in the field.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "On May 1, 1975, Aaron broke baseball's all-time RBI record, previously held by Ruth with 2,213. That year, he also played in his last and 24th All-Star Game (25th All-Star Game selection); he lined out to Dave Concepción as a pinch-hitter in the second inning. This All-Star Game, like the first one he played in 1955, was before a home crowd at Milwaukee County Stadium.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Aaron hit his 755th and final home run on July 20, 1976, at Milwaukee County Stadium off Dick Drago of the California Angels, which stood as the MLB career home run record for 31 years until it was broken in 2007 by Barry Bonds. Over the course of his record-breaking 23-year career, Aaron had a batting average of .305 and 163 hits a season, while averaging just over 32 home runs and 99 RBIs a year. He had 100+ RBIs in a season 15 times, including a record of 13 in a row.",
"title": "Professional career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "After the 1976 season, Aaron rejoined the Braves as an executive. On August 1, 1982, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, having received votes on 97.8 percent of the ballots, second only to Ty Cobb, who had received votes on 98.2% of the ballot in the inaugural 1936 Hall of Fame election. Aaron was then named the Braves' vice president and director of player development. This made him one of the first minorities in Major League Baseball upper-level management.",
"title": "Post-playing career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In December 1980, Aaron became senior vice president and assistant to the Braves' president. He was the corporate vice president of community relations for Turner Broadcasting System, a member of the company's board of directors, and the vice president of business development for The Airport Network. On January 21, 2007, Major League Baseball announced the sale of the Atlanta Braves. In that announcement, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig also announced that Aaron would be playing a major role in the management of the Braves, forming programs through major league baseball that will encourage the influx of minorities into baseball. Aaron founded the Hank Aaron Rookie League program.",
"title": "Post-playing career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Shortly before the start of the 2002 baseball season, Aaron joined San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds—on the heels of his record-shattering performance the season before—to make a television commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVI, in which Aaron jokingly tried to persuade Bonds to retire before breaking the record. As Bonds began to close in on the record during the 2007 season, Aaron let it be known that, although he recognized Bonds' achievements, he would not be present when Bonds broke the record. There was considerable speculation that this was a snubbing of Bonds based on the widespread belief that Bonds had used performance-enhancing drugs and steroids to aid his achievement. However, some observers looked back on Aaron's personal history, pointing out that he had downplayed his own breaking of Babe Ruth's all-time record and suggesting Aaron was simply treating Bonds in a similar fashion. In a later interview with Atlanta sportscasting personality Chris Dimino, Aaron made it clear his reluctance to attend any celebration of a new home run record was based upon his personal conviction that baseball is not about breaking records, but simply playing to the best of one's potential. After Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run on August 7, 2007, Aaron made a surprise appearance on the JumboTron video screen at AT&T Park in San Francisco to congratulate Bonds on his accomplishment:",
"title": "Post-playing career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "I would like to offer my congratulations to Barry Bonds on becoming baseball's career home run leader. It is a great accomplishment that required skill, longevity, and determination. Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement. My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.",
"title": "Post-playing career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Aaron's autobiography, I Had A Hammer, co-written with the help of writer Lonnie Wheeler, was published in 1990 and was a finalist for the Casey Award. The book's title is a play on his nickname, \"The Hammer\" or \"Hammerin' Hank\", and the title of the folk song \"If I Had a Hammer\". Aaron owned Hank Aaron BMW of south Atlanta in Union City, Georgia, where he included an autographed baseball with every car sold. Aaron also owned Mini, Land Rover, Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda dealerships throughout Georgia, as part of the Hank Aaron Automotive Group. Aaron sold all but the Toyota dealership in McDonough in 2007. Additionally, Aaron owned a chain of 30 restaurants around the country.",
"title": "Post-playing career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Aaron's first marriage was to Barbara Lucas in 1953. They had five children: Gary, Lary, Dorinda, Gaile, and Hank Jr. He divorced Barbara in 1971 and married Billye Suber Williams on November 13, 1973. With his second wife, he had one child, Ceci.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Despite being publicly and professionally known as \"Hank,\" Aaron preferred to go by his given name, \"Henry.\"",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Born and raised a Baptist, Aaron converted to Catholicism in 1959 at age 25, together with his family. He and his wife first became interested in the faith after the birth of their first child, whom they baptized immediately. A friendship with a Roman Catholic priest later helped lead to Hank and his wife's conversion. Aaron was known to frequently read Thomas à Kempis' 15th-century book The Imitation of Christ, which he kept in his locker.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In an interview in 1991, Aaron credited the priest, Fr. Michael Sablica, with helping him grow as a person in the 1950s. \"He taught me what life was all about. But he was more than just a religious friend of mine, he was a friend because he talked as if he was not a priest sometimes.\" Active in the civil rights movement, the priest encouraged Aaron to be more publicly vocal about causes he believed in.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Sablica also encouraged him to \"attend Mass every Sunday\" during Spring Training, to which he responded with the racist realities of the day: \"[In Bradenton], they won't let me go to Mass.\" Sablica said in an interview that he wouldn't have blamed Aaron if he stopped practicing. Aaron indeed attended Friendship Baptist Church toward the end of his life, noting in his autobiography that he didn't remain Catholic for very long after converting.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Aaron was a long-time fan of the Cleveland Browns, having attended many games in disguise in their \"Dawg Pound\" seating section.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 1986, Hank Aaron made a guest appearance in \"Just Another Fox in the Crowd\", episode 30 of Crazy Like a Fox.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Aaron lived in the Atlanta area. In July 2013, media reported that his home was burglarized with jewelry and two BMW vehicles having been stolen. The cars were later recovered.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Aaron suffered from arthritis and had a partial hip replacement after a fall in 2014.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "On January 5, 2021, Aaron publicly received a COVID-19 vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Morehouse School of Medicine at Atlanta, Georgia. He and several other African American public figures, including activist Joe Beasley, Andrew Young, and Louis Sullivan, did so to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine and encourage other black Americans to do the same.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Aaron died in his sleep in his Atlanta residence on January 22, 2021 at the age of 86. The manner of death was listed as natural causes.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "His funeral was held on January 27, followed by his burial at South-View Cemetery.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Upon Aaron's death, the sports world expressed their condolences to him. Many current or former athletes and team owners such as MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, Magic Johnson, David Ortiz, Dusty Baker, Eduardo Pérez, Mike Trout, and Baseball Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark paid tribute to him. Fans paid tribute to Aaron by placing flowers in front of the home run wall where he hit his 715th home run at the former site of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and in front of his statue at Truist Park.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Politicians also paid tribute to him. The Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms released the following statement on his death:",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "“Derek, our family and I join the nation in sending heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Billye Aaron, the beautiful wife of Henry “Hank” Aaron for nearly 50 years, and the entire family. This is a considerable loss for the entire city of Atlanta. While the world knew him as ‘Hammering Hank Aaron’ because of his incredible, record-setting baseball career, he was a cornerstone of our village, graciously and freely joining Mrs. Aaron in giving their presence and resources toward making our city a better place. As an adopted son of Atlanta, Mr. Aaron was part of the fabric that helped place Atlanta on the world stage. Our gratitude, thoughts and prayers are with the Aaron family.”",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Georgia governor Brian Kemp ordered flags in the state of Georgia to be lowered half-staff in honor of him.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "U.S. President Joe Biden paid tribute to Aaron by releasing a statement calling him \"an American hero\". He also received tributes from former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The Atlanta Braves honored Hank Aaron during the 2021 season by including his jersey number 44 on the back of the team caps along with Phil Niekro's jersey number, 35 (who died one month earlier in December 2020). They also painted 44 in the midfield at Truist Park.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "At Game 3 of the 2021 World Series in Truist Park, a pregame ceremony was held honoring Aaron where his son Hank Aaron Jr. threw out a ceremonial first pitch. After the Braves won the 2021 World Series, Aaron was honored in the design of the team's World Series championship ring, which includes 755 total diamonds to commemorate Aaron's career home runs, and 44 emerald-cut diamonds to represent Aaron's jersey number with the Braves.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In 1982, Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during his first year of eligibility.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Aaron was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1976, from the NAACP. In 1977, Aaron received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award. In 1988, Aaron was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame for his time spent on the Eau Claire Bears, Milwaukee Braves, and Milwaukee Brewers.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 1999, major league baseball created the Hank Aaron Award, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Aaron's surpassing of Babe Ruth's career home run mark of 714 home runs and to honor Aaron's contributions to baseball. The award is given annually to the baseball hitters voted the most effective in each respective league. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Aaron on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "When the city of Atlanta was converting Centennial Olympic Stadium into a new baseball stadium, many local residents hoped the stadium would be named for Aaron. When the stadium was instead named Turner Field (after Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner), a section of Capitol Avenue running past the stadium was renamed Hank Aaron Drive. The stadium's street number is 755, after Aaron's total number of home runs; the 755 street number was retained for Turner Field's replacement, Truist Park. In April 1997, a new baseball facility for the AA Mobile Bay Bears constructed in Aaron's hometown of Mobile, Alabama was named Hank Aaron Stadium. Georgia State University acquired Turner Field and has since rebuilt it as Center Parc Stadium, in 2017, and university officials plan to build a new baseball park on the former Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium site, incorporating the left field wall where Aaron hit his record-breaking home run.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "He was honored before the third game of 2021 World Series.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "On February 5, 1999, at his 65th birthday celebration, Major League Baseball announced the introduction of the Hank Aaron Award. The award honors the best overall offensive performer in the American and National League. It was the first major award to be introduced in more than thirty years and had the distinction of being the first award named after a player who was still alive. Later that year, he ranked fifth on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "In June 2000, Tufts University awarded Aaron an honorary Doctor of Public Service. In July 2000 and again in July 2002, Aaron threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, played at Turner Field and Miller Park now named American Family Field, respectively.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "On January 8, 2001, Aaron was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush in June 2002. In 2001, a recreational trail in Milwaukee connecting American Family Field with Lake Michigan along the Menomonee River was dedicated as the Hank Aaron State Trail. Aaron attended the dedication. Aaron was on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 2002, Aaron was honored with the \"Lombardi Award of Excellence\" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation. The award was created to honor Vince Lombardi's legacy and is awarded annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of the coach.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Aaron dedicated the new exhibit \"Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream\" at the Baseball Hall of Fame on April 25, 2009. Statues of Aaron stand outside the front entrance of both Turner Field and American Family Field. There is also a statue of him as an 18-year-old shortstop outside Carson Park in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he played his first season in the Braves' minor league system.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "He was named a 2010 Georgia Trustee by the Georgia Historical Society, in conjunction with the Governor of Georgia, to recognize accomplishments and community service that reflect the ideals of the founding body of Trustees, which governed the Georgia colony from 1732 to 1752.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "In 2011, the President of Princeton University Shirley M. Tilghman awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree to Aaron.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In November 2015, Aaron was one of the five inaugural recipients of the Portrait of a Nation Prize, an award granted by the National Portrait Gallery in recognition of \"exemplary achievements in the fields of civil rights, business, entertainment, science, and sports.\"",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In January 2016, Aaron received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette from Akihito, the Emperor of Japan.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "On April 14, 2017, Aaron threw out the first pitch at SunTrust Park (now called Truist Park) at 83 years old.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Elite Development Invitational, a youth baseball tournament organized by the Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association to increase diversity in the sport, was renamed the Hank Aaron Invitational for the 2019 season.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "After Aaron's death, the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL and Atlanta United of MLS retired his No. 44 for the 2021 season (the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA had already retired No. 44 for Pete Maravich). Additionally, Gwinnett County minor league baseball teams, the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers (2021 season) and Double-A Atlanta Gladiators (2021–22 season), also temporarily retired No. 44 in Aaron's honor, as did the Braves' other minor league affiliates.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "In April 2021, the Forrest Hill Academy was renamed the Hank Aaron New Beginnings Academy. The alternative high school had been named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a general in the Confederate Army and the Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "In 2022, a recording of the WSB broadcast of the April 8, 1974, Braves–Dodgers game in which Aaron hit his 715th home run was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry. In May of the same year, Tulane University gave Aaron a posthumous honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, the first posthumous honorary degree ever awarded by the university. It was presented during the university's unified commencement ceremony and was accepted on his behalf by his widow Billye.",
"title": "Awards and honors"
}
]
| Henry Louis Aaron, nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder and designated hitter who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. Considered one of the greatest baseball players in history, he spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL). At the time of his retirement, Aaron held most of the game's key career power-hitting records. He broke the long-standing MLB record for career home runs held by Babe Ruth and remained the career leader for 33 years, until Barry Bonds surpassed his famous total of 755 in 2007. He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973 and is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (RBIs) (2,297), extra base hits (1,477), and total bases (6,856). Aaron is also third all-time for career hits (3,771) and fifth in runs scored (2,174). He is one of only four players to have at least 17 seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron's ability as a hitter can be illustrated by his still having over 3,000 hits even without counting any of his home runs. He was an NL All-Star for 20 seasons and an AL All-Star for one season, and he holds the record for the most All-Star selections (25), while sharing the record for most All-Star Games played (24) with Willie Mays and Stan Musial. He was a three-time Gold Glove winner, and in 1957, he won the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award when the Milwaukee Braves won the World Series. Aaron was born and raised in and around Mobile, Alabama, one of seven children. He appeared briefly in the Negro American League and in minor league baseball before starting his major league career. By his final MLB season, Aaron was the last former Negro league baseball player on a major league roster. During his time in Major League Baseball, and especially during his run for the home run record, Aaron and his family endured extensive racist threats. His experiences fueled his activism during the civil rights movement. Aaron was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1982 and Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1999, MLB introduced the Hank Aaron Award to recognize the top offensive players in each league. That same year, he was one of 30 baseball players elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. After his retirement, Aaron held front office roles with the Atlanta Braves, including the senior vice president, and resided near Atlanta until his death in 2021. | 2001-12-22T02:57:40Z | 2023-12-21T21:23:40Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron |
14,322 | Holy Grail | The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal, Breton: Graal Santel, Welsh: Greal Sanctaidd, Cornish: Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such.
A mysterious "grail" (Old French: graal or greal), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who portrayed the Grail as a stone in Parzival. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated among literary scholars and historians.
In the 1190s, Robert de Boron in Joseph d'Arimathie [fr] portrayed the Grail as Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and subsequently the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur. In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture, and has become the subject of folklore studies, pseudohistorical writings, works of fiction, and conspiracy theories.
The word graal, as it is spelled in its earliest appearances, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning "a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal" (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus, which was, in turn, borrowed from Ancient Greek krater (κρᾱτήρ, a large wine-mixing vessel). Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning "'by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal".
In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal), meaning "Holy Grail", by parsing it as sang réal, meaning "royal blood". This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.
The literature surrounding the Grail can be divided into two groups. The first concerns King Arthur's knights visiting the Grail castle or questing after the object. The second concerns the Grail's earlier history in the time of Joseph of Arimathea.
The nine works from the first group are:
Of the second group there are:
The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver, a tray, used to serve at a feast. Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a "wide and deep saucer" (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper. Peredur son of Efrawg had no Grail as such, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman's bloody, severed head.
The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders. In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or "grail".
Chrétien refers to this object not as "The Grail" but as "a grail" (un graal), showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien, a grail was a wide, somewhat deep, dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon, or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Communion wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King's crippled father. Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this and wakes up the next morning alone. He later learns that if he had asked the appropriate questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host, much to his honour. The story of the Wounded King's mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Communion wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.
Though Chrétien's account is the earliest and most influential of all Grail texts, it was in the work of Robert that the Grail truly became the "Holy Grail" and assumed the form most familiar to modern readers in its Christian context. In his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie, composed between 1191 and 1202, Robert tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring the chalice of the Last Supper to collect Christ's blood upon his removal from the cross. Joseph is thrown in prison, where Christ visits him and explains the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release, Joseph gathers his in-laws and other followers and travels to the west. He founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.
In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provençal, claimed the Grail was a Stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion. It is called Lapis exillis, which in alchemy is the name of the philosopher's stone.
The authors of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace; the virgin Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world's greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father. The Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of The Holy Grail) tells also of the adventures of various Knights of the Round Table in their eponymous quest. Some of them, including Percival and Bors the Younger, eventually join Galahad as his companions near the successful end of the Grail Quest and are witnesses of his ascension to Heaven.
Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur and remain popular today. While it is not explicit that the Holy Grail is never to be seen again on Earth, it is stated by Malory that there has since then been no knight capable of obtaining it.
Scholars have long speculated on the origins of the Holy Grail before Chrétien, suggesting that it may contain elements of the trope of magical cauldrons from Celtic mythology and later Welsh mythology, combined with Christian legend surrounding the Eucharist, the latter found in Eastern Christian sources, conceivably in that of the Byzantine Mass, or even Persian sources. The view that the "origin" of the Grail legend should be seen as deriving from Celtic mythology was championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt, and Jessie Weston. Loomis traced a number of parallels between medieval Welsh literature and Irish material, and the Grail romances, including similarities between the Mabinogion's Bran the Blessed and the Arthurian Fisher King, and between Bran's life-restoring cauldron and the Grail.
The opposing view dismissed the "Celtic" connections as spurious, and interpreted the legend as essentially Christian in origin. Joseph Goering identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th-century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly moved to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), which present unique iconic images of the Virgin Mary holding a bowl that radiates tongues of fire, images that predate the first literary account by Chrétien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the Grail legend.
Psychologists Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz used analytical psychology to interpret the Grail as a series of symbols in their book The Grail Legend. They directly expanded on interpretations by Carl Jung, which were later invoked by Joseph Campbell. Philosopher Henry Corbin, a member of the Eranos circle founded by Jung, also commented on the esoteric significance of the grail, relating it to the Iranian Islamic symbols that he studied.
Richard Barber (2004) argued that the Grail legend is connected to the introduction of "more ceremony and mysticism" surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist in the high medieval period, proposing that the first Grail stories may have been connected to the "renewal in this traditional sacrament". Daniel Scavone (1999, 2003) has argued that the "Grail" originally referred to the Image of Edessa. Goulven Peron (2016) suggested that the Holy Grail may reflect the horn of the river-god Achelous, as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.
In the wake of the Arthurian romances, several artifacts came to be identified as the Holy Grail in medieval relic veneration. These artifacts are said to have been the vessel used at the Last Supper, but other details vary. Despite the prominence of the Grail literature, traditions about a Last Supper relic remained rare in contrast to other items associated with Jesus' last days, such as the True Cross and Holy Lance.
One tradition predates the Grail romances: in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf reported that the Last Supper chalice was displayed near Jerusalem. In the wake of Robert de Boron's Grail works, several other items came to be claimed as the true Last Supper vessel. In the late 12th century, one was said to be in Byzantium; Albrecht von Scharfenberg's Grail romance Der Jüngere Titurel associated it explicitly with the Arthurian Grail, but claimed it was only a copy. This item was said to have been looted in the Fourth Crusade and brought to Troyes in France, but it was lost during the French Revolution.
Two relics associated with the Grail survive today. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin, also known as the Genoa Chalice) is a green glass dish held at the Genoa Cathedral said to have been used at the Last Supper. Its provenance is unknown, and there are two divergent accounts of how it was brought to Genoa by Crusaders in the 12th century. It was not associated with the Last Supper until later, in the wake of the Grail romances; the first known association is in Jacobus de Voragine's chronicle of Genoa in the late 13th century, which draws on the Grail literary tradition. The Catino was moved and broken during Napoleon's conquest in the early 19th century, revealing that it is glass rather than emerald.
The Holy Chalice of Valencia is an agate dish with a mounting for use as a chalice. The bowl may date to Greco-Roman times, but its dating is unclear, and its provenance is unknown before 1399, when it was gifted to Martin I of Aragon. By the 14th century, an elaborate tradition had developed that this object was the Last Supper chalice. This tradition mirrors aspects of the Grail material, with several major differences, suggesting a separate tradition entirely. It is not associated with Joseph of Arimathea or Jesus' blood; it is said to have been taken to Rome by Saint Peter and later entrusted to Saint Lawrence. Early references do not call the object the "Grail"; the first evidence connecting it to the Grail tradition is from the 15th century. The monarchy sold the cup in the 15th century to Valencia Cathedral, where it remains a significant local icon.
Several objects were identified with the Holy Grail in the 17th century. In the 20th century, a series of new items became associated with it. These include the Nanteos Cup, a medieval wooden bowl found near Rhydyfelin, Wales; a glass dish found near Glastonbury, England; the Antioch chalice, a 6th-century silver-gilt object that became attached to the Grail legend in the 1930s; and the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a cup made between 200 BC and 100 AD, kept in León’s basilica of Saint Isidore.
In the modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset, England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century. In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as the evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury. Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites. In the late 19th century, John Goodchild hid a glass bowl near Glastonbury; a group of his friends, including Wellesley Tudor Pole, retrieved the cup in 1906 and promoted it as the original Holy Grail. Glastonbury and its Holy Grail legend have since become a point of focus for various New Age and Neopagan groups.
In the early 20th century, esoteric writers identified Montségur, a stronghold of the heretical Cathar sect in the 13th century, as the Grail castle. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the mid-20th century when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail.
Since the 19th century, the Holy Grail has been linked to various conspiracy theories. In 1818, Austrian pseudohistorical writer Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall connected the Grail to contemporary myths surrounding the Knights Templar that cast the order as a secret society dedicated to mystical knowledge and relics. In Hammer-Purgstall's work, the Grail is not a physical relic, but a symbol of the secret knowledge that the Templars sought. There is no historical evidence linking the Templars to a search for the Grail, but subsequent writers have elaborated on the Templar theories.
Starting in the early 20th century, writers, particularly in France, further connected the Templars and Grail to the Cathars. In 1906, French esoteric writer Joséphin Péladan identified the Cathar castle of Montségur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram's Parzival. This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail. According to these stories, the Cathars guarded the Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244.
Beginning in 1933, German writer Otto Rahn published a series of books tying the Grail, Templars, and Cathars to modern German nationalist mythology. According to Rahn, the Grail was a symbol of a pure Germanic religion repressed by Christianity. Rahn's books inspired interest in the Grail within Nazi occultist circles, and led to the SS chief Heinrich Himmler's abortive sponsorship of Rahn's search for the Grail, as well as many subsequent conspiracy theories and fictional works about the Nazis searching for the Grail.
In the late 20th century, writers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln created one of the most widely known conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail. The theory first appeared on the BBC documentary series Chronicle in the 1970s, and was elaborated upon in the bestselling 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The theory combines myths about the Templars and Cathars with various other legends, and a prominent hoax about a secret order called the Priory of Sion. According to this theory, the Holy Grail is not a physical object, but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus. The blood connection is based on the etymological reading of san greal (holy grail) as sang real (royal blood), which dates to the 15th century. The narrative developed is that Jesus was not divine, and had children with Mary Magdalene, who took the family to France where their descendants became the Merovingian dynasty. Supposedly, while the Catholic Church worked to destroy the dynasty, they were protected by the Priory of Sion and their associates, including the Templars, Cathars, and other secret societies. The book, its arguments, and its evidence have been widely dismissed by scholars as pseudohistorical, but it has had a vast influence on conspiracy and alternate history books. It has also inspired fiction, most notably Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 film adaptation.
The combination of hushed reverence, chromatic harmonies and sexualized imagery in Richard Wagner's final music drama Parsifal, premiered in 1882, developed this theme, associating the Grail – now periodically producing blood – directly with female fertility. The high seriousness of the subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting in which a woman modeled by Alexa Wilding holds the Grail with one hand, while adopting a gesture of blessing with the other.
A major mural series depicting the Quest for the Holy Grail was done by the artist Edwin Austin Abbey during the first decade of the 20th century for the Boston Public Library. Other artists, including George Frederic Watts and William Dyce, also portrayed grail subjects.
The story of the Grail and of the quest to find it became increasingly popular in the 19th century, referred to in literature such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Arthurian cycle Idylls of the King. A sexualised interpretation of the grail, now identified with female genitalia, appeared in 1870 in Hargrave Jennings' book The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries.
In the cinema, the Holy Grail debuted in the 1904 silent film Parsifal, an adaptation of Wagner's opera by Edwin S. Porter. More recent cinematic adaptations include Costain's The Silver Chalice made into a 1954 film by Victor Saville and Brown's The Da Vinci Code turned into a 2006 film by Ron Howard. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Holy Grail (French: Saint Graal, Breton: Graal Santel, Welsh: Greal Sanctaidd, Cornish: Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a \"holy grail\" by those seeking such.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "A mysterious \"grail\" (Old French: graal or greal), wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who portrayed the Grail as a stone in Parzival. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated among literary scholars and historians.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the 1190s, Robert de Boron in Joseph d'Arimathie [fr] portrayed the Grail as Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and subsequently the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur. In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture, and has become the subject of folklore studies, pseudohistorical writings, works of fiction, and conspiracy theories.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The word graal, as it is spelled in its earliest appearances, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Occitan grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning \"a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal\" (or other various types of vessels in different Occitan dialects). The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via an earlier form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus, which was, in turn, borrowed from Ancient Greek krater (κρᾱτήρ, a large wine-mixing vessel). Alternative suggestions include a derivative of cratis, a name for a type of woven basket that came to refer to a dish, or a derivative of Latin gradus meaning \"'by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the 15th century, English writer John Hardyng invented a fanciful new etymology for Old French san-graal (or san-gréal), meaning \"Holy Grail\", by parsing it as sang réal, meaning \"royal blood\". This etymology was used by some later medieval British writers such as Thomas Malory, and became prominent in the conspiracy theory developed in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in which sang real refers to the Jesus bloodline.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The literature surrounding the Grail can be divided into two groups. The first concerns King Arthur's knights visiting the Grail castle or questing after the object. The second concerns the Grail's earlier history in the time of Joseph of Arimathea.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The nine works from the first group are:",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Of the second group there are:",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes. There, it is a processional salver, a tray, used to serve at a feast. Hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a \"wide and deep saucer\" (scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda); other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper. Peredur son of Efrawg had no Grail as such, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsman's bloody, severed head.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders. In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or \"grail\".",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Chrétien refers to this object not as \"The Grail\" but as \"a grail\" (un graal), showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context, as a common noun. For Chrétien, a grail was a wide, somewhat deep, dish or bowl, interesting because it contained not a pike, salmon, or lamprey, as the audience may have expected for such a container, but a single Communion wafer which provided sustenance for the Fisher King's crippled father. Perceval, who had been warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this and wakes up the next morning alone. He later learns that if he had asked the appropriate questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host, much to his honour. The story of the Wounded King's mystical fasting is not unique; several saints were said to have lived without food besides communion, for instance Saint Catherine of Genoa. This may imply that Chrétien intended the Communion wafer to be the significant part of the ritual, and the Grail to be a mere prop.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Though Chrétien's account is the earliest and most influential of all Grail texts, it was in the work of Robert that the Grail truly became the \"Holy Grail\" and assumed the form most familiar to modern readers in its Christian context. In his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie, composed between 1191 and 1202, Robert tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea acquiring the chalice of the Last Supper to collect Christ's blood upon his removal from the cross. Joseph is thrown in prison, where Christ visits him and explains the mysteries of the blessed cup. Upon his release, Joseph gathers his in-laws and other followers and travels to the west. He founds a dynasty of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, citing the authority of a certain (probably fictional) Kyot the Provençal, claimed the Grail was a Stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion. It is called Lapis exillis, which in alchemy is the name of the philosopher's stone.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The authors of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace; the virgin Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine, the world's greatest knight and the Grail Bearer at the castle of Corbenic, is destined to achieve the Grail, his spiritual purity making him a greater warrior than even his illustrious father. The Queste del Saint Graal (The Quest of The Holy Grail) tells also of the adventures of various Knights of the Round Table in their eponymous quest. Some of them, including Percival and Bors the Younger, eventually join Galahad as his companions near the successful end of the Grail Quest and are witnesses of his ascension to Heaven.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur and remain popular today. While it is not explicit that the Holy Grail is never to be seen again on Earth, it is stated by Malory that there has since then been no knight capable of obtaining it.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Scholars have long speculated on the origins of the Holy Grail before Chrétien, suggesting that it may contain elements of the trope of magical cauldrons from Celtic mythology and later Welsh mythology, combined with Christian legend surrounding the Eucharist, the latter found in Eastern Christian sources, conceivably in that of the Byzantine Mass, or even Persian sources. The view that the \"origin\" of the Grail legend should be seen as deriving from Celtic mythology was championed by Roger Sherman Loomis, Alfred Nutt, and Jessie Weston. Loomis traced a number of parallels between medieval Welsh literature and Irish material, and the Grail romances, including similarities between the Mabinogion's Bran the Blessed and the Arthurian Fisher King, and between Bran's life-restoring cauldron and the Grail.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The opposing view dismissed the \"Celtic\" connections as spurious, and interpreted the legend as essentially Christian in origin. Joseph Goering identified sources for Grail imagery in 12th-century wall paintings from churches in the Catalan Pyrenees (now mostly moved to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), which present unique iconic images of the Virgin Mary holding a bowl that radiates tongues of fire, images that predate the first literary account by Chrétien de Troyes. Goering argues that they were the original inspiration for the Grail legend.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Psychologists Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz used analytical psychology to interpret the Grail as a series of symbols in their book The Grail Legend. They directly expanded on interpretations by Carl Jung, which were later invoked by Joseph Campbell. Philosopher Henry Corbin, a member of the Eranos circle founded by Jung, also commented on the esoteric significance of the grail, relating it to the Iranian Islamic symbols that he studied.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Richard Barber (2004) argued that the Grail legend is connected to the introduction of \"more ceremony and mysticism\" surrounding the sacrament of the Eucharist in the high medieval period, proposing that the first Grail stories may have been connected to the \"renewal in this traditional sacrament\". Daniel Scavone (1999, 2003) has argued that the \"Grail\" originally referred to the Image of Edessa. Goulven Peron (2016) suggested that the Holy Grail may reflect the horn of the river-god Achelous, as described by Ovid in the Metamorphoses.",
"title": "Medieval literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the wake of the Arthurian romances, several artifacts came to be identified as the Holy Grail in medieval relic veneration. These artifacts are said to have been the vessel used at the Last Supper, but other details vary. Despite the prominence of the Grail literature, traditions about a Last Supper relic remained rare in contrast to other items associated with Jesus' last days, such as the True Cross and Holy Lance.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "One tradition predates the Grail romances: in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf reported that the Last Supper chalice was displayed near Jerusalem. In the wake of Robert de Boron's Grail works, several other items came to be claimed as the true Last Supper vessel. In the late 12th century, one was said to be in Byzantium; Albrecht von Scharfenberg's Grail romance Der Jüngere Titurel associated it explicitly with the Arthurian Grail, but claimed it was only a copy. This item was said to have been looted in the Fourth Crusade and brought to Troyes in France, but it was lost during the French Revolution.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Two relics associated with the Grail survive today. The Sacro Catino (Sacred Basin, also known as the Genoa Chalice) is a green glass dish held at the Genoa Cathedral said to have been used at the Last Supper. Its provenance is unknown, and there are two divergent accounts of how it was brought to Genoa by Crusaders in the 12th century. It was not associated with the Last Supper until later, in the wake of the Grail romances; the first known association is in Jacobus de Voragine's chronicle of Genoa in the late 13th century, which draws on the Grail literary tradition. The Catino was moved and broken during Napoleon's conquest in the early 19th century, revealing that it is glass rather than emerald.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Holy Chalice of Valencia is an agate dish with a mounting for use as a chalice. The bowl may date to Greco-Roman times, but its dating is unclear, and its provenance is unknown before 1399, when it was gifted to Martin I of Aragon. By the 14th century, an elaborate tradition had developed that this object was the Last Supper chalice. This tradition mirrors aspects of the Grail material, with several major differences, suggesting a separate tradition entirely. It is not associated with Joseph of Arimathea or Jesus' blood; it is said to have been taken to Rome by Saint Peter and later entrusted to Saint Lawrence. Early references do not call the object the \"Grail\"; the first evidence connecting it to the Grail tradition is from the 15th century. The monarchy sold the cup in the 15th century to Valencia Cathedral, where it remains a significant local icon.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Several objects were identified with the Holy Grail in the 17th century. In the 20th century, a series of new items became associated with it. These include the Nanteos Cup, a medieval wooden bowl found near Rhydyfelin, Wales; a glass dish found near Glastonbury, England; the Antioch chalice, a 6th-century silver-gilt object that became attached to the Grail legend in the 1930s; and the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a cup made between 200 BC and 100 AD, kept in León’s basilica of Saint Isidore.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In the modern era, a number of places have become associated with the Holy Grail. One of the most prominent is Glastonbury in Somerset, England. Glastonbury was associated with King Arthur and his resting place of Avalon by the 12th century. In the 13th century, a legend arose that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. Early accounts of Joseph at Glastonbury focus on his role as the evangelist of Britain rather than as the custodian of the Holy Grail, but from the 15th century, the Grail became a more prominent part of the legends surrounding Glastonbury. Interest in Glastonbury resurged in the late 19th century, inspired by renewed interest in the Arthurian legend and contemporary spiritual movements centered on ancient sacred sites. In the late 19th century, John Goodchild hid a glass bowl near Glastonbury; a group of his friends, including Wellesley Tudor Pole, retrieved the cup in 1906 and promoted it as the original Holy Grail. Glastonbury and its Holy Grail legend have since become a point of focus for various New Age and Neopagan groups.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In the early 20th century, esoteric writers identified Montségur, a stronghold of the heretical Cathar sect in the 13th century, as the Grail castle. Similarly, the 14th-century Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, Scotland, became attached to the Grail legend in the mid-20th century when a succession of conspiracy books identified it as a secret hiding place of the Grail.",
"title": "Later traditions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Since the 19th century, the Holy Grail has been linked to various conspiracy theories. In 1818, Austrian pseudohistorical writer Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall connected the Grail to contemporary myths surrounding the Knights Templar that cast the order as a secret society dedicated to mystical knowledge and relics. In Hammer-Purgstall's work, the Grail is not a physical relic, but a symbol of the secret knowledge that the Templars sought. There is no historical evidence linking the Templars to a search for the Grail, but subsequent writers have elaborated on the Templar theories.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Starting in the early 20th century, writers, particularly in France, further connected the Templars and Grail to the Cathars. In 1906, French esoteric writer Joséphin Péladan identified the Cathar castle of Montségur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram's Parzival. This identification has inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail. According to these stories, the Cathars guarded the Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Beginning in 1933, German writer Otto Rahn published a series of books tying the Grail, Templars, and Cathars to modern German nationalist mythology. According to Rahn, the Grail was a symbol of a pure Germanic religion repressed by Christianity. Rahn's books inspired interest in the Grail within Nazi occultist circles, and led to the SS chief Heinrich Himmler's abortive sponsorship of Rahn's search for the Grail, as well as many subsequent conspiracy theories and fictional works about the Nazis searching for the Grail.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In the late 20th century, writers Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln created one of the most widely known conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail. The theory first appeared on the BBC documentary series Chronicle in the 1970s, and was elaborated upon in the bestselling 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The theory combines myths about the Templars and Cathars with various other legends, and a prominent hoax about a secret order called the Priory of Sion. According to this theory, the Holy Grail is not a physical object, but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus. The blood connection is based on the etymological reading of san greal (holy grail) as sang real (royal blood), which dates to the 15th century. The narrative developed is that Jesus was not divine, and had children with Mary Magdalene, who took the family to France where their descendants became the Merovingian dynasty. Supposedly, while the Catholic Church worked to destroy the dynasty, they were protected by the Priory of Sion and their associates, including the Templars, Cathars, and other secret societies. The book, its arguments, and its evidence have been widely dismissed by scholars as pseudohistorical, but it has had a vast influence on conspiracy and alternate history books. It has also inspired fiction, most notably Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and its 2006 film adaptation.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The combination of hushed reverence, chromatic harmonies and sexualized imagery in Richard Wagner's final music drama Parsifal, premiered in 1882, developed this theme, associating the Grail – now periodically producing blood – directly with female fertility. The high seriousness of the subject was also epitomized in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting in which a woman modeled by Alexa Wilding holds the Grail with one hand, while adopting a gesture of blessing with the other.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A major mural series depicting the Quest for the Holy Grail was done by the artist Edwin Austin Abbey during the first decade of the 20th century for the Boston Public Library. Other artists, including George Frederic Watts and William Dyce, also portrayed grail subjects.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The story of the Grail and of the quest to find it became increasingly popular in the 19th century, referred to in literature such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Arthurian cycle Idylls of the King. A sexualised interpretation of the grail, now identified with female genitalia, appeared in 1870 in Hargrave Jennings' book The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In the cinema, the Holy Grail debuted in the 1904 silent film Parsifal, an adaptation of Wagner's opera by Edwin S. Porter. More recent cinematic adaptations include Costain's The Silver Chalice made into a 1954 film by Victor Saville and Brown's The Da Vinci Code turned into a 2006 film by Ron Howard.",
"title": "Modern interpretations"
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| The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such. A mysterious "grail", wondrous but not unequivocally holy, first appears in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, an unfinished chivalric romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Chrétien's story inspired many continuations, translators and interpreters in the later-12th and early-13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who portrayed the Grail as a stone in Parzival. The Christian, Celtic or possibly other origins of the Arthurian grail trope are uncertain and have been debated among literary scholars and historians. In the 1190s, Robert de Boron in Joseph d'Arimathie portrayed the Grail as Jesus's vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Thereafter, the Holy Grail became interwoven with the legend of the Holy Chalice, the Last Supper cup, an idea continued in works such as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and subsequently the 15th-century Le Morte d'Arthur. In this form, it is now a popular theme in modern culture, and has become the subject of folklore studies, pseudohistorical writings, works of fiction, and conspiracy theories. | 2001-12-22T04:58:20Z | 2023-12-03T21:23:18Z | [
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14,323 | Hunt the Wumpus | Hunt the Wumpus is a text-based adventure game developed by Gregory Yob in 1973. In the game, the player moves through a series of connected caves, arranged as the vertices of a dodecahedron, as they hunt a monster named the Wumpus. The turn-based game has the player trying to avoid fatal bottomless pits and "super bats" that will move them around the cave system; the goal is to fire one of their "crooked arrows" through the caves to kill the Wumpus. Yob created the game in early 1973 due to his annoyance at the multiple hide-and-seek games set in caves in a grid pattern, and multiple variations of the game were sold via mail order by Yob and the People's Computer Company. The source code to the game was published in Creative Computing in 1975 and republished in The Best of Creative Computing the following year.
The game sparked multiple variations and expanded versions and was ported to several systems, including the TI-99/4A home computer. It has been cited as an early example of the survival horror genre, and was listed in 2012 on Time's All-Time 100 greatest video games list. The Wumpus monster has appeared in several forms in media since 1973, including other video games, a novella, and Magic: The Gathering cards.
Hunt the Wumpus is a text-based adventure game set in a series of caves connected by tunnels. In one of the twenty caves is a "Wumpus", which the player is attempting to kill. Additionally, two of the caves contain bottomless pits, while two others contain "super bats" which will pick up the player and move them to a random cave. The game is turn-based; each cave is given a number by the game, and each turn begins with the player being told which cave they are in and which caves are connected to it by tunnels. The player then elects to either move to one of those connected caves or shoot one of their five "crooked arrows", named for their ability to change direction while in flight. Each cave is connected to three others, and the system as a whole is equivalent to a dodecahedron.
The caves are in complete darkness, so the player cannot see into adjacent caves; instead, upon moving to a new empty cave, the game describes if they can smell a Wumpus, hear a bat, or feel a draft from a pit in one of the connected caves. Entering a cave with a pit ends the game due to the player falling in, while entering the cave with the Wumpus startles it; the Wumpus will either move to another cave or remain and kill the player. If the player chooses to fire an arrow, they first select how many caves, up to five, that the arrow will travel through, and then enters each cave that the arrow moves through. If the player enters a cave number that is not connected to where the arrow is, the game picks a valid option at random. If the arrow hits the player while it is travelling, the player loses; if it hits the Wumpus, they win. If the arrow does not hit anything, then the Wumpus is startled and may move to a new cave; unlike the player, the Wumpus is not affected by super bats or pits. If the Wumpus moves to the player's location, they lose.
In early 1973, Gregory Yob was looking through some of the games published by the People's Computer Company (PCC), and grew annoyed that there were multiple games, including Hurkle and Mugwump, that had the player "hide and seek" in a 10 by 10 grid. Yob was inspired to make a game that used a non-grid pattern, where the player would move through points connected through some other type of topology. Yob came up with the name "Hunt the Wumpus" that afternoon, and decided from there that the player would traverse through rooms arranged in a non-grid pattern, with a monster called a Wumpus somewhere in them. Yob chose a dodecahedron because it was his favorite platonic solid, and because he had once made a kite shaped like one. From there, Yob added the arrows to shoot between rooms, terming it the "crooked arrow" as it would need to change directions to go through multiple caves, and decided that the player could only sense nearby caves by smell, as a light would wake the Wumpus up. He then added the bottomless pits, and a couple days later the super bats. Finally, feeling that players would want to create a map, he made the cave map fixed and gave each cave a number. Yob later claimed that, to his knowledge, most players did not create maps of the cave system, nor follow his expected strategy of carefully moving around the system to determine exactly where the Wumpus was before firing an arrow. While playtesting the game, Yob found it unexciting that the Wumpus always stayed in one place, and so changed it to be able to move. He then delivered a copy of the game, written in BASIC, to the PCC.
In May 1973, one month after he had finished coding the game, Yob went to a conference at Stanford University and discovered that in the section of the conference where the PCC had set up computer terminals, multiple players were engrossed in playing Wumpus, making it, in his opinion, a hit game. The PCC first mentioned the game in its newsletter in September 1973 as a "cave game" that would be available to order through them soon, and gave it a full two-page description in its next issue in November 1973. Tapes containing Wumpus were sold via mail order by both the PCC and Yob himself. The PCC description was republished along with source code in its book What to Do After You Hit Return in 1977, while a description of the game and its source code was published in Creative Computing in its October 1975 issue, and republished in The Best of Creative Computing the following year. It also appeared in other books of BASIC games, such as Computer Programs in BASIC in 1981.
Multiple versions of Hunt the Wumpus were created and distributed after the game's release. Yob made Wumpus 2 and Wumpus 3, beginning immediately after finishing the original game, with Wumpus 2 adding different cave arrangements and Wumpus 3 adding more hazards. The source code for Wumpus 2 was published in Creative Computing and republished in The Best of Creative Computing 2 (1977), along with a description of Wumpus 3. The PCC announced in the same November 1973 newsletter issue as it discussed the original game that a version from them titled Super Wumpus would be available soon, and listed it in its order catalog in its January 1974 issue under both that name and Wumpus 3. In 1978, a book titled Superwumpus, by Jack Emmerichs, was published containing source code for both BASIC and assembly language versions of his unrelated version of Hunt the Wumpus.
In addition to the original BASIC games, versions of Hunt the Wumpus have been created for numerous other systems. Yob had seen or heard of versions in several languages, such as IBM RPG and Fortran, by 1975. A version in C, written in November 1973 by Ken Thompson, creator of the Unix operating system, was released in 1974; a later C version can still be found in the bsdgames package on modern BSD and Linux operating systems. In 1978, Danny Hillis, working as a summer intern on the TMS9918 graphics chip, wrote a graphical version of the game as a demonstration with the pattern of caves displayed as a torus instead of a dodecahedron, which was later published as a commercial game for the TI-99/4A. In 1981, a version was released for the HP-41C calculator.
Hunt the Wumpus has been cited as an early example of a survival horror game; the book Vampires and Zombies claims that it was an early example of the genre, while the paper "Restless dreams in Silent Hill" states that "from a historical perspective the genre's roots lie in Hunt the Wumpus". Other sources, however, such as the book The World of Scary Video Games, claim that the game lacks elements needed for a "horror" game, as the player hunts rather than is hunted by the Wumpus, and nothing in the game is explicitly intended to frighten the player, making it more of an early adventure or puzzle game. Kevin Cogger of 1Up.com claimed that Wumpus, whether or not it is an adventure game, "introduced a number of concepts that would come to define the adventure genre", such as presenting the game from the perspective of the player-character, and non-grid-based map design. In 2012, Hunt the Wumpus was listed on Time's All-Time 100 greatest video games list. The Wumpus monster has appeared in several different forms of media, such as several "Wumpus" creature cards in Magic: The Gathering including a "Hunted Wumpus", the 1983 video game M.U.L.E., and Cory Doctorow's 2011 novella The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow. The textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, with editions published since 1995, uses a version of this game as one of the examples. An interactive audio-only version of the game was displayed by Jared Bendis as Treasure of the Wumpus in the Azimuth Cave at festivals in Ohio from 2011 to 2018, and an interactive touch screen version of the game, Return to Wumpus Cave, was presented in 2022. | [
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"text": "Hunt the Wumpus is a text-based adventure game set in a series of caves connected by tunnels. In one of the twenty caves is a \"Wumpus\", which the player is attempting to kill. Additionally, two of the caves contain bottomless pits, while two others contain \"super bats\" which will pick up the player and move them to a random cave. The game is turn-based; each cave is given a number by the game, and each turn begins with the player being told which cave they are in and which caves are connected to it by tunnels. The player then elects to either move to one of those connected caves or shoot one of their five \"crooked arrows\", named for their ability to change direction while in flight. Each cave is connected to three others, and the system as a whole is equivalent to a dodecahedron.",
"title": "Gameplay"
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"text": "The caves are in complete darkness, so the player cannot see into adjacent caves; instead, upon moving to a new empty cave, the game describes if they can smell a Wumpus, hear a bat, or feel a draft from a pit in one of the connected caves. Entering a cave with a pit ends the game due to the player falling in, while entering the cave with the Wumpus startles it; the Wumpus will either move to another cave or remain and kill the player. If the player chooses to fire an arrow, they first select how many caves, up to five, that the arrow will travel through, and then enters each cave that the arrow moves through. If the player enters a cave number that is not connected to where the arrow is, the game picks a valid option at random. If the arrow hits the player while it is travelling, the player loses; if it hits the Wumpus, they win. If the arrow does not hit anything, then the Wumpus is startled and may move to a new cave; unlike the player, the Wumpus is not affected by super bats or pits. If the Wumpus moves to the player's location, they lose.",
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"text": "In early 1973, Gregory Yob was looking through some of the games published by the People's Computer Company (PCC), and grew annoyed that there were multiple games, including Hurkle and Mugwump, that had the player \"hide and seek\" in a 10 by 10 grid. Yob was inspired to make a game that used a non-grid pattern, where the player would move through points connected through some other type of topology. Yob came up with the name \"Hunt the Wumpus\" that afternoon, and decided from there that the player would traverse through rooms arranged in a non-grid pattern, with a monster called a Wumpus somewhere in them. Yob chose a dodecahedron because it was his favorite platonic solid, and because he had once made a kite shaped like one. From there, Yob added the arrows to shoot between rooms, terming it the \"crooked arrow\" as it would need to change directions to go through multiple caves, and decided that the player could only sense nearby caves by smell, as a light would wake the Wumpus up. He then added the bottomless pits, and a couple days later the super bats. Finally, feeling that players would want to create a map, he made the cave map fixed and gave each cave a number. Yob later claimed that, to his knowledge, most players did not create maps of the cave system, nor follow his expected strategy of carefully moving around the system to determine exactly where the Wumpus was before firing an arrow. While playtesting the game, Yob found it unexciting that the Wumpus always stayed in one place, and so changed it to be able to move. He then delivered a copy of the game, written in BASIC, to the PCC.",
"title": "Development"
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"text": "In May 1973, one month after he had finished coding the game, Yob went to a conference at Stanford University and discovered that in the section of the conference where the PCC had set up computer terminals, multiple players were engrossed in playing Wumpus, making it, in his opinion, a hit game. The PCC first mentioned the game in its newsletter in September 1973 as a \"cave game\" that would be available to order through them soon, and gave it a full two-page description in its next issue in November 1973. Tapes containing Wumpus were sold via mail order by both the PCC and Yob himself. The PCC description was republished along with source code in its book What to Do After You Hit Return in 1977, while a description of the game and its source code was published in Creative Computing in its October 1975 issue, and republished in The Best of Creative Computing the following year. It also appeared in other books of BASIC games, such as Computer Programs in BASIC in 1981.",
"title": "Development"
},
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"text": "Multiple versions of Hunt the Wumpus were created and distributed after the game's release. Yob made Wumpus 2 and Wumpus 3, beginning immediately after finishing the original game, with Wumpus 2 adding different cave arrangements and Wumpus 3 adding more hazards. The source code for Wumpus 2 was published in Creative Computing and republished in The Best of Creative Computing 2 (1977), along with a description of Wumpus 3. The PCC announced in the same November 1973 newsletter issue as it discussed the original game that a version from them titled Super Wumpus would be available soon, and listed it in its order catalog in its January 1974 issue under both that name and Wumpus 3. In 1978, a book titled Superwumpus, by Jack Emmerichs, was published containing source code for both BASIC and assembly language versions of his unrelated version of Hunt the Wumpus.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In addition to the original BASIC games, versions of Hunt the Wumpus have been created for numerous other systems. Yob had seen or heard of versions in several languages, such as IBM RPG and Fortran, by 1975. A version in C, written in November 1973 by Ken Thompson, creator of the Unix operating system, was released in 1974; a later C version can still be found in the bsdgames package on modern BSD and Linux operating systems. In 1978, Danny Hillis, working as a summer intern on the TMS9918 graphics chip, wrote a graphical version of the game as a demonstration with the pattern of caves displayed as a torus instead of a dodecahedron, which was later published as a commercial game for the TI-99/4A. In 1981, a version was released for the HP-41C calculator.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hunt the Wumpus has been cited as an early example of a survival horror game; the book Vampires and Zombies claims that it was an early example of the genre, while the paper \"Restless dreams in Silent Hill\" states that \"from a historical perspective the genre's roots lie in Hunt the Wumpus\". Other sources, however, such as the book The World of Scary Video Games, claim that the game lacks elements needed for a \"horror\" game, as the player hunts rather than is hunted by the Wumpus, and nothing in the game is explicitly intended to frighten the player, making it more of an early adventure or puzzle game. Kevin Cogger of 1Up.com claimed that Wumpus, whether or not it is an adventure game, \"introduced a number of concepts that would come to define the adventure genre\", such as presenting the game from the perspective of the player-character, and non-grid-based map design. In 2012, Hunt the Wumpus was listed on Time's All-Time 100 greatest video games list. The Wumpus monster has appeared in several different forms of media, such as several \"Wumpus\" creature cards in Magic: The Gathering including a \"Hunted Wumpus\", the 1983 video game M.U.L.E., and Cory Doctorow's 2011 novella The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow. The textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, with editions published since 1995, uses a version of this game as one of the examples. An interactive audio-only version of the game was displayed by Jared Bendis as Treasure of the Wumpus in the Azimuth Cave at festivals in Ohio from 2011 to 2018, and an interactive touch screen version of the game, Return to Wumpus Cave, was presented in 2022.",
"title": "Legacy"
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| Hunt the Wumpus is a text-based adventure game developed by Gregory Yob in 1973. In the game, the player moves through a series of connected caves, arranged as the vertices of a dodecahedron, as they hunt a monster named the Wumpus. The turn-based game has the player trying to avoid fatal bottomless pits and "super bats" that will move them around the cave system; the goal is to fire one of their "crooked arrows" through the caves to kill the Wumpus. Yob created the game in early 1973 due to his annoyance at the multiple hide-and-seek games set in caves in a grid pattern, and multiple variations of the game were sold via mail order by Yob and the People's Computer Company. The source code to the game was published in Creative Computing in 1975 and republished in The Best of Creative Computing the following year. The game sparked multiple variations and expanded versions and was ported to several systems, including the TI-99/4A home computer. It has been cited as an early example of the survival horror genre, and was listed in 2012 on Time's All-Time 100 greatest video games list. The Wumpus monster has appeared in several forms in media since 1973, including other video games, a novella, and Magic: The Gathering cards. | 2001-12-22T08:26:40Z | 2023-12-10T20:44:59Z | [
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14,324 | Hash | Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: | [
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14,325 | Hearst Communications | Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group and 20% of the sports cable network group ESPN, both in partnership with The Walt Disney Company. It also used to own 50% of Complex Networks in partnership with Verizon.
The conglomerate also owns several business-information companies, including Fitch Ratings and First Databank.
The company was founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, and the Hearst family remains involved in its ownership and management.
In 1880, George Hearst, mining entrepreneur and U.S. senator, bought the San Francisco Daily Examiner. In 1887, he turned the Examiner over to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who that year founded the Hearst Corporation. The younger Hearst eventually built readership for Hearst-owned newspapers and magazines from 15,000 to over 20 million. Hearst began to purchase and launched other newspapers, including the New York Journal in 1895 and the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903.
In 1903, Hearst created Motor magazine, the first title in his company's magazine division. He acquired Cosmopolitan in 1905, and Good Housekeeping in 1911. The company entered the book publishing business in 1913 with the formation of Hearst's International Library. Hearst began producing film features in the mid-1910s, creating one of the earliest animation studios: the International Film Service, turning characters from Hearst newspaper strips into film characters.
Hearst bought the Atlanta Georgian in 1912, the San Francisco Call and the San Francisco Post in 1913, the Boston Advertiser and the Washington Times (unrelated to the present-day paper) in 1917, and the Chicago Herald in 1918 (resulting in the Herald-Examiner).
In 1919, Hearst's book publishing division was renamed Cosmopolitan Book.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, which included a number of magazines and newspapers in major cities. Hearst also began acquiring radio stations to complement his papers. Hearst saw financial challenges in the early 1920s, when he was using company funds to build Hearst Castle in San Simeon and support movie production at Cosmopolitan Productions. This eventually led to the merger of the magazine Hearst International with Cosmopolitan in 1925.
Despite some financial troubles, Hearst began extending its reach in 1921, purchasing the Detroit Times, The Boston Record, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst then added the Los Angeles Herald and Washington Herald, as well as the Oakland Post-Enquirer, the Syracuse Telegram and the Rochester Journal-American in 1922. He continued his buying spree into the mid-1920s, purchasing the Baltimore News (1923), the San Antonio Light (1924), the Albany Times Union (1924), and The Milwaukee Sentinel (1924). In 1924, Hearst entered the tabloid market in New York City with New York Daily Mirror, meant to compete with the New York Daily News.
In addition to print and radio, Hearst established Cosmopolitan Pictures in the early 1920s, distributing his films under the newly created Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In 1929, Hearst and MGM created the Hearst Metrotone newsreels.
The Great Depression hurt Hearst and his publications. Cosmopolitan Book was sold to Farrar & Rinehart in 1931. After two years of leasing them to Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson (of the McCormick-Patterson family that owned the Chicago Tribune), Hearst sold her The Washington Times and Herald in 1939; she merged them to form the Washington Times-Herald. That year he also bought the Milwaukee Sentinel from Paul Block (who bought it from the Pfisters in 1929), absorbing his afternoon Wisconsin News into the morning publication. Also in 1939, he sold the Atlanta Georgian to Cox Newspapers, which merged it with the Atlanta Journal.
Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the Nazis received positive press coverage by Hearst presses and paid ten times the standard subscription rate for the INS wire service belonging to Hearst. William Randolph Hearst personally instructed his reporters in Germany to only give positive coverage to Hitler and the Nazis, and fired journalists who refused to write stories favourable of German fascism. During this time, high ranking Nazis were given space to write articles in Hearst press newspapers, including Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg.
Hearst, with his chain now owned by his creditors after a 1937 liquidation, also had to merge some of his morning papers into his afternoon papers. In Chicago, he combined the morning Herald-Examiner and the afternoon American into the Herald-American in 1939. This followed the 1937 combination of the New York Evening Journal and the morning American into the New York Journal-American, the sale of the Omaha Daily Bee to the World-Herald.
Afternoon papers were a profitable business in pre-television days, often outselling their morning counterparts featuring stock market information in early editions, while later editions were heavy on sporting news with results of baseball games and horse races. Afternoon papers also benefited from continuous reports from the battlefront during World War II. After the war, however, both television news and suburbs experienced explosive growth; thus, evening papers were more affected than those published in the morning, whose circulation remained stable while their afternoon counterparts' sales plummeted.
In 1947, Hearst produced an early television newscast for the DuMont Television Network: I.N.S. Telenews, and in 1948 he became the owner of one of the first television stations in the country, WBAL-TV in Baltimore.
The earnings of Hearst's three morning papers, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Examiner, and The Milwaukee Sentinel, supported the company's money-losing afternoon publications such as the Los Angeles Herald-Express, the New York Journal-American, and the Chicago American. The company sold the latter paper in 1956 to the Chicago Tribune's owners, who changed it to the tabloid-size Chicago Today in 1969 and ceased publication in 1974. In 1960, Hearst also sold the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Detroit Times to The Detroit News. After a lengthy strike it sold the Milwaukee Sentinel to the afternoon Milwaukee Journal in 1962. The same year Hearst's Los Angeles papers – the morning Examiner and the afternoon Herald-Express – merged to become the evening Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike left the city with no papers for over three months, with the Journal-American one of the earliest strike targets of the Typographical Union. The Boston Record and the Evening American merged in 1961 as the Record-American and in 1964, the Baltimore News-Post became the Baltimore News-American.
In 1953 Hearst Magazines bought Sports Afield magazine, which it published until 1999 when it sold the journal to Robert E. Petersen. In 1958, Hearst's International News Service merged with E.W. Scripps' United Press, forming United Press International as a response to the growth of the Associated Press and Reuters. The following year Scripps-Howard's San Francisco News merged with Hearst's afternoon San Francisco Call-Bulletin. Also in 1959, Hearst acquired the paperback book publisher Avon Books.
In 1965, the Hearst Corporation began pursuing joint operating agreements (JOAs). It reached the first agreement with the DeYoung family, proprietors of the afternoon San Francisco Chronicle, which began to produce a joint Sunday edition with the Examiner. In turn, the Examiner became an evening publication, absorbing the News-Call-Bulletin. The following year, the Journal-American reached another JOA with another two landmark New York City papers: the New York Herald Tribune and Scripps-Howard's World-Telegram and Sun to form the New York World Journal Tribune (recalling the names of the city's mid-market dailies), which collapsed after only a few months.
The 1962 merger of the Herald-Express and Examiner in Los Angeles led to the termination of many journalists who began to stage a 10-year strike in 1967. The effects of the strike accelerated the pace of the company's demise, with the Herald Examiner ceasing publication November 2, 1989.
Hearst moved into hardcover publishing by acquiring Arbor House in 1978 and William Morrow and Company in 1981.
In 1982, the company sold the Boston Herald American — the result of the 1972 merger of Hearst's Record-American & Advertiser with the Herald-Traveler — to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which renamed the paper as The Boston Herald, competing to this day with The Boston Globe.
In 1986, Hearst bought the Houston Chronicle and that same year closed the 213-year-old Baltimore News-American after a failed attempt to reach a JOA with A.S. Abell Company, the family who published The Baltimore Sun since its founding in 1837. Abell sold the paper several days later to the Times-Mirror syndicate of the Chandlers' Los Angeles Times, also competitor to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, which folded in 1989. In 1990, both King Features Entertainment and King Phoenix Entertainment were rebranded under the collective Hearst Entertainment umbrella. King Features Entertainment was renamed to Hearst Entertainment Distribution, while King Phoenix Entertainment was renamed to Hearst Entertainment Productions.
In 1993, Hearst closed the San Antonio Light after it purchased the rival San Antonio Express-News from Murdoch.
On November 8, 1990, Hearst Corporation acquired the remaining 20% stake of ESPN, Inc. from RJR Nabisco for a price estimated between $165 million and $175 million. The other 80% has been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 1996. Over the last 25 years, the ESPN investment is said to have accounted for at least 50% of total Hearst Corp profits and is worth at least $13 billion.
On July 31, 1996, Hearst and the Cisneros Group of Companies of Venezuela announced its plans to launch Locomotion, a Latin American animation cable television channel.
On March 27, 1997, Hearst Broadcasting announced that it would merge with Argyle Television Holdings II for $525 million, the merger was completed in August to form Hearst-Argyle Television (later renamed as Hearst Television in 2009).
In 1999, Hearst sold its Avon and Morrow book publishing activities to HarperCollins.
In 2000, the Hearst Corp. pulled another "switcheroo" by selling its flagship and "Monarch of the Dailies", the afternoon San Francisco Examiner, and acquiring the long-time competing, but now larger morning paper, San Francisco Chronicle from the Charles de Young family. The San Francisco Examiner is now published as a daily freesheet.
In December 2003, Marvel Entertainment acquired Cover Concepts from Hearst, to extend Marvel's demographic reach among public school children.
In 2009, A&E Networks acquired Lifetime Entertainment Services, with Hearst ownership increasing to 42%.
In 2010, Hearst acquired digital marketing agency iCrossing.
In 2011, Hearst absorbed more than 100 magazine titles from the Lagardère Group for more than $700 million and became a challenger of Time Inc ahead of Condé Nast. In December 2012, Hearst Corporation partnered again with NBCUniversal to launch Esquire Network.
On February 20, 2014, Hearst Magazines International appointed Gary Ellis to the new position, Chief Digital Officer. That December, DreamWorks Animation sold a 25% stake in AwesomenessTV for $81.25 million to Hearst.
In January 2017, Hearst announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Litton Entertainment. Its CEO, Dave Morgan, was a former employee of Hearst.
On January 23, 2017, Hearst announced that it had acquired the business operations of The Pioneer Group from fourth-generation family owners Jack and John Batdorff. The Pioneer Group was a Michigan-based communications network that circulates print and digital news to local communities across the state. In addition to daily newspapers, The Pioneer and Manistee News Advocate, Pioneer published three weekly papers and four local shopper publications, and operated a digital marketing services business. The acquisition brought Hearst Newspapers to publishing 19 daily and 61 weekly papers.
Other 2017 acquisitions include the New Haven Register and associated papers from Digital First Media, and the Alton, Illinois, Telegraph and Jacksonville, Illinois, Journal-Courier from Civitas Media.
In October 2017, Hearst announced it would acquire the magazine and book businesses of Rodale in Emmaus, Pennsylvania with some sources reporting the purchase price as about $225 million. The transaction was expected to close in January following government approvals.
In November 2023, Hearst acquired all print and digital operations owned by RJ Media Group, including the Record-Journal, seven weekly newspapers and a digital advertising agency.
A non-exhaustive list of its current properties and investments includes:
(alphabetical by state, then title)
Under William Randolph Hearst's will, a common board of thirteen trustees (its composition fixed at five family members and eight outsiders) administers the Hearst Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the trust that owns (and selects the 26-member board of) the Hearst Corporation (immediate parent of Hearst Communications which shares the same officers). The foundations shared ownership until tax law changed to prevent this.
In 2009, it was estimated to be the largest private company managed by trustees in this way. As of 2017, the trustees are:
The trust dissolves when all family members alive at the time of Hearst's death in August 1951 have died. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group and 20% of the sports cable network group ESPN, both in partnership with The Walt Disney Company. It also used to own 50% of Complex Networks in partnership with Verizon.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The conglomerate also owns several business-information companies, including Fitch Ratings and First Databank.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The company was founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, and the Hearst family remains involved in its ownership and management.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1880, George Hearst, mining entrepreneur and U.S. senator, bought the San Francisco Daily Examiner. In 1887, he turned the Examiner over to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who that year founded the Hearst Corporation. The younger Hearst eventually built readership for Hearst-owned newspapers and magazines from 15,000 to over 20 million. Hearst began to purchase and launched other newspapers, including the New York Journal in 1895 and the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1903, Hearst created Motor magazine, the first title in his company's magazine division. He acquired Cosmopolitan in 1905, and Good Housekeeping in 1911. The company entered the book publishing business in 1913 with the formation of Hearst's International Library. Hearst began producing film features in the mid-1910s, creating one of the earliest animation studios: the International Film Service, turning characters from Hearst newspaper strips into film characters.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Hearst bought the Atlanta Georgian in 1912, the San Francisco Call and the San Francisco Post in 1913, the Boston Advertiser and the Washington Times (unrelated to the present-day paper) in 1917, and the Chicago Herald in 1918 (resulting in the Herald-Examiner).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1919, Hearst's book publishing division was renamed Cosmopolitan Book.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, which included a number of magazines and newspapers in major cities. Hearst also began acquiring radio stations to complement his papers. Hearst saw financial challenges in the early 1920s, when he was using company funds to build Hearst Castle in San Simeon and support movie production at Cosmopolitan Productions. This eventually led to the merger of the magazine Hearst International with Cosmopolitan in 1925.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Despite some financial troubles, Hearst began extending its reach in 1921, purchasing the Detroit Times, The Boston Record, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst then added the Los Angeles Herald and Washington Herald, as well as the Oakland Post-Enquirer, the Syracuse Telegram and the Rochester Journal-American in 1922. He continued his buying spree into the mid-1920s, purchasing the Baltimore News (1923), the San Antonio Light (1924), the Albany Times Union (1924), and The Milwaukee Sentinel (1924). In 1924, Hearst entered the tabloid market in New York City with New York Daily Mirror, meant to compete with the New York Daily News.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In addition to print and radio, Hearst established Cosmopolitan Pictures in the early 1920s, distributing his films under the newly created Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In 1929, Hearst and MGM created the Hearst Metrotone newsreels.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Great Depression hurt Hearst and his publications. Cosmopolitan Book was sold to Farrar & Rinehart in 1931. After two years of leasing them to Eleanor \"Cissy\" Patterson (of the McCormick-Patterson family that owned the Chicago Tribune), Hearst sold her The Washington Times and Herald in 1939; she merged them to form the Washington Times-Herald. That year he also bought the Milwaukee Sentinel from Paul Block (who bought it from the Pfisters in 1929), absorbing his afternoon Wisconsin News into the morning publication. Also in 1939, he sold the Atlanta Georgian to Cox Newspapers, which merged it with the Atlanta Journal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the Nazis received positive press coverage by Hearst presses and paid ten times the standard subscription rate for the INS wire service belonging to Hearst. William Randolph Hearst personally instructed his reporters in Germany to only give positive coverage to Hitler and the Nazis, and fired journalists who refused to write stories favourable of German fascism. During this time, high ranking Nazis were given space to write articles in Hearst press newspapers, including Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hearst, with his chain now owned by his creditors after a 1937 liquidation, also had to merge some of his morning papers into his afternoon papers. In Chicago, he combined the morning Herald-Examiner and the afternoon American into the Herald-American in 1939. This followed the 1937 combination of the New York Evening Journal and the morning American into the New York Journal-American, the sale of the Omaha Daily Bee to the World-Herald.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Afternoon papers were a profitable business in pre-television days, often outselling their morning counterparts featuring stock market information in early editions, while later editions were heavy on sporting news with results of baseball games and horse races. Afternoon papers also benefited from continuous reports from the battlefront during World War II. After the war, however, both television news and suburbs experienced explosive growth; thus, evening papers were more affected than those published in the morning, whose circulation remained stable while their afternoon counterparts' sales plummeted.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1947, Hearst produced an early television newscast for the DuMont Television Network: I.N.S. Telenews, and in 1948 he became the owner of one of the first television stations in the country, WBAL-TV in Baltimore.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The earnings of Hearst's three morning papers, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Examiner, and The Milwaukee Sentinel, supported the company's money-losing afternoon publications such as the Los Angeles Herald-Express, the New York Journal-American, and the Chicago American. The company sold the latter paper in 1956 to the Chicago Tribune's owners, who changed it to the tabloid-size Chicago Today in 1969 and ceased publication in 1974. In 1960, Hearst also sold the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Detroit Times to The Detroit News. After a lengthy strike it sold the Milwaukee Sentinel to the afternoon Milwaukee Journal in 1962. The same year Hearst's Los Angeles papers – the morning Examiner and the afternoon Herald-Express – merged to become the evening Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike left the city with no papers for over three months, with the Journal-American one of the earliest strike targets of the Typographical Union. The Boston Record and the Evening American merged in 1961 as the Record-American and in 1964, the Baltimore News-Post became the Baltimore News-American.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1953 Hearst Magazines bought Sports Afield magazine, which it published until 1999 when it sold the journal to Robert E. Petersen. In 1958, Hearst's International News Service merged with E.W. Scripps' United Press, forming United Press International as a response to the growth of the Associated Press and Reuters. The following year Scripps-Howard's San Francisco News merged with Hearst's afternoon San Francisco Call-Bulletin. Also in 1959, Hearst acquired the paperback book publisher Avon Books.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1965, the Hearst Corporation began pursuing joint operating agreements (JOAs). It reached the first agreement with the DeYoung family, proprietors of the afternoon San Francisco Chronicle, which began to produce a joint Sunday edition with the Examiner. In turn, the Examiner became an evening publication, absorbing the News-Call-Bulletin. The following year, the Journal-American reached another JOA with another two landmark New York City papers: the New York Herald Tribune and Scripps-Howard's World-Telegram and Sun to form the New York World Journal Tribune (recalling the names of the city's mid-market dailies), which collapsed after only a few months.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The 1962 merger of the Herald-Express and Examiner in Los Angeles led to the termination of many journalists who began to stage a 10-year strike in 1967. The effects of the strike accelerated the pace of the company's demise, with the Herald Examiner ceasing publication November 2, 1989.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Hearst moved into hardcover publishing by acquiring Arbor House in 1978 and William Morrow and Company in 1981.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 1982, the company sold the Boston Herald American — the result of the 1972 merger of Hearst's Record-American & Advertiser with the Herald-Traveler — to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which renamed the paper as The Boston Herald, competing to this day with The Boston Globe.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1986, Hearst bought the Houston Chronicle and that same year closed the 213-year-old Baltimore News-American after a failed attempt to reach a JOA with A.S. Abell Company, the family who published The Baltimore Sun since its founding in 1837. Abell sold the paper several days later to the Times-Mirror syndicate of the Chandlers' Los Angeles Times, also competitor to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, which folded in 1989. In 1990, both King Features Entertainment and King Phoenix Entertainment were rebranded under the collective Hearst Entertainment umbrella. King Features Entertainment was renamed to Hearst Entertainment Distribution, while King Phoenix Entertainment was renamed to Hearst Entertainment Productions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1993, Hearst closed the San Antonio Light after it purchased the rival San Antonio Express-News from Murdoch.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "On November 8, 1990, Hearst Corporation acquired the remaining 20% stake of ESPN, Inc. from RJR Nabisco for a price estimated between $165 million and $175 million. The other 80% has been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 1996. Over the last 25 years, the ESPN investment is said to have accounted for at least 50% of total Hearst Corp profits and is worth at least $13 billion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "On July 31, 1996, Hearst and the Cisneros Group of Companies of Venezuela announced its plans to launch Locomotion, a Latin American animation cable television channel.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "On March 27, 1997, Hearst Broadcasting announced that it would merge with Argyle Television Holdings II for $525 million, the merger was completed in August to form Hearst-Argyle Television (later renamed as Hearst Television in 2009).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In 1999, Hearst sold its Avon and Morrow book publishing activities to HarperCollins.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2000, the Hearst Corp. pulled another \"switcheroo\" by selling its flagship and \"Monarch of the Dailies\", the afternoon San Francisco Examiner, and acquiring the long-time competing, but now larger morning paper, San Francisco Chronicle from the Charles de Young family. The San Francisco Examiner is now published as a daily freesheet.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In December 2003, Marvel Entertainment acquired Cover Concepts from Hearst, to extend Marvel's demographic reach among public school children.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 2009, A&E Networks acquired Lifetime Entertainment Services, with Hearst ownership increasing to 42%.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 2010, Hearst acquired digital marketing agency iCrossing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 2011, Hearst absorbed more than 100 magazine titles from the Lagardère Group for more than $700 million and became a challenger of Time Inc ahead of Condé Nast. In December 2012, Hearst Corporation partnered again with NBCUniversal to launch Esquire Network.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "On February 20, 2014, Hearst Magazines International appointed Gary Ellis to the new position, Chief Digital Officer. That December, DreamWorks Animation sold a 25% stake in AwesomenessTV for $81.25 million to Hearst.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In January 2017, Hearst announced that it had acquired a majority stake in Litton Entertainment. Its CEO, Dave Morgan, was a former employee of Hearst.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "On January 23, 2017, Hearst announced that it had acquired the business operations of The Pioneer Group from fourth-generation family owners Jack and John Batdorff. The Pioneer Group was a Michigan-based communications network that circulates print and digital news to local communities across the state. In addition to daily newspapers, The Pioneer and Manistee News Advocate, Pioneer published three weekly papers and four local shopper publications, and operated a digital marketing services business. The acquisition brought Hearst Newspapers to publishing 19 daily and 61 weekly papers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Other 2017 acquisitions include the New Haven Register and associated papers from Digital First Media, and the Alton, Illinois, Telegraph and Jacksonville, Illinois, Journal-Courier from Civitas Media.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In October 2017, Hearst announced it would acquire the magazine and book businesses of Rodale in Emmaus, Pennsylvania with some sources reporting the purchase price as about $225 million. The transaction was expected to close in January following government approvals.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In November 2023, Hearst acquired all print and digital operations owned by RJ Media Group, including the Record-Journal, seven weekly newspapers and a digital advertising agency.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "A non-exhaustive list of its current properties and investments includes:",
"title": "Assets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "(alphabetical by state, then title)",
"title": "Assets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Under William Randolph Hearst's will, a common board of thirteen trustees (its composition fixed at five family members and eight outsiders) administers the Hearst Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the trust that owns (and selects the 26-member board of) the Hearst Corporation (immediate parent of Hearst Communications which shares the same officers). The foundations shared ownership until tax law changed to prevent this.",
"title": "Trustees of William Randolph Hearst's will"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 2009, it was estimated to be the largest private company managed by trustees in this way. As of 2017, the trustees are:",
"title": "Trustees of William Randolph Hearst's will"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The trust dissolves when all family members alive at the time of Hearst's death in August 1951 have died.",
"title": "Trustees of William Randolph Hearst's will"
}
]
| Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group and 20% of the sports cable network group ESPN, both in partnership with The Walt Disney Company. It also used to own 50% of Complex Networks in partnership with Verizon. The conglomerate also owns several business-information companies, including Fitch Ratings and First Databank. The company was founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, and the Hearst family remains involved in its ownership and management. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-26T17:24:21Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Communications |
14,326 | HMS Hercules | Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Hercules, or HMS Hercule, after the Greek and Roman hero Hercules. Another was launched, but never served in the Navy: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Hercules, or HMS Hercule, after the Greek and Roman hero Hercules. Another was launched, but never served in the Navy:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Hercules, or HMS Hercule, after the Greek and Roman hero Hercules. Another was launched, but never served in the Navy: HMS Hercules (1759) was a 74-gun third rate launched in 1759 and sold in 1784.
HMS Hercule was a 74-gun third rate captured by HMS Mars in 1798 and broken up in 1810.
HMS Hercules (1815) was a 74-gun third rate launched in 1815. She was used for harbour service from 1853 and was sold in 1865.
HMS Hercules (1868) was an ironclad battleship launched in 1868. She was used for harbour service from 1881, as a barracks from 1905, was renamed HMS Calcutta in 1909, HMS Fisgard II in 1915, and was sold in 1932.
HMS Hercules (1910) was a Colossus-class battleship launched in 1910 and sold for breaking up in 1921.
HMS Hercules (R49) was a Majestic-class light fleet aircraft carrier launched in 1945, but not completed until purchased by India in 1957. Commissioned in 1961 as INS Vikrant, she was paid off in 1997 and was a museum ship between 2001 and 2012. She was scrapped in 2014. | 2022-12-27T07:24:19Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hercules |
|
14,327 | HMAS Sydney | Five ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named HMAS Sydney, after Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales.
Between them, vessels named HMAS Sydney have been awarded fourteen battle honours by the Royal Australian Navy. These include two of the only three battle honours awarded in the 20th century for an action involving a single opposing ship: | [
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"text": "Five ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named HMAS Sydney, after Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Between them, vessels named HMAS Sydney have been awarded fourteen battle honours by the Royal Australian Navy. These include two of the only three battle honours awarded in the 20th century for an action involving a single opposing ship:",
"title": "Battle honours"
}
]
| Five ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named HMAS Sydney, after Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales. HMAS Sydney (1912), a Town-class light cruiser launched in 1912, decommissioned in 1928, and broken up for scrap
HMAS Sydney (D48), a Leander-class light cruiser launched in 1934, and sunk following a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran on 19 November 1941
HMAS Sydney (R17), a Majestic-class light aircraft carrier launched in 1944, decommissioned in 1973, and broken up for scrap
HMAS Sydney (FFG 03), an Adelaide-class guided missile frigate launched in 1980, and decommissioned in 2015
HMAS Sydney (DDG 42), a Hobart-class air warfare destroyer in service since 2020 | 2023-06-19T13:19:38Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Sydney |
|
14,328 | Hunter S. Thompson | Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. He became known for his intense dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.
Starting in the mid-1970s, Thompson's output declined, as he struggled with the consequences of fame and failed to complete several high-profile assignments for Rolling Stone. For much of the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write sporadically for various outlets, including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire and ESPN.com until the end of his life.
Thompson was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal drugs, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. Hari Kunzru wrote, "The true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him."
Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. Journalist Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.
In December 1943, when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children and was described as a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.
Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator until the group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days, and during his incarceration, was refused permission to take final exams, preventing his graduation. Upon release, he enlisted in the United States Air Force.
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.
In 1958, while he was an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy," chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."
After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.
In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.
After returning to mainland United States in 1961, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he spent eight months as security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and the screenwriter Dennis Murphy, both of whom Thompson admired. During this period, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur and worked on The Rum Diary. He managed to publish one short story, "Burial at Sea," which also appeared in Rogue. It was his first piece of published fiction. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was finally published in 1998 and in 2011 was adapted as a motion picture.
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Rio de Janeiro-based Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (subsequently Sondi Wright) joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born in March 1964. During the summer of that same year, Hunter began taking Dexedrine, which is what he would predominantly use for writing up until around 1974 when he began to write mostly under the influence of cocaine.
Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects during the early 60s. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.
In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or "stomping", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.
A New York Times review praised the work as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson sold stories to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.
In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. "The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.
Later that year, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used a portion of the proceeds on a down payment on a home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. It was a 110-acre piece of land that cost him $75,000. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters from the period, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the country covering the 1968 United States presidential election and attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago for research. He watched the clashes between police and anti-war protesters from his hotel, and later claimed that events had a significant effect on his political views, saying "I went to the Democratic convention as a journalist and returned a raving beast." While Thompson never completed the book, he carried its theme into later work. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about President Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks later, the deal fell through after Johnson withdrew from the election.
In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the "Freak Power" movement. "The Battle of Aspen" was Thompson's first feature for the magazine carrying the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)". (Thompson's "Dr" certification was obtained from a mail-order church while he was in San Francisco in the sixties.) Despite the publicity, Thompson lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become, after the withdrawal of the Republican candidate, a two-way race. Thompson later said that the Rolling Stone article mobilized more opposition to the Freak Power ticket than supporters. The episode was the subject of the 2020 documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. Writing of the episode more than fifty years later, Wenner wrote "Aspen didn't get a new sheriff, but I realized that, in Hunter, I had a fellow traveller."
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's story virtually ignored the race and focused instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. Writing in the first person, he sets the debauchery against the backdrop of the American political scene of the moment: President Richard Nixon had ordered bombing of Cambodia and four students had been killed by Ohio National Guard troops at Kent State University, in a massacre which occurred only two days later.
Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.
The first use of the word "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo." Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame began during the research for "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson wrote. Wenner, describing his first impression of it years later, called it "Sharp and insane."
To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference. The two trips became the basis for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which Rolling Stone serialized in two parts in November 1971. Random House published a book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Samoan attorney." During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim. The New York Times praised it as "the best book yet written on the decade of dope". "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
In 1971 Wenner agreed to assign Thompson to cover the 1972 United States presidential election for Rolling Stone. Thompson was paid a retainer of $1,000 per month and rented a house in near Rock Creek Park in Washington D.C. at the magazine's expense. He was also given a deal to publish a book on the campaign after its conclusion, which subsequently appeared as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 in early 1973. Insider books on presidential politics had become popular during the prior decade starting with Theodore H. White's Making of the President series, the first of which appeared in 1961, with additional volumes in 1965 and 1969. Their success raised the overall profile of journalists assigned to cover the quadrennial presidential election in the U.S., and it became a common phrase among them to say they were "...Doing a Teddy White," meaning they planned to write their own insider book on the campaign.
Wenner had decided that Rolling Stone would cover the presidential election in part because of the passage in 1971 of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which lowered the legal voting age to 18 from 21, making a large part of its mostly young readership suddenly eligible to vote. "We intended to politicize our generation and wrest this stirring force away from the fake politics of the revolutionary," Wenner wrote in his memoirs of the plan to collaborate with Thompson.
Thompson's first campaign piece for Rolling Stone appeared as Fear and Loathing in Washington: Is This Trip Really Necessary? in the January 6, 1972, issue. The 14th and final installment appeared in the November 9 issue under the headline Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls....
Throughout the year, Thompson traveled with candidates running in the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries for the right to challenge the incumbent president, Republican Richard Nixon in the general election. Thompson's coverage focused mainly on Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, the early leader, and former vice-president Hubert Humphrey. Thompson supported McGovern and wrote critical coverage of the rival campaigns.
In the April 13 installment entitled Fear and Loathing: The Banshee Screams in Florida, Thompson relates how someone having apparently lifted his press credential, terrorized Muskie and his staff on a campaign train. The incident was later revealed to be an elaborate prank. In another installment, Thompson relates rumors — rumors he later admitted he had originated — that Muskie had become addicted to the psychoactive drug Ibogaine. The story damaged Muskie's reputation and played a role in his loss of the nomination to McGovern. In another, he tracked down McGovern in a restroom in order to get a reaction quote after a senator from Iowa had switched his endorsement from McGovern to Muskie.
The series, and later, the book were both praised for breaking boundaries with a new approach to political journalism. The literary critic Morris Dickstein, wrote that Thompson had learned to "approximate the effect of mind-blasting drugs in his prose style," and that he "recorded the nuts and bolts of a presidential campaign with all the contempt and incredulity that other reporters must feel but censor out."
Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign director, often described it as the "most accurate and least factual" account of the 1972 campaign. In one vivid, yet invented anecdote, Thompson describes how Mankiewicz had leapt out from behind a bush to attack him with a hammer. To an uninitiated reader, it might have been unclear at first if the action Thompson described was fanciful or factual, and that seemed to be part of the point. As biographer William McKeen wrote "He wrote for his own amusement, and if others came along for the ride, that was all right."
Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together". It was in 1973 that Thompson tried cocaine for the first time and various friends, family members, and editors remarked that its impact upon his productivity and creativity was devastating.
In 1975, Wenner assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly canceled Thompson's medical insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Wenner, writing in 2022, denied the claims that he cancelled Thompson's insurance, saying that Thompson spent most of his time in Saigon obsessing over evacuation plans. Thompson filed an unfinished dispatch that Wenner described "strong and promising, but nothing substantial." He then took a commercial flight to Bangkok where he met his wife for what Wenner described as a few weeks of "totally undeserved rest and recreation." While in Thailand, Thompson had a custom brass door plaque made that read "Rolling Stone: Global Affairs Suite. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" marked with a map of the world and two lightning bolts. "That was it," Wenner wrote. "No story. Just that plaque." Thompson later finished the story in time for the 10-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through as Wenner closed Rolling Stone's book company. Thompson claimed Wenner canceled the project without informing him. In his memoirs, Wenner told a different story: "The issue wasn't money ... The real issue was whether he had the discipline to spend so much time on the campaign trail and whether he had that much to say about the same subject again." Thompson went on to spend a day with Jimmy Carter at the Georgia Governor's Mansion and write 10,000-word cover-story endorsing Carter for president. "After that, we were virtually an official part of the Carter campaign, and they treated us as such," Wenner wrote of the episode.
From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-Gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he held until his death.
In 1980, Thompson divorced his wife, Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983. The book was a disappointment, with its editor calling it "disorganized and incoherent." It was poorly reviewed, and sales were disappointing.
In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the "Palm Beach lifestyle". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality. Wenner described it as one of Thompson's "least-known but best pieces." In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "feminist pornography" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. is editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order."
Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.
Thompson faced a sexual assault charge in March 1990 when former pornographic film director Gail Palmer claimed that after she denied his sexual advances while at his home, Thompson threw a drink at her and twisted her left breast. He was tried for five felonies and three misdemeanors owing to the assault charge and allegations of drug abuse after the police raided his home. The charges were dropped two months later.
Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994. Wenner described it as "Hunter's last big piece of feature writing," and described Thompson as abusive toward two editorial assistants assigned to him. Thompson himself described it in 1996 as "a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco." The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned ISBN 0-679-40694-8, but was never published.
Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published "He Was a Crook", a "scathing" obituary of Richard Nixon.
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature "The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters also appeared during this time.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.
Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.
At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his "fortified compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will, his grandson, and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to "mark the passing of his father." The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date "Feb. 22 '05" and a single word, "counselor."
Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a "gloomy" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled "Football Season Is Over." It read:
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your age. Relax — This won't hurt.
Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
... He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to — and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too — and Peacocks ...
On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". The cannon was placed atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood. According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out." An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow.
Despite him having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter." Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as "... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric." Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment."
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Publisher Jan Wenner said Thompson was "in the DNA of Rolling Stone." Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Wenner said Thompson tended to work "in long bursts of energy, awake until dawn or, too often, two dawns." He said keeping Thompson on track which finishing a piece required "...companionship, or what editors call hand-holding, but in Hunter's case it was more like being a junior officer in his war. He required his creature comforts, which meant the right kind of typewriter and a certain color paper, Wild Turkey, the right drugs, and the proper music."
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it."
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist, constantly drinking and taking hallucinogenics. In the early 1980s, Wenner spoke with Thompson about his alcoholism and addiction to cocaine, and offered to pay for drug treatment. "Hunter was polite and firm;" Wenner wrote in 2022. "He had thought about it and didn't feel he could or would change. He felt that [his drug abuse] was a key to his talent. He said that if he didn't do drugs, he would have the mind of an accountant. The abuse was already taking a toll on his gifts.... It was just too late, and he knew it."
In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Church of the New Truth.
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.
Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.
Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich."
In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics." In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery." In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a "big" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called "white power structures".
After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it had been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him."
Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students. Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled \"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved\" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called \"Gonzo\", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. He became known for his intense dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented \"that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character\". He covered George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Starting in the mid-1970s, Thompson's output declined, as he struggled with the consequences of fame and failed to complete several high-profile assignments for Rolling Stone. For much of the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write sporadically for various outlets, including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire and ESPN.com until the end of his life.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Thompson was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal drugs, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: \"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.\" Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. Hari Kunzru wrote, \"The true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Thompson was born into a middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian at the Louisville Free Public Library and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran. His parents were introduced by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2, 1935. Journalist Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian stated that Thompson's first name, Hunter, came from an ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon John Hunter. A more direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Hunter Stockton, came from his maternal grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray and Lucille Hunter.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In December 1943, when Thompson was six years old, the family settled in the affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of The Highlands. On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58. Hunter and his brothers were raised by their mother. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children and was described as a \"heavy drinker\" following her husband's death.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson co-founded the Hawks Athletic Club while attending I.N. Bloom Elementary School, which led to an invitation to join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, he never joined a sports team in high school.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Thompson attended I.N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, and Atherton High School, before transferring to Louisville Male High School in fall 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, and included Porter Bibb, who became the first publisher of Rolling Stone at Thompson's behest. During this time, Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the club's yearbook The Spectator until the group ejected Thompson in 1955 for criminal activity. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson County Jail. He served 31 days, and during his incarceration, was refused permission to take final exams, preventing his graduation. Upon release, he enlisted in the United States Air Force.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Belleville, Illinois, to study electronics. He applied to become an aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his application. In 1956, he transferred to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida State University. At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as sports editor of The Command Courier by falsifying his job experience. As sports editor, Thompson traveled around the United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for The Playground News, a local newspaper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. His name did not appear on the column because Air Force regulations forbade outside employment.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1958, while he was an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. \"In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy,\" chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. \"Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members.\"",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "After leaving the Air Force, Thompson worked as sports editor for a newspaper in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York City. There he audited several courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies. During this time he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy for $51 a week. At work, he typed out parts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in order to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles. In 1959 Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1960, Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its managing editor, future novelist William J. Kennedy, turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends. After the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a stringer for the New York Herald Tribune and a few other stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as his editor.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After returning to mainland United States in 1961, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually lived in Big Sur, where he spent eight months as security guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs, just before it became the Esalen Institute. At the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and home of Henry Miller and the screenwriter Dennis Murphy, both of whom Thompson admired. During this period, he published his first magazine feature in Rogue about the artisan and bohemian culture of Big Sur and worked on The Rum Diary. He managed to publish one short story, \"Burial at Sea,\" which also appeared in Rogue. It was his first piece of published fiction. The Rum Diary, based on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was finally published in 1998 and in 2011 was adapted as a motion picture.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South America for a year as a correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer. In Brazil, he spent several months as a reporter for the Rio de Janeiro-based Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (subsequently Sondi Wright) joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to the United States, and lived briefly in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, California. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, was born in March 1964. During the summer of that same year, Hunter began taking Dexedrine, which is what he would predominantly use for writing up until around 1974 when he began to write mostly under the influence of cocaine.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Thompson continued to write for the National Observer on an array of domestic subjects during the early 60s. One story told of his 1964 visit to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide. While there, he stole a pair of elk antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Later that year, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Cow Palace. Thompson severed his ties with the Observer after his editor refused to print his review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. He later immersed himself in the drug and hippie culture taking root in the area, and soon began writing for the Berkeley underground paper Spider.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1965 Carey McWilliams, editor of The Nation, hired Thompson to write a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle club in California. At the time Thompson was living in a house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Grateful Dead. His article appeared on May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the club. The relationship broke down when the bikers perceived that Thompson was exploiting them for personal gain and demanded a share of his profits. An argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a savage beating (or \"stomping\", as the Angels referred to it). Random House published the hard cover Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. CBC Television even broadcast an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman before a live studio audience.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A New York Times review praised the work as an \"angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, and excitedly written book\", that shows the Hells Angels \"not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary social order offers\". The reviewer also praised Thompson as a \"spirited, witty, observant, and original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust\".",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson sold stories to several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.",
"title": "Late 1960s"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1967, shortly before the Summer of Love, Thompson wrote \"The 'Hashbury' is the Capital of the Hippies\" for The New York Times Magazine. He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of the New Left and the artistic core of the Beats, resulting in a culture overrun with young people who spent their time in the pursuit of drugs. \"The thrust is no longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain for survival on purely personal terms,\" he wrote.",
"title": "Late 1960s"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Later that year, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in Woody Creek, a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used a portion of the proceeds on a down payment on a home and property where he would live for the rest of his life. It was a 110-acre piece of land that cost him $75,000. He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his \"fortified compound\".",
"title": "Late 1960s"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In early 1968, Thompson signed the \"Writers and Editors War Tax Protest\" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. According to Thompson's letters from the period, he planned to write a book called The Joint Chiefs about \"the death of the American Dream.\" He used a $6,000 advance from Random House to travel the country covering the 1968 United States presidential election and attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago for research. He watched the clashes between police and anti-war protesters from his hotel, and later claimed that events had a significant effect on his political views, saying \"I went to the Democratic convention as a journalist and returned a raving beast.\" While Thompson never completed the book, he carried its theme into later work. He also signed a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write a satirical book called The Johnson File about President Lyndon B. Johnson. A few weeks later, the deal fell through after Johnson withdrew from the election.",
"title": "Late 1960s"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1970, Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the \"Freak Power\" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, disarming all police forces, and renaming Aspen \"Fat City\" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the crew cut-wearing Republican candidate as \"my long-haired opponent\".",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at Rolling Stone magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was about to be elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the \"Freak Power\" movement. \"The Battle of Aspen\" was Thompson's first feature for the magazine carrying the byline \"By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)\". (Thompson's \"Dr\" certification was obtained from a mail-order church while he was in San Francisco in the sixties.) Despite the publicity, Thompson lost the election. While carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what had become, after the withdrawal of the Republican candidate, a two-way race. Thompson later said that the Rolling Stone article mobilized more opposition to the Freak Power ticket than supporters. The episode was the subject of the 2020 documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or the Bomb. Writing of the episode more than fifty years later, Wenner wrote \"Aspen didn't get a new sheriff, but I realized that, in Hunter, I had a fellow traveller.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled \"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved\" for the short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly. For that article, editor Warren Hinckle paired Thompson with illustrator Ralph Steadman, who drew expressionist illustrations with lipstick and eyeliner. Thompson's story virtually ignored the race and focused instead on the drunken revelry surrounding the annual event in his hometown. Writing in the first person, he sets the debauchery against the backdrop of the American political scene of the moment: President Richard Nixon had ordered bombing of Cambodia and four students had been killed by Ohio National Guard troops at Kent State University, in a massacre which occurred only two days later.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Thompson and Steadman collaborated regularly after that. Although it was not widely read, the article was the first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a style Thompson later employed in almost every literary endeavor. The manic first-person subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The first use of the word \"Gonzo\" to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist Bill Cardoso, who first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then the editor of The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine) wrote to Thompson praising the \"Kentucky Derby\" piece as a breakthrough: \"This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling.\" According to Steadman, Thompson took to the word right away and said, \"Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo.\" Thompson's first published use of the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: \"Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame began during the research for \"Strange Rumblings in Aztlan,\" an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican American television journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear-gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to Las Vegas, and take advantage of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Mint 400 motorcycle race held there.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to Sports Illustrated a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, \"aggressively rejected.\" Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner liked \"the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it\", Thompson wrote. Wenner, describing his first impression of it years later, called it \"Sharp and insane.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "To develop the story, Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to attend a drug enforcement conference. The two trips became the basis for \"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,\" which Rolling Stone serialized in two parts in November 1971. Random House published a book version the following year. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named Raoul Duke with Dr. Gonzo, his \"300-pound Samoan attorney.\" During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as \"my attorney\") become sidetracked by a search for the American Dream, with \"two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim. The New York Times praised it as \"the best book yet written on the decade of dope\". \"The Vegas Book\", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1971 Wenner agreed to assign Thompson to cover the 1972 United States presidential election for Rolling Stone. Thompson was paid a retainer of $1,000 per month and rented a house in near Rock Creek Park in Washington D.C. at the magazine's expense. He was also given a deal to publish a book on the campaign after its conclusion, which subsequently appeared as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 in early 1973. Insider books on presidential politics had become popular during the prior decade starting with Theodore H. White's Making of the President series, the first of which appeared in 1961, with additional volumes in 1965 and 1969. Their success raised the overall profile of journalists assigned to cover the quadrennial presidential election in the U.S., and it became a common phrase among them to say they were \"...Doing a Teddy White,\" meaning they planned to write their own insider book on the campaign.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Wenner had decided that Rolling Stone would cover the presidential election in part because of the passage in 1971 of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which lowered the legal voting age to 18 from 21, making a large part of its mostly young readership suddenly eligible to vote. \"We intended to politicize our generation and wrest this stirring force away from the fake politics of the revolutionary,\" Wenner wrote in his memoirs of the plan to collaborate with Thompson.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Thompson's first campaign piece for Rolling Stone appeared as Fear and Loathing in Washington: Is This Trip Really Necessary? in the January 6, 1972, issue. The 14th and final installment appeared in the November 9 issue under the headline Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls....",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Throughout the year, Thompson traveled with candidates running in the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries for the right to challenge the incumbent president, Republican Richard Nixon in the general election. Thompson's coverage focused mainly on Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, the early leader, and former vice-president Hubert Humphrey. Thompson supported McGovern and wrote critical coverage of the rival campaigns.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the April 13 installment entitled Fear and Loathing: The Banshee Screams in Florida, Thompson relates how someone having apparently lifted his press credential, terrorized Muskie and his staff on a campaign train. The incident was later revealed to be an elaborate prank. In another installment, Thompson relates rumors — rumors he later admitted he had originated — that Muskie had become addicted to the psychoactive drug Ibogaine. The story damaged Muskie's reputation and played a role in his loss of the nomination to McGovern. In another, he tracked down McGovern in a restroom in order to get a reaction quote after a senator from Iowa had switched his endorsement from McGovern to Muskie.",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The series, and later, the book were both praised for breaking boundaries with a new approach to political journalism. The literary critic Morris Dickstein, wrote that Thompson had learned to \"approximate the effect of mind-blasting drugs in his prose style,\" and that he \"recorded the nuts and bolts of a presidential campaign with all the contempt and incredulity that other reporters must feel but censor out.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign director, often described it as the \"most accurate and least factual\" account of the 1972 campaign. In one vivid, yet invented anecdote, Thompson describes how Mankiewicz had leapt out from behind a bush to attack him with a hammer. To an uninitiated reader, it might have been unclear at first if the action Thompson described was fanciful or factual, and that seemed to be part of the point. As biographer William McKeen wrote \"He wrote for his own amusement, and if others came along for the ride, that was all right.\"",
"title": "Middle years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover the Rumble in the Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, \"After Africa, he just couldn't write. He couldn't piece it together\". It was in 1973 that Thompson tried cocaine for the first time and various friends, family members, and editors remarked that its impact upon his productivity and creativity was devastating.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In 1975, Wenner assigned Thompson to travel to Vietnam to cover what appeared to be the end of the Vietnam War. Thompson arrived in Saigon just as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner allegedly canceled Thompson's medical insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone. He soon fled the country and refused to file his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Wenner, writing in 2022, denied the claims that he cancelled Thompson's insurance, saying that Thompson spent most of his time in Saigon obsessing over evacuation plans. Thompson filed an unfinished dispatch that Wenner described \"strong and promising, but nothing substantial.\" He then took a commercial flight to Bangkok where he met his wife for what Wenner described as a few weeks of \"totally undeserved rest and recreation.\" While in Thailand, Thompson had a custom brass door plaque made that read \"Rolling Stone: Global Affairs Suite. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson\" marked with a map of the world and two lightning bolts. \"That was it,\" Wenner wrote. \"No story. Just that plaque.\" Thompson later finished the story in time for the 10-year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Plans for Thompson to cover the 1976 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later publish a book fell through as Wenner closed Rolling Stone's book company. Thompson claimed Wenner canceled the project without informing him. In his memoirs, Wenner told a different story: \"The issue wasn't money ... The real issue was whether he had the discipline to spend so much time on the campaign trail and whether he had that much to say about the same subject again.\" Thompson went on to spend a day with Jimmy Carter at the Georgia Governor's Mansion and write 10,000-word cover-story endorsing Carter for president. \"After that, we were virtually an official part of the Carter campaign, and they treated us as such,\" Wenner wrote of the episode.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "From the late 1970s on, most of Thompson's literary output appeared as a four-volume series of books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Shark Hunt in 1979 and ending with Better Than Sex in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-Gonzo period, along with almost all of his Rolling Stone pieces.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Starting around 1980, Thompson became less active by his standards. Aside from paid appearances, he largely retreated to his compound in Woody Creek, rejecting projects and assignments or failing to complete them. Despite a lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stone masthead as chief of the \"National Affairs Desk\", a position he held until his death.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 1980, Thompson divorced his wife, Sandra Conklin. The same year marked the release of Where the Buffalo Roam, a loose film adaptation based on Thompson's early 1970s work, starring Bill Murray as the writer. Murray eventually became one of Thompson's trusted friends. Later that year, Thompson relocated to Hawaii to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the piece first appeared in Running in 1981 as \"The Charge of the Weird Brigade\" and was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983. The book was a disappointment, with its editor calling it \"disorganized and incoherent.\" It was poorly reviewed, and sales were disappointing.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 1983, he covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada but did not write or discuss the experiences until the publication of Kingdom of Fear in 2003. Later that year, at the behest of Terry McDonell, he wrote \"A Dog Took My Place\", an exposé for Rolling Stone of the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer divorce case and what he called the \"Palm Beach lifestyle\". The story included dubious insinuations of bestiality. Wenner described it as one of Thompson's \"least-known but best pieces.\" In 1985, Thompson accepted an advance to write about \"feminist pornography\" for Playboy. As part of his research, he spent evenings at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre striptease club in San Francisco. The experience evolved into an as-yet-unpublished novel tentatively entitled The Night Manager.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Thompson next accepted a role as weekly media columnist and critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was arranged by former editor and fellow Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle. is editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, \"One week it would be acid-soaked gibberish with a charm of its own. The next week it would be incisive political analysis of the highest order.\"",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Many of these columns were collected in Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical reminiscences, articles, and previously unpublished material.",
"title": "Fame and its consequences"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Thompson faced a sexual assault charge in March 1990 when former pornographic film director Gail Palmer claimed that after she denied his sexual advances while at his home, Thompson threw a drink at her and twisted her left breast. He was tried for five felonies and three misdemeanors owing to the assault charge and allegations of drug abuse after the police raided his home. The charges were dropped two months later.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Throughout the early 1990s, Thompson claimed to be at work on a novel entitled Polo Is My Life. It was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994. Wenner described it as \"Hunter's last big piece of feature writing,\" and described Thompson as abusive toward two editorial assistants assigned to him. Thompson himself described it in 1996 as \"a sex book — you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco.\" The novel was slated to be released by Random House in 1999, and was even assigned ISBN 0-679-40694-8, but was never published.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Thompson continued to publish irregularly in Rolling Stone, ultimately contributing 17 pieces to the magazine between 1984 and 2004. \"Fear and Loathing in Elko,\" published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. \"Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood\" was a largely factual account of an interview with Bill Clinton at a Little Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather than traveling the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie, his account of the 1992 presidential campaign, is composed of reactive faxes to Rolling Stone. In 1994, the magazine published \"He Was a Crook\", a \"scathing\" obituary of Richard Nixon.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final magazine feature \"The Fun-Hogs in the Passing Lane: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004\", a brief account of the 2004 presidential election in which he compared the outcome of the Bush v. Gore court case to the Reichstag fire and formally endorsed Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 1996, Modern Library reissued Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas along with \"Strange Rumblings in Aztlan,\" \"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,\" and \"Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.\" Two years later, the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest in Thompson and his work, and a paperback edition was published as a tie-in. The same year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Two volumes of collected letters also appeared during this time.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century, was widely publicized as Thompson's first memoir. Published in 2003, it combined new material (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older works.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Thompson finished his journalism career in the same way it had begun: Writing about sports. From 2000 until his death in 2005, he wrote a weekly column for ESPN.com's Page 2 entitled \"Hey, Rube.\" In 2004, Simon & Schuster collected some of the columns from the first few years and released them in mid-2004 as Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Thompson married assistant Anita Bejmuk on April 23, 2003.",
"title": "Later years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "At 5:42 pm on February 20, 2005, Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Owl Farm, his \"fortified compound\" in Woody Creek, Colorado. His son Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend. His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the Aspen Daily News, Thompson asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column, then set the receiver on the counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired. Will, his grandson, and Jennifer were in the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a book falling and did not check on Thompson immediately. Juan Thompson found his father's body. According to the police report and Anita's cell phone records, he called the sheriff's office half an hour later, then walked outside and fired three shotgun blasts into the air to \"mark the passing of his father.\" The police report stated that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper with the date \"Feb. 22 '05\" and a single word, \"counselor.\"",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Years of alcohol and cocaine abuse contributed to his problem with depression. Thompson's inner circle told the press that he had been depressed and always found February a \"gloomy\" month, with football season over and the harsh Colorado winter weather. He was also upset over his advancing age and chronic medical problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter \"This kid is getting old.\" Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, titled \"Football Season Is Over.\" It read:",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your age. Relax — This won't hurt.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Thompson's collaborator and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "... He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to — and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too — and Peacocks ...",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "On August 20, 2005, in a private funeral, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon. This was accompanied by red, white, blue, and green fireworks—all to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's \"Spirit in the Sky\" and Bob Dylan's \"Mr. Tambourine Man\". The cannon was placed atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower which had the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a symbol originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. The plans for the monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman, and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC titled Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and labeled as Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood. According to his widow, Anita, the $3 million funeral was funded by actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Press, \"All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out.\" An estimated 280 people attended, including U.S. Senators John Kerry and George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondents Ed Bradley and Charlie Rose; actors Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Josh Hartnett; musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates and David Amram, and artist and long-time friend Ralph Steadman.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the New Journalism literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the first person, while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color \"the story\" he was trying to follow.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Despite him having personally described his work as \"Gonzo\", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 interview in Playboy addressed the issue himself, saying, \"Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They're both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don't think of myself as a reporter.\" Tom Wolfe would later describe Thompson's style as \"... part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric.\" Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, \"While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a fly in the ointment.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Publisher Jan Wenner said Thompson was \"in the DNA of Rolling Stone.\" Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf to Lou Reed. Armed with early fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Wenner said Thompson tended to work \"in long bursts of energy, awake until dawn or, too often, two dawns.\" He said keeping Thompson on track which finishing a piece required \"...companionship, or what editors call hand-holding, but in Hunter's case it was more like being a junior officer in his war. He required his creature comforts, which meant the right kind of typewriter and a certain color paper, Wild Turkey, the right drugs, and the proper music.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote, \"the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn't always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was a close friend of many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we'd call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work \"one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world\", and \"for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and caliber, and there was no faking it.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing, too, sometimes using the name Raoul Duke as an author surrogate whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist, constantly drinking and taking hallucinogenics. In the early 1980s, Wenner spoke with Thompson about his alcoholism and addiction to cocaine, and offered to pay for drug treatment. \"Hunter was polite and firm;\" Wenner wrote in 2022. \"He had thought about it and didn't feel he could or would change. He felt that [his drug abuse] was a key to his talent. He said that if he didn't do drugs, he would have the mind of an accountant. The abuse was already taking a toll on his gifts.... It was just too late, and he knew it.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In the late 1960s, Thompson acquired the title of \"Doctor\" from the Church of the New Truth.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "A number of critics have commented that as he grew older, the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred. Thompson admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding, \"I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ... I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a cult following in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for Halloween.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Thompson was a firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms of gaseous crowd-control and many homemade devices. He was a proponent of the right to bear arms and privacy rights. A member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson was also co-creator of the Fourth Amendment Foundation, an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted search and seizure.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Part of his work with the Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence. Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case. The Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Thompson was also an ardent supporter of drug legalization and became known for his detailed accounts of his own drug use. He was an early supporter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death. He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized \"[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at Prohibition; all it did was make a lot of criminals rich.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Industrial Workers of the World, \"I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for Joe Hill and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics.\" In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him to Thomas Jefferson. In a letter to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was \"coming to view the free enterprise system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery.\" In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara T-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson kept a \"big\" picture of Che in his kitchen. Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American rights and the civil rights movement. He strongly criticized the dominance in American society of what he called \"white power structures\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "After the September 11 attacks, Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the official story on who was responsible for the attacks. He speculated to several interviewers that it had been conducted by the U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting he had no way to prove his theory.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In 2004, Thompson wrote: \"[Richard] Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Thompson's widow established two scholarship funds at Columbia University School of General Studies for U.S. military veterans and the University of Kentucky for journalism students. Colorado NORML created the Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship to pay all expenses for a lawyer or law student to attend the NORML Legal Committee Conference in Aspen, generally the first few days of June each year. The funding from a silent auction has paid for two winners for some years. Many winners have gone on to become important cannabis lawyers on state and national levels.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative. Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted for film twice: loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket. He became known for his intense dislike of Richard Nixon, who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character". He covered George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and later collected the stories in book form as Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. Starting in the mid-1970s, Thompson's output declined, as he struggled with the consequences of fame and failed to complete several high-profile assignments for Rolling Stone. For much of the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. Most of his work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Gonzo Papers. He continued to write sporadically for various outlets, including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire and ESPN.com until the end of his life. Thompson was known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal drugs, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Thompson died by suicide at the age of 67, following a series of health problems. Hari Kunzru wrote, "The true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him." | 2001-12-24T11:19:30Z | 2023-12-23T05:20:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson |
14,329 | Historicism | Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history; that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.
This historical approach to explanation differs from and complements the approach known as functionalism, which seeks to explain a phenomenon, such as for example a social form, by providing reasoned arguments about how that social form fulfills some function in the structure of a society. In contrast, rather than taking the phenomenon as a given and then seeking to provide a justification for it from reasoned principles, the historical approach asks "Where did this come from?" and "What factors led up to its creation?"; that is, historical explanations often place a greater emphasis on the role of process and contingency.
Historicism is often used to help contextualize theories and narratives, and is a useful tool to help understand how social and cultural phenomena came to be.
The historicist approach differs from individualist theories of knowledge such as strict empiricism and de-contextualised rationalism, which neglect the role of traditions. Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist theories—which assume that all developments can be explained by fundamental principles (such as in economic determinism)—or with theories that posit that historical changes occur entirely at random.
The term historicism (Historismus) was coined by German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. Over time, what historicism is and how it is practiced have developed different and divergent meanings. Elements of historicism appear in the writings of French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) and Italian philosopher G. B. Vico (1668–1744), and became more fully developed with the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), influential in 19th-century Europe. The writings of Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel, also include historicism. The term is also associated with the empirical social sciences and with the work of Franz Boas. Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations.
Hegel viewed the realization of human freedom as the ultimate purpose of history, which could be achieved only through the creation of the perfect state. Historical progress toward this state would occur through a dialectical process: the tension between the purpose of humankind (freedom) and humankind's current condition would produce the attempt by humankind to change its condition to one more in accord with its nature. However, because humans are often not aware of the goal of humanity and history, the process of achieving freedom is necessarily one of self-discovery.
Hegel saw progress toward freedom as conducted by the "spirit" (Geist), a seemingly supernatural force that directs all human actions and interactions. Yet Hegel makes clear that the spirit is a mere abstraction that comes into existence "through the activity of finite agents". Thus, Hegel's determining forces of history may not have a metaphysical nature, though many of his opponents and interpreters have understood him as holding metaphysical and determinist views.
Hegel's historicism also suggests that any human society and all human activities such as science, art, or philosophy, are defined by their history. Consequently, their essence can be sought only by understanding said history. The history of any such human endeavor, moreover, not only continues but also reacts against what has gone before; this is the source of Hegel's famous dialectic teaching usually summarized by the slogan "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis". (Hegel did not use these terms, although Johann Fichte did.) Hegel's famous aphorism, "Philosophy is the history of philosophy", describes it bluntly.
Hegel's position is perhaps best illuminated when contrasted against the atomistic and reductionist opinion of human societies and social activities self-defining on an ad hoc basis through the sum of dozens of interactions. Yet another contrasting model is the persistent metaphor of a social contract. Hegel considers the relationship between individuals and societies as organic, not atomic: even their social discourse is mediated by language, and language is based on etymology and unique character. It thus preserves the culture of the past in thousands of half-forgotten metaphors. To understand why a person is the way he is, you must examine that person in his society: and to understand that society, you must understand its history, and the forces that influenced it. The Zeitgeist, the "Spirit of the Age", is the concrete embodiment of the most important factors that are acting in human history at any given time. This contrasts with teleological theories of activity, which suppose that the end is the determining factor of activity, as well as those who believe in a tabula rasa, or blank slate, opinion, such that individuals are defined by their interactions.
These ideas can be interpreted variously. The Right Hegelians, working from Hegel's opinions about the organicism and historically determined nature of human societies, interpreted Hegel's historicism as a justification of the unique destiny of national groups and the importance of stability and institutions. Hegel's conception of human societies as entities greater than the individuals who constitute them influenced nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and its twentieth-century excesses. The Young Hegelians, by contrast, interpreted Hegel's thoughts on societies influenced by social conflict for a doctrine of social progress, and attempted to manipulate these forces to cause various results. Karl Marx's doctrine of "historical inevitabilities" and historical materialism is one of the more influential reactions to this part of Hegel's thought. Significantly, Karl Marx's theory of alienation argues that capitalism disrupts traditional relationships between workers and their work.
Hegelian historicism is related to his ideas on the means by which human societies progress, specifically the dialectic and his conception of logic as representing the inner essential nature of reality. Hegel attributes the change to the "modern" need to interact with the world, whereas ancient philosophers were self-contained, and medieval philosophers were monks. In his History of Philosophy Hegel writes:
In modern times things are very different; now we no longer see philosophic individuals who constitute a class by themselves. With the present day all difference has disappeared; philosophers are not monks, for we find them generally in connection with the world, participating with others in some common work or calling. They live, not independently, but in the relation of citizens, or they occupy public offices and take part in the life of the state. Certainly they may be private persons, but if so, their position as such does not in any way isolate them from their other relationship. They are involved in present conditions, in the world and its work and progress. Thus their philosophy is only by the way, a sort of luxury and superfluity. This difference is really to be found in the manner in which outward conditions have taken shape after the building up of the inward world of religion. In modern times, namely, on account of the reconciliation of the worldly principle with itself, the external world is at rest, is brought into order — worldly relationships, conditions, modes of life, have become constituted and organized in a manner which is conformable to nature and rational. We see a universal, comprehensible connection, and with that individuality likewise attains another character and nature, for it is no longer the plastic individuality of the ancients. This connection is of such power that every individuality is under its dominion, and yet at the same time can construct for itself an inward world.
This opinion that entanglement in society creates an indissoluble bond with expression, would become an influential question in philosophy, namely, the requirements for individuality. It would be considered by Nietzsche, John Dewey and Michel Foucault directly, as well as in the work of numerous artists and authors. There have been various responses to Hegel's challenge. The Romantic period emphasized the ability of individual genius to transcend time and place, and use the materials from their heritage to fashion works which were beyond determination. The modern would advance versions of John Locke's infinite malleability of the human animal. Post-structuralism would argue that since history is not present, but only the image of history, that while an individual era or power structure might emphasize a particular history, that the contradictions within the story would hinder the very purposes that the history was constructed to advance.
In the context of anthropology and other sciences which study the past, historicism has a different meaning. Historical Particularism is associated with the work of Franz Boas. His theory used the diffusionist concept that there were a few "cradles of civilization" which grew outwards, and merged it with the idea that societies would adapt to their circumstances. The school of historicism grew in response to unilinear theories that social development represented adaptive fitness, and therefore existed on a continuum. While these theories were espoused by Charles Darwin and many of his students, their application as applied in social Darwinism and general evolution characterized in the theories of Herbert Spencer and Leslie White, historicism was neither anti-selection, nor anti-evolution, as Darwin never attempted nor offered an explanation for cultural evolution. However, it attacked the notion that there was one normative spectrum of development, instead emphasizing how local conditions would create adaptations to the local environment. Julian Steward refuted the viability of globally and universally applicable adaptive standards proposing that culture was honed adaptively in response to the idiosyncrasies of the local environment, the cultural ecology, by specific evolution. What was adaptive for one region might not be so for another. This conclusion has likewise been adopted by modern forms of biological evolutionary theory.
The primary method of historicism was empirical, namely that there were so many requisite inputs into a society or event, that only by emphasizing the data available could a theory of the source be determined. In this opinion, grand theories are unprovable, and instead intensive field work would determine the most likely explanation and history of a culture, and hence it is named "historicism".
This opinion would produce a wide range of definition of what, exactly, constituted culture and history, but in each case the only means of explaining it was in terms of the historical particulars of the culture itself.
Since the 1950s, when Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault argued that each epoch has its own knowledge system, within which individuals are inexorably entangled, many post-structuralists have used historicism to describe the opinion that all questions must be settled within the cultural and social context in which they are raised. Answers cannot be found by appeal to an external truth, but only within the confines of the norms and forms that phrase the question. This version of historicism holds that there are only the raw texts, markings and artifacts that exist in the present, and the conventions used to decode them. This school of thought is sometimes given the name of New Historicism. The same term, new historicism is also used for a school of literary scholarship which interprets a poem, drama, etc. as an expression of or reaction to the power-structures of its society. Stephen Greenblatt is an example of this school.
Within the context of 20th-century philosophy, debates continue as to whether ahistorical and immanent methods were sufficient to understand the meaning (that is to say, "what you see is what you get" positivism) or whether context, background and culture are important beyond the mere need to decode words, phrases and references. While post-structural historicism is relativist in its orientation—that is, it sees each culture as its own frame of reference—a large number of thinkers have embraced the need for historical context, not because culture is self-referential, but because there is no more compressed means of conveying all of the relevant information except through history. This opinion is often seen as deriving from the work of Benedetto Croce. Recent historians using this tradition include Thomas Kuhn.
Talcott Parsons criticized historicism as a case of idealistic fallacy in The Structure of Social Action (1937). Post-structuralism uses the term new historicism, which has some associations with both anthropology and Hegelianism.
In Christianity, the term historicism refers to the confessional Protestant form of prophetical interpretation which holds that the fulfillment of biblical prophecy has occurred throughout history and continues to occur; as opposed to other methods which limit the time-frame of prophecy-fulfillment to the past or to the future.
There is also a particular opinion in ecclesiastical history and in the history of dogmas which has been described as historicist by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Humani generis. "They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries." "There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas."
The social theory of Karl Marx, with respect to modern scholarship, has an ambiguous relation to historicism. Critics of Marx have understood his theory as historicist since its very genesis. However, the issue of historicism has been debated even among Marxists: the charge of historicism has been made against various types of Marxism, typically disparaged by Marxists as "vulgar" Marxism.
Marx himself expresses critical concerns with this historicist tendency in his Theses on Feuerbach:
The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
Western Marxists such as Karl Korsch, Antonio Gramsci and the early Georg Lukacs emphasise the roots of Marx's thought in Hegel. They interpret Marxism as an historically relativist philosophy, which views ideas (including Marxist theory) as necessary products of the historical epochs that create them. In this view, Marxism is not an objective social science, but rather a theoretical expression of the class consciousness of the working class within an historical process. This understanding of Marxism is strongly criticised by the structural Marxist Louis Althusser, who affirms that Marxism is an objective science, autonomous from interests of society and class.
Karl Popper used the term historicism in his influential books The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies, to mean: "an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms' or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends' that underlie the evolution of history". Popper condemned historicism along with the determinism and holism which he argued formed its basis, claiming that historicism had the potential to inform dogmatic, ideological beliefs not predicated upon facts that were falsifiable. In The Poverty of Historicism, he identified historicism with the opinion that there are "inexorable laws of historical destiny", an opinion he warned against. If this seems to contrast with what proponents of historicism argue for, in terms of contextually relative interpretation, this happens, according to Popper, only because such proponents are unaware of the type of causality they ascribe to history. Popper wrote with reference to Hegel's theory of history, which he criticized extensively.
In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper attacks "historicism" and its proponents, among whom (as well as Hegel) he identifies and singles out Plato and Marx—calling them all "enemies of the open society". The objection he makes is that historicist positions, by claiming that there is an inevitable and deterministic pattern to history, abrogate the democratic responsibility of the individual to make free contributions to the evolution of society, hence leading to totalitarianism. Throughout this work, he defines his conception of historicism as: "The central historicist doctrine—the doctrine that history is controlled by specific historical or evolutionary laws whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man."
Another of his targets is what he terms "moral historicism", the attempt to infer moral values from the course of history; in Hegel's words, that "history is the world's court of justice". Popper says that he does not believe "that success proves anything or that history is our judge". Futurism must be distinguished from prophecies that the right will prevail: these attempt to infer history from ethics, rather than ethics from history, and are therefore historicism in the normal sense rather than moral historicism.
He also attacks what he calls "Historism", which he regards as distinct from historicism. By historism, he means the tendency to regard every argument or idea as completely accounted for by its historical context, as opposed to assessing it by its merits.
Leo Strauss used the term historicism and reportedly termed it the single greatest threat to intellectual freedom insofar as it denies any attempt to address injustice-pure-and-simple (such is the significance of historicism's rejection of "natural right" or "right by nature"). Strauss argued that historicism "rejects political philosophy" (insofar as this stands or falls by questions of permanent, trans-historical significance) and is based on the belief that "all human thought, including scientific thought, rests on premises which cannot be validated by human reason and which came from historical epoch to historical epoch." Strauss further identified R. G. Collingwood as the most coherent advocate of historicism in the English language. Countering Collingwood's arguments, Strauss warned against historicist social scientists' failure to address real-life problems—most notably that of tyranny—to the extent that they relativize (or "subjectivize") all ethical problems by placing their significance strictly in function of particular or ever-changing socio-material conditions devoid of inherent or "objective" "value". Similarly, Strauss criticized Eric Voegelin's abandonment of ancient political thought as guide or vehicle in interpreting modern political problems.
In his books, Natural Right and History and On Tyranny, Strauss offers a complete critique of historicism as it emerges in the works of Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. Many believe that Strauss also found historicism in Edmund Burke, Tocqueville, Augustine, and John Stuart Mill. Although it is largely disputed whether Strauss himself was a historicist, he often indicated that historicism grew out of and against Christianity and was a threat to civic participation, belief in human agency, religious pluralism, and, most controversially, an accurate understanding of the classical philosophers and religious prophets themselves. Throughout his work, he warns that historicism, and the understanding of progress that results from it, expose us to tyranny, totalitarianism, and democratic extremism. In his exchange with Alexandre Kojève in On Tyranny, Strauss seems to blame historicism for Nazism and Communism. In a collection of his works by Kenneth Hart entitled Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, he argues that Islam, traditional Judaism, and ancient Greece, share a concern for sacred law that makes them especially susceptible to historicism, and therefore to tyranny. Strauss makes use of Nietzsche's own critique of progress and historicism, although Strauss refers to Nietzsche himself (no less than to Heidegger) as a "radical historicist" who articulated a philosophical (if only untenable) justification for historicism. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history; that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "This historical approach to explanation differs from and complements the approach known as functionalism, which seeks to explain a phenomenon, such as for example a social form, by providing reasoned arguments about how that social form fulfills some function in the structure of a society. In contrast, rather than taking the phenomenon as a given and then seeking to provide a justification for it from reasoned principles, the historical approach asks \"Where did this come from?\" and \"What factors led up to its creation?\"; that is, historical explanations often place a greater emphasis on the role of process and contingency.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Historicism is often used to help contextualize theories and narratives, and is a useful tool to help understand how social and cultural phenomena came to be.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The historicist approach differs from individualist theories of knowledge such as strict empiricism and de-contextualised rationalism, which neglect the role of traditions. Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist theories—which assume that all developments can be explained by fundamental principles (such as in economic determinism)—or with theories that posit that historical changes occur entirely at random.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The term historicism (Historismus) was coined by German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. Over time, what historicism is and how it is practiced have developed different and divergent meanings. Elements of historicism appear in the writings of French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) and Italian philosopher G. B. Vico (1668–1744), and became more fully developed with the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), influential in 19th-century Europe. The writings of Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel, also include historicism. The term is also associated with the empirical social sciences and with the work of Franz Boas. Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations.",
"title": "History of the term"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hegel viewed the realization of human freedom as the ultimate purpose of history, which could be achieved only through the creation of the perfect state. Historical progress toward this state would occur through a dialectical process: the tension between the purpose of humankind (freedom) and humankind's current condition would produce the attempt by humankind to change its condition to one more in accord with its nature. However, because humans are often not aware of the goal of humanity and history, the process of achieving freedom is necessarily one of self-discovery.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Hegel saw progress toward freedom as conducted by the \"spirit\" (Geist), a seemingly supernatural force that directs all human actions and interactions. Yet Hegel makes clear that the spirit is a mere abstraction that comes into existence \"through the activity of finite agents\". Thus, Hegel's determining forces of history may not have a metaphysical nature, though many of his opponents and interpreters have understood him as holding metaphysical and determinist views.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Hegel's historicism also suggests that any human society and all human activities such as science, art, or philosophy, are defined by their history. Consequently, their essence can be sought only by understanding said history. The history of any such human endeavor, moreover, not only continues but also reacts against what has gone before; this is the source of Hegel's famous dialectic teaching usually summarized by the slogan \"thesis, antithesis, and synthesis\". (Hegel did not use these terms, although Johann Fichte did.) Hegel's famous aphorism, \"Philosophy is the history of philosophy\", describes it bluntly.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hegel's position is perhaps best illuminated when contrasted against the atomistic and reductionist opinion of human societies and social activities self-defining on an ad hoc basis through the sum of dozens of interactions. Yet another contrasting model is the persistent metaphor of a social contract. Hegel considers the relationship between individuals and societies as organic, not atomic: even their social discourse is mediated by language, and language is based on etymology and unique character. It thus preserves the culture of the past in thousands of half-forgotten metaphors. To understand why a person is the way he is, you must examine that person in his society: and to understand that society, you must understand its history, and the forces that influenced it. The Zeitgeist, the \"Spirit of the Age\", is the concrete embodiment of the most important factors that are acting in human history at any given time. This contrasts with teleological theories of activity, which suppose that the end is the determining factor of activity, as well as those who believe in a tabula rasa, or blank slate, opinion, such that individuals are defined by their interactions.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "These ideas can be interpreted variously. The Right Hegelians, working from Hegel's opinions about the organicism and historically determined nature of human societies, interpreted Hegel's historicism as a justification of the unique destiny of national groups and the importance of stability and institutions. Hegel's conception of human societies as entities greater than the individuals who constitute them influenced nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and its twentieth-century excesses. The Young Hegelians, by contrast, interpreted Hegel's thoughts on societies influenced by social conflict for a doctrine of social progress, and attempted to manipulate these forces to cause various results. Karl Marx's doctrine of \"historical inevitabilities\" and historical materialism is one of the more influential reactions to this part of Hegel's thought. Significantly, Karl Marx's theory of alienation argues that capitalism disrupts traditional relationships between workers and their work.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hegelian historicism is related to his ideas on the means by which human societies progress, specifically the dialectic and his conception of logic as representing the inner essential nature of reality. Hegel attributes the change to the \"modern\" need to interact with the world, whereas ancient philosophers were self-contained, and medieval philosophers were monks. In his History of Philosophy Hegel writes:",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In modern times things are very different; now we no longer see philosophic individuals who constitute a class by themselves. With the present day all difference has disappeared; philosophers are not monks, for we find them generally in connection with the world, participating with others in some common work or calling. They live, not independently, but in the relation of citizens, or they occupy public offices and take part in the life of the state. Certainly they may be private persons, but if so, their position as such does not in any way isolate them from their other relationship. They are involved in present conditions, in the world and its work and progress. Thus their philosophy is only by the way, a sort of luxury and superfluity. This difference is really to be found in the manner in which outward conditions have taken shape after the building up of the inward world of religion. In modern times, namely, on account of the reconciliation of the worldly principle with itself, the external world is at rest, is brought into order — worldly relationships, conditions, modes of life, have become constituted and organized in a manner which is conformable to nature and rational. We see a universal, comprehensible connection, and with that individuality likewise attains another character and nature, for it is no longer the plastic individuality of the ancients. This connection is of such power that every individuality is under its dominion, and yet at the same time can construct for itself an inward world.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "This opinion that entanglement in society creates an indissoluble bond with expression, would become an influential question in philosophy, namely, the requirements for individuality. It would be considered by Nietzsche, John Dewey and Michel Foucault directly, as well as in the work of numerous artists and authors. There have been various responses to Hegel's challenge. The Romantic period emphasized the ability of individual genius to transcend time and place, and use the materials from their heritage to fashion works which were beyond determination. The modern would advance versions of John Locke's infinite malleability of the human animal. Post-structuralism would argue that since history is not present, but only the image of history, that while an individual era or power structure might emphasize a particular history, that the contradictions within the story would hinder the very purposes that the history was constructed to advance.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In the context of anthropology and other sciences which study the past, historicism has a different meaning. Historical Particularism is associated with the work of Franz Boas. His theory used the diffusionist concept that there were a few \"cradles of civilization\" which grew outwards, and merged it with the idea that societies would adapt to their circumstances. The school of historicism grew in response to unilinear theories that social development represented adaptive fitness, and therefore existed on a continuum. While these theories were espoused by Charles Darwin and many of his students, their application as applied in social Darwinism and general evolution characterized in the theories of Herbert Spencer and Leslie White, historicism was neither anti-selection, nor anti-evolution, as Darwin never attempted nor offered an explanation for cultural evolution. However, it attacked the notion that there was one normative spectrum of development, instead emphasizing how local conditions would create adaptations to the local environment. Julian Steward refuted the viability of globally and universally applicable adaptive standards proposing that culture was honed adaptively in response to the idiosyncrasies of the local environment, the cultural ecology, by specific evolution. What was adaptive for one region might not be so for another. This conclusion has likewise been adopted by modern forms of biological evolutionary theory.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The primary method of historicism was empirical, namely that there were so many requisite inputs into a society or event, that only by emphasizing the data available could a theory of the source be determined. In this opinion, grand theories are unprovable, and instead intensive field work would determine the most likely explanation and history of a culture, and hence it is named \"historicism\".",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "This opinion would produce a wide range of definition of what, exactly, constituted culture and history, but in each case the only means of explaining it was in terms of the historical particulars of the culture itself.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Since the 1950s, when Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault argued that each epoch has its own knowledge system, within which individuals are inexorably entangled, many post-structuralists have used historicism to describe the opinion that all questions must be settled within the cultural and social context in which they are raised. Answers cannot be found by appeal to an external truth, but only within the confines of the norms and forms that phrase the question. This version of historicism holds that there are only the raw texts, markings and artifacts that exist in the present, and the conventions used to decode them. This school of thought is sometimes given the name of New Historicism. The same term, new historicism is also used for a school of literary scholarship which interprets a poem, drama, etc. as an expression of or reaction to the power-structures of its society. Stephen Greenblatt is an example of this school.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Within the context of 20th-century philosophy, debates continue as to whether ahistorical and immanent methods were sufficient to understand the meaning (that is to say, \"what you see is what you get\" positivism) or whether context, background and culture are important beyond the mere need to decode words, phrases and references. While post-structural historicism is relativist in its orientation—that is, it sees each culture as its own frame of reference—a large number of thinkers have embraced the need for historical context, not because culture is self-referential, but because there is no more compressed means of conveying all of the relevant information except through history. This opinion is often seen as deriving from the work of Benedetto Croce. Recent historians using this tradition include Thomas Kuhn.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Talcott Parsons criticized historicism as a case of idealistic fallacy in The Structure of Social Action (1937). Post-structuralism uses the term new historicism, which has some associations with both anthropology and Hegelianism.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In Christianity, the term historicism refers to the confessional Protestant form of prophetical interpretation which holds that the fulfillment of biblical prophecy has occurred throughout history and continues to occur; as opposed to other methods which limit the time-frame of prophecy-fulfillment to the past or to the future.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "There is also a particular opinion in ecclesiastical history and in the history of dogmas which has been described as historicist by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Humani generis. \"They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.\" \"There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.\"",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The social theory of Karl Marx, with respect to modern scholarship, has an ambiguous relation to historicism. Critics of Marx have understood his theory as historicist since its very genesis. However, the issue of historicism has been debated even among Marxists: the charge of historicism has been made against various types of Marxism, typically disparaged by Marxists as \"vulgar\" Marxism.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Marx himself expresses critical concerns with this historicist tendency in his Theses on Feuerbach:",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Western Marxists such as Karl Korsch, Antonio Gramsci and the early Georg Lukacs emphasise the roots of Marx's thought in Hegel. They interpret Marxism as an historically relativist philosophy, which views ideas (including Marxist theory) as necessary products of the historical epochs that create them. In this view, Marxism is not an objective social science, but rather a theoretical expression of the class consciousness of the working class within an historical process. This understanding of Marxism is strongly criticised by the structural Marxist Louis Althusser, who affirms that Marxism is an objective science, autonomous from interests of society and class.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Karl Popper used the term historicism in his influential books The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies, to mean: \"an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms' or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends' that underlie the evolution of history\". Popper condemned historicism along with the determinism and holism which he argued formed its basis, claiming that historicism had the potential to inform dogmatic, ideological beliefs not predicated upon facts that were falsifiable. In The Poverty of Historicism, he identified historicism with the opinion that there are \"inexorable laws of historical destiny\", an opinion he warned against. If this seems to contrast with what proponents of historicism argue for, in terms of contextually relative interpretation, this happens, according to Popper, only because such proponents are unaware of the type of causality they ascribe to history. Popper wrote with reference to Hegel's theory of history, which he criticized extensively.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper attacks \"historicism\" and its proponents, among whom (as well as Hegel) he identifies and singles out Plato and Marx—calling them all \"enemies of the open society\". The objection he makes is that historicist positions, by claiming that there is an inevitable and deterministic pattern to history, abrogate the democratic responsibility of the individual to make free contributions to the evolution of society, hence leading to totalitarianism. Throughout this work, he defines his conception of historicism as: \"The central historicist doctrine—the doctrine that history is controlled by specific historical or evolutionary laws whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man.\"",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Another of his targets is what he terms \"moral historicism\", the attempt to infer moral values from the course of history; in Hegel's words, that \"history is the world's court of justice\". Popper says that he does not believe \"that success proves anything or that history is our judge\". Futurism must be distinguished from prophecies that the right will prevail: these attempt to infer history from ethics, rather than ethics from history, and are therefore historicism in the normal sense rather than moral historicism.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "He also attacks what he calls \"Historism\", which he regards as distinct from historicism. By historism, he means the tendency to regard every argument or idea as completely accounted for by its historical context, as opposed to assessing it by its merits.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Leo Strauss used the term historicism and reportedly termed it the single greatest threat to intellectual freedom insofar as it denies any attempt to address injustice-pure-and-simple (such is the significance of historicism's rejection of \"natural right\" or \"right by nature\"). Strauss argued that historicism \"rejects political philosophy\" (insofar as this stands or falls by questions of permanent, trans-historical significance) and is based on the belief that \"all human thought, including scientific thought, rests on premises which cannot be validated by human reason and which came from historical epoch to historical epoch.\" Strauss further identified R. G. Collingwood as the most coherent advocate of historicism in the English language. Countering Collingwood's arguments, Strauss warned against historicist social scientists' failure to address real-life problems—most notably that of tyranny—to the extent that they relativize (or \"subjectivize\") all ethical problems by placing their significance strictly in function of particular or ever-changing socio-material conditions devoid of inherent or \"objective\" \"value\". Similarly, Strauss criticized Eric Voegelin's abandonment of ancient political thought as guide or vehicle in interpreting modern political problems.",
"title": "Critics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In his books, Natural Right and History and On Tyranny, Strauss offers a complete critique of historicism as it emerges in the works of Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. Many believe that Strauss also found historicism in Edmund Burke, Tocqueville, Augustine, and John Stuart Mill. Although it is largely disputed whether Strauss himself was a historicist, he often indicated that historicism grew out of and against Christianity and was a threat to civic participation, belief in human agency, religious pluralism, and, most controversially, an accurate understanding of the classical philosophers and religious prophets themselves. Throughout his work, he warns that historicism, and the understanding of progress that results from it, expose us to tyranny, totalitarianism, and democratic extremism. In his exchange with Alexandre Kojève in On Tyranny, Strauss seems to blame historicism for Nazism and Communism. In a collection of his works by Kenneth Hart entitled Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, he argues that Islam, traditional Judaism, and ancient Greece, share a concern for sacred law that makes them especially susceptible to historicism, and therefore to tyranny. Strauss makes use of Nietzsche's own critique of progress and historicism, although Strauss refers to Nietzsche himself (no less than to Heidegger) as a \"radical historicist\" who articulated a philosophical (if only untenable) justification for historicism.",
"title": "Critics"
}
]
| Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices, by studying their history; that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. This historical approach to explanation differs from and complements the approach known as functionalism, which seeks to explain a phenomenon, such as for example a social form, by providing reasoned arguments about how that social form fulfills some function in the structure of a society. In contrast, rather than taking the phenomenon as a given and then seeking to provide a justification for it from reasoned principles, the historical approach asks "Where did this come from?" and "What factors led up to its creation?"; that is, historical explanations often place a greater emphasis on the role of process and contingency. Historicism is often used to help contextualize theories and narratives, and is a useful tool to help understand how social and cultural phenomena came to be. The historicist approach differs from individualist theories of knowledge such as strict empiricism and de-contextualised rationalism, which neglect the role of traditions. Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist theories—which assume that all developments can be explained by fundamental principles—or with theories that posit that historical changes occur entirely at random. | 2001-12-24T18:26:01Z | 2023-12-23T22:39:25Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicism |
14,330 | Hunter College | Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School.
Hunter was founded in 1870 as a women's college; it first admitted male freshmen in 1946. The main campus has been located on Park Avenue since 1873. In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated Franklin Delano Roosevelt's and her former townhouse to the college; the building was reopened in 2010 as the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The institution has a 57% undergraduate graduation rate within six years.
Hunter College has its origins in the 19th-century movement for normal school training which swept across the United States. Hunter descends from the Female Normal and High School, established in New York City in 1870. It was founded by Thomas Hunter from Ardglass in County Down. He was an exile from Ireland because of his nationalist beliefs. Hunter was president of the school during the first 37 years. It was originally a women's college for training teachers. The school, which was housed in an armory and saddle store at Broadway and East Fourth Street in Manhattan, was open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background. At the time most women's colleges had racial or ethno-religious admissions criteria.
Created by the New York State Legislature, Hunter was deemed the only approved institution for those seeking to teach in New York City. The school incorporated an elementary and high school for gifted children, where students practiced teaching. In 1887, a kindergarten was established as well. (Today, the elementary school and the high school still exist at a different location, and are now called the Hunter College Campus Schools.)
During Thomas Hunter's tenure as president of the school, Hunter became known for its impartiality regarding race, religion, ethnicity, financial or political favoritism; its pursuit of higher education for women; its high entry requirements; and its rigorous academics. The first female professor at the school, Helen Gray Cone, was elected to the position in 1899. The college's student population quickly expanded, and the college subsequently moved uptown, in 1873, into a new red brick Gothic structure facing Park Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. It was one of several public institutions built at the time on a Lenox Hill lot that had been set aside by the city for a park, before the creation of Central Park.
In 1888, the school was incorporated as a college, taking on the name Normal College of the City of New York, under the statutes of New York State, with the power to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees. This led to the separation of the school into two "camps": the "Normals", who pursued a four-year course of study to become licensed teachers, and the "Academics", who sought non-teaching professions and the Bachelor of Arts degree. After 1902 when the "Normal" course of study was abolished, the "Academic" course became standard across the student body.
In 1913 the east end of the building, housing the elementary school, was replaced by Thomas Hunter Hall, a new limestone Tudor building facing Lexington Avenue and designed by C. B. J. Snyder. The following year the Normal College became Hunter College in honor of its first president. At the same time, the college was experiencing a period of great expansion as increasing student enrollments necessitated more space. The college reacted by establishing branches in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. By 1920, Hunter College had the largest enrollment of women of any municipally financed college in the United States. In 1930, Hunter's Brooklyn campus merged with City College's Brooklyn campus, and the two were spun off to form Brooklyn College.
In 1936 fire destroyed the 1873 Gothic building facing Park Avenue, and by 1940 the Public Works Administration replaced it with the Modernist north building, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon along with Harrison & Fouilhoux.
The late 1930s saw the construction of Hunter College in the Bronx (later known as the Bronx Campus). During the Second World War, Hunter leased the Bronx Campus buildings to the United States Navy who used the facilities to train 95,000 women volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS. When the Navy vacated the campus, the site was briefly occupied by the nascent United Nations, which held its first Security Council sessions at the Bronx Campus in 1946, giving the school an international profile.
In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated a town house at 47–49 East 65th Street in Manhattan to the college. The house had been a home for the future President and First Lady. The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College opened at that location in fall 2010 as an academic center hosting prominent speakers.
Hunter became the women's college of the municipal system, and in the 1950s, when City College became coeducational, Hunter started admitting men to its Bronx campus. In 1964, the Manhattan campus began admitting men also. The Bronx campus subsequently became Lehman College in 1968.
In 1968–1969, Black and Puerto Rican students struggled to get a department that would teach about their history and experience. These and supportive students and faculty expressed this demand through building take-overs, rallies, etc. In Spring 1969, Hunter College established Black and Puerto Rican Studies (now called Africana/Puerto Rican and Latino Studies). An "open admissions" policy initiated in 1970 by the City University of New York opened the school's doors to historically underrepresented groups by guaranteeing a college education to any and all who graduated from NYC high schools. Many African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Puerto Ricans, and students from the developing world made their presence felt at Hunter, and even after the end of "open admissions" still comprise a large part of the school's student body. As a result of this increase in enrollment, Hunter opened new buildings on Lexington Avenue during the early 1980s. In further advancing Puerto Rican studies, Hunter became home to the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños ("Center for Puerto Rican Studies" or simply "Centro") in 1982.
Today, Hunter College is a comprehensive teaching and research institution. Of the more than 20,000 students enrolled at Hunter, nearly 5,000 are enrolled in a graduate program, the most popular of which are education and social work. Although less than 28% of students are the first in their families to attend college, the institution maintains its tradition of concern for women's education, with nearly three out of four students being female. In 2006, Hunter became home to the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, which has training programs for young women to build their leadership, public speaking, business and advocacy skills.
In recent years, the institution has integrated its undergraduate and graduate programs to successfully make advanced programs in fields such as (Psychology and Biology) – "PhD Program", (Education) – "Master's Program", (Mathematics) – "Master's Program", -"PhD Program" (Biology & Chemistry) – "Biochemistry", (Accounting) – "Master's Program" along with the highly competitive (Economics) – "Master's Program" to which only a select few students may enter based on excellent scholarship and performance, and less than half will earn a master's degree by maintaining a nearly perfect academic record and performing thesis research.
Although far from the polar regions, Hunter is a member institution of the University of the Arctic, a network of schools providing education accessible to northern students.
Hunter College is anchored by its main campus at East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, a modern complex of three towers – the East, West, and North Buildings – and Thomas Hunter Hall, all interconnected by skywalks. The institution's official street address is 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. (Formerly bearing the ZIP code of 10021, the code changed on July 1, 2007, in accordance with the United States Postal Service's plan to split the 10021 ZIP code.) The address is based on the North Building, which stretches from 68th to 69th Streets along Park Avenue.
The main campus is situated two blocks east of Central Park, near many of New York's most prestigious cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asia Society Museum, and the Frick Collection. The New York City Subway's 68th Street–Hunter College station (6 and <6> trains) on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is directly underneath, and serves the entire campus. Adjacent to the staircase to the station, in front of the West Building, sat an iconic Hunter sculpture, "Tau", created by late Hunter professor and respected artist Tony Smith. The sculpture has been removed as of October 2018 due to restoration purposes.
The main campus is home to the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education. It features numerous facilities that serve not only Hunter, but the surrounding community, and is well known as a center for the arts. The Assembly Hall, which seats more than 2,000, is a major performance site; the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, a 675-seat proscenium theatre, has over 100,000 visitors annually and hosts over 200 performances each season; the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall is a fully equipped concert space with 148 seats; the Frederick Loewe Theatre, a 50 x 54-foot (16 m) black box performance space is the site of most department performances; and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery hosts professionally organized art exhibits.
Students have access to specialized learning facilities at the main campus, including the Dolciani Mathematics Learning Center, the Leona and Marcy Chanin Language Center, and the Physical Sciences Learning Center. Hunter has numerous research laboratories in the natural and biomedical sciences. These labs accommodate post-docs, PhD students from the CUNY Graduate School, and undergraduate researchers.
College sports and recreational programs are served by the Hunter Sportsplex, located below the West Building.
Hunter has two satellite campuses: The Silberman School of Social Work Building, located on third Avenue between East 118th and East 119th Streets, which houses the School of Social Work, the School of Urban Public Health, and the Brookdale Center on Aging; and the Brookdale Campus, located at East 25th Street and first Avenue, which houses the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, the Schools of the Health Professions, the Health Professions Library and several research centers and computer labs.
The Brookdale Campus is the site of the Hunter dormitory, which is home to over 600 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a limited number of nurses employed at Bellevue Hospital. Prior to the opening of City College's new "Towers," the Brookdale complex was the City University's only dormitory facility. In October 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the Brookdale Campus would be replaced by the CUNY Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC), with construction set to begin in 2026. The 2,000,000-square-foot (190,000 m) campus is planned to contain space for Hunter College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.
The institution owns and operates property outside of its main campuses, including the MFA Building at 205 Hudson, Roosevelt House, Baker Theatre Building, Silberman School of Social Work, and the Hunter College Campus Schools. The MFA Studio Art program was formerly run out of a building on West 41st Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. It was a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m) industrial space that students converted to studio space for the college's BFA and MFA program. The current building in Tribeca now houses the Studio Art and Integrated Media Arts MFA program, and Art History MA program. Roosevelt House, located on East 65th Street, is the historic family home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hunter's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is now located there, honoring the public policy commitments of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Baker Theatre Building located on 149 East 67th Street, New York, NY 10065 is the home of Hunter's Department of Theatre thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Hunter trustee Patty Baker ’82 and her husband, Jay. The Silberman School of Social Work is located between 118th and 119th streets on 3rd Avenue. The Hunter Campus Schools—Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School—are publicly funded schools for the intellectually gifted. Located at East 94th Street, the Campus Schools are among the nation's oldest and largest elementary and secondary schools of their kind.
The Leon & Toby Cooperman Library entrance is located on the third-floor walkway level of the East Building. The Cooperman Library has individual and group study rooms, special facilities for students with disabilities, networked computer classrooms and labs for word processing and internet access.
The Social Work & Urban Public Health Library, located on the main floor of the Silberman Building, (SWUPHL) serves the academic and research needs of the Silberman School of Social Work as well as Hunter’s Urban Public Health, Community Health Education, and Nutrition programs.
The onsite, physical collection includes 55,000 books and journals as well as audio-visual materials. Silberman patrons have remote access to the Hunter Libraries electronic collections which include 250,000 full-text eBooks, 100,000 eJournals, and over 300 electronic databases. SWUPHL is a pick-up/drop-off site for the CUNY intra-library loan system (CLICS) that facilitates the sharing of books between all the CUNY libraries. In addition, SWUPHL participates in the national interlibrary loan program for academic libraries. These reciprocal agreements allow the patrons of SWUPHL extensive access to a multitude of collections.
The SWUPHL Faculty provide drop-in and by-appointment reference services, research consultations, classroom and individual instruction. The library has 6 group study rooms, group and silent study areas, desktop computers, a laptop computer loan program, photocopiers, printing stations, and a book scanner.
The Judith and Stanley Zabar Art Library, dedicated in December 2008, was made possible through the support of Judith Zabar, a member of the Hunter College Class of 1954, and her husband Stanley Zabar.
Hunter is organized into four schools: The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Health Professions, and the School of Social Work. The institution had an undergraduate admissions acceptance rate of 36% in Fall 2018. Hunter offers 70 programs leading to a BA or BS degree; 10 BA-MA joint degree programs; and 75 graduate programs.
Students at Hunter may study within the fields of fine arts, the humanities, the language arts, the sciences, the social sciences, and the applied arts and sciences, as well as in professional areas in accounting, education, health sciences, and nursing. Regardless of area of concentration, all undergraduate Hunter students are encouraged to have broad exposure to the liberal arts; Hunter was one of the first colleges in the nation to pass a 12-credit curriculum requirement for pluralism and diversity courses.
As of 2007, Hunter had 673 full-time and 886 part-time faculty members, and 20,844 students—15,718 undergraduates and 5,126 graduates. Over 50% of Hunter's students belong to ethnic minority groups. The class of 2011 represented 60 countries and speaks 59 different languages. Seventy-one percent of these students were born outside the United States or have at least one foreign-born parent. SAT and high school GPA scores for the entering Fall 2012 class of freshmen had an SAT score 25th–75th percentile range of 1090 to 1280 and high school GPA 25th–75th percentile range of 85% to 92%.
Hunter College rankings are as follows:
National
ARWU: 187–200
Forbes: 129
THE/WSJ: 256
QS: 151–160
CWUR: 218
Regional
U.S. News & World Report: 18
Washington Monthly: 37
Graduate Program in Fine Arts
In the most recent edition of U.S. News & World Report Ranking of Graduate Fine Arts Programs, Hunter has been ranked 23rd best in the United States. Hunter's MFA Programs in Studio Art (Painting and Sculpture) and Studio Art (Painting and Drawing) have both been ranked ninth best in the nation. In 2017, Artsy included Hunter's in the list of "Top 15 Art Schools in the United States." The admission to Hunter's MFA Programs in Studio Art is highly competitive, with the average acceptance rate of 8% as of 2018.
Hunter offers several honors programs, including the Macaulay Honors College and the Thomas Hunter Honors Program. The Macaulay Honors College, a CUNY-wide honors program, supports the undergraduate education of academically gifted students. University Scholars benefit from a full tuition scholarship (up to the value of in-state tuition only as of Fall 2013, effectively restricting it to NY state residents), personalized advising, early registration, access to internships, and study abroad opportunities. All scholars at Hunter are given the choice of either a free dormitory room at the Brookdale Campus for two years or a yearly stipend.
The Thomas Hunter Honors Program offers topical interdisciplinary seminars and academic concentrations designed to meet students’ individual interests. The program is open to outstanding students pursuing a BA and is orchestrated under the supervision of an Honors Council. It can be combined with, or replace, a formal departmental major/minor.
Hunter offers other honors programs, including Honors Research Training Programs and Departmental Honors opportunities, The Freshmen Honors Scholar Programs inclusive of the Athena Scholar program, Daedalus Scholar program, Muse Scholar program, Nursing Scholar program, Roosevelt Scholar program, and the Yalow Scholar program.
In addition to these honors programs, several honors societies are based at Hunter, including Phi Beta Kappa (PBK). A small percentage of Hunter students are invited to join Hunter's Nu chapter of PBK, which has existed at the college since 1920.
The Hunter College student body is governed by the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Association (GSA),.
Hunter offers approximately 150 clubs. These organizations range from the academic to the athletic, and from the religious/spiritual to the visual and performing arts. There are clubs based on specific interests, such as "Russian Club", which offers a look at Russian life and culture and "InterVarsity Christian Fellowship" an organization whose vision is to "transform students and faculty, renew the campus, and develop world changers."
National – Social
National – Service
Local – Social
Local – Service
Non-Greek
Hunter College has a campus radio station, WHCS, which once broadcast at 590AM but is now solely online. The Envoy is the main campus newspaper, published bi-weekly during the academic year. Its literary and art magazine The Olivetree Review offers opportunities for publishing student prose, poetry, drama, and art. Other publications include Culture Magazine (fashion and lifestyle), Hunted Hero Comics (comics and graphic stories), The Photographer's Collective (photography), Nursing Student Press (medical news and articles), Spoon University (culinary online publication), Psych News (psychology), The Wistarion (yearbook), SABOR (Spanish language and photography/now defunct), Revista De La Academia (Spanish language/now defunct), the Islamic Times (now defunct), Political Paradigm (political science/now defunct), Hakol (Jewish interest/now defunct), and Spoof (humor/now defunct).
Past publications also include The WORD (news) and Hunter Anonymous.
Hunter is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and competes at the Division III level.
The mascot is the Hawks. Hunter plays in the City University of New York Athletic Conference.
The basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams play at the Hunter Sportsplex.
As a partnership with the New York City Department of Education, the Manhattan/Hunter College High School for Sciences (not to be confused with the elite Hunter College High School, above) was opened in 2003 on the campus of the former Martin Luther King, Jr. High School on the Upper West Side. Unlike Hunter's campus schools, Hunter Science does not require an entrance exam for admission.
This list covers alumni in visual, musical, and performing arts.
Informational notes
Citations | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hunter was founded in 1870 as a women's college; it first admitted male freshmen in 1946. The main campus has been located on Park Avenue since 1873. In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated Franklin Delano Roosevelt's and her former townhouse to the college; the building was reopened in 2010 as the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The institution has a 57% undergraduate graduation rate within six years.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hunter College has its origins in the 19th-century movement for normal school training which swept across the United States. Hunter descends from the Female Normal and High School, established in New York City in 1870. It was founded by Thomas Hunter from Ardglass in County Down. He was an exile from Ireland because of his nationalist beliefs. Hunter was president of the school during the first 37 years. It was originally a women's college for training teachers. The school, which was housed in an armory and saddle store at Broadway and East Fourth Street in Manhattan, was open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background. At the time most women's colleges had racial or ethno-religious admissions criteria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Created by the New York State Legislature, Hunter was deemed the only approved institution for those seeking to teach in New York City. The school incorporated an elementary and high school for gifted children, where students practiced teaching. In 1887, a kindergarten was established as well. (Today, the elementary school and the high school still exist at a different location, and are now called the Hunter College Campus Schools.)",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "During Thomas Hunter's tenure as president of the school, Hunter became known for its impartiality regarding race, religion, ethnicity, financial or political favoritism; its pursuit of higher education for women; its high entry requirements; and its rigorous academics. The first female professor at the school, Helen Gray Cone, was elected to the position in 1899. The college's student population quickly expanded, and the college subsequently moved uptown, in 1873, into a new red brick Gothic structure facing Park Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. It was one of several public institutions built at the time on a Lenox Hill lot that had been set aside by the city for a park, before the creation of Central Park.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1888, the school was incorporated as a college, taking on the name Normal College of the City of New York, under the statutes of New York State, with the power to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees. This led to the separation of the school into two \"camps\": the \"Normals\", who pursued a four-year course of study to become licensed teachers, and the \"Academics\", who sought non-teaching professions and the Bachelor of Arts degree. After 1902 when the \"Normal\" course of study was abolished, the \"Academic\" course became standard across the student body.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1913 the east end of the building, housing the elementary school, was replaced by Thomas Hunter Hall, a new limestone Tudor building facing Lexington Avenue and designed by C. B. J. Snyder. The following year the Normal College became Hunter College in honor of its first president. At the same time, the college was experiencing a period of great expansion as increasing student enrollments necessitated more space. The college reacted by establishing branches in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. By 1920, Hunter College had the largest enrollment of women of any municipally financed college in the United States. In 1930, Hunter's Brooklyn campus merged with City College's Brooklyn campus, and the two were spun off to form Brooklyn College.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1936 fire destroyed the 1873 Gothic building facing Park Avenue, and by 1940 the Public Works Administration replaced it with the Modernist north building, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon along with Harrison & Fouilhoux.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The late 1930s saw the construction of Hunter College in the Bronx (later known as the Bronx Campus). During the Second World War, Hunter leased the Bronx Campus buildings to the United States Navy who used the facilities to train 95,000 women volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS. When the Navy vacated the campus, the site was briefly occupied by the nascent United Nations, which held its first Security Council sessions at the Bronx Campus in 1946, giving the school an international profile.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated a town house at 47–49 East 65th Street in Manhattan to the college. The house had been a home for the future President and First Lady. The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College opened at that location in fall 2010 as an academic center hosting prominent speakers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hunter became the women's college of the municipal system, and in the 1950s, when City College became coeducational, Hunter started admitting men to its Bronx campus. In 1964, the Manhattan campus began admitting men also. The Bronx campus subsequently became Lehman College in 1968.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1968–1969, Black and Puerto Rican students struggled to get a department that would teach about their history and experience. These and supportive students and faculty expressed this demand through building take-overs, rallies, etc. In Spring 1969, Hunter College established Black and Puerto Rican Studies (now called Africana/Puerto Rican and Latino Studies). An \"open admissions\" policy initiated in 1970 by the City University of New York opened the school's doors to historically underrepresented groups by guaranteeing a college education to any and all who graduated from NYC high schools. Many African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Puerto Ricans, and students from the developing world made their presence felt at Hunter, and even after the end of \"open admissions\" still comprise a large part of the school's student body. As a result of this increase in enrollment, Hunter opened new buildings on Lexington Avenue during the early 1980s. In further advancing Puerto Rican studies, Hunter became home to the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (\"Center for Puerto Rican Studies\" or simply \"Centro\") in 1982.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Today, Hunter College is a comprehensive teaching and research institution. Of the more than 20,000 students enrolled at Hunter, nearly 5,000 are enrolled in a graduate program, the most popular of which are education and social work. Although less than 28% of students are the first in their families to attend college, the institution maintains its tradition of concern for women's education, with nearly three out of four students being female. In 2006, Hunter became home to the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, which has training programs for young women to build their leadership, public speaking, business and advocacy skills.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In recent years, the institution has integrated its undergraduate and graduate programs to successfully make advanced programs in fields such as (Psychology and Biology) – \"PhD Program\", (Education) – \"Master's Program\", (Mathematics) – \"Master's Program\", -\"PhD Program\" (Biology & Chemistry) – \"Biochemistry\", (Accounting) – \"Master's Program\" along with the highly competitive (Economics) – \"Master's Program\" to which only a select few students may enter based on excellent scholarship and performance, and less than half will earn a master's degree by maintaining a nearly perfect academic record and performing thesis research.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Although far from the polar regions, Hunter is a member institution of the University of the Arctic, a network of schools providing education accessible to northern students.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hunter College is anchored by its main campus at East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, a modern complex of three towers – the East, West, and North Buildings – and Thomas Hunter Hall, all interconnected by skywalks. The institution's official street address is 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. (Formerly bearing the ZIP code of 10021, the code changed on July 1, 2007, in accordance with the United States Postal Service's plan to split the 10021 ZIP code.) The address is based on the North Building, which stretches from 68th to 69th Streets along Park Avenue.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The main campus is situated two blocks east of Central Park, near many of New York's most prestigious cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asia Society Museum, and the Frick Collection. The New York City Subway's 68th Street–Hunter College station (6 and <6> trains) on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is directly underneath, and serves the entire campus. Adjacent to the staircase to the station, in front of the West Building, sat an iconic Hunter sculpture, \"Tau\", created by late Hunter professor and respected artist Tony Smith. The sculpture has been removed as of October 2018 due to restoration purposes.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The main campus is home to the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education. It features numerous facilities that serve not only Hunter, but the surrounding community, and is well known as a center for the arts. The Assembly Hall, which seats more than 2,000, is a major performance site; the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, a 675-seat proscenium theatre, has over 100,000 visitors annually and hosts over 200 performances each season; the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall is a fully equipped concert space with 148 seats; the Frederick Loewe Theatre, a 50 x 54-foot (16 m) black box performance space is the site of most department performances; and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery hosts professionally organized art exhibits.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Students have access to specialized learning facilities at the main campus, including the Dolciani Mathematics Learning Center, the Leona and Marcy Chanin Language Center, and the Physical Sciences Learning Center. Hunter has numerous research laboratories in the natural and biomedical sciences. These labs accommodate post-docs, PhD students from the CUNY Graduate School, and undergraduate researchers.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "College sports and recreational programs are served by the Hunter Sportsplex, located below the West Building.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Hunter has two satellite campuses: The Silberman School of Social Work Building, located on third Avenue between East 118th and East 119th Streets, which houses the School of Social Work, the School of Urban Public Health, and the Brookdale Center on Aging; and the Brookdale Campus, located at East 25th Street and first Avenue, which houses the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, the Schools of the Health Professions, the Health Professions Library and several research centers and computer labs.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Brookdale Campus is the site of the Hunter dormitory, which is home to over 600 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a limited number of nurses employed at Bellevue Hospital. Prior to the opening of City College's new \"Towers,\" the Brookdale complex was the City University's only dormitory facility. In October 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the Brookdale Campus would be replaced by the CUNY Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC), with construction set to begin in 2026. The 2,000,000-square-foot (190,000 m) campus is planned to contain space for Hunter College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The institution owns and operates property outside of its main campuses, including the MFA Building at 205 Hudson, Roosevelt House, Baker Theatre Building, Silberman School of Social Work, and the Hunter College Campus Schools. The MFA Studio Art program was formerly run out of a building on West 41st Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. It was a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m) industrial space that students converted to studio space for the college's BFA and MFA program. The current building in Tribeca now houses the Studio Art and Integrated Media Arts MFA program, and Art History MA program. Roosevelt House, located on East 65th Street, is the historic family home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hunter's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute is now located there, honoring the public policy commitments of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Baker Theatre Building located on 149 East 67th Street, New York, NY 10065 is the home of Hunter's Department of Theatre thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Hunter trustee Patty Baker ’82 and her husband, Jay. The Silberman School of Social Work is located between 118th and 119th streets on 3rd Avenue. The Hunter Campus Schools—Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School—are publicly funded schools for the intellectually gifted. Located at East 94th Street, the Campus Schools are among the nation's oldest and largest elementary and secondary schools of their kind.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Leon & Toby Cooperman Library entrance is located on the third-floor walkway level of the East Building. The Cooperman Library has individual and group study rooms, special facilities for students with disabilities, networked computer classrooms and labs for word processing and internet access.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Social Work & Urban Public Health Library, located on the main floor of the Silberman Building, (SWUPHL) serves the academic and research needs of the Silberman School of Social Work as well as Hunter’s Urban Public Health, Community Health Education, and Nutrition programs.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The onsite, physical collection includes 55,000 books and journals as well as audio-visual materials. Silberman patrons have remote access to the Hunter Libraries electronic collections which include 250,000 full-text eBooks, 100,000 eJournals, and over 300 electronic databases. SWUPHL is a pick-up/drop-off site for the CUNY intra-library loan system (CLICS) that facilitates the sharing of books between all the CUNY libraries. In addition, SWUPHL participates in the national interlibrary loan program for academic libraries. These reciprocal agreements allow the patrons of SWUPHL extensive access to a multitude of collections.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The SWUPHL Faculty provide drop-in and by-appointment reference services, research consultations, classroom and individual instruction. The library has 6 group study rooms, group and silent study areas, desktop computers, a laptop computer loan program, photocopiers, printing stations, and a book scanner.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Judith and Stanley Zabar Art Library, dedicated in December 2008, was made possible through the support of Judith Zabar, a member of the Hunter College Class of 1954, and her husband Stanley Zabar.",
"title": "Campuses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Hunter is organized into four schools: The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Health Professions, and the School of Social Work. The institution had an undergraduate admissions acceptance rate of 36% in Fall 2018. Hunter offers 70 programs leading to a BA or BS degree; 10 BA-MA joint degree programs; and 75 graduate programs.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Students at Hunter may study within the fields of fine arts, the humanities, the language arts, the sciences, the social sciences, and the applied arts and sciences, as well as in professional areas in accounting, education, health sciences, and nursing. Regardless of area of concentration, all undergraduate Hunter students are encouraged to have broad exposure to the liberal arts; Hunter was one of the first colleges in the nation to pass a 12-credit curriculum requirement for pluralism and diversity courses.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "As of 2007, Hunter had 673 full-time and 886 part-time faculty members, and 20,844 students—15,718 undergraduates and 5,126 graduates. Over 50% of Hunter's students belong to ethnic minority groups. The class of 2011 represented 60 countries and speaks 59 different languages. Seventy-one percent of these students were born outside the United States or have at least one foreign-born parent. SAT and high school GPA scores for the entering Fall 2012 class of freshmen had an SAT score 25th–75th percentile range of 1090 to 1280 and high school GPA 25th–75th percentile range of 85% to 92%.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Hunter College rankings are as follows:",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "National",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "ARWU: 187–200",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Forbes: 129",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "THE/WSJ: 256",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "QS: 151–160",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "CWUR: 218",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Regional",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "U.S. News & World Report: 18",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Washington Monthly: 37",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Graduate Program in Fine Arts",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In the most recent edition of U.S. News & World Report Ranking of Graduate Fine Arts Programs, Hunter has been ranked 23rd best in the United States. Hunter's MFA Programs in Studio Art (Painting and Sculpture) and Studio Art (Painting and Drawing) have both been ranked ninth best in the nation. In 2017, Artsy included Hunter's in the list of \"Top 15 Art Schools in the United States.\" The admission to Hunter's MFA Programs in Studio Art is highly competitive, with the average acceptance rate of 8% as of 2018.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hunter offers several honors programs, including the Macaulay Honors College and the Thomas Hunter Honors Program. The Macaulay Honors College, a CUNY-wide honors program, supports the undergraduate education of academically gifted students. University Scholars benefit from a full tuition scholarship (up to the value of in-state tuition only as of Fall 2013, effectively restricting it to NY state residents), personalized advising, early registration, access to internships, and study abroad opportunities. All scholars at Hunter are given the choice of either a free dormitory room at the Brookdale Campus for two years or a yearly stipend.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Thomas Hunter Honors Program offers topical interdisciplinary seminars and academic concentrations designed to meet students’ individual interests. The program is open to outstanding students pursuing a BA and is orchestrated under the supervision of an Honors Council. It can be combined with, or replace, a formal departmental major/minor.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Hunter offers other honors programs, including Honors Research Training Programs and Departmental Honors opportunities, The Freshmen Honors Scholar Programs inclusive of the Athena Scholar program, Daedalus Scholar program, Muse Scholar program, Nursing Scholar program, Roosevelt Scholar program, and the Yalow Scholar program.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In addition to these honors programs, several honors societies are based at Hunter, including Phi Beta Kappa (PBK). A small percentage of Hunter students are invited to join Hunter's Nu chapter of PBK, which has existed at the college since 1920.",
"title": "Academics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Hunter College student body is governed by the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate Student Association (GSA),.",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hunter offers approximately 150 clubs. These organizations range from the academic to the athletic, and from the religious/spiritual to the visual and performing arts. There are clubs based on specific interests, such as \"Russian Club\", which offers a look at Russian life and culture and \"InterVarsity Christian Fellowship\" an organization whose vision is to \"transform students and faculty, renew the campus, and develop world changers.\"",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "National – Social",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "National – Service",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Local – Social",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Local – Service",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Non-Greek",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Hunter College has a campus radio station, WHCS, which once broadcast at 590AM but is now solely online. The Envoy is the main campus newspaper, published bi-weekly during the academic year. Its literary and art magazine The Olivetree Review offers opportunities for publishing student prose, poetry, drama, and art. Other publications include Culture Magazine (fashion and lifestyle), Hunted Hero Comics (comics and graphic stories), The Photographer's Collective (photography), Nursing Student Press (medical news and articles), Spoon University (culinary online publication), Psych News (psychology), The Wistarion (yearbook), SABOR (Spanish language and photography/now defunct), Revista De La Academia (Spanish language/now defunct), the Islamic Times (now defunct), Political Paradigm (political science/now defunct), Hakol (Jewish interest/now defunct), and Spoof (humor/now defunct).",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Past publications also include The WORD (news) and Hunter Anonymous.",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Hunter is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and competes at the Division III level.",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The mascot is the Hawks. Hunter plays in the City University of New York Athletic Conference.",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams play at the Hunter Sportsplex.",
"title": "Student life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "As a partnership with the New York City Department of Education, the Manhattan/Hunter College High School for Sciences (not to be confused with the elite Hunter College High School, above) was opened in 2003 on the campus of the former Martin Luther King, Jr. High School on the Upper West Side. Unlike Hunter's campus schools, Hunter Science does not require an entrance exam for admission.",
"title": "Manhattan/Hunter College Science High School"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "This list covers alumni in visual, musical, and performing arts.",
"title": "Notable alumni"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Informational notes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Citations",
"title": "References"
}
]
| Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School. Hunter was founded in 1870 as a women's college; it first admitted male freshmen in 1946. The main campus has been located on Park Avenue since 1873. In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated Franklin Delano Roosevelt's and her former townhouse to the college; the building was reopened in 2010 as the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The institution has a 57% undergraduate graduation rate within six years. | 2001-12-24T18:36:36Z | 2023-12-26T04:50:59Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_College |
14,331 | Harry Shearer | Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, musician, radio host, writer, and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.
Shearer was a cast member on Saturday Night Live between 1979 and 1980, and 1984 and 1985. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984), a satirical rockumentary, which became a hit. In 1989, he joined the cast of the animated sitcom The Simpsons; he provides voices for characters including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, formerly Dr. Hibbert, and more. Shearer has appeared in films including The Truman Show (1998) and A Mighty Wind (2003), and has directed two, Teddy Bears' Picnic (2002) and The Big Uneasy (2010). Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show, incorporating satire, music, and sketch comedy. He has written three books.
Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He became an artist in residence at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2013.
Shearer was born December 23, 1943, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Dora, a bookkeeper, and Mack Shearer. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland. Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, since she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show The Jack Benny Program. Shearer received the role when he was seven years old. He described Jack Benny as "very warm and approachable ... He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy." Shearer said in an interview that one person who took him "under his wing" and was his mentor during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble. Shearer made his film debut in the film Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953), in which he had a small part, and appeared in The Robe (also 1953). Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio.
In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series Leave It to Beaver. After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network.
Shearer graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a "serious person". However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's school newspaper, during his first year. He was editor of the college humor magazine (Satyr), including the June 1964 parody Preyboy. He also worked as a newscaster at KRLA, a top 40 radio station in Pasadena, during this period. According to Shearer, after graduating, he had "a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out of the Draft'." He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968, he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following "disagreements with the administration".
From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean. The group consisted of "a bunch of newsmen" at KRLA 1110, "the number two station" in Los Angeles. They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about the group from a friend, so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. He found out he was hired that same day. The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues. While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the Pop Chronicles music documentary.
In 1973, Shearer appeared as Jim Houseafire on How Time Flys, an album by The Firesign Theatre's David Ossman. The Credibility Gap broke up in 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley. Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film Real Life (1979). Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night. In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up.
In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, one of the first additions to the show's original 1975 cast. Recommended by Al Franken to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, the acquisition of Shearer was seen as an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show.
Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and "not a real pleasant place to work." He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage (although he was added to the montage for later episodes of the 1979–80 season) and that Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was "just a writer".
Michaels left Saturday Night Live at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him. Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was "not a fan of Lorne's" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast.
When I left, Dick [Ebersol] issued a press release, saying "creative differences." And the first person who called me for a comment on it read me that and I blurted out, "Yeah, I was creative and they were different."
—Harry Shearer
In 1984, while promoting the film This Is Spinal Tap, Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean performed on Saturday Night Live. All three members were offered the chance to join the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved but later stated that he "didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars." Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1994.
Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was "a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person." In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good, partially because he felt he was not being used enough. Martin Short said Shearer "wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol] wanted something else. ... I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset."
Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's film This Is Spinal Tap (1984). Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20-minute demo of what they wanted to do. It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed. It was filmed in 25 days.
Shearer said in an interview that "The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right." When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, "No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know," so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public. The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and developed a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Break Like the Wind (1992) and Back from the Dead (2009). In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of The Simpsons called "The Otto Show". The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled Spinal Tap. In 2009, the band released Back from the Dead to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film. The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in This Is Spinal Tap and its soundtrack, and five new songs. The band performed a one-date "world tour" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film A Mighty Wind that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest, was the opening act for the show.
Shearer is known for his work as a voice actor on The Simpsons. Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write. When approached by Groening to be in the series, Shearer was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt that voice acting was "not a lot of fun" as, traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He was told that the actors would record their lines together, and after three phone calls for executive producer James L. Brooks, Shearer was convinced to join the cast of The Simpsons. Shearer's first impression of The Simpsons was that it was funny. He – who thought it was a "pretty cool" way to work – found it peculiar that his fellow cast members were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices.
Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, formerly Dr. Hibbert until 2021, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Scratchy, Kang, Dr. Marvin Monroe, and Judge Snyder, among others. He has described all of his regular characters' voices as "easy to slip into. ... I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy." Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan. Shearer says that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice. He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he "like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil." Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. In the episode "Bart's Inner Child", Shearer said "wow" in the voice of Otto, which was then used when Otto was seen jumping on a trampoline. Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer Simpson was jealous of, but because Shearer used "such a sweet voice" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer. Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice was based on psychiatrist David Viscott. Monroe has been largely retired since the seventh season barring a few cameo appearances because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat.
In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now." Shearer has also been vocal about "The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, episode two, 1997), one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." In a December 2006 interview, Shearer added, "Now, [the writers] refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing [the audience] for paying attention."
Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all. In a 2010 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Shearer alluded that the reason he was not part of the ride was because he would not be getting paid for it. Similarly, Shearer was unable to appear in the Family Guy crossover episode "The Simpsons Guy" due to further scheduling conflicts. Therefore, his characters are again mute. When asked about how he felt about the crossover, Shearer replied, "Matter and anti-matter."
Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The dispute was resolved a month later, and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30% pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. On May 14, 2015, Shearer announced he was leaving the show. After the other voice actors signed a contract for the same pay, Shearer refused, stating it was not enough. Al Jean made a statement from the producers saying "the show must go on," but did not elaborate on what might happen to the characters Shearer voiced. On July 7, 2015, Shearer agreed to continue with the show, on the same terms as the other voice actors.
Shearer is also known for his work as a narrator on Wild Discovery.
Because I don't do stand-up, radio has always been my equivalent, a place to stay in connection with the public and force myself to write every week and come up with new characters. Plus it's a medium that – having grown up with it and putting myself to sleep with a radio under my pillow [as a kid] – I love. No matter what picture you want to create in the listener's mind, a few minutes of work gets it done.
—Harry Shearer
Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show. The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the "mega morons of the mighty media". It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States. Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either. The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes and by WWNO. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called Songs of the Bushmen, consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on Le Show. Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that "the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place" and that "everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way."
Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on Saturday Night Live, Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. "I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it's wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting – but it's always good," said Shearer. He collects this material and uses it on Le Show and on his website. In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled "The Silent Echo Chamber" which was exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.
In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Not Today, Thank You, playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence. He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit. On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.
Shearer's first feature film as director, Teddy Bears' Picnic, which he also wrote, was released in 2002. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying "generally negative reviews") on Metacritic from 10 reviews. In 2003, he co-wrote J. Edgar! The Musical with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson. It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman.
Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary A Mighty Wind (2003), portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest. Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking For Your Consideration released in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award. He also appeared as a news anchor in Godzilla (1998) with fellow The Simpsons cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright. His other film appearances include The Right Stuff (1983), The Fisher King (1991), The Truman Show (1998), Small Soldiers (also 1998), and EdTV (1999). He also directed and appeared in the television program Portrait of a White Marriage (1988), a sequel to The History of White People in America.
Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, but decided that it "became such a waste of time to bother with it." His columns have also been published in Slate and Newsweek. Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. Shearer has written three books. Man Bites Town, published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for The Los Angeles Times between 1989 and 1992. Published in 1999, It's the Stupidity, Stupid analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton. Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with "the least powerful, least credentialed woman cleared into his official compound." His most recent book is Not Enough Indians, his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling. Without the "pleasures of collaboration" and "spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects", Not Enough Indians was a "struggle" for Shearer to write. He said that "the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline."
Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: It Must Have Been Something I Said (1994), Dropping Anchors (2006), Songs Pointed and Pointless (2007), Songs of the Bushmen (2008) and Greed and Fear (2010). His most recent CD, Greed and Fear is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown – when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just ... understanding." In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College.
Shearer is the director of The Big Uneasy (2010), a documentary film about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Narrated by actor John Goodman, the film describes levee failures and catastrophic flooding in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and includes extended interviews with former LSU professor Ivor Van Heerden, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Maria Garzino, an engineer and contract specialist for the Los Angeles district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The film is critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its management of flood protection projects in Southern Louisiana. Shearer draws on numerous technical experts to maintain that Hurricane Katrina's "... tragic floods creating widespread damage were caused by manmade errors in engineering and judgment." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Big Uneasy offers an admittedly uneven – yet still worthy and well-intentioned – look at a horrific disaster's aftermath."
Shearer married folk singer Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to Welsh singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records. Shearer primarily resides in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, but has homes in Santa Monica, California and Notting Hill, London. He first went to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since.
Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, blasting the coverage of it in the mainstream media and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to the DVD release of his film, The Big Uneasy, Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members.
Shearer was the last of the six regular voice actors from The Simpsons to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. His win came for the season 25 episode "Four Regrettings and a Funeral". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, musician, radio host, writer, and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Shearer was a cast member on Saturday Night Live between 1979 and 1980, and 1984 and 1985. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984), a satirical rockumentary, which became a hit. In 1989, he joined the cast of the animated sitcom The Simpsons; he provides voices for characters including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, formerly Dr. Hibbert, and more. Shearer has appeared in films including The Truman Show (1998) and A Mighty Wind (2003), and has directed two, Teddy Bears' Picnic (2002) and The Big Uneasy (2010). Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show, incorporating satire, music, and sketch comedy. He has written three books.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He became an artist in residence at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2013.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Shearer was born December 23, 1943, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Dora, a bookkeeper, and Mack Shearer. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland. Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, since she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show The Jack Benny Program. Shearer received the role when he was seven years old. He described Jack Benny as \"very warm and approachable ... He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy.\" Shearer said in an interview that one person who took him \"under his wing\" and was his mentor during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble. Shearer made his film debut in the film Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953), in which he had a small part, and appeared in The Robe (also 1953). Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series Leave It to Beaver. After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Shearer graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a \"serious person\". However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's school newspaper, during his first year. He was editor of the college humor magazine (Satyr), including the June 1964 parody Preyboy. He also worked as a newscaster at KRLA, a top 40 radio station in Pasadena, during this period. According to Shearer, after graduating, he had \"a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out of the Draft'.\" He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968, he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following \"disagreements with the administration\".",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean. The group consisted of \"a bunch of newsmen\" at KRLA 1110, \"the number two station\" in Los Angeles. They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about the group from a friend, so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. He found out he was hired that same day. The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues. While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the Pop Chronicles music documentary.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1973, Shearer appeared as Jim Houseafire on How Time Flys, an album by The Firesign Theatre's David Ossman. The Credibility Gap broke up in 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley. Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film Real Life (1979). Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night. In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, one of the first additions to the show's original 1975 cast. Recommended by Al Franken to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, the acquisition of Shearer was seen as an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Shearer describes his experience on the show as a \"living hell\" and \"not a real pleasant place to work.\" He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage (although he was added to the montage for later episodes of the 1979–80 season) and that Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was \"just a writer\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Michaels left Saturday Night Live at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him. Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was \"not a fan of Lorne's\" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "When I left, Dick [Ebersol] issued a press release, saying \"creative differences.\" And the first person who called me for a comment on it read me that and I blurted out, \"Yeah, I was creative and they were different.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "—Harry Shearer",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1984, while promoting the film This Is Spinal Tap, Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean performed on Saturday Night Live. All three members were offered the chance to join the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved but later stated that he \"didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars.\" Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1994.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was \"a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person.\" In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good, partially because he felt he was not being used enough. Martin Short said Shearer \"wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol] wanted something else. ... I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's film This Is Spinal Tap (1984). Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20-minute demo of what they wanted to do. It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed. It was filmed in 25 days.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Shearer said in an interview that \"The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right.\" When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, \"No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know,\" so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public. The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and developed a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Break Like the Wind (1992) and Back from the Dead (2009). In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of The Simpsons called \"The Otto Show\". The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled Spinal Tap. In 2009, the band released Back from the Dead to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film. The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in This Is Spinal Tap and its soundtrack, and five new songs. The band performed a one-date \"world tour\" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film A Mighty Wind that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest, was the opening act for the show.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Shearer is known for his work as a voice actor on The Simpsons. Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write. When approached by Groening to be in the series, Shearer was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt that voice acting was \"not a lot of fun\" as, traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He was told that the actors would record their lines together, and after three phone calls for executive producer James L. Brooks, Shearer was convinced to join the cast of The Simpsons. Shearer's first impression of The Simpsons was that it was funny. He – who thought it was a \"pretty cool\" way to work – found it peculiar that his fellow cast members were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, formerly Dr. Hibbert until 2021, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Scratchy, Kang, Dr. Marvin Monroe, and Judge Snyder, among others. He has described all of his regular characters' voices as \"easy to slip into. ... I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy.\" Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan. Shearer says that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice. He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he \"like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil.\" Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. In the episode \"Bart's Inner Child\", Shearer said \"wow\" in the voice of Otto, which was then used when Otto was seen jumping on a trampoline. Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer Simpson was jealous of, but because Shearer used \"such a sweet voice\" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer. Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice was based on psychiatrist David Viscott. Monroe has been largely retired since the seventh season barring a few cameo appearances because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: \"I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now.\" Shearer has also been vocal about \"The Principal and the Pauper\" (season nine, episode two, 1997), one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, \"That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience.\" In a December 2006 interview, Shearer added, \"Now, [the writers] refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing [the audience] for paying attention.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all. In a 2010 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Shearer alluded that the reason he was not part of the ride was because he would not be getting paid for it. Similarly, Shearer was unable to appear in the Family Guy crossover episode \"The Simpsons Guy\" due to further scheduling conflicts. Therefore, his characters are again mute. When asked about how he felt about the crossover, Shearer replied, \"Matter and anti-matter.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The dispute was resolved a month later, and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30% pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. On May 14, 2015, Shearer announced he was leaving the show. After the other voice actors signed a contract for the same pay, Shearer refused, stating it was not enough. Al Jean made a statement from the producers saying \"the show must go on,\" but did not elaborate on what might happen to the characters Shearer voiced. On July 7, 2015, Shearer agreed to continue with the show, on the same terms as the other voice actors.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Shearer is also known for his work as a narrator on Wild Discovery.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Because I don't do stand-up, radio has always been my equivalent, a place to stay in connection with the public and force myself to write every week and come up with new characters. Plus it's a medium that – having grown up with it and putting myself to sleep with a radio under my pillow [as a kid] – I love. No matter what picture you want to create in the listener's mind, a few minutes of work gets it done.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "—Harry Shearer",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show. The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the \"mega morons of the mighty media\". It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States. Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either. The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes and by WWNO. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called Songs of the Bushmen, consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on Le Show. Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that \"the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place\" and that \"everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on Saturday Night Live, Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. \"I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it's wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting – but it's always good,\" said Shearer. He collects this material and uses it on Le Show and on his website. In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled \"The Silent Echo Chamber\" which was exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Not Today, Thank You, playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence. He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit. On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Shearer's first feature film as director, Teddy Bears' Picnic, which he also wrote, was released in 2002. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying \"generally negative reviews\") on Metacritic from 10 reviews. In 2003, he co-wrote J. Edgar! The Musical with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson. It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary A Mighty Wind (2003), portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest. Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking For Your Consideration released in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award. He also appeared as a news anchor in Godzilla (1998) with fellow The Simpsons cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright. His other film appearances include The Right Stuff (1983), The Fisher King (1991), The Truman Show (1998), Small Soldiers (also 1998), and EdTV (1999). He also directed and appeared in the television program Portrait of a White Marriage (1988), a sequel to The History of White People in America.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, but decided that it \"became such a waste of time to bother with it.\" His columns have also been published in Slate and Newsweek. Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. Shearer has written three books. Man Bites Town, published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for The Los Angeles Times between 1989 and 1992. Published in 1999, It's the Stupidity, Stupid analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton. Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with \"the least powerful, least credentialed woman cleared into his official compound.\" His most recent book is Not Enough Indians, his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling. Without the \"pleasures of collaboration\" and \"spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects\", Not Enough Indians was a \"struggle\" for Shearer to write. He said that \"the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: It Must Have Been Something I Said (1994), Dropping Anchors (2006), Songs Pointed and Pointless (2007), Songs of the Bushmen (2008) and Greed and Fear (2010). His most recent CD, Greed and Fear is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he\"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown – when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just ... understanding.\" In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Shearer is the director of The Big Uneasy (2010), a documentary film about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Narrated by actor John Goodman, the film describes levee failures and catastrophic flooding in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and includes extended interviews with former LSU professor Ivor Van Heerden, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Maria Garzino, an engineer and contract specialist for the Los Angeles district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The film is critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its management of flood protection projects in Southern Louisiana. Shearer draws on numerous technical experts to maintain that Hurricane Katrina's \"... tragic floods creating widespread damage were caused by manmade errors in engineering and judgment.\" On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads, \"The Big Uneasy offers an admittedly uneven – yet still worthy and well-intentioned – look at a horrific disaster's aftermath.\"",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Shearer married folk singer Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to Welsh singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records. Shearer primarily resides in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, but has homes in Santa Monica, California and Notting Hill, London. He first went to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, blasting the coverage of it in the mainstream media and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to the DVD release of his film, The Big Uneasy, Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
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| Harry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, musician, radio host, writer, and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night. Shearer was a cast member on Saturday Night Live between 1979 and 1980, and 1984 and 1985. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984), a satirical rockumentary, which became a hit. In 1989, he joined the cast of the animated sitcom The Simpsons; he provides voices for characters including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, formerly Dr. Hibbert, and more. Shearer has appeared in films including The Truman Show (1998) and A Mighty Wind (2003), and has directed two, Teddy Bears' Picnic (2002) and The Big Uneasy (2010). Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show, incorporating satire, music, and sketch comedy. He has written three books. Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He became an artist in residence at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2013. | 2002-02-06T20:42:22Z | 2023-12-29T00:25:46Z | [
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14,336 | High fantasy | High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot. High fantasy is set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than the "real" or "primary" world. This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set on Earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements.
The romances of William Morris, such as The Well at the World's End, set in an imaginary medieval world, are sometimes regarded as the first examples of high fantasy. The works of J. R. R. Tolkien—especially The Lord of the Rings—are regarded as archetypal works of high fantasy. The term "high fantasy" was coined by Lloyd Alexander in a 1971 essay, "High Fantasy and Heroic Romance", which was originally given at the New England Round Table of Children's Librarians in October 1969.
Many high fantasy stories are told from the viewpoint of one main hero. Often, much of the plot revolves around their heritage or mysterious nature, along with a world-threatening problem. In many novels the hero is an orphan or unusual sibling, and frequently portrayed with an extraordinary talent for magic or combat. They begin the story young, if not as an actual child, or are portrayed as being very weak and/or useless.
The hero often begins as a childlike figure, but matures rapidly, experiencing a considerable gain in fighting/problem-solving abilities along the way.
The progress of the story leads to the character's learning the nature of the unknown forces against them, that they constitute a force with great power and malevolence. The villains in such stories are usually completely evil and unrelatable.
"High fantasy" often serves as a broad term to include a number of different flavors of the fantasy genre, including heroic fantasy, epic fantasy, mythic fantasy, dark fantasy, and wuxia. It typically is not considered to include the sword and sorcery genre.
High fantasy has often been defined by its themes and messages. "Good versus evil" is a common one in high fantasy, and defining the character of evil is often an important theme in a work of high fantasy, such as The Lord of the Rings. The importance of the concept of good and evil can be regarded as the distinguishing mark between high fantasy and sword and sorcery. In many works of high fantasy, this conflict marks a deep concern with moral issues; in other works, the conflict is a power struggle, with, for instance, wizards behaving irresponsibly whether they are "good" or "evil".
Role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons with campaign settings like Dragonlance by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and Forgotten Realms by Ed Greenwood are a common basis for many fantasy books and many other authors continue to contribute to the settings. | [
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| High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot. High fantasy is set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than the "real" or "primary" world. This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set on Earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements. | 2001-12-12T17:35:32Z | 2023-11-13T02:52:13Z | [
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14,337 | Human sexual activity | Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) to acts with another person (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, oral sex, etc.) in varying patterns of frequency, for a wide variety of reasons. Sexual activity usually results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle. Sexual activity may also include conduct and activities which are intended to arouse the sexual interest of another or enhance the sex life of another, such as strategies to find or attract partners (courtship and display behaviour), or personal interactions between individuals (for instance, foreplay or BDSM). Sexual activity may follow sexual arousal.
Human sexual activity has sociological, cognitive, emotional, behavioural and biological aspects. It involves personal bonding, sharing emotions, the physiology of the reproductive system, sex drive, sexual intercourse, and sexual behaviour in all its forms.
In some cultures, sexual activity is considered acceptable only within marriage, while premarital and extramarital sex are taboo. Some sexual activities are illegal either universally or in some countries or subnational jurisdictions, while some are considered contrary to the norms of certain societies or cultures. Two examples that are criminal offences in most jurisdictions are sexual assault and sexual activity with a person below the local age of consent.
Sexual activity can be classified in a number of ways. The practices may be preceded by or consist solely of foreplay. Acts involving one person (autoeroticism) may include sexual fantasy or masturbation. If two people are involved, they may engage in vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex or manual sex. Penetrative sex between two people may be described as sexual intercourse, but definitions vary. If there are more than two participants in a sex act, it may be referred to as group sex. Autoerotic sexual activity can involve use of dildos, vibrators, butt plugs, and other sex toys, though these devices can also be used with a partner.
Sexual activity can be classified into the gender and sexual orientation of the participants, as well as by the relationship of the participants. The relationships can be ones of marriage, intimate partners, casual sex partners or anonymous. Sexual activity can be regarded as conventional or as alternative, involving, for example, fetishism or BDSM activities.
Fetishism can take many forms, including the desire for certain body parts (partialism) such as breasts, navels, or feet. The object of desire can be shoes, boots, lingerie, clothing, leather or rubber items. Some non-conventional autoerotic practices can be dangerous. These include autoerotic asphyxiation and self-bondage. The potential for injury or even death that exists while engaging in the partnered versions of these fetishes (choking and bondage, respectively) becomes drastically increased in the autoerotic case due to the isolation and lack of assistance in the event of a problem.
Sexual activity that is consensual is sexual activity in which both or all participants agree to take part and are of the age that they can consent. If sexual activity takes place under force or duress, it is considered rape or another form of sexual assault. In different cultures and countries, various sexual activities may be lawful or illegal in regards to the age, gender, marital status or other factors of the participants, or otherwise contrary to social norms or generally accepted sexual morals.
In evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology, human mating strategies are a set of behaviors used by individuals to attract, select, and retain mates. Mating strategies overlap with reproductive strategies, which encompass a broader set of behaviors involving the timing of reproduction and the trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring (see life history theory).
Relative to other animals, human mating strategies are unique in their relationship with cultural variables such as the institution of marriage. Humans may seek out individuals with the intention of forming a long-term intimate relationship, marriage, casual relationship, or friendship. The human desire for companionship is one of the strongest human drives. It is an innate feature of human nature, and may be related to the sex drive. The human mating process encompasses the social and cultural processes whereby one person may meet another to assess suitability, the courtship process and the process of forming an interpersonal relationship. Commonalities, however, can be found between humans and nonhuman animals in mating behavior.
The physiological responses during sexual stimulation are fairly similar for both men and women and there are four phases.
Sexual dysfunction is the inability to react emotionally or physically to sexual stimulation in a way projected of the average healthy person; it can affect different stages in the sexual response cycles, which are desire, excitement and orgasm. In the media, sexual dysfunction is often associated with men, but in actuality, it is more commonly observed in females (43 percent) than males (31 percent).
Sexual activity can lower blood pressure and overall stress levels. It serves to release tension, elevate mood, and possibly create a profound sense of relaxation, especially in the postcoital period. From a biochemical perspective, sex causes the release of oxytocin and endorphins and boosts the immune system.
People engage in sexual activity for any of a multitude of possible reasons. Although the primary evolutionary purpose of sexual activity is reproduction, research on college students suggested that people have sex for four general reasons: physical attraction, as a means to an end, to increase emotional connection, and to alleviate insecurity.
Most people engage in sexual activity because of pleasure they derive from the arousal of their sexuality, especially if they can achieve orgasm. Sexual arousal can also be experienced from foreplay and flirting, and from fetish or BDSM activities, or other erotic activities. Most commonly, people engage in sexual activity because of the sexual desire generated by a person to whom they feel sexual attraction; but they may engage in sexual activity for the physical satisfaction they achieve in the absence of attraction for another, as in the case of casual or social sex. At times, a person may engage in a sexual activity solely for the sexual pleasure of their partner, such as because of an obligation they may have to the partner or because of love, sympathy or pity they may feel for the partner.
A person may engage in sexual activity for purely monetary considerations, or to obtain some advantage from either the partner or the activity. A man and woman may engage in sexual intercourse with the objective of conception. Some people engage in hate sex which occurs between two people who strongly dislike or annoy each other. It is related to the idea that opposition between two people can heighten sexual tension, attraction and interest.
Research has found that people also engage in sexual activity for reasons associated with self-determination theory. The self-determination theory can be applied to a sexual relationship when the participants have positive feelings associated with the relationship. These participants do not feel guilty or coerced into the partnership. Researchers have proposed the model of self-determined sexual motivation. The purpose of this model is to connect self-determination and sexual motivation. This model has helped to explain how people are sexually motivated when involved in self-determined dating relationships. This model also links the positive outcomes, (satisfying the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) gained from sexual motivations.
According to the completed research associated with this model, it was found that people of both sexes who engaged in sexual activity for self-determined motivation had more positive psychological well-being. While engaging in sexual activity for self-determined reasons, the participants also had a higher need for fulfillment. When this need was satisfied, they felt better about themselves. This was correlated with greater closeness to their partner and higher overall satisfaction in their relationship. Though both sexes engaged in sexual activity for self-determined reasons, there were some differences found between males and females. It was concluded that females had more motivation than males to engage in sexual activity for self-determined reasons. Females also had higher satisfaction and relationship quality than males did from the sexual activity. Overall, research concluded that psychological well-being, sexual motivation, and sexual satisfaction were all positively correlated when dating couples partook in sexual activity for self-determined reasons.
The frequency of sexual activity might range from zero to 15 or 20 times a week. Frequency of intercourse tends to decline with age. Some post-menopausal women experience decline in frequency of sexual intercourse, while others do not. According to the Kinsey Institute, the average frequency of sexual intercourse in the US for individuals with partners is 112 times per year (age 18–29), 86 times per year (age 30–39), and 69 times per year (age 40–49).
The age at which adolescents become sexually active varies considerably between different cultures and times. (See Prevalence of virginity.) The first sexual act of a child or adolescent is sometimes referred to as the sexualization of the child, and may be considered a milestone or a change of status, as the loss of virginity or innocence. Youth are legally free to have intercourse after they reach the age of consent.
A 1999 survey of students indicated that approximately 40% of ninth graders across the United States report having had sexual intercourse. This figure rises with each grade. Males are more sexually active than females at each of the grade levels surveyed. Sexual activity of young adolescents differs in ethnicity as well. A higher percentage of African American and Hispanic adolescents are more sexually active than white adolescents.
Research on sexual frequency has also been conducted solely on female adolescents who engage in sexual activity. Female adolescents tended to engage in more sexual activity due to positive mood. In female teenagers, engaging in sexual activity was directly positively correlated with being older, greater sexual activity in the previous week or prior day, and more positive mood the previous day or the same day as the sexual activity occurred. Decreased sexual activity was associated with prior or same day negative mood or menstruation.
Although opinions differ, researchers suggest that sexual activity is an essential part of humans, and that teenagers need to experience sex. According to a study, sexual experiences help teenagers understand pleasure and satisfaction. In relation to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, it stated that teenagers can positively benefit from sexual activity. The cross-sectional study was conducted in 2008 and 2009 at a rural upstate New York community. Teenagers who had their first sexual experience at age 16 revealed a higher well-being than those who were sexually inexperienced or who became sexually active at age 17. Furthermore, teenagers who had their first sexual experience at age 15 or younger, or who had many sexual partners were not negatively affected and did not have associated lower well-being.
Sexual activity is an innately physiological function, but like other physical activity, it comes with risks. There are four main types of risks that may arise from sexual activity: unwanted pregnancy, contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI), physical injury, and psychological injury.
Any sexual activity that involves the introduction of semen into a woman's vagina, such as during sexual intercourse, or contact of semen with her vulva, may result in a pregnancy. To reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies, some people who engage in penile-vaginal sex may use contraception, such as birth control pills, a condom, diaphragms, spermicides, hormonal contraception or sterilization. The effectiveness of the various contraceptive methods in avoiding pregnancy varies considerably, and depends on the method rather than the user.
Sexual activity that involves skin-to-skin contact, exposure to an infected person's bodily fluids or mucous membranes carries the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. People may not be able to detect that their sexual partner has one or more STIs, for example if they are asymptomatic (show no symptoms). The risk of STIs can be reduced by safe sex practices, such as using condoms. Both partners may opt to be tested for STIs before engaging in sex. The exchange of body fluids is not necessary to contract an infestation of crab lice. Crab lice typically are found attached to hair in the pubic area but sometimes are found on coarse hair elsewhere on the body (for example, eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, mustache, chest, armpits, etc.). Pubic lice infestations (pthiriasis) are spread through direct contact with someone who is infested with the louse.
Some STIs like HIV/AIDS can also be contracted by using IV drug needles after their use by an infected person, as well as through childbirth or breastfeeding.
Factors such as biological and psychological factors, diseases, mental conditions, boredom with the relationship, and widowhood have been found to contribute to a decrease in sexual interest and activity in old age, but older age does not eliminate the ability to enjoy sexual activity.
Heterosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Heterosexual practices are institutionally privileged in most countries. In some countries, mostly those where religion has a strong influence on social policy, marriage laws serve the purpose of encouraging people to have sex only within marriage. Sodomy laws have been used to discourage same-sex sexual practices, but they may also affect opposite-sex sexual practices. Laws also ban adults from committing sexual abuse, committing sexual acts with anyone under an age of consent, performing sexual activities in public, and engaging in sexual activities for money (prostitution). Though these laws cover both same-sex and opposite-sex sexual activities, they may differ in regard to punishment, and may be more frequently (or exclusively) enforced on those who engage in same-sex sexual activities.
Different-sex sexual practices may be monogamous, serially monogamous, or polyamorous, and, depending on the definition of sexual practice, abstinent or autoerotic (including masturbation). Additionally, different religious and political movements have tried to influence or control changes in sexual practices including courting and marriage, though in most countries changes occur at a slow rate.
Homosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction to the same sex. People with a homosexual orientation can express their sexuality in a variety of ways, and may or may not express it in their behaviors. Research indicates that many gay men and lesbians want, and succeed in having, committed and durable relationships. For example, survey data indicate that between 40% and 60% of gay men and between 45% and 80% of lesbians are currently involved in a romantic relationship.
It is possible for a person whose sexual identity is mainly heterosexual to engage in sexual acts with people of the same sex. Gay and lesbian people who pretend to be heterosexual are often referred to as being closeted (hiding their sexuality in "the closet"). "Closet case" is a derogatory term used to refer to people who hide their sexuality. Making that orientation public can be called "coming out of the closet" in the case of voluntary disclosure or "outing" in the case of disclosure by others against the subject's wishes (or without their knowledge). Among some communities (called "men on the DL" or "down-low"), same-sex sexual behavior is sometimes viewed as solely for physical pleasure. Men who have sex with men, as well as women who have sex with women, or men on the "down-low" may engage in sex acts with members of the same sex while continuing sexual and romantic relationships with the opposite sex.
People who engage exclusively in same-sex sexual practices may not identify themselves as gay or lesbian. In sex-segregated environments, individuals may seek relationships with others of their own gender (known as situational homosexuality). In other cases, some people may experiment or explore their sexuality with same (or different) sex sexual activity before defining their sexual identity. Despite stereotypes and common misconceptions, there are no forms of sexual acts exclusive to same-sex sexual behavior that cannot also be found in opposite-sex sexual behavior, except those involving the meeting of the genitalia between same-sex partners – tribadism (generally vulva-to-vulva rubbing) and frot (generally penis-to-penis rubbing).
People who have a romantic or sexual attraction to both sexes are referred to as bisexual. People who have a distinct but not exclusive preference for one sex/gender over the other may also identify themselves as bisexual. Like gay and lesbian individuals, bisexual people who pretend to be heterosexual are often referred to as being closeted.
Pansexuality (also referred to as omnisexuality) may or may not be subsumed under bisexuality, with some sources stating that bisexuality encompasses sexual or romantic attraction to all gender identities. Pansexuality is characterized by the potential for aesthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire towards people without regard for their gender identity or biological sex. Some pansexuals suggest that they are gender-blind; that gender and sex are insignificant or irrelevant in determining whether they will be sexually attracted to others. As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, pansexuality "encompasses all kinds of sexuality; not limited or inhibited in sexual choice with regards to gender or practice".
Alex Comfort and others propose three potential social aspects of sexual intercourse in humans, which are not mutually exclusive: reproductive, relational, and recreational. The development of the contraceptive pill and other highly effective forms of contraception in the mid- and late 20th century has increased people's ability to segregate these three functions, which still overlap a great deal and in complex patterns. For example: A fertile couple may have intercourse while using contraception to experience sexual pleasure (recreational) and also as a means of emotional intimacy (relational), thus deepening their bonding, making their relationship more stable and more capable of sustaining children in the future (deferred reproductive). This same couple may emphasize different aspects of intercourse on different occasions, being playful during one episode of intercourse (recreational), experiencing deep emotional connection on another occasion (relational), and later, after discontinuing contraception, seeking to achieve pregnancy (reproductive, or more likely reproductive and relational).
Human sexual activity is generally influenced by social rules that are culturally specific and vary widely.
Sexual ethics, morals, and norms relate to issues including deception/honesty, legality, fidelity and consent. Some activities, known as sex crimes in some locations, are illegal in some jurisdictions, including those conducted between (or among) consenting and competent adults (examples include sodomy law and adult-adult incest).
Some people who are in a relationship but want to hide polygamous activity (possibly of opposite sexual orientation) from their partner, may solicit consensual sexual activity with others through personal contacts, online chat rooms, or, advertising in select media.
Swinging involves singles or partners in a committed relationship engaging in sexual activities with others as a recreational or social activity. The increasing popularity of swinging is regarded by some as arising from the upsurge in sexual activity during the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Some people engage in various sexual activities as a business transaction. When this involves having sex with, or performing certain actual sexual acts for another person in exchange for money or something of value, it is called prostitution. Other aspects of the adult industry include phone sex operators, strip clubs, and pornography.
Social gender roles can influence sexual behavior as well as the reaction of individuals and communities to certain incidents; the World Health Organization states that, "Sexual violence is also more likely to occur where beliefs in male sexual entitlement are strong, where gender roles are more rigid, and in countries experiencing high rates of other types of violence." Some societies, such as those where the concepts of family honor and female chastity are very strong, may practice violent control of female sexuality, through practices such as honor killings and female genital mutilation.
The relation between gender equality and sexual expression is recognized, and promotion of equity between men and women is crucial for attaining sexual and reproductive health, as stated by the UN International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action:
BDSM is a variety of erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves as practicing BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture usually being dependent on self-identification and shared experience. BDSM communities generally welcome anyone with a non-normative streak who identifies with the community; this may include cross-dressers, extreme body modification enthusiasts, animal players, latex or rubber aficionados, and others.
B/D (bondage and discipline) is a part of BDSM. Bondage includes the restraint of the body or mind. D/s means "Dominant and submissive". A Dominant is one who takes control of a person who wishes to surrender control and a submissive is one who surrenders control to a person who wishes to take control. S/M (sadism and masochism) is the other part of BDSM. A sadist is an individual who takes pleasure in the pain or humiliation of others and a masochist is an individual who takes pleasure from their own pain or humiliation.
Unlike the usual "power neutral" relationships and play styles commonly followed by couples, activities and relationships within a BDSM context are often characterized by the participants' taking on complementary, but unequal roles; thus, the idea of informed consent of both the partners becomes essential. Participants who exert dominance (sexual or otherwise) over their partners are known as Dominants or Tops, while participants who take the passive, receiving, or obedient role are known as submissives or bottoms.
These terms are sometimes shortened so that a dominant person may be referred to as a "Dom" (a woman may choose to use the feminine "Domme") and a submissive may be referred to as a "sub". Individuals who can change between Top/Dominant and bottom/submissive roles – whether from relationship to relationship or within a given relationship – are known as switches. The precise definition of roles and self-identification is a common subject of debate within the community. In a 2013 study, researchers stated that BDSM is a sexual act where participants play role games, use restraint, use power exchange, use suppression and pain is sometimes involved depending on individual(s). The study serves to challenge the widespread notion that BDSM could be in some way linked to psychopathology. According to the findings, one who participates in BDSM may have greater strength socially and mentally as well as greater independence than those who do not practice BDSM. It suggests that people who participate in BDSM play have higher subjective well-being, and that this might be due to the fact that BDSM play requires extensive communication. Before any act occurs, the partners must discuss their agreement of their relationship. They discuss how long the play will last, the intensity, their actions, what each participant needs or desires, and what, if any, sexual activities may be included. All acts must be consensual and pleasurable to both parties.
In a 2015 study, interviewed BDSM participants have mentioned that the activities have helped to create higher levels of connection, intimacy, trust and communication between partners. The study suggests that Dominants and submissives exchange control for each other's pleasure and to satisfy a need. The participants have remarked that they enjoy pleasing their partner in any way they can and many surveyed have felt that this is one of the best things about BDSM. It gives a submissive pleasure to do things in general for their Dominant while a Dominant enjoys making their encounters all about their submissive and enjoy doing things that makes their submissive happy. The findings indicate that the surveyed submissives and Dominants found BDSM makes play more pleasurable and fun. The participants have also mentioned improvements in their personal growth, romantic relationships, sense of community and self, the dominant's confidence, and their coping with everyday things by giving them a psychological release.
There are many laws and social customs which prohibit, or in some way affect sexual activities. These laws and customs vary from country to country, and have varied over time. They cover, for example, a prohibition to non-consensual sex, to sex outside marriage, to sexual activity in public, besides many others. Many of these restrictions are non-controversial, but some have been the subject of public debate.
Most societies consider it a serious crime to force someone to engage in sexual acts or to engage in sexual activity with someone who does not consent. This is called sexual assault, and if sexual penetration occurs it is called rape, the most serious kind of sexual assault. The details of this distinction may vary among different legal jurisdictions. Also, what constitutes effective consent in sexual matters varies from culture to culture and is frequently debated. Laws regulating the minimum age at which a person can consent to have sex (age of consent) are frequently the subject of debate, as is adolescent sexual behavior in general. Some societies have forced marriage, where consent may not be required.
Many locales have laws that limit or prohibit same-sex sexual activity.
In the West, sex before marriage is not illegal. There are social taboos and many religions condemn pre-marital sex. In many Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Oman, Mauritania, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Yemen, any form of sexual activity outside marriage is illegal. Those found guilty, especially women, may be forced to wed the sexual partner, may be publicly beaten, or may be stoned to death. In many African and native tribes, sexual activity is not viewed as a privilege or right of a married couple, but rather as the unification of bodies and is thus not frowned upon.
Other studies have analyzed the changing attitudes about sex that American adolescents have outside marriage. Adolescents were asked how they felt about oral and vaginal sex in relation to their health, social, and emotional well-being. Overall, teenagers felt that oral sex was viewed as more socially positive amongst their demographic. Results stated that teenagers believed that oral sex for dating and non-dating adolescents was less threatening to their overall values and beliefs than vaginal sex was. When asked, teenagers who participated in the research viewed oral sex as more acceptable to their peers, and their personal values than vaginal sex.
The laws of each jurisdiction set the minimum age at which a young person is allowed to engage in sexual activity. This age of consent is typically between 14 and 18 years, but laws vary. In many jurisdictions, age of consent is a person's mental or functional age. As a result, those above the set age of consent may still be considered unable to legally consent due to mental immaturity. Many jurisdictions regard any sexual activity by an adult involving a child as child sexual abuse.
Age of consent may vary by the type of sexual act, the sex of the actors, or other restrictions such as abuse of a position of trust. Some jurisdictions also make allowances for young people engaged in sexual acts with each other.
Most jurisdictions prohibit sexual activity between certain close relatives. These laws vary to some extent; such acts are called incestuous.
Incest laws may involve restrictions on marriage rights, which also vary between jurisdictions. When incest involves an adult and a child, it is considered to be a form of child sexual abuse.
Non-consensual sexual activity or subjecting an unwilling person to witnessing a sexual activity are forms of sexual abuse, as well as (in many countries) certain non-consensual paraphilias such as frotteurism, telephone scatophilia (indecent phonecalls), and non-consensual exhibitionism and voyeurism (known as "indecent exposure" and "peeping tom" respectively).
People sometimes exchange sex for money or access to other resources. Work takes place under many varied circumstances. The person who receives payment for sexual services is known as a prostitute and the person who receives such services is referred to by a multitude of terms, such as being a client. Prostitution is one of the branches of the sex industry. The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country, from being a punishable crime to a regulated profession. Estimates place the annual revenue generated from the global prostitution industry to be over $100 billion. Prostitution is sometimes referred to as "the world's oldest profession". Prostitution may be a voluntary individual activity or facilitated or forced by pimps.
Survival sex is a form of prostitution engaged in by people in need, usually when homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people trade sex for food, a place to sleep, or other basic needs, or for drugs. The term is used by sex trade and poverty researchers and aid workers. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) to acts with another person (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, oral sex, etc.) in varying patterns of frequency, for a wide variety of reasons. Sexual activity usually results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle. Sexual activity may also include conduct and activities which are intended to arouse the sexual interest of another or enhance the sex life of another, such as strategies to find or attract partners (courtship and display behaviour), or personal interactions between individuals (for instance, foreplay or BDSM). Sexual activity may follow sexual arousal.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Human sexual activity has sociological, cognitive, emotional, behavioural and biological aspects. It involves personal bonding, sharing emotions, the physiology of the reproductive system, sex drive, sexual intercourse, and sexual behaviour in all its forms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In some cultures, sexual activity is considered acceptable only within marriage, while premarital and extramarital sex are taboo. Some sexual activities are illegal either universally or in some countries or subnational jurisdictions, while some are considered contrary to the norms of certain societies or cultures. Two examples that are criminal offences in most jurisdictions are sexual assault and sexual activity with a person below the local age of consent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Sexual activity can be classified in a number of ways. The practices may be preceded by or consist solely of foreplay. Acts involving one person (autoeroticism) may include sexual fantasy or masturbation. If two people are involved, they may engage in vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex or manual sex. Penetrative sex between two people may be described as sexual intercourse, but definitions vary. If there are more than two participants in a sex act, it may be referred to as group sex. Autoerotic sexual activity can involve use of dildos, vibrators, butt plugs, and other sex toys, though these devices can also be used with a partner.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Sexual activity can be classified into the gender and sexual orientation of the participants, as well as by the relationship of the participants. The relationships can be ones of marriage, intimate partners, casual sex partners or anonymous. Sexual activity can be regarded as conventional or as alternative, involving, for example, fetishism or BDSM activities.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Fetishism can take many forms, including the desire for certain body parts (partialism) such as breasts, navels, or feet. The object of desire can be shoes, boots, lingerie, clothing, leather or rubber items. Some non-conventional autoerotic practices can be dangerous. These include autoerotic asphyxiation and self-bondage. The potential for injury or even death that exists while engaging in the partnered versions of these fetishes (choking and bondage, respectively) becomes drastically increased in the autoerotic case due to the isolation and lack of assistance in the event of a problem.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Sexual activity that is consensual is sexual activity in which both or all participants agree to take part and are of the age that they can consent. If sexual activity takes place under force or duress, it is considered rape or another form of sexual assault. In different cultures and countries, various sexual activities may be lawful or illegal in regards to the age, gender, marital status or other factors of the participants, or otherwise contrary to social norms or generally accepted sexual morals.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology, human mating strategies are a set of behaviors used by individuals to attract, select, and retain mates. Mating strategies overlap with reproductive strategies, which encompass a broader set of behaviors involving the timing of reproduction and the trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring (see life history theory).",
"title": "Mating strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Relative to other animals, human mating strategies are unique in their relationship with cultural variables such as the institution of marriage. Humans may seek out individuals with the intention of forming a long-term intimate relationship, marriage, casual relationship, or friendship. The human desire for companionship is one of the strongest human drives. It is an innate feature of human nature, and may be related to the sex drive. The human mating process encompasses the social and cultural processes whereby one person may meet another to assess suitability, the courtship process and the process of forming an interpersonal relationship. Commonalities, however, can be found between humans and nonhuman animals in mating behavior.",
"title": "Mating strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The physiological responses during sexual stimulation are fairly similar for both men and women and there are four phases.",
"title": "Stages of physiological arousal during sexual stimulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Sexual dysfunction is the inability to react emotionally or physically to sexual stimulation in a way projected of the average healthy person; it can affect different stages in the sexual response cycles, which are desire, excitement and orgasm. In the media, sexual dysfunction is often associated with men, but in actuality, it is more commonly observed in females (43 percent) than males (31 percent).",
"title": "Stages of physiological arousal during sexual stimulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Sexual activity can lower blood pressure and overall stress levels. It serves to release tension, elevate mood, and possibly create a profound sense of relaxation, especially in the postcoital period. From a biochemical perspective, sex causes the release of oxytocin and endorphins and boosts the immune system.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "People engage in sexual activity for any of a multitude of possible reasons. Although the primary evolutionary purpose of sexual activity is reproduction, research on college students suggested that people have sex for four general reasons: physical attraction, as a means to an end, to increase emotional connection, and to alleviate insecurity.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Most people engage in sexual activity because of pleasure they derive from the arousal of their sexuality, especially if they can achieve orgasm. Sexual arousal can also be experienced from foreplay and flirting, and from fetish or BDSM activities, or other erotic activities. Most commonly, people engage in sexual activity because of the sexual desire generated by a person to whom they feel sexual attraction; but they may engage in sexual activity for the physical satisfaction they achieve in the absence of attraction for another, as in the case of casual or social sex. At times, a person may engage in a sexual activity solely for the sexual pleasure of their partner, such as because of an obligation they may have to the partner or because of love, sympathy or pity they may feel for the partner.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A person may engage in sexual activity for purely monetary considerations, or to obtain some advantage from either the partner or the activity. A man and woman may engage in sexual intercourse with the objective of conception. Some people engage in hate sex which occurs between two people who strongly dislike or annoy each other. It is related to the idea that opposition between two people can heighten sexual tension, attraction and interest.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Research has found that people also engage in sexual activity for reasons associated with self-determination theory. The self-determination theory can be applied to a sexual relationship when the participants have positive feelings associated with the relationship. These participants do not feel guilty or coerced into the partnership. Researchers have proposed the model of self-determined sexual motivation. The purpose of this model is to connect self-determination and sexual motivation. This model has helped to explain how people are sexually motivated when involved in self-determined dating relationships. This model also links the positive outcomes, (satisfying the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) gained from sexual motivations.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "According to the completed research associated with this model, it was found that people of both sexes who engaged in sexual activity for self-determined motivation had more positive psychological well-being. While engaging in sexual activity for self-determined reasons, the participants also had a higher need for fulfillment. When this need was satisfied, they felt better about themselves. This was correlated with greater closeness to their partner and higher overall satisfaction in their relationship. Though both sexes engaged in sexual activity for self-determined reasons, there were some differences found between males and females. It was concluded that females had more motivation than males to engage in sexual activity for self-determined reasons. Females also had higher satisfaction and relationship quality than males did from the sexual activity. Overall, research concluded that psychological well-being, sexual motivation, and sexual satisfaction were all positively correlated when dating couples partook in sexual activity for self-determined reasons.",
"title": "Psychological aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The frequency of sexual activity might range from zero to 15 or 20 times a week. Frequency of intercourse tends to decline with age. Some post-menopausal women experience decline in frequency of sexual intercourse, while others do not. According to the Kinsey Institute, the average frequency of sexual intercourse in the US for individuals with partners is 112 times per year (age 18–29), 86 times per year (age 30–39), and 69 times per year (age 40–49).",
"title": "Frequency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The age at which adolescents become sexually active varies considerably between different cultures and times. (See Prevalence of virginity.) The first sexual act of a child or adolescent is sometimes referred to as the sexualization of the child, and may be considered a milestone or a change of status, as the loss of virginity or innocence. Youth are legally free to have intercourse after they reach the age of consent.",
"title": "Frequency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A 1999 survey of students indicated that approximately 40% of ninth graders across the United States report having had sexual intercourse. This figure rises with each grade. Males are more sexually active than females at each of the grade levels surveyed. Sexual activity of young adolescents differs in ethnicity as well. A higher percentage of African American and Hispanic adolescents are more sexually active than white adolescents.",
"title": "Frequency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Research on sexual frequency has also been conducted solely on female adolescents who engage in sexual activity. Female adolescents tended to engage in more sexual activity due to positive mood. In female teenagers, engaging in sexual activity was directly positively correlated with being older, greater sexual activity in the previous week or prior day, and more positive mood the previous day or the same day as the sexual activity occurred. Decreased sexual activity was associated with prior or same day negative mood or menstruation.",
"title": "Frequency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Although opinions differ, researchers suggest that sexual activity is an essential part of humans, and that teenagers need to experience sex. According to a study, sexual experiences help teenagers understand pleasure and satisfaction. In relation to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, it stated that teenagers can positively benefit from sexual activity. The cross-sectional study was conducted in 2008 and 2009 at a rural upstate New York community. Teenagers who had their first sexual experience at age 16 revealed a higher well-being than those who were sexually inexperienced or who became sexually active at age 17. Furthermore, teenagers who had their first sexual experience at age 15 or younger, or who had many sexual partners were not negatively affected and did not have associated lower well-being.",
"title": "Frequency"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Sexual activity is an innately physiological function, but like other physical activity, it comes with risks. There are four main types of risks that may arise from sexual activity: unwanted pregnancy, contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI), physical injury, and psychological injury.",
"title": "Health and safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Any sexual activity that involves the introduction of semen into a woman's vagina, such as during sexual intercourse, or contact of semen with her vulva, may result in a pregnancy. To reduce the risk of unintended pregnancies, some people who engage in penile-vaginal sex may use contraception, such as birth control pills, a condom, diaphragms, spermicides, hormonal contraception or sterilization. The effectiveness of the various contraceptive methods in avoiding pregnancy varies considerably, and depends on the method rather than the user.",
"title": "Health and safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Sexual activity that involves skin-to-skin contact, exposure to an infected person's bodily fluids or mucous membranes carries the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. People may not be able to detect that their sexual partner has one or more STIs, for example if they are asymptomatic (show no symptoms). The risk of STIs can be reduced by safe sex practices, such as using condoms. Both partners may opt to be tested for STIs before engaging in sex. The exchange of body fluids is not necessary to contract an infestation of crab lice. Crab lice typically are found attached to hair in the pubic area but sometimes are found on coarse hair elsewhere on the body (for example, eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, mustache, chest, armpits, etc.). Pubic lice infestations (pthiriasis) are spread through direct contact with someone who is infested with the louse.",
"title": "Health and safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Some STIs like HIV/AIDS can also be contracted by using IV drug needles after their use by an infected person, as well as through childbirth or breastfeeding.",
"title": "Health and safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Factors such as biological and psychological factors, diseases, mental conditions, boredom with the relationship, and widowhood have been found to contribute to a decrease in sexual interest and activity in old age, but older age does not eliminate the ability to enjoy sexual activity.",
"title": "Health and safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Heterosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Heterosexual practices are institutionally privileged in most countries. In some countries, mostly those where religion has a strong influence on social policy, marriage laws serve the purpose of encouraging people to have sex only within marriage. Sodomy laws have been used to discourage same-sex sexual practices, but they may also affect opposite-sex sexual practices. Laws also ban adults from committing sexual abuse, committing sexual acts with anyone under an age of consent, performing sexual activities in public, and engaging in sexual activities for money (prostitution). Though these laws cover both same-sex and opposite-sex sexual activities, they may differ in regard to punishment, and may be more frequently (or exclusively) enforced on those who engage in same-sex sexual activities.",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Different-sex sexual practices may be monogamous, serially monogamous, or polyamorous, and, depending on the definition of sexual practice, abstinent or autoerotic (including masturbation). Additionally, different religious and political movements have tried to influence or control changes in sexual practices including courting and marriage, though in most countries changes occur at a slow rate.",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Homosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction to the same sex. People with a homosexual orientation can express their sexuality in a variety of ways, and may or may not express it in their behaviors. Research indicates that many gay men and lesbians want, and succeed in having, committed and durable relationships. For example, survey data indicate that between 40% and 60% of gay men and between 45% and 80% of lesbians are currently involved in a romantic relationship.",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "It is possible for a person whose sexual identity is mainly heterosexual to engage in sexual acts with people of the same sex. Gay and lesbian people who pretend to be heterosexual are often referred to as being closeted (hiding their sexuality in \"the closet\"). \"Closet case\" is a derogatory term used to refer to people who hide their sexuality. Making that orientation public can be called \"coming out of the closet\" in the case of voluntary disclosure or \"outing\" in the case of disclosure by others against the subject's wishes (or without their knowledge). Among some communities (called \"men on the DL\" or \"down-low\"), same-sex sexual behavior is sometimes viewed as solely for physical pleasure. Men who have sex with men, as well as women who have sex with women, or men on the \"down-low\" may engage in sex acts with members of the same sex while continuing sexual and romantic relationships with the opposite sex.",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "People who engage exclusively in same-sex sexual practices may not identify themselves as gay or lesbian. In sex-segregated environments, individuals may seek relationships with others of their own gender (known as situational homosexuality). In other cases, some people may experiment or explore their sexuality with same (or different) sex sexual activity before defining their sexual identity. Despite stereotypes and common misconceptions, there are no forms of sexual acts exclusive to same-sex sexual behavior that cannot also be found in opposite-sex sexual behavior, except those involving the meeting of the genitalia between same-sex partners – tribadism (generally vulva-to-vulva rubbing) and frot (generally penis-to-penis rubbing).",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "People who have a romantic or sexual attraction to both sexes are referred to as bisexual. People who have a distinct but not exclusive preference for one sex/gender over the other may also identify themselves as bisexual. Like gay and lesbian individuals, bisexual people who pretend to be heterosexual are often referred to as being closeted.",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Pansexuality (also referred to as omnisexuality) may or may not be subsumed under bisexuality, with some sources stating that bisexuality encompasses sexual or romantic attraction to all gender identities. Pansexuality is characterized by the potential for aesthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire towards people without regard for their gender identity or biological sex. Some pansexuals suggest that they are gender-blind; that gender and sex are insignificant or irrelevant in determining whether they will be sexually attracted to others. As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, pansexuality \"encompasses all kinds of sexuality; not limited or inhibited in sexual choice with regards to gender or practice\".",
"title": "Orientations and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Alex Comfort and others propose three potential social aspects of sexual intercourse in humans, which are not mutually exclusive: reproductive, relational, and recreational. The development of the contraceptive pill and other highly effective forms of contraception in the mid- and late 20th century has increased people's ability to segregate these three functions, which still overlap a great deal and in complex patterns. For example: A fertile couple may have intercourse while using contraception to experience sexual pleasure (recreational) and also as a means of emotional intimacy (relational), thus deepening their bonding, making their relationship more stable and more capable of sustaining children in the future (deferred reproductive). This same couple may emphasize different aspects of intercourse on different occasions, being playful during one episode of intercourse (recreational), experiencing deep emotional connection on another occasion (relational), and later, after discontinuing contraception, seeking to achieve pregnancy (reproductive, or more likely reproductive and relational).",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Human sexual activity is generally influenced by social rules that are culturally specific and vary widely.",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Sexual ethics, morals, and norms relate to issues including deception/honesty, legality, fidelity and consent. Some activities, known as sex crimes in some locations, are illegal in some jurisdictions, including those conducted between (or among) consenting and competent adults (examples include sodomy law and adult-adult incest).",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Some people who are in a relationship but want to hide polygamous activity (possibly of opposite sexual orientation) from their partner, may solicit consensual sexual activity with others through personal contacts, online chat rooms, or, advertising in select media.",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Swinging involves singles or partners in a committed relationship engaging in sexual activities with others as a recreational or social activity. The increasing popularity of swinging is regarded by some as arising from the upsurge in sexual activity during the sexual revolution of the 1960s.",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Some people engage in various sexual activities as a business transaction. When this involves having sex with, or performing certain actual sexual acts for another person in exchange for money or something of value, it is called prostitution. Other aspects of the adult industry include phone sex operators, strip clubs, and pornography.",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Social gender roles can influence sexual behavior as well as the reaction of individuals and communities to certain incidents; the World Health Organization states that, \"Sexual violence is also more likely to occur where beliefs in male sexual entitlement are strong, where gender roles are more rigid, and in countries experiencing high rates of other types of violence.\" Some societies, such as those where the concepts of family honor and female chastity are very strong, may practice violent control of female sexuality, through practices such as honor killings and female genital mutilation.",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The relation between gender equality and sexual expression is recognized, and promotion of equity between men and women is crucial for attaining sexual and reproductive health, as stated by the UN International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action:",
"title": "Other social aspects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "BDSM is a variety of erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves as practicing BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture usually being dependent on self-identification and shared experience. BDSM communities generally welcome anyone with a non-normative streak who identifies with the community; this may include cross-dressers, extreme body modification enthusiasts, animal players, latex or rubber aficionados, and others.",
"title": "BDSM"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "B/D (bondage and discipline) is a part of BDSM. Bondage includes the restraint of the body or mind. D/s means \"Dominant and submissive\". A Dominant is one who takes control of a person who wishes to surrender control and a submissive is one who surrenders control to a person who wishes to take control. S/M (sadism and masochism) is the other part of BDSM. A sadist is an individual who takes pleasure in the pain or humiliation of others and a masochist is an individual who takes pleasure from their own pain or humiliation.",
"title": "BDSM"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Unlike the usual \"power neutral\" relationships and play styles commonly followed by couples, activities and relationships within a BDSM context are often characterized by the participants' taking on complementary, but unequal roles; thus, the idea of informed consent of both the partners becomes essential. Participants who exert dominance (sexual or otherwise) over their partners are known as Dominants or Tops, while participants who take the passive, receiving, or obedient role are known as submissives or bottoms.",
"title": "BDSM"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "These terms are sometimes shortened so that a dominant person may be referred to as a \"Dom\" (a woman may choose to use the feminine \"Domme\") and a submissive may be referred to as a \"sub\". Individuals who can change between Top/Dominant and bottom/submissive roles – whether from relationship to relationship or within a given relationship – are known as switches. The precise definition of roles and self-identification is a common subject of debate within the community. In a 2013 study, researchers stated that BDSM is a sexual act where participants play role games, use restraint, use power exchange, use suppression and pain is sometimes involved depending on individual(s). The study serves to challenge the widespread notion that BDSM could be in some way linked to psychopathology. According to the findings, one who participates in BDSM may have greater strength socially and mentally as well as greater independence than those who do not practice BDSM. It suggests that people who participate in BDSM play have higher subjective well-being, and that this might be due to the fact that BDSM play requires extensive communication. Before any act occurs, the partners must discuss their agreement of their relationship. They discuss how long the play will last, the intensity, their actions, what each participant needs or desires, and what, if any, sexual activities may be included. All acts must be consensual and pleasurable to both parties.",
"title": "BDSM"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In a 2015 study, interviewed BDSM participants have mentioned that the activities have helped to create higher levels of connection, intimacy, trust and communication between partners. The study suggests that Dominants and submissives exchange control for each other's pleasure and to satisfy a need. The participants have remarked that they enjoy pleasing their partner in any way they can and many surveyed have felt that this is one of the best things about BDSM. It gives a submissive pleasure to do things in general for their Dominant while a Dominant enjoys making their encounters all about their submissive and enjoy doing things that makes their submissive happy. The findings indicate that the surveyed submissives and Dominants found BDSM makes play more pleasurable and fun. The participants have also mentioned improvements in their personal growth, romantic relationships, sense of community and self, the dominant's confidence, and their coping with everyday things by giving them a psychological release.",
"title": "BDSM"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "There are many laws and social customs which prohibit, or in some way affect sexual activities. These laws and customs vary from country to country, and have varied over time. They cover, for example, a prohibition to non-consensual sex, to sex outside marriage, to sexual activity in public, besides many others. Many of these restrictions are non-controversial, but some have been the subject of public debate.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Most societies consider it a serious crime to force someone to engage in sexual acts or to engage in sexual activity with someone who does not consent. This is called sexual assault, and if sexual penetration occurs it is called rape, the most serious kind of sexual assault. The details of this distinction may vary among different legal jurisdictions. Also, what constitutes effective consent in sexual matters varies from culture to culture and is frequently debated. Laws regulating the minimum age at which a person can consent to have sex (age of consent) are frequently the subject of debate, as is adolescent sexual behavior in general. Some societies have forced marriage, where consent may not be required.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Many locales have laws that limit or prohibit same-sex sexual activity.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In the West, sex before marriage is not illegal. There are social taboos and many religions condemn pre-marital sex. In many Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Oman, Mauritania, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Yemen, any form of sexual activity outside marriage is illegal. Those found guilty, especially women, may be forced to wed the sexual partner, may be publicly beaten, or may be stoned to death. In many African and native tribes, sexual activity is not viewed as a privilege or right of a married couple, but rather as the unification of bodies and is thus not frowned upon.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Other studies have analyzed the changing attitudes about sex that American adolescents have outside marriage. Adolescents were asked how they felt about oral and vaginal sex in relation to their health, social, and emotional well-being. Overall, teenagers felt that oral sex was viewed as more socially positive amongst their demographic. Results stated that teenagers believed that oral sex for dating and non-dating adolescents was less threatening to their overall values and beliefs than vaginal sex was. When asked, teenagers who participated in the research viewed oral sex as more acceptable to their peers, and their personal values than vaginal sex.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The laws of each jurisdiction set the minimum age at which a young person is allowed to engage in sexual activity. This age of consent is typically between 14 and 18 years, but laws vary. In many jurisdictions, age of consent is a person's mental or functional age. As a result, those above the set age of consent may still be considered unable to legally consent due to mental immaturity. Many jurisdictions regard any sexual activity by an adult involving a child as child sexual abuse.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Age of consent may vary by the type of sexual act, the sex of the actors, or other restrictions such as abuse of a position of trust. Some jurisdictions also make allowances for young people engaged in sexual acts with each other.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Most jurisdictions prohibit sexual activity between certain close relatives. These laws vary to some extent; such acts are called incestuous.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Incest laws may involve restrictions on marriage rights, which also vary between jurisdictions. When incest involves an adult and a child, it is considered to be a form of child sexual abuse.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Non-consensual sexual activity or subjecting an unwilling person to witnessing a sexual activity are forms of sexual abuse, as well as (in many countries) certain non-consensual paraphilias such as frotteurism, telephone scatophilia (indecent phonecalls), and non-consensual exhibitionism and voyeurism (known as \"indecent exposure\" and \"peeping tom\" respectively).",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "People sometimes exchange sex for money or access to other resources. Work takes place under many varied circumstances. The person who receives payment for sexual services is known as a prostitute and the person who receives such services is referred to by a multitude of terms, such as being a client. Prostitution is one of the branches of the sex industry. The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country, from being a punishable crime to a regulated profession. Estimates place the annual revenue generated from the global prostitution industry to be over $100 billion. Prostitution is sometimes referred to as \"the world's oldest profession\". Prostitution may be a voluntary individual activity or facilitated or forced by pimps.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Survival sex is a form of prostitution engaged in by people in need, usually when homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people trade sex for food, a place to sleep, or other basic needs, or for drugs. The term is used by sex trade and poverty researchers and aid workers.",
"title": "Legal issues"
}
]
| Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone to acts with another person in varying patterns of frequency, for a wide variety of reasons. Sexual activity usually results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle. Sexual activity may also include conduct and activities which are intended to arouse the sexual interest of another or enhance the sex life of another, such as strategies to find or attract partners, or personal interactions between individuals. Sexual activity may follow sexual arousal. Human sexual activity has sociological, cognitive, emotional, behavioural and biological aspects. It involves personal bonding, sharing emotions, the physiology of the reproductive system, sex drive, sexual intercourse, and sexual behaviour in all its forms. In some cultures, sexual activity is considered acceptable only within marriage, while premarital and extramarital sex are taboo. Some sexual activities are illegal either universally or in some countries or subnational jurisdictions, while some are considered contrary to the norms of certain societies or cultures. Two examples that are criminal offences in most jurisdictions are sexual assault and sexual activity with a person below the local age of consent. | 2001-11-07T16:02:36Z | 2023-12-26T21:46:07Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sexual_activity |
14,340 | Hydraulic ram | A hydraulic ram pump, ram pump, or hydram is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It takes in water at one "hydraulic head" (pressure) and flow rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic head and lower flow rate. The device uses the water hammer effect to develop pressure that allows a portion of the input water that powers the pump to be lifted to a point higher than where the water originally started. The hydraulic ram is sometimes used in remote areas, where there is both a source of low-head hydropower and a need for pumping water to a destination higher in elevation than the source. In this situation, the ram is often useful, since it requires no outside source of power other than the kinetic energy of flowing water.
The Alhambra, built by Nasrid Sultan Ibn al-Ahmar of Granada beginning in 1238, used a hydram to raise water. Through a first reservoir, filled by a channel from the Darro River, water emptied via a large vertical channel into a second reservoir beneath, creating a whirlpool that in turn propelled water through a much smaller pipe up six metres whilst most water drained into a second, slightly larger pipe.
In 1772, John Whitehurst of Cheshire, England, invented a manually controlled precursor of the hydraulic ram called the "pulsation engine" and installed the first one at Oulton, Cheshire to raise water to a height of 4.9 metres (16 ft). In 1783, he installed another in Ireland. He did not patent it, and details are obscure, but it is known to have had an air vessel.
The first self-acting ram pump was invented by the Frenchman Joseph Michel Montgolfier (best known as a co-inventor of the hot air balloon) in 1796 for raising water in his paper mill at Voiron. His friend Matthew Boulton took out a British patent on his behalf in 1797. The sons of Montgolfier obtained a British patent for an improved version in 1816, and this was acquired, together with Whitehurst's design, in 1820 by Josiah Easton, a Somerset-born engineer who had just moved to London.
Easton's firm, inherited by his son James (1796–1871), grew during the nineteenth century to become one of the more important engineering manufacturers in England, with a large works at Erith, Kent. They specialised in water supply and sewerage systems worldwide, as well as land drainage projects. Eastons had a good business supplying rams for water supply purposes to large country houses, farms, and village communities. Some of their installations still survived as of 2004, one such example being at the hamlet of Toller Whelme, in Dorset. Until about 1958 when the mains water arrived, the hamlet of East Dundry just south of Bristol had three working rams – their noisy "thump" every minute or so resonated through the valley night and day: these rams served farms that needed much water for their dairy herds.
The firm closed in 1909, but the ram business was continued by James R. Easton. In 1929, it was acquired by Green & Carter of Winchester, Hampshire, who were engaged in the manufacturing and installation of Vulcan and Vacher Rams.
The first US patent was issued to Joseph Cerneau (or Curneau) and Stephen (Étienne) S. Hallet (1755-1825) in 1809. US interest in hydraulic rams picked up around 1840, as further patents were issued and domestic companies started offering rams for sale. Toward the end of the 19th century, interest waned as electricity and electric pumps became widely available.
Priestly's Hydraulic Ram, built in 1890 in Idaho, was a "marvelous" invention, apparently independent, which lifted water 110 feet (34 m) to provide irrigation. The ram survives and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
By the end of the twentieth century, interest in hydraulic rams has revived, due to the needs of sustainable technology in developing countries, and energy conservation in developed ones. An example is Aid Foundation International in the Philippines, who won an Ashden Award for their work developing ram pumps that could be easily maintained for use in remote villages. The hydraulic ram principle has been used in some proposals for exploiting wave power, one of which was discussed as long ago as 1931 by Hanns Günther in his book In hundert Jahren.
Some later ram designs in the UK called compound rams were designed to pump treated water using an untreated drive water source, which overcomes some of the problems of having drinking water sourced from an open stream.
In 1996 English engineer Frederick Philip Selwyn patented a more compact hydraulic ram pump where the waste valve used the venturi effect and was arranged concentrically around the input pipe. Initially patented as a fluid pressure amplifier due to its different design, it is currently sold as the "Papa Pump". Additionally to this a large scale version named the "Venturo Pump" is also being manufactured.
A traditional hydraulic ram has only two moving parts, a spring or weight loaded "waste" valve sometimes known as the "clack" valve and a "delivery" check valve, making it cheap to build, easy to maintain, and very reliable.
Priestly's Hydraulic Ram, described in detail in the 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica, has no moving parts.
A simplified hydraulic ram is shown in Figure 2. Initially, the waste valve [4] is open (i.e. lowered) because of its own weight, and the delivery valve [5] is closed under the pressure caused by the water column from the outlet [3]. The water in the inlet pipe [1] starts to flow under the force of gravity and picks up speed and kinetic energy until the increasing drag force lifts the waste valve's weight and closes it. The momentum of the water flow in the inlet pipe against the now closed waste valve causes a water hammer that raises the pressure in the pump beyond the pressure caused by the water column pressing down from the outlet. This pressure differential now opens the delivery valve [5], and forces some water to flow into the delivery pipe [3]. Because this water is being forced uphill through the delivery pipe farther than it is falling downhill from the source, the flow slows; when the flow reverses, the delivery check valve [5] closes. Meanwhile, the water hammer from the closing of the waste valve also produces a pressure pulse which propagates back up the inlet pipe to the source where it converts to a suction pulse that propagates back down the inlet pipe. This suction pulse, with the weight or spring on the valve, pulls the waste valve back open and allows the process to begin again.
A pressure vessel [6] containing air cushions the hydraulic pressure shock when the waste valve closes, and it also improves the pumping efficiency by allowing a more constant flow through the delivery pipe. Although the pump could in theory work without it, the efficiency would drop drastically and the pump would be subject to extraordinary stresses that could shorten its life considerably. One problem is that the pressurized air will gradually dissolve into the water until none remains. One solution to this problem is to have the air separated from the water by an elastic diaphragm (similar to an expansion tank); however, this solution can be problematic in developing countries where replacements are difficult to procure. Another solution is a snifting valve installed close to the drive side of the delivery valve. This automatically inhales a small amount of air each time the delivery valve shuts and the partial vacuum develops. Another solution is to insert an inner tube of a car or bicycle tire into the pressure vessel with some air in it and the valve closed. This tube is in effect the same as the diaphragm, but it is implemented with more widely available materials. The air in the tube cushions the shock of the water the same as the air in other configurations does.
A typical energy efficiency is 60%, but up to 80% is possible. This should not be confused with the volumetric efficiency, which relates the volume of water delivered to total water taken from the source. The portion of water available at the delivery pipe will be reduced by the ratio of the delivery head to the supply head. Thus if the source is 2 meters above the ram and the water is lifted to 10 meters above the ram, only 20% of the supplied water can be available, the other 80% being spilled via the waste valve. These ratios assume 100% energy efficiency. Actual water delivered will be further reduced by the energy efficiency factor. In the above example, if the energy efficiency is 70%, the water delivered will be 70% of 20%, i.e. 14%. Assuming a 2-to-1 supply-head-to-delivery-head ratio and 70% efficiency, the delivered water would be 70% of 50%, i.e. 35%. Very high ratios of delivery to supply head usually result in lowered energy efficiency. Suppliers of rams often provide tables giving expected volume ratios based on actual tests.
Since both efficiency and reliable cycling depend on water hammer effects, the drive pipe design is important. It should be between 3 and 7 times longer than the vertical distance between the source and the ram. Commercial rams may have an input fitting designed to accommodate this optimum slope. The diameter of the supply pipe would normally match the diameter of the input fitting on the ram, which in turn is based on its pumping capacity. The drive pipe should be of constant diameter and material, and should be as straight as possible. Where bends are necessary, they should be smooth, large diameter curves. Even a large spiral is allowed, but elbows are to be avoided. PVC will work in some installations, but steel pipe is preferred, although much more expensive. If valves are used they should be a free flow type such as a ball valve or gate valve.
The delivery pipe is much less critical since the pressure vessel prevents water hammer effects from traveling up it. Its overall design would be determined by the allowable pressure drop based on the expected flow. Typically the pipe size will be about half that of the supply pipe, but for very long runs a larger size may be indicated. PVC pipe and any necessary valves are not a problem.
A ram newly placed into operation or which has stopped cycling should start automatically if the waste valve weight or spring pressure is adjusted correctly, but it can be restarted as follows: If the waste valve is in the raised (closed) position, it must be pushed down manually into the open position and released. If the flow is sufficient, it will then cycle at least once. If it does not continue to cycle, it must be pushed down repeatedly until it cycles continuously on its own, usually after three or four manual cycles. If the ram stops with the waste valve in the down (open) position it must be lifted manually and kept up for as long as necessary for the supply pipe to fill with water and for any air bubbles to travel up the pipe to the source. This may take some time, depending on supply pipe length and diameter. Then it can be started manually by pushing it down a few times as described above. Having a valve on the delivery pipe at the ram makes starting easier. Closing the valve until the ram starts cycling, then gradually opening it to fill the delivery pipe. If opened too quickly it will stop the cycle. Once the delivery pipe is full the valve can be left open.
Failure to deliver sufficient water may be due to improper adjustment of the waste valve, having too little air in the pressure vessel, or simply attempting to raise the water higher than the level of which the ram is capable.
The ram may be damaged by freezing in winter, or loss of air in the pressure vessel leading to excess stress on the ram parts. These failures will require welding or other repair methods and perhaps parts replacement.
It is not uncommon for an operating ram to require occasional restarts. The cycling may stop due to poor adjustment of the waste valve, or insufficient water flow at the source. Air can enter if the supply water level is not at least a few inches above the input end of the supply pipe. Other problems are blockage of the valves with debris, or improper installation, such as using a supply pipe of non-uniform diameter or material, having sharp bends or a rough interior, or one that is too long or short for the drop, or is made of an insufficiently rigid material. A PVC supply pipe will work in some installations but a steel pipe is better. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A hydraulic ram pump, ram pump, or hydram is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It takes in water at one \"hydraulic head\" (pressure) and flow rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic head and lower flow rate. The device uses the water hammer effect to develop pressure that allows a portion of the input water that powers the pump to be lifted to a point higher than where the water originally started. The hydraulic ram is sometimes used in remote areas, where there is both a source of low-head hydropower and a need for pumping water to a destination higher in elevation than the source. In this situation, the ram is often useful, since it requires no outside source of power other than the kinetic energy of flowing water.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Alhambra, built by Nasrid Sultan Ibn al-Ahmar of Granada beginning in 1238, used a hydram to raise water. Through a first reservoir, filled by a channel from the Darro River, water emptied via a large vertical channel into a second reservoir beneath, creating a whirlpool that in turn propelled water through a much smaller pipe up six metres whilst most water drained into a second, slightly larger pipe.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1772, John Whitehurst of Cheshire, England, invented a manually controlled precursor of the hydraulic ram called the \"pulsation engine\" and installed the first one at Oulton, Cheshire to raise water to a height of 4.9 metres (16 ft). In 1783, he installed another in Ireland. He did not patent it, and details are obscure, but it is known to have had an air vessel.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first self-acting ram pump was invented by the Frenchman Joseph Michel Montgolfier (best known as a co-inventor of the hot air balloon) in 1796 for raising water in his paper mill at Voiron. His friend Matthew Boulton took out a British patent on his behalf in 1797. The sons of Montgolfier obtained a British patent for an improved version in 1816, and this was acquired, together with Whitehurst's design, in 1820 by Josiah Easton, a Somerset-born engineer who had just moved to London.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Easton's firm, inherited by his son James (1796–1871), grew during the nineteenth century to become one of the more important engineering manufacturers in England, with a large works at Erith, Kent. They specialised in water supply and sewerage systems worldwide, as well as land drainage projects. Eastons had a good business supplying rams for water supply purposes to large country houses, farms, and village communities. Some of their installations still survived as of 2004, one such example being at the hamlet of Toller Whelme, in Dorset. Until about 1958 when the mains water arrived, the hamlet of East Dundry just south of Bristol had three working rams – their noisy \"thump\" every minute or so resonated through the valley night and day: these rams served farms that needed much water for their dairy herds.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The firm closed in 1909, but the ram business was continued by James R. Easton. In 1929, it was acquired by Green & Carter of Winchester, Hampshire, who were engaged in the manufacturing and installation of Vulcan and Vacher Rams.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The first US patent was issued to Joseph Cerneau (or Curneau) and Stephen (Étienne) S. Hallet (1755-1825) in 1809. US interest in hydraulic rams picked up around 1840, as further patents were issued and domestic companies started offering rams for sale. Toward the end of the 19th century, interest waned as electricity and electric pumps became widely available.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Priestly's Hydraulic Ram, built in 1890 in Idaho, was a \"marvelous\" invention, apparently independent, which lifted water 110 feet (34 m) to provide irrigation. The ram survives and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "By the end of the twentieth century, interest in hydraulic rams has revived, due to the needs of sustainable technology in developing countries, and energy conservation in developed ones. An example is Aid Foundation International in the Philippines, who won an Ashden Award for their work developing ram pumps that could be easily maintained for use in remote villages. The hydraulic ram principle has been used in some proposals for exploiting wave power, one of which was discussed as long ago as 1931 by Hanns Günther in his book In hundert Jahren.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Some later ram designs in the UK called compound rams were designed to pump treated water using an untreated drive water source, which overcomes some of the problems of having drinking water sourced from an open stream.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1996 English engineer Frederick Philip Selwyn patented a more compact hydraulic ram pump where the waste valve used the venturi effect and was arranged concentrically around the input pipe. Initially patented as a fluid pressure amplifier due to its different design, it is currently sold as the \"Papa Pump\". Additionally to this a large scale version named the \"Venturo Pump\" is also being manufactured.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A traditional hydraulic ram has only two moving parts, a spring or weight loaded \"waste\" valve sometimes known as the \"clack\" valve and a \"delivery\" check valve, making it cheap to build, easy to maintain, and very reliable.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Priestly's Hydraulic Ram, described in detail in the 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica, has no moving parts.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A simplified hydraulic ram is shown in Figure 2. Initially, the waste valve [4] is open (i.e. lowered) because of its own weight, and the delivery valve [5] is closed under the pressure caused by the water column from the outlet [3]. The water in the inlet pipe [1] starts to flow under the force of gravity and picks up speed and kinetic energy until the increasing drag force lifts the waste valve's weight and closes it. The momentum of the water flow in the inlet pipe against the now closed waste valve causes a water hammer that raises the pressure in the pump beyond the pressure caused by the water column pressing down from the outlet. This pressure differential now opens the delivery valve [5], and forces some water to flow into the delivery pipe [3]. Because this water is being forced uphill through the delivery pipe farther than it is falling downhill from the source, the flow slows; when the flow reverses, the delivery check valve [5] closes. Meanwhile, the water hammer from the closing of the waste valve also produces a pressure pulse which propagates back up the inlet pipe to the source where it converts to a suction pulse that propagates back down the inlet pipe. This suction pulse, with the weight or spring on the valve, pulls the waste valve back open and allows the process to begin again.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A pressure vessel [6] containing air cushions the hydraulic pressure shock when the waste valve closes, and it also improves the pumping efficiency by allowing a more constant flow through the delivery pipe. Although the pump could in theory work without it, the efficiency would drop drastically and the pump would be subject to extraordinary stresses that could shorten its life considerably. One problem is that the pressurized air will gradually dissolve into the water until none remains. One solution to this problem is to have the air separated from the water by an elastic diaphragm (similar to an expansion tank); however, this solution can be problematic in developing countries where replacements are difficult to procure. Another solution is a snifting valve installed close to the drive side of the delivery valve. This automatically inhales a small amount of air each time the delivery valve shuts and the partial vacuum develops. Another solution is to insert an inner tube of a car or bicycle tire into the pressure vessel with some air in it and the valve closed. This tube is in effect the same as the diaphragm, but it is implemented with more widely available materials. The air in the tube cushions the shock of the water the same as the air in other configurations does.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A typical energy efficiency is 60%, but up to 80% is possible. This should not be confused with the volumetric efficiency, which relates the volume of water delivered to total water taken from the source. The portion of water available at the delivery pipe will be reduced by the ratio of the delivery head to the supply head. Thus if the source is 2 meters above the ram and the water is lifted to 10 meters above the ram, only 20% of the supplied water can be available, the other 80% being spilled via the waste valve. These ratios assume 100% energy efficiency. Actual water delivered will be further reduced by the energy efficiency factor. In the above example, if the energy efficiency is 70%, the water delivered will be 70% of 20%, i.e. 14%. Assuming a 2-to-1 supply-head-to-delivery-head ratio and 70% efficiency, the delivered water would be 70% of 50%, i.e. 35%. Very high ratios of delivery to supply head usually result in lowered energy efficiency. Suppliers of rams often provide tables giving expected volume ratios based on actual tests.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Since both efficiency and reliable cycling depend on water hammer effects, the drive pipe design is important. It should be between 3 and 7 times longer than the vertical distance between the source and the ram. Commercial rams may have an input fitting designed to accommodate this optimum slope. The diameter of the supply pipe would normally match the diameter of the input fitting on the ram, which in turn is based on its pumping capacity. The drive pipe should be of constant diameter and material, and should be as straight as possible. Where bends are necessary, they should be smooth, large diameter curves. Even a large spiral is allowed, but elbows are to be avoided. PVC will work in some installations, but steel pipe is preferred, although much more expensive. If valves are used they should be a free flow type such as a ball valve or gate valve.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The delivery pipe is much less critical since the pressure vessel prevents water hammer effects from traveling up it. Its overall design would be determined by the allowable pressure drop based on the expected flow. Typically the pipe size will be about half that of the supply pipe, but for very long runs a larger size may be indicated. PVC pipe and any necessary valves are not a problem.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A ram newly placed into operation or which has stopped cycling should start automatically if the waste valve weight or spring pressure is adjusted correctly, but it can be restarted as follows: If the waste valve is in the raised (closed) position, it must be pushed down manually into the open position and released. If the flow is sufficient, it will then cycle at least once. If it does not continue to cycle, it must be pushed down repeatedly until it cycles continuously on its own, usually after three or four manual cycles. If the ram stops with the waste valve in the down (open) position it must be lifted manually and kept up for as long as necessary for the supply pipe to fill with water and for any air bubbles to travel up the pipe to the source. This may take some time, depending on supply pipe length and diameter. Then it can be started manually by pushing it down a few times as described above. Having a valve on the delivery pipe at the ram makes starting easier. Closing the valve until the ram starts cycling, then gradually opening it to fill the delivery pipe. If opened too quickly it will stop the cycle. Once the delivery pipe is full the valve can be left open.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Failure to deliver sufficient water may be due to improper adjustment of the waste valve, having too little air in the pressure vessel, or simply attempting to raise the water higher than the level of which the ram is capable.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The ram may be damaged by freezing in winter, or loss of air in the pressure vessel leading to excess stress on the ram parts. These failures will require welding or other repair methods and perhaps parts replacement.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "It is not uncommon for an operating ram to require occasional restarts. The cycling may stop due to poor adjustment of the waste valve, or insufficient water flow at the source. Air can enter if the supply water level is not at least a few inches above the input end of the supply pipe. Other problems are blockage of the valves with debris, or improper installation, such as using a supply pipe of non-uniform diameter or material, having sharp bends or a rough interior, or one that is too long or short for the drop, or is made of an insufficiently rigid material. A PVC supply pipe will work in some installations but a steel pipe is better.",
"title": "Construction and principle of operation"
}
]
| A hydraulic ram pump, ram pump, or hydram is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It takes in water at one "hydraulic head" (pressure) and flow rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic head and lower flow rate. The device uses the water hammer effect to develop pressure that allows a portion of the input water that powers the pump to be lifted to a point higher than where the water originally started. The hydraulic ram is sometimes used in remote areas, where there is both a source of low-head hydropower and a need for pumping water to a destination higher in elevation than the source. In this situation, the ram is often useful, since it requires no outside source of power other than the kinetic energy of flowing water. | 2001-12-27T09:05:02Z | 2023-12-25T06:52:10Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram |
14,347 | Homininae | Homininae (/hɒmɪˈnaɪniː/), also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini (with the genus Homo including modern humans and numerous extinct species; the subtribe Hominina, comprising at least two extinct genera; and the subtribe Panina, represented only by the genus Pan, which includes chimpanzees and bonobos)―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans (subfamily Ponginae) split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas (through the tribe Gorillini), and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina (see the evolutionary tree below). There are two living species of Panina (chimpanzees and bonobos) and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines (not to be confused with the terms hominins or hominini).
Until 1970, the family (and term) Hominidae meant humans only; the non-human great apes were assigned to the family Pongidae. Later discoveries led to revised classifications, with the great apes then united with humans (now in subfamily Homininae) as members of family Hominidae By 1990, it was recognized that gorillas and chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to orangutans, leading to their (gorillas' and chimpanzees') placement in subfamily Homininae as well.
The subfamily Homininae can be further subdivided into three branches: the tribe Gorillini (gorillas), the tribe Hominini with subtribes Panina (chimpanzees) and Hominina (humans and their extinct relatives), and the extinct tribe Dryopithecini. The Late Miocene fossil Nakalipithecus nakayamai, described in 2007, is a basal member of this clade, as is, perhaps, its contemporary Ouranopithecus; that is, they are not assignable to any of the three extant branches. Their existence suggests that the Homininae tribes diverged not earlier than about 8 million years ago (see Human evolutionary genetics).
Today, chimpanzees and gorillas live in tropical forests with acid soils that rarely preserve fossils. Although no fossil gorillas have been reported, four chimpanzee teeth about 500,000 years old have been discovered in the East-African rift valley (Kapthurin Formation, Kenya), where many fossils from the human lineage (hominins) have been found. This shows that some chimpanzees lived close to Homo (H. erectus or H. rhodesiensis) at the time; the same is likely true for gorillas.
Homininae
The age of the subfamily Homininae (of the Homininae–Ponginae last common ancestor) is estimated at some 14 to 12.5 million years (Sivapithecus). Its separation into Gorillini and Hominini (the "gorilla–human last common ancestor", GHLCA) is estimated to have occurred at about 8 to 10 million years ago (TGHLCA) during the late Miocene, close to the age of Nakalipithecus nakayamai.
There is evidence there was interbreeding of Gorillas and the Pan–Homo ancestors until right up to the Pan–Homo split.
Recent studies of Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years old) and Orrorin tugenensis (6 million years old) suggest some degree of bipedalism. Australopithecus and early Paranthropus may have been bipedal. Very early hominins such as Ardipithecus ramidus may have possessed an arboreal type of bipedalism.
The evolution of bipedalism encouraged multiple changes among hominins especially when it came to bipedalism in humans as they were now able to do many other things as they began to walk with their feet. These changes included the ability to now use their hands to create tools or carry things with their hands, the ability to travel longer distances at a faster speed, and the ability to hunt for food. According to researchers, humans were able to be bipedalists due to Darwin's Principle of natural selection. Darwin himself believed that larger brains in humans made an upright gait necessary, but had no hypothesis for how the mechanism evolved.
The first major theory attempting to directly explanation the origins of bipedalism was the Savannah hypothesis (Dart 1925.) This theory hypothesized that hominins became bipedalists due to the environment of the Savanna such as the tall grass and dry climate. This was later proven to be incorrect due to fossil records that showed that hominins were still climbing trees during this era.
Anthropologist Owen Lovejoy has suggested that bipedalism was a result of sexual dimorphism in efforts to help with the collecting of food. In his Male Provisioning Hypothesis introduced in 1981, lowered birth rates in early hominids increased pressure on males to provide for females and offspring. While females groomed and cared for their children with the family group, males ranged to seek food and returned bipadally with full arms. Males who could better provide for females in this model were more likely to mate and produce offspring.
Anthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie, an expert on Australopithecus anamensis, discusses the evidence that Australopithecus were one of the first hominins to evolve into obligate bipedalists. The remains of this subfamily are very important in the field of research as it presents possible information regarding how these primates adapted from tree life to terrestrial life. This was a huge adaptation as it encouraged many evolutionary changes within hominins including the ability to use their hand to make tools and gather food, as well as a larger brain development due to their change in diet.
There has been a gradual increase in brain volume (brain size) as the ancestors of modern humans progressed along the timeline of human evolution, starting from about 600 cm in Homo habilis up to 1500 cm in Homo neanderthalensis. However, modern Homo sapiens have a brain volume slightly smaller (1250 cm) than Neanderthals, women have a brain slightly smaller than men and the Flores hominids (Homo floresiensis), nicknamed hobbits, had a cranial capacity of about 380 cm (considered small for a chimpanzee), about a third of the Homo erectus average. It is proposed that they evolved from H. erectus as a case of insular dwarfism. In spite of their smaller brain, there is evidence that H. floresiensis used fire and made stone tools at least as sophisticated as those of their proposed ancestors H. erectus. In this case, it seems that for intelligence, the structure of the brain is more important than its size.
The current size of the human brain is a big distinguishing factor that separates humans from other primates. Recent examination of the human brain shows that the brain of a human is about more than four times the size of great apes and 20 times larger than the brain size of old world monkeys. A study was conducted to help determine the evolution of the brain size within the sub family Homininae that tested the genes ASPM (abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated) and MCHP1 (microcephalin-1) and their association with the human brain. In this study researchers discovered that the increase in brain size is correlated to the increase of both ASP and MCPH1. MCPH1 is very polymorphic in humans compared to gibbons, Old World monkeys. This gene helps encourage the growth of the brain. Further research indicated that the MCPH1 gene in humans could have also been an encouraging factor of population expansion. Other researchers have included that the diet was an encouraging factor to brain size as protein intake increased this helped brain development.
Sexuality is related to family structure and partly shapes it. The involvement of fathers in education is quite unique to humans, at least when compared to other Homininae. Concealed ovulation and menopause in women both also occur in a few other primates however, but are uncommon in other species. Testis and penis size seems to be related to family structure: monogamy or promiscuity, or harem, in humans, chimpanzees or gorillas, respectively. The levels of sexual dimorphism are generally seen as a marker of sexual selection. Studies have suggested that the earliest hominins were dimorphic and that this lessened over the course of the evolution of the genus Homo, correlating with humans becoming more monogamous, whereas gorillas, who live in harems, show a large degree of sexual dimorphism. Concealed (or "hidden") ovulation means that the phase of fertility is not detectable in women, whereas chimpanzees advertise ovulation via an obvious swelling of the genitals. Women can be partly aware of their ovulation along the menstrual phases, but men are essentially unable to detect ovulation in women. Most primates have semi-concealed ovulation, thus one can think that the common ancestor had semi-concealed ovulation, that was inherited by gorillas, and that later evolved in concealed ovulation in humans and advertised ovulation in chimpanzees. Menopause also occurs in rhesus monkeys, and possibly in chimpanzees, but does not in gorillas and is quite uncommon in other primates (and other mammal groups).
http://www.bas.bg/en/2019/11/07/remains-of-a-new-hominid-from-germany-more-than-11-5-million-years-old-change-our-views-on-the-evolution-of-great-apes-and-humans/
Andrews, P., & Harrison, T. (2005). "7 The Last Common Ancestor of Apes and Humans". In Interpreting the Past. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047416616_013
Goodman, Morris, et al. “Primate Evolution at the DNA Level and a Classification of Hominoids - Journal of Molecular Evolution.” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02099995.
Haile-Selassie. (2021). From trees to the ground: the significance of Australopithecus anamensis in human evolution. Journal of Anthropological Research., 77(4), 457–482.
Hollox, Edward; Hurles, Matthew; Kivisild, Toomas; Tyler-Smith, Chris (2013). Human Evolutionary Genetics (2nd ed.). Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-4148-2.
Ko, Kwang HyunOrigins of Bipedalism. Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology [online]. 2015, v. 58, n. 6 [Accessed 2 March 2022], pp. 929–934. Available from: <https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-89132015060399>. Epub Nov-Dec 2015. ISSN 1678-4324. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-89132015060399.
Leyva-Hernández, S. ., Fong-Zazueta, R. ., Medrano-González, L. ., & Aguirre-Samudio, A. J. . (2021). The evolution of brain size among the Homininae and selection at ASPM and MCPH1 genes . Biosis: Biological Systems, 2(2), 293–310. https://doi.org/10.37819/biosis.002.02.0104
Yin-qiu Wang, Bing Su, Molecular evolution of microcephalin, a gene determining human brain size, Human Molecular Genetics, Volume 13, Issue 11, 1 June 2004, Pages 1131–1137, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddh127
"Homininae". NCBI Taxonomy Browser. 207598. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Homininae (/hɒmɪˈnaɪniː/), also called \"African hominids\" or \"African apes\", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini (with the genus Homo including modern humans and numerous extinct species; the subtribe Hominina, comprising at least two extinct genera; and the subtribe Panina, represented only by the genus Pan, which includes chimpanzees and bonobos)―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans (subfamily Ponginae) split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas (through the tribe Gorillini), and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina (see the evolutionary tree below). There are two living species of Panina (chimpanzees and bonobos) and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines (not to be confused with the terms hominins or hominini).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Until 1970, the family (and term) Hominidae meant humans only; the non-human great apes were assigned to the family Pongidae. Later discoveries led to revised classifications, with the great apes then united with humans (now in subfamily Homininae) as members of family Hominidae By 1990, it was recognized that gorillas and chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to orangutans, leading to their (gorillas' and chimpanzees') placement in subfamily Homininae as well.",
"title": "History of discoveries and classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The subfamily Homininae can be further subdivided into three branches: the tribe Gorillini (gorillas), the tribe Hominini with subtribes Panina (chimpanzees) and Hominina (humans and their extinct relatives), and the extinct tribe Dryopithecini. The Late Miocene fossil Nakalipithecus nakayamai, described in 2007, is a basal member of this clade, as is, perhaps, its contemporary Ouranopithecus; that is, they are not assignable to any of the three extant branches. Their existence suggests that the Homininae tribes diverged not earlier than about 8 million years ago (see Human evolutionary genetics).",
"title": "History of discoveries and classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Today, chimpanzees and gorillas live in tropical forests with acid soils that rarely preserve fossils. Although no fossil gorillas have been reported, four chimpanzee teeth about 500,000 years old have been discovered in the East-African rift valley (Kapthurin Formation, Kenya), where many fossils from the human lineage (hominins) have been found. This shows that some chimpanzees lived close to Homo (H. erectus or H. rhodesiensis) at the time; the same is likely true for gorillas.",
"title": "History of discoveries and classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Homininae",
"title": "Taxonomic classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The age of the subfamily Homininae (of the Homininae–Ponginae last common ancestor) is estimated at some 14 to 12.5 million years (Sivapithecus). Its separation into Gorillini and Hominini (the \"gorilla–human last common ancestor\", GHLCA) is estimated to have occurred at about 8 to 10 million years ago (TGHLCA) during the late Miocene, close to the age of Nakalipithecus nakayamai.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "There is evidence there was interbreeding of Gorillas and the Pan–Homo ancestors until right up to the Pan–Homo split.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Recent studies of Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years old) and Orrorin tugenensis (6 million years old) suggest some degree of bipedalism. Australopithecus and early Paranthropus may have been bipedal. Very early hominins such as Ardipithecus ramidus may have possessed an arboreal type of bipedalism.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The evolution of bipedalism encouraged multiple changes among hominins especially when it came to bipedalism in humans as they were now able to do many other things as they began to walk with their feet. These changes included the ability to now use their hands to create tools or carry things with their hands, the ability to travel longer distances at a faster speed, and the ability to hunt for food. According to researchers, humans were able to be bipedalists due to Darwin's Principle of natural selection. Darwin himself believed that larger brains in humans made an upright gait necessary, but had no hypothesis for how the mechanism evolved.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The first major theory attempting to directly explanation the origins of bipedalism was the Savannah hypothesis (Dart 1925.) This theory hypothesized that hominins became bipedalists due to the environment of the Savanna such as the tall grass and dry climate. This was later proven to be incorrect due to fossil records that showed that hominins were still climbing trees during this era.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Anthropologist Owen Lovejoy has suggested that bipedalism was a result of sexual dimorphism in efforts to help with the collecting of food. In his Male Provisioning Hypothesis introduced in 1981, lowered birth rates in early hominids increased pressure on males to provide for females and offspring. While females groomed and cared for their children with the family group, males ranged to seek food and returned bipadally with full arms. Males who could better provide for females in this model were more likely to mate and produce offspring.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Anthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie, an expert on Australopithecus anamensis, discusses the evidence that Australopithecus were one of the first hominins to evolve into obligate bipedalists. The remains of this subfamily are very important in the field of research as it presents possible information regarding how these primates adapted from tree life to terrestrial life. This was a huge adaptation as it encouraged many evolutionary changes within hominins including the ability to use their hand to make tools and gather food, as well as a larger brain development due to their change in diet.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "There has been a gradual increase in brain volume (brain size) as the ancestors of modern humans progressed along the timeline of human evolution, starting from about 600 cm in Homo habilis up to 1500 cm in Homo neanderthalensis. However, modern Homo sapiens have a brain volume slightly smaller (1250 cm) than Neanderthals, women have a brain slightly smaller than men and the Flores hominids (Homo floresiensis), nicknamed hobbits, had a cranial capacity of about 380 cm (considered small for a chimpanzee), about a third of the Homo erectus average. It is proposed that they evolved from H. erectus as a case of insular dwarfism. In spite of their smaller brain, there is evidence that H. floresiensis used fire and made stone tools at least as sophisticated as those of their proposed ancestors H. erectus. In this case, it seems that for intelligence, the structure of the brain is more important than its size.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The current size of the human brain is a big distinguishing factor that separates humans from other primates. Recent examination of the human brain shows that the brain of a human is about more than four times the size of great apes and 20 times larger than the brain size of old world monkeys. A study was conducted to help determine the evolution of the brain size within the sub family Homininae that tested the genes ASPM (abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated) and MCHP1 (microcephalin-1) and their association with the human brain. In this study researchers discovered that the increase in brain size is correlated to the increase of both ASP and MCPH1. MCPH1 is very polymorphic in humans compared to gibbons, Old World monkeys. This gene helps encourage the growth of the brain. Further research indicated that the MCPH1 gene in humans could have also been an encouraging factor of population expansion. Other researchers have included that the diet was an encouraging factor to brain size as protein intake increased this helped brain development.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Sexuality is related to family structure and partly shapes it. The involvement of fathers in education is quite unique to humans, at least when compared to other Homininae. Concealed ovulation and menopause in women both also occur in a few other primates however, but are uncommon in other species. Testis and penis size seems to be related to family structure: monogamy or promiscuity, or harem, in humans, chimpanzees or gorillas, respectively. The levels of sexual dimorphism are generally seen as a marker of sexual selection. Studies have suggested that the earliest hominins were dimorphic and that this lessened over the course of the evolution of the genus Homo, correlating with humans becoming more monogamous, whereas gorillas, who live in harems, show a large degree of sexual dimorphism. Concealed (or \"hidden\") ovulation means that the phase of fertility is not detectable in women, whereas chimpanzees advertise ovulation via an obvious swelling of the genitals. Women can be partly aware of their ovulation along the menstrual phases, but men are essentially unable to detect ovulation in women. Most primates have semi-concealed ovulation, thus one can think that the common ancestor had semi-concealed ovulation, that was inherited by gorillas, and that later evolved in concealed ovulation in humans and advertised ovulation in chimpanzees. Menopause also occurs in rhesus monkeys, and possibly in chimpanzees, but does not in gorillas and is quite uncommon in other primates (and other mammal groups).",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "http://www.bas.bg/en/2019/11/07/remains-of-a-new-hominid-from-germany-more-than-11-5-million-years-old-change-our-views-on-the-evolution-of-great-apes-and-humans/",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Andrews, P., & Harrison, T. (2005). \"7 The Last Common Ancestor of Apes and Humans\". In Interpreting the Past. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047416616_013",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Goodman, Morris, et al. “Primate Evolution at the DNA Level and a Classification of Hominoids - Journal of Molecular Evolution.” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02099995.",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Haile-Selassie. (2021). From trees to the ground: the significance of Australopithecus anamensis in human evolution. Journal of Anthropological Research., 77(4), 457–482.",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Hollox, Edward; Hurles, Matthew; Kivisild, Toomas; Tyler-Smith, Chris (2013). Human Evolutionary Genetics (2nd ed.). Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-4148-2.",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Ko, Kwang HyunOrigins of Bipedalism. Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology [online]. 2015, v. 58, n. 6 [Accessed 2 March 2022], pp. 929–934. Available from: <https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-89132015060399>. Epub Nov-Dec 2015. ISSN 1678-4324. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-89132015060399.",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Leyva-Hernández, S. ., Fong-Zazueta, R. ., Medrano-González, L. ., & Aguirre-Samudio, A. J. . (2021). The evolution of brain size among the Homininae and selection at ASPM and MCPH1 genes . Biosis: Biological Systems, 2(2), 293–310. https://doi.org/10.37819/biosis.002.02.0104",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Yin-qiu Wang, Bing Su, Molecular evolution of microcephalin, a gene determining human brain size, Human Molecular Genetics, Volume 13, Issue 11, 1 June 2004, Pages 1131–1137, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddh127",
"title": "Bibliography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "\"Homininae\". NCBI Taxonomy Browser. 207598.",
"title": "Bibliography"
}
]
| Homininae, also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas, and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina. There are two living species of Panina and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-29T04:16:17Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homininae |
14,348 | Homo habilis | Homo habilis ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, H. habilis was highly contested, with many researchers recommending it be synonymised with Australopithecus africanus, the only other early hominin known at the time, but H. habilis received more recognition as time went on and more relevant discoveries were made. By the 1980s, H. habilis was proposed to have been a human ancestor, directly evolving into Homo erectus which directly led to modern humans. This viewpoint is now debated. Several specimens with insecure species identification were assigned to H. habilis, leading to arguments for splitting, namely into "H. rudolfensis" and "H. gautengensis" of which only the former has received wide support.
Like contemporary Homo, H. habilis brain size generally varied from 500–900 cm (31–55 cu in). The body proportions of H. habilis are only known from two highly fragmentary skeletons, and is based largely on assuming a similar anatomy to the earlier australopithecines. Because of this, it has also been proposed H. habilis be moved to the genus Australopithecus as Australopithecus habilis. However, the interpretation of H. habilis as a small-statured human with inefficient long-distance travel capabilities has been challenged. The presumed female specimen OH 62 is traditionally interpreted as having been 100–120 cm (3 ft 3 in – 3 ft 11 in) in height and 20–37 kg (44–82 lb) in weight assuming australopithecine-like proportions, but assuming humanlike proportions she would have been about 148 cm (4 ft 10 in) and 35 kg (77 lb). Nonetheless, H. habilis may have been at least partially arboreal like what is postulated for australopithecines. Early hominins are typically reconstructed as having thick hair and marked sexual dimorphism with males much larger than females, though relative male and female size is not definitively known.
H. habilis manufactured the Oldowan stone-tool industry and mainly used tools in butchering. Early Homo, compared to australopithecines, are generally thought to have consumed high quantities of meat and, in the case of H. habilis, scavenged meat. Typically, early hominins are interpreted as having lived in polygynous societies, though this is highly speculative. Assuming H. habilis society was similar to that of modern savanna chimpanzees and baboons, groups may have numbered 70–85 members. This configuration would be advantageous with multiple males to defend against open savanna predators, such as big cats, hyenas and crocodiles. H. habilis coexisted with H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster / H. erectus and Paranthropus boisei.
The first recognised remains—OH 7, partial juvenile skull, hand, and foot bones dating to 1.75 million years ago (mya)—were discovered in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1960 by Jonathan Leakey. However, the actual first remains—OH 4, a molar—were discovered by the senior assistant of Louis and Mary Leakey (Jonathan's parents), Heselon Mukiri, in 1959, but this was not realised at the time. By this time, the Leakeys had spent 29 years excavating in Olduvai Gorge for early hominin remains, but had instead recovered mainly other animal remains as well as the Oldowan stone-tool industry. The industry had been ascribed to Paranthropus boisei (at the time "Zinjanthropus") in 1959 as it was the first and only hominin recovered in the area, but this was revised upon OH 7's discovery. In 1964, Louis, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias, and British primatologist John R. Napier officially assigned the remains into the genus Homo, and, on recommendation by Australian anthropologist Raymond Dart, the specific name H. habilis, meaning "able, handy, mentally skillful, vigorous" in Latin. The specimen's association with the Oldowan (then considered evidence of advanced cognitive ability) was also used as justification for classifying it into Homo. OH 7 was designated the holotype specimen.
After description, it was hotly debated if H. habilis should be reclassified into Australopithecus africanus (the only other early hominin known at the time), in part because the remains were so old and at the time Homo was presumed to have evolved in Asia (with the australopithecines having no living descendants). Also, the brain size was smaller than what Wilfrid Le Gros Clark proposed in 1955 when considering Homo. The classification H. habilis began to receive wider acceptance as more fossil elements and species were unearthed. In 1983, Tobias proposed that A. africanus was a direct ancestor of Paranthropus and Homo (the two were sister taxa), and that A. africanus evolved into H. habilis which evolved into H. erectus which evolved into modern humans (by a process of cladogenesis). He further said that there was a major evolutionary leap between A. africanus and H. habilis, and thereupon human evolution progressed gradually because H. habilis brain size had nearly doubled compared to australopithecine predecessors.
Many had accepted Tobias' model and assigned Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene hominin remains outside the range of Paranthropus and H. erectus into H. habilis. For non-skull elements, this was done on the basis of size as there was a lack of clear diagnostic characteristics. Because of these practices, the range of variation for the species became quite wide, and the terms H. habilis sensu stricto ("in the strict sense") and H. habilis sensu lato ("in the broad sense") were in use to include and exclude, respectively, more discrepant morphs. To address this, in 1985, English palaeoanthropologist Bernard Wood proposed that the comparatively massive skull KNM-ER 1470 from Lake Turkana, Kenya, discovered in 1972 and assigned to H. habilis, actually represented a different species, now referred to as Homo rudolfensis. It is also argued that instead it represents a male specimen whereas other H. habilis specimens are female. Early Homo from South Africa have variously been assigned to H. habilis or H. ergaster / H. erectus, but species designation has largely been unclear. In 2010, Australian archaeologist Darren Curoe proposed splitting off South African early Homo into a new species, "Homo gautengensis".
In 1986, OH 62, a fragmentary skeleton was discovered by American anthropologist Tim D. White in association with H. habilis skull fragments, definitively establishing aspects of H. habilis skeletal anatomy for the first time, and revealing more Australopithecus-like than Homo-like features. Because of this, as well as similarities in dental adaptations, Wood and biological anthropologist Mark Collard suggested moving the species to Australopithecus in 1999. However, reevaluation of OH 62 to a more humanlike physiology, if correct, would cast doubt on this. The discovery of the 1.8 Ma Georgian Dmanisi skulls in the early 2000s, which exhibit several similarities with early Homo, has led to suggestions that all contemporary groups of early Homo in Africa, including H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, are the same species and should be assigned to H. erectus.
There is still no wide consensus as to whether or not H. habilis is ancestral to H. ergaster / H. erectus or is an offshoot of the human line, and whether or not all specimens assigned to H. habilis are correctly assigned or the species is an assemblage of different Australopithecus and Homo species. Nonetheless, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis generally are recognised members of the genus at the base of the family tree, with arguments for synonymisation or removal from the genus not widely adopted.
Though it is now largely agreed upon that Homo evolved from Australopithecus, the timing and placement of this split has been much debated, with many Australopithecus species having been proposed as the ancestor. The discovery of LD 350-1, the oldest Homo specimen, dating to 2.8 mya, in the Afar Region of Ethiopia may indicate that the genus evolved from A. afarensis around this time. The species LD 350-1 belongs to could be the ancestor of H. habilis, but this is unclear. The oldest H. habilis specimen, A.L. 666-1, dates to 2.3 mya, but is anatomically more derived (has less ancestral, or basal, traits) than the younger OH 7, suggesting derived and basal morphs lived concurrently, and that the H. habilis lineage began before 2.3 mya. Based on 2.1-million-year-old stone tools from Shangchen, China, H. habilis or an ancestral species may have dispersed across Asia. The youngest H. habilis specimen, OH 13, dates to about 1.65 mya.
It has generally been thought that brain size increased along the human line especially rapidly at the transition between species, with H. habilis brain size smaller than that of H. ergaster / H. erectus, jumping from about 600–650 cc (37–40 cu in) in H. habilis to about 900–1,000 cc (55–61 cu in) in H. ergaster and H. erectus. However, a 2015 study showed that the brain sizes of H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. ergaster generally ranged between 500–900 cc (31–55 cu in) after reappraising the brain volume of OH 7 from 647–687 cc (39.5–41.9 cu in) to 729–824 cc (44.5–50.3 cu in). This does, nonetheless, indicate a jump from australopithecine brain size which generally ranged from 400–500 cc (24–31 cu in).
The brain anatomy of all Homo features an expanded cerebrum in comparison to australopithecines. The pattern of striations on the teeth of OH 65 slant right, which may have been accidentally self-inflicted when the individual was pulling a piece of meat with its teeth and the left hand while trying to cut it with a stone tool using the right hand. If correct, this could indicate right handedness, and handedness is associated with major reorganisation of the brain and the lateralisation of brain function between the left and right hemispheres. This scenario has also been hypothesised for some Neanderthal specimens. Lateralisation could be implicated in tool use. In modern humans, lateralisation is weakly associated with language.
The tooth rows of H. habilis were V-shaped as opposed to U-shaped in later Homo, and the mouth jutted outwards (was prognathic), though the face was flat from the nose up.
Based on the fragmentary skeletons OH 62 (presumed female) and KNM-ER 3735 (presumed male), H. habilis body anatomy has generally been considered to have been more apelike than even that of the earlier A. afarensis and consistent with an at least partially arboreal lifestyle in the trees as is assumed in australopithecines. Based on OH 62 and assuming comparable body dimensions to australopithecines, H. habilis has generally been interpreted as having been small-bodied like australopithecines, with OH 62 generally estimated at about 100–120 cm (3 ft 3 in – 3 ft 11 in) in height and 20–37 kg (44–82 lb) in weight. However, assuming longer, modern humanlike legs, OH 62 would have been about 148 cm (4 ft 10 in) and 35 kg (77 lb), and KNM-ER 3735 about the same size. For comparison, modern human men and women in the year 1900 averaged 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) and 152.7 cm (5.01 ft), respectively. It is generally assumed that pre-H. ergaster hominins, including H. habilis, exhibited notable sexual dimorphism with males markedly bigger than females. However, relative female body mass is unknown in this species.
Early hominins, including H. habilis, are thought to have had thick body hair coverage like modern non-human apes because they appear to have inhabited colder regions and are thought to have had a less active lifestyle than (presumed hairless) post-ergaster species. Consequently, they probably required thick body hair to stay warm. Based on dental development rates, H. habilis is assumed to have had an accelerated growth rate compared to modern humans, more like that of modern non-human apes.
The arms of H. habilis and australopithecines have generally been considered to have been proportionally long and so adapted for climbing and swinging. In 2004, anthropologists Martin Haeusler and Henry McHenry argued that, because the humerus to femur ratio of OH 62 is within the range of variation for modern humans, and KNM-ER 3735 is close to the modern human average, it is unsafe to assume apelike proportions. Nonetheless, the humerus of OH 62 measured 258–270 mm (10.2–10.6 in) long and the ulna (forearm) 245–255 mm (9.6–10.0 in), which is closer to the proportion seen in chimpanzees. The hand bones of OH 7 suggest precision gripping, important in dexterity, as well as adaptations for climbing. In regard to the femur, traditionally comparisons with the A. afarensis specimen AL 288-1 have been used to reconstruct stout legs for H. habilis, but Haeusler and McHenry suggested the more gracile OH 24 femur (either belonging to H. ergaster / H. erectus or P. boisei) may be a more apt comparison. In this instance, H. habilis would have had longer, humanlike legs and have been effective long-distance travellers as is assumed to have been the case in H. ergaster. However, estimating the unpreserved length of a fossil is highly problematic. The thickness of the limb bones in OH 62 is more similar to chimpanzees than H. ergaster / H. erectus and modern humans, which may indicate different load bearing capabilities more suitable for arboreality in H. habilis. The strong fibula of OH 35 (though this may belong to P. boisei) is more like that of non-human apes, and consistent with arboreality and vertical climbing.
OH 8, a foot, is better suited for terrestrial movement than the foot of A. afarensis, though it still retains many apelike features consistent with climbing. However, the foot has projected toe bone and compacted mid-foot joint structures, which restrict rotation between the foot and ankle as well as at the front foot. Foot stability enhances the efficiency of force transfer between the leg and the foot and vice versa, and is implicated in the plantar arch elastic spring mechanism which generates energy while running (but not walking). This could possibly indicate H. habilis was capable of some degree of endurance running, which is typically thought to have evolved later in H. ergaster / H. erectus.
Typically, H. ergaster / H. erectus is considered to have been the first human to have lived in a monogamous society, and all preceding hominins were polygynous. However, it is highly difficult to speculate with any confidence the group dynamics of early hominins. The degree of sexual dimorphism and the size disparity between males and females is often used to correlate between polygyny with high disparity and monogamy with low disparity based on general trends (though not without exceptions) seen in modern primates. Rates of sexual dimorphism are difficult to determine as early hominin anatomy is poorly represented in the fossil record. In some cases, sex is arbitrarily determined in large part based on perceived size and apparent robustness in the absence of more reliable elements in sex identification (namely the pelvis). Mating systems are also based on dental anatomy, but early hominins possess a mosaic anatomy of different traits not seen together in modern primates; the enlarged cheek teeth would suggest marked size-related dimorphism and thus intense male–male conflict over mates and a polygynous society, but the small canines should indicate the opposite. Other selective pressures, including diet, can also dramatically impact dental anatomy. The spatial distribution of tools and processed animal bones at the FLK Zinj and PTK sites in Olduvai Gorge indicate the inhabitants used this area as a communal butchering and eating grounds, as opposed to the nuclear family system of modern hunter gatherers where the group is subdivided into smaller units each with their own butchering and eating grounds.
The behaviour of early Homo, including H. habilis, is sometimes modelled on that of savanna chimps and baboons. These communities consist of several males (as opposed to a harem society) in order to defend the group on the dangerous and exposed habitat, sometimes engaging in a group display of throwing sticks and stones against enemies and predators. The left foot OH 8 seems to have been bitten off by a crocodile, possibly Crocodylus anthropophagus, and the leg OH 35, which either belongs to P. boisei or H. habilis, shows evidence of leopard predation. H. habilis and contemporary hominins were likely predated upon by other large carnivores of the time, such as (in Olduvai Gorge) the hunting hyena Chasmaporthetes nitidula, and the saber-toothed cats Dinofelis and Megantereon. In 1993, American palaeoanthropologist Leslie C. Aiello and British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar estimated that H. habilis group size ranged from 70–85 members—on the upper end of chimp and baboon group size—based on trends seen in neocortex size and group size in modern non-human primates.
H. habilis coexisted with H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster / H. erectus, and P. boisei. It is unclear how all of these species interacted. To explain why P. boisei was associated with Olduwan tools despite not being the knapper (the one who made the tools), Leakey and colleagues, when describing H. habilis, suggested that one possibility was P. boisei was killed by H. habilis, perhaps as food. However, when describing P. boisei five years earlier, Louis Leakey said, "There is no reason whatever, in this case, to believe that the skull represents the victim of a cannibalistic feast by some hypothetical more advanced type of man."
It is thought H. habilis derived meat from scavenging rather than hunting (scavenger hypothesis), acting as a confrontational scavenger and stealing kills from smaller predators such as jackals or cheetahs. Fruit was likely also an important dietary component, indicated by dental erosion consistent with repetitive exposure to acidity. Based on dental microwear-texture analysis, H. habilis (like other early Homo) likely did not regularly consume tough foods. Microwear-texture complexity is, on average, somewhere between that of tough-food eaters and leaf eaters (folivores), and points to an increasingly generalised and omnivorous diet.
It is typically thought that the diets of H. habilis and other early Homo had a greater proportion of meat than Australopithecus, and that this led to brain growth. The main hypotheses regarding this are: meat is energy- and nutrient-rich and put evolutionary pressure on developing enhanced cognitive skills to facilitate strategic scavenging and monopolise fresh carcasses, or meat allowed the large and calorie-expensive ape gut to decrease in size allowing this energy to be diverted to brain growth. Alternatively, it is also suggested that early Homo, in a drying climate with scarcer food options, relied primarily on underground storage organs (such as tubers) and food sharing, which facilitated social bonding among both male and female group members. However, unlike what is presumed for H. ergaster and later Homo, short-statured early Homo are generally considered to have been incapable of endurance running and hunting, and the long and Australopithecus-like forearm of H. habilis could indicate early Homo were still arboreal to a degree. Also, organised hunting and gathering is thought to have emerged in H. ergaster. Nonetheless, the proposed food-gathering models to explain large brain growth necessitate increased daily travel distance. It has also been argued that H. habilis instead had long, modern humanlike legs and was fully capable of effective long distance travel, while still remaining at least partially arboreal.
Large incisor size in H. habilis compared to Australopithecus predecessors implies this species relied on incisors more. The bodies of the mandibles of H. habilis and other early Homo are thicker than those of modern humans and all living apes, more comparable to Australopithecus. The mandibular body resists torsion from the bite force or chewing, meaning their jaws could produce unusually powerful stresses while eating. The greater molar cusp relief in H. habilis compared to Australopithecus suggests the former used tools to fracture tough foods (such as pliable plant parts or meat), otherwise the cusps would have been more worn down. Nonetheless, the jaw adaptations for processing mechanically challenging food indicates technological advancement did not greatly affect diet.
H. habilis is associated with the Early Stone Age Oldowan stone tool industry. Individuals likely used these tools primarily to butcher and skin animals and crush bones, but also sometimes to saw and scrape wood and cut soft plants. Knappers - individuals shaping stones - appear to have carefully selected lithic cores and knew that certain rocks would break in a specific way when struck hard enough and on the right spot, and they produced several different types, including choppers, polyhedrons, and discoids. Nonetheless, specific shapes were likely not thought of in advance, and probably stem from a lack of standardisation in producing such tools as well as the types of raw materials at the knappers' disposal. For example, spheroids are common at Olduvai, which features an abundance of large and soft quartz and quartzite pieces, whereas Koobi Fora lacks spheroids and provides predominantly hard basalt lava rocks. Unlike the later Acheulean culture invented by H. ergaster / H. erectus, Oldowan technology does not require planning and foresight to manufacture, and thus does not indicate high cognition in Oldowan knappers, though it does require a degree of coordination and some knowledge of mechanics. Oldowan tools infrequently exhibit retouching and were probably discarded immediately after use most of the time.
The Oldowan was first reported in 1934, but it was not until the 1960s that it become widely accepted as the earliest culture, dating to 1.8 mya, and as having been manufactured by H. habilis. Since then, more discoveries have placed the origins of material culture substantially backwards in time, with the Oldowan being discovered in Ledi-Geraru and Gona in Ethiopia dating to 2.6 mya, perhaps associated with the evolution of the genus. Australopithecines are also known to have manufactured tools, such as the 3.3 Ma Lomekwi stone tool industry, and some evidence of butchering from about 3.4 mya. Nonetheless, the comparatively sharp-edged Oldowan culture was a major innovation from australopithecine technology, and it would have allowed different feeding strategies and the ability to process a wider range of foods, which would have been advantageous in the changing climate of the time. It is unclear if the Oldowan was independently invented or if it was the result of hominin experimentation with rocks over hundreds of thousands of years across multiple species.
In 1962, a 366 cm × 427 cm × 30 cm (12 ft × 14 ft × 1 ft) circle made with volcanic rocks was discovered in Olduvai Gorge. At 61–76 cm (2–2.5 ft) intervals, rocks were piled up to 15–23 cm (6–9 in) high. Mary Leakey suggested the rock piles were used to support poles stuck into the ground, possibly to support a windbreak or a rough hut. Some modern-day nomadic tribes build similar low-lying rock walls to build temporary shelters upon, bending upright branches as poles and using grasses or animal hide as a screen. Dating to 1.75 mya, it is attributed to some early Homo, and is the oldest-claimed evidence of architecture. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Homo habilis (\"handy man\") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, H. habilis was highly contested, with many researchers recommending it be synonymised with Australopithecus africanus, the only other early hominin known at the time, but H. habilis received more recognition as time went on and more relevant discoveries were made. By the 1980s, H. habilis was proposed to have been a human ancestor, directly evolving into Homo erectus which directly led to modern humans. This viewpoint is now debated. Several specimens with insecure species identification were assigned to H. habilis, leading to arguments for splitting, namely into \"H. rudolfensis\" and \"H. gautengensis\" of which only the former has received wide support.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Like contemporary Homo, H. habilis brain size generally varied from 500–900 cm (31–55 cu in). The body proportions of H. habilis are only known from two highly fragmentary skeletons, and is based largely on assuming a similar anatomy to the earlier australopithecines. Because of this, it has also been proposed H. habilis be moved to the genus Australopithecus as Australopithecus habilis. However, the interpretation of H. habilis as a small-statured human with inefficient long-distance travel capabilities has been challenged. The presumed female specimen OH 62 is traditionally interpreted as having been 100–120 cm (3 ft 3 in – 3 ft 11 in) in height and 20–37 kg (44–82 lb) in weight assuming australopithecine-like proportions, but assuming humanlike proportions she would have been about 148 cm (4 ft 10 in) and 35 kg (77 lb). Nonetheless, H. habilis may have been at least partially arboreal like what is postulated for australopithecines. Early hominins are typically reconstructed as having thick hair and marked sexual dimorphism with males much larger than females, though relative male and female size is not definitively known.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "H. habilis manufactured the Oldowan stone-tool industry and mainly used tools in butchering. Early Homo, compared to australopithecines, are generally thought to have consumed high quantities of meat and, in the case of H. habilis, scavenged meat. Typically, early hominins are interpreted as having lived in polygynous societies, though this is highly speculative. Assuming H. habilis society was similar to that of modern savanna chimpanzees and baboons, groups may have numbered 70–85 members. This configuration would be advantageous with multiple males to defend against open savanna predators, such as big cats, hyenas and crocodiles. H. habilis coexisted with H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster / H. erectus and Paranthropus boisei.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first recognised remains—OH 7, partial juvenile skull, hand, and foot bones dating to 1.75 million years ago (mya)—were discovered in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1960 by Jonathan Leakey. However, the actual first remains—OH 4, a molar—were discovered by the senior assistant of Louis and Mary Leakey (Jonathan's parents), Heselon Mukiri, in 1959, but this was not realised at the time. By this time, the Leakeys had spent 29 years excavating in Olduvai Gorge for early hominin remains, but had instead recovered mainly other animal remains as well as the Oldowan stone-tool industry. The industry had been ascribed to Paranthropus boisei (at the time \"Zinjanthropus\") in 1959 as it was the first and only hominin recovered in the area, but this was revised upon OH 7's discovery. In 1964, Louis, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias, and British primatologist John R. Napier officially assigned the remains into the genus Homo, and, on recommendation by Australian anthropologist Raymond Dart, the specific name H. habilis, meaning \"able, handy, mentally skillful, vigorous\" in Latin. The specimen's association with the Oldowan (then considered evidence of advanced cognitive ability) was also used as justification for classifying it into Homo. OH 7 was designated the holotype specimen.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "After description, it was hotly debated if H. habilis should be reclassified into Australopithecus africanus (the only other early hominin known at the time), in part because the remains were so old and at the time Homo was presumed to have evolved in Asia (with the australopithecines having no living descendants). Also, the brain size was smaller than what Wilfrid Le Gros Clark proposed in 1955 when considering Homo. The classification H. habilis began to receive wider acceptance as more fossil elements and species were unearthed. In 1983, Tobias proposed that A. africanus was a direct ancestor of Paranthropus and Homo (the two were sister taxa), and that A. africanus evolved into H. habilis which evolved into H. erectus which evolved into modern humans (by a process of cladogenesis). He further said that there was a major evolutionary leap between A. africanus and H. habilis, and thereupon human evolution progressed gradually because H. habilis brain size had nearly doubled compared to australopithecine predecessors.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Many had accepted Tobias' model and assigned Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene hominin remains outside the range of Paranthropus and H. erectus into H. habilis. For non-skull elements, this was done on the basis of size as there was a lack of clear diagnostic characteristics. Because of these practices, the range of variation for the species became quite wide, and the terms H. habilis sensu stricto (\"in the strict sense\") and H. habilis sensu lato (\"in the broad sense\") were in use to include and exclude, respectively, more discrepant morphs. To address this, in 1985, English palaeoanthropologist Bernard Wood proposed that the comparatively massive skull KNM-ER 1470 from Lake Turkana, Kenya, discovered in 1972 and assigned to H. habilis, actually represented a different species, now referred to as Homo rudolfensis. It is also argued that instead it represents a male specimen whereas other H. habilis specimens are female. Early Homo from South Africa have variously been assigned to H. habilis or H. ergaster / H. erectus, but species designation has largely been unclear. In 2010, Australian archaeologist Darren Curoe proposed splitting off South African early Homo into a new species, \"Homo gautengensis\".",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1986, OH 62, a fragmentary skeleton was discovered by American anthropologist Tim D. White in association with H. habilis skull fragments, definitively establishing aspects of H. habilis skeletal anatomy for the first time, and revealing more Australopithecus-like than Homo-like features. Because of this, as well as similarities in dental adaptations, Wood and biological anthropologist Mark Collard suggested moving the species to Australopithecus in 1999. However, reevaluation of OH 62 to a more humanlike physiology, if correct, would cast doubt on this. The discovery of the 1.8 Ma Georgian Dmanisi skulls in the early 2000s, which exhibit several similarities with early Homo, has led to suggestions that all contemporary groups of early Homo in Africa, including H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, are the same species and should be assigned to H. erectus.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "There is still no wide consensus as to whether or not H. habilis is ancestral to H. ergaster / H. erectus or is an offshoot of the human line, and whether or not all specimens assigned to H. habilis are correctly assigned or the species is an assemblage of different Australopithecus and Homo species. Nonetheless, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis generally are recognised members of the genus at the base of the family tree, with arguments for synonymisation or removal from the genus not widely adopted.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Though it is now largely agreed upon that Homo evolved from Australopithecus, the timing and placement of this split has been much debated, with many Australopithecus species having been proposed as the ancestor. The discovery of LD 350-1, the oldest Homo specimen, dating to 2.8 mya, in the Afar Region of Ethiopia may indicate that the genus evolved from A. afarensis around this time. The species LD 350-1 belongs to could be the ancestor of H. habilis, but this is unclear. The oldest H. habilis specimen, A.L. 666-1, dates to 2.3 mya, but is anatomically more derived (has less ancestral, or basal, traits) than the younger OH 7, suggesting derived and basal morphs lived concurrently, and that the H. habilis lineage began before 2.3 mya. Based on 2.1-million-year-old stone tools from Shangchen, China, H. habilis or an ancestral species may have dispersed across Asia. The youngest H. habilis specimen, OH 13, dates to about 1.65 mya.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "It has generally been thought that brain size increased along the human line especially rapidly at the transition between species, with H. habilis brain size smaller than that of H. ergaster / H. erectus, jumping from about 600–650 cc (37–40 cu in) in H. habilis to about 900–1,000 cc (55–61 cu in) in H. ergaster and H. erectus. However, a 2015 study showed that the brain sizes of H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. ergaster generally ranged between 500–900 cc (31–55 cu in) after reappraising the brain volume of OH 7 from 647–687 cc (39.5–41.9 cu in) to 729–824 cc (44.5–50.3 cu in). This does, nonetheless, indicate a jump from australopithecine brain size which generally ranged from 400–500 cc (24–31 cu in).",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The brain anatomy of all Homo features an expanded cerebrum in comparison to australopithecines. The pattern of striations on the teeth of OH 65 slant right, which may have been accidentally self-inflicted when the individual was pulling a piece of meat with its teeth and the left hand while trying to cut it with a stone tool using the right hand. If correct, this could indicate right handedness, and handedness is associated with major reorganisation of the brain and the lateralisation of brain function between the left and right hemispheres. This scenario has also been hypothesised for some Neanderthal specimens. Lateralisation could be implicated in tool use. In modern humans, lateralisation is weakly associated with language.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The tooth rows of H. habilis were V-shaped as opposed to U-shaped in later Homo, and the mouth jutted outwards (was prognathic), though the face was flat from the nose up.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Based on the fragmentary skeletons OH 62 (presumed female) and KNM-ER 3735 (presumed male), H. habilis body anatomy has generally been considered to have been more apelike than even that of the earlier A. afarensis and consistent with an at least partially arboreal lifestyle in the trees as is assumed in australopithecines. Based on OH 62 and assuming comparable body dimensions to australopithecines, H. habilis has generally been interpreted as having been small-bodied like australopithecines, with OH 62 generally estimated at about 100–120 cm (3 ft 3 in – 3 ft 11 in) in height and 20–37 kg (44–82 lb) in weight. However, assuming longer, modern humanlike legs, OH 62 would have been about 148 cm (4 ft 10 in) and 35 kg (77 lb), and KNM-ER 3735 about the same size. For comparison, modern human men and women in the year 1900 averaged 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) and 152.7 cm (5.01 ft), respectively. It is generally assumed that pre-H. ergaster hominins, including H. habilis, exhibited notable sexual dimorphism with males markedly bigger than females. However, relative female body mass is unknown in this species.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Early hominins, including H. habilis, are thought to have had thick body hair coverage like modern non-human apes because they appear to have inhabited colder regions and are thought to have had a less active lifestyle than (presumed hairless) post-ergaster species. Consequently, they probably required thick body hair to stay warm. Based on dental development rates, H. habilis is assumed to have had an accelerated growth rate compared to modern humans, more like that of modern non-human apes.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The arms of H. habilis and australopithecines have generally been considered to have been proportionally long and so adapted for climbing and swinging. In 2004, anthropologists Martin Haeusler and Henry McHenry argued that, because the humerus to femur ratio of OH 62 is within the range of variation for modern humans, and KNM-ER 3735 is close to the modern human average, it is unsafe to assume apelike proportions. Nonetheless, the humerus of OH 62 measured 258–270 mm (10.2–10.6 in) long and the ulna (forearm) 245–255 mm (9.6–10.0 in), which is closer to the proportion seen in chimpanzees. The hand bones of OH 7 suggest precision gripping, important in dexterity, as well as adaptations for climbing. In regard to the femur, traditionally comparisons with the A. afarensis specimen AL 288-1 have been used to reconstruct stout legs for H. habilis, but Haeusler and McHenry suggested the more gracile OH 24 femur (either belonging to H. ergaster / H. erectus or P. boisei) may be a more apt comparison. In this instance, H. habilis would have had longer, humanlike legs and have been effective long-distance travellers as is assumed to have been the case in H. ergaster. However, estimating the unpreserved length of a fossil is highly problematic. The thickness of the limb bones in OH 62 is more similar to chimpanzees than H. ergaster / H. erectus and modern humans, which may indicate different load bearing capabilities more suitable for arboreality in H. habilis. The strong fibula of OH 35 (though this may belong to P. boisei) is more like that of non-human apes, and consistent with arboreality and vertical climbing.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "OH 8, a foot, is better suited for terrestrial movement than the foot of A. afarensis, though it still retains many apelike features consistent with climbing. However, the foot has projected toe bone and compacted mid-foot joint structures, which restrict rotation between the foot and ankle as well as at the front foot. Foot stability enhances the efficiency of force transfer between the leg and the foot and vice versa, and is implicated in the plantar arch elastic spring mechanism which generates energy while running (but not walking). This could possibly indicate H. habilis was capable of some degree of endurance running, which is typically thought to have evolved later in H. ergaster / H. erectus.",
"title": "Anatomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Typically, H. ergaster / H. erectus is considered to have been the first human to have lived in a monogamous society, and all preceding hominins were polygynous. However, it is highly difficult to speculate with any confidence the group dynamics of early hominins. The degree of sexual dimorphism and the size disparity between males and females is often used to correlate between polygyny with high disparity and monogamy with low disparity based on general trends (though not without exceptions) seen in modern primates. Rates of sexual dimorphism are difficult to determine as early hominin anatomy is poorly represented in the fossil record. In some cases, sex is arbitrarily determined in large part based on perceived size and apparent robustness in the absence of more reliable elements in sex identification (namely the pelvis). Mating systems are also based on dental anatomy, but early hominins possess a mosaic anatomy of different traits not seen together in modern primates; the enlarged cheek teeth would suggest marked size-related dimorphism and thus intense male–male conflict over mates and a polygynous society, but the small canines should indicate the opposite. Other selective pressures, including diet, can also dramatically impact dental anatomy. The spatial distribution of tools and processed animal bones at the FLK Zinj and PTK sites in Olduvai Gorge indicate the inhabitants used this area as a communal butchering and eating grounds, as opposed to the nuclear family system of modern hunter gatherers where the group is subdivided into smaller units each with their own butchering and eating grounds.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The behaviour of early Homo, including H. habilis, is sometimes modelled on that of savanna chimps and baboons. These communities consist of several males (as opposed to a harem society) in order to defend the group on the dangerous and exposed habitat, sometimes engaging in a group display of throwing sticks and stones against enemies and predators. The left foot OH 8 seems to have been bitten off by a crocodile, possibly Crocodylus anthropophagus, and the leg OH 35, which either belongs to P. boisei or H. habilis, shows evidence of leopard predation. H. habilis and contemporary hominins were likely predated upon by other large carnivores of the time, such as (in Olduvai Gorge) the hunting hyena Chasmaporthetes nitidula, and the saber-toothed cats Dinofelis and Megantereon. In 1993, American palaeoanthropologist Leslie C. Aiello and British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar estimated that H. habilis group size ranged from 70–85 members—on the upper end of chimp and baboon group size—based on trends seen in neocortex size and group size in modern non-human primates.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "H. habilis coexisted with H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster / H. erectus, and P. boisei. It is unclear how all of these species interacted. To explain why P. boisei was associated with Olduwan tools despite not being the knapper (the one who made the tools), Leakey and colleagues, when describing H. habilis, suggested that one possibility was P. boisei was killed by H. habilis, perhaps as food. However, when describing P. boisei five years earlier, Louis Leakey said, \"There is no reason whatever, in this case, to believe that the skull represents the victim of a cannibalistic feast by some hypothetical more advanced type of man.\"",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "It is thought H. habilis derived meat from scavenging rather than hunting (scavenger hypothesis), acting as a confrontational scavenger and stealing kills from smaller predators such as jackals or cheetahs. Fruit was likely also an important dietary component, indicated by dental erosion consistent with repetitive exposure to acidity. Based on dental microwear-texture analysis, H. habilis (like other early Homo) likely did not regularly consume tough foods. Microwear-texture complexity is, on average, somewhere between that of tough-food eaters and leaf eaters (folivores), and points to an increasingly generalised and omnivorous diet.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "It is typically thought that the diets of H. habilis and other early Homo had a greater proportion of meat than Australopithecus, and that this led to brain growth. The main hypotheses regarding this are: meat is energy- and nutrient-rich and put evolutionary pressure on developing enhanced cognitive skills to facilitate strategic scavenging and monopolise fresh carcasses, or meat allowed the large and calorie-expensive ape gut to decrease in size allowing this energy to be diverted to brain growth. Alternatively, it is also suggested that early Homo, in a drying climate with scarcer food options, relied primarily on underground storage organs (such as tubers) and food sharing, which facilitated social bonding among both male and female group members. However, unlike what is presumed for H. ergaster and later Homo, short-statured early Homo are generally considered to have been incapable of endurance running and hunting, and the long and Australopithecus-like forearm of H. habilis could indicate early Homo were still arboreal to a degree. Also, organised hunting and gathering is thought to have emerged in H. ergaster. Nonetheless, the proposed food-gathering models to explain large brain growth necessitate increased daily travel distance. It has also been argued that H. habilis instead had long, modern humanlike legs and was fully capable of effective long distance travel, while still remaining at least partially arboreal.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Large incisor size in H. habilis compared to Australopithecus predecessors implies this species relied on incisors more. The bodies of the mandibles of H. habilis and other early Homo are thicker than those of modern humans and all living apes, more comparable to Australopithecus. The mandibular body resists torsion from the bite force or chewing, meaning their jaws could produce unusually powerful stresses while eating. The greater molar cusp relief in H. habilis compared to Australopithecus suggests the former used tools to fracture tough foods (such as pliable plant parts or meat), otherwise the cusps would have been more worn down. Nonetheless, the jaw adaptations for processing mechanically challenging food indicates technological advancement did not greatly affect diet.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "H. habilis is associated with the Early Stone Age Oldowan stone tool industry. Individuals likely used these tools primarily to butcher and skin animals and crush bones, but also sometimes to saw and scrape wood and cut soft plants. Knappers - individuals shaping stones - appear to have carefully selected lithic cores and knew that certain rocks would break in a specific way when struck hard enough and on the right spot, and they produced several different types, including choppers, polyhedrons, and discoids. Nonetheless, specific shapes were likely not thought of in advance, and probably stem from a lack of standardisation in producing such tools as well as the types of raw materials at the knappers' disposal. For example, spheroids are common at Olduvai, which features an abundance of large and soft quartz and quartzite pieces, whereas Koobi Fora lacks spheroids and provides predominantly hard basalt lava rocks. Unlike the later Acheulean culture invented by H. ergaster / H. erectus, Oldowan technology does not require planning and foresight to manufacture, and thus does not indicate high cognition in Oldowan knappers, though it does require a degree of coordination and some knowledge of mechanics. Oldowan tools infrequently exhibit retouching and were probably discarded immediately after use most of the time.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Oldowan was first reported in 1934, but it was not until the 1960s that it become widely accepted as the earliest culture, dating to 1.8 mya, and as having been manufactured by H. habilis. Since then, more discoveries have placed the origins of material culture substantially backwards in time, with the Oldowan being discovered in Ledi-Geraru and Gona in Ethiopia dating to 2.6 mya, perhaps associated with the evolution of the genus. Australopithecines are also known to have manufactured tools, such as the 3.3 Ma Lomekwi stone tool industry, and some evidence of butchering from about 3.4 mya. Nonetheless, the comparatively sharp-edged Oldowan culture was a major innovation from australopithecine technology, and it would have allowed different feeding strategies and the ability to process a wider range of foods, which would have been advantageous in the changing climate of the time. It is unclear if the Oldowan was independently invented or if it was the result of hominin experimentation with rocks over hundreds of thousands of years across multiple species.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1962, a 366 cm × 427 cm × 30 cm (12 ft × 14 ft × 1 ft) circle made with volcanic rocks was discovered in Olduvai Gorge. At 61–76 cm (2–2.5 ft) intervals, rocks were piled up to 15–23 cm (6–9 in) high. Mary Leakey suggested the rock piles were used to support poles stuck into the ground, possibly to support a windbreak or a rough hut. Some modern-day nomadic tribes build similar low-lying rock walls to build temporary shelters upon, bending upright branches as poles and using grasses or animal hide as a screen. Dating to 1.75 mya, it is attributed to some early Homo, and is the oldest-claimed evidence of architecture.",
"title": "Culture"
}
]
| Homo habilis is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, H. habilis was highly contested, with many researchers recommending it be synonymised with Australopithecus africanus, the only other early hominin known at the time, but H. habilis received more recognition as time went on and more relevant discoveries were made. By the 1980s, H. habilis was proposed to have been a human ancestor, directly evolving into Homo erectus which directly led to modern humans. This viewpoint is now debated. Several specimens with insecure species identification were assigned to H. habilis, leading to arguments for splitting, namely into "H. rudolfensis" and "H. gautengensis" of which only the former has received wide support. Like contemporary Homo, H. habilis brain size generally varied from 500–900 cm3 (31–55 cu in). The body proportions of H. habilis are only known from two highly fragmentary skeletons, and is based largely on assuming a similar anatomy to the earlier australopithecines. Because of this, it has also been proposed H. habilis be moved to the genus Australopithecus as Australopithecus habilis. However, the interpretation of H. habilis as a small-statured human with inefficient long-distance travel capabilities has been challenged. The presumed female specimen OH 62 is traditionally interpreted as having been 100–120 cm in height and 20–37 kg (44–82 lb) in weight assuming australopithecine-like proportions, but assuming humanlike proportions she would have been about 148 cm and 35 kg (77 lb). Nonetheless, H. habilis may have been at least partially arboreal like what is postulated for australopithecines. Early hominins are typically reconstructed as having thick hair and marked sexual dimorphism with males much larger than females, though relative male and female size is not definitively known. H. habilis manufactured the Oldowan stone-tool industry and mainly used tools in butchering. Early Homo, compared to australopithecines, are generally thought to have consumed high quantities of meat and, in the case of H. habilis, scavenged meat. Typically, early hominins are interpreted as having lived in polygynous societies, though this is highly speculative. Assuming H. habilis society was similar to that of modern savanna chimpanzees and baboons, groups may have numbered 70–85 members. This configuration would be advantageous with multiple males to defend against open savanna predators, such as big cats, hyenas and crocodiles. H. habilis coexisted with H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster / H. erectus and Paranthropus boisei. | 2001-12-27T23:16:24Z | 2023-12-17T23:25:44Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis |
14,349 | Harmonica | The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.
Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed's length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier, and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds; shorter, lighter, and stiffer reeds make higher-pitched sounds. If, as on most modern harmonicas, a reed is affixed above or below its slot rather than in the plane of the slot, it responds more easily to air flowing in the direction that initially would push it into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed. This difference in response to air direction makes it possible to include both a blow reed and a draw reed in the same air chamber and to play them separately without relying on flaps of plastic or leather (valves, wind-savers) to block the nonplaying reed.
An important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Bending isolated reeds is possible, as on chromatic and other harmonica models with wind-savers, but also to both lower, and raise (overbend, overblow, overdraw) the pitch produced by pairs of reeds in the same chamber, as on a diatonic or other unvalved harmonica. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the opening reed (for instance, the blow reed while the player is drawing).
The basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates, and cover plates.
The comb is the main body of the instrument, which, when assembled with the reed plates, forms air chambers for the reeds. The term "comb" may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb. Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood, but now are also made from plastic (ABS) or metal (including titanium for high-end instruments). Some modern and experimental comb designs are complex in the way that they direct the air.
Dispute exists among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica. Those saying no argue that unlike the soundboard of a piano or the top piece of a violin or guitar, a harmonica's comb is neither large enough nor able to vibrate freely enough to substantially augment or change the sound. Among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute that comb surface smoothness and air tightness when mated with the reed plates can greatly affect tone and playability. The main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability. In particular, a wooden comb can absorb moisture from the player's breath and contact with the tongue. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, and to then contract, potentially compromising air tightness. Various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem.
An even more serious problem with wooden combs, especially in chromatic harmonicas (with their thin dividers between chambers), is that, as the combs expand and shrink over time, cracks can form in the combs, because the comb is held immobile by nails, resulting in disabling leakage. Serious players devote significant effort to restoring wood combs and sealing leaks. Some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas (diatonics, without wind-savers) in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates, and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, but modern players still dip their harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes.
The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing. The reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium, and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the reed plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the inner side of the reed plate (within the comb's air chamber) respond to blowing, while those fixed on the outer side respond to suction.
Most harmonicas are constructed with the reed plates screwed or bolted to the comb or each other. A few brands still use the traditional method of nailing the reed plates to the comb. Some experimental and rare harmonicas also have had the reed plates held in place by tension, such as the WWII-era all-American models. If the plates are bolted to the comb, the reed plates can be replaced individually. This is useful because the reeds eventually go out of tune through normal use, and certain notes of the scale can fail more quickly than others.
A notable exception to the traditional reed plate design is the all-plastic harmonicas designed by Finn Magnus in the 1950s, in which the reed and reed plate were molded out of a single piece of plastic. The Magnus design had the reeds, reed plates, and comb made of plastic and either molded or permanently glued together.
Cover plates cover the reed plates and are usually made of metal, though wood and plastic have also been used. The choice of these is personal; because they project sound, they determine the tonal quality of the harmonica. Two types of cover plates are used: traditional open designs of stamped metal or plastic, which are simply there to be held; and enclosed designs (such as the Hohner Meisterklasse and Super 64, Suzuki Promaster and SCX), which offer a louder tonal quality. From these two basic types, a few modern designs have been created, such as the Hohner CBH-2016 chromatic and the Suzuki Overdrive diatonic, which have complex covers that allow for specific functions not usually available in the traditional design. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, harmonicas not uncommonly had special features on the covers, such as bells, which could be rung by pushing a button.
Wind-savers are one-way valves made from thin strips of plastic, knit paper, leather, or Teflon glued to the reed plate. They are typically found in chromatic harmonicas, chord harmonicas, and many octave-tuned harmonicas. Wind-savers are used when two reeds share a cell and leakage through the nonplaying reed would be significant. For example, when a draw note is played, the valve on the blow reed-slot is sucked shut, preventing air from leaking through the inactive blow reed. An exception to this is the now-discontinued Hohner XB-40, on which valves are placed not to isolate single reeds, but rather to isolate entire chambers from being active, a design that made playing traditional blues bends possible on all reeds.
The mouthpiece is placed between the air chambers of the instrument and the player's mouth. This can be integral with the comb (the diatonic harmonicas; the Hohner Chrometta); part of the cover (as in Hohner's CX-12); or may be a separate unit, secured by screws, which is typical of chromatics. In many harmonicas, the mouthpiece is purely an ergonomic aid designed to make playing more comfortable. In the traditional slider-based chromatic harmonica, it is essential to the functioning of the instrument because it provides a groove for the slide.
Since the 1950s, many blues harmonica players have amplified their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers. One of the early innovators of this approach was Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs, who played the harmonica near a "Bullet" microphone marketed for use by radio taxi dispatchers. This gave his harmonica tone a "punchy" midrange sound that could be heard above an electric guitar. Also, tube amplifiers produce a natural growling overdrive when cranked at higher volumes, which adds body, fullness, and "grit" to the sound. Little Walter also cupped his hands around the instrument, tightening the air around the harp, giving it a powerful, distorted sound, somewhat reminiscent of a saxophone, hence the term "Mississippi saxophone". Some harmonica players in folk use a regular vocal microphone, such as a Shure SM 58, for their harmonica, which gives a clean, natural sound.
As technology in amplification has progressed, harmonica players have introduced other effects units to their rigs, as well, such as reverb, tremolo, delay, octave, additional overdrive pedals, and chorus effect. John Popper of Blues Traveler uses a customized microphone that encapsulates several of these effects into one handheld unit, as opposed to several units in sequence. Many harmonica players still prefer tube amplifiers to solid-state ones, owing to the perceived difference in tone generated by the vacuum tubes. Players perceive tubes as having a "warmer" tone and a more "natural" overdrive sound. Many amplifiers designed for electric guitar are also used by harmonica players, such as the Kalamazoo Model Two, Fender Bassman, and the Danelectro Commando. Some expensive handmade boutique amplifiers are built from the ground up with characteristics that are optimal for amplified harmonica.
Harmonica players who play the instrument while performing on another instrument with their hands (e.g., an acoustic guitar) often use an accessory called a neck rack or harmonica holder to position the instrument in front of their mouth. A harmonica holder clamps the harmonica between two metal brackets, which are attached to a curved loop of metal that rests on the shoulders. The original harmonica racks were made from wire or coat hangers. Models of harmonica racks vary widely by quality and ease of use, and experimenting with more than one model of harmonica rack is often needed to find one that feels suitable for each individual player. This device is used by folk musicians, one-man bands, and singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Edoardo Bennato, Tom Harmon, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and blues singers Jimmy Reed and John Hammond Jr.
The chromatic harmonica uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate, though one design—the "Machino-Tone"—controlled airflow by means of a lever-operated flap on the rear of the instrument. Also, a "hands-free" modification to the Hohner 270 (12-hole) lets the player shift the tones by moving the mouthpiece up and down with the lips, leaving the hands free to play another instrument. While the Richter-tuned 10-hole chromatic is intended to play in only one key, the 12-, 14-, and 16-hole models (which are tuned to equal temperament) allow the musician to play in any key desired with only one harmonica. This harp can be used for any style, including Celtic, classical, jazz, or blues (commonly in third position).
Strictly speaking, diatonic denotes any harmonica designed to play in a single key—though the standard Richter-tuned harmonica diatonic can play other keys by forcing its reeds to play tones that are not part of its basic scale. Depending on the country, "diatonic harmonica" may mean either the tremolo harmonica (in East Asia) or blues harp (in Europe and North America). Other diatonic harmonicas include octave harmonicas.
Here is the note layout for a standard diatonic in the key of G major:
Each hole is the same interval (here, a perfect fifth) from its key of C counterpart; on the diatonic scale, a G is a perfect fifth from C. The interval between keys can be used to find the note layout of any standard diatonic.
The distinguishing feature of the tremolo-tuned harmonica is that it has two reeds per note, with one slightly sharp and the other slightly flat. This provides a unique wavering or warbling sound created by the two reeds being slightly out of tune with each other and the difference in their subsequent waveforms interacting with each other (its beat). The East Asian version, which can produce all 12 semitones, is used often in East Asian rock and pop music.
Orchestral harmonicas are primarily designed for use in ensemble playing.
There are eight kinds of orchestral melody harmonica; the most common are the horn harmonicas often found in East Asia. These consist of a single large comb with blow-only reed-plates on the top and bottom. Each reed sits inside a single cell in the comb. One version mimics the layout of a piano or mallet instrument, with the natural notes of a C diatonic scale in the lower reed plate and the sharps and flats in the upper reed plate in groups of two and three holes with gaps in between like the black keys of a piano. Another version has one "sharp" reed directly above its "natural" on the lower plate, with the same number of reeds on both plates (therefore including E♯ and B♯).
Horn harmonicas are available in several pitch ranges, with the lowest pitched starting two octaves below middle C and the highest beginning on middle C itself; they usually cover a two- or three-octave range. They are chromatic instruments and are usually played in an East Asian harmonica orchestra instead of the "push-button" chromatic harmonica that is more common in the European and American tradition. Their reeds are often larger, and the enclosing "horn" gives them a different timbre, so that they often function in place of a brass section. In the past, they were referred to as horn harmonicas.
The other type of orchestral melodic harmonica is the polyphonia, (though some are marked "chromatica"). These have all twelve chromatic notes laid out on the same row. In most cases, they have both blow and draw of the same tone, though the No. 7 is blow only, and the No. 261, also blow only, has two reeds per hole, tuned an octave apart (all these designations refer to products of M. Hohner).
The chord harmonica has up to 48 chords: major, seventh, minor, augmented and diminished for ensemble playing. It is laid out in four-note clusters, each sounding a different chord on inhaling or exhaling. Typically each hole has two reeds for each note, tuned to one octave of each other. Less expensive models often have only one reed per note. Quite a few orchestra harmonicas are also designed to serve as both bass and chord harmonica, with bass notes next to chord groupings. There are also other chord harmonicas, such as the Chordomonica (which operates similar to a chromatic harmonica), and the junior chord harmonicas (which typically provide six chords).
The Suzuki SSCH-56 Compact Chord harmonica is a 48-chord harmonica built in a 14-hole chromatic harmonica enclosure. The first three holes play a major chord on blow and draw, with and without the slide. Holes 2, 3, and 4 play a diminished chord; holes 3, 4, and 5 play a minor chord; and holes 4, 5, and 6 play an augmented, for a total of sixteen chords. This pattern is repeated starting on hole 5, a whole step higher; and again starting on hole 9, for a total of 48 chords.
The ChengGong harmonica has a main body, and a sliding mouthpiece. The body is a 24-hole diatonic harmonica that ranges from B2 to D6 (covering 3 octaves). Its 11-hole mouthpiece can slide along the front of the harmonica, which gives numerous chord choices and voicings (seven triads, three 6th chords, seven 7th chords, and seven 9th chords, for a total of 24 chords). As well, it is capable of playing single-note melodies and double stops over a range of three diatonic octaves. Unlike conventional harmonicas, blowing and drawing produce the same notes because its tuning is closer to the note layout of a typical East Asian tremolo harmonica or the Polyphonias.
The pitch pipe is a simple specialty harmonica that provides a reference pitch to singers and other instruments. The only difference between some early pitch-pipes and harmonicas is the name of the instrument, which reflected the maker's target audience. Chromatic pitch pipes, which are used by singers and choirs, give a full chromatic (12-note) octave. Pitch pipes are also sold for string players, such as violinists and guitarists; these pitch pipes usually provide the notes corresponding to the open strings.
Vibrato is a technique commonly used while playing the harmonica and many other instruments, to give the note a 'shaking' sound. This technique can be accomplished in a number of ways. The most common way is to change how the harmonica is held. For example, the vibrato effect can be achieved by opening and closing the hands around the harmonica very rapidly. The vibrato might also be achieved via rapid glottal (vocal fold) opening and closing, especially on draws (inhalation) simultaneous to bending, or without bending. This obviates the need for cupping and waving the hands around the instrument during play. An effect similar to vibrato is that of the 'trill' (or 'roll', or 'warble, or 'shake'); this technique has the player move their lips between two holes very quickly, either by shaking the head in a rapid motion or moving the harmonica from side to side within the embouchure. This gives a quick pitch-alternating technique that is slightly more than vibrato and achieves the same aural effect on sustained notes, albeit by using two different tones instead of varying the amplitude of one.
In addition to the 19 notes readily available on the diatonic harmonica, players can play other notes by adjusting their embouchure and forcing the reed to resonate at a different pitch. This technique is called bending, a term possibly borrowed from guitarists, who literally bend a string to subtly change the pitch. Bending also creates the glissandos characteristic of much blues harp and country harmonica playing. Bends are essential for most blues and rock harmonica due to the soulful sounds the instrument can bring out. The "wail" of the blues harp typically requires bending. In the 1970s, Howard Levy developed the over bending technique (also known as "overblowing" and "overdrawing".) Over Bending, combined with bending, allowed players to play the entire chromatic scale.
In addition to playing the diatonic harmonica in its original key, it is also possible to play it in other keys by playing in other "positions" using different keynotes. Using just the basic notes on the instrument would mean playing in a specific mode for each position. For example the Mixolydian mode (root note is the second draw or third blow), produces a major dominant seventh key that is frequently used by blues players because it contains the harmonically rich dominant seventh note, while the Dorian mode (root note is four draw) produces a minor dominant seventh key. Harmonica players (especially blues players) have developed terminology around different "positions," which can be confusing to other musicians, for example the slang terminology for the most common positions (1st being 'straight', 2nd being 'cross', 3rd being 'slant', etc.).
Another technique, seldom used to its full potential, is altering the size of the mouth cavity to emphasize certain natural overtones. When this technique is employed while playing chords, care must be taken in overtone selection as the overtones stemming from the non-root pitch can cause extreme dissonance.
Harmonica players who amplify their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers, such as blues harp players, also have a range of techniques that exploit properties of the microphone and the amplifier, such as changing the way the hands are cupped around the instrument and the microphone or rhythmically breathing or chanting into the microphone while playing.
The harmonica was developed in Europe in the early part of the 19th century. Free-reed instruments like the Chinese sheng had been fairly common in East Asia since ancient times. They became relatively well known in Europe after being introduced by the French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718–1793), who lived in Qing-era China. Around 1820, free-reed designs began being created in Europe. Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann is often cited as the inventor of the harmonica in 1821, but other inventors developed similar instruments at the same time. In 1829, Charles Wheatstone developed a mouth-organ under the name "Aeolina" (inspired by the Aeolian harp). Mouth-blown free-reed instruments appeared in the United States, South America, the United Kingdom and Europe at roughly the same time. These instruments were made for playing classical music.
The harmonica first appeared in Vienna, where harmonicas with chambers were sold before 1824 (see also Anton Reinlein and Anton Haeckl). Richter tuning, invented by Joseph Richter (who also is credited with inventing the blow and draw mechanism), was created in 1826 and was eventually adopted nearly universally. In Germany, violin manufacturer Johann Georg Meisel from Klingenthal bought a harmonica with chambers (Kanzellen) at an exhibition in Braunschweig in 1824. He and the ironworker Langhammer copied the instruments in Graslitz three miles away; by 1827 they had produced hundreds of harmonicas. Many others followed in Germany and also nearby Bohemia that would later become Czechoslovakia. In 1829, Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier also began making harmonicas.
In 1830, Christian Messner, a cloth maker and weaver from Trossingen, copied a harmonica his neighbour had brought from Vienna. He had such success that eventually his brother and some relatives also started to make harmonicas. From 1840, his nephew Christian Weiss was also involved in the business. By 1855, there were at least three harmonica-making businesses: C. A. Seydel Söhne, Christian Messner & Co., and Württ. Harmonikafabrik Ch. Weiss. (Currently, only C.A. Seydel is still in business.) Owing to competition between the harmonica factories in Trossingen and Klingenthal, machines were invented to punch the covers for the reeds.
In 1857, Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker from Trossingen, started producing harmonicas. Eventually he became the first to mass-produce them. He used a mass-produced wooden comb that he had made by machine-cutting firms. By 1868, he began supplying the United States. By the 1920s, the diatonic harmonica had largely reached its modern form. Other types followed soon thereafter, including the various tremolo and octave harmonicas.
By the late 19th century, harmonica production was a big business, having evolved into mass production. New designs were still developed in the 20th century, including the chromatic harmonica, first made by Hohner in 1924, the bass harmonica, and the chord harmonica. In the 21st century, radical new designs have been developed and are still being introduced into the market, such as the Suzuki Overdrive, Hohner XB-40, and the ill-fated Harrison B-Radical.
Diatonic harmonicas were designed primarily for playing German and other European folk music and have succeeded well in those styles. Over time, the basic design and tuning proved adaptable to other types of music such as the blues, country, old-time and more. The harmonica was a success almost from the very start of production, and while the center of the harmonica business has shifted from Germany, the output of the various harmonica manufacturers is still very high. Major companies are now found in Germany (Seydel and Hohner – the dominant manufacturer in the world), South Korea (Miwha, Dabell), Japan (Suzuki, Tombo – the manufacturer of the popular Lee Oskar harmonica, and Yamaha also made harmonicas until the 1970s), China (Huang, Easttop, Johnson, Leo Shi, Swan, AXL), and Brazil (Hering, Bends). The United States had two significant harmonica manufacturers, and both were based in Union, New Jersey. One was Magnus Harmonica Corporation, whose founder Finn Magnus is credited with the development of plastic harmonica reeds. The other was Wm. Kratt Company, which, founded by German-American William Jacob "Bill" Kratt Sr., originally made pitch pipes and later, in 1952, secured a patent for combs made of plastic. Both companies ceased harmonica production. The only recent American contender in the harmonica market was Harrison Harmonicas, which folded in July 2011. It was announced soon thereafter that the rights to the Harrison design had been sold to another company to finish production of orders already placed. In October 2012, it was revealed that a Beloit, Wisconsin, investment corporation, R&R Opportunities, had bought the assets of Harrison Harmonicas and that a feasibility study was under way to assess the possibilities of continued production of the Harrison B-Radical harmonica. Recently, responding to increasingly demanding performance techniques, the market for high-quality instruments has grown.
Some time before Hohner began manufacturing harmonicas in 1857, he shipped some to relatives who had emigrated to the United States. Its music rapidly became popular, and the country became an enormous market for Hohner's goods. US president Abraham Lincoln carried a harmonica in his pocket, and harmonicas provided solace to soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides of the American Civil War. Frontiersmen Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid played the instrument, and it became a fixture of the American musical landscape.
Harmonicas were heard on a handful of recordings in the early 1900s, generally labeled as a "mouth organ". The first jazz or traditional music recordings of harmonicas were made in the U.S. in the mid-1920s. Recordings known at the time as "race records", intended for the black market of the southern states, included solo recordings by DeFord Bailey and duo recordings with a guitarist (Hammie Nixon, Walter Horton, or Sonny Terry). Hillbilly styles were also recorded, intended for white audiences, by Frank Hutchison, Gwen Foster and several other musicians. There are also recordings featuring the harmonica in jug bands, of which the Memphis Jug Band is the most famous. But the harmonica still represented a toy instrument in those years and was associated with the poor. It is also during those years that musicians started experimenting with new techniques such as tongue-blocking, hand effects and the most important innovation of all, the second position, or cross-harp.
A significant contributor to the expanding popularity of the harmonica was a New York-based radio program called the Hohner Harmony Hour, which taught listeners how to play. Listeners could play along with the program to increase their proficiency. The radio program gained wide popularity after the unveiling of the 1925 White House Christmas tree, which was adorned with fifty harmonicas.
The harmonica's versatility brought it to the attention of classical musicians during the 1930s. American Larry Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument by the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Benjamin.
Harmonicas were scarce in the United States during World War II. Wood and metal materials for harmonicas were in short supply because of military demand. Furthermore, the primary harmonica manufacturers were based in Germany and Japan, the enemies of the United States and the Allied forces in the war. During this time, Finn Haakon Magnus, a Danish-American factory worker and entrepreneur, developed and perfected the molded plastic harmonica. The plastic harmonica used molded plastic combs and far fewer pieces than traditional metal or wood harmonicas, which made the harmonica more economical to mass-produce and more sanitary. Though the plastic reeds in these harmonicas produced a less distinctive (and, to many ears, inferior) sound than their metallic counterparts, Magnus harmonicas and several imitators soon became commonplace, particularly among children. The patent for the plastic comb was awarded to William Kratt of Wm. Kratt Company in 1952. During World War II, the War Department allotted a rationed supply of brass to Kratt's factory so they could continue to produce harmonicas that the Red Cross distributed to American troops overseas to boost morale.
In 1898, the harmonica was brought to Japan, where the Tremolo harmonica was the most popular instrument. After about 30 years, the Japanese developed scale tuning and semitone harmonicas that could play Japanese folk songs.
In Europe and the United States, tremolo harmonica uses the Richter tuning, developed in Germany. In 1913, Shōgo Kawaguchi (川口章吾), known in Japan as the "Father of the harmonica", devised an alternate tuning, which is more suited to playing Japanese folk tunes. This tuning is also suited to local music throughout East Asia, and harmonicas using the tuning became popular in the region.
Initial diatonic harmonica tunings were major key only. In 1931, Hiderō Satō (佐藤秀廊) announced the development of a minor key harmonica. There are two types of minor key tunings, "natural minor" suitable for folk and contemporary music, and Latin American music, and the "harmonic minor" suitable for some famous Japanese pieces.
The harmonica started to gain popularity in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Individual tremolo harmonica players from China moved to Hong Kong and established numerous harmonica organizations such as The Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra, the China Harmonica Society, and the Heart String Harmonica Society. During the 1950s, chromatic harmonica became popular in Hong Kong, and players such as Larry Adler and John Sebastian Sr. were invited to perform.
Local players such as Lau Mok (劉牧) and Fung On (馮安) promoted the chromatic harmonica. The chromatic harmonica gradually became the main instrument used by the Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra. The Chinese YMCA Harmonica Orchestra started in the 1960s, with 100 members, most of whom played harmonicas. Non-harmonica instruments were also used, such as double bass, accordion, piano, and percussion such as timpani and xylophone.
In the 1970s, the Haletone Harmonica Orchestra (曉彤口琴隊) was set up at Wong Tai Sin Community Centre. Fung On and others continued to teach harmonica and also set up harmonica orchestras. In the 1980s, numbers of harmonica students steadily decreased. In the 1990s, harmonica players from Hong Kong began to participate in international harmonica competitions, including the World Harmonica Festival in Germany and the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival. In the 2000s, the Hong Kong Harmonica Association (H.K.H.A.) (香港口琴協會) was established.
The history of the harmonica in Taiwan began around 1945. By the 1980s, though, as living standards improved, many instruments once beyond the budgets of most Taiwanese started to become more accessible and popular in preference to the harmonica.
Playing the harmonica requires inhaling and exhaling strongly against resistance. This action helps develop a strong diaphragm and deep breathing using the entire lung volume. Pulmonary specialists have noted that playing the harmonica resembles the kind of exercise used to rehabilitate COPD patients such as using a PFLEX inspiratory muscle trainer or the inspiratory spirometer. Learning to play a musical instrument also offers motivation in addition to the exercise component. Many pulmonary rehabilitation programs therefore have begun to incorporate the harmonica.
When President Ronald Reagan suffered a punctured lung in the 1981 attempt on his life, his breathing therapist was Howard McDonald, of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra. Orchestra director Pierre Beauregard had hoped that Reagan's therapeutic harmonica experience would help them get a chance to play at the White House, but this never occurred.
The concertina, diatonic and chromatic accordions and the melodica are all free-reed instruments that developed alongside the harmonica. Indeed, the similarities between harmonicas and so-called "diatonic" accordions or melodeons is such that in German the name for the former is "Mundharmonika" and the latter "Handharmonika," which translate as "mouth harmonica" and "hand harmonica." In Scandinavian languages, an accordion is called variants of "trekkspill" (pull play) or "trekkharmonika" whereas a harmonica is called "munnspill" (mouth play) or "mundharmonika" (mouth harmonica). The names for the two instruments in the Slavic languages are also either similar or identical. The harmonica shares similarities to all other free-reed instruments by virtue of the method of sound production.
The glass harmonica has the word "harmonica" in its name, but it is not related to free-reed instruments. The glass harmonica is a musical instrument formed from a nested set of graduated glass cups mounted sideways on an axle. Each of the glass cups is tuned to a different note, and they are arranged in a scalar order. It is played by touching the rotating cups with wetted fingers, causing them to vibrate and produce a sustained "singing" tone. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed's length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier, and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds; shorter, lighter, and stiffer reeds make higher-pitched sounds. If, as on most modern harmonicas, a reed is affixed above or below its slot rather than in the plane of the slot, it responds more easily to air flowing in the direction that initially would push it into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed. This difference in response to air direction makes it possible to include both a blow reed and a draw reed in the same air chamber and to play them separately without relying on flaps of plastic or leather (valves, wind-savers) to block the nonplaying reed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "An important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Bending isolated reeds is possible, as on chromatic and other harmonica models with wind-savers, but also to both lower, and raise (overbend, overblow, overdraw) the pitch produced by pairs of reeds in the same chamber, as on a diatonic or other unvalved harmonica. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the opening reed (for instance, the blow reed while the player is drawing).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates, and cover plates.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The comb is the main body of the instrument, which, when assembled with the reed plates, forms air chambers for the reeds. The term \"comb\" may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb. Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood, but now are also made from plastic (ABS) or metal (including titanium for high-end instruments). Some modern and experimental comb designs are complex in the way that they direct the air.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Dispute exists among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica. Those saying no argue that unlike the soundboard of a piano or the top piece of a violin or guitar, a harmonica's comb is neither large enough nor able to vibrate freely enough to substantially augment or change the sound. Among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute that comb surface smoothness and air tightness when mated with the reed plates can greatly affect tone and playability. The main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability. In particular, a wooden comb can absorb moisture from the player's breath and contact with the tongue. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, and to then contract, potentially compromising air tightness. Various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "An even more serious problem with wooden combs, especially in chromatic harmonicas (with their thin dividers between chambers), is that, as the combs expand and shrink over time, cracks can form in the combs, because the comb is held immobile by nails, resulting in disabling leakage. Serious players devote significant effort to restoring wood combs and sealing leaks. Some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas (diatonics, without wind-savers) in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates, and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, but modern players still dip their harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing. The reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium, and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the reed plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the inner side of the reed plate (within the comb's air chamber) respond to blowing, while those fixed on the outer side respond to suction.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Most harmonicas are constructed with the reed plates screwed or bolted to the comb or each other. A few brands still use the traditional method of nailing the reed plates to the comb. Some experimental and rare harmonicas also have had the reed plates held in place by tension, such as the WWII-era all-American models. If the plates are bolted to the comb, the reed plates can be replaced individually. This is useful because the reeds eventually go out of tune through normal use, and certain notes of the scale can fail more quickly than others.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A notable exception to the traditional reed plate design is the all-plastic harmonicas designed by Finn Magnus in the 1950s, in which the reed and reed plate were molded out of a single piece of plastic. The Magnus design had the reeds, reed plates, and comb made of plastic and either molded or permanently glued together.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Cover plates cover the reed plates and are usually made of metal, though wood and plastic have also been used. The choice of these is personal; because they project sound, they determine the tonal quality of the harmonica. Two types of cover plates are used: traditional open designs of stamped metal or plastic, which are simply there to be held; and enclosed designs (such as the Hohner Meisterklasse and Super 64, Suzuki Promaster and SCX), which offer a louder tonal quality. From these two basic types, a few modern designs have been created, such as the Hohner CBH-2016 chromatic and the Suzuki Overdrive diatonic, which have complex covers that allow for specific functions not usually available in the traditional design. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, harmonicas not uncommonly had special features on the covers, such as bells, which could be rung by pushing a button.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Wind-savers are one-way valves made from thin strips of plastic, knit paper, leather, or Teflon glued to the reed plate. They are typically found in chromatic harmonicas, chord harmonicas, and many octave-tuned harmonicas. Wind-savers are used when two reeds share a cell and leakage through the nonplaying reed would be significant. For example, when a draw note is played, the valve on the blow reed-slot is sucked shut, preventing air from leaking through the inactive blow reed. An exception to this is the now-discontinued Hohner XB-40, on which valves are placed not to isolate single reeds, but rather to isolate entire chambers from being active, a design that made playing traditional blues bends possible on all reeds.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The mouthpiece is placed between the air chambers of the instrument and the player's mouth. This can be integral with the comb (the diatonic harmonicas; the Hohner Chrometta); part of the cover (as in Hohner's CX-12); or may be a separate unit, secured by screws, which is typical of chromatics. In many harmonicas, the mouthpiece is purely an ergonomic aid designed to make playing more comfortable. In the traditional slider-based chromatic harmonica, it is essential to the functioning of the instrument because it provides a groove for the slide.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Since the 1950s, many blues harmonica players have amplified their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers. One of the early innovators of this approach was Marion \"Little Walter\" Jacobs, who played the harmonica near a \"Bullet\" microphone marketed for use by radio taxi dispatchers. This gave his harmonica tone a \"punchy\" midrange sound that could be heard above an electric guitar. Also, tube amplifiers produce a natural growling overdrive when cranked at higher volumes, which adds body, fullness, and \"grit\" to the sound. Little Walter also cupped his hands around the instrument, tightening the air around the harp, giving it a powerful, distorted sound, somewhat reminiscent of a saxophone, hence the term \"Mississippi saxophone\". Some harmonica players in folk use a regular vocal microphone, such as a Shure SM 58, for their harmonica, which gives a clean, natural sound.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As technology in amplification has progressed, harmonica players have introduced other effects units to their rigs, as well, such as reverb, tremolo, delay, octave, additional overdrive pedals, and chorus effect. John Popper of Blues Traveler uses a customized microphone that encapsulates several of these effects into one handheld unit, as opposed to several units in sequence. Many harmonica players still prefer tube amplifiers to solid-state ones, owing to the perceived difference in tone generated by the vacuum tubes. Players perceive tubes as having a \"warmer\" tone and a more \"natural\" overdrive sound. Many amplifiers designed for electric guitar are also used by harmonica players, such as the Kalamazoo Model Two, Fender Bassman, and the Danelectro Commando. Some expensive handmade boutique amplifiers are built from the ground up with characteristics that are optimal for amplified harmonica.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Harmonica players who play the instrument while performing on another instrument with their hands (e.g., an acoustic guitar) often use an accessory called a neck rack or harmonica holder to position the instrument in front of their mouth. A harmonica holder clamps the harmonica between two metal brackets, which are attached to a curved loop of metal that rests on the shoulders. The original harmonica racks were made from wire or coat hangers. Models of harmonica racks vary widely by quality and ease of use, and experimenting with more than one model of harmonica rack is often needed to find one that feels suitable for each individual player. This device is used by folk musicians, one-man bands, and singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Edoardo Bennato, Tom Harmon, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and blues singers Jimmy Reed and John Hammond Jr.",
"title": "Parts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The chromatic harmonica uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate, though one design—the \"Machino-Tone\"—controlled airflow by means of a lever-operated flap on the rear of the instrument. Also, a \"hands-free\" modification to the Hohner 270 (12-hole) lets the player shift the tones by moving the mouthpiece up and down with the lips, leaving the hands free to play another instrument. While the Richter-tuned 10-hole chromatic is intended to play in only one key, the 12-, 14-, and 16-hole models (which are tuned to equal temperament) allow the musician to play in any key desired with only one harmonica. This harp can be used for any style, including Celtic, classical, jazz, or blues (commonly in third position).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Strictly speaking, diatonic denotes any harmonica designed to play in a single key—though the standard Richter-tuned harmonica diatonic can play other keys by forcing its reeds to play tones that are not part of its basic scale. Depending on the country, \"diatonic harmonica\" may mean either the tremolo harmonica (in East Asia) or blues harp (in Europe and North America). Other diatonic harmonicas include octave harmonicas.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Here is the note layout for a standard diatonic in the key of G major:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Each hole is the same interval (here, a perfect fifth) from its key of C counterpart; on the diatonic scale, a G is a perfect fifth from C. The interval between keys can be used to find the note layout of any standard diatonic.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The distinguishing feature of the tremolo-tuned harmonica is that it has two reeds per note, with one slightly sharp and the other slightly flat. This provides a unique wavering or warbling sound created by the two reeds being slightly out of tune with each other and the difference in their subsequent waveforms interacting with each other (its beat). The East Asian version, which can produce all 12 semitones, is used often in East Asian rock and pop music.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Orchestral harmonicas are primarily designed for use in ensemble playing.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "There are eight kinds of orchestral melody harmonica; the most common are the horn harmonicas often found in East Asia. These consist of a single large comb with blow-only reed-plates on the top and bottom. Each reed sits inside a single cell in the comb. One version mimics the layout of a piano or mallet instrument, with the natural notes of a C diatonic scale in the lower reed plate and the sharps and flats in the upper reed plate in groups of two and three holes with gaps in between like the black keys of a piano. Another version has one \"sharp\" reed directly above its \"natural\" on the lower plate, with the same number of reeds on both plates (therefore including E♯ and B♯).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Horn harmonicas are available in several pitch ranges, with the lowest pitched starting two octaves below middle C and the highest beginning on middle C itself; they usually cover a two- or three-octave range. They are chromatic instruments and are usually played in an East Asian harmonica orchestra instead of the \"push-button\" chromatic harmonica that is more common in the European and American tradition. Their reeds are often larger, and the enclosing \"horn\" gives them a different timbre, so that they often function in place of a brass section. In the past, they were referred to as horn harmonicas.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The other type of orchestral melodic harmonica is the polyphonia, (though some are marked \"chromatica\"). These have all twelve chromatic notes laid out on the same row. In most cases, they have both blow and draw of the same tone, though the No. 7 is blow only, and the No. 261, also blow only, has two reeds per hole, tuned an octave apart (all these designations refer to products of M. Hohner).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The chord harmonica has up to 48 chords: major, seventh, minor, augmented and diminished for ensemble playing. It is laid out in four-note clusters, each sounding a different chord on inhaling or exhaling. Typically each hole has two reeds for each note, tuned to one octave of each other. Less expensive models often have only one reed per note. Quite a few orchestra harmonicas are also designed to serve as both bass and chord harmonica, with bass notes next to chord groupings. There are also other chord harmonicas, such as the Chordomonica (which operates similar to a chromatic harmonica), and the junior chord harmonicas (which typically provide six chords).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Suzuki SSCH-56 Compact Chord harmonica is a 48-chord harmonica built in a 14-hole chromatic harmonica enclosure. The first three holes play a major chord on blow and draw, with and without the slide. Holes 2, 3, and 4 play a diminished chord; holes 3, 4, and 5 play a minor chord; and holes 4, 5, and 6 play an augmented, for a total of sixteen chords. This pattern is repeated starting on hole 5, a whole step higher; and again starting on hole 9, for a total of 48 chords.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The ChengGong harmonica has a main body, and a sliding mouthpiece. The body is a 24-hole diatonic harmonica that ranges from B2 to D6 (covering 3 octaves). Its 11-hole mouthpiece can slide along the front of the harmonica, which gives numerous chord choices and voicings (seven triads, three 6th chords, seven 7th chords, and seven 9th chords, for a total of 24 chords). As well, it is capable of playing single-note melodies and double stops over a range of three diatonic octaves. Unlike conventional harmonicas, blowing and drawing produce the same notes because its tuning is closer to the note layout of a typical East Asian tremolo harmonica or the Polyphonias.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The pitch pipe is a simple specialty harmonica that provides a reference pitch to singers and other instruments. The only difference between some early pitch-pipes and harmonicas is the name of the instrument, which reflected the maker's target audience. Chromatic pitch pipes, which are used by singers and choirs, give a full chromatic (12-note) octave. Pitch pipes are also sold for string players, such as violinists and guitarists; these pitch pipes usually provide the notes corresponding to the open strings.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Vibrato is a technique commonly used while playing the harmonica and many other instruments, to give the note a 'shaking' sound. This technique can be accomplished in a number of ways. The most common way is to change how the harmonica is held. For example, the vibrato effect can be achieved by opening and closing the hands around the harmonica very rapidly. The vibrato might also be achieved via rapid glottal (vocal fold) opening and closing, especially on draws (inhalation) simultaneous to bending, or without bending. This obviates the need for cupping and waving the hands around the instrument during play. An effect similar to vibrato is that of the 'trill' (or 'roll', or 'warble, or 'shake'); this technique has the player move their lips between two holes very quickly, either by shaking the head in a rapid motion or moving the harmonica from side to side within the embouchure. This gives a quick pitch-alternating technique that is slightly more than vibrato and achieves the same aural effect on sustained notes, albeit by using two different tones instead of varying the amplitude of one.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In addition to the 19 notes readily available on the diatonic harmonica, players can play other notes by adjusting their embouchure and forcing the reed to resonate at a different pitch. This technique is called bending, a term possibly borrowed from guitarists, who literally bend a string to subtly change the pitch. Bending also creates the glissandos characteristic of much blues harp and country harmonica playing. Bends are essential for most blues and rock harmonica due to the soulful sounds the instrument can bring out. The \"wail\" of the blues harp typically requires bending. In the 1970s, Howard Levy developed the over bending technique (also known as \"overblowing\" and \"overdrawing\".) Over Bending, combined with bending, allowed players to play the entire chromatic scale.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In addition to playing the diatonic harmonica in its original key, it is also possible to play it in other keys by playing in other \"positions\" using different keynotes. Using just the basic notes on the instrument would mean playing in a specific mode for each position. For example the Mixolydian mode (root note is the second draw or third blow), produces a major dominant seventh key that is frequently used by blues players because it contains the harmonically rich dominant seventh note, while the Dorian mode (root note is four draw) produces a minor dominant seventh key. Harmonica players (especially blues players) have developed terminology around different \"positions,\" which can be confusing to other musicians, for example the slang terminology for the most common positions (1st being 'straight', 2nd being 'cross', 3rd being 'slant', etc.).",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Another technique, seldom used to its full potential, is altering the size of the mouth cavity to emphasize certain natural overtones. When this technique is employed while playing chords, care must be taken in overtone selection as the overtones stemming from the non-root pitch can cause extreme dissonance.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Harmonica players who amplify their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers, such as blues harp players, also have a range of techniques that exploit properties of the microphone and the amplifier, such as changing the way the hands are cupped around the instrument and the microphone or rhythmically breathing or chanting into the microphone while playing.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The harmonica was developed in Europe in the early part of the 19th century. Free-reed instruments like the Chinese sheng had been fairly common in East Asia since ancient times. They became relatively well known in Europe after being introduced by the French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718–1793), who lived in Qing-era China. Around 1820, free-reed designs began being created in Europe. Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann is often cited as the inventor of the harmonica in 1821, but other inventors developed similar instruments at the same time. In 1829, Charles Wheatstone developed a mouth-organ under the name \"Aeolina\" (inspired by the Aeolian harp). Mouth-blown free-reed instruments appeared in the United States, South America, the United Kingdom and Europe at roughly the same time. These instruments were made for playing classical music.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The harmonica first appeared in Vienna, where harmonicas with chambers were sold before 1824 (see also Anton Reinlein and Anton Haeckl). Richter tuning, invented by Joseph Richter (who also is credited with inventing the blow and draw mechanism), was created in 1826 and was eventually adopted nearly universally. In Germany, violin manufacturer Johann Georg Meisel from Klingenthal bought a harmonica with chambers (Kanzellen) at an exhibition in Braunschweig in 1824. He and the ironworker Langhammer copied the instruments in Graslitz three miles away; by 1827 they had produced hundreds of harmonicas. Many others followed in Germany and also nearby Bohemia that would later become Czechoslovakia. In 1829, Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier also began making harmonicas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1830, Christian Messner, a cloth maker and weaver from Trossingen, copied a harmonica his neighbour had brought from Vienna. He had such success that eventually his brother and some relatives also started to make harmonicas. From 1840, his nephew Christian Weiss was also involved in the business. By 1855, there were at least three harmonica-making businesses: C. A. Seydel Söhne, Christian Messner & Co., and Württ. Harmonikafabrik Ch. Weiss. (Currently, only C.A. Seydel is still in business.) Owing to competition between the harmonica factories in Trossingen and Klingenthal, machines were invented to punch the covers for the reeds.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 1857, Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker from Trossingen, started producing harmonicas. Eventually he became the first to mass-produce them. He used a mass-produced wooden comb that he had made by machine-cutting firms. By 1868, he began supplying the United States. By the 1920s, the diatonic harmonica had largely reached its modern form. Other types followed soon thereafter, including the various tremolo and octave harmonicas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "By the late 19th century, harmonica production was a big business, having evolved into mass production. New designs were still developed in the 20th century, including the chromatic harmonica, first made by Hohner in 1924, the bass harmonica, and the chord harmonica. In the 21st century, radical new designs have been developed and are still being introduced into the market, such as the Suzuki Overdrive, Hohner XB-40, and the ill-fated Harrison B-Radical.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Diatonic harmonicas were designed primarily for playing German and other European folk music and have succeeded well in those styles. Over time, the basic design and tuning proved adaptable to other types of music such as the blues, country, old-time and more. The harmonica was a success almost from the very start of production, and while the center of the harmonica business has shifted from Germany, the output of the various harmonica manufacturers is still very high. Major companies are now found in Germany (Seydel and Hohner – the dominant manufacturer in the world), South Korea (Miwha, Dabell), Japan (Suzuki, Tombo – the manufacturer of the popular Lee Oskar harmonica, and Yamaha also made harmonicas until the 1970s), China (Huang, Easttop, Johnson, Leo Shi, Swan, AXL), and Brazil (Hering, Bends). The United States had two significant harmonica manufacturers, and both were based in Union, New Jersey. One was Magnus Harmonica Corporation, whose founder Finn Magnus is credited with the development of plastic harmonica reeds. The other was Wm. Kratt Company, which, founded by German-American William Jacob \"Bill\" Kratt Sr., originally made pitch pipes and later, in 1952, secured a patent for combs made of plastic. Both companies ceased harmonica production. The only recent American contender in the harmonica market was Harrison Harmonicas, which folded in July 2011. It was announced soon thereafter that the rights to the Harrison design had been sold to another company to finish production of orders already placed. In October 2012, it was revealed that a Beloit, Wisconsin, investment corporation, R&R Opportunities, had bought the assets of Harrison Harmonicas and that a feasibility study was under way to assess the possibilities of continued production of the Harrison B-Radical harmonica. Recently, responding to increasingly demanding performance techniques, the market for high-quality instruments has grown.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Some time before Hohner began manufacturing harmonicas in 1857, he shipped some to relatives who had emigrated to the United States. Its music rapidly became popular, and the country became an enormous market for Hohner's goods. US president Abraham Lincoln carried a harmonica in his pocket, and harmonicas provided solace to soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides of the American Civil War. Frontiersmen Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid played the instrument, and it became a fixture of the American musical landscape.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Harmonicas were heard on a handful of recordings in the early 1900s, generally labeled as a \"mouth organ\". The first jazz or traditional music recordings of harmonicas were made in the U.S. in the mid-1920s. Recordings known at the time as \"race records\", intended for the black market of the southern states, included solo recordings by DeFord Bailey and duo recordings with a guitarist (Hammie Nixon, Walter Horton, or Sonny Terry). Hillbilly styles were also recorded, intended for white audiences, by Frank Hutchison, Gwen Foster and several other musicians. There are also recordings featuring the harmonica in jug bands, of which the Memphis Jug Band is the most famous. But the harmonica still represented a toy instrument in those years and was associated with the poor. It is also during those years that musicians started experimenting with new techniques such as tongue-blocking, hand effects and the most important innovation of all, the second position, or cross-harp.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "A significant contributor to the expanding popularity of the harmonica was a New York-based radio program called the Hohner Harmony Hour, which taught listeners how to play. Listeners could play along with the program to increase their proficiency. The radio program gained wide popularity after the unveiling of the 1925 White House Christmas tree, which was adorned with fifty harmonicas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The harmonica's versatility brought it to the attention of classical musicians during the 1930s. American Larry Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument by the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Benjamin.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Harmonicas were scarce in the United States during World War II. Wood and metal materials for harmonicas were in short supply because of military demand. Furthermore, the primary harmonica manufacturers were based in Germany and Japan, the enemies of the United States and the Allied forces in the war. During this time, Finn Haakon Magnus, a Danish-American factory worker and entrepreneur, developed and perfected the molded plastic harmonica. The plastic harmonica used molded plastic combs and far fewer pieces than traditional metal or wood harmonicas, which made the harmonica more economical to mass-produce and more sanitary. Though the plastic reeds in these harmonicas produced a less distinctive (and, to many ears, inferior) sound than their metallic counterparts, Magnus harmonicas and several imitators soon became commonplace, particularly among children. The patent for the plastic comb was awarded to William Kratt of Wm. Kratt Company in 1952. During World War II, the War Department allotted a rationed supply of brass to Kratt's factory so they could continue to produce harmonicas that the Red Cross distributed to American troops overseas to boost morale.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 1898, the harmonica was brought to Japan, where the Tremolo harmonica was the most popular instrument. After about 30 years, the Japanese developed scale tuning and semitone harmonicas that could play Japanese folk songs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In Europe and the United States, tremolo harmonica uses the Richter tuning, developed in Germany. In 1913, Shōgo Kawaguchi (川口章吾), known in Japan as the \"Father of the harmonica\", devised an alternate tuning, which is more suited to playing Japanese folk tunes. This tuning is also suited to local music throughout East Asia, and harmonicas using the tuning became popular in the region.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Initial diatonic harmonica tunings were major key only. In 1931, Hiderō Satō (佐藤秀廊) announced the development of a minor key harmonica. There are two types of minor key tunings, \"natural minor\" suitable for folk and contemporary music, and Latin American music, and the \"harmonic minor\" suitable for some famous Japanese pieces.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The harmonica started to gain popularity in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Individual tremolo harmonica players from China moved to Hong Kong and established numerous harmonica organizations such as The Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra, the China Harmonica Society, and the Heart String Harmonica Society. During the 1950s, chromatic harmonica became popular in Hong Kong, and players such as Larry Adler and John Sebastian Sr. were invited to perform.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Local players such as Lau Mok (劉牧) and Fung On (馮安) promoted the chromatic harmonica. The chromatic harmonica gradually became the main instrument used by the Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra. The Chinese YMCA Harmonica Orchestra started in the 1960s, with 100 members, most of whom played harmonicas. Non-harmonica instruments were also used, such as double bass, accordion, piano, and percussion such as timpani and xylophone.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In the 1970s, the Haletone Harmonica Orchestra (曉彤口琴隊) was set up at Wong Tai Sin Community Centre. Fung On and others continued to teach harmonica and also set up harmonica orchestras. In the 1980s, numbers of harmonica students steadily decreased. In the 1990s, harmonica players from Hong Kong began to participate in international harmonica competitions, including the World Harmonica Festival in Germany and the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival. In the 2000s, the Hong Kong Harmonica Association (H.K.H.A.) (香港口琴協會) was established.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The history of the harmonica in Taiwan began around 1945. By the 1980s, though, as living standards improved, many instruments once beyond the budgets of most Taiwanese started to become more accessible and popular in preference to the harmonica.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Playing the harmonica requires inhaling and exhaling strongly against resistance. This action helps develop a strong diaphragm and deep breathing using the entire lung volume. Pulmonary specialists have noted that playing the harmonica resembles the kind of exercise used to rehabilitate COPD patients such as using a PFLEX inspiratory muscle trainer or the inspiratory spirometer. Learning to play a musical instrument also offers motivation in addition to the exercise component. Many pulmonary rehabilitation programs therefore have begun to incorporate the harmonica.",
"title": "Medical use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "When President Ronald Reagan suffered a punctured lung in the 1981 attempt on his life, his breathing therapist was Howard McDonald, of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra. Orchestra director Pierre Beauregard had hoped that Reagan's therapeutic harmonica experience would help them get a chance to play at the White House, but this never occurred.",
"title": "Medical use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The concertina, diatonic and chromatic accordions and the melodica are all free-reed instruments that developed alongside the harmonica. Indeed, the similarities between harmonicas and so-called \"diatonic\" accordions or melodeons is such that in German the name for the former is \"Mundharmonika\" and the latter \"Handharmonika,\" which translate as \"mouth harmonica\" and \"hand harmonica.\" In Scandinavian languages, an accordion is called variants of \"trekkspill\" (pull play) or \"trekkharmonika\" whereas a harmonica is called \"munnspill\" (mouth play) or \"mundharmonika\" (mouth harmonica). The names for the two instruments in the Slavic languages are also either similar or identical. The harmonica shares similarities to all other free-reed instruments by virtue of the method of sound production.",
"title": "Related instruments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The glass harmonica has the word \"harmonica\" in its name, but it is not related to free-reed instruments. The glass harmonica is a musical instrument formed from a nested set of graduated glass cups mounted sideways on an axle. Each of the glass cups is tuned to a different note, and they are arranged in a scalar order. It is played by touching the rotating cups with wetted fingers, causing them to vibrate and produce a sustained \"singing\" tone.",
"title": "Related instruments"
}
]
| The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed's length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier, and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds; shorter, lighter, and stiffer reeds make higher-pitched sounds. If, as on most modern harmonicas, a reed is affixed above or below its slot rather than in the plane of the slot, it responds more easily to air flowing in the direction that initially would push it into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed. This difference in response to air direction makes it possible to include both a blow reed and a draw reed in the same air chamber and to play them separately without relying on flaps of plastic or leather to block the nonplaying reed. An important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Bending isolated reeds is possible, as on chromatic and other harmonica models with wind-savers, but also to both lower, and raise the pitch produced by pairs of reeds in the same chamber, as on a diatonic or other unvalved harmonica. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the opening reed. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-10T18:48:45Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonica |
14,352 | Hops | Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden (in the South of England), or hop yard (in the West Country and United States) when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer.
The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used a "gruit", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the old German name for horehound, Berghopfen, means "mountain hops"), ground ivy, and heather. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short.
Hops are also used in brewing for their antibacterial effect over less desirable microorganisms and for purported benefits including balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness and a variety of flavours and aromas. It is believed that traditional herb combinations for beers were abandoned after it was noticed that beers made with hops were less prone to spoilage.
The first documented hop cultivation was in 736, in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany, although the first mention of the use of hops in brewing in that country was 1079. However, in a will of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne, hop gardens were left to the Cloister of Saint-Denis in 768.
Not until the 13th century did hops begin to start threatening the use of gruit for flavouring. Gruit was used when the nobility levied taxes on hops. Whichever was taxed made the brewer then quickly switch to the other.
In Britain, hopped beer was first imported from Holland around 1400, yet hops were condemned as late as 1519 as a "wicked and pernicious weed". In 1471, Norwich, England, banned use of the plant in the brewing of ale ("beer" was the name for fermented malt liquors bittered with hops; only in recent times are the words often used as synonyms).
In Germany, using hops was also a religious and political choice in the early 16th century. There was no tax on hops to be paid to the Catholic church, unlike on gruit. For this reason the Protestants preferred hopped beer.
Hops used in England were imported from France, Holland and Germany and were subject to import duty; it was not until 1524 that hops were first grown in the southeast of England (Kent), when they were introduced as an agricultural crop by Dutch farmers. Consequently, many words used in the hop industry derive from the Dutch language. Hops were then grown as far north as Aberdeen, near breweries for convenience of infrastructure.
According to Thomas Tusser's 1557 Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry:
"The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,It strengtheneth drink and it flavored malt;And being well-brewed long kept it will last,And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast."
In England there were many complaints over the quality of imported hops, the sacks of which were often contaminated by stalks, sand or straw to increase their weight. As a result, in 1603, King James I approved an Act of Parliament banning the practice by which "the Subjects of this Realm have been of late years abused &c. to the Value of £20,000 yearly, besides the Danger of their Healths".
Hop cultivation was begun in the present-day United States in 1629 by English and Dutch farmers. Before prohibition, cultivation was mainly centred around New York, California, Oregon, and Washington state. Problems with powdery mildew and downy mildew devastated New York's production by the 1920s, and California only produces hops on a small scale.
Hops production is concentrated in moist temperate climates, with much of the world's production occurring near the 48th parallel north. Hop plants prefer the same soils as potatoes and the leading potato-growing states in the United States are also major hops-producing areas; however, not all potato-growing areas can produce good hops naturally: soils in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, for example, lack the boron that hops prefer. Historically, hops were not grown in Ireland, but were imported from England. In 1752 more than 500 tons of English hops were imported through Dublin alone.
Important production centres today are the Hallertau in Germany, the Žatec (Saaz) in the Czech Republic, the Yakima (Washington) and Willamette (Oregon) valleys, and western Canyon County, Idaho (including the communities of Parma, Wilder, Greenleaf, and Notus). The principal production centres in the UK are in Kent (which produces Kent Goldings hops), Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Essentially all of the harvested hops are used in beer making.
Although hops are grown in most of the continental United States and Canada, cultivation of hops for commercial production requires a particular environment. As hops are a climbing plant, they are trained to grow up trellises made from strings or wires that support the plants and allow them significantly greater growth with the same sunlight profile. In this way, energy that would have been required to build structural cells is also freed for crop growth.
The hop plant's reproduction method is that male and female flowers develop on separate plants, although occasionally a fertile individual will develop which contains both male and female flowers. Because pollinated seeds are undesirable for brewing beer, only female plants are grown in hop fields, thus preventing pollination. Female plants are propagated vegetatively, and male plants are culled if plants are grown from seeds.
Hop plants are planted in rows about 2 to 2.5 metres (7 to 8 ft) apart. Each spring, the roots send forth new bines that are started up strings from the ground to an overhead trellis. The cones grow high on the bine, and in the past, these cones were picked by hand. Harvesting of hops became much more efficient with the invention of the mechanical hops separator, patented by Emil Clemens Horst in 1909.
Hops are harvested at the end of summer. The bines are cut down, separated, and then dried in an oast house to reduce moisture content. To be dried, the hops are spread out on the upper floor of the oast house and heated by heating units on the lower floor. The dried hops are then compressed into bales by a baler.
Hop cones contain different oils, such as lupulin, a yellowish, waxy substance, an oleoresin, that imparts flavour and aroma to beer. Lupulin contains lupulone and humulone, which possess antibiotic properties, suppressing bacterial growth favoring brewer's yeast to grow. After lupulin has been extracted in the brewing process the papery cones are discarded.
The need for massed labor at harvest time meant hop-growing had a big social impact. Around the world, the labor-intensive harvesting work involved large numbers of migrant workers who would travel for the annual hop harvest. Whole families would participate and live in hoppers' huts, with even the smallest children helping in the fields. The final chapters of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and a large part of George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter contain a vivid description of London families participating in this annual hops harvest. In England, many of those picking hops in Kent were from eastern areas of London. This provided a break from urban conditions that was spent in the countryside. People also came from Birmingham and other Midlands cities to pick hops in the Malvern area of Worcestershire. Some photographs have been preserved.
The often-appalling living conditions endured by hop pickers during the harvest became a matter of scandal across Kent and other hop-growing counties. Eventually, the Rev. John Young Stratton, Rector of Ditton, Kent, began to gather support for reform, resulting in 1866 in the formation of the Society for the Employment and Improved Lodging of Hop Pickers. The hop-pickers were given very basic accommodation, with very poor sanitation. This led to the spread of infectious diseases and led to contaminated water. The 1897 Maidstone typhoid epidemic was partly as a result of hop-pickers camping near the Farleigh Springs which supplied Maidstone with water.
Particularly in Kent, because of a shortage of small-denomination coin of the realm, many growers issued their own currency to those doing the labor. In some cases, the coins issued were adorned with fanciful hops images, making them quite beautiful.
In the United States, Prohibition had a serious adverse effect on hops production, but remnants of this significant industry in the western states are still noticeable in the form of old hop kilns that survive throughout Sonoma County, California, among others. Florian Dauenhauer, of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, became a manufacturer of hop-harvesting machines in 1940, in part because of the hop industry's importance to the county. This mechanization helped destroy the local industry by enabling large-scale mechanized production, which moved to larger farms in other areas. Dauenhauer Manufacturing Company remains a current producer of hop harvesting machines.
In addition to water, cellulose, and various proteins, the chemical composition of hops consists of compounds important for imparting character to beer.
Probably the most important chemical compound within hops are the alpha acids or humulones. During wort boiling, the humulones are thermally isomerized into iso-alpha acids or isohumulones, which are responsible for the bitter taste of beer.
Hops contain beta acids or lupulones. These are desirable for their aroma contributions to beer.
The main components of hops essential oils are terpene hydrocarbons consisting of myrcene, humulene and caryophyllene. Myrcene is responsible for the pungent smell of fresh hops. Humulene and its oxidative reaction products may give beer its prominent hop aroma. Together, myrcene, humulene, and caryophyllene represent 80 to 90% of the total hops essential oil.
Xanthohumol is the principal flavonoid in hops. The other well-studied prenylflavonoids are 8-Prenylnaringenin and isoxanthohumol. Xanthohumol is under basic research for its potential properties, while 8-prenylnaringenin is a potent phytoestrogen.
Hops are usually dried in an oast house before they are used in the brewing process. Undried or "wet" hops are sometimes (since c. 1990) used.
The wort (sugar-rich liquid produced from malt) is boiled with hops before it is cooled down and yeast is added, to start fermentation.
The effect of hops on the finished beer varies by type and use, though there are two main hop types: bittering and aroma.
Bittering hops have higher concentrations of alpha acids, and are responsible for the large majority of the bitter flavour of a beer. European (so-called "noble") hops typically average 5–9% alpha acids by weight (AABW), and the newer American cultivars typically range from 8–19% AABW.
Aroma hops usually have a lower concentration of alpha acids (~5%) and are the primary contributors of hop aroma and (nonbitter) flavour.
Bittering hops are boiled for a longer period of time, typically 60–90 minutes, and often have inferior aromatic properties, as the aromatic compounds evaporate during the boil. The degree of bitterness imparted by hops depends on the degree to which alpha acids are isomerized during the boil, and the impact of a given amount of hops is specified in International Bitterness Units. On the other hand, unboiled hops are only mildly bitter.
Aroma hops are typically added to the wort later to prevent the evaporation of the essential oils, to impart "hop taste" (if during the final 30 minutes of boil) or "hop aroma" (if during the final 10 minutes, or less, of boil). Aroma hops are often added after the wort has cooled and while the beer ferments, a technique known as "dry hopping", which contributes to the hop aroma. Farnesene is a major component in some hops. The composition of hop essential oils can differ between varieties and between years in the same variety, having a significant influence on flavour and aroma.
Today, a substantial amount of "dual-use" hops are used, as well. These have high concentrations of alpha acids and good aromatic properties. These can be added to the boil at any time, depending on the desired effect. Hop acids also contribute to and stabilize the foam qualities of beer.
Flavours and aromas are described appreciatively using terms which include "grassy", "floral", "citrus", "spicy", "piney", "lemony", "grapefruit", and "earthy". Many pale lagers have fairly low hop influence, while lagers marketed as Pilsener or brewed in the Czech Republic may have noticeable noble hop aroma. Certain ales (particularly the highly hopped style known as India Pale Ale, or IPA) can have high levels of hop bitterness.
Brewers may use software tools to control the bittering levels in the boil and adjust recipes to account for a change in the hop bill or seasonal variations in the crop that may lead to the need to compensate for a difference in alpha acid contribution. Data may be shared with other brewers via BeerXML allowing the reproduction of a recipe allowing for differences in hop availability.
Lately the dried pucks, extracts and pellets replace whole hops in brewing processes because of efficiency and cost.
There are many different varieties of hops used in brewing today. Historically, hops varieties were identified by geography, ie. from the towns of Hallertau, Spalt, and Tettnang in Germany, or the region writ large like the Neomexicanus hops of New Mexico. Others were named for the farmer who is recognized as first cultivating them, including Goldings or Fuggles from England, or by their growing habit like the Oregon Cluster.
Around 1900, a number of institutions began to experiment with breeding specific hop varieties. The breeding program at Wye College in Wye, Kent, was started in 1904 and rose to prominence through the work of Prof. E. S. Salmon. Salmon released Brewer's Gold and Brewer's Favorite for commercial cultivation in 1934, and went on to release more than two dozen new cultivars before his death in 1959. Brewer's Gold has become the ancestor of the bulk of new hop releases around the world since its release.
Wye College continued its breeding program and again received attention in the 1970s, when Dr. Ray A. Neve released Wye Target, Wye Challenger, Wye Northdown, Wye Saxon and Wye Yeoman. More recently, Wye College and its successor institution Wye Hops Ltd., have focused on breeding the first dwarf hop varieties, which are easier to pick by machine and far more economical to grow. Wye College have also been responsible for breeding hop varieties that will grow with only 12 hours of daily light for the South African hop farmers. Wye College was closed in 2009 but the legacy of their hop breeding programs, particularly that of the dwarf varieties, is continuing as already the US private and public breeding programs are using their stock material.
Particular hop varieties are associated with beer regions and styles, for example pale lagers are usually brewed with European (often German, Polish or Czech) noble hop varieties such as Saaz, Hallertau and Strissel Spalt. British ales use hop varieties such as Fuggles, Goldings and W.G.V. North American beers often use Cascade hops, Columbus hops, Centennial hops, Willamette, Amarillo hops and about forty more varieties as the US have lately been the more significant breeders of new hop varieties, including dwarf hop varieties.
Hops from New Zealand, such as Pacific Gem, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin, are used in a "Pacific Pale Ale" style of beer with increasing production in 2014.
The term "noble hops" is a marketing term that traditionally refers to varieties of hops low in bitterness and high in aroma. They are the European cultivars or races Hallertau, Tettnanger, Spalt, and Saaz. Some proponents assert that the English varieties Fuggle, East Kent Goldings and Goldings might qualify as "noble hops" due to the similar composition, but such terms are not applied to English varieties. Their low relative bitterness, but strong aroma, are often distinguishing characteristics of European-style lagers, such as Pilsener, Dunkel, and Oktoberfest/Märzen. In beer, they are considered aroma hops (as opposed to bittering hops); see Pilsner Urquell as a classic example of the Bohemian Pilsener style, which showcases noble hops.
As with grapes, the location where hops are grown affects the hops' characteristics. Much as Dortmunder beer may within the EU be labelled "Dortmunder" only if it has been brewed in Dortmund, noble hops may officially be considered "noble" only if they were grown in the areas for which the hop varieties (races) were named.
Noble hops are characterized through analysis as having an aroma quality resulting from numerous factors in the essential oil, such as an alpha:beta ratio of 1:1, low alpha-acid levels (2–5%) with a low cohumulone content, low myrcene in the hop oil, high humulene in the oil, a ratio of humulene:caryophyllene above three, and poor storability resulting in them being more prone to oxidation. In reality, this means they have a relatively consistent bittering potential as they age, due to beta-acid oxidation, and a flavor that improves as they age during periods of poor storage.
In addition to beer, hops are used in herbal teas and in soft drinks. These soft drinks include Julmust (a carbonated beverage similar to soda that is popular in Sweden during December), Malta (a Latin American soft drink) and kvass. Hops can be eaten; the young shoots of the vine are edible and can be cooked like asparagus.
Hops may be used in herbal medicine in a way similar to valerian, as a treatment for anxiety, restlessness, and insomnia. A pillow filled with hops is a popular folk remedy for sleeplessness, and animal research has shown a sedative effect. The relaxing effect of hops may be due, in part, to the specific degradation product from alpha acids, 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol, as demonstrated from nighttime consumption of non-alcoholic beer. 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol is structurally similar to tert-amyl alcohol which was historically used as an anesthetic. Hops tend to be unstable when exposed to light or air and lose their potency after a few months' storage.
Hops are of interest for hormone replacement therapy and are under basic research for potential relief of menstruation-related problems.
Dermatitis sometimes results from harvesting hops. Although few cases require medical treatment, an estimated 3% of the workers suffer some type of skin lesions on the face, hands, and legs. Hops are toxic to dogs.
Hops and hops picking form the milieu and atmosphere in the British detective novel, Death in the Hopfields (1937) by John Rhode. The novel was subsequently issued in the United States under the title The Harvest Murder. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden (in the South of England), or hop yard (in the West Country and United States) when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used a \"gruit\", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the old German name for horehound, Berghopfen, means \"mountain hops\"), ground ivy, and heather. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hops are also used in brewing for their antibacterial effect over less desirable microorganisms and for purported benefits including balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness and a variety of flavours and aromas. It is believed that traditional herb combinations for beers were abandoned after it was noticed that beers made with hops were less prone to spoilage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first documented hop cultivation was in 736, in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany, although the first mention of the use of hops in brewing in that country was 1079. However, in a will of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne, hop gardens were left to the Cloister of Saint-Denis in 768.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Not until the 13th century did hops begin to start threatening the use of gruit for flavouring. Gruit was used when the nobility levied taxes on hops. Whichever was taxed made the brewer then quickly switch to the other.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In Britain, hopped beer was first imported from Holland around 1400, yet hops were condemned as late as 1519 as a \"wicked and pernicious weed\". In 1471, Norwich, England, banned use of the plant in the brewing of ale (\"beer\" was the name for fermented malt liquors bittered with hops; only in recent times are the words often used as synonyms).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In Germany, using hops was also a religious and political choice in the early 16th century. There was no tax on hops to be paid to the Catholic church, unlike on gruit. For this reason the Protestants preferred hopped beer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Hops used in England were imported from France, Holland and Germany and were subject to import duty; it was not until 1524 that hops were first grown in the southeast of England (Kent), when they were introduced as an agricultural crop by Dutch farmers. Consequently, many words used in the hop industry derive from the Dutch language. Hops were then grown as far north as Aberdeen, near breweries for convenience of infrastructure.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "According to Thomas Tusser's 1557 Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "\"The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,It strengtheneth drink and it flavored malt;And being well-brewed long kept it will last,And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In England there were many complaints over the quality of imported hops, the sacks of which were often contaminated by stalks, sand or straw to increase their weight. As a result, in 1603, King James I approved an Act of Parliament banning the practice by which \"the Subjects of this Realm have been of late years abused &c. to the Value of £20,000 yearly, besides the Danger of their Healths\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hop cultivation was begun in the present-day United States in 1629 by English and Dutch farmers. Before prohibition, cultivation was mainly centred around New York, California, Oregon, and Washington state. Problems with powdery mildew and downy mildew devastated New York's production by the 1920s, and California only produces hops on a small scale.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hops production is concentrated in moist temperate climates, with much of the world's production occurring near the 48th parallel north. Hop plants prefer the same soils as potatoes and the leading potato-growing states in the United States are also major hops-producing areas; however, not all potato-growing areas can produce good hops naturally: soils in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, for example, lack the boron that hops prefer. Historically, hops were not grown in Ireland, but were imported from England. In 1752 more than 500 tons of English hops were imported through Dublin alone.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Important production centres today are the Hallertau in Germany, the Žatec (Saaz) in the Czech Republic, the Yakima (Washington) and Willamette (Oregon) valleys, and western Canyon County, Idaho (including the communities of Parma, Wilder, Greenleaf, and Notus). The principal production centres in the UK are in Kent (which produces Kent Goldings hops), Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Essentially all of the harvested hops are used in beer making.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Although hops are grown in most of the continental United States and Canada, cultivation of hops for commercial production requires a particular environment. As hops are a climbing plant, they are trained to grow up trellises made from strings or wires that support the plants and allow them significantly greater growth with the same sunlight profile. In this way, energy that would have been required to build structural cells is also freed for crop growth.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The hop plant's reproduction method is that male and female flowers develop on separate plants, although occasionally a fertile individual will develop which contains both male and female flowers. Because pollinated seeds are undesirable for brewing beer, only female plants are grown in hop fields, thus preventing pollination. Female plants are propagated vegetatively, and male plants are culled if plants are grown from seeds.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Hop plants are planted in rows about 2 to 2.5 metres (7 to 8 ft) apart. Each spring, the roots send forth new bines that are started up strings from the ground to an overhead trellis. The cones grow high on the bine, and in the past, these cones were picked by hand. Harvesting of hops became much more efficient with the invention of the mechanical hops separator, patented by Emil Clemens Horst in 1909.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hops are harvested at the end of summer. The bines are cut down, separated, and then dried in an oast house to reduce moisture content. To be dried, the hops are spread out on the upper floor of the oast house and heated by heating units on the lower floor. The dried hops are then compressed into bales by a baler.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hop cones contain different oils, such as lupulin, a yellowish, waxy substance, an oleoresin, that imparts flavour and aroma to beer. Lupulin contains lupulone and humulone, which possess antibiotic properties, suppressing bacterial growth favoring brewer's yeast to grow. After lupulin has been extracted in the brewing process the papery cones are discarded.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The need for massed labor at harvest time meant hop-growing had a big social impact. Around the world, the labor-intensive harvesting work involved large numbers of migrant workers who would travel for the annual hop harvest. Whole families would participate and live in hoppers' huts, with even the smallest children helping in the fields. The final chapters of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and a large part of George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter contain a vivid description of London families participating in this annual hops harvest. In England, many of those picking hops in Kent were from eastern areas of London. This provided a break from urban conditions that was spent in the countryside. People also came from Birmingham and other Midlands cities to pick hops in the Malvern area of Worcestershire. Some photographs have been preserved.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The often-appalling living conditions endured by hop pickers during the harvest became a matter of scandal across Kent and other hop-growing counties. Eventually, the Rev. John Young Stratton, Rector of Ditton, Kent, began to gather support for reform, resulting in 1866 in the formation of the Society for the Employment and Improved Lodging of Hop Pickers. The hop-pickers were given very basic accommodation, with very poor sanitation. This led to the spread of infectious diseases and led to contaminated water. The 1897 Maidstone typhoid epidemic was partly as a result of hop-pickers camping near the Farleigh Springs which supplied Maidstone with water.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Particularly in Kent, because of a shortage of small-denomination coin of the realm, many growers issued their own currency to those doing the labor. In some cases, the coins issued were adorned with fanciful hops images, making them quite beautiful.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the United States, Prohibition had a serious adverse effect on hops production, but remnants of this significant industry in the western states are still noticeable in the form of old hop kilns that survive throughout Sonoma County, California, among others. Florian Dauenhauer, of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, became a manufacturer of hop-harvesting machines in 1940, in part because of the hop industry's importance to the county. This mechanization helped destroy the local industry by enabling large-scale mechanized production, which moved to larger farms in other areas. Dauenhauer Manufacturing Company remains a current producer of hop harvesting machines.",
"title": "World production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In addition to water, cellulose, and various proteins, the chemical composition of hops consists of compounds important for imparting character to beer.",
"title": "Chemical composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Probably the most important chemical compound within hops are the alpha acids or humulones. During wort boiling, the humulones are thermally isomerized into iso-alpha acids or isohumulones, which are responsible for the bitter taste of beer.",
"title": "Chemical composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Hops contain beta acids or lupulones. These are desirable for their aroma contributions to beer.",
"title": "Chemical composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The main components of hops essential oils are terpene hydrocarbons consisting of myrcene, humulene and caryophyllene. Myrcene is responsible for the pungent smell of fresh hops. Humulene and its oxidative reaction products may give beer its prominent hop aroma. Together, myrcene, humulene, and caryophyllene represent 80 to 90% of the total hops essential oil.",
"title": "Chemical composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Xanthohumol is the principal flavonoid in hops. The other well-studied prenylflavonoids are 8-Prenylnaringenin and isoxanthohumol. Xanthohumol is under basic research for its potential properties, while 8-prenylnaringenin is a potent phytoestrogen.",
"title": "Chemical composition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Hops are usually dried in an oast house before they are used in the brewing process. Undried or \"wet\" hops are sometimes (since c. 1990) used.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The wort (sugar-rich liquid produced from malt) is boiled with hops before it is cooled down and yeast is added, to start fermentation.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The effect of hops on the finished beer varies by type and use, though there are two main hop types: bittering and aroma.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Bittering hops have higher concentrations of alpha acids, and are responsible for the large majority of the bitter flavour of a beer. European (so-called \"noble\") hops typically average 5–9% alpha acids by weight (AABW), and the newer American cultivars typically range from 8–19% AABW.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Aroma hops usually have a lower concentration of alpha acids (~5%) and are the primary contributors of hop aroma and (nonbitter) flavour.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Bittering hops are boiled for a longer period of time, typically 60–90 minutes, and often have inferior aromatic properties, as the aromatic compounds evaporate during the boil. The degree of bitterness imparted by hops depends on the degree to which alpha acids are isomerized during the boil, and the impact of a given amount of hops is specified in International Bitterness Units. On the other hand, unboiled hops are only mildly bitter.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Aroma hops are typically added to the wort later to prevent the evaporation of the essential oils, to impart \"hop taste\" (if during the final 30 minutes of boil) or \"hop aroma\" (if during the final 10 minutes, or less, of boil). Aroma hops are often added after the wort has cooled and while the beer ferments, a technique known as \"dry hopping\", which contributes to the hop aroma. Farnesene is a major component in some hops. The composition of hop essential oils can differ between varieties and between years in the same variety, having a significant influence on flavour and aroma.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Today, a substantial amount of \"dual-use\" hops are used, as well. These have high concentrations of alpha acids and good aromatic properties. These can be added to the boil at any time, depending on the desired effect. Hop acids also contribute to and stabilize the foam qualities of beer.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Flavours and aromas are described appreciatively using terms which include \"grassy\", \"floral\", \"citrus\", \"spicy\", \"piney\", \"lemony\", \"grapefruit\", and \"earthy\". Many pale lagers have fairly low hop influence, while lagers marketed as Pilsener or brewed in the Czech Republic may have noticeable noble hop aroma. Certain ales (particularly the highly hopped style known as India Pale Ale, or IPA) can have high levels of hop bitterness.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Brewers may use software tools to control the bittering levels in the boil and adjust recipes to account for a change in the hop bill or seasonal variations in the crop that may lead to the need to compensate for a difference in alpha acid contribution. Data may be shared with other brewers via BeerXML allowing the reproduction of a recipe allowing for differences in hop availability.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Lately the dried pucks, extracts and pellets replace whole hops in brewing processes because of efficiency and cost.",
"title": "Brewing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "There are many different varieties of hops used in brewing today. Historically, hops varieties were identified by geography, ie. from the towns of Hallertau, Spalt, and Tettnang in Germany, or the region writ large like the Neomexicanus hops of New Mexico. Others were named for the farmer who is recognized as first cultivating them, including Goldings or Fuggles from England, or by their growing habit like the Oregon Cluster.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Around 1900, a number of institutions began to experiment with breeding specific hop varieties. The breeding program at Wye College in Wye, Kent, was started in 1904 and rose to prominence through the work of Prof. E. S. Salmon. Salmon released Brewer's Gold and Brewer's Favorite for commercial cultivation in 1934, and went on to release more than two dozen new cultivars before his death in 1959. Brewer's Gold has become the ancestor of the bulk of new hop releases around the world since its release.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Wye College continued its breeding program and again received attention in the 1970s, when Dr. Ray A. Neve released Wye Target, Wye Challenger, Wye Northdown, Wye Saxon and Wye Yeoman. More recently, Wye College and its successor institution Wye Hops Ltd., have focused on breeding the first dwarf hop varieties, which are easier to pick by machine and far more economical to grow. Wye College have also been responsible for breeding hop varieties that will grow with only 12 hours of daily light for the South African hop farmers. Wye College was closed in 2009 but the legacy of their hop breeding programs, particularly that of the dwarf varieties, is continuing as already the US private and public breeding programs are using their stock material.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Particular hop varieties are associated with beer regions and styles, for example pale lagers are usually brewed with European (often German, Polish or Czech) noble hop varieties such as Saaz, Hallertau and Strissel Spalt. British ales use hop varieties such as Fuggles, Goldings and W.G.V. North American beers often use Cascade hops, Columbus hops, Centennial hops, Willamette, Amarillo hops and about forty more varieties as the US have lately been the more significant breeders of new hop varieties, including dwarf hop varieties.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hops from New Zealand, such as Pacific Gem, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin, are used in a \"Pacific Pale Ale\" style of beer with increasing production in 2014.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The term \"noble hops\" is a marketing term that traditionally refers to varieties of hops low in bitterness and high in aroma. They are the European cultivars or races Hallertau, Tettnanger, Spalt, and Saaz. Some proponents assert that the English varieties Fuggle, East Kent Goldings and Goldings might qualify as \"noble hops\" due to the similar composition, but such terms are not applied to English varieties. Their low relative bitterness, but strong aroma, are often distinguishing characteristics of European-style lagers, such as Pilsener, Dunkel, and Oktoberfest/Märzen. In beer, they are considered aroma hops (as opposed to bittering hops); see Pilsner Urquell as a classic example of the Bohemian Pilsener style, which showcases noble hops.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "As with grapes, the location where hops are grown affects the hops' characteristics. Much as Dortmunder beer may within the EU be labelled \"Dortmunder\" only if it has been brewed in Dortmund, noble hops may officially be considered \"noble\" only if they were grown in the areas for which the hop varieties (races) were named.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Noble hops are characterized through analysis as having an aroma quality resulting from numerous factors in the essential oil, such as an alpha:beta ratio of 1:1, low alpha-acid levels (2–5%) with a low cohumulone content, low myrcene in the hop oil, high humulene in the oil, a ratio of humulene:caryophyllene above three, and poor storability resulting in them being more prone to oxidation. In reality, this means they have a relatively consistent bittering potential as they age, due to beta-acid oxidation, and a flavor that improves as they age during periods of poor storage.",
"title": "Varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In addition to beer, hops are used in herbal teas and in soft drinks. These soft drinks include Julmust (a carbonated beverage similar to soda that is popular in Sweden during December), Malta (a Latin American soft drink) and kvass. Hops can be eaten; the young shoots of the vine are edible and can be cooked like asparagus.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hops may be used in herbal medicine in a way similar to valerian, as a treatment for anxiety, restlessness, and insomnia. A pillow filled with hops is a popular folk remedy for sleeplessness, and animal research has shown a sedative effect. The relaxing effect of hops may be due, in part, to the specific degradation product from alpha acids, 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol, as demonstrated from nighttime consumption of non-alcoholic beer. 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol is structurally similar to tert-amyl alcohol which was historically used as an anesthetic. Hops tend to be unstable when exposed to light or air and lose their potency after a few months' storage.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Hops are of interest for hormone replacement therapy and are under basic research for potential relief of menstruation-related problems.",
"title": "Other uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Dermatitis sometimes results from harvesting hops. Although few cases require medical treatment, an estimated 3% of the workers suffer some type of skin lesions on the face, hands, and legs. Hops are toxic to dogs.",
"title": "Toxicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Hops and hops picking form the milieu and atmosphere in the British detective novel, Death in the Hopfields (1937) by John Rhode. The novel was subsequently issued in the United States under the title The Harvest Murder.",
"title": "Fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "",
"title": "References"
}
]
| Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden, or hop yard when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer. The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used a "gruit", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound, ground ivy, and heather. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short. Hops are also used in brewing for their antibacterial effect over less desirable microorganisms and for purported benefits including balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness and a variety of flavours and aromas. It is believed that traditional herb combinations for beers were abandoned after it was noticed that beers made with hops were less prone to spoilage. | 2001-12-29T01:36:58Z | 2023-12-26T00:50:09Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hops |
14,355 | Hack | Hack may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hack may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Hack may refer to: | 2023-02-27T19:34:24Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack |
|
14,356 | Huey, Dewey, and Louie | Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-nephews of Scrooge McDuck. Like their maternal uncles, the brothers are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange bills and feet. The boys are sometimes distinguished by the color of their shirts and baseball caps (with Huey wearing red, Dewey wearing blue, and Louie wearing green). They featured in many Donald Duck animated shorts and in the television show DuckTales and its reboot, but comics remain their primary medium.
While the boys were originally created as mischief-makers to provoke Donald's famous easily-triggered temper, later appearances, beginning especially in the comic books stories by Carl Barks, showed them growing to be heroes in their own right and valuable assets to him and Uncle Scrooge on their adventures. All three of the triplets are members of the fictional scouting organization of the Junior Woodchucks.
Al Taliaferro, the artist for the Silly Symphony comic strip, proposed the idea for the film Donald's Nephews, so that the studio would have duck counterparts to Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, the nephews of Mickey Mouse. The Walt Disney Productions Story Dept. on February 5, 1937, sent Taliaferro a memo recognizing him as the source of the idea for the planned short.
The memo indicated, “we have decided to actually put a story crew to work on Donald’s Nephews.” With the short already in production more than eight months before the boys' Silly Symphonies comic strip debut (on October 17, 1937), the animation studio's model sheet and storyline would have been Taliaferro and writer Ted Osborne's frame of reference for the comic strip. Because the strip was an adaptation of the animated shorts, it could utilize ideas from films still in production (DuckTales reversed this, being a TV adaptation of the comics). Similarly, Barks' Junior Woodchuck prototype, Good Scouts, was released three months after identical scouting uniforms were introduced by Taliaferro and Bob Karp in the comic strip.
The nephews being triplets who finished each others' sentences was developed by Carl Barks, the screenwriter of Donald's Nephews, for whom Happy Hooligan, a comic strip that featured such triplets, was a childhood influence. This characteristic appeared for the first time at the end of the film, as the boys parted with Donald. In the comic strip, it was first implemented a week after the film's release.
The nephews' names were devised by Disney gag man Dana Coty, who took them from Huey Long, Thomas Dewey, and Louis Schmitt, a Disney Studio animator. In translation, the nephews' names often follow the repetition (parachesis) of their names in English, for example, Tupu, Hupu and Lupu (Finnish) and Hyzio, Dyzio and Zyzio (Polish).
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the sons of Donald's sister Della Duck; in Donald's Nephews, their mother is instead named Dumbella. In the original theatrical shorts, they were originally sent to visit Donald for only one day; in the comics, the three were sent to stay with Donald on a temporary basis, until their father came back from the hospital (the boys ended up sending him there after a practical joke of putting firecrackers under his chair). In both the comics and animated shorts, the boys' parents were never heard from or mentioned again after these instances, with the boys ending up permanently living with Donald. All four of them live in the fictional city of Duckburg, in the fictional state of Calisota.
In the theatrical shorts, Huey, Dewey, and Louie often behave in a rambunctious and mischievous manner, and they sometimes commit retaliation or revenge on Donald. In the early Barks comics, the ducklings were still wild and unruly, but their character improved considerably due to their membership in the Junior Woodchucks and the good influence of Grandma Duck. As the boys mature, they prefer to assist Donald and Scrooge in the adventure at hand.
In early comic books and shorts, the caps of Huey, Dewey, and Louie were colored randomly, depending on the whim of the colorist. On a few occasions until 1945 and most cartoons shortly afterward, all three nephews wore identical outfits (most commonly red).
It was not until the 1980s when it became established that Huey is dressed in pink then in 1982 changed to red, Dewey in black then in 1982 changed to blue, and Louie in brown then in 1982 changed to green. Disney's archivist Dave Smith, in "Disney A to Z", said, "Note that the brightest hue of the three is red (Huey), the color of water, dew, is blue (Dewey), and that leaves Louie, and leaves are green (Louie)."
A few random combinations appear in early Disney merchandise and books, such as orange and yellow. Another combination that shows up from time to time is Huey in blue, Dewey in green, and Louie in red. In-story, this inconsistency is explained away as a result of the ducklings borrowing each other's clothes. The trio have often been depicted wearing indistinguishable black shirts (or the same dark color).
The Don Rosa story An Eye for Detail was based around Donald spending so much time trying to tell his three nephews apart that he developed a heightened sense of sight.
Clarence Nash, Donald's voice actor, voiced the nephews in the cartoon shorts, making their voices just as duck-like (and thereby difficult to understand) as Donald's. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were all voiced by Russi Taylor in DuckTales. In Quack Pack, they were voiced by Jeannie Elias, Pamela Segall, and Elizabeth Daily, respectively. Tony Anselmo voiced the characters in Down and Out with Donald Duck (1987), Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse, and the Have a Laugh! shorts, while Taylor continued voicing the trio in other projects, such as the video games, Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers and Mickey's Speedway USA, and the direct-to-video films Mickey's Once and Twice Upon a Christmas. Taylor also reprised her role as the nephews in the DuckTales: Remastered video game and the post-2013 Mickey Mouse shorts until her death in 2019. Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz, and Bobby Moynihan voiced the trio in the 2017 DuckTales reboot.
On a few occasions, an artist by error drew four nephews and the error was published. This fourth nephew has been named Phooey Duck by Disney comic editor Bob Foster.
The six-page Danish Egmont-licensed Disney comic Much Ado About Phooey (1999), plotted by Lars Jensen, written by Jack Sutter and drawn by Tino Santanach Hernandez, used Phooey as a character and explained Phooey's sporadic appearances as a freak incident of nature. (The text in the two speech balloons says "It is a fourth nephew! An exact copy of the others! / Yes, it's probably best that I explain".) Phooey also made a cameo appearance in the 2017 DuckTales animated series episode, "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!", during a dream sequence.
In the comics, Huey, Dewey, and Louie often play a major role in most stories involving either their "Unca Donald" or great-uncle Scrooge McDuck, accompanying them on most of their adventures. Originating in the comics is the boys' membership in the Boy Scouts of America-like organization, the Junior Woodchucks, including their use of the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook, a fantastically exhaustive field guide containing information on science, history and survival skills. This youth organization, which has twin goals of preserving knowledge and protecting the environment, was instrumental in transforming the three brothers from "little hellions" to upstanding young ducks.
In Disney comic writer Don Rosa's continuity, Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck were born around 1940 in Duckburg. In his award-winning epic series, Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Rosa reveals the domestic pain felt by the boys' loss of their parents. When Scrooge first meets Donald and his nephews, he says: "I'm not used to relatives, either! The few I had seem to have... disappeared!" Huey, Dewey, and Louie respond: "We know how that feels, Unca Scrooge!"
In Some Heir Over the Rainbow by Carl Barks, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, along with Donald Duck and Gladstone Gander, are tested by Scrooge McDuck, who wants to pick an heir to his fortune. Using the legend of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, Scrooge secretly gives the nephews, Donald and their cousin each $1,000 to invest. Donald uses his money for a down payment of a new car, now being $1,000 in debt. Gladstone, considering himself too lucky to need the money this soon, hides the money for when and if he needs it, causing Scrooge to consider him a better option than Donald. Huey, Dewey, and Louie lend their money to a man who claims to need the money to search for a treasure. Initially thinking they were tricked out of the money, Scrooge actually considers leaving his fortune to Gladstone, even though he sees that as "an awful injustice to the world", but the man actually finds the treasure and pays the kids back. Scrooge makes Huey, Dewey, and Louie his heirs. It seems to be the most solidly canon indication of Scrooge's plans.
In a 1994 interview, Erik Svane asked Barks who would inherit Scrooge's money. Barks' response was "Probably Donald's nephews." Svane further queried, "Why would Huey, Dewey and Louie receive it?" Barks: "Oh, well, because they are so much more practical than Donald. In the later stories, as I developed those duck people and the whole community of Duckburg and all of its problems, I began giving those kids much more intelligence than anybody else in Duckburg. And so, I guess that when Uncle Scrooge passes on, he will leave all of his money to his three nephews. And I'm sure they will do a lot of good in the world, their Junior Woodchucks organization. They will save all the birds and all the whales."
Huey, Dewey, and Louie starred in the 1987 animated television series DuckTales, in which they went on adventures with their great-uncle, Scrooge McDuck, after their "Unca Donald" left them with him to enlist in the U.S. Navy. The boys' personalities in this series were mainly based on their comic book appearances versus the theatrical shorts. In the 1996 series Quack Pack, the three were portrayed as teenagers and given distinct personalities, with Huey serving as the group's leader, Dewey as a computer whiz, and Louie as a sports enthusiast. After Quack Pack, the boys were reverted to their original ages for most appearances, including the 1999 series Mickey Mouse Works. An exception was the 2001 series House of Mouse, in which they served as the house band in a variety of different styles (most commonly as "The Quackstreet Boys").
In the 2017 DuckTales series, the brothers are once again given distinct designs, voices, and personalities: Huey is intelligent and logical, Dewey is adventurous and excitable, and Louie is laid-back and cunning. The boys move to Scrooge's mansion with Donald after Dewey accidentally destroys their houseboat and travel the world on adventures with their uncles. They also have different roles: Huey is a Junior Woodchuck, Dewey likes to go on adventures, and Louie wants to be wealthy like Scrooge, except that he likes to do everything the easy way. This iteration also changed Dewey's real name to Dewford, while making Dingus his middle name, and Louie's real name to Llewellyn. In the second season, the boys are reunited with their long-lost mother Della, who reveals she intended to name them "Jet, Turbo, and Rebel" before she disappeared, after which Donald named them instead.
Huey, Dewey and Louie have been given many appearances in video games over the years, starting with DuckTales (1989), a popular NES game based on the show, wherein they aid their Uncle Scrooge in finding treasure.
In The Lucky Dime Caper (1991) for Sega's Game Gear and Master System, the nephews are kidnapped by Magica De Spell. Donald must find Scrooge's lucky dime and barter for their safety. The trio also appear in the Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn game, Quackshot (1991), piloting Donald's plane as he travels the world in search of a lost treasure. The object of Disney's Magical Quest 3 Starring Mickey & Donald (1995), for Super Famicom (Japan) and Game Boy Advance, is to rescue the nephews from the clutches of the villainous King Pete.
Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers (2000) was released for many gaming systems. The boys aid Donald to bat Gladstone in rescuing Daisy Duck, while he also rescues their hexed play toys. The nephews appear as unlockable playable characters in Mickey's Speedway USA (2000) for Nintendo 64. In Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Mix (2000), that premiered as an arcade game in Japan and afterward on PlayStation and as a Plug-and-Play handheld TV game, they appear as DJ's for certain music tracks. They are playable characters in Disney Magic Kingdoms (2016), a Disney Parks themed game for iOS, Android and Windows.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie have recurring roles as shopkeepers in the Kingdom Hearts video game series. In the first entry (2002), the trio work in the item shop in the First District of Traverse Town. In Kingdom Hearts II (2005), they individually run an item shop (Huey), an accessory shop (Dewey), and a weapon shop (Louie) in Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden. In both games' endings, they are seen returning to Disney Castle.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (2010) features the nephews in Disney Town, recreating Ice Cream flavors, this time with a speaking role. Kingdom Hearts Coded (2008) also has Huey, Dewey, and Louie in Traverse Town, much like the first game. The three nephews were investigating the strange block phenomena occurring in their world which also resided inside Jiminy's journal. In Kingdom Hearts χ (2013), they are displayed on special Support medals that grant the player's other medals a set number of experience points based on the medal's star value. They appear in the Tram Common area of Twilight Town in Kingdom Hearts III (2019), where they each take turns running the gummi shop. In all of their Kingdom Hearts appearances, the nephews look similar to their appearance in the original DuckTales.
Huey, Dewey and Louie have made numerous appearances at Disney theme parks.
The nephews appeared in seasonal parades during Easter, Halloween and Christmas 2011 after a long absence. They also appeared in the Countdown Party Parade 2011.
Huey, Dewey and Louie appear regularly in Paris. They appeared during the Christmas season 2010 in their daytime and nighttime Parades at "Disneyland Paris's Magic Kingdom", Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade and in the Disney's Fantillusion Parade in glittery outfits. They made another appearance at Disneyland Paris for meet-and-greet at the Disneyland Hotel on April 2, 2011, the day of the Press Event for the launch of the Magical Moments Festival. They also appeared at Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade at the Disneyland Park in special outfits for the parade and at the Disney's Stars 'n' Cars Parade at the Walt Disney Studios Park in directors outfits.
The nephews appeared at Disneyland Paris's Halloween season 2011. They have their own show during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties at the Disneyland Park in Disneyland Paris, titled Huey, Dewey and Louie's Trick or Treat Party. They also made an appearance for meet-and-greet at Disneyland Paris's "Disney's Halloween Party" on October 31, 2011. They were also part of the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve 2011–2012 celebrations at the Disneyland Hotel. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-nephews of Scrooge McDuck. Like their maternal uncles, the brothers are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange bills and feet. The boys are sometimes distinguished by the color of their shirts and baseball caps (with Huey wearing red, Dewey wearing blue, and Louie wearing green). They featured in many Donald Duck animated shorts and in the television show DuckTales and its reboot, but comics remain their primary medium.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While the boys were originally created as mischief-makers to provoke Donald's famous easily-triggered temper, later appearances, beginning especially in the comic books stories by Carl Barks, showed them growing to be heroes in their own right and valuable assets to him and Uncle Scrooge on their adventures. All three of the triplets are members of the fictional scouting organization of the Junior Woodchucks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Al Taliaferro, the artist for the Silly Symphony comic strip, proposed the idea for the film Donald's Nephews, so that the studio would have duck counterparts to Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, the nephews of Mickey Mouse. The Walt Disney Productions Story Dept. on February 5, 1937, sent Taliaferro a memo recognizing him as the source of the idea for the planned short.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The memo indicated, “we have decided to actually put a story crew to work on Donald’s Nephews.” With the short already in production more than eight months before the boys' Silly Symphonies comic strip debut (on October 17, 1937), the animation studio's model sheet and storyline would have been Taliaferro and writer Ted Osborne's frame of reference for the comic strip. Because the strip was an adaptation of the animated shorts, it could utilize ideas from films still in production (DuckTales reversed this, being a TV adaptation of the comics). Similarly, Barks' Junior Woodchuck prototype, Good Scouts, was released three months after identical scouting uniforms were introduced by Taliaferro and Bob Karp in the comic strip.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The nephews being triplets who finished each others' sentences was developed by Carl Barks, the screenwriter of Donald's Nephews, for whom Happy Hooligan, a comic strip that featured such triplets, was a childhood influence. This characteristic appeared for the first time at the end of the film, as the boys parted with Donald. In the comic strip, it was first implemented a week after the film's release.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The nephews' names were devised by Disney gag man Dana Coty, who took them from Huey Long, Thomas Dewey, and Louis Schmitt, a Disney Studio animator. In translation, the nephews' names often follow the repetition (parachesis) of their names in English, for example, Tupu, Hupu and Lupu (Finnish) and Hyzio, Dyzio and Zyzio (Polish).",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the sons of Donald's sister Della Duck; in Donald's Nephews, their mother is instead named Dumbella. In the original theatrical shorts, they were originally sent to visit Donald for only one day; in the comics, the three were sent to stay with Donald on a temporary basis, until their father came back from the hospital (the boys ended up sending him there after a practical joke of putting firecrackers under his chair). In both the comics and animated shorts, the boys' parents were never heard from or mentioned again after these instances, with the boys ending up permanently living with Donald. All four of them live in the fictional city of Duckburg, in the fictional state of Calisota.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the theatrical shorts, Huey, Dewey, and Louie often behave in a rambunctious and mischievous manner, and they sometimes commit retaliation or revenge on Donald. In the early Barks comics, the ducklings were still wild and unruly, but their character improved considerably due to their membership in the Junior Woodchucks and the good influence of Grandma Duck. As the boys mature, they prefer to assist Donald and Scrooge in the adventure at hand.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In early comic books and shorts, the caps of Huey, Dewey, and Louie were colored randomly, depending on the whim of the colorist. On a few occasions until 1945 and most cartoons shortly afterward, all three nephews wore identical outfits (most commonly red).",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "It was not until the 1980s when it became established that Huey is dressed in pink then in 1982 changed to red, Dewey in black then in 1982 changed to blue, and Louie in brown then in 1982 changed to green. Disney's archivist Dave Smith, in \"Disney A to Z\", said, \"Note that the brightest hue of the three is red (Huey), the color of water, dew, is blue (Dewey), and that leaves Louie, and leaves are green (Louie).\"",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A few random combinations appear in early Disney merchandise and books, such as orange and yellow. Another combination that shows up from time to time is Huey in blue, Dewey in green, and Louie in red. In-story, this inconsistency is explained away as a result of the ducklings borrowing each other's clothes. The trio have often been depicted wearing indistinguishable black shirts (or the same dark color).",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Don Rosa story An Eye for Detail was based around Donald spending so much time trying to tell his three nephews apart that he developed a heightened sense of sight.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Clarence Nash, Donald's voice actor, voiced the nephews in the cartoon shorts, making their voices just as duck-like (and thereby difficult to understand) as Donald's. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were all voiced by Russi Taylor in DuckTales. In Quack Pack, they were voiced by Jeannie Elias, Pamela Segall, and Elizabeth Daily, respectively. Tony Anselmo voiced the characters in Down and Out with Donald Duck (1987), Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse, and the Have a Laugh! shorts, while Taylor continued voicing the trio in other projects, such as the video games, Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers and Mickey's Speedway USA, and the direct-to-video films Mickey's Once and Twice Upon a Christmas. Taylor also reprised her role as the nephews in the DuckTales: Remastered video game and the post-2013 Mickey Mouse shorts until her death in 2019. Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz, and Bobby Moynihan voiced the trio in the 2017 DuckTales reboot.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On a few occasions, an artist by error drew four nephews and the error was published. This fourth nephew has been named Phooey Duck by Disney comic editor Bob Foster.",
"title": "Phooey Duck"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The six-page Danish Egmont-licensed Disney comic Much Ado About Phooey (1999), plotted by Lars Jensen, written by Jack Sutter and drawn by Tino Santanach Hernandez, used Phooey as a character and explained Phooey's sporadic appearances as a freak incident of nature. (The text in the two speech balloons says \"It is a fourth nephew! An exact copy of the others! / Yes, it's probably best that I explain\".) Phooey also made a cameo appearance in the 2017 DuckTales animated series episode, \"A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!\", during a dream sequence.",
"title": "Phooey Duck"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the comics, Huey, Dewey, and Louie often play a major role in most stories involving either their \"Unca Donald\" or great-uncle Scrooge McDuck, accompanying them on most of their adventures. Originating in the comics is the boys' membership in the Boy Scouts of America-like organization, the Junior Woodchucks, including their use of the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook, a fantastically exhaustive field guide containing information on science, history and survival skills. This youth organization, which has twin goals of preserving knowledge and protecting the environment, was instrumental in transforming the three brothers from \"little hellions\" to upstanding young ducks.",
"title": "Comics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Disney comic writer Don Rosa's continuity, Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck were born around 1940 in Duckburg. In his award-winning epic series, Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Rosa reveals the domestic pain felt by the boys' loss of their parents. When Scrooge first meets Donald and his nephews, he says: \"I'm not used to relatives, either! The few I had seem to have... disappeared!\" Huey, Dewey, and Louie respond: \"We know how that feels, Unca Scrooge!\"",
"title": "Comics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In Some Heir Over the Rainbow by Carl Barks, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, along with Donald Duck and Gladstone Gander, are tested by Scrooge McDuck, who wants to pick an heir to his fortune. Using the legend of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, Scrooge secretly gives the nephews, Donald and their cousin each $1,000 to invest. Donald uses his money for a down payment of a new car, now being $1,000 in debt. Gladstone, considering himself too lucky to need the money this soon, hides the money for when and if he needs it, causing Scrooge to consider him a better option than Donald. Huey, Dewey, and Louie lend their money to a man who claims to need the money to search for a treasure. Initially thinking they were tricked out of the money, Scrooge actually considers leaving his fortune to Gladstone, even though he sees that as \"an awful injustice to the world\", but the man actually finds the treasure and pays the kids back. Scrooge makes Huey, Dewey, and Louie his heirs. It seems to be the most solidly canon indication of Scrooge's plans.",
"title": "Comics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In a 1994 interview, Erik Svane asked Barks who would inherit Scrooge's money. Barks' response was \"Probably Donald's nephews.\" Svane further queried, \"Why would Huey, Dewey and Louie receive it?\" Barks: \"Oh, well, because they are so much more practical than Donald. In the later stories, as I developed those duck people and the whole community of Duckburg and all of its problems, I began giving those kids much more intelligence than anybody else in Duckburg. And so, I guess that when Uncle Scrooge passes on, he will leave all of his money to his three nephews. And I'm sure they will do a lot of good in the world, their Junior Woodchucks organization. They will save all the birds and all the whales.\"",
"title": "Comics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Huey, Dewey, and Louie starred in the 1987 animated television series DuckTales, in which they went on adventures with their great-uncle, Scrooge McDuck, after their \"Unca Donald\" left them with him to enlist in the U.S. Navy. The boys' personalities in this series were mainly based on their comic book appearances versus the theatrical shorts. In the 1996 series Quack Pack, the three were portrayed as teenagers and given distinct personalities, with Huey serving as the group's leader, Dewey as a computer whiz, and Louie as a sports enthusiast. After Quack Pack, the boys were reverted to their original ages for most appearances, including the 1999 series Mickey Mouse Works. An exception was the 2001 series House of Mouse, in which they served as the house band in a variety of different styles (most commonly as \"The Quackstreet Boys\").",
"title": "Television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the 2017 DuckTales series, the brothers are once again given distinct designs, voices, and personalities: Huey is intelligent and logical, Dewey is adventurous and excitable, and Louie is laid-back and cunning. The boys move to Scrooge's mansion with Donald after Dewey accidentally destroys their houseboat and travel the world on adventures with their uncles. They also have different roles: Huey is a Junior Woodchuck, Dewey likes to go on adventures, and Louie wants to be wealthy like Scrooge, except that he likes to do everything the easy way. This iteration also changed Dewey's real name to Dewford, while making Dingus his middle name, and Louie's real name to Llewellyn. In the second season, the boys are reunited with their long-lost mother Della, who reveals she intended to name them \"Jet, Turbo, and Rebel\" before she disappeared, after which Donald named them instead.",
"title": "Television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Huey, Dewey and Louie have been given many appearances in video games over the years, starting with DuckTales (1989), a popular NES game based on the show, wherein they aid their Uncle Scrooge in finding treasure.",
"title": "Video games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In The Lucky Dime Caper (1991) for Sega's Game Gear and Master System, the nephews are kidnapped by Magica De Spell. Donald must find Scrooge's lucky dime and barter for their safety. The trio also appear in the Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn game, Quackshot (1991), piloting Donald's plane as he travels the world in search of a lost treasure. The object of Disney's Magical Quest 3 Starring Mickey & Donald (1995), for Super Famicom (Japan) and Game Boy Advance, is to rescue the nephews from the clutches of the villainous King Pete.",
"title": "Video games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers (2000) was released for many gaming systems. The boys aid Donald to bat Gladstone in rescuing Daisy Duck, while he also rescues their hexed play toys. The nephews appear as unlockable playable characters in Mickey's Speedway USA (2000) for Nintendo 64. In Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Mix (2000), that premiered as an arcade game in Japan and afterward on PlayStation and as a Plug-and-Play handheld TV game, they appear as DJ's for certain music tracks. They are playable characters in Disney Magic Kingdoms (2016), a Disney Parks themed game for iOS, Android and Windows.",
"title": "Video games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Huey, Dewey, and Louie have recurring roles as shopkeepers in the Kingdom Hearts video game series. In the first entry (2002), the trio work in the item shop in the First District of Traverse Town. In Kingdom Hearts II (2005), they individually run an item shop (Huey), an accessory shop (Dewey), and a weapon shop (Louie) in Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden. In both games' endings, they are seen returning to Disney Castle.",
"title": "Video games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (2010) features the nephews in Disney Town, recreating Ice Cream flavors, this time with a speaking role. Kingdom Hearts Coded (2008) also has Huey, Dewey, and Louie in Traverse Town, much like the first game. The three nephews were investigating the strange block phenomena occurring in their world which also resided inside Jiminy's journal. In Kingdom Hearts χ (2013), they are displayed on special Support medals that grant the player's other medals a set number of experience points based on the medal's star value. They appear in the Tram Common area of Twilight Town in Kingdom Hearts III (2019), where they each take turns running the gummi shop. In all of their Kingdom Hearts appearances, the nephews look similar to their appearance in the original DuckTales.",
"title": "Video games"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Huey, Dewey and Louie have made numerous appearances at Disney theme parks.",
"title": "Parks and attractions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The nephews appeared in seasonal parades during Easter, Halloween and Christmas 2011 after a long absence. They also appeared in the Countdown Party Parade 2011.",
"title": "Parks and attractions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Huey, Dewey and Louie appear regularly in Paris. They appeared during the Christmas season 2010 in their daytime and nighttime Parades at \"Disneyland Paris's Magic Kingdom\", Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade and in the Disney's Fantillusion Parade in glittery outfits. They made another appearance at Disneyland Paris for meet-and-greet at the Disneyland Hotel on April 2, 2011, the day of the Press Event for the launch of the Magical Moments Festival. They also appeared at Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade at the Disneyland Park in special outfits for the parade and at the Disney's Stars 'n' Cars Parade at the Walt Disney Studios Park in directors outfits.",
"title": "Parks and attractions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The nephews appeared at Disneyland Paris's Halloween season 2011. They have their own show during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties at the Disneyland Park in Disneyland Paris, titled Huey, Dewey and Louie's Trick or Treat Party. They also made an appearance for meet-and-greet at Disneyland Paris's \"Disney's Halloween Party\" on October 31, 2011. They were also part of the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve 2011–2012 celebrations at the Disneyland Hotel.",
"title": "Parks and attractions"
}
]
| Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-nephews of Scrooge McDuck. Like their maternal uncles, the brothers are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange bills and feet. The boys are sometimes distinguished by the color of their shirts and baseball caps. They featured in many Donald Duck animated shorts and in the television show DuckTales and its reboot, but comics remain their primary medium. While the boys were originally created as mischief-makers to provoke Donald's famous easily-triggered temper, later appearances, beginning especially in the comic books stories by Carl Barks, showed them growing to be heroes in their own right and valuable assets to him and Uncle Scrooge on their adventures. All three of the triplets are members of the fictional scouting organization of the Junior Woodchucks. | 2001-12-29T09:42:56Z | 2023-12-23T01:41:36Z | [
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"Template:Disney Characters",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Use mdy dates",
"Template:Infobox character",
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"Template:Huey, Dewey, and Louie in animation",
"Template:DuckTales",
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]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey,_Dewey,_and_Louie |
14,358 | Hammurabi | Hammurabi (/ˌxæmʊˈrɑːbi/; Akkadian: 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉 Ḫâmmurapi; c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC), also spelled Hammurapi, was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.
Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. They were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities.
Hammurabi was seen by many as a god within his own lifetime. After his death, Hammurabi was revered as a great conqueror who spread civilization and forced all peoples to pay obeisance to Marduk, the national god of the Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as the ideal lawgiver became the primary aspect of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame of reference for all events occurring in the distant past. Even after the empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model ruler, and many kings across the Near East claimed him as an ancestor. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late nineteenth century and has since been seen as an important figure in the history of law.
Hammurabi ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation. Hammurabi was an Amorite First Dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon, and inherited the power from his father, Sin-Muballit, in c. 1792 BC. Babylon was one of the many largely Amorite-ruled city-states that dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land. Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East under Hammurabi. The kings who came before Hammurabi had founded a relatively minor city-state in 1894 BC, which controlled little territory outside of the city itself. Babylon was overshadowed by older, larger, and more powerful kingdoms, such as Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, and Larsa for a century or so after its founding. However, his father Sin-Muballit had begun to consolidate rule of a small area of south central Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule and, by the time of his reign, had conquered the minor city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.
The powerful kingdom of Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris River, while Larsa controlled the river delta. To the east of Mesopotamia lay the powerful kingdom of Elam, which regularly invaded and forced tribute upon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, who had already inherited centuries-old Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor, had expanded his territory into the Levant and central Mesopotamia, although his untimely death would somewhat fragment his empire.
The first few years of Hammurabi's reign were quite peaceful. Hammurabi used his power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples. The powerful kingdom of Elam, which straddled important trade routes across the Zagros Mountains, invaded the Mesopotamian plain. With allies among the plain states, Elam attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities and imposing its rule on portions of the plain for the first time.
In order to consolidate its position, Elam tried to start a war between Hammurabi's Babylonian kingdom and the kingdom of Larsa. Hammurabi and the king of Larsa made an alliance when they discovered this duplicity and were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute greatly to the military effort. Angered by Larsa's failure to come to his aid, Hammurabi turned on that southern power, thus gaining control of the entirety of the lower Mesopotamian plain by c. 1763 BC.
As Hammurabi was assisted during the war in the south by his allies from the north such as Yamhad and Mari, the absence of soldiers in the north led to unrest. Continuing his expansion, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, quelling the unrest. Soon after, he destroyed Eshnunna. Next the Babylonian armies conquered the remaining northern states, including Babylon's former ally Mari, although it is possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any actual conflict.
Hammurabi entered into a protracted war with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria for control of Mesopotamia, with both kings making alliances with minor states in order to gain the upper hand. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan I just before his own death. Mut-Ashkur, the new king of Assyria, was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi.
In just a few years, Hammurabi succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia under his rule. The Assyrian kingdom survived but was forced to pay tribute during his reign, and of the major city-states in the region, only Aleppo and Qatna to the west in the Levant maintained their independence. However, one stele (stone monument) of Hammurabi has been found as far north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title "King of the Amorites".
Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated to the reigns of Hammurabi and his successors, have been discovered, as well as 55 of his own letters. These letters give a glimpse into the daily trials of ruling an empire, from dealing with floods and mandating changes to a flawed calendar, to taking care of Babylon's massive herds of livestock. Hammurabi died and passed the reins of the empire on to his son Samsu-iluna in c. 1750 BC, under whose rule the Babylonian empire quickly began to unravel.
The Code of Hammurabi was a collection of 282 laws dealing with a wide range of issues. It is not the earliest surviving law code but was proved more influential in world politics and international relations as instead of focusing on compensating the victim of crime, as in earlier Sumerian law codes, the Code of Hammurabi instead focused on physically punishing the perpetrator. It was also one of the first law codes to place restrictions on what a wronged person was allowed to do in retribution and one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, suggesting that the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence. The structure of the code is very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. Many offenses resulted in death, disfigurement, or the use of the Lex Talionis philosophy ("Eye for eye, tooth for tooth").
The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on a stele and placed in a public place so that all could see it, although it is thought that few were literate. The stele was later plundered by the Elamites and removed to their capital, Susa; it was rediscovered there in 1901 in Iran and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, and could therefore be read by any literate person in the city. At this time, Akkadian replaced Sumerian, and Hammurabi began language reforms that would make Akkadian the most common language at this time. A carving at the top of the stele portrays Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice, and the preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by Shamash to bring the laws to the people.
Because of Hammurabi's reputation as a lawgiver, his depiction can be found in law buildings throughout the world. Hammurabi is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. A frieze by Adolph Weinman depicting the "great lawgivers of history", including Hammurabi, is on the south wall of the U.S. Supreme Court building.
Hammurabi was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC and he received the unique honor of being declared to be a god within his own lifetime. The personal name "Hammurabi-ili" meaning "Hammurabi is my god" became common during and after his reign. In writings from shortly after his death, Hammurabi is commemorated mainly for three achievements: bringing victory in war, bringing peace, and bringing justice. Hammurabi's conquests came to be regarded as part of a sacred mission to spread civilization to all nations. A stele from Ur glorifies him in his own voice as a mighty ruler who forces evil into submission and compels all peoples to worship Marduk. The stele declares: "The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains are distant and whose languages are obscure, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. I myself continued to put straight their confused minds." A later hymn also written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural force for Marduk:
I am the king, the brace that grasps wrongdoers, that makes people of one mind, I am the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray, I am the net that is stretched over the enemy, I am the fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his fierce eyes, gives the disobedient the death sentence, I am the great net that covers evil intent, I am the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters, I am the battle net that catches him who offends me.
After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, the hymn finally declares: "I am Hammurabi, the king of justice." In later commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a great lawgiver came to be emphasized above all his other accomplishments and his military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's reign became the point of reference for all events in the distant past. A hymn to the goddess Ishtar, whose language suggests it was written during the reign of Ammisaduqa, Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: "The king who first heard this song as a song of your heroism is Hammurabi. This song for you was composed in his reign. May he be given life forever!" For centuries after his death, Hammurabi's laws continued to be copied by scribes as part of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.
During the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon usurped the position of "most holy city" in southern Mesopotamia from its predecessor, Nippur. Under the rule of Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, the short-lived Babylonian Empire began to collapse. In northern Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from Assyria by Puzur-Sin a native Akkadian-speaking ruler, c. 1740 BC. Around the same time, native Akkadian speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian rule in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the Sealand Dynasty, in more or less the region of ancient Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met with further defeats and loss of territory at the hands of Assyrian kings such as Adasi and Bel-ibni, as well as to the Sealand Dynasty to the south, Elam to the east, and to the Kassites from the northeast. Thus was Babylon quickly reduced to the small and minor state it had once been upon its founding.
The coup de grace for the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sacked and conquered by the powerful Hittite Empire, thereby ending all Amorite political presence in Mesopotamia. However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning over Babylon to their Kassite allies, a people speaking a language isolate, from the Zagros mountains region. This Kassite Dynasty ruled Babylon for over 400 years and adopted many aspects of the Babylonian culture, including Hammurabi's code of laws. Even after the fall of the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered. When the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte I raided Babylon in 1158 BC and carried off many stone monuments, he had most of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved into them. On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or five columns were wiped out and no new inscription was ever added. Over a thousand years after Hammurabi's death, the kings of Suhu, a land along the Euphrates river, just northwest of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.
A Neo-Babylonian royal inscription, which was intended for display on a stele, commemorates a royal grant of tax exemptions to nine Babylonian cities and presents the royal protagonist as a second Hammurabi.
In the late nineteenth century, the Code of Hammurabi became a major center of debate in the heated Babel und Bibel ("Babylon and Bible") controversy in Germany over the relationship between the Bible and ancient Babylonian texts. In January 1902, the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave a lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in front of the Kaiser and his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament were directly copied off the Code of Hammurabi. Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as the preceding one about the Flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch, though a few were sympathetic. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main rather than in Berlin. The putative relationship between the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably contaminated by Babylonian influence and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, Aryan message of the New Testament. In the early twentieth century, many scholars believed that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar in the Book of Genesis 14:1. This view has now been largely rejected, and Amraphael's existence is not attested in any writings from outside the Bible.
Parallels between this narrative and the giving of the Covenant Code to Moses by Yahweh atop Mount Sinai in the Biblical Book of Exodus and similarities between the two legal codes suggest a common ancestor in the Semitic background of the two. Nonetheless, fragments of previous law codes have been found and it is unlikely that the Mosaic laws were directly inspired by the Code of Hammurabi. Some scholars have disputed this; David P. Wright argues that the Jewish Covenant Code is "directly, primarily, and throughout" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi. In 2010, a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University discovered a cuneiform tablet dating to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC at Hazor in Israel containing laws clearly derived from the Code of Hammurabi. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hammurabi (/ˌxæmʊˈrɑːbi/; Akkadian: 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉 Ḫâmmurapi; c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC), also spelled Hammurapi, was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. They were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hammurabi was seen by many as a god within his own lifetime. After his death, Hammurabi was revered as a great conqueror who spread civilization and forced all peoples to pay obeisance to Marduk, the national god of the Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as the ideal lawgiver became the primary aspect of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame of reference for all events occurring in the distant past. Even after the empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model ruler, and many kings across the Near East claimed him as an ancestor. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late nineteenth century and has since been seen as an important figure in the history of law.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hammurabi ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation. Hammurabi was an Amorite First Dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon, and inherited the power from his father, Sin-Muballit, in c. 1792 BC. Babylon was one of the many largely Amorite-ruled city-states that dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land. Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East under Hammurabi. The kings who came before Hammurabi had founded a relatively minor city-state in 1894 BC, which controlled little territory outside of the city itself. Babylon was overshadowed by older, larger, and more powerful kingdoms, such as Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, and Larsa for a century or so after its founding. However, his father Sin-Muballit had begun to consolidate rule of a small area of south central Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule and, by the time of his reign, had conquered the minor city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The powerful kingdom of Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris River, while Larsa controlled the river delta. To the east of Mesopotamia lay the powerful kingdom of Elam, which regularly invaded and forced tribute upon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, who had already inherited centuries-old Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor, had expanded his territory into the Levant and central Mesopotamia, although his untimely death would somewhat fragment his empire.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first few years of Hammurabi's reign were quite peaceful. Hammurabi used his power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples. The powerful kingdom of Elam, which straddled important trade routes across the Zagros Mountains, invaded the Mesopotamian plain. With allies among the plain states, Elam attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities and imposing its rule on portions of the plain for the first time.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In order to consolidate its position, Elam tried to start a war between Hammurabi's Babylonian kingdom and the kingdom of Larsa. Hammurabi and the king of Larsa made an alliance when they discovered this duplicity and were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute greatly to the military effort. Angered by Larsa's failure to come to his aid, Hammurabi turned on that southern power, thus gaining control of the entirety of the lower Mesopotamian plain by c. 1763 BC.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As Hammurabi was assisted during the war in the south by his allies from the north such as Yamhad and Mari, the absence of soldiers in the north led to unrest. Continuing his expansion, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, quelling the unrest. Soon after, he destroyed Eshnunna. Next the Babylonian armies conquered the remaining northern states, including Babylon's former ally Mari, although it is possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any actual conflict.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hammurabi entered into a protracted war with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria for control of Mesopotamia, with both kings making alliances with minor states in order to gain the upper hand. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan I just before his own death. Mut-Ashkur, the new king of Assyria, was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In just a few years, Hammurabi succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia under his rule. The Assyrian kingdom survived but was forced to pay tribute during his reign, and of the major city-states in the region, only Aleppo and Qatna to the west in the Levant maintained their independence. However, one stele (stone monument) of Hammurabi has been found as far north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title \"King of the Amorites\".",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated to the reigns of Hammurabi and his successors, have been discovered, as well as 55 of his own letters. These letters give a glimpse into the daily trials of ruling an empire, from dealing with floods and mandating changes to a flawed calendar, to taking care of Babylon's massive herds of livestock. Hammurabi died and passed the reins of the empire on to his son Samsu-iluna in c. 1750 BC, under whose rule the Babylonian empire quickly began to unravel.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Code of Hammurabi was a collection of 282 laws dealing with a wide range of issues. It is not the earliest surviving law code but was proved more influential in world politics and international relations as instead of focusing on compensating the victim of crime, as in earlier Sumerian law codes, the Code of Hammurabi instead focused on physically punishing the perpetrator. It was also one of the first law codes to place restrictions on what a wronged person was allowed to do in retribution and one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, suggesting that the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence. The structure of the code is very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. Many offenses resulted in death, disfigurement, or the use of the Lex Talionis philosophy (\"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth\").",
"title": "Code of laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on a stele and placed in a public place so that all could see it, although it is thought that few were literate. The stele was later plundered by the Elamites and removed to their capital, Susa; it was rediscovered there in 1901 in Iran and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, and could therefore be read by any literate person in the city. At this time, Akkadian replaced Sumerian, and Hammurabi began language reforms that would make Akkadian the most common language at this time. A carving at the top of the stele portrays Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice, and the preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by Shamash to bring the laws to the people.",
"title": "Code of laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Because of Hammurabi's reputation as a lawgiver, his depiction can be found in law buildings throughout the world. Hammurabi is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. A frieze by Adolph Weinman depicting the \"great lawgivers of history\", including Hammurabi, is on the south wall of the U.S. Supreme Court building.",
"title": "Code of laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hammurabi was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC and he received the unique honor of being declared to be a god within his own lifetime. The personal name \"Hammurabi-ili\" meaning \"Hammurabi is my god\" became common during and after his reign. In writings from shortly after his death, Hammurabi is commemorated mainly for three achievements: bringing victory in war, bringing peace, and bringing justice. Hammurabi's conquests came to be regarded as part of a sacred mission to spread civilization to all nations. A stele from Ur glorifies him in his own voice as a mighty ruler who forces evil into submission and compels all peoples to worship Marduk. The stele declares: \"The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains are distant and whose languages are obscure, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. I myself continued to put straight their confused minds.\" A later hymn also written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural force for Marduk:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "I am the king, the brace that grasps wrongdoers, that makes people of one mind, I am the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray, I am the net that is stretched over the enemy, I am the fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his fierce eyes, gives the disobedient the death sentence, I am the great net that covers evil intent, I am the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters, I am the battle net that catches him who offends me.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, the hymn finally declares: \"I am Hammurabi, the king of justice.\" In later commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a great lawgiver came to be emphasized above all his other accomplishments and his military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's reign became the point of reference for all events in the distant past. A hymn to the goddess Ishtar, whose language suggests it was written during the reign of Ammisaduqa, Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: \"The king who first heard this song as a song of your heroism is Hammurabi. This song for you was composed in his reign. May he be given life forever!\" For centuries after his death, Hammurabi's laws continued to be copied by scribes as part of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "During the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon usurped the position of \"most holy city\" in southern Mesopotamia from its predecessor, Nippur. Under the rule of Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, the short-lived Babylonian Empire began to collapse. In northern Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from Assyria by Puzur-Sin a native Akkadian-speaking ruler, c. 1740 BC. Around the same time, native Akkadian speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian rule in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the Sealand Dynasty, in more or less the region of ancient Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met with further defeats and loss of territory at the hands of Assyrian kings such as Adasi and Bel-ibni, as well as to the Sealand Dynasty to the south, Elam to the east, and to the Kassites from the northeast. Thus was Babylon quickly reduced to the small and minor state it had once been upon its founding.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The coup de grace for the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sacked and conquered by the powerful Hittite Empire, thereby ending all Amorite political presence in Mesopotamia. However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning over Babylon to their Kassite allies, a people speaking a language isolate, from the Zagros mountains region. This Kassite Dynasty ruled Babylon for over 400 years and adopted many aspects of the Babylonian culture, including Hammurabi's code of laws. Even after the fall of the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered. When the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte I raided Babylon in 1158 BC and carried off many stone monuments, he had most of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved into them. On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or five columns were wiped out and no new inscription was ever added. Over a thousand years after Hammurabi's death, the kings of Suhu, a land along the Euphrates river, just northwest of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "A Neo-Babylonian royal inscription, which was intended for display on a stele, commemorates a royal grant of tax exemptions to nine Babylonian cities and presents the royal protagonist as a second Hammurabi.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the late nineteenth century, the Code of Hammurabi became a major center of debate in the heated Babel und Bibel (\"Babylon and Bible\") controversy in Germany over the relationship between the Bible and ancient Babylonian texts. In January 1902, the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave a lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in front of the Kaiser and his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament were directly copied off the Code of Hammurabi. Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as the preceding one about the Flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch, though a few were sympathetic. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main rather than in Berlin. The putative relationship between the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably contaminated by Babylonian influence and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, Aryan message of the New Testament. In the early twentieth century, many scholars believed that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar in the Book of Genesis 14:1. This view has now been largely rejected, and Amraphael's existence is not attested in any writings from outside the Bible.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Parallels between this narrative and the giving of the Covenant Code to Moses by Yahweh atop Mount Sinai in the Biblical Book of Exodus and similarities between the two legal codes suggest a common ancestor in the Semitic background of the two. Nonetheless, fragments of previous law codes have been found and it is unlikely that the Mosaic laws were directly inspired by the Code of Hammurabi. Some scholars have disputed this; David P. Wright argues that the Jewish Covenant Code is \"directly, primarily, and throughout\" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi. In 2010, a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University discovered a cuneiform tablet dating to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC at Hazor in Israel containing laws clearly derived from the Code of Hammurabi.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
]
| Hammurabi, also spelled Hammurapi, was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule. Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. They were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities. Hammurabi was seen by many as a god within his own lifetime. After his death, Hammurabi was revered as a great conqueror who spread civilization and forced all peoples to pay obeisance to Marduk, the national god of the Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as the ideal lawgiver became the primary aspect of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame of reference for all events occurring in the distant past. Even after the empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model ruler, and many kings across the Near East claimed him as an ancestor. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late nineteenth century and has since been seen as an important figure in the history of law. | 2001-12-29T23:18:17Z | 2023-10-30T03:24:53Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi |
14,359 | Huygens–Fresnel principle | The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) states that every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually interfere. The sum of these spherical wavelets forms a new wavefront. As such, the Huygens-Fresnel principle is a method of analysis applied to problems of luminous wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction as well as reflection.
In 1678, Huygens proposed that every point reached by a luminous disturbance becomes a source of a spherical wave; the sum of these secondary waves determines the form of the wave at any subsequent time. He assumed that the secondary waves travelled only in the "forward" direction and it is not explained in the theory why this is the case. He was able to provide a qualitative explanation of linear and spherical wave propagation, and to derive the laws of reflection and refraction using this principle, but could not explain the deviations from rectilinear propagation that occur when light encounters edges, apertures and screens, commonly known as diffraction effects. The resolution of this error was finally explained by David A. B. Miller in 1991. The resolution is that the source is a dipole (not the monopole assumed by Huygens), which cancels in the reflected direction.
In 1818, Fresnel showed that Huygens's principle, together with his own principle of interference could explain both the rectilinear propagation of light and also diffraction effects. To obtain agreement with experimental results, he had to include additional arbitrary assumptions about the phase and amplitude of the secondary waves, and also an obliquity factor. These assumptions have no obvious physical foundation but led to predictions that agreed with many experimental observations, including the Poisson spot.
Poisson was a member of the French Academy, which reviewed Fresnel's work. He used Fresnel's theory to predict that a bright spot ought to appear in the center of the shadow of a small disc, and deduced from this that the theory was incorrect. However, Arago, another member of the committee, performed the experiment and showed that the prediction was correct. (Lisle had observed this fifty years earlier.) This was one of the investigations that led to the victory of the wave theory of light over then predominant corpuscular theory.
In antenna theory and engineering, the reformulation of the Huygens–Fresnel principle for radiating current sources is known as surface equivalence principle.
The Huygens–Fresnel principle provides a reasonable basis for understanding and predicting the classical wave propagation of light. However, there are limitations to the principle, namely the same approximations done for deriving the Kirchhoff's diffraction formula and the approximations of near field due to Fresnel. These can be summarized in the fact that the wavelength of light is much smaller than the dimensions of any optical components encountered.
Kirchhoff's diffraction formula provides a rigorous mathematical foundation for diffraction, based on the wave equation. The arbitrary assumptions made by Fresnel to arrive at the Huygens–Fresnel equation emerge automatically from the mathematics in this derivation.
A simple example of the operation of the principle can be seen when an open doorway connects two rooms and a sound is produced in a remote corner of one of them. A person in the other room will hear the sound as if it originated at the doorway. As far as the second room is concerned, the vibrating air in the doorway is the source of the sound.
Not all experts agree that the Huygens' principle is an accurate microscopic representation of reality. For instance, Melvin Schwartz argued that "Huygens' principle actually does give the right answer but for the wrong reasons".
This can be reflected in the following facts:
The Huygens' principle is essentially compatible with quantum field theory in the far field approximation, considering effective fields in the center of scattering, considering small perturbations, and in the same sense that quantum optics is compatible with classical optics, other interpretations are subject of debates and active research.
The Feynman model where every point in an imaginary wave front as large as the room is generating a wavelet, shall also be interpreted in these approximations and in a probabilistic context, in this context remote points can only contribute minimally to the overall probability amplitude.
Quantum field theory does not include any microscopic model for photon creation and the concept of single photon is also put under scrutiny on a theoretical level.
Consider the case of a point source located at a point P0, vibrating at a frequency f. The disturbance may be described by a complex variable U0 known as the complex amplitude. It produces a spherical wave with wavelength λ, wavenumber k = 2π/λ. Within a constant of proportionality, the complex amplitude of the primary wave at the point Q located at a distance r0 from P0 is:
Note that magnitude decreases in inverse proportion to the distance traveled, and the phase changes as k times the distance traveled.
Using Huygens's theory and the principle of superposition of waves, the complex amplitude at a further point P is found by summing the contribution from each point on the sphere of radius r0. In order to get an agreement with experimental results, Fresnel found that the individual contributions from the secondary waves on the sphere had to be multiplied by a constant, −i/λ, and by an additional inclination factor, K(χ). The first assumption means that the secondary waves oscillate at a quarter of a cycle out of phase with respect to the primary wave and that the magnitude of the secondary waves are in a ratio of 1:λ to the primary wave. He also assumed that K(χ) had a maximum value when χ = 0, and was equal to zero when χ = π/2, where χ is the angle between the normal of the primary wavefront and the normal of the secondary wavefront. The complex amplitude at P, due to the contribution of secondary waves, is then given by:
where S describes the surface of the sphere, and s is the distance between Q and P.
Fresnel used a zone construction method to find approximate values of K for the different zones, which enabled him to make predictions that were in agreement with experimental results. The integral theorem of Kirchhoff includes the basic idea of Huygens–Fresnel principle. Kirchhoff showed that in many cases, the theorem can be approximated to a simpler form that is equivalent to the formation of Fresnel's formulation.
For an aperture illumination consisting of a single expanding spherical wave, if the radius of the curvature of the wave is sufficiently large, Kirchhoff gave the following expression for K(χ):
K has a maximum value at χ = 0 as in the Huygens–Fresnel principle; however, K is not equal to zero at χ = π/2, but at χ = π.
Above derivation of K(χ) assumed that the diffracting aperture is illuminated by a single spherical wave with a sufficiently large radius of curvature. However, the principle holds for more general illuminations. An arbitrary illumination can be decomposed into a collection of point sources, and the linearity of the wave equation can be invoked to apply the principle to each point source individually. K(χ) can be generally expressed as:
In this case, K satisfies the conditions stated above (maximum value at χ = 0 and zero at χ = π/2).
Many books and references e.g. and refer to the Generalized Huygens' Principle as the one referred by Feynman in this publication.
Feynman defines the generalized principle in the following way:
"Actually Huygens’ principle is not correct in optics. It is replaced by Kirchoff’s [sic] modification which requires that both the amplitude and its derivative must be known on the adjacent surface. This is a consequence of the fact that the wave equation in optics is second order in the time. The wave equation of quantum mechanics is first order in the time; therefore, Huygens’ principle is correct for matter waves, action replacing time."
This clarifies the fact that in this context the generalized principle reflects the linearity of quantum mechanics and the fact that the quantum mechanics equations are first order in time. Finally only in this case the superposition principle fully apply, i.e. the wave function in a point P can be expanded as a superposition of waves on a border surface enclosing P. Wave functions can be interpreted in the usual quantum mechanical sense as probability densities where the formalism of Green's functions and propagators apply. What is note-worthy is that this generalized principle is applicable for "matter waves" and not for light waves any more. The phase factor is now clarified as given by the action and there is no more confusion why the phases of the wavelets are different from the one of the original wave and modified by the additional Fresnel parameters.
As per Greiner the generalized principle can be expressed for t ′ > t {\displaystyle t'>t} in the form:
where G is the usual Green function that propagates in time the wave function ψ {\displaystyle \psi } . This description resembles and generalize the initial Fresnel's formula of the classical model.
Huygens' theory served as a fundamental explanation of the wave nature of light interference and was further developed by Fresnel and Young but did not fully resolve all observations such as the low-intensity double-slit experiment first performed by G. I. Taylor in 1909. It was not until the early and mid-1900s that quantum theory discussions, particularly the early discussions at the 1927 Brussels Solvay Conference, where Louis de Broglie proposed his de Broglie hypothesis that the photon is guided by a wave function.
The wave function presents a much different explanation of the observed light and dark bands in a double slit experiment. In this conception, the photon follows a path which is a probabilistic choice of one of many possible paths in the electromagnetic field. These probable paths form the pattern: in dark areas, no photons are landing, and in bright areas, many photons are landing. The set of possible photon paths is consistent with Richard Feynman's path integral theory, the paths determined by the surroundings: the photon's originating point (atom), the slit, and the screen and by tracking and summing phases. The wave function is a solution to this geometry. The wave function approach was further supported by additional double-slit experiments in Italy and Japan in the 1970s and 1980s with electrons.
Huygens' principle can be seen as a consequence of the homogeneity of space—space is uniform in all locations. Any disturbance created in a sufficiently small region of homogeneous space (or in a homogeneous medium) propagates from that region in all geodesic directions. The waves produced by this disturbance, in turn, create disturbances in other regions, and so on. The superposition of all the waves results in the observed pattern of wave propagation.
Homogeneity of space is fundamental to quantum field theory (QFT) where the wave function of any object propagates along all available unobstructed paths. When integrated along all possible paths, with a phase factor proportional to the action, the interference of the wave-functions correctly predicts observable phenomena. Every point on the wavefront acts as the source of secondary wavelets that spread out in the light cone with the same speed as the wave. The new wavefront is found by constructing the surface tangent to the secondary wavelets.
In 1900, Jacques Hadamard observed that Huygens' principle was broken when the number of spatial dimensions is even. From this, he developed a set of conjectures that remain an active topic of research. In particular, it has been discovered that Huygens' principle holds on a large class of homogeneous spaces derived from the Coxeter group (so, for example, the Weyl groups of simple Lie algebras).
The traditional statement of Huygens' principle for the D'Alembertian gives rise to the KdV hierarchy; analogously, the Dirac operator gives rise to the AKNS hierarchy. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) states that every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually interfere. The sum of these spherical wavelets forms a new wavefront. As such, the Huygens-Fresnel principle is a method of analysis applied to problems of luminous wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction as well as reflection.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In 1678, Huygens proposed that every point reached by a luminous disturbance becomes a source of a spherical wave; the sum of these secondary waves determines the form of the wave at any subsequent time. He assumed that the secondary waves travelled only in the \"forward\" direction and it is not explained in the theory why this is the case. He was able to provide a qualitative explanation of linear and spherical wave propagation, and to derive the laws of reflection and refraction using this principle, but could not explain the deviations from rectilinear propagation that occur when light encounters edges, apertures and screens, commonly known as diffraction effects. The resolution of this error was finally explained by David A. B. Miller in 1991. The resolution is that the source is a dipole (not the monopole assumed by Huygens), which cancels in the reflected direction.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1818, Fresnel showed that Huygens's principle, together with his own principle of interference could explain both the rectilinear propagation of light and also diffraction effects. To obtain agreement with experimental results, he had to include additional arbitrary assumptions about the phase and amplitude of the secondary waves, and also an obliquity factor. These assumptions have no obvious physical foundation but led to predictions that agreed with many experimental observations, including the Poisson spot.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Poisson was a member of the French Academy, which reviewed Fresnel's work. He used Fresnel's theory to predict that a bright spot ought to appear in the center of the shadow of a small disc, and deduced from this that the theory was incorrect. However, Arago, another member of the committee, performed the experiment and showed that the prediction was correct. (Lisle had observed this fifty years earlier.) This was one of the investigations that led to the victory of the wave theory of light over then predominant corpuscular theory.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In antenna theory and engineering, the reformulation of the Huygens–Fresnel principle for radiating current sources is known as surface equivalence principle.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Huygens–Fresnel principle provides a reasonable basis for understanding and predicting the classical wave propagation of light. However, there are limitations to the principle, namely the same approximations done for deriving the Kirchhoff's diffraction formula and the approximations of near field due to Fresnel. These can be summarized in the fact that the wavelength of light is much smaller than the dimensions of any optical components encountered.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Kirchhoff's diffraction formula provides a rigorous mathematical foundation for diffraction, based on the wave equation. The arbitrary assumptions made by Fresnel to arrive at the Huygens–Fresnel equation emerge automatically from the mathematics in this derivation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A simple example of the operation of the principle can be seen when an open doorway connects two rooms and a sound is produced in a remote corner of one of them. A person in the other room will hear the sound as if it originated at the doorway. As far as the second room is concerned, the vibrating air in the doorway is the source of the sound.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Not all experts agree that the Huygens' principle is an accurate microscopic representation of reality. For instance, Melvin Schwartz argued that \"Huygens' principle actually does give the right answer but for the wrong reasons\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "This can be reflected in the following facts:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Huygens' principle is essentially compatible with quantum field theory in the far field approximation, considering effective fields in the center of scattering, considering small perturbations, and in the same sense that quantum optics is compatible with classical optics, other interpretations are subject of debates and active research.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Feynman model where every point in an imaginary wave front as large as the room is generating a wavelet, shall also be interpreted in these approximations and in a probabilistic context, in this context remote points can only contribute minimally to the overall probability amplitude.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Quantum field theory does not include any microscopic model for photon creation and the concept of single photon is also put under scrutiny on a theoretical level.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Consider the case of a point source located at a point P0, vibrating at a frequency f. The disturbance may be described by a complex variable U0 known as the complex amplitude. It produces a spherical wave with wavelength λ, wavenumber k = 2π/λ. Within a constant of proportionality, the complex amplitude of the primary wave at the point Q located at a distance r0 from P0 is:",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Note that magnitude decreases in inverse proportion to the distance traveled, and the phase changes as k times the distance traveled.",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Using Huygens's theory and the principle of superposition of waves, the complex amplitude at a further point P is found by summing the contribution from each point on the sphere of radius r0. In order to get an agreement with experimental results, Fresnel found that the individual contributions from the secondary waves on the sphere had to be multiplied by a constant, −i/λ, and by an additional inclination factor, K(χ). The first assumption means that the secondary waves oscillate at a quarter of a cycle out of phase with respect to the primary wave and that the magnitude of the secondary waves are in a ratio of 1:λ to the primary wave. He also assumed that K(χ) had a maximum value when χ = 0, and was equal to zero when χ = π/2, where χ is the angle between the normal of the primary wavefront and the normal of the secondary wavefront. The complex amplitude at P, due to the contribution of secondary waves, is then given by:",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "where S describes the surface of the sphere, and s is the distance between Q and P.",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Fresnel used a zone construction method to find approximate values of K for the different zones, which enabled him to make predictions that were in agreement with experimental results. The integral theorem of Kirchhoff includes the basic idea of Huygens–Fresnel principle. Kirchhoff showed that in many cases, the theorem can be approximated to a simpler form that is equivalent to the formation of Fresnel's formulation.",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For an aperture illumination consisting of a single expanding spherical wave, if the radius of the curvature of the wave is sufficiently large, Kirchhoff gave the following expression for K(χ):",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "K has a maximum value at χ = 0 as in the Huygens–Fresnel principle; however, K is not equal to zero at χ = π/2, but at χ = π.",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Above derivation of K(χ) assumed that the diffracting aperture is illuminated by a single spherical wave with a sufficiently large radius of curvature. However, the principle holds for more general illuminations. An arbitrary illumination can be decomposed into a collection of point sources, and the linearity of the wave equation can be invoked to apply the principle to each point source individually. K(χ) can be generally expressed as:",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In this case, K satisfies the conditions stated above (maximum value at χ = 0 and zero at χ = π/2).",
"title": "Mathematical expression of the principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Many books and references e.g. and refer to the Generalized Huygens' Principle as the one referred by Feynman in this publication.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Feynman defines the generalized principle in the following way:",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "\"Actually Huygens’ principle is not correct in optics. It is replaced by Kirchoff’s [sic] modification which requires that both the amplitude and its derivative must be known on the adjacent surface. This is a consequence of the fact that the wave equation in optics is second order in the time. The wave equation of quantum mechanics is first order in the time; therefore, Huygens’ principle is correct for matter waves, action replacing time.\"",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "This clarifies the fact that in this context the generalized principle reflects the linearity of quantum mechanics and the fact that the quantum mechanics equations are first order in time. Finally only in this case the superposition principle fully apply, i.e. the wave function in a point P can be expanded as a superposition of waves on a border surface enclosing P. Wave functions can be interpreted in the usual quantum mechanical sense as probability densities where the formalism of Green's functions and propagators apply. What is note-worthy is that this generalized principle is applicable for \"matter waves\" and not for light waves any more. The phase factor is now clarified as given by the action and there is no more confusion why the phases of the wavelets are different from the one of the original wave and modified by the additional Fresnel parameters.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "As per Greiner the generalized principle can be expressed for t ′ > t {\\displaystyle t'>t} in the form:",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "where G is the usual Green function that propagates in time the wave function ψ {\\displaystyle \\psi } . This description resembles and generalize the initial Fresnel's formula of the classical model.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Huygens' theory served as a fundamental explanation of the wave nature of light interference and was further developed by Fresnel and Young but did not fully resolve all observations such as the low-intensity double-slit experiment first performed by G. I. Taylor in 1909. It was not until the early and mid-1900s that quantum theory discussions, particularly the early discussions at the 1927 Brussels Solvay Conference, where Louis de Broglie proposed his de Broglie hypothesis that the photon is guided by a wave function.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The wave function presents a much different explanation of the observed light and dark bands in a double slit experiment. In this conception, the photon follows a path which is a probabilistic choice of one of many possible paths in the electromagnetic field. These probable paths form the pattern: in dark areas, no photons are landing, and in bright areas, many photons are landing. The set of possible photon paths is consistent with Richard Feynman's path integral theory, the paths determined by the surroundings: the photon's originating point (atom), the slit, and the screen and by tracking and summing phases. The wave function is a solution to this geometry. The wave function approach was further supported by additional double-slit experiments in Italy and Japan in the 1970s and 1980s with electrons.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Huygens' principle can be seen as a consequence of the homogeneity of space—space is uniform in all locations. Any disturbance created in a sufficiently small region of homogeneous space (or in a homogeneous medium) propagates from that region in all geodesic directions. The waves produced by this disturbance, in turn, create disturbances in other regions, and so on. The superposition of all the waves results in the observed pattern of wave propagation.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Homogeneity of space is fundamental to quantum field theory (QFT) where the wave function of any object propagates along all available unobstructed paths. When integrated along all possible paths, with a phase factor proportional to the action, the interference of the wave-functions correctly predicts observable phenomena. Every point on the wavefront acts as the source of secondary wavelets that spread out in the light cone with the same speed as the wave. The new wavefront is found by constructing the surface tangent to the secondary wavelets.",
"title": "Generalized Huygens' principle"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1900, Jacques Hadamard observed that Huygens' principle was broken when the number of spatial dimensions is even. From this, he developed a set of conjectures that remain an active topic of research. In particular, it has been discovered that Huygens' principle holds on a large class of homogeneous spaces derived from the Coxeter group (so, for example, the Weyl groups of simple Lie algebras).",
"title": "In other spatial dimensions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The traditional statement of Huygens' principle for the D'Alembertian gives rise to the KdV hierarchy; analogously, the Dirac operator gives rise to the AKNS hierarchy.",
"title": "In other spatial dimensions"
}
]
| The Huygens–Fresnel principle states that every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually interfere. The sum of these spherical wavelets forms a new wavefront. As such, the Huygens-Fresnel principle is a method of analysis applied to problems of luminous wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction as well as reflection. | 2001-12-30T01:41:59Z | 2023-10-25T03:07:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens%E2%80%93Fresnel_principle |
14,361 | Honey | Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.
Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee.
Honey for human consumption is collected from wild bee colonies, or from the hives of domesticated bees. The honey produced by honey bees is the most familiar to humans, thanks to its worldwide commercial production and availability. The husbandry of bees is known as beekeeping or apiculture, with the cultivation of stingless bees usually referred to as meliponiculture.
Honey is sweet because of its high concentrations of the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. It has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose (table sugar). One standard tablespoon (15 mL) of honey provides around 190 kilojoules (46 kilocalories) of food energy. It has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavor when used as a sweetener. Most microorganisms cannot grow in honey and sealed honey therefore does not spoil. Samples of honey discovered in archaeological contexts have proven edible even after thousands of years.
Honey use and production has a long and varied history, with its beginnings in prehistoric times. Several cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain depict humans foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago. While Apis melifera is an Old World insect, large-scale meliponiculture of New World stingless bees has been practiced by Mayans since pre-Columbian times.
Honey is produced by bees who have collected nectar or honeydew. Bees value honey for its sugars, which they consume to support general metabolic activity, especially that of their flight muscles during foraging, and as a food for their larvae. To this end bees stockpile honey to provide for themselves during ordinary foraging as well as during lean periods, as in overwintering. During foraging bees use part of the nectar they collect to power their flight muscles. The majority of nectar collected is not used to directly nourish the insects but is instead destined for regurgitation, enzymatic digestion, and finally long-term storage as honey. During cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees consume stored honey, which is many times as energy-dense as the nectar from which it is made.
After leaving the hive a foraging bee collects sugar-rich nectar or honeydew. Nectar from the flower generally has a water content of 70 to 80% and is much less viscous than finished honey, which usually has a water content around 18%. The water content of honeydew from aphids and other true bugs is generally very close to the sap on which those insects feed and is usually somewhat more dilute than nectar. One source describes the water content of honeydew as around 89%. Whether it is feeding on nectar or honeydew, the bee sucks these runny fluids through its proboscis, which delivers the liquid to the bee's honey stomach or "honey crop". This cavity lies just above its food stomach, the latter of which digests pollen and sugars consumed by an individual honey bee for its own nourishment.
In Apis mellifera the honey stomach holds about 40 mg of liquid. This is about half the weight of an unladen bee. Collecting this quantity in nectar can require visits to more than a thousand flowers. When nectar is plentiful it can take a bee more than an hour of ceaseless work to collect enough nectar to fill its honey crop. Salivary enzymes and proteins from the bee's hypopharyngeal gland are secreted into the nectar once it is in the bee's honey stomach. These substances begin cleaving complex sugars like sucrose and starches into simpler sugars such as glucose and fructose. This process slightly raises the water content and the acidity of the partially digested nectar.
Once filled, the forager bees return to the hive. There they regurgitate and transfer nectar to hive bees. Once in their own honey stomachs the hive bees regurgitate the nectar, repeatedly forming bubbles between their mandibles, speeding its digestion and concentration. These bubbles create a large surface area per volume and by this means the bees evaporate a portion of the nectar's water into the warm air of the hive.
Hive bees form honey processing groups. These groups work in relay, with one bee subjecting the processed nectar to bubbling and then passing the refined liquid on to others. It can take as long as 20 minutes of continuous regurgitation, digestion and evaporation until the product reaches storage quality. The new honey is then placed in honeycomb cells, which are left uncapped. This honey still has a very high water content, up to 70%, depending on the concentration of nectar gathered. At this stage of its refinement the water content of the honey is high enough that ubiquitous yeast spores can reproduce in it, a process which, if left unchecked, would rapidly consume the new honey's sugars. To combat this, bees use an ability rare among insects: the endogenous generation of heat.
Bees are among the few insects that can create large amounts of body heat. They use this ability to produce a constant ambient temperature in their hives. Hive temperatures are usually around 35 °C (95 °F) in the honey-storage areas. This temperature is regulated either by generating heat with their bodies or removing it through water evaporation. The evaporation removes water from the stored honey, drawing heat from the colony. The bees use their wings to govern hive cooling. Coordinated wing beating moves air across the wet honey, drawing out water and heat. Ventilation of the hive eventually expels both excess water and heat into the outside world.
The process of evaporating continues until the honey reaches its final water content of between 15.5% to 18%. This concentrates the sugars far beyond the saturation point of water, which is to say there is far more sugar dissolved in what little water remains in honey than ever could be dissolved in an equivalent volume of water. Honey, even at hive temperatures, is therefore a supercooled solution of various sugars in water. These concentrations of sugar can only be achieved near room temperature by evaporation of a less concentrated solution, in this case nectar. For osmotic reasons such high concentrations of sugar are extremely unfavorable to microbiological reproduction and all fermentation is consequently halted. The bees then cap the cells of finished honey with wax. This seals them from contamination and prevents further evaporation.
So long as its water concentration does not rise much above 18%, honey has an indefinite shelf life, both within the hive and after its removal by a beekeeper.
Honey bees are not the only eusocial insects to produce honey. All non-parasitic bumblebees and stingless bees produce honey. Some wasp species, such as Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica, found in South and Central America, are known to feed on nectar and produce honey. Other wasps, such as Polistes versicolor, also consume honey. In the middle of their life cycles they alternate between feeding on protein-rich pollen and feeding on honey, which is a far denser source of food energy.
Human beings have semi-domesticated several species of honey bee by taking advantage of their swarming stage. Swarming is the means by which new colonies are established when there is no longer space for expansion in the colony's present hive. The old queen lays eggs that will develop into new queens and then leads as many as half the colony to a site for a new hive. Bees generally swarm before a suitable location for another hive has been discovered by scouts sent out for this purpose. Until such a location is found the swarm will simply conglomerate near the former hive, often from tree branches. These swarms are unusually docile and amenable to transport by humans. When provided with a suitable nesting site, such as a commercial Langstroth hive, the swarm will readily form a new colony in artificial surroundings. These semi-domesticated colonies are then looked after by humans practicing apiculture or meliponiculture. Captured bees are encouraged to forage, often in agricultural settings such as orchards, where pollinators are highly valued. The honey, pollen, wax and resins the bees produce are all harvested by humans for a variety of uses.
The term "semi-domesticated" is preferred because all bee colonies, even those in very large agricultural apiculture operations, readily leave the protection of humans in swarms that can establish successful wild colonies. Much of the effort in commercial beekeeping is dedicated to persuading a hive that is ready to swarm to produce more honeycomb in its present location. This is usually done by adding more space to the colony with honey supers, empty boxes placed on top of an existing colony. The bees can then usually be enticed to develop this empty space instead of dividing their colony through swarming.
Honey is collected from wild bee colonies or from domesticated beehives. On average, a hive will produce about 29 kilograms (65 lb) of honey per year. Wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird.
To safely collect honey from a hive, beekeepers typically pacify the bees using a bee smoker. The smoke triggers a feeding instinct (an attempt to save the resources of the hive from a possible fire), making them less aggressive, and obscures the pheromones the bees use to communicate. The honeycomb is removed from the hive and the honey may be extracted from it either by crushing or by using a honey extractor. The honey is then usually filtered to remove beeswax and other debris.
Before the invention of removable frames, bee colonies were often sacrificed to conduct the harvest. The harvester would take all the available honey and replace the entire colony the next spring. Since the invention of removable frames, the principles of husbandry led most beekeepers to ensure that their bees have enough stores to survive the winter, either by leaving some honey in the beehive or by providing the colony with a honey substitute such as sugar water or crystalline sugar (often in the form of a "candyboard"). The amount of food necessary to survive the winter depends on the variety of bees and on the length and severity of local winters.
Many animal species are attracted to wild or domestic sources of honey.
Because of its composition and chemical properties, honey is suitable for long-term storage, and is easily assimilated even after long preservation. Honey, and objects immersed in honey, have been preserved for centuries. The key to preservation is limiting access to humidity. In its cured state, honey has a sufficiently high sugar content to inhibit fermentation. If exposed to moist air, its hydrophilic properties pull moisture into the honey, eventually diluting it to the point that fermentation can begin.
The long shelf life of honey is attributed to an enzyme found in the stomach of bees. The bees mix glucose oxidase with expelled nectar they previously consumed, creating two byproducts – gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, which are partially responsible for honey acidity and suppression of bacterial growth.
Honey is sometimes adulterated by the addition of other sugars, syrups, or compounds to change its flavor or viscosity, reduce cost, or increase the fructose content to inhibit crystallization. Adulteration of honey has been practiced since ancient times, when honey was sometimes blended with plant syrups such as maple, birch, or sorghum and sold to customers as pure honey. Sometimes crystallized honey was mixed with flour or other fillers, hiding the adulteration from buyers until the honey was liquefied. In modern times the most common adulterant became clear, almost-flavorless corn syrup; the adulterated mixture can be very difficult to distinguish from pure honey.
According to the Codex Alimentarius of the United Nations, any product labeled as "honey" or "pure honey" must be a wholly natural product, although labeling laws differ between countries. In the United States, according to the National Honey Board, "Ensuring honey authenticity is one of the great challenges facing the honey industry today. Over the past half century, a number of honey testing methods have been developed to detect food fraud. To date, there is no single universal analytical method available which is capable of detecting all types of adulteration with adequate sensitivity."
Isotope ratio mass spectrometry can be used to detect addition of corn syrup and cane sugar by the carbon isotopic signature. Addition of sugars originating from corn or sugar cane (C4 plants, unlike the plants used by bees, and also sugar beet, which are predominantly C3 plants) skews the isotopic ratio of sugars present in honey, but does not influence the isotopic ratio of proteins. In an unadulterated honey, the carbon isotopic ratios of sugars and proteins should match. Levels as low as 7% of addition can be detected.
In 2020, global production of honey was 1.8 million tonnes, led by China with 26% of the world total (table). Other major producers were Turkey, Iran, Argentina, and Ukraine.
Over its history as a food, the main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, desserts, as a spread on bread, as an addition to various beverages such as tea, and as a sweetener in some commercial beverages.
Due to its energy density, honey is an important food for virtually all hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, with the Hadza people ranking honey as their favorite food. Honey hunters in Africa have a mutualistic relationship with certain species of honeyguide birds.
Possibly the world's oldest fermented beverage, dating from 9,000 years ago, mead ("honey wine") is the alcoholic product made by adding yeast to honey-water must and fermenting it for weeks or months. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is commonly used in modern mead production.
Mead varieties include drinks called metheglin (with spices or herbs), melomel (with fruit juices, such as grape, specifically called pyment), hippocras (with cinnamon), and sack mead (high concentration of honey), many of which have been developed as commercial products numbering in the hundreds in the United States. Honey is also used to make mead beer, called "braggot".
The physical properties of honey vary, depending on water content, the type of flora used to produce it (pasturage), temperature, and the proportion of the specific sugars it contains. Fresh honey is a supersaturated liquid, containing more sugar than the water can typically dissolve at ambient temperatures. At room temperature, honey is a supercooled liquid, in which the glucose precipitates into solid granules. This forms a semisolid solution of precipitated glucose crystals in a solution of fructose and other ingredients.
The density of honey typically ranges between 1.38 and 1.45 kg/L at 20 °C.
The melting point of crystallized honey is between 40 and 50 °C (104 and 122 °F), depending on its composition. Below this temperature, honey can be either in a metastable state, meaning that it will not crystallize until a seed crystal is added, or, more often, it is in a "labile" state, being saturated with enough sugars to crystallize spontaneously. The rate of crystallization is affected by many factors, but the primary factor is the ratio of the main sugars: fructose to glucose. Honeys that are supersaturated with a very high percentage of glucose, such as brassica honey, crystallize almost immediately after harvesting, while honeys with a low percentage of glucose, such as chestnut or tupelo honey, do not crystallize. Some types of honey may produce few but very large crystals, while others produce many small crystals.
Crystallization is also affected by water content, because a high percentage of water inhibits crystallization, as does a high dextrin content. Temperature also affects the rate of crystallization, with the fastest growth occurring between 13 and 17 °C (55 and 63 °F). Crystal nuclei (seeds) tend to form more readily if the honey is disturbed, by stirring, shaking, or agitating, rather than if left at rest. However, the nucleation of microscopic seed-crystals is greatest between 5 and 8 °C (41 and 46 °F). Therefore, larger but fewer crystals tend to form at higher temperatures, while smaller but more-numerous crystals usually form at lower temperatures. Below 5 °C, the honey will not crystallize, thus the original texture and flavor can be preserved indefinitely.
Honey is a supercooled liquid when stored below its melting point, as is normal. At very low temperatures, honey does not freeze solid; rather its viscosity increases. Like most viscous liquids, the honey becomes thick and sluggish with decreasing temperature. At −20 °C (−4 °F), honey may appear or even feel solid, but it continues to flow at very low rates. Honey has a glass transition between −42 and −51 °C (−44 and −60 °F). Below this temperature, honey enters a glassy state and becomes an amorphous solid (noncrystalline).
The viscosity of honey is affected greatly by both temperature and water content. The higher the water percentage, the more easily honey flows. Above its melting point, however, water has little effect on viscosity. Aside from water content, the composition of most types of honey also has little effect on viscosity. At 25 °C (77 °F), honey with 14% water content generally has a viscosity around 400 poise, while a honey containing 20% water has a viscosity around 20 poise. Viscosity increases very slowly with moderate cooling; a honey containing 16% water, at 70 °C (158 °F), has a viscosity around 2 poise, while at 30 °C (86 °F), the viscosity is around 70 poise. With further cooling, the increase in viscosity is more rapid, reaching 600 poise at around 14 °C (57 °F). However, while honey is viscous, it has low surface tension of 50–60 mJ/m, making its wettability similar to water, glycerin, or most other liquids. The high viscosity and wettability of honey cause stickiness, which is a time-dependent process in supercooled liquids between the glass-transition temperature (Tg) and the crystalline-melting temperature.
Most types of honey are Newtonian liquids, but a few types have non-Newtonian viscous properties. Honeys from heather or manuka display thixotropic properties. These types of honey enter a gel-like state when motionless, but liquefy when stirred.
Because honey contains electrolytes, in the form of acids and minerals, it exhibits varying degrees of electrical conductivity. Measurements of the electrical conductivity are used to determine the quality of honey in terms of ash content.
The effect honey has on light is useful for determining the type and quality. Variations in its water content alter its refractive index. Water content can easily be measured with a refractometer. Typically, the refractive index for honey ranges from 1.504 at 13% water content to 1.474 at 25%. Honey also has an effect on polarized light, in that it rotates the polarization plane. The fructose gives a negative rotation, while the glucose gives a positive one. The overall rotation can be used to measure the ratio of the mixture. Honey is generally pale yellow and dark brown in color, but other colors can occur, depending on the sugar source. Bee colonies that forage on Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) flowers, for example, produce honey that varies in color from red to purple.
Honey has the ability to absorb moisture directly from the air, a phenomenon called hygroscopy. The amount of water the honey absorbs is dependent on the relative humidity of the air. Because honey contains yeast, this hygroscopic nature requires that honey be stored in sealed containers to prevent fermentation, which usually begins if the honey's water content rises much above 25%. Honey tends to absorb more water in this manner than the individual sugars allow on their own, which may be due to other ingredients it contains.
Fermentation of honey usually occurs after crystallization, because without the glucose, the liquid portion of the honey primarily consists of a concentrated mixture of fructose, acids, and water, providing the yeast with enough of an increase in the water percentage for growth. Honey that is to be stored at room temperature for long periods of time is often pasteurized, to kill any yeast, by heating it above 70 °C (158 °F).
Like all sugar compounds, honey caramelizes if heated sufficiently, becoming darker in color, and eventually burns. However, honey contains fructose, which caramelizes at lower temperatures than glucose. The temperature at which caramelization begins varies, depending on the composition, but is typically between 70 and 110 °C (158 and 230 °F). Honey also contains acids, which act as catalysts for caramelization. The specific types of acids and their amounts play a primary role in determining the exact temperature. Of these acids, the amino acids, which occur in very small amounts, play an important role in the darkening of honey. The amino acids form darkened compounds called melanoidins, during a Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction occurs slowly at room temperature, taking from a few to several months to show visible darkening, but speeds up dramatically with increasing temperatures. However, the reaction can also be slowed by storing the honey at colder temperatures.
Unlike many other liquids, honey has very poor thermal conductivity of 0.5 W/(m⋅K) at 13% water content (compared to 401 W/(m⋅K) of copper), taking a long time to reach thermal equilibrium. Due to its high kinematic viscosity honey does not transfer heat through momentum diffusion (convection) but rather through thermal diffusion (more like a solid), so melting crystallized honey can easily result in localized caramelization if the heat source is too hot or not evenly distributed. However, honey takes substantially longer to liquefy when just above the melting point than at elevated temperatures. Melting 20 kg (44 lb) of crystallized honey at 40 °C (104 °F) can take up to 24 hours, while 50 kg (110 lb) may take twice as long. These times can be cut nearly in half by heating at 50 °C (122 °F); however, many of the minor substances in honey can be affected greatly by heating, changing the flavor, aroma, or other properties, so heating is usually done at the lowest temperature and for the shortest time possible.
The average pH of honey is 3.9, but can range from 3.4 to 6.1. Honey contains many kinds of acids, both organic and amino. However, the different types and their amounts vary considerably, depending on the type of honey. These acids may be aromatic or aliphatic (nonaromatic). The aliphatic acids contribute greatly to the flavor of honey by interacting with the flavors of other ingredients.
Organic acids comprise most of the acids in honey, accounting for 0.17–1.17% of the mixture, with gluconic acid formed by the actions of glucose oxidase as the most prevalent. Minor amounts of other organic acids are present, consisting of formic, acetic, butyric, citric, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic, propionic, valeric, capronic, palmitic, and succinic, among many others.
Individual honeys from different plant sources contain over 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which play a primary role in determining honey flavors and aromas. VOCs are carbon-based compounds that readily vaporize into the air, providing aroma, including the scents of flowers, essential oils, or ripening fruit. The typical chemical families of VOCs found in honey include hydrocarbons, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, acids, benzenes, furans, pyrans, norisoprenoids, and terpenes, among many others and their derivatives. The specific VOCs and their amounts vary considerably between different types of honey obtained by bees foraging on different plant sources. By example, when comparing the mixture of VOCs in different honeys in one review, longan honey had a higher amount of volatiles (48 VOCs), while sunflower honey had the lowest number of volatiles (8 VOCs).
VOCs are primarily introduced into the honey from the nectar, where they are excreted by the flowers imparting individual scents. The specific types and concentrations of certain VOCs can be used to determine the type of flora used to produce monofloral honeys. The specific geography, soil composition and acidity used to grow the flora also have an effect on honey aroma properties, such as a "fruity" or "grassy" aroma from longan honey, or a "waxy" aroma from sunflower honey. Dominant VOCs in one study were linalool oxide, trans-linalool oxide, 2-phenylacetaldehyde, benzyl ethanol, isophorone, and methyl nonanoate.
VOCs can also be introduced from the bodies of the bees, be produced by the enzymatic actions of digestion, or from chemical reactions that occur between different substances within the honey during storage, and therefore may change, increase, or decrease over long periods of time. VOCs may be produced, altered, or greatly affected by temperature and processing. Some VOCs are heat labile, and are destroyed at elevated temperatures, while others can be created during non-enzymatic reactions, such as the Maillard reaction. VOCs are responsible for nearly all of the aroma produced by a honey, which may be described as "sweet", "flowery", "citrus", "almond" or "rancid", among other terms. In addition, VOCs play a large role in determining the specific flavor of the honey, both through the aromas and flavor. VOCs from honeys in different geographic regions can be used as floral markers of those regions, and as markers of the bees that foraged the nectars.
Honey is classified by its floral source, and divisions are made according to the packaging and processing used. Regional honeys are also identified. In the US, honey is also graded on its color and optical density by USDA standards, graded on the Pfund scale, which ranges from 0 for "water white" honey to more than 114 for "dark amber" honey.
Generally, honey is classified by the floral source of the nectar from which it was made. Honeys can be from specific types of flower nectars or can be blended after collection. The pollen in honey is traceable to floral source and therefore region of origin. The rheological and melissopalynological properties of honey can be used to identify the major plant nectar source used in its production.
Most commercially available honey is a blend of two or more honeys differing in floral source, color, flavor, density, or geographic origin.
Polyfloral honey, also known as wildflower honey, is derived from the nectar of many types of flowers. The taste may vary from year to year, and the aroma and the flavor can be more or less intense, depending on which flowers are blooming.
Monofloral honey is made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower. Monofloral honeys have distinctive flavors and colors because of differences between their principal nectar sources. To produce monofloral honey, beekeepers keep beehives in an area where the bees have access, as far as possible, to only one type of flower. In practice a small proportion of any monofloral honey will be from other flower types. Typical examples of North American monofloral honeys are clover, orange blossom, sage, tupelo, buckwheat, fireweed, mesquite, sourwood, cherry, and blueberry. Some typical European examples include thyme, thistle, heather, acacia, dandelion, sunflower, lavender, honeysuckle, and varieties from lime and chestnut trees. In North Africa (e.g. Egypt), examples include clover, cotton, and citrus (mainly orange blossoms). The unique flora of Australia yields a number of distinctive honeys, with some of the most popular being yellow box, blue gum, ironbark, bush mallee, Tasmanian leatherwood, and macadamia.
Instead of taking nectar, bees can take honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant-sap-sucking insects. Honeydew honey is very dark brown, with a rich fragrance of stewed fruit or fig jam, and is not as sweet as nectar honeys. Germany's Black Forest is a well-known source of honeydew-based honeys, as are some regions in Bulgaria, Tara in Serbia, and Northern California in the United States. In Greece, pine honey, a type of honeydew honey, constitutes 60–65% of honey production. Honeydew honey is popular in some areas, but in other areas, beekeepers have difficulty selling honeydew honey, due to its stronger flavor.
The production of honeydew honey has some complications and dangers. This honey has a much larger proportion of indigestibles than light floral honeys, thus causing dysentery to the bees, resulting in the death of colonies in areas with cold winters. Good beekeeping management requires the removal of honeydew prior to winter in colder areas. Bees collecting this resource also have to be fed protein supplements, as honeydew lacks the protein-rich pollen accompaniment gathered from flowers.
Honeydew honey is sometimes called "myelate".
Generally, honey is bottled in its familiar liquid form, but it is sold in other forms, and can be subjected to a variety of processing methods.
Countries have differing standards for grading honey. In the US, honey grading is performed voluntarily based upon USDA standards. USDA offers inspection and grading "as on-line (in-plant) or lot inspection...upon application, on a fee-for-service basis." Honey is graded based upon a number of factors, including water content, flavor and aroma, absence of defects, and clarity. Honey is also classified by color, though it is not a factor in the grading scale.
The honey grade scale is:
India certifies honey grades based on additional factors, such as the Fiehe's test, and other empirical measurements.
High-quality honey can be distinguished by fragrance, taste, and consistency. Ripe, freshly collected, high-quality honey at 20 °C (68 °F) should flow from a knife in a straight stream, without breaking into separate drops. After falling down, the honey should form a bead. The honey, when poured, should form small, temporary layers that disappear fairly quickly, indicating high viscosity. If not, it indicates honey with excessive water content of over 20%, not suitable for long-term preservation.
In jars, fresh honey should appear as a pure, consistent fluid, and should not set in layers. Within a few weeks to a few months of extraction, many varieties of honey crystallize into a cream-colored solid. Some varieties of honey, including tupelo, acacia, and sage, crystallize less regularly. Honey may be heated during bottling at temperatures of 40–49 °C (104–120 °F) to delay or inhibit crystallization. Overheating is indicated by change in enzyme levels, for instance, diastase activity, which can be determined with the Schade or the Phadebas methods. A fluffy film on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-colored or white-spotted crystallization on a container's sides, is formed by air bubbles trapped during the bottling process.
A 2008 Italian study determined that nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between different honey types, and can be used to pinpoint the area where it was produced. Researchers were able to identify differences in acacia and polyfloral honeys by the differing proportions of fructose and sucrose, as well as differing levels of aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. This ability allows greater ease of selecting compatible stocks.
One hundred grams of honey provides about 1,270 kJ (304 kcal) of energy with no significant amounts of essential nutrients. Composed of 17% water and 82% carbohydrates, honey has low content of fat, dietary fiber, and protein.
A mixture of sugars and other carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38%) and glucose (about 32%), with remaining sugars including maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates. Its glycemic index ranges from 31 to 78, depending on the variety. The specific composition, color, aroma, and flavor of any batch of honey depend on the flowers foraged by bees that produced the honey.
One 1980 study found that mixed floral honey from several United States regions typically contains the following:
This means that 55% of the combined fructose and glucose content was fructose and 45% was glucose, which enables comparison with the essentially identical result (average of 56% and 44%) in the study described below:
A 2013 NMR spectroscopy study of 20 different honeys from Germany found that their sugar contents comprised:
The average ratio was 56% fructose to 44% glucose, but the ratios in the individual honeys ranged from a high of 64% fructose and 36% glucose (one type of flower honey; table 3 in reference) to a low of 50% fructose and 50% glucose (a different floral source). This NMR method was not able to quantify maltose, galactose, and the other minor sugars as compared to fructose and glucose.
Honey is a folk treatment for burns and other skin injuries. Preliminary evidence suggests that it aids in the healing of partial thickness burns 4–5 days faster than other dressings, and moderate evidence suggests that post-operative infections treated with honey heal faster and with fewer adverse events than with antiseptic and gauze. The evidence for the use of honey in various other wound treatments is of low quality, and firm conclusions cannot be drawn. Evidence does not support the use of honey-based products for the treatment of venous stasis ulcers or ingrown toenail. Several medical-grade honey products have been approved by the FDA for use in treating minor wounds and burns.
Honey has long been used as a topical antibiotic by practitioners of traditional and herbal medicine. Honey's antibacterial effects were first demonstrated by the Dutch scientist Bernardus Adrianus van Ketel in 1892. Since then, numerous studies have shown that honey has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, although potency varies widely between different honeys. Due to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the last few decades, there has been renewed interest in researching the antibacterial properties of honey. Components of honey under preliminary research for potential antibiotic use include methylglyoxal, hydrogen peroxide, and royalisin (also called defensin-1).
For chronic and acute coughs, a Cochrane review found no strong evidence for or against the use of honey. For treating children, the systematic review concluded with moderate to low evidence that honey helps more than no treatment, diphenhydramine, and placebo at giving relief from coughing. Honey does not appear to work better than dextromethorphan at relieving coughing in children. Other reviews have also supported the use of honey for treating children.
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recommends avoiding giving over-the-counter cough and common cold medication to children under six, and suggests "a homemade remedy containing honey and lemon is likely to be just as useful and safer to take", but warns that honey should not be given to babies because of the risk of infant botulism. The World Health Organization recommends honey as a treatment for coughs and sore throats, including for children, stating that no reason exists to believe it is less effective than a commercial remedy.
The use of honey has been recommended as a temporary intervention for known or suspected button cell battery ingestions to reduce the risk and severity of injury to the esophagus caused by the battery prior to its removal.
There is no evidence that honey is beneficial for treating cancer, although honey may be useful for controlling side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy used to treat cancer.
Consumption is sometimes advocated as a treatment for seasonal allergies due to pollen, but scientific evidence to support the claim is inconclusive. Honey is generally considered ineffective for the treatment of allergic conjunctivitis.
The majority of calories in honey are from fructose. When consumed in addition to a normal diet, fructose causes significant weight gain, but when fructose was substituted for other carbohydrates of equal energy value there was no effect on body weight.
Honey has a mild laxative effect which has been noted as being helpful in alleviating constipation and bloating.
Honey is generally safe when taken in typical food amounts, but it may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions in combination with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Included among these are mild reactions to high intake, such as anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity in about 10% of children, according to one study. No symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity were detected with honey consumption compared to placebo, according to another study. Honey consumption may interact adversely with existing allergies, high blood sugar levels (as in diabetes), or anticoagulants used to control bleeding, among other clinical conditions.
People who have a weakened immune system may be at risk of bacterial or fungal infection from eating honey.
Infants can develop botulism after consuming honey contaminated with Clostridium botulinum endospores.
Infantile botulism shows geographical variation. In the UK, only six cases were reported between 1976 and 2006, yet the US has much higher rates: 1.9 per 100,000 live births, 47.2% of which are in California. While the risk honey poses to infant health is small, taking the risk is not recommended until after one year of age, and then giving honey is considered safe.
Mad honey intoxication is a result of eating honey containing grayanotoxins. Honey produced from flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas may cause honey intoxication. Symptoms include dizziness, weakness, excessive perspiration, nausea, and vomiting. Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death. Honey intoxication is more likely when using "natural" unprocessed honey and honey from farmers who may have a small number of hives. Commercial processing, with pooling of honey from numerous sources, is thought to dilute any toxins.
Toxic honey may also result when bees are proximate to tutu bushes (Coriaria arborea) and the vine hopper insect (Scolypopa australis). Both are found throughout New Zealand. Bees gather honeydew produced by the vine hopper insects feeding on the tutu plant. This introduces the poison tutin into honey. Only a few areas in New Zealand (the Coromandel Peninsula, Eastern Bay of Plenty Region and the Marlborough Sounds) frequently produce toxic honey. Symptoms of tutin poisoning include vomiting, delirium, giddiness, increased excitability, stupor, coma, and violent convulsions. To reduce the risk of tutin poisoning, humans should not eat honey taken from feral hives in the risk areas of New Zealand. Since December 2001, New Zealand beekeepers have been required to reduce the risk of producing toxic honey by closely monitoring tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within 3 km (2 mi) of their apiary. Intoxication is rarely dangerous.
In myths and folk medicine, honey was used both orally and topically to treat various ailments including gastric disturbances, ulcers, skin wounds, and skin burns by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.
Honey collection is an ancient activity, long preceding the honey bee's domestication; this traditional practice is known as honey hunting. A Mesolithic rock painting in a cave in Valencia, Spain, dating back at least 8,000 years, depicts two honey foragers collecting honey and honeycomb from a wild bees' nest. The figures are depicted carrying baskets or gourds, and using a ladder or series of ropes to reach the nest. Humans followed the greater honeyguide bird to wild beehives; this behavior may have evolved with early hominids. The oldest known honey remains were found in Georgia during the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline: archaeologists found honey remains on the inner surface of clay vessels unearthed in an ancient tomb, dating back between 4,700 and 5,500 years. In ancient Georgia, several types of honey were buried with a person for journeys into the afterlife, including linden, berry, and meadow-flower varieties.
The first written records of beekeeping are from ancient Egypt, where honey was used to sweeten cakes, biscuits, and other foods and as a base for unguents in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The dead were often buried in or with honey in Egypt, Mesopotamia and other regions. Bees were kept at temples to produce honey for temple offerings, mummification and other uses.
In ancient Greece, honey was produced from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. In 594 BCE, beekeeping around Athens was so widespread that Solon passed a law about it: "He who sets up hives of bees must put them 300 feet [90 metres] away from those already installed by another". Greek archaeological excavations of pottery located ancient hives. According to Columella, Greek beekeepers of the Hellenistic period did not hesitate to move their hives over rather long distances to maximize production, taking advantage of the different vegetative cycles in different regions. The spiritual and supposed therapeutic use of honey in ancient India was documented in both the Vedas and the Ayurveda texts.
In ancient Greek religion, the food of Zeus and the twelve Gods of Olympus was honey in the form of nectar and ambrosia.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Promised Land (Canaan, the Land of Israel) is described 16 times as "the land of milk and honey" as a metaphor for its bounty. God promises such a land to the Israelites (Exodus 3:8), and the spies sent in by Moses confirm that the land fits the description (Numbers 13:27).
The word "honey" appears for a further 39 times, outside the above-mentioned phrase. In the Book of Judges, Samson finds a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of a lion (Judges 14:8). Biblical law covered offerings made in the temple to God. The Book of Leviticus says that "Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in a food offering presented to the Lord" (Lev 2:11). In the Books of Samuel, Jonathan is forced into a confrontation with his father King Saul after eating honey in violation of a rash oath Saul has made (1 Samuel 14:24–47). Proverbs 16:24 in the JPS Tanakh 1917 version says "Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." The Book of Proverbs says, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good" (Prov. 24:13), but also, "It is not good to eat much honey" (Prov. 25:27).
Of the 55 times the word "honey" appears in the Hebrew Bible, 16 are part of the expression "the land of milk and honey", and only twice is "honey" explicitly associated with bees, both being related to wild bees: Samson collecting bees' honey from inside a lion's corpse (Judges 14:8–9) is the first instance, with Jonathan, King Saul's son, tasting from a honeycomb after the battle of Michmash (1 Samuel 14:27) being the second.
Modern biblical researchers long considered that the original Hebrew word used in the Bible, דבש devash, refers to the sweet syrup produced from figs or dates, because the domestication of the honey bee was completely undocumented through archaeology anywhere in the ancient Near East (excluding Egypt) at the time associated with the earlier biblical narratives (books of Exodus, Judges, Kings, etc.). In 2005, however, an apiary dating from the 10th century BC was found in Tel Rehov, Israel that contained 100 hives, estimated to produce half a ton of honey annually. This was, as of 2007, the only such finding made by archaeologists in the entire ancient Near East region, and it opens the possibility that biblical honey was indeed bee honey.
In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the new year, Rosh Hashanah. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashanah greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in the new year.
Pure honey is considered kosher (permitted to be eaten by religious Jews), though it is produced by a flying insect, a non-kosher creature; eating other products of non-kosher animals is forbidden. It belongs among the parve (neutral) foods, containing neither meat nor dairy products and allowed to be eaten together with either.
The Christian New Testament says that John the Baptist lived for a long of time in the wilderness on a diet of locusts and wild honey (see for instance Mark 1:6).
Early Christians used honey as a symbol of spiritual perfection in christening ceremonies.
In Islam, an entire chapter (Surah) in the Quran is called an-Nahl (the Bees). According to his teachings (hadith), Muhammad strongly recommended honey for healing purposes.The Quran promotes honey as a nutritious and healthy food, saying:
And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought.
In Hinduism, honey (Madhu) is one of the five elixirs of life (Panchamrita). In temples, honey is poured over the deities in a ritual called Madhu abhisheka. The Vedas and other ancient literature mention the use of honey as a great medicinal and health food.
In Buddhism, honey plays an important role in the festival of Madhu Purnima, celebrated in India and Bangladesh. The day commemorates Buddha's making peace among his disciples by retreating into the wilderness. According to legend, while he was there a monkey brought him honey to eat. On Madhu Purnima, Buddhists remember this act by giving honey to monks. The monkey's gift is frequently depicted in Buddhist art.
Honey is especially associated with Winnie-the-Pooh, and Bamse's thunder honey. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Honey for human consumption is collected from wild bee colonies, or from the hives of domesticated bees. The honey produced by honey bees is the most familiar to humans, thanks to its worldwide commercial production and availability. The husbandry of bees is known as beekeeping or apiculture, with the cultivation of stingless bees usually referred to as meliponiculture.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Honey is sweet because of its high concentrations of the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. It has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose (table sugar). One standard tablespoon (15 mL) of honey provides around 190 kilojoules (46 kilocalories) of food energy. It has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavor when used as a sweetener. Most microorganisms cannot grow in honey and sealed honey therefore does not spoil. Samples of honey discovered in archaeological contexts have proven edible even after thousands of years.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Honey use and production has a long and varied history, with its beginnings in prehistoric times. Several cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain depict humans foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago. While Apis melifera is an Old World insect, large-scale meliponiculture of New World stingless bees has been practiced by Mayans since pre-Columbian times.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Honey is produced by bees who have collected nectar or honeydew. Bees value honey for its sugars, which they consume to support general metabolic activity, especially that of their flight muscles during foraging, and as a food for their larvae. To this end bees stockpile honey to provide for themselves during ordinary foraging as well as during lean periods, as in overwintering. During foraging bees use part of the nectar they collect to power their flight muscles. The majority of nectar collected is not used to directly nourish the insects but is instead destined for regurgitation, enzymatic digestion, and finally long-term storage as honey. During cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees consume stored honey, which is many times as energy-dense as the nectar from which it is made.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After leaving the hive a foraging bee collects sugar-rich nectar or honeydew. Nectar from the flower generally has a water content of 70 to 80% and is much less viscous than finished honey, which usually has a water content around 18%. The water content of honeydew from aphids and other true bugs is generally very close to the sap on which those insects feed and is usually somewhat more dilute than nectar. One source describes the water content of honeydew as around 89%. Whether it is feeding on nectar or honeydew, the bee sucks these runny fluids through its proboscis, which delivers the liquid to the bee's honey stomach or \"honey crop\". This cavity lies just above its food stomach, the latter of which digests pollen and sugars consumed by an individual honey bee for its own nourishment.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In Apis mellifera the honey stomach holds about 40 mg of liquid. This is about half the weight of an unladen bee. Collecting this quantity in nectar can require visits to more than a thousand flowers. When nectar is plentiful it can take a bee more than an hour of ceaseless work to collect enough nectar to fill its honey crop. Salivary enzymes and proteins from the bee's hypopharyngeal gland are secreted into the nectar once it is in the bee's honey stomach. These substances begin cleaving complex sugars like sucrose and starches into simpler sugars such as glucose and fructose. This process slightly raises the water content and the acidity of the partially digested nectar.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Once filled, the forager bees return to the hive. There they regurgitate and transfer nectar to hive bees. Once in their own honey stomachs the hive bees regurgitate the nectar, repeatedly forming bubbles between their mandibles, speeding its digestion and concentration. These bubbles create a large surface area per volume and by this means the bees evaporate a portion of the nectar's water into the warm air of the hive.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hive bees form honey processing groups. These groups work in relay, with one bee subjecting the processed nectar to bubbling and then passing the refined liquid on to others. It can take as long as 20 minutes of continuous regurgitation, digestion and evaporation until the product reaches storage quality. The new honey is then placed in honeycomb cells, which are left uncapped. This honey still has a very high water content, up to 70%, depending on the concentration of nectar gathered. At this stage of its refinement the water content of the honey is high enough that ubiquitous yeast spores can reproduce in it, a process which, if left unchecked, would rapidly consume the new honey's sugars. To combat this, bees use an ability rare among insects: the endogenous generation of heat.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Bees are among the few insects that can create large amounts of body heat. They use this ability to produce a constant ambient temperature in their hives. Hive temperatures are usually around 35 °C (95 °F) in the honey-storage areas. This temperature is regulated either by generating heat with their bodies or removing it through water evaporation. The evaporation removes water from the stored honey, drawing heat from the colony. The bees use their wings to govern hive cooling. Coordinated wing beating moves air across the wet honey, drawing out water and heat. Ventilation of the hive eventually expels both excess water and heat into the outside world.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The process of evaporating continues until the honey reaches its final water content of between 15.5% to 18%. This concentrates the sugars far beyond the saturation point of water, which is to say there is far more sugar dissolved in what little water remains in honey than ever could be dissolved in an equivalent volume of water. Honey, even at hive temperatures, is therefore a supercooled solution of various sugars in water. These concentrations of sugar can only be achieved near room temperature by evaporation of a less concentrated solution, in this case nectar. For osmotic reasons such high concentrations of sugar are extremely unfavorable to microbiological reproduction and all fermentation is consequently halted. The bees then cap the cells of finished honey with wax. This seals them from contamination and prevents further evaporation.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "So long as its water concentration does not rise much above 18%, honey has an indefinite shelf life, both within the hive and after its removal by a beekeeper.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Honey bees are not the only eusocial insects to produce honey. All non-parasitic bumblebees and stingless bees produce honey. Some wasp species, such as Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica, found in South and Central America, are known to feed on nectar and produce honey. Other wasps, such as Polistes versicolor, also consume honey. In the middle of their life cycles they alternate between feeding on protein-rich pollen and feeding on honey, which is a far denser source of food energy.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Human beings have semi-domesticated several species of honey bee by taking advantage of their swarming stage. Swarming is the means by which new colonies are established when there is no longer space for expansion in the colony's present hive. The old queen lays eggs that will develop into new queens and then leads as many as half the colony to a site for a new hive. Bees generally swarm before a suitable location for another hive has been discovered by scouts sent out for this purpose. Until such a location is found the swarm will simply conglomerate near the former hive, often from tree branches. These swarms are unusually docile and amenable to transport by humans. When provided with a suitable nesting site, such as a commercial Langstroth hive, the swarm will readily form a new colony in artificial surroundings. These semi-domesticated colonies are then looked after by humans practicing apiculture or meliponiculture. Captured bees are encouraged to forage, often in agricultural settings such as orchards, where pollinators are highly valued. The honey, pollen, wax and resins the bees produce are all harvested by humans for a variety of uses.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The term \"semi-domesticated\" is preferred because all bee colonies, even those in very large agricultural apiculture operations, readily leave the protection of humans in swarms that can establish successful wild colonies. Much of the effort in commercial beekeeping is dedicated to persuading a hive that is ready to swarm to produce more honeycomb in its present location. This is usually done by adding more space to the colony with honey supers, empty boxes placed on top of an existing colony. The bees can then usually be enticed to develop this empty space instead of dividing their colony through swarming.",
"title": "Formation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Honey is collected from wild bee colonies or from domesticated beehives. On average, a hive will produce about 29 kilograms (65 lb) of honey per year. Wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "To safely collect honey from a hive, beekeepers typically pacify the bees using a bee smoker. The smoke triggers a feeding instinct (an attempt to save the resources of the hive from a possible fire), making them less aggressive, and obscures the pheromones the bees use to communicate. The honeycomb is removed from the hive and the honey may be extracted from it either by crushing or by using a honey extractor. The honey is then usually filtered to remove beeswax and other debris.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Before the invention of removable frames, bee colonies were often sacrificed to conduct the harvest. The harvester would take all the available honey and replace the entire colony the next spring. Since the invention of removable frames, the principles of husbandry led most beekeepers to ensure that their bees have enough stores to survive the winter, either by leaving some honey in the beehive or by providing the colony with a honey substitute such as sugar water or crystalline sugar (often in the form of a \"candyboard\"). The amount of food necessary to survive the winter depends on the variety of bees and on the length and severity of local winters.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Many animal species are attracted to wild or domestic sources of honey.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Because of its composition and chemical properties, honey is suitable for long-term storage, and is easily assimilated even after long preservation. Honey, and objects immersed in honey, have been preserved for centuries. The key to preservation is limiting access to humidity. In its cured state, honey has a sufficiently high sugar content to inhibit fermentation. If exposed to moist air, its hydrophilic properties pull moisture into the honey, eventually diluting it to the point that fermentation can begin.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The long shelf life of honey is attributed to an enzyme found in the stomach of bees. The bees mix glucose oxidase with expelled nectar they previously consumed, creating two byproducts – gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, which are partially responsible for honey acidity and suppression of bacterial growth.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Honey is sometimes adulterated by the addition of other sugars, syrups, or compounds to change its flavor or viscosity, reduce cost, or increase the fructose content to inhibit crystallization. Adulteration of honey has been practiced since ancient times, when honey was sometimes blended with plant syrups such as maple, birch, or sorghum and sold to customers as pure honey. Sometimes crystallized honey was mixed with flour or other fillers, hiding the adulteration from buyers until the honey was liquefied. In modern times the most common adulterant became clear, almost-flavorless corn syrup; the adulterated mixture can be very difficult to distinguish from pure honey.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "According to the Codex Alimentarius of the United Nations, any product labeled as \"honey\" or \"pure honey\" must be a wholly natural product, although labeling laws differ between countries. In the United States, according to the National Honey Board, \"Ensuring honey authenticity is one of the great challenges facing the honey industry today. Over the past half century, a number of honey testing methods have been developed to detect food fraud. To date, there is no single universal analytical method available which is capable of detecting all types of adulteration with adequate sensitivity.\"",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Isotope ratio mass spectrometry can be used to detect addition of corn syrup and cane sugar by the carbon isotopic signature. Addition of sugars originating from corn or sugar cane (C4 plants, unlike the plants used by bees, and also sugar beet, which are predominantly C3 plants) skews the isotopic ratio of sugars present in honey, but does not influence the isotopic ratio of proteins. In an unadulterated honey, the carbon isotopic ratios of sugars and proteins should match. Levels as low as 7% of addition can be detected.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 2020, global production of honey was 1.8 million tonnes, led by China with 26% of the world total (table). Other major producers were Turkey, Iran, Argentina, and Ukraine.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Over its history as a food, the main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, desserts, as a spread on bread, as an addition to various beverages such as tea, and as a sweetener in some commercial beverages.",
"title": "Modern uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Due to its energy density, honey is an important food for virtually all hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, with the Hadza people ranking honey as their favorite food. Honey hunters in Africa have a mutualistic relationship with certain species of honeyguide birds.",
"title": "Modern uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Possibly the world's oldest fermented beverage, dating from 9,000 years ago, mead (\"honey wine\") is the alcoholic product made by adding yeast to honey-water must and fermenting it for weeks or months. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is commonly used in modern mead production.",
"title": "Modern uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Mead varieties include drinks called metheglin (with spices or herbs), melomel (with fruit juices, such as grape, specifically called pyment), hippocras (with cinnamon), and sack mead (high concentration of honey), many of which have been developed as commercial products numbering in the hundreds in the United States. Honey is also used to make mead beer, called \"braggot\".",
"title": "Modern uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The physical properties of honey vary, depending on water content, the type of flora used to produce it (pasturage), temperature, and the proportion of the specific sugars it contains. Fresh honey is a supersaturated liquid, containing more sugar than the water can typically dissolve at ambient temperatures. At room temperature, honey is a supercooled liquid, in which the glucose precipitates into solid granules. This forms a semisolid solution of precipitated glucose crystals in a solution of fructose and other ingredients.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The density of honey typically ranges between 1.38 and 1.45 kg/L at 20 °C.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The melting point of crystallized honey is between 40 and 50 °C (104 and 122 °F), depending on its composition. Below this temperature, honey can be either in a metastable state, meaning that it will not crystallize until a seed crystal is added, or, more often, it is in a \"labile\" state, being saturated with enough sugars to crystallize spontaneously. The rate of crystallization is affected by many factors, but the primary factor is the ratio of the main sugars: fructose to glucose. Honeys that are supersaturated with a very high percentage of glucose, such as brassica honey, crystallize almost immediately after harvesting, while honeys with a low percentage of glucose, such as chestnut or tupelo honey, do not crystallize. Some types of honey may produce few but very large crystals, while others produce many small crystals.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Crystallization is also affected by water content, because a high percentage of water inhibits crystallization, as does a high dextrin content. Temperature also affects the rate of crystallization, with the fastest growth occurring between 13 and 17 °C (55 and 63 °F). Crystal nuclei (seeds) tend to form more readily if the honey is disturbed, by stirring, shaking, or agitating, rather than if left at rest. However, the nucleation of microscopic seed-crystals is greatest between 5 and 8 °C (41 and 46 °F). Therefore, larger but fewer crystals tend to form at higher temperatures, while smaller but more-numerous crystals usually form at lower temperatures. Below 5 °C, the honey will not crystallize, thus the original texture and flavor can be preserved indefinitely.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Honey is a supercooled liquid when stored below its melting point, as is normal. At very low temperatures, honey does not freeze solid; rather its viscosity increases. Like most viscous liquids, the honey becomes thick and sluggish with decreasing temperature. At −20 °C (−4 °F), honey may appear or even feel solid, but it continues to flow at very low rates. Honey has a glass transition between −42 and −51 °C (−44 and −60 °F). Below this temperature, honey enters a glassy state and becomes an amorphous solid (noncrystalline).",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The viscosity of honey is affected greatly by both temperature and water content. The higher the water percentage, the more easily honey flows. Above its melting point, however, water has little effect on viscosity. Aside from water content, the composition of most types of honey also has little effect on viscosity. At 25 °C (77 °F), honey with 14% water content generally has a viscosity around 400 poise, while a honey containing 20% water has a viscosity around 20 poise. Viscosity increases very slowly with moderate cooling; a honey containing 16% water, at 70 °C (158 °F), has a viscosity around 2 poise, while at 30 °C (86 °F), the viscosity is around 70 poise. With further cooling, the increase in viscosity is more rapid, reaching 600 poise at around 14 °C (57 °F). However, while honey is viscous, it has low surface tension of 50–60 mJ/m, making its wettability similar to water, glycerin, or most other liquids. The high viscosity and wettability of honey cause stickiness, which is a time-dependent process in supercooled liquids between the glass-transition temperature (Tg) and the crystalline-melting temperature.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Most types of honey are Newtonian liquids, but a few types have non-Newtonian viscous properties. Honeys from heather or manuka display thixotropic properties. These types of honey enter a gel-like state when motionless, but liquefy when stirred.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Because honey contains electrolytes, in the form of acids and minerals, it exhibits varying degrees of electrical conductivity. Measurements of the electrical conductivity are used to determine the quality of honey in terms of ash content.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The effect honey has on light is useful for determining the type and quality. Variations in its water content alter its refractive index. Water content can easily be measured with a refractometer. Typically, the refractive index for honey ranges from 1.504 at 13% water content to 1.474 at 25%. Honey also has an effect on polarized light, in that it rotates the polarization plane. The fructose gives a negative rotation, while the glucose gives a positive one. The overall rotation can be used to measure the ratio of the mixture. Honey is generally pale yellow and dark brown in color, but other colors can occur, depending on the sugar source. Bee colonies that forage on Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) flowers, for example, produce honey that varies in color from red to purple.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Honey has the ability to absorb moisture directly from the air, a phenomenon called hygroscopy. The amount of water the honey absorbs is dependent on the relative humidity of the air. Because honey contains yeast, this hygroscopic nature requires that honey be stored in sealed containers to prevent fermentation, which usually begins if the honey's water content rises much above 25%. Honey tends to absorb more water in this manner than the individual sugars allow on their own, which may be due to other ingredients it contains.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Fermentation of honey usually occurs after crystallization, because without the glucose, the liquid portion of the honey primarily consists of a concentrated mixture of fructose, acids, and water, providing the yeast with enough of an increase in the water percentage for growth. Honey that is to be stored at room temperature for long periods of time is often pasteurized, to kill any yeast, by heating it above 70 °C (158 °F).",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Like all sugar compounds, honey caramelizes if heated sufficiently, becoming darker in color, and eventually burns. However, honey contains fructose, which caramelizes at lower temperatures than glucose. The temperature at which caramelization begins varies, depending on the composition, but is typically between 70 and 110 °C (158 and 230 °F). Honey also contains acids, which act as catalysts for caramelization. The specific types of acids and their amounts play a primary role in determining the exact temperature. Of these acids, the amino acids, which occur in very small amounts, play an important role in the darkening of honey. The amino acids form darkened compounds called melanoidins, during a Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction occurs slowly at room temperature, taking from a few to several months to show visible darkening, but speeds up dramatically with increasing temperatures. However, the reaction can also be slowed by storing the honey at colder temperatures.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Unlike many other liquids, honey has very poor thermal conductivity of 0.5 W/(m⋅K) at 13% water content (compared to 401 W/(m⋅K) of copper), taking a long time to reach thermal equilibrium. Due to its high kinematic viscosity honey does not transfer heat through momentum diffusion (convection) but rather through thermal diffusion (more like a solid), so melting crystallized honey can easily result in localized caramelization if the heat source is too hot or not evenly distributed. However, honey takes substantially longer to liquefy when just above the melting point than at elevated temperatures. Melting 20 kg (44 lb) of crystallized honey at 40 °C (104 °F) can take up to 24 hours, while 50 kg (110 lb) may take twice as long. These times can be cut nearly in half by heating at 50 °C (122 °F); however, many of the minor substances in honey can be affected greatly by heating, changing the flavor, aroma, or other properties, so heating is usually done at the lowest temperature and for the shortest time possible.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The average pH of honey is 3.9, but can range from 3.4 to 6.1. Honey contains many kinds of acids, both organic and amino. However, the different types and their amounts vary considerably, depending on the type of honey. These acids may be aromatic or aliphatic (nonaromatic). The aliphatic acids contribute greatly to the flavor of honey by interacting with the flavors of other ingredients.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Organic acids comprise most of the acids in honey, accounting for 0.17–1.17% of the mixture, with gluconic acid formed by the actions of glucose oxidase as the most prevalent. Minor amounts of other organic acids are present, consisting of formic, acetic, butyric, citric, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic, propionic, valeric, capronic, palmitic, and succinic, among many others.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Individual honeys from different plant sources contain over 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which play a primary role in determining honey flavors and aromas. VOCs are carbon-based compounds that readily vaporize into the air, providing aroma, including the scents of flowers, essential oils, or ripening fruit. The typical chemical families of VOCs found in honey include hydrocarbons, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, esters, acids, benzenes, furans, pyrans, norisoprenoids, and terpenes, among many others and their derivatives. The specific VOCs and their amounts vary considerably between different types of honey obtained by bees foraging on different plant sources. By example, when comparing the mixture of VOCs in different honeys in one review, longan honey had a higher amount of volatiles (48 VOCs), while sunflower honey had the lowest number of volatiles (8 VOCs).",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "VOCs are primarily introduced into the honey from the nectar, where they are excreted by the flowers imparting individual scents. The specific types and concentrations of certain VOCs can be used to determine the type of flora used to produce monofloral honeys. The specific geography, soil composition and acidity used to grow the flora also have an effect on honey aroma properties, such as a \"fruity\" or \"grassy\" aroma from longan honey, or a \"waxy\" aroma from sunflower honey. Dominant VOCs in one study were linalool oxide, trans-linalool oxide, 2-phenylacetaldehyde, benzyl ethanol, isophorone, and methyl nonanoate.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "VOCs can also be introduced from the bodies of the bees, be produced by the enzymatic actions of digestion, or from chemical reactions that occur between different substances within the honey during storage, and therefore may change, increase, or decrease over long periods of time. VOCs may be produced, altered, or greatly affected by temperature and processing. Some VOCs are heat labile, and are destroyed at elevated temperatures, while others can be created during non-enzymatic reactions, such as the Maillard reaction. VOCs are responsible for nearly all of the aroma produced by a honey, which may be described as \"sweet\", \"flowery\", \"citrus\", \"almond\" or \"rancid\", among other terms. In addition, VOCs play a large role in determining the specific flavor of the honey, both through the aromas and flavor. VOCs from honeys in different geographic regions can be used as floral markers of those regions, and as markers of the bees that foraged the nectars.",
"title": "Physical and chemical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Honey is classified by its floral source, and divisions are made according to the packaging and processing used. Regional honeys are also identified. In the US, honey is also graded on its color and optical density by USDA standards, graded on the Pfund scale, which ranges from 0 for \"water white\" honey to more than 114 for \"dark amber\" honey.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Generally, honey is classified by the floral source of the nectar from which it was made. Honeys can be from specific types of flower nectars or can be blended after collection. The pollen in honey is traceable to floral source and therefore region of origin. The rheological and melissopalynological properties of honey can be used to identify the major plant nectar source used in its production.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Most commercially available honey is a blend of two or more honeys differing in floral source, color, flavor, density, or geographic origin.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Polyfloral honey, also known as wildflower honey, is derived from the nectar of many types of flowers. The taste may vary from year to year, and the aroma and the flavor can be more or less intense, depending on which flowers are blooming.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Monofloral honey is made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower. Monofloral honeys have distinctive flavors and colors because of differences between their principal nectar sources. To produce monofloral honey, beekeepers keep beehives in an area where the bees have access, as far as possible, to only one type of flower. In practice a small proportion of any monofloral honey will be from other flower types. Typical examples of North American monofloral honeys are clover, orange blossom, sage, tupelo, buckwheat, fireweed, mesquite, sourwood, cherry, and blueberry. Some typical European examples include thyme, thistle, heather, acacia, dandelion, sunflower, lavender, honeysuckle, and varieties from lime and chestnut trees. In North Africa (e.g. Egypt), examples include clover, cotton, and citrus (mainly orange blossoms). The unique flora of Australia yields a number of distinctive honeys, with some of the most popular being yellow box, blue gum, ironbark, bush mallee, Tasmanian leatherwood, and macadamia.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Instead of taking nectar, bees can take honeydew, the sweet secretions of aphids or other plant-sap-sucking insects. Honeydew honey is very dark brown, with a rich fragrance of stewed fruit or fig jam, and is not as sweet as nectar honeys. Germany's Black Forest is a well-known source of honeydew-based honeys, as are some regions in Bulgaria, Tara in Serbia, and Northern California in the United States. In Greece, pine honey, a type of honeydew honey, constitutes 60–65% of honey production. Honeydew honey is popular in some areas, but in other areas, beekeepers have difficulty selling honeydew honey, due to its stronger flavor.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The production of honeydew honey has some complications and dangers. This honey has a much larger proportion of indigestibles than light floral honeys, thus causing dysentery to the bees, resulting in the death of colonies in areas with cold winters. Good beekeeping management requires the removal of honeydew prior to winter in colder areas. Bees collecting this resource also have to be fed protein supplements, as honeydew lacks the protein-rich pollen accompaniment gathered from flowers.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Honeydew honey is sometimes called \"myelate\".",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Generally, honey is bottled in its familiar liquid form, but it is sold in other forms, and can be subjected to a variety of processing methods.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Countries have differing standards for grading honey. In the US, honey grading is performed voluntarily based upon USDA standards. USDA offers inspection and grading \"as on-line (in-plant) or lot inspection...upon application, on a fee-for-service basis.\" Honey is graded based upon a number of factors, including water content, flavor and aroma, absence of defects, and clarity. Honey is also classified by color, though it is not a factor in the grading scale.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The honey grade scale is:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "India certifies honey grades based on additional factors, such as the Fiehe's test, and other empirical measurements.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "High-quality honey can be distinguished by fragrance, taste, and consistency. Ripe, freshly collected, high-quality honey at 20 °C (68 °F) should flow from a knife in a straight stream, without breaking into separate drops. After falling down, the honey should form a bead. The honey, when poured, should form small, temporary layers that disappear fairly quickly, indicating high viscosity. If not, it indicates honey with excessive water content of over 20%, not suitable for long-term preservation.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In jars, fresh honey should appear as a pure, consistent fluid, and should not set in layers. Within a few weeks to a few months of extraction, many varieties of honey crystallize into a cream-colored solid. Some varieties of honey, including tupelo, acacia, and sage, crystallize less regularly. Honey may be heated during bottling at temperatures of 40–49 °C (104–120 °F) to delay or inhibit crystallization. Overheating is indicated by change in enzyme levels, for instance, diastase activity, which can be determined with the Schade or the Phadebas methods. A fluffy film on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-colored or white-spotted crystallization on a container's sides, is formed by air bubbles trapped during the bottling process.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "A 2008 Italian study determined that nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between different honey types, and can be used to pinpoint the area where it was produced. Researchers were able to identify differences in acacia and polyfloral honeys by the differing proportions of fructose and sucrose, as well as differing levels of aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. This ability allows greater ease of selecting compatible stocks.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "One hundred grams of honey provides about 1,270 kJ (304 kcal) of energy with no significant amounts of essential nutrients. Composed of 17% water and 82% carbohydrates, honey has low content of fat, dietary fiber, and protein.",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "A mixture of sugars and other carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38%) and glucose (about 32%), with remaining sugars including maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates. Its glycemic index ranges from 31 to 78, depending on the variety. The specific composition, color, aroma, and flavor of any batch of honey depend on the flowers foraged by bees that produced the honey.",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "One 1980 study found that mixed floral honey from several United States regions typically contains the following:",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "This means that 55% of the combined fructose and glucose content was fructose and 45% was glucose, which enables comparison with the essentially identical result (average of 56% and 44%) in the study described below:",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "A 2013 NMR spectroscopy study of 20 different honeys from Germany found that their sugar contents comprised:",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The average ratio was 56% fructose to 44% glucose, but the ratios in the individual honeys ranged from a high of 64% fructose and 36% glucose (one type of flower honey; table 3 in reference) to a low of 50% fructose and 50% glucose (a different floral source). This NMR method was not able to quantify maltose, galactose, and the other minor sugars as compared to fructose and glucose.",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Honey is a folk treatment for burns and other skin injuries. Preliminary evidence suggests that it aids in the healing of partial thickness burns 4–5 days faster than other dressings, and moderate evidence suggests that post-operative infections treated with honey heal faster and with fewer adverse events than with antiseptic and gauze. The evidence for the use of honey in various other wound treatments is of low quality, and firm conclusions cannot be drawn. Evidence does not support the use of honey-based products for the treatment of venous stasis ulcers or ingrown toenail. Several medical-grade honey products have been approved by the FDA for use in treating minor wounds and burns.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Honey has long been used as a topical antibiotic by practitioners of traditional and herbal medicine. Honey's antibacterial effects were first demonstrated by the Dutch scientist Bernardus Adrianus van Ketel in 1892. Since then, numerous studies have shown that honey has broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, although potency varies widely between different honeys. Due to the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the last few decades, there has been renewed interest in researching the antibacterial properties of honey. Components of honey under preliminary research for potential antibiotic use include methylglyoxal, hydrogen peroxide, and royalisin (also called defensin-1).",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "For chronic and acute coughs, a Cochrane review found no strong evidence for or against the use of honey. For treating children, the systematic review concluded with moderate to low evidence that honey helps more than no treatment, diphenhydramine, and placebo at giving relief from coughing. Honey does not appear to work better than dextromethorphan at relieving coughing in children. Other reviews have also supported the use of honey for treating children.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recommends avoiding giving over-the-counter cough and common cold medication to children under six, and suggests \"a homemade remedy containing honey and lemon is likely to be just as useful and safer to take\", but warns that honey should not be given to babies because of the risk of infant botulism. The World Health Organization recommends honey as a treatment for coughs and sore throats, including for children, stating that no reason exists to believe it is less effective than a commercial remedy.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The use of honey has been recommended as a temporary intervention for known or suspected button cell battery ingestions to reduce the risk and severity of injury to the esophagus caused by the battery prior to its removal.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "There is no evidence that honey is beneficial for treating cancer, although honey may be useful for controlling side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy used to treat cancer.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Consumption is sometimes advocated as a treatment for seasonal allergies due to pollen, but scientific evidence to support the claim is inconclusive. Honey is generally considered ineffective for the treatment of allergic conjunctivitis.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The majority of calories in honey are from fructose. When consumed in addition to a normal diet, fructose causes significant weight gain, but when fructose was substituted for other carbohydrates of equal energy value there was no effect on body weight.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Honey has a mild laxative effect which has been noted as being helpful in alleviating constipation and bloating.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Honey is generally safe when taken in typical food amounts, but it may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions in combination with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Included among these are mild reactions to high intake, such as anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity in about 10% of children, according to one study. No symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, or hyperactivity were detected with honey consumption compared to placebo, according to another study. Honey consumption may interact adversely with existing allergies, high blood sugar levels (as in diabetes), or anticoagulants used to control bleeding, among other clinical conditions.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "People who have a weakened immune system may be at risk of bacterial or fungal infection from eating honey.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Infants can develop botulism after consuming honey contaminated with Clostridium botulinum endospores.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Infantile botulism shows geographical variation. In the UK, only six cases were reported between 1976 and 2006, yet the US has much higher rates: 1.9 per 100,000 live births, 47.2% of which are in California. While the risk honey poses to infant health is small, taking the risk is not recommended until after one year of age, and then giving honey is considered safe.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Mad honey intoxication is a result of eating honey containing grayanotoxins. Honey produced from flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas may cause honey intoxication. Symptoms include dizziness, weakness, excessive perspiration, nausea, and vomiting. Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death. Honey intoxication is more likely when using \"natural\" unprocessed honey and honey from farmers who may have a small number of hives. Commercial processing, with pooling of honey from numerous sources, is thought to dilute any toxins.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Toxic honey may also result when bees are proximate to tutu bushes (Coriaria arborea) and the vine hopper insect (Scolypopa australis). Both are found throughout New Zealand. Bees gather honeydew produced by the vine hopper insects feeding on the tutu plant. This introduces the poison tutin into honey. Only a few areas in New Zealand (the Coromandel Peninsula, Eastern Bay of Plenty Region and the Marlborough Sounds) frequently produce toxic honey. Symptoms of tutin poisoning include vomiting, delirium, giddiness, increased excitability, stupor, coma, and violent convulsions. To reduce the risk of tutin poisoning, humans should not eat honey taken from feral hives in the risk areas of New Zealand. Since December 2001, New Zealand beekeepers have been required to reduce the risk of producing toxic honey by closely monitoring tutu, vine hopper, and foraging conditions within 3 km (2 mi) of their apiary. Intoxication is rarely dangerous.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "In myths and folk medicine, honey was used both orally and topically to treat various ailments including gastric disturbances, ulcers, skin wounds, and skin burns by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.",
"title": "Medical use and research"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Honey collection is an ancient activity, long preceding the honey bee's domestication; this traditional practice is known as honey hunting. A Mesolithic rock painting in a cave in Valencia, Spain, dating back at least 8,000 years, depicts two honey foragers collecting honey and honeycomb from a wild bees' nest. The figures are depicted carrying baskets or gourds, and using a ladder or series of ropes to reach the nest. Humans followed the greater honeyguide bird to wild beehives; this behavior may have evolved with early hominids. The oldest known honey remains were found in Georgia during the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline: archaeologists found honey remains on the inner surface of clay vessels unearthed in an ancient tomb, dating back between 4,700 and 5,500 years. In ancient Georgia, several types of honey were buried with a person for journeys into the afterlife, including linden, berry, and meadow-flower varieties.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The first written records of beekeeping are from ancient Egypt, where honey was used to sweeten cakes, biscuits, and other foods and as a base for unguents in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The dead were often buried in or with honey in Egypt, Mesopotamia and other regions. Bees were kept at temples to produce honey for temple offerings, mummification and other uses.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "In ancient Greece, honey was produced from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. In 594 BCE, beekeeping around Athens was so widespread that Solon passed a law about it: \"He who sets up hives of bees must put them 300 feet [90 metres] away from those already installed by another\". Greek archaeological excavations of pottery located ancient hives. According to Columella, Greek beekeepers of the Hellenistic period did not hesitate to move their hives over rather long distances to maximize production, taking advantage of the different vegetative cycles in different regions. The spiritual and supposed therapeutic use of honey in ancient India was documented in both the Vedas and the Ayurveda texts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "In ancient Greek religion, the food of Zeus and the twelve Gods of Olympus was honey in the form of nectar and ambrosia.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In the Hebrew Bible, the Promised Land (Canaan, the Land of Israel) is described 16 times as \"the land of milk and honey\" as a metaphor for its bounty. God promises such a land to the Israelites (Exodus 3:8), and the spies sent in by Moses confirm that the land fits the description (Numbers 13:27).",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "The word \"honey\" appears for a further 39 times, outside the above-mentioned phrase. In the Book of Judges, Samson finds a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of a lion (Judges 14:8). Biblical law covered offerings made in the temple to God. The Book of Leviticus says that \"Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in a food offering presented to the Lord\" (Lev 2:11). In the Books of Samuel, Jonathan is forced into a confrontation with his father King Saul after eating honey in violation of a rash oath Saul has made (1 Samuel 14:24–47). Proverbs 16:24 in the JPS Tanakh 1917 version says \"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.\" The Book of Proverbs says, \"Eat honey, my son, for it is good\" (Prov. 24:13), but also, \"It is not good to eat much honey\" (Prov. 25:27).",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Of the 55 times the word \"honey\" appears in the Hebrew Bible, 16 are part of the expression \"the land of milk and honey\", and only twice is \"honey\" explicitly associated with bees, both being related to wild bees: Samson collecting bees' honey from inside a lion's corpse (Judges 14:8–9) is the first instance, with Jonathan, King Saul's son, tasting from a honeycomb after the battle of Michmash (1 Samuel 14:27) being the second.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Modern biblical researchers long considered that the original Hebrew word used in the Bible, דבש devash, refers to the sweet syrup produced from figs or dates, because the domestication of the honey bee was completely undocumented through archaeology anywhere in the ancient Near East (excluding Egypt) at the time associated with the earlier biblical narratives (books of Exodus, Judges, Kings, etc.). In 2005, however, an apiary dating from the 10th century BC was found in Tel Rehov, Israel that contained 100 hives, estimated to produce half a ton of honey annually. This was, as of 2007, the only such finding made by archaeologists in the entire ancient Near East region, and it opens the possibility that biblical honey was indeed bee honey.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the new year, Rosh Hashanah. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashanah greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in the new year.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Pure honey is considered kosher (permitted to be eaten by religious Jews), though it is produced by a flying insect, a non-kosher creature; eating other products of non-kosher animals is forbidden. It belongs among the parve (neutral) foods, containing neither meat nor dairy products and allowed to be eaten together with either.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "The Christian New Testament says that John the Baptist lived for a long of time in the wilderness on a diet of locusts and wild honey (see for instance Mark 1:6).",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Early Christians used honey as a symbol of spiritual perfection in christening ceremonies.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "In Islam, an entire chapter (Surah) in the Quran is called an-Nahl (the Bees). According to his teachings (hadith), Muhammad strongly recommended honey for healing purposes.The Quran promotes honey as a nutritious and healthy food, saying:",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "In Hinduism, honey (Madhu) is one of the five elixirs of life (Panchamrita). In temples, honey is poured over the deities in a ritual called Madhu abhisheka. The Vedas and other ancient literature mention the use of honey as a great medicinal and health food.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In Buddhism, honey plays an important role in the festival of Madhu Purnima, celebrated in India and Bangladesh. The day commemorates Buddha's making peace among his disciples by retreating into the wilderness. According to legend, while he was there a monkey brought him honey to eat. On Madhu Purnima, Buddhists remember this act by giving honey to monks. The monkey's gift is frequently depicted in Buddhist art.",
"title": "Religious significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Honey is especially associated with Winnie-the-Pooh, and Bamse's thunder honey.",
"title": "Popular culture"
}
]
| Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous. Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee. Honey for human consumption is collected from wild bee colonies, or from the hives of domesticated bees. The honey produced by honey bees is the most familiar to humans, thanks to its worldwide commercial production and availability. The husbandry of bees is known as beekeeping or apiculture, with the cultivation of stingless bees usually referred to as meliponiculture. Honey is sweet because of its high concentrations of the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. It has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose. One standard tablespoon (15 mL) of honey provides around 190 kilojoules of food energy. It has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavor when used as a sweetener. Most microorganisms cannot grow in honey and sealed honey therefore does not spoil. Samples of honey discovered in archaeological contexts have proven edible even after thousands of years. Honey use and production has a long and varied history, with its beginnings in prehistoric times. Several cave paintings in Cuevas de la Araña in Spain depict humans foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago. While Apis melifera is an Old World insect, large-scale meliponiculture of New World stingless bees has been practiced by Mayans since pre-Columbian times. | 2001-12-30T08:19:11Z | 2023-12-30T11:02:05Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey |
14,365 | Hengist and Horsa | Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their supposed invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent.
Modern scholarly consensus regards Hengist and Horsa as mythical figures, given their alliterative animal names, the seemingly constructed nature of their genealogy, and the unknowable quality of Bede's sources. Their later detailed representation in texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says more about ninth-century attitudes to the past than about the time in which they are said to have existed.
According to early sources, Hengist and Horsa arrived in Britain at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet. For a time, they served as mercenaries for Vortigern, King of the Britons, but later they turned against him (British accounts have them betraying him in the Treachery of the Long Knives). Horsa was killed fighting the Britons, but Hengist successfully conquered Kent, becoming the forefather of its kings.
A figure named Hengest, possibly identifiable with the leader of British legend, appears in the Finnesburg Fragment and in Beowulf. J. R. R. Tolkien has theorized that this indicates Hengest/Hengist is the same person and originates as a historical person.
Hengist was historically said to have been buried at Hengistbury Head in Dorset.
The Old English names Hengest [ˈhendʒest] and Horsa [ˈhorˠzɑ] mean "stallion" and "horse", respectively.
The original Old English word for a horse was eoh. Eoh derives from the Proto-Indo-European base *éḱwos, hence Latin equus which gave rise to the modern English words equine and equestrian. Hors is derived from the Proto-Indo-European base *kurs, to run, which also gave rise to hurry, carry and current (the latter two are borrowings from French). Hors eventually replaced eoh, fitting a pattern elsewhere in Germanic languages where the original names of sacred animals are abandoned for adjectives; for example, the word bear, meaning 'the brown one'. While the Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refer to the brother as Horsa, in the History of the Britons his name is simply Hors. It has been suggested that Horsa may be a pet form of a compound name with the first element "horse".
In his 8th-century Ecclesiastical History, Bede records that the first chieftains among the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in England were said to have been Hengist and Horsa. He relates that Horsa was killed in battle against the Britons and was thereafter buried in East Kent, where at the time of writing a monument still stood to him. According to Bede, Hengist and Horsa were the sons of Wictgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which exists in nine manuscripts and fragments compiled from the 9th to the 12th centuries, records that in the year 449, Vortigern invited Hengist and Horsa to Britain to assist his forces in fighting the Picts. The brothers landed at Eopwinesfleot (Ebbsfleet), and went on to defeat the Picts wherever they fought them. Hengist and Horsa sent word home to Germany describing "the worthlessness of the Britons, and the richness of the land" and asked for assistance. Their request was granted and support arrived. Afterward, more people arrived in Britain from "the three powers of Germany; the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes". The Saxons populated Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; the Jutes Kent, the Isle of Wight, and part of Hampshire; and the Angles East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria (leaving their original homeland, Angeln, deserted). The Worcester Chronicle (Chronicle D, compiled in the 11th century), and the Peterborough Chronicle (Chronicle E, compiled in the 12th century), include the detail that these forces were led by the brothers Hengist and Horsa, sons of Wihtgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden, but this information is not included in the A, B, C, or F versions.
In the entry for the year 455 the Chronicle details that Hengist and Horsa fought against Vortigern at Aylesford and that Horsa died there. Hengist took control of the kingdom with his son Esc. In 457, Hengist and Esc fought against British forces in Crayford "and there slew four thousand men". The Britons left the land of Kent and fled to London. In 465 Hengest and Esc fought again at the Battle of Wippedesfleot, probably near Ebbsfleet, and slew twelve British leaders. In the year 473, the final entry in the Chronicle mentioning Hengist or Horsa, Hengist and Esc are recorded as having taken "immense booty" and the Britons having "fled from the English like fire".
The 9th century History of the Britons, attributed to the Briton Nennius, records that, during the reign of Vortigern in Britain, three vessels that had been exiled from Germany arrived in Britain, commanded by Hengist and Horsa. The narrative then gives a genealogy of the two: Hengist and Horsa were sons of Guictglis, son of Guicta, son of Guechta, son of Vouden, son of Frealof, son of Fredulf, son of Finn, son of Foleguald, son of Geta. Geta was said to be the son of a god, yet "not of the omnipotent God and our Lord Jesus Christ", but rather "the offspring of one of their idols, and whom, blinded by some demon, they worshipped according to the custom of the heathen". In 447 AD Vortigern received Hengist and Horsa "as friends" and gave to the brothers the Isle of Thanet.
After the Saxons had lived on Thanet for "some time" Vortigern promised them supplies of clothing and other provisions on condition that they assist him in fighting the enemies of his country. As the Saxons increased in number the Britons became unable to keep their agreement, and so told them that their assistance was no longer needed and that they should go home.
Vortigern allowed Hengist to send for more of his countrymen to come over to fight for him. Messengers were sent to "Scythia", where "a number" of warriors were selected, and, with sixteen ships, the messengers returned. With the men came Hengist's beautiful daughter. Hengist prepared a feast, inviting Vortigern, Vortigern's officers, and Ceretic, his translator. Prior to the feast, Hengist enjoined his daughter to serve the guests plenty of wine and ale so that they would become drunk. At the feast Vortigern became enamored with her and promised Hengist whatever he liked in exchange for her betrothal. Hengist, having "consulted with the Elders who attended him of the Angle race", demanded Kent. Without the knowledge of the then-ruler of Kent, Vortigern agreed.
Hengist's daughter was given to Vortigern, who slept with her and deeply loved her. Hengist told Vortigern that he would now be both his father and adviser and that Vortigern would know no defeat with his counsel, "for the people of my country are strong, warlike, and robust". With Vortigern's approval, Hengist would send for his son and his brother to fight against the Scots and those who dwelt near the wall. Vortigern agreed and Ochta and Ebissa arrived with 40 ships, sailed around the land of the Picts, conquered "many regions", and assaulted the Orkney Islands. Hengist continued to send for more ships from his country, so that some islands where his people had previously dwelt are now free of inhabitants.
Vortigern had meanwhile incurred the wrath of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre (by taking his own daughter for a wife and having a son by her) and had gone into hiding at the advice of his council. But at length his son Vortimer engaged Hengist and Horsa and their men in battle, drove them back to Thanet and there enclosed them and beset them on the western flank. The war waxed and waned; the Saxons repeatedly gained ground and were repeatedly driven back. Vortimer attacked the Saxons four times: first enclosing the Saxons in Thanet, secondly fighting at the river Derwent, the third time at Epsford, where both Horsa and Vortigern's son Catigern died, and lastly "near the stone on the shore of the Gallic sea", where the Saxons were defeated and fled to their ships.
After a "short interval" Vortimer died and the Saxons became established, "assisted by foreign pagans". Hengist convened his forces and sent to Vortigern an offer of peace. Vortigern accepted, and Hengist prepared a feast to bring together the British and Saxon leaders. However, he instructed his men to conceal knives beneath their feet. At the right moment, Hengist shouted nima der sexa (get your knives) and his men massacred the unsuspecting Britons. However, they spared Vortigern, who ransomed himself by giving the Saxons Essex, Sussex, Middlesex and other unnamed districts.
Germanus of Auxerre was acclaimed as commander of the British forces. By praying, singing "hallelujah" and crying to God, the Britons drove the Saxons to the sea. Germanus then prayed for three days and nights at Vortigern's castle and fire fell from heaven and engulfed the castle. Vortigern, Hengist's daughter, Vortigern's other wives, and all other inhabitants burned to death. Potential alternate fates for Vortigern are provided. However, the Saxons continued to increase in numbers, and after Hengist died his son Ochta succeeded him.
In his sometimes described as "pseudo-historical" twelfth-century work The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth adapted and greatly expanded the account in the History of the Britons. Hengist and Horsa appear in books 6 and 8:
Geoffrey records that three brigantines or long galleys arrived in Kent, full of armed men and commanded by two brothers, Hengist and Horsa. Vortigern was then staying at Dorobernia (Canterbury), and ordered that the "tall strangers" be received peacefully and brought to him. When Vortigern saw the company, he immediately observed that the brothers "excelled all the rest both in nobility and in gracefulness of person". He asked what country they had come from and why they had come to his kingdom. Hengist ("whose years and wisdom entitled him to precedence") replied that they had left their homeland of Saxony to offer their services to Vortigern or some other prince, as part of a Saxon custom in which, when the country became overpopulated, able young men were chosen by lot to seek their fortunes in other lands. Hengist and Horsa were made generals over the exiles, as befitted their noble birth.
Vortigern was aggrieved when he learned that the strangers were pagans, but nonetheless rejoiced at their arrival, since he was surrounded by enemies. He asked Hengist and Horsa if they would help him in his wars, offering them land and "other possessions". They accepted the offer, settled on an agreement, and stayed with Vortigern at his court. Soon after, the Picts came from Alba with an immense army and attacked the northern parts of Vortigern's kingdom. In the ensuing battle "there was little occasion for the Britons to exert themselves, for the Saxons fought so bravely, that the enemy, formerly victorious, were speedily put to flight".
In gratitude Vortigern increased the rewards he had promised to the brothers. Hengist was given "large possessions of lands in Lindsey for the subsistence of himself and his fellow-soldiers". A "man of experience and subtlety", Hengist told Vortigern that his enemies assailed him from every quarter, and that his subjects wished to depose him and make Aurelius Ambrosius king. He asked the king to allow him to send word to Saxony for more soldiers. Vortigern agreed, adding that Hengist could invite over whom he pleased and that "you shall have no refusal from me in whatever you shall desire".
Hengist bowed low in thanks, and made a further request, that he be made a consul or prince, as befitted his birth. Vortigern responded that it was not in his power to do this, reasoning that Hengist was a foreign pagan and would not be accepted by the British lords. Hengist asked instead for leave to build a fortress on a piece of land small enough that it could be encircled by a leather thong. Vortigern granted this and ordered Hengist to invite more Saxons.
After executing Vortigern's orders, Hengist took a bull's hide and made it into a single thong, which he used to encircle a carefully chosen rocky place (perhaps at Caistor in Lindsey). Here he built the castle of Kaercorrei, or in Saxon Thancastre: "thong castle."
The messengers returned from Germany with eighteen ships full of the best soldiers they could get, as well as Hengist's beautiful daughter Rowena. Hengist invited Vortigern to see his new castle and the newly arrived soldiers. A banquet took place in Thancastre, at which Vortigern drunkenly asked Hengist to let him marry Rowena. Horsa and the men all agreed that Hengist should allow the marriage, on the condition that Vortigern give him Kent.
Vortigern and Rowena were immediately married and Hengist received Kent. The king, though delighted with his new wife, incurred the hatred of his nobles and of his three sons.
As his new father-in-law, Hengist made further demands of Vortigern:
Vortigern agreed. Upon receiving the invitation, Octa, Ebissa, and another lord, Cherdich, immediately left for Britain with three hundred ships. Vortigern received them kindly, and gave them ample gifts. With their assistance, Vortigern defeated his enemies in every engagement. All the while Hengist continued inviting over yet more ships, adding to his numbers daily. Witnessing this, the Britons tried to get Vortigern to banish the Saxons, but on account of his wife he would not. Consequently, his subjects turned against him and took his son Vortimer for their king. The Saxons and the Britons, led by Vortimer, met in four battles. In the second, Horsa and Vortimer's brother, Catigern, slew one another. By the fourth battle, the Saxons had fled to Thanet, where Vortimer besieged them. When the Saxons could no longer bear the British onslaughts, they sent out Vortigern to ask his son to allow them safe passage back to Germany. While discussions were taking place, the Saxons boarded their ships and left, leaving their wives and children behind.
Rowena poisoned the victorious Vortimer, and Vortigern returned to the throne. At his wife's request he invited Hengist back to Britain, but instructed him to bring only a small retinue. Hengist, knowing Vortimer to be dead, instead raised an army of 300,000 men. When Vortigern received word of the imminent arrival of the vast Saxon fleet, he resolved to fight them. Rowena alerted her father of this, who, after considering various strategies, resolved to make a show of peace and sent ambassadors to Vortigern.
The ambassadors informed Vortigern that Hengist had only brought so many men because he did not know of Vortimer's death and feared further attacks from him. Now that there was no threat, Vortigern could choose from among the men the ones he wished to return to Germany. Vortigern was greatly pleased by these tidings, and arranged to meet Hengist on the first of May at the monastery of Ambrius.
Before the meeting, Hengist ordered his soldiers to carry long daggers beneath their clothing. At the signal Nemet oure Saxas (get your knives), the Saxons fell upon the unsuspecting Britons and massacred them, while Hengist held Vortigern by his cloak. 460 British barons and consuls were killed, as well as some Saxons whom the Britons beat to death with clubs and stones. Vortigern was held captive and threatened with death until he resigned control of Britain's chief cities to Hengist. Once free, he fled to Cambria.
In Cambria, Merlin prophesied to Vortigern that the brothers Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon (who had fled to Armorica as children after Vortigern killed their brother Constans and their father, King Constantine) would return to have their revenge and defeat the Saxons. They arrived the next day, and, after rallying the dispersed Britons, Aurelius was proclaimed king. Aurelius marched into Cambria and burned Vortigern alive in his tower, before setting his sights upon the Saxons.
Hengist was struck by terror at the news of Vortigern's death and fled with his army beyond the Humber. He took courage at the approach of Aurelius and selected the bravest among his men to defend him. Hengist told these chosen men not to be afraid of Aurelius, for he had brought less than 10,000 Armorican Britons (the native Britons were hardly worth taking into account), while there were 200,000 Saxons. Hengist and his men advanced towards Aurelius in a field called Maisbeli (probably Ballifield, near Sheffield), intending to take the Britons by surprise, but Aurelius anticipated them.
As they marched to meet the Saxons, Eldol, Duke of Gloucester, told Aurelius that he greatly wished to meet Hengist in combat, noting that "one of the two of us should die before we parted". He explained that he had been at the Treachery of the Long Knives, but had escaped when God threw him a stake to defend himself with, making him the only Briton present to survive. Meanwhile, Hengist was placing his troops into formation, giving directions, and walking through the lines of troops, "the more to spirit them up".
With the armies in formation, battle began between the Britons and Saxons, both sides suffering "no small loss of blood". Eldol focused on attempting to find Hengist, but had no opportunity to fight him. "By the especial favour of God" the Britons took the upper hand, and the Saxons withdrew and made for Kaerconan (Conisbrough). Aurelius pursued them, killing or enslaving any Saxon he met on the way. Realizing Kaerconan would not hold against Aurelius, Hengist stopped outside the town and ordered his men to make a stand, "for he knew that his whole security now lay in his sword".
Aurelius reached Hengist, and a "most furious" fight ensued, with the Saxons maintaining their ground despite heavy losses. They came close to winning before a detachment of horses from the Armorican Britons arrived. When Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, arrived, Eldol knew the day was won and grabbed Hengist's helmet, dragging him into the British ranks. The Saxons fled. Hengist's son Octa retreated to York and his kinsman Eosa to Alclud (Dumbarton).
Three days after the battle, Aurelius called together a council of principal officers to decide what to do with Hengist. Eldol's brother Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, said:
Consequently, Eldol drew Hengist out of the city and cut off his head. Aurelius, "who showed moderation in all his conduct", arranged for him to be buried and for a mound to be raised over his corpse, according to the custom of pagans. Octa and Eosa surrendered to Aurelius, who granted them the country bordering Scotland and made a firm covenant with them.
The Icelander Snorri Sturluson, writing in the 13th century, briefly mentions Hengist in the Prologue, the first book of the Prose Edda. The Prologue gives a euhemerized account of Germanic history, including the detail that Woden put three of his sons in charge of Saxony. The ruler of eastern Saxony was Veggdegg, one of whose sons was Vitrgils, the father of Vitta, the father of Hengist.
On farmhouses in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, horse-head gables were referred to as "Hengst und Hors" (Low German for "stallion and mare") as late as around 1875. Rudolf Simek notes that these horse-head gables can still be seen today, and says that the horse-head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings. Martin Litchfield West comments that the horse heads may have been remnants of pagan religious practices in the area.
A Hengest appears in line 34 of the Finnesburg Fragment, which describes the legendary Battle of Finnsburg. In Beowulf, a scop recites a composition summarizing the Finnsburg events, including information not provided in the fragment. Hengest is mentioned in lines 1082 and 1091.
Some scholars have proposed that the figure mentioned in both of these references is one and the same as the Hengist of the Hengist and Horsa accounts, though Horsa is not mentioned in either source. In his work Finn and Hengest, J. R. R. Tolkien argued that Hengist was a historical figure, and that Hengist came to Britain after the events recorded in the Finnesburg Fragment and Beowulf. Patrick Sims-Williams is more sceptical of the account, suggesting that Bede's Canterbury source, which he relied on for his account of Hengist and Horsa in the Ecclesiastical History, had confused two separate traditions.
Several sources attest that the Germanic peoples venerated a divine pair of twin brothers. The earliest reference to this practice derives from Timaeus (c. 345 – c. 250 BC). Timaeus records that the Celts of the North Sea were especially devoted to what he describes as Castor and Pollux. In his work Germania, Tacitus records the veneration of the Alcis, whom he identifies with Castor and Pollux. Germanic legends mention various brothers as founding figures. The 1st- or 2nd-century historian Cassius Dio cites the brothers Raos and Raptos as the leaders of the Astings. According to Paul the Deacon's 8th-century History of the Lombards, the Lombards migrated southward from Scandinavia led by Ibur and Aio, while Saxo Grammaticus records in his 12th-century Deeds of the Danes that this migration was prompted by Aggi and Ebbi. In related Indo-European cultures, similar traditions are attested, such as the Dioscuri. Scholars have theorized that these divine twins in Indo-European cultures stem from divine twins in prehistoric Proto-Indo-European culture.
J. P. Mallory comments on the great importance of the horse in Indo-European religion, as exemplified "most obviously" by various mythical brothers appearing in Indo-European legend, including Hengist and Horsa:
In his 17th-century work Monumenta Britannica, John Aubrey ascribes the Uffington White Horse hill figure to Hengist and Horsa, stating that "the White Horse was their Standard at the Conquest of Britain". However, he also ascribes the origins of the horse to the Ancient Britons, reasoning that the horse resembles Celtic Iron Age coins. As a result, advocates of a Saxon origin of the figure debated with those favouring an ancient British origin for three centuries after Aubrey's findings. In 1995, using optically stimulated luminescence dating, David Miles and Simon Palmer of the Oxford Archaeology Unit assigned the Uffington White Horse to the Bronze Age.
The Brothers Grimm identified Hengist with Aschanes, mythical first King of the Saxons, in their notes for legend number 413 of their German Legends. Editor and translator Donald Ward, in his commentary on the tale, regards the identification as untenable on linguistic grounds.
Hengist and Horsa have appeared in a variety of media in the modern period. Written between 1616 and 1620, Thomas Middleton's play Hengist, King of Kent features portrayals of both Hengist and Horsa (as Hersus). On 6 July 1776, the first committee for the production of the Great Seal of the United States convened. One of three members of the committee, Thomas Jefferson, proposed that one side of the seal feature Hengist and Horsa, "the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we assumed".
"Hengist and Horsus" appear as antagonists in the play Vortigern and Rowena, which was touted as a newly discovered work by William Shakespeare in 1796, but was soon revealed as a hoax by William Henry Ireland. The pair have plaques in the Walhalla Temple at Regensburg, Bavaria, which honours distinguished figures of German history.
During World War II, two British military gliders took their names from the brothers: the Slingsby Hengist and the Airspeed Horsa. The 20th-century American poet Robinson Jeffers composed a poem titled Ode to Hengist and Horsa. Likewise, Jorge Luis Borges's poem Hengist Quiere Hombres (449 A.D.) was published in translation in The New Yorker in 1977.
In 1949, Prince Georg of Denmark came to Pegwell Bay in Kent to dedicate the longship Hugin, commemorating the landing of Hengest and Horsa at nearby Ebbsfleet 1500 years earlier in 449 AD.
Though Hengist and Horsa are not referenced in the medieval tales of King Arthur, some modern Arthurian tales do link them. For example, in Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, Hengist and Horsa are executed by Ambrosius; Hengist is given full Saxon funeral honours, cremated with his weapons on a pyre. In Alfred Duggan's Conscience of the King, Hengist plays a major role in the early career of Cerdic Elesing, legendary founder of the kingdom of Wessex.
Part of the A299 road on the Isle of Thanet is named Hengist Way.
Retinue of Hengist and Band of Horsa also make an appearance as for hire mercenaries in the popular game Crusader Kings III by game developer Paradox Development Studio. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their supposed invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Modern scholarly consensus regards Hengist and Horsa as mythical figures, given their alliterative animal names, the seemingly constructed nature of their genealogy, and the unknowable quality of Bede's sources. Their later detailed representation in texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says more about ninth-century attitudes to the past than about the time in which they are said to have existed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "According to early sources, Hengist and Horsa arrived in Britain at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet. For a time, they served as mercenaries for Vortigern, King of the Britons, but later they turned against him (British accounts have them betraying him in the Treachery of the Long Knives). Horsa was killed fighting the Britons, but Hengist successfully conquered Kent, becoming the forefather of its kings.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A figure named Hengest, possibly identifiable with the leader of British legend, appears in the Finnesburg Fragment and in Beowulf. J. R. R. Tolkien has theorized that this indicates Hengest/Hengist is the same person and originates as a historical person.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hengist was historically said to have been buried at Hengistbury Head in Dorset.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Old English names Hengest [ˈhendʒest] and Horsa [ˈhorˠzɑ] mean \"stallion\" and \"horse\", respectively.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The original Old English word for a horse was eoh. Eoh derives from the Proto-Indo-European base *éḱwos, hence Latin equus which gave rise to the modern English words equine and equestrian. Hors is derived from the Proto-Indo-European base *kurs, to run, which also gave rise to hurry, carry and current (the latter two are borrowings from French). Hors eventually replaced eoh, fitting a pattern elsewhere in Germanic languages where the original names of sacred animals are abandoned for adjectives; for example, the word bear, meaning 'the brown one'. While the Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refer to the brother as Horsa, in the History of the Britons his name is simply Hors. It has been suggested that Horsa may be a pet form of a compound name with the first element \"horse\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In his 8th-century Ecclesiastical History, Bede records that the first chieftains among the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in England were said to have been Hengist and Horsa. He relates that Horsa was killed in battle against the Britons and was thereafter buried in East Kent, where at the time of writing a monument still stood to him. According to Bede, Hengist and Horsa were the sons of Wictgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which exists in nine manuscripts and fragments compiled from the 9th to the 12th centuries, records that in the year 449, Vortigern invited Hengist and Horsa to Britain to assist his forces in fighting the Picts. The brothers landed at Eopwinesfleot (Ebbsfleet), and went on to defeat the Picts wherever they fought them. Hengist and Horsa sent word home to Germany describing \"the worthlessness of the Britons, and the richness of the land\" and asked for assistance. Their request was granted and support arrived. Afterward, more people arrived in Britain from \"the three powers of Germany; the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes\". The Saxons populated Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; the Jutes Kent, the Isle of Wight, and part of Hampshire; and the Angles East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria (leaving their original homeland, Angeln, deserted). The Worcester Chronicle (Chronicle D, compiled in the 11th century), and the Peterborough Chronicle (Chronicle E, compiled in the 12th century), include the detail that these forces were led by the brothers Hengist and Horsa, sons of Wihtgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden, but this information is not included in the A, B, C, or F versions.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the entry for the year 455 the Chronicle details that Hengist and Horsa fought against Vortigern at Aylesford and that Horsa died there. Hengist took control of the kingdom with his son Esc. In 457, Hengist and Esc fought against British forces in Crayford \"and there slew four thousand men\". The Britons left the land of Kent and fled to London. In 465 Hengest and Esc fought again at the Battle of Wippedesfleot, probably near Ebbsfleet, and slew twelve British leaders. In the year 473, the final entry in the Chronicle mentioning Hengist or Horsa, Hengist and Esc are recorded as having taken \"immense booty\" and the Britons having \"fled from the English like fire\".",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The 9th century History of the Britons, attributed to the Briton Nennius, records that, during the reign of Vortigern in Britain, three vessels that had been exiled from Germany arrived in Britain, commanded by Hengist and Horsa. The narrative then gives a genealogy of the two: Hengist and Horsa were sons of Guictglis, son of Guicta, son of Guechta, son of Vouden, son of Frealof, son of Fredulf, son of Finn, son of Foleguald, son of Geta. Geta was said to be the son of a god, yet \"not of the omnipotent God and our Lord Jesus Christ\", but rather \"the offspring of one of their idols, and whom, blinded by some demon, they worshipped according to the custom of the heathen\". In 447 AD Vortigern received Hengist and Horsa \"as friends\" and gave to the brothers the Isle of Thanet.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After the Saxons had lived on Thanet for \"some time\" Vortigern promised them supplies of clothing and other provisions on condition that they assist him in fighting the enemies of his country. As the Saxons increased in number the Britons became unable to keep their agreement, and so told them that their assistance was no longer needed and that they should go home.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Vortigern allowed Hengist to send for more of his countrymen to come over to fight for him. Messengers were sent to \"Scythia\", where \"a number\" of warriors were selected, and, with sixteen ships, the messengers returned. With the men came Hengist's beautiful daughter. Hengist prepared a feast, inviting Vortigern, Vortigern's officers, and Ceretic, his translator. Prior to the feast, Hengist enjoined his daughter to serve the guests plenty of wine and ale so that they would become drunk. At the feast Vortigern became enamored with her and promised Hengist whatever he liked in exchange for her betrothal. Hengist, having \"consulted with the Elders who attended him of the Angle race\", demanded Kent. Without the knowledge of the then-ruler of Kent, Vortigern agreed.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hengist's daughter was given to Vortigern, who slept with her and deeply loved her. Hengist told Vortigern that he would now be both his father and adviser and that Vortigern would know no defeat with his counsel, \"for the people of my country are strong, warlike, and robust\". With Vortigern's approval, Hengist would send for his son and his brother to fight against the Scots and those who dwelt near the wall. Vortigern agreed and Ochta and Ebissa arrived with 40 ships, sailed around the land of the Picts, conquered \"many regions\", and assaulted the Orkney Islands. Hengist continued to send for more ships from his country, so that some islands where his people had previously dwelt are now free of inhabitants.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Vortigern had meanwhile incurred the wrath of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre (by taking his own daughter for a wife and having a son by her) and had gone into hiding at the advice of his council. But at length his son Vortimer engaged Hengist and Horsa and their men in battle, drove them back to Thanet and there enclosed them and beset them on the western flank. The war waxed and waned; the Saxons repeatedly gained ground and were repeatedly driven back. Vortimer attacked the Saxons four times: first enclosing the Saxons in Thanet, secondly fighting at the river Derwent, the third time at Epsford, where both Horsa and Vortigern's son Catigern died, and lastly \"near the stone on the shore of the Gallic sea\", where the Saxons were defeated and fled to their ships.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "After a \"short interval\" Vortimer died and the Saxons became established, \"assisted by foreign pagans\". Hengist convened his forces and sent to Vortigern an offer of peace. Vortigern accepted, and Hengist prepared a feast to bring together the British and Saxon leaders. However, he instructed his men to conceal knives beneath their feet. At the right moment, Hengist shouted nima der sexa (get your knives) and his men massacred the unsuspecting Britons. However, they spared Vortigern, who ransomed himself by giving the Saxons Essex, Sussex, Middlesex and other unnamed districts.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Germanus of Auxerre was acclaimed as commander of the British forces. By praying, singing \"hallelujah\" and crying to God, the Britons drove the Saxons to the sea. Germanus then prayed for three days and nights at Vortigern's castle and fire fell from heaven and engulfed the castle. Vortigern, Hengist's daughter, Vortigern's other wives, and all other inhabitants burned to death. Potential alternate fates for Vortigern are provided. However, the Saxons continued to increase in numbers, and after Hengist died his son Ochta succeeded him.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In his sometimes described as \"pseudo-historical\" twelfth-century work The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth adapted and greatly expanded the account in the History of the Britons. Hengist and Horsa appear in books 6 and 8:",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Geoffrey records that three brigantines or long galleys arrived in Kent, full of armed men and commanded by two brothers, Hengist and Horsa. Vortigern was then staying at Dorobernia (Canterbury), and ordered that the \"tall strangers\" be received peacefully and brought to him. When Vortigern saw the company, he immediately observed that the brothers \"excelled all the rest both in nobility and in gracefulness of person\". He asked what country they had come from and why they had come to his kingdom. Hengist (\"whose years and wisdom entitled him to precedence\") replied that they had left their homeland of Saxony to offer their services to Vortigern or some other prince, as part of a Saxon custom in which, when the country became overpopulated, able young men were chosen by lot to seek their fortunes in other lands. Hengist and Horsa were made generals over the exiles, as befitted their noble birth.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Vortigern was aggrieved when he learned that the strangers were pagans, but nonetheless rejoiced at their arrival, since he was surrounded by enemies. He asked Hengist and Horsa if they would help him in his wars, offering them land and \"other possessions\". They accepted the offer, settled on an agreement, and stayed with Vortigern at his court. Soon after, the Picts came from Alba with an immense army and attacked the northern parts of Vortigern's kingdom. In the ensuing battle \"there was little occasion for the Britons to exert themselves, for the Saxons fought so bravely, that the enemy, formerly victorious, were speedily put to flight\".",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In gratitude Vortigern increased the rewards he had promised to the brothers. Hengist was given \"large possessions of lands in Lindsey for the subsistence of himself and his fellow-soldiers\". A \"man of experience and subtlety\", Hengist told Vortigern that his enemies assailed him from every quarter, and that his subjects wished to depose him and make Aurelius Ambrosius king. He asked the king to allow him to send word to Saxony for more soldiers. Vortigern agreed, adding that Hengist could invite over whom he pleased and that \"you shall have no refusal from me in whatever you shall desire\".",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Hengist bowed low in thanks, and made a further request, that he be made a consul or prince, as befitted his birth. Vortigern responded that it was not in his power to do this, reasoning that Hengist was a foreign pagan and would not be accepted by the British lords. Hengist asked instead for leave to build a fortress on a piece of land small enough that it could be encircled by a leather thong. Vortigern granted this and ordered Hengist to invite more Saxons.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "After executing Vortigern's orders, Hengist took a bull's hide and made it into a single thong, which he used to encircle a carefully chosen rocky place (perhaps at Caistor in Lindsey). Here he built the castle of Kaercorrei, or in Saxon Thancastre: \"thong castle.\"",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The messengers returned from Germany with eighteen ships full of the best soldiers they could get, as well as Hengist's beautiful daughter Rowena. Hengist invited Vortigern to see his new castle and the newly arrived soldiers. A banquet took place in Thancastre, at which Vortigern drunkenly asked Hengist to let him marry Rowena. Horsa and the men all agreed that Hengist should allow the marriage, on the condition that Vortigern give him Kent.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Vortigern and Rowena were immediately married and Hengist received Kent. The king, though delighted with his new wife, incurred the hatred of his nobles and of his three sons.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "As his new father-in-law, Hengist made further demands of Vortigern:",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Vortigern agreed. Upon receiving the invitation, Octa, Ebissa, and another lord, Cherdich, immediately left for Britain with three hundred ships. Vortigern received them kindly, and gave them ample gifts. With their assistance, Vortigern defeated his enemies in every engagement. All the while Hengist continued inviting over yet more ships, adding to his numbers daily. Witnessing this, the Britons tried to get Vortigern to banish the Saxons, but on account of his wife he would not. Consequently, his subjects turned against him and took his son Vortimer for their king. The Saxons and the Britons, led by Vortimer, met in four battles. In the second, Horsa and Vortimer's brother, Catigern, slew one another. By the fourth battle, the Saxons had fled to Thanet, where Vortimer besieged them. When the Saxons could no longer bear the British onslaughts, they sent out Vortigern to ask his son to allow them safe passage back to Germany. While discussions were taking place, the Saxons boarded their ships and left, leaving their wives and children behind.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Rowena poisoned the victorious Vortimer, and Vortigern returned to the throne. At his wife's request he invited Hengist back to Britain, but instructed him to bring only a small retinue. Hengist, knowing Vortimer to be dead, instead raised an army of 300,000 men. When Vortigern received word of the imminent arrival of the vast Saxon fleet, he resolved to fight them. Rowena alerted her father of this, who, after considering various strategies, resolved to make a show of peace and sent ambassadors to Vortigern.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The ambassadors informed Vortigern that Hengist had only brought so many men because he did not know of Vortimer's death and feared further attacks from him. Now that there was no threat, Vortigern could choose from among the men the ones he wished to return to Germany. Vortigern was greatly pleased by these tidings, and arranged to meet Hengist on the first of May at the monastery of Ambrius.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Before the meeting, Hengist ordered his soldiers to carry long daggers beneath their clothing. At the signal Nemet oure Saxas (get your knives), the Saxons fell upon the unsuspecting Britons and massacred them, while Hengist held Vortigern by his cloak. 460 British barons and consuls were killed, as well as some Saxons whom the Britons beat to death with clubs and stones. Vortigern was held captive and threatened with death until he resigned control of Britain's chief cities to Hengist. Once free, he fled to Cambria.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In Cambria, Merlin prophesied to Vortigern that the brothers Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon (who had fled to Armorica as children after Vortigern killed their brother Constans and their father, King Constantine) would return to have their revenge and defeat the Saxons. They arrived the next day, and, after rallying the dispersed Britons, Aurelius was proclaimed king. Aurelius marched into Cambria and burned Vortigern alive in his tower, before setting his sights upon the Saxons.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Hengist was struck by terror at the news of Vortigern's death and fled with his army beyond the Humber. He took courage at the approach of Aurelius and selected the bravest among his men to defend him. Hengist told these chosen men not to be afraid of Aurelius, for he had brought less than 10,000 Armorican Britons (the native Britons were hardly worth taking into account), while there were 200,000 Saxons. Hengist and his men advanced towards Aurelius in a field called Maisbeli (probably Ballifield, near Sheffield), intending to take the Britons by surprise, but Aurelius anticipated them.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "As they marched to meet the Saxons, Eldol, Duke of Gloucester, told Aurelius that he greatly wished to meet Hengist in combat, noting that \"one of the two of us should die before we parted\". He explained that he had been at the Treachery of the Long Knives, but had escaped when God threw him a stake to defend himself with, making him the only Briton present to survive. Meanwhile, Hengist was placing his troops into formation, giving directions, and walking through the lines of troops, \"the more to spirit them up\".",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "With the armies in formation, battle began between the Britons and Saxons, both sides suffering \"no small loss of blood\". Eldol focused on attempting to find Hengist, but had no opportunity to fight him. \"By the especial favour of God\" the Britons took the upper hand, and the Saxons withdrew and made for Kaerconan (Conisbrough). Aurelius pursued them, killing or enslaving any Saxon he met on the way. Realizing Kaerconan would not hold against Aurelius, Hengist stopped outside the town and ordered his men to make a stand, \"for he knew that his whole security now lay in his sword\".",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Aurelius reached Hengist, and a \"most furious\" fight ensued, with the Saxons maintaining their ground despite heavy losses. They came close to winning before a detachment of horses from the Armorican Britons arrived. When Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, arrived, Eldol knew the day was won and grabbed Hengist's helmet, dragging him into the British ranks. The Saxons fled. Hengist's son Octa retreated to York and his kinsman Eosa to Alclud (Dumbarton).",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Three days after the battle, Aurelius called together a council of principal officers to decide what to do with Hengist. Eldol's brother Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, said:",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Consequently, Eldol drew Hengist out of the city and cut off his head. Aurelius, \"who showed moderation in all his conduct\", arranged for him to be buried and for a mound to be raised over his corpse, according to the custom of pagans. Octa and Eosa surrendered to Aurelius, who granted them the country bordering Scotland and made a firm covenant with them.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Icelander Snorri Sturluson, writing in the 13th century, briefly mentions Hengist in the Prologue, the first book of the Prose Edda. The Prologue gives a euhemerized account of Germanic history, including the detail that Woden put three of his sons in charge of Saxony. The ruler of eastern Saxony was Veggdegg, one of whose sons was Vitrgils, the father of Vitta, the father of Hengist.",
"title": "Attestations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "On farmhouses in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, horse-head gables were referred to as \"Hengst und Hors\" (Low German for \"stallion and mare\") as late as around 1875. Rudolf Simek notes that these horse-head gables can still be seen today, and says that the horse-head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings. Martin Litchfield West comments that the horse heads may have been remnants of pagan religious practices in the area.",
"title": "Horse-head gables"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "A Hengest appears in line 34 of the Finnesburg Fragment, which describes the legendary Battle of Finnsburg. In Beowulf, a scop recites a composition summarizing the Finnsburg events, including information not provided in the fragment. Hengest is mentioned in lines 1082 and 1091.",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Some scholars have proposed that the figure mentioned in both of these references is one and the same as the Hengist of the Hengist and Horsa accounts, though Horsa is not mentioned in either source. In his work Finn and Hengest, J. R. R. Tolkien argued that Hengist was a historical figure, and that Hengist came to Britain after the events recorded in the Finnesburg Fragment and Beowulf. Patrick Sims-Williams is more sceptical of the account, suggesting that Bede's Canterbury source, which he relied on for his account of Hengist and Horsa in the Ecclesiastical History, had confused two separate traditions.",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Several sources attest that the Germanic peoples venerated a divine pair of twin brothers. The earliest reference to this practice derives from Timaeus (c. 345 – c. 250 BC). Timaeus records that the Celts of the North Sea were especially devoted to what he describes as Castor and Pollux. In his work Germania, Tacitus records the veneration of the Alcis, whom he identifies with Castor and Pollux. Germanic legends mention various brothers as founding figures. The 1st- or 2nd-century historian Cassius Dio cites the brothers Raos and Raptos as the leaders of the Astings. According to Paul the Deacon's 8th-century History of the Lombards, the Lombards migrated southward from Scandinavia led by Ibur and Aio, while Saxo Grammaticus records in his 12th-century Deeds of the Danes that this migration was prompted by Aggi and Ebbi. In related Indo-European cultures, similar traditions are attested, such as the Dioscuri. Scholars have theorized that these divine twins in Indo-European cultures stem from divine twins in prehistoric Proto-Indo-European culture.",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "J. P. Mallory comments on the great importance of the horse in Indo-European religion, as exemplified \"most obviously\" by various mythical brothers appearing in Indo-European legend, including Hengist and Horsa:",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In his 17th-century work Monumenta Britannica, John Aubrey ascribes the Uffington White Horse hill figure to Hengist and Horsa, stating that \"the White Horse was their Standard at the Conquest of Britain\". However, he also ascribes the origins of the horse to the Ancient Britons, reasoning that the horse resembles Celtic Iron Age coins. As a result, advocates of a Saxon origin of the figure debated with those favouring an ancient British origin for three centuries after Aubrey's findings. In 1995, using optically stimulated luminescence dating, David Miles and Simon Palmer of the Oxford Archaeology Unit assigned the Uffington White Horse to the Bronze Age.",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Brothers Grimm identified Hengist with Aschanes, mythical first King of the Saxons, in their notes for legend number 413 of their German Legends. Editor and translator Donald Ward, in his commentary on the tale, regards the identification as untenable on linguistic grounds.",
"title": "Theories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Hengist and Horsa have appeared in a variety of media in the modern period. Written between 1616 and 1620, Thomas Middleton's play Hengist, King of Kent features portrayals of both Hengist and Horsa (as Hersus). On 6 July 1776, the first committee for the production of the Great Seal of the United States convened. One of three members of the committee, Thomas Jefferson, proposed that one side of the seal feature Hengist and Horsa, \"the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we assumed\".",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "\"Hengist and Horsus\" appear as antagonists in the play Vortigern and Rowena, which was touted as a newly discovered work by William Shakespeare in 1796, but was soon revealed as a hoax by William Henry Ireland. The pair have plaques in the Walhalla Temple at Regensburg, Bavaria, which honours distinguished figures of German history.",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "During World War II, two British military gliders took their names from the brothers: the Slingsby Hengist and the Airspeed Horsa. The 20th-century American poet Robinson Jeffers composed a poem titled Ode to Hengist and Horsa. Likewise, Jorge Luis Borges's poem Hengist Quiere Hombres (449 A.D.) was published in translation in The New Yorker in 1977.",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 1949, Prince Georg of Denmark came to Pegwell Bay in Kent to dedicate the longship Hugin, commemorating the landing of Hengest and Horsa at nearby Ebbsfleet 1500 years earlier in 449 AD.",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Though Hengist and Horsa are not referenced in the medieval tales of King Arthur, some modern Arthurian tales do link them. For example, in Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, Hengist and Horsa are executed by Ambrosius; Hengist is given full Saxon funeral honours, cremated with his weapons on a pyre. In Alfred Duggan's Conscience of the King, Hengist plays a major role in the early career of Cerdic Elesing, legendary founder of the kingdom of Wessex.",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Part of the A299 road on the Isle of Thanet is named Hengist Way.",
"title": "Modern influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Retinue of Hengist and Band of Horsa also make an appearance as for hire mercenaries in the popular game Crusader Kings III by game developer Paradox Development Studio.",
"title": "Modern influence"
}
]
| Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their supposed invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent. Modern scholarly consensus regards Hengist and Horsa as mythical figures, given their alliterative animal names, the seemingly constructed nature of their genealogy, and the unknowable quality of Bede's sources. Their later detailed representation in texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says more about ninth-century attitudes to the past than about the time in which they are said to have existed. According to early sources, Hengist and Horsa arrived in Britain at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet. For a time, they served as mercenaries for Vortigern, King of the Britons, but later they turned against him. Horsa was killed fighting the Britons, but Hengist successfully conquered Kent, becoming the forefather of its kings. A figure named Hengest, possibly identifiable with the leader of British legend, appears in the Finnesburg Fragment and in Beowulf. J. R. R. Tolkien has theorized that this indicates Hengest/Hengist is the same person and originates as a historical person. Hengist was historically said to have been buried at Hengistbury Head in Dorset. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-04T06:40:49Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengist_and_Horsa |
14,368 | Hero System | The Hero System is a generic role-playing game system that was developed from the superhero RPG Champions. After Champions fourth edition was released in 1989, a stripped-down version of its ruleset with no superhero or other genre elements was released as The Hero System Rulesbook in 1990. As a spinoff of Champions, the Hero System is considered to have started with 4th edition (as it is mechanically identical to Champions 4th edition), rather than on its own with a 1st edition. However, the first three editions of the game are typically referred to as Champions, rather than the Hero System, as the game for its first three editions was not sold as a universal toolkit, instead largely focusing on superheroes.
The Hero System is used as the underlying mechanics of other Hero Games role-playing games such as Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, and Pulp Hero. It is characterized by point-based character creation and the rigor with which it measures character abilities. It uses only six-sided dice.
The Hero System uses Champions' key system features. Tasks are resolved using three six-sided dice and power effects (especially damage) are resolved by rolling a number of dice based on the power's strength.
Like Champions, it uses a tool-kit approach to creating effects. While the system does have more typical features of many RPGs, such as a skill system, most abilities in the Hero System rules are listed as generic "powers". Most powers are meant to be able to model a vast number of potential effects. When creating a character, a player decides on what effect they wish to create, then constructs this effect by consulting the powers in the rulebook. Most powers have a set of modifiers that alter their base performance to more finely-tune their representation of the effect desired. Each such modifier makes the power more or less capable, and correspondingly more or less expensive to purchase with character points (the "currency" used to buy powers; see the section following). The result is that many effects are possible from exactly the same base power. For example, while systems such as Dungeons & Dragons would list a wide variety of separate ranged attack powers that deal damage (such as a fireball, a lightning bolt, an acid spray, a magic missile, and dozens more), the vast majority of such effects in the Hero System would be constructed out of the same base two powers, "Blast" or "Killing Attack".
The Hero System rules only define an ability's very basic mechanical effects—the player is the one who defines what the ability looks like when used. For example, if a player wishes to model the ability to project a jet of fire, they could choose the "Blast" power. However, the power's text has no mention of what it looks like or how it operates beyond some very base notes concerning damage and range. To make it a jet of fire, the player simply states that this Blast is a jet of fire. To some degree this is simply cosmetic. However, in the game, that power now is treated as a fire attack, with all that implies as decided by the gamemaster in each situation: it has the possibility of starting secondary fires; it looks, smells and sounds like a jet of fire; will not work in water; will terrify people with a phobia of fire; etc. The system does have mechanical effect alterations as well: a Blast could be altered by any number of power modifiers such as "Explosion", "Area of Effect", "Megascale", etc.: both advantages and disadvantages are available. As players are typically attempting to model something with at least a partial real-life analogue, limitations on a power are as much about making it more accurate a representation as they are making it less expensive to purchase (for example, to model a firearm, the limitation that it requires ammunition is expected, regardless of the fact that this happens to make a firearm cost fewer character points). The system also allows players to construct very exacting modifiers not specifically detailed in the base rules. For example, a player could define one or more powers as not working when the moon is full, or when it is Tuesday, or any other limitation that the player can imagine and the gamemaster feels is applicable.
Also like Champions, the Hero System uses a point-based system for character creation. Instead of templates which define what a character is, how it performs mechanically, and the new abilities gained after a certain amount of play, a player is given a fixed number of points and allowed to create what they want. As this is a much more freeform process than in most games, the system encourages close involvement between players and gamemasters to ensure that all participants have the same understanding regarding the type of effects permitted, relative power levels, and the like.
Each player creates their character starting with a pool of points to buy abilities (such as "Energy Blast" and "Armor"), increase characteristics (such as "Strength" and "Intelligence") and buy skills (such as "Computer Programming" and "Combat Driving"). This pool can be increased by taking disadvantages for your character (such as being hunted by an enemy, a dependency of some sort or having people who depend on your character in some way). The initial pool, as well as the final pool size, is determined by the Game Master (GM), as well as the point limits on each individual ability.
"You build Hero System characters with Character Points. You purchase everything a character can do — from his ability to lift heavy objects, to his skill with weapons, to his ability to use magic or superpowers — with Character Points. Your GM will tell you how many points you have to build your character with — the more points, the more powerful the character, generally. You can spend most of your Character Points without any requirements, but you only get to spend some of them if you take a matching value of Complications for your character. Complications are disadvantages, hindrances, and difficulties that affect a character and thus help you to define who he is and properly simulate the concept you have in mind for him. For example, your character might be Hunted by an old enemy, or adhere to a Code Of Honor, or be missing one eye. [. . .] There are five things a character can buy with Character Points: Characteristics, Skills, Perks, Talents, and Powers." - excerpt from Hero System Sixth Edition Volume 1
Unlike the d20 System and many other game systems, experience awards are in the form of character points, which have the same value as those used in character creation and can be applied directly to the character's abilities upon receipt.
The powers system are the variables players can manipulate in the characters of Hero System. The powers in the Hero System are categorized roughly as follows:
Within each of these categories are multiple Powers that have more specialized effects. Thus for the movement category there are powers that can be used for Running, Swimming, Climbing, Leaping, Gliding, Flying, Tunneling through solid surfaces, and even Teleportation. For certain game genres there are even powers for traveling to other dimensions or moving faster than light.
Also, many Powers appear in at least two categories. For example, most Attack Powers are also Standard Powers, and Size Powers are basically just a subcategory of Body-Affecting Powers. Darkness is in three categories — Standard, Attack, and Sense-Affecting.
Each power has a base point cost for a given effect. This could be, for example, a certain number of points per six-sided-die (or "d6") of damage inflicted upon a foe.
Powers can have both advantages and limitations. Both are modifiers applied at different stages in calculating cost. These modifiers are typically changes of ±1⁄4, but can range up to ±2 or even higher.
After the base cost is calculated, advantages are applied. These, which can make a power more useful, typically expand its effectiveness or make it more powerful, and thus make it more expensive. Once advantages are applied, the base cost becomes the Active Cost.
The Active Cost is calculated as an intermediate step as it is required to calculate certain figures, such as range, END usage, difficulty of activation rolls, and other things.
The formula for calculating the Active Cost is:
Once Active Cost is calculated, limitations are applied. These represent shortcomings in the power, lessened reliability or situations in which the power can not be used. Limitations are added separately as positive numbers, even though they are listed as negative.
The Real Cost of the power is then determined by:
The Real Cost is the amount the character must actually pay for the Power.
The rules also include schemes for providing a larger number of powers to a character for a given cost. These power frameworks reduce the cost either by requiring the group of powers to have a common theme as in an Elemental Control Framework, or by limiting the number of powers that can be active at one time with a Multipower Framework. Powers within a framework can share common limitations, further reducing the cost. A third type of power framework, the Variable Power Pool (VPP), trades thrift for flexibility. With it, powers can be arbitrarily chosen on the fly, granting enhanced in-game flexibility. The price is a premium on points, called the Control Cost. Additionally, it is marked as potentially unbalancing, so not all GMs will permit VPP's.
Elemental Controls were eliminated in the Sixth Edition.
Although several games based on what would become known as the Hero System were published in the 1980s, including Champions, Danger International, Justice, Inc., Robot Warriors and the original versions of Fantasy Hero and Star Hero, each of the RPGs was self-contained, much as Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing games are. The Hero System itself was not released as an independent entity until 1990, as Steve Jackson Games' GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) became more popular. As a joint venture between Hero Games and Iron Crown Enterprises, a stand-alone Hero System Rulebook was published alongside the fourth edition of Champions. The content was identical to the opening sections of the Champions rules, but all genre-related material was removed. Afterward, genre books such as Ninja Hero (written by Aaron Allston) and Fantasy Hero were published as sourcebooks for the Hero System Rulebook as opposed to being independent games.
With the collapse of the Hero-ICE alliance, the Hero System went into limbo for several years. The Champions franchise released a new version under the Fuzion system, which had been a joint development with R. Talsorian Games, called Champions: the New Millennium. Although two editions were published, it was very poorly received by Champions fans. In 2001, a reconstituted Hero Games was formed under the leadership of Steven S. Long, who had written several books for the earlier version of the system. It regained the rights to the Hero System and to the Champions trademark.
In 2001, the Fifth Edition of the Hero System Rulebook was released, incorporating heavy revisions by Long. A large black hardcover, it was critically well received and attained a degree of commercial success. (Following problems with fragile bindings on Fourth Edition rulebooks, the planned binding for the larger Fifth Edition was tested using a clothes dryer.) The Fifth Edition is often referred to as "FREd", which is a backronym for "Fifth Rules Edition". The name actually comes from Steve S. Long's reply when asked what the standard abbreviation for the Fifth Edition would be: "I don't care if you call it 'Fred', as long as you buy it." This was made the unofficial nickname by several replies on the same board affirming it after a reply from Willpower, who coined the backronym by saying, "OK. FREd it is, "Fifth Rules Edition"!"
A revised version (ISBN 1-58366-043-7) was issued in 2004, along with Hero System Sidekick, a condensed version of the rulebook with a cover price of under $10. Fans often call the revised Fifth Edition "Fiver," ReFREd," or "5ER" (from "Fifth Edition revised"; "Fiver" also alludes to Watership Down). This rulebook is so big (592 pages) that some fans speculated that it might be bulletproof, and it did indeed stop some bullets when tested by Hero Games staffers.
On February 28, 2008, Cryptic Studios purchased the Champions intellectual property, and sold the rights back to Hero Games to publish the 6th edition books. One of the new features will be to allow players to adapt their Champions Online characters to the pen-and-paper game.
In late 2009, Hero Games released the 6th Edition of the Hero System. The game has so far had a mostly positive reception, with little in the way of 'Edition Wars'. The largest rules change was the removal of Figured Characteristics (meaning that character stats that were previously linked intrinsically—such as Speed automatically increasing when sufficient amounts of Dexterity were purchased—were no longer connected, and instead bought entirely separately). Other, more minor rules changes include folding Armor and Force field into Resistant Defense and reestablishing Regeneration as a separate power. The rules were released in two volumes, with the first covering character creation in depth and the second describing campaigns and the running of games. The new genre book for Champions came out shortly thereafter, and a new Fantasy Hero was released in the summer of 2010. A new version of Sidekick was released in late 2009 under the title The Hero System Basic Rulebook, while an Advanced Player Guide was published that had additional options for character creation. Other recent releases included a large book of pre-constructed Powers, a set of pre-generated Martial Arts styles, abilities and skills, a large bestiary, a new grimoire for Fantasy Hero and a three-volume set of villains for Champions. A new edition of Star Hero was released in 2011, along with a second Advanced Player Guide.
On 28 November 2011, Hero Games announced a restructuring, with Darren Watts and long-time developer Steven S. Long relinquishing their full-time statuses to work freelance. In late 2012 Champions Complete was released, which contained all of the core 6th edition rules as well as enough information to play a superhero campaign in a single 240-page book. This compact presentation reflected criticism that the 6th edition rules had become too unwieldy.
Hero Games now maintains an irregular release schedule, with a minimal staff, and has successfully used Kickstarter to raise funds for new projects. One of these new products, Fantasy Hero Complete, was released in early 2015.
Heromaker, an MS-DOS program, was distributed with some versions of Champions. Today, Hero Designer for the Fifth and Sixth Editions is available on several platforms, and is supported by numerous character packs and other extensions linked to Hero Games book releases. In late 2008, Hero released a licensed RPG for Aaron Williams's popular comic PS238 using a simplified version of the Fifth Edition rules. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Hero System is a generic role-playing game system that was developed from the superhero RPG Champions. After Champions fourth edition was released in 1989, a stripped-down version of its ruleset with no superhero or other genre elements was released as The Hero System Rulesbook in 1990. As a spinoff of Champions, the Hero System is considered to have started with 4th edition (as it is mechanically identical to Champions 4th edition), rather than on its own with a 1st edition. However, the first three editions of the game are typically referred to as Champions, rather than the Hero System, as the game for its first three editions was not sold as a universal toolkit, instead largely focusing on superheroes.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Hero System is used as the underlying mechanics of other Hero Games role-playing games such as Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, and Pulp Hero. It is characterized by point-based character creation and the rigor with which it measures character abilities. It uses only six-sided dice.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Hero System uses Champions' key system features. Tasks are resolved using three six-sided dice and power effects (especially damage) are resolved by rolling a number of dice based on the power's strength.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Like Champions, it uses a tool-kit approach to creating effects. While the system does have more typical features of many RPGs, such as a skill system, most abilities in the Hero System rules are listed as generic \"powers\". Most powers are meant to be able to model a vast number of potential effects. When creating a character, a player decides on what effect they wish to create, then constructs this effect by consulting the powers in the rulebook. Most powers have a set of modifiers that alter their base performance to more finely-tune their representation of the effect desired. Each such modifier makes the power more or less capable, and correspondingly more or less expensive to purchase with character points (the \"currency\" used to buy powers; see the section following). The result is that many effects are possible from exactly the same base power. For example, while systems such as Dungeons & Dragons would list a wide variety of separate ranged attack powers that deal damage (such as a fireball, a lightning bolt, an acid spray, a magic missile, and dozens more), the vast majority of such effects in the Hero System would be constructed out of the same base two powers, \"Blast\" or \"Killing Attack\".",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Hero System rules only define an ability's very basic mechanical effects—the player is the one who defines what the ability looks like when used. For example, if a player wishes to model the ability to project a jet of fire, they could choose the \"Blast\" power. However, the power's text has no mention of what it looks like or how it operates beyond some very base notes concerning damage and range. To make it a jet of fire, the player simply states that this Blast is a jet of fire. To some degree this is simply cosmetic. However, in the game, that power now is treated as a fire attack, with all that implies as decided by the gamemaster in each situation: it has the possibility of starting secondary fires; it looks, smells and sounds like a jet of fire; will not work in water; will terrify people with a phobia of fire; etc. The system does have mechanical effect alterations as well: a Blast could be altered by any number of power modifiers such as \"Explosion\", \"Area of Effect\", \"Megascale\", etc.: both advantages and disadvantages are available. As players are typically attempting to model something with at least a partial real-life analogue, limitations on a power are as much about making it more accurate a representation as they are making it less expensive to purchase (for example, to model a firearm, the limitation that it requires ammunition is expected, regardless of the fact that this happens to make a firearm cost fewer character points). The system also allows players to construct very exacting modifiers not specifically detailed in the base rules. For example, a player could define one or more powers as not working when the moon is full, or when it is Tuesday, or any other limitation that the player can imagine and the gamemaster feels is applicable.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Also like Champions, the Hero System uses a point-based system for character creation. Instead of templates which define what a character is, how it performs mechanically, and the new abilities gained after a certain amount of play, a player is given a fixed number of points and allowed to create what they want. As this is a much more freeform process than in most games, the system encourages close involvement between players and gamemasters to ensure that all participants have the same understanding regarding the type of effects permitted, relative power levels, and the like.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Each player creates their character starting with a pool of points to buy abilities (such as \"Energy Blast\" and \"Armor\"), increase characteristics (such as \"Strength\" and \"Intelligence\") and buy skills (such as \"Computer Programming\" and \"Combat Driving\"). This pool can be increased by taking disadvantages for your character (such as being hunted by an enemy, a dependency of some sort or having people who depend on your character in some way). The initial pool, as well as the final pool size, is determined by the Game Master (GM), as well as the point limits on each individual ability.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "\"You build Hero System characters with Character Points. You purchase everything a character can do — from his ability to lift heavy objects, to his skill with weapons, to his ability to use magic or superpowers — with Character Points. Your GM will tell you how many points you have to build your character with — the more points, the more powerful the character, generally. You can spend most of your Character Points without any requirements, but you only get to spend some of them if you take a matching value of Complications for your character. Complications are disadvantages, hindrances, and difficulties that affect a character and thus help you to define who he is and properly simulate the concept you have in mind for him. For example, your character might be Hunted by an old enemy, or adhere to a Code Of Honor, or be missing one eye. [. . .] There are five things a character can buy with Character Points: Characteristics, Skills, Perks, Talents, and Powers.\" - excerpt from Hero System Sixth Edition Volume 1",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Unlike the d20 System and many other game systems, experience awards are in the form of character points, which have the same value as those used in character creation and can be applied directly to the character's abilities upon receipt.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The powers system are the variables players can manipulate in the characters of Hero System. The powers in the Hero System are categorized roughly as follows:",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Within each of these categories are multiple Powers that have more specialized effects. Thus for the movement category there are powers that can be used for Running, Swimming, Climbing, Leaping, Gliding, Flying, Tunneling through solid surfaces, and even Teleportation. For certain game genres there are even powers for traveling to other dimensions or moving faster than light.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Also, many Powers appear in at least two categories. For example, most Attack Powers are also Standard Powers, and Size Powers are basically just a subcategory of Body-Affecting Powers. Darkness is in three categories — Standard, Attack, and Sense-Affecting.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Each power has a base point cost for a given effect. This could be, for example, a certain number of points per six-sided-die (or \"d6\") of damage inflicted upon a foe.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Powers can have both advantages and limitations. Both are modifiers applied at different stages in calculating cost. These modifiers are typically changes of ±1⁄4, but can range up to ±2 or even higher.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After the base cost is calculated, advantages are applied. These, which can make a power more useful, typically expand its effectiveness or make it more powerful, and thus make it more expensive. Once advantages are applied, the base cost becomes the Active Cost.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Active Cost is calculated as an intermediate step as it is required to calculate certain figures, such as range, END usage, difficulty of activation rolls, and other things.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The formula for calculating the Active Cost is:",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Once Active Cost is calculated, limitations are applied. These represent shortcomings in the power, lessened reliability or situations in which the power can not be used. Limitations are added separately as positive numbers, even though they are listed as negative.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Real Cost of the power is then determined by:",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Real Cost is the amount the character must actually pay for the Power.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The rules also include schemes for providing a larger number of powers to a character for a given cost. These power frameworks reduce the cost either by requiring the group of powers to have a common theme as in an Elemental Control Framework, or by limiting the number of powers that can be active at one time with a Multipower Framework. Powers within a framework can share common limitations, further reducing the cost. A third type of power framework, the Variable Power Pool (VPP), trades thrift for flexibility. With it, powers can be arbitrarily chosen on the fly, granting enhanced in-game flexibility. The price is a premium on points, called the Control Cost. Additionally, it is marked as potentially unbalancing, so not all GMs will permit VPP's.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Elemental Controls were eliminated in the Sixth Edition.",
"title": "System features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Although several games based on what would become known as the Hero System were published in the 1980s, including Champions, Danger International, Justice, Inc., Robot Warriors and the original versions of Fantasy Hero and Star Hero, each of the RPGs was self-contained, much as Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing games are. The Hero System itself was not released as an independent entity until 1990, as Steve Jackson Games' GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) became more popular. As a joint venture between Hero Games and Iron Crown Enterprises, a stand-alone Hero System Rulebook was published alongside the fourth edition of Champions. The content was identical to the opening sections of the Champions rules, but all genre-related material was removed. Afterward, genre books such as Ninja Hero (written by Aaron Allston) and Fantasy Hero were published as sourcebooks for the Hero System Rulebook as opposed to being independent games.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "With the collapse of the Hero-ICE alliance, the Hero System went into limbo for several years. The Champions franchise released a new version under the Fuzion system, which had been a joint development with R. Talsorian Games, called Champions: the New Millennium. Although two editions were published, it was very poorly received by Champions fans. In 2001, a reconstituted Hero Games was formed under the leadership of Steven S. Long, who had written several books for the earlier version of the system. It regained the rights to the Hero System and to the Champions trademark.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 2001, the Fifth Edition of the Hero System Rulebook was released, incorporating heavy revisions by Long. A large black hardcover, it was critically well received and attained a degree of commercial success. (Following problems with fragile bindings on Fourth Edition rulebooks, the planned binding for the larger Fifth Edition was tested using a clothes dryer.) The Fifth Edition is often referred to as \"FREd\", which is a backronym for \"Fifth Rules Edition\". The name actually comes from Steve S. Long's reply when asked what the standard abbreviation for the Fifth Edition would be: \"I don't care if you call it 'Fred', as long as you buy it.\" This was made the unofficial nickname by several replies on the same board affirming it after a reply from Willpower, who coined the backronym by saying, \"OK. FREd it is, \"Fifth Rules Edition\"!\"",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A revised version (ISBN 1-58366-043-7) was issued in 2004, along with Hero System Sidekick, a condensed version of the rulebook with a cover price of under $10. Fans often call the revised Fifth Edition \"Fiver,\" ReFREd,\" or \"5ER\" (from \"Fifth Edition revised\"; \"Fiver\" also alludes to Watership Down). This rulebook is so big (592 pages) that some fans speculated that it might be bulletproof, and it did indeed stop some bullets when tested by Hero Games staffers.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "On February 28, 2008, Cryptic Studios purchased the Champions intellectual property, and sold the rights back to Hero Games to publish the 6th edition books. One of the new features will be to allow players to adapt their Champions Online characters to the pen-and-paper game.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In late 2009, Hero Games released the 6th Edition of the Hero System. The game has so far had a mostly positive reception, with little in the way of 'Edition Wars'. The largest rules change was the removal of Figured Characteristics (meaning that character stats that were previously linked intrinsically—such as Speed automatically increasing when sufficient amounts of Dexterity were purchased—were no longer connected, and instead bought entirely separately). Other, more minor rules changes include folding Armor and Force field into Resistant Defense and reestablishing Regeneration as a separate power. The rules were released in two volumes, with the first covering character creation in depth and the second describing campaigns and the running of games. The new genre book for Champions came out shortly thereafter, and a new Fantasy Hero was released in the summer of 2010. A new version of Sidekick was released in late 2009 under the title The Hero System Basic Rulebook, while an Advanced Player Guide was published that had additional options for character creation. Other recent releases included a large book of pre-constructed Powers, a set of pre-generated Martial Arts styles, abilities and skills, a large bestiary, a new grimoire for Fantasy Hero and a three-volume set of villains for Champions. A new edition of Star Hero was released in 2011, along with a second Advanced Player Guide.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "On 28 November 2011, Hero Games announced a restructuring, with Darren Watts and long-time developer Steven S. Long relinquishing their full-time statuses to work freelance. In late 2012 Champions Complete was released, which contained all of the core 6th edition rules as well as enough information to play a superhero campaign in a single 240-page book. This compact presentation reflected criticism that the 6th edition rules had become too unwieldy.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Hero Games now maintains an irregular release schedule, with a minimal staff, and has successfully used Kickstarter to raise funds for new projects. One of these new products, Fantasy Hero Complete, was released in early 2015.",
"title": "Publishing history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Heromaker, an MS-DOS program, was distributed with some versions of Champions. Today, Hero Designer for the Fifth and Sixth Editions is available on several platforms, and is supported by numerous character packs and other extensions linked to Hero Games book releases. In late 2008, Hero released a licensed RPG for Aaron Williams's popular comic PS238 using a simplified version of the Fifth Edition rules.",
"title": "Publishing history"
}
]
| The Hero System is a generic role-playing game system that was developed from the superhero RPG Champions. After Champions fourth edition was released in 1989, a stripped-down version of its ruleset with no superhero or other genre elements was released as The Hero System Rulesbook in 1990. As a spinoff of Champions, the Hero System is considered to have started with 4th edition, rather than on its own with a 1st edition. However, the first three editions of the game are typically referred to as Champions, rather than the Hero System, as the game for its first three editions was not sold as a universal toolkit, instead largely focusing on superheroes. The Hero System is used as the underlying mechanics of other Hero Games role-playing games such as Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, and Pulp Hero. It is characterized by point-based character creation and the rigor with which it measures character abilities. It uses only six-sided dice. | 2023-04-06T09:53:14Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_System |
|
14,369 | Humphry Davy | Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, FRS, MRIA, FGS (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited to have been the first to discover clathrate hydrates in his lab.
In 1799 he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh, so he nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery.
Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS), and a member of the American Philosophical Society (elected 1810). Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."
Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall, in the Kingdom of Great Britain on 17 December 1778, the eldest of the five children of Robert Davy, a woodcarver, and his wife Grace Millett. According to his brother and fellow chemist John Davy, their hometown was characterised by "an almost unbounded credulity respecting the supernatural and monstrous ... Amongst the middle and higher classes, there was little taste for literature, and still less for science ... Hunting, shooting, wrestling, cockfighting, generally ending in drunkenness, were what they most delighted in."
At the age of six, Davy was sent to the grammar school at Penzance. Three years later, his family moved to Varfell, near Ludgvan, and subsequently, in term-time Davy boarded with John Tonkin, his godfather and later his guardian. Upon Davy's leaving grammar school in 1793, Tonkin paid for him to attend Truro Grammar School to finish his education under the Rev Dr Cardew, who, in a letter to Davies Gilbert, said dryly, "I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished." Davy entertained his school friends by writing poetry, composing Valentines, and telling stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Reflecting on his school days in a letter to his mother, Davy wrote, "Learning naturally is a true pleasure; how unfortunate then it is that in most schools it is made a pain." "I consider it fortunate", he continued, "I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study ... What I am I made myself." His brother said Davy possessed a "native vigour" and "the genuine quality of genius, or of that power of intellect which exalts its possessor above the crowd."
After Davy's father died in 1794, Tonkin apprenticed him to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon with a practice in Penzance. While becoming a chemist in the apothecary's dispensary, he began conducting his earliest experiments at home, much to the annoyance of his friends and family. His older sister, for instance, complained his corrosive substances were destroying her dresses, and at least one friend thought it likely the "incorrigible" Davy would eventually "blow us all into the air."
In 1797, after he learnt French from a refuge priest, Davy read Lavoisier's Traité élémentaire de chimie. This exposure influenced much of his future work, which can be seen as reaction against Lavoisier's work and the dominance of French chemists.
As a poet, over one hundred and sixty manuscript poems were written by Davy, the majority of which are found in his personal notebooks. Most of his written poems were not published, and he chose instead to share a few of them with his friends. Eight of his known poems were published. His poems reflected his views on both his career and also his perception of certain aspects of human life. He wrote on human endeavours and aspects of life like death, metaphysics, geology, natural theology and chemistry.
John Ayrton Paris remarked that poems written by the young Davy "bear the stamp of lofty genius". Davy's first preserved poem entitled "The Sons of Genius" is dated 1795 and marked by the usual immaturity of youth. Other poems written in the following years, especially "On the Mount's Bay" and "St Michael's Mount", are descriptive verses.
Three of Davy's paintings from around 1796 have been donated to the Penlee House museum at Penzance. One is of the view from above Gulval showing the church, Mount's Bay and the Mount, while the other two depict Loch Lomond in Scotland.
At 17, he discussed the question of the materiality of heat with his Quaker friend and mentor Robert Dunkin. Dunkin remarked: 'I tell thee what, Humphry, thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life.' One winter day he took Davy to the Larigan River, To show him that rubbing two plates of ice together developed sufficient energy by motion to melt them, and that after the motion was suspended, the pieces were united by regelation. It was a crude form of analogous experiment exhibited by Davy in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution that elicited considerable attention. As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy repeated many of the ingenious experiments he learnt from Dunkin.
Although he initially started writing his poems, albeit haphazardly, as a reflection of his views on his career and on life generally, most of his final poems concentrated on immortality and death. This was after he started experiencing failing health and a decline both in health and career.
Davies Giddy met Davy in Penzance carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr Borlase's house, and interested by his talk invited him to his house at Tredrea and offered him the use of his library. This led to his introduction to Dr Edwards, who lived at Hayle Copper House. Edwards was a lecturer in chemistry in the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He permitted Davy to use his laboratory and possibly directed his attention to the floodgates of the port of Hayle, which were rapidly decaying as a result of the contact between copper and iron under the influence of seawater. Galvanic corrosion was not understood at that time, but the phenomenon prepared Davy's mind for subsequent experiments on ships' copper sheathing. Gregory Watt, son of James Watt, visited Penzance for his health's sake, and while lodging at the Davys' house became a friend and gave him instructions in chemistry. Davy was acquainted with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance.
Thomas Beddoes and John Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy on the rival merits of the Plutonian and Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert and made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had established at Bristol a 'Pneumatic Institution,' needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Gilbert recommended Davy, and in 1798 Gregory Watt showed Beddoes the Young man's Researches on Heat and Light, which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of West-Country Contributions. After prolonged negotiations, mainly by Gilbert, Mrs Davy and Borlase consented to Davy's departure, but Tonkin wished him to remain in his native town as a surgeon, and altered his will when he found that Davy insisted on going to Dr Beddoes.
In 1802, Humphry Davy had what was then the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution. With it, Davy created the first incandescent light by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was neither sufficiently bright nor long lasting enough to be of practical use, but demonstrated the principle. By 1806 he was able to demonstrate a much more powerful form of electric lighting to the Royal Society in London. It was an early form of arc light which produced its illumination from an electric arc created between two charcoal rods.
On 2 October 1798, Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. It had been established to investigate the medical powers of factitious airs and gases (gases produced experimentally or artificially), and Davy was to superintend the various experiments. The arrangement agreed between Dr Beddoes and Davy was generous, and enabled Davy to give up all claims on his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the medical profession and was determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh, but he soon began to fill parts of the institution with voltaic batteries. While living in Bristol, Davy met the Earl of Durham, who was a resident in the institution for his health, and became close friends with Gregory Watt, James Watt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom became regular users of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by the natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley, who called it dephlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston). Priestley described his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), in which he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid.
James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide. At one point the gas was combined with wine to judge its efficacy as a cure for hangover (his laboratory notebook indicated success). The gas was popular among Davy's friends and acquaintances, and he noted that it might be useful for performing surgical operations. Anesthetics were not regularly used in medicine or dentistry until decades after Davy's death.
Davy threw himself energetically into the work of the laboratory and formed a long romantic friendship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, the novelist Maria Edgeworth's sister, who acted as his guide on walks and other fine sights of the locality. The critic Maurice Hindle was the first to reveal that Davy and Anna had written poems for each other. Wahida Amin has transcribed and discussed a number of poems written between 1803 and 1808 to "Anna" and one to her infant child. In December 1799 Davy visited London for the first time and extended his circle of friends. Davy features in the diary of William Godwin, with their first meeting recorded for 4 December 1799.
In the gas experiments Davy ran considerable risks. His respiration of nitric oxide which may have combined with air in the mouth to form nitric acid (HNO3), severely injured the mucous membrane, and in Davy's attempt to inhale four quarts of "pure hydrocarbonate" gas in an experiment with carbon monoxide he "seemed sinking into annihilation." On being removed into the open air, Davy faintly articulated, "I do not think I shall die," but some hours elapsed before the painful symptoms ceased. Davy was able to take his own pulse as he staggered out of the laboratory and into the garden, and he described it in his notes as "threadlike and beating with excessive quickness".
In this year the first volume of the West-Country Collections was issued. Half consisted of Davy's essays On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light, On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations, and on the Theory of Respiration. On 22 February 1799 Davy, wrote to Davies Gilbert, "I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of caloric as I am of the existence of light." In another letter to Gilbert, on 10 April, Davy informs him: "I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure." He said that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it "absolutely intoxicated me." Davy became increasingly well known in 1799 due to his experiments with the physiological action of some gases, including laughing gas (nitrous oxide). In addition to himself, his enthusiastic experimental subjects included his poet friends Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
During 1799, Beddoes and Davy published Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the west of England and Essays on heat, light, and the combinations of light, with a new theory of respiration. On the generation of oxygen gas, and the causes of the colors of organic beings. Their experimental work was poor, and the publications were harshly criticised. In after years Davy regretted he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he subsequently designated "the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth."
These criticisms, however, led Davy to refine and improve his experimental techniques, spending his later time at the institution increasingly in experimentation. In 1800, Davy informed Gilbert that he had been "repeating the galvanic experiments with success" in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which "almost incessantly occupied him from January to April." In 1800, Davy published his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration, and received a more positive response.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved to the Lake District in 1800, and asked Davy to deal with the Bristol publishers of the Lyrical Ballads, Biggs & Cottle. Coleridge asked Davy to proofread the second edition, the first to contain Wordsworth's "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads", in a letter dated 16 July 1800: "Will you be so kind as just to look over the sheets of the lyrical Ballads". Wordsworth subsequently wrote to Davy on 29 July 1800, sending him the first manuscript sheet of poems and asking him specifically to correct: "any thing you find amiss in the punctuation a business at which I am ashamed to say I am no adept". Wordsworth was ill in the autumn of 1800 and slow in sending poems for the second edition; the volume appeared on 26 January 1801 even though it was dated 1800. While it is impossible to know whether Davy was at fault, this edition of the Lyrical Ballads contained many errors, including the poem "Michael" being left incomplete. In a personal notebook marked on the front cover "Clifton 1800 From August to Novr", Davy wrote his own Lyrical Ballad: "As I was walking up the street". Wordsworth features in Davy's poem as the recorder of ordinary lives in the line: "By poet Wordsworths Rymes" [sic].
In 1799, Count Rumford had proposed the establishment in London of an 'Institution for Diffusing Knowledge', i.e. the Royal Institution. The house in Albemarle Street was bought in April 1799. Rumford became secretary to the institution, and Dr Thomas Garnett was the first lecturer.
In February 1801 Davy was interviewed by the committee of the Royal Institution, comprising Joseph Banks, Benjamin Thompson (who had been appointed Count Rumford) and Henry Cavendish. Davy wrote to Davies Gilbert on 8 March 1801 about the offers made by Banks and Thompson, a possible move to London and the promise of funding for his work in galvanism. He also mentioned that he might not be collaborating further with Beddoes on therapeutic gases. The next day Davy left Bristol to take up his new post at the Royal Institution, it having been resolved 'that Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of assistant lecturer in chemistry, director of the chemical laboratory, and assistant editor of the journals of the institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of 100l. per annum.'
On 25 April 1801, Davy gave his first lecture on the relatively new subject of 'Galvanism'. He and his friend Coleridge had had many conversations about the nature of human knowledge and progress, and Davy's lectures gave his audience a vision of human civilisation brought forward by scientific discovery. "It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments." The first lecture garnered rave reviews, and by the June lecture Davy wrote to John King that his last lecture had attendance of nearly 500 people. "There was Respiration, Nitrous Oxide, and unbounded Applause. Amen!" Davy revelled in his public status.
Davy's lectures included spectacular and sometimes dangerous chemical demonstrations along with scientific information, and were presented with considerable showmanship by the young and handsome man. Davy also included both poetic and religious commentary in his lectures, emphasizing that God's design was revealed by chemical investigations. Religious commentary was in part an attempt to appeal to women in his audiences. Davy, like many of his enlightenment contemporaries, supported female education and women's involvement in scientific pursuits, even proposing that women be admitted to evening events at the Royal Society. Davy acquired a large female following around London. In a satirical cartoon by Gillray, nearly half of the attendees pictured are female. His support of women caused Davy to be subjected to considerable gossip and innuendo, and to be criticised as unmanly.
When Davy's lecture series on Galvanism ended, he progressed to a new series on Agricultural Chemistry, and his popularity continued to skyrocket. By June 1802, after just over a year at the Institution and at the age of 23, Davy was nominated to full lecturer at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Garnett quietly resigned, citing health reasons.
In November 1804 Davy became a Fellow of the Royal Society, over which he would later preside. He was one of the founding members of the Geological Society in 1807 and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1810 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822.
In June 1802 Davy published in the first issue of the Journals of the Royal Institution of Great Britain his An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of Making Profiles, by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, Esq. With Observations by H. Davy in which he described their experiments with the photosensitivity of silver nitrate.
He recorded that "images of small objects, produced by means of the solar microscope, may be copied without difficulty on prepared paper." Josef Maria Eder, in his History of Photography, though crediting Wedgwood, because of his application of this quality of silver nitrate to the making of images, as "the first photographer in the world," proposes that it was Davy who realised the idea of photographic enlargement using a solar microscope to project images onto sensitised paper. Neither found a means of fixing their images, and Davy devoted no more of his time to furthering these early discoveries in photography.
The principle of image projection using solar illumination was applied to the construction of the earliest form of photographic enlarger, the "solar camera".
Davy was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis using the voltaic pile to split common compounds and thus prepare many new elements. He went on to electrolyse molten salts and discovered several new metals, including sodium and potassium, highly reactive elements known as the alkali metals. Davy discovered potassium in 1807, deriving it from caustic potash (KOH). Before the 19th century, no distinction had been made between potassium and sodium. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Davy isolated sodium in the same year by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide.
During the first half of 1808, Davy conducted a series of further electrolysis experiments on alkaline earths including lime, magnesia, strontites and barytes. At the beginning of June, Davy received a letter from the Swedish chemist Berzelius claiming that he, in conjunction with Dr. Pontin, had successfully obtained amalgams of calcium and barium by electrolysing lime and barytes using a mercury cathode. Davy managed to successfully repeat these experiments almost immediately and expanded Berzelius' method to strontites and magnesia. He noted that while these amalgams oxidised in only a few minutes when exposed to air they could be preserved for lengthy periods of time when submerged in naphtha before becoming covered with a white crust. On 30 June 1808 Davy reported to the Royal Society that he had successfully isolated four new metals which he named barium, calcium, strontium and magnium (later changed to magnesium) which were subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions. Although Davy conceded magnium was an "undoubtedly objectionable" name he argued the more appropriate name magnesium was already being applied to metallic manganese and wished to avoid creating an equivocal term. The observations gathered from these experiments also led to Davy isolating boron in 1809.
Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated marine acid" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Davy showed that the acid of Scheele's substance, called at the time oxymuriatic acid, contained no oxygen. This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. In 1810, chlorine was given its current name by Humphry Davy, who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element. The name chlorine, chosen by Davy for "one of [the substance's] obvious and characteristic properties – its colour", comes from the Greek χλωρος (chlōros), meaning green-yellow.
Davy seriously injured himself in a laboratory accident with nitrogen trichloride. French chemist Pierre Louis Dulong had first prepared this compound in 1811, and had lost two fingers and an eye in two separate explosions with it. In a letter to John Children, on 16 November 1812, Davy wrote: "It must be used with great caution. It is not safe to experiment upon a globule larger than a pin's head. I have been severely wounded by a piece scarcely bigger. My sight, however, I am informed, will not be injured". Davy's accident induced him to hire Michael Faraday as a co-worker, particularly for assistance with handwriting and record keeping. He had recovered from his injuries by April 1813.
In 1812, Davy was knighted and gave up his lecturing position at the Royal Institution. He was given the title of Honorary Professor of Chemistry. He gave a farewell lecture to the Institution, and married a wealthy widow, Jane Apreece. (While Davy was generally acknowledged as being faithful to his wife, their relationship was stormy, and in later years he travelled to continental Europe alone.)
Davy then published his Elements of Chemical Philosophy, part 1, volume 1, though other parts of this title were never completed. He made notes for a second edition, but it was never required. In October 1813, he and his wife, accompanied by Michael Faraday as his scientific assistant (also treated as a valet), travelled to France to collect the second edition of the prix du Galvanisme, a medal that Napoleon Bonaparte had awarded Davy for his electro-chemical work. Faraday noted "Tis indeed a strange venture at this time, to trust ourselves in a foreign and hostile country, where so little regard is had to protestations of honour, that the slightest suspicion would be sufficient to separate us for ever from England, and perhaps from life". Davy's party sailed from Plymouth to Morlaix by cartel, where they were searched.
Upon reaching Paris, Davy was a guest of honour at a meeting of the First Class of the Institut de France and met with André-Marie Ampère and other French chemists. It was later reported that Davy's wife had thrown the medal onto the sea, near her Cornish home, "as it raised bad memories". The Royal Society of Chemistry has offered over £1,800 for the recovery of the medal.
While in Paris, Davy attended lectures at the Ecole Polytechnique, including those by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac on a mysterious substance isolated by Bernard Courtois. Davy wrote a paper for the Royal Society on the element, which is now called iodine. This led to a dispute between Davy and Gay-Lussac on who had the priority on the research.
Davy's party did not meet Napoleon in person, but they did visit the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais at the Château de Malmaison. The party left Paris in December 1813, travelling south to Italy. They sojourned in Florence, where using the burning glass of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in a series of experiments conducted with Faraday's assistance, Davy succeeded in using the sun's rays to ignite diamond, proving it is composed of pure carbon.
Davy's party continued to Rome, where he undertook experiments on iodine and chlorine and on the colours used in ancient paintings. This was the first chemical research on the pigments used by artists.
He also visited Naples and Mount Vesuvius, where he collected samples of crystals. By June 1814, they were in Milan, where they met Alessandro Volta, and then continued north to Geneva. They returned to Italy via Munich and Innsbruck, and when their plans to travel to Greece and Istanbul were abandoned after Napoleon's escape from Elba, they returned to England.
After the Battle of Waterloo, Davy wrote to Lord Liverpool urging that the French be treated with severity:
My Lord, I need not say to Your Lordship that the capitulation of Paris not a treaty; lest everything belonging to the future state of that capital & of France is open to discussion & that France is a conquered country. It is the duty of the allies to give her more restricted boundaries which shall not encroach upon the natural limits of other nations. to weaken her on the side of Italy, Germany & Flanders. To take back from her by contributions the wealth she has acquired by them to suffer her to retain nothing that the republican or imperial armies have stolen: This last duty is demanded no less by policy than justice.
After his return to England in 1815, Davy began experimenting with lamps that could be used safely in coal mines. The Revd Dr Robert Gray of Bishopwearmouth in Sunderland, founder of the Society for Preventing Accidents in Coalmines, had written to Davy suggesting that he might use his 'extensive stores of chemical knowledge' to address the issue of mining explosions caused by firedamp, or methane mixed with oxygen, which was often ignited by the open flames of the lamps then used by miners. Incidents such as the Felling mine disaster of 1812 near Newcastle, in which 92 men were killed, not only caused great loss of life among miners but also meant that their widows and children had to be supported by the public purse. The Revd Gray and a fellow clergyman also working in a north-east mining area, the Revd John Hodgson of Jarrow, were keen that action should be taken to improve underground lighting and especially the lamps used by miners.
Davy conceived of using an iron gauze to enclose a lamp's flame, and so prevent the methane burning inside the lamp from passing out to the general atmosphere. Although the idea of the safety lamp had already been demonstrated by William Reid Clanny and by the then unknown (but later very famous) engineer George Stephenson, Davy's use of wire gauze to prevent the spread of flame was used by many other inventors in their later designs. George Stephenson's lamp was very popular in the north-east coalfields, and used the same principle of preventing the flame reaching the general atmosphere, but by different means. Unfortunately, although the new design of gauze lamp initially did seem to offer protection, it gave much less light, and quickly deteriorated in the wet conditions of most pits. Rusting of the gauze quickly made the lamp unsafe, and the number of deaths from firedamp explosions rose yet further.
There was some discussion as to whether Davy had discovered the principles behind his lamp without the help of the work of Smithson Tennant, but it was generally agreed that the work of both men had been independent. Davy refused to patent the lamp, and its invention led to his being awarded the Rumford medal in 1816.
In 1815 Davy also suggested that acids were substances that contained replaceable hydrogen ions;– hydrogen that could be partly or totally replaced by reactive metals which are placed above hydrogen in the reactivity series. When acids reacted with metals they formed salts and hydrogen gas. Bases were substances that reacted with acids to form salts and water. These definitions worked well for most of the nineteenth century.
Davy experimented on fragments of the Herculaneum papyri before his departure to Naples in 1818. His early experiments showed hope of success. In his report to the Royal Society Davy writes that: 'When a fragment of a brown MS. in which the layers were strongly adhered, was placed in an atmosphere of chlorine, there was an immediate action, the papyrus smoked and became yellow, and the letters appeared much more distinct; and by the application of heat the layers separated from each other, giving fumes of muriatic acid.'
The success of the early trials prompted Davy to travel to Naples to conduct further research on the Herculaneum papyri. Accompanied by his wife, they set off on 26 May 1818 to stay in Flanders where Davy was invited by the coal miners to speak. They then traveled to Carniola (now Slovenia) which proved to become 'his favourite Alpine retreat' before finally arriving in Italy. In Italy, they befriended Lord Byron in Rome and then went on to travel to Naples.
Initial experiments were again promising and his work resulted in 'partially unrolling 23 MSS., from which fragments of writing were obtained' but after returning to Naples on 1 December 1819 from a summer in the Alps, Davy complained that 'the Italians at the museum [were] no longer helpful but obstructive'. Davy decided to renounce further work on the papyri because 'the labour, in itself difficult and unpleasant, been made more so, by the conduct of the persons at the head of this department in the Museum'.
From 1761 onwards, copper plating had been fitted to the undersides of Royal Navy ships to protect the wood from attack by shipworms. However, the copper bottoms were gradually corroded by exposure to the salt water. Between 1823 and 1825, Davy, assisted by Michael Faraday, attempted to protect the copper by electrochemical means. He attached to the copper sacrificial pieces of zinc or iron , which provided cathodic protection to the host metal. It was discovered, however, that protected copper became foul quickly, i.e. pieces of weed and/or marine creatures became attached to the hull, which had a detrimental effect on the handling of the ship.
The Navy Board approached Davy in 1823, asking for help with the corrosion. Davy conducted a number of tests in Portsmouth Dockyard, which led to the Navy Board adopting the use of Davy's "protectors". By 1824, it had become apparent that fouling of the copper bottoms was occurring on the majority of protected ships. By the end of 1825, the Admiralty ordered the Navy Board to cease fitting the protectors to sea-going ships, and to remove those that had already been fitted. Davy's scheme was seen as a public failure, despite success of the corrosion protection as such. As Frank A. J. L. James explains, "[Because] the poisonous salts from [corroding] copper were no longer entering the water, there was nothing to kill the barnacles and the like in the vicinity of a ship. This meant that barnacles [and the like] could now attach themselves to the bottom of a vessel, thus impeding severely its steerage, much to the anger of the captains who wrote to the Admiralty to complain about Davy's protectors."
Elections took place on St Andrew's Day and Davy was elected on 30 November 1820. Although he was unopposed, other candidates had received initial backing. These candidates embodied the factional difficulties that beset Davy's presidency and which eventually defeated him.
The Society was in transition from a club for gentlemen interested in natural philosophy, connected with the political and social elite, to an academy representing increasingly specialised sciences. The previous president, Joseph Banks, had held the post for over 40 years and had presided autocratically over what David Philip Miller calls the "Banksian Learned Empire", in which natural history was prominent.
Banks had groomed the engineer, author and politician Davies Gilbert to succeed him and preserve the status quo, but Gilbert declined to stand. Fellows who thought royal patronage was important proposed Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (later Leopold I of Belgium), who also withdrew, as did the Whig Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset. Davy was the outstanding scientist but some fellows did not approve of his popularising work at the Royal Institution.
The strongest alternative had been William Hyde Wollaston, who was supported by the "Cambridge Network" of outstanding mathematicians such as Charles Babbage and John Herschel, who tried to block Davy. They were aware that Davy supported some modernisation, but thought that he would not sufficiently encourage aspiring young mathematicians, astronomers and geologists, who were beginning to form specialist societies. Davy was only 41, and reformers were fearful of another long presidency.
In his early years Davy was optimistic about reconciling the reformers and the Banksians. In his first speech as president he declared, "I trust that, with these new societies, we shall always preserve the most amicable relations ... I am sure there is no desire in [the Royal Society] to exert anything like patriarchal authority in relation to these institutions".
Davy spent much time juggling the factions but, as his reputation declined in the light of failures such as his research into copper-bottomed ships, he lost popularity and authority. This was compounded by a number of political errors. In 1825 his promotion of the new Zoological Society, of which he was a founding fellow, courted the landed gentry and alienated expert zoologists. He offended the mathematicians and reformers by failing to ensure that Babbage received one of the new Royal Medals (a project of his) or the vacant secretaryship of the Society in 1826. In November 1826 the mathematician Edward Ryan recorded that: "The Society, every member almost ... are in the greatest rage at the President's proceedings and nothing is now talked of but removing him."
In the event he was again re-elected unopposed, but he was now visibly unwell. In January 1827 he set off to Italy for reasons of his health. It did not improve and, as the 1827 election loomed, it was clear that he would not stand again. He was succeeded by Davies Gilbert.
In 1818, Davy was awarded a baronetcy. Although Sir Francis Bacon (also later made a peer) and Sir Isaac Newton had already been knighted, this was the first such honour ever conferred on a man of science in Britain. It was followed a year later with the Presidency of the Royal Society.
Davy's laboratory assistant, Michael Faraday, went on to enhance Davy's work and would become the more famous and influential scientist. Davy is supposed to have even claimed Faraday as his greatest discovery. Davy later accused Faraday of plagiarism, however, causing Faraday (the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry) to cease all research in electromagnetism until his mentor's death.
According to one of Davy's biographers, June Z. Fullmer, he was a deist.
Of a sanguine, somewhat irritable temperament, Davy displayed characteristic enthusiasm and energy in all his pursuits. As is shown by his verses and sometimes by his prose, his mind was highly imaginative; the poet Coleridge declared that if he "had not been the first chemist, he would have been the first poet of his age", and Southey said that "he had all the elements of a poet; he only wanted the art." In spite of his ungainly exterior and peculiar manner, his happy gifts of exposition and illustration won him extraordinary popularity as a lecturer, his experiments were ingenious and rapidly performed, and Coleridge went to hear him "to increase his stock of metaphors." The dominating ambition of his life was to achieve fame; occasional petty jealousy did not diminish his concern for the "cause of humanity", to use a phrase often employed by him in connection with his invention of the miners' lamp. Careless about etiquette, his frankness sometimes exposed him to annoyances he might have avoided by the exercise of tact.
In 1826 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. He spent the last months of his life writing Consolations in Travel, an immensely popular, somewhat freeform compendium of poetry, thoughts on science and philosophy. Published posthumously, the work became a staple of both scientific and family libraries for several decades afterward. Davy spent the winter in Rome, hunting in the Campagna on his fiftieth birthday. But on 20 February 1829 he had another stroke. After spending many months attempting to recuperate, Davy died in a room at L'Hotel de la Couronne, in the Rue du Rhone, in Geneva, Switzerland, on 29 May 1829. He had wished to be buried where he died, but had also wanted the burial delayed in case he was only comatose. He refused to allow a post-mortem for similar reasons. But the laws of Geneva did not allow any delay and he was given a public funeral on the following Monday, 1 June, in the Plainpalais Cemetery, outside the city walls.
See Fullmer's work for a full list of Davy's articles.
Humphry Davy's books are as follows:
Davy also contributed articles on chemistry to Rees's Cyclopædia, but the topics are not known.
His collected works were published in 1839–1840: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, FRS, MRIA, FGS (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited to have been the first to discover clathrate hydrates in his lab.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In 1799 he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh, so he nicknamed it \"laughing gas\" and wrote about its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS), and a member of the American Philosophical Society (elected 1810). Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity \"one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall, in the Kingdom of Great Britain on 17 December 1778, the eldest of the five children of Robert Davy, a woodcarver, and his wife Grace Millett. According to his brother and fellow chemist John Davy, their hometown was characterised by \"an almost unbounded credulity respecting the supernatural and monstrous ... Amongst the middle and higher classes, there was little taste for literature, and still less for science ... Hunting, shooting, wrestling, cockfighting, generally ending in drunkenness, were what they most delighted in.\"",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "At the age of six, Davy was sent to the grammar school at Penzance. Three years later, his family moved to Varfell, near Ludgvan, and subsequently, in term-time Davy boarded with John Tonkin, his godfather and later his guardian. Upon Davy's leaving grammar school in 1793, Tonkin paid for him to attend Truro Grammar School to finish his education under the Rev Dr Cardew, who, in a letter to Davies Gilbert, said dryly, \"I could not discern the faculties by which he was afterwards so much distinguished.\" Davy entertained his school friends by writing poetry, composing Valentines, and telling stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Reflecting on his school days in a letter to his mother, Davy wrote, \"Learning naturally is a true pleasure; how unfortunate then it is that in most schools it is made a pain.\" \"I consider it fortunate\", he continued, \"I was left much to myself as a child, and put upon no particular plan of study ... What I am I made myself.\" His brother said Davy possessed a \"native vigour\" and \"the genuine quality of genius, or of that power of intellect which exalts its possessor above the crowd.\"",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "After Davy's father died in 1794, Tonkin apprenticed him to John Bingham Borlase, a surgeon with a practice in Penzance. While becoming a chemist in the apothecary's dispensary, he began conducting his earliest experiments at home, much to the annoyance of his friends and family. His older sister, for instance, complained his corrosive substances were destroying her dresses, and at least one friend thought it likely the \"incorrigible\" Davy would eventually \"blow us all into the air.\"",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1797, after he learnt French from a refuge priest, Davy read Lavoisier's Traité élémentaire de chimie. This exposure influenced much of his future work, which can be seen as reaction against Lavoisier's work and the dominance of French chemists.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "As a poet, over one hundred and sixty manuscript poems were written by Davy, the majority of which are found in his personal notebooks. Most of his written poems were not published, and he chose instead to share a few of them with his friends. Eight of his known poems were published. His poems reflected his views on both his career and also his perception of certain aspects of human life. He wrote on human endeavours and aspects of life like death, metaphysics, geology, natural theology and chemistry.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "John Ayrton Paris remarked that poems written by the young Davy \"bear the stamp of lofty genius\". Davy's first preserved poem entitled \"The Sons of Genius\" is dated 1795 and marked by the usual immaturity of youth. Other poems written in the following years, especially \"On the Mount's Bay\" and \"St Michael's Mount\", are descriptive verses.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Three of Davy's paintings from around 1796 have been donated to the Penlee House museum at Penzance. One is of the view from above Gulval showing the church, Mount's Bay and the Mount, while the other two depict Loch Lomond in Scotland.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "At 17, he discussed the question of the materiality of heat with his Quaker friend and mentor Robert Dunkin. Dunkin remarked: 'I tell thee what, Humphry, thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life.' One winter day he took Davy to the Larigan River, To show him that rubbing two plates of ice together developed sufficient energy by motion to melt them, and that after the motion was suspended, the pieces were united by regelation. It was a crude form of analogous experiment exhibited by Davy in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution that elicited considerable attention. As professor at the Royal Institution, Davy repeated many of the ingenious experiments he learnt from Dunkin.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Although he initially started writing his poems, albeit haphazardly, as a reflection of his views on his career and on life generally, most of his final poems concentrated on immortality and death. This was after he started experiencing failing health and a decline both in health and career.",
"title": "Early life: 1778–1798"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Davies Giddy met Davy in Penzance carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr Borlase's house, and interested by his talk invited him to his house at Tredrea and offered him the use of his library. This led to his introduction to Dr Edwards, who lived at Hayle Copper House. Edwards was a lecturer in chemistry in the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He permitted Davy to use his laboratory and possibly directed his attention to the floodgates of the port of Hayle, which were rapidly decaying as a result of the contact between copper and iron under the influence of seawater. Galvanic corrosion was not understood at that time, but the phenomenon prepared Davy's mind for subsequent experiments on ships' copper sheathing. Gregory Watt, son of James Watt, visited Penzance for his health's sake, and while lodging at the Davys' house became a friend and gave him instructions in chemistry. Davy was acquainted with the Wedgwood family, who spent a winter at Penzance.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Thomas Beddoes and John Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy on the rival merits of the Plutonian and Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert and made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had established at Bristol a 'Pneumatic Institution,' needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Gilbert recommended Davy, and in 1798 Gregory Watt showed Beddoes the Young man's Researches on Heat and Light, which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of West-Country Contributions. After prolonged negotiations, mainly by Gilbert, Mrs Davy and Borlase consented to Davy's departure, but Tonkin wished him to remain in his native town as a surgeon, and altered his will when he found that Davy insisted on going to Dr Beddoes.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1802, Humphry Davy had what was then the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution. With it, Davy created the first incandescent light by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was neither sufficiently bright nor long lasting enough to be of practical use, but demonstrated the principle. By 1806 he was able to demonstrate a much more powerful form of electric lighting to the Royal Society in London. It was an early form of arc light which produced its illumination from an electric arc created between two charcoal rods.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "On 2 October 1798, Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. It had been established to investigate the medical powers of factitious airs and gases (gases produced experimentally or artificially), and Davy was to superintend the various experiments. The arrangement agreed between Dr Beddoes and Davy was generous, and enabled Davy to give up all claims on his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the medical profession and was determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh, but he soon began to fill parts of the institution with voltaic batteries. While living in Bristol, Davy met the Earl of Durham, who was a resident in the institution for his health, and became close friends with Gregory Watt, James Watt, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, all of whom became regular users of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by the natural philosopher and chemist Joseph Priestley, who called it dephlogisticated nitrous air (see phlogiston). Priestley described his discovery in the book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), in which he described how to produce the preparation of \"nitrous air diminished\", by heating iron filings dampened with nitric acid.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide. At one point the gas was combined with wine to judge its efficacy as a cure for hangover (his laboratory notebook indicated success). The gas was popular among Davy's friends and acquaintances, and he noted that it might be useful for performing surgical operations. Anesthetics were not regularly used in medicine or dentistry until decades after Davy's death.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Davy threw himself energetically into the work of the laboratory and formed a long romantic friendship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, the novelist Maria Edgeworth's sister, who acted as his guide on walks and other fine sights of the locality. The critic Maurice Hindle was the first to reveal that Davy and Anna had written poems for each other. Wahida Amin has transcribed and discussed a number of poems written between 1803 and 1808 to \"Anna\" and one to her infant child. In December 1799 Davy visited London for the first time and extended his circle of friends. Davy features in the diary of William Godwin, with their first meeting recorded for 4 December 1799.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the gas experiments Davy ran considerable risks. His respiration of nitric oxide which may have combined with air in the mouth to form nitric acid (HNO3), severely injured the mucous membrane, and in Davy's attempt to inhale four quarts of \"pure hydrocarbonate\" gas in an experiment with carbon monoxide he \"seemed sinking into annihilation.\" On being removed into the open air, Davy faintly articulated, \"I do not think I shall die,\" but some hours elapsed before the painful symptoms ceased. Davy was able to take his own pulse as he staggered out of the laboratory and into the garden, and he described it in his notes as \"threadlike and beating with excessive quickness\".",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In this year the first volume of the West-Country Collections was issued. Half consisted of Davy's essays On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light, On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations, and on the Theory of Respiration. On 22 February 1799 Davy, wrote to Davies Gilbert, \"I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of caloric as I am of the existence of light.\" In another letter to Gilbert, on 10 April, Davy informs him: \"I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure.\" He said that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it \"absolutely intoxicated me.\" Davy became increasingly well known in 1799 due to his experiments with the physiological action of some gases, including laughing gas (nitrous oxide). In addition to himself, his enthusiastic experimental subjects included his poet friends Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "During 1799, Beddoes and Davy published Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the west of England and Essays on heat, light, and the combinations of light, with a new theory of respiration. On the generation of oxygen gas, and the causes of the colors of organic beings. Their experimental work was poor, and the publications were harshly criticised. In after years Davy regretted he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he subsequently designated \"the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth.\"",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "These criticisms, however, led Davy to refine and improve his experimental techniques, spending his later time at the institution increasingly in experimentation. In 1800, Davy informed Gilbert that he had been \"repeating the galvanic experiments with success\" in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which \"almost incessantly occupied him from January to April.\" In 1800, Davy published his Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration, and received a more positive response.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved to the Lake District in 1800, and asked Davy to deal with the Bristol publishers of the Lyrical Ballads, Biggs & Cottle. Coleridge asked Davy to proofread the second edition, the first to contain Wordsworth's \"Preface to the Lyrical Ballads\", in a letter dated 16 July 1800: \"Will you be so kind as just to look over the sheets of the lyrical Ballads\". Wordsworth subsequently wrote to Davy on 29 July 1800, sending him the first manuscript sheet of poems and asking him specifically to correct: \"any thing you find amiss in the punctuation a business at which I am ashamed to say I am no adept\". Wordsworth was ill in the autumn of 1800 and slow in sending poems for the second edition; the volume appeared on 26 January 1801 even though it was dated 1800. While it is impossible to know whether Davy was at fault, this edition of the Lyrical Ballads contained many errors, including the poem \"Michael\" being left incomplete. In a personal notebook marked on the front cover \"Clifton 1800 From August to Novr\", Davy wrote his own Lyrical Ballad: \"As I was walking up the street\". Wordsworth features in Davy's poem as the recorder of ordinary lives in the line: \"By poet Wordsworths Rymes\" [sic].",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1799, Count Rumford had proposed the establishment in London of an 'Institution for Diffusing Knowledge', i.e. the Royal Institution. The house in Albemarle Street was bought in April 1799. Rumford became secretary to the institution, and Dr Thomas Garnett was the first lecturer.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In February 1801 Davy was interviewed by the committee of the Royal Institution, comprising Joseph Banks, Benjamin Thompson (who had been appointed Count Rumford) and Henry Cavendish. Davy wrote to Davies Gilbert on 8 March 1801 about the offers made by Banks and Thompson, a possible move to London and the promise of funding for his work in galvanism. He also mentioned that he might not be collaborating further with Beddoes on therapeutic gases. The next day Davy left Bristol to take up his new post at the Royal Institution, it having been resolved 'that Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of assistant lecturer in chemistry, director of the chemical laboratory, and assistant editor of the journals of the institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of 100l. per annum.'",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "On 25 April 1801, Davy gave his first lecture on the relatively new subject of 'Galvanism'. He and his friend Coleridge had had many conversations about the nature of human knowledge and progress, and Davy's lectures gave his audience a vision of human civilisation brought forward by scientific discovery. \"It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments.\" The first lecture garnered rave reviews, and by the June lecture Davy wrote to John King that his last lecture had attendance of nearly 500 people. \"There was Respiration, Nitrous Oxide, and unbounded Applause. Amen!\" Davy revelled in his public status.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Davy's lectures included spectacular and sometimes dangerous chemical demonstrations along with scientific information, and were presented with considerable showmanship by the young and handsome man. Davy also included both poetic and religious commentary in his lectures, emphasizing that God's design was revealed by chemical investigations. Religious commentary was in part an attempt to appeal to women in his audiences. Davy, like many of his enlightenment contemporaries, supported female education and women's involvement in scientific pursuits, even proposing that women be admitted to evening events at the Royal Society. Davy acquired a large female following around London. In a satirical cartoon by Gillray, nearly half of the attendees pictured are female. His support of women caused Davy to be subjected to considerable gossip and innuendo, and to be criticised as unmanly.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "When Davy's lecture series on Galvanism ended, he progressed to a new series on Agricultural Chemistry, and his popularity continued to skyrocket. By June 1802, after just over a year at the Institution and at the age of 23, Davy was nominated to full lecturer at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Garnett quietly resigned, citing health reasons.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In November 1804 Davy became a Fellow of the Royal Society, over which he would later preside. He was one of the founding members of the Geological Society in 1807 and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1810 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822.",
"title": "Early career: 1798–1802"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In June 1802 Davy published in the first issue of the Journals of the Royal Institution of Great Britain his An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of Making Profiles, by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, Esq. With Observations by H. Davy in which he described their experiments with the photosensitivity of silver nitrate.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "He recorded that \"images of small objects, produced by means of the solar microscope, may be copied without difficulty on prepared paper.\" Josef Maria Eder, in his History of Photography, though crediting Wedgwood, because of his application of this quality of silver nitrate to the making of images, as \"the first photographer in the world,\" proposes that it was Davy who realised the idea of photographic enlargement using a solar microscope to project images onto sensitised paper. Neither found a means of fixing their images, and Davy devoted no more of his time to furthering these early discoveries in photography.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The principle of image projection using solar illumination was applied to the construction of the earliest form of photographic enlarger, the \"solar camera\".",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Davy was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis using the voltaic pile to split common compounds and thus prepare many new elements. He went on to electrolyse molten salts and discovered several new metals, including sodium and potassium, highly reactive elements known as the alkali metals. Davy discovered potassium in 1807, deriving it from caustic potash (KOH). Before the 19th century, no distinction had been made between potassium and sodium. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Davy isolated sodium in the same year by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "During the first half of 1808, Davy conducted a series of further electrolysis experiments on alkaline earths including lime, magnesia, strontites and barytes. At the beginning of June, Davy received a letter from the Swedish chemist Berzelius claiming that he, in conjunction with Dr. Pontin, had successfully obtained amalgams of calcium and barium by electrolysing lime and barytes using a mercury cathode. Davy managed to successfully repeat these experiments almost immediately and expanded Berzelius' method to strontites and magnesia. He noted that while these amalgams oxidised in only a few minutes when exposed to air they could be preserved for lengthy periods of time when submerged in naphtha before becoming covered with a white crust. On 30 June 1808 Davy reported to the Royal Society that he had successfully isolated four new metals which he named barium, calcium, strontium and magnium (later changed to magnesium) which were subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions. Although Davy conceded magnium was an \"undoubtedly objectionable\" name he argued the more appropriate name magnesium was already being applied to metallic manganese and wished to avoid creating an equivocal term. The observations gathered from these experiments also led to Davy isolating boron in 1809.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it \"dephlogisticated marine acid\" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Davy showed that the acid of Scheele's substance, called at the time oxymuriatic acid, contained no oxygen. This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. In 1810, chlorine was given its current name by Humphry Davy, who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element. The name chlorine, chosen by Davy for \"one of [the substance's] obvious and characteristic properties – its colour\", comes from the Greek χλωρος (chlōros), meaning green-yellow.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Davy seriously injured himself in a laboratory accident with nitrogen trichloride. French chemist Pierre Louis Dulong had first prepared this compound in 1811, and had lost two fingers and an eye in two separate explosions with it. In a letter to John Children, on 16 November 1812, Davy wrote: \"It must be used with great caution. It is not safe to experiment upon a globule larger than a pin's head. I have been severely wounded by a piece scarcely bigger. My sight, however, I am informed, will not be injured\". Davy's accident induced him to hire Michael Faraday as a co-worker, particularly for assistance with handwriting and record keeping. He had recovered from his injuries by April 1813.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1812, Davy was knighted and gave up his lecturing position at the Royal Institution. He was given the title of Honorary Professor of Chemistry. He gave a farewell lecture to the Institution, and married a wealthy widow, Jane Apreece. (While Davy was generally acknowledged as being faithful to his wife, their relationship was stormy, and in later years he travelled to continental Europe alone.)",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Davy then published his Elements of Chemical Philosophy, part 1, volume 1, though other parts of this title were never completed. He made notes for a second edition, but it was never required. In October 1813, he and his wife, accompanied by Michael Faraday as his scientific assistant (also treated as a valet), travelled to France to collect the second edition of the prix du Galvanisme, a medal that Napoleon Bonaparte had awarded Davy for his electro-chemical work. Faraday noted \"Tis indeed a strange venture at this time, to trust ourselves in a foreign and hostile country, where so little regard is had to protestations of honour, that the slightest suspicion would be sufficient to separate us for ever from England, and perhaps from life\". Davy's party sailed from Plymouth to Morlaix by cartel, where they were searched.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Upon reaching Paris, Davy was a guest of honour at a meeting of the First Class of the Institut de France and met with André-Marie Ampère and other French chemists. It was later reported that Davy's wife had thrown the medal onto the sea, near her Cornish home, \"as it raised bad memories\". The Royal Society of Chemistry has offered over £1,800 for the recovery of the medal.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "While in Paris, Davy attended lectures at the Ecole Polytechnique, including those by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac on a mysterious substance isolated by Bernard Courtois. Davy wrote a paper for the Royal Society on the element, which is now called iodine. This led to a dispute between Davy and Gay-Lussac on who had the priority on the research.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Davy's party did not meet Napoleon in person, but they did visit the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais at the Château de Malmaison. The party left Paris in December 1813, travelling south to Italy. They sojourned in Florence, where using the burning glass of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in a series of experiments conducted with Faraday's assistance, Davy succeeded in using the sun's rays to ignite diamond, proving it is composed of pure carbon.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Davy's party continued to Rome, where he undertook experiments on iodine and chlorine and on the colours used in ancient paintings. This was the first chemical research on the pigments used by artists.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "He also visited Naples and Mount Vesuvius, where he collected samples of crystals. By June 1814, they were in Milan, where they met Alessandro Volta, and then continued north to Geneva. They returned to Italy via Munich and Innsbruck, and when their plans to travel to Greece and Istanbul were abandoned after Napoleon's escape from Elba, they returned to England.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "After the Battle of Waterloo, Davy wrote to Lord Liverpool urging that the French be treated with severity:",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "My Lord, I need not say to Your Lordship that the capitulation of Paris not a treaty; lest everything belonging to the future state of that capital & of France is open to discussion & that France is a conquered country. It is the duty of the allies to give her more restricted boundaries which shall not encroach upon the natural limits of other nations. to weaken her on the side of Italy, Germany & Flanders. To take back from her by contributions the wealth she has acquired by them to suffer her to retain nothing that the republican or imperial armies have stolen: This last duty is demanded no less by policy than justice.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "After his return to England in 1815, Davy began experimenting with lamps that could be used safely in coal mines. The Revd Dr Robert Gray of Bishopwearmouth in Sunderland, founder of the Society for Preventing Accidents in Coalmines, had written to Davy suggesting that he might use his 'extensive stores of chemical knowledge' to address the issue of mining explosions caused by firedamp, or methane mixed with oxygen, which was often ignited by the open flames of the lamps then used by miners. Incidents such as the Felling mine disaster of 1812 near Newcastle, in which 92 men were killed, not only caused great loss of life among miners but also meant that their widows and children had to be supported by the public purse. The Revd Gray and a fellow clergyman also working in a north-east mining area, the Revd John Hodgson of Jarrow, were keen that action should be taken to improve underground lighting and especially the lamps used by miners.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Davy conceived of using an iron gauze to enclose a lamp's flame, and so prevent the methane burning inside the lamp from passing out to the general atmosphere. Although the idea of the safety lamp had already been demonstrated by William Reid Clanny and by the then unknown (but later very famous) engineer George Stephenson, Davy's use of wire gauze to prevent the spread of flame was used by many other inventors in their later designs. George Stephenson's lamp was very popular in the north-east coalfields, and used the same principle of preventing the flame reaching the general atmosphere, but by different means. Unfortunately, although the new design of gauze lamp initially did seem to offer protection, it gave much less light, and quickly deteriorated in the wet conditions of most pits. Rusting of the gauze quickly made the lamp unsafe, and the number of deaths from firedamp explosions rose yet further.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "There was some discussion as to whether Davy had discovered the principles behind his lamp without the help of the work of Smithson Tennant, but it was generally agreed that the work of both men had been independent. Davy refused to patent the lamp, and its invention led to his being awarded the Rumford medal in 1816.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 1815 Davy also suggested that acids were substances that contained replaceable hydrogen ions;– hydrogen that could be partly or totally replaced by reactive metals which are placed above hydrogen in the reactivity series. When acids reacted with metals they formed salts and hydrogen gas. Bases were substances that reacted with acids to form salts and water. These definitions worked well for most of the nineteenth century.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Davy experimented on fragments of the Herculaneum papyri before his departure to Naples in 1818. His early experiments showed hope of success. In his report to the Royal Society Davy writes that: 'When a fragment of a brown MS. in which the layers were strongly adhered, was placed in an atmosphere of chlorine, there was an immediate action, the papyrus smoked and became yellow, and the letters appeared much more distinct; and by the application of heat the layers separated from each other, giving fumes of muriatic acid.'",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The success of the early trials prompted Davy to travel to Naples to conduct further research on the Herculaneum papyri. Accompanied by his wife, they set off on 26 May 1818 to stay in Flanders where Davy was invited by the coal miners to speak. They then traveled to Carniola (now Slovenia) which proved to become 'his favourite Alpine retreat' before finally arriving in Italy. In Italy, they befriended Lord Byron in Rome and then went on to travel to Naples.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Initial experiments were again promising and his work resulted in 'partially unrolling 23 MSS., from which fragments of writing were obtained' but after returning to Naples on 1 December 1819 from a summer in the Alps, Davy complained that 'the Italians at the museum [were] no longer helpful but obstructive'. Davy decided to renounce further work on the papyri because 'the labour, in itself difficult and unpleasant, been made more so, by the conduct of the persons at the head of this department in the Museum'.",
"title": "Mid-career: 1802–1820"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "From 1761 onwards, copper plating had been fitted to the undersides of Royal Navy ships to protect the wood from attack by shipworms. However, the copper bottoms were gradually corroded by exposure to the salt water. Between 1823 and 1825, Davy, assisted by Michael Faraday, attempted to protect the copper by electrochemical means. He attached to the copper sacrificial pieces of zinc or iron , which provided cathodic protection to the host metal. It was discovered, however, that protected copper became foul quickly, i.e. pieces of weed and/or marine creatures became attached to the hull, which had a detrimental effect on the handling of the ship.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Navy Board approached Davy in 1823, asking for help with the corrosion. Davy conducted a number of tests in Portsmouth Dockyard, which led to the Navy Board adopting the use of Davy's \"protectors\". By 1824, it had become apparent that fouling of the copper bottoms was occurring on the majority of protected ships. By the end of 1825, the Admiralty ordered the Navy Board to cease fitting the protectors to sea-going ships, and to remove those that had already been fitted. Davy's scheme was seen as a public failure, despite success of the corrosion protection as such. As Frank A. J. L. James explains, \"[Because] the poisonous salts from [corroding] copper were no longer entering the water, there was nothing to kill the barnacles and the like in the vicinity of a ship. This meant that barnacles [and the like] could now attach themselves to the bottom of a vessel, thus impeding severely its steerage, much to the anger of the captains who wrote to the Admiralty to complain about Davy's protectors.\"",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Elections took place on St Andrew's Day and Davy was elected on 30 November 1820. Although he was unopposed, other candidates had received initial backing. These candidates embodied the factional difficulties that beset Davy's presidency and which eventually defeated him.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Society was in transition from a club for gentlemen interested in natural philosophy, connected with the political and social elite, to an academy representing increasingly specialised sciences. The previous president, Joseph Banks, had held the post for over 40 years and had presided autocratically over what David Philip Miller calls the \"Banksian Learned Empire\", in which natural history was prominent.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Banks had groomed the engineer, author and politician Davies Gilbert to succeed him and preserve the status quo, but Gilbert declined to stand. Fellows who thought royal patronage was important proposed Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (later Leopold I of Belgium), who also withdrew, as did the Whig Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset. Davy was the outstanding scientist but some fellows did not approve of his popularising work at the Royal Institution.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The strongest alternative had been William Hyde Wollaston, who was supported by the \"Cambridge Network\" of outstanding mathematicians such as Charles Babbage and John Herschel, who tried to block Davy. They were aware that Davy supported some modernisation, but thought that he would not sufficiently encourage aspiring young mathematicians, astronomers and geologists, who were beginning to form specialist societies. Davy was only 41, and reformers were fearful of another long presidency.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In his early years Davy was optimistic about reconciling the reformers and the Banksians. In his first speech as president he declared, \"I trust that, with these new societies, we shall always preserve the most amicable relations ... I am sure there is no desire in [the Royal Society] to exert anything like patriarchal authority in relation to these institutions\".",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Davy spent much time juggling the factions but, as his reputation declined in the light of failures such as his research into copper-bottomed ships, he lost popularity and authority. This was compounded by a number of political errors. In 1825 his promotion of the new Zoological Society, of which he was a founding fellow, courted the landed gentry and alienated expert zoologists. He offended the mathematicians and reformers by failing to ensure that Babbage received one of the new Royal Medals (a project of his) or the vacant secretaryship of the Society in 1826. In November 1826 the mathematician Edward Ryan recorded that: \"The Society, every member almost ... are in the greatest rage at the President's proceedings and nothing is now talked of but removing him.\"",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In the event he was again re-elected unopposed, but he was now visibly unwell. In January 1827 he set off to Italy for reasons of his health. It did not improve and, as the 1827 election loomed, it was clear that he would not stand again. He was succeeded by Davies Gilbert.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In 1818, Davy was awarded a baronetcy. Although Sir Francis Bacon (also later made a peer) and Sir Isaac Newton had already been knighted, this was the first such honour ever conferred on a man of science in Britain. It was followed a year later with the Presidency of the Royal Society.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Davy's laboratory assistant, Michael Faraday, went on to enhance Davy's work and would become the more famous and influential scientist. Davy is supposed to have even claimed Faraday as his greatest discovery. Davy later accused Faraday of plagiarism, however, causing Faraday (the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry) to cease all research in electromagnetism until his mentor's death.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "According to one of Davy's biographers, June Z. Fullmer, he was a deist.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Of a sanguine, somewhat irritable temperament, Davy displayed characteristic enthusiasm and energy in all his pursuits. As is shown by his verses and sometimes by his prose, his mind was highly imaginative; the poet Coleridge declared that if he \"had not been the first chemist, he would have been the first poet of his age\", and Southey said that \"he had all the elements of a poet; he only wanted the art.\" In spite of his ungainly exterior and peculiar manner, his happy gifts of exposition and illustration won him extraordinary popularity as a lecturer, his experiments were ingenious and rapidly performed, and Coleridge went to hear him \"to increase his stock of metaphors.\" The dominating ambition of his life was to achieve fame; occasional petty jealousy did not diminish his concern for the \"cause of humanity\", to use a phrase often employed by him in connection with his invention of the miners' lamp. Careless about etiquette, his frankness sometimes exposed him to annoyances he might have avoided by the exercise of tact.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In 1826 he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. He spent the last months of his life writing Consolations in Travel, an immensely popular, somewhat freeform compendium of poetry, thoughts on science and philosophy. Published posthumously, the work became a staple of both scientific and family libraries for several decades afterward. Davy spent the winter in Rome, hunting in the Campagna on his fiftieth birthday. But on 20 February 1829 he had another stroke. After spending many months attempting to recuperate, Davy died in a room at L'Hotel de la Couronne, in the Rue du Rhone, in Geneva, Switzerland, on 29 May 1829. He had wished to be buried where he died, but had also wanted the burial delayed in case he was only comatose. He refused to allow a post-mortem for similar reasons. But the laws of Geneva did not allow any delay and he was given a public funeral on the following Monday, 1 June, in the Plainpalais Cemetery, outside the city walls.",
"title": "Later life: 1820–1829"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "See Fullmer's work for a full list of Davy's articles.",
"title": "Publications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Humphry Davy's books are as follows:",
"title": "Publications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Davy also contributed articles on chemistry to Rees's Cyclopædia, but the topics are not known.",
"title": "Publications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "His collected works were published in 1839–1840:",
"title": "Publications"
}
]
| Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited to have been the first to discover clathrate hydrates in his lab. In 1799 he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh, so he nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery. Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS), and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry." | 2001-08-17T10:11:19Z | 2023-12-11T19:32:02Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Davy |
14,372 | Hecate | Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, night, light, magic, protection from witchcraft, the Moon, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, graves, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery. Her earliest appearance in literature was in Hesiod's Theogony in the 8th century BCE as a goddess of great honour with domains in sky, earth, and sea. Her place of origin is debated by scholars, but she had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly and an important sanctuary among the Carian Greeks of Asia Minor in Lagina. Her oldest known representation was found in Selinunte, in Sicily.
Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos (household), alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo. In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE) she was also regarded with (some) rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Savior (Soteira), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul. Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition."
The Romans often knew her by the epithet of Trivia, an epithet she shares with Diana, each in their roles as protector of travel and of the crossroads (trivia, "three ways"). Hecate was closely identified with Diana/Artemis in the Roman era.
The origin of the name Hecate (Ἑκάτη, Hekátē) and the original country of her worship are both unknown, though several theories have been proposed.
Whether or not Hecate's worship originated in Greece, some scholars have suggested that the name derives from a Greek root, and several potential source words have been identified. For example, ἑκών "willing" (thus, "she who works her will" or similar), may be related to the name Hecate. However, no sources suggested list will or willingness as a major attribute of Hecate, which makes this possibility unlikely. Another Greek word suggested as the origin of the name Hecate is Ἑκατός Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as "the far reaching one" or "the far-darter". This has been suggested in comparison with the attributes of the goddess Artemis, strongly associated with Apollo and frequently equated with Hecate in the classical world. Supporters of this etymology suggest that Hecate was originally considered an aspect of Artemis prior to the latter's adoption into the Olympian pantheon. Artemis would have, at that point, become more strongly associated with purity and maidenhood, on the one hand, while her originally darker attributes like her association with magic, the souls of the dead, and the night would have continued to be worshipped separately under her title Hecate. Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, the Ἑκατός theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult.
R. S. P. Beekes rejected a Greek etymology and suggested a Pre-Greek origin.
A possible theory of a foreign origin for the name may be Heqet (ḥqt), a frog-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, like Hecate, was also associated with ḥqꜣ, ruler. The word "heka" in the Egyptian language is also both the word for "magic" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka.
Hecate possibly originated among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus, are attested, and where Hecate remained a Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina. While many researchers favour the idea that she has Anatolian origins, it has been argued that "Hecate must have been a Greek goddess." The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous but of late date.
William Berg observes, "Since children are not called after spooks, it is safe to assume that Carian theophoric names involving hekat- refer to a major deity free from the dark and unsavoury ties to the underworld and to witchcraft associated with the Hecate of classical Athens." In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses (see also Arinna) based on similar attributes.
If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, then it possibly presented a conflict, as her role was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene. This line of reasoning lies behind the widely accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity who was incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony, the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage or of her relations in the Greek pantheon.
In Early Modern English, the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as /ˈhɛk.ɪt/) and sometimes spelled Hecat. It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century.
The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.
Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of the goddess are singular. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens. An inscription on the statue is a dedication to Hecate, in writing of the style of the 6th century, but it otherwise lacks any other symbols typically associated with the goddess. She is seated on a throne, with a chaplet around her head; the depiction is otherwise relatively generic. Farnell states: "The evidence of the monuments as to the character and significance of Hecate is almost as full as that of to express her manifold and mystic nature." A 6th century fragment of pottery from Boetia depicts a goddess which may be Hecate in a maternal or fertility mode. Crowned with leafy branches as in later descriptions, she is depicted offering a "maternal blessing" to two maidens who embrace her. The figure is flanked by lions, an animal associated with Hecate both in the Chaldean Oracles, coinage, and reliefs from Asia Minor. In artwork, she is often portrayed in three statues standing back to back, each with its own special attributes (torch, keys, daggers, snakes, dogs).
The 2nd-century travel writer Pausanias stated that Hecate was first depicted in triplicate by the sculptor Alcamenes in the Greek Classical period of the late 5th century BCE, whose sculpture was placed before the temple of the Wingless Nike in Athens. Though Alcamenes' original statue is lost, hundreds of copies exist, and the general motif of a triple Hecate situated around a central pole or column, known as a hekataion, was used both at crossroads shrines as well as at the entrances to temples and private homes. These typically depict her holding a variety of items, including torches, keys, serpents, and daggers. Some hekataia, including a votive sculpture from Attica of the 3rd century BCE, include additional dancing figures identified as the Charites circling the triple Hecate and her central column. It is possible that the representation of a triple Hecate surrounding a central pillar was originally derived from poles set up at three-way crossroads with masks hung on them, facing in each road direction. In the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote: "Look at Hecate, standing guard at the crossroads, one face looking in each direction."
Apart from traditional hekataia, Hecate's triplicity is depicted in the vast frieze of the great Pergamon Altar, now in Berlin, wherein she is shown with three bodies, taking part in the battle with the Titans. In the Argolid, near the shrine of the Dioscuri, Pausanias saw the temple of Hecate opposite the sanctuary of Eileithyia; He reported the image to be the work of Scopas, stating further, "This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon."
While Greek anthropomorphic conventions of art generally represented Hecate's triple form as three separate bodies, the iconography of the triple Hecate eventually evolved into representations of the goddess with a single body, but three faces. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar.
The east frieze of a Hellenistic temple of hers at Lagina shows her helping protect the newborn Zeus from his father Cronus; this frieze is the only evidence of Hecate's involvement in the myth of his birth.
Dogs were closely associated with Hecate in the Classical world. "In art and in literature Hecate is constantly represented as dog-shaped or as accompanied by a dog. Her approach was heralded by the howling of a dog. The dog was Hecate's regular sacrificial animal, and was often eaten in solemn sacrament." The sacrifice of dogs to Hecate is attested for Thrace, Samothrace, Colophon, and Athens. A 4th century BCE marble relief from Crannon in Thessaly was dedicated by a race-horse owner. It shows Hecate, with a hound beside her, placing a wreath on the head of a mare. It has been claimed that her association with dogs is "suggestive of her connection with birth, for the dog was sacred to Eileithyia, Genetyllis, and other birth goddesses. Images of her attended by a dog are also found at times when she is shown as in her role as mother goddess with child, and when she is depicted alongside the god Hermes and the goddess Cybele in reliefs.
Although in later times Hecate's dog came to be thought of as a manifestation of restless souls or daemons who accompanied her, its docile appearance and its accompaniment of a Hecate who looks completely friendly in many pieces of ancient art suggests that its original signification was positive and thus likelier to have arisen from the dog's connection with birth than the dog's underworld associations." The association with dogs, particularly female dogs, could be explained by a metamorphosis myth in Lycophron: the friendly looking female dog accompanying Hecate was originally the Trojan Queen Hecuba, who leapt into the sea after the fall of Troy and was transformed by Hecate into her familiar.
The polecat is also associated with Hecate. Antoninus Liberalis used a myth to explain this association:
Aelian told a different story of a woman transformed into a polecat:
Athenaeus of Naucratis, drawing on the etymological speculation of Apollodorus of Athens, notes that the red mullet is sacred to Hecate, "on account of the resemblance of their names; for that the goddess is trimorphos, of a triple form". The Greek word for mullet was trigle and later trigla. He goes on to quote a fragment of verse:
In relation to Greek concepts of pollution, Parker observes,
At Athens, it is said there stood a statue of Hecate Triglathena, to whom the red mullet was offered in sacrifice. After mentioning that this fish was sacred to Hecate, Alan Davidson writes,
In her three-headed representations, discussed above, Hecate often has one or more animal heads, including cow, dog, boar, serpent, and horse. Lions are associated with Hecate in early artwork from Asia Minor, as well as later coins and literature, including the Chaldean Oracles. The frog, which was also the symbol of the similarly named Egyptian goddess Heqet, has also become sacred to Hecate in modern pagan literature, possibly due in part to its ability to cross between two elements.
Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe cited that Hecate was also named ίππεύτρια (hippeutria – 'the equestrienne'), since the horse was "the chthonic animal par excellence".
Hecate was closely associated with plant lore and the concoction of medicines and poisons. In particular she was thought to give instruction in these closely related arts. Apollonius of Rhodes, in the Argonautica mentions that Medea was taught by Hecate, "I have mentioned to you before a certain young girl whom Hecate, daughter of Perses, has taught to work in drugs."
The goddess is described as wearing oak in fragments of Sophocles' lost play The Root Diggers (or The Root Cutters), and an ancient commentary on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (3.1214) describes her as having a head surrounded by serpents, twining through branches of oak.
The yew in particular was sacred to Hecate.
Greeks held the yew to be sacred to Hecate... Her attendants draped wreathes of yew around the necks of black bulls which they slaughtered in her honor and yew boughs were burned on funeral pyres. The yew was associated with the alphabet and the scientific name for yew today, taxus, was probably derived from the Greek word for yew, toxos, which is hauntingly similar to toxon, their word for bow and toxicon, their word for poison. It is presumed that the latter were named after the tree because of its superiority for both bows and poison.
Hecate was said to favour offerings of garlic, which was closely associated with her cult. She is also sometimes associated with cypress, a tree symbolic of death and the underworld, and hence sacred to a number of chthonic deities.
A number of other plants (often poisonous, medicinal and/or psychoactive) are associated with Hecate. These include aconite (also called hecateis), belladonna, dittany, and mandrake. It has been suggested that the use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the 1st century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic.
Hecate was associated with borders, city walls, doorways, crossroads and, by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living. She appears to have been particularly associated with being 'between' and hence is frequently characterized as a "liminal" goddess. "Hecate mediated between regimes—Olympian and Titan—but also between mortal and divine spheres." This liminal role is reflected in a number of her cult titles: Apotropaia (that turns away/protects); Enodia (on the way); Propulaia/Propylaia (before the gate); Triodia/Trioditis (who frequents crossroads); Klêidouchos (holding the keys), etc.
As a goddess expected to avert harmful or destructive spirits from the house or city over which she stood guard and to protect the individual as she or he passed through dangerous liminal places, Hecate would naturally become known as a goddess who could also refuse to avert the demons, or even drive them on against unfortunate individuals.
It was probably her role as guardian of entrances that led to Hecate's identification by the mid fifth century with Enodia, a Thessalian goddess. Enodia's very name ("In-the-Road") suggests that she watched over entrances, for it expresses both the possibility that she stood on the main road into a city, keeping an eye on all who entered, and in the road in front of private houses, protecting their inhabitants.
This function would appear to have some relationship with the iconographic association of Hecate with keys, and might also relate to her appearance with two torches, which when positioned on either side of a gate or door illuminated the immediate area and allowed visitors to be identified. "In Byzantium small temples in her honour were placed close to the gates of the city. Hecate's importance to Byzantium was above all as a deity of protection. When Philip of Macedon was about to attack the city, according to the legend she alerted the townspeople with her ever present torches, and with her pack of dogs, which served as her constant companions." This suggests that Hecate's close association with dogs derived in part from the use of watchdogs, who, particularly at night, raised an alarm when intruders approached. Watchdogs were used extensively by Greeks and Romans.
Cult images and altars of Hecate in her triplicate or trimorphic form were placed at three-way crossroads (though they also appeared before private homes and in front of city gates). In what appears to be a 7th-century indication of the survival of cult practices of this general sort, Saint Eligius, in his Sermo warns the sick among his recently converted flock in Flanders against putting "devilish charms at springs or trees or crossroads", and, according to Saint Ouen would urge them "No Christian should make or render any devotion to the deities of the trivium, where three roads meet...".
Thanks to her association with boundaries and the liminal spaces between worlds, Hecate is also recognized as a chthonic (underworld) goddess. As the holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms, she can unlock the gates of death, as described in a 3rd-century BCE poem by Theocritus. In the 1st century CE, Virgil described the entrance to hell as "Hecate's Grove", though he says that Hecate is equally "powerful in Heaven and Hell." The Greek Magical Papyri describe Hecate as the holder of the keys to Tartaros. Like Hermes, Hecate takes on the role of guardian not just of roads, but of all journeys, including the journey to the afterlife. In art and myth, she is shown, along with Hermes, guiding Persephone back from the underworld with her torches.
By the 5th century BCE, Hecate had come to be strongly associated with ghosts, possibly due to conflation with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (meaning "traveller"), who travelled the earth with a retinue of ghosts and was depicted on coinage wearing a leafy crown and holding torches, iconography strongly associated with Hecate.
By the 1st century CE, Hecate's chthonic and nocturnal character had led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery. In Lucan's Pharsalia, the witch Erichtho invokes Hecate as "Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of Hecate, the goddess we witches revere", and describes her as a "rotting goddess" with a "pallid decaying body", who has to "wear a mask when [she] visit[s] the gods in heaven."
Like Hecate, "the dog is a creature of the threshold, the guardian of doors and portals, and so it is appropriately associated with the frontier between life and death, and with demons and ghosts which move across the frontier. The yawning gates of Hades were guarded by the monstrous watchdog Cerberus, whose function was to prevent the living from entering the underworld, and the dead from leaving it."
Hecate was seen as a triple deity, identified with the goddesses Luna (Moon) in the sky and Diana (hunting) on the earth, while she represents the Underworld. Hecate's association with Helios in literary sources and especially in cursing magic has been cited as evidence for her lunar nature, although this evidence is pretty late; no artwork before the Roman period connecting Hecate to the Moon exists. Nevertheless, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter shows Helios and Hecate informing Demeter of Persephone's abduction, a common theme found in many parts of the world where the Sun and the Moon are questioned concerning events that happen on earth based on their ability to witness everything and implies Hecate's capacity as a moon goddess in the hymn. Another work connecting Hecate to Helios possibly as a moon goddess is Sophocles' lost play The Root Cutters, where Helios is described as Hecate's spear:
O Sun our lord and sacred fire, the spear of Hecate of the roads, which she carries as she attends her mistress in the sky
This speech from the Root Cutters may or may not be an intentional association of Hecate with the Moon. In Seneca's Medea, the titular Medea invokes her patron Hecate whom she addresses as "Moon, orb of the night" and "triple form". Hecate and the moon goddess Selene were frequently identified with each other and a number of Greek and non-Greek deities; the Greek Magical Papyri and other magical texts emphasize a syncretism between Selene-Hecate with Artemis and Persephone among others. In Italy, the triple unity of the lunar goddesses Diana (the huntress), Luna (the Moon) and Hecate (the underworld) became a ubiquitous feature in depictions of sacred groves, where Hecate/Trivia marked intersections and crossroads along with other liminal deities. The Romans celebrated enthusiastically the multiple identities of Diana as Hecate, Luna and Trivia.
From her father Perses, Hecate is often called “Perseis” (meaning “daughter of Perses”) which is also the name of one of the Oceanid nymphs, Helios’ wife and Circe’s mother in other versions. In one version of Hecate's parentage, she is the daughter of Perses not the son of Crius but the son of Helios, whose mother is the Oceanid Perse. Karl Kerenyi noted the similarity between the names, perhaps denoting a chthonic connection among the two and the goddess Persephone; it is possible that this epithet gives evidence of a lunar aspect of Hecate. Fowler also noted that the pairing (i. e. Helios and Perse) made sense given Hecate’s association with the Moon. Mooney however notes that when it comes to the nymph Perse herself, there's no evidence of her actually being a moon goddess on her own right.
Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity. Shrines to Hecate were often placed at doorways to homes, temples, and cities with the belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits. Home shrines often took the form of a small Hekataion, a shrine centred on a wood or stone carving of a triple Hecate facing in three directions on three sides of a central pillar. Larger Hekataions, often enclosed within small walled areas, were sometimes placed at public crossroads near important sites – for example, there was one on the road leading to the Acropolis. Likewise, shrines to Hecate at three way crossroads were created where food offerings were left at the new Moon to protect those who did so from spirits and other evils. In Zerynthus there was a cave dedicated to Hecate.
Dogs were sacred to Hecate and associated with roads, domestic spaces, purification, and spirits of the dead. Dogs were also sacrificed to the road. This can be compared to Pausanias' report that in the Ionian city of Colophon in Asia Minor a sacrifice of a black female puppy was made to Hecate as "the wayside goddess", and Plutarch's observation that in Boeotia dogs were killed in purificatory rites. Dogs, with puppies often mentioned, were offered to Hecate at crossroads, which were sacred to the goddess.
The earliest definitive record of Hecate's worship dates to the 6th century BCE, in the form of a small terracotta statue of a seated goddess, identified as Hecate in its inscription. This and other early depictions of Hecate lack distinctive attributes that would later be associated with her, such as a triple form or torches, and can only be identified as Hecate thanks to their inscriptions. Otherwise, they are typically generic, or Artemis-like.
Hecate's cult became established in Athens about 430 BCE. At this time, the sculptor Alcamenes made the earliest known triple-formed Hecate statue for use at her new temple. While this sculpture has not survived to the present day, numerous later copies are extant. It has been speculated that this triple image, usually situated around a pole or pillar, was derived from earlier representations of the goddess using three masks hung on actual wooden poles, possibly placed at crossroads and gateways.
Hecate was a popular divinity, and her cult was practiced with many local variations all over Greece and Western Anatolia. Caria was a major center of worship and her most famous temple there was located in the town of Lagina. The oldest known direct evidence of Hecate's cult comes from Selinunte (near modern-day Trapani in Sicily), where she had a temple in the 6th–5th centuries BCE. There was a Temple of Hecate in Argolis:
Over against the sanctuary of Eileithyia is a temple of Hecate [the goddess probably here identified with the apotheosed Iphigenia, and the image is a work of Skopas. This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polykleitos and his brother Naukydes.
There was also a shrine to Hecate in Aigina, where she was very popular:
Of the gods, the Aiginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honour every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thrakian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has one face and one body. It was Alkamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hecate attached to one another [in Athens].
Aside from her own temples, Hecate was also worshipped in the sanctuaries of other gods, where she was apparently sometimes given her own space. A round stone altar dedicated to the goddess was found in the Delphinion (a temple dedicated to Apollo) at Miletus. Dated to the 7th century BCE, this is one of the oldest known artefacts dedicated to the worship of Hecate. In association with her worship alongside Apollo at Miletus, worshipers used a unique form of offering: they would place stone cubes, often wreathes, known as γυλλοι (gylloi) as protective offerings at the door or gateway. There was an area sacred to Hecate in the precincts of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, where the priests, megabyzi, officiated. This sanctuary was called Hecatesion (Shrine of Hecate). Hecate was also worshipped in the Temple of Athena in Titane: "In Titane there is also a sanctuary of Athena, into which they bring up the image of Koronis [mother of Asklepios] ... The sanctuary is built upon a hill, at the bottom of which is an Altar of the Winds, and on it the priest sacrifices to the winds one night in every year. He also performs other secret rites [of Hecate] at four pits, taming the fierceness of the blasts [of the winds], and he is said to chant as well the charms of Medea." She was most commonly worshipped in nature, where she had many natural sanctuaries. An important sanctuary of Hecate was a holy cave on the island of Samothrake called Zerynthos:
In Samothrake there were certain initiation-rites, which they supposed efficacious as a charm against certain dangers. In that place were also the mysteries of the Korybantes [Kabeiroi] and those of Hekate and the Zerinthian cave, where they sacrificed dogs. The initiates supposed that these things save [them] from terrors and from storms.
Hecate's most important sanctuary was Lagina, a theocratic city-state in which the goddess was served by eunuchs.
The temple is mentioned by Strabo:
Stratonikeia [in Karia, Asia Minor] is a settlement of Makedonians ... There are two temples in the country of the Stratonikeians, of which the most famous, that of Hecate, is at Lagina; and it draws great festal assemblies every year.
Lagina, where the famous temple of Hecate drew great festal assemblies every year, lay close to the originally Macedonian colony of Stratonikeia, where she was the city's patron. In Thrace she played a role similar to that of lesser-Hermes, namely a ruler of liminal regions, particularly gates, and the wilderness.
Hecate was greatly worshipped in Byzantium. She was said to have saved the city from Philip II of Macedon, warning the citizens of a night time attack by a light in the sky, for which she was known as Hecate Lampadephoros. The tale is preserved in the Suda.
As Hecate Phosphorus (the 'star' Venus) she is said to have lit the sky during the Siege of Philip II in 340 BCE, revealing the attack to its inhabitants. The Byzantines dedicated a statue to her as the "lamp carrier". According to Hesychius of Miletus there was once a statue of Hecate at the site of the Hippodrome in Constantinople.
Hecate's island (Ἑκάτης νήσου) also called Psamite (Ψαμίτη), was an islet in the vicinity of Delos. It was called Psamite, because Hecate was honoured with a cake, which was called psamiton (ψάμιτον). The island is the modern Megalos (Great) Reumatiaris.
The Athenian Greeks honoured Hecate during the Deipnon. In Greek, deipnon means the evening meal, usually the largest meal of the day. Hecate's Deipnon is, at its most basic, a meal served to Hecate and the restless dead once a lunar month during the Dark Moon. On the night of the dark moon, a meal would be set outside, in a small shrine to Hecate by the front door; as the street in front of the house and the doorway create a crossroads, known to be a place Hecate dwelled. Food offerings might include cake or bread, fish, eggs and honey. The Deipnon is always followed the next day by the Noumenia, when the first sliver of the sunlit New Moon is visible, and then the Agathos Daimon the day after that.
The main purpose of the Deipnon was to honour Hecate and to placate the souls in her wake who "longed for vengeance." A secondary purpose was to purify the household and to atone for bad deeds a household member may have committed that offended Hecate, causing her to withhold her favour from them. The Deipnon consists of three main parts: 1) the meal that was set out at a crossroads, usually in a shrine outside the entryway to the home 2) an expiation sacrifice, and 3) purification of the household.
Hecate was known by a number of epithets:
Hecate has been characterized as a pre-Olympian chthonic goddess. The first literature mentioning Hecate is the Theogony (c. 700 BCE) by Hesiod:
And [Asteria] conceived and bore Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honored above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honor also in starry heaven, and is honored exceedingly by the deathless gods. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favor according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Great honor comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favorably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her. For as many as were born of Earth and Ocean amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Cronos did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea.
According to Hesiod, she held sway over many things:
Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents. And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then, albeit her mother's only child, she is honored amongst all the deathless gods. And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honours.
Hesiod's inclusion and praise of Hecate in the Theogony has been troublesome for scholars, in that he seems to hold her in high regard, while the testimony of other writers, and surviving evidence, suggests that this may have been the exception. One theory is that Hesiod's original village had a substantial Hecate following and that his inclusion of her in the Theogony was a way of adding to her prestige by spreading word of her among his readers. Another theory is that Hecate was mainly a household god and humble household worship could have been more pervasive and yet not mentioned as much as temple worship. In Athens, Hecate, along with Zeus, Hermes, Athena, Hestia, and Apollo, were very important in daily life as they were the main gods of the household. However, it is clear that the special position given to Hecate by Zeus is upheld throughout her history by depictions found on coins of Hecate on the hand of Zeus as highlighted in more recent research presented by d'Este and Rankine.
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (composed c. 600 BCE), Hecate is called "tender-hearted", an epithet perhaps intended to emphasize her concern with the disappearance of Persephone, when she assisted Demeter with her search for Persephone following her abduction by Hades, suggesting that Demeter should speak to the god of the Sun, Helios. Subsequently, Hecate became Persephone's companion on her yearly journey to and from the realms of Hades, serving as a psychopomp. Because of this association, Hecate was one of the chief goddesses of the Eleusinian Mysteries, alongside Demeter and Persephone, and there was a temple dedicated to her near the main sanctuary at Eleusis.
Variations in interpretations of Hecate's roles can be traced in classical Athens. In two fragments of Aeschylus she appears as a great goddess. In Sophocles and Euripides she is characterized as the mistress of witchcraft and the Keres.
One surviving group of stories suggests how Hecate might have come to be incorporated into the Greek pantheon without affecting the privileged position of Artemis. Here, Hecate is a mortal priestess often associated with Iphigenia. She scorns and insults Artemis, who in retribution eventually brings about the mortal's suicide.
In the Argonautica, a 3rd-century BCE Alexandrian epic based on early material, Jason placates Hecate in a ritual prescribed by Medea, her priestess: bathed at midnight in a stream of flowing water, and dressed in dark robes, Jason is to dig a round pit and over it cut the throat of a ewe, sacrificing it and then burning it whole on a pyre next to the pit as a holocaust. He is told to sweeten the offering with a libation of honey, then to retreat from the site without looking back, even if he hears the sound of footsteps or barking dogs. All these elements betoken the rites owed to a chthonic deity.
During the Gigantomachy, Hecate fought by the side of the Olympian gods, and slew the giant Clytius using her torches. Hecate is depicted fighting Clytius in the east frieze of the Gigantomachy, in the Pergamon Altar next to Artemis; she appears with a different weapon in each of her three right hands, a torch, a sword and a lance. Her fight with the Giant appears in a number of ancient vase paintings and other artwork.
Hecate is the primary feminine figure in the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE), where she is associated in fragment 194 with a strophalos (usually translated as a spinning top, or wheel, used in magic) "Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate." This appears to refer to a variant of the device mentioned by Psellus.
In Hellenistic syncretism, Hecate also became closely associated with Isis. Lucius Apuleius in The Golden Ass (2nd century) equates Juno, Bellona, Hecate and Isis:
Some call me Juno, others Bellona of the Battles, and still others Hecate. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.
In the syncretism during Late Antiquity of Hellenistic and late Babylonian ("Chaldean") elements, Hecate was identified with Ereshkigal, the underworld counterpart of Inanna in the Babylonian cosmography. In the Michigan magical papyrus (inv. 7), dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century CE, Hecate Erschigal is invoked against fear of punishment in the afterlife. Schwemer believes that this use of Ereshkigal's name merely furnished "the Greek Netherworld goddess with a mysterious-sounding, foreign name".
Hecate is also referenced in the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia.
In the earliest written source mentioning Hecate, Hesiod emphasized that she was an only child, the daughter of Perses and Asteria, the sister of Leto (the mother of Artemis and Apollo). Grandmother of the three cousins was Phoebe the ancient Titan goddess whose name was often used for the moon goddess. In various later accounts, Hecate was given different parents. She was said to be the daughter of Zeus by either Asteria, according to Musaeus, Hera, thus identified with Angelos, or Pheraea, daughter of Aeolus; the daughter of Aristaeus the son of Paion, according to Pherecydes; the daughter of Nyx, according to Bacchylides; the daughter of Perses, the son of Helios, by an unknown mother, according to Diodorus Siculus; while in Orphic literature, she was said to be the daughter of Demeter or Leto or even Tartarus.
As a virgin goddess, she remained unmarried and had no regular consort, though some traditions named her as the mother of Scylla through either Phorbas or Phorcys.
Sometimes she is also stated to be the mother (by Aeëtes) of the goddess Circe and the sorceress Medea, who in later accounts was herself associated with magic while initially just being a herbalist goddess, similar to how Hecate's association with Underworld and Mysteries had her later converted into a deity of witchcraft.
Once, Hermes chased Hecate (or Persephone) with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name "Brimo" ("angry").
Strmiska (2005) claimed that Hecate, conflated with the figure of Diana, appears in late antiquity and in the Early Middle Ages as part of an "emerging legend complex" known as "The Society of Diana" associated with gatherings of women, the Moon, and witchcraft that eventually became established "in the area of Northern Italy, southern Germany, and the western Balkans." This theory of the Roman origins of many European folk traditions related to Diana or Hecate was explicitly advanced at least as early as 1807 and is reflected in etymological claims by early modern lexicographers from the 17th to the 19th century, connecting hag, hexe "witch" to the name of Hecate. Such derivations are today proposed only by a minority A medieval commentator has suggested a link connecting the word "jinx" with Hecate: "The Byzantine polymath Michael Psellus [...] speaks of a bullroarer, consisting of a golden sphere, decorated throughout with symbols and whirled on an oxhide thong. He adds that such an instrument is called a iunx (hence "jinx"), but as for the significance says only that it is ineffable and that the ritual is sacred to Hecate."
Shakespeare mentions Hecate both before the end of the 16th century (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1594–1596), and just after, in Macbeth (1605): specifically, in the title character's "dagger" soliloquy: "Witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's offerings..." Shakespeare mentions Hecate also in King Lear. While disclaiming all his paternal care for Cordelia, Lear says, "The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operations of the orbs From whom we do exist and cease to be, Here I disclaim all my paternal care" (The Arden Shakespeare, King Lear, Page no.165)
In 1929, Lewis Brown, an expert on religious cults, connected the 1920s Blackburn Cult (also known as, "The Cult of the Great Eleven,") with Hecate worship rituals. He noted that the cult regularly practiced dog sacrifice and had secretly buried the body of one of its "queens" with seven dogs. Researcher Samuel Fort noted additional parallels, to include the cult's focus on mystic and typically nocturnal rites, its female dominated membership, the sacrifice of other animals (to include horses and mules), a focus on the mystical properties of roads and portals, and an emphasis on death, healing, and resurrection.
As a "goddess of witchcraft", Hecate has been incorporated in various systems of Neopagan witchcraft, Wicca, and neopaganism, in some cases associated with the Wild Hunt of Germanic tradition, in others as part of a reconstruction of specifically Greek polytheism, in English also known as "Hellenismos". In Wicca, Hecate has in some cases become identified with the "crone" aspect of the "Triple Goddess". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, night, light, magic, protection from witchcraft, the Moon, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, graves, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery. Her earliest appearance in literature was in Hesiod's Theogony in the 8th century BCE as a goddess of great honour with domains in sky, earth, and sea. Her place of origin is debated by scholars, but she had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly and an important sanctuary among the Carian Greeks of Asia Minor in Lagina. Her oldest known representation was found in Selinunte, in Sicily.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos (household), alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo. In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE) she was also regarded with (some) rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Savior (Soteira), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul. Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, \"she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Romans often knew her by the epithet of Trivia, an epithet she shares with Diana, each in their roles as protector of travel and of the crossroads (trivia, \"three ways\"). Hecate was closely identified with Diana/Artemis in the Roman era.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The origin of the name Hecate (Ἑκάτη, Hekátē) and the original country of her worship are both unknown, though several theories have been proposed.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Whether or not Hecate's worship originated in Greece, some scholars have suggested that the name derives from a Greek root, and several potential source words have been identified. For example, ἑκών \"willing\" (thus, \"she who works her will\" or similar), may be related to the name Hecate. However, no sources suggested list will or willingness as a major attribute of Hecate, which makes this possibility unlikely. Another Greek word suggested as the origin of the name Hecate is Ἑκατός Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as \"the far reaching one\" or \"the far-darter\". This has been suggested in comparison with the attributes of the goddess Artemis, strongly associated with Apollo and frequently equated with Hecate in the classical world. Supporters of this etymology suggest that Hecate was originally considered an aspect of Artemis prior to the latter's adoption into the Olympian pantheon. Artemis would have, at that point, become more strongly associated with purity and maidenhood, on the one hand, while her originally darker attributes like her association with magic, the souls of the dead, and the night would have continued to be worshipped separately under her title Hecate. Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, the Ἑκατός theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "R. S. P. Beekes rejected a Greek etymology and suggested a Pre-Greek origin.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A possible theory of a foreign origin for the name may be Heqet (ḥqt), a frog-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, like Hecate, was also associated with ḥqꜣ, ruler. The word \"heka\" in the Egyptian language is also both the word for \"magic\" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Hecate possibly originated among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus, are attested, and where Hecate remained a Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina. While many researchers favour the idea that she has Anatolian origins, it has been argued that \"Hecate must have been a Greek goddess.\" The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous but of late date.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "William Berg observes, \"Since children are not called after spooks, it is safe to assume that Carian theophoric names involving hekat- refer to a major deity free from the dark and unsavoury ties to the underworld and to witchcraft associated with the Hecate of classical Athens.\" In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses (see also Arinna) based on similar attributes.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, then it possibly presented a conflict, as her role was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene. This line of reasoning lies behind the widely accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity who was incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony, the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage or of her relations in the Greek pantheon.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In Early Modern English, the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as /ˈhɛk.ɪt/) and sometimes spelled Hecat. It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of the goddess are singular. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens. An inscription on the statue is a dedication to Hecate, in writing of the style of the 6th century, but it otherwise lacks any other symbols typically associated with the goddess. She is seated on a throne, with a chaplet around her head; the depiction is otherwise relatively generic. Farnell states: \"The evidence of the monuments as to the character and significance of Hecate is almost as full as that of to express her manifold and mystic nature.\" A 6th century fragment of pottery from Boetia depicts a goddess which may be Hecate in a maternal or fertility mode. Crowned with leafy branches as in later descriptions, she is depicted offering a \"maternal blessing\" to two maidens who embrace her. The figure is flanked by lions, an animal associated with Hecate both in the Chaldean Oracles, coinage, and reliefs from Asia Minor. In artwork, she is often portrayed in three statues standing back to back, each with its own special attributes (torch, keys, daggers, snakes, dogs).",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The 2nd-century travel writer Pausanias stated that Hecate was first depicted in triplicate by the sculptor Alcamenes in the Greek Classical period of the late 5th century BCE, whose sculpture was placed before the temple of the Wingless Nike in Athens. Though Alcamenes' original statue is lost, hundreds of copies exist, and the general motif of a triple Hecate situated around a central pole or column, known as a hekataion, was used both at crossroads shrines as well as at the entrances to temples and private homes. These typically depict her holding a variety of items, including torches, keys, serpents, and daggers. Some hekataia, including a votive sculpture from Attica of the 3rd century BCE, include additional dancing figures identified as the Charites circling the triple Hecate and her central column. It is possible that the representation of a triple Hecate surrounding a central pillar was originally derived from poles set up at three-way crossroads with masks hung on them, facing in each road direction. In the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote: \"Look at Hecate, standing guard at the crossroads, one face looking in each direction.\"",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Apart from traditional hekataia, Hecate's triplicity is depicted in the vast frieze of the great Pergamon Altar, now in Berlin, wherein she is shown with three bodies, taking part in the battle with the Titans. In the Argolid, near the shrine of the Dioscuri, Pausanias saw the temple of Hecate opposite the sanctuary of Eileithyia; He reported the image to be the work of Scopas, stating further, \"This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon.\"",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "While Greek anthropomorphic conventions of art generally represented Hecate's triple form as three separate bodies, the iconography of the triple Hecate eventually evolved into representations of the goddess with a single body, but three faces. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The east frieze of a Hellenistic temple of hers at Lagina shows her helping protect the newborn Zeus from his father Cronus; this frieze is the only evidence of Hecate's involvement in the myth of his birth.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Dogs were closely associated with Hecate in the Classical world. \"In art and in literature Hecate is constantly represented as dog-shaped or as accompanied by a dog. Her approach was heralded by the howling of a dog. The dog was Hecate's regular sacrificial animal, and was often eaten in solemn sacrament.\" The sacrifice of dogs to Hecate is attested for Thrace, Samothrace, Colophon, and Athens. A 4th century BCE marble relief from Crannon in Thessaly was dedicated by a race-horse owner. It shows Hecate, with a hound beside her, placing a wreath on the head of a mare. It has been claimed that her association with dogs is \"suggestive of her connection with birth, for the dog was sacred to Eileithyia, Genetyllis, and other birth goddesses. Images of her attended by a dog are also found at times when she is shown as in her role as mother goddess with child, and when she is depicted alongside the god Hermes and the goddess Cybele in reliefs.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Although in later times Hecate's dog came to be thought of as a manifestation of restless souls or daemons who accompanied her, its docile appearance and its accompaniment of a Hecate who looks completely friendly in many pieces of ancient art suggests that its original signification was positive and thus likelier to have arisen from the dog's connection with birth than the dog's underworld associations.\" The association with dogs, particularly female dogs, could be explained by a metamorphosis myth in Lycophron: the friendly looking female dog accompanying Hecate was originally the Trojan Queen Hecuba, who leapt into the sea after the fall of Troy and was transformed by Hecate into her familiar.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The polecat is also associated with Hecate. Antoninus Liberalis used a myth to explain this association:",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Aelian told a different story of a woman transformed into a polecat:",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Athenaeus of Naucratis, drawing on the etymological speculation of Apollodorus of Athens, notes that the red mullet is sacred to Hecate, \"on account of the resemblance of their names; for that the goddess is trimorphos, of a triple form\". The Greek word for mullet was trigle and later trigla. He goes on to quote a fragment of verse:",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In relation to Greek concepts of pollution, Parker observes,",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At Athens, it is said there stood a statue of Hecate Triglathena, to whom the red mullet was offered in sacrifice. After mentioning that this fish was sacred to Hecate, Alan Davidson writes,",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In her three-headed representations, discussed above, Hecate often has one or more animal heads, including cow, dog, boar, serpent, and horse. Lions are associated with Hecate in early artwork from Asia Minor, as well as later coins and literature, including the Chaldean Oracles. The frog, which was also the symbol of the similarly named Egyptian goddess Heqet, has also become sacred to Hecate in modern pagan literature, possibly due in part to its ability to cross between two elements.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe cited that Hecate was also named ίππεύτρια (hippeutria – 'the equestrienne'), since the horse was \"the chthonic animal par excellence\".",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Hecate was closely associated with plant lore and the concoction of medicines and poisons. In particular she was thought to give instruction in these closely related arts. Apollonius of Rhodes, in the Argonautica mentions that Medea was taught by Hecate, \"I have mentioned to you before a certain young girl whom Hecate, daughter of Perses, has taught to work in drugs.\"",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The goddess is described as wearing oak in fragments of Sophocles' lost play The Root Diggers (or The Root Cutters), and an ancient commentary on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (3.1214) describes her as having a head surrounded by serpents, twining through branches of oak.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The yew in particular was sacred to Hecate.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Greeks held the yew to be sacred to Hecate... Her attendants draped wreathes of yew around the necks of black bulls which they slaughtered in her honor and yew boughs were burned on funeral pyres. The yew was associated with the alphabet and the scientific name for yew today, taxus, was probably derived from the Greek word for yew, toxos, which is hauntingly similar to toxon, their word for bow and toxicon, their word for poison. It is presumed that the latter were named after the tree because of its superiority for both bows and poison.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Hecate was said to favour offerings of garlic, which was closely associated with her cult. She is also sometimes associated with cypress, a tree symbolic of death and the underworld, and hence sacred to a number of chthonic deities.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A number of other plants (often poisonous, medicinal and/or psychoactive) are associated with Hecate. These include aconite (also called hecateis), belladonna, dittany, and mandrake. It has been suggested that the use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the 1st century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Hecate was associated with borders, city walls, doorways, crossroads and, by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living. She appears to have been particularly associated with being 'between' and hence is frequently characterized as a \"liminal\" goddess. \"Hecate mediated between regimes—Olympian and Titan—but also between mortal and divine spheres.\" This liminal role is reflected in a number of her cult titles: Apotropaia (that turns away/protects); Enodia (on the way); Propulaia/Propylaia (before the gate); Triodia/Trioditis (who frequents crossroads); Klêidouchos (holding the keys), etc.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "As a goddess expected to avert harmful or destructive spirits from the house or city over which she stood guard and to protect the individual as she or he passed through dangerous liminal places, Hecate would naturally become known as a goddess who could also refuse to avert the demons, or even drive them on against unfortunate individuals.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "It was probably her role as guardian of entrances that led to Hecate's identification by the mid fifth century with Enodia, a Thessalian goddess. Enodia's very name (\"In-the-Road\") suggests that she watched over entrances, for it expresses both the possibility that she stood on the main road into a city, keeping an eye on all who entered, and in the road in front of private houses, protecting their inhabitants.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "This function would appear to have some relationship with the iconographic association of Hecate with keys, and might also relate to her appearance with two torches, which when positioned on either side of a gate or door illuminated the immediate area and allowed visitors to be identified. \"In Byzantium small temples in her honour were placed close to the gates of the city. Hecate's importance to Byzantium was above all as a deity of protection. When Philip of Macedon was about to attack the city, according to the legend she alerted the townspeople with her ever present torches, and with her pack of dogs, which served as her constant companions.\" This suggests that Hecate's close association with dogs derived in part from the use of watchdogs, who, particularly at night, raised an alarm when intruders approached. Watchdogs were used extensively by Greeks and Romans.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Cult images and altars of Hecate in her triplicate or trimorphic form were placed at three-way crossroads (though they also appeared before private homes and in front of city gates). In what appears to be a 7th-century indication of the survival of cult practices of this general sort, Saint Eligius, in his Sermo warns the sick among his recently converted flock in Flanders against putting \"devilish charms at springs or trees or crossroads\", and, according to Saint Ouen would urge them \"No Christian should make or render any devotion to the deities of the trivium, where three roads meet...\".",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Thanks to her association with boundaries and the liminal spaces between worlds, Hecate is also recognized as a chthonic (underworld) goddess. As the holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms, she can unlock the gates of death, as described in a 3rd-century BCE poem by Theocritus. In the 1st century CE, Virgil described the entrance to hell as \"Hecate's Grove\", though he says that Hecate is equally \"powerful in Heaven and Hell.\" The Greek Magical Papyri describe Hecate as the holder of the keys to Tartaros. Like Hermes, Hecate takes on the role of guardian not just of roads, but of all journeys, including the journey to the afterlife. In art and myth, she is shown, along with Hermes, guiding Persephone back from the underworld with her torches.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "By the 5th century BCE, Hecate had come to be strongly associated with ghosts, possibly due to conflation with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (meaning \"traveller\"), who travelled the earth with a retinue of ghosts and was depicted on coinage wearing a leafy crown and holding torches, iconography strongly associated with Hecate.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "By the 1st century CE, Hecate's chthonic and nocturnal character had led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery. In Lucan's Pharsalia, the witch Erichtho invokes Hecate as \"Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of Hecate, the goddess we witches revere\", and describes her as a \"rotting goddess\" with a \"pallid decaying body\", who has to \"wear a mask when [she] visit[s] the gods in heaven.\"",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Like Hecate, \"the dog is a creature of the threshold, the guardian of doors and portals, and so it is appropriately associated with the frontier between life and death, and with demons and ghosts which move across the frontier. The yawning gates of Hades were guarded by the monstrous watchdog Cerberus, whose function was to prevent the living from entering the underworld, and the dead from leaving it.\"",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Hecate was seen as a triple deity, identified with the goddesses Luna (Moon) in the sky and Diana (hunting) on the earth, while she represents the Underworld. Hecate's association with Helios in literary sources and especially in cursing magic has been cited as evidence for her lunar nature, although this evidence is pretty late; no artwork before the Roman period connecting Hecate to the Moon exists. Nevertheless, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter shows Helios and Hecate informing Demeter of Persephone's abduction, a common theme found in many parts of the world where the Sun and the Moon are questioned concerning events that happen on earth based on their ability to witness everything and implies Hecate's capacity as a moon goddess in the hymn. Another work connecting Hecate to Helios possibly as a moon goddess is Sophocles' lost play The Root Cutters, where Helios is described as Hecate's spear:",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "O Sun our lord and sacred fire, the spear of Hecate of the roads, which she carries as she attends her mistress in the sky",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "This speech from the Root Cutters may or may not be an intentional association of Hecate with the Moon. In Seneca's Medea, the titular Medea invokes her patron Hecate whom she addresses as \"Moon, orb of the night\" and \"triple form\". Hecate and the moon goddess Selene were frequently identified with each other and a number of Greek and non-Greek deities; the Greek Magical Papyri and other magical texts emphasize a syncretism between Selene-Hecate with Artemis and Persephone among others. In Italy, the triple unity of the lunar goddesses Diana (the huntress), Luna (the Moon) and Hecate (the underworld) became a ubiquitous feature in depictions of sacred groves, where Hecate/Trivia marked intersections and crossroads along with other liminal deities. The Romans celebrated enthusiastically the multiple identities of Diana as Hecate, Luna and Trivia.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "From her father Perses, Hecate is often called “Perseis” (meaning “daughter of Perses”) which is also the name of one of the Oceanid nymphs, Helios’ wife and Circe’s mother in other versions. In one version of Hecate's parentage, she is the daughter of Perses not the son of Crius but the son of Helios, whose mother is the Oceanid Perse. Karl Kerenyi noted the similarity between the names, perhaps denoting a chthonic connection among the two and the goddess Persephone; it is possible that this epithet gives evidence of a lunar aspect of Hecate. Fowler also noted that the pairing (i. e. Helios and Perse) made sense given Hecate’s association with the Moon. Mooney however notes that when it comes to the nymph Perse herself, there's no evidence of her actually being a moon goddess on her own right.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity. Shrines to Hecate were often placed at doorways to homes, temples, and cities with the belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits. Home shrines often took the form of a small Hekataion, a shrine centred on a wood or stone carving of a triple Hecate facing in three directions on three sides of a central pillar. Larger Hekataions, often enclosed within small walled areas, were sometimes placed at public crossroads near important sites – for example, there was one on the road leading to the Acropolis. Likewise, shrines to Hecate at three way crossroads were created where food offerings were left at the new Moon to protect those who did so from spirits and other evils. In Zerynthus there was a cave dedicated to Hecate.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Dogs were sacred to Hecate and associated with roads, domestic spaces, purification, and spirits of the dead. Dogs were also sacrificed to the road. This can be compared to Pausanias' report that in the Ionian city of Colophon in Asia Minor a sacrifice of a black female puppy was made to Hecate as \"the wayside goddess\", and Plutarch's observation that in Boeotia dogs were killed in purificatory rites. Dogs, with puppies often mentioned, were offered to Hecate at crossroads, which were sacred to the goddess.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The earliest definitive record of Hecate's worship dates to the 6th century BCE, in the form of a small terracotta statue of a seated goddess, identified as Hecate in its inscription. This and other early depictions of Hecate lack distinctive attributes that would later be associated with her, such as a triple form or torches, and can only be identified as Hecate thanks to their inscriptions. Otherwise, they are typically generic, or Artemis-like.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hecate's cult became established in Athens about 430 BCE. At this time, the sculptor Alcamenes made the earliest known triple-formed Hecate statue for use at her new temple. While this sculpture has not survived to the present day, numerous later copies are extant. It has been speculated that this triple image, usually situated around a pole or pillar, was derived from earlier representations of the goddess using three masks hung on actual wooden poles, possibly placed at crossroads and gateways.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Hecate was a popular divinity, and her cult was practiced with many local variations all over Greece and Western Anatolia. Caria was a major center of worship and her most famous temple there was located in the town of Lagina. The oldest known direct evidence of Hecate's cult comes from Selinunte (near modern-day Trapani in Sicily), where she had a temple in the 6th–5th centuries BCE. There was a Temple of Hecate in Argolis:",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Over against the sanctuary of Eileithyia is a temple of Hecate [the goddess probably here identified with the apotheosed Iphigenia, and the image is a work of Skopas. This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polykleitos and his brother Naukydes.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "There was also a shrine to Hecate in Aigina, where she was very popular:",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Of the gods, the Aiginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honour every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thrakian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has one face and one body. It was Alkamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hecate attached to one another [in Athens].",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Aside from her own temples, Hecate was also worshipped in the sanctuaries of other gods, where she was apparently sometimes given her own space. A round stone altar dedicated to the goddess was found in the Delphinion (a temple dedicated to Apollo) at Miletus. Dated to the 7th century BCE, this is one of the oldest known artefacts dedicated to the worship of Hecate. In association with her worship alongside Apollo at Miletus, worshipers used a unique form of offering: they would place stone cubes, often wreathes, known as γυλλοι (gylloi) as protective offerings at the door or gateway. There was an area sacred to Hecate in the precincts of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, where the priests, megabyzi, officiated. This sanctuary was called Hecatesion (Shrine of Hecate). Hecate was also worshipped in the Temple of Athena in Titane: \"In Titane there is also a sanctuary of Athena, into which they bring up the image of Koronis [mother of Asklepios] ... The sanctuary is built upon a hill, at the bottom of which is an Altar of the Winds, and on it the priest sacrifices to the winds one night in every year. He also performs other secret rites [of Hecate] at four pits, taming the fierceness of the blasts [of the winds], and he is said to chant as well the charms of Medea.\" She was most commonly worshipped in nature, where she had many natural sanctuaries. An important sanctuary of Hecate was a holy cave on the island of Samothrake called Zerynthos:",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In Samothrake there were certain initiation-rites, which they supposed efficacious as a charm against certain dangers. In that place were also the mysteries of the Korybantes [Kabeiroi] and those of Hekate and the Zerinthian cave, where they sacrificed dogs. The initiates supposed that these things save [them] from terrors and from storms.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Hecate's most important sanctuary was Lagina, a theocratic city-state in which the goddess was served by eunuchs.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The temple is mentioned by Strabo:",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Stratonikeia [in Karia, Asia Minor] is a settlement of Makedonians ... There are two temples in the country of the Stratonikeians, of which the most famous, that of Hecate, is at Lagina; and it draws great festal assemblies every year.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Lagina, where the famous temple of Hecate drew great festal assemblies every year, lay close to the originally Macedonian colony of Stratonikeia, where she was the city's patron. In Thrace she played a role similar to that of lesser-Hermes, namely a ruler of liminal regions, particularly gates, and the wilderness.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Hecate was greatly worshipped in Byzantium. She was said to have saved the city from Philip II of Macedon, warning the citizens of a night time attack by a light in the sky, for which she was known as Hecate Lampadephoros. The tale is preserved in the Suda.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "As Hecate Phosphorus (the 'star' Venus) she is said to have lit the sky during the Siege of Philip II in 340 BCE, revealing the attack to its inhabitants. The Byzantines dedicated a statue to her as the \"lamp carrier\". According to Hesychius of Miletus there was once a statue of Hecate at the site of the Hippodrome in Constantinople.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Hecate's island (Ἑκάτης νήσου) also called Psamite (Ψαμίτη), was an islet in the vicinity of Delos. It was called Psamite, because Hecate was honoured with a cake, which was called psamiton (ψάμιτον). The island is the modern Megalos (Great) Reumatiaris.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Athenian Greeks honoured Hecate during the Deipnon. In Greek, deipnon means the evening meal, usually the largest meal of the day. Hecate's Deipnon is, at its most basic, a meal served to Hecate and the restless dead once a lunar month during the Dark Moon. On the night of the dark moon, a meal would be set outside, in a small shrine to Hecate by the front door; as the street in front of the house and the doorway create a crossroads, known to be a place Hecate dwelled. Food offerings might include cake or bread, fish, eggs and honey. The Deipnon is always followed the next day by the Noumenia, when the first sliver of the sunlit New Moon is visible, and then the Agathos Daimon the day after that.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The main purpose of the Deipnon was to honour Hecate and to placate the souls in her wake who \"longed for vengeance.\" A secondary purpose was to purify the household and to atone for bad deeds a household member may have committed that offended Hecate, causing her to withhold her favour from them. The Deipnon consists of three main parts: 1) the meal that was set out at a crossroads, usually in a shrine outside the entryway to the home 2) an expiation sacrifice, and 3) purification of the household.",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Hecate was known by a number of epithets:",
"title": "Cult"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Hecate has been characterized as a pre-Olympian chthonic goddess. The first literature mentioning Hecate is the Theogony (c. 700 BCE) by Hesiod:",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "And [Asteria] conceived and bore Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honored above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honor also in starry heaven, and is honored exceedingly by the deathless gods. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favor according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Great honor comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favorably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her. For as many as were born of Earth and Ocean amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Cronos did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "According to Hesiod, she held sway over many things:",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents. And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then, albeit her mother's only child, she is honored amongst all the deathless gods. And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honours.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Hesiod's inclusion and praise of Hecate in the Theogony has been troublesome for scholars, in that he seems to hold her in high regard, while the testimony of other writers, and surviving evidence, suggests that this may have been the exception. One theory is that Hesiod's original village had a substantial Hecate following and that his inclusion of her in the Theogony was a way of adding to her prestige by spreading word of her among his readers. Another theory is that Hecate was mainly a household god and humble household worship could have been more pervasive and yet not mentioned as much as temple worship. In Athens, Hecate, along with Zeus, Hermes, Athena, Hestia, and Apollo, were very important in daily life as they were the main gods of the household. However, it is clear that the special position given to Hecate by Zeus is upheld throughout her history by depictions found on coins of Hecate on the hand of Zeus as highlighted in more recent research presented by d'Este and Rankine.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (composed c. 600 BCE), Hecate is called \"tender-hearted\", an epithet perhaps intended to emphasize her concern with the disappearance of Persephone, when she assisted Demeter with her search for Persephone following her abduction by Hades, suggesting that Demeter should speak to the god of the Sun, Helios. Subsequently, Hecate became Persephone's companion on her yearly journey to and from the realms of Hades, serving as a psychopomp. Because of this association, Hecate was one of the chief goddesses of the Eleusinian Mysteries, alongside Demeter and Persephone, and there was a temple dedicated to her near the main sanctuary at Eleusis.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Variations in interpretations of Hecate's roles can be traced in classical Athens. In two fragments of Aeschylus she appears as a great goddess. In Sophocles and Euripides she is characterized as the mistress of witchcraft and the Keres.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "One surviving group of stories suggests how Hecate might have come to be incorporated into the Greek pantheon without affecting the privileged position of Artemis. Here, Hecate is a mortal priestess often associated with Iphigenia. She scorns and insults Artemis, who in retribution eventually brings about the mortal's suicide.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In the Argonautica, a 3rd-century BCE Alexandrian epic based on early material, Jason placates Hecate in a ritual prescribed by Medea, her priestess: bathed at midnight in a stream of flowing water, and dressed in dark robes, Jason is to dig a round pit and over it cut the throat of a ewe, sacrificing it and then burning it whole on a pyre next to the pit as a holocaust. He is told to sweeten the offering with a libation of honey, then to retreat from the site without looking back, even if he hears the sound of footsteps or barking dogs. All these elements betoken the rites owed to a chthonic deity.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "During the Gigantomachy, Hecate fought by the side of the Olympian gods, and slew the giant Clytius using her torches. Hecate is depicted fighting Clytius in the east frieze of the Gigantomachy, in the Pergamon Altar next to Artemis; she appears with a different weapon in each of her three right hands, a torch, a sword and a lance. Her fight with the Giant appears in a number of ancient vase paintings and other artwork.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Hecate is the primary feminine figure in the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE), where she is associated in fragment 194 with a strophalos (usually translated as a spinning top, or wheel, used in magic) \"Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate.\" This appears to refer to a variant of the device mentioned by Psellus.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "In Hellenistic syncretism, Hecate also became closely associated with Isis. Lucius Apuleius in The Golden Ass (2nd century) equates Juno, Bellona, Hecate and Isis:",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Some call me Juno, others Bellona of the Battles, and still others Hecate. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "In the syncretism during Late Antiquity of Hellenistic and late Babylonian (\"Chaldean\") elements, Hecate was identified with Ereshkigal, the underworld counterpart of Inanna in the Babylonian cosmography. In the Michigan magical papyrus (inv. 7), dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century CE, Hecate Erschigal is invoked against fear of punishment in the afterlife. Schwemer believes that this use of Ereshkigal's name merely furnished \"the Greek Netherworld goddess with a mysterious-sounding, foreign name\".",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Hecate is also referenced in the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "In the earliest written source mentioning Hecate, Hesiod emphasized that she was an only child, the daughter of Perses and Asteria, the sister of Leto (the mother of Artemis and Apollo). Grandmother of the three cousins was Phoebe the ancient Titan goddess whose name was often used for the moon goddess. In various later accounts, Hecate was given different parents. She was said to be the daughter of Zeus by either Asteria, according to Musaeus, Hera, thus identified with Angelos, or Pheraea, daughter of Aeolus; the daughter of Aristaeus the son of Paion, according to Pherecydes; the daughter of Nyx, according to Bacchylides; the daughter of Perses, the son of Helios, by an unknown mother, according to Diodorus Siculus; while in Orphic literature, she was said to be the daughter of Demeter or Leto or even Tartarus.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "As a virgin goddess, she remained unmarried and had no regular consort, though some traditions named her as the mother of Scylla through either Phorbas or Phorcys.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Sometimes she is also stated to be the mother (by Aeëtes) of the goddess Circe and the sorceress Medea, who in later accounts was herself associated with magic while initially just being a herbalist goddess, similar to how Hecate's association with Underworld and Mysteries had her later converted into a deity of witchcraft.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Once, Hermes chased Hecate (or Persephone) with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name \"Brimo\" (\"angry\").",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Strmiska (2005) claimed that Hecate, conflated with the figure of Diana, appears in late antiquity and in the Early Middle Ages as part of an \"emerging legend complex\" known as \"The Society of Diana\" associated with gatherings of women, the Moon, and witchcraft that eventually became established \"in the area of Northern Italy, southern Germany, and the western Balkans.\" This theory of the Roman origins of many European folk traditions related to Diana or Hecate was explicitly advanced at least as early as 1807 and is reflected in etymological claims by early modern lexicographers from the 17th to the 19th century, connecting hag, hexe \"witch\" to the name of Hecate. Such derivations are today proposed only by a minority A medieval commentator has suggested a link connecting the word \"jinx\" with Hecate: \"The Byzantine polymath Michael Psellus [...] speaks of a bullroarer, consisting of a golden sphere, decorated throughout with symbols and whirled on an oxhide thong. He adds that such an instrument is called a iunx (hence \"jinx\"), but as for the significance says only that it is ineffable and that the ritual is sacred to Hecate.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Shakespeare mentions Hecate both before the end of the 16th century (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1594–1596), and just after, in Macbeth (1605): specifically, in the title character's \"dagger\" soliloquy: \"Witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's offerings...\" Shakespeare mentions Hecate also in King Lear. While disclaiming all his paternal care for Cordelia, Lear says, \"The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operations of the orbs From whom we do exist and cease to be, Here I disclaim all my paternal care\" (The Arden Shakespeare, King Lear, Page no.165)",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "In 1929, Lewis Brown, an expert on religious cults, connected the 1920s Blackburn Cult (also known as, \"The Cult of the Great Eleven,\") with Hecate worship rituals. He noted that the cult regularly practiced dog sacrifice and had secretly buried the body of one of its \"queens\" with seven dogs. Researcher Samuel Fort noted additional parallels, to include the cult's focus on mystic and typically nocturnal rites, its female dominated membership, the sacrifice of other animals (to include horses and mules), a focus on the mystical properties of roads and portals, and an emphasis on death, healing, and resurrection.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "As a \"goddess of witchcraft\", Hecate has been incorporated in various systems of Neopagan witchcraft, Wicca, and neopaganism, in some cases associated with the Wild Hunt of Germanic tradition, in others as part of a reconstruction of specifically Greek polytheism, in English also known as \"Hellenismos\". In Wicca, Hecate has in some cases become identified with the \"crone\" aspect of the \"Triple Goddess\".",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, night, light, magic, protection from witchcraft, the Moon, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, graves, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery. Her earliest appearance in literature was in Hesiod's Theogony in the 8th century BCE as a goddess of great honour with domains in sky, earth, and sea. Her place of origin is debated by scholars, but she had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly and an important sanctuary among the Carian Greeks of Asia Minor in Lagina. Her oldest known representation was found in Selinunte, in Sicily. Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos (household), alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo. In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles she was also regarded with (some) rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Savior (Soteira), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul.
Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition." The Romans often knew her by the epithet of Trivia, an epithet she shares with Diana, each in their roles as protector of travel and of the crossroads. Hecate was closely identified with Diana/Artemis in the Roman era. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-28T14:30:34Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate |
14,374 | Haematopoiesis | Haematopoiesis (/hɪˌmætəpɔɪˈiːsɪs, ˌhiːmətoʊ-, ˌhɛmə-/, from Greek αἷμα, 'blood' and ποιεῖν 'to make'; also hematopoiesis in American English; sometimes also h(a)emopoiesis) is the formation of blood cellular components. All cellular blood components are derived from haematopoietic stem cells. In a healthy adult human, roughly ten billion (10) to a hundred billion (10) new blood cells are produced per day, in order to maintain steady state levels in the peripheral circulation.
Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) reside in the medulla of the bone (bone marrow) and have the unique ability to give rise to all of the different mature blood cell types and tissues. HSCs are self-renewing cells: when they differentiate, at least some of their daughter cells remain as HSCs so the pool of stem cells is not depleted. This phenomenon is called asymmetric division. The other daughters of HSCs (myeloid and lymphoid progenitor cells) can follow any of the other differentiation pathways that lead to the production of one or more specific types of blood cell, but cannot renew themselves. The pool of progenitors is heterogeneous and can be divided into two groups; long-term self-renewing HSC and only transiently self-renewing HSC, also called short-terms. This is one of the main vital processes in the body.
All blood cells are divided into three lineages.
Granulopoiesis (or granulocytopoiesis) is haematopoiesis of granulocytes, except mast cells which are granulocytes but with an extramedullar maturation.
Thrombopoiesis is haematopoiesis of thrombocytes (platelets).
Between 1948 and 1950, the Committee for Clarification of the Nomenclature of Cells and Diseases of the Blood and Blood-forming Organs issued reports on the nomenclature of blood cells. An overview of the terminology is shown below, from earliest to final stage of development:
The root for erythrocyte colony-forming units (CFU-E) is "rubri", for granulocyte-monocyte colony-forming units (CFU-GM) is "granulo" or "myelo" and "mono", for lymphocyte colony-forming units (CFU-L) is "lympho" and for megakaryocyte colony-forming units (CFU-Meg) is "megakaryo". According to this terminology, the stages of red blood cell formation would be: rubriblast, prorubricyte, rubricyte, metarubricyte, and erythrocyte. However, the following nomenclature seems to be, at present, the most prevalent:
Osteoclasts also arise from hemopoietic cells of the monocyte/neutrophil lineage, specifically CFU-GM.
In developing embryos, blood formation occurs in aggregates of blood cells in the yolk sac, called blood islands. As development progresses, blood formation occurs in the spleen, liver and lymph nodes. When bone marrow develops, it eventually assumes the task of forming most of the blood cells for the entire organism. However, maturation, activation, and some proliferation of lymphoid cells occurs in the spleen, thymus, and lymph nodes. In children, haematopoiesis occurs in the marrow of the long bones such as the femur and tibia. In adults, it occurs mainly in the pelvis, cranium, vertebrae, and sternum.
In some cases, the liver, thymus, and spleen may resume their haematopoietic function, if necessary. This is called extramedullary haematopoiesis. It may cause these organs to increase in size substantially. During fetal development, since bones and thus the bone marrow develop later, the liver functions as the main haematopoietic organ. Therefore, the liver is enlarged during development. Extramedullary haematopoiesis and myelopoiesis may supply leukocytes in cardiovascular disease and inflammation during adulthood. Splenic macrophages and adhesion molecules may be involved in regulation of extramedullary myeloid cell generation in cardiovascular disease.
As a stem cell matures it undergoes changes in gene expression that limit the cell types that it can become and moves it closer to a specific cell type (cellular differentiation). These changes can often be tracked by monitoring the presence of proteins on the surface of the cell. Each successive change moves the cell closer to the final cell type and further limits its potential to become a different cell type.
Two models for haematopoiesis have been proposed: determinism and stochastic theory. For the stem cells and other undifferentiated blood cells in the bone marrow, the determination is generally explained by the determinism theory of haematopoiesis, saying that colony stimulating factors and other factors of the haematopoietic microenvironment determine the cells to follow a certain path of cell differentiation. This is the classical way of describing haematopoiesis. In stochastic theory, undifferentiated blood cells differentiate to specific cell types by randomness. This theory has been supported by experiments showing that within a population of mouse haematopoietic progenitor cells, underlying stochastic variability in the distribution of Sca-1, a stem cell factor, subdivides the population into groups exhibiting variable rates of cellular differentiation. For example, under the influence of erythropoietin (an erythrocyte-differentiation factor), a subpopulation of cells (as defined by the levels of Sca-1) differentiated into erythrocytes at a sevenfold higher rate than the rest of the population. Furthermore, it was shown that if allowed to grow, this subpopulation re-established the original subpopulation of cells, supporting the theory that this is a stochastic, reversible process. Another level at which stochasticity may be important is in the process of apoptosis and self-renewal. In this case, the haematopoietic microenvironment prevails upon some of the cells to survive and some, on the other hand, to perform apoptosis and die. By regulating this balance between different cell types, the bone marrow can alter the quantity of different cells to ultimately be produced.
Red and white blood cell production is regulated with great precision in healthy humans, and the production of leukocytes is rapidly increased during infection. The proliferation and self-renewal of these cells depend on growth factors. One of the key players in self-renewal and development of haematopoietic cells is stem cell factor (SCF), which binds to the c-kit receptor on the HSC. Absence of SCF is lethal. There are other important glycoprotein growth factors which regulate the proliferation and maturation, such as interleukins IL-2, IL-3, IL-6, IL-7. Other factors, termed colony-stimulating factors (CSFs), specifically stimulate the production of committed cells. Three CSFs are granulocyte-macrophage CSF (GM-CSF), granulocyte CSF (G-CSF) and macrophage CSF (M-CSF). These stimulate granulocyte formation and are active on either progenitor cells or end product cells.
Erythropoietin is required for a myeloid progenitor cell to become an erythrocyte. On the other hand, thrombopoietin makes myeloid progenitor cells differentiate to megakaryocytes (thrombocyte-forming cells). The diagram to the right provides examples of cytokines and the differentiated blood cells they give rise to.
Growth factors initiate signal transduction pathways, which lead to activation of transcription factors. Growth factors elicit different outcomes depending on the combination of factors and the cell's stage of differentiation. For example, long-term expression of PU.1 results in myeloid commitment, and short-term induction of PU.1 activity leads to the formation of immature eosinophils. Recently, it was reported that transcription factors such as NF-κB can be regulated by microRNAs (e.g., miR-125b) in haematopoiesis.
The first key player of differentiation from HSC to a multipotent progenitor (MPP) is transcription factor CCAAT-enhancer binding protein α (C/EBPα). Mutations in C/EBPα are associated with acute myeloid leukaemia. From this point, cells can either differentiate along the Erythroid-megakaryocyte lineage or lymphoid and myeloid lineage, which have common progenitor, called lymphoid-primed multipotent progenitor. There are two main transcription factors. PU.1 for Erythroid-megakaryocyte lineage and GATA-1, which leads to a lymphoid-primed multipotent progenitor.
Other transcription factors include Ikaros (B cell development), and Gfi1 (promotes Th2 development and inhibits Th1) or IRF8 (basophils and mast cells). Significantly, certain factors elicit different responses at different stages in the haematopoiesis. For example, CEBPα in neutrophil development or PU.1 in monocytes and dendritic cell development. It is important to note that processes are not unidirectional: differentiated cells may regain attributes of progenitor cells.
An example is PAX5 factor, which is important in B cell development and associated with lymphomas. Surprisingly, pax5 conditional knock out mice allowed peripheral mature B cells to de-differentiate to early bone marrow progenitors. These findings show that transcription factors act as caretakers of differentiation level and not only as initiators.
Mutations in transcription factors are tightly connected to blood cancers, as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). For example, Ikaros is known to be regulator of numerous biological events. Mice with no Ikaros lack B cells, Natural killer and T cells. Ikaros has six zinc fingers domains, four are conserved DNA-binding domain and two are for dimerization. Very important finding is, that different zinc fingers are involved in binding to different place in DNA and this is the reason for pleiotropic effect of Ikaros and different involvement in cancer, but mainly are mutations associated with BCR-Abl patients and it is bad prognostic marker.
In some vertebrates, haematopoiesis can occur wherever there is a loose stroma of connective tissue and slow blood supply, such as the gut, spleen or kidney.
Unlike eutherian mammals, the liver of newborn marsupials is actively haematopoietic. | [
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"text": "Haematopoiesis (/hɪˌmætəpɔɪˈiːsɪs, ˌhiːmətoʊ-, ˌhɛmə-/, from Greek αἷμα, 'blood' and ποιεῖν 'to make'; also hematopoiesis in American English; sometimes also h(a)emopoiesis) is the formation of blood cellular components. All cellular blood components are derived from haematopoietic stem cells. In a healthy adult human, roughly ten billion (10) to a hundred billion (10) new blood cells are produced per day, in order to maintain steady state levels in the peripheral circulation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) reside in the medulla of the bone (bone marrow) and have the unique ability to give rise to all of the different mature blood cell types and tissues. HSCs are self-renewing cells: when they differentiate, at least some of their daughter cells remain as HSCs so the pool of stem cells is not depleted. This phenomenon is called asymmetric division. The other daughters of HSCs (myeloid and lymphoid progenitor cells) can follow any of the other differentiation pathways that lead to the production of one or more specific types of blood cell, but cannot renew themselves. The pool of progenitors is heterogeneous and can be divided into two groups; long-term self-renewing HSC and only transiently self-renewing HSC, also called short-terms. This is one of the main vital processes in the body.",
"title": "Process"
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"text": "All blood cells are divided into three lineages.",
"title": "Process"
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"text": "Granulopoiesis (or granulocytopoiesis) is haematopoiesis of granulocytes, except mast cells which are granulocytes but with an extramedullar maturation.",
"title": "Process"
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"text": "Thrombopoiesis is haematopoiesis of thrombocytes (platelets).",
"title": "Process"
},
{
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"text": "Between 1948 and 1950, the Committee for Clarification of the Nomenclature of Cells and Diseases of the Blood and Blood-forming Organs issued reports on the nomenclature of blood cells. An overview of the terminology is shown below, from earliest to final stage of development:",
"title": "Process"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The root for erythrocyte colony-forming units (CFU-E) is \"rubri\", for granulocyte-monocyte colony-forming units (CFU-GM) is \"granulo\" or \"myelo\" and \"mono\", for lymphocyte colony-forming units (CFU-L) is \"lympho\" and for megakaryocyte colony-forming units (CFU-Meg) is \"megakaryo\". According to this terminology, the stages of red blood cell formation would be: rubriblast, prorubricyte, rubricyte, metarubricyte, and erythrocyte. However, the following nomenclature seems to be, at present, the most prevalent:",
"title": "Process"
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"text": "Osteoclasts also arise from hemopoietic cells of the monocyte/neutrophil lineage, specifically CFU-GM.",
"title": "Process"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In developing embryos, blood formation occurs in aggregates of blood cells in the yolk sac, called blood islands. As development progresses, blood formation occurs in the spleen, liver and lymph nodes. When bone marrow develops, it eventually assumes the task of forming most of the blood cells for the entire organism. However, maturation, activation, and some proliferation of lymphoid cells occurs in the spleen, thymus, and lymph nodes. In children, haematopoiesis occurs in the marrow of the long bones such as the femur and tibia. In adults, it occurs mainly in the pelvis, cranium, vertebrae, and sternum.",
"title": "Location"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In some cases, the liver, thymus, and spleen may resume their haematopoietic function, if necessary. This is called extramedullary haematopoiesis. It may cause these organs to increase in size substantially. During fetal development, since bones and thus the bone marrow develop later, the liver functions as the main haematopoietic organ. Therefore, the liver is enlarged during development. Extramedullary haematopoiesis and myelopoiesis may supply leukocytes in cardiovascular disease and inflammation during adulthood. Splenic macrophages and adhesion molecules may be involved in regulation of extramedullary myeloid cell generation in cardiovascular disease.",
"title": "Location"
},
{
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"text": "As a stem cell matures it undergoes changes in gene expression that limit the cell types that it can become and moves it closer to a specific cell type (cellular differentiation). These changes can often be tracked by monitoring the presence of proteins on the surface of the cell. Each successive change moves the cell closer to the final cell type and further limits its potential to become a different cell type.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Two models for haematopoiesis have been proposed: determinism and stochastic theory. For the stem cells and other undifferentiated blood cells in the bone marrow, the determination is generally explained by the determinism theory of haematopoiesis, saying that colony stimulating factors and other factors of the haematopoietic microenvironment determine the cells to follow a certain path of cell differentiation. This is the classical way of describing haematopoiesis. In stochastic theory, undifferentiated blood cells differentiate to specific cell types by randomness. This theory has been supported by experiments showing that within a population of mouse haematopoietic progenitor cells, underlying stochastic variability in the distribution of Sca-1, a stem cell factor, subdivides the population into groups exhibiting variable rates of cellular differentiation. For example, under the influence of erythropoietin (an erythrocyte-differentiation factor), a subpopulation of cells (as defined by the levels of Sca-1) differentiated into erythrocytes at a sevenfold higher rate than the rest of the population. Furthermore, it was shown that if allowed to grow, this subpopulation re-established the original subpopulation of cells, supporting the theory that this is a stochastic, reversible process. Another level at which stochasticity may be important is in the process of apoptosis and self-renewal. In this case, the haematopoietic microenvironment prevails upon some of the cells to survive and some, on the other hand, to perform apoptosis and die. By regulating this balance between different cell types, the bone marrow can alter the quantity of different cells to ultimately be produced.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Red and white blood cell production is regulated with great precision in healthy humans, and the production of leukocytes is rapidly increased during infection. The proliferation and self-renewal of these cells depend on growth factors. One of the key players in self-renewal and development of haematopoietic cells is stem cell factor (SCF), which binds to the c-kit receptor on the HSC. Absence of SCF is lethal. There are other important glycoprotein growth factors which regulate the proliferation and maturation, such as interleukins IL-2, IL-3, IL-6, IL-7. Other factors, termed colony-stimulating factors (CSFs), specifically stimulate the production of committed cells. Three CSFs are granulocyte-macrophage CSF (GM-CSF), granulocyte CSF (G-CSF) and macrophage CSF (M-CSF). These stimulate granulocyte formation and are active on either progenitor cells or end product cells.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Erythropoietin is required for a myeloid progenitor cell to become an erythrocyte. On the other hand, thrombopoietin makes myeloid progenitor cells differentiate to megakaryocytes (thrombocyte-forming cells). The diagram to the right provides examples of cytokines and the differentiated blood cells they give rise to.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Growth factors initiate signal transduction pathways, which lead to activation of transcription factors. Growth factors elicit different outcomes depending on the combination of factors and the cell's stage of differentiation. For example, long-term expression of PU.1 results in myeloid commitment, and short-term induction of PU.1 activity leads to the formation of immature eosinophils. Recently, it was reported that transcription factors such as NF-κB can be regulated by microRNAs (e.g., miR-125b) in haematopoiesis.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The first key player of differentiation from HSC to a multipotent progenitor (MPP) is transcription factor CCAAT-enhancer binding protein α (C/EBPα). Mutations in C/EBPα are associated with acute myeloid leukaemia. From this point, cells can either differentiate along the Erythroid-megakaryocyte lineage or lymphoid and myeloid lineage, which have common progenitor, called lymphoid-primed multipotent progenitor. There are two main transcription factors. PU.1 for Erythroid-megakaryocyte lineage and GATA-1, which leads to a lymphoid-primed multipotent progenitor.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Other transcription factors include Ikaros (B cell development), and Gfi1 (promotes Th2 development and inhibits Th1) or IRF8 (basophils and mast cells). Significantly, certain factors elicit different responses at different stages in the haematopoiesis. For example, CEBPα in neutrophil development or PU.1 in monocytes and dendritic cell development. It is important to note that processes are not unidirectional: differentiated cells may regain attributes of progenitor cells.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "An example is PAX5 factor, which is important in B cell development and associated with lymphomas. Surprisingly, pax5 conditional knock out mice allowed peripheral mature B cells to de-differentiate to early bone marrow progenitors. These findings show that transcription factors act as caretakers of differentiation level and not only as initiators.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Mutations in transcription factors are tightly connected to blood cancers, as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). For example, Ikaros is known to be regulator of numerous biological events. Mice with no Ikaros lack B cells, Natural killer and T cells. Ikaros has six zinc fingers domains, four are conserved DNA-binding domain and two are for dimerization. Very important finding is, that different zinc fingers are involved in binding to different place in DNA and this is the reason for pleiotropic effect of Ikaros and different involvement in cancer, but mainly are mutations associated with BCR-Abl patients and it is bad prognostic marker.",
"title": "Maturation"
},
{
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"text": "In some vertebrates, haematopoiesis can occur wherever there is a loose stroma of connective tissue and slow blood supply, such as the gut, spleen or kidney.",
"title": "Other animals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Unlike eutherian mammals, the liver of newborn marsupials is actively haematopoietic.",
"title": "Other animals"
}
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| Haematopoiesis (, from Greek αἷμα, 'blood' and ποιεῖν 'to make'; also hematopoiesis in American English; sometimes also h(a)emopoiesis) is the formation of blood cellular components. All cellular blood components are derived from haematopoietic stem cells. In a healthy adult human, roughly ten billion (1010) to a hundred billion (1011) new blood cells are produced per day, in order to maintain steady state levels in the peripheral circulation. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-11-13T16:10:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haematopoiesis |
14,375 | Hogmanay | Hogmanay (/ˈhɒɡməneɪ, ˌhɒɡməˈneɪ/ HOG-mə-nay, -NAY, Scots: [ˌhɔɡməˈneː]) is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.
The origins of Hogmanay are unclear, but it may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.
The etymology of the word is obscure. The earliest proposed etymology comes from the 1693 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, which held that the term was a corruption of a presumed Ancient Greek: ἁγία μήνη (hagíā mḗnē) and that this meant "holy month". The three main modern theories derive it from a French, Norse or Gaelic root.
The word is first recorded in a Latin entry in 1443 in the West Riding of Yorkshire as hagnonayse. The first appearance in Scots language came in 1604 in the records of Elgin, as hagmonay. Subsequent 17th-century spellings include Hagmena (1677), Hogmynae night (1681), and Hagmane (1693) in an entry of the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence.
Although Hogmanay is currently the predominant spelling and pronunciation, several variant spellings and pronunciations have been recorded, including:
with the first syllable variously being /hɔg/, /hog/, /hʌg/, /hʌug/ or /haŋ/.
The term may have been introduced to Middle Scots via French. The most commonly cited explanation is a derivation from the northern French dialectal word hoguinané, or variants such as hoginane, hoginono and hoguinettes, those being derived from 16th-century Middle French aguillanneuf meaning either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift, or New Year's Eve itself. The Oxford English Dictionary reports this theory, saying that the term is a borrowing of aguillanneuf, a medieval French cry used to welcome the new year consisting of an unknown first element plus "l'an neuf" ("the new year").
This explanation is supported by a children's tradition, observed up to the 1960s in parts of Scotland at least, of visiting houses in their locality on New Year's Eve and requesting and receiving small treats such as sweets or fruit. The second element would appear to be l'an neuf ('the New Year'), with sources suggesting a druidical origin of the practice overall. Compare those to Norman hoguinané and the obsolete customs in Jersey of crying ma hodgîngnole, and in Guernsey of asking for an oguinane, for a New Year gift (see also La Guiannee). In Québec, la guignolée was a door-to-door collection for people experiencing poverty.
Compare also the apparent Spanish cognate aguinaldo/aguilando, with a suggested Latin derivation of hoc in anno "in this year".
Other suggestions include au gui mener ("lead to the mistletoe"), à gueux mener ('bring to the beggars'), au gui l'an neuf ('at the mistletoe the new year', or (l')homme est né ('(the) man is born').
The word may have come from the Goidelic languages. Frazer and Kelley report a Manx new-year song that begins with the line To-night is New Year's Night, Hogunnaa but did not record the full text in Manx. Kelley himself uses the spelling Og-u-naa... Tro-la-la whereas other sources parse this as hog-un-naa and give the modern Manx form as Hob dy naa. Manx dictionaries though give Hop-tu-Naa (Manx pronunciation: [hopʰ tθu neː]), generally glossing it as "Hallowe'en", same as many of the more Manx-specific folklore collections.
In this context, it is also recorded that in the south of Scotland (for example Roxburghshire), there is no ⟨m⟩, the word thus being Hunganay, which could suggest the ⟨m⟩ is intrusive.
Another theory occasionally encountered is a derivation from the phrase thog mi an èigh/eugh ([hok mi ˈɲeː], "I raised the cry"), which resembles Hogmanay in pronunciation and was part of the rhymes traditionally recited at New Year but it is unclear if this is simply a case of folk etymology.
Overall, Gaelic consistently refers to the New Year's Eve as Oidhche na Bliadhn(a) Ùir(e) ("the Night of the New Year") and Oidhche Challainn ("the Night of the Calends").
Other authors reject both the French and Goidelic theories and instead suggest that the ultimate source for this word's Norman French, Scots, and Goidelic variants have a common Norse root. It is suggested that the full forms
invoke the hill-men (Icelandic haugmenn, compare Anglo-Saxon hoghmen) or "elves" and banishes the trolls into the sea (Norse á læ 'into the sea'). Repp furthermore links "Trollalay/Trolla-laa" and the rhyme recorded in Percy's Relics: "Trolle on away, trolle on awaye. Synge heave and howe rombelowe trolle on away", which he reads as a straightforward invocation of troll-banning.
It is speculated that the roots of Hogmanay may reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic celebration of Samhain. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. Christmas was not celebrated as a festival, and Hogmanay was the more traditional celebration in Scotland. This may have been a result of the Protestant Reformation after which Christmas was seen as "too Papist".
Hogmanay was also celebrated in the far north of England, down to and including Richmond in North Yorkshire. It was traditionally known as 'Hagmena' in Northumberland, 'Hogmina' in Cumberland, and 'Hagman-ha' or 'Hagman-heigh' in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
There are many customs, both national and local, associated with Hogmanay. The most widespread national custom is the practice of first-footing, which starts immediately after midnight. This involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour and often involves the giving of symbolic gifts such as salt (less common today), coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake), intended to bring different kinds of luck to the householder. Food and drink (as the gifts) are then given to the guests. This may go on throughout the early morning hours and into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses well into the middle of January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year. Traditionally, tall, dark-haired men are preferred as the first-foot.
An example of a local Hogmanay custom is the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, in northeast Scotland. This involves local people making up "balls" of chicken wire filled with old newspaper, sticks, rags, and other dry flammable material up to a diameter of 2 feet (0.61 m), each attached to about 3 feet (0.91 m) of wire, chain or nonflammable rope. As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the balls are set alight, and the swingers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, swinging the burning balls around their heads as they go.
At the end of the ceremony, fireballs still burning are cast into the harbour. Many people enjoy this display, and large crowds flock to see it, with 12,000 attending the 2007/2008 event. In recent years, additional attractions have been added to entertain the crowds as they wait for midnight, such as fire poi, a pipe band, street drumming, and a firework display after the last fireball is cast into the sea. The festivities are now streamed live over the Internet. Another example of a fire festival is the burning the clavie in the town of Burghead in Moray.
In the east coast fishing communities and Dundee, first-footers once carried a decorated herring. And in Falkland in Fife, local men marched in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached. Bakers in St Andrews baked special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as "Cake Day") and distributed them to local children.
Institutions also had their own traditions. For example, amongst the Scottish regiments, officers waited on the men at special dinners while at the bells, the Old Year is piped out of barrack gates. The sentry then challenges the new escort outside the gates: "Who goes there?" The answer is "The New Year, all's well."
An old custom in the Highlands is to celebrate Hogmanay with the saining (Scots for 'protecting, blessing') of the household and livestock. Early on New Year's morning, householders drink and then sprinkle 'magic water' from 'a dead and living ford' around the house (a 'dead and living ford' refers to a river ford that is routinely crossed by both the living and the dead). After the sprinkling of the water in every room, on the beds and all the inhabitants, the house is sealed up tight and branches of juniper are set on fire and carried throughout the house and byre. The juniper smoke is allowed to thoroughly fumigate the buildings until it causes sneezing and coughing among the inhabitants. Then, all the doors and windows are flung open to let in the cold, fresh air of the new year. The woman of the house then administers 'a restorative' from the whisky bottle, and the household sits down to its New Year breakfast.
The Hogmanay custom of singing "Auld Lang Syne" has become common in many countries. "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem by Robert Burns, based on traditional and other earlier sources. It is common to sing this in a circle of linked arms crossed over one another as the clock strikes midnight for New Year's Day. However, it is only intended that participants link arms at the beginning of the final verse before rushing into the centre as a group.
Between 1957 and 1968, a New Year's Eve television programme, The White Heather Club, was presented to herald the Hogmanay celebrations. The show was presented by Andy Stewart, who always began by singing, "Come in, come in, it's nice to see you...." The show always ended with Stewart and the cast singing, "Haste ye Back":
Haste ye back, we loue you dearly, Call again you're welcome here. May your days be free from sorrow, And your friends be ever near. May the paths o'er which you wander, Be to you a joy each day. Haste ye back we loue you dearly, Haste ye back on friendship's way.
The performers were Jimmy Shand and band, Ian Powrie and his band, Scottish country dancers: Dixie Ingram and the Dixie Ingram Dancers, Joe Gordon Folk Four, James Urquhart, Ann & Laura Brand, Moira Anderson & Kenneth McKellar. All the male dancers and Andy Stewart wore kilts, and the female dancers wore long white dresses with tartan sashes. Following the demise of the White Heather Club, Andy Stewart continued to feature regularly in TV Hogmanay shows until his retirement. His last appearance was in 1992.
In the 1980s, comedian Andy Cameron presented the Hogmanay Show (on STV in 1983 and 1984 and from 1985 to 1990 on BBC Scotland) while Peter Morrison presented the show A Highland Hogmanay on STV/Grampian, axed in 1993.
For many years, a staple of New Year's Eve television programming in Scotland was the comedy sketch show Scotch and Wry, featuring the comedian Rikki Fulton, which invariably included a hilarious monologue from him as the gloomy Reverend I.M. Jolly.
Since 1993, the programmes that have been mainstays on BBC Scotland on Hogmanay have been Hogmanay Live and Jonathan Watson's football-themed sketch comedy show, Only an Excuse?.
The 1693 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence contained one of the first mentions of the holiday in official church records. Hogmanay was treated with general disapproval. Still, in Scotland, Hogmanay and New Year's Day are as important as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Although Christmas Day held its normal religious nature in Scotland amongst its Catholic and Episcopalian communities, the Presbyterian national church, the Church of Scotland, discouraged the celebration of Christmas for nearly 400 years; it only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958. Conversely, 1 and 2 January are public holidays, and Hogmanay is still associated with as much celebration as Christmas in Scotland.
As in much of the world, the largest Scottish cities – Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen – hold all-night celebrations, as do Stirling and Inverness. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest in the world. Celebrations in Edinburgh in 1996–97 were recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest New Years party, with approximately 400,000 people in attendance. Numbers were then restricted due to safety concerns.
In 2003-4, most organised events were cancelled at short notice due to very high winds. The Stonehaven Fireballs went ahead as planned, however, with 6,000 people braving the stormy weather to watch 42 fireball swingers process along the High Street. Similarly, the 2006–07 celebrations in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling were all cancelled on the day, again due to high winds and heavy rain. The Aberdeen celebration, however, went ahead and was opened by pop music group Wet Wet Wet.
Many Hogmanay festivities were cancelled in 2020–21 and 2021–22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland.
Most Scots celebrate New Year's Day with a special dinner, usually steak pie.
Historically, presents were given in Scotland on the first Monday of the New Year. A roast dinner would be eaten to celebrate the festival. Handsel was a word for gift and hence "Handsel Day". In modern Scotland, this practice has died out.
The period of festivities running from Christmas to Handsel Monday, including Hogmanay and Ne'erday, is known as the Daft Days. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hogmanay (/ˈhɒɡməneɪ, ˌhɒɡməˈneɪ/ HOG-mə-nay, -NAY, Scots: [ˌhɔɡməˈneː]) is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The origins of Hogmanay are unclear, but it may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The etymology of the word is obscure. The earliest proposed etymology comes from the 1693 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, which held that the term was a corruption of a presumed Ancient Greek: ἁγία μήνη (hagíā mḗnē) and that this meant \"holy month\". The three main modern theories derive it from a French, Norse or Gaelic root.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The word is first recorded in a Latin entry in 1443 in the West Riding of Yorkshire as hagnonayse. The first appearance in Scots language came in 1604 in the records of Elgin, as hagmonay. Subsequent 17th-century spellings include Hagmena (1677), Hogmynae night (1681), and Hagmane (1693) in an entry of the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Although Hogmanay is currently the predominant spelling and pronunciation, several variant spellings and pronunciations have been recorded, including:",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "with the first syllable variously being /hɔg/, /hog/, /hʌg/, /hʌug/ or /haŋ/.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The term may have been introduced to Middle Scots via French. The most commonly cited explanation is a derivation from the northern French dialectal word hoguinané, or variants such as hoginane, hoginono and hoguinettes, those being derived from 16th-century Middle French aguillanneuf meaning either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift, or New Year's Eve itself. The Oxford English Dictionary reports this theory, saying that the term is a borrowing of aguillanneuf, a medieval French cry used to welcome the new year consisting of an unknown first element plus \"l'an neuf\" (\"the new year\").",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "This explanation is supported by a children's tradition, observed up to the 1960s in parts of Scotland at least, of visiting houses in their locality on New Year's Eve and requesting and receiving small treats such as sweets or fruit. The second element would appear to be l'an neuf ('the New Year'), with sources suggesting a druidical origin of the practice overall. Compare those to Norman hoguinané and the obsolete customs in Jersey of crying ma hodgîngnole, and in Guernsey of asking for an oguinane, for a New Year gift (see also La Guiannee). In Québec, la guignolée was a door-to-door collection for people experiencing poverty.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Compare also the apparent Spanish cognate aguinaldo/aguilando, with a suggested Latin derivation of hoc in anno \"in this year\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Other suggestions include au gui mener (\"lead to the mistletoe\"), à gueux mener ('bring to the beggars'), au gui l'an neuf ('at the mistletoe the new year', or (l')homme est né ('(the) man is born').",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The word may have come from the Goidelic languages. Frazer and Kelley report a Manx new-year song that begins with the line To-night is New Year's Night, Hogunnaa but did not record the full text in Manx. Kelley himself uses the spelling Og-u-naa... Tro-la-la whereas other sources parse this as hog-un-naa and give the modern Manx form as Hob dy naa. Manx dictionaries though give Hop-tu-Naa (Manx pronunciation: [hopʰ tθu neː]), generally glossing it as \"Hallowe'en\", same as many of the more Manx-specific folklore collections.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In this context, it is also recorded that in the south of Scotland (for example Roxburghshire), there is no ⟨m⟩, the word thus being Hunganay, which could suggest the ⟨m⟩ is intrusive.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Another theory occasionally encountered is a derivation from the phrase thog mi an èigh/eugh ([hok mi ˈɲeː], \"I raised the cry\"), which resembles Hogmanay in pronunciation and was part of the rhymes traditionally recited at New Year but it is unclear if this is simply a case of folk etymology.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Overall, Gaelic consistently refers to the New Year's Eve as Oidhche na Bliadhn(a) Ùir(e) (\"the Night of the New Year\") and Oidhche Challainn (\"the Night of the Calends\").",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Other authors reject both the French and Goidelic theories and instead suggest that the ultimate source for this word's Norman French, Scots, and Goidelic variants have a common Norse root. It is suggested that the full forms",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "invoke the hill-men (Icelandic haugmenn, compare Anglo-Saxon hoghmen) or \"elves\" and banishes the trolls into the sea (Norse á læ 'into the sea'). Repp furthermore links \"Trollalay/Trolla-laa\" and the rhyme recorded in Percy's Relics: \"Trolle on away, trolle on awaye. Synge heave and howe rombelowe trolle on away\", which he reads as a straightforward invocation of troll-banning.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "It is speculated that the roots of Hogmanay may reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic celebration of Samhain. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the \"Daft Days\" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. Christmas was not celebrated as a festival, and Hogmanay was the more traditional celebration in Scotland. This may have been a result of the Protestant Reformation after which Christmas was seen as \"too Papist\".",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hogmanay was also celebrated in the far north of England, down to and including Richmond in North Yorkshire. It was traditionally known as 'Hagmena' in Northumberland, 'Hogmina' in Cumberland, and 'Hagman-ha' or 'Hagman-heigh' in the North Riding of Yorkshire.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "There are many customs, both national and local, associated with Hogmanay. The most widespread national custom is the practice of first-footing, which starts immediately after midnight. This involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour and often involves the giving of symbolic gifts such as salt (less common today), coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake), intended to bring different kinds of luck to the householder. Food and drink (as the gifts) are then given to the guests. This may go on throughout the early morning hours and into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses well into the middle of January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year. Traditionally, tall, dark-haired men are preferred as the first-foot.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "An example of a local Hogmanay custom is the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, in northeast Scotland. This involves local people making up \"balls\" of chicken wire filled with old newspaper, sticks, rags, and other dry flammable material up to a diameter of 2 feet (0.61 m), each attached to about 3 feet (0.91 m) of wire, chain or nonflammable rope. As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the balls are set alight, and the swingers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, swinging the burning balls around their heads as they go.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "At the end of the ceremony, fireballs still burning are cast into the harbour. Many people enjoy this display, and large crowds flock to see it, with 12,000 attending the 2007/2008 event. In recent years, additional attractions have been added to entertain the crowds as they wait for midnight, such as fire poi, a pipe band, street drumming, and a firework display after the last fireball is cast into the sea. The festivities are now streamed live over the Internet. Another example of a fire festival is the burning the clavie in the town of Burghead in Moray.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the east coast fishing communities and Dundee, first-footers once carried a decorated herring. And in Falkland in Fife, local men marched in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached. Bakers in St Andrews baked special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as \"Cake Day\") and distributed them to local children.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Institutions also had their own traditions. For example, amongst the Scottish regiments, officers waited on the men at special dinners while at the bells, the Old Year is piped out of barrack gates. The sentry then challenges the new escort outside the gates: \"Who goes there?\" The answer is \"The New Year, all's well.\"",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "An old custom in the Highlands is to celebrate Hogmanay with the saining (Scots for 'protecting, blessing') of the household and livestock. Early on New Year's morning, householders drink and then sprinkle 'magic water' from 'a dead and living ford' around the house (a 'dead and living ford' refers to a river ford that is routinely crossed by both the living and the dead). After the sprinkling of the water in every room, on the beds and all the inhabitants, the house is sealed up tight and branches of juniper are set on fire and carried throughout the house and byre. The juniper smoke is allowed to thoroughly fumigate the buildings until it causes sneezing and coughing among the inhabitants. Then, all the doors and windows are flung open to let in the cold, fresh air of the new year. The woman of the house then administers 'a restorative' from the whisky bottle, and the household sits down to its New Year breakfast.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Hogmanay custom of singing \"Auld Lang Syne\" has become common in many countries. \"Auld Lang Syne\" is a Scots poem by Robert Burns, based on traditional and other earlier sources. It is common to sing this in a circle of linked arms crossed over one another as the clock strikes midnight for New Year's Day. However, it is only intended that participants link arms at the beginning of the final verse before rushing into the centre as a group.",
"title": "Customs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Between 1957 and 1968, a New Year's Eve television programme, The White Heather Club, was presented to herald the Hogmanay celebrations. The show was presented by Andy Stewart, who always began by singing, \"Come in, come in, it's nice to see you....\" The show always ended with Stewart and the cast singing, \"Haste ye Back\":",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Haste ye back, we loue you dearly, Call again you're welcome here. May your days be free from sorrow, And your friends be ever near. May the paths o'er which you wander, Be to you a joy each day. Haste ye back we loue you dearly, Haste ye back on friendship's way.",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The performers were Jimmy Shand and band, Ian Powrie and his band, Scottish country dancers: Dixie Ingram and the Dixie Ingram Dancers, Joe Gordon Folk Four, James Urquhart, Ann & Laura Brand, Moira Anderson & Kenneth McKellar. All the male dancers and Andy Stewart wore kilts, and the female dancers wore long white dresses with tartan sashes. Following the demise of the White Heather Club, Andy Stewart continued to feature regularly in TV Hogmanay shows until his retirement. His last appearance was in 1992.",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In the 1980s, comedian Andy Cameron presented the Hogmanay Show (on STV in 1983 and 1984 and from 1985 to 1990 on BBC Scotland) while Peter Morrison presented the show A Highland Hogmanay on STV/Grampian, axed in 1993.",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "For many years, a staple of New Year's Eve television programming in Scotland was the comedy sketch show Scotch and Wry, featuring the comedian Rikki Fulton, which invariably included a hilarious monologue from him as the gloomy Reverend I.M. Jolly.",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Since 1993, the programmes that have been mainstays on BBC Scotland on Hogmanay have been Hogmanay Live and Jonathan Watson's football-themed sketch comedy show, Only an Excuse?.",
"title": "In the media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The 1693 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence contained one of the first mentions of the holiday in official church records. Hogmanay was treated with general disapproval. Still, in Scotland, Hogmanay and New Year's Day are as important as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.",
"title": "Presbyterian influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Although Christmas Day held its normal religious nature in Scotland amongst its Catholic and Episcopalian communities, the Presbyterian national church, the Church of Scotland, discouraged the celebration of Christmas for nearly 400 years; it only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958. Conversely, 1 and 2 January are public holidays, and Hogmanay is still associated with as much celebration as Christmas in Scotland.",
"title": "Presbyterian influence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "As in much of the world, the largest Scottish cities – Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen – hold all-night celebrations, as do Stirling and Inverness. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest in the world. Celebrations in Edinburgh in 1996–97 were recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest New Years party, with approximately 400,000 people in attendance. Numbers were then restricted due to safety concerns.",
"title": "Major celebrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 2003-4, most organised events were cancelled at short notice due to very high winds. The Stonehaven Fireballs went ahead as planned, however, with 6,000 people braving the stormy weather to watch 42 fireball swingers process along the High Street. Similarly, the 2006–07 celebrations in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling were all cancelled on the day, again due to high winds and heavy rain. The Aberdeen celebration, however, went ahead and was opened by pop music group Wet Wet Wet.",
"title": "Major celebrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Many Hogmanay festivities were cancelled in 2020–21 and 2021–22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland.",
"title": "Major celebrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Most Scots celebrate New Year's Day with a special dinner, usually steak pie.",
"title": "Ne'erday"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Historically, presents were given in Scotland on the first Monday of the New Year. A roast dinner would be eaten to celebrate the festival. Handsel was a word for gift and hence \"Handsel Day\". In modern Scotland, this practice has died out.",
"title": "Handsel Day"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The period of festivities running from Christmas to Handsel Monday, including Hogmanay and Ne'erday, is known as the Daft Days.",
"title": "Handsel Day"
}
]
| Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December. The origins of Hogmanay are unclear, but it may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year. | 2002-01-02T22:43:23Z | 2023-12-31T23:06:27Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay |
14,376 | Hamster | Hamsters are rodents (order Rodentia) belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae, which contains 19 species classified in seven genera. They have become established as popular small pets. The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus), which is the type most commonly kept as a pet. Other hamster species commonly kept as pets are the three species of dwarf hamster, Campbell's dwarf hamster (Phodopus campbelli), the winter white dwarf hamster (Phodopus sungorus) and the Roborovski hamster (Phodopus roborovskii).
Hamsters are more crepuscular than nocturnal and, in the wild, remain underground during the day to avoid being caught by predators. They feed primarily on seeds, fruits, and vegetation, and will occasionally eat burrowing insects. Physically, they are stout-bodied with distinguishing features that include elongated cheek pouches extending to their shoulders, which they use to carry food back to their burrows, as well as a short tail and fur-covered feet.
Taxonomists generally disagree about the most appropriate placement of the subfamily Cricetinae within the superfamily Muroidea. Some place it in a family Cricetidae that also includes voles, lemmings, and New World rats and mice; others group all these into a large family called Muridae. Their evolutionary history is recorded by 15 extinct fossil genera and extends back 11.2 million to 16.4 million years to the Middle Miocene Epoch in Europe and North Africa; in Asia it extends 6 million to 11 million years. Four of the seven living genera include extinct species. One extinct hamster of Cricetus, for example, lived in North Africa during the Middle Miocene, but the only extant member of that genus is the European or common hamster of Eurasia.
Neumann et al. (2006) conducted a molecular phylogenetic analysis of 12 of the above 17 species using DNA sequence from three genes: 12S rRNA, cytochrome b, and von Willebrand factor. They uncovered the following relationships:
The genus Phodopus was found to represent the earliest split among hamsters. Their analysis included both species. The results of another study suggest Cricetulus kamensis (and presumably the related C. alticola) might belong to either this Phodopus group or hold a similar basal position.
The genus Mesocricetus also forms a clade. Their analysis included all four species, with M. auratus and M. raddei forming one subclade and M. brandti and M. newtoni another.
The remaining genera of hamsters formed a third major clade. Two of the three sampled species within Cricetulus represent the earliest split. This clade contains C. barabensis (and presumably the related C. sokolovi) and C. longicaudatus.
The remaining clade contains members of Allocricetulus, Tscherskia, Cricetus, and C. migratorius. Allocricetulus and Cricetus were sister taxa. Cricetulus migratorius was their next closest relative, and Tscherskia was basal.
Although the Syrian hamster or golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) was first described scientifically by George Robert Waterhouse in 1839, researchers were not able to successfully breed and domesticate hamsters until 1939. The entire laboratory and pet populations of Syrian hamsters appear to be descendants of a single brother–sister pairing. These littermates were captured and imported in 1930 from Aleppo in Syria by Israel Aharoni, a zoologist of the University of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the hamsters bred very successfully. Years later, animals of this original breeding colony were exported to the United States, where Syrian hamsters became a common pet and laboratory animal. Comparative studies of domestic and wild Syrian hamsters have shown reduced genetic variability in the domestic strain. However, the differences in behavioral, chronobiological, morphometrical, hematological, and biochemical parameters are relatively small and fall into the expected range of interstrain variations in other laboratory animals.
The name "hamster" is a loanword from the German, which itself derives from earlier Middle High German hamastra. It is possibly related to Old Church Slavonic khomestoru, which is either a blend of the root of Russian хомяк (khomyak) "hamster" and a Baltic word (cf. Lithuanian: staras "hamster"); or of Persian origin (cf. Avestan: hamaēstar "oppressor"). The collective noun for a group of hamsters is "horde". In German, the verb hamstern is derived from Hamster. It means "to hoard".
Hamsters are typically stout-bodied, with tails shorter than body length, and have small, furry ears, short, stocky legs, and wide feet. They have thick, silky fur, which can be long or short, colored black, grey, honey, white, brown, yellow, red, or a mix, depending on the species. Two species of hamster belonging to the genus Phodopus, Campbell's dwarf hamster (P. campbelli) and the Djungarian hamster (P. sungorus), and two of the genus Cricetulus, the Chinese striped hamster (C. barabensis) and the Chinese hamster (C. griseus) have a dark stripe down their heads to their tails. The species of genus Phodopus are the smallest, with bodies 5.5 to 10.5 cm (2.2 to 4.1 in) long; the largest is the European hamster (Cricetus cricetus), measuring up to 34 cm (13 in) long, not including a short tail of up to 6 cm (2.4 in).
The hamster tail can be difficult to see, as it is usually not very long (about 1⁄6 the length of the body), with the exception of the Chinese hamster, which has a tail the same length as the body. One rodent characteristic that can be highly visible in hamsters is their sharp incisors; they have an upper pair and lower pair which grow continuously throughout life, so must be regularly worn down. Hamsters are very flexible, but their bones are somewhat fragile. They are extremely susceptible to rapid temperature changes and drafts, as well as extreme heat or cold.
Hamsters have poor eyesight; they are nearsighted and colorblind. Their eyesight leads to them not having a good sense of distance or knowing where they are, but that does not stop them from climbing in (and sometimes out of) their cages or from being adventurous. Hamsters can sense movement around at all times, which helps protect them from harm in the wild. In a household, this sense helps them know when their owner is near. Hamsters have scent glands on their flanks (and abdomens in Chinese and dwarf hamsters) which they rub against the surface beneath them, leaving a scent trail. Hamsters also use their sense of smell to distinguish between the sexes and to locate food. Mother hamsters can also use their sense of smell to find their own babies and identify which ones are not theirs. Their scent glands can also be used to mark their territories, their babies, or their mate. Hamsters catch sounds by having their ears upright. They tend to learn similar noises and begin to know the sound of their food and even their owner's voice. They are also particularly sensitive to high-pitched noises and can hear and communicate in the ultrasonic range.
Hamsters are omnivores, which means they can eat meat and vegetables. Hamsters that live in the wild eat seeds, grass, and even insects. Although pet hamsters can survive on a diet of exclusively commercial hamster food, other items, such as vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts, can be given. Although store-bought food is good for hamsters, it is best if fruits and vegetables are also in their diet because it keeps them healthier. Even though hamsters are allowed to have both fruits and vegetables, it is important to understand exactly which ones they can have and how much. Hamsters do best with fruits that do not have citrus in them and most green leafy vegetables. Hamsters should never be fed junk food, chocolate, garlic, or any salty/sugary foods. Hamsters tend to love peanut butter but it is important to feed it to them carefully because this sticky food can get stuck in their cheeks. Hamsters in the Middle East have been known to hunt in packs to find insects for food. Hamsters are hindgut fermenters and often eat their own feces (coprophagy) to recover nutrients digested in the hind-gut, but not absorbed.
A behavioral characteristic of hamsters is food hoarding. They carry food in their spacious cheek pouches to their underground storage chambers. When full, the cheeks can make their heads double, or even triple in size. Hamsters lose weight during the autumn months in anticipation of winter. This occurs even when hamsters are kept as pets and is related to an increase in exercise.
Most hamsters are strictly solitary. If housed together, acute and chronic stress may occur, and they may fight fiercely, sometimes fatally. Dwarf hamster species may tolerate siblings or same-gender unrelated hamsters if introduced at an early enough age, but this cannot be guaranteed. Hamsters communicate through body language to one another and even to their owner. They communicate by sending a specific scent using their scent glands and also show body language to express how they are feeling.
Hamsters can be described as nocturnal or crepuscular (active mostly at dawn and dusk). Khunen writes, "Hamsters are nocturnal rodents who are active during the night", but others have written that because hamsters live underground during most of the day, only leaving their burrows for about an hour before sundown and then returning when it gets dark, their behavior is primarily crepuscular. Fritzsche indicated although some species have been observed to show more nocturnal activity than others, they are all primarily crepuscular.
In the wild Syrian hamsters can hibernate and allow their body temperature to fall close to ambient temperature. This kind of thermoregulation diminishes the metabolic rate to about 5% and helps the animal to considerably reduce the need for food during the winter. Hibernation can last up to one week but more commonly last 2–3 days. When kept as house pets the Syrian hamster does not hibernate.
All hamsters are excellent diggers, constructing burrows with one or more entrances, with galleries connected to chambers for nesting, food storage, and other activities. They use their fore- and hindlegs, as well as their snouts and teeth, for digging. In the wild, the burrow buffers extreme ambient temperatures, offers relatively stable climatic conditions, and protects against predators. Syrian hamsters dig their burrows generally at a depth of 70 cm (2.3 ft). A burrow includes a steep entrance pipe (4–5 cm (1.6–2.0 in) in diameter), a nesting and a hoarding chamber and a blind-ending branch for urination. Laboratory hamsters have not lost their ability to dig burrows; in fact, they will do this with great vigor and skill if they are provided with the appropriate substrate.
Wild hamsters will also appropriate tunnels made by other mammals; the Djungarian hamster, for instance, uses paths and burrows of the pika.
Hamsters become fertile at different ages depending on their species. Both Syrian and Russian hamsters mature quickly and can begin reproducing at a young age (4–5 weeks), whereas Chinese hamsters will usually begin reproducing at two to three months of age, and Roborovskis at three to four months of age. The female's reproductive life lasts about 18 months, but male hamsters remain fertile much longer. Females are in estrus about every four days, which is indicated by a reddening of genital areas, a musky smell, and a hissing, squeaking vocalisation she will emit if she believes a male is nearby.
When seen from above, a sexually mature female hamster has a trim tail line; a male's tail line bulges on both sides. This might not be very visible in all species. Male hamsters typically have very large testes in relation to their body size. Before sexual maturity occurs, it is more difficult to determine a young hamster's sex. When examined, female hamsters have their anal and genital openings close together, whereas males have these two holes farther apart (the penis is usually withdrawn into the coat and thus appears as a hole or pink pimple).
Syrian hamsters are seasonal breeders and will produce several litters a year with several pups in each litter. The breeding season is from April to October in the Northern Hemisphere, with two to five litters of one to 13 young being born after a gestation period of 16 to 23 days. Dwarf hamsters breed all through the year. Gestation lasts 16 to 18 days for Syrian hamsters, 18 to 21 days for Russian hamsters, 21 to 23 days for Chinese hamsters and 23 to 30 for Roborovski hamsters. The average litter size for Syrian hamsters is about seven pups, but can be as great as 24, which is the maximum number of pups that can be contained in the uterus. Campbell's dwarf hamsters tend to have four to eight pups in a litter, but can have up to 13. Winter white hamsters tend to have slightly smaller litters, as do Chinese and Roborovski hamsters.
Female Chinese and Syrian hamsters are known for being aggressive toward males if kept together for too long after mating. In some cases, male hamsters can die after being attacked by a female. If breeding hamsters, separation of the pair after mating is recommended, or they will attack each other.
Female hamsters are also particularly sensitive to disturbances while giving birth, and may even eat their own young if they think they are in danger, although sometimes they are just carrying the pups in their cheek pouches. If captive female hamsters are left for extended periods (three weeks or more) with their litter, they may cannibalize the litter, so the litter must be removed by the time the young can feed and drink independently.
Hamsters are born hairless and blind in a nest the mother will have prepared in advance. After one week, they begin to explore outside the nest. Hamsters are capable of producing litters every month. Hamsters can be bred after they are three weeks old. It may be hard for the babies to not rely on their mother for nursing during this time, so it is important that they are supplied with food to make the transition from nursing to eating on their own easier. After the hamsters reach three weeks of age they are considered mature.
Syrian hamsters typically live no more than two to three years in captivity, and less in the wild. Russian hamsters (Campbell's and Djungarian) live about two to four years in captivity, and Chinese hamsters 2+1⁄2–3 years. The smaller Roborovski hamster often lives to three years in captivity.
The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus), which is the type most commonly kept as pets. There are numerous Syrian hamster variations including long-haired varieties and different colors. British zoologist Leonard Goodwin claimed most hamsters kept in the United Kingdom were descended from the colony he introduced for medical research purposes during the Second World War. Hamsters were domesticated and kept as pets in the United States at least as early as 1942.
Other hamsters commonly kept as pets are the three species of dwarf hamster. Campbell's dwarf hamster (Phodopus campbelli) is the most common—they are also sometimes called "Russian dwarfs"; however, many hamsters are from Russia, so this ambiguous name does not distinguish them from other species appropriately. The coat of the winter white dwarf hamster (Phodopus sungorus) turns almost white during winter (when the hours of daylight decrease). The Roborovski hamster (Phodopus roborovskii) is extremely small and fast, making it difficult to keep as a pet.
A hamster show is an event in which people gather hamsters to judge them against each other. Hamster shows are also places where people share their enthusiasm for hamsters among attendees. Hamster shows feature an exhibition of the hamsters participating in the judging.
The judging of hamsters usually includes a goal of promoting hamsters which conform to natural or established varieties of hamsters. By awarding hamsters which match standard hamster types, hamster shows encourage planned and careful hamster breeding.
When the first reported case of animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong took place via imported pet hamsters, researchers expressed difficulty in identifying some of the viral mutations within a global genomic data bank, leading city authorities to announce a mass cull of all hamsters purchased after December 22, 2021, which would affect roughly 2,000 animals. After the government 'strongly encouraged' citizens to turn in their pets, approximately 3,000 people joined underground activities to promote the adoption of abandoned hamsters throughout the city and to maintain pet ownership via methods such as the forgery of pet store purchase receipts. Some activists attempted to intercept owners who were on their way to turn in pet hamsters and encourage them to choose adoption instead, which the government subsequently warned would be subject to police action.
The extracted cells of babies' kidneys and adults' ovaries are used to study cholesterol synthesis.
Some similar rodents sometimes called "hamsters" are not currently classified in the hamster subfamily Cricetinae. These include the maned hamster, or crested hamster, which is really the maned rat (Lophiomys imhausi). Others are the mouse-like hamsters (Calomyscus spp.), and the white-tailed rat (Mystromys albicaudatus). | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hamsters are rodents (order Rodentia) belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae, which contains 19 species classified in seven genera. They have become established as popular small pets. The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus), which is the type most commonly kept as a pet. Other hamster species commonly kept as pets are the three species of dwarf hamster, Campbell's dwarf hamster (Phodopus campbelli), the winter white dwarf hamster (Phodopus sungorus) and the Roborovski hamster (Phodopus roborovskii).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hamsters are more crepuscular than nocturnal and, in the wild, remain underground during the day to avoid being caught by predators. They feed primarily on seeds, fruits, and vegetation, and will occasionally eat burrowing insects. Physically, they are stout-bodied with distinguishing features that include elongated cheek pouches extending to their shoulders, which they use to carry food back to their burrows, as well as a short tail and fur-covered feet.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Taxonomists generally disagree about the most appropriate placement of the subfamily Cricetinae within the superfamily Muroidea. Some place it in a family Cricetidae that also includes voles, lemmings, and New World rats and mice; others group all these into a large family called Muridae. Their evolutionary history is recorded by 15 extinct fossil genera and extends back 11.2 million to 16.4 million years to the Middle Miocene Epoch in Europe and North Africa; in Asia it extends 6 million to 11 million years. Four of the seven living genera include extinct species. One extinct hamster of Cricetus, for example, lived in North Africa during the Middle Miocene, but the only extant member of that genus is the European or common hamster of Eurasia.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Neumann et al. (2006) conducted a molecular phylogenetic analysis of 12 of the above 17 species using DNA sequence from three genes: 12S rRNA, cytochrome b, and von Willebrand factor. They uncovered the following relationships:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The genus Phodopus was found to represent the earliest split among hamsters. Their analysis included both species. The results of another study suggest Cricetulus kamensis (and presumably the related C. alticola) might belong to either this Phodopus group or hold a similar basal position.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The genus Mesocricetus also forms a clade. Their analysis included all four species, with M. auratus and M. raddei forming one subclade and M. brandti and M. newtoni another.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The remaining genera of hamsters formed a third major clade. Two of the three sampled species within Cricetulus represent the earliest split. This clade contains C. barabensis (and presumably the related C. sokolovi) and C. longicaudatus.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The remaining clade contains members of Allocricetulus, Tscherskia, Cricetus, and C. migratorius. Allocricetulus and Cricetus were sister taxa. Cricetulus migratorius was their next closest relative, and Tscherskia was basal.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Although the Syrian hamster or golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) was first described scientifically by George Robert Waterhouse in 1839, researchers were not able to successfully breed and domesticate hamsters until 1939. The entire laboratory and pet populations of Syrian hamsters appear to be descendants of a single brother–sister pairing. These littermates were captured and imported in 1930 from Aleppo in Syria by Israel Aharoni, a zoologist of the University of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the hamsters bred very successfully. Years later, animals of this original breeding colony were exported to the United States, where Syrian hamsters became a common pet and laboratory animal. Comparative studies of domestic and wild Syrian hamsters have shown reduced genetic variability in the domestic strain. However, the differences in behavioral, chronobiological, morphometrical, hematological, and biochemical parameters are relatively small and fall into the expected range of interstrain variations in other laboratory animals.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The name \"hamster\" is a loanword from the German, which itself derives from earlier Middle High German hamastra. It is possibly related to Old Church Slavonic khomestoru, which is either a blend of the root of Russian хомяк (khomyak) \"hamster\" and a Baltic word (cf. Lithuanian: staras \"hamster\"); or of Persian origin (cf. Avestan: hamaēstar \"oppressor\"). The collective noun for a group of hamsters is \"horde\". In German, the verb hamstern is derived from Hamster. It means \"to hoard\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hamsters are typically stout-bodied, with tails shorter than body length, and have small, furry ears, short, stocky legs, and wide feet. They have thick, silky fur, which can be long or short, colored black, grey, honey, white, brown, yellow, red, or a mix, depending on the species. Two species of hamster belonging to the genus Phodopus, Campbell's dwarf hamster (P. campbelli) and the Djungarian hamster (P. sungorus), and two of the genus Cricetulus, the Chinese striped hamster (C. barabensis) and the Chinese hamster (C. griseus) have a dark stripe down their heads to their tails. The species of genus Phodopus are the smallest, with bodies 5.5 to 10.5 cm (2.2 to 4.1 in) long; the largest is the European hamster (Cricetus cricetus), measuring up to 34 cm (13 in) long, not including a short tail of up to 6 cm (2.4 in).",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The hamster tail can be difficult to see, as it is usually not very long (about 1⁄6 the length of the body), with the exception of the Chinese hamster, which has a tail the same length as the body. One rodent characteristic that can be highly visible in hamsters is their sharp incisors; they have an upper pair and lower pair which grow continuously throughout life, so must be regularly worn down. Hamsters are very flexible, but their bones are somewhat fragile. They are extremely susceptible to rapid temperature changes and drafts, as well as extreme heat or cold.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hamsters have poor eyesight; they are nearsighted and colorblind. Their eyesight leads to them not having a good sense of distance or knowing where they are, but that does not stop them from climbing in (and sometimes out of) their cages or from being adventurous. Hamsters can sense movement around at all times, which helps protect them from harm in the wild. In a household, this sense helps them know when their owner is near. Hamsters have scent glands on their flanks (and abdomens in Chinese and dwarf hamsters) which they rub against the surface beneath them, leaving a scent trail. Hamsters also use their sense of smell to distinguish between the sexes and to locate food. Mother hamsters can also use their sense of smell to find their own babies and identify which ones are not theirs. Their scent glands can also be used to mark their territories, their babies, or their mate. Hamsters catch sounds by having their ears upright. They tend to learn similar noises and begin to know the sound of their food and even their owner's voice. They are also particularly sensitive to high-pitched noises and can hear and communicate in the ultrasonic range.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hamsters are omnivores, which means they can eat meat and vegetables. Hamsters that live in the wild eat seeds, grass, and even insects. Although pet hamsters can survive on a diet of exclusively commercial hamster food, other items, such as vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts, can be given. Although store-bought food is good for hamsters, it is best if fruits and vegetables are also in their diet because it keeps them healthier. Even though hamsters are allowed to have both fruits and vegetables, it is important to understand exactly which ones they can have and how much. Hamsters do best with fruits that do not have citrus in them and most green leafy vegetables. Hamsters should never be fed junk food, chocolate, garlic, or any salty/sugary foods. Hamsters tend to love peanut butter but it is important to feed it to them carefully because this sticky food can get stuck in their cheeks. Hamsters in the Middle East have been known to hunt in packs to find insects for food. Hamsters are hindgut fermenters and often eat their own feces (coprophagy) to recover nutrients digested in the hind-gut, but not absorbed.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A behavioral characteristic of hamsters is food hoarding. They carry food in their spacious cheek pouches to their underground storage chambers. When full, the cheeks can make their heads double, or even triple in size. Hamsters lose weight during the autumn months in anticipation of winter. This occurs even when hamsters are kept as pets and is related to an increase in exercise.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Most hamsters are strictly solitary. If housed together, acute and chronic stress may occur, and they may fight fiercely, sometimes fatally. Dwarf hamster species may tolerate siblings or same-gender unrelated hamsters if introduced at an early enough age, but this cannot be guaranteed. Hamsters communicate through body language to one another and even to their owner. They communicate by sending a specific scent using their scent glands and also show body language to express how they are feeling.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Hamsters can be described as nocturnal or crepuscular (active mostly at dawn and dusk). Khunen writes, \"Hamsters are nocturnal rodents who are active during the night\", but others have written that because hamsters live underground during most of the day, only leaving their burrows for about an hour before sundown and then returning when it gets dark, their behavior is primarily crepuscular. Fritzsche indicated although some species have been observed to show more nocturnal activity than others, they are all primarily crepuscular.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the wild Syrian hamsters can hibernate and allow their body temperature to fall close to ambient temperature. This kind of thermoregulation diminishes the metabolic rate to about 5% and helps the animal to considerably reduce the need for food during the winter. Hibernation can last up to one week but more commonly last 2–3 days. When kept as house pets the Syrian hamster does not hibernate.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "All hamsters are excellent diggers, constructing burrows with one or more entrances, with galleries connected to chambers for nesting, food storage, and other activities. They use their fore- and hindlegs, as well as their snouts and teeth, for digging. In the wild, the burrow buffers extreme ambient temperatures, offers relatively stable climatic conditions, and protects against predators. Syrian hamsters dig their burrows generally at a depth of 70 cm (2.3 ft). A burrow includes a steep entrance pipe (4–5 cm (1.6–2.0 in) in diameter), a nesting and a hoarding chamber and a blind-ending branch for urination. Laboratory hamsters have not lost their ability to dig burrows; in fact, they will do this with great vigor and skill if they are provided with the appropriate substrate.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Wild hamsters will also appropriate tunnels made by other mammals; the Djungarian hamster, for instance, uses paths and burrows of the pika.",
"title": "Behavior"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Hamsters become fertile at different ages depending on their species. Both Syrian and Russian hamsters mature quickly and can begin reproducing at a young age (4–5 weeks), whereas Chinese hamsters will usually begin reproducing at two to three months of age, and Roborovskis at three to four months of age. The female's reproductive life lasts about 18 months, but male hamsters remain fertile much longer. Females are in estrus about every four days, which is indicated by a reddening of genital areas, a musky smell, and a hissing, squeaking vocalisation she will emit if she believes a male is nearby.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "When seen from above, a sexually mature female hamster has a trim tail line; a male's tail line bulges on both sides. This might not be very visible in all species. Male hamsters typically have very large testes in relation to their body size. Before sexual maturity occurs, it is more difficult to determine a young hamster's sex. When examined, female hamsters have their anal and genital openings close together, whereas males have these two holes farther apart (the penis is usually withdrawn into the coat and thus appears as a hole or pink pimple).",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Syrian hamsters are seasonal breeders and will produce several litters a year with several pups in each litter. The breeding season is from April to October in the Northern Hemisphere, with two to five litters of one to 13 young being born after a gestation period of 16 to 23 days. Dwarf hamsters breed all through the year. Gestation lasts 16 to 18 days for Syrian hamsters, 18 to 21 days for Russian hamsters, 21 to 23 days for Chinese hamsters and 23 to 30 for Roborovski hamsters. The average litter size for Syrian hamsters is about seven pups, but can be as great as 24, which is the maximum number of pups that can be contained in the uterus. Campbell's dwarf hamsters tend to have four to eight pups in a litter, but can have up to 13. Winter white hamsters tend to have slightly smaller litters, as do Chinese and Roborovski hamsters.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Female Chinese and Syrian hamsters are known for being aggressive toward males if kept together for too long after mating. In some cases, male hamsters can die after being attacked by a female. If breeding hamsters, separation of the pair after mating is recommended, or they will attack each other.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Female hamsters are also particularly sensitive to disturbances while giving birth, and may even eat their own young if they think they are in danger, although sometimes they are just carrying the pups in their cheek pouches. If captive female hamsters are left for extended periods (three weeks or more) with their litter, they may cannibalize the litter, so the litter must be removed by the time the young can feed and drink independently.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Hamsters are born hairless and blind in a nest the mother will have prepared in advance. After one week, they begin to explore outside the nest. Hamsters are capable of producing litters every month. Hamsters can be bred after they are three weeks old. It may be hard for the babies to not rely on their mother for nursing during this time, so it is important that they are supplied with food to make the transition from nursing to eating on their own easier. After the hamsters reach three weeks of age they are considered mature.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Syrian hamsters typically live no more than two to three years in captivity, and less in the wild. Russian hamsters (Campbell's and Djungarian) live about two to four years in captivity, and Chinese hamsters 2+1⁄2–3 years. The smaller Roborovski hamster often lives to three years in captivity.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus), which is the type most commonly kept as pets. There are numerous Syrian hamster variations including long-haired varieties and different colors. British zoologist Leonard Goodwin claimed most hamsters kept in the United Kingdom were descended from the colony he introduced for medical research purposes during the Second World War. Hamsters were domesticated and kept as pets in the United States at least as early as 1942.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Other hamsters commonly kept as pets are the three species of dwarf hamster. Campbell's dwarf hamster (Phodopus campbelli) is the most common—they are also sometimes called \"Russian dwarfs\"; however, many hamsters are from Russia, so this ambiguous name does not distinguish them from other species appropriately. The coat of the winter white dwarf hamster (Phodopus sungorus) turns almost white during winter (when the hours of daylight decrease). The Roborovski hamster (Phodopus roborovskii) is extremely small and fast, making it difficult to keep as a pet.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A hamster show is an event in which people gather hamsters to judge them against each other. Hamster shows are also places where people share their enthusiasm for hamsters among attendees. Hamster shows feature an exhibition of the hamsters participating in the judging.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The judging of hamsters usually includes a goal of promoting hamsters which conform to natural or established varieties of hamsters. By awarding hamsters which match standard hamster types, hamster shows encourage planned and careful hamster breeding.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "When the first reported case of animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong took place via imported pet hamsters, researchers expressed difficulty in identifying some of the viral mutations within a global genomic data bank, leading city authorities to announce a mass cull of all hamsters purchased after December 22, 2021, which would affect roughly 2,000 animals. After the government 'strongly encouraged' citizens to turn in their pets, approximately 3,000 people joined underground activities to promote the adoption of abandoned hamsters throughout the city and to maintain pet ownership via methods such as the forgery of pet store purchase receipts. Some activists attempted to intercept owners who were on their way to turn in pet hamsters and encourage them to choose adoption instead, which the government subsequently warned would be subject to police action.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The extracted cells of babies' kidneys and adults' ovaries are used to study cholesterol synthesis.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Some similar rodents sometimes called \"hamsters\" are not currently classified in the hamster subfamily Cricetinae. These include the maned hamster, or crested hamster, which is really the maned rat (Lophiomys imhausi). Others are the mouse-like hamsters (Calomyscus spp.), and the white-tailed rat (Mystromys albicaudatus).",
"title": "Similar animals"
}
]
| Hamsters are rodents belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae, which contains 19 species classified in seven genera. They have become established as popular small pets. The best-known species of hamster is the golden or Syrian hamster, which is the type most commonly kept as a pet. Other hamster species commonly kept as pets are the three species of dwarf hamster, Campbell's dwarf hamster, the winter white dwarf hamster and the Roborovski hamster. Hamsters are more crepuscular than nocturnal and, in the wild, remain underground during the day to avoid being caught by predators. They feed primarily on seeds, fruits, and vegetation, and will occasionally eat burrowing insects. Physically, they are stout-bodied with distinguishing features that include elongated cheek pouches extending to their shoulders, which they use to carry food back to their burrows, as well as a short tail and fur-covered feet. | 2002-01-02T23:52:12Z | 2023-12-27T19:05:20Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamster |
14,378 | History of Finland | The history of Finland begins around 9,000 BC during the end of the last glacial period. Stone Age cultures were Kunda, Comb Ceramic, Corded Ware, Kiukainen, and Pöljä cultures [fi]. The Finnish Bronze Age started in approximately 1,500 BC and the Iron Age started in 500 BC and lasted until 1,300 AD. Finnish Iron Age cultures can be separated into Finnish proper, Tavastian and Karelian cultures. The earliest written sources mentioning Finland start to appear from the 12th century onwards when the Catholic Church started to gain a foothold in Southwest Finland.
Due to the Northern Crusades and Swedish colonisation of some Finnish coastal areas, most of the region became a part of the Kingdom of Sweden and the realm of the Catholic Church from the 13th century onwards. After the Finnish War in 1809, Finland was ceded to the Russian Empire, making this area the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. The Lutheran religion dominated. Finnish nationalism emerged in the 19th century. It focused on Finnish cultural traditions, folklore, and mythology, including music and—especially—the highly distinctive language and lyrics associated with it. One product of this era was the Kalevala, one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The catastrophic Finnish famine of 1866–1868 was followed by eased economic regulations and extensive emigration.
In 1917, Finland declared its full independence. A civil war between the Finnish Red Guards and the White Guard ensued a few months later, with the Whites gaining the upper hand during the springtime of 1918. After the internal affairs stabilized, the still mainly agrarian economy grew relatively quickly. Relations with the West, especially Sweden and Britain, were strong but tensions remained with the Soviet Union. During World War II, Finland fought twice against the Soviet Union, first defending its independence in the Winter War and then invading the Soviet Union in the Continuation War. In the peace settlement Finland ended up ceding a large part of Karelia and some other areas to the Soviet Union. However, Finland remained an independent democracy in Northern Europe.
In the latter half of its independent history, Finland has maintained a mixed economy. Since its post–World War II economic boom in the 1970s, Finland's GDP per capita has been among the world's highest. The expanded welfare state of Finland from 1970 and 1990 increased the public sector employees and spending and the tax burden imposed on the citizens. In 1992, Finland simultaneously faced economic overheating and depressed Western, Russian, and local markets. Finland joined the European Union in 1995, and replaced the Finnish markka with the euro in 2002. According to a 2016 poll, 61% of Finns preferred not to join NATO. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the numbers had shifted significantly, with 62% in favour of Finland joining NATO and 16% against. Finland started to pursue membership in the alliance and eventually joined NATO on 4 April 2023.
If confirmed, the oldest archeological site in Finland would be the Wolf Cave in Kristinestad, in Ostrobothnia. The site would be the only pre-glacial (Neanderthal) site so far discovered in the Nordic countries, and it is approximately 125,000 years old.
The last ice age in the area of the modern-day Finland ended c. 9000 BC. Starting about that time, people migrated to the area of Finland from the south and southeast. Their culture represented a mixture of Kunda, Butovo [fi], and Veretje cultures [fi]. At the same time, northern Finland was inhabited via the coast of Norway. The oldest confirmed evidence of post-glacial human settlements in Finland is from the area of Ristola in Lahti and from Orimattila, from c. 8900 BC. Finland has been continuously inhabited at least since the end of the last ice age up to the present. The earliest post-glacial inhabitants of the present-day area of Finland were probably mainly seasonal hunter-gatherers. Among finds is the net of Antrea, the oldest fishing net known ever to have been excavated (calibrated carbon dating: ca. 8300 BC).
By 5300 BC, pottery was present in Finland. The earliest samples belong to the Comb Ceramic cultures, known for their distinctive decorating patterns. This marks the beginning of the neolithic period for Finland, although subsistence was still based on hunting and fishing. Extensive networks of exchange existed across Finland and northeastern Europe during the 5th millennium BC. For example, flint from Scandinavia and the Valdai Hills, amber from Scandinavia and the Baltic region, and slate from Scandinavia and Lake Onega found their way into Finnish archaeological sites, while asbestos and soap stone from Finland (e.g. the area of Saimaa) were found in other regions. Rock paintings—apparently related to shamanistic and totemistic belief systems—have been found, especially in Eastern Finland, e.g. Astuvansalmi.
Between 3500 and 2000 BC, monumental stone enclosures, colloquially known as Giant's Churches (Finnish: Jätinkirkko), were constructed in the Ostrobothnia region. The purpose of the enclosures is unknown.
In recent years, a dig at the Kierikki site north of Oulu on the River Ii has changed the image of Finnish neolithic Stone Age culture. The site had been inhabited year-round and its inhabitants traded extensively. Kierikki culture is also seen as a subtype of Comb Ceramic culture. More of the site is excavated annually.
From 3200 BC onwards, either immigrants or a strong cultural influence from south of the Gulf of Finland settled in southwestern Finland. This culture was a part of the European Battle Axe cultures, which have often been associated with the movement of the Indo-European speakers. The Battle Axe, or Cord Ceramic, culture seems to have practiced agriculture and animal husbandry outside of Finland, but the earliest confirmed traces of agriculture in Finland date later, approximately to the 2nd millennium BC. Further inland, societies retained their hunting-gathering lifestyles for the time being.
The Battle Axe and Comb Ceramic cultures eventually merged, giving rise to the Kiukainen culture that existed between 2300 BC and 1500 BC, and was fundamentally a comb ceramic tradition with cord ceramic characteristics.
The Bronze Age began some time after 1500 BC. The coastal regions of Finland were a part of the Nordic Bronze Culture, whereas in the inland regions the influences came from the bronze-using cultures of northern and eastern Russia.
The Iron Age in Finland is considered to have lasted from c. 500 BC until c. 1300 AD. Written records of Finland become more common due to the Northern Crusades led by the Catholic Church in the 12th and 13th centuries. As the Finnish Iron Age lasted almost two millennia, it is further divided into six sub-periods:
Very few written records of Finland or its people remain in any language of the era. Written sources are of foreign origin and include Tacitus's description of Fenni in his work Germania, runestones, the sagas written down by Snorri Sturluson, as well as the 12th- and 13th-century ecclesiastical letters by the Pope. Numerous other sources from the Roman period onwards contain brief mentions of ancient Finnish kings and place names, as such defining Finland as a kingdom and noting the culture of its people.
The oldest surviving mention of the word Suomi (Finland in Finnish) is in the annals of the Frankish Empire written between 741 and 829. At 811, annals mention a person named Suomi in connection with a peace agreement. The name Suomi as the name of Finland is nowadays used in Finnic languages, Sámi, Latvian, Lithuanian and Scottish Gaelic.
Currently the oldest known Scandinavian documents mentioning Finland are two runestones: Söderby, Sweden, with the inscription finlont (U 582), and Gotland with the inscription finlandi (G 319) dating from the 11th century. However, as the long continuum of the Finnish Iron Age into the historical Medieval period of Europe suggests, the primary source of information of the era in Finland is based on archaeological findings and modern applications of natural scientific methods like those of DNA analysis or computer linguistics.
Production of iron during the Finnish Iron Age was adopted from the neighboring cultures in the east, west and south about the same time as the first imported iron artifacts appear. This happened almost simultaneously in various parts of the country.
The Pre-Roman period of the Finnish Iron Age is scarcest in findings, but the known ones suggest that cultural connections to other Baltic cultures were already established. The archeological findings of Pernå and Savukoski provides proof of this argument. Many of the era's dwelling sites are the same as those of the Neolithic. Most of the iron of the era was produced on site.
The Roman period brought along an influx of imported iron (and other) artifacts like Roman wine glasses and dippers as well as various coins of the Empire. During this period the (proto) Finnish culture stabilized on the coastal regions and larger graveyards become commonplace. The prosperity of the Finns rose to the level that the vast majority of gold treasures found within Finland date back to this period.
The Migration period saw the expansion of land cultivation inland, especially in Southern Bothnia, and the growing influence of Germanic cultures, both in artifacts like swords and other weapons and in burial customs. However most iron as well as its forging was of domestic origin, probably from bog iron.
The Merovingian period in Finland gave rise to a distinctive fine crafts culture of its own, visible in the original decorations of domestically produced weapons and jewelry. The finest luxury weapons, however, were imported from Western Europe. The very first Christian burials are from the latter part of this era as well. In the Leväluhta burial findings, the average height of a man was originally thought to be just 158 cm and that of a woman 147 cm, but recent research has corrected these numbers upwards and has confirmed that the people buried in Leväluhta were of average height for that era in Europe.
Recent findings suggest that Finnish trade connections became more active during the 8th century, bringing an influx of silver onto Finnish markets. The opening of the eastern route to Constantinople via Finland's southern coastline archipelago brought Arabic and Byzantine artifacts into the excavation findings of the era.
The earliest findings of imported iron blades and local iron working appear in 500 BC. From about 50 AD, there are indications of a more intense long-distance exchange of goods in coastal Finland. Inhabitants exchanged their products, presumably mostly furs, for weapons and ornaments with the Balts and the Scandinavians, as well as with the peoples along the traditional eastern trade routes. The existence of richly furnished burials, usually with weapons, suggests that there was a chiefly elite in the southern and western parts of the country. Hillforts spread over most of southern Finland at the end of the Iron and early Medieval Ages. There is no commonly accepted evidence of early state formations in Finland, and the presumably Iron Age origins of urbanization are contested.
The question of the timelines for the evolution and the spreading of the current Finnic languages is controversial, and new theories challenging older ones have been introduced continuously.
It was for a long time widely believed that Finno-Ugric (the western branch of the Uralic) languages were first spoken in Finland and the adjacent areas during the Comb Ceramic period, around 4000 BC at the latest. During the 2nd millennium BC these evolved—possibly under an Indo-European (most likely Baltic) influence—into proto-Sami (inland) and Proto-Finnic (coastland). In contrast, A. Aikio and J. Häkkinen propose that the Finno-Ugric languages arrived in the Gulf of Finland area during the Late Bronze Age. Valter Lang has proposed that the Finnic and Saami languages arrived there in the early Bronze Age, possibly connected to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. This would also imply that Finno-Ugric languages in Finland were preceded by a Northwestern Indo-European language, at least to the extent the latter can be associated with the Cord Ceramic culture, as well as by hitherto unknown Paleo-European languages. The center of expansion for the Proto-Finnic language is posited to have been located on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The Finnish language is thought to have started to differentiate during the Iron Age starting from the earliest centuries of the Common Era.
Cultural influences from a variety of places are visible in the Finnish archaeological finds from the very first settlements onwards. For example, archaeological finds from Finnish Lapland suggest the presence of the Komsa culture from Norway. The Sujala finds, which are equal in age with the earliest Komsa artifacts, may also suggest a connection to the Swiderian culture. Southwestern Finland belonged to the Nordic Bronze Age, which may be associated with Indo-European languages, and according to Finnish Germanist Jorma Koivulehto speakers of Proto-Germanic language in particular. Artifacts found in Kalanti and the province of Satakunta, which have long been monolingually Finnish, and their place names have made several scholars argue for an existence of a proto-Germanic speaking population component a little later, during the Early and Middle Iron Age.
The Swedish colonisation of the Åland Islands, Turku archipelago and Uusimaa could possibly have started in the 12th century but reached its height in the 13th and 14th centuries, when it also affected the Eastern Uusimaa and Pohjanmaa regions. The oldest Swedish place names in Finland are from this period as well as the Swedish-speaking population of Finland.
Contact between Sweden and what is now Finland was considerable even during pre-Christian times; the Vikings were known to the Finns due to their participation in both commerce and plundering. There is possible evidence of Viking settlement in the Finnish mainland. The Åland Islands probably had Swedish settlement during the Viking Period. However, some scholars claim that the archipelago was deserted during the 11th century. According to the archaeological finds, Christianity gained a foothold in Finland during the 11th century. According to the very few written documents that have survived, the church in Finland was still in its early development in the 12th century. Later medieval legends from late 13th century describe Swedish attempts to conquer and Christianize Finland sometime in the mid-1150s.
In the early 13th century, Bishop Thomas became the first known bishop of Finland. There were several secular powers who aimed to bring the Finnish tribes under their rule. These were Sweden, Denmark, the Republic of Novgorod in northwestern Russia, and probably the German crusading orders as well. Finns had their own chiefs, but most probably no central authority. At the time there can be seen three cultural areas or tribes in Finland: Finns, Tavastians and Karelians. Russian chronicles indicate there were several conflicts between Novgorod and the Finnic tribes from the 11th or 12th century to the early 13th century.
It was the Swedish regent, Birger Jarl, who allegedly established Swedish rule in Finland through the Second Swedish Crusade, most often dated to 1249. The Eric Chronicle, the only source narrating the crusade, describes that it was aimed at Tavastians. A papal letter from 1237 states that the Tavastians had reverted from Christianity to their old ethnic faith.
Novgorod gained control in Karelia in 1278, the region inhabited by speakers of Eastern Finnish dialects. Sweden however gained the control of Western Karelia with the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293. Western Karelians were from then on viewed as part of the western cultural sphere, while eastern Karelians turned culturally to Russia and Orthodoxy. While eastern Karelians remain linguistically and ethnically closely related to the Finns, they are generally considered a separate people. Thus, the northern part of the border between Catholic and Orthodox Christendom came to lie at the eastern border of what would become Finland with the Treaty of Nöteborg with Novgorod in 1323.
During the 13th century, Finland was integrated into medieval European civilization. The Dominican order arrived in Finland around 1249 and came to exercise great influence there. In the early 14th century, the first records of Finnish students at the Sorbonne appear. In the southwestern part of the country, an urban settlement evolved in Turku. Turku was one of the biggest towns in the Kingdom of Sweden, and its population included German merchants and craftsmen. Otherwise the degree of urbanization was very low in medieval Finland. Southern Finland and the long coastal zone of the Gulf of Bothnia had sparse farming settlements, organized as parishes and castellanies. In the other parts of the country a small population of Sami hunters, fishermen, and small-scale farmers lived. These were exploited by the Finnish and Karelian tax collectors. During the 12th and 13th centuries, great numbers of Swedish settlers moved to the southern and northwestern coasts of Finland, to the Åland Islands, and to the archipelago between Turku and the Åland Islands. In these regions, the Swedish language is widely spoken even today. Swedish came to be the language of the upper class in many other parts of Finland as well.
The name Finland originally signified only the southwestern province, which has been known as Finland Proper since the 18th century. The first known mention of Finland is in runestone Gs 13 from the 11th century. The original Swedish term for the realm's eastern part was Österlands ('Eastern Lands'), a plural, meaning the area of Finland Proper, Tavastia, and Karelia. This was later replaced by the singular form Österland, which was in use between 1350 and 1470. In the 15th century Finland began to be used synonymously with Österland. The concept of a Finnish country in the modern sense developed slowly from the 15th to 18th centuries.
During the 13th century, the bishopric of Turku was established. Turku Cathedral was the center of the cult of Saint Henry of Uppsala, and naturally the cultural center of the bishopric. The bishop had ecclesiastical authority over much of today's Finland, and was usually the most powerful man there. Bishops were often Finns, whereas the commanders of castles were more often Scandinavian or German noblemen. In 1362, representatives from Finland were called to participate in the elections for the king of Sweden. As such, that year is often considered when Finland was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sweden. As in the Scandinavian part of the kingdom, the gentry or (lower) nobility consisted of magnates and yeomen who could afford armament for a man and a horse; these were concentrated in the southern part of Finland.
The strong fortress of Viborg (Finnish: Viipuri, Russian: Vyborg) guarded the eastern border of Finland. Sweden and Novgorod signed the Treaty of Nöteborg (Pähkinäsaari in Finnish) in 1323, but that did not last long. In 1348 the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson staged a failed crusade against Orthodox "heretics", managing only to alienate his supporters and ultimately lose his crown. The bones of contention between Sweden and Novgorod were the northern coastline of the Gulf of Bothnia and the wilderness regions of Savo in Eastern Finland. Novgorod considered these as hunting and fishing grounds of its Karelian subjects, and protested against the slow infiltration of Catholic settlers from the West. Occasional raids and clashes between Swedes and Novgorodians occurred during the late 14th and 15th centuries, but for most of the time an uneasy peace prevailed.
During the 1380s, a civil war in the Scandinavian part of Sweden brought unrest to Finland as well. The victor of this struggle was Queen Margaret I of Denmark, who brought the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark and, Norway under her rule (the Kalmar Union) in 1389. One of the phenomena that appeared in those days with the unrest, was the notorious pirates, known as the Victual Brothers, who operated in the Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages to terrorize the coastal areas of Finland, and among other things, Korsholm Castle in Ostrobothnia, Turku Castle in the Finland Proper and also the Turku's Archipelago Sea were the most significant domains for the pirates. The next 130 years or so were characterized by attempts of different Swedish factions to break out of the Union. Finland was sometimes involved in these struggles, but in general the 15th century seems to have been a relatively prosperous time, characterized by population growth and economic development. Towards the end of the 15th century, however, the situation on the eastern border became more tense. The Principality of Moscow conquered Novgorod, preparing the way for a unified Russia, and from 1495 to 1497 a war was fought between Sweden and Russia. The fortress-town of Viborg withstood a Russian siege; according to a contemporary legend, it was saved by a miracle.
In 1521 the Kalmar Union collapsed and Gustav Vasa became the King of Sweden. During his rule, the Swedish church was reformed. The state administration underwent extensive reforms and development too, giving it a much stronger grip on the life of local communities—and ability to collect higher taxes. Following the policies of the Reformation, in 1551 Mikael Agricola, bishop of Turku, published his translation of the New Testament into the Finnish language.
In 1550 Helsinki was founded by Gustav Vasa under the name of Helsingfors, but remained little more than a fishing village for more than two centuries.
King Gustav Vasa died in 1560 and his crown was passed to his three sons in separate turns. King Erik XIV started an era of expansion when the Swedish crown took the city of Tallinn in Estonia under its protection in 1561. This action contributed to the early stages of the Livonian War which was a warlike era which lasted for 160 years. In the first phase, Sweden fought for the lordship of Estonia and Latvia against Denmark, Poland and Russia. The common people of Finland suffered because of drafts, high taxes, and abuse by military personnel. This resulted in the Cudgel War of 1596–1597, a desperate peasant rebellion, which was suppressed brutally and bloodily. A peace treaty (the Treaty of Teusina) with Russia in 1595 moved the border of Finland further to the east and north, very roughly where the modern border lies.
An important part of the 16th-century history of Finland was growth of the area settled by the farming population. The crown encouraged farmers from the province of Savonia to settle the vast wilderness regions in Middle Finland. This often forced the original Sami population to leave. Some of the wilderness settled was traditional hunting and fishing territory of Karelian hunters. During the 1580s, this resulted in a bloody guerrilla warfare between the Finnish settlers and Karelians in some regions, especially in Ostrobothnia.
In 1611–1632 Sweden was ruled by King Gustavus Adolphus, whose military reforms transformed the Swedish army from a peasant militia into an efficient fighting machine, possibly the best in Europe. The conquest of Livonia was now completed, and some territories were taken from internally divided Russia in the Treaty of Stolbovo. In 1630, the Swedish (and Finnish) armies marched into Central Europe, as Sweden had decided to take part in the great struggle between Protestant and Catholic forces in Germany, known as the Thirty Years' War. The Finnish light cavalry was known as the Hakkapeliitat.
After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Swedish Empire was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. During the war, several important reforms had been made in Finland:
However, the high taxation, continuing wars and the cold climate (the Little Ice Age) made the Imperial era of Sweden rather gloomy times for Finnish peasants. In 1655–1660, the Northern Wars were fought, taking Finnish soldiers to the battle-fields of Livonia, Poland and Denmark. In 1676, the political system of Sweden was transformed into an absolute monarchy.
In Middle and Eastern Finland, great amounts of tar were produced for export. European nations needed this material for the maintenance of their fleets. According to some theories, the spirit of early capitalism in the tar-producing province of Ostrobothnia may have been the reason for the witch-hunt wave that happened in this region during the late 17th century. The people were developing more expectations and plans for the future, and when these were not realized, they were quick to blame witches—according to a belief system the Lutheran church had imported from Germany.
The Empire had a colony in the New World in the modern-day Delaware-Pennsylvania area between 1638 and 1655. At least half of the immigrants were of Finnish origin.
The 17th century was an era of very strict Lutheran orthodoxy. In 1608, the law of Moses was declared the law of the land, in addition to secular legislation. Every subject of the realm was required to confess the Lutheran faith and church attendance was mandatory. Ecclesiastical penalties were widely used. The rigorous requirements of orthodoxy were revealed in the dismissal of the Bishop of Turku, Johan Terserus, who wrote a catechism which was decreed heretical in 1664 by the theologians of the academy of Åbo. On the other hand, the Lutheran requirement of the individual study of Bible prompted the first attempts at wide-scale education. The church required from each person a degree of literacy sufficient to read the basic texts of the Lutheran faith. Although the requirements could be fulfilled by learning the texts by heart, also the skill of reading became known among the population.
In 1696–1699, a famine caused by climate decimated Finland. A combination of an early frost, the freezing temperatures preventing grain from reaching Finnish ports, and a lackluster response from the Swedish government saw about one-third of the population die. Soon afterwards, another war determining Finland's fate began (the Great Northern War of 1700–21).
The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was devastating, as Sweden and Russia fought for control of the Baltic. Harsh conditions—worsening poverty and repeated crop failures—among peasants undermined support for the war, leading to Sweden's defeat. Finland was a battleground as both armies ravaged the countryside, leading to famine, epidemics, social disruption and the loss of nearly half the population. By 1721 only 250,000 remained. Landowners had to pay higher wages to keep their peasants. Russia was the winner, annexing the south-eastern part, including the town of Viborg, after the Treaty of Nystad. The border with Russia came to lie roughly where it returned to after World War II. Sweden's status as a European great power was forfeited, and Russia was now the leading power in the North. The absolute monarchy ended in Sweden. During this Age of Liberty, the Parliament ruled the country, and the two parties of the Hats and Caps struggled for control leaving the lesser Court party, i.e. parliamentarians with close connections to the royal court, with little to no influence. The Caps wanted to have a peaceful relationship with Russia and were supported by many Finns, while other Finns longed for revenge and supported the Hats.
Finland by this time was depopulated, with a population in 1749 of 427,000. However, with peace the population grew rapidly, and doubled before 1800. 90% of the population were typically classified as peasants, most being free taxed yeomen. Society was divided into four Estates: peasants (free taxed yeomen), the clergy, nobility and burghers. A minority, mostly cottagers, were estateless, and had no political representation. Forty-five percent of the male population were enfranchised with full political representation in the legislature—although clerics, nobles and townsfolk had their own chambers in the parliament, boosting their political influence and excluding the peasantry on matters of foreign policy.
The mid-18th century was a relatively good time, partly because life was now more peaceful. However, during the Lesser Wrath (1741–1742), Finland was again occupied by the Russians after the government, during a period of Hat party dominance, had made a botched attempt to reconquer the lost provinces. Instead the result of the Treaty of Åbo was that the Russian border was moved further to the west. During this time, Russian propaganda hinted at the possibility of creating a separate Finnish kingdom.
Both the ascending Russian Empire and pre-revolutionary France aspired to have Sweden as a client state. Parliamentarians and others with influence were susceptible to taking bribes which they did their best to increase. The integrity and the credibility of the political system waned, and in 1771 the young and charismatic king Gustav III staged a coup d'état, abolished parliamentarism and reinstated royal power in Sweden—more or less with the support of the parliament. In 1788, he started a new war against Russia. Despite a couple of victorious battles, the war was fruitless, managing only to bring disturbance to the economic life of Finland. The popularity of King Gustav III waned considerably. During the war, a group of officers made the famous Anjala declaration demanding peace negotiations and calling of the Riksdag (Parliament). An interesting sideline to this process was the conspiracy of some Finnish officers, who attempted to create an independent Finnish state with Russian support. After an initial shock, Gustav III crushed this opposition. In 1789, the new constitution of Sweden strengthened the royal power further, as well as improving the status of the peasantry. However, the continuing war had to be finished without conquests—and many Swedes now considered the king as a tyrant.
With the interruption of the Gustav III's war (1788–1790), the last decades of the 18th century had been an era of development in Finland. New things were changing even everyday life, such as starting of potato farming after the 1750s. New scientific and technical inventions were seen. The first hot air balloon in Finland (and in the whole Swedish kingdom) was made in Oulu (Uleåborg) in 1784, only a year after it was invented in France. Trade increased and the peasantry was growing more affluent and self-conscious. The Age of Enlightenment's climate of broadened debate in the society on issues of politics, religion and morals would in due time highlight the problem that the overwhelming majority of Finns spoke only Finnish, but the cascade of newspapers, belles-lettres and political leaflets was almost exclusively in Swedish—when not in French.
The two Russian occupations had been harsh and were not easily forgotten. These occupations were a seed of a feeling of separateness and otherness, that in a narrow circle of scholars and intellectuals at the university in Turku was forming a sense of a separate Finnish identity representing the eastern part of the realm. The shining influence of the Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg was also much stronger in southern Finland than in other parts of Sweden, and contacts across the new border dispersed the worst fears for the fate of the educated and trading classes under a Russian régime. At the turn of the 19th century, the Swedish-speaking educated classes of officers, clerics and civil servants were mentally well prepared for a shift of allegiance to the strong Russian Empire.
King Gustav III was assassinated in 1792, and his son Gustav IV Adolf assumed the crown after a period of regency. The new king was not a particularly talented ruler; at least not talented enough to steer his kingdom through the dangerous era of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.
Meanwhile, the Finnish areas belonging to Russia after the peace treaties in 1721 and 1743 (not including Ingria), called "Old Finland", were initially governed with the old Swedish laws (a not uncommon practice in the expanding Russian Empire in the 18th century). However, gradually the rulers of Russia granted large estates of land to their non-Finnish favorites, ignoring the traditional landownership and peasant freedom laws of Old Finland. There were even cases where the noblemen punished peasants corporally, for example by flogging. The overall situation caused decline in the economy and morale in Old Finland, worsened since 1797 when the area was forced to send men to the Imperial Army. The construction of military installations in the area brought thousands of non-Finnish people to the region. In 1812, after the Russian conquest of Finland, "Old Finland" was attached to the rest of the country, though the landownership question remained a serious problem until the 1870s.
While the king of Sweden sent in his governor to rule Finland, in day to day reality the villagers ran their own affairs using traditional local assemblies (called the ting) which selected a local lagman, or lawman, to enforce the norms. The Swedes used the parish system to collect taxes. The socken (local parish) was at once a community religious organization and a judicial district that administered the king's law. The ting participated in the taxation process; taxes were collected by the bailiff, a royal appointee.
In contrast to serfdom in Germany and Russia, the Finnish peasant was typically a freeholder who owned and controlled his small plot of land. There was no serfdom in which peasants were permanently attached to specific lands, and were ruled by the owners of that land. In Finland (and Sweden) the peasants formed one of the four estates and were represented in the parliament. Outside the political sphere, however, the peasants were considered at the bottom of the social order—just above vagabonds. The upper classes looked down on them as excessively prone to drunkenness and laziness, as clannish and untrustworthy, and especially as lacking honor and a sense of national spirit. This disdain dramatically changed in the 19th century when everyone idealised the peasant as the true carrier of Finnishness and the national ethos, as opposed to the Swedish-speaking elites.
The peasants were not passive; they were proud of their traditions and would band together and fight to uphold their traditional rights in the face of burdensome taxes from the king or new demands by the landowning nobility. The great Cudgel War in the south in 1596–1597 attacked the nobles and their new system of state feudalism; this bloody revolt was similar to other contemporary peasant wars in Europe. In the north, there was less tension between nobles and peasants and more equality among peasants, due to the practice of subdividing farms among heirs, to non farm economic activities, and to the small numbers of nobility and gentry. Often the nobles and landowners were paternalistic and helpful. The Crown usually sided with the nobles, but after the "restitution" of the 1680s it ended the practice of the nobility extracting labor from the peasants and instead began a new tax system whereby royal bureaucrats collected taxes directly from the peasants, who disliked the efficient new system. After 1800 growing population pressure resulted in larger numbers of poor crofters and landless laborers and the impoverishment of small farmers.
During the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia, Finland was again conquered by the armies of Tsar Alexander I. The four Estates of occupied Finland were assembled at the Diet of Porvoo on 29 March 1809, to pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia. Following the Swedish defeat in the war and the signing of the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on 17 September 1809, Finland remained a Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917, with the czar as Grand Duke. Russia assigned Karelia ("Old Finland") to the Grand Duchy in 1812. During the years of Russian rule the degree of autonomy varied. Periods of censorship and political prosecution occurred, particularly in the two last decades of Russian control, but the Finnish peasantry remained free (unlike the Russian serfs) as the old Swedish law remained effective (including the relevant parts from Gustav III's Constitution of 1772). The old four-chamber Diet was re-activated in the 1860s agreeing to supplementary new legislation concerning internal affairs. In addition, Finns remained free of obligations connected to the empire, such as the duty to serve in tsarist armies, and they enjoyed certain rights that citizens from other parts of the empire did not have.
Before 1860 overseas merchant firms and the owners of landed estates had accumulated wealth that became available for industrial investments. After 1860 the government liberalized economic laws and began to build a suitable physical infrastructure of ports, railroads and telegraph lines. The domestic market was small but rapid growth took place after 1860 in export industries drawing on forest resources and mobile rural laborers. Industrialization began during the mid-19th century from forestry to industry, mining and machinery and laid the foundation of Finland's current day prosperity, even though agriculture employed a relatively large part of the population until the post–World War II era.
The beginnings of industrialism took place in Helsinki. Alfred Kihlman (1825–1904) began as a Lutheran priest and director of the elite Helsingfors boys' school, the Swedish Normal Lyceum. He became a financier and member of the diet. There was little precedent in Finland in the 1850s for raising venture capital. Kihlman was well connected and enlisted businessmen and capitalists to invest in new enterprises. In 1869, he organized a limited partnership that supported two years of developmental activities that led to the founding of the Nokia company in 1871.
After 1890 industrial productivity stagnated because entrepreneurs were unable to keep up with technological innovations made by competitors in Germany, Britain and the United States. However, Russification opened up a large Russian market especially for machinery.
The Finnish national awakening in the mid-19th century was the result of members of the Swedish-speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language as a means of nation building, i.e. to establish a feeling of unity among all people in Finland including (and not of least importance) between the ruling elite and the ruled peasantry. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, a collection of traditional myths and legends which is the folklore of the Karelian people (the Finnic Eastern Orthodox people who inhabit the Lake Ladoga-region of eastern Finland and present-day NW Russia), stirred the nationalism that later led to Finland's independence from Russia.
Particularly following Finland's incorporation into the Swedish central administration during the 16th and 17th centuries, Swedish was spoken by about 15% of the population, especially the upper and middle classes. Swedish was the language of administration, public institutions, education and cultural life. Only the peasants spoke Finnish. The emergence of Finnish to predominance resulted from a 19th-century surge of Finnish nationalism, aided by Russian bureaucrats attempting to separate Finns from Sweden and to ensure the Finns' loyalty.
In 1863, the Finnish language gained an official position in administration. In 1892 Finnish finally became an equal official language and gained a status comparable to that of Swedish. Nevertheless, the Swedish language continued to be the language of culture, arts and business all the way to the 1920s.
Movements toward Finnish national pride, as well as liberalism in politics and economics involved ethnic and class dimensions. The nationalist movement against Russia began with the Fennoman movement led by Hegelian philosopher Johan Vilhelm Snellman in the 1830s. Snellman sought to apply philosophy to social action and moved the basis of Finnish nationalism to establishment of the language in the schools, while remaining loyal to the czar. Fennomania became the Finnish Party in the 1860s.
Liberalism was the central issue of the 1860s to 1880s. The language issue overlapped both liberalism and nationalism, and showed some a class conflict as well, with the peasants pitted against the conservative Swedish-speaking landowners and nobles. Finnish activists divided themselves into "old" (no compromise on the language question and conservative nationalism) and "young" (liberation from Russia) Finns. The leading liberals were Swedish-speaking intellectuals who called for more democracy; they became the radical leaders after 1880. The liberals organized for social democracy, labor unions, farmer cooperatives, and women's rights.
Nationalism was contested by the pro-Russian element and by the internationalism of the labor movement. The result was a tendency to class conflict over nationalism, but the early 1900s the working classes split into the Valpas (class struggle emphasis) and Mäkelin (nationalist emphasis).
During that period Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodoxy were official religions of the Finnish Grand Duchy. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland was separated from Church of Sweden in the early 19th century. Immediately after the Finnish War, Finnish Lutheran clergy feared state-led proselytism to Orthodoxy. The majority of Finns were Lutheran Christians, but an ancient prominent Orthodox minority lived in Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. The monasteries of Valaam and Konevets were important religious centres and pilgrimage sites of Orthodox faithful. There were also Orthodox churches built in Finnish cities and towns, where there were Russian garrisons. During this period, Roman Catholism, Judaism and Islam came to Finland with Russian soldiers and merchants.
While the vast majority of Finns were Lutheran, there were two strains to Lutheranism that eventually merged to form the modern Finnish church. On the one hand was the high-church emphasis on ritual, with its roots in traditional peasant collective society. Paavo Ruotsalainen (1777–1852) on the other hand was a leader of the new pietism, with its subjectivity, revivalism, emphasis on personal morality, lay participation, and the social gospel. The pietism appealed to the emerging middle class. The Ecclesiastical Law of 1869 combined the two strains. Finland's political and Lutheran leaders considered both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism to be threats to the emerging nation. Eastern Orthodoxy was rejected as a weapon of Russification, while anti-Catholicism was long-standing. Anti-Semitism was also a factor, so the Dissenter Law of 1889 upgraded the status only of the minor Protestant sects. Founding monasteries was forbidden.
Before 1790 music was found in Lutheran churches and in folk traditions. In 1790 music lovers founded the Åbo Musical Society; it gave the first major stimulus to serious music by Finnish composers. In the 1880s, new institutions, especially the Helsinki Music Institute (since 1939 called the Sibelius Academy), the Institute of Music of Helsinki University and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, integrated Finland into the mainstream of European music. By far the most influential composer was Jean Sibelius (1865–1957); he composed nearly all his music before 1930. In April 1892 Sibelius presented his new symphony Kullervo in Helsinki. It featured poetry from the Kalevala, and was celebrated by critics as truly Finnish music.
Despite certain freedoms granted to Finland, the Grand Duchy was not a democratic state. The tsar retained supreme power and ruled through the highest official in the land, the governor general, almost always a Russian officer. Alexander dissolved the Diet of the Four Estates shortly after convening it in 1809, and it did not meet again for half a century. The tsar's actions were in accordance with the royalist constitution Finland had inherited from Sweden. The Finns had no guarantees of liberty, but depended on the tsar's goodwill for any freedoms they enjoyed. When Alexander II, the Tsar Liberator, convened the Diet again in 1863, he did so not to fulfill any obligation but to meet growing pressures for reform within the empire as a whole. In the remaining decades of the century, the Diet enacted numerous legislative measures that modernized Finland's system of law, made its public administration more efficient, removed obstacles to commerce, and prepared the ground for the country's independence in the next century.
The policy of Russification of Finland (1899–1905 and 1908–1917, called sortokaudet/sortovuodet ('times/years of oppression') in Finnish) was the policy of the Russian czars designed to limit the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland and fully integrate it politically, militarily, and culturally into the empire. Finns were strongly opposed and fought back by passive resistance and a strengthening of Finnish cultural identity. Key provisions were, first, the February Manifesto of 1899 which asserted the imperial government's right to rule Finland without the consent of local legislative bodies; second, the Language Manifesto of 1900 which made Russian the language of administration of Finland; and third, the conscription law of 1901 which incorporated the Finnish army into the imperial army and sent conscripts away to Russian training camps.
In 1906, as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the associated Finnish general strike of 1905, the old four-chamber Diet was replaced by a unicameral Parliament of Finland (the Eduskunta). For the first time in Europe, universal suffrage (right to vote) and eligibility was implemented to include women: Finnish women were the first in Europe to gain full eligibility to vote; and have membership in an estate; land ownership or inherited titles were no longer required. However, on the local level things were different, as in the municipal elections the number of votes was tied to amount of tax paid. Thus, rich people could cast a number of votes, while the poor perhaps none at all. The municipal voting system was changed to universal suffrage in 1917 when a left-wing majority was elected to Parliament.
Emigration was especially important 1890–1914, with many young men and some families headed to Finnish settlements in the United States, and also to Canada. They typically worked in lumber and mining, and many were active in Marxist causes on the one hand, or the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America on the other. In the 21st century about 700,000 Americans and 140,000 Canadians claim Finnish ancestry.
By 2000 about 6% of the population spoke Swedish as their first language, or 300,000 people. However, since the late 20th century there has been a steady migration of older, better educated Swedish speakers to Sweden.
In the aftermath of the February Revolution in Russia, Finland received a new Senate, and a coalition Cabinet with the same power distribution as the Finnish Parliament. Based on the general election in 1916, the Social Democrats had a small majority, and the Social Democrat Oskari Tokoi became prime minister. The new Senate was willing to cooperate with the Provisional government of Russia, but no agreement was reached. Finland considered the personal union with Russia to be over after the dethroning of the Tsar—although the Finns had de facto recognized the Provisional government as the Tsar's successor by accepting its authority to appoint a new Governor General and Senate. They expected the Tsar's authority to be transferred to Finland's Parliament, which the Provisional government refused, suggesting instead that the question should be settled by the Russian Constituent Assembly.
For the Finnish Social Democrats it seemed as though the bourgeoisie was an obstacle on Finland's road to independence as well as on the proletariat's road to power. The non-Socialists in Tokoi's Senate were, however, more confident. They, and most of the non-Socialists in the Parliament, rejected the Social Democrats' proposal on parliamentarism (the so-called "Power Act") as being too far-reaching and provocative. The act restricted Russia's influence on domestic Finnish matters, but did not touch the Russian government's power on matters of defence and foreign affairs. For the Russian Provisional government this was, however, far too radical, exceeding the Parliament's authority, and so the Provisional government dissolved the Parliament.
The minority of the Parliament, and of the Senate, were content. New elections promised a chance for them to gain a majority, which they were convinced would improve the chances to reach an understanding with Russia. The non-Socialists were also inclined to cooperate with the Russian Provisional Government because they feared the Social Democrats' power would grow, resulting in radical reforms, such as equal suffrage in municipal elections, or a land reform. The majority had the completely opposite opinion. They did not accept the Provisional government's right to dissolve the Parliament.
The Social Democrats held on to the Power Act and opposed the promulgation of the decree of dissolution of the Parliament, whereas the non-Socialists voted for promulgating it. The disagreement over the Power Act led to the Social Democrats leaving the Senate. When the Parliament met again after the summer recess in August 1917, only the groups supporting the Power Act were present. Russian troops took possession of the chamber, the Parliament was dissolved, and new elections were held. The result was a (small) non-Socialist majority and a purely non-Socialist Senate. The suppression of the Power Act, and the cooperation between Finnish non-Socialists and Russia provoked great bitterness among the Socialists, and had resulted in dozens of politically motivated attacks and murders.
The October Revolution of 1917 turned Finnish politics upside down. Now, the new non-Socialist majority of the Parliament desired total independence, and the Socialists came gradually to view Soviet Russia as an example to follow. On 15 November 1917, the Bolsheviks declared a general right of self-determination "for the Peoples of Russia", including the right of complete secession. On the same day the Finnish Parliament issued a declaration by which it temporarily took power in Finland.
Worried by developments in Russia and Finland, the non-Socialist Senate proposed that Parliament declare Finland's independence, which was voted by the Parliament on 6 December 1917. On 18 December (31 December N. S.) the Soviet government issued a Decree, recognizing Finland's independence, and on 22 December (4 January 1918 N. S.) it was approved by the highest Soviet executive body (VTsIK). Germany and the Scandinavian countries followed without delay.
Finland after 1917 was bitterly divided along social lines. The Whites consisted of the Swedish-speaking middle and upper classes and the farmers and peasantry who dominated the northern two-thirds of the land. They had a conservative outlook and rejected socialism. The Socialist-Communist Reds comprised the Finnish-speaking urban workers and the landless rural cottagers. They had a radical outlook and rejected capitalism.
From January to May 1918, Finland experienced the brief but bitter Finnish Civil War. On one side there were the "white" civil guards, who fought for the anti-Socialists. On the other side were the Red Guards, which consisted of workers and tenant farmers. The latter proclaimed a Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. World War I was still underway and the defeat of the Red Guards was achieved with support from Imperial Germany, while Sweden remained neutral and Russia withdrew its forces. The Reds lost the war and the White peasantry rose to political leadership in the 1920s–1930s. About 37,000 men died, most of them in prisoner camps ravaged by influenza and other diseases.
After the civil war, the parliament controlled by the Whites voted to establish a constitutional monarchy to be called the Kingdom of Finland, with German prince Frederick Charles of Hesse as king. However, Germany's defeat in November 1918 made the plan impossible and Finland instead became a republic, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg elected as its first President in 1919. Despite the bitter civil war, and repeated threats from fascist movements, Finland became and remained a capitalist democracy under the rule of law. By contrast, nearby Estonia, in similar circumstances but without a civil war, started as a democracy and was turned into a dictatorship in 1934.
Large scale agrarian reform in the 1920s involved breaking up the large estates controlled by the old nobility and selling the land to ambitious peasants. The farmers became strong supporters of the government.
Finland became member of the League of Nations on 16 December 1920. The new republic faced a dispute over the Åland Islands, which were overwhelmingly Swedish-speaking and sought retrocession to Sweden. However, as Finland was not willing to cede the islands, they were offered an autonomous status. Nevertheless, the residents did not approve the offer, and the dispute over the islands was submitted to the League of Nations. The League decided that Finland should retain sovereignty over the Åland Islands, but they should be made an autonomous province. Thus Finland was under an obligation to ensure the residents of Åland a right to maintain the Swedish language, as well as their own culture and local traditions. At the same time, an international treaty was concluded on the neutral status of Åland, under which it was prohibited to place military headquarters or forces on the islands.
Alcohol abuse had a long history, especially regarding binge drinking and public intoxication, which became a crime in 1733. In the 19th century the punishments became stiffer and stiffer, but the problem persisted. A strong abstinence movement emerged that cut consumption in half from the 1880s to the 1910s, and gave Finland the lowest drinking rate in Europe. Four attempts at instituting prohibition of alcohol during the Grand Duchy period were rejected by the czar; with the czar gone Finland enacted prohibition in 1919. Smuggling emerged and enforcement was slipshod. Criminal convictions for drunkenness went up by 500%, and violence and crime rates soared. Public opinion turned against the law, and a national plebiscite went 70% for repeal, so prohibition was ended in early 1932.
Nationalist sentiment remaining from the Civil War developed into the proto-Fascist Lapua Movement in 1929. Initially the movement gained widespread support among anti-Communist Finns, but following a failed coup attempt in 1932 it was banned and its leaders imprisoned.
In the wake of the Civil War there were many incidents along the border between Finland and Soviet Russia, such as the Aunus expedition and the Pork mutiny. Relations with the Soviets were improved after the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, in which Finland gained Petsamo, but gave up its claims on East Karelia.
Tens of thousands of radical Finns—from Finland, the United States and Canada—took up Stalin's 1923 appeal to create a new Soviet society in the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR), a part of Russia. Most were executed in the purges of the 1930s.
The Soviet Union started to tighten its policy against Finland in the 1930s, limiting the navigation of Finnish merchant ships between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland and blocking it totally in 1937.
In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, where Finland and the Baltic states were allocated to the Soviet "sphere of influence". After invading Poland, the Soviet Union sent ultimatums to the Baltic countries, where it demanded military bases on their soil. The Baltic states accepted Soviet demands, and lost their independence in the summer of 1940. In October 1939, the Soviet Union sent a similar request to Finland, but the Finns refused these demands.
The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, launching the Winter War, with the aim of annexing Finland into the Soviet Union. The Finnish Democratic Republic was established by Joseph Stalin at the beginning of the war with the purpose of governing Finland after Soviet conquest. The Red Army was defeated in numerous battles, notably at the Battle of Suomussalmi. After two months of negligible progress on the battlefield, as well as severe losses of men and materiel, the Soviets put an end to the Finnish Democratic Republic in late January 1940 and recognized the legal Finnish government as the legitimate government of Finland. Soviet forces began to make progress in February and reached Vyborg in March. Fighting came to an end on 13 March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland had successfully defended its independence, but ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations as a result of the invasion.
After the Winter War the Finnish Army was exhausted and needed recovery and support as soon as possible. The United Kingdom declined to help, but in autumn 1940, Nazi Germany offered weapon deals to Finland if the Finnish government would allow German troops to travel through Finland to German-occupied Norway. Finland accepted, weapons deals were made, and military co-operation began in December 1940.
Hostilities resumed in June 1941 with the start of the Continuation War, when Finland aligned with Germany following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Finland was involved with the Siege of Leningrad and occupied East Karelia from 1941 to 1944. This irredentist sentiment of a Greater Finland, whose inhabitants were culturally related to the Finnish people, although Eastern Orthodox by religion, resulted in other countries being considerably less sympathetic to the Finnish cause.
Finnish forces won several decisive battles during the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive of 1944, including the Battle of Tali-Ihantala and the Battle of Ilomantsi. These victories helped ensure Finnish independence, and led to the Moscow Armistice with the Soviet Union. The armistice called for the expulsion of German troops residing in northern Finland, leading to the Lapland War whereby the Finns forced the Germans to withdraw into Norway (then under German occupation).
Finland was never occupied by Soviet forces. Its army of over 600,000 soldiers saw only 3,500 prisoners of war. About 96,000 Finns died, or 2.5% of a population of 3.8 million; civilian casualties were under 2,500. Finland managed to defend its democracy, contrary to most other countries within the Soviet sphere of influence, and suffered comparably limited losses in terms of civilian lives and property. It was, however, punished harsher than other German co-belligerents and allies, having to pay large reparations and resettle an eighth of its population after having lost an eighth of its territory, including the major city of Viipuri. After the war, the Soviet government settled these gained territories with people from many different regions of the USSR, for instance from Ukraine.
The Finnish government did not participate in the systematic killing of Jews, although the country remained a "co-belligerent", a de facto ally of Germany until 1944. In total, eight German Jewish refugees were handed over to the German authorities. In the Tehran Conference of 1942, the leaders of the Allies agreed that Finland was fighting a separate war against the Soviet Union, and that in no way was it hostile to the Western allies. The Soviet Union was the only Allied country against which Finland had conducted military operations. Unlike any of the Axis nations, Finland was a parliamentary democracy throughout the 1939–1945 period. The commander of Finnish armed forces during the Winter War and the Continuation War, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, became the President of Finland at the very end of the Continuation War. Finland made a separate armistice agreement with the Soviet Union on 19 September 1944, and was the only bordering country of USSR in Europe (alongside Norway, which gained a border with the Soviet Union only after the war) that kept its independence after the war.
During and in between the wars, approximately 80,000 Finnish war-children were evacuated abroad: 5% went to Norway, 10% to Denmark, and the rest to Sweden. Most of the children were sent back by 1948, but 15–20% remained abroad.
The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and Britain on the other side on 19 September 1944, ending the Continuation War. The armistice compelled Finland to drive German troops from its territory, leading to the Lapland War 1944–1945.
In 1947, Finland reluctantly declined Marshall aid in order to preserve good relations with the Soviets, ensuring Finnish autonomy. Nevertheless, the United States shipped secret development aid and financial aid to the non-communist SDP (Social Democratic Party). Establishing trade with the Western powers, such as Britain, and the reparations to the Soviet Union caused Finland to transform itself from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrialised one. After the reparations had been paid off, Finland continued to trade with the Soviet Union in the framework of bilateral trade.
Finland's role in the Second World War was unusual in several ways. Despite massive superiority in military strength, the Soviet Union was unable to conquer Finland when the former invaded in 1939. In late 1940, German-Finnish co-operation began; it took a form that was unique when compared to relations with the Axis. Finland signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which made Finland an ally with Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. But, unlike all other Axis states, Finland never signed the Tripartite Pact, meaning that Finland was not de jure an Axis nation.
Although Finland lost territory in both of its wars with the Soviets, the memory of these wars was sharply etched in the national consciousness. Finland celebrates these wars as a victory for the Finnish national spirit, which survived against long odds and allowed Finland to maintain its independence. Many groups of Finns are commemorated today, including not just fallen soldiers and veterans, but also orphans, evacuees from Karelia, the children who were evacuated to Sweden, women who worked during the war at home or in factories, and the veterans of the women's defense unit Lotta Svärd.
Some of these groups could not be properly commemorated until long after the war ended in order to preserve good relations with the Soviet Union. However, after a long political campaign backed by survivors of what Finns call the Partisan War, the Finnish Parliament passed legislation establishing compensation for the war's victims.
Finland retained a democratic constitution and free economy during the Cold War era. Treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included obligations and restraints on Finland, as well as territorial concessions. The Paris Peace Treaty (1947) limited the size and the nature of Finland's armed forces. Weapons were to be solely defensive. A deepening of postwar tensions led a year later to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (1948) with the Soviet Union. The latter, in particular, was the foundation of Finno-Soviet relations in the postwar era. Under the terms of the treaty, Finland was bound to confer with the Soviets and perhaps to accept their aid if an attack from Germany, or countries allied with Germany, seemed likely. The treaty prescribed consultations between the two countries, but it had no mechanism for automatic Soviet intervention in a time of crisis. Both treaties have been abrogated by Finland since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, while leaving the borders untouched. Even though being a neighbor to the Soviet Union sometimes resulted in overcautious concern in foreign policy ("Finlandization"), Finland developed closer co-operation with the other Nordic countries and declared itself neutral in superpower politics.
The Finnish post-war president, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a leading conservative politician, saw that an essential element of Finnish foreign policy must be a credible guarantee to the Soviet Union that it need not fear attack from, or through, Finnish territory. Because a policy of neutrality was a political component of this guarantee, Finland would ally itself with no one. Another aspect of the guarantee was that Finnish defenses had to be sufficiently strong to defend the nation's territory. This policy remained the core of Finland's foreign relations for the rest of the Cold War era.
In 1952, Finland and the countries of the Nordic Council entered into a passport union, allowing their citizens to cross borders without passports and soon also to apply for jobs and claim social security benefits in the other countries. Many from Finland used this opportunity to secure better-paying jobs in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, dominating Sweden's first wave of post-war labour immigrants. Although Finnish wages and standard of living could not compete with wealthy Sweden until the 1970s, the Finnish economy rose remarkably from the ashes of World War II, resulting in the buildup of another Nordic-style welfare state.
Despite the passport union with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, Finland could not join the Nordic Council until 1955 because of Soviet fears that Finland might become too close to the West. At that time the Soviet Union saw the Nordic Council as part of NATO of which Denmark, Norway and Iceland were members. That same year Finland joined the United Nations, though it had already been associated with a number of UN specialized organisations. The first Finnish ambassador to the UN was G.A. Gripenberg (1956–1959), followed by Ralph Enckell (1959–1965), Max Jakobson (1965–1972), Aarno Karhilo (1972–1977), Ilkka Pastinen (1977–1983), Keijo Korhonen (1983–1988), Klaus Törnudd (1988–1991), Wilhelm Breitenstein (1991–1998) and Marjatta Rasi (1998–2005). In 1972 Max Jakobson was a candidate for Secretary-General of the UN. In another remarkable event of 1955, the Soviet Union decided to return the Porkkala peninsula to Finland, which had been rented to the Soviet Union in 1948 for 50 years as a military base, a situation which somewhat endangered Finnish sovereignty and neutrality.
Officially claiming to be neutral, Finland lay in the grey zone between the Western countries and the Soviet Union, and it also developed into one of the centres of the East-West espionage, in which both the KGB and the CIA played their parts. The 1949 established Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO, Suojelupoliisi), an operational security authority and a police unit under the Interior Ministry, whose core areas of activity are counter-Intelligence, counter-terrorism and national security, also participated in this activity in some places. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. However, Finland maintained capitalism unlike most other countries bordering the Soviet Union. Property rights were strong. While nationalization committees were set up in France and UK, Finland avoided nationalizations. After failed experiments with protectionism in the 1950s, Finland eased restrictions and committed to a series of international free trade agreements: first an associate membership in the European Free Trade Association in 1961, a full membership in 1986 and also an agreement with the European Community in 1973. Local education markets expanded and an increasing number of Finns also went abroad to study in the United States or Western Europe, bringing back advanced skills. There was a quite common, but pragmatic-minded, credit and investment cooperation by state and corporations, though it was considered with suspicion. Support for capitalism was widespread. Savings rate hovered among the world's highest, at around 8% until the 1980s. In the beginning of the 1970s, Finland's GDP per capita reached the level of Japan and the UK. Finland's economic development shared many aspects with export-led Asian countries.
Building on its status as western democratic country with friendly ties with the Soviet Union, Finland pushed to reduce the political and military tensions of cold war. Since the 1960s, Finland urged the formation of a Nordic Nuclear Weapons Free Zone [fi] (Nordic NWFZ), and in 1972–1973 was the host of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which culminated in the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 and lead to the creation of the OSCE.
Before 1940 Finland was a poor rural nation of urban and rural workers and independent farmers. There was a small middle class, employed chiefly as civil servants and in small local businesses. As late as 1950 half of the workers were in agriculture and only a third lived in urban towns. The new jobs in manufacturing, services and trade quickly attracted people to the towns and cities. The average number of births per woman declined from a baby boom peak of 3.5 in 1947 to 1.5 in 1973. When baby boomers entered the workforce, the economy did not generate jobs fast enough and hundreds of thousands emigrated to the more industrialized Sweden, migration peaking in 1969 and 1970 (today 4.7 percent of Swedes speak Finnish).
By the 1990s, farm laborers had nearly all moved on, leaving owners of small farms. By 2000 the social structure included a politically active working class, a primarily clerical middle class, and an upper bracket consisting of managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals. The social boundaries between these groups were not distinct. Causes of change included the growth of a mass culture, international standards, social mobility, and acceptance of democracy and equality as typified by the welfare state.
The generous system of welfare benefits emerged from a long process of debate, negotiations and maneuvers between efficiency-oriented modernizers on the one hand and Social Democrats and labor unions. A compulsory system provides old-age and disability insurance. The national government provides unemployment insurance, maternity benefits, family allowances, and day-care centers. Health insurance covers most of the cost of outpatient care. The national health act of 1972 provided for the establishment of free health centers in every municipality. There were major cutbacks in the early 1990s, but they were distributed to minimize the harm to the vast majority of voters.
The post-war period was a time of rapid economic growth and increasing social and political stability for Finland. The five decades after the Second World War saw Finland turn from a war-ravaged agrarian society into one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, with a sophisticated market economy and high standard of living.
In 1991, Finland fell into a depression caused by a combination of economic overheating, fixed currency, depressed Western, Soviet, and local markets. Stock market and housing prices declined by 50%. The growth in the 1980s was based on debt and defaults started rolling in. GDP declined by 15% and unemployment increased from a virtual full employment to one fifth of the workforce. The crisis was amplified by trade unions' initial opposition to any reforms. Politicians struggled to cut spending and the public debt doubled to around 60% of GDP. Some 7–8% of GDP was needed to bail out failing banks and force banking sector consolidation. After devaluations the depression bottomed out in 1993.
The GDP growth rate has since been one of the highest of OECD countries and Finland has topped many indicators of national performance.
Until 1991, President Mauno Koivisto and two of the three major parties, Center Party and the Social Democrats opposed the idea of European Union membership and preferred entering into the European Economic Area treaty. However, after Sweden had submitted its membership application in 1991 and the Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of the year, Finland submitted its own application to the EU in March 1992. The accession process was marked by heavy public debate, where the differences of opinion did not follow party lines. Officially, all three major parties were supporting the Union membership, but members of all parties participated in the campaign against the membership. Before the parliamentary decision to join the EU, a consultative referendum was held on 16 April 1994, in which 56.9% of the votes were in favour of joining. The process of accession was completed on 1 January 1995, when Finland joined the European Union along with Austria and Sweden. Leading Finland into the EU is held as the main achievement of the Centrist-Conservative government of Esko Aho then in power. In the economic policy, the EU membership brought with it many large changes. While politicians were previously involved in setting interest rates, the Bank of Finland was given an inflation-targeting mandate until Finland joined the eurozone. During Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's two successive governments 1995–2003, several large state companies were privatized fully or partially. Matti Vanhanen's two cabinets followed suit until autumn 2008, when the state became a major shareholder in the Finnish telecom company Elisa with the intention to secure the Finnish ownership of a strategically important industry.
In addition to fast integration with the European Union, safety against Russian leverage has been increased by building fully NATO-compatible military. 1000 troops (a high per-capita amount) are simultaneously committed in NATO and UN operations. Finland has also opposed energy projects that increase dependency on Russian imports. For a long time, Finland remained one of the last non-NATO members in Europe, without enough support for full membership unless Sweden joined first.
On 24 February 2022, the Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Armed Forces to begin the invasion of Ukraine. On 25 February, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson threatened Finland and Sweden with "military and political consequences" if they attempted to join NATO, which neither were actively seeking. After the invasion public support for membership rose significantly.
On 4 April 2023, the last NATO members ratified Finland's application to join the alliance, making Finland the 31st member. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The history of Finland begins around 9,000 BC during the end of the last glacial period. Stone Age cultures were Kunda, Comb Ceramic, Corded Ware, Kiukainen, and Pöljä cultures [fi]. The Finnish Bronze Age started in approximately 1,500 BC and the Iron Age started in 500 BC and lasted until 1,300 AD. Finnish Iron Age cultures can be separated into Finnish proper, Tavastian and Karelian cultures. The earliest written sources mentioning Finland start to appear from the 12th century onwards when the Catholic Church started to gain a foothold in Southwest Finland.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Due to the Northern Crusades and Swedish colonisation of some Finnish coastal areas, most of the region became a part of the Kingdom of Sweden and the realm of the Catholic Church from the 13th century onwards. After the Finnish War in 1809, Finland was ceded to the Russian Empire, making this area the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. The Lutheran religion dominated. Finnish nationalism emerged in the 19th century. It focused on Finnish cultural traditions, folklore, and mythology, including music and—especially—the highly distinctive language and lyrics associated with it. One product of this era was the Kalevala, one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The catastrophic Finnish famine of 1866–1868 was followed by eased economic regulations and extensive emigration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1917, Finland declared its full independence. A civil war between the Finnish Red Guards and the White Guard ensued a few months later, with the Whites gaining the upper hand during the springtime of 1918. After the internal affairs stabilized, the still mainly agrarian economy grew relatively quickly. Relations with the West, especially Sweden and Britain, were strong but tensions remained with the Soviet Union. During World War II, Finland fought twice against the Soviet Union, first defending its independence in the Winter War and then invading the Soviet Union in the Continuation War. In the peace settlement Finland ended up ceding a large part of Karelia and some other areas to the Soviet Union. However, Finland remained an independent democracy in Northern Europe.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In the latter half of its independent history, Finland has maintained a mixed economy. Since its post–World War II economic boom in the 1970s, Finland's GDP per capita has been among the world's highest. The expanded welfare state of Finland from 1970 and 1990 increased the public sector employees and spending and the tax burden imposed on the citizens. In 1992, Finland simultaneously faced economic overheating and depressed Western, Russian, and local markets. Finland joined the European Union in 1995, and replaced the Finnish markka with the euro in 2002. According to a 2016 poll, 61% of Finns preferred not to join NATO. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the numbers had shifted significantly, with 62% in favour of Finland joining NATO and 16% against. Finland started to pursue membership in the alliance and eventually joined NATO on 4 April 2023.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "If confirmed, the oldest archeological site in Finland would be the Wolf Cave in Kristinestad, in Ostrobothnia. The site would be the only pre-glacial (Neanderthal) site so far discovered in the Nordic countries, and it is approximately 125,000 years old.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The last ice age in the area of the modern-day Finland ended c. 9000 BC. Starting about that time, people migrated to the area of Finland from the south and southeast. Their culture represented a mixture of Kunda, Butovo [fi], and Veretje cultures [fi]. At the same time, northern Finland was inhabited via the coast of Norway. The oldest confirmed evidence of post-glacial human settlements in Finland is from the area of Ristola in Lahti and from Orimattila, from c. 8900 BC. Finland has been continuously inhabited at least since the end of the last ice age up to the present. The earliest post-glacial inhabitants of the present-day area of Finland were probably mainly seasonal hunter-gatherers. Among finds is the net of Antrea, the oldest fishing net known ever to have been excavated (calibrated carbon dating: ca. 8300 BC).",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "By 5300 BC, pottery was present in Finland. The earliest samples belong to the Comb Ceramic cultures, known for their distinctive decorating patterns. This marks the beginning of the neolithic period for Finland, although subsistence was still based on hunting and fishing. Extensive networks of exchange existed across Finland and northeastern Europe during the 5th millennium BC. For example, flint from Scandinavia and the Valdai Hills, amber from Scandinavia and the Baltic region, and slate from Scandinavia and Lake Onega found their way into Finnish archaeological sites, while asbestos and soap stone from Finland (e.g. the area of Saimaa) were found in other regions. Rock paintings—apparently related to shamanistic and totemistic belief systems—have been found, especially in Eastern Finland, e.g. Astuvansalmi.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Between 3500 and 2000 BC, monumental stone enclosures, colloquially known as Giant's Churches (Finnish: Jätinkirkko), were constructed in the Ostrobothnia region. The purpose of the enclosures is unknown.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In recent years, a dig at the Kierikki site north of Oulu on the River Ii has changed the image of Finnish neolithic Stone Age culture. The site had been inhabited year-round and its inhabitants traded extensively. Kierikki culture is also seen as a subtype of Comb Ceramic culture. More of the site is excavated annually.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "From 3200 BC onwards, either immigrants or a strong cultural influence from south of the Gulf of Finland settled in southwestern Finland. This culture was a part of the European Battle Axe cultures, which have often been associated with the movement of the Indo-European speakers. The Battle Axe, or Cord Ceramic, culture seems to have practiced agriculture and animal husbandry outside of Finland, but the earliest confirmed traces of agriculture in Finland date later, approximately to the 2nd millennium BC. Further inland, societies retained their hunting-gathering lifestyles for the time being.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Battle Axe and Comb Ceramic cultures eventually merged, giving rise to the Kiukainen culture that existed between 2300 BC and 1500 BC, and was fundamentally a comb ceramic tradition with cord ceramic characteristics.",
"title": "Stone Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Bronze Age began some time after 1500 BC. The coastal regions of Finland were a part of the Nordic Bronze Culture, whereas in the inland regions the influences came from the bronze-using cultures of northern and eastern Russia.",
"title": "Bronze Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Iron Age in Finland is considered to have lasted from c. 500 BC until c. 1300 AD. Written records of Finland become more common due to the Northern Crusades led by the Catholic Church in the 12th and 13th centuries. As the Finnish Iron Age lasted almost two millennia, it is further divided into six sub-periods:",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Very few written records of Finland or its people remain in any language of the era. Written sources are of foreign origin and include Tacitus's description of Fenni in his work Germania, runestones, the sagas written down by Snorri Sturluson, as well as the 12th- and 13th-century ecclesiastical letters by the Pope. Numerous other sources from the Roman period onwards contain brief mentions of ancient Finnish kings and place names, as such defining Finland as a kingdom and noting the culture of its people.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The oldest surviving mention of the word Suomi (Finland in Finnish) is in the annals of the Frankish Empire written between 741 and 829. At 811, annals mention a person named Suomi in connection with a peace agreement. The name Suomi as the name of Finland is nowadays used in Finnic languages, Sámi, Latvian, Lithuanian and Scottish Gaelic.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Currently the oldest known Scandinavian documents mentioning Finland are two runestones: Söderby, Sweden, with the inscription finlont (U 582), and Gotland with the inscription finlandi (G 319) dating from the 11th century. However, as the long continuum of the Finnish Iron Age into the historical Medieval period of Europe suggests, the primary source of information of the era in Finland is based on archaeological findings and modern applications of natural scientific methods like those of DNA analysis or computer linguistics.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Production of iron during the Finnish Iron Age was adopted from the neighboring cultures in the east, west and south about the same time as the first imported iron artifacts appear. This happened almost simultaneously in various parts of the country.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Pre-Roman period of the Finnish Iron Age is scarcest in findings, but the known ones suggest that cultural connections to other Baltic cultures were already established. The archeological findings of Pernå and Savukoski provides proof of this argument. Many of the era's dwelling sites are the same as those of the Neolithic. Most of the iron of the era was produced on site.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Roman period brought along an influx of imported iron (and other) artifacts like Roman wine glasses and dippers as well as various coins of the Empire. During this period the (proto) Finnish culture stabilized on the coastal regions and larger graveyards become commonplace. The prosperity of the Finns rose to the level that the vast majority of gold treasures found within Finland date back to this period.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Migration period saw the expansion of land cultivation inland, especially in Southern Bothnia, and the growing influence of Germanic cultures, both in artifacts like swords and other weapons and in burial customs. However most iron as well as its forging was of domestic origin, probably from bog iron.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Merovingian period in Finland gave rise to a distinctive fine crafts culture of its own, visible in the original decorations of domestically produced weapons and jewelry. The finest luxury weapons, however, were imported from Western Europe. The very first Christian burials are from the latter part of this era as well. In the Leväluhta burial findings, the average height of a man was originally thought to be just 158 cm and that of a woman 147 cm, but recent research has corrected these numbers upwards and has confirmed that the people buried in Leväluhta were of average height for that era in Europe.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Recent findings suggest that Finnish trade connections became more active during the 8th century, bringing an influx of silver onto Finnish markets. The opening of the eastern route to Constantinople via Finland's southern coastline archipelago brought Arabic and Byzantine artifacts into the excavation findings of the era.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The earliest findings of imported iron blades and local iron working appear in 500 BC. From about 50 AD, there are indications of a more intense long-distance exchange of goods in coastal Finland. Inhabitants exchanged their products, presumably mostly furs, for weapons and ornaments with the Balts and the Scandinavians, as well as with the peoples along the traditional eastern trade routes. The existence of richly furnished burials, usually with weapons, suggests that there was a chiefly elite in the southern and western parts of the country. Hillforts spread over most of southern Finland at the end of the Iron and early Medieval Ages. There is no commonly accepted evidence of early state formations in Finland, and the presumably Iron Age origins of urbanization are contested.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The question of the timelines for the evolution and the spreading of the current Finnic languages is controversial, and new theories challenging older ones have been introduced continuously.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "It was for a long time widely believed that Finno-Ugric (the western branch of the Uralic) languages were first spoken in Finland and the adjacent areas during the Comb Ceramic period, around 4000 BC at the latest. During the 2nd millennium BC these evolved—possibly under an Indo-European (most likely Baltic) influence—into proto-Sami (inland) and Proto-Finnic (coastland). In contrast, A. Aikio and J. Häkkinen propose that the Finno-Ugric languages arrived in the Gulf of Finland area during the Late Bronze Age. Valter Lang has proposed that the Finnic and Saami languages arrived there in the early Bronze Age, possibly connected to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. This would also imply that Finno-Ugric languages in Finland were preceded by a Northwestern Indo-European language, at least to the extent the latter can be associated with the Cord Ceramic culture, as well as by hitherto unknown Paleo-European languages. The center of expansion for the Proto-Finnic language is posited to have been located on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The Finnish language is thought to have started to differentiate during the Iron Age starting from the earliest centuries of the Common Era.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Cultural influences from a variety of places are visible in the Finnish archaeological finds from the very first settlements onwards. For example, archaeological finds from Finnish Lapland suggest the presence of the Komsa culture from Norway. The Sujala finds, which are equal in age with the earliest Komsa artifacts, may also suggest a connection to the Swiderian culture. Southwestern Finland belonged to the Nordic Bronze Age, which may be associated with Indo-European languages, and according to Finnish Germanist Jorma Koivulehto speakers of Proto-Germanic language in particular. Artifacts found in Kalanti and the province of Satakunta, which have long been monolingually Finnish, and their place names have made several scholars argue for an existence of a proto-Germanic speaking population component a little later, during the Early and Middle Iron Age.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Swedish colonisation of the Åland Islands, Turku archipelago and Uusimaa could possibly have started in the 12th century but reached its height in the 13th and 14th centuries, when it also affected the Eastern Uusimaa and Pohjanmaa regions. The oldest Swedish place names in Finland are from this period as well as the Swedish-speaking population of Finland.",
"title": "Iron Age"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Contact between Sweden and what is now Finland was considerable even during pre-Christian times; the Vikings were known to the Finns due to their participation in both commerce and plundering. There is possible evidence of Viking settlement in the Finnish mainland. The Åland Islands probably had Swedish settlement during the Viking Period. However, some scholars claim that the archipelago was deserted during the 11th century. According to the archaeological finds, Christianity gained a foothold in Finland during the 11th century. According to the very few written documents that have survived, the church in Finland was still in its early development in the 12th century. Later medieval legends from late 13th century describe Swedish attempts to conquer and Christianize Finland sometime in the mid-1150s.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In the early 13th century, Bishop Thomas became the first known bishop of Finland. There were several secular powers who aimed to bring the Finnish tribes under their rule. These were Sweden, Denmark, the Republic of Novgorod in northwestern Russia, and probably the German crusading orders as well. Finns had their own chiefs, but most probably no central authority. At the time there can be seen three cultural areas or tribes in Finland: Finns, Tavastians and Karelians. Russian chronicles indicate there were several conflicts between Novgorod and the Finnic tribes from the 11th or 12th century to the early 13th century.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "It was the Swedish regent, Birger Jarl, who allegedly established Swedish rule in Finland through the Second Swedish Crusade, most often dated to 1249. The Eric Chronicle, the only source narrating the crusade, describes that it was aimed at Tavastians. A papal letter from 1237 states that the Tavastians had reverted from Christianity to their old ethnic faith.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Novgorod gained control in Karelia in 1278, the region inhabited by speakers of Eastern Finnish dialects. Sweden however gained the control of Western Karelia with the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293. Western Karelians were from then on viewed as part of the western cultural sphere, while eastern Karelians turned culturally to Russia and Orthodoxy. While eastern Karelians remain linguistically and ethnically closely related to the Finns, they are generally considered a separate people. Thus, the northern part of the border between Catholic and Orthodox Christendom came to lie at the eastern border of what would become Finland with the Treaty of Nöteborg with Novgorod in 1323.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "During the 13th century, Finland was integrated into medieval European civilization. The Dominican order arrived in Finland around 1249 and came to exercise great influence there. In the early 14th century, the first records of Finnish students at the Sorbonne appear. In the southwestern part of the country, an urban settlement evolved in Turku. Turku was one of the biggest towns in the Kingdom of Sweden, and its population included German merchants and craftsmen. Otherwise the degree of urbanization was very low in medieval Finland. Southern Finland and the long coastal zone of the Gulf of Bothnia had sparse farming settlements, organized as parishes and castellanies. In the other parts of the country a small population of Sami hunters, fishermen, and small-scale farmers lived. These were exploited by the Finnish and Karelian tax collectors. During the 12th and 13th centuries, great numbers of Swedish settlers moved to the southern and northwestern coasts of Finland, to the Åland Islands, and to the archipelago between Turku and the Åland Islands. In these regions, the Swedish language is widely spoken even today. Swedish came to be the language of the upper class in many other parts of Finland as well.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The name Finland originally signified only the southwestern province, which has been known as Finland Proper since the 18th century. The first known mention of Finland is in runestone Gs 13 from the 11th century. The original Swedish term for the realm's eastern part was Österlands ('Eastern Lands'), a plural, meaning the area of Finland Proper, Tavastia, and Karelia. This was later replaced by the singular form Österland, which was in use between 1350 and 1470. In the 15th century Finland began to be used synonymously with Österland. The concept of a Finnish country in the modern sense developed slowly from the 15th to 18th centuries.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "During the 13th century, the bishopric of Turku was established. Turku Cathedral was the center of the cult of Saint Henry of Uppsala, and naturally the cultural center of the bishopric. The bishop had ecclesiastical authority over much of today's Finland, and was usually the most powerful man there. Bishops were often Finns, whereas the commanders of castles were more often Scandinavian or German noblemen. In 1362, representatives from Finland were called to participate in the elections for the king of Sweden. As such, that year is often considered when Finland was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sweden. As in the Scandinavian part of the kingdom, the gentry or (lower) nobility consisted of magnates and yeomen who could afford armament for a man and a horse; these were concentrated in the southern part of Finland.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The strong fortress of Viborg (Finnish: Viipuri, Russian: Vyborg) guarded the eastern border of Finland. Sweden and Novgorod signed the Treaty of Nöteborg (Pähkinäsaari in Finnish) in 1323, but that did not last long. In 1348 the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson staged a failed crusade against Orthodox \"heretics\", managing only to alienate his supporters and ultimately lose his crown. The bones of contention between Sweden and Novgorod were the northern coastline of the Gulf of Bothnia and the wilderness regions of Savo in Eastern Finland. Novgorod considered these as hunting and fishing grounds of its Karelian subjects, and protested against the slow infiltration of Catholic settlers from the West. Occasional raids and clashes between Swedes and Novgorodians occurred during the late 14th and 15th centuries, but for most of the time an uneasy peace prevailed.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "During the 1380s, a civil war in the Scandinavian part of Sweden brought unrest to Finland as well. The victor of this struggle was Queen Margaret I of Denmark, who brought the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark and, Norway under her rule (the Kalmar Union) in 1389. One of the phenomena that appeared in those days with the unrest, was the notorious pirates, known as the Victual Brothers, who operated in the Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages to terrorize the coastal areas of Finland, and among other things, Korsholm Castle in Ostrobothnia, Turku Castle in the Finland Proper and also the Turku's Archipelago Sea were the most significant domains for the pirates. The next 130 years or so were characterized by attempts of different Swedish factions to break out of the Union. Finland was sometimes involved in these struggles, but in general the 15th century seems to have been a relatively prosperous time, characterized by population growth and economic development. Towards the end of the 15th century, however, the situation on the eastern border became more tense. The Principality of Moscow conquered Novgorod, preparing the way for a unified Russia, and from 1495 to 1497 a war was fought between Sweden and Russia. The fortress-town of Viborg withstood a Russian siege; according to a contemporary legend, it was saved by a miracle.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1521 the Kalmar Union collapsed and Gustav Vasa became the King of Sweden. During his rule, the Swedish church was reformed. The state administration underwent extensive reforms and development too, giving it a much stronger grip on the life of local communities—and ability to collect higher taxes. Following the policies of the Reformation, in 1551 Mikael Agricola, bishop of Turku, published his translation of the New Testament into the Finnish language.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 1550 Helsinki was founded by Gustav Vasa under the name of Helsingfors, but remained little more than a fishing village for more than two centuries.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "King Gustav Vasa died in 1560 and his crown was passed to his three sons in separate turns. King Erik XIV started an era of expansion when the Swedish crown took the city of Tallinn in Estonia under its protection in 1561. This action contributed to the early stages of the Livonian War which was a warlike era which lasted for 160 years. In the first phase, Sweden fought for the lordship of Estonia and Latvia against Denmark, Poland and Russia. The common people of Finland suffered because of drafts, high taxes, and abuse by military personnel. This resulted in the Cudgel War of 1596–1597, a desperate peasant rebellion, which was suppressed brutally and bloodily. A peace treaty (the Treaty of Teusina) with Russia in 1595 moved the border of Finland further to the east and north, very roughly where the modern border lies.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "An important part of the 16th-century history of Finland was growth of the area settled by the farming population. The crown encouraged farmers from the province of Savonia to settle the vast wilderness regions in Middle Finland. This often forced the original Sami population to leave. Some of the wilderness settled was traditional hunting and fishing territory of Karelian hunters. During the 1580s, this resulted in a bloody guerrilla warfare between the Finnish settlers and Karelians in some regions, especially in Ostrobothnia.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In 1611–1632 Sweden was ruled by King Gustavus Adolphus, whose military reforms transformed the Swedish army from a peasant militia into an efficient fighting machine, possibly the best in Europe. The conquest of Livonia was now completed, and some territories were taken from internally divided Russia in the Treaty of Stolbovo. In 1630, the Swedish (and Finnish) armies marched into Central Europe, as Sweden had decided to take part in the great struggle between Protestant and Catholic forces in Germany, known as the Thirty Years' War. The Finnish light cavalry was known as the Hakkapeliitat.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Swedish Empire was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. During the war, several important reforms had been made in Finland:",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "However, the high taxation, continuing wars and the cold climate (the Little Ice Age) made the Imperial era of Sweden rather gloomy times for Finnish peasants. In 1655–1660, the Northern Wars were fought, taking Finnish soldiers to the battle-fields of Livonia, Poland and Denmark. In 1676, the political system of Sweden was transformed into an absolute monarchy.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In Middle and Eastern Finland, great amounts of tar were produced for export. European nations needed this material for the maintenance of their fleets. According to some theories, the spirit of early capitalism in the tar-producing province of Ostrobothnia may have been the reason for the witch-hunt wave that happened in this region during the late 17th century. The people were developing more expectations and plans for the future, and when these were not realized, they were quick to blame witches—according to a belief system the Lutheran church had imported from Germany.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Empire had a colony in the New World in the modern-day Delaware-Pennsylvania area between 1638 and 1655. At least half of the immigrants were of Finnish origin.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The 17th century was an era of very strict Lutheran orthodoxy. In 1608, the law of Moses was declared the law of the land, in addition to secular legislation. Every subject of the realm was required to confess the Lutheran faith and church attendance was mandatory. Ecclesiastical penalties were widely used. The rigorous requirements of orthodoxy were revealed in the dismissal of the Bishop of Turku, Johan Terserus, who wrote a catechism which was decreed heretical in 1664 by the theologians of the academy of Åbo. On the other hand, the Lutheran requirement of the individual study of Bible prompted the first attempts at wide-scale education. The church required from each person a degree of literacy sufficient to read the basic texts of the Lutheran faith. Although the requirements could be fulfilled by learning the texts by heart, also the skill of reading became known among the population.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In 1696–1699, a famine caused by climate decimated Finland. A combination of an early frost, the freezing temperatures preventing grain from reaching Finnish ports, and a lackluster response from the Swedish government saw about one-third of the population die. Soon afterwards, another war determining Finland's fate began (the Great Northern War of 1700–21).",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was devastating, as Sweden and Russia fought for control of the Baltic. Harsh conditions—worsening poverty and repeated crop failures—among peasants undermined support for the war, leading to Sweden's defeat. Finland was a battleground as both armies ravaged the countryside, leading to famine, epidemics, social disruption and the loss of nearly half the population. By 1721 only 250,000 remained. Landowners had to pay higher wages to keep their peasants. Russia was the winner, annexing the south-eastern part, including the town of Viborg, after the Treaty of Nystad. The border with Russia came to lie roughly where it returned to after World War II. Sweden's status as a European great power was forfeited, and Russia was now the leading power in the North. The absolute monarchy ended in Sweden. During this Age of Liberty, the Parliament ruled the country, and the two parties of the Hats and Caps struggled for control leaving the lesser Court party, i.e. parliamentarians with close connections to the royal court, with little to no influence. The Caps wanted to have a peaceful relationship with Russia and were supported by many Finns, while other Finns longed for revenge and supported the Hats.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Finland by this time was depopulated, with a population in 1749 of 427,000. However, with peace the population grew rapidly, and doubled before 1800. 90% of the population were typically classified as peasants, most being free taxed yeomen. Society was divided into four Estates: peasants (free taxed yeomen), the clergy, nobility and burghers. A minority, mostly cottagers, were estateless, and had no political representation. Forty-five percent of the male population were enfranchised with full political representation in the legislature—although clerics, nobles and townsfolk had their own chambers in the parliament, boosting their political influence and excluding the peasantry on matters of foreign policy.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The mid-18th century was a relatively good time, partly because life was now more peaceful. However, during the Lesser Wrath (1741–1742), Finland was again occupied by the Russians after the government, during a period of Hat party dominance, had made a botched attempt to reconquer the lost provinces. Instead the result of the Treaty of Åbo was that the Russian border was moved further to the west. During this time, Russian propaganda hinted at the possibility of creating a separate Finnish kingdom.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Both the ascending Russian Empire and pre-revolutionary France aspired to have Sweden as a client state. Parliamentarians and others with influence were susceptible to taking bribes which they did their best to increase. The integrity and the credibility of the political system waned, and in 1771 the young and charismatic king Gustav III staged a coup d'état, abolished parliamentarism and reinstated royal power in Sweden—more or less with the support of the parliament. In 1788, he started a new war against Russia. Despite a couple of victorious battles, the war was fruitless, managing only to bring disturbance to the economic life of Finland. The popularity of King Gustav III waned considerably. During the war, a group of officers made the famous Anjala declaration demanding peace negotiations and calling of the Riksdag (Parliament). An interesting sideline to this process was the conspiracy of some Finnish officers, who attempted to create an independent Finnish state with Russian support. After an initial shock, Gustav III crushed this opposition. In 1789, the new constitution of Sweden strengthened the royal power further, as well as improving the status of the peasantry. However, the continuing war had to be finished without conquests—and many Swedes now considered the king as a tyrant.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "With the interruption of the Gustav III's war (1788–1790), the last decades of the 18th century had been an era of development in Finland. New things were changing even everyday life, such as starting of potato farming after the 1750s. New scientific and technical inventions were seen. The first hot air balloon in Finland (and in the whole Swedish kingdom) was made in Oulu (Uleåborg) in 1784, only a year after it was invented in France. Trade increased and the peasantry was growing more affluent and self-conscious. The Age of Enlightenment's climate of broadened debate in the society on issues of politics, religion and morals would in due time highlight the problem that the overwhelming majority of Finns spoke only Finnish, but the cascade of newspapers, belles-lettres and political leaflets was almost exclusively in Swedish—when not in French.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The two Russian occupations had been harsh and were not easily forgotten. These occupations were a seed of a feeling of separateness and otherness, that in a narrow circle of scholars and intellectuals at the university in Turku was forming a sense of a separate Finnish identity representing the eastern part of the realm. The shining influence of the Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg was also much stronger in southern Finland than in other parts of Sweden, and contacts across the new border dispersed the worst fears for the fate of the educated and trading classes under a Russian régime. At the turn of the 19th century, the Swedish-speaking educated classes of officers, clerics and civil servants were mentally well prepared for a shift of allegiance to the strong Russian Empire.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "King Gustav III was assassinated in 1792, and his son Gustav IV Adolf assumed the crown after a period of regency. The new king was not a particularly talented ruler; at least not talented enough to steer his kingdom through the dangerous era of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Meanwhile, the Finnish areas belonging to Russia after the peace treaties in 1721 and 1743 (not including Ingria), called \"Old Finland\", were initially governed with the old Swedish laws (a not uncommon practice in the expanding Russian Empire in the 18th century). However, gradually the rulers of Russia granted large estates of land to their non-Finnish favorites, ignoring the traditional landownership and peasant freedom laws of Old Finland. There were even cases where the noblemen punished peasants corporally, for example by flogging. The overall situation caused decline in the economy and morale in Old Finland, worsened since 1797 when the area was forced to send men to the Imperial Army. The construction of military installations in the area brought thousands of non-Finnish people to the region. In 1812, after the Russian conquest of Finland, \"Old Finland\" was attached to the rest of the country, though the landownership question remained a serious problem until the 1870s.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "While the king of Sweden sent in his governor to rule Finland, in day to day reality the villagers ran their own affairs using traditional local assemblies (called the ting) which selected a local lagman, or lawman, to enforce the norms. The Swedes used the parish system to collect taxes. The socken (local parish) was at once a community religious organization and a judicial district that administered the king's law. The ting participated in the taxation process; taxes were collected by the bailiff, a royal appointee.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In contrast to serfdom in Germany and Russia, the Finnish peasant was typically a freeholder who owned and controlled his small plot of land. There was no serfdom in which peasants were permanently attached to specific lands, and were ruled by the owners of that land. In Finland (and Sweden) the peasants formed one of the four estates and were represented in the parliament. Outside the political sphere, however, the peasants were considered at the bottom of the social order—just above vagabonds. The upper classes looked down on them as excessively prone to drunkenness and laziness, as clannish and untrustworthy, and especially as lacking honor and a sense of national spirit. This disdain dramatically changed in the 19th century when everyone idealised the peasant as the true carrier of Finnishness and the national ethos, as opposed to the Swedish-speaking elites.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The peasants were not passive; they were proud of their traditions and would band together and fight to uphold their traditional rights in the face of burdensome taxes from the king or new demands by the landowning nobility. The great Cudgel War in the south in 1596–1597 attacked the nobles and their new system of state feudalism; this bloody revolt was similar to other contemporary peasant wars in Europe. In the north, there was less tension between nobles and peasants and more equality among peasants, due to the practice of subdividing farms among heirs, to non farm economic activities, and to the small numbers of nobility and gentry. Often the nobles and landowners were paternalistic and helpful. The Crown usually sided with the nobles, but after the \"restitution\" of the 1680s it ended the practice of the nobility extracting labor from the peasants and instead began a new tax system whereby royal bureaucrats collected taxes directly from the peasants, who disliked the efficient new system. After 1800 growing population pressure resulted in larger numbers of poor crofters and landless laborers and the impoverishment of small farmers.",
"title": "Finland under Swedish rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "During the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia, Finland was again conquered by the armies of Tsar Alexander I. The four Estates of occupied Finland were assembled at the Diet of Porvoo on 29 March 1809, to pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia. Following the Swedish defeat in the war and the signing of the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on 17 September 1809, Finland remained a Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917, with the czar as Grand Duke. Russia assigned Karelia (\"Old Finland\") to the Grand Duchy in 1812. During the years of Russian rule the degree of autonomy varied. Periods of censorship and political prosecution occurred, particularly in the two last decades of Russian control, but the Finnish peasantry remained free (unlike the Russian serfs) as the old Swedish law remained effective (including the relevant parts from Gustav III's Constitution of 1772). The old four-chamber Diet was re-activated in the 1860s agreeing to supplementary new legislation concerning internal affairs. In addition, Finns remained free of obligations connected to the empire, such as the duty to serve in tsarist armies, and they enjoyed certain rights that citizens from other parts of the empire did not have.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Before 1860 overseas merchant firms and the owners of landed estates had accumulated wealth that became available for industrial investments. After 1860 the government liberalized economic laws and began to build a suitable physical infrastructure of ports, railroads and telegraph lines. The domestic market was small but rapid growth took place after 1860 in export industries drawing on forest resources and mobile rural laborers. Industrialization began during the mid-19th century from forestry to industry, mining and machinery and laid the foundation of Finland's current day prosperity, even though agriculture employed a relatively large part of the population until the post–World War II era.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The beginnings of industrialism took place in Helsinki. Alfred Kihlman (1825–1904) began as a Lutheran priest and director of the elite Helsingfors boys' school, the Swedish Normal Lyceum. He became a financier and member of the diet. There was little precedent in Finland in the 1850s for raising venture capital. Kihlman was well connected and enlisted businessmen and capitalists to invest in new enterprises. In 1869, he organized a limited partnership that supported two years of developmental activities that led to the founding of the Nokia company in 1871.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "After 1890 industrial productivity stagnated because entrepreneurs were unable to keep up with technological innovations made by competitors in Germany, Britain and the United States. However, Russification opened up a large Russian market especially for machinery.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Finnish national awakening in the mid-19th century was the result of members of the Swedish-speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language as a means of nation building, i.e. to establish a feeling of unity among all people in Finland including (and not of least importance) between the ruling elite and the ruled peasantry. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, a collection of traditional myths and legends which is the folklore of the Karelian people (the Finnic Eastern Orthodox people who inhabit the Lake Ladoga-region of eastern Finland and present-day NW Russia), stirred the nationalism that later led to Finland's independence from Russia.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Particularly following Finland's incorporation into the Swedish central administration during the 16th and 17th centuries, Swedish was spoken by about 15% of the population, especially the upper and middle classes. Swedish was the language of administration, public institutions, education and cultural life. Only the peasants spoke Finnish. The emergence of Finnish to predominance resulted from a 19th-century surge of Finnish nationalism, aided by Russian bureaucrats attempting to separate Finns from Sweden and to ensure the Finns' loyalty.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In 1863, the Finnish language gained an official position in administration. In 1892 Finnish finally became an equal official language and gained a status comparable to that of Swedish. Nevertheless, the Swedish language continued to be the language of culture, arts and business all the way to the 1920s.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Movements toward Finnish national pride, as well as liberalism in politics and economics involved ethnic and class dimensions. The nationalist movement against Russia began with the Fennoman movement led by Hegelian philosopher Johan Vilhelm Snellman in the 1830s. Snellman sought to apply philosophy to social action and moved the basis of Finnish nationalism to establishment of the language in the schools, while remaining loyal to the czar. Fennomania became the Finnish Party in the 1860s.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Liberalism was the central issue of the 1860s to 1880s. The language issue overlapped both liberalism and nationalism, and showed some a class conflict as well, with the peasants pitted against the conservative Swedish-speaking landowners and nobles. Finnish activists divided themselves into \"old\" (no compromise on the language question and conservative nationalism) and \"young\" (liberation from Russia) Finns. The leading liberals were Swedish-speaking intellectuals who called for more democracy; they became the radical leaders after 1880. The liberals organized for social democracy, labor unions, farmer cooperatives, and women's rights.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Nationalism was contested by the pro-Russian element and by the internationalism of the labor movement. The result was a tendency to class conflict over nationalism, but the early 1900s the working classes split into the Valpas (class struggle emphasis) and Mäkelin (nationalist emphasis).",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "During that period Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodoxy were official religions of the Finnish Grand Duchy. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland was separated from Church of Sweden in the early 19th century. Immediately after the Finnish War, Finnish Lutheran clergy feared state-led proselytism to Orthodoxy. The majority of Finns were Lutheran Christians, but an ancient prominent Orthodox minority lived in Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. The monasteries of Valaam and Konevets were important religious centres and pilgrimage sites of Orthodox faithful. There were also Orthodox churches built in Finnish cities and towns, where there were Russian garrisons. During this period, Roman Catholism, Judaism and Islam came to Finland with Russian soldiers and merchants.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "While the vast majority of Finns were Lutheran, there were two strains to Lutheranism that eventually merged to form the modern Finnish church. On the one hand was the high-church emphasis on ritual, with its roots in traditional peasant collective society. Paavo Ruotsalainen (1777–1852) on the other hand was a leader of the new pietism, with its subjectivity, revivalism, emphasis on personal morality, lay participation, and the social gospel. The pietism appealed to the emerging middle class. The Ecclesiastical Law of 1869 combined the two strains. Finland's political and Lutheran leaders considered both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism to be threats to the emerging nation. Eastern Orthodoxy was rejected as a weapon of Russification, while anti-Catholicism was long-standing. Anti-Semitism was also a factor, so the Dissenter Law of 1889 upgraded the status only of the minor Protestant sects. Founding monasteries was forbidden.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Before 1790 music was found in Lutheran churches and in folk traditions. In 1790 music lovers founded the Åbo Musical Society; it gave the first major stimulus to serious music by Finnish composers. In the 1880s, new institutions, especially the Helsinki Music Institute (since 1939 called the Sibelius Academy), the Institute of Music of Helsinki University and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, integrated Finland into the mainstream of European music. By far the most influential composer was Jean Sibelius (1865–1957); he composed nearly all his music before 1930. In April 1892 Sibelius presented his new symphony Kullervo in Helsinki. It featured poetry from the Kalevala, and was celebrated by critics as truly Finnish music.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Despite certain freedoms granted to Finland, the Grand Duchy was not a democratic state. The tsar retained supreme power and ruled through the highest official in the land, the governor general, almost always a Russian officer. Alexander dissolved the Diet of the Four Estates shortly after convening it in 1809, and it did not meet again for half a century. The tsar's actions were in accordance with the royalist constitution Finland had inherited from Sweden. The Finns had no guarantees of liberty, but depended on the tsar's goodwill for any freedoms they enjoyed. When Alexander II, the Tsar Liberator, convened the Diet again in 1863, he did so not to fulfill any obligation but to meet growing pressures for reform within the empire as a whole. In the remaining decades of the century, the Diet enacted numerous legislative measures that modernized Finland's system of law, made its public administration more efficient, removed obstacles to commerce, and prepared the ground for the country's independence in the next century.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The policy of Russification of Finland (1899–1905 and 1908–1917, called sortokaudet/sortovuodet ('times/years of oppression') in Finnish) was the policy of the Russian czars designed to limit the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland and fully integrate it politically, militarily, and culturally into the empire. Finns were strongly opposed and fought back by passive resistance and a strengthening of Finnish cultural identity. Key provisions were, first, the February Manifesto of 1899 which asserted the imperial government's right to rule Finland without the consent of local legislative bodies; second, the Language Manifesto of 1900 which made Russian the language of administration of Finland; and third, the conscription law of 1901 which incorporated the Finnish army into the imperial army and sent conscripts away to Russian training camps.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1906, as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the associated Finnish general strike of 1905, the old four-chamber Diet was replaced by a unicameral Parliament of Finland (the Eduskunta). For the first time in Europe, universal suffrage (right to vote) and eligibility was implemented to include women: Finnish women were the first in Europe to gain full eligibility to vote; and have membership in an estate; land ownership or inherited titles were no longer required. However, on the local level things were different, as in the municipal elections the number of votes was tied to amount of tax paid. Thus, rich people could cast a number of votes, while the poor perhaps none at all. The municipal voting system was changed to universal suffrage in 1917 when a left-wing majority was elected to Parliament.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Emigration was especially important 1890–1914, with many young men and some families headed to Finnish settlements in the United States, and also to Canada. They typically worked in lumber and mining, and many were active in Marxist causes on the one hand, or the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America on the other. In the 21st century about 700,000 Americans and 140,000 Canadians claim Finnish ancestry.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "By 2000 about 6% of the population spoke Swedish as their first language, or 300,000 people. However, since the late 20th century there has been a steady migration of older, better educated Swedish speakers to Sweden.",
"title": "Grand Duchy of Finland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "In the aftermath of the February Revolution in Russia, Finland received a new Senate, and a coalition Cabinet with the same power distribution as the Finnish Parliament. Based on the general election in 1916, the Social Democrats had a small majority, and the Social Democrat Oskari Tokoi became prime minister. The new Senate was willing to cooperate with the Provisional government of Russia, but no agreement was reached. Finland considered the personal union with Russia to be over after the dethroning of the Tsar—although the Finns had de facto recognized the Provisional government as the Tsar's successor by accepting its authority to appoint a new Governor General and Senate. They expected the Tsar's authority to be transferred to Finland's Parliament, which the Provisional government refused, suggesting instead that the question should be settled by the Russian Constituent Assembly.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "For the Finnish Social Democrats it seemed as though the bourgeoisie was an obstacle on Finland's road to independence as well as on the proletariat's road to power. The non-Socialists in Tokoi's Senate were, however, more confident. They, and most of the non-Socialists in the Parliament, rejected the Social Democrats' proposal on parliamentarism (the so-called \"Power Act\") as being too far-reaching and provocative. The act restricted Russia's influence on domestic Finnish matters, but did not touch the Russian government's power on matters of defence and foreign affairs. For the Russian Provisional government this was, however, far too radical, exceeding the Parliament's authority, and so the Provisional government dissolved the Parliament.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The minority of the Parliament, and of the Senate, were content. New elections promised a chance for them to gain a majority, which they were convinced would improve the chances to reach an understanding with Russia. The non-Socialists were also inclined to cooperate with the Russian Provisional Government because they feared the Social Democrats' power would grow, resulting in radical reforms, such as equal suffrage in municipal elections, or a land reform. The majority had the completely opposite opinion. They did not accept the Provisional government's right to dissolve the Parliament.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "The Social Democrats held on to the Power Act and opposed the promulgation of the decree of dissolution of the Parliament, whereas the non-Socialists voted for promulgating it. The disagreement over the Power Act led to the Social Democrats leaving the Senate. When the Parliament met again after the summer recess in August 1917, only the groups supporting the Power Act were present. Russian troops took possession of the chamber, the Parliament was dissolved, and new elections were held. The result was a (small) non-Socialist majority and a purely non-Socialist Senate. The suppression of the Power Act, and the cooperation between Finnish non-Socialists and Russia provoked great bitterness among the Socialists, and had resulted in dozens of politically motivated attacks and murders.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The October Revolution of 1917 turned Finnish politics upside down. Now, the new non-Socialist majority of the Parliament desired total independence, and the Socialists came gradually to view Soviet Russia as an example to follow. On 15 November 1917, the Bolsheviks declared a general right of self-determination \"for the Peoples of Russia\", including the right of complete secession. On the same day the Finnish Parliament issued a declaration by which it temporarily took power in Finland.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Worried by developments in Russia and Finland, the non-Socialist Senate proposed that Parliament declare Finland's independence, which was voted by the Parliament on 6 December 1917. On 18 December (31 December N. S.) the Soviet government issued a Decree, recognizing Finland's independence, and on 22 December (4 January 1918 N. S.) it was approved by the highest Soviet executive body (VTsIK). Germany and the Scandinavian countries followed without delay.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Finland after 1917 was bitterly divided along social lines. The Whites consisted of the Swedish-speaking middle and upper classes and the farmers and peasantry who dominated the northern two-thirds of the land. They had a conservative outlook and rejected socialism. The Socialist-Communist Reds comprised the Finnish-speaking urban workers and the landless rural cottagers. They had a radical outlook and rejected capitalism.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "From January to May 1918, Finland experienced the brief but bitter Finnish Civil War. On one side there were the \"white\" civil guards, who fought for the anti-Socialists. On the other side were the Red Guards, which consisted of workers and tenant farmers. The latter proclaimed a Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. World War I was still underway and the defeat of the Red Guards was achieved with support from Imperial Germany, while Sweden remained neutral and Russia withdrew its forces. The Reds lost the war and the White peasantry rose to political leadership in the 1920s–1930s. About 37,000 men died, most of them in prisoner camps ravaged by influenza and other diseases.",
"title": "Independence and Civil War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "After the civil war, the parliament controlled by the Whites voted to establish a constitutional monarchy to be called the Kingdom of Finland, with German prince Frederick Charles of Hesse as king. However, Germany's defeat in November 1918 made the plan impossible and Finland instead became a republic, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg elected as its first President in 1919. Despite the bitter civil war, and repeated threats from fascist movements, Finland became and remained a capitalist democracy under the rule of law. By contrast, nearby Estonia, in similar circumstances but without a civil war, started as a democracy and was turned into a dictatorship in 1934.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Large scale agrarian reform in the 1920s involved breaking up the large estates controlled by the old nobility and selling the land to ambitious peasants. The farmers became strong supporters of the government.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Finland became member of the League of Nations on 16 December 1920. The new republic faced a dispute over the Åland Islands, which were overwhelmingly Swedish-speaking and sought retrocession to Sweden. However, as Finland was not willing to cede the islands, they were offered an autonomous status. Nevertheless, the residents did not approve the offer, and the dispute over the islands was submitted to the League of Nations. The League decided that Finland should retain sovereignty over the Åland Islands, but they should be made an autonomous province. Thus Finland was under an obligation to ensure the residents of Åland a right to maintain the Swedish language, as well as their own culture and local traditions. At the same time, an international treaty was concluded on the neutral status of Åland, under which it was prohibited to place military headquarters or forces on the islands.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Alcohol abuse had a long history, especially regarding binge drinking and public intoxication, which became a crime in 1733. In the 19th century the punishments became stiffer and stiffer, but the problem persisted. A strong abstinence movement emerged that cut consumption in half from the 1880s to the 1910s, and gave Finland the lowest drinking rate in Europe. Four attempts at instituting prohibition of alcohol during the Grand Duchy period were rejected by the czar; with the czar gone Finland enacted prohibition in 1919. Smuggling emerged and enforcement was slipshod. Criminal convictions for drunkenness went up by 500%, and violence and crime rates soared. Public opinion turned against the law, and a national plebiscite went 70% for repeal, so prohibition was ended in early 1932.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Nationalist sentiment remaining from the Civil War developed into the proto-Fascist Lapua Movement in 1929. Initially the movement gained widespread support among anti-Communist Finns, but following a failed coup attempt in 1932 it was banned and its leaders imprisoned.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In the wake of the Civil War there were many incidents along the border between Finland and Soviet Russia, such as the Aunus expedition and the Pork mutiny. Relations with the Soviets were improved after the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, in which Finland gained Petsamo, but gave up its claims on East Karelia.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Tens of thousands of radical Finns—from Finland, the United States and Canada—took up Stalin's 1923 appeal to create a new Soviet society in the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR), a part of Russia. Most were executed in the purges of the 1930s.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The Soviet Union started to tighten its policy against Finland in the 1930s, limiting the navigation of Finnish merchant ships between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland and blocking it totally in 1937.",
"title": "Finland in the inter-war era"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, where Finland and the Baltic states were allocated to the Soviet \"sphere of influence\". After invading Poland, the Soviet Union sent ultimatums to the Baltic countries, where it demanded military bases on their soil. The Baltic states accepted Soviet demands, and lost their independence in the summer of 1940. In October 1939, the Soviet Union sent a similar request to Finland, but the Finns refused these demands.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, launching the Winter War, with the aim of annexing Finland into the Soviet Union. The Finnish Democratic Republic was established by Joseph Stalin at the beginning of the war with the purpose of governing Finland after Soviet conquest. The Red Army was defeated in numerous battles, notably at the Battle of Suomussalmi. After two months of negligible progress on the battlefield, as well as severe losses of men and materiel, the Soviets put an end to the Finnish Democratic Republic in late January 1940 and recognized the legal Finnish government as the legitimate government of Finland. Soviet forces began to make progress in February and reached Vyborg in March. Fighting came to an end on 13 March 1940 with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. Finland had successfully defended its independence, but ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations as a result of the invasion.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "After the Winter War the Finnish Army was exhausted and needed recovery and support as soon as possible. The United Kingdom declined to help, but in autumn 1940, Nazi Germany offered weapon deals to Finland if the Finnish government would allow German troops to travel through Finland to German-occupied Norway. Finland accepted, weapons deals were made, and military co-operation began in December 1940.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Hostilities resumed in June 1941 with the start of the Continuation War, when Finland aligned with Germany following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Finland was involved with the Siege of Leningrad and occupied East Karelia from 1941 to 1944. This irredentist sentiment of a Greater Finland, whose inhabitants were culturally related to the Finnish people, although Eastern Orthodox by religion, resulted in other countries being considerably less sympathetic to the Finnish cause.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Finnish forces won several decisive battles during the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive of 1944, including the Battle of Tali-Ihantala and the Battle of Ilomantsi. These victories helped ensure Finnish independence, and led to the Moscow Armistice with the Soviet Union. The armistice called for the expulsion of German troops residing in northern Finland, leading to the Lapland War whereby the Finns forced the Germans to withdraw into Norway (then under German occupation).",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Finland was never occupied by Soviet forces. Its army of over 600,000 soldiers saw only 3,500 prisoners of war. About 96,000 Finns died, or 2.5% of a population of 3.8 million; civilian casualties were under 2,500. Finland managed to defend its democracy, contrary to most other countries within the Soviet sphere of influence, and suffered comparably limited losses in terms of civilian lives and property. It was, however, punished harsher than other German co-belligerents and allies, having to pay large reparations and resettle an eighth of its population after having lost an eighth of its territory, including the major city of Viipuri. After the war, the Soviet government settled these gained territories with people from many different regions of the USSR, for instance from Ukraine.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "The Finnish government did not participate in the systematic killing of Jews, although the country remained a \"co-belligerent\", a de facto ally of Germany until 1944. In total, eight German Jewish refugees were handed over to the German authorities. In the Tehran Conference of 1942, the leaders of the Allies agreed that Finland was fighting a separate war against the Soviet Union, and that in no way was it hostile to the Western allies. The Soviet Union was the only Allied country against which Finland had conducted military operations. Unlike any of the Axis nations, Finland was a parliamentary democracy throughout the 1939–1945 period. The commander of Finnish armed forces during the Winter War and the Continuation War, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, became the President of Finland at the very end of the Continuation War. Finland made a separate armistice agreement with the Soviet Union on 19 September 1944, and was the only bordering country of USSR in Europe (alongside Norway, which gained a border with the Soviet Union only after the war) that kept its independence after the war.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "During and in between the wars, approximately 80,000 Finnish war-children were evacuated abroad: 5% went to Norway, 10% to Denmark, and the rest to Sweden. Most of the children were sent back by 1948, but 15–20% remained abroad.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and Britain on the other side on 19 September 1944, ending the Continuation War. The armistice compelled Finland to drive German troops from its territory, leading to the Lapland War 1944–1945.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "In 1947, Finland reluctantly declined Marshall aid in order to preserve good relations with the Soviets, ensuring Finnish autonomy. Nevertheless, the United States shipped secret development aid and financial aid to the non-communist SDP (Social Democratic Party). Establishing trade with the Western powers, such as Britain, and the reparations to the Soviet Union caused Finland to transform itself from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrialised one. After the reparations had been paid off, Finland continued to trade with the Soviet Union in the framework of bilateral trade.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Finland's role in the Second World War was unusual in several ways. Despite massive superiority in military strength, the Soviet Union was unable to conquer Finland when the former invaded in 1939. In late 1940, German-Finnish co-operation began; it took a form that was unique when compared to relations with the Axis. Finland signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which made Finland an ally with Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. But, unlike all other Axis states, Finland never signed the Tripartite Pact, meaning that Finland was not de jure an Axis nation.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Although Finland lost territory in both of its wars with the Soviets, the memory of these wars was sharply etched in the national consciousness. Finland celebrates these wars as a victory for the Finnish national spirit, which survived against long odds and allowed Finland to maintain its independence. Many groups of Finns are commemorated today, including not just fallen soldiers and veterans, but also orphans, evacuees from Karelia, the children who were evacuated to Sweden, women who worked during the war at home or in factories, and the veterans of the women's defense unit Lotta Svärd.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Some of these groups could not be properly commemorated until long after the war ended in order to preserve good relations with the Soviet Union. However, after a long political campaign backed by survivors of what Finns call the Partisan War, the Finnish Parliament passed legislation establishing compensation for the war's victims.",
"title": "Finland in the Second World War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Finland retained a democratic constitution and free economy during the Cold War era. Treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included obligations and restraints on Finland, as well as territorial concessions. The Paris Peace Treaty (1947) limited the size and the nature of Finland's armed forces. Weapons were to be solely defensive. A deepening of postwar tensions led a year later to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (1948) with the Soviet Union. The latter, in particular, was the foundation of Finno-Soviet relations in the postwar era. Under the terms of the treaty, Finland was bound to confer with the Soviets and perhaps to accept their aid if an attack from Germany, or countries allied with Germany, seemed likely. The treaty prescribed consultations between the two countries, but it had no mechanism for automatic Soviet intervention in a time of crisis. Both treaties have been abrogated by Finland since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, while leaving the borders untouched. Even though being a neighbor to the Soviet Union sometimes resulted in overcautious concern in foreign policy (\"Finlandization\"), Finland developed closer co-operation with the other Nordic countries and declared itself neutral in superpower politics.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "The Finnish post-war president, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a leading conservative politician, saw that an essential element of Finnish foreign policy must be a credible guarantee to the Soviet Union that it need not fear attack from, or through, Finnish territory. Because a policy of neutrality was a political component of this guarantee, Finland would ally itself with no one. Another aspect of the guarantee was that Finnish defenses had to be sufficiently strong to defend the nation's territory. This policy remained the core of Finland's foreign relations for the rest of the Cold War era.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "In 1952, Finland and the countries of the Nordic Council entered into a passport union, allowing their citizens to cross borders without passports and soon also to apply for jobs and claim social security benefits in the other countries. Many from Finland used this opportunity to secure better-paying jobs in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, dominating Sweden's first wave of post-war labour immigrants. Although Finnish wages and standard of living could not compete with wealthy Sweden until the 1970s, the Finnish economy rose remarkably from the ashes of World War II, resulting in the buildup of another Nordic-style welfare state.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Despite the passport union with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, Finland could not join the Nordic Council until 1955 because of Soviet fears that Finland might become too close to the West. At that time the Soviet Union saw the Nordic Council as part of NATO of which Denmark, Norway and Iceland were members. That same year Finland joined the United Nations, though it had already been associated with a number of UN specialized organisations. The first Finnish ambassador to the UN was G.A. Gripenberg (1956–1959), followed by Ralph Enckell (1959–1965), Max Jakobson (1965–1972), Aarno Karhilo (1972–1977), Ilkka Pastinen (1977–1983), Keijo Korhonen (1983–1988), Klaus Törnudd (1988–1991), Wilhelm Breitenstein (1991–1998) and Marjatta Rasi (1998–2005). In 1972 Max Jakobson was a candidate for Secretary-General of the UN. In another remarkable event of 1955, the Soviet Union decided to return the Porkkala peninsula to Finland, which had been rented to the Soviet Union in 1948 for 50 years as a military base, a situation which somewhat endangered Finnish sovereignty and neutrality.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Officially claiming to be neutral, Finland lay in the grey zone between the Western countries and the Soviet Union, and it also developed into one of the centres of the East-West espionage, in which both the KGB and the CIA played their parts. The 1949 established Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO, Suojelupoliisi), an operational security authority and a police unit under the Interior Ministry, whose core areas of activity are counter-Intelligence, counter-terrorism and national security, also participated in this activity in some places. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. However, Finland maintained capitalism unlike most other countries bordering the Soviet Union. Property rights were strong. While nationalization committees were set up in France and UK, Finland avoided nationalizations. After failed experiments with protectionism in the 1950s, Finland eased restrictions and committed to a series of international free trade agreements: first an associate membership in the European Free Trade Association in 1961, a full membership in 1986 and also an agreement with the European Community in 1973. Local education markets expanded and an increasing number of Finns also went abroad to study in the United States or Western Europe, bringing back advanced skills. There was a quite common, but pragmatic-minded, credit and investment cooperation by state and corporations, though it was considered with suspicion. Support for capitalism was widespread. Savings rate hovered among the world's highest, at around 8% until the 1980s. In the beginning of the 1970s, Finland's GDP per capita reached the level of Japan and the UK. Finland's economic development shared many aspects with export-led Asian countries.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "Building on its status as western democratic country with friendly ties with the Soviet Union, Finland pushed to reduce the political and military tensions of cold war. Since the 1960s, Finland urged the formation of a Nordic Nuclear Weapons Free Zone [fi] (Nordic NWFZ), and in 1972–1973 was the host of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which culminated in the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 and lead to the creation of the OSCE.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Before 1940 Finland was a poor rural nation of urban and rural workers and independent farmers. There was a small middle class, employed chiefly as civil servants and in small local businesses. As late as 1950 half of the workers were in agriculture and only a third lived in urban towns. The new jobs in manufacturing, services and trade quickly attracted people to the towns and cities. The average number of births per woman declined from a baby boom peak of 3.5 in 1947 to 1.5 in 1973. When baby boomers entered the workforce, the economy did not generate jobs fast enough and hundreds of thousands emigrated to the more industrialized Sweden, migration peaking in 1969 and 1970 (today 4.7 percent of Swedes speak Finnish).",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "By the 1990s, farm laborers had nearly all moved on, leaving owners of small farms. By 2000 the social structure included a politically active working class, a primarily clerical middle class, and an upper bracket consisting of managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals. The social boundaries between these groups were not distinct. Causes of change included the growth of a mass culture, international standards, social mobility, and acceptance of democracy and equality as typified by the welfare state.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "The generous system of welfare benefits emerged from a long process of debate, negotiations and maneuvers between efficiency-oriented modernizers on the one hand and Social Democrats and labor unions. A compulsory system provides old-age and disability insurance. The national government provides unemployment insurance, maternity benefits, family allowances, and day-care centers. Health insurance covers most of the cost of outpatient care. The national health act of 1972 provided for the establishment of free health centers in every municipality. There were major cutbacks in the early 1990s, but they were distributed to minimize the harm to the vast majority of voters.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "The post-war period was a time of rapid economic growth and increasing social and political stability for Finland. The five decades after the Second World War saw Finland turn from a war-ravaged agrarian society into one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, with a sophisticated market economy and high standard of living.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "In 1991, Finland fell into a depression caused by a combination of economic overheating, fixed currency, depressed Western, Soviet, and local markets. Stock market and housing prices declined by 50%. The growth in the 1980s was based on debt and defaults started rolling in. GDP declined by 15% and unemployment increased from a virtual full employment to one fifth of the workforce. The crisis was amplified by trade unions' initial opposition to any reforms. Politicians struggled to cut spending and the public debt doubled to around 60% of GDP. Some 7–8% of GDP was needed to bail out failing banks and force banking sector consolidation. After devaluations the depression bottomed out in 1993.",
"title": "Post WW2 and Cold War"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The GDP growth rate has since been one of the highest of OECD countries and Finland has topped many indicators of national performance.",
"title": "Post Cold War History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Until 1991, President Mauno Koivisto and two of the three major parties, Center Party and the Social Democrats opposed the idea of European Union membership and preferred entering into the European Economic Area treaty. However, after Sweden had submitted its membership application in 1991 and the Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of the year, Finland submitted its own application to the EU in March 1992. The accession process was marked by heavy public debate, where the differences of opinion did not follow party lines. Officially, all three major parties were supporting the Union membership, but members of all parties participated in the campaign against the membership. Before the parliamentary decision to join the EU, a consultative referendum was held on 16 April 1994, in which 56.9% of the votes were in favour of joining. The process of accession was completed on 1 January 1995, when Finland joined the European Union along with Austria and Sweden. Leading Finland into the EU is held as the main achievement of the Centrist-Conservative government of Esko Aho then in power. In the economic policy, the EU membership brought with it many large changes. While politicians were previously involved in setting interest rates, the Bank of Finland was given an inflation-targeting mandate until Finland joined the eurozone. During Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's two successive governments 1995–2003, several large state companies were privatized fully or partially. Matti Vanhanen's two cabinets followed suit until autumn 2008, when the state became a major shareholder in the Finnish telecom company Elisa with the intention to secure the Finnish ownership of a strategically important industry.",
"title": "Post Cold War History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "In addition to fast integration with the European Union, safety against Russian leverage has been increased by building fully NATO-compatible military. 1000 troops (a high per-capita amount) are simultaneously committed in NATO and UN operations. Finland has also opposed energy projects that increase dependency on Russian imports. For a long time, Finland remained one of the last non-NATO members in Europe, without enough support for full membership unless Sweden joined first.",
"title": "Post Cold War History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "On 24 February 2022, the Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Armed Forces to begin the invasion of Ukraine. On 25 February, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson threatened Finland and Sweden with \"military and political consequences\" if they attempted to join NATO, which neither were actively seeking. After the invasion public support for membership rose significantly.",
"title": "Post Cold War History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "On 4 April 2023, the last NATO members ratified Finland's application to join the alliance, making Finland the 31st member.",
"title": "Post Cold War History"
}
]
| The history of Finland begins around 9,000 BC during the end of the last glacial period. Stone Age cultures were Kunda, Comb Ceramic, Corded Ware, Kiukainen, and Pöljä cultures. The Finnish Bronze Age started in approximately 1,500 BC and the Iron Age started in 500 BC and lasted until 1,300 AD. Finnish Iron Age cultures can be separated into Finnish proper, Tavastian and Karelian cultures. The earliest written sources mentioning Finland start to appear from the 12th century onwards when the Catholic Church started to gain a foothold in Southwest Finland. Due to the Northern Crusades and Swedish colonisation of some Finnish coastal areas, most of the region became a part of the Kingdom of Sweden and the realm of the Catholic Church from the 13th century onwards. After the Finnish War in 1809, Finland was ceded to the Russian Empire, making this area the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. The Lutheran religion dominated. Finnish nationalism emerged in the 19th century. It focused on Finnish cultural traditions, folklore, and mythology, including music and—especially—the highly distinctive language and lyrics associated with it. One product of this era was the Kalevala, one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The catastrophic Finnish famine of 1866–1868 was followed by eased economic regulations and extensive emigration. In 1917, Finland declared its full independence. A civil war between the Finnish Red Guards and the White Guard ensued a few months later, with the Whites gaining the upper hand during the springtime of 1918. After the internal affairs stabilized, the still mainly agrarian economy grew relatively quickly. Relations with the West, especially Sweden and Britain, were strong but tensions remained with the Soviet Union. During World War II, Finland fought twice against the Soviet Union, first defending its independence in the Winter War and then invading the Soviet Union in the Continuation War. In the peace settlement Finland ended up ceding a large part of Karelia and some other areas to the Soviet Union. However, Finland remained an independent democracy in Northern Europe. In the latter half of its independent history, Finland has maintained a mixed economy. Since its post–World War II economic boom in the 1970s, Finland's GDP per capita has been among the world's highest. The expanded welfare state of Finland from 1970 and 1990 increased the public sector employees and spending and the tax burden imposed on the citizens. In 1992, Finland simultaneously faced economic overheating and depressed Western, Russian, and local markets. Finland joined the European Union in 1995, and replaced the Finnish markka with the euro in 2002. According to a 2016 poll, 61% of Finns preferred not to join NATO. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the numbers had shifted significantly, with 62% in favour of Finland joining NATO and 16% against. Finland started to pursue membership in the alliance and eventually joined NATO on 4 April 2023. | 2001-04-29T15:48:24Z | 2023-12-31T17:41:46Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland |
14,379 | Holy Spirit | In Judaism, the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is the divine force, quality and influence of God over the universe or his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. In the Baha’i Faith, the Holy Spirit is seen as the intermediary between God and man and "the outpouring grace of God and the effulgent rays that emanate from His Manifestation".
The Hebrew Bible contains the term "spirit of God" (ruach elochim) which by Jews is interpreted in the sense of the might of a unitary God. This interpretation is different from the Nicene Christian conception of the Holy Spirit as one person of the Trinity.
The Christian concept tends to emphasize the moral aspect of the Holy Spirit more than Judaism, evident in the epithet Holy Spirit that appeared in Jewish religious writings only relatively late but was a common expression in the Christian New Testament. Based on the Old Testament, the book of Acts emphasizes the power of ministry aspect of the Holy Spirit.
According to theologian Rudolf Bultmann, there are two ways to think about the Holy Spirit: "animistic" and "dynamistic". In animistic thinking, he is "an independent agent, a personal power which (...) can fall upon a man and take possession of him, enabling him or compelling him to perform manifestations of power" while in dynamistic thought it "appears as an impersonal force which fills a man like a fluid". Both kinds of thought appear in Jewish and Christian scripture, but animistic is more typical of the Old Testament whereas dynamistic is more common in the New Testament. The distinction coincides with the Holy Spirit as either a temporary or permanent gift. In the Old Testament and Jewish thought, it is primarily temporary with a specific situation or task in mind, whereas in the Christian concept the gift resides in persons permanently.
On the surface, the Holy Spirit appears to have an equivalent in non-Abrahamic Hellenistic mystery religions. These religions included a distinction between the spirit and psyche, which is also seen in the Pauline epistles. According to proponents of the History of religions school, the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit cannot be explained from Jewish ideas alone without reference to the Hellenistic religions. And according to theologian Erik Konsmo, the views "are so dissimilar that the only legitimate connection one can make is with the Greek term πνεῦμα [pneuma, Spirit] itself".
Another link with ancient Greek thought is the Stoic idea of the spirit as anima mundi – or world soul – that unites all people. Some believe that this can be seen in Paul's formulation of the concept of the Holy Spirit that unites Christians in Jesus Christ and love for one another, but Konsmo again thinks that this position is difficult to maintain. In his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth wrote:
Another Stoic concept which offered inspiration to the Church was that of "divine Spirit". Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's "creative fire", had been the first to hit upon the term pneuma, or "spirit", to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent "spirit" was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but essentially possessing the quality of warmth; it was immanent in the universe as God, and in man as the soul and life-giving principle. Clearly it is not a long step from this to the "Holy Spirit" of Christian theology, the "Lord and Giver of life", visibly manifested as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ever since associated – in the Christian as in the Stoic mind – with the ideas of vital fire and beneficent warmth.
The Hebrew language phrase ruach ha-kodesh (Hebrew: רוח הקודש, "holy spirit" also transliterated ruaḥ ha-qodesh) is used in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish writings to refer to the spirit of YHWH (רוח יהוה). The Hebrew terms ruacḥ qodshəka, "thy holy spirit" (רוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ), and ruacḥ qodshō, "his holy spirit" (רוּחַ קָדְשׁוֹ), also occur (when a possessive suffix is added the definite article ha is dropped).
The Holy Spirit in Judaism generally refers to the divine aspect of prophecy and wisdom. It also refers to the divine force, quality, and influence of the Most High God, over the universe or over his creatures, in given contexts.
For the large majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, from Old English gast, "spirit") is the third person of the Trinity: The "Triune God" manifested as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; each Person being God. Two symbols from the New Testament canon are associated with the Holy Spirit in Christian iconography: a winged dove, and tongues of fire. Each depiction of the Holy Spirit arose from different accounts in the Gospel narratives; the first being at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River where the Holy Spirit was said to descend in the form of a dove as the voice of God the Father spoke as described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the second being from the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover where the descent of the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ, as tongues of fire as described in the Acts of the Apostles, as promised by Jesus in his farewell discourse. Called "the unveiled epiphany of God", the Holy Spirit is the One who empowers the followers of Jesus with spiritual gifts and power that enables the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and the power that brings conviction of faith.
The Holy Spirit (Arabic: روح القدس Ruh al-Qudus, "the Spirit of Holiness") is mentioned four times in the Qur'an, where it acts as an agent of divine action or communication. The Muslim interpretation of the Holy Spirit is generally consistent with other interpretations based upon the Old and the New Testaments. On the basis of narrations in certain Hadith some Muslims identify it with the angel Gabriel (Arabic Jibrāʾīl). The Spirit (الروح al-Ruh, without the adjective "holy" or "exalted") is described, among other things, as the creative spirit from God by which God enlivened Adam, and which inspired in various ways God's messengers and prophets, including Jesus and Abraham. The belief in a "Holy Trinity", according to the Qur'an, is forbidden and deemed to be blasphemy. The same prohibition applies to any idea of the duality of God (Allah).
The Baháʼí Faith has the concept of the Most Great Spirit, seen as the bounty of God. It is usually used to describe the descent of the Spirit of God upon the messengers/prophets of God who include, among others, Jesus, Muhammad and Bahá'u'lláh.
In Baháʼí belief, the Holy Spirit is the conduit through which the wisdom of God becomes directly associated with his messenger, and it has been described variously in different religions such as the burning bush to Moses, the sacred fire to Zoroaster, the dove to Jesus, the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, and the Maid of Heaven to Bahá'u'lláh (founder of the Baháʼí Faith). The Baháʼí view rejects the idea that the Holy Spirit is a partner to God in the Godhead, but rather is the pure essence of God's attributes.
The Hindu concept of Advaita is linked to the Trinity and has been briefly explained by Raimon Panikkar. He states that the Holy Spirit, as one of the Three Persons of the Trinity of "father, Logos and Holy Spirit", is a bridge-builder between Christianity and Hinduism. He explains that: "The meeting of spiritualistic can take place in the Spirit. No new 'system' has primarily to come of this encounter, but a new and yet old spirit must emerge." Atman is Vedic terminology elaborated in Hindu scriptures such as Upanishads and Vedanta signifies the Ultimate Reality and Absolute.
In Zoroastrianism, the Holy Spirit, also known as Spenta Mainyu, is a hypostasis of Ahura Mazda, the supreme Creator God of Zoroastrianism; the Holy Spirit is seen as the source of all goodness in the universe, the spark of all life within humanity, and is the ultimate guide for humanity to righteousness and communion with God. The Holy Spirit is put in direct opposition to its eternal dual counterpart, Angra Mainyu, who is the source of all wickedness and who leads humanity astray.
The ancient Gnostic text known as the Secret Book of John refers to the supreme female principle Barbelo as the Holy Spirit. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In Judaism, the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is the divine force, quality and influence of God over the universe or his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. In the Baha’i Faith, the Holy Spirit is seen as the intermediary between God and man and \"the outpouring grace of God and the effulgent rays that emanate from His Manifestation\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Hebrew Bible contains the term \"spirit of God\" (ruach elochim) which by Jews is interpreted in the sense of the might of a unitary God. This interpretation is different from the Nicene Christian conception of the Holy Spirit as one person of the Trinity.",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Christian concept tends to emphasize the moral aspect of the Holy Spirit more than Judaism, evident in the epithet Holy Spirit that appeared in Jewish religious writings only relatively late but was a common expression in the Christian New Testament. Based on the Old Testament, the book of Acts emphasizes the power of ministry aspect of the Holy Spirit.",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "According to theologian Rudolf Bultmann, there are two ways to think about the Holy Spirit: \"animistic\" and \"dynamistic\". In animistic thinking, he is \"an independent agent, a personal power which (...) can fall upon a man and take possession of him, enabling him or compelling him to perform manifestations of power\" while in dynamistic thought it \"appears as an impersonal force which fills a man like a fluid\". Both kinds of thought appear in Jewish and Christian scripture, but animistic is more typical of the Old Testament whereas dynamistic is more common in the New Testament. The distinction coincides with the Holy Spirit as either a temporary or permanent gift. In the Old Testament and Jewish thought, it is primarily temporary with a specific situation or task in mind, whereas in the Christian concept the gift resides in persons permanently.",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On the surface, the Holy Spirit appears to have an equivalent in non-Abrahamic Hellenistic mystery religions. These religions included a distinction between the spirit and psyche, which is also seen in the Pauline epistles. According to proponents of the History of religions school, the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit cannot be explained from Jewish ideas alone without reference to the Hellenistic religions. And according to theologian Erik Konsmo, the views \"are so dissimilar that the only legitimate connection one can make is with the Greek term πνεῦμα [pneuma, Spirit] itself\".",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Another link with ancient Greek thought is the Stoic idea of the spirit as anima mundi – or world soul – that unites all people. Some believe that this can be seen in Paul's formulation of the concept of the Holy Spirit that unites Christians in Jesus Christ and love for one another, but Konsmo again thinks that this position is difficult to maintain. In his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth wrote:",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Another Stoic concept which offered inspiration to the Church was that of \"divine Spirit\". Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's \"creative fire\", had been the first to hit upon the term pneuma, or \"spirit\", to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent \"spirit\" was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but essentially possessing the quality of warmth; it was immanent in the universe as God, and in man as the soul and life-giving principle. Clearly it is not a long step from this to the \"Holy Spirit\" of Christian theology, the \"Lord and Giver of life\", visibly manifested as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ever since associated – in the Christian as in the Stoic mind – with the ideas of vital fire and beneficent warmth.",
"title": "Comparative religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Hebrew language phrase ruach ha-kodesh (Hebrew: רוח הקודש, \"holy spirit\" also transliterated ruaḥ ha-qodesh) is used in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish writings to refer to the spirit of YHWH (רוח יהוה). The Hebrew terms ruacḥ qodshəka, \"thy holy spirit\" (רוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ), and ruacḥ qodshō, \"his holy spirit\" (רוּחַ קָדְשׁוֹ), also occur (when a possessive suffix is added the definite article ha is dropped).",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Holy Spirit in Judaism generally refers to the divine aspect of prophecy and wisdom. It also refers to the divine force, quality, and influence of the Most High God, over the universe or over his creatures, in given contexts.",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "For the large majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, from Old English gast, \"spirit\") is the third person of the Trinity: The \"Triune God\" manifested as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; each Person being God. Two symbols from the New Testament canon are associated with the Holy Spirit in Christian iconography: a winged dove, and tongues of fire. Each depiction of the Holy Spirit arose from different accounts in the Gospel narratives; the first being at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River where the Holy Spirit was said to descend in the form of a dove as the voice of God the Father spoke as described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the second being from the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover where the descent of the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ, as tongues of fire as described in the Acts of the Apostles, as promised by Jesus in his farewell discourse. Called \"the unveiled epiphany of God\", the Holy Spirit is the One who empowers the followers of Jesus with spiritual gifts and power that enables the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and the power that brings conviction of faith.",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Holy Spirit (Arabic: روح القدس Ruh al-Qudus, \"the Spirit of Holiness\") is mentioned four times in the Qur'an, where it acts as an agent of divine action or communication. The Muslim interpretation of the Holy Spirit is generally consistent with other interpretations based upon the Old and the New Testaments. On the basis of narrations in certain Hadith some Muslims identify it with the angel Gabriel (Arabic Jibrāʾīl). The Spirit (الروح al-Ruh, without the adjective \"holy\" or \"exalted\") is described, among other things, as the creative spirit from God by which God enlivened Adam, and which inspired in various ways God's messengers and prophets, including Jesus and Abraham. The belief in a \"Holy Trinity\", according to the Qur'an, is forbidden and deemed to be blasphemy. The same prohibition applies to any idea of the duality of God (Allah).",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Baháʼí Faith has the concept of the Most Great Spirit, seen as the bounty of God. It is usually used to describe the descent of the Spirit of God upon the messengers/prophets of God who include, among others, Jesus, Muhammad and Bahá'u'lláh.",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In Baháʼí belief, the Holy Spirit is the conduit through which the wisdom of God becomes directly associated with his messenger, and it has been described variously in different religions such as the burning bush to Moses, the sacred fire to Zoroaster, the dove to Jesus, the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, and the Maid of Heaven to Bahá'u'lláh (founder of the Baháʼí Faith). The Baháʼí view rejects the idea that the Holy Spirit is a partner to God in the Godhead, but rather is the pure essence of God's attributes.",
"title": "Abrahamic religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Hindu concept of Advaita is linked to the Trinity and has been briefly explained by Raimon Panikkar. He states that the Holy Spirit, as one of the Three Persons of the Trinity of \"father, Logos and Holy Spirit\", is a bridge-builder between Christianity and Hinduism. He explains that: \"The meeting of spiritualistic can take place in the Spirit. No new 'system' has primarily to come of this encounter, but a new and yet old spirit must emerge.\" Atman is Vedic terminology elaborated in Hindu scriptures such as Upanishads and Vedanta signifies the Ultimate Reality and Absolute.",
"title": "Other religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Zoroastrianism, the Holy Spirit, also known as Spenta Mainyu, is a hypostasis of Ahura Mazda, the supreme Creator God of Zoroastrianism; the Holy Spirit is seen as the source of all goodness in the universe, the spark of all life within humanity, and is the ultimate guide for humanity to righteousness and communion with God. The Holy Spirit is put in direct opposition to its eternal dual counterpart, Angra Mainyu, who is the source of all wickedness and who leads humanity astray.",
"title": "Other religions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The ancient Gnostic text known as the Secret Book of John refers to the supreme female principle Barbelo as the Holy Spirit.",
"title": "Other religions"
}
]
| In Judaism, the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is the divine force, quality and influence of God over the universe or his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. In the Baha’i Faith, the Holy Spirit is seen as the intermediary between God and man and "the outpouring grace of God and the effulgent rays that emanate from His Manifestation". | 2002-01-03T16:00:10Z | 2023-11-24T20:58:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit |
14,380 | Helium-3 | Helium-3 (He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (in contrast, the most common isotope, helium-4 has two protons and two neutrons). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939.
Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from Earth's crust into its atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also an artifact of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing.
Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms is aneutronic, releasing large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive. However, the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions, and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive.
The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been created in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants.
The existence of helium-3 was first proposed in 1934 by the Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant while he was working at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory. Oliphant had performed experiments in which fast deuterons collided with deuteron targets (incidentally, the first demonstration of nuclear fusion). Isolation of helium-3 was first accomplished by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog in 1939. Helium-3 was thought to be a radioactive isotope until it was also found in samples of natural helium, which is mostly helium-4, taken both from the terrestrial atmosphere and from natural gas wells.
Because of its low atomic mass of 3.016 u, helium-3 has some physical properties different from those of helium-4, with a mass of 4.0026 u. Because of the weak, induced dipole–dipole interaction between the helium atoms, their microscopic physical properties are mainly determined by their zero-point energy. Also, the microscopic properties of helium-3 cause it to have a higher zero-point energy than helium-4. This implies that helium-3 can overcome dipole–dipole interactions with less thermal energy than helium-4 can.
The quantum mechanical effects on helium-3 and helium-4 are significantly different because with two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons, helium-4 has an overall spin of zero, making it a boson, but with one fewer neutron, helium-3 has an overall spin of one half, making it a fermion.
Pure helium-3 gas boils at 3.19 K compared with helium-4 at 4.23 K, and its critical point is also lower at 3.35 K, compared with helium-4 at 5.2 K. Helium-3 has less than half the density of helium-4 when it is at its boiling point: 59 g/L compared to 125 g/L of helium-4 at a pressure of one atmosphere. Its latent heat of vaporization is also considerably lower at 0.026 kJ/mol compared with the 0.0829 kJ/mol of helium-4.
He is a primordial substance in the Earth's mantle, considered to have become entrapped in the Earth during planetary formation. The ratio of He to He within the Earth's crust and mantle is less than that for assumptions of solar disk composition as obtained from meteorite and lunar samples, with terrestrial materials generally containing lower He/He ratios due to ingrowth of He from radioactive decay.
He has a cosmological ratio of 300 atoms per million atoms of He (at. ppm), leading to the assumption that the original ratio of these primordial gases in the mantle was around 200-300 ppm when Earth was formed. Over Earth's history alpha-particle decay of uranium, thorium and other radioactive isotopes has generated significant amounts of He, such that only around 7% of the helium now in the mantle is primordial helium, lowering the total He/He ratio to around 20 ppm. Ratios of He/He in excess of atmospheric are indicative of a contribution of He from the mantle. Crustal sources are dominated by the He produced by radioactive decay.
The ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 in natural Earth-bound sources varies greatly. Samples of the lithium ore spodumene from Edison Mine, South Dakota were found to contain 12 parts of helium-3 to a million parts of helium-4. Samples from other mines showed 2 parts per million.
Helium is also present as up to 7% of some natural gas sources, and large sources have over 0.5% (above 0.2% makes it viable to extract). The fraction of He in helium separated from natural gas in the U.S. was found to range from 70 to 242 parts per billion. Hence the US 2002 stockpile of 1 billion normal m would have contained about 12 to 43 kilograms (26 to 95 lb) of helium-3. According to American physicist Richard Garwin, about 26 cubic metres (920 cu ft) or almost 5 kilograms (11 lb) of He is available annually for separation from the US natural gas stream. If the process of separating out the He could employ as feedstock the liquefied helium typically used to transport and store bulk quantities, estimates for the incremental energy cost range from $34 to $300 per litre ($150 to $1,360/imp gal) NTP, excluding the cost of infrastructure and equipment. Algeria's annual gas production is assumed to contain 100 million normal cubic metres and this would contain between 7 and 24 cubic metres (250 and 850 cu ft) of helium-3 (about 1 to 4 kilograms (2.2 to 8.8 lb)) assuming a similar He fraction.
He is also present in the Earth's atmosphere. The natural abundance of He in naturally occurring helium gas is 1.38×10 (1.38 parts per million). The partial pressure of helium in the Earth's atmosphere is about 0.52 pascals (7.5×10 psi), and thus helium accounts for 5.2 parts per million of the total pressure (101325 Pa) in the Earth's atmosphere, and He thus accounts for 7.2 parts per trillion of the atmosphere. Since the atmosphere of the Earth has a mass of about 5.14×10 kilograms (1.133×10 lb), the mass of He in the Earth's atmosphere is the product of these numbers, or about 37,000 tonnes (36,000 long tons; 41,000 short tons) of He. (In fact the effective figure is ten times smaller, since the above ppm are ppmv and not ppmw. One must multiply by 3 (the molecular mass of helium-3) and divide by 29 (the mean molecular mass of the atmosphere), resulting in 3,828 tonnes (3,768 long tons; 4,220 short tons) of helium-3 in the earth's atmosphere.)
He is produced on Earth from three sources: lithium spallation, cosmic rays, and beta decay of tritium (H). The contribution from cosmic rays is negligible within all except the oldest regolith materials, and lithium spallation reactions are a lesser contributor than the production of He by alpha particle emissions.
The total amount of helium-3 in the mantle may be in the range of 0.1–1 megatonne (98,000–984,000 long tons; 110,000–1,100,000 short tons). However, most of the mantle is not directly accessible. Some helium-3 leaks up through deep-sourced hotspot volcanoes such as those of the Hawaiian Islands, but only 300 grams (11 oz) per year is emitted to the atmosphere. Mid-ocean ridges emit another 3 kilograms per year (8.2 g/d). Around subduction zones, various sources produce helium-3 in natural gas deposits which possibly contain a thousand tonnes of helium-3 (although there may be 25 thousand tonnes if all ancient subduction zones have such deposits). Wittenberg estimated that United States crustal natural gas sources may have only half a tonne total. Wittenberg cited Anderson's estimate of another 1,200 tonnes (1,200 long tons; 1,300 short tons) in interplanetary dust particles on the ocean floors. In the 1994 study, extracting helium-3 from these sources consumes more energy than fusion would release.
See Extraterrestrial mining or Lunar resources
One early estimate of the primordial ratio of He to He in the solar nebula has been the measurement of their ratio in the atmosphere of Jupiter, measured by the mass spectrometer of the Galileo atmospheric entry probe. This ratio is about 1:10,000, or 100 parts of He per million parts of He. This is roughly the same ratio of the isotopes as in lunar regolith, which contains 28 ppm helium-4 and 2.8 ppb helium-3 (which is at the lower end of actual sample measurements, which vary from about 1.4 to 15 ppb). However, terrestrial ratios of the isotopes are lower by a factor of 100, mainly due to enrichment of helium-4 stocks in the mantle by billions of years of alpha decay from uranium, thorium as well as their decay products and extinct radionuclides.
Virtually all helium-3 used in industry today is produced from the radioactive decay of tritium, given its very low natural abundance and its very high cost.
Production, sales and distribution of helium-3 in the United States are managed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) DOE Isotope Program.
While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, NIST lists 4,500±8 d (12.32±0.02 years). It decays into helium-3 by beta decay as in this nuclear equation:
Among the total released energy of 18.6 keV, the part taken by electron's kinetic energy varies, with an average of 5.7 keV, while the remaining energy is carried off by the nearly undetectable electron antineutrino. Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 millimetres (0.24 in) of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin. The unusually low energy released in the tritium beta decay makes the decay (along with that of rhenium-187) appropriate for absolute neutrino mass measurements in the laboratory (the most recent experiment being KATRIN).
The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is typically produced by bombarding lithium-6 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The lithium nucleus absorbs a neutron and splits into helium-4 and tritium. Tritium decays into helium-3 with a half-life of 12.3 years, so helium-3 can be produced by simply storing the tritium until it undergoes radioactive decay. As tritium forms a stable compound with oxygen (tritiated water) while helium-3 does not, the storage and collection process could continuously collect the material that outgasses from the stored material.
Tritium is a critical component of nuclear weapons and historically it was produced and stockpiled primarily for this application. The decay of tritium into helium-3 reduces the explosive power of the fusion warhead, so periodically the accumulated helium-3 must be removed from warhead reservoirs and tritium in storage. Helium-3 removed during this process is marketed for other applications.
For decades this has been, and remains, the principal source of the world's helium-3. However, since the signing of the START I Treaty in 1991 the number of nuclear warheads that are kept ready for use has decreased. This has reduced the quantity of helium-3 available from this source. Helium-3 stockpiles have been further diminished by increased demand, primarily for use in neutron radiation detectors and medical diagnostic procedures. US industrial demand for helium-3 reached a peak of 70,000 litres (15,000 imp gal; 18,000 US gal) (approximately 8 kilograms (18 lb)) per year in 2008. Price at auction, historically about $100 per litre ($450/imp gal), reached as high as $2,000 per litre ($9,100/imp gal). Since then, demand for helium-3 has declined to about 6,000 litres (1,300 imp gal; 1,600 US gal) per year due to the high cost and efforts by the DOE to recycle it and find substitutes. Assuming a density of 114 grams per cubic metre (0.192 lb/cu yd) at $100/l helium-3 would be about a thirtieth as expensive as tritium (roughly $880 per gram ($25,000/oz) vs roughly $30,000 per gram ($850,000/oz)) while at $2000/l helium-3 would be about half as expensive as tritium ($17,540 per gram ($497,000/oz) vs $30,000 per gram ($850,000/oz)).
The DOE recognized the developing shortage of both tritium and helium-3, and began producing tritium by lithium irradiation at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in 2010. In this process tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) containing lithium in a ceramic form are inserted into the reactor in place of the normal boron control rods Periodically the TPBARs are replaced and the tritium extracted.
Currently only two commercial nuclear reactors (Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2) are being used for tritium production but the process could, if necessary, be vastly scaled up to meet any conceivable demand simply by utilizing more of the nation's power reactors. Substantial quantities of tritium and helium-3 could also be extracted from the heavy water moderator in CANDU nuclear reactors. India and Canada, the two countries with the largest heavy water reactor fleet, are both known to extract tritium from moderator/coolant heavy water, but those amounts are not nearly enough to satisfy global demand of either tritium or helium-3.
As tritium is also produced inadvertently in various processes in light water reactors (see the article on tritium for details), extraction from those sources could be another source of helium-3. However, if one takes the annual discharge of tritium (per 2018 figures) at La Hague reprocessing facility as a basis, the amounts discharged (31.2 grams (1.10 oz) at La Hague) are not nearly enough to satisfy demand, even if 100% recovery could be achieved.
Helium-3 can be used to do spin echo experiments of surface dynamics, which are currently underway at the Surface Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and in the Chemistry Department at Swansea University.
Helium-3 is an important isotope in instrumentation for neutron detection. It has a high absorption cross section for thermal neutron beams and is used as a converter gas in neutron detectors. The neutron is converted through the nuclear reaction
into charged particles tritium ions (T, H) and Hydrogen ions, or protons (p, H) which then are detected by creating a charge cloud in the stopping gas of a proportional counter or a Geiger–Müller tube.
Furthermore, the absorption process is strongly spin-dependent, which allows a spin-polarized helium-3 volume to transmit neutrons with one spin component while absorbing the other. This effect is employed in neutron polarization analysis, a technique which probes for magnetic properties of matter.
The United States Department of Homeland Security had hoped to deploy detectors to spot smuggled plutonium in shipping containers by their neutron emissions, but the worldwide shortage of helium-3 following the drawdown in nuclear weapons production since the Cold War has to some extent prevented this. As of 2012, DHS determined the commercial supply of boron-10 would support converting its neutron detection infrastructure to that technology.
A helium-3 refrigerator uses helium-3 to achieve temperatures of 0.2 to 0.3 kelvin. A dilution refrigerator uses a mixture of helium-3 and helium-4 to reach cryogenic temperatures as low as a few thousandths of a kelvin.
An important property of helium-3, which distinguishes it from the more common helium-4, is that its nucleus is a fermion since it contains an odd number of spin 1⁄2 particles. Helium-4 nuclei are bosons, containing an even number of spin 1⁄2 particles. This is a direct result of the addition rules for quantized angular momentum. At low temperatures (about 2.17 K), helium-4 undergoes a phase transition: A fraction of it enters a superfluid phase that can be roughly understood as a type of Bose–Einstein condensate. Such a mechanism is not available for helium-3 atoms, which are fermions. However, it was widely speculated that helium-3 could also become a superfluid at much lower temperatures, if the atoms formed into pairs analogous to Cooper pairs in the BCS theory of superconductivity. Each Cooper pair, having integer spin, can be thought of as a boson. During the 1970s, David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Coleman Richardson discovered two phase transitions along the melting curve, which were soon realized to be the two superfluid phases of helium-3. The transition to a superfluid occurs at 2.491 millikelvins on the melting curve. They were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. Alexei Abrikosov, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Tony Leggett won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on refining understanding of the superfluid phase of helium-3.
In a zero magnetic field, there are two distinct superfluid phases of He, the A-phase and the B-phase. The B-phase is the low-temperature, low-pressure phase which has an isotropic energy gap. The A-phase is the higher temperature, higher pressure phase that is further stabilized by a magnetic field and has two point nodes in its gap. The presence of two phases is a clear indication that He is an unconventional superfluid (superconductor), since the presence of two phases requires an additional symmetry, other than gauge symmetry, to be broken. In fact, it is a p-wave superfluid, with spin one, S=1, and angular momentum one, L=1. The ground state corresponds to total angular momentum zero, J=S+L=0 (vector addition). Excited states are possible with non-zero total angular momentum, J>0, which are excited pair collective modes. Because of the extreme purity of superfluid He (since all materials except He have solidified and sunk to the bottom of the liquid He and any He has phase separated entirely, this is the most pure condensed matter state), these collective modes have been studied with much greater precision than in any other unconventional pairing system.
Helium-3 nuclei have an intrinsic nuclear spin of 1⁄2, and a relatively high magnetogyric ratio. Helium-3 can be hyperpolarized using non-equilibrium means such as spin-exchange optical pumping. During this process, circularly polarized infrared laser light, tuned to the appropriate wavelength, is used to excite electrons in an alkali metal, such as caesium or rubidium inside a sealed glass vessel. The angular momentum is transferred from the alkali metal electrons to the noble gas nuclei through collisions. In essence, this process effectively aligns the nuclear spins with the magnetic field in order to enhance the NMR signal. The hyperpolarized gas may then be stored at pressures of 10 atm, for up to 100 hours. Following inhalation, gas mixtures containing the hyperpolarized helium-3 gas can be imaged with an MRI scanner to produce anatomical and functional images of lung ventilation. This technique is also able to produce images of the airway tree, locate unventilated defects, measure the alveolar oxygen partial pressure, and measure the ventilation/perfusion ratio. This technique may be critical for the diagnosis and treatment management of chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, cystic fibrosis, and asthma.
Both MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak and the Joint European Torus (JET) have experimented with adding a little helium-3 to a H–D plasma to increase the absorption of radio-frequency (RF) energy to heat the hydrogen and deuterium ions, a "three-ion" effect.
He can be produced by the low temperature fusion of (D-p)H + p → He + γ + 4.98 MeV. If the fusion temperature is below that for the helium nuclei to fuse, the reaction produces a high energy alpha particle which quickly acquires an electron producing a stable light helium ion which can be utilized directly as a source of electricity without producing dangerous neutrons.
He can be used in fusion reactions by either of the reactions H + He → He + p + 18.3 MeV, or He + He → He + 2 p + 12.86 MeV.
The conventional deuterium + tritium ("D-T") fusion process produces energetic neutrons which render reactor components radioactive with activation products. The appeal of helium-3 fusion stems from the aneutronic nature of its reaction products. Helium-3 itself is non-radioactive. The lone high-energy by-product, the proton, can be contained by means of electric and magnetic fields. The momentum energy of this proton (created in the fusion process) will interact with the containing electromagnetic field, resulting in direct net electricity generation.
Because of the higher Coulomb barrier, the temperatures required for H + He fusion are much higher than those of conventional D-T fusion. Moreover, since both reactants need to be mixed together to fuse, reactions between nuclei of the same reactant will occur, and the D-D reaction (H + H) does produce a neutron. Reaction rates vary with temperature, but the D-He reaction rate is never greater than 3.56 times the D-D reaction rate (see graph). Therefore, fusion using D-He fuel at the right temperature and a D-lean fuel mixture, can produce a much lower neutron flux than D-T fusion, but is not clean, negating some of its main attraction.
The second possibility, fusing He with itself (He + He), requires even higher temperatures (since now both reactants have a +2 charge), and thus is even more difficult than the D-He reaction. However, it does offer a possible reaction that produces no neutrons; the charged protons produced can be contained using electric and magnetic fields, which in turn results in direct electricity generation. He + He fusion is feasible as demonstrated in the laboratory and has immense advantages, but commercial viability is many years in the future.
The amounts of helium-3 needed as a replacement for conventional fuels are substantial by comparison to amounts currently available. The total amount of energy produced in the D + He reaction is 18.4 MeV, which corresponds to some 493 megawatt-hours (4.93×10 W·h) per three grams (one mole) of He. If the total amount of energy could be converted to electrical power with 100% efficiency (a physical impossibility), it would correspond to about 30 minutes of output of a gigawatt electrical plant per mole of He. Thus, a year's production (at 6 grams for each operation hour) would require 52.5 kilograms of helium-3. The amount of fuel needed for large-scale applications can also be put in terms of total consumption: electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kW·h (1.14×10 W·h). Again assuming 100% conversion efficiency, 6.7 tonnes per year of helium-3 would be required for that segment of the energy demand of the United States, 15 to 20 tonnes per year given a more realistic end-to-end conversion efficiency.
A second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining helium-3 and deuterium, D. This reaction produces an alpha particle and a high-energy proton. The most important potential advantage of this fusion reaction for power production as well as other applications lies in its compatibility with the use of electrostatic fields to control fuel ions and the fusion protons. High speed protons, as positively charged particles, can have their kinetic energy converted directly into electricity, through use of solid-state conversion materials as well as other techniques. Potential conversion efficiencies of 70% may be possible, as there is no need to convert proton energy to heat in order to drive a turbine-powered electrical generator.
There have been many claims about the capabilities of helium-3 power plants. According to proponents, fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant. Financial break even at today's wholesale electricity prices (5 US cents per kilowatt-hour) would occur after five 1-gigawatt plants were on line, replacing old conventional plants or meeting new demand.
The reality is not so clear-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and Wendelstein 7-X). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050. In both cases, the type of fusion discussed is the simplest: D-T fusion. The reason for this is the very low Coulomb barrier for this reaction; for D+He, the barrier is much higher, and it is even higher for He–He. The immense cost of reactors like ITER and National Ignition Facility are largely due to their immense size, yet to scale up to higher plasma temperatures would require reactors far larger still. The 14.7 MeV proton and 3.6 MeV alpha particle from D–He fusion, plus the higher conversion efficiency, means that more electricity is obtained per kilogram than with D-T fusion (17.6 MeV), but not that much more. As a further downside, the rates of reaction for helium-3 fusion reactions are not particularly high, requiring a reactor that is larger still or more reactors to produce the same amount of electricity.
To attempt to work around this problem of massively large power plants that may not even be economical with D-T fusion, let alone the far more challenging D–He fusion, a number of other reactors have been proposed – the Fusor, Polywell, Focus fusion, and many more, though many of these concepts have fundamental problems with achieving a net energy gain, and generally attempt to achieve fusion in thermal disequilibrium, something that could potentially prove impossible, and consequently, these long-shot programs tend to have trouble garnering funding despite their low budgets. Unlike the "big", "hot" fusion systems, however, if such systems were to work, they could scale to the higher barrier "aneutronic" fuels, and therefore their proponents tend to promote p-B fusion, which requires no exotic fuels such as helium-3.
Materials on the Moon's surface contain helium-3 at concentrations between 1.4 and 15 ppb in sunlit areas, and may contain concentrations as much as 50 ppb in permanently shadowed regions. A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986, have proposed to explore the Moon, mine lunar regolith and use the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process extremely large amounts of regolith (over 150 tonnes of regolith to obtain one gram of helium-3).
The primary objective of Indian Space Research Organisation's first lunar probe called Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22, 2008, was reported in some sources to be mapping the Moon's surface for helium-3-containing minerals. However, no such objective is mentioned in the project's official list of goals, although many of its scientific payloads have noted helium-3-related applications.
Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation "each year, three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."
In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020, if funding can be found.
Not all writers feel the extraction of lunar helium-3 is feasible, or even that there will be a demand for it for fusion. Dwayne Day, writing in The Space Review in 2015, characterises helium-3 extraction from the Moon for use in fusion as magical thinking about an unproven technology, and questions the feasibility of lunar extraction, as compared to production on Earth.
Mining gas giants for helium-3 has also been proposed. The British Interplanetary Society's hypothetical Project Daedalus interstellar probe design was fueled by helium-3 mines in the atmosphere of Jupiter, for example. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Helium-3 (He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (in contrast, the most common isotope, helium-4 has two protons and two neutrons). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from Earth's crust into its atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also an artifact of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms is aneutronic, releasing large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive. However, the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions, and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been created in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The existence of helium-3 was first proposed in 1934 by the Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant while he was working at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory. Oliphant had performed experiments in which fast deuterons collided with deuteron targets (incidentally, the first demonstration of nuclear fusion). Isolation of helium-3 was first accomplished by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog in 1939. Helium-3 was thought to be a radioactive isotope until it was also found in samples of natural helium, which is mostly helium-4, taken both from the terrestrial atmosphere and from natural gas wells.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Because of its low atomic mass of 3.016 u, helium-3 has some physical properties different from those of helium-4, with a mass of 4.0026 u. Because of the weak, induced dipole–dipole interaction between the helium atoms, their microscopic physical properties are mainly determined by their zero-point energy. Also, the microscopic properties of helium-3 cause it to have a higher zero-point energy than helium-4. This implies that helium-3 can overcome dipole–dipole interactions with less thermal energy than helium-4 can.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The quantum mechanical effects on helium-3 and helium-4 are significantly different because with two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons, helium-4 has an overall spin of zero, making it a boson, but with one fewer neutron, helium-3 has an overall spin of one half, making it a fermion.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Pure helium-3 gas boils at 3.19 K compared with helium-4 at 4.23 K, and its critical point is also lower at 3.35 K, compared with helium-4 at 5.2 K. Helium-3 has less than half the density of helium-4 when it is at its boiling point: 59 g/L compared to 125 g/L of helium-4 at a pressure of one atmosphere. Its latent heat of vaporization is also considerably lower at 0.026 kJ/mol compared with the 0.0829 kJ/mol of helium-4.",
"title": "Physical properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "He is a primordial substance in the Earth's mantle, considered to have become entrapped in the Earth during planetary formation. The ratio of He to He within the Earth's crust and mantle is less than that for assumptions of solar disk composition as obtained from meteorite and lunar samples, with terrestrial materials generally containing lower He/He ratios due to ingrowth of He from radioactive decay.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "He has a cosmological ratio of 300 atoms per million atoms of He (at. ppm), leading to the assumption that the original ratio of these primordial gases in the mantle was around 200-300 ppm when Earth was formed. Over Earth's history alpha-particle decay of uranium, thorium and other radioactive isotopes has generated significant amounts of He, such that only around 7% of the helium now in the mantle is primordial helium, lowering the total He/He ratio to around 20 ppm. Ratios of He/He in excess of atmospheric are indicative of a contribution of He from the mantle. Crustal sources are dominated by the He produced by radioactive decay.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 in natural Earth-bound sources varies greatly. Samples of the lithium ore spodumene from Edison Mine, South Dakota were found to contain 12 parts of helium-3 to a million parts of helium-4. Samples from other mines showed 2 parts per million.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Helium is also present as up to 7% of some natural gas sources, and large sources have over 0.5% (above 0.2% makes it viable to extract). The fraction of He in helium separated from natural gas in the U.S. was found to range from 70 to 242 parts per billion. Hence the US 2002 stockpile of 1 billion normal m would have contained about 12 to 43 kilograms (26 to 95 lb) of helium-3. According to American physicist Richard Garwin, about 26 cubic metres (920 cu ft) or almost 5 kilograms (11 lb) of He is available annually for separation from the US natural gas stream. If the process of separating out the He could employ as feedstock the liquefied helium typically used to transport and store bulk quantities, estimates for the incremental energy cost range from $34 to $300 per litre ($150 to $1,360/imp gal) NTP, excluding the cost of infrastructure and equipment. Algeria's annual gas production is assumed to contain 100 million normal cubic metres and this would contain between 7 and 24 cubic metres (250 and 850 cu ft) of helium-3 (about 1 to 4 kilograms (2.2 to 8.8 lb)) assuming a similar He fraction.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "He is also present in the Earth's atmosphere. The natural abundance of He in naturally occurring helium gas is 1.38×10 (1.38 parts per million). The partial pressure of helium in the Earth's atmosphere is about 0.52 pascals (7.5×10 psi), and thus helium accounts for 5.2 parts per million of the total pressure (101325 Pa) in the Earth's atmosphere, and He thus accounts for 7.2 parts per trillion of the atmosphere. Since the atmosphere of the Earth has a mass of about 5.14×10 kilograms (1.133×10 lb), the mass of He in the Earth's atmosphere is the product of these numbers, or about 37,000 tonnes (36,000 long tons; 41,000 short tons) of He. (In fact the effective figure is ten times smaller, since the above ppm are ppmv and not ppmw. One must multiply by 3 (the molecular mass of helium-3) and divide by 29 (the mean molecular mass of the atmosphere), resulting in 3,828 tonnes (3,768 long tons; 4,220 short tons) of helium-3 in the earth's atmosphere.)",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "He is produced on Earth from three sources: lithium spallation, cosmic rays, and beta decay of tritium (H). The contribution from cosmic rays is negligible within all except the oldest regolith materials, and lithium spallation reactions are a lesser contributor than the production of He by alpha particle emissions.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The total amount of helium-3 in the mantle may be in the range of 0.1–1 megatonne (98,000–984,000 long tons; 110,000–1,100,000 short tons). However, most of the mantle is not directly accessible. Some helium-3 leaks up through deep-sourced hotspot volcanoes such as those of the Hawaiian Islands, but only 300 grams (11 oz) per year is emitted to the atmosphere. Mid-ocean ridges emit another 3 kilograms per year (8.2 g/d). Around subduction zones, various sources produce helium-3 in natural gas deposits which possibly contain a thousand tonnes of helium-3 (although there may be 25 thousand tonnes if all ancient subduction zones have such deposits). Wittenberg estimated that United States crustal natural gas sources may have only half a tonne total. Wittenberg cited Anderson's estimate of another 1,200 tonnes (1,200 long tons; 1,300 short tons) in interplanetary dust particles on the ocean floors. In the 1994 study, extracting helium-3 from these sources consumes more energy than fusion would release.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "See Extraterrestrial mining or Lunar resources",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "One early estimate of the primordial ratio of He to He in the solar nebula has been the measurement of their ratio in the atmosphere of Jupiter, measured by the mass spectrometer of the Galileo atmospheric entry probe. This ratio is about 1:10,000, or 100 parts of He per million parts of He. This is roughly the same ratio of the isotopes as in lunar regolith, which contains 28 ppm helium-4 and 2.8 ppb helium-3 (which is at the lower end of actual sample measurements, which vary from about 1.4 to 15 ppb). However, terrestrial ratios of the isotopes are lower by a factor of 100, mainly due to enrichment of helium-4 stocks in the mantle by billions of years of alpha decay from uranium, thorium as well as their decay products and extinct radionuclides.",
"title": "Natural abundance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Virtually all helium-3 used in industry today is produced from the radioactive decay of tritium, given its very low natural abundance and its very high cost.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Production, sales and distribution of helium-3 in the United States are managed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) DOE Isotope Program.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, NIST lists 4,500±8 d (12.32±0.02 years). It decays into helium-3 by beta decay as in this nuclear equation:",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Among the total released energy of 18.6 keV, the part taken by electron's kinetic energy varies, with an average of 5.7 keV, while the remaining energy is carried off by the nearly undetectable electron antineutrino. Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 millimetres (0.24 in) of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin. The unusually low energy released in the tritium beta decay makes the decay (along with that of rhenium-187) appropriate for absolute neutrino mass measurements in the laboratory (the most recent experiment being KATRIN).",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is typically produced by bombarding lithium-6 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The lithium nucleus absorbs a neutron and splits into helium-4 and tritium. Tritium decays into helium-3 with a half-life of 12.3 years, so helium-3 can be produced by simply storing the tritium until it undergoes radioactive decay. As tritium forms a stable compound with oxygen (tritiated water) while helium-3 does not, the storage and collection process could continuously collect the material that outgasses from the stored material.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Tritium is a critical component of nuclear weapons and historically it was produced and stockpiled primarily for this application. The decay of tritium into helium-3 reduces the explosive power of the fusion warhead, so periodically the accumulated helium-3 must be removed from warhead reservoirs and tritium in storage. Helium-3 removed during this process is marketed for other applications.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "For decades this has been, and remains, the principal source of the world's helium-3. However, since the signing of the START I Treaty in 1991 the number of nuclear warheads that are kept ready for use has decreased. This has reduced the quantity of helium-3 available from this source. Helium-3 stockpiles have been further diminished by increased demand, primarily for use in neutron radiation detectors and medical diagnostic procedures. US industrial demand for helium-3 reached a peak of 70,000 litres (15,000 imp gal; 18,000 US gal) (approximately 8 kilograms (18 lb)) per year in 2008. Price at auction, historically about $100 per litre ($450/imp gal), reached as high as $2,000 per litre ($9,100/imp gal). Since then, demand for helium-3 has declined to about 6,000 litres (1,300 imp gal; 1,600 US gal) per year due to the high cost and efforts by the DOE to recycle it and find substitutes. Assuming a density of 114 grams per cubic metre (0.192 lb/cu yd) at $100/l helium-3 would be about a thirtieth as expensive as tritium (roughly $880 per gram ($25,000/oz) vs roughly $30,000 per gram ($850,000/oz)) while at $2000/l helium-3 would be about half as expensive as tritium ($17,540 per gram ($497,000/oz) vs $30,000 per gram ($850,000/oz)).",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The DOE recognized the developing shortage of both tritium and helium-3, and began producing tritium by lithium irradiation at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in 2010. In this process tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) containing lithium in a ceramic form are inserted into the reactor in place of the normal boron control rods Periodically the TPBARs are replaced and the tritium extracted.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Currently only two commercial nuclear reactors (Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2) are being used for tritium production but the process could, if necessary, be vastly scaled up to meet any conceivable demand simply by utilizing more of the nation's power reactors. Substantial quantities of tritium and helium-3 could also be extracted from the heavy water moderator in CANDU nuclear reactors. India and Canada, the two countries with the largest heavy water reactor fleet, are both known to extract tritium from moderator/coolant heavy water, but those amounts are not nearly enough to satisfy global demand of either tritium or helium-3.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "As tritium is also produced inadvertently in various processes in light water reactors (see the article on tritium for details), extraction from those sources could be another source of helium-3. However, if one takes the annual discharge of tritium (per 2018 figures) at La Hague reprocessing facility as a basis, the amounts discharged (31.2 grams (1.10 oz) at La Hague) are not nearly enough to satisfy demand, even if 100% recovery could be achieved.",
"title": "Human production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Helium-3 can be used to do spin echo experiments of surface dynamics, which are currently underway at the Surface Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and in the Chemistry Department at Swansea University.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Helium-3 is an important isotope in instrumentation for neutron detection. It has a high absorption cross section for thermal neutron beams and is used as a converter gas in neutron detectors. The neutron is converted through the nuclear reaction",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "into charged particles tritium ions (T, H) and Hydrogen ions, or protons (p, H) which then are detected by creating a charge cloud in the stopping gas of a proportional counter or a Geiger–Müller tube.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Furthermore, the absorption process is strongly spin-dependent, which allows a spin-polarized helium-3 volume to transmit neutrons with one spin component while absorbing the other. This effect is employed in neutron polarization analysis, a technique which probes for magnetic properties of matter.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The United States Department of Homeland Security had hoped to deploy detectors to spot smuggled plutonium in shipping containers by their neutron emissions, but the worldwide shortage of helium-3 following the drawdown in nuclear weapons production since the Cold War has to some extent prevented this. As of 2012, DHS determined the commercial supply of boron-10 would support converting its neutron detection infrastructure to that technology.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "A helium-3 refrigerator uses helium-3 to achieve temperatures of 0.2 to 0.3 kelvin. A dilution refrigerator uses a mixture of helium-3 and helium-4 to reach cryogenic temperatures as low as a few thousandths of a kelvin.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "An important property of helium-3, which distinguishes it from the more common helium-4, is that its nucleus is a fermion since it contains an odd number of spin 1⁄2 particles. Helium-4 nuclei are bosons, containing an even number of spin 1⁄2 particles. This is a direct result of the addition rules for quantized angular momentum. At low temperatures (about 2.17 K), helium-4 undergoes a phase transition: A fraction of it enters a superfluid phase that can be roughly understood as a type of Bose–Einstein condensate. Such a mechanism is not available for helium-3 atoms, which are fermions. However, it was widely speculated that helium-3 could also become a superfluid at much lower temperatures, if the atoms formed into pairs analogous to Cooper pairs in the BCS theory of superconductivity. Each Cooper pair, having integer spin, can be thought of as a boson. During the 1970s, David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Coleman Richardson discovered two phase transitions along the melting curve, which were soon realized to be the two superfluid phases of helium-3. The transition to a superfluid occurs at 2.491 millikelvins on the melting curve. They were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. Alexei Abrikosov, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Tony Leggett won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on refining understanding of the superfluid phase of helium-3.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In a zero magnetic field, there are two distinct superfluid phases of He, the A-phase and the B-phase. The B-phase is the low-temperature, low-pressure phase which has an isotropic energy gap. The A-phase is the higher temperature, higher pressure phase that is further stabilized by a magnetic field and has two point nodes in its gap. The presence of two phases is a clear indication that He is an unconventional superfluid (superconductor), since the presence of two phases requires an additional symmetry, other than gauge symmetry, to be broken. In fact, it is a p-wave superfluid, with spin one, S=1, and angular momentum one, L=1. The ground state corresponds to total angular momentum zero, J=S+L=0 (vector addition). Excited states are possible with non-zero total angular momentum, J>0, which are excited pair collective modes. Because of the extreme purity of superfluid He (since all materials except He have solidified and sunk to the bottom of the liquid He and any He has phase separated entirely, this is the most pure condensed matter state), these collective modes have been studied with much greater precision than in any other unconventional pairing system.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Helium-3 nuclei have an intrinsic nuclear spin of 1⁄2, and a relatively high magnetogyric ratio. Helium-3 can be hyperpolarized using non-equilibrium means such as spin-exchange optical pumping. During this process, circularly polarized infrared laser light, tuned to the appropriate wavelength, is used to excite electrons in an alkali metal, such as caesium or rubidium inside a sealed glass vessel. The angular momentum is transferred from the alkali metal electrons to the noble gas nuclei through collisions. In essence, this process effectively aligns the nuclear spins with the magnetic field in order to enhance the NMR signal. The hyperpolarized gas may then be stored at pressures of 10 atm, for up to 100 hours. Following inhalation, gas mixtures containing the hyperpolarized helium-3 gas can be imaged with an MRI scanner to produce anatomical and functional images of lung ventilation. This technique is also able to produce images of the airway tree, locate unventilated defects, measure the alveolar oxygen partial pressure, and measure the ventilation/perfusion ratio. This technique may be critical for the diagnosis and treatment management of chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, cystic fibrosis, and asthma.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Both MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak and the Joint European Torus (JET) have experimented with adding a little helium-3 to a H–D plasma to increase the absorption of radio-frequency (RF) energy to heat the hydrogen and deuterium ions, a \"three-ion\" effect.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "He can be produced by the low temperature fusion of (D-p)H + p → He + γ + 4.98 MeV. If the fusion temperature is below that for the helium nuclei to fuse, the reaction produces a high energy alpha particle which quickly acquires an electron producing a stable light helium ion which can be utilized directly as a source of electricity without producing dangerous neutrons.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "He can be used in fusion reactions by either of the reactions H + He → He + p + 18.3 MeV, or He + He → He + 2 p + 12.86 MeV.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The conventional deuterium + tritium (\"D-T\") fusion process produces energetic neutrons which render reactor components radioactive with activation products. The appeal of helium-3 fusion stems from the aneutronic nature of its reaction products. Helium-3 itself is non-radioactive. The lone high-energy by-product, the proton, can be contained by means of electric and magnetic fields. The momentum energy of this proton (created in the fusion process) will interact with the containing electromagnetic field, resulting in direct net electricity generation.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Because of the higher Coulomb barrier, the temperatures required for H + He fusion are much higher than those of conventional D-T fusion. Moreover, since both reactants need to be mixed together to fuse, reactions between nuclei of the same reactant will occur, and the D-D reaction (H + H) does produce a neutron. Reaction rates vary with temperature, but the D-He reaction rate is never greater than 3.56 times the D-D reaction rate (see graph). Therefore, fusion using D-He fuel at the right temperature and a D-lean fuel mixture, can produce a much lower neutron flux than D-T fusion, but is not clean, negating some of its main attraction.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The second possibility, fusing He with itself (He + He), requires even higher temperatures (since now both reactants have a +2 charge), and thus is even more difficult than the D-He reaction. However, it does offer a possible reaction that produces no neutrons; the charged protons produced can be contained using electric and magnetic fields, which in turn results in direct electricity generation. He + He fusion is feasible as demonstrated in the laboratory and has immense advantages, but commercial viability is many years in the future.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The amounts of helium-3 needed as a replacement for conventional fuels are substantial by comparison to amounts currently available. The total amount of energy produced in the D + He reaction is 18.4 MeV, which corresponds to some 493 megawatt-hours (4.93×10 W·h) per three grams (one mole) of He. If the total amount of energy could be converted to electrical power with 100% efficiency (a physical impossibility), it would correspond to about 30 minutes of output of a gigawatt electrical plant per mole of He. Thus, a year's production (at 6 grams for each operation hour) would require 52.5 kilograms of helium-3. The amount of fuel needed for large-scale applications can also be put in terms of total consumption: electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kW·h (1.14×10 W·h). Again assuming 100% conversion efficiency, 6.7 tonnes per year of helium-3 would be required for that segment of the energy demand of the United States, 15 to 20 tonnes per year given a more realistic end-to-end conversion efficiency.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining helium-3 and deuterium, D. This reaction produces an alpha particle and a high-energy proton. The most important potential advantage of this fusion reaction for power production as well as other applications lies in its compatibility with the use of electrostatic fields to control fuel ions and the fusion protons. High speed protons, as positively charged particles, can have their kinetic energy converted directly into electricity, through use of solid-state conversion materials as well as other techniques. Potential conversion efficiencies of 70% may be possible, as there is no need to convert proton energy to heat in order to drive a turbine-powered electrical generator.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "There have been many claims about the capabilities of helium-3 power plants. According to proponents, fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant. Financial break even at today's wholesale electricity prices (5 US cents per kilowatt-hour) would occur after five 1-gigawatt plants were on line, replacing old conventional plants or meeting new demand.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The reality is not so clear-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and Wendelstein 7-X). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050. In both cases, the type of fusion discussed is the simplest: D-T fusion. The reason for this is the very low Coulomb barrier for this reaction; for D+He, the barrier is much higher, and it is even higher for He–He. The immense cost of reactors like ITER and National Ignition Facility are largely due to their immense size, yet to scale up to higher plasma temperatures would require reactors far larger still. The 14.7 MeV proton and 3.6 MeV alpha particle from D–He fusion, plus the higher conversion efficiency, means that more electricity is obtained per kilogram than with D-T fusion (17.6 MeV), but not that much more. As a further downside, the rates of reaction for helium-3 fusion reactions are not particularly high, requiring a reactor that is larger still or more reactors to produce the same amount of electricity.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "To attempt to work around this problem of massively large power plants that may not even be economical with D-T fusion, let alone the far more challenging D–He fusion, a number of other reactors have been proposed – the Fusor, Polywell, Focus fusion, and many more, though many of these concepts have fundamental problems with achieving a net energy gain, and generally attempt to achieve fusion in thermal disequilibrium, something that could potentially prove impossible, and consequently, these long-shot programs tend to have trouble garnering funding despite their low budgets. Unlike the \"big\", \"hot\" fusion systems, however, if such systems were to work, they could scale to the higher barrier \"aneutronic\" fuels, and therefore their proponents tend to promote p-B fusion, which requires no exotic fuels such as helium-3.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Materials on the Moon's surface contain helium-3 at concentrations between 1.4 and 15 ppb in sunlit areas, and may contain concentrations as much as 50 ppb in permanently shadowed regions. A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986, have proposed to explore the Moon, mine lunar regolith and use the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process extremely large amounts of regolith (over 150 tonnes of regolith to obtain one gram of helium-3).",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The primary objective of Indian Space Research Organisation's first lunar probe called Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22, 2008, was reported in some sources to be mapping the Moon's surface for helium-3-containing minerals. However, no such objective is mentioned in the project's official list of goals, although many of its scientific payloads have noted helium-3-related applications.",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation \"each year, three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world.\"",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020, if funding can be found.",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Not all writers feel the extraction of lunar helium-3 is feasible, or even that there will be a demand for it for fusion. Dwayne Day, writing in The Space Review in 2015, characterises helium-3 extraction from the Moon for use in fusion as magical thinking about an unproven technology, and questions the feasibility of lunar extraction, as compared to production on Earth.",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Mining gas giants for helium-3 has also been proposed. The British Interplanetary Society's hypothetical Project Daedalus interstellar probe design was fueled by helium-3 mines in the atmosphere of Jupiter, for example.",
"title": "Extraterrestrial"
}
]
| Helium-3 is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. Other than protium, helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939. Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from Earth's crust into its atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also an artifact of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing. Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms is aneutronic, releasing large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive. However, the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions, and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been created in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants. | 2002-01-03T21:48:29Z | 2023-11-19T19:43:14Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 |
14,381 | Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics) | In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a system is an operator corresponding to the total energy of that system, including both kinetic energy and potential energy. Its spectrum, the system's energy spectrum or its set of energy eigenvalues, is the set of possible outcomes obtainable from a measurement of the system's total energy. Due to its close relation to the energy spectrum and time-evolution of a system, it is of fundamental importance in most formulations of quantum theory.
The Hamiltonian is named after William Rowan Hamilton, who developed a revolutionary reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, known as Hamiltonian mechanics, which was historically important to the development of quantum physics. Similar to vector notation, it is typically denoted by H ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {H}}} , where the hat indicates that it is an operator. It can also be written as H {\displaystyle H} or H ˇ {\displaystyle {\check {H}}} .
The Hamiltonian of a system represents the total energy of the system; that is, the sum of the kinetic and potential energies of all particles associated with the system. The Hamiltonian takes different forms and can be simplified in some cases by taking into account the concrete characteristics of the system under analysis, such as single or several particles in the system, interaction between particles, kind of potential energy, time varying potential or time independent one.
By analogy with classical mechanics, the Hamiltonian is commonly expressed as the sum of operators corresponding to the kinetic and potential energies of a system in the form
where
is the potential energy operator and
is the kinetic energy operator in which m {\displaystyle m} is the mass of the particle, the dot denotes the dot product of vectors, and
is the momentum operator where a ∇ {\displaystyle \nabla } is the del operator. The dot product of ∇ {\displaystyle \nabla } with itself is the Laplacian ∇ 2 {\displaystyle \nabla ^{2}} . In three dimensions using Cartesian coordinates the Laplace operator is
Although this is not the technical definition of the Hamiltonian in classical mechanics, it is the form it most commonly takes. Combining these yields the form used in the Schrödinger equation:
which allows one to apply the Hamiltonian to systems described by a wave function Ψ ( r , t ) {\displaystyle \Psi (\mathbf {r} ,t)} . This is the approach commonly taken in introductory treatments of quantum mechanics, using the formalism of Schrödinger's wave mechanics.
One can also make substitutions to certain variables to fit specific cases, such as some involving electromagnetic fields.
The formalism can be extended to N {\displaystyle N} particles:
where
is the potential energy function, now a function of the spatial configuration of the system and time (a particular set of spatial positions at some instant of time defines a configuration) and
is the kinetic energy operator of particle n {\displaystyle n} , ∇ n {\displaystyle \nabla _{n}} is the gradient for particle n {\displaystyle n} , and ∇ n 2 {\displaystyle \nabla _{n}^{2}} is the Laplacian for particle n:
Combining these yields the Schrödinger Hamiltonian for the N {\displaystyle N} -particle case:
However, complications can arise in the many-body problem. Since the potential energy depends on the spatial arrangement of the particles, the kinetic energy will also depend on the spatial configuration to conserve energy. The motion due to any one particle will vary due to the motion of all the other particles in the system. For this reason cross terms for kinetic energy may appear in the Hamiltonian; a mix of the gradients for two particles:
where M {\displaystyle M} denotes the mass of the collection of particles resulting in this extra kinetic energy. Terms of this form are known as mass polarization terms, and appear in the Hamiltonian of many electron atoms (see below).
For N {\displaystyle N} interacting particles, i.e. particles which interact mutually and constitute a many-body situation, the potential energy function V {\displaystyle V} is not simply a sum of the separate potentials (and certainly not a product, as this is dimensionally incorrect). The potential energy function can only be written as above: a function of all the spatial positions of each particle.
For non-interacting particles, i.e. particles which do not interact mutually and move independently, the potential of the system is the sum of the separate potential energy for each particle, that is
The general form of the Hamiltonian in this case is:
where the sum is taken over all particles and their corresponding potentials; the result is that the Hamiltonian of the system is the sum of the separate Hamiltonians for each particle. This is an idealized situation—in practice the particles are almost always influenced by some potential, and there are many-body interactions. One illustrative example of a two-body interaction where this form would not apply is for electrostatic potentials due to charged particles, because they interact with each other by Coulomb interaction (electrostatic force), as shown below.
The Hamiltonian generates the time evolution of quantum states. If | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\displaystyle \left|\psi (t)\right\rangle } is the state of the system at time t {\displaystyle t} , then
This equation is the Schrödinger equation. It takes the same form as the Hamilton–Jacobi equation, which is one of the reasons H {\displaystyle H} is also called the Hamiltonian. Given the state at some initial time ( t = 0 {\displaystyle t=0} ), we can solve it to obtain the state at any subsequent time. In particular, if H {\displaystyle H} is independent of time, then
The exponential operator on the right hand side of the Schrödinger equation is usually defined by the corresponding power series in H {\displaystyle H} . One might notice that taking polynomials or power series of unbounded operators that are not defined everywhere may not make mathematical sense. Rigorously, to take functions of unbounded operators, a functional calculus is required. In the case of the exponential function, the continuous, or just the holomorphic functional calculus suffices. We note again, however, that for common calculations the physicists' formulation is quite sufficient.
By the *-homomorphism property of the functional calculus, the operator
is a unitary operator. It is the time evolution operator or propagator of a closed quantum system. If the Hamiltonian is time-independent, { U ( t ) } {\displaystyle \{U(t)\}} form a one parameter unitary group (more than a semigroup); this gives rise to the physical principle of detailed balance.
However, in the more general formalism of Dirac, the Hamiltonian is typically implemented as an operator on a Hilbert space in the following way:
The eigenkets (eigenvectors) of H {\displaystyle H} , denoted | a ⟩ {\displaystyle \left|a\right\rangle } , provide an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space. The spectrum of allowed energy levels of the system is given by the set of eigenvalues, denoted { E a } {\displaystyle \{E_{a}\}} , solving the equation:
Since H {\displaystyle H} is a Hermitian operator, the energy is always a real number.
From a mathematically rigorous point of view, care must be taken with the above assumptions. Operators on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces need not have eigenvalues (the set of eigenvalues does not necessarily coincide with the spectrum of an operator). However, all routine quantum mechanical calculations can be done using the physical formulation.
Following are expressions for the Hamiltonian in a number of situations. Typical ways to classify the expressions are the number of particles, number of dimensions, and the nature of the potential energy function—importantly space and time dependence. Masses are denoted by m {\displaystyle m} , and charges by q {\displaystyle q} .
The particle is not bound by any potential energy, so the potential is zero and this Hamiltonian is the simplest. For one dimension:
and in higher dimensions:
For a particle in a region of constant potential V = V 0 {\displaystyle V=V_{0}} (no dependence on space or time), in one dimension, the Hamiltonian is:
in three dimensions
This applies to the elementary "particle in a box" problem, and step potentials.
For a simple harmonic oscillator in one dimension, the potential varies with position (but not time), according to:
where the angular frequency ω {\displaystyle \omega } , effective spring constant k {\displaystyle k} , and mass m {\displaystyle m} of the oscillator satisfy:
so the Hamiltonian is:
For three dimensions, this becomes
where the three-dimensional position vector r {\displaystyle \mathbf {r} } using Cartesian coordinates is ( x , y , z ) {\displaystyle (x,y,z)} , its magnitude is
Writing the Hamiltonian out in full shows it is simply the sum of the one-dimensional Hamiltonians in each direction:
For a rigid rotor—i.e., system of particles which can rotate freely about any axes, not bound in any potential (such as free molecules with negligible vibrational degrees of freedom, say due to double or triple chemical bonds), the Hamiltonian is:
where I x x {\displaystyle I_{xx}} , I y y {\displaystyle I_{yy}} , and I z z {\displaystyle I_{zz}} are the moment of inertia components (technically the diagonal elements of the moment of inertia tensor), and J ^ x {\displaystyle {\hat {J}}_{x}} , J ^ y {\displaystyle {\hat {J}}_{y}} , and J ^ z {\displaystyle {\hat {J}}_{z}} are the total angular momentum operators (components), about the x {\displaystyle x} , y {\displaystyle y} , and z {\displaystyle z} axes respectively.
The Coulomb potential energy for two point charges q 1 {\displaystyle q_{1}} and q 2 {\displaystyle q_{2}} (i.e., those that have no spatial extent independently), in three dimensions, is (in SI units—rather than Gaussian units which are frequently used in electromagnetism):
However, this is only the potential for one point charge due to another. If there are many charged particles, each charge has a potential energy due to every other point charge (except itself). For N {\displaystyle N} charges, the potential energy of charge q j {\displaystyle q_{j}} due to all other charges is (see also Electrostatic potential energy stored in a configuration of discrete point charges):
where ϕ ( r i ) {\displaystyle \phi (\mathbf {r} _{i})} is the electrostatic potential of charge q j {\displaystyle q_{j}} at r i {\displaystyle \mathbf {r} _{i}} . The total potential of the system is then the sum over j {\displaystyle j} :
so the Hamiltonian is:
For an electric dipole moment d {\displaystyle \mathbf {d} } constituting charges of magnitude q {\displaystyle q} , in a uniform, electrostatic field (time-independent) E {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} } , positioned in one place, the potential is:
the dipole moment itself is the operator
Since the particle is stationary, there is no translational kinetic energy of the dipole, so the Hamiltonian of the dipole is just the potential energy:
For a magnetic dipole moment μ {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\mu }}} in a uniform, magnetostatic field (time-independent) B {\displaystyle \mathbf {B} } , positioned in one place, the potential is:
Since the particle is stationary, there is no translational kinetic energy of the dipole, so the Hamiltonian of the dipole is just the potential energy:
For a spin-1⁄2 particle, the corresponding spin magnetic moment is:
where g s {\displaystyle g_{s}} is the "spin g-factor" (not to be confused with the gyromagnetic ratio), e {\displaystyle e} is the electron charge, S {\displaystyle \mathbf {S} } is the spin operator vector, whose components are the Pauli matrices, hence
For a particle with mass m {\displaystyle m} and charge q {\displaystyle q} in an electromagnetic field, described by the scalar potential ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } and vector potential A {\displaystyle \mathbf {A} } , there are two parts to the Hamiltonian to substitute for. The canonical momentum operator p ^ {\displaystyle \mathbf {\hat {p}} } , which includes a contribution from the A {\displaystyle \mathbf {A} } field and fulfils the canonical commutation relation, must be quantized;
where m r ˙ {\displaystyle m{\dot {\mathbf {r} }}} is the kinetic momentum. The quantization prescription reads
so the corresponding kinetic energy operator is
and the potential energy, which is due to the ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } field, is given by
Casting all of these into the Hamiltonian gives
In many systems, two or more energy eigenstates have the same energy. A simple example of this is a free particle, whose energy eigenstates have wavefunctions that are propagating plane waves. The energy of each of these plane waves is inversely proportional to the square of its wavelength. A wave propagating in the x {\displaystyle x} direction is a different state from one propagating in the y {\displaystyle y} direction, but if they have the same wavelength, then their energies will be the same. When this happens, the states are said to be degenerate.
It turns out that degeneracy occurs whenever a nontrivial unitary operator U {\displaystyle U} commutes with the Hamiltonian. To see this, suppose that | a ⟩ {\displaystyle |a\rangle } is an energy eigenket. Then U | a ⟩ {\displaystyle U|a\rangle } is an energy eigenket with the same eigenvalue, since
Since U {\displaystyle U} is nontrivial, at least one pair of | a ⟩ {\displaystyle |a\rangle } and U | a ⟩ {\displaystyle U|a\rangle } must represent distinct states. Therefore, H {\displaystyle H} has at least one pair of degenerate energy eigenkets. In the case of the free particle, the unitary operator which produces the symmetry is the rotation operator, which rotates the wavefunctions by some angle while otherwise preserving their shape.
The existence of a symmetry operator implies the existence of a conserved observable. Let G {\displaystyle G} be the Hermitian generator of U {\displaystyle U} :
It is straightforward to show that if U {\displaystyle U} commutes with H {\displaystyle H} , then so does G {\displaystyle G} :
Therefore,
In obtaining this result, we have used the Schrödinger equation, as well as its dual,
Thus, the expected value of the observable G {\displaystyle G} is conserved for any state of the system. In the case of the free particle, the conserved quantity is the angular momentum.
Hamilton's equations in classical Hamiltonian mechanics have a direct analogy in quantum mechanics. Suppose we have a set of basis states { | n ⟩ } {\displaystyle \left\{\left|n\right\rangle \right\}} , which need not necessarily be eigenstates of the energy. For simplicity, we assume that they are discrete, and that they are orthonormal, i.e.,
Note that these basis states are assumed to be independent of time. We will assume that the Hamiltonian is also independent of time.
The instantaneous state of the system at time t {\displaystyle t} , | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\displaystyle \left|\psi \left(t\right)\right\rangle } , can be expanded in terms of these basis states:
where
The coefficients a n ( t ) {\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} are complex variables. We can treat them as coordinates which specify the state of the system, like the position and momentum coordinates which specify a classical system. Like classical coordinates, they are generally not constant in time, and their time dependence gives rise to the time dependence of the system as a whole.
The expectation value of the Hamiltonian of this state, which is also the mean energy, is
where the last step was obtained by expanding | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\displaystyle \left|\psi \left(t\right)\right\rangle } in terms of the basis states.
Each a n ( t ) {\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} actually corresponds to two independent degrees of freedom, since the variable has a real part and an imaginary part. We now perform the following trick: instead of using the real and imaginary parts as the independent variables, we use a n ( t ) {\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} and its complex conjugate a n ∗ ( t ) {\displaystyle a_{n}^{*}(t)} . With this choice of independent variables, we can calculate the partial derivative
By applying Schrödinger's equation and using the orthonormality of the basis states, this further reduces to
Similarly, one can show that
If we define "conjugate momentum" variables π n {\displaystyle \pi _{n}} by
then the above equations become
which is precisely the form of Hamilton's equations, with the a n {\displaystyle a_{n}} s as the generalized coordinates, the π n {\displaystyle \pi _{n}} s as the conjugate momenta, and ⟨ H ⟩ {\displaystyle \langle H\rangle } taking the place of the classical Hamiltonian. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a system is an operator corresponding to the total energy of that system, including both kinetic energy and potential energy. Its spectrum, the system's energy spectrum or its set of energy eigenvalues, is the set of possible outcomes obtainable from a measurement of the system's total energy. Due to its close relation to the energy spectrum and time-evolution of a system, it is of fundamental importance in most formulations of quantum theory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Hamiltonian is named after William Rowan Hamilton, who developed a revolutionary reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, known as Hamiltonian mechanics, which was historically important to the development of quantum physics. Similar to vector notation, it is typically denoted by H ^ {\\displaystyle {\\hat {H}}} , where the hat indicates that it is an operator. It can also be written as H {\\displaystyle H} or H ˇ {\\displaystyle {\\check {H}}} .",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Hamiltonian of a system represents the total energy of the system; that is, the sum of the kinetic and potential energies of all particles associated with the system. The Hamiltonian takes different forms and can be simplified in some cases by taking into account the concrete characteristics of the system under analysis, such as single or several particles in the system, interaction between particles, kind of potential energy, time varying potential or time independent one.",
"title": "Introduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "By analogy with classical mechanics, the Hamiltonian is commonly expressed as the sum of operators corresponding to the kinetic and potential energies of a system in the form",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "where",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "is the potential energy operator and",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "is the kinetic energy operator in which m {\\displaystyle m} is the mass of the particle, the dot denotes the dot product of vectors, and",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "is the momentum operator where a ∇ {\\displaystyle \\nabla } is the del operator. The dot product of ∇ {\\displaystyle \\nabla } with itself is the Laplacian ∇ 2 {\\displaystyle \\nabla ^{2}} . In three dimensions using Cartesian coordinates the Laplace operator is",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Although this is not the technical definition of the Hamiltonian in classical mechanics, it is the form it most commonly takes. Combining these yields the form used in the Schrödinger equation:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "which allows one to apply the Hamiltonian to systems described by a wave function Ψ ( r , t ) {\\displaystyle \\Psi (\\mathbf {r} ,t)} . This is the approach commonly taken in introductory treatments of quantum mechanics, using the formalism of Schrödinger's wave mechanics.",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "One can also make substitutions to certain variables to fit specific cases, such as some involving electromagnetic fields.",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The formalism can be extended to N {\\displaystyle N} particles:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "where",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "is the potential energy function, now a function of the spatial configuration of the system and time (a particular set of spatial positions at some instant of time defines a configuration) and",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "is the kinetic energy operator of particle n {\\displaystyle n} , ∇ n {\\displaystyle \\nabla _{n}} is the gradient for particle n {\\displaystyle n} , and ∇ n 2 {\\displaystyle \\nabla _{n}^{2}} is the Laplacian for particle n:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Combining these yields the Schrödinger Hamiltonian for the N {\\displaystyle N} -particle case:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "However, complications can arise in the many-body problem. Since the potential energy depends on the spatial arrangement of the particles, the kinetic energy will also depend on the spatial configuration to conserve energy. The motion due to any one particle will vary due to the motion of all the other particles in the system. For this reason cross terms for kinetic energy may appear in the Hamiltonian; a mix of the gradients for two particles:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "where M {\\displaystyle M} denotes the mass of the collection of particles resulting in this extra kinetic energy. Terms of this form are known as mass polarization terms, and appear in the Hamiltonian of many electron atoms (see below).",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For N {\\displaystyle N} interacting particles, i.e. particles which interact mutually and constitute a many-body situation, the potential energy function V {\\displaystyle V} is not simply a sum of the separate potentials (and certainly not a product, as this is dimensionally incorrect). The potential energy function can only be written as above: a function of all the spatial positions of each particle.",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "For non-interacting particles, i.e. particles which do not interact mutually and move independently, the potential of the system is the sum of the separate potential energy for each particle, that is",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The general form of the Hamiltonian in this case is:",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "where the sum is taken over all particles and their corresponding potentials; the result is that the Hamiltonian of the system is the sum of the separate Hamiltonians for each particle. This is an idealized situation—in practice the particles are almost always influenced by some potential, and there are many-body interactions. One illustrative example of a two-body interaction where this form would not apply is for electrostatic potentials due to charged particles, because they interact with each other by Coulomb interaction (electrostatic force), as shown below.",
"title": "Schrödinger Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Hamiltonian generates the time evolution of quantum states. If | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\\displaystyle \\left|\\psi (t)\\right\\rangle } is the state of the system at time t {\\displaystyle t} , then",
"title": "Schrödinger equation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "This equation is the Schrödinger equation. It takes the same form as the Hamilton–Jacobi equation, which is one of the reasons H {\\displaystyle H} is also called the Hamiltonian. Given the state at some initial time ( t = 0 {\\displaystyle t=0} ), we can solve it to obtain the state at any subsequent time. In particular, if H {\\displaystyle H} is independent of time, then",
"title": "Schrödinger equation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The exponential operator on the right hand side of the Schrödinger equation is usually defined by the corresponding power series in H {\\displaystyle H} . One might notice that taking polynomials or power series of unbounded operators that are not defined everywhere may not make mathematical sense. Rigorously, to take functions of unbounded operators, a functional calculus is required. In the case of the exponential function, the continuous, or just the holomorphic functional calculus suffices. We note again, however, that for common calculations the physicists' formulation is quite sufficient.",
"title": "Schrödinger equation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "By the *-homomorphism property of the functional calculus, the operator",
"title": "Schrödinger equation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "is a unitary operator. It is the time evolution operator or propagator of a closed quantum system. If the Hamiltonian is time-independent, { U ( t ) } {\\displaystyle \\{U(t)\\}} form a one parameter unitary group (more than a semigroup); this gives rise to the physical principle of detailed balance.",
"title": "Schrödinger equation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "However, in the more general formalism of Dirac, the Hamiltonian is typically implemented as an operator on a Hilbert space in the following way:",
"title": "Dirac formalism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The eigenkets (eigenvectors) of H {\\displaystyle H} , denoted | a ⟩ {\\displaystyle \\left|a\\right\\rangle } , provide an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space. The spectrum of allowed energy levels of the system is given by the set of eigenvalues, denoted { E a } {\\displaystyle \\{E_{a}\\}} , solving the equation:",
"title": "Dirac formalism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Since H {\\displaystyle H} is a Hermitian operator, the energy is always a real number.",
"title": "Dirac formalism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "From a mathematically rigorous point of view, care must be taken with the above assumptions. Operators on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces need not have eigenvalues (the set of eigenvalues does not necessarily coincide with the spectrum of an operator). However, all routine quantum mechanical calculations can be done using the physical formulation.",
"title": "Dirac formalism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Following are expressions for the Hamiltonian in a number of situations. Typical ways to classify the expressions are the number of particles, number of dimensions, and the nature of the potential energy function—importantly space and time dependence. Masses are denoted by m {\\displaystyle m} , and charges by q {\\displaystyle q} .",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The particle is not bound by any potential energy, so the potential is zero and this Hamiltonian is the simplest. For one dimension:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "and in higher dimensions:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "For a particle in a region of constant potential V = V 0 {\\displaystyle V=V_{0}} (no dependence on space or time), in one dimension, the Hamiltonian is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "in three dimensions",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "This applies to the elementary \"particle in a box\" problem, and step potentials.",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "For a simple harmonic oscillator in one dimension, the potential varies with position (but not time), according to:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "where the angular frequency ω {\\displaystyle \\omega } , effective spring constant k {\\displaystyle k} , and mass m {\\displaystyle m} of the oscillator satisfy:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "so the Hamiltonian is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "For three dimensions, this becomes",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "where the three-dimensional position vector r {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {r} } using Cartesian coordinates is ( x , y , z ) {\\displaystyle (x,y,z)} , its magnitude is",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Writing the Hamiltonian out in full shows it is simply the sum of the one-dimensional Hamiltonians in each direction:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "For a rigid rotor—i.e., system of particles which can rotate freely about any axes, not bound in any potential (such as free molecules with negligible vibrational degrees of freedom, say due to double or triple chemical bonds), the Hamiltonian is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "where I x x {\\displaystyle I_{xx}} , I y y {\\displaystyle I_{yy}} , and I z z {\\displaystyle I_{zz}} are the moment of inertia components (technically the diagonal elements of the moment of inertia tensor), and J ^ x {\\displaystyle {\\hat {J}}_{x}} , J ^ y {\\displaystyle {\\hat {J}}_{y}} , and J ^ z {\\displaystyle {\\hat {J}}_{z}} are the total angular momentum operators (components), about the x {\\displaystyle x} , y {\\displaystyle y} , and z {\\displaystyle z} axes respectively.",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Coulomb potential energy for two point charges q 1 {\\displaystyle q_{1}} and q 2 {\\displaystyle q_{2}} (i.e., those that have no spatial extent independently), in three dimensions, is (in SI units—rather than Gaussian units which are frequently used in electromagnetism):",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "However, this is only the potential for one point charge due to another. If there are many charged particles, each charge has a potential energy due to every other point charge (except itself). For N {\\displaystyle N} charges, the potential energy of charge q j {\\displaystyle q_{j}} due to all other charges is (see also Electrostatic potential energy stored in a configuration of discrete point charges):",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "where ϕ ( r i ) {\\displaystyle \\phi (\\mathbf {r} _{i})} is the electrostatic potential of charge q j {\\displaystyle q_{j}} at r i {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {r} _{i}} . The total potential of the system is then the sum over j {\\displaystyle j} :",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "so the Hamiltonian is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "For an electric dipole moment d {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {d} } constituting charges of magnitude q {\\displaystyle q} , in a uniform, electrostatic field (time-independent) E {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {E} } , positioned in one place, the potential is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "the dipole moment itself is the operator",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Since the particle is stationary, there is no translational kinetic energy of the dipole, so the Hamiltonian of the dipole is just the potential energy:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "For a magnetic dipole moment μ {\\displaystyle {\\boldsymbol {\\mu }}} in a uniform, magnetostatic field (time-independent) B {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {B} } , positioned in one place, the potential is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Since the particle is stationary, there is no translational kinetic energy of the dipole, so the Hamiltonian of the dipole is just the potential energy:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "For a spin-1⁄2 particle, the corresponding spin magnetic moment is:",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "where g s {\\displaystyle g_{s}} is the \"spin g-factor\" (not to be confused with the gyromagnetic ratio), e {\\displaystyle e} is the electron charge, S {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {S} } is the spin operator vector, whose components are the Pauli matrices, hence",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "For a particle with mass m {\\displaystyle m} and charge q {\\displaystyle q} in an electromagnetic field, described by the scalar potential ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } and vector potential A {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {A} } , there are two parts to the Hamiltonian to substitute for. The canonical momentum operator p ^ {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {\\hat {p}} } , which includes a contribution from the A {\\displaystyle \\mathbf {A} } field and fulfils the canonical commutation relation, must be quantized;",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "where m r ˙ {\\displaystyle m{\\dot {\\mathbf {r} }}} is the kinetic momentum. The quantization prescription reads",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "so the corresponding kinetic energy operator is",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "and the potential energy, which is due to the ϕ {\\displaystyle \\phi } field, is given by",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Casting all of these into the Hamiltonian gives",
"title": "Expressions for the Hamiltonian"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In many systems, two or more energy eigenstates have the same energy. A simple example of this is a free particle, whose energy eigenstates have wavefunctions that are propagating plane waves. The energy of each of these plane waves is inversely proportional to the square of its wavelength. A wave propagating in the x {\\displaystyle x} direction is a different state from one propagating in the y {\\displaystyle y} direction, but if they have the same wavelength, then their energies will be the same. When this happens, the states are said to be degenerate.",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "It turns out that degeneracy occurs whenever a nontrivial unitary operator U {\\displaystyle U} commutes with the Hamiltonian. To see this, suppose that | a ⟩ {\\displaystyle |a\\rangle } is an energy eigenket. Then U | a ⟩ {\\displaystyle U|a\\rangle } is an energy eigenket with the same eigenvalue, since",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Since U {\\displaystyle U} is nontrivial, at least one pair of | a ⟩ {\\displaystyle |a\\rangle } and U | a ⟩ {\\displaystyle U|a\\rangle } must represent distinct states. Therefore, H {\\displaystyle H} has at least one pair of degenerate energy eigenkets. In the case of the free particle, the unitary operator which produces the symmetry is the rotation operator, which rotates the wavefunctions by some angle while otherwise preserving their shape.",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The existence of a symmetry operator implies the existence of a conserved observable. Let G {\\displaystyle G} be the Hermitian generator of U {\\displaystyle U} :",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "It is straightforward to show that if U {\\displaystyle U} commutes with H {\\displaystyle H} , then so does G {\\displaystyle G} :",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Therefore,",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In obtaining this result, we have used the Schrödinger equation, as well as its dual,",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Thus, the expected value of the observable G {\\displaystyle G} is conserved for any state of the system. In the case of the free particle, the conserved quantity is the angular momentum.",
"title": "Energy eigenket degeneracy, symmetry, and conservation laws"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Hamilton's equations in classical Hamiltonian mechanics have a direct analogy in quantum mechanics. Suppose we have a set of basis states { | n ⟩ } {\\displaystyle \\left\\{\\left|n\\right\\rangle \\right\\}} , which need not necessarily be eigenstates of the energy. For simplicity, we assume that they are discrete, and that they are orthonormal, i.e.,",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Note that these basis states are assumed to be independent of time. We will assume that the Hamiltonian is also independent of time.",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The instantaneous state of the system at time t {\\displaystyle t} , | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\\displaystyle \\left|\\psi \\left(t\\right)\\right\\rangle } , can be expanded in terms of these basis states:",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "where",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "The coefficients a n ( t ) {\\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} are complex variables. We can treat them as coordinates which specify the state of the system, like the position and momentum coordinates which specify a classical system. Like classical coordinates, they are generally not constant in time, and their time dependence gives rise to the time dependence of the system as a whole.",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The expectation value of the Hamiltonian of this state, which is also the mean energy, is",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "where the last step was obtained by expanding | ψ ( t ) ⟩ {\\displaystyle \\left|\\psi \\left(t\\right)\\right\\rangle } in terms of the basis states.",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Each a n ( t ) {\\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} actually corresponds to two independent degrees of freedom, since the variable has a real part and an imaginary part. We now perform the following trick: instead of using the real and imaginary parts as the independent variables, we use a n ( t ) {\\displaystyle a_{n}(t)} and its complex conjugate a n ∗ ( t ) {\\displaystyle a_{n}^{*}(t)} . With this choice of independent variables, we can calculate the partial derivative",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "By applying Schrödinger's equation and using the orthonormality of the basis states, this further reduces to",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Similarly, one can show that",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "If we define \"conjugate momentum\" variables π n {\\displaystyle \\pi _{n}} by",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "then the above equations become",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "which is precisely the form of Hamilton's equations, with the a n {\\displaystyle a_{n}} s as the generalized coordinates, the π n {\\displaystyle \\pi _{n}} s as the conjugate momenta, and ⟨ H ⟩ {\\displaystyle \\langle H\\rangle } taking the place of the classical Hamiltonian.",
"title": "Hamilton's equations"
}
]
| In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a system is an operator corresponding to the total energy of that system, including both kinetic energy and potential energy. Its spectrum, the system's energy spectrum or its set of energy eigenvalues, is the set of possible outcomes obtainable from a measurement of the system's total energy. Due to its close relation to the energy spectrum and time-evolution of a system, it is of fundamental importance in most formulations of quantum theory. The Hamiltonian is named after William Rowan Hamilton, who developed a revolutionary reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, known as Hamiltonian mechanics, which was historically important to the development of quantum physics. Similar to vector notation, it is typically denoted by H ^ , where the hat indicates that it is an operator. It can also be written as H or H ˇ . | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-14T12:15:52Z | [
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]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_(quantum_mechanics) |
14,382 | Hi-hat | A hi-hat (hihat, high-hat, etc.) is a combination of two cymbals and a pedal, all mounted on a metal stand. It is a part of the standard drum kit used by drummers in many styles of music including rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Hi-hats consist of a matching pair of small to medium-sized cymbals mounted on a stand, with the two cymbals facing each other. The bottom cymbal is fixed and the top is mounted on a rod which moves the top cymbal toward the bottom one when the pedal is depressed (a hi-hat that is in this position is said to be "closed" or "closed hi-hats").
The hi-hat evolved from a "sock cymbal", a pair of similar cymbals mounted at ground level on a hinged, spring-loaded foot apparatus. Drummers invented the first sock cymbals to enable one drummer to play multiple percussion instruments at the same time. Over time these became mounted on short stands—also known as "low-boys"—and activated by pedals similar to those used in modern hi-hats. When extended upward roughly 3' (76 cm) they were originally known as "high sock" cymbals, which evolved over time to the familiar "high-hat" term.
The cymbals may be played by closing them together with the pedal, which creates a "chck" sound or striking them with a stick, which may be done with them open, closed, open and then closed after striking to dampen the ring, or closed and then opened to create a shimmering effect at the end of the note. Depending on how hard a hi-hat is struck and whether it is "open" (i.e., pedal not pressed, so the two cymbals are not closed together), a hi-hat can produce a range of dynamics, from very quiet "chck" (or "chick") sounds, done with merely gently pressing the pedal—this is suitable for soft accompaniment during a ballad or the start of a guitar solo—to very loud (e.g. striking fully open hats hard with sticks, a technique used in loud heavy metal music songs).
While the term hi-hat normally refers to the entire setup (two cymbals, stand, pedal, rod mechanism), in some cases, drummers use it to refer exclusively to the two cymbals themselves.
Initial versions of the hi-hat were called clangers, which were small cymbals mounted onto a bass drum rim and struck with an arm on the bass drum pedal. Then came shoes, which were two hinged boards with cymbals on the ends that were clashed together. Next was the low-sock, low-boy or low-hat, pedal-activated cymbals employing an ankle-high apparatus similar to a modern hi-hat stand. A standard size was 10 inches (25 cm), some with heavy bells up to 5 inches (13 cm) wide.
Hi-hats that were raised and could be played by hand as well as foot may have been developed around 1926 by Barney Walberg of the drum accessory company Walberg and Auge. The first recognized master of the new instrument was "Papa" Jo Jones, whose playing of timekeeping "ride" rhythms while striking the hi-hat as it opened and closed inspired the innovation of the ride cymbal. Another claim, published in Jazz Profiles Blogspot on 8 August 2008, to the invention of the hi-hat is attributed to drummer William "O'Neil" Spencer (b.1909-d.1944). Legendary Jazz drummer, "Philly Joe Jones" (born as Joseph Rudolph Jones, b.1923-d.1985), was quoted describing his understanding about the hi-hat history. Jones said, "I really dug O'Neil. He came to club in Philadelphia where I was working in 1943, I think it was, and talked to me about the hi-hat. I was using a foot cymbal, the low-hat. O'Neil was the one who invented the hi-hat. I believe that, man. He suggested I close the hat on '2' and '4' when playing 4/4 time. The idea seemed so right hadn't heard anyone do that before." The editor of the 2008 Jazz Profiles article made specific mention to others who are thought to invent the hi-hat, including Jo Jones, but also Kaiser Marshall. Not to take away from Papa Jones accomplishments in drumming style and technique, a 2013 Modern Drummer article credits Papa Jones with being the first to use brushes on drums and shifting time keeping from the bass drum to the hi-hat (providing a "swing-pulse focus").
Until the late 1960s, standard hi-hats were 14 inches (36 cm), with 13 inches (33 cm) available as a less-common alternative in professional cymbal ranges, and smaller sizes down to 12 inches (30 cm) restricted to children's kits. In the early 1970s, hard rock drummers (including Led Zeppelin's John Bonham) began to use 15-inch (38 cm) hi-hats, such as the Paiste Giant Beat. In the late 1980s, Zildjian released its revolutionary 12-inch (30 cm) Special Recording hats, which were small, heavy hi-hat cymbals intended for close miking either live or recording, and other manufacturers quickly followed suit, Sabian for example with their 10-inch (25 cm) mini hats. In the early to mid-1990s, Paiste offered 8-inch (20 cm) mini hi-hats as part of its Visions series, which were among the world's smallest hi-hats. Starting in the 1980s, a number of manufacturers also experimented with rivets in the lower cymbal. But by the end of the 1990s, the standard size was again 14 inches (36 cm), with 13 inches (33 cm) a less-common alternative, and smaller hats mainly used for special sounds. Rivets in hi-hats failed to catch on.
Modern hi-hat cymbals are much heavier than modern crash cymbals, reflecting the trend to lighter and thinner crash cymbals as well as to heavier hi-hats. Another evolution is that a pair of hi-hat cymbals may not be identical, with the bottom often heavier than the top, and possibly vented. Some examples are Sabian's Fusion Hats with holes in the bottom cymbal, and the Sabian X-cellerator, Zildjian Master Sound and Zildjian Quick Beats, Paiste Sound Edge, and Meinl Soundwave. Some drummers even use completely mismatched hi-hats from different cymbal ranges (Zildjian's K/Z hats), of different manufacturers, and even of different sizes (similar to the K Custom Session Hats where the top hat is a 1⁄16 inch (1.6 mm) smaller than the bottom). Max Roach was particularly known for using a 15-inch (38 cm) top with a 14-inch (36 cm) bottom.
Other recent developments include the X-hat (fixed, closed, or half-open hi-hats) and cable-controlled or remote hi-hats. Sabian introduced the Triple Hi-Hat, designed by Peter Kuppers. In this variation of the hi-hat, the top cymbal moves down and the bottom cymbal moves up simultaneously while the middle cymbal remains stationary.
Drop-clutches are also used to lock and release hi-hats while both feet are in use playing double bass drums.
The standard hi-hat features two cymbals mounted on a stand consisting of a mating metal tube and rod supported by a tripod and linked to a pedal. The stationary bottom cymbal sits atop the tube, typically parallel to the ground, but is often fitted with an adjustment screw allowing it to be set slightly tilted. The top cymbal is mounted bell up on the rod and closed against the bottom by foot pressure on the pedal.
An integrated clutch assembly includes a spring which may be adjusted to set resistance, which also varies rate and tension of return, as well as an adjustment for the gap between cymbals when open.
Standard terminology has evolved. Open and closed hi-hat refer to notes struck while the two cymbals are apart or together (open or closed), while pedal hi-hat refers to parts or notes played solely with the pedal used to strike the two cymbals. Most cymbal patterns consist of both open and closed notes.
Some hi-hats allow the tripod to be tilted or rotated. Another configuration omits the tripod and attaches the stand to the side of the bass drum, particular suitable for kits with very large or double bass drums.
The standard clutch uses a knurled collar partially threaded below the cymbal and a pair of knurled rings above it. The collar is tightened against the end of the thread, while the rings are tightened against each other.
A drop clutch allows a pair of hats mounted on a conventional hi-hat stand to be closed without use of the pedal.
The drop clutch is provided with a lever that can be operated by hand or struck with a drumstick. This action releases the upper hi-hat cymbal, which falls onto the bottom cymbal and remains there, with gravity then holding the hats loosely closed, and allowing them to be played by the sticks in this position. Operation of the pedal re-engages the clutch and allows the player to resume normal playing.
Drop clutches were developed to allow players using double bass drum pedals to play closed hi-hats without needing to operate the hi-hat pedal, and this remains their primary application.
As it relies on gravity to close the cymbals, the drop clutch gives the player no control over the tension holding them together, and supplies only minimal tension. On the other hand, if the player manually lowers the top cymbal of a standard hi-hat stand before playing, this allows any desired tension to be set, and the pedal can still be used to increase the tension while playing, but not to open the hats or to reduce the tension. Some drummers prefer this technique and reject the drop clutch as too limiting to the sounds available.
In 2020, Tama introduced the Sizzle Touch Drop Clutch. This clutch when dropped, allows the distance between the top and bottom cymbals to be adjusted via an adjustment bolt on top of the clutch. To return the clutch to functioning as a standard one, the drummer depresses the hi-hat stand's pedal.
A less common alternative is the locking hi-hat pedal, such as the Tama "Cobra Clutch". This and similar high-end locking pedals do allow for control over the tension. It is engaged by pressing a lock pedal separate from the main pedal.
A cable hat or remote hat uses a cable to allow hi-hat cymbals to be positioned independently of the pedal. Operation is otherwise normal.
An X-hat is an adapter to allow a pair of hi-hat cymbals to be mounted in a closed position on a cymbal stand. There is no pedal, the hats are simply kept closed at a constant tension, similar to a cymbal stack. They are associated with heavy metal music, particularly styles that use double bass drumming, a two-foot technique. By using an X-hat, a drummer who is already using both feet on the bass drum pedals can still play hi-hat.
Besides traditional hi-hat cymbals (normally 14" but also commonly 13" or 15") the enormous variety of cymbals available means many of them are used as hi-hats. Drummer Thomas Lang uses a hi-hat made out of Bell cymbals as his secondary hi-hat. Terry Bozzio uses two China cymbals in the form of a hi-hat as a kind of distortion hi-hat. Following this principle, Sabian alongside drummer Tony Verderosa, has developed the 12" VFX distortion hi-hats, mixing a Crash cymbal on the bottom with a China on the top.
In addition to the many types of hi-hat cymbals on the market, there are also non-cymbal hi-hat pedals like the Latin Percussion Shekere hi-hat, the Remo Spoxe hi-hats created by Terry Bozzio in the late 80's, the Factory Metal Hat Crasherz or the Baldman Percussion Junk Hats. These kinds of percussion offer different textures in addition to the main hi-hat pedal on the drum kit and also options to expand the kit's pedal row.
When struck closed or played with the pedal, the hi-hat gives a short, crisp, muted percussive sound, referred to as a "chick". Adjusting the gap between the cymbals can alter the sound of the open hi-hat from a shimmering, sustained tone to something similar to a ride cymbal. When struck with a drumstick, the cymbals make either a short, snappy sound or a longer sustaining sandy sound depending on the position of the pedal.
It can also be played just by lifting and lowering the foot to clash the cymbals together, a style commonly used to accent beats 2 and 4 in jazz music. In rock music, the hi-hats are commonly struck every beat, or on beats 1 and 3, while the cymbals are held together. The drummer can control the sound by foot pressure. Less pressure allows the cymbals to rub together more freely, giving both greater sustain and greater volume for accent or crescendo. In shuffle time, a rhythm known as "cooking" is often employed. To produce this the cymbals are struck twice in rapid succession, being held closed on the first stroke and allowed to open just before the second, then allowed to ring before being closed with a chick to complete the pattern (the cymbals may or may not be struck on the chick).
A right-handed drummer will normally play the hi-hat pedal with his left foot, and may use one or both drumsticks. The traditional hi-hat rhythms of rock and jazz were produced by crossing the hands over, so the right stick would play the hi-hat while the left played the snare drum below it, but this is not universal. Some top modern drummers like Billy Cobham, Carter Beauford, Shawn Drover and Simon Phillips, play open handed, striking with their left. Some, such as Kenny Aronoff, and Jason Finn of The Presidents of the United States of America, use both techniques. Some drum kits may also include an extra hi-hat on the right for right-handed players. This is shown when drums or cymbals in the middle of the set are played with the hi-hat rhythm. The technique is common with metal genres, such as Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Mike Portnoy formerly of Dream Theater. In both rock and jazz, the drummer will often move the same stick pattern between the hi-hat cymbal and the ride cymbal, for example using the hi-hat in the verses and the ride in the chorus of a song, or using the ride to accompany a lead break or other instrumental solo.
Roger Taylor, drummer for the band Queen, plays with many unique hi-hat techniques, including opening of the hi-hat on every backbeat for a rhythm emphasis and leaving the hi-hat slightly open when hitting the snare. His trademark hi-hat beat is opening the hi-hat on first and third before hitting the snare.
Phil Rudd of AC/DC also uses distinct hi-hat techniques, which include very heavily accentuating the hi-hat hit on each beat and softer in between.
Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones used a technique in which he did not play the hi-hat in unison with the snare drum at all. If playing a standard 8th note pattern, he would play the hi-hat on 1 and 3 and not play it on 2 and 4 where the snare drum is played.
In much hip-hop, the hi-hat is hit with drumsticks in a simple eighth-note pattern, although this playing is usually done by a drum machine or from an old recording from which the sound of a hi-hat is recorded and loaded into a sampler or similar recording-enabled equipment from which it is triggered. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A hi-hat (hihat, high-hat, etc.) is a combination of two cymbals and a pedal, all mounted on a metal stand. It is a part of the standard drum kit used by drummers in many styles of music including rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Hi-hats consist of a matching pair of small to medium-sized cymbals mounted on a stand, with the two cymbals facing each other. The bottom cymbal is fixed and the top is mounted on a rod which moves the top cymbal toward the bottom one when the pedal is depressed (a hi-hat that is in this position is said to be \"closed\" or \"closed hi-hats\").",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The hi-hat evolved from a \"sock cymbal\", a pair of similar cymbals mounted at ground level on a hinged, spring-loaded foot apparatus. Drummers invented the first sock cymbals to enable one drummer to play multiple percussion instruments at the same time. Over time these became mounted on short stands—also known as \"low-boys\"—and activated by pedals similar to those used in modern hi-hats. When extended upward roughly 3' (76 cm) they were originally known as \"high sock\" cymbals, which evolved over time to the familiar \"high-hat\" term.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The cymbals may be played by closing them together with the pedal, which creates a \"chck\" sound or striking them with a stick, which may be done with them open, closed, open and then closed after striking to dampen the ring, or closed and then opened to create a shimmering effect at the end of the note. Depending on how hard a hi-hat is struck and whether it is \"open\" (i.e., pedal not pressed, so the two cymbals are not closed together), a hi-hat can produce a range of dynamics, from very quiet \"chck\" (or \"chick\") sounds, done with merely gently pressing the pedal—this is suitable for soft accompaniment during a ballad or the start of a guitar solo—to very loud (e.g. striking fully open hats hard with sticks, a technique used in loud heavy metal music songs).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "While the term hi-hat normally refers to the entire setup (two cymbals, stand, pedal, rod mechanism), in some cases, drummers use it to refer exclusively to the two cymbals themselves.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Initial versions of the hi-hat were called clangers, which were small cymbals mounted onto a bass drum rim and struck with an arm on the bass drum pedal. Then came shoes, which were two hinged boards with cymbals on the ends that were clashed together. Next was the low-sock, low-boy or low-hat, pedal-activated cymbals employing an ankle-high apparatus similar to a modern hi-hat stand. A standard size was 10 inches (25 cm), some with heavy bells up to 5 inches (13 cm) wide.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hi-hats that were raised and could be played by hand as well as foot may have been developed around 1926 by Barney Walberg of the drum accessory company Walberg and Auge. The first recognized master of the new instrument was \"Papa\" Jo Jones, whose playing of timekeeping \"ride\" rhythms while striking the hi-hat as it opened and closed inspired the innovation of the ride cymbal. Another claim, published in Jazz Profiles Blogspot on 8 August 2008, to the invention of the hi-hat is attributed to drummer William \"O'Neil\" Spencer (b.1909-d.1944). Legendary Jazz drummer, \"Philly Joe Jones\" (born as Joseph Rudolph Jones, b.1923-d.1985), was quoted describing his understanding about the hi-hat history. Jones said, \"I really dug O'Neil. He came to club in Philadelphia where I was working in 1943, I think it was, and talked to me about the hi-hat. I was using a foot cymbal, the low-hat. O'Neil was the one who invented the hi-hat. I believe that, man. He suggested I close the hat on '2' and '4' when playing 4/4 time. The idea seemed so right hadn't heard anyone do that before.\" The editor of the 2008 Jazz Profiles article made specific mention to others who are thought to invent the hi-hat, including Jo Jones, but also Kaiser Marshall. Not to take away from Papa Jones accomplishments in drumming style and technique, a 2013 Modern Drummer article credits Papa Jones with being the first to use brushes on drums and shifting time keeping from the bass drum to the hi-hat (providing a \"swing-pulse focus\").",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Until the late 1960s, standard hi-hats were 14 inches (36 cm), with 13 inches (33 cm) available as a less-common alternative in professional cymbal ranges, and smaller sizes down to 12 inches (30 cm) restricted to children's kits. In the early 1970s, hard rock drummers (including Led Zeppelin's John Bonham) began to use 15-inch (38 cm) hi-hats, such as the Paiste Giant Beat. In the late 1980s, Zildjian released its revolutionary 12-inch (30 cm) Special Recording hats, which were small, heavy hi-hat cymbals intended for close miking either live or recording, and other manufacturers quickly followed suit, Sabian for example with their 10-inch (25 cm) mini hats. In the early to mid-1990s, Paiste offered 8-inch (20 cm) mini hi-hats as part of its Visions series, which were among the world's smallest hi-hats. Starting in the 1980s, a number of manufacturers also experimented with rivets in the lower cymbal. But by the end of the 1990s, the standard size was again 14 inches (36 cm), with 13 inches (33 cm) a less-common alternative, and smaller hats mainly used for special sounds. Rivets in hi-hats failed to catch on.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Modern hi-hat cymbals are much heavier than modern crash cymbals, reflecting the trend to lighter and thinner crash cymbals as well as to heavier hi-hats. Another evolution is that a pair of hi-hat cymbals may not be identical, with the bottom often heavier than the top, and possibly vented. Some examples are Sabian's Fusion Hats with holes in the bottom cymbal, and the Sabian X-cellerator, Zildjian Master Sound and Zildjian Quick Beats, Paiste Sound Edge, and Meinl Soundwave. Some drummers even use completely mismatched hi-hats from different cymbal ranges (Zildjian's K/Z hats), of different manufacturers, and even of different sizes (similar to the K Custom Session Hats where the top hat is a 1⁄16 inch (1.6 mm) smaller than the bottom). Max Roach was particularly known for using a 15-inch (38 cm) top with a 14-inch (36 cm) bottom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Other recent developments include the X-hat (fixed, closed, or half-open hi-hats) and cable-controlled or remote hi-hats. Sabian introduced the Triple Hi-Hat, designed by Peter Kuppers. In this variation of the hi-hat, the top cymbal moves down and the bottom cymbal moves up simultaneously while the middle cymbal remains stationary.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Drop-clutches are also used to lock and release hi-hats while both feet are in use playing double bass drums.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The standard hi-hat features two cymbals mounted on a stand consisting of a mating metal tube and rod supported by a tripod and linked to a pedal. The stationary bottom cymbal sits atop the tube, typically parallel to the ground, but is often fitted with an adjustment screw allowing it to be set slightly tilted. The top cymbal is mounted bell up on the rod and closed against the bottom by foot pressure on the pedal.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "An integrated clutch assembly includes a spring which may be adjusted to set resistance, which also varies rate and tension of return, as well as an adjustment for the gap between cymbals when open.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Standard terminology has evolved. Open and closed hi-hat refer to notes struck while the two cymbals are apart or together (open or closed), while pedal hi-hat refers to parts or notes played solely with the pedal used to strike the two cymbals. Most cymbal patterns consist of both open and closed notes.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Some hi-hats allow the tripod to be tilted or rotated. Another configuration omits the tripod and attaches the stand to the side of the bass drum, particular suitable for kits with very large or double bass drums.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The standard clutch uses a knurled collar partially threaded below the cymbal and a pair of knurled rings above it. The collar is tightened against the end of the thread, while the rings are tightened against each other.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A drop clutch allows a pair of hats mounted on a conventional hi-hat stand to be closed without use of the pedal.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The drop clutch is provided with a lever that can be operated by hand or struck with a drumstick. This action releases the upper hi-hat cymbal, which falls onto the bottom cymbal and remains there, with gravity then holding the hats loosely closed, and allowing them to be played by the sticks in this position. Operation of the pedal re-engages the clutch and allows the player to resume normal playing.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Drop clutches were developed to allow players using double bass drum pedals to play closed hi-hats without needing to operate the hi-hat pedal, and this remains their primary application.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As it relies on gravity to close the cymbals, the drop clutch gives the player no control over the tension holding them together, and supplies only minimal tension. On the other hand, if the player manually lowers the top cymbal of a standard hi-hat stand before playing, this allows any desired tension to be set, and the pedal can still be used to increase the tension while playing, but not to open the hats or to reduce the tension. Some drummers prefer this technique and reject the drop clutch as too limiting to the sounds available.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 2020, Tama introduced the Sizzle Touch Drop Clutch. This clutch when dropped, allows the distance between the top and bottom cymbals to be adjusted via an adjustment bolt on top of the clutch. To return the clutch to functioning as a standard one, the drummer depresses the hi-hat stand's pedal.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A less common alternative is the locking hi-hat pedal, such as the Tama \"Cobra Clutch\". This and similar high-end locking pedals do allow for control over the tension. It is engaged by pressing a lock pedal separate from the main pedal.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A cable hat or remote hat uses a cable to allow hi-hat cymbals to be positioned independently of the pedal. Operation is otherwise normal.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "An X-hat is an adapter to allow a pair of hi-hat cymbals to be mounted in a closed position on a cymbal stand. There is no pedal, the hats are simply kept closed at a constant tension, similar to a cymbal stack. They are associated with heavy metal music, particularly styles that use double bass drumming, a two-foot technique. By using an X-hat, a drummer who is already using both feet on the bass drum pedals can still play hi-hat.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Besides traditional hi-hat cymbals (normally 14\" but also commonly 13\" or 15\") the enormous variety of cymbals available means many of them are used as hi-hats. Drummer Thomas Lang uses a hi-hat made out of Bell cymbals as his secondary hi-hat. Terry Bozzio uses two China cymbals in the form of a hi-hat as a kind of distortion hi-hat. Following this principle, Sabian alongside drummer Tony Verderosa, has developed the 12\" VFX distortion hi-hats, mixing a Crash cymbal on the bottom with a China on the top.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In addition to the many types of hi-hat cymbals on the market, there are also non-cymbal hi-hat pedals like the Latin Percussion Shekere hi-hat, the Remo Spoxe hi-hats created by Terry Bozzio in the late 80's, the Factory Metal Hat Crasherz or the Baldman Percussion Junk Hats. These kinds of percussion offer different textures in addition to the main hi-hat pedal on the drum kit and also options to expand the kit's pedal row.",
"title": "Modern stands"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "When struck closed or played with the pedal, the hi-hat gives a short, crisp, muted percussive sound, referred to as a \"chick\". Adjusting the gap between the cymbals can alter the sound of the open hi-hat from a shimmering, sustained tone to something similar to a ride cymbal. When struck with a drumstick, the cymbals make either a short, snappy sound or a longer sustaining sandy sound depending on the position of the pedal.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "It can also be played just by lifting and lowering the foot to clash the cymbals together, a style commonly used to accent beats 2 and 4 in jazz music. In rock music, the hi-hats are commonly struck every beat, or on beats 1 and 3, while the cymbals are held together. The drummer can control the sound by foot pressure. Less pressure allows the cymbals to rub together more freely, giving both greater sustain and greater volume for accent or crescendo. In shuffle time, a rhythm known as \"cooking\" is often employed. To produce this the cymbals are struck twice in rapid succession, being held closed on the first stroke and allowed to open just before the second, then allowed to ring before being closed with a chick to complete the pattern (the cymbals may or may not be struck on the chick).",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "A right-handed drummer will normally play the hi-hat pedal with his left foot, and may use one or both drumsticks. The traditional hi-hat rhythms of rock and jazz were produced by crossing the hands over, so the right stick would play the hi-hat while the left played the snare drum below it, but this is not universal. Some top modern drummers like Billy Cobham, Carter Beauford, Shawn Drover and Simon Phillips, play open handed, striking with their left. Some, such as Kenny Aronoff, and Jason Finn of The Presidents of the United States of America, use both techniques. Some drum kits may also include an extra hi-hat on the right for right-handed players. This is shown when drums or cymbals in the middle of the set are played with the hi-hat rhythm. The technique is common with metal genres, such as Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Mike Portnoy formerly of Dream Theater. In both rock and jazz, the drummer will often move the same stick pattern between the hi-hat cymbal and the ride cymbal, for example using the hi-hat in the verses and the ride in the chorus of a song, or using the ride to accompany a lead break or other instrumental solo.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Roger Taylor, drummer for the band Queen, plays with many unique hi-hat techniques, including opening of the hi-hat on every backbeat for a rhythm emphasis and leaving the hi-hat slightly open when hitting the snare. His trademark hi-hat beat is opening the hi-hat on first and third before hitting the snare.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Phil Rudd of AC/DC also uses distinct hi-hat techniques, which include very heavily accentuating the hi-hat hit on each beat and softer in between.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones used a technique in which he did not play the hi-hat in unison with the snare drum at all. If playing a standard 8th note pattern, he would play the hi-hat on 1 and 3 and not play it on 2 and 4 where the snare drum is played.",
"title": "Use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In much hip-hop, the hi-hat is hit with drumsticks in a simple eighth-note pattern, although this playing is usually done by a drum machine or from an old recording from which the sound of a hi-hat is recorded and loaded into a sampler or similar recording-enabled equipment from which it is triggered.",
"title": "Use"
}
]
| A hi-hat is a combination of two cymbals and a pedal, all mounted on a metal stand. It is a part of the standard drum kit used by drummers in many styles of music including rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Hi-hats consist of a matching pair of small to medium-sized cymbals mounted on a stand, with the two cymbals facing each other. The bottom cymbal is fixed and the top is mounted on a rod which moves the top cymbal toward the bottom one when the pedal is depressed. The hi-hat evolved from a "sock cymbal", a pair of similar cymbals mounted at ground level on a hinged, spring-loaded foot apparatus. Drummers invented the first sock cymbals to enable one drummer to play multiple percussion instruments at the same time. Over time these became mounted on short stands—also known as "low-boys"—and activated by pedals similar to those used in modern hi-hats. When extended upward roughly 3' (76 cm) they were originally known as "high sock" cymbals, which evolved over time to the familiar "high-hat" term. The cymbals may be played by closing them together with the pedal, which creates a "chck" sound or striking them with a stick, which may be done with them open, closed, open and then closed after striking to dampen the ring, or closed and then opened to create a shimmering effect at the end of the note. Depending on how hard a hi-hat is struck and whether it is "open", a hi-hat can produce a range of dynamics, from very quiet "chck" sounds, done with merely gently pressing the pedal—this is suitable for soft accompaniment during a ballad or the start of a guitar solo—to very loud. While the term hi-hat normally refers to the entire setup, in some cases, drummers use it to refer exclusively to the two cymbals themselves. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-10-08T19:24:30Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-hat |
14,384 | HAL 9000 | HAL 9000 (or simply HAL or Hal) is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. First appearing in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL (Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer) is a sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red and yellow dot, with such units located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the Space Odyssey series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole.
In the film, HAL became operational on January 12, 1992, at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois, as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's novel written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the Discovery One spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter (or Saturn in the novel), HAL has been shown to be capable of speech synthesis, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, spacecraft piloting and computer chess.
HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois's Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with his human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays chess against HAL. In the film, the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.
In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue his programmed directives. HAL uses one of the Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, without a space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. After HAL tells him "This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it", Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.
While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.
In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell" as he gradually deactivates (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer, which Clarke had earlier observed at a text-to-speech demonstration). HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.
In the 1982 novel 2010: Odyssey Two written by Clarke, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov.
Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being "male", SAL is characterized as being "female" (voiced by Candice Bergen) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.
Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.
The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the Leonov, and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the Discovery and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.
The details in the novel and the 1984 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the Leonov crew initially lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine burn necessary to get the Leonov back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.
In the novel, the basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra is quite long, while the movie uses a shorter sequence voiced from HAL as: "HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_YESTERDAY_TOMORROW".
While Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000, it has not been mentioned in subsequent novels.
In Clarke's 1987 novel 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.
In Clarke's 1997 novel 3001: The Final Odyssey, Frank Poole is introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called "Halman" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship toward the end of 2010: Odyssey Two.
Clarke noted that the first film was criticized for not having any characters except for HAL, and that a great deal of the establishing story on Earth was cut from the film (and even from Clarke's novel). Clarke stated that he had considered Autonomous Mobile Explorer–5 as a name for the computer, then decided on Socrates when writing early drafts, switching in later drafts to Athena, a computer with a female personality, before settling on HAL 9000. The Socrates name was later used in Clarke and Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey novel series.
The earliest draft depicted Socrates as a roughly humanoid robot, and is introduced as overseeing Project Morpheus, which studied prolonged hibernation in preparation for long term space flight. As a demonstration to Senator Floyd, Socrates' designer, Dr. Bruno Forster, asks Socrates to turn off the oxygen to hibernating subjects Kaminski and Whitehead, which Socrates refuses, citing Asimov's First Law of Robotics.
In a later version, in which Bowman and Whitehead are the non-hibernating crew of Discovery, Whitehead dies outside the spacecraft after his pod collides with the main antenna, tearing it free. This triggers the need for Bowman to revive Poole, but the revival does not go according to plan, and after briefly awakening, Poole dies. The computer, named Athena in this draft, announces "All systems of Poole now No–Go. It will be necessary to replace him with a spare unit." After this, Bowman decides to go out in a pod and retrieve the antenna, which is moving away from the ship. Athena refuses to allow him to leave the ship, citing "Directive 15" which prevents it from being left unattended, forcing him to make program modifications during which time the antenna drifts further.
During rehearsals Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers to supply the voice of HAL 9000 while searching for a suitably androgynous voice so the actors had something to react to. On the set, British actor Nigel Davenport played HAL. When it came to dubbing HAL in post-production, Kubrick had originally cast Martin Balsam, but as he felt Balsam "just sounded a little bit too colloquially American", he was replaced with Douglas Rain, who "had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part". Rain was only handed HAL's lines instead of the full script, and recorded them across a day and a half.
HAL's point of view shots were created with a Cinerama Fairchild-Curtis wide-angle lens with a 160° angle of view. This lens is about 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter, while HAL's on set prop eye lens is about 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter. Stanley Kubrick chose to use the large Fairchild-Curtis lens to shoot the HAL 9000 POV shots because he needed a wide-angle fisheye lens that would fit onto his shooting camera, and this was the only lens at the time that would work. The Fairchild-Curtis lens has a focal length of 23 mm (0.9 in) with a maximum aperture of f/2.0 and a weight of approximately 30 lb (14 kg); it was originally designed by Felix Bednarz with a maximum aperture of f/2.2 for the first Cinerama 360 film, Journey to the Stars, shown at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Bednarz adapted the lens design from an earlier lens he had designed for military training to simulate human peripheral vision coverage. The lens was later recomputed for the second Cinerama 360 film To the Moon and Beyond, which had a slightly different film format. To the Moon and Beyond was produced by Graphic Films and shown at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, where Kubrick watched it; afterwards, he was so impressed that he hired the same creative team from Graphic Films (consisting of Douglas Trumbull, Lester Novros, and Con Pederson) to work on 2001.
A HAL 9000 face plate, without lens (not the same as the hero face plates seen in the film), was discovered in a junk shop in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s by Chris Randall. This was found along with the key to HAL's Brain Room. Both items were purchased for ten shillings (£0.50). Research revealed that the original lens was a Fisheye Nikkor 8 mm f/8. The collection was sold at a Christie's auction in 2010 for £17,500 to film director Peter Jackson.
HAL's name, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke, is derived from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. After the film was released, fans noticed HAL was a one-letter shift from the name IBM and there has been much speculation since then that this was a dig at the large computer company, something that has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick. Clarke addressed the issue in his book The Lost Worlds of 2001:
...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence.
IBM was consulted during the making of the film and their logo can be seen on props in the film, including the Pan Am Clipper's cockpit instrument panel and on the lower arm keypad on Poole's space suit. During production it was brought to IBM's attention that the film's plot included a homicidal computer but they approved association with the film if it was clear any "equipment failure" was not related to their products.
HAL Communications Corporation is a real corporation, with facilities located in Urbana, Illinois, which is where HAL in the movie identifies himself as being activated: "I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L plant in Urbana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992."
The former president of HAL Communications, Bill Henry, has stated that this is a coincidence: "There was not and never has been any connection to 'Hal', Arthur Clarke's intelligent computer in the screen play '2001' — later published as a book. We were very surprised when the movie hit the Coed Theatre on campus and discovered that the movie's computer had our name. We never had any problems with that similarity - 'Hal' for the movie and 'HAL' (all caps) for our small company. But, from time-to-time, we did have issues with others trying to use 'HAL'. That resulted in us paying lawyers. The offenders folded or eventually went out of business."
The scene in which HAL's consciousness degrades was inspired by Clarke's memory of a speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr., who used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews.
HAL's capabilities, like all the technology in 2001, were based on the speculation of respected scientists. Marvin Minsky, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the most influential researchers in the field, was an adviser on the film set. In the mid-1960s, many computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence were optimistic that machines with HAL's capabilities would exist within a few decades. For example, AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon at Carnegie Mellon University had predicted in 1965 that "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do".
HAL is listed as the 13th-greatest film villain in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.
The 9000th of the asteroids in the asteroid belt, 9000 Hal, discovered on May 3, 1981, by E. Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station, is named after HAL 9000.
Anthony Hopkins based his Academy Award-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs in part upon HAL 9000.
The 1993 educational game Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? features a digital assistant named the VAL 9000, a homage to HAL 9000.
Apple Inc.'s 1999 website advertisement "It was a bug, Dave" was made by meticulously recreating the appearance of HAL 9000 from the movie. Launched during the era of concerns over Y2K bugs, the ad implied that HAL's behavior was caused by a Y2K bug, before driving home the point that "only Macintosh was designed to function perfectly".
In 2003, HAL 9000 was one of the first robots to be inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One can see a physical replica of HAL at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "HAL 9000 (or simply HAL or Hal) is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. First appearing in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL (Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer) is a sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red and yellow dot, with such units located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the Space Odyssey series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In the film, HAL became operational on January 12, 1992, at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois, as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's novel written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the Discovery One spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter (or Saturn in the novel), HAL has been shown to be capable of speech synthesis, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, spacecraft piloting and computer chess.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois's Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with his human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays chess against HAL. In the film, the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue his programmed directives. HAL uses one of the Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, without a space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. After HAL tells him \"This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it\", Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song \"Daisy Bell\" as he gradually deactivates (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer, which Clarke had earlier observed at a text-to-speech demonstration). HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the 1982 novel 2010: Odyssey Two written by Clarke, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being \"male\", SAL is characterized as being \"female\" (voiced by Candice Bergen) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for \"the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment\", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a \"Hofstadter-Moebius loop\", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the Leonov, and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the Discovery and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The details in the novel and the 1984 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the Leonov crew initially lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine burn necessary to get the Leonov back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In the novel, the basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra is quite long, while the movie uses a shorter sequence voiced from HAL as: \"HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_YESTERDAY_TOMORROW\".",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "While Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000, it has not been mentioned in subsequent novels.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In Clarke's 1987 novel 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Clarke's 1997 novel 3001: The Final Odyssey, Frank Poole is introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called \"Halman\" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship toward the end of 2010: Odyssey Two.",
"title": "Appearances"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Clarke noted that the first film was criticized for not having any characters except for HAL, and that a great deal of the establishing story on Earth was cut from the film (and even from Clarke's novel). Clarke stated that he had considered Autonomous Mobile Explorer–5 as a name for the computer, then decided on Socrates when writing early drafts, switching in later drafts to Athena, a computer with a female personality, before settling on HAL 9000. The Socrates name was later used in Clarke and Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey novel series.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The earliest draft depicted Socrates as a roughly humanoid robot, and is introduced as overseeing Project Morpheus, which studied prolonged hibernation in preparation for long term space flight. As a demonstration to Senator Floyd, Socrates' designer, Dr. Bruno Forster, asks Socrates to turn off the oxygen to hibernating subjects Kaminski and Whitehead, which Socrates refuses, citing Asimov's First Law of Robotics.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In a later version, in which Bowman and Whitehead are the non-hibernating crew of Discovery, Whitehead dies outside the spacecraft after his pod collides with the main antenna, tearing it free. This triggers the need for Bowman to revive Poole, but the revival does not go according to plan, and after briefly awakening, Poole dies. The computer, named Athena in this draft, announces \"All systems of Poole now No–Go. It will be necessary to replace him with a spare unit.\" After this, Bowman decides to go out in a pod and retrieve the antenna, which is moving away from the ship. Athena refuses to allow him to leave the ship, citing \"Directive 15\" which prevents it from being left unattended, forcing him to make program modifications during which time the antenna drifts further.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "During rehearsals Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers to supply the voice of HAL 9000 while searching for a suitably androgynous voice so the actors had something to react to. On the set, British actor Nigel Davenport played HAL. When it came to dubbing HAL in post-production, Kubrick had originally cast Martin Balsam, but as he felt Balsam \"just sounded a little bit too colloquially American\", he was replaced with Douglas Rain, who \"had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part\". Rain was only handed HAL's lines instead of the full script, and recorded them across a day and a half.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "HAL's point of view shots were created with a Cinerama Fairchild-Curtis wide-angle lens with a 160° angle of view. This lens is about 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter, while HAL's on set prop eye lens is about 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter. Stanley Kubrick chose to use the large Fairchild-Curtis lens to shoot the HAL 9000 POV shots because he needed a wide-angle fisheye lens that would fit onto his shooting camera, and this was the only lens at the time that would work. The Fairchild-Curtis lens has a focal length of 23 mm (0.9 in) with a maximum aperture of f/2.0 and a weight of approximately 30 lb (14 kg); it was originally designed by Felix Bednarz with a maximum aperture of f/2.2 for the first Cinerama 360 film, Journey to the Stars, shown at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Bednarz adapted the lens design from an earlier lens he had designed for military training to simulate human peripheral vision coverage. The lens was later recomputed for the second Cinerama 360 film To the Moon and Beyond, which had a slightly different film format. To the Moon and Beyond was produced by Graphic Films and shown at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, where Kubrick watched it; afterwards, he was so impressed that he hired the same creative team from Graphic Films (consisting of Douglas Trumbull, Lester Novros, and Con Pederson) to work on 2001.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "A HAL 9000 face plate, without lens (not the same as the hero face plates seen in the film), was discovered in a junk shop in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s by Chris Randall. This was found along with the key to HAL's Brain Room. Both items were purchased for ten shillings (£0.50). Research revealed that the original lens was a Fisheye Nikkor 8 mm f/8. The collection was sold at a Christie's auction in 2010 for £17,500 to film director Peter Jackson.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "HAL's name, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke, is derived from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. After the film was released, fans noticed HAL was a one-letter shift from the name IBM and there has been much speculation since then that this was a dig at the large computer company, something that has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick. Clarke addressed the issue in his book The Lost Worlds of 2001:",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "IBM was consulted during the making of the film and their logo can be seen on props in the film, including the Pan Am Clipper's cockpit instrument panel and on the lower arm keypad on Poole's space suit. During production it was brought to IBM's attention that the film's plot included a homicidal computer but they approved association with the film if it was clear any \"equipment failure\" was not related to their products.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "HAL Communications Corporation is a real corporation, with facilities located in Urbana, Illinois, which is where HAL in the movie identifies himself as being activated: \"I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L plant in Urbana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992.\"",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The former president of HAL Communications, Bill Henry, has stated that this is a coincidence: \"There was not and never has been any connection to 'Hal', Arthur Clarke's intelligent computer in the screen play '2001' — later published as a book. We were very surprised when the movie hit the Coed Theatre on campus and discovered that the movie's computer had our name. We never had any problems with that similarity - 'Hal' for the movie and 'HAL' (all caps) for our small company. But, from time-to-time, we did have issues with others trying to use 'HAL'. That resulted in us paying lawyers. The offenders folded or eventually went out of business.\"",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The scene in which HAL's consciousness degrades was inspired by Clarke's memory of a speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr., who used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song \"Daisy Bell\", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews.",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "HAL's capabilities, like all the technology in 2001, were based on the speculation of respected scientists. Marvin Minsky, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the most influential researchers in the field, was an adviser on the film set. In the mid-1960s, many computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence were optimistic that machines with HAL's capabilities would exist within a few decades. For example, AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon at Carnegie Mellon University had predicted in 1965 that \"machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do\".",
"title": "Concept and creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "HAL is listed as the 13th-greatest film villain in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The 9000th of the asteroids in the asteroid belt, 9000 Hal, discovered on May 3, 1981, by E. Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station, is named after HAL 9000.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Anthony Hopkins based his Academy Award-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs in part upon HAL 9000.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The 1993 educational game Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? features a digital assistant named the VAL 9000, a homage to HAL 9000.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Apple Inc.'s 1999 website advertisement \"It was a bug, Dave\" was made by meticulously recreating the appearance of HAL 9000 from the movie. Launched during the era of concerns over Y2K bugs, the ad implied that HAL's behavior was caused by a Y2K bug, before driving home the point that \"only Macintosh was designed to function perfectly\".",
"title": "Cultural impact"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 2003, HAL 9000 was one of the first robots to be inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One can see a physical replica of HAL at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.",
"title": "Cultural impact"
}
]
| HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. First appearing in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL is a sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red and yellow dot, with such units located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the Space Odyssey series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole. In the film, HAL became operational on January 12, 1992, at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois, as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's novel written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the Discovery One spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter, HAL has been shown to be capable of speech synthesis, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, spacecraft piloting and computer chess. | 2002-01-04T18:57:33Z | 2023-12-06T16:24:06Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 |
14,385 | Hydrolysis | Hydrolysis (/haɪˈdrɒlɪsɪs/; from Ancient Greek hydro- 'water', and lysis 'to unbind') is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.
Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g., sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose), this is recognized as saccharification.
Hydrolysis reactions can be the reverse of a condensation reaction in which two molecules join into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water.
Usually hydrolysis is a chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance. Sometimes this addition causes both the substance and water molecule to split into two parts. In such reactions, one fragment of the target molecule (or parent molecule) gains a hydrogen ion. It breaks a chemical bond in the compound.
A common kind of hydrolysis occurs when a salt of a weak acid or weak base (or both) is dissolved in water. Water spontaneously ionizes into hydroxide anions and hydronium cations. The salt also dissociates into its constituent anions and cations. For example, sodium acetate dissociates in water into sodium and acetate ions. Sodium ions react very little with the hydroxide ions whereas the acetate ions combine with hydronium ions to produce acetic acid. In this case the net result is a relative excess of hydroxide ions, yielding a basic solution.
Strong acids also undergo hydrolysis. For example, dissolving sulfuric acid (H2SO4) in water is accompanied by hydrolysis to give hydronium and bisulfate, the sulfuric acid's conjugate base. For a more technical discussion of what occurs during such a hydrolysis, see Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory.
Acid–base-catalysed hydrolyses are very common; one example is the hydrolysis of amides or esters. Their hydrolysis occurs when the nucleophile (a nucleus-seeking agent, e.g., water or hydroxyl ion) attacks the carbon of the carbonyl group of the ester or amide. In an aqueous base, hydroxyl ions are better nucleophiles than polar molecules such as water. In acids, the carbonyl group becomes protonated, and this leads to a much easier nucleophilic attack. The products for both hydrolyses are compounds with carboxylic acid groups.
Perhaps the oldest commercially practiced example of ester hydrolysis is saponification (formation of soap). It is the hydrolysis of a triglyceride (fat) with an aqueous base such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH). During the process, glycerol is formed, and the fatty acids react with the base, converting them to salts. These salts are called soaps, commonly used in households.
In addition, in living systems, most biochemical reactions (including ATP hydrolysis) take place during the catalysis of enzymes. The catalytic action of enzymes allows the hydrolysis of proteins, fats, oils, and carbohydrates. As an example, one may consider proteases (enzymes that aid digestion by causing hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins). They catalyze the hydrolysis of interior peptide bonds in peptide chains, as opposed to exopeptidases (another class of enzymes, that catalyze the hydrolysis of terminal peptide bonds, liberating one free amino acid at a time).
However, proteases do not catalyze the hydrolysis of all kinds of proteins. Their action is stereo-selective: Only proteins with a certain tertiary structure are targeted as some kind of orienting force is needed to place the amide group in the proper position for catalysis. The necessary contacts between an enzyme and its substrates (proteins) are created because the enzyme folds in such a way as to form a crevice into which the substrate fits; the crevice also contains the catalytic groups. Therefore, proteins that do not fit into the crevice will not undergo hydrolysis. This specificity preserves the integrity of other proteins such as hormones, and therefore the biological system continues to function normally.
Upon hydrolysis, an amide converts into a carboxylic acid and an amine or ammonia (which in the presence of acid are immediately converted to ammonium salts). One of the two oxygen groups on the carboxylic acid are derived from a water molecule and the amine (or ammonia) gains the hydrogen ion. The hydrolysis of peptides gives amino acids.
Many polyamide polymers such as nylon 6,6 hydrolyze in the presence of strong acids. The process leads to depolymerization. For this reason nylon products fail by fracturing when exposed to small amounts of acidic water. Polyesters are also susceptible to similar polymer degradation reactions. The problem is known as environmental stress cracking.
Hydrolysis is related to energy metabolism and storage. All living cells require a continual supply of energy for two main purposes: the biosynthesis of micro and macromolecules, and the active transport of ions and molecules across cell membranes. The energy derived from the oxidation of nutrients is not used directly but, by means of a complex and long sequence of reactions, it is channeled into a special energy-storage molecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The ATP molecule contains pyrophosphate linkages (bonds formed when two phosphate units are combined) that release energy when needed. ATP can undergo hydrolysis in two ways: Firstly, the removal of terminal phosphate to form adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate, with the reaction:
Secondly, the removal of a terminal diphosphate to yield adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and pyrophosphate. The latter usually undergoes further cleavage into its two constituent phosphates. This results in biosynthesis reactions, which usually occur in chains, that can be driven in the direction of synthesis when the phosphate bonds have undergone hydrolysis.
Monosaccharides can be linked together by glycosidic bonds, which can be cleaved by hydrolysis. Two, three, several or many monosaccharides thus linked form disaccharides, trisaccharides, oligosaccharides, or polysaccharides, respectively. Enzymes that hydrolyze glycosidic bonds are called "glycoside hydrolases" or "glycosidases".
The best-known disaccharide is sucrose (table sugar). Hydrolysis of sucrose yields glucose and fructose. Invertase is a sucrase used industrially for the hydrolysis of sucrose to so-called invert sugar. Lactase is essential for digestive hydrolysis of lactose in milk; many adult humans do not produce lactase and cannot digest the lactose in milk.
The hydrolysis of polysaccharides to soluble sugars can be recognized as saccharification. Malt made from barley is used as a source of β-amylase to break down starch into the disaccharide maltose, which can be used by yeast to produce beer. Other amylase enzymes may convert starch to glucose or to oligosaccharides. Cellulose is first hydrolyzed to cellobiose by cellulase and then cellobiose is further hydrolyzed to glucose by beta-glucosidase. Ruminants such as cows are able to hydrolyze cellulose into cellobiose and then glucose because of symbiotic bacteria that produce cellulases.
Hydrolysis of DNA occurs at a significant rate in vivo. For example, it is estimated that in each human cell 2,000 to 10,000 DNA purine bases turn over every day due to hydrolytic depurination, and that this is largely counteracted by specific rapid DNA repair processes. Hydrolytic DNA damages that fail to be accurately repaired may contribute to carcinogenesis and ageing.
Metal ions are Lewis acids, and in aqueous solution they form metal aquo complexes of the general formula M(H2O)n. The aqua ions undergo hydrolysis, to a greater or lesser extent. The first hydrolysis step is given generically as
Thus the aqua cations behave as acids in terms of Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory. This effect is easily explained by considering the inductive effect of the positively charged metal ion, which weakens the O−H bond of an attached water molecule, making the liberation of a proton relatively easy.
The dissociation constant, pKa, for this reaction is more or less linearly related to the charge-to-size ratio of the metal ion. Ions with low charges, such as Na are very weak acids with almost imperceptible hydrolysis. Large divalent ions such as Ca, Zn, Sn and Pb have a pKa of 6 or more and would not normally be classed as acids, but small divalent ions such as Be undergo extensive hydrolysis. Trivalent ions like Al and Fe are weak acids whose pKa is comparable to that of acetic acid. Solutions of salts such as BeCl2 or Al(NO3)3 in water are noticeably acidic; the hydrolysis can be suppressed by adding an acid such as nitric acid, making the solution more acidic.
Hydrolysis may proceed beyond the first step, often with the formation of polynuclear species via the process of olation. Some "exotic" species such as Sn3(OH)2+4 are well characterized. Hydrolysis tends to proceed as pH rises leading, in many cases, to the precipitation of a hydroxide such as Al(OH)3 or AlO(OH). These substances, major constituents of bauxite, are known as laterites and are formed by leaching from rocks of most of the ions other than aluminium and iron and subsequent hydrolysis of the remaining aluminium and iron.
Acetals, imines, and enamines can be converted back into ketones by treatment with excess water under acid-catalyzed conditions: RO·OR−H3O−O; NR·H3O−O; RNR−H3O−O. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hydrolysis (/haɪˈdrɒlɪsɪs/; from Ancient Greek hydro- 'water', and lysis 'to unbind') is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g., sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose), this is recognized as saccharification.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hydrolysis reactions can be the reverse of a condensation reaction in which two molecules join into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Usually hydrolysis is a chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance. Sometimes this addition causes both the substance and water molecule to split into two parts. In such reactions, one fragment of the target molecule (or parent molecule) gains a hydrogen ion. It breaks a chemical bond in the compound.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A common kind of hydrolysis occurs when a salt of a weak acid or weak base (or both) is dissolved in water. Water spontaneously ionizes into hydroxide anions and hydronium cations. The salt also dissociates into its constituent anions and cations. For example, sodium acetate dissociates in water into sodium and acetate ions. Sodium ions react very little with the hydroxide ions whereas the acetate ions combine with hydronium ions to produce acetic acid. In this case the net result is a relative excess of hydroxide ions, yielding a basic solution.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Strong acids also undergo hydrolysis. For example, dissolving sulfuric acid (H2SO4) in water is accompanied by hydrolysis to give hydronium and bisulfate, the sulfuric acid's conjugate base. For a more technical discussion of what occurs during such a hydrolysis, see Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Acid–base-catalysed hydrolyses are very common; one example is the hydrolysis of amides or esters. Their hydrolysis occurs when the nucleophile (a nucleus-seeking agent, e.g., water or hydroxyl ion) attacks the carbon of the carbonyl group of the ester or amide. In an aqueous base, hydroxyl ions are better nucleophiles than polar molecules such as water. In acids, the carbonyl group becomes protonated, and this leads to a much easier nucleophilic attack. The products for both hydrolyses are compounds with carboxylic acid groups.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Perhaps the oldest commercially practiced example of ester hydrolysis is saponification (formation of soap). It is the hydrolysis of a triglyceride (fat) with an aqueous base such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH). During the process, glycerol is formed, and the fatty acids react with the base, converting them to salts. These salts are called soaps, commonly used in households.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In addition, in living systems, most biochemical reactions (including ATP hydrolysis) take place during the catalysis of enzymes. The catalytic action of enzymes allows the hydrolysis of proteins, fats, oils, and carbohydrates. As an example, one may consider proteases (enzymes that aid digestion by causing hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins). They catalyze the hydrolysis of interior peptide bonds in peptide chains, as opposed to exopeptidases (another class of enzymes, that catalyze the hydrolysis of terminal peptide bonds, liberating one free amino acid at a time).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "However, proteases do not catalyze the hydrolysis of all kinds of proteins. Their action is stereo-selective: Only proteins with a certain tertiary structure are targeted as some kind of orienting force is needed to place the amide group in the proper position for catalysis. The necessary contacts between an enzyme and its substrates (proteins) are created because the enzyme folds in such a way as to form a crevice into which the substrate fits; the crevice also contains the catalytic groups. Therefore, proteins that do not fit into the crevice will not undergo hydrolysis. This specificity preserves the integrity of other proteins such as hormones, and therefore the biological system continues to function normally.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Upon hydrolysis, an amide converts into a carboxylic acid and an amine or ammonia (which in the presence of acid are immediately converted to ammonium salts). One of the two oxygen groups on the carboxylic acid are derived from a water molecule and the amine (or ammonia) gains the hydrogen ion. The hydrolysis of peptides gives amino acids.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Many polyamide polymers such as nylon 6,6 hydrolyze in the presence of strong acids. The process leads to depolymerization. For this reason nylon products fail by fracturing when exposed to small amounts of acidic water. Polyesters are also susceptible to similar polymer degradation reactions. The problem is known as environmental stress cracking.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hydrolysis is related to energy metabolism and storage. All living cells require a continual supply of energy for two main purposes: the biosynthesis of micro and macromolecules, and the active transport of ions and molecules across cell membranes. The energy derived from the oxidation of nutrients is not used directly but, by means of a complex and long sequence of reactions, it is channeled into a special energy-storage molecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The ATP molecule contains pyrophosphate linkages (bonds formed when two phosphate units are combined) that release energy when needed. ATP can undergo hydrolysis in two ways: Firstly, the removal of terminal phosphate to form adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate, with the reaction:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Secondly, the removal of a terminal diphosphate to yield adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and pyrophosphate. The latter usually undergoes further cleavage into its two constituent phosphates. This results in biosynthesis reactions, which usually occur in chains, that can be driven in the direction of synthesis when the phosphate bonds have undergone hydrolysis.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Monosaccharides can be linked together by glycosidic bonds, which can be cleaved by hydrolysis. Two, three, several or many monosaccharides thus linked form disaccharides, trisaccharides, oligosaccharides, or polysaccharides, respectively. Enzymes that hydrolyze glycosidic bonds are called \"glycoside hydrolases\" or \"glycosidases\".",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The best-known disaccharide is sucrose (table sugar). Hydrolysis of sucrose yields glucose and fructose. Invertase is a sucrase used industrially for the hydrolysis of sucrose to so-called invert sugar. Lactase is essential for digestive hydrolysis of lactose in milk; many adult humans do not produce lactase and cannot digest the lactose in milk.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The hydrolysis of polysaccharides to soluble sugars can be recognized as saccharification. Malt made from barley is used as a source of β-amylase to break down starch into the disaccharide maltose, which can be used by yeast to produce beer. Other amylase enzymes may convert starch to glucose or to oligosaccharides. Cellulose is first hydrolyzed to cellobiose by cellulase and then cellobiose is further hydrolyzed to glucose by beta-glucosidase. Ruminants such as cows are able to hydrolyze cellulose into cellobiose and then glucose because of symbiotic bacteria that produce cellulases.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hydrolysis of DNA occurs at a significant rate in vivo. For example, it is estimated that in each human cell 2,000 to 10,000 DNA purine bases turn over every day due to hydrolytic depurination, and that this is largely counteracted by specific rapid DNA repair processes. Hydrolytic DNA damages that fail to be accurately repaired may contribute to carcinogenesis and ageing.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Metal ions are Lewis acids, and in aqueous solution they form metal aquo complexes of the general formula M(H2O)n. The aqua ions undergo hydrolysis, to a greater or lesser extent. The first hydrolysis step is given generically as",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Thus the aqua cations behave as acids in terms of Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory. This effect is easily explained by considering the inductive effect of the positively charged metal ion, which weakens the O−H bond of an attached water molecule, making the liberation of a proton relatively easy.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The dissociation constant, pKa, for this reaction is more or less linearly related to the charge-to-size ratio of the metal ion. Ions with low charges, such as Na are very weak acids with almost imperceptible hydrolysis. Large divalent ions such as Ca, Zn, Sn and Pb have a pKa of 6 or more and would not normally be classed as acids, but small divalent ions such as Be undergo extensive hydrolysis. Trivalent ions like Al and Fe are weak acids whose pKa is comparable to that of acetic acid. Solutions of salts such as BeCl2 or Al(NO3)3 in water are noticeably acidic; the hydrolysis can be suppressed by adding an acid such as nitric acid, making the solution more acidic.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Hydrolysis may proceed beyond the first step, often with the formation of polynuclear species via the process of olation. Some \"exotic\" species such as Sn3(OH)2+4 are well characterized. Hydrolysis tends to proceed as pH rises leading, in many cases, to the precipitation of a hydroxide such as Al(OH)3 or AlO(OH). These substances, major constituents of bauxite, are known as laterites and are formed by leaching from rocks of most of the ions other than aluminium and iron and subsequent hydrolysis of the remaining aluminium and iron.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Acetals, imines, and enamines can be converted back into ketones by treatment with excess water under acid-catalyzed conditions: RO·OR−H3O−O; NR·H3O−O; RNR−H3O−O.",
"title": "Types"
}
]
| Hydrolysis is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile. Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis, this is recognized as saccharification. Hydrolysis reactions can be the reverse of a condensation reaction in which two molecules join into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water. | 2002-01-04T21:30:02Z | 2023-10-29T19:20:11Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolysis |
14,386 | Hydroxy group | In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula −OH and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydroxy groups. Both the negatively charged anion HO, called hydroxide, and the neutral radical HO·, known as the hydroxyl radical, consist of an unbonded hydroxy group.
According to IUPAC definitions, the term hydroxyl refers to the hydroxyl radical (·OH) only, while the functional group −OH is called a hydroxy group.
Water, alcohols, carboxylic acids, and many other hydroxy-containing compounds can be readily deprotonated due to a large difference between the electronegativity of oxygen (3.5) and that of hydrogen (2.1). Hydroxy-containing compounds engage in intermolecular hydrogen bonding increasing the electrostatic attraction between molecules and thus to higher boiling and melting points than found for compounds that lack this functional group. Organic compounds, which are often poorly soluble in water, become water-soluble when they contain two or more hydroxy groups, as illustrated by sugars and amino acid.
The hydroxy group is pervasive in chemistry and biochemistry. Many inorganic compounds contain hydroxyl groups, including sulfuric acid, the chemical compound produced on the largest scale industrially.
Hydroxy groups participate in the dehydration reactions that link simple biological molecules into long chains. The joining of a fatty acid to glycerol to form a triacylglycerol removes the −OH from the carboxy end of the fatty acid. The joining of two aldehyde sugars to form a disaccharide removes the −OH from the carboxy group at the aldehyde end of one sugar. The creation of a peptide bond to link two amino acids to make a protein removes the −OH from the carboxy group of one amino acid.
Hydroxyl radicals are highly reactive and undergo chemical reactions that make them short-lived. When biological systems are exposed to hydroxyl radicals, they can cause damage to cells, including those in humans, where they can react with DNA, lipids, and proteins.
The Earth's night sky is illuminated by diffuse light, called airglow, that is produced by radiative transitions of atoms and molecules. Among the most intense such features observed in the Earth's night sky is a group of infrared transitions at wavelengths between 700 nanometers and 900 nanometers. In 1950, Aden Meinel showed that these were transitions of the hydroxyl molecule, OH.
In 2009, India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Cassini spacecraft and Deep Impact probe each detected evidence of water by evidence of hydroxyl fragments on the Moon. As reported by Richard Kerr, "A spectrometer [the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, also known as "M3"] detected an infrared absorption at a wavelength of 3.0 micrometers that only water or hydroxyl—a hydrogen and an oxygen bound together—could have created." NASA also reported in 2009 that the LCROSS probe revealed an ultraviolet emission spectrum consistent with hydroxyl presence.
On 26 October 2020, NASA reported definitive evidence of water on the sunlit surface of the Moon, in the vicinity of the crater Clavius (crater), obtained by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The SOFIA Faint Object infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) detected emission bands at a wavelength of 6.1 micrometers that are present in water but not in hydroxyl. The abundance of water on the Moon's surface was inferred to be equivalent to the contents of a 12-ounce bottle of water per cubic meter of lunar soil.
The Chang'e 5 probe, which landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, carried a mineralogical spectrometer that could measure infrared reflectance spectra of lunar rock and regolith. The reflectance spectrum of a rock sample at a wavelength of 2.85 micrometers indicated localized water/hydroxyl concentrations as high as 180 parts per million.
The Venus Express orbiter collected Venus science data from April 2006 until December 2014. In 2008, Piccioni, et al. reported measurements of night-side airglow emission in the atmosphere of Venus made with the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on Venus Express. They attributed emission bands in wavelength ranges of 1.40 - 1.49 micrometers and 2.6 - 3.14 micrometers to vibrational transitions of OH. This was the first evidence for OH in the atmosphere of any planet other than Earth's.
In 2013, OH near-infrared spectra were observed in the night glow in the polar winter atmosphere of Mars by use of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).
In 2021, evidence for OH in the dayside atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-33b was found in its emission spectrum at wavelengths between 1 and 2 micrometers. Evidence for OH in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-76b was found subsequently. Both WASP-33b and WASP-76b are Ultra-hot Jupiters and it is likely that the water molecule is dissociated in their atmospheres. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula −OH and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydroxy groups. Both the negatively charged anion HO, called hydroxide, and the neutral radical HO·, known as the hydroxyl radical, consist of an unbonded hydroxy group.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "According to IUPAC definitions, the term hydroxyl refers to the hydroxyl radical (·OH) only, while the functional group −OH is called a hydroxy group.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Water, alcohols, carboxylic acids, and many other hydroxy-containing compounds can be readily deprotonated due to a large difference between the electronegativity of oxygen (3.5) and that of hydrogen (2.1). Hydroxy-containing compounds engage in intermolecular hydrogen bonding increasing the electrostatic attraction between molecules and thus to higher boiling and melting points than found for compounds that lack this functional group. Organic compounds, which are often poorly soluble in water, become water-soluble when they contain two or more hydroxy groups, as illustrated by sugars and amino acid.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The hydroxy group is pervasive in chemistry and biochemistry. Many inorganic compounds contain hydroxyl groups, including sulfuric acid, the chemical compound produced on the largest scale industrially.",
"title": "Occurrence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hydroxy groups participate in the dehydration reactions that link simple biological molecules into long chains. The joining of a fatty acid to glycerol to form a triacylglycerol removes the −OH from the carboxy end of the fatty acid. The joining of two aldehyde sugars to form a disaccharide removes the −OH from the carboxy group at the aldehyde end of one sugar. The creation of a peptide bond to link two amino acids to make a protein removes the −OH from the carboxy group of one amino acid.",
"title": "Occurrence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hydroxyl radicals are highly reactive and undergo chemical reactions that make them short-lived. When biological systems are exposed to hydroxyl radicals, they can cause damage to cells, including those in humans, where they can react with DNA, lipids, and proteins.",
"title": "Hydroxyl radical"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Earth's night sky is illuminated by diffuse light, called airglow, that is produced by radiative transitions of atoms and molecules. Among the most intense such features observed in the Earth's night sky is a group of infrared transitions at wavelengths between 700 nanometers and 900 nanometers. In 1950, Aden Meinel showed that these were transitions of the hydroxyl molecule, OH.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 2009, India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Cassini spacecraft and Deep Impact probe each detected evidence of water by evidence of hydroxyl fragments on the Moon. As reported by Richard Kerr, \"A spectrometer [the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, also known as \"M3\"] detected an infrared absorption at a wavelength of 3.0 micrometers that only water or hydroxyl—a hydrogen and an oxygen bound together—could have created.\" NASA also reported in 2009 that the LCROSS probe revealed an ultraviolet emission spectrum consistent with hydroxyl presence.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On 26 October 2020, NASA reported definitive evidence of water on the sunlit surface of the Moon, in the vicinity of the crater Clavius (crater), obtained by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The SOFIA Faint Object infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) detected emission bands at a wavelength of 6.1 micrometers that are present in water but not in hydroxyl. The abundance of water on the Moon's surface was inferred to be equivalent to the contents of a 12-ounce bottle of water per cubic meter of lunar soil.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Chang'e 5 probe, which landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, carried a mineralogical spectrometer that could measure infrared reflectance spectra of lunar rock and regolith. The reflectance spectrum of a rock sample at a wavelength of 2.85 micrometers indicated localized water/hydroxyl concentrations as high as 180 parts per million.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Venus Express orbiter collected Venus science data from April 2006 until December 2014. In 2008, Piccioni, et al. reported measurements of night-side airglow emission in the atmosphere of Venus made with the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on Venus Express. They attributed emission bands in wavelength ranges of 1.40 - 1.49 micrometers and 2.6 - 3.14 micrometers to vibrational transitions of OH. This was the first evidence for OH in the atmosphere of any planet other than Earth's.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 2013, OH near-infrared spectra were observed in the night glow in the polar winter atmosphere of Mars by use of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).",
"title": "Planetary observations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 2021, evidence for OH in the dayside atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-33b was found in its emission spectrum at wavelengths between 1 and 2 micrometers. Evidence for OH in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-76b was found subsequently. Both WASP-33b and WASP-76b are Ultra-hot Jupiters and it is likely that the water molecule is dissociated in their atmospheres.",
"title": "Planetary observations"
}
]
| In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula −OH and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydroxy groups. Both the negatively charged anion HO−, called hydroxide, and the neutral radical HO·, known as the hydroxyl radical, consist of an unbonded hydroxy group. According to IUPAC definitions, the term hydroxyl refers to the hydroxyl radical (·OH) only, while the functional group −OH is called a hydroxy group. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-11T01:48:08Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxy_group |
14,387 | Warm-blooded | Warm-blooded is an informal term referring to animal species whose bodies maintain a temperature higher than that of their environment. In particular, homeothermic species (including birds and mammals) maintain a stable body temperature by regulating metabolic processes. Other species have various degrees of thermoregulation.
As there are more than two categories of temperature control utilized by animals, the terms warm-blooded and cold-blooded have been deprecated in the scientific field.
In general, warm-bloodedness refers to three separate categories of thermoregulation.
A significant proportion of creatures commonly referred to as "warm-blooded," like birds and mammals, exhibit all three of these categories (i.e., they are endothermic, homeothermic, and tachymetabolic). However, over the past three decades, investigations in the field of animal thermophysiology have unveiled numerous species within these two groups that do not meet all these criteria. For instance, many bats and small birds become poikilothermic and bradymetabolic during sleep (or, in nocturnal species, during the day). For such creatures, the term heterothermy was introduced.
Further examinations of animals traditionally classified as cold-blooded have revealed that most creatures manifest varying combinations of the three aforementioned terms, along with their counterparts (ectothermy, poikilothermy, and bradymetabolism), thus creating a broad spectrum of body temperature types. Some fish have warm-blooded characteristics, such as the opah. Swordfish and some sharks have circulatory mechanisms that keep their brains and eyes above ambient temperatures and thus increase their ability to detect and react to prey. Tunas and some sharks have similar mechanisms in their muscles, improving their stamina when swimming at high speed.
Body heat is generated by metabolism. This involves to the chemical reaction in cells that break down glucose into water and carbon dioxide, thereby producing adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a high-energy compound used to power other cellular processes. Muscle contraction is one such metabolic process generating heat energy, and additional heat results from friction as blood circulates through the vascular system.
All organisms metabolize food and other inputs, but some make better use of the output than others. Like all energy conversions, metabolism is rather inefficient, and around 60% of the available energy is converted to heat rather than to ATP. In most organisms, this heat dissipates into the surroundings. However, endothermic homeotherms (generally referred to as "warm-blooded" animals) not only produce more heat but also possess superior means of retaining and regulating it compared to other animals. They exhibit a higher basal metabolic rate and can further increase their metabolic rate during strenuous activity. They usually have well-developed insulation in order to retain body heat: fur and blubber in the case of mammals and feathers in birds. When this insulation is insufficient to maintain body temperature, they may resort to shivering—rapid muscle contractions that quickly use up ATP, thus stimulating cellular metabolism to replace it and consequently produce more heat. Additionally, almost all eutherian mammals have brown adipose tissue whose mitochondria are capable of non-shivering thermogenesis. This process involves the direct dissipation of the mitochondrial gradient as heat via an uncoupling protein, thereby "uncoupling" the gradient from its usual function of driving ATP production via ATP synthase.
In warm environments, these animals employ evaporative cooling to shed excess heat, either through sweating (some mammals) or by panting (many mammals and all birds)—mechanisms generally absent in poikilotherms.
It has been hypothesized that warm-bloodedness evolved in mammals and birds as a defense against fungal infections. Very few fungi can survive the body temperatures of warm-blooded animals. By comparison, insects, reptiles, and amphibians are plagued by fungal infections. Warm-blooded animals have a defense against pathogens contracted from the environment, since environmental pathogens are not adapted to their higher internal temperature.
Footnotes
Citations | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Warm-blooded is an informal term referring to animal species whose bodies maintain a temperature higher than that of their environment. In particular, homeothermic species (including birds and mammals) maintain a stable body temperature by regulating metabolic processes. Other species have various degrees of thermoregulation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "As there are more than two categories of temperature control utilized by animals, the terms warm-blooded and cold-blooded have been deprecated in the scientific field.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In general, warm-bloodedness refers to three separate categories of thermoregulation.",
"title": "Terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A significant proportion of creatures commonly referred to as \"warm-blooded,\" like birds and mammals, exhibit all three of these categories (i.e., they are endothermic, homeothermic, and tachymetabolic). However, over the past three decades, investigations in the field of animal thermophysiology have unveiled numerous species within these two groups that do not meet all these criteria. For instance, many bats and small birds become poikilothermic and bradymetabolic during sleep (or, in nocturnal species, during the day). For such creatures, the term heterothermy was introduced.",
"title": "Varieties of Thermoregulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Further examinations of animals traditionally classified as cold-blooded have revealed that most creatures manifest varying combinations of the three aforementioned terms, along with their counterparts (ectothermy, poikilothermy, and bradymetabolism), thus creating a broad spectrum of body temperature types. Some fish have warm-blooded characteristics, such as the opah. Swordfish and some sharks have circulatory mechanisms that keep their brains and eyes above ambient temperatures and thus increase their ability to detect and react to prey. Tunas and some sharks have similar mechanisms in their muscles, improving their stamina when swimming at high speed.",
"title": "Varieties of Thermoregulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Body heat is generated by metabolism. This involves to the chemical reaction in cells that break down glucose into water and carbon dioxide, thereby producing adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a high-energy compound used to power other cellular processes. Muscle contraction is one such metabolic process generating heat energy, and additional heat results from friction as blood circulates through the vascular system.",
"title": "Heat generation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "All organisms metabolize food and other inputs, but some make better use of the output than others. Like all energy conversions, metabolism is rather inefficient, and around 60% of the available energy is converted to heat rather than to ATP. In most organisms, this heat dissipates into the surroundings. However, endothermic homeotherms (generally referred to as \"warm-blooded\" animals) not only produce more heat but also possess superior means of retaining and regulating it compared to other animals. They exhibit a higher basal metabolic rate and can further increase their metabolic rate during strenuous activity. They usually have well-developed insulation in order to retain body heat: fur and blubber in the case of mammals and feathers in birds. When this insulation is insufficient to maintain body temperature, they may resort to shivering—rapid muscle contractions that quickly use up ATP, thus stimulating cellular metabolism to replace it and consequently produce more heat. Additionally, almost all eutherian mammals have brown adipose tissue whose mitochondria are capable of non-shivering thermogenesis. This process involves the direct dissipation of the mitochondrial gradient as heat via an uncoupling protein, thereby \"uncoupling\" the gradient from its usual function of driving ATP production via ATP synthase.",
"title": "Heat generation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In warm environments, these animals employ evaporative cooling to shed excess heat, either through sweating (some mammals) or by panting (many mammals and all birds)—mechanisms generally absent in poikilotherms.",
"title": "Heat generation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "It has been hypothesized that warm-bloodedness evolved in mammals and birds as a defense against fungal infections. Very few fungi can survive the body temperatures of warm-blooded animals. By comparison, insects, reptiles, and amphibians are plagued by fungal infections. Warm-blooded animals have a defense against pathogens contracted from the environment, since environmental pathogens are not adapted to their higher internal temperature.",
"title": "Defense against fungi"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Footnotes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Citations",
"title": "References"
}
]
| Warm-blooded is an informal term referring to animal species whose bodies maintain a temperature higher than that of their environment. In particular, homeothermic species maintain a stable body temperature by regulating metabolic processes. Other species have various degrees of thermoregulation. As there are more than two categories of temperature control utilized by animals, the terms warm-blooded and cold-blooded have been deprecated in the scientific field. | 2002-01-04T22:07:22Z | 2023-12-28T20:15:09Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm-blooded |
14,388 | Hephaestus | Hephaestus (/hɪˈfiːstəs, hɪˈfɛstəs/; eight spellings; Greek: Ἥφαιστος, translit. Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances (in which case his lameness would have been the result of his fall rather than the reason for it).
As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centres of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus's symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.
Hephaestus is probably associated with the Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) inscription 𐀀𐀞𐀂𐀴𐀍, A-pa-i-ti-jo, found at Knossos. The inscription indirectly attests his worship at that time because it is believed that it reads the theophoric name (H)āpʰaistios, or Hāphaistion. The Greek theonym Hēphaistos is most likely of Pre-Greek origin, as the form without -i- (Attic Hēphastos) shows a typical Pre-Greek variation and points to an original s.
Hephaestus is given many epithets. The meaning of each epithet is:
Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Achilles' armour, Diomedes' cuirass, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros's bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes, Steropes and Arges.
He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide. In some versions of the myth, Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaestus's forge. Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.
According to Homer, Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him or others. This included tripods with golden wheels, able to move at his wish in and out the assembly hall of the celestials; and servant "handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids", in them was "understanding in their hearts, and speech and strength", gift of the gods. They moved to support Hephaestus while walking. And he put golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders, guard dogs that didn't age nor perish.
A similar golden dog (Κυων Χρυσεος) was set by Rhea to guard the infant Zeus and his nurse, the goat Amaltheia, on the island of Krete. Later Tantalus was said to have stolen the automata when it guarded Zeus' temple, or to have persuaded Pandareos to steal it for him. Later texts attempt to replace the automaton with the idea that the golden dog was actually Rhea, transformed in that way by Hephaestus.
In the account of Attic vase painters, Hephaestus was present at the birth of Athena and wields the axe with which he split Zeus' head to free her. In the latter account, Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena, so the mythology of Hephaestus is inconsistent in this respect.
In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because of his congenital impairment. He fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis (mother of Achilles and one of the 50 Nereids) and the Oceanid Eurynome.
In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus' advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus. He fell for an entire day and landed on the island of Lemnos, where he was cared for and taught to be a master craftsman by the Sintians – an ancient tribe native to that island. Later writers describe his physical disability as the consequence of his second fall, while Homer makes him disabled from his birth.
Hephaestus was one of the Olympians to have returned to Olympus after being exiled.
In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne, which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to stand up again. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go, but he refused, saying "I have no mother".
It was Ares who undertook the task of fetching Hephaestus at first, but he was threatened by the fire god with torches. At last, Dionysus, the god of wine, fetched him, intoxicated him with wine, and took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers – a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and of Corinth. In the painted scenes, the padded dancers and phallic figures of the Dionysan throng leading the mule show that the procession was a part of the dithyrambic celebrations that were the forerunners of the satyr plays of fifth century Athens.
According to Hyginus, Zeus promised anything to Hephaestus in order to free Hera, and he asked for the hand of Athena in marriage (urged by Poseidon who was hostile toward her), leading to his attempted rape of her. In another version, he demanded to be married to Aphrodite in order to release Hera, and his mother fulfilled the request.
The theme of the return of Hephaestus, popular among the Attic vase-painters whose wares were favored among the Etruscans, may have introduced this theme to Etruria. In the vase-painters' portrayal of the procession, Hephaestus was mounted on a mule or a horse, with Dionysus holding the bridle and carrying Hephaestus' tools (including a double-headed axe).
The traveller Pausanias reported seeing a painting in the temple of Dionysus in Athens, which had been built in the 5th century but may have been decorated at any time before the 2nd century CE. When Pausanias saw it, he said:
There are paintings here – Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. One of the Greek legends is that Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge he sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hera sat down she was held fast, and Hephaestus refused to listen to any other of the gods except Dionysus – in him he reposed the fullest trust – and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to heaven.
Though married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus discovered Aphrodite's affair through Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable chain-link net so small as to be invisible and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution.
The gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine or that he would pay it himself. Hephaestus states in The Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price. The Emily Wilson translation depicts Hephaestus demanding/imploring Zeus before Poseidon offers, however, leading the reader to assume Zeus did not give back the "price" Hephaestus paid for his daughter and was thus why Poseidon intervened. Some versions of the myth state that Zeus did not return the dowry, and in fact Aphrodite "simply charmed her way back again into her husband’s good graces." In the Iliad, Hephaestus is presented as divorced from Aphrodite, and now married to the Grace Aglaea. In the Theogony, Aglaea is presented as Hephaestus' mate with no apparent mention of any marriage to Aphrodite.
In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon, by their door to warn them of Helios's arrival as he suspected that Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus, as Ares in rage turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows at dawn when the sun is about to rise announcing its arrival.
The Thebans told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced Harmonia. However, of the union of Hephaestus with Aphrodite, there was no issue unless Virgil was serious when he said that Eros was their child. Later authors explain this statement by saying that Eros was sired by Ares but passed off to Hephaestus as his own son. Because Harmonia was conceived during Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus, for revenge, on Harmonia's wedding day to Cadmus Hephaestus gifted her with a finely worked but cursed necklace that brought immense suffering to her descendants, culminating with the story of Oedipus.
Hephaestus was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek Phrygian and Thracian mystery cult of the Kabeiroi, who were also called the Hephaistoi, "the Hephaestus-men", in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god.
Hephaestus is to the male gods as Athena is to the female, for he gives skill to mortal artists and was believed to have taught men the arts alongside Athena. At Athens, they had temples and festivals in common. Both were believed to have great healing powers, and Lemnian earth (terra Lemnia) from the spot on which Hephaestus had fallen was believed to cure madness, the bites of snakes, and haemorrhage; and priests of Hephaestus knew how to cure wounds inflicted by snakes.
He was represented in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus (Athena of the Bronze House) at Sparta, in the act of delivering his mother; on the chest of Cypselus, giving Achilles's armor to Thetis; and at Athens there was the famous statue of Hephaestus by Alcamenes, in which his physical disability was only subtly portrayed. He had almost "no cults except in Athens" and was possibly seen as a more approachable god to the city which shared her namesake. The Greeks frequently placed miniature statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations. During the best period of Grecian art he was represented as a vigorous man with a beard, and is characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton.
Athena is sometimes thought to be the "soulmate" of Hephaestus. Nonetheless, he "seeks impetuously and passionately to make love to Athena: at the moment of climax she pushes him aside, and his semen falls to the earth where it impregnates Gaia."
Some state that his origin myth was that of a "daemon of fire coming up from the earth"—that he was also associated with gas "which takes fire and burns [and] is considered by many people to be divine" and that only later was a volcano considered Hephaestus's smithy.
Hephaestus was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus (of Mount Etna) and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus".
Nevertheless, Hephaestus’ domain over fire goes back to Homer’s Iliad, where he uses flames to dry the waters of Scamandrus river and force its homonym deity, who was attacking Achilles, to retreat.
In the Trojan war, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks, but was also worshiped by the Trojans and saved one of their men from being killed by Diomedes. Hephaestus' favourite place in the mortal world was the island of Lemnos, where he liked to dwell among the Sintians, but he also frequented other volcanic islands such as Lipari, Hiera, Imbros and Sicily, which were called his abodes or workshops.
Hephaestus fought against the Giants and killed Mimas by throwing molten iron at him. He also fought another Giant, Aristaeus, but he fled. During the battle Hephaestus fell down exhausted, and was picked up by Helios in his chariot. As a gift of gratitude, Hephaestus forged four ever-flowing fountains and fire-breathing bulls for Helios' son Aeëtes.
The epithets and surnames by which Hephaestus is known by the poets generally allude to his skill in the plastic arts or to his figure or disability. The Greeks frequently placed miniature statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations.
At the marriage of Peleus and Thetis he gave a knife as a wedding present.
According to most versions, Hephaestus's consort is Aphrodite, who is unfaithful to Hephaestus with a number of gods and mortals, including Ares. However, in Book XVIII of Homer's Iliad, the consort of Hephaestus is Charis ("the grace") or Aglaia ("the glorious") – the youngest of the Graces, as Hesiod calls her.
Károly Kerényi notes that "charis" also means "the delightfulness of art" and supposes that Aphrodite is viewed as a work of art, speculating that Aphrodite could also have been called Charis as an alternative name, for in the Odyssey Homer suddenly makes her his wife.
In Athens, there is a Temple of Hephaestus, the Hephaesteum (miscalled the "Theseum") near the agora. An Athenian founding myth tells that the city's patron goddess, Athena, refused a union with Hephaestus. Pseudo-Apollodorus records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust, impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius, whom Athena adopted as her own child. The Roman mythographer Hyginus records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born. Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married, but, when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius.
On the island of Lemnos, Hephaestus' consort was the sea nymph Cabeiro, by whom he was the father of two metalworking gods named the Cabeiri. In Sicily, his consort was the nymph Aetna, and his sons were two gods of Sicilian geysers called Palici. With Thalia, Hephaestus was sometimes considered the father of the Palici.
Hephaestus fathered several children with mortals and immortals alike. One of those children was the robber Periphetes.
In addition, the Romans claim their equivalent god, Vulcan, to have produced the following children:
Hephaestus was sometimes portrayed as a vigorous man with a beard and was characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton.
Hephaestus is described in mythological sources as "lame" (chōlos), and "halting" (ēpedanos). He was depicted with curved feet, an impairment he had either from birth or as a result of his fall from Olympus. In vase paintings, Hephaestus is sometimes shown bent over his anvil, hard at work on a metal creation, and sometimes his feet are curved back-to-front: Hephaistos amphigyēeis. He walked with the aid of a stick. The Argonaut Palaimonius, "son of Hephaestus" (i.e. a bronze-smith) also had a mobility impairment.
Other "sons of Hephaestus" were the Cabeiri on the island of Samothrace, who were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius. The adjective karkinopous ("crab-footed") signified "lame", according to Detienne and Vernant. The Cabeiri were also physically disabled.
In some myths, Hephaestus built himself a "wheeled chair" or chariot with which to move around, thus helping support his mobility while demonstrating his skill to the other gods. In the Iliad 18.371, it is stated that Hephaestus built twenty bronze wheeled tripods to assist him in moving around.
Hephaestus's appearance and physical disability are taken by some to represent peripheral neuropathy and skin cancer resulting from arsenicosis caused by arsenic exposure from metalworking. Bronze Age smiths added arsenic to copper to produce harder arsenical bronze, especially during periods of tin scarcity. Many Bronze Age smiths would have suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning as a result of their livelihood. Consequently, the mythic image of the disabled smith is widespread. As Hephaestus was an iron-age smith, not a bronze-age smith, the connection is one from ancient folk memory.
Parallels in other mythological systems for Hephaestus's symbolism include:
Solinus wrote that the Lycians dedicated a city to Hephaestus and called it Hephaestia. The Hephaestia in Lemnos was named after the god. In addition, the whole island of Lemnos was sacred to Hephaestus.
Pausanias wrote that the Lycians in Patara had a bronze bowl in their temple of Apollo, saying that Telephus dedicated it and Hephaestus made it.
Pausanias also wrote that the village of Olympia in Elis contained an altar to the river Alpheios, next to which was an altar to Hephaestus sometimes referred to as the altar of "Warlike Zeus."
The island Thermessa, between Lipari and Sicily was also called Hiera of Hephaestus (ἱερὰ Ἡφαίστου), meaning sacred place of Hephaestus in Greek.
Pliny the Elder wrote that at Corycus there was a stone which was called Hephaestitis or Hephaestus stone. According to Pliny, the stone was red and was reflecting images like a mirror, and when boiling water poured over it cooled immediately or alternatively when it placed in the sun it immediately set fire to a parched substance.
The minor planet 2212 Hephaistos discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh was named in Hephaestus' honour. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hephaestus (/hɪˈfiːstəs, hɪˈfɛstəs/; eight spellings; Greek: Ἥφαιστος, translit. Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances (in which case his lameness would have been the result of his fall rather than the reason for it).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centres of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus's symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hephaestus is probably associated with the Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) inscription 𐀀𐀞𐀂𐀴𐀍, A-pa-i-ti-jo, found at Knossos. The inscription indirectly attests his worship at that time because it is believed that it reads the theophoric name (H)āpʰaistios, or Hāphaistion. The Greek theonym Hēphaistos is most likely of Pre-Greek origin, as the form without -i- (Attic Hēphastos) shows a typical Pre-Greek variation and points to an original s.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hephaestus is given many epithets. The meaning of each epithet is:",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Achilles' armour, Diomedes' cuirass, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros's bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes, Steropes and Arges.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide. In some versions of the myth, Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaestus's forge. Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "According to Homer, Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him or others. This included tripods with golden wheels, able to move at his wish in and out the assembly hall of the celestials; and servant \"handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids\", in them was \"understanding in their hearts, and speech and strength\", gift of the gods. They moved to support Hephaestus while walking. And he put golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders, guard dogs that didn't age nor perish.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A similar golden dog (Κυων Χρυσεος) was set by Rhea to guard the infant Zeus and his nurse, the goat Amaltheia, on the island of Krete. Later Tantalus was said to have stolen the automata when it guarded Zeus' temple, or to have persuaded Pandareos to steal it for him. Later texts attempt to replace the automaton with the idea that the golden dog was actually Rhea, transformed in that way by Hephaestus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the account of Attic vase painters, Hephaestus was present at the birth of Athena and wields the axe with which he split Zeus' head to free her. In the latter account, Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena, so the mythology of Hephaestus is inconsistent in this respect.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because of his congenital impairment. He fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis (mother of Achilles and one of the 50 Nereids) and the Oceanid Eurynome.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus' advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus. He fell for an entire day and landed on the island of Lemnos, where he was cared for and taught to be a master craftsman by the Sintians – an ancient tribe native to that island. Later writers describe his physical disability as the consequence of his second fall, while Homer makes him disabled from his birth.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hephaestus was one of the Olympians to have returned to Olympus after being exiled.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne, which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to stand up again. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go, but he refused, saying \"I have no mother\".",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "It was Ares who undertook the task of fetching Hephaestus at first, but he was threatened by the fire god with torches. At last, Dionysus, the god of wine, fetched him, intoxicated him with wine, and took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers – a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and of Corinth. In the painted scenes, the padded dancers and phallic figures of the Dionysan throng leading the mule show that the procession was a part of the dithyrambic celebrations that were the forerunners of the satyr plays of fifth century Athens.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "According to Hyginus, Zeus promised anything to Hephaestus in order to free Hera, and he asked for the hand of Athena in marriage (urged by Poseidon who was hostile toward her), leading to his attempted rape of her. In another version, he demanded to be married to Aphrodite in order to release Hera, and his mother fulfilled the request.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The theme of the return of Hephaestus, popular among the Attic vase-painters whose wares were favored among the Etruscans, may have introduced this theme to Etruria. In the vase-painters' portrayal of the procession, Hephaestus was mounted on a mule or a horse, with Dionysus holding the bridle and carrying Hephaestus' tools (including a double-headed axe).",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The traveller Pausanias reported seeing a painting in the temple of Dionysus in Athens, which had been built in the 5th century but may have been decorated at any time before the 2nd century CE. When Pausanias saw it, he said:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "There are paintings here – Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. One of the Greek legends is that Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge he sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hera sat down she was held fast, and Hephaestus refused to listen to any other of the gods except Dionysus – in him he reposed the fullest trust – and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to heaven.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Though married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus discovered Aphrodite's affair through Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable chain-link net so small as to be invisible and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine or that he would pay it himself. Hephaestus states in The Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price. The Emily Wilson translation depicts Hephaestus demanding/imploring Zeus before Poseidon offers, however, leading the reader to assume Zeus did not give back the \"price\" Hephaestus paid for his daughter and was thus why Poseidon intervened. Some versions of the myth state that Zeus did not return the dowry, and in fact Aphrodite \"simply charmed her way back again into her husband’s good graces.\" In the Iliad, Hephaestus is presented as divorced from Aphrodite, and now married to the Grace Aglaea. In the Theogony, Aglaea is presented as Hephaestus' mate with no apparent mention of any marriage to Aphrodite.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon, by their door to warn them of Helios's arrival as he suspected that Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus, as Ares in rage turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows at dawn when the sun is about to rise announcing its arrival.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Thebans told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced Harmonia. However, of the union of Hephaestus with Aphrodite, there was no issue unless Virgil was serious when he said that Eros was their child. Later authors explain this statement by saying that Eros was sired by Ares but passed off to Hephaestus as his own son. Because Harmonia was conceived during Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus, for revenge, on Harmonia's wedding day to Cadmus Hephaestus gifted her with a finely worked but cursed necklace that brought immense suffering to her descendants, culminating with the story of Oedipus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Hephaestus was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek Phrygian and Thracian mystery cult of the Kabeiroi, who were also called the Hephaistoi, \"the Hephaestus-men\", in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Hephaestus is to the male gods as Athena is to the female, for he gives skill to mortal artists and was believed to have taught men the arts alongside Athena. At Athens, they had temples and festivals in common. Both were believed to have great healing powers, and Lemnian earth (terra Lemnia) from the spot on which Hephaestus had fallen was believed to cure madness, the bites of snakes, and haemorrhage; and priests of Hephaestus knew how to cure wounds inflicted by snakes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "He was represented in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus (Athena of the Bronze House) at Sparta, in the act of delivering his mother; on the chest of Cypselus, giving Achilles's armor to Thetis; and at Athens there was the famous statue of Hephaestus by Alcamenes, in which his physical disability was only subtly portrayed. He had almost \"no cults except in Athens\" and was possibly seen as a more approachable god to the city which shared her namesake. The Greeks frequently placed miniature statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations. During the best period of Grecian art he was represented as a vigorous man with a beard, and is characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Athena is sometimes thought to be the \"soulmate\" of Hephaestus. Nonetheless, he \"seeks impetuously and passionately to make love to Athena: at the moment of climax she pushes him aside, and his semen falls to the earth where it impregnates Gaia.\"",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Some state that his origin myth was that of a \"daemon of fire coming up from the earth\"—that he was also associated with gas \"which takes fire and burns [and] is considered by many people to be divine\" and that only later was a volcano considered Hephaestus's smithy.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Hephaestus was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus (of Mount Etna) and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, \"there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus\".",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Nevertheless, Hephaestus’ domain over fire goes back to Homer’s Iliad, where he uses flames to dry the waters of Scamandrus river and force its homonym deity, who was attacking Achilles, to retreat.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In the Trojan war, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks, but was also worshiped by the Trojans and saved one of their men from being killed by Diomedes. Hephaestus' favourite place in the mortal world was the island of Lemnos, where he liked to dwell among the Sintians, but he also frequented other volcanic islands such as Lipari, Hiera, Imbros and Sicily, which were called his abodes or workshops.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Hephaestus fought against the Giants and killed Mimas by throwing molten iron at him. He also fought another Giant, Aristaeus, but he fled. During the battle Hephaestus fell down exhausted, and was picked up by Helios in his chariot. As a gift of gratitude, Hephaestus forged four ever-flowing fountains and fire-breathing bulls for Helios' son Aeëtes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The epithets and surnames by which Hephaestus is known by the poets generally allude to his skill in the plastic arts or to his figure or disability. The Greeks frequently placed miniature statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "At the marriage of Peleus and Thetis he gave a knife as a wedding present.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "According to most versions, Hephaestus's consort is Aphrodite, who is unfaithful to Hephaestus with a number of gods and mortals, including Ares. However, in Book XVIII of Homer's Iliad, the consort of Hephaestus is Charis (\"the grace\") or Aglaia (\"the glorious\") – the youngest of the Graces, as Hesiod calls her.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Károly Kerényi notes that \"charis\" also means \"the delightfulness of art\" and supposes that Aphrodite is viewed as a work of art, speculating that Aphrodite could also have been called Charis as an alternative name, for in the Odyssey Homer suddenly makes her his wife.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In Athens, there is a Temple of Hephaestus, the Hephaesteum (miscalled the \"Theseum\") near the agora. An Athenian founding myth tells that the city's patron goddess, Athena, refused a union with Hephaestus. Pseudo-Apollodorus records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust, impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius, whom Athena adopted as her own child. The Roman mythographer Hyginus records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born. Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married, but, when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "On the island of Lemnos, Hephaestus' consort was the sea nymph Cabeiro, by whom he was the father of two metalworking gods named the Cabeiri. In Sicily, his consort was the nymph Aetna, and his sons were two gods of Sicilian geysers called Palici. With Thalia, Hephaestus was sometimes considered the father of the Palici.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Hephaestus fathered several children with mortals and immortals alike. One of those children was the robber Periphetes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In addition, the Romans claim their equivalent god, Vulcan, to have produced the following children:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Hephaestus was sometimes portrayed as a vigorous man with a beard and was characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Hephaestus is described in mythological sources as \"lame\" (chōlos), and \"halting\" (ēpedanos). He was depicted with curved feet, an impairment he had either from birth or as a result of his fall from Olympus. In vase paintings, Hephaestus is sometimes shown bent over his anvil, hard at work on a metal creation, and sometimes his feet are curved back-to-front: Hephaistos amphigyēeis. He walked with the aid of a stick. The Argonaut Palaimonius, \"son of Hephaestus\" (i.e. a bronze-smith) also had a mobility impairment.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Other \"sons of Hephaestus\" were the Cabeiri on the island of Samothrace, who were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius. The adjective karkinopous (\"crab-footed\") signified \"lame\", according to Detienne and Vernant. The Cabeiri were also physically disabled.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In some myths, Hephaestus built himself a \"wheeled chair\" or chariot with which to move around, thus helping support his mobility while demonstrating his skill to the other gods. In the Iliad 18.371, it is stated that Hephaestus built twenty bronze wheeled tripods to assist him in moving around.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hephaestus's appearance and physical disability are taken by some to represent peripheral neuropathy and skin cancer resulting from arsenicosis caused by arsenic exposure from metalworking. Bronze Age smiths added arsenic to copper to produce harder arsenical bronze, especially during periods of tin scarcity. Many Bronze Age smiths would have suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning as a result of their livelihood. Consequently, the mythic image of the disabled smith is widespread. As Hephaestus was an iron-age smith, not a bronze-age smith, the connection is one from ancient folk memory.",
"title": "Symbolism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Parallels in other mythological systems for Hephaestus's symbolism include:",
"title": "Comparative mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Solinus wrote that the Lycians dedicated a city to Hephaestus and called it Hephaestia. The Hephaestia in Lemnos was named after the god. In addition, the whole island of Lemnos was sacred to Hephaestus.",
"title": "Worship"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Pausanias wrote that the Lycians in Patara had a bronze bowl in their temple of Apollo, saying that Telephus dedicated it and Hephaestus made it.",
"title": "Worship"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Pausanias also wrote that the village of Olympia in Elis contained an altar to the river Alpheios, next to which was an altar to Hephaestus sometimes referred to as the altar of \"Warlike Zeus.\"",
"title": "Worship"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The island Thermessa, between Lipari and Sicily was also called Hiera of Hephaestus (ἱερὰ Ἡφαίστου), meaning sacred place of Hephaestus in Greek.",
"title": "Worship"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Pliny the Elder wrote that at Corycus there was a stone which was called Hephaestitis or Hephaestus stone. According to Pliny, the stone was red and was reflecting images like a mirror, and when boiling water poured over it cooled immediately or alternatively when it placed in the sun it immediately set fire to a parched substance.",
"title": "Namesakes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The minor planet 2212 Hephaistos discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh was named in Hephaestus' honour.",
"title": "Namesakes"
}
]
| Hephaestus is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances. As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centres of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus's symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-10T18:12:05Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus |
14,389 | Herman Charles Bosman | {{Infobox writer | image = HC Bosman.jpg | caption = Herman Charles Bosman | birth_name = | birth_date = (1905-02-03)February 3, 1905 Herman Charles Bosman (3 February 1905 – 14 October 1951) is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English-language works utilize primarily Afrikaner characters and highlight the many contradictions in Afrikaner society during the first half of the twentieth century.
Bosman was born at Kuils River, near Cape Town, in the Cape Colony, to an Afrikaner family. He was raised with English as well as Afrikaans. While Bosman was still young, his family travelled frequently, he spent a short time at Potchefstroom College which would later become Potchefstroom High School for Boys, he later moved to Johannesburg where he went to school at Jeppe High School for Boys in Kensington. While there he contributed to the school magazine. When Bosman was sixteen, he started writing short stories for the national Sunday newspaper (the Sunday Times). He attended the Johannesburg College of Education (which in 2002 was incorporated into the University of the Witwatersrand) and submitted various pieces to student literary competitions.
After graduation, Bosman accepted a teaching position in the Groot Marico district in an Afrikaans-language school. The area provided the backdrop for his best-known short stories, the Oom Schalk Lourens series (featuring an older character named Oom Schalk Lourens) and the Voorkamer sketches.
Over the June school holidays in 1926, Bosman visited his family in Johannesburg. During an argument, he shot and killed his stepbrother. Bosman was sentenced to death for this crime and was sent to death row at the Pretoria Central Prison. His sentence was later reduced to ten years with hard labour. In 1930, Bosman was released on parole after serving half his sentence. His prison experiences formed the basis for his semi-autobiographical book, Cold Stone Jug.
Bosman then started his own printing-press company and was part of a literary set in Johannesburg, associating with poets, journalists and writers, including Aegidius Jean Blignaut. He toured overseas for nine years, spending most of his time in London. The short stories that he wrote during this period formed the basis for another of his best-known books, Mafeking Road. At the start of the Second World War, he returned to South Africa and worked as a journalist. During this time he translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into Afrikaans.
Bosman lamented the fact that Johannesburg neglected its heritage. In The Standard Theatre he complained that the city's residents:
"will pull down the Standard Theatre like they have pulled down all the old buildings, theatres, gin-palaces, dosshouses, temples, shops, arcades, cafes and joints that were intimately associated with the mining-camp days of Johannesburg. Because I know Johannesburg. And I am satisfied that there is no other city in the world that is so anxious to shake off the memories of its early origins."
Bosman's second wife was Ella Manson. The couple were renowned for their bohemian lifestyle and parties, which featured witty conversation and usually ended well after midnight.
From 1948 to his death in 1951, Bosman was employed as proof editor at The Sunday Express. In addition, he was contracted to write a weekly Voorkamer story for The Forum magazine.
His last wife was Helena Lake (née Stegmann). After a housewarming party in October 1951, Bosman experienced severe chest pains and was taken to Edenvale Hospital. On admission, he was asked for his birthplace. He replied, "Born Kuilsrivier – Died Edenvale Hospital." He was discharged and collapsed at home a few hours later. Bosman died as he was being rushed to hospital. He is buried in Westpark Cemetery in Westdene under a triangular headstone that reads "Die Skrywer, The Writer, Herman Charles Bosman, b 3.2.1905, d 14.10.1951."
After his death, the rights to his works were auctioned. They were purchased by his last wife, Helena, and upon her death, the rights were passed to her son, who retains them. In 1960, however, Helena sold some of his documents and 123 of his water colours and pencil sketches to the Harry Ransom Center in Texas.
Only three of his books were published during his lifetime: Mafeking Road published by Dassie, and Jacaranda in the Night and Cold Stone Jug published by APB. Mafeking Road has never been out of print since its publication in 1947.
His biography was written several times by Valerie Rosenberg. Her first effort was called Sunflower to the Sun, followed by Herman Charles Bosman, a Pictorial Biography, and most recently by Herman Charles Bosman: Between the Lines. The last of these contains much new research and deals in detail with aspects of Bosman's life and parentage that were previously considered taboo.
Because many of his stories were originally published in long-forgotten magazines and journals, there are a number of anthologies by different collators each containing a different selection. His original books have also been published many times by different publishers.
The Herman Charles Bosman Literary Society meets annually for readings, performances and discussions of his works. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "{{Infobox writer | image = HC Bosman.jpg | caption = Herman Charles Bosman | birth_name = | birth_date = (1905-02-03)February 3, 1905 Herman Charles Bosman (3 February 1905 – 14 October 1951) is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English-language works utilize primarily Afrikaner characters and highlight the many contradictions in Afrikaner society during the first half of the twentieth century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Bosman was born at Kuils River, near Cape Town, in the Cape Colony, to an Afrikaner family. He was raised with English as well as Afrikaans. While Bosman was still young, his family travelled frequently, he spent a short time at Potchefstroom College which would later become Potchefstroom High School for Boys, he later moved to Johannesburg where he went to school at Jeppe High School for Boys in Kensington. While there he contributed to the school magazine. When Bosman was sixteen, he started writing short stories for the national Sunday newspaper (the Sunday Times). He attended the Johannesburg College of Education (which in 2002 was incorporated into the University of the Witwatersrand) and submitted various pieces to student literary competitions.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "After graduation, Bosman accepted a teaching position in the Groot Marico district in an Afrikaans-language school. The area provided the backdrop for his best-known short stories, the Oom Schalk Lourens series (featuring an older character named Oom Schalk Lourens) and the Voorkamer sketches.",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Over the June school holidays in 1926, Bosman visited his family in Johannesburg. During an argument, he shot and killed his stepbrother. Bosman was sentenced to death for this crime and was sent to death row at the Pretoria Central Prison. His sentence was later reduced to ten years with hard labour. In 1930, Bosman was released on parole after serving half his sentence. His prison experiences formed the basis for his semi-autobiographical book, Cold Stone Jug.",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Bosman then started his own printing-press company and was part of a literary set in Johannesburg, associating with poets, journalists and writers, including Aegidius Jean Blignaut. He toured overseas for nine years, spending most of his time in London. The short stories that he wrote during this period formed the basis for another of his best-known books, Mafeking Road. At the start of the Second World War, he returned to South Africa and worked as a journalist. During this time he translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into Afrikaans.",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Bosman lamented the fact that Johannesburg neglected its heritage. In The Standard Theatre he complained that the city's residents:",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "\"will pull down the Standard Theatre like they have pulled down all the old buildings, theatres, gin-palaces, dosshouses, temples, shops, arcades, cafes and joints that were intimately associated with the mining-camp days of Johannesburg. Because I know Johannesburg. And I am satisfied that there is no other city in the world that is so anxious to shake off the memories of its early origins.\"",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Bosman's second wife was Ella Manson. The couple were renowned for their bohemian lifestyle and parties, which featured witty conversation and usually ended well after midnight.",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "From 1948 to his death in 1951, Bosman was employed as proof editor at The Sunday Express. In addition, he was contracted to write a weekly Voorkamer story for The Forum magazine.",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "His last wife was Helena Lake (née Stegmann). After a housewarming party in October 1951, Bosman experienced severe chest pains and was taken to Edenvale Hospital. On admission, he was asked for his birthplace. He replied, \"Born Kuilsrivier – Died Edenvale Hospital.\" He was discharged and collapsed at home a few hours later. Bosman died as he was being rushed to hospital. He is buried in Westpark Cemetery in Westdene under a triangular headstone that reads \"Die Skrywer, The Writer, Herman Charles Bosman, b 3.2.1905, d 14.10.1951.\"",
"title": "Career and adult life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "After his death, the rights to his works were auctioned. They were purchased by his last wife, Helena, and upon her death, the rights were passed to her son, who retains them. In 1960, however, Helena sold some of his documents and 123 of his water colours and pencil sketches to the Harry Ransom Center in Texas.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Only three of his books were published during his lifetime: Mafeking Road published by Dassie, and Jacaranda in the Night and Cold Stone Jug published by APB. Mafeking Road has never been out of print since its publication in 1947.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "His biography was written several times by Valerie Rosenberg. Her first effort was called Sunflower to the Sun, followed by Herman Charles Bosman, a Pictorial Biography, and most recently by Herman Charles Bosman: Between the Lines. The last of these contains much new research and deals in detail with aspects of Bosman's life and parentage that were previously considered taboo.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Because many of his stories were originally published in long-forgotten magazines and journals, there are a number of anthologies by different collators each containing a different selection. His original books have also been published many times by different publishers.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Herman Charles Bosman Literary Society meets annually for readings, performances and discussions of his works.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| {{Infobox writer | image = HC Bosman.jpg
| caption = Herman Charles Bosman
| birth_name = | birth_date = February 3, 1905
Herman Charles Bosman is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire. His English-language works utilize primarily Afrikaner characters and highlight the many contradictions in Afrikaner society during the first half of the twentieth century. | 2002-01-06T01:43:44Z | 2023-11-03T22:38:51Z | [
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"Template:ISBN",
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"Template:Webarchive",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Use South African English",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Cite news",
"Template:Authority control",
"Template:Citation needed"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Charles_Bosman |
14,390 | Hungarian | Hungarian may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hungarian may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
]
| Hungarian may refer to: Hungary, a country in Central Europe
Kingdom of Hungary, state of Hungary, existing between 1000 and 1946
Hungarians, ethnic groups in Hungary
Hungarian algorithm, a polynomial time algorithm for solving the assignment problem
Hungarian language, a Finno-Ugric language spoken in Hungary and all neighbouring countries
Hungarian notation, a naming convention in computer programming
Hungarian cuisine, the cuisine of Hungary and the Hungarians | 2002-01-07T15:27:03Z | 2023-11-03T18:13:40Z | [
"Template:Lookfrom",
"Template:Intitle",
"Template:Disambiguation"
]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian |
14,392 | Howitzer | The howitzer (/ˈhaʊ.ɪtsər/) is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon and a mortar. With their long-range capabilities, howitzers can be used to great effect in a battery formation with other artillery pieces, such as long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery.
The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, 'crowd', and houf is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word Hūfe or Houfe (modern German Haufen), meaning 'crowd, throng'. While -nice is a Czech nominal suffix. Haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German.
In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s, the Hussites used short-barreled houfnice cannons to fire at short distances into crowds of infantry, or into charging heavy cavalry, to make horses shy away. The word was rendered into German as aufeniz in the earliest attested use in a document dating from 1440; later German renderings include haussnitz and, eventually haubitze, from which derive the Scandinavian haubits, Polish and Serbo-Croatian haubica, Estonian haubits, Finnish haupitsi, Russian gaubitsa (гаубица), Ukrainian haubytsіa (гаубиця), Italian obice, Spanish obús, Portuguese obus, French obusier, Romanian obuzier and the Dutch word houwitser, which led to the English word howitzer.
Since World War I, the word howitzer has been changing to describe artillery pieces that previously would have belonged to the category of gun-howitzers – relatively long barrels and high muzzle velocities combined with multiple propelling charges and high maximum elevations. This is particularly true in the armed forces of the United States, where gun-howitzers have been officially described as howitzers since World War II. Because of this practice, the word howitzer is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire. Thus, artillery pieces that bear little resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as howitzers, although the British call them guns.
The British had a further method of nomenclature. In the 18th century, they adopted projectile weight for guns replacing an older naming system (such as culverin, saker, etc.) that had developed in the late 15th century. Mortars had been categorized by calibre in inches in the 17th century, and this was duplicated with howitzers.
U.S. military doctrine defines howitzers as any cannon artillery capable of both high-angle fire (45° to 90° elevation) and low-angle fire (0° to 45° elevation); guns are defined as being only capable of low-angle fire (0° to 45° elevation); and mortars are defined as being only capable of high-angle fire (45° to 90° elevation).
The first artillery identified as howitzers developed in the late 16th century as a medium-trajectory weapon between that of the flat trajectory (direct fire) of cannon and the high trajectory (indirect fire) of mortars. Originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In contrast to contemporaneous mortars, which were fired at a fixed angle and were entirely dependent on adjustments to the size of propellant charges to vary range, howitzers could be fired at a wide variety of angles. Thus, while howitzer gunnery was more complicated than the technique of employing mortars, the howitzer was an inherently more flexible weapon that could fire its projectiles along a wide range of trajectories.
In the middle of the 18th century, a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were mobile enough to accompany armies in the field. Though usually fired at the relatively high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers, these field howitzers were rarely defined by this capability. Rather, as the field guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles (which relied entirely on momentum for their destructive effects), the field howitzers of the 18th century were chiefly valued for their ability to fire explosive shells. Many, for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire, dispensed with adjustable propellant charges.
The Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire. In 1758, the Russian Empire introduced a specific type of howitzer (or rather gun-howitzer), with a conical chamber, called a licorne, which remained in service for the next 100 years. In the mid-19th century, some armies attempted to simplify their artillery parks by introducing smoothbore artillery pieces that were designed to fire both explosive projectiles and cannonballs, thereby replacing both field howitzers and field guns. The most famous of these "gun-howitzers" was the Napoleon 12-pounder, a weapon of French design that was extensively used in the American Civil War.
In 1859, the armies of Europe (including those that had recently adopted gun-howitzers) began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns. These field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that, while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers, could carry a comparable charge of gunpowder. Moreover, their greater range let them create many of the same effects (such as firing over low walls) that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers. Because of this, military authorities saw no point in obtaining rifled field howitzers to replace their smoothbore counterparts but instead used rifled field guns to replace both guns and howitzers.
In siege warfare, the introduction of rifling had the opposite effect. In the 1860s, artillery officers discovered that rifled siege howitzers (substantially larger than field howitzers) were a more efficient means of destroying walls (particularly walls protected by certain kinds of intervening obstacles) than smoothbore siege guns or siege mortars. Thus, at the same time armies were taking howitzers of one sort out of their field batteries, they were introducing howitzers of another sort into their siege trains and fortresses. The lightest of these weapons (later known as "light siege howitzers") had calibers around 150 mm and fired shells that weighed between 40 and 50 kilograms. The heaviest (later called "medium siege howitzers") had calibers between 200 mm and 220 mm and fired shells that weighed about 100 kilograms (220 pounds).
During the 1880s, a third type of siege howitzer was added to inventories of a number of European armies. With calibers that ranged between 240 mm and 270 mm and shells that weighed more than 150 kilograms, these soon came to be known as "heavy siege howitzers". A good example of a weapon of this class is provided by the 9.45-inch (240 mm) weapon that the British Army purchased from the Skoda works in 1899.
In the early 20th century, the introduction of howitzers that were significantly larger than the heavy siege howitzers of the day made necessary the creation of a fourth category, that of "super-heavy siege howitzers". Weapons of this category include the famous Big Bertha of the German Army and the 15-inch (381 mm) howitzer of the British Royal Marine Artillery. These large howitzers were transported mechanically rather than by teams of horses. They were transported as several loads and had to be assembled at their firing position.
These field howitzers introduced at the end of the 19th century could fire shells with high trajectories giving a steep angle of descent and, as a result, could strike targets that were protected by intervening obstacles. They could also fire shells that were about twice as large as shells fired by guns of the same size. Thus, while a 75 mm field gun that weighed one ton or so was limited to shells that weigh around 8 kg, a 105 mm howitzer of the same weight could fire 15 kg shells. This is a matter of fundamental mechanics affecting the stability and hence the weight of the carriage.
As heavy field howitzers and light siege howitzers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used ammunition of the same size and types, there was a marked tendency for the two types to merge. At first, this was largely a matter of the same basic weapon being employed on two different mountings. Later, as on-carriage recoil-absorbing systems eliminated many of the advantages that siege platforms had enjoyed over field carriages, the same combination of barrel assembly, recoil mechanism and carriage was used in both roles.
By the early 20th century, the differences between guns and howitzers were relative, not absolute, and generally recognized as follows:
The onset of trench warfare after the first few months of the World War I greatly increased the demand for howitzers that gave a steep angle of descent, which were better suited than guns to the task of striking targets in a vertical plane (such as trenches), with large amounts of explosive and considerably less barrel wear. The German army was well equipped with howitzers, having far more at the beginning of the war than France.
Many howitzers introduced in the course of World War I had longer barrels than pre-war howitzers. The standard German light field howitzer at the start of the war (the 10.5 cm leichte Feldhaubitze 98/09) had a barrel that was 16 calibers long, but the light field howitzer adopted by the German Army in 1916 (105 mm leichte Feldhaubitze 16) had a barrel that was 22 calibers long. At the same time, new models of field gun introduced during that conflict, such as the 77 mm field gun adopted by the German Army in 1916 (7,7 cm Feldkanone 16) were often provided with carriages that allowed firing at comparatively high angles, and adjustable propellant cartridges.
In the years after World War I, the tendency of guns and howitzers to acquire each other's characteristics led to the renaissance of the concept of the gun-howitzer. This was a product of technical advances such as the French invention of autofrettage just before World War I, which led to stronger and lighter barrels, the use of cut-off gear to control recoil length depending on firing elevation angle, and the invention of muzzle brakes to reduce recoil forces. Like the gun-howitzers of the 19th century, those of the 20th century replaced both guns and howitzers. Thus, the 25-pounder "gun-howitzer" of the British Army replaced both the 18-pounder field gun and the 4.5-inch howitzer.
During World War II, the military doctrine of Soviet deep battle called for extensive use of heavy artillery to hold the formal line of front. Soviet doctrine was remarkably different from the German doctrine of Blitzkrieg and called for a far more extensive use of artillery. As a result, howitzers saw most of the action on the Eastern front. Most of the howitzers produced by the USSR at the time were not self-propelled. Notable examples of Soviet howitzers include the M-10, M-30 and D-1.
Since World War II, most of the artillery pieces adopted by armies for attacking targets on land have combined the traditional characteristics of guns and howitzers – high muzzle velocity, long barrels, long range, multiple charges and maximum elevation angles greater than 45 degrees. The term "gun-howitzer" is sometimes used for these (e.g., in Russia); many nations use "howitzer", while the UK (and most members of The Commonwealth of Nations) calls them "guns", for example Gun, 105 mm, Field, L118. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The howitzer (/ˈhaʊ.ɪtsər/) is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon and a mortar. With their long-range capabilities, howitzers can be used to great effect in a battery formation with other artillery pieces, such as long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, 'crowd', and houf is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word Hūfe or Houfe (modern German Haufen), meaning 'crowd, throng'. While -nice is a Czech nominal suffix. Haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s, the Hussites used short-barreled houfnice cannons to fire at short distances into crowds of infantry, or into charging heavy cavalry, to make horses shy away. The word was rendered into German as aufeniz in the earliest attested use in a document dating from 1440; later German renderings include haussnitz and, eventually haubitze, from which derive the Scandinavian haubits, Polish and Serbo-Croatian haubica, Estonian haubits, Finnish haupitsi, Russian gaubitsa (гаубица), Ukrainian haubytsіa (гаубиця), Italian obice, Spanish obús, Portuguese obus, French obusier, Romanian obuzier and the Dutch word houwitser, which led to the English word howitzer.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Since World War I, the word howitzer has been changing to describe artillery pieces that previously would have belonged to the category of gun-howitzers – relatively long barrels and high muzzle velocities combined with multiple propelling charges and high maximum elevations. This is particularly true in the armed forces of the United States, where gun-howitzers have been officially described as howitzers since World War II. Because of this practice, the word howitzer is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire. Thus, artillery pieces that bear little resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as howitzers, although the British call them guns.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The British had a further method of nomenclature. In the 18th century, they adopted projectile weight for guns replacing an older naming system (such as culverin, saker, etc.) that had developed in the late 15th century. Mortars had been categorized by calibre in inches in the 17th century, and this was duplicated with howitzers.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "U.S. military doctrine defines howitzers as any cannon artillery capable of both high-angle fire (45° to 90° elevation) and low-angle fire (0° to 45° elevation); guns are defined as being only capable of low-angle fire (0° to 45° elevation); and mortars are defined as being only capable of high-angle fire (45° to 90° elevation).",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The first artillery identified as howitzers developed in the late 16th century as a medium-trajectory weapon between that of the flat trajectory (direct fire) of cannon and the high trajectory (indirect fire) of mortars. Originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In contrast to contemporaneous mortars, which were fired at a fixed angle and were entirely dependent on adjustments to the size of propellant charges to vary range, howitzers could be fired at a wide variety of angles. Thus, while howitzer gunnery was more complicated than the technique of employing mortars, the howitzer was an inherently more flexible weapon that could fire its projectiles along a wide range of trajectories.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the middle of the 18th century, a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were mobile enough to accompany armies in the field. Though usually fired at the relatively high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers, these field howitzers were rarely defined by this capability. Rather, as the field guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles (which relied entirely on momentum for their destructive effects), the field howitzers of the 18th century were chiefly valued for their ability to fire explosive shells. Many, for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire, dispensed with adjustable propellant charges.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire. In 1758, the Russian Empire introduced a specific type of howitzer (or rather gun-howitzer), with a conical chamber, called a licorne, which remained in service for the next 100 years. In the mid-19th century, some armies attempted to simplify their artillery parks by introducing smoothbore artillery pieces that were designed to fire both explosive projectiles and cannonballs, thereby replacing both field howitzers and field guns. The most famous of these \"gun-howitzers\" was the Napoleon 12-pounder, a weapon of French design that was extensively used in the American Civil War.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1859, the armies of Europe (including those that had recently adopted gun-howitzers) began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns. These field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that, while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers, could carry a comparable charge of gunpowder. Moreover, their greater range let them create many of the same effects (such as firing over low walls) that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers. Because of this, military authorities saw no point in obtaining rifled field howitzers to replace their smoothbore counterparts but instead used rifled field guns to replace both guns and howitzers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In siege warfare, the introduction of rifling had the opposite effect. In the 1860s, artillery officers discovered that rifled siege howitzers (substantially larger than field howitzers) were a more efficient means of destroying walls (particularly walls protected by certain kinds of intervening obstacles) than smoothbore siege guns or siege mortars. Thus, at the same time armies were taking howitzers of one sort out of their field batteries, they were introducing howitzers of another sort into their siege trains and fortresses. The lightest of these weapons (later known as \"light siege howitzers\") had calibers around 150 mm and fired shells that weighed between 40 and 50 kilograms. The heaviest (later called \"medium siege howitzers\") had calibers between 200 mm and 220 mm and fired shells that weighed about 100 kilograms (220 pounds).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "During the 1880s, a third type of siege howitzer was added to inventories of a number of European armies. With calibers that ranged between 240 mm and 270 mm and shells that weighed more than 150 kilograms, these soon came to be known as \"heavy siege howitzers\". A good example of a weapon of this class is provided by the 9.45-inch (240 mm) weapon that the British Army purchased from the Skoda works in 1899.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the early 20th century, the introduction of howitzers that were significantly larger than the heavy siege howitzers of the day made necessary the creation of a fourth category, that of \"super-heavy siege howitzers\". Weapons of this category include the famous Big Bertha of the German Army and the 15-inch (381 mm) howitzer of the British Royal Marine Artillery. These large howitzers were transported mechanically rather than by teams of horses. They were transported as several loads and had to be assembled at their firing position.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "These field howitzers introduced at the end of the 19th century could fire shells with high trajectories giving a steep angle of descent and, as a result, could strike targets that were protected by intervening obstacles. They could also fire shells that were about twice as large as shells fired by guns of the same size. Thus, while a 75 mm field gun that weighed one ton or so was limited to shells that weigh around 8 kg, a 105 mm howitzer of the same weight could fire 15 kg shells. This is a matter of fundamental mechanics affecting the stability and hence the weight of the carriage.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "As heavy field howitzers and light siege howitzers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used ammunition of the same size and types, there was a marked tendency for the two types to merge. At first, this was largely a matter of the same basic weapon being employed on two different mountings. Later, as on-carriage recoil-absorbing systems eliminated many of the advantages that siege platforms had enjoyed over field carriages, the same combination of barrel assembly, recoil mechanism and carriage was used in both roles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "By the early 20th century, the differences between guns and howitzers were relative, not absolute, and generally recognized as follows:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The onset of trench warfare after the first few months of the World War I greatly increased the demand for howitzers that gave a steep angle of descent, which were better suited than guns to the task of striking targets in a vertical plane (such as trenches), with large amounts of explosive and considerably less barrel wear. The German army was well equipped with howitzers, having far more at the beginning of the war than France.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Many howitzers introduced in the course of World War I had longer barrels than pre-war howitzers. The standard German light field howitzer at the start of the war (the 10.5 cm leichte Feldhaubitze 98/09) had a barrel that was 16 calibers long, but the light field howitzer adopted by the German Army in 1916 (105 mm leichte Feldhaubitze 16) had a barrel that was 22 calibers long. At the same time, new models of field gun introduced during that conflict, such as the 77 mm field gun adopted by the German Army in 1916 (7,7 cm Feldkanone 16) were often provided with carriages that allowed firing at comparatively high angles, and adjustable propellant cartridges.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the years after World War I, the tendency of guns and howitzers to acquire each other's characteristics led to the renaissance of the concept of the gun-howitzer. This was a product of technical advances such as the French invention of autofrettage just before World War I, which led to stronger and lighter barrels, the use of cut-off gear to control recoil length depending on firing elevation angle, and the invention of muzzle brakes to reduce recoil forces. Like the gun-howitzers of the 19th century, those of the 20th century replaced both guns and howitzers. Thus, the 25-pounder \"gun-howitzer\" of the British Army replaced both the 18-pounder field gun and the 4.5-inch howitzer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "During World War II, the military doctrine of Soviet deep battle called for extensive use of heavy artillery to hold the formal line of front. Soviet doctrine was remarkably different from the German doctrine of Blitzkrieg and called for a far more extensive use of artillery. As a result, howitzers saw most of the action on the Eastern front. Most of the howitzers produced by the USSR at the time were not self-propelled. Notable examples of Soviet howitzers include the M-10, M-30 and D-1.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Since World War II, most of the artillery pieces adopted by armies for attacking targets on land have combined the traditional characteristics of guns and howitzers – high muzzle velocity, long barrels, long range, multiple charges and maximum elevation angles greater than 45 degrees. The term \"gun-howitzer\" is sometimes used for these (e.g., in Russia); many nations use \"howitzer\", while the UK (and most members of The Commonwealth of Nations) calls them \"guns\", for example Gun, 105 mm, Field, L118.",
"title": "History"
}
]
| The howitzer is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon and a mortar. With their long-range capabilities, howitzers can be used to great effect in a battery formation with other artillery pieces, such as long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery. | 2002-01-08T05:11:57Z | 2023-12-29T22:25:31Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer |
14,395 | Hummer | Hummer (stylized in all caps) is a brand of pickups and SUVs first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. Although discontinued in 2010, Hummer returned as a model under GMC in 2020. In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name from AM General and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the new H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.
By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was questioned. Rather than being transferred to the Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, to investigate its sale. No final deal was made, and in 2010, Hummer dealerships began shutting down.
The nameplate returned to the marketplace for the 2022 model year, not as a separate make brand but as electric pickup truck and SUV models sold under the GMC brand as the "GMC Hummer EV". The pre-production versions of the EV began November 2021 after a $2.2 billion investment to build a variety of all-electric vehicles in GM's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.
AM General had planned to sell a civilian version of its Humvee as far back as the late 1980s. Having the same structure and most mechanical components, the civilian Hummers were finished in automotive gloss paint, adding passenger car enhancements such as air conditioning, sound insulation, upgraded upholstery, stereo systems, wood trim, and convenience packages. The civilian model began in part because of the persistence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who saw an Army convoy while filming Kindergarten Cop in Oregon and began to campaign and lobby for a civilian version to be available on the market.
In 1992, AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee vehicle to the public under the brand name "Hummer". The first two Hummer H1s to be sold were purchased by Schwarzenegger.
In December 1999, AM General sold the brand name to General Motors but continued to manufacture the vehicles. GM was responsible for the marketing and distribution of all civilian Hummers produced by AM General. Shortly thereafter, GM introduced two of its own design models, the H2 and H3, and renamed the original vehicle H1. AM General continued to build the H1 until it was discontinued in 2006 and was contracted by GM to produce the H2. The H3 was built in Shreveport, LA, alongside the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups, with which it shared the GMT-355 platform (modified and designated GMT-345). Hummer dealership buildings featured an oversized half Quonset Hut style roof, themed to the Hummer brand's military origins.
By 2006, the Hummer began to be exported and sold through importers and distributors in 33 countries. On October 10, 2006, GM began producing the Hummer H3 at its Port Elizabeth plant in South Africa for international markets. The Hummers built there at first were only left-hand drive, but right-hand drive versions were added and exported to Australia and other markets.
The H2 was also assembled in Kaliningrad, Russia, by Avtotor, starting in 2006 and ending in 2009. The plant produced a few hundred vehicles annually, and its output was limited to local consumption with five dealers in Russia.
On June 3, 2008, one day prior to GM's annual shareholder meeting, Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO at that time, said the brand was being reviewed and would possibly be sold, have the production line completely redesigned, or be discontinued. This was due to the decreasing demand for large SUVs as a result of higher oil prices. Almost immediately after the announcement, a pair of Indian automakers, including Mahindra & Mahindra, expressed interest in purchasing all or part of Hummer.
In April 2009, GM President Fritz Henderson stated several interested parties had approached GM regarding the Hummer business.
On June 1, 2009, as a part of the General Motors bankruptcy announcement, the company revealed that the Hummer brand would be discontinued. However, the following day GM announced that instead it had reached a deal to sell the brand to an undisclosed buyer. After GM announced that same day that the sale was to an undisclosed Chinese company, CNN and the New York Times identified the buyer of the Hummer truck unit as China-based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd. Later that day, Sichuan Tengzhong itself announced the deal on their own website.
On January 6, 2010, GM CEO Ed Whitacre said he hoped to close the deal with Tengzhong by the end of that month. On February 1, 2010, it was announced that Sichuan and General Motors had agreed to extend the deadline until the end of February as Sichuan tried to get approval by the Chinese government. It was also revealed that the price tag of the Hummer brand was $150 million.
Later, on February 24, 2010, GM announced the Tengzhong deal had collapsed and the Hummer brand would soon shut down. There were reports that Sichuan Tengzhong might pursue the purchase of the Hummer brand from GM by purchasing it privately through the company's new J&A Tengzhong Fund SPC, a private equity investment fund owned by an offshore entity that was recruiting private investors to buy into its acquisition plan. The financial markets posed problems for established borrowers and even more for Tengzhong, a little-known company from western China, at the same time as the potential value of the Hummer brand continued to decline, given high fuel prices and weak consumer demand.
The company announced it was willing to consider offers for all or part of the assets. American company Raser Technologies along with several others expressed interest in buying the company. However, on April 7, 2010, this attempt failed as well, and General Motors officially said it was shutting down the Hummer SUV brand and offering rich rebates in a bid to move the remaining 2,200 vehicles.
After filling a rental-car fleet order, the last Hummer H3 rolled off the line at Shreveport on May 24, 2010.
In mid-2019, rumors began to circulate that General Motors was considering reviving the Hummer nameplate in 2021, as the market for off-road vehicles was reaching historic levels of sales. GM President Mark Ruess was asked about the possible return in the summer of 2019 and said, "I love Hummer. I don't know. We're looking at everything." Credibility to the earlier reporting began to solidify after the conclusion of the 2019 General Motors strike, as contract negotiations led to the commitment by GM of saving its Detroit-Hamtramck facility from closing by investing in and retooling it to build future electric trucks and SUVs; the products were to be built on GM's upcoming "BT1" electric truck platform. GM's own documentation listed three brands as receiving products from the BT1 architecture: Cadillac (presumably an electric Cadillac Escalade), Chevrolet (Silverado EV), and a third unknown brand referred to as the "M-Brand."
Industry insiders claimed they had sources saying that the "M-Brand" was a Hummer, because a revival of the brand with established name recognition would help reduce marketing costs. The Hummer revival on the BT1 platform was known internally as "Project O," potentially named after former Chief Camaro Engineer Al Oppenheiser (the man responsible for the return of the Camaro in 2010), who was moved from Camaro development to overseeing an EV program. Oppenheiser later confirmed this himself. By November 2019, media reports all but confirmed that Hummer would return with two electric models, a truck and an SUV, sometime in 2021. On November 21, 2019, General Motors CEO Mary Barra confirmed that GM would be releasing an electric pickup truck in the fall of 2021, but did not name the brand under which it would be built.
The new Hummer line is not a standalone brand, as it was before General Motors filed for bankruptcy, but a model within GM's GMC brand.
On January 30, 2020, GM released a series of short videos revealing the return of Hummers in the form of electric SUV and truck models marketed under the GMC brand. A 30-second Super Bowl ad featured NBA superstar LeBron James. The vehicle was to be revealed on May 20, 2020, but the date was later pushed back to October 20, 2020.
The Hummer EV SUT was officially revealed on October 20, 2020, during the 2020 World Series. The Hummer EV SUV was unveiled during the NCAA Tournament Final Four on April 3, 2021.
There will be several versions and models under GM brand GMC, with initially only the most expensive "Edition 1" four-door pickup available, followed by other models and later as an SUV.
The first vehicle in the Hummer range was the Hummer H1, based on the Humvee. Released for the civilian market in 1992, this vehicle was designed by American Motors' AM General subsidiary to meet U.S. Military specifications that were issued in 1979. By 1982, Renault (which was partially owned by the French government) took controlling interest in AMC, and the AM General division was sold in 1983 to Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV), because US regulations barred ownership of defense contractors by foreign governments. American Motors itself was acquired by Chrysler in 1987. Production of H1 civilian versions continued throughout 2006.
The Hummer H2 was the second vehicle in the Hummer range built in the AM General facility under contract from General Motors from 2002 to 2009. There were two variations: The H2 SUV and H2 SUT.
The H3 and H3T pickup truck were the smallest of the Hummer models and were based on the GMT355 platform shared with the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon compact pickup trucks. The H3 line was produced from 2005 to 2010 by General Motors.
The Hummer HX was developed in 2008 as an open-air, two-door off-road concept car, smaller than other Hummer models.
Raser Technologies (formerly of Utah) was to use technology similar to that of the Chevrolet Volt. The company unveiled the prototype to the 2009 Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit. The E-REV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) powertrain technology was claimed to power the vehicle for up to 40 miles (64 km) on its battery, and then a small 4-cylinder internal combustion engine would start to generate more electricity.
Team Hummer Racing was created in 1993. Led by off-road racer Rod Hall, Team Hummer competed in the stock classes of both BitD and SCORE, with specialized racing shock absorbers, tires, and other modifications, along with mandatory safety equipment. Team Hummer stock-class H3 was driven by Hall who finished first in class with the H3 in the 2005 Baja 1000. Team Hummer earned 11 production-class wins at the Baja 1000.
A highly modified, two-wheel drive Hummer was raced by Robby Gordon in 2006 (did not finish), 2007 (8th place), 2009 (3rd place), 2010 (8th place), 2011 (did not finish), 2012 (disqualified), and 2013 (14th place) Dakar Rally.
The Hummer H2 has been stretched by third-party companies into a variety of limousine versions. The Hummer H2 was cut behind the cab, and the chassis was extended to create a passenger section for 14, 16, or even 22 passengers.
Criticism of Hummers mirrors the criticism of SUVs in general, but to a higher degree. Specific criticisms of Hummers include:
GM is active in licensing the Hummer. Various companies have licensed the Hummer trademarks for use on colognes, flashlights, bicycles, shoes, coats, hats, laptops, toys, clothing, CD players, video games and other items. An electric quadricycle badged as a Hummer was produced in the UK. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hummer (stylized in all caps) is a brand of pickups and SUVs first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. Although discontinued in 2010, Hummer returned as a model under GMC in 2020. In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name from AM General and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the new H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was questioned. Rather than being transferred to the Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, to investigate its sale. No final deal was made, and in 2010, Hummer dealerships began shutting down.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The nameplate returned to the marketplace for the 2022 model year, not as a separate make brand but as electric pickup truck and SUV models sold under the GMC brand as the \"GMC Hummer EV\". The pre-production versions of the EV began November 2021 after a $2.2 billion investment to build a variety of all-electric vehicles in GM's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "AM General had planned to sell a civilian version of its Humvee as far back as the late 1980s. Having the same structure and most mechanical components, the civilian Hummers were finished in automotive gloss paint, adding passenger car enhancements such as air conditioning, sound insulation, upgraded upholstery, stereo systems, wood trim, and convenience packages. The civilian model began in part because of the persistence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who saw an Army convoy while filming Kindergarten Cop in Oregon and began to campaign and lobby for a civilian version to be available on the market.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1992, AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee vehicle to the public under the brand name \"Hummer\". The first two Hummer H1s to be sold were purchased by Schwarzenegger.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In December 1999, AM General sold the brand name to General Motors but continued to manufacture the vehicles. GM was responsible for the marketing and distribution of all civilian Hummers produced by AM General. Shortly thereafter, GM introduced two of its own design models, the H2 and H3, and renamed the original vehicle H1. AM General continued to build the H1 until it was discontinued in 2006 and was contracted by GM to produce the H2. The H3 was built in Shreveport, LA, alongside the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups, with which it shared the GMT-355 platform (modified and designated GMT-345). Hummer dealership buildings featured an oversized half Quonset Hut style roof, themed to the Hummer brand's military origins.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "By 2006, the Hummer began to be exported and sold through importers and distributors in 33 countries. On October 10, 2006, GM began producing the Hummer H3 at its Port Elizabeth plant in South Africa for international markets. The Hummers built there at first were only left-hand drive, but right-hand drive versions were added and exported to Australia and other markets.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The H2 was also assembled in Kaliningrad, Russia, by Avtotor, starting in 2006 and ending in 2009. The plant produced a few hundred vehicles annually, and its output was limited to local consumption with five dealers in Russia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "On June 3, 2008, one day prior to GM's annual shareholder meeting, Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO at that time, said the brand was being reviewed and would possibly be sold, have the production line completely redesigned, or be discontinued. This was due to the decreasing demand for large SUVs as a result of higher oil prices. Almost immediately after the announcement, a pair of Indian automakers, including Mahindra & Mahindra, expressed interest in purchasing all or part of Hummer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In April 2009, GM President Fritz Henderson stated several interested parties had approached GM regarding the Hummer business.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "On June 1, 2009, as a part of the General Motors bankruptcy announcement, the company revealed that the Hummer brand would be discontinued. However, the following day GM announced that instead it had reached a deal to sell the brand to an undisclosed buyer. After GM announced that same day that the sale was to an undisclosed Chinese company, CNN and the New York Times identified the buyer of the Hummer truck unit as China-based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd. Later that day, Sichuan Tengzhong itself announced the deal on their own website.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On January 6, 2010, GM CEO Ed Whitacre said he hoped to close the deal with Tengzhong by the end of that month. On February 1, 2010, it was announced that Sichuan and General Motors had agreed to extend the deadline until the end of February as Sichuan tried to get approval by the Chinese government. It was also revealed that the price tag of the Hummer brand was $150 million.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Later, on February 24, 2010, GM announced the Tengzhong deal had collapsed and the Hummer brand would soon shut down. There were reports that Sichuan Tengzhong might pursue the purchase of the Hummer brand from GM by purchasing it privately through the company's new J&A Tengzhong Fund SPC, a private equity investment fund owned by an offshore entity that was recruiting private investors to buy into its acquisition plan. The financial markets posed problems for established borrowers and even more for Tengzhong, a little-known company from western China, at the same time as the potential value of the Hummer brand continued to decline, given high fuel prices and weak consumer demand.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The company announced it was willing to consider offers for all or part of the assets. American company Raser Technologies along with several others expressed interest in buying the company. However, on April 7, 2010, this attempt failed as well, and General Motors officially said it was shutting down the Hummer SUV brand and offering rich rebates in a bid to move the remaining 2,200 vehicles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After filling a rental-car fleet order, the last Hummer H3 rolled off the line at Shreveport on May 24, 2010.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In mid-2019, rumors began to circulate that General Motors was considering reviving the Hummer nameplate in 2021, as the market for off-road vehicles was reaching historic levels of sales. GM President Mark Ruess was asked about the possible return in the summer of 2019 and said, \"I love Hummer. I don't know. We're looking at everything.\" Credibility to the earlier reporting began to solidify after the conclusion of the 2019 General Motors strike, as contract negotiations led to the commitment by GM of saving its Detroit-Hamtramck facility from closing by investing in and retooling it to build future electric trucks and SUVs; the products were to be built on GM's upcoming \"BT1\" electric truck platform. GM's own documentation listed three brands as receiving products from the BT1 architecture: Cadillac (presumably an electric Cadillac Escalade), Chevrolet (Silverado EV), and a third unknown brand referred to as the \"M-Brand.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Industry insiders claimed they had sources saying that the \"M-Brand\" was a Hummer, because a revival of the brand with established name recognition would help reduce marketing costs. The Hummer revival on the BT1 platform was known internally as \"Project O,\" potentially named after former Chief Camaro Engineer Al Oppenheiser (the man responsible for the return of the Camaro in 2010), who was moved from Camaro development to overseeing an EV program. Oppenheiser later confirmed this himself. By November 2019, media reports all but confirmed that Hummer would return with two electric models, a truck and an SUV, sometime in 2021. On November 21, 2019, General Motors CEO Mary Barra confirmed that GM would be releasing an electric pickup truck in the fall of 2021, but did not name the brand under which it would be built.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The new Hummer line is not a standalone brand, as it was before General Motors filed for bankruptcy, but a model within GM's GMC brand.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "On January 30, 2020, GM released a series of short videos revealing the return of Hummers in the form of electric SUV and truck models marketed under the GMC brand. A 30-second Super Bowl ad featured NBA superstar LeBron James. The vehicle was to be revealed on May 20, 2020, but the date was later pushed back to October 20, 2020.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Hummer EV SUT was officially revealed on October 20, 2020, during the 2020 World Series. The Hummer EV SUV was unveiled during the NCAA Tournament Final Four on April 3, 2021.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "There will be several versions and models under GM brand GMC, with initially only the most expensive \"Edition 1\" four-door pickup available, followed by other models and later as an SUV.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The first vehicle in the Hummer range was the Hummer H1, based on the Humvee. Released for the civilian market in 1992, this vehicle was designed by American Motors' AM General subsidiary to meet U.S. Military specifications that were issued in 1979. By 1982, Renault (which was partially owned by the French government) took controlling interest in AMC, and the AM General division was sold in 1983 to Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV), because US regulations barred ownership of defense contractors by foreign governments. American Motors itself was acquired by Chrysler in 1987. Production of H1 civilian versions continued throughout 2006.",
"title": "Models"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Hummer H2 was the second vehicle in the Hummer range built in the AM General facility under contract from General Motors from 2002 to 2009. There were two variations: The H2 SUV and H2 SUT.",
"title": "Models"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The H3 and H3T pickup truck were the smallest of the Hummer models and were based on the GMT355 platform shared with the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon compact pickup trucks. The H3 line was produced from 2005 to 2010 by General Motors.",
"title": "Models"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Hummer HX was developed in 2008 as an open-air, two-door off-road concept car, smaller than other Hummer models.",
"title": "Concept vehicles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Raser Technologies (formerly of Utah) was to use technology similar to that of the Chevrolet Volt. The company unveiled the prototype to the 2009 Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit. The E-REV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) powertrain technology was claimed to power the vehicle for up to 40 miles (64 km) on its battery, and then a small 4-cylinder internal combustion engine would start to generate more electricity.",
"title": "Concept vehicles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Team Hummer Racing was created in 1993. Led by off-road racer Rod Hall, Team Hummer competed in the stock classes of both BitD and SCORE, with specialized racing shock absorbers, tires, and other modifications, along with mandatory safety equipment. Team Hummer stock-class H3 was driven by Hall who finished first in class with the H3 in the 2005 Baja 1000. Team Hummer earned 11 production-class wins at the Baja 1000.",
"title": "Racing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "A highly modified, two-wheel drive Hummer was raced by Robby Gordon in 2006 (did not finish), 2007 (8th place), 2009 (3rd place), 2010 (8th place), 2011 (did not finish), 2012 (disqualified), and 2013 (14th place) Dakar Rally.",
"title": "Racing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Hummer H2 has been stretched by third-party companies into a variety of limousine versions. The Hummer H2 was cut behind the cab, and the chassis was extended to create a passenger section for 14, 16, or even 22 passengers.",
"title": "Stretch limousines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Criticism of Hummers mirrors the criticism of SUVs in general, but to a higher degree. Specific criticisms of Hummers include:",
"title": "Criticisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "GM is active in licensing the Hummer. Various companies have licensed the Hummer trademarks for use on colognes, flashlights, bicycles, shoes, coats, hats, laptops, toys, clothing, CD players, video games and other items. An electric quadricycle badged as a Hummer was produced in the UK.",
"title": "Licensing"
}
]
| Hummer is a brand of pickups and SUVs first marketed in 1992 when AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 Humvee. Although discontinued in 2010, Hummer returned as a model under GMC in 2020. In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name from AM General and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the new H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms. By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was questioned. Rather than being transferred to the Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, to investigate its sale. No final deal was made, and in 2010, Hummer dealerships began shutting down. The nameplate returned to the marketplace for the 2022 model year, not as a separate make brand but as electric pickup truck and SUV models sold under the GMC brand as the "GMC Hummer EV". The pre-production versions of the EV began November 2021 after a $2.2 billion investment to build a variety of all-electric vehicles in GM's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-23T15:14:34Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummer |
14,396 | Humvee | The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the original jeep, and others such as the Vietnam War-era M151 jeep, the M561 "Gama Goat", their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle, and other light trucks. Primarily used by the United States military, it is also used by numerous other countries and organizations and even in civilian adaptations. The Humvee saw widespread use in the Gulf War of 1991, where it navigated the desert terrain; this usage helped to inspire civilian Hummer versions. The vehicle's original unarmored design was later seen to be inadequate, and was found to be particularly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices in the Iraq War. The U.S. hastily up-armored select models and replaced front-line units with the MRAP. The U.S. military sought to replace the vehicle in front-line service under the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program. In 2015 the Oshkosh L-ATV was selected for production.
Since the World War II Willys MB reconnaissance truck was used for mass-deployment and became known as the "jeep", the United States military had continued to rely heavily on jeeps as general utility vehicles and as a mass-transport for soldiers in small groups. Although the U.S. Army had let Ford redesign the jeep from the ground up during the 1950s, and the resulting M151 jeep incorporated significant innovations, it firmly adhered to the original concept: a very compact, light enough to manhandle, low profile vehicle, with a folding windshield, that a layman could barely distinguish from the preceding Willys jeeps. The jeeps were shorter than a Volkswagen Beetle and weighed just over one metric ton, seating three to four, with an 800 lb (360 kg) payload. During and after the war, the very light, 1⁄4-ton jeeps were complemented by the 3⁄4-ton Dodge WC and Korean War Dodge M37 models.
By the mid-1960s, the U.S. military felt a need to reevaluate their aging light vehicle fleet. For starters, from the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army had tried to modernize, through replacing the larger, purpose-built Dodge M37s by militarized, "commercial off the shelf" (COTS) 4×4 trucks — initially the M715 Jeep trucks, succeeded in the later 1970s by several "CUCV" adapted commercial pickup series, but these did not satisfy newer requirements either. What was wanted was a truly versatile light military truck, that could replace multiple outdated vehicles. When becoming aware of the U.S. Army's desire for a versatile new light weapons carrier/reconnaissance vehicle, as early as 1969 FMC Corporation started development on their XR311 prototype and offered it for testing in 1970. At least a dozen of these were built for testing under the High Mobility Combat Vehicle, or HMCV program, initially much more as an enhanced capability successor to the M151 jeep, than as a general-purpose vehicle. In 1977, Lamborghini developed the Cheetah model in an attempt to meet the Army contract specifications.
In 1979, the U.S. Army drafted final specifications for a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), which was to replace all the tactical vehicles in the 1/4-ton to 5/4-ton range, namely the M151 quarter-ton jeeps, M561 Gama Goats, and the CUCVs, as one uniform "jack-of-all-trades" light tactical vehicle series, to better perform the roles of the impractically mixed fleet of outdated existing vehicles. The specification called for excellent on and off-road performance, the ability to carry a large payload, and improved survivability against indirect fire. Compared to the jeep, it was larger and had a much wider track, with a 16 in (410 mm) ground clearance, double that of most sport-utility vehicles. The new truck was to climb a 60 percent incline and traverse a 40 percent slope. The air intake was to be mounted flush on top of the right fender (or to be raised on a stovepipe to roof level) to ford 5 ft (1.5 m) of water and electronics waterproofed to drive through 2.5 ft (0.76 m) of water were specified. The radiator was to be mounted high, sloping over the engine on a forward-hinged hood.
Out of 61 companies that showed interest, only three submitted prototypes. In July 1979, AM General, a subsidiary of American Motors Corporation, began preliminary design work. Less than a year later, the prototype was in testing. Chrysler Defense and Teledyne Continental also produced competing designs. In June 1981, the Army awarded AM General a contract for the development of several more prototype vehicles to be delivered to the government for another series of tests. The original M998 A0 series had a curb weight of 5,200 lb (2,400 kg), a payload of 2,500 lb (1,100 kg), a 6.2 L (380 cu in) V8 diesel engine and 6.3 L gasoline, and a three-speed automatic transmission.
The three companies were chosen to design and build eleven HMMWV prototypes; the vehicles were subjected to over 600,000 miles in trials which included off-road courses in desert and arctic conditions. AM General was awarded an initial contract in 1983 for 2,334 vehicles, the first batch of a five-year contract that would see 55,000 vehicles delivered to the U.S. military, including 39,000 vehicles for the Army; 72,000 vehicles had been delivered to the U.S. and foreign customers by the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and 100,000 had been delivered by the Humvee's 10th anniversary in 1995. Ft. Lewis, Washington, and the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division was the testing unit to employ HMMWV in the new concept of a motorized division. Yakima Training Center in Yakima, Washington, was the main testing grounds for HMMWVs from 1985 through December 1991, when the motorized concept was abandoned and the division inactivated.
HMMWVs first saw combat in Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The HMMWV was designed primarily for personnel and light cargo transport behind front lines, not as a front line fighting vehicle. Like the previous jeep, the basic HMMWV has no armor or protection against chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats. Nevertheless, losses were relatively low in conventional operations, such as the Gulf War. Vehicles and crews suffered considerable damage and losses during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 because of the nature of urban engagement. However, the chassis survivability allowed the majority of those crews to return to safety, though the HMMWV was never designed to offer protection against intense small arms fire, much less machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. With the rise of asymmetric warfare and low-intensity conflicts, the HMMWV was pressed into service in urban combat roles for which it was not originally intended.
After Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, the military recognized a need for a more protected HMMWV and AM General developed the M1114, an armored HMMWV to withstand small arms fire. The M1114 has been in production since 1996, seeing limited use in the Balkans before deployment to the Middle East. This design is superior to the M998 with a larger, more powerful turbocharged engine, air conditioning, and a strengthened suspension system. More importantly, it boasts a fully armored passenger area protected by hardened steel and bullet-resistant glass. With the increase in direct attacks and asymmetric warfare in Iraq, AM General diverted the majority of its manufacturing power to producing these vehicles.
Humvees were sent into Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, where they proved invaluable during initial operations. In the early years before IEDs became prevalent, the vehicle was liked by troops for its ability to access rough, mountainous terrain. Some soldiers would remove features from Humvees, including what little armor it had and sometimes even entire doors, to make them lighter and more maneuverable for off-road conditions and to increase visibility. With the onset of the Iraq War, Humvees proved very vulnerable to IEDs; in the first four months of 2006, 67 U.S. troops died in Humvees. To increase protection, the U.S. military hastily added armor kits to the vehicles. Although this somewhat improved survivability, bolting on armor made the Humvee an "ungainly beast", increasing weight and putting a strain on the chassis, which led to unreliability. Armored doors that weighed hundreds of pounds were difficult for troops to open, and the newly armored turret made Humvees top-heavy and increased the danger of rollovers. The U.S. Marine Corps decided to start replacing Humvees in combat with Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles in 2007, and the U.S. Army stated that the vehicle was "no longer feasible for combat" in 2012. However, Humvees have also been used by Taliban insurgents for suicide bombings against the Afghan National Security Forces in the country.
The HMMWV has become the vehicular backbone of U.S. forces around the world. Over 10,000 HMMWVs were employed by coalition forces during the Iraq War. The Humvee has been described as a vehicle with "the right capability for its era": designed to provide payload mobility in protected (safe) areas. However, deploying the vehicle to conflict zones where it was exposed to a full spectrum of threat which it was neither designed to operate, or be survivable in, led to adding protection at the cost of mobility and payload.
On 22 April 2022, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby described a package of military equipment being transported to Ukraine to assist in its war with Russia, including "100 armored Humvee vehicles". An additional 50 were promised on 19 August 2022, and were delivered at an unknown date. A number of Humvees were used in the assault on the Russian oblast of Belgorod on 22 May 2023. Ukraine first received Humvees from the U.S. in 2001, and they were used by them in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo that same year.
In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came under criticism from U.S. troops and their families for not providing better-equipped HMMWVs. Rumsfeld pointed out that, before the war, armor kits were produced only in small numbers per year. As the role of American forces in Iraq changed from fighting the Iraqi Army to suppressing the insurgency, more armor kits were being manufactured, though perhaps not as fast as production facilities were capable. Even more advanced kits were also being developed. While these kits are much more effective against all types of attacks, they weigh from 1,500 to 2,200 lb (680 to 1,000 kg) and have some of the same drawbacks as the improvised armor. Unlike similar-sized civilian cargo and tow trucks, which typically have dual rear wheels to reduce sway, the HMMWV has single rear wheels because of its independent rear suspension coupled with the body design.
Most up-armored HMMWVs hold up well against lateral attacks when the blast is distributed in all different directions but offer little protection from a mine blast below the truck, such as buried IEDs and land mines. Explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) can also defeat the armor kits, causing casualties.
The armor kits fielded include the Armor Survivability Kit (ASK), FRAG 5, FRAG 6, as well as upgrade kits to the M1151. The ASK was the first fielded in October 2003, adding about 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to the weight of the vehicle. Armor Holdings fielded an even lighter kit, adding only 750 pounds (340 kg) to the vehicle's weight. The Marine Armor Kit (MAK), fielded in January 2005, offers more protection than the M1114 but also increases weight. The FRAG 5 offered even more protection but was still inadequate to stop EFP attacks. The FRAG 6 kit is designed to do just that, however its increased protection adds over 1,000 lb (450 kg) the vehicle over the FRAG 5 kit, and the width is increased by 2 feet (61 cm). The doors may also require a mechanical assist device to open and close.
Another drawback of the up-armored HMMWVs occurs during an accident or attack, when the heavily armored doors tend to jam shut, trapping the troops inside. As a result, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center developed the Humvee Crew Extraction D-ring in 2006. The D-ring hooks on the door of the HMMWV so that another vehicle can rip the door off with a tow strap, chain, or cable to free the troops inside. The D-ring was later recognized as one of the top 10 greatest Army inventions of 2006. In addition, Vehicle Emergency Escape (VEE) windows, developed by BAE Systems, were fielded for use on the M1114 up-armored HMMWV, with 1,000 kits ordered.
The soldier manning the exposed crew-served weapon on top of the vehicle is extremely vulnerable. In response, many HMMWVs have been fitted with basic gun shields or turrets, as was the case with M113 APCs after they were first deployed in Vietnam. The U.S. military is currently evaluating a new form of protection, developed by BAE Systems as well as systems designed by the Army, which are already in theater. The new gunner's seat is protected by 1.5 to 2 feet (46 to 61 cm) high steel plates with bullet-proof glass windows. Additionally, some HMMWVs have been fitted with a remotely operated CROWS weapon station, which slaves the machine gun to controls in the back seat so it can be fired without exposing the crew. The Boomerang anti-sniper system was also fielded by some HMMWVs in Iraq to immediately give troops the location of insurgents firing on them.
Another weakness for the HMMWV has proven to be its size, which limited its deployment in Afghanistan because it is too wide for the smallest roads and too large for many forms of air transport compared to jeeps or Land Rover-sized vehicles (which are, respectively, 24 and 15 inches narrower). This size also limits the ability of the vehicle to be manhandled out of situations.
The Army purchased a purpose-built armored car, the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle also known as an armored personnel carrying vehicle (APC), in limited numbers for use by the United States Army Military Police Corps. In 2007, the Marine Corps announced an intention to replace all HMMWVs in Iraq with MRAPs because of high loss rates and issued contracts for the purchase of several thousand of these vehicles, which include the International MaxxPro, the BAE OMC RG-31, the BAE RG-33 and Caiman, and the Force Protection Cougar, which were deployed primarily for mine clearing duties. Heavier models of infantry mobility vehicles (IMV) can also be used for patrol vehicles. The MaxxPro Line has been shown to have the highest rate of vehicle rollover accidents because of its very high center of gravity and immense weight.
The Humvee replacement process undertaken by the U.S. military focused on interim replacement with MRAPs and long-term replacement with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). The HMMWV has evolved several times since its introduction and was used in tactical roles for which it was never originally intended. The military pursued several initiatives to replace it, both in the short and long terms. The short-term replacement efforts utilized commercial off-the-shelf vehicles as part of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) program. These vehicles were procured to replace Humvees in combat theaters. The long-term replacement for the Humvee is the JLTV which is designed from the ground up. The Future Tactical Truck System (FTTS) program was initiated to analyze potential requirements for a Humvee replacement. Various prototype vehicles such as the MillenWorks Light Utility Vehicle, and the ULTRA AP have been constructed as part of these efforts. The JLTV contract was awarded to Oshkosh in August 2015.
The U.S. Marine Corps issued a request for proposals in 2013 for its Humvee sustainment modification initiative to upgrade 6,700 expanded capacity vehicles (ECVs). The Marines plan to field the JLTV but do not have enough funding to completely replace all Humvees, so they decided to continue sustaining their fleet. Key areas of improvement include upgrades to the suspension to reduce the amount of force transferred to the chassis, upgrading the engine and transmission for better fuel efficiency, enhancements to the cooling system to prevent overheating, a central tire inflation system to improve off-road mobility and ride quality, and increased underbody survivability. Testing of upgraded Humvees was to occur in 2014, with production and installation occurring from 2015 through 2018. Older A2 series Humvees make up half the current fleet, and 4,000 are to be disposed of through foreign military sales and transfers. By 2017, the Marines' light tactical vehicle fleet is to consist of 3,500 A2 series Humvees, 9,500 ECV Humvees, and 5,000 JLTVs, with 18,000 vehicles in total. Humvees in service with the Marine Corps will be upgraded through 2030. The Marines shelved the Humvee modernization effort in March 2015 because of budget cuts.
Several companies are offering modifications to maintain the remaining U.S. military Humvee fleets. Oshkosh Corporation is offering Humvee upgrades to the Marine Corps in addition to its JLTV offering, which are modular and scalable to provide varying levels of capabilities at a range of prices that can be provided individually or as complete packages. Their approach is centered around the TAK-4 independent suspension system, which delivers greater offroad profile capability, improved ride quality, an increase in maximum speed, greater whole-vehicle durability, and restored payload capacity and ground clearance. Northrop Grumman developed a new chassis and power train for the Humvee that would combine the mobility and payload capabilities of original vehicle variants while maintaining the protection levels of up-armored versions. The cost to upgrade one Humvee with Northrop Grumman's features is $145,000. Textron has offered another Humvee upgrade option called the Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicle (SCTV) that restores mobility and survivability over armored Humvee levels. Although the SCTV costs more at $200,000 per vehicle, the company claims it can restore the Humvee for operational use, combining Humvee-level mobility and transportability with MRAP-level underbody protection as a transitional solution until the JLTV is introduced in significant numbers.
One suggested future role for the Humvee is as an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). If converted to a UGV, the vehicle could serve as a mobile scout vehicle with armor features removed to enhance mobility and terrain accessibility, since there would be no occupants needed to protect. Because there will still be tens of thousands of Humvees in the U.S. inventory after the JLTV enters service, it could be a low-cost way to build an unmanned combat vehicle fleet. Autonomy features would allow the Humvees to drive themselves and one soldier to control a "swarm" of several vehicles.
Although the Army plans to buy 49,100 JLTVs and the Marine Corps 5,500, they are not a one-for-one replacement for the Humvee, and both services will still be left operating large fleets. For the Marines, 69 JLTVs will replace the 74 Humvees in all active infantry battalions to cover its expeditionary forces. The Marine JLTV order is planned to be completed by 2022, leaving the remainder of the Corps' 13,000-strong Humvee force scattered around support organizations while soft-skinned Humvees will provide support behind the forward-deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Army does not plan to replace Humvees in the Army National Guard and is considering options on how many of its 120,000 vehicles will be replaced, sustained, or modernized. Even if half of the force is replaced by JLTVs, the entire planned order will not be complete until 2040. If upgrades are chosen for the remaining Humvees, the cost would likely have to not exceed $100,000 per vehicle. The Humvee is expected to remain in U.S. military service until at least 2050. Ambulance variants of the Humvee will especially remain in active use, as the JLTV could not be modified to serve as one due to weight issues.
The Humvee seats four people with an available fully enclosed aluminum cabin with a vertical windshield. It has all-wheel drive with an independent suspension and helical gear-reduction hubs similar to portal axles which attach towards the top rather than the center of each wheel to allow the drivetrain shafts to be raised for 16 in (410 mm) ground clearance. The body is mounted on a narrow steel frame with boxed rails and five cross members for rigidity. The rails act as sliders to protect the drivetrain which is nestled between and above the rails. Raising the drivetrain into the cabin area and lowering the seats into the frame creates a chest-high transmission hump which separates passengers on each side and lowers the overall center of gravity compared to most trucks where the body and passengers are above the frame.
The vehicle has double wishbone suspension with portal gear hubs on all 4 wheels and inboard disc brakes. The brake discs are not mounted at the wheels, as on conventional cars, but are inboard of the half-shafts, attached outboard of the differentials. The front and rear differentials are Torsen type, and the center differential is of the lockable type. Torque-biasing differentials allows forward movement as long as at least one wheel has traction. It runs on specialized 37 × 12.5 radial tires with low-profile runflat devices. Newer HMMWV versions can be equipped with a central tire inflation system (CTIS) kit in the field. While it is optimized for off-road mobility, it can achieve 55 mph (89 km/h) at maximum weight with a top speed of 70 mph (110 km/h).
HMMWVs are well suited for airmobile operations as they are transportable by C-130 or larger combat transports, droppable by parachute, and can be sling-loaded from helicopters, though there are smaller vehicles such as the Growler which were designed to fit into smaller craft such as the V-22. In combat conditions, the HMMWV can be delivered by the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System which pulls the vehicle out of the open rear ramp just above the ground without the aircraft having to land.
There are at least 17 variants of the HMMWV in service with the U.S. military. HMMWVs serve as cargo/troop carriers, automatic weapons platforms, ambulances (four litter patients or eight ambulatory patients), M220 TOW missile carriers, M119 howitzer prime movers, M1097 Avenger Pedestal Mounted Stinger platforms, MRQ-12 direct air support vehicles, S250 shelter carriers, and other roles. The HMMWV is capable of fording 2.5 ft (76 cm) normally, or 5 ft (1.5 m) with the deep-water fording kits installed.
Optional equipment includes a winch (maximum load capacity 6,000 lb (2,700 kg) and supplemental armor. The M1025/M1026 and M1043/M1044 armament carriers provide mounting and firing capabilities for the M134 Minigun, the Mk 19 grenade launcher, the M2 heavy machine gun, the GAU-19A/B gatling gun, the M240G/B machine gun and M249 LMG.
The M1114 "up-armored" HMMWV, introduced in 1996, also features a similar weapons mount. In addition, some M1114 and M1116 up-armored and M1117 Armored Security Vehicle models feature a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), which allows the gunner to operate from inside the vehicle, and/or the Boomerang anti-sniper detection system. Recent improvements have also led to the development of the M1151 model, which quickly rendered the previous models obsolete. By replacing the M1114, M1116, and earlier armored HMMWV types with a single model, the U.S. Army hopes to lower maintenance costs.
The latest iteration of the Humvee series can be seen in the M1151A1 and later up-armored A1-versions. It has a stronger suspension and larger 6.5 liter turbo-diesel engine to accommodate the weight of up to 680 kg (1,500 lb) of additional armor. The armor protection can be installed or taken off depending on the operating environment, so the vehicles can move more efficiently without armor when there is no threat of attack. There is some underbody armor that moderately protects against mines and roadside bombs. Other improvements include Vehicle Emergency Escape (VEE) windows that can be quickly removed so troops inside can escape in the event of a rollover, jammed door, or the vehicle catching fire, and a blast chimney that vents the force of a bomb blast upwards and away from the occupants. The M1151A1 has a crew of four, can carry 2,000 lb (910 kg) of payload, and can tow a 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) load. On roads, it has a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) and a range of 480 km (300 mi).
With the introduction of the A1 series the number of models was reduced, with further designation revisions when the A2 series was introduced.
Under contract to the US Army, AM General developed the M1113 Expanded Capacity Vehicle (ECV). The M1097A2 is the basis for the Expanded Capacity Vehicle (ECV). The ECV provided the payload capacity allowing for larger and heavier communications shelters, improved armor protection level for scouts, military police, security police, and explosive ordnance disposal platforms.
In late 1995, the production of the M1114 based on the improved ECV chassis began. The M1114 meets Army requirements for a scout, military police, and explosive ordnance disposal vehicle with improved ballistic protection levels. The M1114 provides protection against 7.62 mm armor-piercing projectiles, 155 mm artillery air bursts and 12 lb (5.4 kg) anti-tank mine blasts.
In June 1996, the U.S. Army purchased an initial 390 M1114s for operations in Bosnia. The U.S. Air Force has several M1114 vehicles that differ in detail from the U.S. Army model. Under the designation M1116, the type was specifically designed and tailored to the needs of the U.S. Air Force. The M1116 features an expanded cargo area, armored housing for the turret gunner, and increased interior heating and air conditioning system. The M1114 and M1116 received armor at O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Company of Fairfield, Ohio. The M1145 offers the protection of the M1114 and M1116 for Air Force Air Support Operations Squadrons (ASOS). Designed to protect Forward Air Controllers, modifications include perimeter ballistic protection, overhead burst protection, IED protection, mine blast protection, and 'white glass' transparent armor. Before the introduction of the latest armored HMMWV variants, and between 1993 and June 2006, Armor Holdings produced more than 17,500 armored HMMWVs (more than 14,000 between 2003 and 2007), all but about 160 of the earliest models were M1114, with smaller numbers of M1116 and M1045. These extended capacity HMMWVs can drive over an 18 in (460 mm) vertical wall and carry a 6,820 lb (3,090 kg) payload.
Textron's Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicle (SCTV) is a protective capsule that can increase Humvee survivability to MRAP levels while significantly improving mobility. The modifications come in five kits, but all five need to be installed before the vehicle can be properly called an SCTV. The vehicle features a monocoque V-shaped hull and angled sides to help deflect rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) with scalable levels of protection. It has greater engine power, replacing the 6.5-liter diesel engine with a Cummins 6.7-liter diesel and Allison 6-speed transmission, as well as a stronger suspension, improved brakes, higher ground clearance, and new onboard instrumentation. Fuel capacity is increased from 27 to 40 US gal (100 to 150 L; 22 to 33 imp gal) and the battery and fuel cells are moved from under the rear seat to the rear of the vehicle. Also included are a powerful air conditioner and heating system, run-flat tires, a thermal guard liner under the roof, sharp edges removed from inside the cabin, blast attenuating seats, and a folding gunner's turret allowing rapid deployment from a cargo aircraft or shipboard below deck. Although heavier than the Humvee, the SCTV is half the weight and costs $150,000 less than a comparably survivable MRAP. The basic version is a four-passenger armament carrier, but it can be configured as a nine-passenger troop carrier, air-defense vehicle, flatbed cargo truck, or field ambulance depending on the type of Humvee it is converted from.
Work began on the SCTV in 2008 in anticipation of U.S. military upgrades, but it was shelved once they made the JLTV a priority. Textron then focused on selling the SCTV upgrade package to up to 25 countries operating the global fleet, a potential market of up to 10,000 vehicles. The upgrade can enhance the survivability of previously soft-skinned versions, sometimes sold by the U.S. as Excess Defense Articles, while costing and weighing less than a comparable MRAP. By 2015, Colombia had installed the SCTV into three Humvees for testing, and Ukraine had shown interest in upgrading their old-model Humvees recently supplied by the U.S. Ukraine ordered three SCTVs in February 2016.
In December 2014, the Department of Defense began auctioning off some 4,000 used Humvees to the public. While some have been transferred to domestic law enforcement agencies, this is the first time the military vehicles have been made available for civilian ownership. The idea is to sell them with starting bids at $10,000 each, rather than simply scrapping them as a way to save money and repurpose them. M998, M998A1, M1038, and M1038A1 model Humvees are available, which are out of U.S. service and lack armor. AM General has been opposed to the resale of military Humvees to the general public, primarily because surplus government vehicles would have cut into sales related to the civilian Hummer model, whose production ended in 2010. The first sales from auction occurred on 17 December 2014 for 25 of the Humvees. Bids ranged from $21,500 for a 1989 M1038 to $41,000 for a 1994 AM General M998A1. The average bid was around $30,000 and the sale of the 25 vehicles netted $744,000 total. GovPlanet has since taken over the contract and sells Humvees at its weekly online auctions.
In 2017, it was announced that AM General signed a contract with VLF Automotive to build a new civilian version of the HMMWV for sale outside of the US. The initial contract calls for up to 100 a year to be built and sold overseas to places such as China, Europe, Middle East, and Australia. These are essentially updated Hummer H1s, but cannot use the Hummer-brand owned by General Motors. These vehicles have not been approved for sale in the US due to safety or emission standards.
Kits have been produced for the general market to turn a sedan into a Humvee lookalike. An alternative is to buy a preconstructed (or "turnkey") model. Various kits exist, but one of the more well known is the Volkswagen Beetle-based "Wombat". This was previously named "HummBug", until the threat of a lawsuit from General Motors forced changes to the name and the grille design to make it look less like the real thing. It can be purchased/built for about US$18,000; this puts it considerably cheaper than the actual HMMWV ($56,000), or Hummer.
In Australia, a Gold Coast-based company called Rhino Buggies produces replicas of the Hummer H1 based on the Nissan Patrol 4WD vehicle for around A$30,000.
In the U.S., four companies offered Hummer-look-alike body kits that can be mated to GM full-size trucks and Suburban chassis and, in some cases, Ford, Dodge, and even Cadillac applications. Some models are; Urban Gorilla from Urban Manufacturing, Endeavor SB400 and SB4x400 from Forever Off-Road, the Jurassic Truck Corporation T-Rex, and the Bummer from Tatonka Products An additional company offers plans so for chassis building. The kits range from two-door fiberglass models to steel tube and sheet metal constructions. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the original jeep, and others such as the Vietnam War-era M151 jeep, the M561 \"Gama Goat\", their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle, and other light trucks. Primarily used by the United States military, it is also used by numerous other countries and organizations and even in civilian adaptations. The Humvee saw widespread use in the Gulf War of 1991, where it navigated the desert terrain; this usage helped to inspire civilian Hummer versions. The vehicle's original unarmored design was later seen to be inadequate, and was found to be particularly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices in the Iraq War. The U.S. hastily up-armored select models and replaced front-line units with the MRAP. The U.S. military sought to replace the vehicle in front-line service under the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program. In 2015 the Oshkosh L-ATV was selected for production.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Since the World War II Willys MB reconnaissance truck was used for mass-deployment and became known as the \"jeep\", the United States military had continued to rely heavily on jeeps as general utility vehicles and as a mass-transport for soldiers in small groups. Although the U.S. Army had let Ford redesign the jeep from the ground up during the 1950s, and the resulting M151 jeep incorporated significant innovations, it firmly adhered to the original concept: a very compact, light enough to manhandle, low profile vehicle, with a folding windshield, that a layman could barely distinguish from the preceding Willys jeeps. The jeeps were shorter than a Volkswagen Beetle and weighed just over one metric ton, seating three to four, with an 800 lb (360 kg) payload. During and after the war, the very light, 1⁄4-ton jeeps were complemented by the 3⁄4-ton Dodge WC and Korean War Dodge M37 models.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "By the mid-1960s, the U.S. military felt a need to reevaluate their aging light vehicle fleet. For starters, from the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army had tried to modernize, through replacing the larger, purpose-built Dodge M37s by militarized, \"commercial off the shelf\" (COTS) 4×4 trucks — initially the M715 Jeep trucks, succeeded in the later 1970s by several \"CUCV\" adapted commercial pickup series, but these did not satisfy newer requirements either. What was wanted was a truly versatile light military truck, that could replace multiple outdated vehicles. When becoming aware of the U.S. Army's desire for a versatile new light weapons carrier/reconnaissance vehicle, as early as 1969 FMC Corporation started development on their XR311 prototype and offered it for testing in 1970. At least a dozen of these were built for testing under the High Mobility Combat Vehicle, or HMCV program, initially much more as an enhanced capability successor to the M151 jeep, than as a general-purpose vehicle. In 1977, Lamborghini developed the Cheetah model in an attempt to meet the Army contract specifications.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1979, the U.S. Army drafted final specifications for a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), which was to replace all the tactical vehicles in the 1/4-ton to 5/4-ton range, namely the M151 quarter-ton jeeps, M561 Gama Goats, and the CUCVs, as one uniform \"jack-of-all-trades\" light tactical vehicle series, to better perform the roles of the impractically mixed fleet of outdated existing vehicles. The specification called for excellent on and off-road performance, the ability to carry a large payload, and improved survivability against indirect fire. Compared to the jeep, it was larger and had a much wider track, with a 16 in (410 mm) ground clearance, double that of most sport-utility vehicles. The new truck was to climb a 60 percent incline and traverse a 40 percent slope. The air intake was to be mounted flush on top of the right fender (or to be raised on a stovepipe to roof level) to ford 5 ft (1.5 m) of water and electronics waterproofed to drive through 2.5 ft (0.76 m) of water were specified. The radiator was to be mounted high, sloping over the engine on a forward-hinged hood.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Out of 61 companies that showed interest, only three submitted prototypes. In July 1979, AM General, a subsidiary of American Motors Corporation, began preliminary design work. Less than a year later, the prototype was in testing. Chrysler Defense and Teledyne Continental also produced competing designs. In June 1981, the Army awarded AM General a contract for the development of several more prototype vehicles to be delivered to the government for another series of tests. The original M998 A0 series had a curb weight of 5,200 lb (2,400 kg), a payload of 2,500 lb (1,100 kg), a 6.2 L (380 cu in) V8 diesel engine and 6.3 L gasoline, and a three-speed automatic transmission.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The three companies were chosen to design and build eleven HMMWV prototypes; the vehicles were subjected to over 600,000 miles in trials which included off-road courses in desert and arctic conditions. AM General was awarded an initial contract in 1983 for 2,334 vehicles, the first batch of a five-year contract that would see 55,000 vehicles delivered to the U.S. military, including 39,000 vehicles for the Army; 72,000 vehicles had been delivered to the U.S. and foreign customers by the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and 100,000 had been delivered by the Humvee's 10th anniversary in 1995. Ft. Lewis, Washington, and the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division was the testing unit to employ HMMWV in the new concept of a motorized division. Yakima Training Center in Yakima, Washington, was the main testing grounds for HMMWVs from 1985 through December 1991, when the motorized concept was abandoned and the division inactivated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "HMMWVs first saw combat in Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The HMMWV was designed primarily for personnel and light cargo transport behind front lines, not as a front line fighting vehicle. Like the previous jeep, the basic HMMWV has no armor or protection against chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats. Nevertheless, losses were relatively low in conventional operations, such as the Gulf War. Vehicles and crews suffered considerable damage and losses during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 because of the nature of urban engagement. However, the chassis survivability allowed the majority of those crews to return to safety, though the HMMWV was never designed to offer protection against intense small arms fire, much less machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. With the rise of asymmetric warfare and low-intensity conflicts, the HMMWV was pressed into service in urban combat roles for which it was not originally intended.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, the military recognized a need for a more protected HMMWV and AM General developed the M1114, an armored HMMWV to withstand small arms fire. The M1114 has been in production since 1996, seeing limited use in the Balkans before deployment to the Middle East. This design is superior to the M998 with a larger, more powerful turbocharged engine, air conditioning, and a strengthened suspension system. More importantly, it boasts a fully armored passenger area protected by hardened steel and bullet-resistant glass. With the increase in direct attacks and asymmetric warfare in Iraq, AM General diverted the majority of its manufacturing power to producing these vehicles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Humvees were sent into Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, where they proved invaluable during initial operations. In the early years before IEDs became prevalent, the vehicle was liked by troops for its ability to access rough, mountainous terrain. Some soldiers would remove features from Humvees, including what little armor it had and sometimes even entire doors, to make them lighter and more maneuverable for off-road conditions and to increase visibility. With the onset of the Iraq War, Humvees proved very vulnerable to IEDs; in the first four months of 2006, 67 U.S. troops died in Humvees. To increase protection, the U.S. military hastily added armor kits to the vehicles. Although this somewhat improved survivability, bolting on armor made the Humvee an \"ungainly beast\", increasing weight and putting a strain on the chassis, which led to unreliability. Armored doors that weighed hundreds of pounds were difficult for troops to open, and the newly armored turret made Humvees top-heavy and increased the danger of rollovers. The U.S. Marine Corps decided to start replacing Humvees in combat with Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles in 2007, and the U.S. Army stated that the vehicle was \"no longer feasible for combat\" in 2012. However, Humvees have also been used by Taliban insurgents for suicide bombings against the Afghan National Security Forces in the country.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The HMMWV has become the vehicular backbone of U.S. forces around the world. Over 10,000 HMMWVs were employed by coalition forces during the Iraq War. The Humvee has been described as a vehicle with \"the right capability for its era\": designed to provide payload mobility in protected (safe) areas. However, deploying the vehicle to conflict zones where it was exposed to a full spectrum of threat which it was neither designed to operate, or be survivable in, led to adding protection at the cost of mobility and payload.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "On 22 April 2022, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby described a package of military equipment being transported to Ukraine to assist in its war with Russia, including \"100 armored Humvee vehicles\". An additional 50 were promised on 19 August 2022, and were delivered at an unknown date. A number of Humvees were used in the assault on the Russian oblast of Belgorod on 22 May 2023. Ukraine first received Humvees from the U.S. in 2001, and they were used by them in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo that same year.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came under criticism from U.S. troops and their families for not providing better-equipped HMMWVs. Rumsfeld pointed out that, before the war, armor kits were produced only in small numbers per year. As the role of American forces in Iraq changed from fighting the Iraqi Army to suppressing the insurgency, more armor kits were being manufactured, though perhaps not as fast as production facilities were capable. Even more advanced kits were also being developed. While these kits are much more effective against all types of attacks, they weigh from 1,500 to 2,200 lb (680 to 1,000 kg) and have some of the same drawbacks as the improvised armor. Unlike similar-sized civilian cargo and tow trucks, which typically have dual rear wheels to reduce sway, the HMMWV has single rear wheels because of its independent rear suspension coupled with the body design.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Most up-armored HMMWVs hold up well against lateral attacks when the blast is distributed in all different directions but offer little protection from a mine blast below the truck, such as buried IEDs and land mines. Explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) can also defeat the armor kits, causing casualties.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The armor kits fielded include the Armor Survivability Kit (ASK), FRAG 5, FRAG 6, as well as upgrade kits to the M1151. The ASK was the first fielded in October 2003, adding about 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to the weight of the vehicle. Armor Holdings fielded an even lighter kit, adding only 750 pounds (340 kg) to the vehicle's weight. The Marine Armor Kit (MAK), fielded in January 2005, offers more protection than the M1114 but also increases weight. The FRAG 5 offered even more protection but was still inadequate to stop EFP attacks. The FRAG 6 kit is designed to do just that, however its increased protection adds over 1,000 lb (450 kg) the vehicle over the FRAG 5 kit, and the width is increased by 2 feet (61 cm). The doors may also require a mechanical assist device to open and close.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Another drawback of the up-armored HMMWVs occurs during an accident or attack, when the heavily armored doors tend to jam shut, trapping the troops inside. As a result, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center developed the Humvee Crew Extraction D-ring in 2006. The D-ring hooks on the door of the HMMWV so that another vehicle can rip the door off with a tow strap, chain, or cable to free the troops inside. The D-ring was later recognized as one of the top 10 greatest Army inventions of 2006. In addition, Vehicle Emergency Escape (VEE) windows, developed by BAE Systems, were fielded for use on the M1114 up-armored HMMWV, with 1,000 kits ordered.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The soldier manning the exposed crew-served weapon on top of the vehicle is extremely vulnerable. In response, many HMMWVs have been fitted with basic gun shields or turrets, as was the case with M113 APCs after they were first deployed in Vietnam. The U.S. military is currently evaluating a new form of protection, developed by BAE Systems as well as systems designed by the Army, which are already in theater. The new gunner's seat is protected by 1.5 to 2 feet (46 to 61 cm) high steel plates with bullet-proof glass windows. Additionally, some HMMWVs have been fitted with a remotely operated CROWS weapon station, which slaves the machine gun to controls in the back seat so it can be fired without exposing the crew. The Boomerang anti-sniper system was also fielded by some HMMWVs in Iraq to immediately give troops the location of insurgents firing on them.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Another weakness for the HMMWV has proven to be its size, which limited its deployment in Afghanistan because it is too wide for the smallest roads and too large for many forms of air transport compared to jeeps or Land Rover-sized vehicles (which are, respectively, 24 and 15 inches narrower). This size also limits the ability of the vehicle to be manhandled out of situations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Army purchased a purpose-built armored car, the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle also known as an armored personnel carrying vehicle (APC), in limited numbers for use by the United States Army Military Police Corps. In 2007, the Marine Corps announced an intention to replace all HMMWVs in Iraq with MRAPs because of high loss rates and issued contracts for the purchase of several thousand of these vehicles, which include the International MaxxPro, the BAE OMC RG-31, the BAE RG-33 and Caiman, and the Force Protection Cougar, which were deployed primarily for mine clearing duties. Heavier models of infantry mobility vehicles (IMV) can also be used for patrol vehicles. The MaxxPro Line has been shown to have the highest rate of vehicle rollover accidents because of its very high center of gravity and immense weight.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Humvee replacement process undertaken by the U.S. military focused on interim replacement with MRAPs and long-term replacement with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). The HMMWV has evolved several times since its introduction and was used in tactical roles for which it was never originally intended. The military pursued several initiatives to replace it, both in the short and long terms. The short-term replacement efforts utilized commercial off-the-shelf vehicles as part of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) program. These vehicles were procured to replace Humvees in combat theaters. The long-term replacement for the Humvee is the JLTV which is designed from the ground up. The Future Tactical Truck System (FTTS) program was initiated to analyze potential requirements for a Humvee replacement. Various prototype vehicles such as the MillenWorks Light Utility Vehicle, and the ULTRA AP have been constructed as part of these efforts. The JLTV contract was awarded to Oshkosh in August 2015.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The U.S. Marine Corps issued a request for proposals in 2013 for its Humvee sustainment modification initiative to upgrade 6,700 expanded capacity vehicles (ECVs). The Marines plan to field the JLTV but do not have enough funding to completely replace all Humvees, so they decided to continue sustaining their fleet. Key areas of improvement include upgrades to the suspension to reduce the amount of force transferred to the chassis, upgrading the engine and transmission for better fuel efficiency, enhancements to the cooling system to prevent overheating, a central tire inflation system to improve off-road mobility and ride quality, and increased underbody survivability. Testing of upgraded Humvees was to occur in 2014, with production and installation occurring from 2015 through 2018. Older A2 series Humvees make up half the current fleet, and 4,000 are to be disposed of through foreign military sales and transfers. By 2017, the Marines' light tactical vehicle fleet is to consist of 3,500 A2 series Humvees, 9,500 ECV Humvees, and 5,000 JLTVs, with 18,000 vehicles in total. Humvees in service with the Marine Corps will be upgraded through 2030. The Marines shelved the Humvee modernization effort in March 2015 because of budget cuts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Several companies are offering modifications to maintain the remaining U.S. military Humvee fleets. Oshkosh Corporation is offering Humvee upgrades to the Marine Corps in addition to its JLTV offering, which are modular and scalable to provide varying levels of capabilities at a range of prices that can be provided individually or as complete packages. Their approach is centered around the TAK-4 independent suspension system, which delivers greater offroad profile capability, improved ride quality, an increase in maximum speed, greater whole-vehicle durability, and restored payload capacity and ground clearance. Northrop Grumman developed a new chassis and power train for the Humvee that would combine the mobility and payload capabilities of original vehicle variants while maintaining the protection levels of up-armored versions. The cost to upgrade one Humvee with Northrop Grumman's features is $145,000. Textron has offered another Humvee upgrade option called the Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicle (SCTV) that restores mobility and survivability over armored Humvee levels. Although the SCTV costs more at $200,000 per vehicle, the company claims it can restore the Humvee for operational use, combining Humvee-level mobility and transportability with MRAP-level underbody protection as a transitional solution until the JLTV is introduced in significant numbers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "One suggested future role for the Humvee is as an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). If converted to a UGV, the vehicle could serve as a mobile scout vehicle with armor features removed to enhance mobility and terrain accessibility, since there would be no occupants needed to protect. Because there will still be tens of thousands of Humvees in the U.S. inventory after the JLTV enters service, it could be a low-cost way to build an unmanned combat vehicle fleet. Autonomy features would allow the Humvees to drive themselves and one soldier to control a \"swarm\" of several vehicles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Although the Army plans to buy 49,100 JLTVs and the Marine Corps 5,500, they are not a one-for-one replacement for the Humvee, and both services will still be left operating large fleets. For the Marines, 69 JLTVs will replace the 74 Humvees in all active infantry battalions to cover its expeditionary forces. The Marine JLTV order is planned to be completed by 2022, leaving the remainder of the Corps' 13,000-strong Humvee force scattered around support organizations while soft-skinned Humvees will provide support behind the forward-deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Army does not plan to replace Humvees in the Army National Guard and is considering options on how many of its 120,000 vehicles will be replaced, sustained, or modernized. Even if half of the force is replaced by JLTVs, the entire planned order will not be complete until 2040. If upgrades are chosen for the remaining Humvees, the cost would likely have to not exceed $100,000 per vehicle. The Humvee is expected to remain in U.S. military service until at least 2050. Ambulance variants of the Humvee will especially remain in active use, as the JLTV could not be modified to serve as one due to weight issues.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Humvee seats four people with an available fully enclosed aluminum cabin with a vertical windshield. It has all-wheel drive with an independent suspension and helical gear-reduction hubs similar to portal axles which attach towards the top rather than the center of each wheel to allow the drivetrain shafts to be raised for 16 in (410 mm) ground clearance. The body is mounted on a narrow steel frame with boxed rails and five cross members for rigidity. The rails act as sliders to protect the drivetrain which is nestled between and above the rails. Raising the drivetrain into the cabin area and lowering the seats into the frame creates a chest-high transmission hump which separates passengers on each side and lowers the overall center of gravity compared to most trucks where the body and passengers are above the frame.",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The vehicle has double wishbone suspension with portal gear hubs on all 4 wheels and inboard disc brakes. The brake discs are not mounted at the wheels, as on conventional cars, but are inboard of the half-shafts, attached outboard of the differentials. The front and rear differentials are Torsen type, and the center differential is of the lockable type. Torque-biasing differentials allows forward movement as long as at least one wheel has traction. It runs on specialized 37 × 12.5 radial tires with low-profile runflat devices. Newer HMMWV versions can be equipped with a central tire inflation system (CTIS) kit in the field. While it is optimized for off-road mobility, it can achieve 55 mph (89 km/h) at maximum weight with a top speed of 70 mph (110 km/h).",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "HMMWVs are well suited for airmobile operations as they are transportable by C-130 or larger combat transports, droppable by parachute, and can be sling-loaded from helicopters, though there are smaller vehicles such as the Growler which were designed to fit into smaller craft such as the V-22. In combat conditions, the HMMWV can be delivered by the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System which pulls the vehicle out of the open rear ramp just above the ground without the aircraft having to land.",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "There are at least 17 variants of the HMMWV in service with the U.S. military. HMMWVs serve as cargo/troop carriers, automatic weapons platforms, ambulances (four litter patients or eight ambulatory patients), M220 TOW missile carriers, M119 howitzer prime movers, M1097 Avenger Pedestal Mounted Stinger platforms, MRQ-12 direct air support vehicles, S250 shelter carriers, and other roles. The HMMWV is capable of fording 2.5 ft (76 cm) normally, or 5 ft (1.5 m) with the deep-water fording kits installed.",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Optional equipment includes a winch (maximum load capacity 6,000 lb (2,700 kg) and supplemental armor. The M1025/M1026 and M1043/M1044 armament carriers provide mounting and firing capabilities for the M134 Minigun, the Mk 19 grenade launcher, the M2 heavy machine gun, the GAU-19A/B gatling gun, the M240G/B machine gun and M249 LMG.",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The M1114 \"up-armored\" HMMWV, introduced in 1996, also features a similar weapons mount. In addition, some M1114 and M1116 up-armored and M1117 Armored Security Vehicle models feature a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), which allows the gunner to operate from inside the vehicle, and/or the Boomerang anti-sniper detection system. Recent improvements have also led to the development of the M1151 model, which quickly rendered the previous models obsolete. By replacing the M1114, M1116, and earlier armored HMMWV types with a single model, the U.S. Army hopes to lower maintenance costs.",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The latest iteration of the Humvee series can be seen in the M1151A1 and later up-armored A1-versions. It has a stronger suspension and larger 6.5 liter turbo-diesel engine to accommodate the weight of up to 680 kg (1,500 lb) of additional armor. The armor protection can be installed or taken off depending on the operating environment, so the vehicles can move more efficiently without armor when there is no threat of attack. There is some underbody armor that moderately protects against mines and roadside bombs. Other improvements include Vehicle Emergency Escape (VEE) windows that can be quickly removed so troops inside can escape in the event of a rollover, jammed door, or the vehicle catching fire, and a blast chimney that vents the force of a bomb blast upwards and away from the occupants. The M1151A1 has a crew of four, can carry 2,000 lb (910 kg) of payload, and can tow a 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) load. On roads, it has a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) and a range of 480 km (300 mi).",
"title": "Design features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "With the introduction of the A1 series the number of models was reduced, with further designation revisions when the A2 series was introduced.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Under contract to the US Army, AM General developed the M1113 Expanded Capacity Vehicle (ECV). The M1097A2 is the basis for the Expanded Capacity Vehicle (ECV). The ECV provided the payload capacity allowing for larger and heavier communications shelters, improved armor protection level for scouts, military police, security police, and explosive ordnance disposal platforms.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In late 1995, the production of the M1114 based on the improved ECV chassis began. The M1114 meets Army requirements for a scout, military police, and explosive ordnance disposal vehicle with improved ballistic protection levels. The M1114 provides protection against 7.62 mm armor-piercing projectiles, 155 mm artillery air bursts and 12 lb (5.4 kg) anti-tank mine blasts.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In June 1996, the U.S. Army purchased an initial 390 M1114s for operations in Bosnia. The U.S. Air Force has several M1114 vehicles that differ in detail from the U.S. Army model. Under the designation M1116, the type was specifically designed and tailored to the needs of the U.S. Air Force. The M1116 features an expanded cargo area, armored housing for the turret gunner, and increased interior heating and air conditioning system. The M1114 and M1116 received armor at O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Company of Fairfield, Ohio. The M1145 offers the protection of the M1114 and M1116 for Air Force Air Support Operations Squadrons (ASOS). Designed to protect Forward Air Controllers, modifications include perimeter ballistic protection, overhead burst protection, IED protection, mine blast protection, and 'white glass' transparent armor. Before the introduction of the latest armored HMMWV variants, and between 1993 and June 2006, Armor Holdings produced more than 17,500 armored HMMWVs (more than 14,000 between 2003 and 2007), all but about 160 of the earliest models were M1114, with smaller numbers of M1116 and M1045. These extended capacity HMMWVs can drive over an 18 in (460 mm) vertical wall and carry a 6,820 lb (3,090 kg) payload.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Textron's Survivable Combat Tactical Vehicle (SCTV) is a protective capsule that can increase Humvee survivability to MRAP levels while significantly improving mobility. The modifications come in five kits, but all five need to be installed before the vehicle can be properly called an SCTV. The vehicle features a monocoque V-shaped hull and angled sides to help deflect rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) with scalable levels of protection. It has greater engine power, replacing the 6.5-liter diesel engine with a Cummins 6.7-liter diesel and Allison 6-speed transmission, as well as a stronger suspension, improved brakes, higher ground clearance, and new onboard instrumentation. Fuel capacity is increased from 27 to 40 US gal (100 to 150 L; 22 to 33 imp gal) and the battery and fuel cells are moved from under the rear seat to the rear of the vehicle. Also included are a powerful air conditioner and heating system, run-flat tires, a thermal guard liner under the roof, sharp edges removed from inside the cabin, blast attenuating seats, and a folding gunner's turret allowing rapid deployment from a cargo aircraft or shipboard below deck. Although heavier than the Humvee, the SCTV is half the weight and costs $150,000 less than a comparably survivable MRAP. The basic version is a four-passenger armament carrier, but it can be configured as a nine-passenger troop carrier, air-defense vehicle, flatbed cargo truck, or field ambulance depending on the type of Humvee it is converted from.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Work began on the SCTV in 2008 in anticipation of U.S. military upgrades, but it was shelved once they made the JLTV a priority. Textron then focused on selling the SCTV upgrade package to up to 25 countries operating the global fleet, a potential market of up to 10,000 vehicles. The upgrade can enhance the survivability of previously soft-skinned versions, sometimes sold by the U.S. as Excess Defense Articles, while costing and weighing less than a comparable MRAP. By 2015, Colombia had installed the SCTV into three Humvees for testing, and Ukraine had shown interest in upgrading their old-model Humvees recently supplied by the U.S. Ukraine ordered three SCTVs in February 2016.",
"title": "Variants"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In December 2014, the Department of Defense began auctioning off some 4,000 used Humvees to the public. While some have been transferred to domestic law enforcement agencies, this is the first time the military vehicles have been made available for civilian ownership. The idea is to sell them with starting bids at $10,000 each, rather than simply scrapping them as a way to save money and repurpose them. M998, M998A1, M1038, and M1038A1 model Humvees are available, which are out of U.S. service and lack armor. AM General has been opposed to the resale of military Humvees to the general public, primarily because surplus government vehicles would have cut into sales related to the civilian Hummer model, whose production ended in 2010. The first sales from auction occurred on 17 December 2014 for 25 of the Humvees. Bids ranged from $21,500 for a 1989 M1038 to $41,000 for a 1994 AM General M998A1. The average bid was around $30,000 and the sale of the 25 vehicles netted $744,000 total. GovPlanet has since taken over the contract and sells Humvees at its weekly online auctions.",
"title": "Operators"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 2017, it was announced that AM General signed a contract with VLF Automotive to build a new civilian version of the HMMWV for sale outside of the US. The initial contract calls for up to 100 a year to be built and sold overseas to places such as China, Europe, Middle East, and Australia. These are essentially updated Hummer H1s, but cannot use the Hummer-brand owned by General Motors. These vehicles have not been approved for sale in the US due to safety or emission standards.",
"title": "Operators"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Kits have been produced for the general market to turn a sedan into a Humvee lookalike. An alternative is to buy a preconstructed (or \"turnkey\") model. Various kits exist, but one of the more well known is the Volkswagen Beetle-based \"Wombat\". This was previously named \"HummBug\", until the threat of a lawsuit from General Motors forced changes to the name and the grille design to make it look less like the real thing. It can be purchased/built for about US$18,000; this puts it considerably cheaper than the actual HMMWV ($56,000), or Hummer.",
"title": "Replicas"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In Australia, a Gold Coast-based company called Rhino Buggies produces replicas of the Hummer H1 based on the Nissan Patrol 4WD vehicle for around A$30,000.",
"title": "Replicas"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In the U.S., four companies offered Hummer-look-alike body kits that can be mated to GM full-size trucks and Suburban chassis and, in some cases, Ford, Dodge, and even Cadillac applications. Some models are; Urban Gorilla from Urban Manufacturing, Endeavor SB400 and SB4x400 from Forever Off-Road, the Jurassic Truck Corporation T-Rex, and the Bummer from Tatonka Products An additional company offers plans so for chassis building. The kits range from two-door fiberglass models to steel tube and sheet metal constructions.",
"title": "Replicas"
}
]
| The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the original jeep, and others such as the Vietnam War-era M151 jeep, the M561 "Gama Goat", their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, the Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle, and other light trucks. Primarily used by the United States military, it is also used by numerous other countries and organizations and even in civilian adaptations. The Humvee saw widespread use in the Gulf War of 1991, where it navigated the desert terrain; this usage helped to inspire civilian Hummer versions. The vehicle's original unarmored design was later seen to be inadequate, and was found to be particularly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices in the Iraq War. The U.S. hastily up-armored select models and replaced front-line units with the MRAP. The U.S. military sought to replace the vehicle in front-line service under the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program. In 2015 the Oshkosh L-ATV was selected for production. | 2002-01-08T06:39:39Z | 2023-12-18T17:53:38Z | [
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14,400 | History of science | The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal.
Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200 BCE. These civilizations' contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin-speaking Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but continued to thrive in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire. Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the Arabic-speaking Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West.
Natural philosophy was transformed during the Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method. More "revolutions" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for chemistry. In the 19th century, new perspectives regarding the conservation of energy, age of Earth, and evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in genetics and physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as molecular biology and particle physics. Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of "big science," particularly after the Second World War.
The nature of the history of science is a topic of debate (as is, by implication, the definition of science itself). The history of science is often seen as a linear story of progress but historians have come to see the story as more complex. Alfred Edward Taylor has characterised lean periods in the advance of scientific discovery as "periodical bankruptcies of science".
Science is a human activity, and scientific contributions have come from people from a wide range of different backgrounds and cultures. Historians of science increasingly see their field as part of a global history of exchange, conflict and collaboration.
The relationship between science and religion has been variously characterized in terms of "conflict", "harmony", "complexity", and "mutual independence", among others. Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early-17th century - associated with the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment - led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate (c. 1874) a conflict thesis, suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. The "conflict thesis" has since lost favor among the majority of contemporary scientists and historians of science. However, some contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, and Donald Prothero, still subscribe to this thesis.
Historians have emphasized that trust is necessary for agreement on claims about nature. In this light, the 1660 establishment of the Royal Society and its code of experiment – trustworthy because witnessed by its members – has become an important chapter in the historiography of science. Many people in modern history (typically women and persons of color) were excluded from elite scientific communities and characterized by the science establishment as inferior. Historians in the 1980s and 1990s described the structural barriers to participation and began to recover the contributions of overlooked individuals. Historians have also investigated the mundane practices of science such as fieldwork and specimen collection, correspondence, drawing, record-keeping, and the use of laboratory and field equipment.
In prehistoric times, knowledge and technique were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. For instance, the domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before the development of writing systems. Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies.
The oral tradition of preliterate societies had several features, the first of which was its fluidity. New information was constantly absorbed and adjusted to new circumstances or community needs. There were no archives or reports. This fluidity was closely related to the practical need to explain and justify a present state of affairs. Another feature was the tendency to describe the universe as just sky and earth, with a potential underworld. They were also prone to identify causes with beginnings, thereby providing a historical origin with an explanation. There was also a reliance on a "medicine man" or "wise woman" for healing, knowledge of divine or demonic causes of diseases, and in more extreme cases, for rituals such as exorcism, divination, songs, and incantations. Finally, there was an inclination to unquestioningly accept explanations that might be deemed implausible in more modern times while at the same time not being aware that such credulous behaviors could have posed problems.
The development of writing enabled humans to store and communicate knowledge across generations with much greater accuracy. Its invention was a prerequisite for the development of philosophy and later science in ancient times. Moreover, the extent to which philosophy and science would flourish in ancient times depended on the efficiency of a writing system (e.g., use of alphabets).
The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE.
Starting in around 3000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a numbering system that was decimal in character and had oriented their knowledge of geometry to solving practical problems such as those of surveyors and builders. Their development of geometry was itself a necessary development of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile river. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of geometry were used to build rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt.
Egypt was also a center of alchemy research for much of the Mediterranean. Based on the medical papyri written in the 2500–1200 BCE, the ancient Egyptians believed that disease was mainly caused by the invasion of bodies by evil forces or spirits. Thus, in addition to using medicines, their healing therapies included prayer, incantation, and ritual. The Ebers Papyrus, written in around 1600 BCE, contains medical recipes for treating diseases related to the eyes, mouth, skin, internal organs, and extremities, as well as abscesses, wounds, burns, ulcers, swollen glands, tumors, headaches, and even bad breath. The Edwin Smith papyrus, written at about the same time, contains a surgical manual for treating wounds, fractures, and dislocations. The Egyptians believed that the effectiveness of their medicines depended on the preparation and administration under appropriate rituals. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology, for example, was largely ineffective. Both the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri applied the following components to the treatment of disease: examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and, according to G.E.R. Lloyd, played a significant role in the development of this methodology.
The ancient Egyptians even developed an official calendar that contained twelve months, thirty days each, and five days at the end of the year. Unlike the Babylonian calendar or the ones used in Greek city-states at the time, the official Egyptian calendar was much simpler as it was fixed and did not take lunar and solar cycles into consideration.
The ancient Mesopotamians had extensive knowledge about the chemical properties of clay, sand, metal ore, bitumen, stone, and other natural materials, and applied this knowledge to practical use in manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing. Metallurgy required knowledge about the properties of metals. Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information and were far more interested in studying the manner in which the gods had ordered the universe. Biology of non-human organisms was generally only written about in the context of mainstream academic disciplines. Animal physiology was studied extensively for the purpose of divination; the anatomy of the liver, which was seen as an important organ in haruspicy, was studied in particularly intensive detail. Animal behavior was also studied for divinatory purposes. Most information about the training and domestication of animals was probably transmitted orally without being written down, but one text dealing with the training of horses has survived.
The ancient Mesopotamians had no distinction between "rational science" and magic. When a person became ill, doctors prescribed magical formulas to be recited as well as medicinal treatments. The earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE). The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BCE). In East Semitic cultures, the main medicinal authority was a kind of exorcist-healer known as an āšipu. The profession was generally passed down from father to son and was held in extremely high regard. Of less frequent recourse was another kind of healer known as an asu, who corresponds more closely to a modern physician and treated physical symptoms using primarily folk remedies composed of various herbs, animal products, and minerals, as well as potions, enemas, and ointments or poultices. These physicians, who could be either male or female, also dressed wounds, set limbs, and performed simple surgeries. The ancient Mesopotamians also practiced prophylaxis and took measures to prevent the spread of disease.
In Babylonian astronomy, records of the motions of the stars, planets, and the moon are left on thousands of clay tablets created by scribes. Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in Western calendars such as the solar year and the lunar month. Using this data, they developed mathematical methods to compute the changing length of daylight in the course of the year, predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian A. Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways."
To the Babylonians and other Near Eastern cultures, messages from the gods or omens were concealed in all natural phenomena that could be deciphered and interpreted by those who are adept. Hence, it was believed that the gods could speak through all terrestrial objects (e.g., animal entrails, dreams, malformed births, or even the color of a dog urinating on a person) and celestial phenomena. Moreover, Babylonian astrology was inseparable from Babylonian astronomy.
The Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322, dating to the eighteenth-century BCE, records a number of Pythagorean triplets (3,4,5) (5,12,13) ..., hinting that the ancient Mesopotamians might have been aware of the Pythagorean theorem over a millennium before Pythagoras.
Mathematical achievements from Mesopotamia had some influence on the development of mathematics in India, and there were confirmed transmissions of mathematical ideas between India and China, which were bidirectional. Nevertheless, the mathematical and scientific achievements in India and particularly in China occurred largely independently from those of Europe and the confirmed early influences that these two civilizations had on the development of science in Europe in the pre-modern era were indirect, with Mesopotamia and later the Islamic World acting as intermediaries. The arrival of modern science, which grew out of the Scientific Revolution, in India and China and the greater Asian region in general can be traced to the scientific activities of Jesuit missionaries who were interested in studying the region's flora and fauna during the 16th to 17th century.
The earliest traces of mathematical knowledge in the Indian subcontinent appear with the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 4th millennium BCE ~ c. 3rd millennium BCE). The people of this civilization made bricks whose dimensions were in the proportion 4:2:1, which is favorable for the stability of a brick structure. They also tried to standardize measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler—whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimetres) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length.
Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata (476–550), in his Aryabhatiya (499) introduced the sine function in trigonometry and the number 0 [mathematics] . In 628 CE, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also lucidly explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit, along with the Hindu–Arabic numeral system now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of the two astronomers' texts were soon available in the Islamic world, introducing what would become Arabic numerals to the Islamic world by the 9th century. During the 14th–16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics made significant advances in astronomy and especially mathematics, including fields such as trigonometry and analysis. In particular, Madhava of Sangamagrama is considered the "founder of mathematical analysis".
In the Tantrasangraha treatise, Nilakantha Somayaji's updated the Aryabhatan model for the interior planets, Mercury, and Venus and the equation that he specified for the center of these planets was more accurate than the ones in European or Islamic astronomy until the time of Johannes Kepler in the 17th century.
The first textual mention of astronomical concepts comes from the Vedas, religious literature of India. According to Sarma (2008): "One finds in the Rigveda intelligent speculations about the genesis of the universe from nonexistence, the configuration of the universe, the spherical self-supporting earth, and the year of 360 days divided into 12 equal parts of 30 days each with a periodical intercalary month.". The first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani, written by Bhāskara in the 12th century, cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of the planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The 13 chapters of the second part cover the nature of the sphere, as well as significant astronomical and trigonometric calculations based on it.
Some of the earliest linguistic activities can be found in Iron Age India (1st millennium BCE) with the analysis of Sanskrit for the purpose of the correct recitation and interpretation of Vedic texts. The most notable grammarian of Sanskrit was Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE), whose grammar formulates close to 4,000 rules for Sanskrit. Inherent in his analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root. The Tolkāppiyam text, composed in the early centuries of the common era, is a comprehensive text on Tamil grammar, which includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language.
Findings from Neolithic graveyards in what is now Pakistan show evidence of proto-dentistry among an early farming culture. The ancient text Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta describes procedures on various forms of surgery, including rhinoplasty, the repair of torn ear lobes, perineal lithotomy, cataract surgery, and several other excisions and other surgical procedures.
An ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy by Kautilya and Viṣhṇugupta, who are traditionally identified with Chāṇakya (c. 350–283 BCE). In this treatise, the behaviors and relationships of the people, the King, the State, the Government Superintendents, Courtiers, Enemies, Invaders, and Corporations are analyzed and documented. Roger Boesche describes the Arthaśāstra as "a book of political realism, a book analyzing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good."
From the earliest the Chinese used a positional decimal system on counting boards in order to calculate. To express 10, a single rod is placed in the second box from the right. The spoken language uses a similar system to English: e.g. four thousand two hundred and seven. No symbol was used for zero. By the 1st century BCE, negative numbers and decimal fractions were in use and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art included methods for extracting higher order roots by Horner's method and solving linear equations and by Pythagoras' theorem. Cubic equations were solved in the Tang dynasty and solutions of equations of order higher than 3 appeared in print in 1245 CE by Ch'in Chiu-shao. Pascal's triangle for binomial coefficients was described around 1100 by Jia Xian.
Although the first attempts at an axiomatization of geometry appear in the Mohist canon in 330 BCE, Liu Hui developed algebraic methods in geometry in the 3rd century CE and also calculated pi to 5 significant figures. In 480, Zu Chongzhi improved this by discovering the ratio 355 113 {\displaystyle {\tfrac {355}{113}}} which remained the most accurate value for 1200 years.
Astronomical observations from China constitute the longest continuous sequence from any civilization and include records of sunspots (112 records from 364 BCE), supernovas (1054), lunar and solar eclipses. By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but the knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favor in 1601 by his predictions. By 635 Chinese astronomers had observed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun.
From antiquity, the Chinese used an equatorial system for describing the skies and a star map from 940 was drawn using a cylindrical (Mercator) projection. The use of an armillary sphere is recorded from the 4th century BCE and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BCE. In 125 CE Zhang Heng used water power to rotate the sphere in real time. This included rings for the meridian and ecliptic. By 1270 they had incorporated the principles of the Arab torquetum.
In the Song Empire (960–1279) of Imperial China, Chinese scholar-officials unearthed, studied, and cataloged ancient artifacts.
To better prepare for calamities, Zhang Heng invented a seismometer in 132 CE which provided instant alert to authorities in the capital Luoyang that an earthquake had occurred in a location indicated by a specific cardinal or ordinal direction. Although no tremors could be felt in the capital when Zhang told the court that an earthquake had just occurred in the northwest, a message came soon afterwards that an earthquake had indeed struck 400 to 500 km (250 to 310 mi) northwest of Luoyang (in what is now modern Gansu). Zhang called his device the 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth' (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪), so-named because he and others thought that earthquakes were most likely caused by the enormous compression of trapped air.
There are many notable contributors to early Chinese disciplines, inventions, and practices throughout the ages. One of the best examples would be the medieval Song Chinese Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic-needle compass used for navigation, discovered the concept of true north, improved the design of the astronomical gnomon, armillary sphere, sight tube, and clepsydra, and described the use of drydocks to repair boats. After observing the natural process of the inundation of silt and the find of marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains (hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean), Shen Kuo devised a theory of land formation, or geomorphology. He also adopted a theory of gradual climate change in regions over time, after observing petrified bamboo found underground at Yan'an, Shaanxi province. If not for Shen Kuo's writing, the architectural works of Yu Hao would be little known, along with the inventor of movable type printing, Bi Sheng (990–1051). Shen's contemporary Su Song (1020–1101) was also a brilliant polymath, an astronomer who created a celestial atlas of star maps, wrote a treatise related to botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy, and had erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng city in 1088. To operate the crowning armillary sphere, his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive.
The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries "learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture." Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, early seismological detectors (Zhang Heng in the 2nd century), the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), matches, the independent invention of the decimal system, dry docks, sliding calipers, the double-action piston pump, cast iron, the blast furnace, the iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, the winnowing machine, the rotary fan, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the raised-relief map, the propeller, the crossbow, and a solid fuel rocket, the multistage rocket, the horse collar, along with contributions in logic, astronomy, medicine, and other fields.
However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into "modern science". According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature:
It was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it.
The contributions of the Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians in the areas of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine had entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. Inquiries were also aimed at such practical goals such as establishing a reliable calendar or determining how to cure a variety of illnesses. The ancient people who were considered the first scientists may have thought of themselves as natural philosophers, as practitioners of a skilled profession (for example, physicians), or as followers of a religious tradition (for example, temple healers).
The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, provided competing answers to the question found in the myths of their neighbors: "How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?" The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (640–546 BCE) of Miletus, identified by later authors such as Aristotle as the first of the Ionian philosophers, postulated non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. For example, that land floats on water and that earthquakes are caused by the agitation of the water upon which the land floats, rather than the god Poseidon. Thales' student Pythagoras of Samos founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics for its own sake, and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical in shape. Leucippus (5th century BCE) introduced atomism, the theory that all matter is made of indivisible, imperishable units called atoms. This was greatly expanded on by his pupil Democritus and later Epicurus.
Plato and Aristotle produced the first systematic discussions of natural philosophy, which did much to shape later investigations of nature. Their development of deductive reasoning was of particular importance and usefulness to later scientific inquiry. Plato founded the Platonic Academy in 387 BCE, whose motto was "Let none unversed in geometry enter here," and also turned out many notable philosophers. Plato's student Aristotle introduced empiricism and the notion that universal truths can be arrived at via observation and induction, thereby laying the foundations of the scientific method. Aristotle also produced many biological writings that were empirical in nature, focusing on biological causation and the diversity of life. He made countless observations of nature, especially the habits and attributes of plants and animals on Lesbos, classified more than 540 animal species, and dissected at least 50. Aristotle's writings profoundly influenced subsequent Islamic and European scholarship, though they were eventually superseded in the Scientific Revolution.
Aristotle also contributed to theories of the elements and the cosmos. He believed that the celestial bodies (such as the planets and the Sun) had something called an unmoved mover that put the celestial bodies in motion. Aristotle tried to explain everything through mathematics and physics, but sometimes explained things such as the motion of celestial bodies through a higher power such as God. Aristotle did not have the technological advancements that would have explained the motion of celestial bodies. In addition, Aristotle had many views on the elements. He believed that everything was derived of the elements earth, water, air, fire, and lastly the Aether. The Aether was a celestial element, and therefore made up the matter of the celestial bodies. The elements of earth, water, air and fire were derived of a combination of two of the characteristics of hot, wet, cold, and dry, and all had their inevitable place and motion. The motion of these elements begins with earth being the closest to "the Earth," then water, air, fire, and finally Aether. In addition to the makeup of all things, Aristotle came up with theories as to why things did not return to their natural motion. He understood that water sits above earth, air above water, and fire above air in their natural state. He explained that although all elements must return to their natural state, the human body and other living things have a constraint on the elements – thus not allowing the elements making one who they are to return to their natural state.
The important legacy of this period included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy; an awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes; and a recognition of the methodological importance of applying mathematics to natural phenomena and of undertaking empirical research. In the Hellenistic age scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research, in their scientific investigations. Thus, clear unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day. Neither reason nor inquiry began with the Ancient Greeks, but the Socratic method did, along with the idea of Forms, give great advances in geometry, logic, and the natural sciences. According to Benjamin Farrington, former professor of Classics at Swansea University:
and again:
The astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose a heliocentric model of the Solar System, while the geographer Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BCE) produced the first systematic star catalog. The level of achievement in Hellenistic astronomy and engineering is impressively shown by the Antikythera mechanism (150–100 BCE), an analog computer for calculating the position of planets. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.
There was not a defined societal structure for healthcare during the age of Hippocrates. At that time, society was not organized and knowledgeable as people still relied on pure religious reasoning to explain illnesses. Hippocrates introduced the first healthcare system based on science and clinical protocols. Hippocrates' theories about physics and medicine helped pave the way in creating an organized medical structure for society. In medicine, Hippocrates (c. 460 BC – c. 370 BCE) and his followers were the first to describe many diseases and medical conditions and developed the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, still relevant and in use today. Hippocrates' ideas are expressed in The Hippocratic Corpus. The collection notes descriptions of medical philosophies and how disease and lifestyle choices reflect on the physical body. Hippocrates influenced a Westernized, professional relationship among physician and patient. Hippocrates is also known as "the Father of Medicine".Herophilos (335–280 BCE) was the first to base his conclusions on dissection of the human body and to describe the nervous system. Galen (129 – c. 200 CE) performed many audacious operations—including brain and eye surgeries— that were not tried again for almost two millennia.
In Hellenistic Egypt, the mathematician Euclid laid down the foundations of mathematical rigor and introduced the concepts of definition, axiom, theorem and proof still in use today in his Elements, considered the most influential textbook ever written. Archimedes, considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, is credited with using the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He is also known in physics for laying the foundations of hydrostatics, statics, and the explanation of the principle of the lever.
Theophrastus wrote some of the earliest descriptions of plants and animals, establishing the first taxonomy and looking at minerals in terms of their properties such as hardness. Pliny the Elder produced what is one of the largest encyclopedias of the natural world in 77 CE and must be regarded as the rightful successor to Theophrastus. For example, he accurately describes the octahedral shape of the diamond and proceeded to mention that diamond dust is used by engravers to cut and polish other gems owing to its great hardness. His recognition of the importance of crystal shape is a precursor to modern crystallography, while mention of numerous other minerals presages mineralogy. He also recognizes that other minerals have characteristic crystal shapes, but in one example, confuses the crystal habit with the work of lapidaries. He was also the first to recognize that amber was a fossilized resin from pine trees because he had seen samples with trapped insects within them.
The development of the field of archaeology has its roots with history and with those who were interested in the past, such as kings and queens who wanted to show past glories of their respective nations. The 5th-century-BCE Greek historian Herodotus was the first scholar to systematically study the past and perhaps the first to examine artifacts.
During the rule of Rome, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero, and others provided examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments.
The Roman conquest of Greece did not diminish learning and culture in the Greek provinces. On the contrary, the appreciation of Greek achievements in literature, philosophy, politics, and the arts by Rome's upper class coincided with the increased prosperity of the Roman Empire. Greek settlements had existed in Italy for centuries and the ability to read and speak Greek was not uncommon in Italian cities such as Rome. Moreover, the settlement of Greek scholars in Rome, whether voluntarily or as slaves, gave Romans access to teachers of Greek literature and philosophy. Conversely, young Roman scholars also studied abroad in Greece and upon their return to Rome, were able to convey Greek achievements to their Latin leadership. And despite the translation of a few Greek texts into Latin, Roman scholars who aspired to the highest level did so using the Greek language. The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero (106 – 43 BCE) was a prime example. He had studied under Greek teachers in Rome and then in Athens and Rhodes. He mastered considerable portions of Greek philosophy, wrote Latin treatises on several topics, and even wrote Greek commentaries of Plato's Timaeus as well as a Latin translation of it, which has not survived.
In the beginning, support for scholarship in Greek knowledge was almost entirely funded by the Roman upper class. There were all sorts of arrangements, ranging from a talented scholar being attached to a wealthy household to owning educated Greek-speaking slaves. In exchange, scholars who succeeded at the highest level had an obligation to provide advice or intellectual companionship to their Roman benefactors, or to even take care of their libraries. The less fortunate or accomplished ones would teach their children or perform menial tasks. The level of detail and sophistication of Greek knowledge was adjusted to suit the interests of their Roman patrons. That meant popularizing Greek knowledge by presenting information that were of practical value such as medicine or logic (for courts and politics) but excluding subtle details of Greek metaphysics and epistemology. Beyond the basics, the Romans did not value natural philosophy and considered it an amusement for leisure time.
Commentaries and encyclopedias were the means by which Greek knowledge was popularized for Roman audiences. The Greek scholar Posidonius (c. 135-c. 51 BCE), a native of Syria, wrote prolifically on history, geography, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy. He greatly influenced Latin writers such as Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BCE), who wrote the encyclopedia Nine Books of Disciplines, which covered nine arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture. The Disciplines became a model for subsequent Roman encyclopedias and Varro's nine liberal arts were considered suitable education for a Roman gentleman. The first seven of Varro's nine arts would later define the seven liberal arts of medieval schools. The pinnacle of the popularization movement was the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 CE), a native of northern Italy, who wrote several books on the history of Rome and grammar. His most famous work was his voluminous Natural History.
After the death of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE, the favorable conditions for scholarship and learning in the Roman Empire were upended by political unrest, civil war, urban decay, and looming economic crisis. In around 250 CE, barbarians began attacking and invading the Roman frontiers. These combined events led to a general decline in political and economic conditions. The living standards of the Roman upper class was severely impacted, and their loss of leisure diminished scholarly pursuits. Moreover, during the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, the Roman Empire was administratively divided into two halves: Greek East and Latin West. These administrative divisions weakened the intellectual contact between the two regions. Eventually, both halves went their separate ways, with the Greek East becoming the Byzantine Empire. Christianity was also steadily expanding during this time and soon became a major patron of education in the Latin West. Initially, the Christian church adopted some of the reasoning tools of Greek philosophy in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE to defend its faith against sophisticated opponents. Nevertheless, Greek philosophy received a mixed reception from leaders and adherents of the Christian faith. Some such as Tertullian (c. 155-c. 230 CE) were vehemently opposed to philosophy, denouncing it as heretic. Others such as Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) were ambivalent and defended Greek philosophy and science as the best ways to understand the natural world and therefore treated it as a handmaiden (or servant) of religion. Education in the West began its gradual decline, along with the rest of Western Roman Empire, due to invasions by Germanic tribes, civil unrest, and economic collapse. Contact with the classical tradition was lost in specific regions such as Roman Britain and northern Gaul but continued to exist in Rome, northern Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa.
In the Middle Ages, the classical learning continued in three major linguistic cultures and civilizations: Greek (the Byzantine Empire), Arabic (the Islamic world), and Latin (Western Europe).
The fall of the Western Roman Empire led to a deterioration of the classical tradition in the western part (or Latin West) of Europe in the 400s. In contrast, the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire resisted the barbarian attacks and preserved and improved the learning.
While the Byzantine Empire still held learning centers such as Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, Western Europe's knowledge was concentrated in monasteries until the development of medieval universities in the 12th centuries. The curriculum of monastic schools included the study of the few available ancient texts and of new works on practical subjects like medicine and timekeeping.
In the sixth century in the Byzantine Empire, Isidore of Miletus compiled Archimedes' mathematical works in the Archimedes Palimpsest, where all Archimedes' mathematical contributions were collected and studied.
John Philoponus, another Byzantine scholar, was the first to question Aristotle's teaching of physics, introducing the theory of impetus. The theory of impetus was an auxiliary or secondary theory of Aristotelian dynamics, put forth initially to explain projectile motion against gravity. It is the intellectual precursor to the concepts of inertia, momentum and acceleration in classical mechanics. The works of John Philoponus inspired Galileo Galilei ten centuries later.
During the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, a number of Greek scholars fled to North Italy in which they fueled the era later commonly known as the "Renaissance" as they brought with them a great deal of classical learning including an understanding of botany, medicine, and zoology. Byzantium also gave the West important inputs: John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian physics, and the works of Dioscorides.
This was the period (8th–14th century CE) of the Islamic Golden Age where commerce thrived, and new ideas and technologies emerged such as the importation of papermaking from China, which made the copying of manuscripts inexpensive.
The eastward transmission of Greek heritage to Western Asia was a slow and gradual process that spanned over a thousand years, beginning with the Asian conquests of Alexander the Great in 335 BCE to the founding of Islam in the 7th century CE. The birth and expansion of Islam during the 7th century was quickly followed by its Hellenization. Knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world was preserved and absorbed into Islamic theology, law, culture, and commerce, which were aided by the translations of traditional Greek texts and some Syriac intermediary sources into Arabic during the 8th–9th century.
Madrasas were centers for many different religious and scientific studies and were the culmination of different institutions such as mosques based around religious studies, housing for out-of-town visitors, and finally educational institutions focused on the natural sciences. Unlike Western universities, students at a madrasa would learn from one specific teacher, who would issue a certificate at the completion of their studies called an Ijazah. An Ijazah differs from a western university degree in many ways one being that it is issued by a single person rather than an institution, and another being that it is not an individual degree declaring adequate knowledge over broad subjects, but rather a license to teach and pass on a very specific set of texts. Women were also allowed to attend madrasas, as both students and teachers, something not seen in high western education until the 1800s. Madrasas were more than just academic centers. The Suleymaniye Mosque, for example, was one of the earliest and most well-known madrasas, which was built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century The Suleymaniye Mosque was home to a hospital and medical college, a kitchen, and children's school, as well as serving as a temporary home for travelers.
Higher education at a madrasa (or college) was focused on Islamic law and religious science and students had to engage in self-study for everything else. And despite the occasional theological backlash, many Islamic scholars of science were able to conduct their work in relatively tolerant urban centers (e.g., Baghdad and Cairo) and were protected by powerful patrons. They could also travel freely and exchange ideas as there were no political barriers within the unified Islamic state. Islamic science during this time was primarily focused on the correction, extension, articulation, and application of Greek ideas to new problems.
Most of the achievements by Islamic scholars during this period were in mathematics. Arabic mathematics was a direct descendant of Greek and Indian mathematics. For instance, what is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians made several key refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Mathematicians such as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c. 780–850) gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. Islamic trigonometry continued from the works of Ptolemy's Almagest and Indian Siddhanta, from which they added trigonometric functions, drew up tables, and applied trignometry to spheres and planes. Many of their engineers, instruments makers, and surveyors contributed books in applied mathematics. It was in astronomy where Islamic mathematicians made their greatest contributions. Al-Battani (c. 858–929) improved the measurements of Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of Ptolemy's Hè Megalè Syntaxis (The great treatise) translated as Almagest. Al-Battani also improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the Earth's axis. Corrections were made to Ptolemy's geocentric model by al-Battani, Ibn al-Haytham, Averroes and the Maragha astronomers such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Urdi and Ibn al-Shatir.
Scholars with geometric skills made significant improvements to the earlier classical texts on light and sight by Euclid, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. The earliest surviving Arabic treatises were written in the 9th century by Abū Ishāq al-Kindī, Qustā ibn Lūqā, and (in fragmentary form) Ahmad ibn Isā. Later in the 11th century, Ibn al-Haytham (known as Alhazen in the West), a mathematician and astronomer, synthesized a new theory of vision based on the works of his predecessors. His new theory included a complete system of geometrical optics, which was set in great detail in his Book of Optics. His book was translated into Latin and was relied upon as a principal source on the science of optics in Europe until the 17th century.
The medical sciences were prominently cultivated in the Islamic world. The works of Greek medical theories, especially those of Galen, were translated into Arabic and there was an outpouring of medical texts by Islamic physicians, which were aimed at organizing, elaborating, and disseminating classical medical knowledge. Medical specialties started to emerge, such as those involved in the treatment of eye diseases such as cataracts. Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West, c. 980–1037) was a prolific Persian medical encyclopedist wrote extensively on medicine, with his two most notable works in medicine being the Kitāb al-shifāʾ ("Book of Healing") and The Canon of Medicine, both of which were used as standard medicinal texts in both the Muslim world and in Europe well into the 17th century. Amongst his many contributions are the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, and the introduction of clinical pharmacology. Institutionalization of medicine was another important achievement in the Islamic world. Although hospitals as an institution for the sick emerged in the Byzantium empire, the model of institutionalized medicine for all social classes was extensive in the Islamic empire and was scattered throughout. In addition to treating patients, physicians could teach apprentice physicians, as well write and do research. The discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood in the human body by Ibn al-Nafis occurred in a hospital setting.
Islamic science began its decline in the 12th–13th century, before the Renaissance in Europe, due in part to the Christian reconquest of Spain and the Mongol conquests in the East in the 11th–13th century. The Mongols sacked Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid caliphate, in 1258, which ended the Abbasid empire. Nevertheless, many of the conquerors became patrons of the sciences. Hulagu Khan, for example, who led the siege of Baghdad, became a patron of the Maragheh observatory. Islamic astronomy continued to flourish into the 16th century.
By the eleventh century, most of Europe had become Christian; stronger monarchies emerged; borders were restored; technological developments and agricultural innovations were made, increasing the food supply and population. Classical Greek texts were translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, stimulating scientific discussion in Western Europe.
In classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned, but in the Middle Ages medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.
As a result of the Pax Mongolica, Europeans, such as Marco Polo, began to venture further and further east. The written accounts of Polo and his fellow travelers inspired other Western European maritime explorers to search for a direct sea route to Asia, ultimately leading to the Age of Discovery.
Technological advances were also made, such as the early flight of Eilmer of Malmesbury (who had studied mathematics in 11th-century England), and the metallurgical achievements of the Cistercian blast furnace at Laskill.
An intellectual revitalization of Western Europe started with the birth of medieval universities in the 12th century. These urban institutions grew from the informal scholarly activities of learned friars who visited monasteries, consulted libraries, and conversed with other fellow scholars. A friar who became well-known would attract a following of disciples, giving rise to a brotherhood of scholars (or collegium in Latin). A collegium might travel to a town or request a monastery to host them. However, if the number of scholars within a collegium grew too large, they would opt to settle in a town instead. As the number of collegia within a town grew, the collegia might request that their king grant them a charter that would convert them into a universitas. Many universities were chartered during this period, with the first in Bologna in 1088, followed by Paris in 1150, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1231. The granting of a charter meant that the medieval universities were partially sovereign and independent from local authorities. Their independence allowed them to conduct themselves and judge their own members based on their own rules. Furthermore, as initially religious institutions, their faculties and students were protected from capital punishment (e.g., gallows). Such independence was a matter of custom, which could, in principle, be revoked by their respective rulers if they felt threatened. Discussions of various subjects or claims at these medieval institutions, no matter how controversial, were done in a formalized way so as to declare such discussions as being within the bounds of a university and therefore protected by the privileges of that institution's sovereignty. A claim could be described as ex cathedra (literally "from the chair", used within the context of teaching) or ex hypothesi (by hypothesis). This meant that the discussions were presented as purely an intellectual exercise that did not require those involved to commit themselves to the truth of a claim or to proselytize. Modern academic concepts and practices such as academic freedom or freedom of inquiry are remnants of these medieval privileges that were tolerated in the past.
The curriculum of these medieval institutions centered on the seven liberal arts, which were aimed at providing beginning students with the skills for reasoning and scholarly language. Students would begin their studies starting with the first three liberal arts or Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) followed by the next four liberal arts or Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). Those who completed these requirements and received their baccalaureate (or Bachelor of Arts) had the option to join the higher faculty (law, medicine, or theology), which would confer an LLD for a lawyer, an MD for a physician, or ThD for a theologian. Students who chose to remain in the lower faculty (arts) could work towards a Magister (or Master's) degree and would study three philosophies: metaphysics, ethics, and natural philosophy. Latin translations of Aristotle's works such as De Anima (On the Soul) and the commentaries on them were required readings. As time passed, the lower faculty was allowed to confer its own doctoral degree called the PhD. Many of the Masters were drawn to encyclopedias and had used them as textbooks. But these scholars yearned for the complete original texts of the Ancient Greek philosophers, mathematicians, and physicians such as Aristotle, Euclid, and Galen, which were not available to them at the time. These Ancient Greek texts were to be found in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic World.
Contact with the Byzantine Empire, and with the Islamic world during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Latin Europe access to scientific Greek and Arabic texts, including the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Isidore of Miletus, John Philoponus, Jābir ibn Hayyān, al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes. European scholars had access to the translation programs of Raymond of Toledo, who sponsored the 12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin. Later translators like Michael Scotus would learn Arabic in order to study these texts directly. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. In fact, European university put many works about the natural world and the study of nature at the center of its curriculum, with the result that the "medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and descendent."
At the beginning of the 13th century, there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural philosophy in these texts began to be extended by scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method, influenced by earlier contributions of the Islamic world, can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus. Pierre Duhem's thesis is that Stephen Tempier – the Bishop of Paris – Condemnation of 1277 led to the study of medieval science as a serious discipline, "but no one in the field any longer endorses his view that modern science started in 1277". However, many scholars agree with Duhem's view that the mid-late Middle Ages saw important scientific developments.
The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings. William of Ockham emphasized the principle of parsimony: natural philosophers should not postulate unnecessary entities, so that motion is not a distinct thing but is only the moving object and an intermediary "sensible species" is not needed to transmit an image of an object to the eye. Scholars such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret elements of Aristotle's mechanics. In particular, Buridan developed the theory that impetus was the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was a first step towards the modern concept of inertia. The Oxford Calculators began to mathematically analyze the kinematics of motion, making this analysis without considering the causes of motion.
In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden end to philosophic and scientific development. Yet, the rediscovery of ancient texts was stimulated by the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars sought refuge in the West. Meanwhile, the introduction of printing was to have great effect on European society. The facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed ideas such as algebra to propagate more rapidly. These developments paved the way for the Scientific Revolution, where scientific inquiry, halted at the start of the Black Death, resumed.
The renewal of learning in Europe began with 12th century Scholasticism. The Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelian natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine). Thus modern science in Europe was resumed in a period of great upheaval: the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation; the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus; the Fall of Constantinople; but also the re-discovery of Aristotle during the Scholastic period presaged large social and political changes. Thus, a suitable environment was created in which it became possible to question scientific doctrine, in much the same way that Martin Luther and John Calvin questioned religious doctrine. The works of Ptolemy (astronomy) and Galen (medicine) were found not always to match everyday observations. Work by Vesalius on human cadavers found problems with the Galenic view of anatomy.
Theophrastus' work on rocks, Peri lithōn, remained authoritative for millennia: its interpretation of fossils was not overturned until after the Scientific Revolution.
During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations. In particular, the study of statistics, to study the subjects of the state, has been applied to polling and voting.
In archaeology, the 15th and 16th centuries saw the rise of antiquarians in Renaissance Europe who were interested in the collection of artifacts.
The early modern period is seen as a flowering of the European Renaissance. There was a willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers. This resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific Revolution, which led to the emergence of a New Science that was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method. The Scientific Revolution is a convenient boundary between ancient thought and classical physics, and is traditionally held to have begun in 1543, when the books De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius, and also De Revolutionibus, by the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, were first printed. The period culminated with the publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton, representative of the unprecedented growth of scientific publications throughout Europe.
Other significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Edmond Halley, William Harvey, Pierre Fermat, Robert Hooke, Christiaan Huygens, Tycho Brahe, Marin Mersenne, Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton, and Blaise Pascal. In philosophy, major contributions were made by Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, and Thomas Hobbes. Christiaan Huygens derived the centripetal and centrifugal forces and was the first to transfer mathematical inquiry to describe unobservable physical phenomena. William Gilbert did some of the earliest experiments with electricity and magnetism, establishing that the Earth itself is magnetic.
The heliocentric astronomical model of the universe was refined by Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus proposed the idea that the Earth and all heavenly spheres, containing the planets and other objects in the cosmos, rotated around the Sun. His heliocentric model also proposed that all stars were fixed and did not rotate on an axis, nor in any motion at all. His theory proposed the yearly rotation of the Earth and the other heavenly spheres around the Sun and was able to calculate the distances of planets using deferents and epicycles. Although these calculations were not completely accurate, Copernicus was able to understand the distance order of each heavenly sphere. The Copernican heliocentric system was a revival of the hypotheses of Aristarchus of Samos and Seleucus of Seleucia. Aristarchus of Samos did propose that the Earth rotated around the Sun but did not mention anything about the other heavenly spheres' order, motion, or rotation. Seleucus of Seleucia also proposed the rotation of the Earth around the Sun but did not mention anything about the other heavenly spheres. In addition, Seleucus of Seleucia understood that the Moon rotated around the Earth and could be used to explain the tides of the oceans, thus further proving his understanding of the heliocentric idea.
The scientific method was also better developed as the modern way of thinking emphasized experimentation and reason over traditional considerations. Galileo ("Father of Modern Physics") also made use of experiments to validate physical theories, a key element of the scientific method.
The Scientific Revolution continued into the Age of Enlightenment, which accelerated the development of modern science.
The heliocentric model revived by Nicolaus Copernicus was followed by the model of planetary motion given by Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century, which proposed that the planets follow elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.
In 1687, Isaac Newton published the Principia Mathematica, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of motion, which led to classical mechanics; and Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity.
A decisive moment came when "chemistry" was distinguished from alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist, in 1661; although the alchemical tradition continued for some time after his work. Other important steps included the gravimetric experimental practices of medical chemists like William Cullen, Joseph Black, Torbern Bergman and Pierre Macquer and through the work of Antoine Lavoisier ("father of modern chemistry") on oxygen and the law of conservation of mass, which refuted phlogiston theory. Modern chemistry emerged from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries through the material practices and theories promoted by alchemy, medicine, manufacturing and mining.
William Harvey published De Motu Cordis in 1628, which revealed his conclusions based on his extensive studies of vertebrate circulatory systems. He identified the central role of the heart, arteries, and veins in producing blood movement in a circuit, and failed to find any confirmation of Galen's pre-existing notions of heating and cooling functions. The history of early modern biology and medicine is often told through the search for the seat of the soul. Galen in his descriptions of his foundational work in medicine presents the distinctions between arteries, veins, and nerves using the vocabulary of the soul.
A critical innovation was the creation of permanent scientific societies and their scholarly journals, which dramatically sped the diffusion of new ideas. Typical was the founding of the Royal Society in London in 1660 and its journal in 1665 the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, the first scientific journal in English. 1665 also saw the first journal in French, the Journal des sçavans. Science drawing on the works of Newton, Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz, science was on a path to modern mathematics, physics and technology by the time of the generation of Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783). Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, published between 1751 and 1772 brought this new understanding to a wider audience. The impact of this process was not limited to science and technology, but affected philosophy (Immanuel Kant, David Hume), religion (the increasingly significant impact of science upon religion), and society and politics in general (Adam Smith, Voltaire).
Geology did not undergo systematic restructuring during the Scientific Revolution but instead existed as a cloud of isolated, disconnected ideas about rocks, minerals, and landforms long before it became a coherent science. Robert Hooke formulated a theory of earthquakes, and Nicholas Steno developed the theory of superposition and argued that fossils were the remains of once-living creatures. Beginning with Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth in 1681, natural philosophers began to explore the idea that the Earth had changed over time. Burnet and his contemporaries interpreted Earth's past in terms of events described in the Bible, but their work laid the intellectual foundations for secular interpretations of Earth history.
During the late 18th century, researchers such as Hugh Williamson and John Walsh experimented on the effects of electricity on the human body. Further studies by Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta established the electrical nature of what Volta called galvanism.
Modern geology, like modern chemistry, gradually evolved during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Benoît de Maillet and the Comte de Buffon saw the Earth as much older than the 6,000 years envisioned by biblical scholars. Jean-Étienne Guettard and Nicolas Desmarest hiked central France and recorded their observations on some of the first geological maps. Aided by chemical experimentation, naturalists such as Scotland's John Walker, Sweden's Torbern Bergman, and Germany's Abraham Werner created comprehensive classification systems for rocks and minerals—a collective achievement that transformed geology into a cutting edge field by the end of the eighteenth century. These early geologists also proposed a generalized interpretations of Earth history that led James Hutton, Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, following in the steps of Steno, to argue that layers of rock could be dated by the fossils they contained: a principle first applied to the geology of the Paris Basin. The use of index fossils became a powerful tool for making geological maps, because it allowed geologists to correlate the rocks in one locality with those of similar age in other, distant localities.
The basis for classical economics forms Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Smith criticized mercantilism, advocating a system of free trade with division of labour. He postulated an "invisible hand" that regulated economic systems made up of actors guided only by self-interest. The "invisible hand" mentioned in a lost page in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the "Wealth of Nations", 1776, advances as Smith's central message.
Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment. It was during this period that Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. Traditions of jurisprudence, history, philology and sociology developed during this time and informed the development of the social sciences of which anthropology was a part.
The 19th century saw the birth of science as a profession. William Whewell had coined the term scientist in 1833, which soon replaced the older term natural philosopher.
In physics, the behavior of electricity and magnetism was studied by Giovanni Aldini, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm, and others. The experiments, theories and discoveries of Michael Faraday, Andre-Marie Ampere, James Clerk Maxwell, and their contemporaries led to the unification of the two phenomena into a single theory of electromagnetism as described by Maxwell's equations. Thermodynamics led to an understanding of heat and the notion of energy being defined.
In astronomy, the planet Neptune was discovered. Advances in astronomy and in optical systems in the 19th century resulted in the first observation of an asteroid (1 Ceres) in 1801, and the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
In mathematics, the notion of complex numbers finally matured and led to a subsequent analytical theory; they also began the use of hypercomplex numbers. Karl Weierstrass and others carried out the arithmetization of analysis for functions of real and complex variables. It also saw rise to new progress in geometry beyond those classical theories of Euclid, after a period of nearly two thousand years. The mathematical science of logic likewise had revolutionary breakthroughs after a similarly long period of stagnation. But the most important step in science at this time were the ideas formulated by the creators of electrical science. Their work changed the face of physics and made possible for new technology to come about such as electric power, electrical telegraphy, the telephone, and radio.
In chemistry, Dmitri Mendeleev, following the atomic theory of John Dalton, created the first periodic table of elements. Other highlights include the discoveries unveiling the nature of atomic structure and matter, simultaneously with chemistry – and of new kinds of radiation. The theory that all matter is made of atoms, which are the smallest constituents of matter that cannot be broken down without losing the basic chemical and physical properties of that matter, was provided by John Dalton in 1803, although the question took a hundred years to settle as proven. Dalton also formulated the law of mass relationships. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev composed his periodic table of elements on the basis of Dalton's discoveries. The synthesis of urea by Friedrich Wöhler opened a new research field, organic chemistry, and by the end of the 19th century, scientists were able to synthesize hundreds of organic compounds. The later part of the 19th century saw the exploitation of the Earth's petrochemicals, after the exhaustion of the oil supply from whaling. By the 20th century, systematic production of refined materials provided a ready supply of products which provided not only energy, but also synthetic materials for clothing, medicine, and everyday disposable resources. Application of the techniques of organic chemistry to living organisms resulted in physiological chemistry, the precursor to biochemistry.
Over the first half of the 19th century, geologists such as Charles Lyell, Adam Sedgwick, and Roderick Murchison applied the new technique to rocks throughout Europe and eastern North America, setting the stage for more detailed, government-funded mapping projects in later decades. Midway through the 19th century, the focus of geology shifted from description and classification to attempts to understand how the surface of the Earth had changed. The first comprehensive theories of mountain building were proposed during this period, as were the first modern theories of earthquakes and volcanoes. Louis Agassiz and others established the reality of continent-covering ice ages, and "fluvialists" like Andrew Crombie Ramsay argued that river valleys were formed, over millions of years by the rivers that flow through them. After the discovery of radioactivity, radiometric dating methods were developed, starting in the 20th century. Alfred Wegener's theory of "continental drift" was widely dismissed when he proposed it in the 1910s, but new data gathered in the 1950s and 1960s led to the theory of plate tectonics, which provided a plausible mechanism for it. Plate tectonics also provided a unified explanation for a wide range of seemingly unrelated geological phenomena. Since 1970 it has served as the unifying principle in geology.
Perhaps the most prominent, controversial, and far-reaching theory in all of science has been the theory of evolution by natural selection, which was independently formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. It was described in detail in Darwin's book The Origin of Species, which was published in 1859. In it, Darwin proposed that the features of all living things, including humans, were shaped by natural processes over long periods of time. The theory of evolution in its current form affects almost all areas of biology. Implications of evolution on fields outside of pure science have led to both opposition and support from different parts of society, and profoundly influenced the popular understanding of "man's place in the universe". Separately, Gregor Mendel formulated in the principles of inheritance in 1866, which became the basis of modern genetics.
Another important landmark in medicine and biology were the successful efforts to prove the germ theory of disease. Following this, Louis Pasteur made the first vaccine against rabies, and also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, including the asymmetry of crystals. In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis dramatically reduced the occurrence of puerperal fever by simply requiring physicians to wash their hands before attending to women in childbirth. This discovery predated the germ theory of disease. However, Semmelweis' findings were not appreciated by his contemporaries and handwashing came into use only with discoveries by British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1865 proved the principles of antisepsis. Lister's work was based on the important findings by French biologist Louis Pasteur. Pasteur was able to link microorganisms with disease, revolutionizing medicine. He also devised one of the most important methods in preventive medicine, when in 1880 he produced a vaccine against rabies. Pasteur invented the process of pasteurization, to help prevent the spread of disease through milk and other foods.
Karl Marx developed an alternative economic theory, called Marxian economics. Marxian economics is based on the labor theory of value and assumes the value of good to be based on the amount of labor required to produce it. Under this axiom, capitalism was based on employers not paying the full value of workers labor to create profit. The Austrian School responded to Marxian economics by viewing entrepreneurship as driving force of economic development. This replaced the labor theory of value by a system of supply and demand.
Psychology as a scientific enterprise that was independent from philosophy began in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research (in Leipzig). Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in memory studies), Ivan Pavlov (who discovered classical conditioning), William James, and Sigmund Freud. Freud's influence has been enormous, though more as cultural icon than a force in scientific psychology.
Modern sociology emerged in the early 19th century as the academic response to the modernization of the world. Among many early sociologists (e.g., Émile Durkheim), the aim of sociology was in structuralism, understanding the cohesion of social groups, and developing an "antidote" to social disintegration. Max Weber was concerned with the modernization of society through the concept of rationalization, which he believed would trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rational thought. Some sociologists, including Georg Simmel and W. E. B. Du Bois, used more microsociological, qualitative analyses. This microlevel approach played an important role in American sociology, with the theories of George Herbert Mead and his student Herbert Blumer resulting in the creation of the symbolic interactionism approach to sociology. In particular, just Auguste Comte, illustrated with his work the transition from a theological to a metaphysical stage and, from this, to a positive stage. Comte took care of the classification of the sciences as well as a transit of humanity towards a situation of progress attributable to a re-examination of nature according to the affirmation of 'sociality' as the basis of the scientifically interpreted society.
The Romantic Movement of the early 19th century reshaped science by opening up new pursuits unexpected in the classical approaches of the Enlightenment. The decline of Romanticism occurred because a new movement, Positivism, began to take hold of the ideals of the intellectuals after 1840 and lasted until about 1880. At the same time, the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and later Wilhelm Dilthey whose work formed the basis for the culture concept which is central to the discipline. Traditionally, much of the history of the subject was based on colonial encounters between Western Europe and the rest of the world, and much of 18th- and 19th-century anthropology is now classed as scientific racism. During the late 19th century, battles over the "study of man" took place between those of an "anthropological" persuasion (relying on anthropometrical techniques) and those of an "ethnological" persuasion (looking at cultures and traditions), and these distinctions became part of the later divide between physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, the latter ushered in by the students of Franz Boas.
Science advanced dramatically during the 20th century. There were new and radical developments in the physical and life sciences, building on the progress from the 19th century.
The beginning of the 20th century brought the start of a revolution in physics. The long-held theories of Newton were shown not to be correct in all circumstances. Beginning in 1900, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and others developed quantum theories to explain various anomalous experimental results, by introducing discrete energy levels. Not only did quantum mechanics show that the laws of motion did not hold on small scales, but the theory of general relativity, proposed by Einstein in 1915, showed that the fixed background of spacetime, on which both Newtonian mechanics and special relativity depended, could not exist. In 1925, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger formulated quantum mechanics, which explained the preceding quantum theories. Currently, general relativity and quantum mechanics are inconsistent with each other, and efforts are underway to unify the two.
The observation by Edwin Hubble in 1929 that the speed at which galaxies recede positively correlates with their distance, led to the understanding that the universe is expanding, and the formulation of the Big Bang theory by Georges Lemaître. George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, and Robert Herman had calculated that there should be evidence for a Big Bang in the background temperature of the universe. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a 3 Kelvin background hiss in their Bell Labs radiotelescope (the Holmdel Horn Antenna), which was evidence for this hypothesis, and formed the basis for a number of results that helped determine the age of the universe.
In 1938 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission with radiochemical methods, and in 1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch wrote the first theoretical interpretation of the fission process, which was later improved by Niels Bohr and John A. Wheeler. Further developments took place during World War II, which led to the practical application of radar and the development and use of the atomic bomb. Around this time, Chien-Shiung Wu was recruited by the Manhattan Project to help develop a process for separating uranium metal into U-235 and U-238 isotopes by Gaseous diffusion. She was an expert experimentalist in beta decay and weak interaction physics. Wu designed an experiment (see Wu experiment) that enabled theoretical physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang to disprove the law of parity experimentally, winning them a Nobel Prize in 1957.
Though the process had begun with the invention of the cyclotron by Ernest O. Lawrence in the 1930s, physics in the postwar period entered into a phase of what historians have called "Big Science", requiring massive machines, budgets, and laboratories in order to test their theories and move into new frontiers. The primary patron of physics became state governments, who recognized that the support of "basic" research could often lead to technologies useful to both military and industrial applications.
In the early 20th century, the study of heredity became a major investigation after the rediscovery in 1900 of the laws of inheritance developed by Mendel. The 20th century also saw the integration of physics and chemistry, with chemical properties explained as the result of the electronic structure of the atom. Linus Pauling's book on The Nature of the Chemical Bond used the principles of quantum mechanics to deduce bond angles in ever-more complicated molecules. Pauling's work culminated in the physical modelling of DNA, the secret of life (in the words of Francis Crick, 1953). In the same year, the Miller–Urey experiment demonstrated in a simulation of primordial processes, that basic constituents of proteins, simple amino acids, could themselves be built up from simpler molecules, kickstarting decades of research into the chemical origins of life. By 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick clarified the basic structure of DNA, the genetic material for expressing life in all its forms, building on the work of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, suggested that the structure of DNA was a double helix. In their famous paper "Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids" In the late 20th century, the possibilities of genetic engineering became practical for the first time, and a massive international effort began in 1990 to map out an entire human genome (the Human Genome Project). The discipline of ecology typically traces its origin to the synthesis of Darwinian evolution and Humboldtian biogeography, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Equally important in the rise of ecology, however, were microbiology and soil science—particularly the cycle of life concept, prominent in the work Louis Pasteur and Ferdinand Cohn. The word ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel, whose particularly holistic view of nature in general (and Darwin's theory in particular) was important in the spread of ecological thinking. The field of ecosystem ecology emerged in the Atomic Age with the use of radioisotopes to visualize food webs and by the 1970s ecosystem ecology deeply influenced global environmental management.
In 1925, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin determined that stars were composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. She was dissuaded by astronomer Henry Norris Russell from publishing this finding in her PhD thesis because of the widely held belief that stars had the same composition as the Earth. However, four years later, in 1929, Henry Norris Russell came to the same conclusion through different reasoning and the discovery was eventually accepted.
In 1987, supernova SN 1987A was observed by astronomers on Earth both visually, and in a triumph for neutrino astronomy, by the solar neutrino detectors at Kamiokande. But the solar neutrino flux was a fraction of its theoretically expected value. This discrepancy forced a change in some values in the standard model for particle physics.
The understanding of neurons and the nervous system became increasingly precise and molecular during the 20th century. For example, in 1952, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley presented a mathematical model for transmission of electrical signals in neurons of the giant axon of a squid, which they called "action potentials", and how they are initiated and propagated, known as the Hodgkin–Huxley model. In 1961–1962, Richard FitzHugh and J. Nagumo simplified Hodgkin–Huxley, in what is called the FitzHugh–Nagumo model. In 1962, Bernard Katz modeled neurotransmission across the space between neurons known as synapses. Beginning in 1966, Eric Kandel and collaborators examined biochemical changes in neurons associated with learning and memory storage in Aplysia. In 1981 Catherine Morris and Harold Lecar combined these models in the Morris–Lecar model. Such increasingly quantitative work gave rise to numerous biological neuron models and models of neural computation. Neuroscience began to be recognized as a distinct academic discipline in its own right. Eric Kandel and collaborators have cited David Rioch, Francis O. Schmitt, and Stephen Kuffler as having played critical roles in establishing the field.
Geologists' embrace of plate tectonics became part of a broadening of the field from a study of rocks into a study of the Earth as a planet. Other elements of this transformation include: geophysical studies of the interior of the Earth, the grouping of geology with meteorology and oceanography as one of the "earth sciences", and comparisons of Earth and the solar system's other rocky planets.
In terms of applications, a massive number of new technologies were developed in the 20th century. Technologies such as electricity, the incandescent light bulb, the automobile and the phonograph, first developed at the end of the 19th century, were perfected and universally deployed. The first car was introduced by Karl Benz in 1885. The first airplane flight occurred in 1903, and by the end of the century airliners flew thousands of miles in a matter of hours. The development of the radio, television and computers caused massive changes in the dissemination of information. Advances in biology also led to large increases in food production, as well as the elimination of diseases such as polio by Dr. Jonas Salk. Gene mapping and gene sequencing, invented by Drs. Mark Skolnik and Walter Gilbert, respectively, are the two technologies that made the Human Genome Project feasible. Computer science, built upon a foundation of theoretical linguistics, discrete mathematics, and electrical engineering, studies the nature and limits of computation. Subfields include computability, computational complexity, database design, computer networking, artificial intelligence, and the design of computer hardware. One area in which advances in computing have contributed to more general scientific development is by facilitating large-scale archiving of scientific data. Contemporary computer science typically distinguishes itself by emphasizing mathematical 'theory' in contrast to the practical emphasis of software engineering.
Einstein's paper "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation" outlined the principles of the stimulated emission of photons. This led to the invention of the Laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) and the optical amplifier which ushered in the Information Age. It is optical amplification that allows fiber optic networks to transmit the massive capacity of the Internet.
Based on wireless transmission of electromagnetic radiation and global networks of cellular operation, the mobile phone became a primary means to access the internet.
In political science during the 20th century, the study of ideology, behaviouralism and international relations led to a multitude of 'pol-sci' subdisciplines including rational choice theory, voting theory, game theory (also used in economics), psephology, political geography/geopolitics, political anthropology/political psychology/political sociology, political economy, policy analysis, public administration, comparative political analysis and peace studies/conflict analysis. In economics, John Maynard Keynes prompted a division between microeconomics and macroeconomics in the 1920s. Under Keynesian economics macroeconomic trends can overwhelm economic choices made by individuals. Governments should promote aggregate demand for goods as a means to encourage economic expansion. Following World War II, Milton Friedman created the concept of monetarism. Monetarism focuses on using the supply and demand of money as a method for controlling economic activity. In the 1970s, monetarism has adapted into supply-side economics which advocates reducing taxes as a means to increase the amount of money available for economic expansion. Other modern schools of economic thought are New Classical economics and New Keynesian economics. New Classical economics was developed in the 1970s, emphasizing solid microeconomics as the basis for macroeconomic growth. New Keynesian economics was created partially in response to New Classical economics, and deals with how inefficiencies in the market create a need for control by a central bank or government.
Psychology in the 20th century saw a rejection of Freud's theories as being too unscientific, and a reaction against Edward Titchener's atomistic approach of the mind. This led to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson, which was popularized by B.F. Skinner. Behaviorism proposed epistemologically limiting psychological study to overt behavior, since that could be reliably measured. Scientific knowledge of the "mind" was considered too metaphysical, hence impossible to achieve. The final decades of the 20th century have seen the rise of cognitive science, which considers the mind as once again a subject for investigation, using the tools of psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and neurobiology. New methods of visualizing the activity of the brain, such as PET scans and CAT scans, began to exert their influence as well, leading some researchers to investigate the mind by investigating the brain, rather than cognition. These new forms of investigation assume that a wide understanding of the human mind is possible, and that such an understanding may be applied to other research domains, such as artificial intelligence. Evolutionary theory was applied to behavior and introduced to anthropology and psychology through the works of cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon; physical anthropology would eventually become evolutionary anthropology, incorporating elements of evolutionary biology with cultural anthropology.
American sociology in the 1940s and 1950s was dominated largely by Talcott Parsons, who argued that aspects of society that promoted structural integration were therefore "functional". This structural functionalism approach was questioned in the 1960s, when sociologists came to see this approach as merely a justification for inequalities present in the status quo. In reaction, conflict theory was developed, which was based in part on the philosophies of Karl Marx. Conflict theorists saw society as an arena in which different groups compete for control over resources. Symbolic interactionism also came to be regarded as central to sociological thinking. Erving Goffman saw social interactions as a stage performance, with individuals preparing "backstage" and attempting to control their audience through impression management. While these theories are currently prominent in sociological thought, other approaches exist, including feminist theory, post-structuralism, rational choice theory, and postmodernism.
In the mid-20th century, much of the methodologies of earlier anthropological and ethnographical study were reevaluated with an eye towards research ethics, while at the same time the scope of investigation has broadened far beyond the traditional study of "primitive cultures".
On July 4, 2012, physicists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced that they had discovered a new subatomic particle greatly resembling the Higgs boson, a potential key to an understanding of why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe. For now, some physicists are calling it a "Higgslike" particle. Peter Higgs was one of six physicists, working in three independent groups, who, in 1964, invented the notion of the Higgs field ("cosmic molasses"), along with Tom Kibble, Carl Hagen, Gerald Guralnik, François Englert and Robert Brout. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200 BCE. These civilizations' contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin-speaking Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but continued to thrive in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire. Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the Arabic-speaking Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Natural philosophy was transformed during the Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method. More \"revolutions\" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for chemistry. In the 19th century, new perspectives regarding the conservation of energy, age of Earth, and evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in genetics and physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as molecular biology and particle physics. Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of \"big science,\" particularly after the Second World War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The nature of the history of science is a topic of debate (as is, by implication, the definition of science itself). The history of science is often seen as a linear story of progress but historians have come to see the story as more complex. Alfred Edward Taylor has characterised lean periods in the advance of scientific discovery as \"periodical bankruptcies of science\".",
"title": "Approaches to history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Science is a human activity, and scientific contributions have come from people from a wide range of different backgrounds and cultures. Historians of science increasingly see their field as part of a global history of exchange, conflict and collaboration.",
"title": "Approaches to history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The relationship between science and religion has been variously characterized in terms of \"conflict\", \"harmony\", \"complexity\", and \"mutual independence\", among others. Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early-17th century - associated with the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment - led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate (c. 1874) a conflict thesis, suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. The \"conflict thesis\" has since lost favor among the majority of contemporary scientists and historians of science. However, some contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, and Donald Prothero, still subscribe to this thesis.",
"title": "Approaches to history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Historians have emphasized that trust is necessary for agreement on claims about nature. In this light, the 1660 establishment of the Royal Society and its code of experiment – trustworthy because witnessed by its members – has become an important chapter in the historiography of science. Many people in modern history (typically women and persons of color) were excluded from elite scientific communities and characterized by the science establishment as inferior. Historians in the 1980s and 1990s described the structural barriers to participation and began to recover the contributions of overlooked individuals. Historians have also investigated the mundane practices of science such as fieldwork and specimen collection, correspondence, drawing, record-keeping, and the use of laboratory and field equipment.",
"title": "Approaches to history of science"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In prehistoric times, knowledge and technique were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. For instance, the domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before the development of writing systems. Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies.",
"title": "Prehistoric times"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The oral tradition of preliterate societies had several features, the first of which was its fluidity. New information was constantly absorbed and adjusted to new circumstances or community needs. There were no archives or reports. This fluidity was closely related to the practical need to explain and justify a present state of affairs. Another feature was the tendency to describe the universe as just sky and earth, with a potential underworld. They were also prone to identify causes with beginnings, thereby providing a historical origin with an explanation. There was also a reliance on a \"medicine man\" or \"wise woman\" for healing, knowledge of divine or demonic causes of diseases, and in more extreme cases, for rituals such as exorcism, divination, songs, and incantations. Finally, there was an inclination to unquestioningly accept explanations that might be deemed implausible in more modern times while at the same time not being aware that such credulous behaviors could have posed problems.",
"title": "Prehistoric times"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The development of writing enabled humans to store and communicate knowledge across generations with much greater accuracy. Its invention was a prerequisite for the development of philosophy and later science in ancient times. Moreover, the extent to which philosophy and science would flourish in ancient times depended on the efficiency of a writing system (e.g., use of alphabets).",
"title": "Prehistoric times"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Starting in around 3000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a numbering system that was decimal in character and had oriented their knowledge of geometry to solving practical problems such as those of surveyors and builders. Their development of geometry was itself a necessary development of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile river. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of geometry were used to build rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Egypt was also a center of alchemy research for much of the Mediterranean. Based on the medical papyri written in the 2500–1200 BCE, the ancient Egyptians believed that disease was mainly caused by the invasion of bodies by evil forces or spirits. Thus, in addition to using medicines, their healing therapies included prayer, incantation, and ritual. The Ebers Papyrus, written in around 1600 BCE, contains medical recipes for treating diseases related to the eyes, mouth, skin, internal organs, and extremities, as well as abscesses, wounds, burns, ulcers, swollen glands, tumors, headaches, and even bad breath. The Edwin Smith papyrus, written at about the same time, contains a surgical manual for treating wounds, fractures, and dislocations. The Egyptians believed that the effectiveness of their medicines depended on the preparation and administration under appropriate rituals. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology, for example, was largely ineffective. Both the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri applied the following components to the treatment of disease: examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and, according to G.E.R. Lloyd, played a significant role in the development of this methodology.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The ancient Egyptians even developed an official calendar that contained twelve months, thirty days each, and five days at the end of the year. Unlike the Babylonian calendar or the ones used in Greek city-states at the time, the official Egyptian calendar was much simpler as it was fixed and did not take lunar and solar cycles into consideration.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The ancient Mesopotamians had extensive knowledge about the chemical properties of clay, sand, metal ore, bitumen, stone, and other natural materials, and applied this knowledge to practical use in manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing. Metallurgy required knowledge about the properties of metals. Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information and were far more interested in studying the manner in which the gods had ordered the universe. Biology of non-human organisms was generally only written about in the context of mainstream academic disciplines. Animal physiology was studied extensively for the purpose of divination; the anatomy of the liver, which was seen as an important organ in haruspicy, was studied in particularly intensive detail. Animal behavior was also studied for divinatory purposes. Most information about the training and domestication of animals was probably transmitted orally without being written down, but one text dealing with the training of horses has survived.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The ancient Mesopotamians had no distinction between \"rational science\" and magic. When a person became ill, doctors prescribed magical formulas to be recited as well as medicinal treatments. The earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE). The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BCE). In East Semitic cultures, the main medicinal authority was a kind of exorcist-healer known as an āšipu. The profession was generally passed down from father to son and was held in extremely high regard. Of less frequent recourse was another kind of healer known as an asu, who corresponds more closely to a modern physician and treated physical symptoms using primarily folk remedies composed of various herbs, animal products, and minerals, as well as potions, enemas, and ointments or poultices. These physicians, who could be either male or female, also dressed wounds, set limbs, and performed simple surgeries. The ancient Mesopotamians also practiced prophylaxis and took measures to prevent the spread of disease.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Babylonian astronomy, records of the motions of the stars, planets, and the moon are left on thousands of clay tablets created by scribes. Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in Western calendars such as the solar year and the lunar month. Using this data, they developed mathematical methods to compute the changing length of daylight in the course of the year, predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was \"the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena.\" According to the historian A. Aaboe, \"all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways.\"",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "To the Babylonians and other Near Eastern cultures, messages from the gods or omens were concealed in all natural phenomena that could be deciphered and interpreted by those who are adept. Hence, it was believed that the gods could speak through all terrestrial objects (e.g., animal entrails, dreams, malformed births, or even the color of a dog urinating on a person) and celestial phenomena. Moreover, Babylonian astrology was inseparable from Babylonian astronomy.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322, dating to the eighteenth-century BCE, records a number of Pythagorean triplets (3,4,5) (5,12,13) ..., hinting that the ancient Mesopotamians might have been aware of the Pythagorean theorem over a millennium before Pythagoras.",
"title": "Earliest roots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Mathematical achievements from Mesopotamia had some influence on the development of mathematics in India, and there were confirmed transmissions of mathematical ideas between India and China, which were bidirectional. Nevertheless, the mathematical and scientific achievements in India and particularly in China occurred largely independently from those of Europe and the confirmed early influences that these two civilizations had on the development of science in Europe in the pre-modern era were indirect, with Mesopotamia and later the Islamic World acting as intermediaries. The arrival of modern science, which grew out of the Scientific Revolution, in India and China and the greater Asian region in general can be traced to the scientific activities of Jesuit missionaries who were interested in studying the region's flora and fauna during the 16th to 17th century.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The earliest traces of mathematical knowledge in the Indian subcontinent appear with the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 4th millennium BCE ~ c. 3rd millennium BCE). The people of this civilization made bricks whose dimensions were in the proportion 4:2:1, which is favorable for the stability of a brick structure. They also tried to standardize measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler—whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimetres) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata (476–550), in his Aryabhatiya (499) introduced the sine function in trigonometry and the number 0 [mathematics] . In 628 CE, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also lucidly explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit, along with the Hindu–Arabic numeral system now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of the two astronomers' texts were soon available in the Islamic world, introducing what would become Arabic numerals to the Islamic world by the 9th century. During the 14th–16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics made significant advances in astronomy and especially mathematics, including fields such as trigonometry and analysis. In particular, Madhava of Sangamagrama is considered the \"founder of mathematical analysis\".",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the Tantrasangraha treatise, Nilakantha Somayaji's updated the Aryabhatan model for the interior planets, Mercury, and Venus and the equation that he specified for the center of these planets was more accurate than the ones in European or Islamic astronomy until the time of Johannes Kepler in the 17th century.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The first textual mention of astronomical concepts comes from the Vedas, religious literature of India. According to Sarma (2008): \"One finds in the Rigveda intelligent speculations about the genesis of the universe from nonexistence, the configuration of the universe, the spherical self-supporting earth, and the year of 360 days divided into 12 equal parts of 30 days each with a periodical intercalary month.\". The first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani, written by Bhāskara in the 12th century, cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of the planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The 13 chapters of the second part cover the nature of the sphere, as well as significant astronomical and trigonometric calculations based on it.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Some of the earliest linguistic activities can be found in Iron Age India (1st millennium BCE) with the analysis of Sanskrit for the purpose of the correct recitation and interpretation of Vedic texts. The most notable grammarian of Sanskrit was Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE), whose grammar formulates close to 4,000 rules for Sanskrit. Inherent in his analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root. The Tolkāppiyam text, composed in the early centuries of the common era, is a comprehensive text on Tamil grammar, which includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Findings from Neolithic graveyards in what is now Pakistan show evidence of proto-dentistry among an early farming culture. The ancient text Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta describes procedures on various forms of surgery, including rhinoplasty, the repair of torn ear lobes, perineal lithotomy, cataract surgery, and several other excisions and other surgical procedures.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "An ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy by Kautilya and Viṣhṇugupta, who are traditionally identified with Chāṇakya (c. 350–283 BCE). In this treatise, the behaviors and relationships of the people, the King, the State, the Government Superintendents, Courtiers, Enemies, Invaders, and Corporations are analyzed and documented. Roger Boesche describes the Arthaśāstra as \"a book of political realism, a book analyzing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good.\"",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "From the earliest the Chinese used a positional decimal system on counting boards in order to calculate. To express 10, a single rod is placed in the second box from the right. The spoken language uses a similar system to English: e.g. four thousand two hundred and seven. No symbol was used for zero. By the 1st century BCE, negative numbers and decimal fractions were in use and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art included methods for extracting higher order roots by Horner's method and solving linear equations and by Pythagoras' theorem. Cubic equations were solved in the Tang dynasty and solutions of equations of order higher than 3 appeared in print in 1245 CE by Ch'in Chiu-shao. Pascal's triangle for binomial coefficients was described around 1100 by Jia Xian.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Although the first attempts at an axiomatization of geometry appear in the Mohist canon in 330 BCE, Liu Hui developed algebraic methods in geometry in the 3rd century CE and also calculated pi to 5 significant figures. In 480, Zu Chongzhi improved this by discovering the ratio 355 113 {\\displaystyle {\\tfrac {355}{113}}} which remained the most accurate value for 1200 years.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Astronomical observations from China constitute the longest continuous sequence from any civilization and include records of sunspots (112 records from 364 BCE), supernovas (1054), lunar and solar eclipses. By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but the knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favor in 1601 by his predictions. By 635 Chinese astronomers had observed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "From antiquity, the Chinese used an equatorial system for describing the skies and a star map from 940 was drawn using a cylindrical (Mercator) projection. The use of an armillary sphere is recorded from the 4th century BCE and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BCE. In 125 CE Zhang Heng used water power to rotate the sphere in real time. This included rings for the meridian and ecliptic. By 1270 they had incorporated the principles of the Arab torquetum.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In the Song Empire (960–1279) of Imperial China, Chinese scholar-officials unearthed, studied, and cataloged ancient artifacts.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "To better prepare for calamities, Zhang Heng invented a seismometer in 132 CE which provided instant alert to authorities in the capital Luoyang that an earthquake had occurred in a location indicated by a specific cardinal or ordinal direction. Although no tremors could be felt in the capital when Zhang told the court that an earthquake had just occurred in the northwest, a message came soon afterwards that an earthquake had indeed struck 400 to 500 km (250 to 310 mi) northwest of Luoyang (in what is now modern Gansu). Zhang called his device the 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth' (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪), so-named because he and others thought that earthquakes were most likely caused by the enormous compression of trapped air.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "There are many notable contributors to early Chinese disciplines, inventions, and practices throughout the ages. One of the best examples would be the medieval Song Chinese Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic-needle compass used for navigation, discovered the concept of true north, improved the design of the astronomical gnomon, armillary sphere, sight tube, and clepsydra, and described the use of drydocks to repair boats. After observing the natural process of the inundation of silt and the find of marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains (hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean), Shen Kuo devised a theory of land formation, or geomorphology. He also adopted a theory of gradual climate change in regions over time, after observing petrified bamboo found underground at Yan'an, Shaanxi province. If not for Shen Kuo's writing, the architectural works of Yu Hao would be little known, along with the inventor of movable type printing, Bi Sheng (990–1051). Shen's contemporary Su Song (1020–1101) was also a brilliant polymath, an astronomer who created a celestial atlas of star maps, wrote a treatise related to botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy, and had erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng city in 1088. To operate the crowning armillary sphere, his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries \"learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture.\" Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, early seismological detectors (Zhang Heng in the 2nd century), the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), matches, the independent invention of the decimal system, dry docks, sliding calipers, the double-action piston pump, cast iron, the blast furnace, the iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, the winnowing machine, the rotary fan, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the raised-relief map, the propeller, the crossbow, and a solid fuel rocket, the multistage rocket, the horse collar, along with contributions in logic, astronomy, medicine, and other fields.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into \"modern science\". According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature:",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "It was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it.",
"title": "Ancient Asia"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The contributions of the Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians in the areas of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine had entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. Inquiries were also aimed at such practical goals such as establishing a reliable calendar or determining how to cure a variety of illnesses. The ancient people who were considered the first scientists may have thought of themselves as natural philosophers, as practitioners of a skilled profession (for example, physicians), or as followers of a religious tradition (for example, temple healers).",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, provided competing answers to the question found in the myths of their neighbors: \"How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?\" The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (640–546 BCE) of Miletus, identified by later authors such as Aristotle as the first of the Ionian philosophers, postulated non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. For example, that land floats on water and that earthquakes are caused by the agitation of the water upon which the land floats, rather than the god Poseidon. Thales' student Pythagoras of Samos founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics for its own sake, and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical in shape. Leucippus (5th century BCE) introduced atomism, the theory that all matter is made of indivisible, imperishable units called atoms. This was greatly expanded on by his pupil Democritus and later Epicurus.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Plato and Aristotle produced the first systematic discussions of natural philosophy, which did much to shape later investigations of nature. Their development of deductive reasoning was of particular importance and usefulness to later scientific inquiry. Plato founded the Platonic Academy in 387 BCE, whose motto was \"Let none unversed in geometry enter here,\" and also turned out many notable philosophers. Plato's student Aristotle introduced empiricism and the notion that universal truths can be arrived at via observation and induction, thereby laying the foundations of the scientific method. Aristotle also produced many biological writings that were empirical in nature, focusing on biological causation and the diversity of life. He made countless observations of nature, especially the habits and attributes of plants and animals on Lesbos, classified more than 540 animal species, and dissected at least 50. Aristotle's writings profoundly influenced subsequent Islamic and European scholarship, though they were eventually superseded in the Scientific Revolution.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Aristotle also contributed to theories of the elements and the cosmos. He believed that the celestial bodies (such as the planets and the Sun) had something called an unmoved mover that put the celestial bodies in motion. Aristotle tried to explain everything through mathematics and physics, but sometimes explained things such as the motion of celestial bodies through a higher power such as God. Aristotle did not have the technological advancements that would have explained the motion of celestial bodies. In addition, Aristotle had many views on the elements. He believed that everything was derived of the elements earth, water, air, fire, and lastly the Aether. The Aether was a celestial element, and therefore made up the matter of the celestial bodies. The elements of earth, water, air and fire were derived of a combination of two of the characteristics of hot, wet, cold, and dry, and all had their inevitable place and motion. The motion of these elements begins with earth being the closest to \"the Earth,\" then water, air, fire, and finally Aether. In addition to the makeup of all things, Aristotle came up with theories as to why things did not return to their natural motion. He understood that water sits above earth, air above water, and fire above air in their natural state. He explained that although all elements must return to their natural state, the human body and other living things have a constraint on the elements – thus not allowing the elements making one who they are to return to their natural state.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The important legacy of this period included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy; an awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes; and a recognition of the methodological importance of applying mathematics to natural phenomena and of undertaking empirical research. In the Hellenistic age scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research, in their scientific investigations. Thus, clear unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day. Neither reason nor inquiry began with the Ancient Greeks, but the Socratic method did, along with the idea of Forms, give great advances in geometry, logic, and the natural sciences. According to Benjamin Farrington, former professor of Classics at Swansea University:",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "and again:",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose a heliocentric model of the Solar System, while the geographer Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BCE) produced the first systematic star catalog. The level of achievement in Hellenistic astronomy and engineering is impressively shown by the Antikythera mechanism (150–100 BCE), an analog computer for calculating the position of planets. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "There was not a defined societal structure for healthcare during the age of Hippocrates. At that time, society was not organized and knowledgeable as people still relied on pure religious reasoning to explain illnesses. Hippocrates introduced the first healthcare system based on science and clinical protocols. Hippocrates' theories about physics and medicine helped pave the way in creating an organized medical structure for society. In medicine, Hippocrates (c. 460 BC – c. 370 BCE) and his followers were the first to describe many diseases and medical conditions and developed the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, still relevant and in use today. Hippocrates' ideas are expressed in The Hippocratic Corpus. The collection notes descriptions of medical philosophies and how disease and lifestyle choices reflect on the physical body. Hippocrates influenced a Westernized, professional relationship among physician and patient. Hippocrates is also known as \"the Father of Medicine\".Herophilos (335–280 BCE) was the first to base his conclusions on dissection of the human body and to describe the nervous system. Galen (129 – c. 200 CE) performed many audacious operations—including brain and eye surgeries— that were not tried again for almost two millennia.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In Hellenistic Egypt, the mathematician Euclid laid down the foundations of mathematical rigor and introduced the concepts of definition, axiom, theorem and proof still in use today in his Elements, considered the most influential textbook ever written. Archimedes, considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, is credited with using the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He is also known in physics for laying the foundations of hydrostatics, statics, and the explanation of the principle of the lever.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Theophrastus wrote some of the earliest descriptions of plants and animals, establishing the first taxonomy and looking at minerals in terms of their properties such as hardness. Pliny the Elder produced what is one of the largest encyclopedias of the natural world in 77 CE and must be regarded as the rightful successor to Theophrastus. For example, he accurately describes the octahedral shape of the diamond and proceeded to mention that diamond dust is used by engravers to cut and polish other gems owing to its great hardness. His recognition of the importance of crystal shape is a precursor to modern crystallography, while mention of numerous other minerals presages mineralogy. He also recognizes that other minerals have characteristic crystal shapes, but in one example, confuses the crystal habit with the work of lapidaries. He was also the first to recognize that amber was a fossilized resin from pine trees because he had seen samples with trapped insects within them.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The development of the field of archaeology has its roots with history and with those who were interested in the past, such as kings and queens who wanted to show past glories of their respective nations. The 5th-century-BCE Greek historian Herodotus was the first scholar to systematically study the past and perhaps the first to examine artifacts.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "During the rule of Rome, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero, and others provided examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars. The study of politics during this age was oriented toward understanding history, understanding methods of governing, and describing the operation of governments.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Roman conquest of Greece did not diminish learning and culture in the Greek provinces. On the contrary, the appreciation of Greek achievements in literature, philosophy, politics, and the arts by Rome's upper class coincided with the increased prosperity of the Roman Empire. Greek settlements had existed in Italy for centuries and the ability to read and speak Greek was not uncommon in Italian cities such as Rome. Moreover, the settlement of Greek scholars in Rome, whether voluntarily or as slaves, gave Romans access to teachers of Greek literature and philosophy. Conversely, young Roman scholars also studied abroad in Greece and upon their return to Rome, were able to convey Greek achievements to their Latin leadership. And despite the translation of a few Greek texts into Latin, Roman scholars who aspired to the highest level did so using the Greek language. The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero (106 – 43 BCE) was a prime example. He had studied under Greek teachers in Rome and then in Athens and Rhodes. He mastered considerable portions of Greek philosophy, wrote Latin treatises on several topics, and even wrote Greek commentaries of Plato's Timaeus as well as a Latin translation of it, which has not survived.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In the beginning, support for scholarship in Greek knowledge was almost entirely funded by the Roman upper class. There were all sorts of arrangements, ranging from a talented scholar being attached to a wealthy household to owning educated Greek-speaking slaves. In exchange, scholars who succeeded at the highest level had an obligation to provide advice or intellectual companionship to their Roman benefactors, or to even take care of their libraries. The less fortunate or accomplished ones would teach their children or perform menial tasks. The level of detail and sophistication of Greek knowledge was adjusted to suit the interests of their Roman patrons. That meant popularizing Greek knowledge by presenting information that were of practical value such as medicine or logic (for courts and politics) but excluding subtle details of Greek metaphysics and epistemology. Beyond the basics, the Romans did not value natural philosophy and considered it an amusement for leisure time.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Commentaries and encyclopedias were the means by which Greek knowledge was popularized for Roman audiences. The Greek scholar Posidonius (c. 135-c. 51 BCE), a native of Syria, wrote prolifically on history, geography, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy. He greatly influenced Latin writers such as Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BCE), who wrote the encyclopedia Nine Books of Disciplines, which covered nine arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture. The Disciplines became a model for subsequent Roman encyclopedias and Varro's nine liberal arts were considered suitable education for a Roman gentleman. The first seven of Varro's nine arts would later define the seven liberal arts of medieval schools. The pinnacle of the popularization movement was the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 CE), a native of northern Italy, who wrote several books on the history of Rome and grammar. His most famous work was his voluminous Natural History.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "After the death of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE, the favorable conditions for scholarship and learning in the Roman Empire were upended by political unrest, civil war, urban decay, and looming economic crisis. In around 250 CE, barbarians began attacking and invading the Roman frontiers. These combined events led to a general decline in political and economic conditions. The living standards of the Roman upper class was severely impacted, and their loss of leisure diminished scholarly pursuits. Moreover, during the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, the Roman Empire was administratively divided into two halves: Greek East and Latin West. These administrative divisions weakened the intellectual contact between the two regions. Eventually, both halves went their separate ways, with the Greek East becoming the Byzantine Empire. Christianity was also steadily expanding during this time and soon became a major patron of education in the Latin West. Initially, the Christian church adopted some of the reasoning tools of Greek philosophy in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE to defend its faith against sophisticated opponents. Nevertheless, Greek philosophy received a mixed reception from leaders and adherents of the Christian faith. Some such as Tertullian (c. 155-c. 230 CE) were vehemently opposed to philosophy, denouncing it as heretic. Others such as Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) were ambivalent and defended Greek philosophy and science as the best ways to understand the natural world and therefore treated it as a handmaiden (or servant) of religion. Education in the West began its gradual decline, along with the rest of Western Roman Empire, due to invasions by Germanic tribes, civil unrest, and economic collapse. Contact with the classical tradition was lost in specific regions such as Roman Britain and northern Gaul but continued to exist in Rome, northern Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa.",
"title": "Classical antiquity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In the Middle Ages, the classical learning continued in three major linguistic cultures and civilizations: Greek (the Byzantine Empire), Arabic (the Islamic world), and Latin (Western Europe).",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The fall of the Western Roman Empire led to a deterioration of the classical tradition in the western part (or Latin West) of Europe in the 400s. In contrast, the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire resisted the barbarian attacks and preserved and improved the learning.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "While the Byzantine Empire still held learning centers such as Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, Western Europe's knowledge was concentrated in monasteries until the development of medieval universities in the 12th centuries. The curriculum of monastic schools included the study of the few available ancient texts and of new works on practical subjects like medicine and timekeeping.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In the sixth century in the Byzantine Empire, Isidore of Miletus compiled Archimedes' mathematical works in the Archimedes Palimpsest, where all Archimedes' mathematical contributions were collected and studied.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "John Philoponus, another Byzantine scholar, was the first to question Aristotle's teaching of physics, introducing the theory of impetus. The theory of impetus was an auxiliary or secondary theory of Aristotelian dynamics, put forth initially to explain projectile motion against gravity. It is the intellectual precursor to the concepts of inertia, momentum and acceleration in classical mechanics. The works of John Philoponus inspired Galileo Galilei ten centuries later.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "During the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, a number of Greek scholars fled to North Italy in which they fueled the era later commonly known as the \"Renaissance\" as they brought with them a great deal of classical learning including an understanding of botany, medicine, and zoology. Byzantium also gave the West important inputs: John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian physics, and the works of Dioscorides.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "This was the period (8th–14th century CE) of the Islamic Golden Age where commerce thrived, and new ideas and technologies emerged such as the importation of papermaking from China, which made the copying of manuscripts inexpensive.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The eastward transmission of Greek heritage to Western Asia was a slow and gradual process that spanned over a thousand years, beginning with the Asian conquests of Alexander the Great in 335 BCE to the founding of Islam in the 7th century CE. The birth and expansion of Islam during the 7th century was quickly followed by its Hellenization. Knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world was preserved and absorbed into Islamic theology, law, culture, and commerce, which were aided by the translations of traditional Greek texts and some Syriac intermediary sources into Arabic during the 8th–9th century.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Madrasas were centers for many different religious and scientific studies and were the culmination of different institutions such as mosques based around religious studies, housing for out-of-town visitors, and finally educational institutions focused on the natural sciences. Unlike Western universities, students at a madrasa would learn from one specific teacher, who would issue a certificate at the completion of their studies called an Ijazah. An Ijazah differs from a western university degree in many ways one being that it is issued by a single person rather than an institution, and another being that it is not an individual degree declaring adequate knowledge over broad subjects, but rather a license to teach and pass on a very specific set of texts. Women were also allowed to attend madrasas, as both students and teachers, something not seen in high western education until the 1800s. Madrasas were more than just academic centers. The Suleymaniye Mosque, for example, was one of the earliest and most well-known madrasas, which was built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century The Suleymaniye Mosque was home to a hospital and medical college, a kitchen, and children's school, as well as serving as a temporary home for travelers.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Higher education at a madrasa (or college) was focused on Islamic law and religious science and students had to engage in self-study for everything else. And despite the occasional theological backlash, many Islamic scholars of science were able to conduct their work in relatively tolerant urban centers (e.g., Baghdad and Cairo) and were protected by powerful patrons. They could also travel freely and exchange ideas as there were no political barriers within the unified Islamic state. Islamic science during this time was primarily focused on the correction, extension, articulation, and application of Greek ideas to new problems.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Most of the achievements by Islamic scholars during this period were in mathematics. Arabic mathematics was a direct descendant of Greek and Indian mathematics. For instance, what is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians made several key refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Mathematicians such as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c. 780–850) gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. Islamic trigonometry continued from the works of Ptolemy's Almagest and Indian Siddhanta, from which they added trigonometric functions, drew up tables, and applied trignometry to spheres and planes. Many of their engineers, instruments makers, and surveyors contributed books in applied mathematics. It was in astronomy where Islamic mathematicians made their greatest contributions. Al-Battani (c. 858–929) improved the measurements of Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of Ptolemy's Hè Megalè Syntaxis (The great treatise) translated as Almagest. Al-Battani also improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the Earth's axis. Corrections were made to Ptolemy's geocentric model by al-Battani, Ibn al-Haytham, Averroes and the Maragha astronomers such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Urdi and Ibn al-Shatir.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Scholars with geometric skills made significant improvements to the earlier classical texts on light and sight by Euclid, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. The earliest surviving Arabic treatises were written in the 9th century by Abū Ishāq al-Kindī, Qustā ibn Lūqā, and (in fragmentary form) Ahmad ibn Isā. Later in the 11th century, Ibn al-Haytham (known as Alhazen in the West), a mathematician and astronomer, synthesized a new theory of vision based on the works of his predecessors. His new theory included a complete system of geometrical optics, which was set in great detail in his Book of Optics. His book was translated into Latin and was relied upon as a principal source on the science of optics in Europe until the 17th century.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The medical sciences were prominently cultivated in the Islamic world. The works of Greek medical theories, especially those of Galen, were translated into Arabic and there was an outpouring of medical texts by Islamic physicians, which were aimed at organizing, elaborating, and disseminating classical medical knowledge. Medical specialties started to emerge, such as those involved in the treatment of eye diseases such as cataracts. Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West, c. 980–1037) was a prolific Persian medical encyclopedist wrote extensively on medicine, with his two most notable works in medicine being the Kitāb al-shifāʾ (\"Book of Healing\") and The Canon of Medicine, both of which were used as standard medicinal texts in both the Muslim world and in Europe well into the 17th century. Amongst his many contributions are the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, and the introduction of clinical pharmacology. Institutionalization of medicine was another important achievement in the Islamic world. Although hospitals as an institution for the sick emerged in the Byzantium empire, the model of institutionalized medicine for all social classes was extensive in the Islamic empire and was scattered throughout. In addition to treating patients, physicians could teach apprentice physicians, as well write and do research. The discovery of the pulmonary transit of blood in the human body by Ibn al-Nafis occurred in a hospital setting.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Islamic science began its decline in the 12th–13th century, before the Renaissance in Europe, due in part to the Christian reconquest of Spain and the Mongol conquests in the East in the 11th–13th century. The Mongols sacked Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid caliphate, in 1258, which ended the Abbasid empire. Nevertheless, many of the conquerors became patrons of the sciences. Hulagu Khan, for example, who led the siege of Baghdad, became a patron of the Maragheh observatory. Islamic astronomy continued to flourish into the 16th century.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "By the eleventh century, most of Europe had become Christian; stronger monarchies emerged; borders were restored; technological developments and agricultural innovations were made, increasing the food supply and population. Classical Greek texts were translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, stimulating scientific discussion in Western Europe.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned, but in the Middle Ages medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "As a result of the Pax Mongolica, Europeans, such as Marco Polo, began to venture further and further east. The written accounts of Polo and his fellow travelers inspired other Western European maritime explorers to search for a direct sea route to Asia, ultimately leading to the Age of Discovery.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Technological advances were also made, such as the early flight of Eilmer of Malmesbury (who had studied mathematics in 11th-century England), and the metallurgical achievements of the Cistercian blast furnace at Laskill.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "An intellectual revitalization of Western Europe started with the birth of medieval universities in the 12th century. These urban institutions grew from the informal scholarly activities of learned friars who visited monasteries, consulted libraries, and conversed with other fellow scholars. A friar who became well-known would attract a following of disciples, giving rise to a brotherhood of scholars (or collegium in Latin). A collegium might travel to a town or request a monastery to host them. However, if the number of scholars within a collegium grew too large, they would opt to settle in a town instead. As the number of collegia within a town grew, the collegia might request that their king grant them a charter that would convert them into a universitas. Many universities were chartered during this period, with the first in Bologna in 1088, followed by Paris in 1150, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1231. The granting of a charter meant that the medieval universities were partially sovereign and independent from local authorities. Their independence allowed them to conduct themselves and judge their own members based on their own rules. Furthermore, as initially religious institutions, their faculties and students were protected from capital punishment (e.g., gallows). Such independence was a matter of custom, which could, in principle, be revoked by their respective rulers if they felt threatened. Discussions of various subjects or claims at these medieval institutions, no matter how controversial, were done in a formalized way so as to declare such discussions as being within the bounds of a university and therefore protected by the privileges of that institution's sovereignty. A claim could be described as ex cathedra (literally \"from the chair\", used within the context of teaching) or ex hypothesi (by hypothesis). This meant that the discussions were presented as purely an intellectual exercise that did not require those involved to commit themselves to the truth of a claim or to proselytize. Modern academic concepts and practices such as academic freedom or freedom of inquiry are remnants of these medieval privileges that were tolerated in the past.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The curriculum of these medieval institutions centered on the seven liberal arts, which were aimed at providing beginning students with the skills for reasoning and scholarly language. Students would begin their studies starting with the first three liberal arts or Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) followed by the next four liberal arts or Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). Those who completed these requirements and received their baccalaureate (or Bachelor of Arts) had the option to join the higher faculty (law, medicine, or theology), which would confer an LLD for a lawyer, an MD for a physician, or ThD for a theologian. Students who chose to remain in the lower faculty (arts) could work towards a Magister (or Master's) degree and would study three philosophies: metaphysics, ethics, and natural philosophy. Latin translations of Aristotle's works such as De Anima (On the Soul) and the commentaries on them were required readings. As time passed, the lower faculty was allowed to confer its own doctoral degree called the PhD. Many of the Masters were drawn to encyclopedias and had used them as textbooks. But these scholars yearned for the complete original texts of the Ancient Greek philosophers, mathematicians, and physicians such as Aristotle, Euclid, and Galen, which were not available to them at the time. These Ancient Greek texts were to be found in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic World.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Contact with the Byzantine Empire, and with the Islamic world during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Latin Europe access to scientific Greek and Arabic texts, including the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Isidore of Miletus, John Philoponus, Jābir ibn Hayyān, al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes. European scholars had access to the translation programs of Raymond of Toledo, who sponsored the 12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin. Later translators like Michael Scotus would learn Arabic in order to study these texts directly. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. In fact, European university put many works about the natural world and the study of nature at the center of its curriculum, with the result that the \"medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and descendent.\"",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "At the beginning of the 13th century, there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural philosophy in these texts began to be extended by scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method, influenced by earlier contributions of the Islamic world, can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus. Pierre Duhem's thesis is that Stephen Tempier – the Bishop of Paris – Condemnation of 1277 led to the study of medieval science as a serious discipline, \"but no one in the field any longer endorses his view that modern science started in 1277\". However, many scholars agree with Duhem's view that the mid-late Middle Ages saw important scientific developments.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings. William of Ockham emphasized the principle of parsimony: natural philosophers should not postulate unnecessary entities, so that motion is not a distinct thing but is only the moving object and an intermediary \"sensible species\" is not needed to transmit an image of an object to the eye. Scholars such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret elements of Aristotle's mechanics. In particular, Buridan developed the theory that impetus was the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was a first step towards the modern concept of inertia. The Oxford Calculators began to mathematically analyze the kinematics of motion, making this analysis without considering the causes of motion.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden end to philosophic and scientific development. Yet, the rediscovery of ancient texts was stimulated by the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars sought refuge in the West. Meanwhile, the introduction of printing was to have great effect on European society. The facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed ideas such as algebra to propagate more rapidly. These developments paved the way for the Scientific Revolution, where scientific inquiry, halted at the start of the Black Death, resumed.",
"title": "Middle Ages"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The renewal of learning in Europe began with 12th century Scholasticism. The Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelian natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine). Thus modern science in Europe was resumed in a period of great upheaval: the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation; the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus; the Fall of Constantinople; but also the re-discovery of Aristotle during the Scholastic period presaged large social and political changes. Thus, a suitable environment was created in which it became possible to question scientific doctrine, in much the same way that Martin Luther and John Calvin questioned religious doctrine. The works of Ptolemy (astronomy) and Galen (medicine) were found not always to match everyday observations. Work by Vesalius on human cadavers found problems with the Galenic view of anatomy.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Theophrastus' work on rocks, Peri lithōn, remained authoritative for millennia: its interpretation of fossils was not overturned until after the Scientific Revolution.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Later, the expansion of the scientific paradigm during the Enlightenment further pushed the study of politics beyond normative determinations. In particular, the study of statistics, to study the subjects of the state, has been applied to polling and voting.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "In archaeology, the 15th and 16th centuries saw the rise of antiquarians in Renaissance Europe who were interested in the collection of artifacts.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The early modern period is seen as a flowering of the European Renaissance. There was a willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers. This resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific Revolution, which led to the emergence of a New Science that was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method. The Scientific Revolution is a convenient boundary between ancient thought and classical physics, and is traditionally held to have begun in 1543, when the books De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius, and also De Revolutionibus, by the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, were first printed. The period culminated with the publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton, representative of the unprecedented growth of scientific publications throughout Europe.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Other significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Edmond Halley, William Harvey, Pierre Fermat, Robert Hooke, Christiaan Huygens, Tycho Brahe, Marin Mersenne, Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton, and Blaise Pascal. In philosophy, major contributions were made by Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, and Thomas Hobbes. Christiaan Huygens derived the centripetal and centrifugal forces and was the first to transfer mathematical inquiry to describe unobservable physical phenomena. William Gilbert did some of the earliest experiments with electricity and magnetism, establishing that the Earth itself is magnetic.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The heliocentric astronomical model of the universe was refined by Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus proposed the idea that the Earth and all heavenly spheres, containing the planets and other objects in the cosmos, rotated around the Sun. His heliocentric model also proposed that all stars were fixed and did not rotate on an axis, nor in any motion at all. His theory proposed the yearly rotation of the Earth and the other heavenly spheres around the Sun and was able to calculate the distances of planets using deferents and epicycles. Although these calculations were not completely accurate, Copernicus was able to understand the distance order of each heavenly sphere. The Copernican heliocentric system was a revival of the hypotheses of Aristarchus of Samos and Seleucus of Seleucia. Aristarchus of Samos did propose that the Earth rotated around the Sun but did not mention anything about the other heavenly spheres' order, motion, or rotation. Seleucus of Seleucia also proposed the rotation of the Earth around the Sun but did not mention anything about the other heavenly spheres. In addition, Seleucus of Seleucia understood that the Moon rotated around the Earth and could be used to explain the tides of the oceans, thus further proving his understanding of the heliocentric idea.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The scientific method was also better developed as the modern way of thinking emphasized experimentation and reason over traditional considerations. Galileo (\"Father of Modern Physics\") also made use of experiments to validate physical theories, a key element of the scientific method.",
"title": "Renaissance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "The Scientific Revolution continued into the Age of Enlightenment, which accelerated the development of modern science.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The heliocentric model revived by Nicolaus Copernicus was followed by the model of planetary motion given by Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century, which proposed that the planets follow elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "In 1687, Isaac Newton published the Principia Mathematica, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of motion, which led to classical mechanics; and Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "A decisive moment came when \"chemistry\" was distinguished from alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Sceptical Chymist, in 1661; although the alchemical tradition continued for some time after his work. Other important steps included the gravimetric experimental practices of medical chemists like William Cullen, Joseph Black, Torbern Bergman and Pierre Macquer and through the work of Antoine Lavoisier (\"father of modern chemistry\") on oxygen and the law of conservation of mass, which refuted phlogiston theory. Modern chemistry emerged from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries through the material practices and theories promoted by alchemy, medicine, manufacturing and mining.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "William Harvey published De Motu Cordis in 1628, which revealed his conclusions based on his extensive studies of vertebrate circulatory systems. He identified the central role of the heart, arteries, and veins in producing blood movement in a circuit, and failed to find any confirmation of Galen's pre-existing notions of heating and cooling functions. The history of early modern biology and medicine is often told through the search for the seat of the soul. Galen in his descriptions of his foundational work in medicine presents the distinctions between arteries, veins, and nerves using the vocabulary of the soul.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "A critical innovation was the creation of permanent scientific societies and their scholarly journals, which dramatically sped the diffusion of new ideas. Typical was the founding of the Royal Society in London in 1660 and its journal in 1665 the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, the first scientific journal in English. 1665 also saw the first journal in French, the Journal des sçavans. Science drawing on the works of Newton, Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz, science was on a path to modern mathematics, physics and technology by the time of the generation of Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783). Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, published between 1751 and 1772 brought this new understanding to a wider audience. The impact of this process was not limited to science and technology, but affected philosophy (Immanuel Kant, David Hume), religion (the increasingly significant impact of science upon religion), and society and politics in general (Adam Smith, Voltaire).",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Geology did not undergo systematic restructuring during the Scientific Revolution but instead existed as a cloud of isolated, disconnected ideas about rocks, minerals, and landforms long before it became a coherent science. Robert Hooke formulated a theory of earthquakes, and Nicholas Steno developed the theory of superposition and argued that fossils were the remains of once-living creatures. Beginning with Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth in 1681, natural philosophers began to explore the idea that the Earth had changed over time. Burnet and his contemporaries interpreted Earth's past in terms of events described in the Bible, but their work laid the intellectual foundations for secular interpretations of Earth history.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "During the late 18th century, researchers such as Hugh Williamson and John Walsh experimented on the effects of electricity on the human body. Further studies by Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta established the electrical nature of what Volta called galvanism.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Modern geology, like modern chemistry, gradually evolved during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Benoît de Maillet and the Comte de Buffon saw the Earth as much older than the 6,000 years envisioned by biblical scholars. Jean-Étienne Guettard and Nicolas Desmarest hiked central France and recorded their observations on some of the first geological maps. Aided by chemical experimentation, naturalists such as Scotland's John Walker, Sweden's Torbern Bergman, and Germany's Abraham Werner created comprehensive classification systems for rocks and minerals—a collective achievement that transformed geology into a cutting edge field by the end of the eighteenth century. These early geologists also proposed a generalized interpretations of Earth history that led James Hutton, Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, following in the steps of Steno, to argue that layers of rock could be dated by the fossils they contained: a principle first applied to the geology of the Paris Basin. The use of index fossils became a powerful tool for making geological maps, because it allowed geologists to correlate the rocks in one locality with those of similar age in other, distant localities.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The basis for classical economics forms Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Smith criticized mercantilism, advocating a system of free trade with division of labour. He postulated an \"invisible hand\" that regulated economic systems made up of actors guided only by self-interest. The \"invisible hand\" mentioned in a lost page in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the \"Wealth of Nations\", 1776, advances as Smith's central message.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment. It was during this period that Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. Traditions of jurisprudence, history, philology and sociology developed during this time and informed the development of the social sciences of which anthropology was a part.",
"title": "Age of Enlightenment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The 19th century saw the birth of science as a profession. William Whewell had coined the term scientist in 1833, which soon replaced the older term natural philosopher.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "In physics, the behavior of electricity and magnetism was studied by Giovanni Aldini, Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm, and others. The experiments, theories and discoveries of Michael Faraday, Andre-Marie Ampere, James Clerk Maxwell, and their contemporaries led to the unification of the two phenomena into a single theory of electromagnetism as described by Maxwell's equations. Thermodynamics led to an understanding of heat and the notion of energy being defined.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "In astronomy, the planet Neptune was discovered. Advances in astronomy and in optical systems in the 19th century resulted in the first observation of an asteroid (1 Ceres) in 1801, and the discovery of Neptune in 1846.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "In mathematics, the notion of complex numbers finally matured and led to a subsequent analytical theory; they also began the use of hypercomplex numbers. Karl Weierstrass and others carried out the arithmetization of analysis for functions of real and complex variables. It also saw rise to new progress in geometry beyond those classical theories of Euclid, after a period of nearly two thousand years. The mathematical science of logic likewise had revolutionary breakthroughs after a similarly long period of stagnation. But the most important step in science at this time were the ideas formulated by the creators of electrical science. Their work changed the face of physics and made possible for new technology to come about such as electric power, electrical telegraphy, the telephone, and radio.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In chemistry, Dmitri Mendeleev, following the atomic theory of John Dalton, created the first periodic table of elements. Other highlights include the discoveries unveiling the nature of atomic structure and matter, simultaneously with chemistry – and of new kinds of radiation. The theory that all matter is made of atoms, which are the smallest constituents of matter that cannot be broken down without losing the basic chemical and physical properties of that matter, was provided by John Dalton in 1803, although the question took a hundred years to settle as proven. Dalton also formulated the law of mass relationships. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev composed his periodic table of elements on the basis of Dalton's discoveries. The synthesis of urea by Friedrich Wöhler opened a new research field, organic chemistry, and by the end of the 19th century, scientists were able to synthesize hundreds of organic compounds. The later part of the 19th century saw the exploitation of the Earth's petrochemicals, after the exhaustion of the oil supply from whaling. By the 20th century, systematic production of refined materials provided a ready supply of products which provided not only energy, but also synthetic materials for clothing, medicine, and everyday disposable resources. Application of the techniques of organic chemistry to living organisms resulted in physiological chemistry, the precursor to biochemistry.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Over the first half of the 19th century, geologists such as Charles Lyell, Adam Sedgwick, and Roderick Murchison applied the new technique to rocks throughout Europe and eastern North America, setting the stage for more detailed, government-funded mapping projects in later decades. Midway through the 19th century, the focus of geology shifted from description and classification to attempts to understand how the surface of the Earth had changed. The first comprehensive theories of mountain building were proposed during this period, as were the first modern theories of earthquakes and volcanoes. Louis Agassiz and others established the reality of continent-covering ice ages, and \"fluvialists\" like Andrew Crombie Ramsay argued that river valleys were formed, over millions of years by the rivers that flow through them. After the discovery of radioactivity, radiometric dating methods were developed, starting in the 20th century. Alfred Wegener's theory of \"continental drift\" was widely dismissed when he proposed it in the 1910s, but new data gathered in the 1950s and 1960s led to the theory of plate tectonics, which provided a plausible mechanism for it. Plate tectonics also provided a unified explanation for a wide range of seemingly unrelated geological phenomena. Since 1970 it has served as the unifying principle in geology.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Perhaps the most prominent, controversial, and far-reaching theory in all of science has been the theory of evolution by natural selection, which was independently formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. It was described in detail in Darwin's book The Origin of Species, which was published in 1859. In it, Darwin proposed that the features of all living things, including humans, were shaped by natural processes over long periods of time. The theory of evolution in its current form affects almost all areas of biology. Implications of evolution on fields outside of pure science have led to both opposition and support from different parts of society, and profoundly influenced the popular understanding of \"man's place in the universe\". Separately, Gregor Mendel formulated in the principles of inheritance in 1866, which became the basis of modern genetics.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Another important landmark in medicine and biology were the successful efforts to prove the germ theory of disease. Following this, Louis Pasteur made the first vaccine against rabies, and also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, including the asymmetry of crystals. In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis dramatically reduced the occurrence of puerperal fever by simply requiring physicians to wash their hands before attending to women in childbirth. This discovery predated the germ theory of disease. However, Semmelweis' findings were not appreciated by his contemporaries and handwashing came into use only with discoveries by British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1865 proved the principles of antisepsis. Lister's work was based on the important findings by French biologist Louis Pasteur. Pasteur was able to link microorganisms with disease, revolutionizing medicine. He also devised one of the most important methods in preventive medicine, when in 1880 he produced a vaccine against rabies. Pasteur invented the process of pasteurization, to help prevent the spread of disease through milk and other foods.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Karl Marx developed an alternative economic theory, called Marxian economics. Marxian economics is based on the labor theory of value and assumes the value of good to be based on the amount of labor required to produce it. Under this axiom, capitalism was based on employers not paying the full value of workers labor to create profit. The Austrian School responded to Marxian economics by viewing entrepreneurship as driving force of economic development. This replaced the labor theory of value by a system of supply and demand.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Psychology as a scientific enterprise that was independent from philosophy began in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research (in Leipzig). Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in memory studies), Ivan Pavlov (who discovered classical conditioning), William James, and Sigmund Freud. Freud's influence has been enormous, though more as cultural icon than a force in scientific psychology.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Modern sociology emerged in the early 19th century as the academic response to the modernization of the world. Among many early sociologists (e.g., Émile Durkheim), the aim of sociology was in structuralism, understanding the cohesion of social groups, and developing an \"antidote\" to social disintegration. Max Weber was concerned with the modernization of society through the concept of rationalization, which he believed would trap individuals in an \"iron cage\" of rational thought. Some sociologists, including Georg Simmel and W. E. B. Du Bois, used more microsociological, qualitative analyses. This microlevel approach played an important role in American sociology, with the theories of George Herbert Mead and his student Herbert Blumer resulting in the creation of the symbolic interactionism approach to sociology. In particular, just Auguste Comte, illustrated with his work the transition from a theological to a metaphysical stage and, from this, to a positive stage. Comte took care of the classification of the sciences as well as a transit of humanity towards a situation of progress attributable to a re-examination of nature according to the affirmation of 'sociality' as the basis of the scientifically interpreted society.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "The Romantic Movement of the early 19th century reshaped science by opening up new pursuits unexpected in the classical approaches of the Enlightenment. The decline of Romanticism occurred because a new movement, Positivism, began to take hold of the ideals of the intellectuals after 1840 and lasted until about 1880. At the same time, the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and later Wilhelm Dilthey whose work formed the basis for the culture concept which is central to the discipline. Traditionally, much of the history of the subject was based on colonial encounters between Western Europe and the rest of the world, and much of 18th- and 19th-century anthropology is now classed as scientific racism. During the late 19th century, battles over the \"study of man\" took place between those of an \"anthropological\" persuasion (relying on anthropometrical techniques) and those of an \"ethnological\" persuasion (looking at cultures and traditions), and these distinctions became part of the later divide between physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, the latter ushered in by the students of Franz Boas.",
"title": "19th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Science advanced dramatically during the 20th century. There were new and radical developments in the physical and life sciences, building on the progress from the 19th century.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "The beginning of the 20th century brought the start of a revolution in physics. The long-held theories of Newton were shown not to be correct in all circumstances. Beginning in 1900, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and others developed quantum theories to explain various anomalous experimental results, by introducing discrete energy levels. Not only did quantum mechanics show that the laws of motion did not hold on small scales, but the theory of general relativity, proposed by Einstein in 1915, showed that the fixed background of spacetime, on which both Newtonian mechanics and special relativity depended, could not exist. In 1925, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger formulated quantum mechanics, which explained the preceding quantum theories. Currently, general relativity and quantum mechanics are inconsistent with each other, and efforts are underway to unify the two.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The observation by Edwin Hubble in 1929 that the speed at which galaxies recede positively correlates with their distance, led to the understanding that the universe is expanding, and the formulation of the Big Bang theory by Georges Lemaître. George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, and Robert Herman had calculated that there should be evidence for a Big Bang in the background temperature of the universe. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a 3 Kelvin background hiss in their Bell Labs radiotelescope (the Holmdel Horn Antenna), which was evidence for this hypothesis, and formed the basis for a number of results that helped determine the age of the universe.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "In 1938 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission with radiochemical methods, and in 1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch wrote the first theoretical interpretation of the fission process, which was later improved by Niels Bohr and John A. Wheeler. Further developments took place during World War II, which led to the practical application of radar and the development and use of the atomic bomb. Around this time, Chien-Shiung Wu was recruited by the Manhattan Project to help develop a process for separating uranium metal into U-235 and U-238 isotopes by Gaseous diffusion. She was an expert experimentalist in beta decay and weak interaction physics. Wu designed an experiment (see Wu experiment) that enabled theoretical physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang to disprove the law of parity experimentally, winning them a Nobel Prize in 1957.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Though the process had begun with the invention of the cyclotron by Ernest O. Lawrence in the 1930s, physics in the postwar period entered into a phase of what historians have called \"Big Science\", requiring massive machines, budgets, and laboratories in order to test their theories and move into new frontiers. The primary patron of physics became state governments, who recognized that the support of \"basic\" research could often lead to technologies useful to both military and industrial applications.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "In the early 20th century, the study of heredity became a major investigation after the rediscovery in 1900 of the laws of inheritance developed by Mendel. The 20th century also saw the integration of physics and chemistry, with chemical properties explained as the result of the electronic structure of the atom. Linus Pauling's book on The Nature of the Chemical Bond used the principles of quantum mechanics to deduce bond angles in ever-more complicated molecules. Pauling's work culminated in the physical modelling of DNA, the secret of life (in the words of Francis Crick, 1953). In the same year, the Miller–Urey experiment demonstrated in a simulation of primordial processes, that basic constituents of proteins, simple amino acids, could themselves be built up from simpler molecules, kickstarting decades of research into the chemical origins of life. By 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick clarified the basic structure of DNA, the genetic material for expressing life in all its forms, building on the work of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, suggested that the structure of DNA was a double helix. In their famous paper \"Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids\" In the late 20th century, the possibilities of genetic engineering became practical for the first time, and a massive international effort began in 1990 to map out an entire human genome (the Human Genome Project). The discipline of ecology typically traces its origin to the synthesis of Darwinian evolution and Humboldtian biogeography, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Equally important in the rise of ecology, however, were microbiology and soil science—particularly the cycle of life concept, prominent in the work Louis Pasteur and Ferdinand Cohn. The word ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel, whose particularly holistic view of nature in general (and Darwin's theory in particular) was important in the spread of ecological thinking. The field of ecosystem ecology emerged in the Atomic Age with the use of radioisotopes to visualize food webs and by the 1970s ecosystem ecology deeply influenced global environmental management.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "In 1925, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin determined that stars were composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. She was dissuaded by astronomer Henry Norris Russell from publishing this finding in her PhD thesis because of the widely held belief that stars had the same composition as the Earth. However, four years later, in 1929, Henry Norris Russell came to the same conclusion through different reasoning and the discovery was eventually accepted.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "In 1987, supernova SN 1987A was observed by astronomers on Earth both visually, and in a triumph for neutrino astronomy, by the solar neutrino detectors at Kamiokande. But the solar neutrino flux was a fraction of its theoretically expected value. This discrepancy forced a change in some values in the standard model for particle physics.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The understanding of neurons and the nervous system became increasingly precise and molecular during the 20th century. For example, in 1952, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley presented a mathematical model for transmission of electrical signals in neurons of the giant axon of a squid, which they called \"action potentials\", and how they are initiated and propagated, known as the Hodgkin–Huxley model. In 1961–1962, Richard FitzHugh and J. Nagumo simplified Hodgkin–Huxley, in what is called the FitzHugh–Nagumo model. In 1962, Bernard Katz modeled neurotransmission across the space between neurons known as synapses. Beginning in 1966, Eric Kandel and collaborators examined biochemical changes in neurons associated with learning and memory storage in Aplysia. In 1981 Catherine Morris and Harold Lecar combined these models in the Morris–Lecar model. Such increasingly quantitative work gave rise to numerous biological neuron models and models of neural computation. Neuroscience began to be recognized as a distinct academic discipline in its own right. Eric Kandel and collaborators have cited David Rioch, Francis O. Schmitt, and Stephen Kuffler as having played critical roles in establishing the field.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Geologists' embrace of plate tectonics became part of a broadening of the field from a study of rocks into a study of the Earth as a planet. Other elements of this transformation include: geophysical studies of the interior of the Earth, the grouping of geology with meteorology and oceanography as one of the \"earth sciences\", and comparisons of Earth and the solar system's other rocky planets.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "In terms of applications, a massive number of new technologies were developed in the 20th century. Technologies such as electricity, the incandescent light bulb, the automobile and the phonograph, first developed at the end of the 19th century, were perfected and universally deployed. The first car was introduced by Karl Benz in 1885. The first airplane flight occurred in 1903, and by the end of the century airliners flew thousands of miles in a matter of hours. The development of the radio, television and computers caused massive changes in the dissemination of information. Advances in biology also led to large increases in food production, as well as the elimination of diseases such as polio by Dr. Jonas Salk. Gene mapping and gene sequencing, invented by Drs. Mark Skolnik and Walter Gilbert, respectively, are the two technologies that made the Human Genome Project feasible. Computer science, built upon a foundation of theoretical linguistics, discrete mathematics, and electrical engineering, studies the nature and limits of computation. Subfields include computability, computational complexity, database design, computer networking, artificial intelligence, and the design of computer hardware. One area in which advances in computing have contributed to more general scientific development is by facilitating large-scale archiving of scientific data. Contemporary computer science typically distinguishes itself by emphasizing mathematical 'theory' in contrast to the practical emphasis of software engineering.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Einstein's paper \"On the Quantum Theory of Radiation\" outlined the principles of the stimulated emission of photons. This led to the invention of the Laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) and the optical amplifier which ushered in the Information Age. It is optical amplification that allows fiber optic networks to transmit the massive capacity of the Internet.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "Based on wireless transmission of electromagnetic radiation and global networks of cellular operation, the mobile phone became a primary means to access the internet.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "In political science during the 20th century, the study of ideology, behaviouralism and international relations led to a multitude of 'pol-sci' subdisciplines including rational choice theory, voting theory, game theory (also used in economics), psephology, political geography/geopolitics, political anthropology/political psychology/political sociology, political economy, policy analysis, public administration, comparative political analysis and peace studies/conflict analysis. In economics, John Maynard Keynes prompted a division between microeconomics and macroeconomics in the 1920s. Under Keynesian economics macroeconomic trends can overwhelm economic choices made by individuals. Governments should promote aggregate demand for goods as a means to encourage economic expansion. Following World War II, Milton Friedman created the concept of monetarism. Monetarism focuses on using the supply and demand of money as a method for controlling economic activity. In the 1970s, monetarism has adapted into supply-side economics which advocates reducing taxes as a means to increase the amount of money available for economic expansion. Other modern schools of economic thought are New Classical economics and New Keynesian economics. New Classical economics was developed in the 1970s, emphasizing solid microeconomics as the basis for macroeconomic growth. New Keynesian economics was created partially in response to New Classical economics, and deals with how inefficiencies in the market create a need for control by a central bank or government.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Psychology in the 20th century saw a rejection of Freud's theories as being too unscientific, and a reaction against Edward Titchener's atomistic approach of the mind. This led to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson, which was popularized by B.F. Skinner. Behaviorism proposed epistemologically limiting psychological study to overt behavior, since that could be reliably measured. Scientific knowledge of the \"mind\" was considered too metaphysical, hence impossible to achieve. The final decades of the 20th century have seen the rise of cognitive science, which considers the mind as once again a subject for investigation, using the tools of psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and neurobiology. New methods of visualizing the activity of the brain, such as PET scans and CAT scans, began to exert their influence as well, leading some researchers to investigate the mind by investigating the brain, rather than cognition. These new forms of investigation assume that a wide understanding of the human mind is possible, and that such an understanding may be applied to other research domains, such as artificial intelligence. Evolutionary theory was applied to behavior and introduced to anthropology and psychology through the works of cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon; physical anthropology would eventually become evolutionary anthropology, incorporating elements of evolutionary biology with cultural anthropology.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "American sociology in the 1940s and 1950s was dominated largely by Talcott Parsons, who argued that aspects of society that promoted structural integration were therefore \"functional\". This structural functionalism approach was questioned in the 1960s, when sociologists came to see this approach as merely a justification for inequalities present in the status quo. In reaction, conflict theory was developed, which was based in part on the philosophies of Karl Marx. Conflict theorists saw society as an arena in which different groups compete for control over resources. Symbolic interactionism also came to be regarded as central to sociological thinking. Erving Goffman saw social interactions as a stage performance, with individuals preparing \"backstage\" and attempting to control their audience through impression management. While these theories are currently prominent in sociological thought, other approaches exist, including feminist theory, post-structuralism, rational choice theory, and postmodernism.",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "In the mid-20th century, much of the methodologies of earlier anthropological and ethnographical study were reevaluated with an eye towards research ethics, while at the same time the scope of investigation has broadened far beyond the traditional study of \"primitive cultures\".",
"title": "20th century"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "On July 4, 2012, physicists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced that they had discovered a new subatomic particle greatly resembling the Higgs boson, a potential key to an understanding of why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe. For now, some physicists are calling it a \"Higgslike\" particle. Peter Higgs was one of six physicists, working in three independent groups, who, in 1964, invented the notion of the Higgs field (\"cosmic molasses\"), along with Tom Kibble, Carl Hagen, Gerald Guralnik, François Englert and Robert Brout.",
"title": "21st century"
}
]
| The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200 BCE. These civilizations' contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin-speaking Western Europe during the early centuries of the Middle Ages, but continued to thrive in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire. Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into the Arabic-speaking Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West. Natural philosophy was transformed during the Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method. More "revolutions" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for chemistry. In the 19th century, new perspectives regarding the conservation of energy, age of Earth, and evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in genetics and physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as molecular biology and particle physics. Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of "big science," particularly after the Second World War. | 2002-01-08T21:37:16Z | 2023-12-20T04:19:29Z | [
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14,403 | Hydrogen peroxide | Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula H2O2. In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3%–6% by weight) in water for consumer use, and in higher concentrations for industrial use. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or "high-test peroxide", decomposes explosively when heated and has been used both as a monopropellant and an oxidizer in rocketry.
Hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species and the simplest peroxide, a compound having an oxygen–oxygen single bond. It decomposes slowly into water and elemental oxygen when exposed to light, and rapidly in the presence of organic or reactive compounds. It is typically stored with a stabilizer in a weakly acidic solution in an opaque bottle. Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body. Enzymes that use or decompose hydrogen peroxide are classified as peroxidases.
The boiling point of H2O2 has been extrapolated as being 150.2 °C (302.4 °F), approximately 50 °C (90 °F) higher than water. In practice, hydrogen peroxide will undergo potentially explosive thermal decomposition if heated to this temperature. It may be safely distilled at lower temperatures under reduced pressure.
Hydrogen peroxide forms stable adducts with urea (Hydrogen peroxide - urea), sodium carbonate (sodium percarbonate) and other compounds. An acid-base adduct with triphenylphosphine oxide is a useful "carrier" for H2O2 in some reactions.
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a nonplanar molecule with (twisted) C2 symmetry; this was first shown by Paul-Antoine Giguère in 1950 using infrared spectroscopy. Although the O−O bond is a single bond, the molecule has a relatively high rotational barrier of 386 cm (4.62 kJ/mol) for rotation between enantiomers via the trans configuration, and 2460 cm (29.4 kJ/mol) via the cis configuration. These barriers are proposed to be due to repulsion between the lone pairs of the adjacent oxygen atoms and dipolar effects between the two O–H bonds. For comparison, the rotational barrier for ethane is 1040 cm (12.4 kJ/mol).
The approximately 100° dihedral angle between the two O–H bonds makes the molecule chiral. It is the smallest and simplest molecule to exhibit enantiomerism. It has been proposed that the enantiospecific interactions of one rather than the other may have led to amplification of one enantiomeric form of ribonucleic acids and therefore an origin of homochirality in an RNA world.
The molecular structures of gaseous and crystalline H2O2 are significantly different. This difference is attributed to the effects of hydrogen bonding, which is absent in the gaseous state. Crystals of H2O2 are tetragonal with the space group D4 or P41212.
In aqueous solutions, hydrogen peroxide forms a eutectic mixture, exhibiting freezing-point depression down as low as -56 °C; pure water has a freezing point of 0 °C and pure hydrogen peroxide of -0.43 °C. The boiling point of the same mixtures is also depressed in relation with the mean of both boiling points (125.1 °C). It occurs at 114 °C. This boiling point is 14 °C greater than that of pure water and 36.2 °C less than that of pure hydrogen peroxide.
Hydrogen peroxide is most commonly available as a solution in water. For consumers, it is usually available from pharmacies at 3 and 6 wt% concentrations. The concentrations are sometimes described in terms of the volume of oxygen gas generated; one milliliter of a 20-volume solution generates twenty milliliters of oxygen gas when completely decomposed. For laboratory use, 30 wt% solutions are most common. Commercial grades from 70% to 98% are also available, but due to the potential of solutions of more than 68% hydrogen peroxide to be converted entirely to steam and oxygen (with the temperature of the steam increasing as the concentration increases above 68%) these grades are potentially far more hazardous and require special care in dedicated storage areas. Buyers must typically allow inspection by commercial manufacturers.
Hydrogen peroxide has several structural analogues with HmX−XHn bonding arrangements (water also shown for comparison). It has the highest (theoretical) boiling point of this series (X = O, S, N, P). Its melting point is also fairly high, being comparable to that of hydrazine and water, with only hydroxylamine crystallising significantly more readily, indicative of particularly strong hydrogen bonding. Diphosphane and hydrogen disulfide exhibit only weak hydrogen bonding and have little chemical similarity to hydrogen peroxide. Structurally, the analogues all adopt similar skewed structures, due to repulsion between adjacent lone pairs.
Hydrogen peroxide is produced by various biological processes mediated by enzymes.
Hydrogen peroxide has been detected in surface water, in groundwater, and in the atmosphere. It forms upon illumination of water. Sea water contains 0.5 to 14 μg/L of hydrogen peroxide, and freshwater contains 1 to 30 μg/L. Concentrations in air are about 0.4 to 4 μg/m, varying over several orders of magnitude depending in conditions such as season, altitude, daylight and water vapor content. In rural nighttime air it is less than 0.014 μg/m, and in moderate photochemical smog it is 14 to 42 μg/m.
The amount of hydrogen peroxide in biological systems can be assayed using a fluorometric assay.
Alexander von Humboldt is sometimes said to have been the first to report the first synthetic peroxide, barium peroxide, in 1799 as a by-product of his attempts to decompose air, although this is disputed due to von Humboldt's ambiguous wording. Nineteen years later Louis Jacques Thénard recognized that this compound could be used for the preparation of a previously unknown compound, which he described as eau oxygénée ("oxygenated water") – subsequently known as hydrogen peroxide.
An improved version of Thénard's process used hydrochloric acid, followed by addition of sulfuric acid to precipitate the barium sulfate byproduct. This process was used from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.
The bleaching effect of peroxides and their salts on natural dyes had been known since Thénard's experiments in the 1820s, but early attempts of industrial production of peroxides failed. The first plant producing hydrogen peroxide was built in 1873 in Berlin. The discovery of the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide by electrolysis with sulfuric acid introduced the more efficient electrochemical method. It was first commercialized in 1908 in Weißenstein, Carinthia, Austria. The anthraquinone process, which is still used, was developed during the 1930s by the German chemical manufacturer IG Farben in Ludwigshafen. The increased demand and improvements in the synthesis methods resulted in the rise of the annual production of hydrogen peroxide from 35,000 tonnes in 1950, to over 100,000 tonnes in 1960, to 300,000 tonnes by 1970; by 1998 it reached 2.7 million tonnes.
Early attempts failed to produce neat hydrogen peroxide. Anhydrous hydrogen peroxide was first obtained by vacuum distillation.
Determination of the molecular structure of hydrogen peroxide proved to be very difficult. In 1892, the Italian physical chemist Giacomo Carrara (1864–1925) determined its molecular mass by freezing-point depression, which confirmed that its molecular formula is H2O2. H2O=O seemed to be just as possible as the modern structure, and as late as in the middle of the 20th century at least half a dozen hypothetical isomeric variants of two main options seemed to be consistent with the available evidence. In 1934, the English mathematical physicist William Penney and the Scottish physicist Gordon Sutherland proposed a molecular structure for hydrogen peroxide that was very similar to the presently accepted one.
In 1994, world production of H2O2 was around 1.9 million tonnes and grew to 2.2 million in 2006, most of which was at a concentration of 70% or less. In that year, bulk 30% H2O2 sold for around 0.54 USD/kg, equivalent to US$1.50/kg (US$0.68/lb) on a "100% basis".
Today, hydrogen peroxide is manufactured almost exclusively by the anthraquinone process, which was originally developed by BASF in 1939. It begins with the reduction of an anthraquinone (such as 2-ethylanthraquinone or the 2-amyl derivative) to the corresponding anthrahydroquinone, typically by hydrogenation on a palladium catalyst. In the presence of oxygen, the anthrahydroquinone then undergoes autoxidation: the labile hydrogen atoms of the hydroxy groups transfer to the oxygen molecule, to give hydrogen peroxide and regenerating the anthraquinone. Most commercial processes achieve oxidation by bubbling compressed air through a solution of the anthrahydroquinone, with the hydrogen peroxide then extracted from the solution and the anthraquinone recycled back for successive cycles of hydrogenation and oxidation.
The net reaction for the anthraquinone-catalyzed process is :
The economics of the process depend heavily on effective recycling of the extraction solvents, the hydrogenation catalyst and the expensive quinone.
Hydrogen peroxide was once prepared industrially by hydrolysis of ammonium persulfate:
[NH4]2S2O4 was itself obtained by the electrolysis of a solution of ammonium bisulfate ([NH4]HSO4) in sulfuric acid.
Small amounts are formed by electrolysis, photochemistry, and electric arc, and related methods.
A commercially viable route for hydrogen peroxide via the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen favours production of water but can be stopped at the peroxide stage. One economic obstacle has been that direct processes give a dilute solution uneconomic for transportation. None of these has yet reached a point where it can be used for industrial-scale synthesis.
Hydrogen peroxide is about 1000x stronger acid than water.
Hydrogen peroxide disproportionates to form water and oxygen with a ΔH of –2884.5 kJ/kg and a ΔS of 70.5 J/(mol·K):
The rate of decomposition increases with rise in temperature, concentration, and pH. H2O2 is unstable under alkaline conditions. Decomposition is catalysed by various redox-active ions or compounds, including most transition metals and their compounds (e.g. manganese dioxide (MnO2), silver, and platinum).
The redox properties of hydrogen peroxide depend on pH. In acidic solutions, H2O2 is a powerful oxidizer.
Sulfite (SO2−3) is oxidized to sulfate (SO2−4).
Under alkaline conditions, hydrogen peroxide is a reductant. When H2O2 acts as a reducing agent, oxygen gas is also produced. For example, hydrogen peroxide will reduce sodium hypochlorite and potassium permanganate, which is a convenient method for preparing oxygen in the laboratory:
The oxygen produced from hydrogen peroxide and sodium hypochlorite is in the singlet state.
Although usually a reductant, alkaline hydrogen peroxide converts Mn(II) to the dioxide:
In a related reaction, potassium permanganate is reduced to Mn by acidic H2O2:
Hydrogen peroxide is frequently used as an oxidizing agent. Illustrative is oxidation of thioethers to sulfoxides:
Alkaline hydrogen peroxide is used for epoxidation of electron-deficient alkenes such as acrylic acid derivatives, and for the oxidation of alkylboranes to alcohols, the second step of hydroboration-oxidation. It is also the principal reagent in the Dakin oxidation process.
Hydrogen peroxide is a weak acid, forming hydroperoxide or peroxide salts with many metals.
It also converts metal oxides into the corresponding peroxides. For example, upon treatment with hydrogen peroxide, chromic acid (CrO3 and H2SO4) forms a blue peroxide CrO(O2)2.
The aerobic oxidation of glucose in the presence of the enzyme glucose oxidase produces hydrogen peroxide. The conversion affords gluconolactone:
Superoxide dismutases (SOD)s are enzymes that promote the disproportionation of superoxide into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide.
Peroxisomes are organelles found in virtually all eukaryotic cells. They are involved in the catabolism of very long chain fatty acids, branched chain fatty acids, D-amino acids, polyamines, and biosynthesis of plasmalogens, ether phospholipids, which are found in mammalian brains and lungs. They produce hydrogen peroxide in s process catalyzed by flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD):
Hydrogen peroxide arises by the degradation of adenosine monophosphate, which yields hypoxanthine. Hypoxanthine is then oxidatively catabolized first to xanthine and then to uric acid, and the reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme xanthine oxidase:
Hypoxanthine
Xanthine oxidase
Xanthine
Xanthine oxidase
Uric acid
The degradation of guanosine monophosphate yields xanthine as an intermediate product which is then converted in the same way to uric acid with the formation of hydrogen peroxide.
Catalase, another peroxisomal enzyme, uses this H2O2 to oxidize other substrates, including phenols, formic acid, formaldehyde, and alcohol, by means of a peroxidation reaction:
thus eliminating the poisonous hydrogen peroxide in the process.
This reaction is important in liver and kidney cells, where the peroxisomes neutralize various toxic substances that enter the blood. Some of the ethanol humans drink is oxidized to acetaldehyde in this way. In addition, when excess H2O2 accumulates in the cell, catalase converts it to H2O through this reaction:
Glutathione peroxidase, a selenoenzyme, also catalyzes the disproportionation of hydrogen peroxide.
The reaction of Fe and hydrogen peroxide is the basis of the Fenton reaction, which generates hydroxyl radicals, which are of significance in biology:
The fenton reaction explains the toxicity of hydrogen peroxides because the hydroxyl radicals rapidly and irreversibly oxidize all organic compounds including proteins, membrane lipids, and DNA. Hydrogen peroxide is a significant source of oxidative DNA damage in living cells. DNA damage includes formation of 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine among many other altered bases, as well as strand breaks, inter-strand crosslinks, and deoxyribose damage. By interacting with Cl¯ hydrogen peroxide also lead to chlorinated DNA bases. Hydroxyl radicals readily damage vital cellular components, especially those of the mitochondria. The compound is a major factor implicated in the free-radical theory of aging, based on its ready conversion into a hydroxyl radical.
Eggs of sea urchin, shortly after fertilization by a sperm, produce hydrogen peroxide. It is then converted to hydroxyl radicals (HO•), which initiate radical polymerization, which surrounds the eggs with a protective layer of polymer.
The bombardier beetle combine hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, leading to a violent exothermic chemical reaction to produce boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas (flash evaporation) and is expelled through an outlet valve with a loud popping sound.
As a proposed signaling molecule, hydrogen peroxide may regulate of a wide variety of biological processes.
At least one study has also tried to link hydrogen peroxide production to cancer.
About 60% of the world's production of hydrogen peroxide is used for pulp- and paper-bleaching. The second major industrial application is the manufacture of sodium percarbonate and sodium perborate, which are used as mild bleaches in laundry detergents. A representative conversion is:
Sodium percarbonate, which is an adduct of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, is the active ingredient in such laundry products as OxiClean and Tide laundry detergent. When dissolved in water, it releases hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate. By themselves these bleaching agents are only effective at wash temperatures of 60 °C (140 °F) or above and so, often are used in conjunction with bleach activators, which facilitate cleaning at lower temperatures.
Hydrogen peroxide has also been used as a flour bleaching agent and a tooth and bone whitening agent.
It is used in the production of various organic peroxides with dibenzoyl peroxide being a high volume example. Peroxy acids, such as peracetic acid and meta-chloroperoxybenzoic acid also are produced using hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide has been used for creating organic peroxide-based explosives, such as acetone peroxide. It is used as an initiator in polymerizations. Hydrogen peroxide reacts with certain di-esters, such as phenyl oxalate ester (cyalume), to produce chemiluminescence; this application is most commonly encountered in the form of glow sticks.
The reaction with borax leads to sodium perborate, a bleach used in laundry detergents:
Hydrogen peroxide is used in certain waste-water treatment processes to remove organic impurities. In advanced oxidation processing, the Fenton reaction gives the highly reactive hydroxyl radical (•OH). This degrades organic compounds, including those that are ordinarily robust, such as aromatic or halogenated compounds. It can also oxidize sulfur-based compounds present in the waste; which is beneficial as it generally reduces their odour.
Hydrogen peroxide may be used for the sterilization of various surfaces, including surgical tools, and may be deployed as a vapour (VHP) for room sterilization. H2O2 demonstrates broad-spectrum efficacy against viruses, bacteria, yeasts, and bacterial spores. In general, greater activity is seen against Gram-positive than Gram-negative bacteria; however, the presence of catalase or other peroxidases in these organisms may increase tolerance in the presence of lower concentrations. Lower levels of concentration (3%) will work against most spores; higher concentrations (7 to 30%) and longer contact times will improve sporicidal activity.
Hydrogen peroxide is seen as an environmentally safe alternative to chlorine-based bleaches, as it degrades to form oxygen and water and it is generally recognized as safe as an antimicrobial agent by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
High-concentration H2O2 is referred to as "high-test peroxide" (HTP). It can be used either as a monopropellant (not mixed with fuel) or as the oxidizer component of a bipropellant rocket. Use as a monopropellant takes advantage of the decomposition of 70–98% concentration hydrogen peroxide into steam and oxygen. The propellant is pumped into a reaction chamber, where a catalyst, usually a silver or platinum screen, triggers decomposition, producing steam at over 600 °C (1,100 °F), which is expelled through a nozzle, generating thrust. H2O2 monopropellant produces a maximal specific impulse (Isp) of 161 s (1.6 kN·s/kg). Peroxide was the first major monopropellant adopted for use in rocket applications. Hydrazine eventually replaced hydrogen-peroxide monopropellant thruster applications primarily because of a 25% increase in the vacuum specific impulse. Hydrazine (toxic) and hydrogen peroxide (less-toxic [ACGIH TLV 0.01 and 1 ppm respectively]) are the only two monopropellants (other than cold gases) to have been widely adopted and utilized for propulsion and power applications. The Bell Rocket Belt, reaction control systems for X-1, X-15, Centaur, Mercury, Little Joe, as well as the turbo-pump gas generators for X-1, X-15, Jupiter, Redstone and Viking used hydrogen peroxide as a monopropellant. The RD-107 engines (used from 1957 to present) in the R-7 series of rockets decompose hydrogen peroxide to power the turbopumps.
As a bipropellant, H2O2 is decomposed to burn a fuel as an oxidizer. Specific impulses as high as 350 s (3.5 kN·s/kg) can be achieved, depending on the fuel. Peroxide used as an oxidizer gives a somewhat lower Isp than liquid oxygen, but is dense, storable, non-cryogenic and can be more easily used to drive gas turbines to give high pressures using an efficient closed cycle. It may also be used for regenerative cooling of rocket engines. Peroxide was used very successfully as an oxidizer in World War II German rocket motors (e.g. T-Stoff, containing oxyquinoline stabilizer, for both the Walter HWK 109-500 Starthilfe RATO externally podded monopropellant booster system, and for the Walter HWK 109-509 rocket motor series used for the Me 163B), most often used with C-Stoff in a self-igniting hypergolic combination, and for the low-cost British Black Knight and Black Arrow launchers. Presently, HTP is used on ILR-33 AMBER and Nucleus suborbital rockets.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hellmuth Walter KG–conceived turbine used hydrogen peroxide for use in submarines while submerged; it was found to be too noisy and require too much maintenance compared to diesel-electric power systems. Some torpedoes used hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer or propellant. Operator error in the use of hydrogen-peroxide torpedoes was named as possible causes for the sinking of HMS Sidon and the Russian submarine Kursk. SAAB Underwater Systems is manufacturing the Torpedo 2000. This torpedo, used by the Swedish Navy, is powered by a piston engine propelled by HTP as an oxidizer and kerosene as a fuel in a bipropellant system.
Hydrogen peroxide has various domestic uses, primarily as a cleaning and disinfecting agent.
Diluted H2O2 (between 1.9% and 12%) mixed with aqueous ammonia has been used to bleach human hair. The chemical's bleaching property lends its name to the phrase "peroxide blonde". Hydrogen peroxide is also used for tooth whitening. It may be found in most whitening toothpastes. Hydrogen peroxide has shown positive results involving teeth lightness and chroma shade parameters. It works by oxidizing colored pigments onto the enamel where the shade of the tooth may become lighter. Hydrogen peroxide may be mixed with baking soda and salt to make a homemade toothpaste.
Hydrogen peroxide reacts with blood as a bleaching agent, and so if a blood stain is fresh, or not too old, liberal application of hydrogen peroxide, if necessary in more than single application, will bleach the stain fully out. After about two minutes of the application, the blood should be firmly blotted out.
Hydrogen peroxide may be used to treat acne, although benzoyl peroxide is a more common treatment.
The use of dilute hydrogen peroxide as a oral cleansing agent has been reviewed academically to determine its usefulness in treating gingivitis and plaque. Although there is a positive effect when compared with a placebo, it was concluded that chlorhexidine is a much more effective treatment.
Some horticulturists and users of hydroponics advocate the use of weak hydrogen peroxide solution in watering solutions. Its spontaneous decomposition releases oxygen that enhances a plant's root development and helps to treat root rot (cellular root death due to lack of oxygen) and a variety of other pests.
For general watering concentrations around 0.1% is in use and this can be increased up to one percent for anti-fungal actions. Tests show that plant foliage can safely tolerate concentrations up to 3%.
Hydrogen peroxide is used in aquaculture for controlling mortality caused by various microbes. In 2019, the U.S. FDA approved it for control of Saprolegniasis in all coldwater finfish and all fingerling and adult coolwater and warmwater finfish, for control of external columnaris disease in warm-water finfish, and for control of Gyrodactylus spp. in freshwater-reared salmonids. Laboratory tests conducted by fish culturists have demonstrated that common household hydrogen peroxide may be used safely to provide oxygen for small fish. The hydrogen peroxide releases oxygen by decomposition when it is exposed to catalysts such as manganese dioxide.
Hydrogen peroxide may be used in combination with a UV-light source to remove yellowing from white or light grey acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastics to partially or fully restore the original color. In the retrocomputing scene, this process is commonly referred to as retrobright.
Regulations vary, but low concentrations, such as 5%, are widely available and legal to buy for medical use. Most over-the-counter peroxide solutions are not suitable for ingestion. Higher concentrations may be considered hazardous and typically are accompanied by a safety data sheet (SDS). In high concentrations, hydrogen peroxide is an aggressive oxidizer and will corrode many materials, including human skin. In the presence of a reducing agent, high concentrations of H2O2 will react violently. While concentrations up to 35% produce only "white" oxygen bubbles in the skin (and some biting pain) that disappear with the blood within 30–45 minutes, concentrations of 98% dissolve paper. However concentrations as low as 3% can be dangerous for the eye because of oxygen evolution within the eye.
High-concentration hydrogen peroxide streams, typically above 40%, should be considered hazardous due to concentrated hydrogen peroxide's meeting the definition of a DOT oxidizer according to U.S. regulations, if released into the environment. The EPA Reportable Quantity (RQ) for D001 hazardous wastes is 100 pounds (45 kg), or approximately 10 US gallons (38 L), of concentrated hydrogen peroxide.
Hydrogen peroxide should be stored in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area and away from any flammable or combustible substances. It should be stored in a container composed of non-reactive materials such as stainless steel or glass (other materials including some plastics and aluminium alloys may also be suitable). Because it breaks down quickly when exposed to light, it should be stored in an opaque container, and pharmaceutical formulations typically come in brown bottles that block light.
Hydrogen peroxide, either in pure or diluted form, may pose several risks, the main one being that it forms explosive mixtures upon contact with organic compounds. Distillation of hydrogen peroxide at normal pressures is highly dangerous. It is also corrosive, especially when concentrated, but even domestic-strength solutions may cause irritation to the eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. Swallowing hydrogen peroxide solutions is particularly dangerous, as decomposition in the stomach releases large quantities of gas (ten times the volume of a 3% solution), leading to internal bloating. Inhaling over 10% can cause severe pulmonary irritation.
With a significant vapour pressure (1.2 kPa at 50 °C), hydrogen-peroxide vapour is potentially hazardous. According to U.S. NIOSH, the immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) limit is only 75 ppm. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established a permissible exposure limit of 1.0 ppm calculated as an 8-hour time-weighted average (29 CFR 1910.1000, Table Z-1). Hydrogen peroxide also has been classified by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) as a "known animal carcinogen, with unknown relevance on humans". For workplaces where there is a risk of exposure to the hazardous concentrations of the vapours, continuous monitors for hydrogen peroxide should be used. Information on the hazards of hydrogen peroxide is available from OSHA and from the ATSDR.
Historically, hydrogen peroxide was used for disinfecting wounds, partly because of its low cost and prompt availability compared to other antiseptics.
There is conflicting evidence on hydrogen peroxide's effect on wound healing. Some research finds benefit, while other research find delays and healing inhibition. Its use for home treatment of wounds is generally not recommended. 1.5–3% Hydrogen peroxide is used as a disinfectant in dentistry, especially in endodotic treatments together with hypochlorite and chlorhexidin and 1–1.5% is also useful for treatment of inflammation of third molars (wisdom teeth).
Practitioners of alternative medicine have advocated the use of hydrogen peroxide for various conditions, including emphysema, influenza, AIDS, and in particular cancer. There is no evidence of effectiveness and in some cases it has proved fatal.
Both the effectiveness and safety of hydrogen peroxide therapy is scientifically questionable. Hydrogen peroxide is produced by the immune system, but in a carefully controlled manner. Cells called phagocytes engulf pathogens and then use hydrogen peroxide to destroy them. The peroxide is toxic to both the cell and the pathogen and so is kept within a special compartment, called a phagosome. Free hydrogen peroxide will damage any tissue it encounters via oxidative stress, a process that also has been proposed as a cause of cancer. Claims that hydrogen peroxide therapy increases cellular levels of oxygen have not been supported. The quantities administered would be expected to provide very little additional oxygen compared to that available from normal respiration. It is also difficult to raise the level of oxygen around cancer cells within a tumour, as the blood supply tends to be poor, a situation known as tumor hypoxia.
Large oral doses of hydrogen peroxide at a 3% concentration may cause irritation and blistering to the mouth, throat, and abdomen as well as abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Ingestion of hydrogen peroxide at concentrations of 35% or higher has been implicated as the cause of numerous gas embolism events resulting in hospitalisation. In these cases, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was used to treat the embolisms.
Intravenous injection of hydrogen peroxide has been linked to several deaths. The American Cancer Society states that "there is no scientific evidence that hydrogen peroxide is a safe, effective, or useful cancer treatment." Furthermore, the therapy is not approved by the U.S. FDA.
Bibliography | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula H2O2. In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3%–6% by weight) in water for consumer use, and in higher concentrations for industrial use. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or \"high-test peroxide\", decomposes explosively when heated and has been used both as a monopropellant and an oxidizer in rocketry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species and the simplest peroxide, a compound having an oxygen–oxygen single bond. It decomposes slowly into water and elemental oxygen when exposed to light, and rapidly in the presence of organic or reactive compounds. It is typically stored with a stabilizer in a weakly acidic solution in an opaque bottle. Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body. Enzymes that use or decompose hydrogen peroxide are classified as peroxidases.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The boiling point of H2O2 has been extrapolated as being 150.2 °C (302.4 °F), approximately 50 °C (90 °F) higher than water. In practice, hydrogen peroxide will undergo potentially explosive thermal decomposition if heated to this temperature. It may be safely distilled at lower temperatures under reduced pressure.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide forms stable adducts with urea (Hydrogen peroxide - urea), sodium carbonate (sodium percarbonate) and other compounds. An acid-base adduct with triphenylphosphine oxide is a useful \"carrier\" for H2O2 in some reactions.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a nonplanar molecule with (twisted) C2 symmetry; this was first shown by Paul-Antoine Giguère in 1950 using infrared spectroscopy. Although the O−O bond is a single bond, the molecule has a relatively high rotational barrier of 386 cm (4.62 kJ/mol) for rotation between enantiomers via the trans configuration, and 2460 cm (29.4 kJ/mol) via the cis configuration. These barriers are proposed to be due to repulsion between the lone pairs of the adjacent oxygen atoms and dipolar effects between the two O–H bonds. For comparison, the rotational barrier for ethane is 1040 cm (12.4 kJ/mol).",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The approximately 100° dihedral angle between the two O–H bonds makes the molecule chiral. It is the smallest and simplest molecule to exhibit enantiomerism. It has been proposed that the enantiospecific interactions of one rather than the other may have led to amplification of one enantiomeric form of ribonucleic acids and therefore an origin of homochirality in an RNA world.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The molecular structures of gaseous and crystalline H2O2 are significantly different. This difference is attributed to the effects of hydrogen bonding, which is absent in the gaseous state. Crystals of H2O2 are tetragonal with the space group D4 or P41212.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In aqueous solutions, hydrogen peroxide forms a eutectic mixture, exhibiting freezing-point depression down as low as -56 °C; pure water has a freezing point of 0 °C and pure hydrogen peroxide of -0.43 °C. The boiling point of the same mixtures is also depressed in relation with the mean of both boiling points (125.1 °C). It occurs at 114 °C. This boiling point is 14 °C greater than that of pure water and 36.2 °C less than that of pure hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is most commonly available as a solution in water. For consumers, it is usually available from pharmacies at 3 and 6 wt% concentrations. The concentrations are sometimes described in terms of the volume of oxygen gas generated; one milliliter of a 20-volume solution generates twenty milliliters of oxygen gas when completely decomposed. For laboratory use, 30 wt% solutions are most common. Commercial grades from 70% to 98% are also available, but due to the potential of solutions of more than 68% hydrogen peroxide to be converted entirely to steam and oxygen (with the temperature of the steam increasing as the concentration increases above 68%) these grades are potentially far more hazardous and require special care in dedicated storage areas. Buyers must typically allow inspection by commercial manufacturers.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide has several structural analogues with HmX−XHn bonding arrangements (water also shown for comparison). It has the highest (theoretical) boiling point of this series (X = O, S, N, P). Its melting point is also fairly high, being comparable to that of hydrazine and water, with only hydroxylamine crystallising significantly more readily, indicative of particularly strong hydrogen bonding. Diphosphane and hydrogen disulfide exhibit only weak hydrogen bonding and have little chemical similarity to hydrogen peroxide. Structurally, the analogues all adopt similar skewed structures, due to repulsion between adjacent lone pairs.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is produced by various biological processes mediated by enzymes.",
"title": "Natural occurrence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide has been detected in surface water, in groundwater, and in the atmosphere. It forms upon illumination of water. Sea water contains 0.5 to 14 μg/L of hydrogen peroxide, and freshwater contains 1 to 30 μg/L. Concentrations in air are about 0.4 to 4 μg/m, varying over several orders of magnitude depending in conditions such as season, altitude, daylight and water vapor content. In rural nighttime air it is less than 0.014 μg/m, and in moderate photochemical smog it is 14 to 42 μg/m.",
"title": "Natural occurrence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The amount of hydrogen peroxide in biological systems can be assayed using a fluorometric assay.",
"title": "Natural occurrence"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Alexander von Humboldt is sometimes said to have been the first to report the first synthetic peroxide, barium peroxide, in 1799 as a by-product of his attempts to decompose air, although this is disputed due to von Humboldt's ambiguous wording. Nineteen years later Louis Jacques Thénard recognized that this compound could be used for the preparation of a previously unknown compound, which he described as eau oxygénée (\"oxygenated water\") – subsequently known as hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "An improved version of Thénard's process used hydrochloric acid, followed by addition of sulfuric acid to precipitate the barium sulfate byproduct. This process was used from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The bleaching effect of peroxides and their salts on natural dyes had been known since Thénard's experiments in the 1820s, but early attempts of industrial production of peroxides failed. The first plant producing hydrogen peroxide was built in 1873 in Berlin. The discovery of the synthesis of hydrogen peroxide by electrolysis with sulfuric acid introduced the more efficient electrochemical method. It was first commercialized in 1908 in Weißenstein, Carinthia, Austria. The anthraquinone process, which is still used, was developed during the 1930s by the German chemical manufacturer IG Farben in Ludwigshafen. The increased demand and improvements in the synthesis methods resulted in the rise of the annual production of hydrogen peroxide from 35,000 tonnes in 1950, to over 100,000 tonnes in 1960, to 300,000 tonnes by 1970; by 1998 it reached 2.7 million tonnes.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Early attempts failed to produce neat hydrogen peroxide. Anhydrous hydrogen peroxide was first obtained by vacuum distillation.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Determination of the molecular structure of hydrogen peroxide proved to be very difficult. In 1892, the Italian physical chemist Giacomo Carrara (1864–1925) determined its molecular mass by freezing-point depression, which confirmed that its molecular formula is H2O2. H2O=O seemed to be just as possible as the modern structure, and as late as in the middle of the 20th century at least half a dozen hypothetical isomeric variants of two main options seemed to be consistent with the available evidence. In 1934, the English mathematical physicist William Penney and the Scottish physicist Gordon Sutherland proposed a molecular structure for hydrogen peroxide that was very similar to the presently accepted one.",
"title": "Discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1994, world production of H2O2 was around 1.9 million tonnes and grew to 2.2 million in 2006, most of which was at a concentration of 70% or less. In that year, bulk 30% H2O2 sold for around 0.54 USD/kg, equivalent to US$1.50/kg (US$0.68/lb) on a \"100% basis\".",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Today, hydrogen peroxide is manufactured almost exclusively by the anthraquinone process, which was originally developed by BASF in 1939. It begins with the reduction of an anthraquinone (such as 2-ethylanthraquinone or the 2-amyl derivative) to the corresponding anthrahydroquinone, typically by hydrogenation on a palladium catalyst. In the presence of oxygen, the anthrahydroquinone then undergoes autoxidation: the labile hydrogen atoms of the hydroxy groups transfer to the oxygen molecule, to give hydrogen peroxide and regenerating the anthraquinone. Most commercial processes achieve oxidation by bubbling compressed air through a solution of the anthrahydroquinone, with the hydrogen peroxide then extracted from the solution and the anthraquinone recycled back for successive cycles of hydrogenation and oxidation.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The net reaction for the anthraquinone-catalyzed process is :",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The economics of the process depend heavily on effective recycling of the extraction solvents, the hydrogenation catalyst and the expensive quinone.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide was once prepared industrially by hydrolysis of ammonium persulfate:",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "[NH4]2S2O4 was itself obtained by the electrolysis of a solution of ammonium bisulfate ([NH4]HSO4) in sulfuric acid.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Small amounts are formed by electrolysis, photochemistry, and electric arc, and related methods.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "A commercially viable route for hydrogen peroxide via the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen favours production of water but can be stopped at the peroxide stage. One economic obstacle has been that direct processes give a dilute solution uneconomic for transportation. None of these has yet reached a point where it can be used for industrial-scale synthesis.",
"title": "Production"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is about 1000x stronger acid than water.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide disproportionates to form water and oxygen with a ΔH of –2884.5 kJ/kg and a ΔS of 70.5 J/(mol·K):",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The rate of decomposition increases with rise in temperature, concentration, and pH. H2O2 is unstable under alkaline conditions. Decomposition is catalysed by various redox-active ions or compounds, including most transition metals and their compounds (e.g. manganese dioxide (MnO2), silver, and platinum).",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The redox properties of hydrogen peroxide depend on pH. In acidic solutions, H2O2 is a powerful oxidizer.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Sulfite (SO2−3) is oxidized to sulfate (SO2−4).",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Under alkaline conditions, hydrogen peroxide is a reductant. When H2O2 acts as a reducing agent, oxygen gas is also produced. For example, hydrogen peroxide will reduce sodium hypochlorite and potassium permanganate, which is a convenient method for preparing oxygen in the laboratory:",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The oxygen produced from hydrogen peroxide and sodium hypochlorite is in the singlet state.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Although usually a reductant, alkaline hydrogen peroxide converts Mn(II) to the dioxide:",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In a related reaction, potassium permanganate is reduced to Mn by acidic H2O2:",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is frequently used as an oxidizing agent. Illustrative is oxidation of thioethers to sulfoxides:",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Alkaline hydrogen peroxide is used for epoxidation of electron-deficient alkenes such as acrylic acid derivatives, and for the oxidation of alkylboranes to alcohols, the second step of hydroboration-oxidation. It is also the principal reagent in the Dakin oxidation process.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is a weak acid, forming hydroperoxide or peroxide salts with many metals.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "It also converts metal oxides into the corresponding peroxides. For example, upon treatment with hydrogen peroxide, chromic acid (CrO3 and H2SO4) forms a blue peroxide CrO(O2)2.",
"title": "Reactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The aerobic oxidation of glucose in the presence of the enzyme glucose oxidase produces hydrogen peroxide. The conversion affords gluconolactone:",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Superoxide dismutases (SOD)s are enzymes that promote the disproportionation of superoxide into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Peroxisomes are organelles found in virtually all eukaryotic cells. They are involved in the catabolism of very long chain fatty acids, branched chain fatty acids, D-amino acids, polyamines, and biosynthesis of plasmalogens, ether phospholipids, which are found in mammalian brains and lungs. They produce hydrogen peroxide in s process catalyzed by flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD):",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide arises by the degradation of adenosine monophosphate, which yields hypoxanthine. Hypoxanthine is then oxidatively catabolized first to xanthine and then to uric acid, and the reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme xanthine oxidase:",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Hypoxanthine",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Xanthine oxidase",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Xanthine",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Xanthine oxidase",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Uric acid",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The degradation of guanosine monophosphate yields xanthine as an intermediate product which is then converted in the same way to uric acid with the formation of hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Catalase, another peroxisomal enzyme, uses this H2O2 to oxidize other substrates, including phenols, formic acid, formaldehyde, and alcohol, by means of a peroxidation reaction:",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "thus eliminating the poisonous hydrogen peroxide in the process.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "This reaction is important in liver and kidney cells, where the peroxisomes neutralize various toxic substances that enter the blood. Some of the ethanol humans drink is oxidized to acetaldehyde in this way. In addition, when excess H2O2 accumulates in the cell, catalase converts it to H2O through this reaction:",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Glutathione peroxidase, a selenoenzyme, also catalyzes the disproportionation of hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The reaction of Fe and hydrogen peroxide is the basis of the Fenton reaction, which generates hydroxyl radicals, which are of significance in biology:",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The fenton reaction explains the toxicity of hydrogen peroxides because the hydroxyl radicals rapidly and irreversibly oxidize all organic compounds including proteins, membrane lipids, and DNA. Hydrogen peroxide is a significant source of oxidative DNA damage in living cells. DNA damage includes formation of 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine among many other altered bases, as well as strand breaks, inter-strand crosslinks, and deoxyribose damage. By interacting with Cl¯ hydrogen peroxide also lead to chlorinated DNA bases. Hydroxyl radicals readily damage vital cellular components, especially those of the mitochondria. The compound is a major factor implicated in the free-radical theory of aging, based on its ready conversion into a hydroxyl radical.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Eggs of sea urchin, shortly after fertilization by a sperm, produce hydrogen peroxide. It is then converted to hydroxyl radicals (HO•), which initiate radical polymerization, which surrounds the eggs with a protective layer of polymer.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The bombardier beetle combine hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, leading to a violent exothermic chemical reaction to produce boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas (flash evaporation) and is expelled through an outlet valve with a loud popping sound.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "As a proposed signaling molecule, hydrogen peroxide may regulate of a wide variety of biological processes.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "At least one study has also tried to link hydrogen peroxide production to cancer.",
"title": "Biochemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "About 60% of the world's production of hydrogen peroxide is used for pulp- and paper-bleaching. The second major industrial application is the manufacture of sodium percarbonate and sodium perborate, which are used as mild bleaches in laundry detergents. A representative conversion is:",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Sodium percarbonate, which is an adduct of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, is the active ingredient in such laundry products as OxiClean and Tide laundry detergent. When dissolved in water, it releases hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate. By themselves these bleaching agents are only effective at wash temperatures of 60 °C (140 °F) or above and so, often are used in conjunction with bleach activators, which facilitate cleaning at lower temperatures.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide has also been used as a flour bleaching agent and a tooth and bone whitening agent.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "It is used in the production of various organic peroxides with dibenzoyl peroxide being a high volume example. Peroxy acids, such as peracetic acid and meta-chloroperoxybenzoic acid also are produced using hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide has been used for creating organic peroxide-based explosives, such as acetone peroxide. It is used as an initiator in polymerizations. Hydrogen peroxide reacts with certain di-esters, such as phenyl oxalate ester (cyalume), to produce chemiluminescence; this application is most commonly encountered in the form of glow sticks.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The reaction with borax leads to sodium perborate, a bleach used in laundry detergents:",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is used in certain waste-water treatment processes to remove organic impurities. In advanced oxidation processing, the Fenton reaction gives the highly reactive hydroxyl radical (•OH). This degrades organic compounds, including those that are ordinarily robust, such as aromatic or halogenated compounds. It can also oxidize sulfur-based compounds present in the waste; which is beneficial as it generally reduces their odour.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide may be used for the sterilization of various surfaces, including surgical tools, and may be deployed as a vapour (VHP) for room sterilization. H2O2 demonstrates broad-spectrum efficacy against viruses, bacteria, yeasts, and bacterial spores. In general, greater activity is seen against Gram-positive than Gram-negative bacteria; however, the presence of catalase or other peroxidases in these organisms may increase tolerance in the presence of lower concentrations. Lower levels of concentration (3%) will work against most spores; higher concentrations (7 to 30%) and longer contact times will improve sporicidal activity.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is seen as an environmentally safe alternative to chlorine-based bleaches, as it degrades to form oxygen and water and it is generally recognized as safe as an antimicrobial agent by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "High-concentration H2O2 is referred to as \"high-test peroxide\" (HTP). It can be used either as a monopropellant (not mixed with fuel) or as the oxidizer component of a bipropellant rocket. Use as a monopropellant takes advantage of the decomposition of 70–98% concentration hydrogen peroxide into steam and oxygen. The propellant is pumped into a reaction chamber, where a catalyst, usually a silver or platinum screen, triggers decomposition, producing steam at over 600 °C (1,100 °F), which is expelled through a nozzle, generating thrust. H2O2 monopropellant produces a maximal specific impulse (Isp) of 161 s (1.6 kN·s/kg). Peroxide was the first major monopropellant adopted for use in rocket applications. Hydrazine eventually replaced hydrogen-peroxide monopropellant thruster applications primarily because of a 25% increase in the vacuum specific impulse. Hydrazine (toxic) and hydrogen peroxide (less-toxic [ACGIH TLV 0.01 and 1 ppm respectively]) are the only two monopropellants (other than cold gases) to have been widely adopted and utilized for propulsion and power applications. The Bell Rocket Belt, reaction control systems for X-1, X-15, Centaur, Mercury, Little Joe, as well as the turbo-pump gas generators for X-1, X-15, Jupiter, Redstone and Viking used hydrogen peroxide as a monopropellant. The RD-107 engines (used from 1957 to present) in the R-7 series of rockets decompose hydrogen peroxide to power the turbopumps.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "As a bipropellant, H2O2 is decomposed to burn a fuel as an oxidizer. Specific impulses as high as 350 s (3.5 kN·s/kg) can be achieved, depending on the fuel. Peroxide used as an oxidizer gives a somewhat lower Isp than liquid oxygen, but is dense, storable, non-cryogenic and can be more easily used to drive gas turbines to give high pressures using an efficient closed cycle. It may also be used for regenerative cooling of rocket engines. Peroxide was used very successfully as an oxidizer in World War II German rocket motors (e.g. T-Stoff, containing oxyquinoline stabilizer, for both the Walter HWK 109-500 Starthilfe RATO externally podded monopropellant booster system, and for the Walter HWK 109-509 rocket motor series used for the Me 163B), most often used with C-Stoff in a self-igniting hypergolic combination, and for the low-cost British Black Knight and Black Arrow launchers. Presently, HTP is used on ILR-33 AMBER and Nucleus suborbital rockets.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hellmuth Walter KG–conceived turbine used hydrogen peroxide for use in submarines while submerged; it was found to be too noisy and require too much maintenance compared to diesel-electric power systems. Some torpedoes used hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer or propellant. Operator error in the use of hydrogen-peroxide torpedoes was named as possible causes for the sinking of HMS Sidon and the Russian submarine Kursk. SAAB Underwater Systems is manufacturing the Torpedo 2000. This torpedo, used by the Swedish Navy, is powered by a piston engine propelled by HTP as an oxidizer and kerosene as a fuel in a bipropellant system.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide has various domestic uses, primarily as a cleaning and disinfecting agent.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Diluted H2O2 (between 1.9% and 12%) mixed with aqueous ammonia has been used to bleach human hair. The chemical's bleaching property lends its name to the phrase \"peroxide blonde\". Hydrogen peroxide is also used for tooth whitening. It may be found in most whitening toothpastes. Hydrogen peroxide has shown positive results involving teeth lightness and chroma shade parameters. It works by oxidizing colored pigments onto the enamel where the shade of the tooth may become lighter. Hydrogen peroxide may be mixed with baking soda and salt to make a homemade toothpaste.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide reacts with blood as a bleaching agent, and so if a blood stain is fresh, or not too old, liberal application of hydrogen peroxide, if necessary in more than single application, will bleach the stain fully out. After about two minutes of the application, the blood should be firmly blotted out.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide may be used to treat acne, although benzoyl peroxide is a more common treatment.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The use of dilute hydrogen peroxide as a oral cleansing agent has been reviewed academically to determine its usefulness in treating gingivitis and plaque. Although there is a positive effect when compared with a placebo, it was concluded that chlorhexidine is a much more effective treatment.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Some horticulturists and users of hydroponics advocate the use of weak hydrogen peroxide solution in watering solutions. Its spontaneous decomposition releases oxygen that enhances a plant's root development and helps to treat root rot (cellular root death due to lack of oxygen) and a variety of other pests.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "For general watering concentrations around 0.1% is in use and this can be increased up to one percent for anti-fungal actions. Tests show that plant foliage can safely tolerate concentrations up to 3%.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide is used in aquaculture for controlling mortality caused by various microbes. In 2019, the U.S. FDA approved it for control of Saprolegniasis in all coldwater finfish and all fingerling and adult coolwater and warmwater finfish, for control of external columnaris disease in warm-water finfish, and for control of Gyrodactylus spp. in freshwater-reared salmonids. Laboratory tests conducted by fish culturists have demonstrated that common household hydrogen peroxide may be used safely to provide oxygen for small fish. The hydrogen peroxide releases oxygen by decomposition when it is exposed to catalysts such as manganese dioxide.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide may be used in combination with a UV-light source to remove yellowing from white or light grey acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastics to partially or fully restore the original color. In the retrocomputing scene, this process is commonly referred to as retrobright.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Regulations vary, but low concentrations, such as 5%, are widely available and legal to buy for medical use. Most over-the-counter peroxide solutions are not suitable for ingestion. Higher concentrations may be considered hazardous and typically are accompanied by a safety data sheet (SDS). In high concentrations, hydrogen peroxide is an aggressive oxidizer and will corrode many materials, including human skin. In the presence of a reducing agent, high concentrations of H2O2 will react violently. While concentrations up to 35% produce only \"white\" oxygen bubbles in the skin (and some biting pain) that disappear with the blood within 30–45 minutes, concentrations of 98% dissolve paper. However concentrations as low as 3% can be dangerous for the eye because of oxygen evolution within the eye.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "High-concentration hydrogen peroxide streams, typically above 40%, should be considered hazardous due to concentrated hydrogen peroxide's meeting the definition of a DOT oxidizer according to U.S. regulations, if released into the environment. The EPA Reportable Quantity (RQ) for D001 hazardous wastes is 100 pounds (45 kg), or approximately 10 US gallons (38 L), of concentrated hydrogen peroxide.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide should be stored in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area and away from any flammable or combustible substances. It should be stored in a container composed of non-reactive materials such as stainless steel or glass (other materials including some plastics and aluminium alloys may also be suitable). Because it breaks down quickly when exposed to light, it should be stored in an opaque container, and pharmaceutical formulations typically come in brown bottles that block light.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Hydrogen peroxide, either in pure or diluted form, may pose several risks, the main one being that it forms explosive mixtures upon contact with organic compounds. Distillation of hydrogen peroxide at normal pressures is highly dangerous. It is also corrosive, especially when concentrated, but even domestic-strength solutions may cause irritation to the eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. Swallowing hydrogen peroxide solutions is particularly dangerous, as decomposition in the stomach releases large quantities of gas (ten times the volume of a 3% solution), leading to internal bloating. Inhaling over 10% can cause severe pulmonary irritation.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "With a significant vapour pressure (1.2 kPa at 50 °C), hydrogen-peroxide vapour is potentially hazardous. According to U.S. NIOSH, the immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) limit is only 75 ppm. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established a permissible exposure limit of 1.0 ppm calculated as an 8-hour time-weighted average (29 CFR 1910.1000, Table Z-1). Hydrogen peroxide also has been classified by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) as a \"known animal carcinogen, with unknown relevance on humans\". For workplaces where there is a risk of exposure to the hazardous concentrations of the vapours, continuous monitors for hydrogen peroxide should be used. Information on the hazards of hydrogen peroxide is available from OSHA and from the ATSDR.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Historically, hydrogen peroxide was used for disinfecting wounds, partly because of its low cost and prompt availability compared to other antiseptics.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "There is conflicting evidence on hydrogen peroxide's effect on wound healing. Some research finds benefit, while other research find delays and healing inhibition. Its use for home treatment of wounds is generally not recommended. 1.5–3% Hydrogen peroxide is used as a disinfectant in dentistry, especially in endodotic treatments together with hypochlorite and chlorhexidin and 1–1.5% is also useful for treatment of inflammation of third molars (wisdom teeth).",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Practitioners of alternative medicine have advocated the use of hydrogen peroxide for various conditions, including emphysema, influenza, AIDS, and in particular cancer. There is no evidence of effectiveness and in some cases it has proved fatal.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Both the effectiveness and safety of hydrogen peroxide therapy is scientifically questionable. Hydrogen peroxide is produced by the immune system, but in a carefully controlled manner. Cells called phagocytes engulf pathogens and then use hydrogen peroxide to destroy them. The peroxide is toxic to both the cell and the pathogen and so is kept within a special compartment, called a phagosome. Free hydrogen peroxide will damage any tissue it encounters via oxidative stress, a process that also has been proposed as a cause of cancer. Claims that hydrogen peroxide therapy increases cellular levels of oxygen have not been supported. The quantities administered would be expected to provide very little additional oxygen compared to that available from normal respiration. It is also difficult to raise the level of oxygen around cancer cells within a tumour, as the blood supply tends to be poor, a situation known as tumor hypoxia.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Large oral doses of hydrogen peroxide at a 3% concentration may cause irritation and blistering to the mouth, throat, and abdomen as well as abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Ingestion of hydrogen peroxide at concentrations of 35% or higher has been implicated as the cause of numerous gas embolism events resulting in hospitalisation. In these cases, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was used to treat the embolisms.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Intravenous injection of hydrogen peroxide has been linked to several deaths. The American Cancer Society states that \"there is no scientific evidence that hydrogen peroxide is a safe, effective, or useful cancer treatment.\" Furthermore, the therapy is not approved by the U.S. FDA.",
"title": "Safety"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Bibliography",
"title": "References"
}
]
| Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula H2O2. In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscous than water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution in water for consumer use, and in higher concentrations for industrial use. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or "high-test peroxide", decomposes explosively when heated and has been used both as a monopropellant and an oxidizer in rocketry. Hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species and the simplest peroxide, a compound having an oxygen–oxygen single bond. It decomposes slowly into water and elemental oxygen when exposed to light, and rapidly in the presence of organic or reactive compounds. It is typically stored with a stabilizer in a weakly acidic solution in an opaque bottle. Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body. Enzymes that use or decompose hydrogen peroxide are classified as peroxidases. | 2002-01-09T05:08:35Z | 2023-12-29T07:01:31Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide |
14,404 | Hesychasm | Hesychasm (/ˈhɛsɪkæzəm, ˈhɛzɪ-/) is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions of the Eastern Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos.
Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχασμός [isixaˈzmos]) derives from the word hesychia (ἡσυχία [isiˈçia]), meaning "stillness, rest, quiet, silence" and hesychazo (ἡσυχάζω [isiˈxazo]) "to keep stillness".
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, a scholar of Eastern Orthodox theology, distinguishes five distinct usages of the term "hesychasm":
Christian monasticism started with the legalisation of Christianity in the 4th century. The term hesychast is used sparingly in Christian ascetical writings emanating from Egypt from the 4th century on, although the writings of Evagrius and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers do attest to it. In Egypt, the terms more often used are anchoretism (Gr. ἀναχώρησις, "withdrawal, retreat"), and anchorite (Gr. ἀναχωρητής, "one who withdraws or retreats, i.e. a hermit").
The term hesychast was used in the 6th century in Palestine in the Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis. Many of the hesychasts Cyril describes were his own contemporaries; several of the saints about whom Cyril was writing, especially Euthymios and Savas, were in fact from Cappadocia. The laws (novellae) of the emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) treat hesychast and anchorite as synonyms, making them interchangeable terms.
The practice of inner prayer, which aims at "inward stillness or silence of the heart," dates back to at least the 4th century. Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), John Climacus (St. John of Sinai)(6th-7th century), Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), and Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) are representatives of this hesychast spirituality. John Climacus, in his influential Ladder of Divine Ascent, describes several stages of contemplative or hesychast practice, culminating in agape.
The earliest reference to the Jesus prayer is in Diadochos of Photiki (c. 450); Evagrius, Maximus, nor Symeon refer to the Jesus prayer. Saint John Cassian (c. 360–435), who transmitted Evagrius Pontikos' ascetical teachings to the West, forming the basis of much of the spirituality of the Order of Saint Benedict and the subsequent western mystical tradition, presents as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me."
St. Nicephorus the Hesychast (13th century), a Roman Catholic who converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith and became a monk at Mount Athos, advised monks to bend their heads toward the chest, "attach the prayer to their breathing" while controlling the rhythm of their breath, and "to fix their eyes during prayer on the 'middle of the body'," concentrating the mind within the heart in order to practice nepsis (watchfulness). While this is the earliest attestation of psychosomatic techniques in hesychast prayer, according to Kallistos Ware "its origins may well be far more ancient," influenced by the Sufi practice of dhikr, " the memory and invocation of the name of God," which in turn may have been influenced by Yoga practices from India, though it's also possible that Sufis were influenced by early Christian monasticism.
In the early 14th century, Gregory Sinaita (1260s–1346) learned a form of disciplined mental prayer from Arsenius of Crete, rooted in the tradition of John Climacus. In 1310, he went to Mount Athos, where he remained until 1335 as a monk at the Skete of Magoula near Philotheou Monastery, introducing hesychast practice there. The terms Hesychasm and Hesychast were used by the monks on Mount Athos to refer to the practice and to the practitioner of a method of mental ascesis that involves the use of the Jesus Prayer assisted by certain psychophysical techniques.
About the year 1337, hesychasm attracted the attention of Barlaam of Seminara, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was then at the height of its fame and influence, under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the leadership of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the hesychasts taught.
Barlaam took exception to the doctrine entertained by the hesychasts as to the nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God.
On the hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. St Gregory himself was well-educated in Greek philosophy. St Gregory defended hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he also wrote a number of works in its defense.
In these works, St Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. energeiai) of God and the essence of God. St Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught that the essence of God can never be known by his creature even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies or operations can be known both in this life and in the next, and convey to the hesychast in this life and to the righteous in the next life a true spiritual knowledge of God. In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the uncreated light.
In 1341, the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus III; the synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Catholic Church.
One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, which also played a role in the civil war between the supporters of John Cantacuzenus and John V Palaiologos. Three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, hesychast doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.
St Paisius Velichkovsky and his disciples made the practice known in Russia and Romania, although hesychasm was already previously known in Russia, as is attested by St Seraphim of Sarov's independent practice of it.
The hesychast interprets Jesus's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "go into your closet to pray" to mean that one should ignore the senses and withdraw inward. Saint John of Sinai writes:
Hesychasm is the enclosing of the bodiless primary cognitive faculty of the soul (Orthodoxy teaches of two cognitive faculties, the nous and logos) in the bodily house of the body.
Theosis is obtained by engaging in contemplative prayer resulting from the cultivation of watchfulness (Gk: nepsis). According to the standard ascetic formulation of this process, there are three stages:
Sobriety contributes to this mental ascesis that rejects tempting thoughts; it puts a great emphasis on focus and attention. The hesychast is to pay extreme attention to the consciousness of his inner world and to the words of the Jesus Prayer, not letting his mind wander in any way at all. While he maintains his practice of the Jesus Prayer, which becomes automatic and continues twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the hesychast cultivates nepsis, watchful attention, to reject tempting thoughts (the "thieves") that come to the hesychast as he watches in sober attention in his hermitage. St. John of Sinai describes hesychast practice as follows:
Take up your seat on a high place and watch, if only you know how, and then you will see in what manner, when, whence, how many and what kind of thieves come to enter and steal your clusters of grapes. When the watchman grows weary, he stands up and prays; and then he sits down again and courageously takes up his former task.
The hesychast is to attach Eros (Greek: eros), that is, "yearning", to his practice of sobriety so as to overcome the temptation to acedia (sloth). He is also to use an extremely directed and controlled anger against the tempting thoughts, although to obliterate them entirely he is to invoke Jesus Christ via the Jesus Prayer.
Much of the literature of hesychasm is occupied with the psychological analysis of such tempting thoughts (e.g. St. Mark the Ascetic). This psychological analysis owes much to the ascetical works of Evagrius Pontikos, with its doctrine of the eight passions.
The primary task of the hesychast is to engage in mental ascesis. The hesychast is to bring his mind (Gr. nous) into his heart so as to practise both the Jesus Prayer and sobriety with his mind in his heart. In solitude and retirement, the hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner." The hesychast prays the Jesus Prayer 'with the heart' – with meaning, with intent, "for real" (see ontic). He never treats the Jesus Prayer as a string of syllables whose "surface" or overt verbal meaning is secondary or unimportant. He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a "mystical" inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous. This emphasis on the actual, real invocation of Jesus Christ mirrors an Eastern understanding of mantra in that physical action/voice and meaning are utterly inseparable.
The descent of the mind into the heart is not taken literally by the practitioners of hesychasm, but is considered metaphorically. Some of the psychophysical techniques described in the texts are to assist the descent of the mind into the heart at those times that only with difficulty it descends on its own.
The goal at this stage is a practice of the Jesus Prayer with the mind in the heart, which practice is free of images (see Pros Theodoulon). By the exercise of sobriety (the mental ascesis against tempting thoughts), the hesychast arrives at a continual practice of the Jesus Prayer with his mind in his heart and where his consciousness is no longer encumbered by the spontaneous inception of images: his mind has a certain stillness and emptiness that is punctuated only by the eternal repetition of the Jesus Prayer.
This stage is called the guard of the mind. This is a very advanced stage of ascetical and spiritual practice, and attempting to accomplish this prematurely, especially with psychophysical techniques, can cause very serious spiritual and emotional harm to the would-be hesychast. St. Theophan the Recluse once remarked that bodily postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his youth, since, instead of gaining the Spirit of God, people succeeded only "in ruining their lungs."
The guard of the mind is the practical goal of the hesychast. It is the condition in which he remains as a matter of course throughout his day, every day until he dies.
There is a very great emphasis on humility in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, great cautions being given in the texts about the disaster that will befall the would-be hesychast if he proceeds in pride, arrogance or conceit. It is also assumed in the hesychast texts that the hesychast is a member of the Orthodox Church in good standing.
Theosis is from the guard of the mind that he is raised to contemplation by the grace of God.
The hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the "uncreated light" of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas. The hesychast, when he has by the mercy of God been granted such an experience, does not remain in that experience for a very long time (there are exceptions – see for example the Life of St. Savas the Fool for Christ (14th century), written by St. Philotheos Kokkinos (14th century)), but he returns "to earth" and continues to practise the guard of the mind.
The uncreated light that the hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the uncreated light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Notable accounts of encounters with the Holy Spirit in this fashion are found in St. Symeon the New Theologian's account of the illumination of "George" (considered a pseudonym of St. Symeon himself); in the "conversation with Motovilov" in the Life of St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833); and, more recently, in the reminiscences of Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) of Kafsokalivia (Wounded by Love pp. 27–31).
Orthodox tradition warns against seeking ecstasy as an end in itself. Hesychasm is a traditional complex of ascetical practices embedded in the doctrine and practice of the Orthodox Church and intended to purify the member of the Orthodox Church and to make him ready for an encounter with God that comes to him when and if God wants, through God's grace. The goal is to acquire, through purification and grace, the Holy Spirit and salvation. Any ecstatic states or other unusual phenomena which may occur in the course of hesychast practice are considered secondary and unimportant, even quite dangerous. Moreover, seeking after unusual "spiritual" experiences can itself cause great harm, ruining the soul and the mind of the seeker. Such a seeking after "spiritual" experiences can lead to spiritual delusion (Ru. prelest, Gr. plani) – the antonym of sobriety – in which a person believes himself or herself to be a saint, has hallucinations in which he or she "sees" angels, Christ, etc. This state of spiritual delusion is in a superficial, egotistical way pleasurable, but can lead to madness and suicide, and, according to the hesychast fathers, makes salvation impossible.
Hesychasts fully participate in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church, including the daily cycle of liturgical prayer of the Divine Office and the Divine Liturgy. However, hesychasts who are living as hermits might have a very rare attendance at the Divine Liturgy (see the life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov) and might not recite the Divine Office except by means of the Jesus Prayer (attested practice on Mt Athos). In general, the hesychast restricts his external activities for the sake of his hesychastic practice.
Books used by hesychasts include the Philokalia, a collection of texts on prayer and solitary mental ascesis written from the 4th to the 15th centuries, which exists in a number of independent redactions; the Ladder of Divine Ascent; the collected works of St. Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022); and the works of St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century), as they were selected and translated into Greek at the Monastery of St. Savas near Jerusalem about the 10th century.
Some clerics are "wary of the hesychastic practices of the Jesus Prayer that developed later in the Eastern churches".
Fr. Matta el-Meskeen, a Coptic Orthodox clergyman, commented that hesychasm rid the concept of unceasing prayer from its simplicity, shifting "its ascetical position as a humbling practice by itself to a mystical position, with programs, stipulations, technical and mechanical bases, degrees, objectives, results".
In 2016 His holiness Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta, head of theology department in the institute of Coptic studies and secretary of the Coptic Orthodox Church Synod from 1985 until 2012 criticized the god essence-energy distraction and refused Palamism.
Western theologians have tended to reject the idea that the distinction between essence and energies is real rather than, albeit with a foundation in reality, notional (in the mind). In their view, affirming an ontological essence-energies distinction in God contradicted the teaching of the First Council of Nicaea on divine unity. Adrian Fortescue, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1909), claimed that "the real distinction between God's essence and operation remains one more principle, though it is rarely insisted on now, in which the Orthodox differ from Catholics." According to Fortescue, the Scholastic theory that God is pure actuality prevented Palamism from having much influence in the West, and it was from Western Scholasticism that hesychasm's philosophical opponents in the East borrowed their weapons.
In some instances these theologians equated hesychasm with quietism, an 18th century mystical revival codemned by the Catholic Church, perhaps because "quietism" is the literal translation of "hesychasm". However, according to Kallistos Ware, "To translate 'hesychasm' as 'quietism,' while perhaps etymologically defensible, is historically and theologically misleading." Ware asserts that "the distinctive tenets of the 17th-century Western quietists is not characteristic of Greek hesychasm."
The Catholic Church has never expressed any condemnation of Palamism, and uses in its liturgy readings from the work of Nicholas Kabasilas, a supporter of Palamas in the controversy that took place in the East. Its Liturgy of the Hours includes extracts from Kabasilas's Life in Christ on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter in Year II of the two-year cycle for the Office of Readings.
The later 20th century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized. Some Western scholars have argued that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Catholic thought. According to Kallistos Ware, some Western theologians, both Catholic and Anglican, see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God; however, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hesychasm (/ˈhɛsɪkæzəm, ˈhɛzɪ-/) is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions of the Eastern Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχασμός [isixaˈzmos]) derives from the word hesychia (ἡσυχία [isiˈçia]), meaning \"stillness, rest, quiet, silence\" and hesychazo (ἡσυχάζω [isiˈxazo]) \"to keep stillness\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, a scholar of Eastern Orthodox theology, distinguishes five distinct usages of the term \"hesychasm\":",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Christian monasticism started with the legalisation of Christianity in the 4th century. The term hesychast is used sparingly in Christian ascetical writings emanating from Egypt from the 4th century on, although the writings of Evagrius and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers do attest to it. In Egypt, the terms more often used are anchoretism (Gr. ἀναχώρησις, \"withdrawal, retreat\"), and anchorite (Gr. ἀναχωρητής, \"one who withdraws or retreats, i.e. a hermit\").",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The term hesychast was used in the 6th century in Palestine in the Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis. Many of the hesychasts Cyril describes were his own contemporaries; several of the saints about whom Cyril was writing, especially Euthymios and Savas, were in fact from Cappadocia. The laws (novellae) of the emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) treat hesychast and anchorite as synonyms, making them interchangeable terms.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The practice of inner prayer, which aims at \"inward stillness or silence of the heart,\" dates back to at least the 4th century. Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), John Climacus (St. John of Sinai)(6th-7th century), Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), and Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) are representatives of this hesychast spirituality. John Climacus, in his influential Ladder of Divine Ascent, describes several stages of contemplative or hesychast practice, culminating in agape.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The earliest reference to the Jesus prayer is in Diadochos of Photiki (c. 450); Evagrius, Maximus, nor Symeon refer to the Jesus prayer. Saint John Cassian (c. 360–435), who transmitted Evagrius Pontikos' ascetical teachings to the West, forming the basis of much of the spirituality of the Order of Saint Benedict and the subsequent western mystical tradition, presents as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer \"O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me.\"",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "St. Nicephorus the Hesychast (13th century), a Roman Catholic who converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith and became a monk at Mount Athos, advised monks to bend their heads toward the chest, \"attach the prayer to their breathing\" while controlling the rhythm of their breath, and \"to fix their eyes during prayer on the 'middle of the body',\" concentrating the mind within the heart in order to practice nepsis (watchfulness). While this is the earliest attestation of psychosomatic techniques in hesychast prayer, according to Kallistos Ware \"its origins may well be far more ancient,\" influenced by the Sufi practice of dhikr, \" the memory and invocation of the name of God,\" which in turn may have been influenced by Yoga practices from India, though it's also possible that Sufis were influenced by early Christian monasticism.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the early 14th century, Gregory Sinaita (1260s–1346) learned a form of disciplined mental prayer from Arsenius of Crete, rooted in the tradition of John Climacus. In 1310, he went to Mount Athos, where he remained until 1335 as a monk at the Skete of Magoula near Philotheou Monastery, introducing hesychast practice there. The terms Hesychasm and Hesychast were used by the monks on Mount Athos to refer to the practice and to the practitioner of a method of mental ascesis that involves the use of the Jesus Prayer assisted by certain psychophysical techniques.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "About the year 1337, hesychasm attracted the attention of Barlaam of Seminara, a Calabrian monk who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was then at the height of its fame and influence, under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the leadership of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the hesychasts taught.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Barlaam took exception to the doctrine entertained by the hesychasts as to the nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On the hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. St Gregory himself was well-educated in Greek philosophy. St Gregory defended hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he also wrote a number of works in its defense.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In these works, St Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. energeiai) of God and the essence of God. St Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught that the essence of God can never be known by his creature even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies or operations can be known both in this life and in the next, and convey to the hesychast in this life and to the righteous in the next life a true spiritual knowledge of God. In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the uncreated light.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1341, the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus III; the synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Catholic Church.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, which also played a role in the civil war between the supporters of John Cantacuzenus and John V Palaiologos. Three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, hesychast doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "St Paisius Velichkovsky and his disciples made the practice known in Russia and Romania, although hesychasm was already previously known in Russia, as is attested by St Seraphim of Sarov's independent practice of it.",
"title": "Origins and development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The hesychast interprets Jesus's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to \"go into your closet to pray\" to mean that one should ignore the senses and withdraw inward. Saint John of Sinai writes:",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hesychasm is the enclosing of the bodiless primary cognitive faculty of the soul (Orthodoxy teaches of two cognitive faculties, the nous and logos) in the bodily house of the body.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Theosis is obtained by engaging in contemplative prayer resulting from the cultivation of watchfulness (Gk: nepsis). According to the standard ascetic formulation of this process, there are three stages:",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Sobriety contributes to this mental ascesis that rejects tempting thoughts; it puts a great emphasis on focus and attention. The hesychast is to pay extreme attention to the consciousness of his inner world and to the words of the Jesus Prayer, not letting his mind wander in any way at all. While he maintains his practice of the Jesus Prayer, which becomes automatic and continues twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the hesychast cultivates nepsis, watchful attention, to reject tempting thoughts (the \"thieves\") that come to the hesychast as he watches in sober attention in his hermitage. St. John of Sinai describes hesychast practice as follows:",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Take up your seat on a high place and watch, if only you know how, and then you will see in what manner, when, whence, how many and what kind of thieves come to enter and steal your clusters of grapes. When the watchman grows weary, he stands up and prays; and then he sits down again and courageously takes up his former task.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The hesychast is to attach Eros (Greek: eros), that is, \"yearning\", to his practice of sobriety so as to overcome the temptation to acedia (sloth). He is also to use an extremely directed and controlled anger against the tempting thoughts, although to obliterate them entirely he is to invoke Jesus Christ via the Jesus Prayer.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Much of the literature of hesychasm is occupied with the psychological analysis of such tempting thoughts (e.g. St. Mark the Ascetic). This psychological analysis owes much to the ascetical works of Evagrius Pontikos, with its doctrine of the eight passions.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The primary task of the hesychast is to engage in mental ascesis. The hesychast is to bring his mind (Gr. nous) into his heart so as to practise both the Jesus Prayer and sobriety with his mind in his heart. In solitude and retirement, the hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, \"Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.\" The hesychast prays the Jesus Prayer 'with the heart' – with meaning, with intent, \"for real\" (see ontic). He never treats the Jesus Prayer as a string of syllables whose \"surface\" or overt verbal meaning is secondary or unimportant. He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a \"mystical\" inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous. This emphasis on the actual, real invocation of Jesus Christ mirrors an Eastern understanding of mantra in that physical action/voice and meaning are utterly inseparable.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The descent of the mind into the heart is not taken literally by the practitioners of hesychasm, but is considered metaphorically. Some of the psychophysical techniques described in the texts are to assist the descent of the mind into the heart at those times that only with difficulty it descends on its own.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The goal at this stage is a practice of the Jesus Prayer with the mind in the heart, which practice is free of images (see Pros Theodoulon). By the exercise of sobriety (the mental ascesis against tempting thoughts), the hesychast arrives at a continual practice of the Jesus Prayer with his mind in his heart and where his consciousness is no longer encumbered by the spontaneous inception of images: his mind has a certain stillness and emptiness that is punctuated only by the eternal repetition of the Jesus Prayer.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "This stage is called the guard of the mind. This is a very advanced stage of ascetical and spiritual practice, and attempting to accomplish this prematurely, especially with psychophysical techniques, can cause very serious spiritual and emotional harm to the would-be hesychast. St. Theophan the Recluse once remarked that bodily postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his youth, since, instead of gaining the Spirit of God, people succeeded only \"in ruining their lungs.\"",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The guard of the mind is the practical goal of the hesychast. It is the condition in which he remains as a matter of course throughout his day, every day until he dies.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "There is a very great emphasis on humility in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, great cautions being given in the texts about the disaster that will befall the would-be hesychast if he proceeds in pride, arrogance or conceit. It is also assumed in the hesychast texts that the hesychast is a member of the Orthodox Church in good standing.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Theosis is from the guard of the mind that he is raised to contemplation by the grace of God.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the \"uncreated light\" of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas. The hesychast, when he has by the mercy of God been granted such an experience, does not remain in that experience for a very long time (there are exceptions – see for example the Life of St. Savas the Fool for Christ (14th century), written by St. Philotheos Kokkinos (14th century)), but he returns \"to earth\" and continues to practise the guard of the mind.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The uncreated light that the hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the uncreated light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Notable accounts of encounters with the Holy Spirit in this fashion are found in St. Symeon the New Theologian's account of the illumination of \"George\" (considered a pseudonym of St. Symeon himself); in the \"conversation with Motovilov\" in the Life of St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833); and, more recently, in the reminiscences of Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) of Kafsokalivia (Wounded by Love pp. 27–31).",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Orthodox tradition warns against seeking ecstasy as an end in itself. Hesychasm is a traditional complex of ascetical practices embedded in the doctrine and practice of the Orthodox Church and intended to purify the member of the Orthodox Church and to make him ready for an encounter with God that comes to him when and if God wants, through God's grace. The goal is to acquire, through purification and grace, the Holy Spirit and salvation. Any ecstatic states or other unusual phenomena which may occur in the course of hesychast practice are considered secondary and unimportant, even quite dangerous. Moreover, seeking after unusual \"spiritual\" experiences can itself cause great harm, ruining the soul and the mind of the seeker. Such a seeking after \"spiritual\" experiences can lead to spiritual delusion (Ru. prelest, Gr. plani) – the antonym of sobriety – in which a person believes himself or herself to be a saint, has hallucinations in which he or she \"sees\" angels, Christ, etc. This state of spiritual delusion is in a superficial, egotistical way pleasurable, but can lead to madness and suicide, and, according to the hesychast fathers, makes salvation impossible.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Hesychasts fully participate in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church, including the daily cycle of liturgical prayer of the Divine Office and the Divine Liturgy. However, hesychasts who are living as hermits might have a very rare attendance at the Divine Liturgy (see the life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov) and might not recite the Divine Office except by means of the Jesus Prayer (attested practice on Mt Athos). In general, the hesychast restricts his external activities for the sake of his hesychastic practice.",
"title": "Practice"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Books used by hesychasts include the Philokalia, a collection of texts on prayer and solitary mental ascesis written from the 4th to the 15th centuries, which exists in a number of independent redactions; the Ladder of Divine Ascent; the collected works of St. Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022); and the works of St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century), as they were selected and translated into Greek at the Monastery of St. Savas near Jerusalem about the 10th century.",
"title": "Texts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some clerics are \"wary of the hesychastic practices of the Jesus Prayer that developed later in the Eastern churches\".",
"title": "Oriental Orthodox views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Fr. Matta el-Meskeen, a Coptic Orthodox clergyman, commented that hesychasm rid the concept of unceasing prayer from its simplicity, shifting \"its ascetical position as a humbling practice by itself to a mystical position, with programs, stipulations, technical and mechanical bases, degrees, objectives, results\".",
"title": "Oriental Orthodox views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 2016 His holiness Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta, head of theology department in the institute of Coptic studies and secretary of the Coptic Orthodox Church Synod from 1985 until 2012 criticized the god essence-energy distraction and refused Palamism.",
"title": "Oriental Orthodox views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Western theologians have tended to reject the idea that the distinction between essence and energies is real rather than, albeit with a foundation in reality, notional (in the mind). In their view, affirming an ontological essence-energies distinction in God contradicted the teaching of the First Council of Nicaea on divine unity. Adrian Fortescue, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1909), claimed that \"the real distinction between God's essence and operation remains one more principle, though it is rarely insisted on now, in which the Orthodox differ from Catholics.\" According to Fortescue, the Scholastic theory that God is pure actuality prevented Palamism from having much influence in the West, and it was from Western Scholasticism that hesychasm's philosophical opponents in the East borrowed their weapons.",
"title": "Western views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In some instances these theologians equated hesychasm with quietism, an 18th century mystical revival codemned by the Catholic Church, perhaps because \"quietism\" is the literal translation of \"hesychasm\". However, according to Kallistos Ware, \"To translate 'hesychasm' as 'quietism,' while perhaps etymologically defensible, is historically and theologically misleading.\" Ware asserts that \"the distinctive tenets of the 17th-century Western quietists is not characteristic of Greek hesychasm.\"",
"title": "Western views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Catholic Church has never expressed any condemnation of Palamism, and uses in its liturgy readings from the work of Nicholas Kabasilas, a supporter of Palamas in the controversy that took place in the East. Its Liturgy of the Hours includes extracts from Kabasilas's Life in Christ on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter in Year II of the two-year cycle for the Office of Readings.",
"title": "Western views of hesychasm"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The later 20th century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Catholic theologians to Palamas, a \"rehabilitation\" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized. Some Western scholars have argued that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Catholic thought. According to Kallistos Ware, some Western theologians, both Catholic and Anglican, see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God; however, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking.",
"title": "Western views of hesychasm"
}
]
| Hesychasm is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions of the Eastern Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos. | 2002-01-09T07:16:52Z | 2023-12-30T14:25:24Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm |
14,405 | Hemlock | Hemlock may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hemlock may refer to:",
"title": ""
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]
| Hemlock may refer to: | 2022-07-12T00:08:47Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemlock |
|
14,406 | Harmony Society | The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the group moved to the United States, where representatives initially purchased land in Butler County, Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, the group of approximately 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common.
Under its founder and spiritual leader, Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847); Frederick (Reichert) Rapp (1775–1834), his adopted son who managed its business affairs; and their associates, the Society existed for one hundred years, roughly from 1805 until 1905. Members were known as Harmonists, Harmonites, or Rappites. The Society is best known for its worldly successes, most notably the establishment of three model communities, the first at Harmony, Pennsylvania; the second, also called Harmony, in the Indiana Territory, now New Harmony, Indiana; and the third and final town at Economy, now Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847), also known as George Rapp, was the founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society. Born in Iptingen, Duchy of Württemberg, Germany, Rapp was a "bright but stubborn boy" who was also deeply religious. His "strong personality" and religious convictions began to concern local church authorities when he refused to attend church services or take communion. Rapp and his group of believers began meeting in Iptengen and eventually emigrated to the United States, where they established three communities: Harmony, Butler County, Pennsylvania; Harmony (later named New Harmony), Posey County, Indiana; and Economy, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
Rapp became inspired by the philosophies of Jakob Böhme, Philipp Jakob Spener, Johann Heinrich Jung, and Emanuel Swedenborg among others, and later wrote Thoughts on the Destiny of Man, published in German in 1824 and in English a year later, in which he outlined his ideas and philosophy. Rapp lived out his remaining days in Economy, where he died on August 7, 1847, at the age of 89.
By the mid-1780s, Rapp had begun preaching to the Separatists, his followers in Iptengen, who met privately and refused to attend church services or take communion. As their numbers increased, Rapp's group officially split with the Lutheran Church in 1785 and was banned from meeting. Despite warnings from local authorities, the group continued to meet privately and attract even more followers.
By 1798 Rapp and his group of followers had already begun to distance themselves from mainstream society and intended to establish a new religious congregation of fellow believers. In the Lomersheimer declaration, written in 1798, these religious Separatists presented their statement of faith, based on Christian principles, to the Wurttemberg legislature. Rapp's followers declared their desire to form a separate congregation who would meet in members' homes, free from Lutheran Church doctrines. The group supported the belief that baptism was not necessary until children could decide for themselves whether they wanted to become a Christian. They also believed that confirmation for youth was not necessary and communion and confession would only be held a few times a year. Although the Separatists supported civil government, the group refused to make a physical oath in its support, "for according to the Gospel not oath is allowed him who gives evidence of a righteous life as an upright man." They also refused to serve in the military or attend Lutheran schools, choosing instead to teach their children at home. This declaration of faith, along with some later additions, guided the Harmony Society's religious beliefs even after they had emigrated from Germany to the United States.
In the 1790s, Rapp's followers continued to increase, reaching as many as 10,000 to 12,000 members. The increasing numbers, which included followers outside of Rapp's village, continued to concern the government, who feared they might become rebellious and dangerous to the state. Although no severe actions were initially taken to repress the Separatists, the group began to consider emigration to France or the United States. In 1803, when the government began to persecute Rapp's followers, he decided to move the entire group to the United States. Rapp and a small group of men left Iptingen in 1803 and traveled to America to find a new home. On May 1, 1804, the first group of emigrants departed for the United States. The initial move scattered the followers and reduced Rapp's original group of 12,000 to just a few followers. Johan Frederich Reichert, who later agreed to become Rapp's adopted son and took the name of Frederick Reichert Rapp, reported in a letter dated February 25, 1804, that there were "at least 100 families or 500 persons actually ready to go" even if they had to sacrifice their property.
In September 1817 de Zee Ploeg [no; de], a ship with 500 immigrants from Württemberg, including a number of Rappites, was forced to stop in Norway because of poor weather conditions. Staying in Bergen for about a year and provided with housing by the authorities, they were warmly accepted by the followers of the Pietistic Haugean movement. The two groups found much in common and held devotions together, with some of the Germans learning Norwegian during their stay. Samson Trae, a Haugean leader, noted that "It gave us extreme joy to realize that the foundation of your faith accords with the true word of God." After Rapp's followers left to settle in the United States, the two groups remained in contact for at least some time. In one letter, the Rappites stated, "Our hearts have often longed for your loving and edifying company since we came to America. We have longed more for Bergen than for Germany because of the love with which you received us and re-freshed us in body and spirit."
In 1804, while Rapp and his associates remained in the United States looking for a place to settle, his followers sailed to America aboard several vessels and made their way to western Pennsylvania, where they waited until land had been selected for their new settlement. Rapp was able to secure a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and started his first commune, known as Harmonie or Harmony, in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where the Society existed from 1804 to 1815. It soon grew to a population of about 800, and was highly profitable. Ten years later, the town was sold and the Harmonists moved westward to the Indiana Territory, where they established the town of Harmony, now called New Harmony, Indiana, and remained there from 1815 to 1825. The Indiana settlement was sold to Robert Owen and was renamed New Harmony. Ten years after the move to Indiana the commune moved again, this time returning to western Pennsylvania, and named their third and final town Economy (Ökonomie in German). The Harmonists lived in Economy until the Society was dissolved in 1905.
On February 15, 1805, the settlers at Harmony, Pennsylvania, signed articles of association to formally establish the Harmony Society in the United States. In this document, Society members agreed to hold all property in a common fund, including working capital of $23,000 to purchase land, livestock, tools, and other goods needed to establish their town. The agreement gave the Society legal status in the United States and protected it from dissolution. Members contributed all of their possessions, pledged cooperation in promoting the interests of the group, and agreed to accept no pay for their services. In return, the members would receive care as long as they lived with the group. Under this agreement, if a member left the Society, their funds would be returned without interest or, if they had not contributed to the Society's treasury, they would receive a small monetary gift.
The Society was a religious congregation who submitted to spiritual and material leadership under Rapp and his associates and worked together for the common good of all its members. Believing that the Second Coming of Christ would occur during their lifetimes, the Harmonists contented to live simply under a strict religious doctrine, gave up tobacco, and advocated celibacy.
In December 1804 Rapp and a party of two others initially contracted to purchase 4,500 acres (18 km) of land for $11,250 in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and later acquired additional land to increase their holdings to approximately 9,000 acres (36 km) by the time they advertised their property for sale in 1814. Here they built the town of Harmony, a small community that had, in 1805, nearly 50 log houses, a large barn, a gristmill, and more than 150 acres of cleared land to grow crops.
Because the climate was not well suited for growing grapes and nearby property was not available to expand their landholdings, the Harmonists submitted a petition to the U.S. government for assistance in purchasing land elsewhere. In January 1806 Rapp traveled to Washington, D.C. to hear discussions in Congress regarding the Harmonists' petition for a grant that would allow them to purchase approximately 30,000 acres (120 km) acre of land in the Indiana Territory. While the Senate passed the petition on January 29, it was defeated in the House of Representatives on February 18. The Harmonists had to find other financial means to support their plans for future expansion. By 1810 the town's population reached approximately 700, with about 130 houses. The Society landholdings also increased to 7,000 acres (28 km). In the years that followed, the Society survived disagreements among its members, while shortages of cash and lack of credit threatened its finances. Still, the young community had a good reputation for its industry and agricultural production.
At Harmony, George Rapp, also known as Father Rapp, was recognized as the spiritual head of the Society, the one that they went to for discussions, confessions, and other matters. Rapp's adopted son, Frederick, managed the Society's business and commercial affairs.
Rapp let newcomers into the Society and, after a trial period, usually about a year, they were accepted as permanent members. While new members continued to arrive, including immigrants from Germany, others found the Harmonists' religious life too difficult and left the group. In addition, during a period of religious zeal in 1807 and 1808, most, but not all, of the Harmonists adopted the practice of celibacy and there were also few marriages among the members. Rapp's son, Johannes, was married in 1807; and it was the last marriage on record until 1817. Although Rapp did not entirely bar sex initially, it gradually became a custom and there were few births in later years.
In 1811 Harmony's population rose to around 800 persons involved in farming and various trades. Although profit was not a primary goal, their finances improved and the enterprise was profitable, but not sufficient to carry out their planned expansions. Within a few years of their arrival, the Harmonist community included an inn, a tannery, warehouses, a brewery, several mills, stables, and barns, a church/meetinghouse, a school, additional dwellings for members, a labyrinth, and workshops for different trades. In addition, more land was cleared for vineyards and crops. The Harmonists also produced yarn and cloth.
Several factors led to the Harmonists' decision to leave Butler County. Because the area's climate was not suitable, they had difficulties growing grapes for wine. In addition, as westward migration brought new settlers to the county, making it less isolated, the Harmonists began having troubles with neighbors who were not part of the Society. By 1814 Butler County's growing population and rising land prices made it difficult for the Society to expand, causing the group's leaders to look for more land elsewhere. Once land had been located that offered a better climate and room to expand, the group began plans to move. In 1814 the Harmonites sold their first settlement to Abraham Ziegler, a Mennonite, for $100,000 (~$1.58 million in 2021) and moved west to make a new life for themselves in the Indiana Territory.
In 1814 the Harmony Society moved to the Indiana Territory, where it initially acquired approximately 3,500 acres (14 km) of land along the Wabash River in Posey County and later acquired more. Over the next ten years the Society built a thriving new community they called Harmonie or Harmony on the Wabash in the Indiana wilderness. (The town's name was changed to New Harmony after the Harmonists left in 1824.) The Harmonists entered into agriculture and manufacture on a larger scale than they had done in Pennsylvania. When the Harmonists advertised their Indiana property for sale in 1824, they had acquired 20,000 acres (81 km) of land, 2,000 acres (8.1 km) of which was under cultivation.
During the summer and fall of 1814, many Harmonists fell sick from fever (malaria) and work on the new town nearly ceased. During this time the Society lost about 120 people and others fell ill until conditions were improved and the swamps around the area were drained. Despite these illnesses, construction of the new town continued. By 1819 the Harmonites had built 150 log homes, a church, a community storehouse, barns, stables, and a tavern, along with thriving shops and mills, and cleared land for farming. As the new settlement in Indiana grew, it also began to attract new arrivals, including emigrants from Germany, who expected the Harmonists to pay for their passage to America.
Visitors to the new town commented on its growing commercial and industrial work. In 1819 the town had a steam-operated wool carding and spinning factory, a brewery, distillery, vineyards, and a winery, but not all visitors were impressed with the growing communist town on the frontier. The Society also had visitors from another communal religious society, the Shakers. In 1816 meetings between the Shakers and Harmonists considered a possible union of the two societies, but religious differences between the two groups halted the union. Members of the groups remained, however, in contact over the years. George Rapp's daughter and others lived for a time at the Shaker settlement in West Union, Indiana, where the Shakers helped a number of Harmonites learn the English language.
The Harmonist community continued to thrive during the 1820s. The Society shipped its surplus agricultural produce and manufactured goods throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys or sold them through their stores at Harmony and Shawneetown and their agents in Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Louisville, and elsewhere. Under Frederick Rapp's financial management the Society prospered, but he soon wished for a location better suited to manufacturing and commercial purposes. They had initially selected the land near the Wabash River for its isolation and opportunity for expansion, but the Harmonites were now a great distance from the eastern markets and trade in this location was not to their liking. They also had to deal with unfriendly neighbors. As abolitionists, the Harmonites faced disagreeable elements from slavery supporters in Kentucky, only 15 miles (24 km) away, which caused them much annoyance. By 1824 the decision had been made to sell their property in Indiana and search for land to the east.
On January 3, 1825, the Harmonists and Robert Owen, a Welsh-born industrialist and social reformer, came to a final agreement for the sale of the Society's land and buildings in Indiana for $150,000. Owen named the town New Harmony, and by May, the last of the Harmony Society's remaining members returned to Pennsylvania.
In 1824 Frederick Rapp initially purchased 1,000 acres (4.0 km) along the Ohio River, 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for $10,000, and later bought an additional 2,186 acres (8.85 km) for $33,445, giving the Society more than 3,000 acres (12 km) to develop into a new community. The Harmonites named their third and last town Economy, after the spiritual notion of the Divine Economy, "a city in which God would dwell among men" and where perfection would be attained.
At Economy the Harmonists intended to become more involved in manufacturing and their new town on the Ohio River provided better access to eastern markets and water access to the south and west than they had in Indiana. By 1826 the Harmonists had woolen and cotton mills in operation as well as a steam-operated grain mill. The Harmonist society also ran a wine press, a hotel, post office, saw mills, stores, and a variety of farms. Here, under the business acumen and efficient management of Frederick Rapp, they enjoyed such prosperity that by 1829 they dominated trade and the markets of Pittsburgh and down the Ohio River. The Harmonists' competitors accused them of creating a monopoly and called on state government to dissolve the group. Despite the attacks, the Harmonists developed Economy into a prosperous factory town, engaged in farming on a large scale, and maintained a brewery, distillery, and wine-making operation. They also pioneered the manufacturing of silk in the United States.
The community was not neglectful of matters pertaining to art and culture. Frederick Rapp purchased artifacts and installed a museum containing fine paintings and many curiosities and antiques, but it proved to be unprofitable and was sold at a loss. In addition, the Harmonists maintained a deer park, a floral park, and a maze, or labyrinth. The Harmonists were fond of music and many of the members were accomplished musicians. They sang, had a band/orchestra, composed songs, and gave much attention to its cultivation. By 1830 they had amassed a 360-volume library.
In 1832 the Society suffered a serious division. Of 750 members, 250 became alienated through the influence of Bernhard Müller (self-styled Count de Leon), who, with 40 followers (also at variance with the authorities in the old country), had come to Economy to affiliate with the Society. Rapp and Leon could not agree; a separation and apportionment of the property were therefore agreed upon. This secession of one-third of the Society, which consisted mostly of the flower of young manhood and young womanhood who did not want to maintain the custom of celibacy, broke Frederick's heart. He died within two years. It resulted in a considerable fracturing of the community. Nevertheless, the Society remained prosperous in business investments for many more years to come.
After Frederick Rapp's death in 1834, George Rapp appointed Romelius Baker and Jacob Henrici as trustees to manage the Society's business affairs. After George Rapp's death in 1847, the Society reorganized. While a board of elders was elected for the enforcement of the Society's rules and regulations, business management passed to its trustees: Baker and Henrici, 1847–68; Henrici and Jonathan Lenz, 1869–90; Henrici and Wolfel, 1890; Henrici and John S. Duss, 1890–1892; Duss and Seiber, 1892–1893; Duss and Reithmuller, 1893–1897;Duss, 1897–1903; and finally to Suzanna (Susie) C. Duss in 1903. By 1905 membership had dwindled to just three members and the Society was dissolved.
The settlements at Economy remained economically successful until the late 19th century, producing many goods in their cotton and woolen factories, sawmill, tannery, and from their vineyards and distillery. They also produced high quality silk for garments. Rapp's granddaughter, Gertrude, began the silk production in Economy on a small scale from 1826 to 1828, and later expanded. This was planned in New Harmony, but fulfilled when they arrived at Economy. The Harmonists were industrious and utilized the latest technologies of the day in their factories. Because the group chose to adopt celibacy and their members grew older, more work gradually had to be hired out. As their membership declined, they stopped manufacturing operations, other than what they needed for themselves, and began to invest in other ventures such as the oil business, coal mining, timber, railroads, land development, and banking. The group invested in the construction of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, established the Economy Savings Institution and the Economy Brick Works, and operated the Economy Oil Company, as well as the Economy Planing Mill, Economy Lumber Company, and eventually donated some land in Beaver Falls for the construction of Geneva College. The Society exerted a major influence on the economic development of Western Pennsylvania.
Oil production in the mid-1860s brought the high-water mark of the Society's prosperity. By the close of Baker's administration in 1868, The Society's wealth was probably $2 million (~$34.7 million in 2021). By 1890, however, the Society was in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy with a depleted and aged membership. In addition, the Society faced litigation from previous members and would-be heirs. The Society's trustee, John S. Duss, settled the lawsuits, liquidated its business ventures, and paid the Society's indebtedness. The great strain which he had undergone at this time undermined his health and he resigned his trusteeship in 1903. With only a few members left, the remaining land and assets were sold under the leadership of Duss's wife, Susanna (Susie), and the Society was formally dissolved in 1905. At the time of the Society's dissolution, its net worth was $1.2 million.
In 1916 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania acquired 6 acres (0.024 km) and 17 buildings of Economy, which became the Old Economy Village historic site. The American Bridge Company had already acquired other parts of the Society's land in 1902 to build the town of Ambridge.
In 1791 George Rapp said, "I am a prophet, and I am called to be one" in front of the civil affairs official in Maulbronn, Germany, who promptly had him imprisoned for two days and threatened with exile if he did not cease preaching. To the great consternation of church and state authorities, this mere peasant from Iptingen had become the outspoken leader of several thousand Separatists in the southern German duchy of Württemberg. By 1802 the Separatists had grown in number to about 12,000 and the Württemberg government decided that they were a dangerous threat to social order. Rapp was summoned to Maulbronn for an interrogation, and the government confiscated Separatist books. When released in 1803, from a brief time in prison, Rapp told his followers to pool their assets and follow him on a journey for safety to the "land of Israel" in the United States, and soon over 800 people were living with him there.
The Harmonites were Christian pietist Separatists who split from the Lutheran Church in the late 18th century. Under the leadership of George Rapp, the group left Württemberg, Germany, and came to the United States in 1803. Due to the troubles they had in Europe, the group sought to establish a more perfect society in the American wilderness. They were nonviolent pacifists who refused to serve in the military and tried to live by George Rapp's philosophy and literal interpretations of the New Testament. They first settled and built the town of Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and established the Harmony Society in 1805 as a religious commune. In 1807, celibacy was advocated as the preferred custom of the community in an attempt to purify themselves for the coming Millennium. Rapp believed that the events and wars going on in the world at the time were a confirmation of his views regarding the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and he also viewed Napoleon as the Antichrist. In 1814, the Society sold their first town in Pennsylvania and moved to the Indiana Territory, where they built their second town. In 1824, they decided it was time to leave Indiana, sold their land and town in Indiana, and moved to their final settlement in Western Pennsylvania.
The Harmonites were Millennialists, in that they believed Jesus Christ was coming to earth in their lifetime to help usher in a thousand-year kingdom of peace on earth. This is perhaps why they believed that people should try to make themselves "pure" and "perfect", and share things with others while willingly living in communal "harmony" (Acts 4:32-35) and practicing celibacy. They believed that the old ways of life on earth were coming to an end, and that a new perfect kingdom on earth was about to be realized.
They also practiced forms of Esoteric Christianity, Mysticism (Christian mysticism), and Rapp often spoke of the virgin spirit or Goddess named Sophia in his writings. Rapp was very influenced by the writings of Jakob Böhme, Philipp Jakob Spener, and Emanuel Swedenborg, among others. Also, at Economy, there are glass bottles and literature that seem to indicate that the group was interested in (and practiced) alchemy. Other books found in the Harmony Society's library in Economy, include those by the following authors: Christoph Schütz, Gottfried Arnold, Justinus Kerner, Thomas Bromley, Jane Leade, Johann Scheible (Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses), Paracelsus, and Georg von Welling, among others.
The Harmonites tended to view unmarried celibate life as morally superior to marriage, based on Rapp's belief that God had originally created Adam as a dual being, having male and female sexual organs. According to this view, when the female portion of Adam separated to form Eve, disharmony followed, but one could attempt to regain harmony through celibacy.
George Rapp predicted that on September 15, 1829, the three and one half years of the Sun Woman would end and Christ would begin his reign on earth. Dissension grew when Rapp's predictions did not come to pass. In March 1832, one third of the group left the Society and some began following Bernhard Müller, who claimed to be the Lion of Judah. Nevertheless, most of the group stayed and Rapp continued to lead them until he died on August 7, 1847. His last words to his followers were, "If I did not so fully believe, that the Lord has designated me to place our society before His presence in the land of Canaan, I would consider this my last".
The Harmonites did not mark their graves with headstones or grave markers, because they thought it was unnecessary to do so; however, one exception is George Rapp's son Johannes' stone marker in Harmony, Pennsylvania, which was installed by non-Harmonites many years after the Harmonites left that town. Today, Harmonist graveyards are fenced in grassy areas with signs posted nearby explaining this practice.
The Harmony Society's architecture reflected their Swabian German traditions, as well as the styles that were being developed in America during the 19th century. In the early days of the Society, many of the homes were initially log cabins and later, Harmonist craftsmen built timber-frame homes. At Economy, their homes were mostly two-story brick houses "that showed the influence of their American neighbors." In general, Harmonist buildings, in addition to being sturdy and functional, were centrally heated, economical to maintain, and resistant to fire, weather, and termites.
Once established at Harmony, Pennsylvania, the Society planned to replace the log dwellings with brick structures, but the group moved to the Indiana Territory before the plan was completed. In Indiana, log homes were soon replaced with one- or two-story houses of timber frame or brick construction in addition to four large rooming houses (dormitories) for its growing membership. The new town also included shops, schools, mills, a granary, a hotel, library, distilleries, breweries, a brick kiln, pottery ovens, barn, stables, storehouses, and two churches, one of which was brick.
In 1822 William Herbert, a visitor to Harmony, Indiana, described the new brick church and the Harmonists' craftsmanship:
"These people exhibit considerable taste as well as boldness of design in some of their works. They are erecting a noble church, the roof of which is supported in the interior by a great number of stately columns, which have been turned from trees in their own forests. The kinds of wood made use of for this purpose are, I am informed, black walnut, cherry and sassafras. Nothing I think can exceed the grandeur of the joinery and the masonry and brickwork seem to be of the first order. The form of this church is that of a cross, the limbs being short and equal; and as the doors, which there are four, are placed at the end of the limbs, the interior of the building as seen from the entrance, has a most ample and spacious effect.... I could scarcely imagine myself to be in the woods of Indiana, on the borders of the Wabash, while pacing the long resounding aisles, and surveying the stately colonnades of this church."
Frame structures were built on piers to keep the air circulating across the area's damp soil, while brick structures had a root cellar with a drainage tunnel. Inside, Harmonists built fireplaces to the left or right of center to allow for a long center beam, adding strength to support the structure and its heavy, shingled roof. "Dutch biscuits" (wood laths wrapped in straw and mud) provided insulation and soundproofing between the ceiling and floors. The exterior was insulated with bricks between the exterior's unpainted weatherboards and the interior's lath and plaster walls. Structures had standard parts and pre-cut, pre-measured timbers, which were assembled on the ground, adjusted to fit on site, raised in place, and locked into place with pegs and mortise and tenon joints. Two-story floor plans for homes included a large living room, kitchen, and entrance hall, with stairs to the second floor and attic. In Indiana, Harmonists did their baking in communal ovens, so stoves could be substituted for fireplaces.
At Harmony, Pennsylvania, four to six members were assigned to a home, where they lived as families, although not all those living in the household were related. Even when the house contained those that were married, they would live together as brother and sister, since there was a suggestion and custom of practicing celibacy. In Indiana, Harmonists continued to live in homes, but they also built dormitories to house single men and women.
Society members woke between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. They ate breakfast between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., lunch at 9 a.m., dinner at noon, afternoon lunch at 3 p.m., and supper between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. They did their chores and work during the day. At the end of the day, members met for meetings and had a curfew of 9 p.m. On Sundays, the members respected the "Holy day" and did no unnecessary work, but attended church services, singing groups, and other social activities.
Their style of dress reflected their Swabian German roots and traditions and was adapted to their life in America. Although the Harmonites typically wore plain clothing, made with their own materials by their own tailors, they would wear their fine garments on Sundays and on other special occasions. At Economy, on special occasions and Sundays, women wore silk dresses using fabric of their own manufacture. Clothing varied in color, but often carried the same design. On a typical day, women wore ankle-length dresses, while men wore pants with vests or coats and a hat.
The Harmonites were a prosperous agricultural and industrial people. They had many machines that helped them be successful in their trades. They even had steam-powered engines that ran the machines at some of their factories in Economy. They kept their machines up to date, and had many factories and mills, for example Beaver Falls Cutlery Company which they purchased in 1867.
Each member of the Society had a job in a certain craft or trade. Most of the work done by men consisted of manual labor, while the women dealt more with textiles or agriculture.
As Economy became more technologically developed, Harmonites began to hire others from outside the Society, especially when their numbers decreased because of the custom of celibacy and as they eventually let fewer new members join. Although the Harmonites did seek work-oriented help from the outside, they were known as a community that supported themselves, kept their ways of living in their community, mainly exported goods, and tried to import as little as possible.
George Rapp had an eloquent style, which matched his commanding presence, and he was the personality that led the group through all the different settlements. After Rapp's death in 1847, a number of members left the group because of disappointment and disillusionment over the fact that his prophecies regarding the return of Jesus Christ in his lifetime were not fulfilled. However, many stayed in the group, and the Harmony Society went on to become an even more profitable business community that had many worldly financial successes under the leadership of Romelius L. Baker and Jacob Henrici.
Over time the group became more protective of itself, did not allow many new members, moved further from its religious foundation to a more business-oriented and pragmatic approach, and the custom of celibacy eventually drained it of its membership. The land and financial assets of the Harmony Society were sold off by the few remaining members under the leadership of John Duss and his wife, Susanna, by the year 1906.
Today, many of the Society's remaining buildings are preserved; all three of their settlements in the United States have been declared National Historic Landmark Districts by the National Park Service. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the group moved to the United States, where representatives initially purchased land in Butler County, Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, the group of approximately 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Under its founder and spiritual leader, Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847); Frederick (Reichert) Rapp (1775–1834), his adopted son who managed its business affairs; and their associates, the Society existed for one hundred years, roughly from 1805 until 1905. Members were known as Harmonists, Harmonites, or Rappites. The Society is best known for its worldly successes, most notably the establishment of three model communities, the first at Harmony, Pennsylvania; the second, also called Harmony, in the Indiana Territory, now New Harmony, Indiana; and the third and final town at Economy, now Ambridge, Pennsylvania.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847), also known as George Rapp, was the founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society. Born in Iptingen, Duchy of Württemberg, Germany, Rapp was a \"bright but stubborn boy\" who was also deeply religious. His \"strong personality\" and religious convictions began to concern local church authorities when he refused to attend church services or take communion. Rapp and his group of believers began meeting in Iptengen and eventually emigrated to the United States, where they established three communities: Harmony, Butler County, Pennsylvania; Harmony (later named New Harmony), Posey County, Indiana; and Economy, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Rapp became inspired by the philosophies of Jakob Böhme, Philipp Jakob Spener, Johann Heinrich Jung, and Emanuel Swedenborg among others, and later wrote Thoughts on the Destiny of Man, published in German in 1824 and in English a year later, in which he outlined his ideas and philosophy. Rapp lived out his remaining days in Economy, where he died on August 7, 1847, at the age of 89.",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "By the mid-1780s, Rapp had begun preaching to the Separatists, his followers in Iptengen, who met privately and refused to attend church services or take communion. As their numbers increased, Rapp's group officially split with the Lutheran Church in 1785 and was banned from meeting. Despite warnings from local authorities, the group continued to meet privately and attract even more followers.",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By 1798 Rapp and his group of followers had already begun to distance themselves from mainstream society and intended to establish a new religious congregation of fellow believers. In the Lomersheimer declaration, written in 1798, these religious Separatists presented their statement of faith, based on Christian principles, to the Wurttemberg legislature. Rapp's followers declared their desire to form a separate congregation who would meet in members' homes, free from Lutheran Church doctrines. The group supported the belief that baptism was not necessary until children could decide for themselves whether they wanted to become a Christian. They also believed that confirmation for youth was not necessary and communion and confession would only be held a few times a year. Although the Separatists supported civil government, the group refused to make a physical oath in its support, \"for according to the Gospel not oath is allowed him who gives evidence of a righteous life as an upright man.\" They also refused to serve in the military or attend Lutheran schools, choosing instead to teach their children at home. This declaration of faith, along with some later additions, guided the Harmony Society's religious beliefs even after they had emigrated from Germany to the United States.",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the 1790s, Rapp's followers continued to increase, reaching as many as 10,000 to 12,000 members. The increasing numbers, which included followers outside of Rapp's village, continued to concern the government, who feared they might become rebellious and dangerous to the state. Although no severe actions were initially taken to repress the Separatists, the group began to consider emigration to France or the United States. In 1803, when the government began to persecute Rapp's followers, he decided to move the entire group to the United States. Rapp and a small group of men left Iptingen in 1803 and traveled to America to find a new home. On May 1, 1804, the first group of emigrants departed for the United States. The initial move scattered the followers and reduced Rapp's original group of 12,000 to just a few followers. Johan Frederich Reichert, who later agreed to become Rapp's adopted son and took the name of Frederick Reichert Rapp, reported in a letter dated February 25, 1804, that there were \"at least 100 families or 500 persons actually ready to go\" even if they had to sacrifice their property.",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In September 1817 de Zee Ploeg [no; de], a ship with 500 immigrants from Württemberg, including a number of Rappites, was forced to stop in Norway because of poor weather conditions. Staying in Bergen for about a year and provided with housing by the authorities, they were warmly accepted by the followers of the Pietistic Haugean movement. The two groups found much in common and held devotions together, with some of the Germans learning Norwegian during their stay. Samson Trae, a Haugean leader, noted that \"It gave us extreme joy to realize that the foundation of your faith accords with the true word of God.\" After Rapp's followers left to settle in the United States, the two groups remained in contact for at least some time. In one letter, the Rappites stated, \"Our hearts have often longed for your loving and edifying company since we came to America. We have longed more for Bergen than for Germany because of the love with which you received us and re-freshed us in body and spirit.\"",
"title": "Origins in Germany"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1804, while Rapp and his associates remained in the United States looking for a place to settle, his followers sailed to America aboard several vessels and made their way to western Pennsylvania, where they waited until land had been selected for their new settlement. Rapp was able to secure a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and started his first commune, known as Harmonie or Harmony, in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where the Society existed from 1804 to 1815. It soon grew to a population of about 800, and was highly profitable. Ten years later, the town was sold and the Harmonists moved westward to the Indiana Territory, where they established the town of Harmony, now called New Harmony, Indiana, and remained there from 1815 to 1825. The Indiana settlement was sold to Robert Owen and was renamed New Harmony. Ten years after the move to Indiana the commune moved again, this time returning to western Pennsylvania, and named their third and final town Economy (Ökonomie in German). The Harmonists lived in Economy until the Society was dissolved in 1905.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "On February 15, 1805, the settlers at Harmony, Pennsylvania, signed articles of association to formally establish the Harmony Society in the United States. In this document, Society members agreed to hold all property in a common fund, including working capital of $23,000 to purchase land, livestock, tools, and other goods needed to establish their town. The agreement gave the Society legal status in the United States and protected it from dissolution. Members contributed all of their possessions, pledged cooperation in promoting the interests of the group, and agreed to accept no pay for their services. In return, the members would receive care as long as they lived with the group. Under this agreement, if a member left the Society, their funds would be returned without interest or, if they had not contributed to the Society's treasury, they would receive a small monetary gift.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Society was a religious congregation who submitted to spiritual and material leadership under Rapp and his associates and worked together for the common good of all its members. Believing that the Second Coming of Christ would occur during their lifetimes, the Harmonists contented to live simply under a strict religious doctrine, gave up tobacco, and advocated celibacy.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In December 1804 Rapp and a party of two others initially contracted to purchase 4,500 acres (18 km) of land for $11,250 in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and later acquired additional land to increase their holdings to approximately 9,000 acres (36 km) by the time they advertised their property for sale in 1814. Here they built the town of Harmony, a small community that had, in 1805, nearly 50 log houses, a large barn, a gristmill, and more than 150 acres of cleared land to grow crops.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Because the climate was not well suited for growing grapes and nearby property was not available to expand their landholdings, the Harmonists submitted a petition to the U.S. government for assistance in purchasing land elsewhere. In January 1806 Rapp traveled to Washington, D.C. to hear discussions in Congress regarding the Harmonists' petition for a grant that would allow them to purchase approximately 30,000 acres (120 km) acre of land in the Indiana Territory. While the Senate passed the petition on January 29, it was defeated in the House of Representatives on February 18. The Harmonists had to find other financial means to support their plans for future expansion. By 1810 the town's population reached approximately 700, with about 130 houses. The Society landholdings also increased to 7,000 acres (28 km). In the years that followed, the Society survived disagreements among its members, while shortages of cash and lack of credit threatened its finances. Still, the young community had a good reputation for its industry and agricultural production.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "At Harmony, George Rapp, also known as Father Rapp, was recognized as the spiritual head of the Society, the one that they went to for discussions, confessions, and other matters. Rapp's adopted son, Frederick, managed the Society's business and commercial affairs.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Rapp let newcomers into the Society and, after a trial period, usually about a year, they were accepted as permanent members. While new members continued to arrive, including immigrants from Germany, others found the Harmonists' religious life too difficult and left the group. In addition, during a period of religious zeal in 1807 and 1808, most, but not all, of the Harmonists adopted the practice of celibacy and there were also few marriages among the members. Rapp's son, Johannes, was married in 1807; and it was the last marriage on record until 1817. Although Rapp did not entirely bar sex initially, it gradually became a custom and there were few births in later years.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1811 Harmony's population rose to around 800 persons involved in farming and various trades. Although profit was not a primary goal, their finances improved and the enterprise was profitable, but not sufficient to carry out their planned expansions. Within a few years of their arrival, the Harmonist community included an inn, a tannery, warehouses, a brewery, several mills, stables, and barns, a church/meetinghouse, a school, additional dwellings for members, a labyrinth, and workshops for different trades. In addition, more land was cleared for vineyards and crops. The Harmonists also produced yarn and cloth.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Several factors led to the Harmonists' decision to leave Butler County. Because the area's climate was not suitable, they had difficulties growing grapes for wine. In addition, as westward migration brought new settlers to the county, making it less isolated, the Harmonists began having troubles with neighbors who were not part of the Society. By 1814 Butler County's growing population and rising land prices made it difficult for the Society to expand, causing the group's leaders to look for more land elsewhere. Once land had been located that offered a better climate and room to expand, the group began plans to move. In 1814 the Harmonites sold their first settlement to Abraham Ziegler, a Mennonite, for $100,000 (~$1.58 million in 2021) and moved west to make a new life for themselves in the Indiana Territory.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1814 the Harmony Society moved to the Indiana Territory, where it initially acquired approximately 3,500 acres (14 km) of land along the Wabash River in Posey County and later acquired more. Over the next ten years the Society built a thriving new community they called Harmonie or Harmony on the Wabash in the Indiana wilderness. (The town's name was changed to New Harmony after the Harmonists left in 1824.) The Harmonists entered into agriculture and manufacture on a larger scale than they had done in Pennsylvania. When the Harmonists advertised their Indiana property for sale in 1824, they had acquired 20,000 acres (81 km) of land, 2,000 acres (8.1 km) of which was under cultivation.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "During the summer and fall of 1814, many Harmonists fell sick from fever (malaria) and work on the new town nearly ceased. During this time the Society lost about 120 people and others fell ill until conditions were improved and the swamps around the area were drained. Despite these illnesses, construction of the new town continued. By 1819 the Harmonites had built 150 log homes, a church, a community storehouse, barns, stables, and a tavern, along with thriving shops and mills, and cleared land for farming. As the new settlement in Indiana grew, it also began to attract new arrivals, including emigrants from Germany, who expected the Harmonists to pay for their passage to America.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Visitors to the new town commented on its growing commercial and industrial work. In 1819 the town had a steam-operated wool carding and spinning factory, a brewery, distillery, vineyards, and a winery, but not all visitors were impressed with the growing communist town on the frontier. The Society also had visitors from another communal religious society, the Shakers. In 1816 meetings between the Shakers and Harmonists considered a possible union of the two societies, but religious differences between the two groups halted the union. Members of the groups remained, however, in contact over the years. George Rapp's daughter and others lived for a time at the Shaker settlement in West Union, Indiana, where the Shakers helped a number of Harmonites learn the English language.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Harmonist community continued to thrive during the 1820s. The Society shipped its surplus agricultural produce and manufactured goods throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys or sold them through their stores at Harmony and Shawneetown and their agents in Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Louisville, and elsewhere. Under Frederick Rapp's financial management the Society prospered, but he soon wished for a location better suited to manufacturing and commercial purposes. They had initially selected the land near the Wabash River for its isolation and opportunity for expansion, but the Harmonites were now a great distance from the eastern markets and trade in this location was not to their liking. They also had to deal with unfriendly neighbors. As abolitionists, the Harmonites faced disagreeable elements from slavery supporters in Kentucky, only 15 miles (24 km) away, which caused them much annoyance. By 1824 the decision had been made to sell their property in Indiana and search for land to the east.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "On January 3, 1825, the Harmonists and Robert Owen, a Welsh-born industrialist and social reformer, came to a final agreement for the sale of the Society's land and buildings in Indiana for $150,000. Owen named the town New Harmony, and by May, the last of the Harmony Society's remaining members returned to Pennsylvania.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1824 Frederick Rapp initially purchased 1,000 acres (4.0 km) along the Ohio River, 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for $10,000, and later bought an additional 2,186 acres (8.85 km) for $33,445, giving the Society more than 3,000 acres (12 km) to develop into a new community. The Harmonites named their third and last town Economy, after the spiritual notion of the Divine Economy, \"a city in which God would dwell among men\" and where perfection would be attained.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At Economy the Harmonists intended to become more involved in manufacturing and their new town on the Ohio River provided better access to eastern markets and water access to the south and west than they had in Indiana. By 1826 the Harmonists had woolen and cotton mills in operation as well as a steam-operated grain mill. The Harmonist society also ran a wine press, a hotel, post office, saw mills, stores, and a variety of farms. Here, under the business acumen and efficient management of Frederick Rapp, they enjoyed such prosperity that by 1829 they dominated trade and the markets of Pittsburgh and down the Ohio River. The Harmonists' competitors accused them of creating a monopoly and called on state government to dissolve the group. Despite the attacks, the Harmonists developed Economy into a prosperous factory town, engaged in farming on a large scale, and maintained a brewery, distillery, and wine-making operation. They also pioneered the manufacturing of silk in the United States.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The community was not neglectful of matters pertaining to art and culture. Frederick Rapp purchased artifacts and installed a museum containing fine paintings and many curiosities and antiques, but it proved to be unprofitable and was sold at a loss. In addition, the Harmonists maintained a deer park, a floral park, and a maze, or labyrinth. The Harmonists were fond of music and many of the members were accomplished musicians. They sang, had a band/orchestra, composed songs, and gave much attention to its cultivation. By 1830 they had amassed a 360-volume library.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1832 the Society suffered a serious division. Of 750 members, 250 became alienated through the influence of Bernhard Müller (self-styled Count de Leon), who, with 40 followers (also at variance with the authorities in the old country), had come to Economy to affiliate with the Society. Rapp and Leon could not agree; a separation and apportionment of the property were therefore agreed upon. This secession of one-third of the Society, which consisted mostly of the flower of young manhood and young womanhood who did not want to maintain the custom of celibacy, broke Frederick's heart. He died within two years. It resulted in a considerable fracturing of the community. Nevertheless, the Society remained prosperous in business investments for many more years to come.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "After Frederick Rapp's death in 1834, George Rapp appointed Romelius Baker and Jacob Henrici as trustees to manage the Society's business affairs. After George Rapp's death in 1847, the Society reorganized. While a board of elders was elected for the enforcement of the Society's rules and regulations, business management passed to its trustees: Baker and Henrici, 1847–68; Henrici and Jonathan Lenz, 1869–90; Henrici and Wolfel, 1890; Henrici and John S. Duss, 1890–1892; Duss and Seiber, 1892–1893; Duss and Reithmuller, 1893–1897;Duss, 1897–1903; and finally to Suzanna (Susie) C. Duss in 1903. By 1905 membership had dwindled to just three members and the Society was dissolved.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The settlements at Economy remained economically successful until the late 19th century, producing many goods in their cotton and woolen factories, sawmill, tannery, and from their vineyards and distillery. They also produced high quality silk for garments. Rapp's granddaughter, Gertrude, began the silk production in Economy on a small scale from 1826 to 1828, and later expanded. This was planned in New Harmony, but fulfilled when they arrived at Economy. The Harmonists were industrious and utilized the latest technologies of the day in their factories. Because the group chose to adopt celibacy and their members grew older, more work gradually had to be hired out. As their membership declined, they stopped manufacturing operations, other than what they needed for themselves, and began to invest in other ventures such as the oil business, coal mining, timber, railroads, land development, and banking. The group invested in the construction of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, established the Economy Savings Institution and the Economy Brick Works, and operated the Economy Oil Company, as well as the Economy Planing Mill, Economy Lumber Company, and eventually donated some land in Beaver Falls for the construction of Geneva College. The Society exerted a major influence on the economic development of Western Pennsylvania.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Oil production in the mid-1860s brought the high-water mark of the Society's prosperity. By the close of Baker's administration in 1868, The Society's wealth was probably $2 million (~$34.7 million in 2021). By 1890, however, the Society was in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy with a depleted and aged membership. In addition, the Society faced litigation from previous members and would-be heirs. The Society's trustee, John S. Duss, settled the lawsuits, liquidated its business ventures, and paid the Society's indebtedness. The great strain which he had undergone at this time undermined his health and he resigned his trusteeship in 1903. With only a few members left, the remaining land and assets were sold under the leadership of Duss's wife, Susanna (Susie), and the Society was formally dissolved in 1905. At the time of the Society's dissolution, its net worth was $1.2 million.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 1916 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania acquired 6 acres (0.024 km) and 17 buildings of Economy, which became the Old Economy Village historic site. The American Bridge Company had already acquired other parts of the Society's land in 1902 to build the town of Ambridge.",
"title": "Settlements in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1791 George Rapp said, \"I am a prophet, and I am called to be one\" in front of the civil affairs official in Maulbronn, Germany, who promptly had him imprisoned for two days and threatened with exile if he did not cease preaching. To the great consternation of church and state authorities, this mere peasant from Iptingen had become the outspoken leader of several thousand Separatists in the southern German duchy of Württemberg. By 1802 the Separatists had grown in number to about 12,000 and the Württemberg government decided that they were a dangerous threat to social order. Rapp was summoned to Maulbronn for an interrogation, and the government confiscated Separatist books. When released in 1803, from a brief time in prison, Rapp told his followers to pool their assets and follow him on a journey for safety to the \"land of Israel\" in the United States, and soon over 800 people were living with him there.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Harmonites were Christian pietist Separatists who split from the Lutheran Church in the late 18th century. Under the leadership of George Rapp, the group left Württemberg, Germany, and came to the United States in 1803. Due to the troubles they had in Europe, the group sought to establish a more perfect society in the American wilderness. They were nonviolent pacifists who refused to serve in the military and tried to live by George Rapp's philosophy and literal interpretations of the New Testament. They first settled and built the town of Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and established the Harmony Society in 1805 as a religious commune. In 1807, celibacy was advocated as the preferred custom of the community in an attempt to purify themselves for the coming Millennium. Rapp believed that the events and wars going on in the world at the time were a confirmation of his views regarding the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and he also viewed Napoleon as the Antichrist. In 1814, the Society sold their first town in Pennsylvania and moved to the Indiana Territory, where they built their second town. In 1824, they decided it was time to leave Indiana, sold their land and town in Indiana, and moved to their final settlement in Western Pennsylvania.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The Harmonites were Millennialists, in that they believed Jesus Christ was coming to earth in their lifetime to help usher in a thousand-year kingdom of peace on earth. This is perhaps why they believed that people should try to make themselves \"pure\" and \"perfect\", and share things with others while willingly living in communal \"harmony\" (Acts 4:32-35) and practicing celibacy. They believed that the old ways of life on earth were coming to an end, and that a new perfect kingdom on earth was about to be realized.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "They also practiced forms of Esoteric Christianity, Mysticism (Christian mysticism), and Rapp often spoke of the virgin spirit or Goddess named Sophia in his writings. Rapp was very influenced by the writings of Jakob Böhme, Philipp Jakob Spener, and Emanuel Swedenborg, among others. Also, at Economy, there are glass bottles and literature that seem to indicate that the group was interested in (and practiced) alchemy. Other books found in the Harmony Society's library in Economy, include those by the following authors: Christoph Schütz, Gottfried Arnold, Justinus Kerner, Thomas Bromley, Jane Leade, Johann Scheible (Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses), Paracelsus, and Georg von Welling, among others.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The Harmonites tended to view unmarried celibate life as morally superior to marriage, based on Rapp's belief that God had originally created Adam as a dual being, having male and female sexual organs. According to this view, when the female portion of Adam separated to form Eve, disharmony followed, but one could attempt to regain harmony through celibacy.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "George Rapp predicted that on September 15, 1829, the three and one half years of the Sun Woman would end and Christ would begin his reign on earth. Dissension grew when Rapp's predictions did not come to pass. In March 1832, one third of the group left the Society and some began following Bernhard Müller, who claimed to be the Lion of Judah. Nevertheless, most of the group stayed and Rapp continued to lead them until he died on August 7, 1847. His last words to his followers were, \"If I did not so fully believe, that the Lord has designated me to place our society before His presence in the land of Canaan, I would consider this my last\".",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Harmonites did not mark their graves with headstones or grave markers, because they thought it was unnecessary to do so; however, one exception is George Rapp's son Johannes' stone marker in Harmony, Pennsylvania, which was installed by non-Harmonites many years after the Harmonites left that town. Today, Harmonist graveyards are fenced in grassy areas with signs posted nearby explaining this practice.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Harmony Society's architecture reflected their Swabian German traditions, as well as the styles that were being developed in America during the 19th century. In the early days of the Society, many of the homes were initially log cabins and later, Harmonist craftsmen built timber-frame homes. At Economy, their homes were mostly two-story brick houses \"that showed the influence of their American neighbors.\" In general, Harmonist buildings, in addition to being sturdy and functional, were centrally heated, economical to maintain, and resistant to fire, weather, and termites.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Once established at Harmony, Pennsylvania, the Society planned to replace the log dwellings with brick structures, but the group moved to the Indiana Territory before the plan was completed. In Indiana, log homes were soon replaced with one- or two-story houses of timber frame or brick construction in addition to four large rooming houses (dormitories) for its growing membership. The new town also included shops, schools, mills, a granary, a hotel, library, distilleries, breweries, a brick kiln, pottery ovens, barn, stables, storehouses, and two churches, one of which was brick.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1822 William Herbert, a visitor to Harmony, Indiana, described the new brick church and the Harmonists' craftsmanship:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "\"These people exhibit considerable taste as well as boldness of design in some of their works. They are erecting a noble church, the roof of which is supported in the interior by a great number of stately columns, which have been turned from trees in their own forests. The kinds of wood made use of for this purpose are, I am informed, black walnut, cherry and sassafras. Nothing I think can exceed the grandeur of the joinery and the masonry and brickwork seem to be of the first order. The form of this church is that of a cross, the limbs being short and equal; and as the doors, which there are four, are placed at the end of the limbs, the interior of the building as seen from the entrance, has a most ample and spacious effect.... I could scarcely imagine myself to be in the woods of Indiana, on the borders of the Wabash, while pacing the long resounding aisles, and surveying the stately colonnades of this church.\"",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Frame structures were built on piers to keep the air circulating across the area's damp soil, while brick structures had a root cellar with a drainage tunnel. Inside, Harmonists built fireplaces to the left or right of center to allow for a long center beam, adding strength to support the structure and its heavy, shingled roof. \"Dutch biscuits\" (wood laths wrapped in straw and mud) provided insulation and soundproofing between the ceiling and floors. The exterior was insulated with bricks between the exterior's unpainted weatherboards and the interior's lath and plaster walls. Structures had standard parts and pre-cut, pre-measured timbers, which were assembled on the ground, adjusted to fit on site, raised in place, and locked into place with pegs and mortise and tenon joints. Two-story floor plans for homes included a large living room, kitchen, and entrance hall, with stairs to the second floor and attic. In Indiana, Harmonists did their baking in communal ovens, so stoves could be substituted for fireplaces.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "At Harmony, Pennsylvania, four to six members were assigned to a home, where they lived as families, although not all those living in the household were related. Even when the house contained those that were married, they would live together as brother and sister, since there was a suggestion and custom of practicing celibacy. In Indiana, Harmonists continued to live in homes, but they also built dormitories to house single men and women.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Society members woke between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. They ate breakfast between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., lunch at 9 a.m., dinner at noon, afternoon lunch at 3 p.m., and supper between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. They did their chores and work during the day. At the end of the day, members met for meetings and had a curfew of 9 p.m. On Sundays, the members respected the \"Holy day\" and did no unnecessary work, but attended church services, singing groups, and other social activities.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Their style of dress reflected their Swabian German roots and traditions and was adapted to their life in America. Although the Harmonites typically wore plain clothing, made with their own materials by their own tailors, they would wear their fine garments on Sundays and on other special occasions. At Economy, on special occasions and Sundays, women wore silk dresses using fabric of their own manufacture. Clothing varied in color, but often carried the same design. On a typical day, women wore ankle-length dresses, while men wore pants with vests or coats and a hat.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Harmonites were a prosperous agricultural and industrial people. They had many machines that helped them be successful in their trades. They even had steam-powered engines that ran the machines at some of their factories in Economy. They kept their machines up to date, and had many factories and mills, for example Beaver Falls Cutlery Company which they purchased in 1867.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Each member of the Society had a job in a certain craft or trade. Most of the work done by men consisted of manual labor, while the women dealt more with textiles or agriculture.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "As Economy became more technologically developed, Harmonites began to hire others from outside the Society, especially when their numbers decreased because of the custom of celibacy and as they eventually let fewer new members join. Although the Harmonites did seek work-oriented help from the outside, they were known as a community that supported themselves, kept their ways of living in their community, mainly exported goods, and tried to import as little as possible.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "George Rapp had an eloquent style, which matched his commanding presence, and he was the personality that led the group through all the different settlements. After Rapp's death in 1847, a number of members left the group because of disappointment and disillusionment over the fact that his prophecies regarding the return of Jesus Christ in his lifetime were not fulfilled. However, many stayed in the group, and the Harmony Society went on to become an even more profitable business community that had many worldly financial successes under the leadership of Romelius L. Baker and Jacob Henrici.",
"title": "Rise and fall of Harmony Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Over time the group became more protective of itself, did not allow many new members, moved further from its religious foundation to a more business-oriented and pragmatic approach, and the custom of celibacy eventually drained it of its membership. The land and financial assets of the Harmony Society were sold off by the few remaining members under the leadership of John Duss and his wife, Susanna, by the year 1906.",
"title": "Rise and fall of Harmony Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Today, many of the Society's remaining buildings are preserved; all three of their settlements in the United States have been declared National Historic Landmark Districts by the National Park Service.",
"title": "Rise and fall of Harmony Society"
}
]
| The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the group moved to the United States, where representatives initially purchased land in Butler County, Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, the group of approximately 400 followers formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common. Under its founder and spiritual leader, Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847); Frederick (Reichert) Rapp (1775–1834), his adopted son who managed its business affairs; and their associates, the Society existed for one hundred years, roughly from 1805 until 1905. Members were known as Harmonists, Harmonites, or Rappites. The Society is best known for its worldly successes, most notably the establishment of three model communities, the first at Harmony, Pennsylvania; the second, also called Harmony, in the Indiana Territory, now New Harmony, Indiana; and the third and final town at Economy, now Ambridge, Pennsylvania. | 2002-01-09T19:28:38Z | 2023-10-30T12:50:30Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_Society |
14,408 | Huneric | Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was married to Eudocia, daughter of western Roman Emperor Valentinian III (419–455) and Licinia Eudoxia. The couple had one child, a son named Hilderic.
Huneric was the first Vandal king who used the title King of the Vandals and Alans. Despite adopting this style, and that of the Vandals of maintaining their sea-power and their hold on the islands of the western Mediterranean, Huneric did not have the prestige that his father Gaiseric had enjoyed with other states.
Huneric was a son of King Gaiseric, and was sent to Italy as a hostage in 435, when his father made a treaty with the Western emperor Valentinian III. Huneric became king of the Vandals on his father's death on 25 January 477. Like Gaiseric he was an Arian, and his reign is chiefly memorable for his persecution of Catholic Christians in his dominions. Eudocia, daughter of Valentinian III, was Huneric's wife.
Huneric was a fervent adherent to Arianism. Yet his reign opened with making a number of positive overtures towards the local Roman population. Following the visit of a diplomatic mission from the Eastern Roman Empire led by Alexander, Huneric restored properties seized by his father from the merchants of Carthage. He also lifted the policy of persecuting the local Catholics (Nicene Christians), allowing them to hold a synod wherein they elected a new Catholic bishop of Carthage, Eugenius, after a vacancy of 24 years.
However, not long after the ordination of Eugenius, Huneric reversed himself and began to once again persecute Catholics. Furthermore, he tried to make Catholic property fall to the state, but when this caused too much protest from the Eastern Roman Emperor, he chose to banish a number of Catholics to a faraway province instead. On February 1, 484 he organized a meeting of Catholic bishops with Arian bishops, but on February 24, 484 he forcibly removed the Catholic bishops from their offices and banished some to Corsica. A few were executed, including the former proconsul Victorian along with Frumentius and other wealthy merchants, who were killed at Hadrumetum after refusing to become Arians. Among those exiled was Vigilius, bishop of Thapsus, who published a theological treatise against Arianism.
Additionally, Huneric murdered many members of the Hasdingi dynasty and also persecuted Manichaeans.
Towards the end of his reign, the Moors in the Aurès Mountains (in modern-day Algeria) successfully rebelled from Vandal rule.
Upon his death Huneric was succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund, who reigned until 496. A lurid account of Huneric's death by putrefaction and "an abundance of worms" is included in the Historia persecutionis Africanae Provinciae, temporibus Genserici et Hunirici regum Wandalorum (History of the African Province Persecution, in the Times of Genseric and Huneric, the Kings of the Vandals), written by his contemporary, Victor of Vita, although it is probable that this particular section was added at a later date. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was married to Eudocia, daughter of western Roman Emperor Valentinian III (419–455) and Licinia Eudoxia. The couple had one child, a son named Hilderic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Huneric was the first Vandal king who used the title King of the Vandals and Alans. Despite adopting this style, and that of the Vandals of maintaining their sea-power and their hold on the islands of the western Mediterranean, Huneric did not have the prestige that his father Gaiseric had enjoyed with other states.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Huneric was a son of King Gaiseric, and was sent to Italy as a hostage in 435, when his father made a treaty with the Western emperor Valentinian III. Huneric became king of the Vandals on his father's death on 25 January 477. Like Gaiseric he was an Arian, and his reign is chiefly memorable for his persecution of Catholic Christians in his dominions. Eudocia, daughter of Valentinian III, was Huneric's wife.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Huneric was a fervent adherent to Arianism. Yet his reign opened with making a number of positive overtures towards the local Roman population. Following the visit of a diplomatic mission from the Eastern Roman Empire led by Alexander, Huneric restored properties seized by his father from the merchants of Carthage. He also lifted the policy of persecuting the local Catholics (Nicene Christians), allowing them to hold a synod wherein they elected a new Catholic bishop of Carthage, Eugenius, after a vacancy of 24 years.",
"title": "His reign"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "However, not long after the ordination of Eugenius, Huneric reversed himself and began to once again persecute Catholics. Furthermore, he tried to make Catholic property fall to the state, but when this caused too much protest from the Eastern Roman Emperor, he chose to banish a number of Catholics to a faraway province instead. On February 1, 484 he organized a meeting of Catholic bishops with Arian bishops, but on February 24, 484 he forcibly removed the Catholic bishops from their offices and banished some to Corsica. A few were executed, including the former proconsul Victorian along with Frumentius and other wealthy merchants, who were killed at Hadrumetum after refusing to become Arians. Among those exiled was Vigilius, bishop of Thapsus, who published a theological treatise against Arianism.",
"title": "His reign"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Additionally, Huneric murdered many members of the Hasdingi dynasty and also persecuted Manichaeans.",
"title": "His reign"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Towards the end of his reign, the Moors in the Aurès Mountains (in modern-day Algeria) successfully rebelled from Vandal rule.",
"title": "His reign"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Upon his death Huneric was succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund, who reigned until 496. A lurid account of Huneric's death by putrefaction and \"an abundance of worms\" is included in the Historia persecutionis Africanae Provinciae, temporibus Genserici et Hunirici regum Wandalorum (History of the African Province Persecution, in the Times of Genseric and Huneric, the Kings of the Vandals), written by his contemporary, Victor of Vita, although it is probable that this particular section was added at a later date.",
"title": "His reign"
}
]
| Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric was King of the Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was married to Eudocia, daughter of western Roman Emperor Valentinian III (419–455) and Licinia Eudoxia. The couple had one child, a son named Hilderic. Huneric was the first Vandal king who used the title King of the Vandals and Alans. Despite adopting this style, and that of the Vandals of maintaining their sea-power and their hold on the islands of the western Mediterranean, Huneric did not have the prestige that his father Gaiseric had enjoyed with other states. | 2023-03-15T18:18:44Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huneric |
|
14,409 | Hasdingi | The Hasdingi were one of the Vandal peoples of the Roman era. The Vandals were Germanic peoples, who are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language, and were first reported during the first centuries of the Roman empire in the area which is now Poland, eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
Famously, the Hasdingi led a successful invasion of Roman North Africa, creating a kingdom with its capital at Carthage in what is now Tunisia.
During the Marcomannic wars, the Hasdingi helped the Romans and were able to settle in the Carpathian and Pannonian areas which are now in Hungary and Romania. At the end of 406, they participated together with Silingi Vandals and Sarmatian Alans in the crossing of the Rhine. Their king Godigisel lost his life in battle against the Franks during the crossing.
After some years in Gaul, these peoples moved into the Iberian peninsula.
The Hasdingi settled in Gallaecia (today Galicia, Asturias and the north of Portugal) along with the Suebi in 409 AD and their kingdom was one of the earliest Barbarian territories to be founded before the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Gunderic, Godegisel's successor as king of the Hasdingi, lost his kingdom to king Hermeric of the Suebi in 419 after the Battle of the Nervasos Mountains where the Vandals were overwhelmed by an allied force of Suebi and Romans. He fled to Baetica with his army where he became king of the Silingi Vandals and of the Alans.
Gunderic was succeeded by his brother Gaiseric in 428 AD, who subsequently fled from Iberia to North Africa where he established a kingdom at Carthage. | [
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| The Hasdingi were one of the Vandal peoples of the Roman era. The Vandals were Germanic peoples, who are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language, and were first reported during the first centuries of the Roman empire in the area which is now Poland, eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Famously, the Hasdingi led a successful invasion of Roman North Africa, creating a kingdom with its capital at Carthage in what is now Tunisia. During the Marcomannic wars, the Hasdingi helped the Romans and were able to settle in the Carpathian and Pannonian areas which are now in Hungary and Romania. At the end of 406, they participated together with Silingi Vandals and Sarmatian Alans in the crossing of the Rhine. Their king Godigisel lost his life in battle against the Franks during the crossing. After some years in Gaul, these peoples moved into the Iberian peninsula. The Hasdingi settled in Gallaecia along with the Suebi in 409 AD and their kingdom was one of the earliest Barbarian territories to be founded before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Gunderic, Godegisel's successor as king of the Hasdingi, lost his kingdom to king Hermeric of the Suebi in 419 after the Battle of the Nervasos Mountains where the Vandals were overwhelmed by an allied force of Suebi and Romans. He fled to Baetica with his army where he became king of the Silingi Vandals and of the Alans. Gunderic was succeeded by his brother Gaiseric in 428 AD, who subsequently fled from Iberia to North Africa where he established a kingdom at Carthage. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-09-25T02:40:11Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasdingi |
14,410 | Hermes | Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.
In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.
Hermes' attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods.
In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes' characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning "merchandise," and the origin of the words "merchant" and "commerce."
The earliest form of the name Hermes is the Mycenaean Greek *hermāhās, written 𐀁𐀔𐁀 e-ma-a2 (e-ma-ha) in the Linear B syllabic script. Most scholars derive "Hermes" from Greek ἕρμα (herma), "stone heap."
The etymology of ἕρμα itself is unknown, but is probably not a Proto-Indo-European word. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the connection with herma and suggests a Pre-Greek origin. However, the stone etymology is also linked to Indo-European *ser- ("to bind, put together"). Scholarly speculation that "Hermes" derives from a more primitive form meaning "one cairn" is disputed. Other scholars have suggested that Hermes may be a cognate of the Vedic Sarama.
It is likely that Hermes is a pre-Hellenic god, though the exact origins of his worship, and its original nature, remain unclear. Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a Mesopotamian snake-god, similar or identical to Ningishzida, a god who served as mediator between humans and the divine, especially Ishtar, and who was depicted in art as a Caduceus. Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on the Thoth archetype. The absorbing ("combining") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greeks and Romans; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian (Hermopolis) (Plutarch and Diodorus also did so), although Plato thought the gods were dissimilar (Friedlander 1992).
His cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him originally a god of nature, farmers, and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination, reconciliation, magic, sacrifices, and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible. According to a theory that has received considerable scholarly acceptance, Hermes originated as a form of the god Pan, who has been identified as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European pastoral god *Péh2usōn, in his aspect as the god of boundary markers. The PIE root *peh2 "protect" also shows up in Latin pastor "shepherd" (whence the English pastoral). A zero grade of the full PIE form--*ph2usōn--yields the name of the Sanskrit psychopomp Pushan, who, like Pan, is associated with goats. Later, the epithet supplanted the original name itself and Hermes took over the role of psychopomp and as god of messengers, travelers, and boundaries, which had originally belonged to Pan, while Pan himself continued to be venerated by his original name in his more rustic aspect as the god of the wild in the relatively isolated mountainous region of Arcadia. In later myths, after the cult of Pan was reintroduced to Attica, Pan was said to be Hermes' son.
The image of Hermes evolved and varied along with Greek art and culture. In Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a mature man, bearded, and dressed as a traveler, herald, or shepherd. This image remained common on the Hermai, which served as boundary markers, roadside markers, and grave markers, as well as votive offerings.
In Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Hermes was usually depicted as a young, athletic man lacking a beard. When represented as Logios (Greek: Λόγιος, speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Phidias left a statue of a famous Hermes Logios and Praxiteles another, also well known, showing him with the baby Dionysus in his arms.
At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into the present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together. Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the petasos, widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings; sometimes this hat is not present, and may have been replaced with wings rising from the hair.
Another object is the caduceus, a staff with two intertwined snakes, sometimes crowned with a pair of wings and a sphere. The caduceus, historically, appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. Two snakes coiled around a staff was also a symbol of the god Ningishzida, who, like Hermes, served as a mediator between humans and the divine (specifically, the goddess Ishtar or the supreme Ningirsu). In Greece, other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre. A similar-appearing but distinct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius, associated with the patron of medicine and son of Apollo, Asclepius, which bears only one snake. The Rod of Asclepius, occasionally conflated with the caduceus in modern times, is used by most Western physicians as a badge of their profession. After the Renaissance, the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several, and currently is a symbol of commerce.
Hermes' sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans, were made of palm and myrtle branches but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made a sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind. Originally, they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. Hermes has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a harpe, which killed Argos; it was also lent to Perseus to kill Medusa and Cetus.
Hermes began as a god with strong chthonic, or underworld, associations. He was a psychopomp, leader of souls along the road between "the Under and the Upper world". This function gradually expanded to encompass roads in general, and from there to boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself.
Beginning with the earliest records of his worship, Hermes has been understood as a chthonic deity (heavily associated with the earth and/or underworld). As a chthonic deity, the worship of Hermes also included an aspect relating to fertility, with the phallus being included among his major symbols. The inclusion of phallic imagery associated with Hermes and placed, in the form of herma, at the entrances to households may reflect a belief in ancient times that Hermes was a symbol of the household's fertility, specifically the potency of the male head of the household in producing children.
The association between Hermes and the underworld is related to his function as a god of boundaries (the boundary between life and death), but he is considered a psychopomp, a deity who helps guide souls of the deceased to the afterlife, and his image was commonly depicted on gravestones in classical Greece.
In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma, was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones and each traveler added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BC, Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of a bearded Hermes. An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked. In Athens, herms were placed outside houses, both as a form of protection for the home, a symbol of male fertility, and as a link between the household and its gods with the gods of the wider community.
In 415 BC, on the night when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates' pupil Alcibiades was suspected of involvement, and one of the charges eventually made against Socrates which led to his execution 16 years later was that he had either corrupted Alcibiades or failed to guide him away from his moral corruption.
In association with his role as a psychopomp and god who is able to easily cross boundaries, Hermes is predominantly worshiped as a messenger, often described as the messenger of the gods (since he can convey messages between the divine realms, the underworld, and the world of mortals). As a messenger and divine herald, he wears winged sandals (or, in Roman art influenced by Etruscan depictions of Turms, a winged cap).
Hermes was known as the patron god of flocks, herds, and shepherds, an attribute possibly tied to his early origin as an aspect of Pan. In Boeotia, Hermes was worshiped for having saved the town from a plague by carrying a ram or calf around the city walls. A yearly festival commemorated this event, during which a lamb would be carried around the city by "the most handsome boy" and then sacrificed, in order to purify and protect the city from disease, drought, and famine. Numerous depictions of Hermes as a shepherd god carrying a lamb on his shoulders (Hermes kriophoros) have been found throughout the Mediterranean world, and it is possible that the iconography of Hermes as "The Good Shepherd" had an influence on early Christianity, specifically in the description of Christ as "the Good Shepherd" in the Gospel of John.
The earliest written record of Hermes comes from Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, Thebes, and Knossos dating to the Bronze Age Mycenaean period. Here, Hermes' name is rendered as e‐ma‐a (Ἑρμάhας). This name is always recorded alongside those of several goddesses, including Potnija, Posidaeja, Diwja, Hera, Pere, and Ipemedeja, indicating that his worship was strongly connected to theirs. This is a pattern that would continue in later periods, as worship of Hermes almost always took place within temples and sanctuaries primarily dedicated to goddesses, including Hera, Demeter, Hecate, and Despoina.
In literary works of Archaic Greece, Hermes is depicted both as a protector and a trickster. In Homer's Iliad, Hermes is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". In Hesiod's Works and Days, Hermes is depicted giving Pandora the gifts of lies, seductive words, and a dubious character.
The earliest known theological or spiritual documents concerning Hermes are found in the c. 7th century BC Homeric Hymns. In Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes describes the god's birth and his theft of Apollo's sacred cattle. In this hymn, Hermes is invoked as a god "of many shifts" (polytropos), associated with cunning and thievery, but also a bringer of dreams and a night guardian. He is said to have invented the chelys lyre, as well as racing and the sport of wrestling.
The cult of Hermes flourished in Attica, and many scholars writing before the discovery of the Linear B evidence considered Hermes to be a uniquely Athenian god. This region had numerous Hermai, or pillar-like icons, dedicated to the god marking boundaries, crossroads, and entryways. These were initially stone piles, later pillars made of wood, stone, or bronze, with carved images of Hermes, a phallus, or both. In the context of these herms, by the Classical period Hermes had come to be worshiped as the patron god of travelers and sailors. By the 5th century BC, Hermai were also in common use as grave monuments, emphasizing Hermes' role as a chthonic deity and psychopomp. This was probably his original function, and he may have been a late inclusion in the Olympic pantheon; Hermes is described as the "youngest" Olympian, and some myths, including his theft of Apollo's cows, describe his initial coming into contact with celestial deities. Hermes therefore came to be worshiped as a mediator between celestial and chthonic realms, as well as the one who facilitates interactions between mortals and the divine, often being depicted on libation vessels.
Due to his mobility and his liminal nature, mediating between opposites (such as merchant/customer), he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse, the wealth brought in business, especially sudden or unexpected enrichment, travel, roads and crossroads, borders and boundary conditions or transient, the changes from the threshold, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, sexual intercourse, games, data, the draw, good luck, the sacrifices and the sacrificial animals, flocks and shepherds and the fertility of land and cattle.
In Athens, Hermes Eion came to represent the Athenian naval superiority in their defeat of the Persians, under the command of Cimon, in 475 BC. In this context, Hermes became a god associated with the Athenian empire and its expansion, and of democracy itself, as well as all of those closely associated with it, from the sailors in the navy, to the merchants who drove the economy. A section of the agora in Athens became known as the Hermai, because it was filled with a large number of herms, placed there as votive offerings by merchants and others who wished to commemorate a personal success in commerce or other public affair. The Hermai was probably destroyed in the Siege of Athens and Piraeus (87–86 BC).
As Greek culture and influence spread following the conquests of Alexander the Great, a period of syncretism or interpretatio graeca saw many traditional Greek deities identified with foreign counterparts. In Ptolemaic Egypt, for example, the Egyptian god Thoth was identified by Greek speakers as the Egyptian form of Hermes. The two gods were worshiped as one at the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, a city which became known in Greek as Hermopolis. This led to Hermes gaining the attributes of a god of translation and interpretation, or more generally, a god of knowledge and learning. This is illustrated by a 3rd-century BC example of a letter sent by the priest Petosiris to King Nechopso, probably written in Alexandria c. 150 BC, stating that Hermes is the teacher of all secret wisdoms, which are accessible by the experience of religious ecstasy.
An epithet of Thoth found in the temple at Esna, "Thoth the great, the great, the great", became applied to Hermes beginning in at least 172 BC. This lent Hermes one of his most famous later titles, Hermes Trismegistus (Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος), "thrice-greatest Hermes". The figure of Hermes Trismegistus would later absorb a variety of other esoteric wisdom traditions and become a major component of Hermeticism, alchemy, and related traditions.
As early as the 4th century BC, Romans had adopted Hermes into their own religion, combining his attributes and worship with the earlier Etruscan god Turms under the name Mercury. According to St. Augustin, the Latin name "Mercury" may be a title derived from "medio currens", in reference to Hermes' role as a mediator and messenger who moves between worlds. Mercury became one of the most popular Roman gods, as attested by the numerous shrines and depictions in artwork found in Pompeii. In art, the Roman Mercury continued the style of depictions found in earlier representations of both Hermes and Turms, a young, beardless god with winged shoes and/or hat, carrying the caduceus. His role as a god of boundaries, a messenger, and a psychopomp also remained unchanged following his adoption into the Roman religion (these attributes were also similar to those in the Etruscan's worship of Turms).
The Romans identified the Germanic god Odin with Mercury, and there is evidence that Germanic peoples who had contact with Roman culture also accepted this identification. Odin and Mercury/Hermes share several attributes in common. For example, both are depicted carrying a staff and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and both are travelers or wanderers. However, the reasons for this interpretation appear to go beyond superficial similarities: Both gods are connected to the dead (Mercury as psychopomp and Odin as lord of the dead in Valhalla), both were connected to eloquent speech, and both were associated with secret knowledge. The identification of Odin as Mercury was probably also influenced by a previous association of a more Odin-like Celtic god as the "Celtic Mercurius".
A further Roman Imperial-era syncretism came in the form of Hermanubis, the result of the identification of Hermes with the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis. Hermes and Anubis were both psychopomps the primary attribute leading to their conflation as the same god. Hermanubis depicted with a human body and a jackal head, holding the caduceus. In addition to his function of guiding souls to the afterlife, Hermanubis represented the Egyptian priesthood the investigation of truth.
Beginning around the turn of the 1st century AD, a process began by which, in certain traditions Hermes became euhemerised – that is, interpreted as a historical, mortal figure who had become divine or elevated to godlike status in legend. Numerous books of wisdom and magic (including astrology, theosophy, and alchemy) were attributed to this "historical" Hermes, usually identified in his Alexandrian form of Hermes Trismegistus. As a collection, these works are referred to as the Hermetica.
Though worship of Hermes had been almost fully suppressed in the Roman Empire following the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I in the 4th century AD, Hermes continued to be recognized as a mystical or prophetic figure, though a mortal one, by Christian scholars. Early medieval Christians such as Augustine believed that a euhemerised Hermes Trismegistus had been an ancient pagan prophet who predicted the emergence of Christianity in his writings. Some Christian philosophers in the medieval and Renaissance periods believed in the existence of a "prisca theologia", a single thread of true theology that could be found uniting all religions. Christian philosophers used Hermetic writings and other ancient philosophical literature to support their belief in the prisca theologia, arguing that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses, or that he was the third in a line of important prophets after Enoch and Noah.
The 10th-century Suda attempted to further Christianize the figure of Hermes, claiming that "He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity."
There are only three temples known to have been specifically dedicated to Hermes during the Classical Greek period, all of them in Arcadia. Though there are a few references in ancient literature to "numerous" temples of Hermes, this may be poetic license describing the ubiquitous herms, or other, smaller shrines to Hermes located in the temples of other deities. One of the oldest places of worship for Hermes was Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, where some myths say he was born. Tradition holds that his first temple was built by Lycaon. From there, the Hermes cult would have been taken to Athens, from which it radiated to the whole of Greece. In the Roman period, additional temples to Hermes (Mercury) were constructed across the Empire, including several in modern-day Tunisia. Mercury's temple in Rome was situated in the Circus Maximus, between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and was built in 495 BC.
In most places, temples were consecrated to Hermes in conjunction with Aphrodite, as in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos and in Magna Graecia. Several ex-votos found in his temples revealed his role as initiator of young adulthood, among them soldiers and hunters, since war and certain forms of hunting were seen as ceremonial initiatory ordeals. This function of Hermes explains why some images in temples and other vessels show him as a teenager.
As a patron of the gym and fighting, Hermes had statues in gyms and he was also worshiped in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Olympia where Greeks celebrated the Olympic Games. His statue was held there on an altar dedicated to him and Apollo together. A temple within the Aventine was consecrated in 495 BC.
Pausanias wrote that during his time, at Megalopolis people could see the ruins of the temple of Hermes Acacesius. In addition, the Tricrena (Τρίκρηνα, meaning Three Springs) mountains at Pheneus were sacred to Hermes, because three springs were there and according to the legend, Hermes was washed in them, after birth, by the nymphs of the mountain. Furthermore, at Pharae there was a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring was Hermes' stream and the fish in it were not caught, being considered sacred to the god.
Sacrifices to Hermes involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats, and lambs. In the city of Tanagra, it was believed that Hermes had been nursed under a wild strawberry tree, the remains of which were held there in the shrine of Hermes Promachus, and in the hills Phene ran three waterways that were sacred to him, because he was believed to have been bathed there at birth.
Hermes' feast was the Hermaea, which was celebrated with sacrifices to the god and with athletics and gymnastics, possibly having been established in the 6th century BC, but no documentation on the festival before the 4th century BC survives. However, Plato said that Socrates attended a Hermaea. Of all the festivals involving Greek games, these were the most like initiations because participation in them was restricted to young boys and excluded adults.
Hermes was also called Atlantiades (Greek: Ατλαντιάδης), because his mother, Maia was the daughter of Atlas.
Hermes' epithet Argeïphontes (Ancient Greek: Ἀργειφόντης; Latin: Argicida), meaning "slayer of Argus", recalls the slaying of the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes by the messenger god. Argus was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera, herself in Argos. Hermes placed a charm on Argus' eyes with the caduceus to cause the giant to sleep, after which he slew the giant with a harpe. The eyes were then put into the tail of the peacock, a symbol of the goddess Hera.
Hermes was called Cyllenian (Greek: Κυλλήνιος), because according to some myths he was born at the Mount Cyllene, and nursed by the Oread nymph Cyllene.
In ancient Greek culture, kriophoros (Greek: κριοφόρος) or criophorus, the "ram-bearer," is a figure that commemorates the solemn sacrifice of a ram. It becomes an epithet of Hermes.
The chief office of the god was as messenger. Explicitly, at least in sources of classical writings, of Euripides' Electra and Iphigenia in Aulis and in Epictetus' Discourses. Hermes (Diactorus, Angelos) the messenger, is in fact only seen in this role, for Zeus, from within the pages of the Odyssey. The messenger divine and herald of the Gods, he wears the gifts from his father, the petasos and talaria.
Oh mighty messenger of the gods of the upper and lower worlds... (Aeschylus).
Hermes is sometimes depicted in art works holding a purse.
No cult to Hermes Dolios existed in Attica, and so this form of Hermes seems to have existed in speech only.
Hermes Dolio is ambiguous. According to prominent folklorist Yeleazar Meletinsky, Hermes is a deified trickster and master of thieves ("a plunderer, a cattle-raider, a night-watching" in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes) and deception (Euripides) and (possibly evil) tricks and trickeries, crafty (from lit. god of craft), the cheat, the god of stealth. He is also known as the friendliest to man, cunning, treacherous, and a schemer.
Hermes Dolios was worshipped at Pellene and invoked through Odysseus.
(As the ways of gain are not always the ways of honesty and straightforwardness, Hermes obtains a bad character and an in-moral (amoral [ed.]) cult as Dolios)
Hermes is amoral like a baby. Zeus sent Hermes as a teacher to humanity to teach them knowledge of and value of justice and to improve inter-personal relationships ("bonding between mortals").
Considered to have a mastery of rhetorical persuasion and special pleading, the god typically has nocturnal modus operandi. Hermes knows the boundaries and crosses the borders of them to confuse their definition.
In the Lang translation of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the god after being born is described as a robber, a captain of raiders, and a thief of the gates.
According to the late Jungian psychotherapist López-Pedraza, everything Hermes thieves, he later sacrifices to the gods.
Autolycus received his skills as the greatest of thieves due to sacrificing to Hermes as his patron.
Other epithets included:
Homer and Hesiod portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts and also as a benefactor of mortals. In the Iliad, he is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". He was a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans. However, he did protect Priam when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son Hector and accompanied them back to Troy.
He also rescued Ares from a brazen vessel where he had been imprisoned by Otus and Ephialtes. In the Odyssey, Hermes helps his great-grand son, the protagonist Odysseus, by informing him about the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of Circe. Hermes instructed Odysseus to protect himself by chewing a magic herb; he also told Calypso of Zeus' order to free Odysseus from her island to allow him to continue his journey back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to Hades. In Works and Days, when Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora to disgrace humanity by punishing Prometheus's act of giving fire to man, every god gave her a gift, and Hermes' gifts were lies, seductive words, and a dubious character. Hermes was then instructed to take her as wife to Epimetheus.
The Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, which tells the story of the god's birth and his subsequent theft of Apollo's sacred cattle, invokes him as the one "of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods." The word polutropos ("of many shifts, turning many ways, of many devices, ingenious, or much wandering") is also used to describe Odysseus in the first line of the Odyssey. In addition to the chelys lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of wrestling, and therefore was a patron of athletes.
Aeschylus wrote in The Eumenides that Hermes helped Orestes kill Clytemnestra under a false identity and other stratagems, and also said that he was the god of searches, and those who seek things lost or stolen. In Philoctetes, Sophocles invokes Hermes when Odysseus needs to convince Philoctetes to join the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks, and in Euripides' Rhesus Hermes helps Dolon spy on the Greek navy.
Aesop featured him in several of his fables, as ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams, as the god of athletes, of edible roots, and of hospitality. He also said that Hermes had assigned each person his share of intelligence.
One of the Orphic Hymns Khthonios is dedicated to Hermes, indicating that he was also a god of the underworld. Aeschylus had called him by this epithet several times. Another is the Orphic Hymn to Hermes, where his association with the athletic games held is mystic in tone.
Phlegon of Tralles said he was invoked to ward off ghosts, and Apollodorus reports several events involving Hermes. According to Apollodorus, Hermes participated in the Gigantomachy in defense of Olympus; was given the task of bringing baby Dionysus to be cared for by Ino and Athamas and later took him to be cared for by the Nysan nymphs, later called the Hyades; lead Hera, Athena and Aphrodite to Paris to be judged by him in a beauty contest; favored the young Hercules by giving him a sword when he finished his education; and aided Perseus in fetching the head of the Gorgon Medusa.
Anyte of Tegea of the 3rd century BC, in the translation by Richard Aldington, wrote, I Hermes stand here at the crossroads by the wind beaten orchard, near the hoary grey coast; and I keep a resting place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.
According to Hyginus' Fabula, Pan, the Greek god of nature, shepherds and flocks, is the son of Hermes through the nymph Dryope. It is likely that the worship of Hermes himself actually originated as an aspect of Pan as the god of boundaries, which could explain their association as parent and child in Hyginus. In other sources, the god Priapus is understood as a son of Hermes.
According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Autolycus, the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and Chione, making Hermes a great-grandfather of Odysseus.
Once, Hermes chased either Persephone or Hecate with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name "Brimo" ("angry").
Hermes also loved young men in pederastic relationships where he bestowed and/or taught something related to combat, athletics, herding, poetry and music. Photius wrote that Polydeuces (Pollux), one of the Dioscuri, was a lover of Hermes, to whom he gifted the Thessalian horse Dotor. Amphion became a great singer and musician after his lover Hermes taught him to play and gave him a golden lyre. Crocus was said to be a beloved of Hermes and was accidentally killed by the god in a game of discus when he unexpectedly stood up; as the unfortunate youth's blood dripped on the soil, the saffron flower came to be. Perseus received the divine items (talaria, petasos, and the helm of darkness) from Hermes because he loved him. And Daphnis, a Sicilian shepherd who was said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry, is said to be a son or sometimes eromenos of Hermes.
For Carl Jung, Hermes's role as messenger between realms and as guide to the underworld made him the god of the unconscious, the mediator between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, and the guide for inner journeys. Jung considered the gods Thoth and Hermes to be counterparts. In Jungian psychology especially, Hermes is seen as relevant to study of the phenomenon of synchronicity (together with Pan and Dionysus):
Hermes is ... the archetypal core of Jung's psyche, theories ...
He is identified by some with the archetype of healer, as the ancient Greeks ascribed healing magic to him.
In the context of abnormal psychology Samuels (1986) states that Jung considers Hermes the archetype for narcissistic disorder; however, he lends the disorder a "positive" (beneficious) aspect, and represents both the good and bad of narcissism.
For López-Pedraza, Hermes is the protector of psychotherapy. For McNeely, Hermes is a god of the healing arts.
According to Christopher Booker, all the roles Hermes held in ancient Greek thought all considered reveals Hermes to be a guide or observer of transition.
For Jung, Hermes's role as trickster made him a guide through the psychotherapeutic process. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or \"soul guide\"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as \"the divine trickster\", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hermes' attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes' characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning \"merchandise,\" and the origin of the words \"merchant\" and \"commerce.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The earliest form of the name Hermes is the Mycenaean Greek *hermāhās, written 𐀁𐀔𐁀 e-ma-a2 (e-ma-ha) in the Linear B syllabic script. Most scholars derive \"Hermes\" from Greek ἕρμα (herma), \"stone heap.\"",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The etymology of ἕρμα itself is unknown, but is probably not a Proto-Indo-European word. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the connection with herma and suggests a Pre-Greek origin. However, the stone etymology is also linked to Indo-European *ser- (\"to bind, put together\"). Scholarly speculation that \"Hermes\" derives from a more primitive form meaning \"one cairn\" is disputed. Other scholars have suggested that Hermes may be a cognate of the Vedic Sarama.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "It is likely that Hermes is a pre-Hellenic god, though the exact origins of his worship, and its original nature, remain unclear. Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a Mesopotamian snake-god, similar or identical to Ningishzida, a god who served as mediator between humans and the divine, especially Ishtar, and who was depicted in art as a Caduceus. Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on the Thoth archetype. The absorbing (\"combining\") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greeks and Romans; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian (Hermopolis) (Plutarch and Diodorus also did so), although Plato thought the gods were dissimilar (Friedlander 1992).",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "His cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him originally a god of nature, farmers, and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination, reconciliation, magic, sacrifices, and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible. According to a theory that has received considerable scholarly acceptance, Hermes originated as a form of the god Pan, who has been identified as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European pastoral god *Péh2usōn, in his aspect as the god of boundary markers. The PIE root *peh2 \"protect\" also shows up in Latin pastor \"shepherd\" (whence the English pastoral). A zero grade of the full PIE form--*ph2usōn--yields the name of the Sanskrit psychopomp Pushan, who, like Pan, is associated with goats. Later, the epithet supplanted the original name itself and Hermes took over the role of psychopomp and as god of messengers, travelers, and boundaries, which had originally belonged to Pan, while Pan himself continued to be venerated by his original name in his more rustic aspect as the god of the wild in the relatively isolated mountainous region of Arcadia. In later myths, after the cult of Pan was reintroduced to Attica, Pan was said to be Hermes' son.",
"title": "Name and origin"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The image of Hermes evolved and varied along with Greek art and culture. In Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a mature man, bearded, and dressed as a traveler, herald, or shepherd. This image remained common on the Hermai, which served as boundary markers, roadside markers, and grave markers, as well as votive offerings.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Hermes was usually depicted as a young, athletic man lacking a beard. When represented as Logios (Greek: Λόγιος, speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Phidias left a statue of a famous Hermes Logios and Praxiteles another, also well known, showing him with the baby Dionysus in his arms.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into the present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together. Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the petasos, widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings; sometimes this hat is not present, and may have been replaced with wings rising from the hair.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Another object is the caduceus, a staff with two intertwined snakes, sometimes crowned with a pair of wings and a sphere. The caduceus, historically, appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. Two snakes coiled around a staff was also a symbol of the god Ningishzida, who, like Hermes, served as a mediator between humans and the divine (specifically, the goddess Ishtar or the supreme Ningirsu). In Greece, other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre. A similar-appearing but distinct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius, associated with the patron of medicine and son of Apollo, Asclepius, which bears only one snake. The Rod of Asclepius, occasionally conflated with the caduceus in modern times, is used by most Western physicians as a badge of their profession. After the Renaissance, the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several, and currently is a symbol of commerce.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hermes' sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans, were made of palm and myrtle branches but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made a sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind. Originally, they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. Hermes has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a harpe, which killed Argos; it was also lent to Perseus to kill Medusa and Cetus.",
"title": "Iconography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hermes began as a god with strong chthonic, or underworld, associations. He was a psychopomp, leader of souls along the road between \"the Under and the Upper world\". This function gradually expanded to encompass roads in general, and from there to boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Beginning with the earliest records of his worship, Hermes has been understood as a chthonic deity (heavily associated with the earth and/or underworld). As a chthonic deity, the worship of Hermes also included an aspect relating to fertility, with the phallus being included among his major symbols. The inclusion of phallic imagery associated with Hermes and placed, in the form of herma, at the entrances to households may reflect a belief in ancient times that Hermes was a symbol of the household's fertility, specifically the potency of the male head of the household in producing children.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The association between Hermes and the underworld is related to his function as a god of boundaries (the boundary between life and death), but he is considered a psychopomp, a deity who helps guide souls of the deceased to the afterlife, and his image was commonly depicted on gravestones in classical Greece.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma, was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones and each traveler added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BC, Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of a bearded Hermes. An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. \"That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding,\" Walter Burkert remarked. In Athens, herms were placed outside houses, both as a form of protection for the home, a symbol of male fertility, and as a link between the household and its gods with the gods of the wider community.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 415 BC, on the night when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates' pupil Alcibiades was suspected of involvement, and one of the charges eventually made against Socrates which led to his execution 16 years later was that he had either corrupted Alcibiades or failed to guide him away from his moral corruption.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In association with his role as a psychopomp and god who is able to easily cross boundaries, Hermes is predominantly worshiped as a messenger, often described as the messenger of the gods (since he can convey messages between the divine realms, the underworld, and the world of mortals). As a messenger and divine herald, he wears winged sandals (or, in Roman art influenced by Etruscan depictions of Turms, a winged cap).",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Hermes was known as the patron god of flocks, herds, and shepherds, an attribute possibly tied to his early origin as an aspect of Pan. In Boeotia, Hermes was worshiped for having saved the town from a plague by carrying a ram or calf around the city walls. A yearly festival commemorated this event, during which a lamb would be carried around the city by \"the most handsome boy\" and then sacrificed, in order to purify and protect the city from disease, drought, and famine. Numerous depictions of Hermes as a shepherd god carrying a lamb on his shoulders (Hermes kriophoros) have been found throughout the Mediterranean world, and it is possible that the iconography of Hermes as \"The Good Shepherd\" had an influence on early Christianity, specifically in the description of Christ as \"the Good Shepherd\" in the Gospel of John.",
"title": "Functions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The earliest written record of Hermes comes from Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, Thebes, and Knossos dating to the Bronze Age Mycenaean period. Here, Hermes' name is rendered as e‐ma‐a (Ἑρμάhας). This name is always recorded alongside those of several goddesses, including Potnija, Posidaeja, Diwja, Hera, Pere, and Ipemedeja, indicating that his worship was strongly connected to theirs. This is a pattern that would continue in later periods, as worship of Hermes almost always took place within temples and sanctuaries primarily dedicated to goddesses, including Hera, Demeter, Hecate, and Despoina.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In literary works of Archaic Greece, Hermes is depicted both as a protector and a trickster. In Homer's Iliad, Hermes is called \"the bringer of good luck\", \"guide and guardian\", and \"excellent in all the tricks\". In Hesiod's Works and Days, Hermes is depicted giving Pandora the gifts of lies, seductive words, and a dubious character.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The earliest known theological or spiritual documents concerning Hermes are found in the c. 7th century BC Homeric Hymns. In Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes describes the god's birth and his theft of Apollo's sacred cattle. In this hymn, Hermes is invoked as a god \"of many shifts\" (polytropos), associated with cunning and thievery, but also a bringer of dreams and a night guardian. He is said to have invented the chelys lyre, as well as racing and the sport of wrestling.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The cult of Hermes flourished in Attica, and many scholars writing before the discovery of the Linear B evidence considered Hermes to be a uniquely Athenian god. This region had numerous Hermai, or pillar-like icons, dedicated to the god marking boundaries, crossroads, and entryways. These were initially stone piles, later pillars made of wood, stone, or bronze, with carved images of Hermes, a phallus, or both. In the context of these herms, by the Classical period Hermes had come to be worshiped as the patron god of travelers and sailors. By the 5th century BC, Hermai were also in common use as grave monuments, emphasizing Hermes' role as a chthonic deity and psychopomp. This was probably his original function, and he may have been a late inclusion in the Olympic pantheon; Hermes is described as the \"youngest\" Olympian, and some myths, including his theft of Apollo's cows, describe his initial coming into contact with celestial deities. Hermes therefore came to be worshiped as a mediator between celestial and chthonic realms, as well as the one who facilitates interactions between mortals and the divine, often being depicted on libation vessels.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Due to his mobility and his liminal nature, mediating between opposites (such as merchant/customer), he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse, the wealth brought in business, especially sudden or unexpected enrichment, travel, roads and crossroads, borders and boundary conditions or transient, the changes from the threshold, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, sexual intercourse, games, data, the draw, good luck, the sacrifices and the sacrificial animals, flocks and shepherds and the fertility of land and cattle.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In Athens, Hermes Eion came to represent the Athenian naval superiority in their defeat of the Persians, under the command of Cimon, in 475 BC. In this context, Hermes became a god associated with the Athenian empire and its expansion, and of democracy itself, as well as all of those closely associated with it, from the sailors in the navy, to the merchants who drove the economy. A section of the agora in Athens became known as the Hermai, because it was filled with a large number of herms, placed there as votive offerings by merchants and others who wished to commemorate a personal success in commerce or other public affair. The Hermai was probably destroyed in the Siege of Athens and Piraeus (87–86 BC).",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "As Greek culture and influence spread following the conquests of Alexander the Great, a period of syncretism or interpretatio graeca saw many traditional Greek deities identified with foreign counterparts. In Ptolemaic Egypt, for example, the Egyptian god Thoth was identified by Greek speakers as the Egyptian form of Hermes. The two gods were worshiped as one at the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, a city which became known in Greek as Hermopolis. This led to Hermes gaining the attributes of a god of translation and interpretation, or more generally, a god of knowledge and learning. This is illustrated by a 3rd-century BC example of a letter sent by the priest Petosiris to King Nechopso, probably written in Alexandria c. 150 BC, stating that Hermes is the teacher of all secret wisdoms, which are accessible by the experience of religious ecstasy.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "An epithet of Thoth found in the temple at Esna, \"Thoth the great, the great, the great\", became applied to Hermes beginning in at least 172 BC. This lent Hermes one of his most famous later titles, Hermes Trismegistus (Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος), \"thrice-greatest Hermes\". The figure of Hermes Trismegistus would later absorb a variety of other esoteric wisdom traditions and become a major component of Hermeticism, alchemy, and related traditions.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As early as the 4th century BC, Romans had adopted Hermes into their own religion, combining his attributes and worship with the earlier Etruscan god Turms under the name Mercury. According to St. Augustin, the Latin name \"Mercury\" may be a title derived from \"medio currens\", in reference to Hermes' role as a mediator and messenger who moves between worlds. Mercury became one of the most popular Roman gods, as attested by the numerous shrines and depictions in artwork found in Pompeii. In art, the Roman Mercury continued the style of depictions found in earlier representations of both Hermes and Turms, a young, beardless god with winged shoes and/or hat, carrying the caduceus. His role as a god of boundaries, a messenger, and a psychopomp also remained unchanged following his adoption into the Roman religion (these attributes were also similar to those in the Etruscan's worship of Turms).",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Romans identified the Germanic god Odin with Mercury, and there is evidence that Germanic peoples who had contact with Roman culture also accepted this identification. Odin and Mercury/Hermes share several attributes in common. For example, both are depicted carrying a staff and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and both are travelers or wanderers. However, the reasons for this interpretation appear to go beyond superficial similarities: Both gods are connected to the dead (Mercury as psychopomp and Odin as lord of the dead in Valhalla), both were connected to eloquent speech, and both were associated with secret knowledge. The identification of Odin as Mercury was probably also influenced by a previous association of a more Odin-like Celtic god as the \"Celtic Mercurius\".",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "A further Roman Imperial-era syncretism came in the form of Hermanubis, the result of the identification of Hermes with the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis. Hermes and Anubis were both psychopomps the primary attribute leading to their conflation as the same god. Hermanubis depicted with a human body and a jackal head, holding the caduceus. In addition to his function of guiding souls to the afterlife, Hermanubis represented the Egyptian priesthood the investigation of truth.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Beginning around the turn of the 1st century AD, a process began by which, in certain traditions Hermes became euhemerised – that is, interpreted as a historical, mortal figure who had become divine or elevated to godlike status in legend. Numerous books of wisdom and magic (including astrology, theosophy, and alchemy) were attributed to this \"historical\" Hermes, usually identified in his Alexandrian form of Hermes Trismegistus. As a collection, these works are referred to as the Hermetica.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Though worship of Hermes had been almost fully suppressed in the Roman Empire following the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I in the 4th century AD, Hermes continued to be recognized as a mystical or prophetic figure, though a mortal one, by Christian scholars. Early medieval Christians such as Augustine believed that a euhemerised Hermes Trismegistus had been an ancient pagan prophet who predicted the emergence of Christianity in his writings. Some Christian philosophers in the medieval and Renaissance periods believed in the existence of a \"prisca theologia\", a single thread of true theology that could be found uniting all religions. Christian philosophers used Hermetic writings and other ancient philosophical literature to support their belief in the prisca theologia, arguing that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses, or that he was the third in a line of important prophets after Enoch and Noah.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The 10th-century Suda attempted to further Christianize the figure of Hermes, claiming that \"He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity.\"",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "There are only three temples known to have been specifically dedicated to Hermes during the Classical Greek period, all of them in Arcadia. Though there are a few references in ancient literature to \"numerous\" temples of Hermes, this may be poetic license describing the ubiquitous herms, or other, smaller shrines to Hermes located in the temples of other deities. One of the oldest places of worship for Hermes was Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, where some myths say he was born. Tradition holds that his first temple was built by Lycaon. From there, the Hermes cult would have been taken to Athens, from which it radiated to the whole of Greece. In the Roman period, additional temples to Hermes (Mercury) were constructed across the Empire, including several in modern-day Tunisia. Mercury's temple in Rome was situated in the Circus Maximus, between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and was built in 495 BC.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In most places, temples were consecrated to Hermes in conjunction with Aphrodite, as in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos and in Magna Graecia. Several ex-votos found in his temples revealed his role as initiator of young adulthood, among them soldiers and hunters, since war and certain forms of hunting were seen as ceremonial initiatory ordeals. This function of Hermes explains why some images in temples and other vessels show him as a teenager.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "As a patron of the gym and fighting, Hermes had statues in gyms and he was also worshiped in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Olympia where Greeks celebrated the Olympic Games. His statue was held there on an altar dedicated to him and Apollo together. A temple within the Aventine was consecrated in 495 BC.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Pausanias wrote that during his time, at Megalopolis people could see the ruins of the temple of Hermes Acacesius. In addition, the Tricrena (Τρίκρηνα, meaning Three Springs) mountains at Pheneus were sacred to Hermes, because three springs were there and according to the legend, Hermes was washed in them, after birth, by the nymphs of the mountain. Furthermore, at Pharae there was a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring was Hermes' stream and the fish in it were not caught, being considered sacred to the god.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Sacrifices to Hermes involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats, and lambs. In the city of Tanagra, it was believed that Hermes had been nursed under a wild strawberry tree, the remains of which were held there in the shrine of Hermes Promachus, and in the hills Phene ran three waterways that were sacred to him, because he was believed to have been bathed there at birth.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Hermes' feast was the Hermaea, which was celebrated with sacrifices to the god and with athletics and gymnastics, possibly having been established in the 6th century BC, but no documentation on the festival before the 4th century BC survives. However, Plato said that Socrates attended a Hermaea. Of all the festivals involving Greek games, these were the most like initiations because participation in them was restricted to young boys and excluded adults.",
"title": "Historical and literary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Hermes was also called Atlantiades (Greek: Ατλαντιάδης), because his mother, Maia was the daughter of Atlas.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Hermes' epithet Argeïphontes (Ancient Greek: Ἀργειφόντης; Latin: Argicida), meaning \"slayer of Argus\", recalls the slaying of the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes by the messenger god. Argus was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera, herself in Argos. Hermes placed a charm on Argus' eyes with the caduceus to cause the giant to sleep, after which he slew the giant with a harpe. The eyes were then put into the tail of the peacock, a symbol of the goddess Hera.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Hermes was called Cyllenian (Greek: Κυλλήνιος), because according to some myths he was born at the Mount Cyllene, and nursed by the Oread nymph Cyllene.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In ancient Greek culture, kriophoros (Greek: κριοφόρος) or criophorus, the \"ram-bearer,\" is a figure that commemorates the solemn sacrifice of a ram. It becomes an epithet of Hermes.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The chief office of the god was as messenger. Explicitly, at least in sources of classical writings, of Euripides' Electra and Iphigenia in Aulis and in Epictetus' Discourses. Hermes (Diactorus, Angelos) the messenger, is in fact only seen in this role, for Zeus, from within the pages of the Odyssey. The messenger divine and herald of the Gods, he wears the gifts from his father, the petasos and talaria.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Oh mighty messenger of the gods of the upper and lower worlds... (Aeschylus).",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Hermes is sometimes depicted in art works holding a purse.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "No cult to Hermes Dolios existed in Attica, and so this form of Hermes seems to have existed in speech only.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Hermes Dolio is ambiguous. According to prominent folklorist Yeleazar Meletinsky, Hermes is a deified trickster and master of thieves (\"a plunderer, a cattle-raider, a night-watching\" in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes) and deception (Euripides) and (possibly evil) tricks and trickeries, crafty (from lit. god of craft), the cheat, the god of stealth. He is also known as the friendliest to man, cunning, treacherous, and a schemer.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Hermes Dolios was worshipped at Pellene and invoked through Odysseus.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "(As the ways of gain are not always the ways of honesty and straightforwardness, Hermes obtains a bad character and an in-moral (amoral [ed.]) cult as Dolios)",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Hermes is amoral like a baby. Zeus sent Hermes as a teacher to humanity to teach them knowledge of and value of justice and to improve inter-personal relationships (\"bonding between mortals\").",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Considered to have a mastery of rhetorical persuasion and special pleading, the god typically has nocturnal modus operandi. Hermes knows the boundaries and crosses the borders of them to confuse their definition.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In the Lang translation of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the god after being born is described as a robber, a captain of raiders, and a thief of the gates.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "According to the late Jungian psychotherapist López-Pedraza, everything Hermes thieves, he later sacrifices to the gods.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Autolycus received his skills as the greatest of thieves due to sacrificing to Hermes as his patron.",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Other epithets included:",
"title": "Epithets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Homer and Hesiod portrayed Hermes as the author of skilled or deceptive acts and also as a benefactor of mortals. In the Iliad, he is called \"the bringer of good luck\", \"guide and guardian\", and \"excellent in all the tricks\". He was a divine ally of the Greeks against the Trojans. However, he did protect Priam when he went to the Greek camp to retrieve the body of his son Hector and accompanied them back to Troy.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "He also rescued Ares from a brazen vessel where he had been imprisoned by Otus and Ephialtes. In the Odyssey, Hermes helps his great-grand son, the protagonist Odysseus, by informing him about the fate of his companions, who were turned into animals by the power of Circe. Hermes instructed Odysseus to protect himself by chewing a magic herb; he also told Calypso of Zeus' order to free Odysseus from her island to allow him to continue his journey back home. When Odysseus killed the suitors of his wife, Hermes led their souls to Hades. In Works and Days, when Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora to disgrace humanity by punishing Prometheus's act of giving fire to man, every god gave her a gift, and Hermes' gifts were lies, seductive words, and a dubious character. Hermes was then instructed to take her as wife to Epimetheus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, which tells the story of the god's birth and his subsequent theft of Apollo's sacred cattle, invokes him as the one \"of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods.\" The word polutropos (\"of many shifts, turning many ways, of many devices, ingenious, or much wandering\") is also used to describe Odysseus in the first line of the Odyssey. In addition to the chelys lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of wrestling, and therefore was a patron of athletes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Aeschylus wrote in The Eumenides that Hermes helped Orestes kill Clytemnestra under a false identity and other stratagems, and also said that he was the god of searches, and those who seek things lost or stolen. In Philoctetes, Sophocles invokes Hermes when Odysseus needs to convince Philoctetes to join the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks, and in Euripides' Rhesus Hermes helps Dolon spy on the Greek navy.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Aesop featured him in several of his fables, as ruler of the gate of prophetic dreams, as the god of athletes, of edible roots, and of hospitality. He also said that Hermes had assigned each person his share of intelligence.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "One of the Orphic Hymns Khthonios is dedicated to Hermes, indicating that he was also a god of the underworld. Aeschylus had called him by this epithet several times. Another is the Orphic Hymn to Hermes, where his association with the athletic games held is mystic in tone.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Phlegon of Tralles said he was invoked to ward off ghosts, and Apollodorus reports several events involving Hermes. According to Apollodorus, Hermes participated in the Gigantomachy in defense of Olympus; was given the task of bringing baby Dionysus to be cared for by Ino and Athamas and later took him to be cared for by the Nysan nymphs, later called the Hyades; lead Hera, Athena and Aphrodite to Paris to be judged by him in a beauty contest; favored the young Hercules by giving him a sword when he finished his education; and aided Perseus in fetching the head of the Gorgon Medusa.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Anyte of Tegea of the 3rd century BC, in the translation by Richard Aldington, wrote, I Hermes stand here at the crossroads by the wind beaten orchard, near the hoary grey coast; and I keep a resting place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "According to Hyginus' Fabula, Pan, the Greek god of nature, shepherds and flocks, is the son of Hermes through the nymph Dryope. It is likely that the worship of Hermes himself actually originated as an aspect of Pan as the god of boundaries, which could explain their association as parent and child in Hyginus. In other sources, the god Priapus is understood as a son of Hermes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Autolycus, the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and Chione, making Hermes a great-grandfather of Odysseus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Once, Hermes chased either Persephone or Hecate with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name \"Brimo\" (\"angry\").",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Hermes also loved young men in pederastic relationships where he bestowed and/or taught something related to combat, athletics, herding, poetry and music. Photius wrote that Polydeuces (Pollux), one of the Dioscuri, was a lover of Hermes, to whom he gifted the Thessalian horse Dotor. Amphion became a great singer and musician after his lover Hermes taught him to play and gave him a golden lyre. Crocus was said to be a beloved of Hermes and was accidentally killed by the god in a game of discus when he unexpectedly stood up; as the unfortunate youth's blood dripped on the soil, the saffron flower came to be. Perseus received the divine items (talaria, petasos, and the helm of darkness) from Hermes because he loved him. And Daphnis, a Sicilian shepherd who was said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry, is said to be a son or sometimes eromenos of Hermes.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "For Carl Jung, Hermes's role as messenger between realms and as guide to the underworld made him the god of the unconscious, the mediator between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, and the guide for inner journeys. Jung considered the gods Thoth and Hermes to be counterparts. In Jungian psychology especially, Hermes is seen as relevant to study of the phenomenon of synchronicity (together with Pan and Dionysus):",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Hermes is ... the archetypal core of Jung's psyche, theories ...",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "He is identified by some with the archetype of healer, as the ancient Greeks ascribed healing magic to him.",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In the context of abnormal psychology Samuels (1986) states that Jung considers Hermes the archetype for narcissistic disorder; however, he lends the disorder a \"positive\" (beneficious) aspect, and represents both the good and bad of narcissism.",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "For López-Pedraza, Hermes is the protector of psychotherapy. For McNeely, Hermes is a god of the healing arts.",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "According to Christopher Booker, all the roles Hermes held in ancient Greek thought all considered reveals Hermes to be a guide or observer of transition.",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "For Jung, Hermes's role as trickster made him a guide through the psychotherapeutic process.",
"title": "In Jungian psychology"
}
]
| Hermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife. In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account. Hermes' attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria, and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods. In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes' characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning "merchandise," and the origin of the words "merchant" and "commerce." | 2002-01-10T12:52:46Z | 2023-12-19T14:01:51Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes |
14,412 | Hedge fund | A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.
Hedge funds are considered alternative investments. Their ability to use leverage and more complex investment techniques distinguishes them from regulated investment funds available to the retail market, commonly known as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also considered distinct from private equity funds and other similar closed-end funds as hedge funds generally invest in relatively liquid assets and are usually open-ended. This means they typically allow investors to invest and withdraw capital periodically based on the fund's net asset value, whereas private-equity funds generally invest in illiquid assets and return capital only after a number of years. Other than a fund's regulatory status, there are no formal or fixed definitions of fund types, and so there are different views of what can constitute a "hedge fund".
Although hedge funds are not subject to the many restrictions applicable to regulated funds, regulations were passed in the United States and Europe following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 with the intention of increasing government oversight of hedge funds and eliminating certain regulatory gaps. While most modern hedge funds are able to employ a wide variety of financial instruments and risk management techniques, they can be very different from each other with respect to their strategies, risks, volatility and expected return profile. It is common for hedge fund investment strategies to aim to achieve a positive return on investment regardless of whether markets are rising or falling ("absolute return"). Hedge funds can be considered risky investments; the expected returns of some hedge fund strategies are less volatile than those of retail funds with high exposure to stock markets because of the use of hedging techniques.
A hedge fund usually pays its investment manager a management fee (typically, 2% per annum of the net asset value of the fund) and a performance fee (typically, 20% of the increase in the fund's net asset value during a year). Hedge funds have existed for many decades and have become increasingly popular. They have now grown to be a substantial portion of the asset management industry, with assets totaling around $3.8 trillion as of 2021. Hedge fund managers can have several billion dollars of assets under management (AUM).
The word "hedge", meaning a line of bushes around the perimeter of a field, has long been used as a metaphor for placing limits on risk. Early hedge funds sought to hedge specific investments against general market fluctuations by shorting other, similar assets. Nowadays, however, many different investment strategies are used, many of which do not "hedge" risk.
During the US bull market of the 1920s, there were numerous private investment vehicles available to wealthy investors. Of that period, the best known today is the Graham-Newman Partnership, founded by Benjamin Graham and his long-time business partner Jerry Newman. This was cited by Warren Buffett in a 2006 letter to the Museum of American Finance as an early hedge fund, and based on other comments from Buffett, Janet Tavakoli deems Graham's investment firm the first hedge fund.
The sociologist Alfred W. Jones is credited with coining the phrase "hedged fund" and is credited with creating the first hedge fund structure in 1949. Jones referred to his fund as being "hedged", a term then commonly used on Wall Street to describe the management of investment risk due to changes in the financial markets.
In the 1970s, hedge funds specialized in a single strategy with most fund managers following the long/short equity model. Many hedge funds closed during the recession of 1969–70 and the 1973–1974 stock market crash due to heavy losses. They received renewed attention in the late 1980s.
During the 1990s, the number of hedge funds increased significantly with the 1990s stock market rise, the aligned-interest compensation structure (i.e., common financial interests), and the promise of above average returns as likely causes. Over the next decade, hedge fund strategies expanded to include credit arbitrage, distressed debt, fixed income, quantitative, and multi-strategy. US institutional investors, such as pension and endowment funds, began allocating greater portions of their portfolios to hedge funds.
During the first decade of the 21st century, hedge funds gained popularity worldwide, and, by 2008, the worldwide hedge fund industry held an estimated US$1.93 trillion in assets under management (AUM). However, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 caused many hedge funds to restrict investor withdrawals and their popularity and AUM totals declined. AUM totals rebounded and in April 2011 were estimated at almost $2 trillion. As of February 2011, 61% of worldwide investment in hedge funds came from institutional sources.
In June 2011, the hedge fund management firms with the greatest AUM were Bridgewater Associates (US$58.9 billion), Man Group (US$39.2 billion), Paulson & Co. (US$35.1 billion), Brevan Howard (US$31 billion), and Och-Ziff (US$29.4 billion). Bridgewater Associates had $70 billion in assets under management as of March 2012. At the end of that year, the 241 largest hedge fund firms in the United States collectively held $1.335 trillion. In April 2012, the hedge fund industry reached a record high of US$2.13 trillion total assets under management. In the middle of the 2010s, the hedge fund industry experienced a general decline in the "old guard" fund managers. Dan Loeb called it a "hedge fund killing field" due to the classic long/short falling out of favor because of unprecedented easing by central banks. The US stock market correlation became untenable to short sellers. The hedge fund industry today has reached a state of maturity that is consolidating around the larger, more established firms such as Citadel, Elliot, Millennium, Bridgewater, and others. The rate of new fund start ups is now outpaced by fund closings.
In July 2017, hedge funds recorded their eighth consecutive monthly gain in returns with assets under management rising to a record $3.1 trillion.
Hedge fund strategies are generally classified among four major categories: global macro, directional, event-driven, and relative value (arbitrage). Strategies within these categories each entail characteristic risk and return profiles. A fund may employ a single strategy or multiple strategies for flexibility, risk management, or diversification. The hedge fund's prospectus, also known as an offering memorandum, offers potential investors information about key aspects of the fund, including the fund's investment strategy, investment type, and leverage limit.
The elements contributing to a hedge fund strategy include the hedge fund's approach to the market, the particular instrument use, the market sector the fund specializes in (e.g., healthcare), the method used to select investments, and the amount of diversification within the fund. There are a variety of market approaches to different asset classes, including equity, fixed income, commodity, and currency. Instruments used include equities, fixed income, futures, options, and swaps. Strategies can be divided into those in which investments can be selected by managers, known as "discretionary/qualitative", or those in which investments are selected using a computerized system, known as "systematic/quantitative". The amount of diversification within the fund can vary; funds may be multi-strategy, multi-fund, multi-market, multi-manager, or a combination.
Sometimes hedge fund strategies are described as "absolute return" and are classified as either "market neutral" or "directional". Market neutral funds have less correlation to overall market performance by "neutralizing" the effect of market swings whereas directional funds utilize trends and inconsistencies in the market and have greater exposure to the market's fluctuations.
Hedge funds using a global macro investing strategy take large positions in share, bond, or currency markets in anticipation of global macroeconomic events in order to generate a risk-adjusted return. Global macro fund managers use macroeconomic ("big picture") analysis based on global market events and trends to identify opportunities for investment that would profit from anticipated price movements. While global macro strategies have a large amount of flexibility (due to their ability to use leverage to take large positions in diverse investments in multiple markets), the timing of the implementation of the strategies is important in order to generate attractive, risk-adjusted returns. Global macro is often categorized as a directional investment strategy.
Global macro strategies can be divided into discretionary and systematic approaches. Discretionary trading is carried out by investment managers who identify and select investments, whereas systematic trading is based on mathematical models and executed by software with limited human involvement beyond the programming and updating of the software. These strategies can also be divided into trend or counter-trend approaches depending on whether the fund attempts to profit from following market trend (long or short-term) or attempts to anticipate and profit from reversals in trends.
Within global macro strategies, there are further sub-strategies including "systematic diversified", in which the fund trades in diversified markets, or sector specialists such as "systematic currency", in which the fund trades in foreign exchange markets or any other sector specialisation. Other sub-strategies include those employed by commodity trading advisors (CTAs), where the fund trades in futures (or options) in commodity markets or in swaps. This is also known as a "managed future fund". CTAs trade in commodities (such as gold) and financial instruments, including stock indices. They also take both long and short positions, allowing them to make profit in both market upswings and downswings. Most global macro managers tends to be a CTA from a regulatory perspective and the main divide is between systematic and discretionary strategies. A classification framework for CTA/Macro Strategies can be found in the reference.
Directional investment strategies use market movements, trends, or inconsistencies when picking stocks across a variety of markets. Computer models can be used, or fund managers will identify and select investments. These types of strategies have a greater exposure to the fluctuations of the overall market than do market neutral strategies. Directional hedge fund strategies include US and international long/short equity hedge funds, where long equity positions are hedged with short sales of equities or equity index options.
Within directional strategies, there are a number of sub-strategies. "Emerging markets" funds focus on emerging markets such as China and India, whereas "sector funds" specialize in specific areas including technology, healthcare, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, energy, and basic materials. Funds using a "fundamental growth" strategy invest in companies with more earnings growth than the overall stock market or relevant sector, while funds using a "fundamental value" strategy invest in undervalued companies. Funds that use quantitative and financial signal processing techniques for equity trading are described as using a "quantitative directional" strategy. Funds using a "short bias" strategy take advantage of declining equity prices using short positions.
Event-driven strategies concern situations in which the underlying investment opportunity and risk are associated with an event. An event-driven investment strategy finds investment opportunities in corporate transactional events such as consolidations, acquisitions, recapitalizations, bankruptcies, and liquidations. Managers employing such a strategy capitalize on valuation inconsistencies in the market before or after such events, and take a position based on the predicted movement of the security or securities in question. Large institutional investors such as hedge funds are more likely to pursue event-driven investing strategies than traditional equity investors because they have the expertise and resources to analyze corporate transactional events for investment opportunities.
Corporate transactional events generally fit into three categories: distressed securities, risk arbitrage, and special situations. Distressed securities include such events as restructurings, recapitalizations, and bankruptcies. A distressed securities investment strategy involves investing in the bonds or loans of companies facing bankruptcy or severe financial distress, when these bonds or loans are being traded at a discount to their value. Hedge fund managers pursuing the distressed debt investment strategy aim to capitalize on depressed bond prices. Hedge funds purchasing distressed debt may prevent those companies from going bankrupt, as such an acquisition deters foreclosure by banks. While event-driven investing, in general, tends to thrive during a bull market, distressed investing works best during a bear market.
Risk arbitrage or merger arbitrage includes such events as mergers, acquisitions, liquidations, and hostile takeovers. Risk arbitrage typically involves buying and selling the stocks of two or more merging companies to take advantage of market discrepancies between acquisition price and stock price. The risk element arises from the possibility that the merger or acquisition will not go ahead as planned; hedge fund managers will use research and analysis to determine if the event will take place.
Special situations are events that impact the value of a company's stock, including the restructuring of a company or corporate transactions including spin-offs, share buy backs, security issuance/repurchase, asset sales, or other catalyst-oriented situations. To take advantage of special situations the hedge fund manager must identify an upcoming event that will increase or decrease the value of the company's equity and equity-related instruments.
Other event-driven strategies include credit arbitrage strategies, which focus on corporate fixed income securities; an activist strategy, where the fund takes large positions in companies and uses the ownership to participate in the management; a strategy based on predicting the final approval of new pharmaceutical drugs; and legal catalyst strategy, which specializes in companies involved in major lawsuits.
Relative value arbitrage strategies take advantage of relative discrepancies in price between securities. The price discrepancy can occur due to mispricing of securities compared to related securities, the underlying security or the market overall. Hedge fund managers can use various types of analysis to identify price discrepancies in securities, including mathematical, technical, or fundamental techniques. Relative value is often used as a synonym for market neutral, as strategies in this category typically have very little or no directional market exposure to the market as a whole. Other relative value sub-strategies include:
In addition to those strategies within the four main categories, there are several strategies that do not entirely fit into these categories.
For an investor who already holds large quantities of equities and bonds, investment in hedge funds may provide diversification and reduce the overall portfolio risk. Managers of hedge funds often aim to produce returns that are relatively uncorrelated with market indices and are consistent with investors' desired level of risk. While hedging can reduce some risks of an investment it usually increases others, such as operational risk and model risk, so overall risk is reduced but cannot be eliminated. According to a report by the Hennessee Group, hedge funds were approximately one-third less volatile than the S&P 500 between 1993 and 2010.
Investors in hedge funds are, in most countries, required to be qualified investors who are assumed to be aware of the investment risks, and accept these risks because of the potential returns relative to those risks. Fund managers may employ extensive risk management strategies in order to protect the fund and investors. According to the Financial Times, "big hedge funds have some of the most sophisticated and exacting risk management practices anywhere in asset management." Hedge fund managers that hold a large number of investment positions for short periods are likely to have a particularly comprehensive risk management system in place, and it has become usual for funds to have independent risk officers who assess and manage risks but are not otherwise involved in trading. A variety of different measurement techniques and models are used to estimate risk according to the fund's leverage, liquidity, and investment strategy. Non-normality of returns, volatility clustering and trends are not always accounted for by conventional risk measurement methodologies and so in addition to value at risk and similar measurements, funds may use integrated measures such as drawdowns.
In addition to assessing the market-related risks that may arise from an investment, investors commonly employ operational due diligence to assess the risk that error or fraud at a hedge fund might result in a loss to the investor. Considerations will include the organization and management of operations at the hedge fund manager, whether the investment strategy is likely to be sustainable, and the fund's ability to develop as a company.
Since hedge funds are private entities and have few public disclosure requirements, this is sometimes perceived as a lack of transparency. Another common perception of hedge funds is that their managers are not subject to as much regulatory oversight and/or registration requirements as other financial investment managers, and more prone to manager-specific idiosyncratic risks such as style drifts, faulty operations, or fraud. New regulations introduced in the US and the EU as of 2010 required hedge fund managers to report more information, leading to greater transparency. In addition, investors, particularly institutional investors, are encouraging further developments in hedge fund risk management, both through internal practices and external regulatory requirements. The increasing influence of institutional investors has led to greater transparency: hedge funds increasingly provide information to investors including valuation methodology, positions, and leverage exposure.
Hedge funds share many of the same types of risk as other investment classes, including liquidity risk and manager risk. Liquidity refers to the degree to which an asset can be bought and sold or converted to cash; similar to private-equity funds, hedge funds employ a lock-up period during which an investor cannot remove money. Manager risk refers to those risks which arise from the management of funds. As well as specific risks such as style drift, which refers to a fund manager "drifting" away from an area of specific expertise, manager risk factors include valuation risk, capacity risk, concentration risk, and leverage risk. Valuation risk refers to the concern that the net asset value (NAV) of investments may be inaccurate; capacity risk can arise from placing too much money into one particular strategy, which may lead to fund performance deterioration; and concentration risk may arise if a fund has too much exposure to a particular investment, sector, trading strategy, or group of correlated funds. These risks may be managed through defined controls over conflict of interest, restrictions on allocation of funds, and set exposure limits for strategies.
Many investment funds use leverage, the practice of borrowing money, trading on margin, or using derivatives to obtain market exposure in excess of that provided by investors' capital. Although leverage can increase potential returns, the opportunity for larger gains is weighed against the possibility of greater losses. Hedge funds employing leverage are likely to engage in extensive risk management practices. In comparison with investment banks, hedge fund leverage is relatively low; according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, the average leverage for investment banks is 14.2, compared to between 1.5 and 2.5 for hedge funds.
Some types of funds, including hedge funds, are perceived as having a greater appetite for risk, with the intention of maximizing returns, subject to the risk tolerance of investors and the fund manager. Managers will have an additional incentive to increase risk oversight when their own capital is invested in the fund.
Hedge fund management firms typically charge their funds both a management fee and a performance fee.
Management fees are calculated as a percentage of the fund's net asset value and typically range from 1% to 4% per annum, with 2% being standard. They are usually expressed as an annual percentage, but calculated and paid monthly or quarterly. Management fees for hedge funds are designed to cover the operating costs of the manager, whereas the performance fee provides the manager's profits. However, due to economies of scale the management fee from larger funds can generate a significant part of a manager's profits, and as a result some fees have been criticized by some public pension funds, such as CalPERS, for being too high.
The performance fee is typically 20% of the fund's profits during any year, though performance fees range between 10% and 50%. Performance fees are intended to provide an incentive for a manager to generate profits. Performance fees have been criticized by Warren Buffett, who believes that because hedge funds share only the profits and not the losses, such fees create an incentive for high-risk investment management. Performance fee rates have fallen since the start of the credit crunch.
Almost all hedge fund performance fees include a "high water mark" (or "loss carryforward provision"), which means that the performance fee only applies to net profits (i.e., profits after losses in previous years have been recovered). This prevents managers from receiving fees for volatile performance, though a manager will sometimes close a fund that has suffered serious losses and start a new fund, rather than attempt to recover the losses over a number of years without a performance fee.
Some performance fees include a "hurdle", so that a fee is only paid on the fund's performance in excess of a benchmark rate (e.g., LIBOR) or a fixed percentage. The hurdle is usually tied to a benchmark rate such as Libor or the one-year Treasury bill rate plus a spread. A "soft" hurdle means the performance fee is calculated on all the fund's returns if the hurdle rate is cleared. A "hard" hurdle is calculated only on returns above the hurdle rate. By example the manager sets a hurdle rate equal to 5%, and the fund return 15%, incentive fees would only apply to the 10% above the hurdle rate. A hurdle is intended to ensure that a manager is only rewarded if the fund generates returns in excess of the returns that the investor would have received if they had invested their money elsewhere.
Some hedge funds charge a redemption fee (or withdrawal fee) for early withdrawals during a specified period of time (typically a year), or when withdrawals exceed a predetermined percentage of the original investment. The purpose of the fee is to discourage short-term investing, reduce turnover, and deter withdrawals after periods of poor performance. Unlike management fees and performance fees, redemption fees are usually kept by the fund and redistributed to all investors.
Hedge fund management firms are often owned by their portfolio managers, who are therefore entitled to any profits that the business makes. As management fees are intended to cover the firm's operating costs, performance fees (and any excess management fees) are generally distributed to the firm's owners as profits. Funds do not tend to report compensation, and so published lists of the amounts earned by top managers tend to be estimates based on factors such as the fees charged by their funds and the capital they are thought to have invested in them. Many managers have accumulated large stakes in their own funds and so top hedge fund managers can earn extraordinary amounts of money, perhaps up to $4 billion in a good year.
Earnings at the very top are higher than in any other sector of the financial industry, and collectively the top 25 hedge fund managers regularly earn more than all 500 of the chief executives in the S&P 500. Most hedge fund managers are remunerated much less, however, and if performance fees are not earned then small managers at least are unlikely to be paid significant amounts.
In 2011, the top manager earned $3 billion, the tenth earned $210 million, and the 30th earned $80 million. In 2011, the average earnings for the 25 highest-compensated hedge fund managers in the United States was $576 million while the mean total compensation for all hedge fund investment professionals was $690,786 and the median was $312,329. The same figures for hedge fund CEOs were $1,037,151 and $600,000, and for chief investment officers were $1,039,974 and $300,000, respectively.
Of the 1,226 people on the Forbes World's Billionaires List for 2012, 36 of the financiers listed "derived significant chunks" of their wealth from hedge fund management. Among the richest 1,000 people in the United Kingdom, 54 were hedge fund managers, according to the Sunday Times Rich List for 2012.
A portfolio manager risks losing his past compensation if he engages in insider trading. In Morgan Stanley v. Skowron, 989 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine, the court held that a hedge fund's portfolio manager engaging in insider trading in violation of his company's code of conduct, which also required him to report his misconduct, must repay his employer the full $31 million his employer paid him as compensation during his period of faithlessness. The court called the insider trading the "ultimate abuse of a portfolio manager's position". The judge also wrote: "In addition to exposing Morgan Stanley to government investigations and direct financial losses, Skowron's behavior damaged the firm's reputation, a valuable corporate asset."
A hedge fund is an investment vehicle that is most often structured as an offshore corporation, limited partnership, or limited liability company. The fund is managed by an investment manager in the form of an organization or company that is legally and financially distinct from the hedge fund and its portfolio of assets. Many investment managers utilize service providers for operational support. Service providers include prime brokers, banks, administrators, distributors, and accounting firms.
Prime brokers clear trades and provide leverage and short-term financing. They are usually divisions of large investment banks. The prime broker acts as a counterparty to derivative contracts, and lends securities for particular investment strategies, such as long/short equities and convertible bond arbitrage. It can provide custodial services for the fund's assets, and trade execution and clearing services for the hedge fund manager.
Hedge fund administrators are typically responsible for valuation services, and often operations, and accounting.
Calculation of the net asset value ("NAV") by the administrator, including the pricing of securities at current market value and calculation of the fund's income and expense accruals, is a core administrator task, because it is the price at which investors buy and sell shares in the fund. The accurate and timely calculation of NAV by the administrator is vital. The case of Anwar v. Fairfield Greenwich (SDNY 2015) is the major case relating to fund administrator liability for failure to handle its NAV-related obligations properly. There, the hedge fund administrator and other defendants settled in 2016 by paying the Anwar investor plaintiffs $235 million.
Administrator back office support allows fund managers to concentrate on trades. Administrators also process subscriptions and redemptions and perform various shareholder services. Hedge funds in the United States are not required to appoint an administrator and all of these functions can be performed by an investment manager. A number of conflict of interest situations may arise in this arrangement, particularly in the calculation of a fund's net asset value. Most funds employ external auditors, thereby arguably offering a greater degree of transparency.
An auditor is an independent accounting firm used to perform a complete audit the fund's financial statements. The year-end audit is performed in accordance with the standard accounting practices enforced within the country in which the fund it established, typically US GAAP or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The auditor may verify the fund's NAV and assets under management (AUM). Some auditors only provide "NAV lite" services, meaning that the valuation is based on prices received from the manager rather than an independent assessment.
A distributor is an underwriter, broker, dealer, or other person who participates in the distribution of securities. The distributor is also responsible for marketing the fund to potential investors. Many hedge funds do not have distributors, and in such cases, the investment manager will be responsible for the distribution of securities and marketing, though many funds also use placement agents and broker-dealers for distribution.
The legal structure of a specific hedge fund, in particular its domicile and the type of legal entity in use, is usually determined by the tax expectations of the fund's investors. Regulatory considerations will also play a role. Many hedge funds are established in offshore financial centers to avoid adverse tax consequences for its foreign and tax-exempt investors. Offshore funds that invest in the US typically pay withholding taxes on certain types of investment income, but not US capital gains tax. However, the fund's investors are subject to tax in their own jurisdictions on any increase in the value of their investments. This tax treatment promotes cross-border investments by limiting the potential for multiple jurisdictions to layer taxes on investors.
US tax-exempt investors (such as pension plans and endowments) invest primarily in offshore hedge funds to preserve their tax exempt status and avoid unrelated business taxable income. The investment manager, usually based in a major financial center, pays tax on its management fees per the tax laws of the state and country where it is located. In 2011, half of the existing hedge funds were registered offshore and half onshore. The Cayman Islands was the leading location for offshore funds, accounting for 34% of the total number of global hedge funds. The US had 24%, Luxembourg 10%, Ireland 7%, the British Virgin Islands 6%, and Bermuda had 3%.
Hedge funds take advantage of a tax loopole called carried interest to get around paying too much in taxes by fancy legalistic maneouvres on their part.
Deutsche Bank and Barclays created special options accounts for hedge fund clients in the banks' names and claimed to own the assets, when in fact the hedge fund clients had full control of the assets and reaped the profits. The hedge funds would then execute trades – many of them a few seconds in duration – but wait until just after a year had passed to exercise the options, allowing them to report the profits at a lower long-term capital gains tax rate.
The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Carl Levin issued a 2014 report that found that from 1998 and 2013, hedge funds avoided billions of dollars in taxes by using basket options. The Internal Revenue Service began investigating Renaissance Technologies in 2009, and Levin criticized the IRS for taking six years to investigate the company. Using basket options Renaissance avoided "more than $6 billion in taxes over more than a decade".
These banks and hedge funds involved in this case used dubious structured financial products in a giant game of 'let's pretend,' costing the Treasury billions and bypassing safeguards that protect the economy from excessive bank lending for stock speculation.
A dozen other hedge funds along with Renaissance Technologies used Deutsche Bank's and Barclays' basket options. Renaissance argued that basket options were "extremely important because they gave the hedge fund the ability to increase its returns by borrowing more and to protect against model and programming failures". In July 2015, the United States Internal Revenue claimed hedge funds used basket options "to bypass taxes on short-term trades". These basket options will now be labeled as listed transactions that must be declared on tax returns, and a failure to do would result in a penalty.
In contrast to the funds themselves, investment managers are primarily located onshore. The United States remains the largest center of investment with US-based funds managing around 70% of global assets at the end of 2011. As of April 2012, there were approximately 3,990 investment advisers managing one or more private hedge funds registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New York City and the Gold Coast area of Connecticut are the leading locations for US hedge fund managers.
London was Europe's leading center for hedge fund managers, but since the Brexit referendum some formerly London-based hedge funds have relocated to other European financial centers such as Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Paris, and Dublin, while some other hedge funds have moved their European head offices back to New York City. Before Brexit, according to EuroHedge data, around 800 funds located in the UK had managed 85% of European-based hedge fund assets in 2011. Interest in hedge funds in Asia has increased significantly since 2003, especially in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. After Brexit, Europe and the US remain the leading locations for the management of Asian hedge fund assets.
Hedge fund legal structures vary depending on location and the investor(s). US hedge funds aimed at US-based, taxable investors are generally structured as limited partnerships or limited liability companies. Limited partnerships and other flow-through taxation structures assure that investors in hedge funds are not subject to both entity-level and personal-level taxation. A hedge fund structured as a limited partnership must have a general partner. The general partner may be an individual or a corporation. The general partner serves as the manager of the limited partnership, and has unlimited liability. The limited partners serve as the fund's investors, and have no responsibility for management or investment decisions. Their liability is limited to the amount of money they invest for partnership interests. As an alternative to a limited partnership arrangement, U.S. domestic hedge funds may be structured as limited liability companies, with members acting as corporate shareholders and enjoying protection from individual liability.
By contrast, offshore corporate funds are usually used for non-US investors, and when they are domiciled in an applicable offshore tax haven, no entity-level tax is imposed. Many managers of offshore funds permit the participation of tax-exempt US investors, such as pensions funds, institutional endowments, and charitable trusts. As an alternative legal structure, offshore funds may be formed as an open-ended unit trust using an unincorporated mutual fund structure. Japanese investors prefer to invest in unit trusts, such as those available in the Cayman Islands.
The investment manager who organizes the hedge fund may retain an interest in the fund, either as the general partner of a limited partnership or as the holder of "founder shares" in a corporate fund. For offshore funds structured as corporate entities, the fund may appoint a board of directors. The board's primary role is to provide a layer of oversight while representing the interests of the shareholders. However, in practice board members may lack sufficient expertise to be effective in performing those duties. The board may include both affiliated directors who are employees of the fund and independent directors whose relationship to the fund is limited.
A side pocket is a mechanism whereby a fund compartmentalizes assets that are relatively illiquid or difficult to value reliably. When an investment is side-pocketed, its value is calculated separately from the value of the fund's main portfolio. Because side pockets are used to hold illiquid investments, investors do not have the standard redemption rights with respect to the side pocket investment that they do with respect to the fund's main portfolio. Profits or losses from the investment are allocated on a pro rata basis only to those who are investors at the time the investment is placed into the side pocket and are not shared with new investors. Funds typically carry side pocket assets "at cost" for purposes of calculating management fees and reporting net asset values. This allows fund managers to avoid attempting a valuation of the underlying investments, which may not always have a readily available market value.
Side pockets were widely used by hedge funds during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 amidst a flood of withdrawal requests. Side pockets allowed fund managers to lay away illiquid securities until market liquidity improved, a move that could reduce losses. However, as the practice restricts investors' ability to redeem their investments it is often unpopular and many have alleged that it has been abused or applied unfairly. The SEC also has expressed concern about aggressive use of side pockets and has sanctioned certain fund managers for inappropriate use of them.
Hedge funds must abide by the national, federal, and state regulatory laws in their respective locations. The U.S. regulations and restrictions that apply to hedge funds differ from those that apply to its mutual funds. Mutual funds, unlike hedge funds and other private funds, are subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940, which is a highly detailed and extensive regulatory regime. According to a report by the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the most common form of regulation pertains to restrictions on financial advisers and hedge fund managers in an effort to minimize client fraud. On the other hand, U.S. hedge funds are exempt from many of the standard registration and reporting requirements because they only accept accredited investors. In 2010, regulations were enacted in the US and European Union which introduced additional hedge fund reporting requirements. These included the U.S.'s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and European Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive.
In 2007, in an effort to engage in self-regulation, 14 leading hedge fund managers developed a voluntary set of international standards in best practice and known as the Hedge Fund Standards they were designed to create a "framework of transparency, integrity and good governance" in the hedge fund industry. The Hedge Fund Standards Board was set up to prompt and maintain these standards going forward, and by 2016 it had approximately 200 hedge fund managers and institutional investors with a value of US$3tn investment endorsing the standards. The Managed Funds Association is a US-based trade association, while the Alternative Investment Management Association is the primarily European counterpart.
Hedge funds within the US are subject to regulatory, reporting, and record-keeping requirements. Many hedge funds also fall under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and are subject to rules and provisions of the 1922 Commodity Exchange Act, which prohibits fraud and manipulation. The Securities Act of 1933 required companies to file a registration statement with the SEC to comply with its private placement rules before offering their securities to the public, and most traditional hedge funds in the United States are offered effectively as private placement offerings. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 required a fund with more than 499 investors to register with the SEC. The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 contained anti-fraud provisions that regulated hedge fund managers and advisers, created limits for the number and types of investors, and prohibited public offerings. The Act also exempted hedge funds from mandatory registration with the SEC when selling to accredited investors with a minimum of US$5 million in investment assets. Companies and institutional investors with at least US$25 million in investment assets also qualified.
In December 2004, the SEC began requiring hedge fund advisers, managing more than US$25 million and with more than 14 investors, to register with the SEC under the Investment Advisers Act. The SEC stated that it was adopting a "risk-based approach" to monitoring hedge funds as part of its evolving regulatory regime for the burgeoning industry. The new rule was controversial, with two Commissioners dissenting, and was later challenged in court by a hedge fund manager. In June 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the rule and sent it back to the agency to be reviewed. In response to the court decision, in 2007 the SEC adopted Rule 206(4)-8, which unlike the earlier-challenged rule, "does not impose additional filing, reporting or disclosure obligations" but does potentially increase "the risk of enforcement action" for negligent or fraudulent activity. Hedge fund managers with at least US$100 million in assets under management are required to file publicly quarterly reports disclosing ownership of registered equity securities and are subject to public disclosure if they own more than 5% of the class of any registered equity security. Registered advisers must report their business practices and disciplinary history to the SEC and to their investors. They are required to have written compliance policies, a chief compliance officer, and their records and practices may be examined by the SEC.
The U.S.'s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act was passed in July 2010 and requires SEC registration of advisers who manage private funds with more than US$150 million in assets. Registered managers must file Form ADV with the SEC, as well as information regarding their assets under management and trading positions. Previously, advisers with fewer than 15 clients were exempt, although many hedge fund advisers voluntarily registered with the SEC to satisfy institutional investors. Under Dodd-Frank, investment advisers with less than US$100 million in assets under management became subject to state regulation. This increased the number of hedge funds under state supervision. Overseas advisers who managed more than US$25 million were also required to register with the SEC. The Act requires hedge funds to provide information about their trades and portfolios to regulators including the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council. In this regard, most hedge funds and other private funds, including private-equity funds, must file Form PF with the SEC, which is an extensive reporting form with substantial data on the funds' activities and positions. Under the "Volcker Rule", regulators are also required to implement regulations for banks, their affiliates, and holding companies to limit their relationships with hedge funds and to prohibit these organizations from proprietary trading, and to limit their investment in, and sponsorship of, hedge funds.
Within the European Union (EU), hedge funds are primarily regulated through their managers. In the United Kingdom, where 80% of Europe's hedge funds are based, hedge fund managers are required to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Each country has its own specific restrictions on hedge fund activities, including controls on use of derivatives in Portugal, and limits on leverage in France.
In the EU, managers are subject to the EU's Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMD). According to the EU, the aim of the directive is to provide greater monitoring and control of alternative investment funds. AIFMD requires all EU hedge fund managers to register with national regulatory authorities and to disclose more information, on a more frequent basis. It also directs hedge fund managers to hold larger amounts of capital. AIFMD also introduced a "passport" for hedge funds authorised in one EU country to operate throughout the EU. The scope of AIFMD is broad and encompasses managers located within the EU as well as non-EU managers that market their funds to European investors. An aspect of AIFMD which challenges established practices in the hedge funds sector is the potential restriction of remuneration through bonus deferrals and clawback provisions.
Some hedge funds are established in offshore centres, such as the Cayman Islands, Dublin, Luxembourg, Singapore the British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda, which have different regulations concerning non-accredited investors, client confidentiality, and fund manager independence.
In South Africa, investment fund managers must be approved by, and register with, the Financial Services Board (FSB).
Performance statistics for individual hedge funds are difficult to obtain, as the funds have historically not been required to report their performance to a central repository, and restrictions against public offerings and advertisement have led many managers to refuse to provide performance information publicly. However, summaries of individual hedge fund performance are occasionally available in industry journals and databases.
One estimate is that the average hedge fund returned 11.4% per year, representing a 6.7% return above overall market performance before fees, based on performance data from 8,400 hedge funds. Another estimate is that between January 2000 and December 2009 hedge funds outperformed other investments and were substantially less volatile, with stocks falling an average of 2.62% per year over the decade and hedge funds rising an average of 6.54% per year; this was an unusually volatile period with both the 2001-2002 dot-com bubble and a recession beginning mid 2007. However, more recent data show that hedge fund performance declined and underperformed the market from about 2009 to 2016.
Hedge funds performance is measured by comparing their returns to an estimate of their risk. Common measures are the Sharpe ratio, Treynor measure and Jensen's alpha. These measures work best when returns follow normal distributions without autocorrelation, and these assumptions are often not met in practice.
New performance measures have been introduced that attempt to address some of theoretical concerns with traditional indicators, including: modified Sharpe ratios; the Omega ratio introduced by Keating and Shadwick in 2002; Alternative Investments Risk Adjusted Performance (AIRAP) published by Sharma in 2004; and Kappa developed by Kaplan and Knowles in 2004.
There is a debate over whether alpha (the manager's skill element in performance) has been diluted by the expansion of the hedge fund industry. Two reasons are given. First, the increase in traded volume may have been reducing the market anomalies that are a source of hedge fund performance. Second, the remuneration model is attracting more managers, which may dilute the talent available in the industry.
Indices play a central and unambiguous role in traditional asset markets, where they are widely accepted as representative of their underlying portfolios. Equity and debt index fund products provide investable access to most developed markets in these asset classes.
Hedge fund indices are more problematic. The typical hedge fund is not traded on exchange, will accept investments only at the discretion of the manager, and does not have an obligation to publish returns. Despite these challenges, Non-investable, Investable, and Clone indices have been developed.
Non-investable indices are indicative in nature and aim to represent the performance of some database of hedge funds using some measure such as mean, median, or weighted mean from a hedge fund database. The databases have diverse selection criteria and methods of construction, and no single database captures all funds. This leads to significant differences in reported performance between different indices.
Although they aim to be representative, non-investable indices suffer from a lengthy and largely unavoidable list of biases. Funds' participation in a database is voluntary, leading to self-selection bias because those funds that choose to report may not be typical of funds as a whole. For example, some do not report because of poor results or because they have already reached their target size and do not wish to raise further money.
The short lifetimes of many hedge funds mean that there are many new entrants and many departures each year, which raises the problem of survivorship bias. If we examine only funds that have survived to the present, we will overestimate past returns because many of the worst-performing funds have not survived, and the observed association between fund youth and fund performance suggests that this bias may be substantial.
When a fund is added to a database for the first time, all or part of its historical data is recorded ex-post in the database. It is likely that funds only publish their results when they are favorable, so that the average performances displayed by the funds during their incubation period are inflated. This is known as "instant history bias" or "backfill bias".
Investable indices are an attempt to reduce these problems by ensuring that the return of the index is available to shareholders. To create an investable index, the index provider selects funds and develops structured products or derivative instruments that deliver the performance of the index. When investors buy these products the index provider makes the investments in the underlying funds, making an investable index similar in some ways to a fund of hedge funds portfolio.
To make the index investable, hedge funds must agree to accept investments on the terms given by the constructor. To make the index liquid, these terms must include provisions for redemptions that some managers may consider too onerous to be acceptable. This means that investable indices do not represent the total universe of hedge funds. Most seriously, they under-represent more successful managers, who typically refuse to accept such investment protocols.
The most recent addition to the field approaches the problem in a different manner. Instead of reflecting the performance of actual hedge funds, they take a statistical approach to the analysis of historic hedge fund returns and use this to construct a model of how hedge fund returns respond to the movements of various investable financial assets. This model is then used to construct an investable portfolio of those assets. This makes the index investable, and in principle, they can be as representative as the hedge fund database from which they were constructed. However, these clone indices rely on a statistical modelling process. Such indices have too short a history to state whether this approach will be considered successful.
In March 2017, HFR – a hedge fund research data and service provider – reported that there were more hedge-fund closures in 2016 than during the 2009 recession. According to the report, several large public pension funds pulled their investments in hedge funds, because the funds' subpar performance as a group did not merit the high fees they charged.
Despite the hedge fund industry topping $3 trillion for the first time ever in 2016, the number of new hedge funds launched fell short of levels before the financial crisis of 2007–2008. There were 729 hedge fund launches in 2016, fewer than the 784 opened in 2009, and dramatically fewer than the 968 launches in 2015.
Systemic risk refers to the risk of instability across the entire financial system, as opposed to within a single company. Such risk may arise following a destabilizing event or events affecting a group of financial institutions linked through investment activity. Organizations such as the European Central Bank have charged that hedge funds pose systemic risks to the financial sector, and following the failure of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998 there was widespread concern about the potential for systemic risk if a hedge fund failure led to the failure of its counterparties. (As it happens, no financial assistance was provided to LTCM by the US Federal Reserve, so there was no direct cost to US taxpayers, but a large bailout had to be mounted by a number of financial institutions.)
However, these claims are widely disputed by the financial industry, who typically regard hedge funds as "small enough to fail", since most are relatively small in terms of the assets they manage and operate with low leverage, thereby limiting the potential harm to the economic system should one of them fail. Formal analysis of hedge fund leverage before and during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 suggests that hedge fund leverage is both fairly modest and counter-cyclical to the market leverage of investment banks and the larger financial sector. Hedge fund leverage decreased prior to the financial crisis, even while the leverage of other financial intermediaries continued to increase. Hedge funds fail regularly, and numerous hedge funds failed during the financial crisis. In testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee in 2009, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman said he "would not think that any hedge fund or private-equity fund would become a systemically critical firm individually".
This does leave the possibility that hedge funds collectively might contribute to systemic risk if they exhibit herd or self-coordinating behavior, perhaps because many hedge funds make losses in similar trades. This coupled with the extensive use of leverage could lead to forced liquidations in a crisis.
Hedge funds are also closely connected to their prime brokers, typically investment banks, which could contribute to their instability in a crisis, though this works both ways and failing counterparty banks can freeze hedge funds assets, as Lehman brothers did in 2008.
An August 2012 survey by the Financial Services Authority concluded that risks were limited and had reduced as a result, inter alia, of larger margins being required by counterparty banks, but might change rapidly according to market conditions. In stressed market conditions, investors might suddenly withdraw large sums, resulting in forced asset sales. This might cause liquidity and pricing problems if it occurred across a number of funds or in one large highly leveraged fund.
Hedge funds are structured to avoid most direct regulation (although their managers may be regulated), and are not required to publicly disclose their investment activities, except to the extent that investors generally are subject to disclosure requirements. This is in contrast to a regulated mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, which will typically have to meet regulatory requirements for disclosure. An investor in a hedge fund usually has direct access to the investment adviser of the fund, and may enjoy more personalized reporting than investors in retail investment funds. This may include detailed discussions of risks assumed and significant positions. However, this high level of disclosure is not available to non-investors, contributing to hedge funds' reputation for secrecy, while some hedge funds have very limited transparency even to investors.
Funds may choose to report some information in the interest of recruiting additional investors. Much of the data available in consolidated databases is self-reported and unverified. A study was done on two major databases containing hedge fund data. The study noted that 465 common funds had significant differences in reported information (e.g., returns, inception date, net assets value, incentive fee, management fee, investment styles, etc.) and that 5% of return numbers and 5% of NAV numbers were dramatically different. With these limitations, investors have to do their own research, which may cost on the scale of US$50,000 for a fund that is not well-established.
A lack of verification of financial documents by investors or by independent auditors has, in some cases, assisted in fraud. In the mid-2000s, Kirk Wright of International Management Associates was accused of mail fraud and other securities violations which allegedly defrauded clients of close to US$180 million. In December 2008, Bernard Madoff was arrested for running a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme that closely resembled a hedge fund and was incorrectly described as one. Several feeder hedge funds, of which the largest was Fairfield Sentry, channeled money to it. Following the Madoff case, the SEC adopted reforms in December 2009 that subjected hedge funds to an audit requirement.
The process of matching hedge funds to investors has traditionally been fairly opaque, with investments often driven by personal connections or recommendations of portfolio managers. Many funds disclose their holdings, strategy, and historic performance relative to market indices, giving investors some idea of how their money is being allocated, although individual holdings are often not disclosed. Investors are often drawn to hedge funds by the possibility of realizing significant returns, or hedging against volatility in the market. The complexity and fees associated with hedge funds are causing some to exit the market – CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the US, announced plans to completely divest from hedge funds in 2014. Some services are attempting to improve matching between hedge funds and investors: HedgeZ is designed to allow investors to easily search and sort through funds; iMatchative aims to match investors to funds through algorithms that factor in an investor's goals and behavioral profile, in hopes of helping funds and investors understand the how their perceptions and motivations drive investment decisions.
In June 2006, prompted by a letter from Gary J. Aguirre, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee began an investigation into the links between hedge funds and independent analysts. Aguirre was fired from his job with the SEC when, as lead investigator of insider trading allegations against Pequot Capital Management, he tried to interview John Mack, then being considered for chief executive officer at Morgan Stanley. The Judiciary Committee and the US Senate Finance Committee issued a scathing report in 2007, which found that Aguirre had been illegally fired in reprisal for his pursuit of Mack, and in 2009 the SEC was forced to re-open its case against Pequot. Pequot settled with the SEC for US$28 million, and Arthur J. Samberg, chief investment officer of Pequot, was barred from working as an investment advisor. Pequot closed its doors under the pressure of investigations.
The systemic practice of hedge funds submitting periodic electronic questionnaires to stock analysts as a part of market research was reported by The New York Times in July 2012. According to the report, one motivation for the questionnaires was to obtain subjective information not available to the public and possible early notice of trading recommendations that could produce short-term market movements.
According to modern portfolio theory, rational investors will seek to hold portfolios that are mean/variance efficient (that is, portfolios that offer the highest level of return per unit of risk). One of the attractive features of hedge funds (in particular market neutral and similar funds) is that they sometimes have a modest correlation with traditional assets such as equities. This means that hedge funds have a potentially quite valuable role in investment portfolios as diversifiers, reducing overall portfolio risk.
However, there are at least three reasons why one might not wish to allocate a high proportion of assets into hedge funds. These reasons are:
Several studies have suggested that hedge funds are sufficiently diversifying to merit inclusion in investor portfolios, but this is disputed for example by Mark Kritzman who performed a mean-variance optimization calculation on an opportunity set that consisted of a stock index fund, a bond index fund, and ten hypothetical hedge funds. The optimizer found that a mean-variance efficient portfolio did not contain any allocation to hedge funds, largely because of the impact of performance fees. To demonstrate this, Kritzman repeated the optimization using an assumption that the hedge funds took no performance fees. The result from this second optimization was an allocation of 74% to hedge funds.
Hedge funds tend to perform poorly during equity bear markets, just when an investor needs part of their portfolio to add value. For example, in January–September 2008, the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index returned -9.87%. According to the same index series, even "dedicated short bias" funds returned −6.08% in September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hedge funds are considered alternative investments. Their ability to use leverage and more complex investment techniques distinguishes them from regulated investment funds available to the retail market, commonly known as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also considered distinct from private equity funds and other similar closed-end funds as hedge funds generally invest in relatively liquid assets and are usually open-ended. This means they typically allow investors to invest and withdraw capital periodically based on the fund's net asset value, whereas private-equity funds generally invest in illiquid assets and return capital only after a number of years. Other than a fund's regulatory status, there are no formal or fixed definitions of fund types, and so there are different views of what can constitute a \"hedge fund\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Although hedge funds are not subject to the many restrictions applicable to regulated funds, regulations were passed in the United States and Europe following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 with the intention of increasing government oversight of hedge funds and eliminating certain regulatory gaps. While most modern hedge funds are able to employ a wide variety of financial instruments and risk management techniques, they can be very different from each other with respect to their strategies, risks, volatility and expected return profile. It is common for hedge fund investment strategies to aim to achieve a positive return on investment regardless of whether markets are rising or falling (\"absolute return\"). Hedge funds can be considered risky investments; the expected returns of some hedge fund strategies are less volatile than those of retail funds with high exposure to stock markets because of the use of hedging techniques.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A hedge fund usually pays its investment manager a management fee (typically, 2% per annum of the net asset value of the fund) and a performance fee (typically, 20% of the increase in the fund's net asset value during a year). Hedge funds have existed for many decades and have become increasingly popular. They have now grown to be a substantial portion of the asset management industry, with assets totaling around $3.8 trillion as of 2021. Hedge fund managers can have several billion dollars of assets under management (AUM).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The word \"hedge\", meaning a line of bushes around the perimeter of a field, has long been used as a metaphor for placing limits on risk. Early hedge funds sought to hedge specific investments against general market fluctuations by shorting other, similar assets. Nowadays, however, many different investment strategies are used, many of which do not \"hedge\" risk.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "During the US bull market of the 1920s, there were numerous private investment vehicles available to wealthy investors. Of that period, the best known today is the Graham-Newman Partnership, founded by Benjamin Graham and his long-time business partner Jerry Newman. This was cited by Warren Buffett in a 2006 letter to the Museum of American Finance as an early hedge fund, and based on other comments from Buffett, Janet Tavakoli deems Graham's investment firm the first hedge fund.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The sociologist Alfred W. Jones is credited with coining the phrase \"hedged fund\" and is credited with creating the first hedge fund structure in 1949. Jones referred to his fund as being \"hedged\", a term then commonly used on Wall Street to describe the management of investment risk due to changes in the financial markets.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the 1970s, hedge funds specialized in a single strategy with most fund managers following the long/short equity model. Many hedge funds closed during the recession of 1969–70 and the 1973–1974 stock market crash due to heavy losses. They received renewed attention in the late 1980s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "During the 1990s, the number of hedge funds increased significantly with the 1990s stock market rise, the aligned-interest compensation structure (i.e., common financial interests), and the promise of above average returns as likely causes. Over the next decade, hedge fund strategies expanded to include credit arbitrage, distressed debt, fixed income, quantitative, and multi-strategy. US institutional investors, such as pension and endowment funds, began allocating greater portions of their portfolios to hedge funds.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During the first decade of the 21st century, hedge funds gained popularity worldwide, and, by 2008, the worldwide hedge fund industry held an estimated US$1.93 trillion in assets under management (AUM). However, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 caused many hedge funds to restrict investor withdrawals and their popularity and AUM totals declined. AUM totals rebounded and in April 2011 were estimated at almost $2 trillion. As of February 2011, 61% of worldwide investment in hedge funds came from institutional sources.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In June 2011, the hedge fund management firms with the greatest AUM were Bridgewater Associates (US$58.9 billion), Man Group (US$39.2 billion), Paulson & Co. (US$35.1 billion), Brevan Howard (US$31 billion), and Och-Ziff (US$29.4 billion). Bridgewater Associates had $70 billion in assets under management as of March 2012. At the end of that year, the 241 largest hedge fund firms in the United States collectively held $1.335 trillion. In April 2012, the hedge fund industry reached a record high of US$2.13 trillion total assets under management. In the middle of the 2010s, the hedge fund industry experienced a general decline in the \"old guard\" fund managers. Dan Loeb called it a \"hedge fund killing field\" due to the classic long/short falling out of favor because of unprecedented easing by central banks. The US stock market correlation became untenable to short sellers. The hedge fund industry today has reached a state of maturity that is consolidating around the larger, more established firms such as Citadel, Elliot, Millennium, Bridgewater, and others. The rate of new fund start ups is now outpaced by fund closings.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In July 2017, hedge funds recorded their eighth consecutive monthly gain in returns with assets under management rising to a record $3.1 trillion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hedge fund strategies are generally classified among four major categories: global macro, directional, event-driven, and relative value (arbitrage). Strategies within these categories each entail characteristic risk and return profiles. A fund may employ a single strategy or multiple strategies for flexibility, risk management, or diversification. The hedge fund's prospectus, also known as an offering memorandum, offers potential investors information about key aspects of the fund, including the fund's investment strategy, investment type, and leverage limit.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The elements contributing to a hedge fund strategy include the hedge fund's approach to the market, the particular instrument use, the market sector the fund specializes in (e.g., healthcare), the method used to select investments, and the amount of diversification within the fund. There are a variety of market approaches to different asset classes, including equity, fixed income, commodity, and currency. Instruments used include equities, fixed income, futures, options, and swaps. Strategies can be divided into those in which investments can be selected by managers, known as \"discretionary/qualitative\", or those in which investments are selected using a computerized system, known as \"systematic/quantitative\". The amount of diversification within the fund can vary; funds may be multi-strategy, multi-fund, multi-market, multi-manager, or a combination.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Sometimes hedge fund strategies are described as \"absolute return\" and are classified as either \"market neutral\" or \"directional\". Market neutral funds have less correlation to overall market performance by \"neutralizing\" the effect of market swings whereas directional funds utilize trends and inconsistencies in the market and have greater exposure to the market's fluctuations.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hedge funds using a global macro investing strategy take large positions in share, bond, or currency markets in anticipation of global macroeconomic events in order to generate a risk-adjusted return. Global macro fund managers use macroeconomic (\"big picture\") analysis based on global market events and trends to identify opportunities for investment that would profit from anticipated price movements. While global macro strategies have a large amount of flexibility (due to their ability to use leverage to take large positions in diverse investments in multiple markets), the timing of the implementation of the strategies is important in order to generate attractive, risk-adjusted returns. Global macro is often categorized as a directional investment strategy.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Global macro strategies can be divided into discretionary and systematic approaches. Discretionary trading is carried out by investment managers who identify and select investments, whereas systematic trading is based on mathematical models and executed by software with limited human involvement beyond the programming and updating of the software. These strategies can also be divided into trend or counter-trend approaches depending on whether the fund attempts to profit from following market trend (long or short-term) or attempts to anticipate and profit from reversals in trends.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Within global macro strategies, there are further sub-strategies including \"systematic diversified\", in which the fund trades in diversified markets, or sector specialists such as \"systematic currency\", in which the fund trades in foreign exchange markets or any other sector specialisation. Other sub-strategies include those employed by commodity trading advisors (CTAs), where the fund trades in futures (or options) in commodity markets or in swaps. This is also known as a \"managed future fund\". CTAs trade in commodities (such as gold) and financial instruments, including stock indices. They also take both long and short positions, allowing them to make profit in both market upswings and downswings. Most global macro managers tends to be a CTA from a regulatory perspective and the main divide is between systematic and discretionary strategies. A classification framework for CTA/Macro Strategies can be found in the reference.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Directional investment strategies use market movements, trends, or inconsistencies when picking stocks across a variety of markets. Computer models can be used, or fund managers will identify and select investments. These types of strategies have a greater exposure to the fluctuations of the overall market than do market neutral strategies. Directional hedge fund strategies include US and international long/short equity hedge funds, where long equity positions are hedged with short sales of equities or equity index options.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Within directional strategies, there are a number of sub-strategies. \"Emerging markets\" funds focus on emerging markets such as China and India, whereas \"sector funds\" specialize in specific areas including technology, healthcare, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, energy, and basic materials. Funds using a \"fundamental growth\" strategy invest in companies with more earnings growth than the overall stock market or relevant sector, while funds using a \"fundamental value\" strategy invest in undervalued companies. Funds that use quantitative and financial signal processing techniques for equity trading are described as using a \"quantitative directional\" strategy. Funds using a \"short bias\" strategy take advantage of declining equity prices using short positions.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Event-driven strategies concern situations in which the underlying investment opportunity and risk are associated with an event. An event-driven investment strategy finds investment opportunities in corporate transactional events such as consolidations, acquisitions, recapitalizations, bankruptcies, and liquidations. Managers employing such a strategy capitalize on valuation inconsistencies in the market before or after such events, and take a position based on the predicted movement of the security or securities in question. Large institutional investors such as hedge funds are more likely to pursue event-driven investing strategies than traditional equity investors because they have the expertise and resources to analyze corporate transactional events for investment opportunities.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Corporate transactional events generally fit into three categories: distressed securities, risk arbitrage, and special situations. Distressed securities include such events as restructurings, recapitalizations, and bankruptcies. A distressed securities investment strategy involves investing in the bonds or loans of companies facing bankruptcy or severe financial distress, when these bonds or loans are being traded at a discount to their value. Hedge fund managers pursuing the distressed debt investment strategy aim to capitalize on depressed bond prices. Hedge funds purchasing distressed debt may prevent those companies from going bankrupt, as such an acquisition deters foreclosure by banks. While event-driven investing, in general, tends to thrive during a bull market, distressed investing works best during a bear market.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Risk arbitrage or merger arbitrage includes such events as mergers, acquisitions, liquidations, and hostile takeovers. Risk arbitrage typically involves buying and selling the stocks of two or more merging companies to take advantage of market discrepancies between acquisition price and stock price. The risk element arises from the possibility that the merger or acquisition will not go ahead as planned; hedge fund managers will use research and analysis to determine if the event will take place.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Special situations are events that impact the value of a company's stock, including the restructuring of a company or corporate transactions including spin-offs, share buy backs, security issuance/repurchase, asset sales, or other catalyst-oriented situations. To take advantage of special situations the hedge fund manager must identify an upcoming event that will increase or decrease the value of the company's equity and equity-related instruments.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Other event-driven strategies include credit arbitrage strategies, which focus on corporate fixed income securities; an activist strategy, where the fund takes large positions in companies and uses the ownership to participate in the management; a strategy based on predicting the final approval of new pharmaceutical drugs; and legal catalyst strategy, which specializes in companies involved in major lawsuits.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Relative value arbitrage strategies take advantage of relative discrepancies in price between securities. The price discrepancy can occur due to mispricing of securities compared to related securities, the underlying security or the market overall. Hedge fund managers can use various types of analysis to identify price discrepancies in securities, including mathematical, technical, or fundamental techniques. Relative value is often used as a synonym for market neutral, as strategies in this category typically have very little or no directional market exposure to the market as a whole. Other relative value sub-strategies include:",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In addition to those strategies within the four main categories, there are several strategies that do not entirely fit into these categories.",
"title": "Strategies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "For an investor who already holds large quantities of equities and bonds, investment in hedge funds may provide diversification and reduce the overall portfolio risk. Managers of hedge funds often aim to produce returns that are relatively uncorrelated with market indices and are consistent with investors' desired level of risk. While hedging can reduce some risks of an investment it usually increases others, such as operational risk and model risk, so overall risk is reduced but cannot be eliminated. According to a report by the Hennessee Group, hedge funds were approximately one-third less volatile than the S&P 500 between 1993 and 2010.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Investors in hedge funds are, in most countries, required to be qualified investors who are assumed to be aware of the investment risks, and accept these risks because of the potential returns relative to those risks. Fund managers may employ extensive risk management strategies in order to protect the fund and investors. According to the Financial Times, \"big hedge funds have some of the most sophisticated and exacting risk management practices anywhere in asset management.\" Hedge fund managers that hold a large number of investment positions for short periods are likely to have a particularly comprehensive risk management system in place, and it has become usual for funds to have independent risk officers who assess and manage risks but are not otherwise involved in trading. A variety of different measurement techniques and models are used to estimate risk according to the fund's leverage, liquidity, and investment strategy. Non-normality of returns, volatility clustering and trends are not always accounted for by conventional risk measurement methodologies and so in addition to value at risk and similar measurements, funds may use integrated measures such as drawdowns.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In addition to assessing the market-related risks that may arise from an investment, investors commonly employ operational due diligence to assess the risk that error or fraud at a hedge fund might result in a loss to the investor. Considerations will include the organization and management of operations at the hedge fund manager, whether the investment strategy is likely to be sustainable, and the fund's ability to develop as a company.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Since hedge funds are private entities and have few public disclosure requirements, this is sometimes perceived as a lack of transparency. Another common perception of hedge funds is that their managers are not subject to as much regulatory oversight and/or registration requirements as other financial investment managers, and more prone to manager-specific idiosyncratic risks such as style drifts, faulty operations, or fraud. New regulations introduced in the US and the EU as of 2010 required hedge fund managers to report more information, leading to greater transparency. In addition, investors, particularly institutional investors, are encouraging further developments in hedge fund risk management, both through internal practices and external regulatory requirements. The increasing influence of institutional investors has led to greater transparency: hedge funds increasingly provide information to investors including valuation methodology, positions, and leverage exposure.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Hedge funds share many of the same types of risk as other investment classes, including liquidity risk and manager risk. Liquidity refers to the degree to which an asset can be bought and sold or converted to cash; similar to private-equity funds, hedge funds employ a lock-up period during which an investor cannot remove money. Manager risk refers to those risks which arise from the management of funds. As well as specific risks such as style drift, which refers to a fund manager \"drifting\" away from an area of specific expertise, manager risk factors include valuation risk, capacity risk, concentration risk, and leverage risk. Valuation risk refers to the concern that the net asset value (NAV) of investments may be inaccurate; capacity risk can arise from placing too much money into one particular strategy, which may lead to fund performance deterioration; and concentration risk may arise if a fund has too much exposure to a particular investment, sector, trading strategy, or group of correlated funds. These risks may be managed through defined controls over conflict of interest, restrictions on allocation of funds, and set exposure limits for strategies.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Many investment funds use leverage, the practice of borrowing money, trading on margin, or using derivatives to obtain market exposure in excess of that provided by investors' capital. Although leverage can increase potential returns, the opportunity for larger gains is weighed against the possibility of greater losses. Hedge funds employing leverage are likely to engage in extensive risk management practices. In comparison with investment banks, hedge fund leverage is relatively low; according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, the average leverage for investment banks is 14.2, compared to between 1.5 and 2.5 for hedge funds.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Some types of funds, including hedge funds, are perceived as having a greater appetite for risk, with the intention of maximizing returns, subject to the risk tolerance of investors and the fund manager. Managers will have an additional incentive to increase risk oversight when their own capital is invested in the fund.",
"title": "Risk"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Hedge fund management firms typically charge their funds both a management fee and a performance fee.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Management fees are calculated as a percentage of the fund's net asset value and typically range from 1% to 4% per annum, with 2% being standard. They are usually expressed as an annual percentage, but calculated and paid monthly or quarterly. Management fees for hedge funds are designed to cover the operating costs of the manager, whereas the performance fee provides the manager's profits. However, due to economies of scale the management fee from larger funds can generate a significant part of a manager's profits, and as a result some fees have been criticized by some public pension funds, such as CalPERS, for being too high.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The performance fee is typically 20% of the fund's profits during any year, though performance fees range between 10% and 50%. Performance fees are intended to provide an incentive for a manager to generate profits. Performance fees have been criticized by Warren Buffett, who believes that because hedge funds share only the profits and not the losses, such fees create an incentive for high-risk investment management. Performance fee rates have fallen since the start of the credit crunch.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Almost all hedge fund performance fees include a \"high water mark\" (or \"loss carryforward provision\"), which means that the performance fee only applies to net profits (i.e., profits after losses in previous years have been recovered). This prevents managers from receiving fees for volatile performance, though a manager will sometimes close a fund that has suffered serious losses and start a new fund, rather than attempt to recover the losses over a number of years without a performance fee.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Some performance fees include a \"hurdle\", so that a fee is only paid on the fund's performance in excess of a benchmark rate (e.g., LIBOR) or a fixed percentage. The hurdle is usually tied to a benchmark rate such as Libor or the one-year Treasury bill rate plus a spread. A \"soft\" hurdle means the performance fee is calculated on all the fund's returns if the hurdle rate is cleared. A \"hard\" hurdle is calculated only on returns above the hurdle rate. By example the manager sets a hurdle rate equal to 5%, and the fund return 15%, incentive fees would only apply to the 10% above the hurdle rate. A hurdle is intended to ensure that a manager is only rewarded if the fund generates returns in excess of the returns that the investor would have received if they had invested their money elsewhere.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Some hedge funds charge a redemption fee (or withdrawal fee) for early withdrawals during a specified period of time (typically a year), or when withdrawals exceed a predetermined percentage of the original investment. The purpose of the fee is to discourage short-term investing, reduce turnover, and deter withdrawals after periods of poor performance. Unlike management fees and performance fees, redemption fees are usually kept by the fund and redistributed to all investors.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Hedge fund management firms are often owned by their portfolio managers, who are therefore entitled to any profits that the business makes. As management fees are intended to cover the firm's operating costs, performance fees (and any excess management fees) are generally distributed to the firm's owners as profits. Funds do not tend to report compensation, and so published lists of the amounts earned by top managers tend to be estimates based on factors such as the fees charged by their funds and the capital they are thought to have invested in them. Many managers have accumulated large stakes in their own funds and so top hedge fund managers can earn extraordinary amounts of money, perhaps up to $4 billion in a good year.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Earnings at the very top are higher than in any other sector of the financial industry, and collectively the top 25 hedge fund managers regularly earn more than all 500 of the chief executives in the S&P 500. Most hedge fund managers are remunerated much less, however, and if performance fees are not earned then small managers at least are unlikely to be paid significant amounts.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 2011, the top manager earned $3 billion, the tenth earned $210 million, and the 30th earned $80 million. In 2011, the average earnings for the 25 highest-compensated hedge fund managers in the United States was $576 million while the mean total compensation for all hedge fund investment professionals was $690,786 and the median was $312,329. The same figures for hedge fund CEOs were $1,037,151 and $600,000, and for chief investment officers were $1,039,974 and $300,000, respectively.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Of the 1,226 people on the Forbes World's Billionaires List for 2012, 36 of the financiers listed \"derived significant chunks\" of their wealth from hedge fund management. Among the richest 1,000 people in the United Kingdom, 54 were hedge fund managers, according to the Sunday Times Rich List for 2012.",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A portfolio manager risks losing his past compensation if he engages in insider trading. In Morgan Stanley v. Skowron, 989 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine, the court held that a hedge fund's portfolio manager engaging in insider trading in violation of his company's code of conduct, which also required him to report his misconduct, must repay his employer the full $31 million his employer paid him as compensation during his period of faithlessness. The court called the insider trading the \"ultimate abuse of a portfolio manager's position\". The judge also wrote: \"In addition to exposing Morgan Stanley to government investigations and direct financial losses, Skowron's behavior damaged the firm's reputation, a valuable corporate asset.\"",
"title": "Fees and remuneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A hedge fund is an investment vehicle that is most often structured as an offshore corporation, limited partnership, or limited liability company. The fund is managed by an investment manager in the form of an organization or company that is legally and financially distinct from the hedge fund and its portfolio of assets. Many investment managers utilize service providers for operational support. Service providers include prime brokers, banks, administrators, distributors, and accounting firms.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Prime brokers clear trades and provide leverage and short-term financing. They are usually divisions of large investment banks. The prime broker acts as a counterparty to derivative contracts, and lends securities for particular investment strategies, such as long/short equities and convertible bond arbitrage. It can provide custodial services for the fund's assets, and trade execution and clearing services for the hedge fund manager.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Hedge fund administrators are typically responsible for valuation services, and often operations, and accounting.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Calculation of the net asset value (\"NAV\") by the administrator, including the pricing of securities at current market value and calculation of the fund's income and expense accruals, is a core administrator task, because it is the price at which investors buy and sell shares in the fund. The accurate and timely calculation of NAV by the administrator is vital. The case of Anwar v. Fairfield Greenwich (SDNY 2015) is the major case relating to fund administrator liability for failure to handle its NAV-related obligations properly. There, the hedge fund administrator and other defendants settled in 2016 by paying the Anwar investor plaintiffs $235 million.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Administrator back office support allows fund managers to concentrate on trades. Administrators also process subscriptions and redemptions and perform various shareholder services. Hedge funds in the United States are not required to appoint an administrator and all of these functions can be performed by an investment manager. A number of conflict of interest situations may arise in this arrangement, particularly in the calculation of a fund's net asset value. Most funds employ external auditors, thereby arguably offering a greater degree of transparency.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "An auditor is an independent accounting firm used to perform a complete audit the fund's financial statements. The year-end audit is performed in accordance with the standard accounting practices enforced within the country in which the fund it established, typically US GAAP or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The auditor may verify the fund's NAV and assets under management (AUM). Some auditors only provide \"NAV lite\" services, meaning that the valuation is based on prices received from the manager rather than an independent assessment.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A distributor is an underwriter, broker, dealer, or other person who participates in the distribution of securities. The distributor is also responsible for marketing the fund to potential investors. Many hedge funds do not have distributors, and in such cases, the investment manager will be responsible for the distribution of securities and marketing, though many funds also use placement agents and broker-dealers for distribution.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The legal structure of a specific hedge fund, in particular its domicile and the type of legal entity in use, is usually determined by the tax expectations of the fund's investors. Regulatory considerations will also play a role. Many hedge funds are established in offshore financial centers to avoid adverse tax consequences for its foreign and tax-exempt investors. Offshore funds that invest in the US typically pay withholding taxes on certain types of investment income, but not US capital gains tax. However, the fund's investors are subject to tax in their own jurisdictions on any increase in the value of their investments. This tax treatment promotes cross-border investments by limiting the potential for multiple jurisdictions to layer taxes on investors.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "US tax-exempt investors (such as pension plans and endowments) invest primarily in offshore hedge funds to preserve their tax exempt status and avoid unrelated business taxable income. The investment manager, usually based in a major financial center, pays tax on its management fees per the tax laws of the state and country where it is located. In 2011, half of the existing hedge funds were registered offshore and half onshore. The Cayman Islands was the leading location for offshore funds, accounting for 34% of the total number of global hedge funds. The US had 24%, Luxembourg 10%, Ireland 7%, the British Virgin Islands 6%, and Bermuda had 3%.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Hedge funds take advantage of a tax loopole called carried interest to get around paying too much in taxes by fancy legalistic maneouvres on their part.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Deutsche Bank and Barclays created special options accounts for hedge fund clients in the banks' names and claimed to own the assets, when in fact the hedge fund clients had full control of the assets and reaped the profits. The hedge funds would then execute trades – many of them a few seconds in duration – but wait until just after a year had passed to exercise the options, allowing them to report the profits at a lower long-term capital gains tax rate.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Carl Levin issued a 2014 report that found that from 1998 and 2013, hedge funds avoided billions of dollars in taxes by using basket options. The Internal Revenue Service began investigating Renaissance Technologies in 2009, and Levin criticized the IRS for taking six years to investigate the company. Using basket options Renaissance avoided \"more than $6 billion in taxes over more than a decade\".",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "These banks and hedge funds involved in this case used dubious structured financial products in a giant game of 'let's pretend,' costing the Treasury billions and bypassing safeguards that protect the economy from excessive bank lending for stock speculation.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A dozen other hedge funds along with Renaissance Technologies used Deutsche Bank's and Barclays' basket options. Renaissance argued that basket options were \"extremely important because they gave the hedge fund the ability to increase its returns by borrowing more and to protect against model and programming failures\". In July 2015, the United States Internal Revenue claimed hedge funds used basket options \"to bypass taxes on short-term trades\". These basket options will now be labeled as listed transactions that must be declared on tax returns, and a failure to do would result in a penalty.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In contrast to the funds themselves, investment managers are primarily located onshore. The United States remains the largest center of investment with US-based funds managing around 70% of global assets at the end of 2011. As of April 2012, there were approximately 3,990 investment advisers managing one or more private hedge funds registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New York City and the Gold Coast area of Connecticut are the leading locations for US hedge fund managers.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "London was Europe's leading center for hedge fund managers, but since the Brexit referendum some formerly London-based hedge funds have relocated to other European financial centers such as Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Paris, and Dublin, while some other hedge funds have moved their European head offices back to New York City. Before Brexit, according to EuroHedge data, around 800 funds located in the UK had managed 85% of European-based hedge fund assets in 2011. Interest in hedge funds in Asia has increased significantly since 2003, especially in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. After Brexit, Europe and the US remain the leading locations for the management of Asian hedge fund assets.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Hedge fund legal structures vary depending on location and the investor(s). US hedge funds aimed at US-based, taxable investors are generally structured as limited partnerships or limited liability companies. Limited partnerships and other flow-through taxation structures assure that investors in hedge funds are not subject to both entity-level and personal-level taxation. A hedge fund structured as a limited partnership must have a general partner. The general partner may be an individual or a corporation. The general partner serves as the manager of the limited partnership, and has unlimited liability. The limited partners serve as the fund's investors, and have no responsibility for management or investment decisions. Their liability is limited to the amount of money they invest for partnership interests. As an alternative to a limited partnership arrangement, U.S. domestic hedge funds may be structured as limited liability companies, with members acting as corporate shareholders and enjoying protection from individual liability.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "By contrast, offshore corporate funds are usually used for non-US investors, and when they are domiciled in an applicable offshore tax haven, no entity-level tax is imposed. Many managers of offshore funds permit the participation of tax-exempt US investors, such as pensions funds, institutional endowments, and charitable trusts. As an alternative legal structure, offshore funds may be formed as an open-ended unit trust using an unincorporated mutual fund structure. Japanese investors prefer to invest in unit trusts, such as those available in the Cayman Islands.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The investment manager who organizes the hedge fund may retain an interest in the fund, either as the general partner of a limited partnership or as the holder of \"founder shares\" in a corporate fund. For offshore funds structured as corporate entities, the fund may appoint a board of directors. The board's primary role is to provide a layer of oversight while representing the interests of the shareholders. However, in practice board members may lack sufficient expertise to be effective in performing those duties. The board may include both affiliated directors who are employees of the fund and independent directors whose relationship to the fund is limited.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "A side pocket is a mechanism whereby a fund compartmentalizes assets that are relatively illiquid or difficult to value reliably. When an investment is side-pocketed, its value is calculated separately from the value of the fund's main portfolio. Because side pockets are used to hold illiquid investments, investors do not have the standard redemption rights with respect to the side pocket investment that they do with respect to the fund's main portfolio. Profits or losses from the investment are allocated on a pro rata basis only to those who are investors at the time the investment is placed into the side pocket and are not shared with new investors. Funds typically carry side pocket assets \"at cost\" for purposes of calculating management fees and reporting net asset values. This allows fund managers to avoid attempting a valuation of the underlying investments, which may not always have a readily available market value.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Side pockets were widely used by hedge funds during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 amidst a flood of withdrawal requests. Side pockets allowed fund managers to lay away illiquid securities until market liquidity improved, a move that could reduce losses. However, as the practice restricts investors' ability to redeem their investments it is often unpopular and many have alleged that it has been abused or applied unfairly. The SEC also has expressed concern about aggressive use of side pockets and has sanctioned certain fund managers for inappropriate use of them.",
"title": "Structure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Hedge funds must abide by the national, federal, and state regulatory laws in their respective locations. The U.S. regulations and restrictions that apply to hedge funds differ from those that apply to its mutual funds. Mutual funds, unlike hedge funds and other private funds, are subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940, which is a highly detailed and extensive regulatory regime. According to a report by the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the most common form of regulation pertains to restrictions on financial advisers and hedge fund managers in an effort to minimize client fraud. On the other hand, U.S. hedge funds are exempt from many of the standard registration and reporting requirements because they only accept accredited investors. In 2010, regulations were enacted in the US and European Union which introduced additional hedge fund reporting requirements. These included the U.S.'s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and European Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 2007, in an effort to engage in self-regulation, 14 leading hedge fund managers developed a voluntary set of international standards in best practice and known as the Hedge Fund Standards they were designed to create a \"framework of transparency, integrity and good governance\" in the hedge fund industry. The Hedge Fund Standards Board was set up to prompt and maintain these standards going forward, and by 2016 it had approximately 200 hedge fund managers and institutional investors with a value of US$3tn investment endorsing the standards. The Managed Funds Association is a US-based trade association, while the Alternative Investment Management Association is the primarily European counterpart.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Hedge funds within the US are subject to regulatory, reporting, and record-keeping requirements. Many hedge funds also fall under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and are subject to rules and provisions of the 1922 Commodity Exchange Act, which prohibits fraud and manipulation. The Securities Act of 1933 required companies to file a registration statement with the SEC to comply with its private placement rules before offering their securities to the public, and most traditional hedge funds in the United States are offered effectively as private placement offerings. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 required a fund with more than 499 investors to register with the SEC. The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 contained anti-fraud provisions that regulated hedge fund managers and advisers, created limits for the number and types of investors, and prohibited public offerings. The Act also exempted hedge funds from mandatory registration with the SEC when selling to accredited investors with a minimum of US$5 million in investment assets. Companies and institutional investors with at least US$25 million in investment assets also qualified.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In December 2004, the SEC began requiring hedge fund advisers, managing more than US$25 million and with more than 14 investors, to register with the SEC under the Investment Advisers Act. The SEC stated that it was adopting a \"risk-based approach\" to monitoring hedge funds as part of its evolving regulatory regime for the burgeoning industry. The new rule was controversial, with two Commissioners dissenting, and was later challenged in court by a hedge fund manager. In June 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the rule and sent it back to the agency to be reviewed. In response to the court decision, in 2007 the SEC adopted Rule 206(4)-8, which unlike the earlier-challenged rule, \"does not impose additional filing, reporting or disclosure obligations\" but does potentially increase \"the risk of enforcement action\" for negligent or fraudulent activity. Hedge fund managers with at least US$100 million in assets under management are required to file publicly quarterly reports disclosing ownership of registered equity securities and are subject to public disclosure if they own more than 5% of the class of any registered equity security. Registered advisers must report their business practices and disciplinary history to the SEC and to their investors. They are required to have written compliance policies, a chief compliance officer, and their records and practices may be examined by the SEC.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The U.S.'s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act was passed in July 2010 and requires SEC registration of advisers who manage private funds with more than US$150 million in assets. Registered managers must file Form ADV with the SEC, as well as information regarding their assets under management and trading positions. Previously, advisers with fewer than 15 clients were exempt, although many hedge fund advisers voluntarily registered with the SEC to satisfy institutional investors. Under Dodd-Frank, investment advisers with less than US$100 million in assets under management became subject to state regulation. This increased the number of hedge funds under state supervision. Overseas advisers who managed more than US$25 million were also required to register with the SEC. The Act requires hedge funds to provide information about their trades and portfolios to regulators including the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council. In this regard, most hedge funds and other private funds, including private-equity funds, must file Form PF with the SEC, which is an extensive reporting form with substantial data on the funds' activities and positions. Under the \"Volcker Rule\", regulators are also required to implement regulations for banks, their affiliates, and holding companies to limit their relationships with hedge funds and to prohibit these organizations from proprietary trading, and to limit their investment in, and sponsorship of, hedge funds.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Within the European Union (EU), hedge funds are primarily regulated through their managers. In the United Kingdom, where 80% of Europe's hedge funds are based, hedge fund managers are required to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Each country has its own specific restrictions on hedge fund activities, including controls on use of derivatives in Portugal, and limits on leverage in France.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In the EU, managers are subject to the EU's Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMD). According to the EU, the aim of the directive is to provide greater monitoring and control of alternative investment funds. AIFMD requires all EU hedge fund managers to register with national regulatory authorities and to disclose more information, on a more frequent basis. It also directs hedge fund managers to hold larger amounts of capital. AIFMD also introduced a \"passport\" for hedge funds authorised in one EU country to operate throughout the EU. The scope of AIFMD is broad and encompasses managers located within the EU as well as non-EU managers that market their funds to European investors. An aspect of AIFMD which challenges established practices in the hedge funds sector is the potential restriction of remuneration through bonus deferrals and clawback provisions.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Some hedge funds are established in offshore centres, such as the Cayman Islands, Dublin, Luxembourg, Singapore the British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda, which have different regulations concerning non-accredited investors, client confidentiality, and fund manager independence.",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "In South Africa, investment fund managers must be approved by, and register with, the Financial Services Board (FSB).",
"title": "Regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Performance statistics for individual hedge funds are difficult to obtain, as the funds have historically not been required to report their performance to a central repository, and restrictions against public offerings and advertisement have led many managers to refuse to provide performance information publicly. However, summaries of individual hedge fund performance are occasionally available in industry journals and databases.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "One estimate is that the average hedge fund returned 11.4% per year, representing a 6.7% return above overall market performance before fees, based on performance data from 8,400 hedge funds. Another estimate is that between January 2000 and December 2009 hedge funds outperformed other investments and were substantially less volatile, with stocks falling an average of 2.62% per year over the decade and hedge funds rising an average of 6.54% per year; this was an unusually volatile period with both the 2001-2002 dot-com bubble and a recession beginning mid 2007. However, more recent data show that hedge fund performance declined and underperformed the market from about 2009 to 2016.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Hedge funds performance is measured by comparing their returns to an estimate of their risk. Common measures are the Sharpe ratio, Treynor measure and Jensen's alpha. These measures work best when returns follow normal distributions without autocorrelation, and these assumptions are often not met in practice.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "New performance measures have been introduced that attempt to address some of theoretical concerns with traditional indicators, including: modified Sharpe ratios; the Omega ratio introduced by Keating and Shadwick in 2002; Alternative Investments Risk Adjusted Performance (AIRAP) published by Sharma in 2004; and Kappa developed by Kaplan and Knowles in 2004.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "There is a debate over whether alpha (the manager's skill element in performance) has been diluted by the expansion of the hedge fund industry. Two reasons are given. First, the increase in traded volume may have been reducing the market anomalies that are a source of hedge fund performance. Second, the remuneration model is attracting more managers, which may dilute the talent available in the industry.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Indices play a central and unambiguous role in traditional asset markets, where they are widely accepted as representative of their underlying portfolios. Equity and debt index fund products provide investable access to most developed markets in these asset classes.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Hedge fund indices are more problematic. The typical hedge fund is not traded on exchange, will accept investments only at the discretion of the manager, and does not have an obligation to publish returns. Despite these challenges, Non-investable, Investable, and Clone indices have been developed.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Non-investable indices are indicative in nature and aim to represent the performance of some database of hedge funds using some measure such as mean, median, or weighted mean from a hedge fund database. The databases have diverse selection criteria and methods of construction, and no single database captures all funds. This leads to significant differences in reported performance between different indices.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Although they aim to be representative, non-investable indices suffer from a lengthy and largely unavoidable list of biases. Funds' participation in a database is voluntary, leading to self-selection bias because those funds that choose to report may not be typical of funds as a whole. For example, some do not report because of poor results or because they have already reached their target size and do not wish to raise further money.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The short lifetimes of many hedge funds mean that there are many new entrants and many departures each year, which raises the problem of survivorship bias. If we examine only funds that have survived to the present, we will overestimate past returns because many of the worst-performing funds have not survived, and the observed association between fund youth and fund performance suggests that this bias may be substantial.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "When a fund is added to a database for the first time, all or part of its historical data is recorded ex-post in the database. It is likely that funds only publish their results when they are favorable, so that the average performances displayed by the funds during their incubation period are inflated. This is known as \"instant history bias\" or \"backfill bias\".",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Investable indices are an attempt to reduce these problems by ensuring that the return of the index is available to shareholders. To create an investable index, the index provider selects funds and develops structured products or derivative instruments that deliver the performance of the index. When investors buy these products the index provider makes the investments in the underlying funds, making an investable index similar in some ways to a fund of hedge funds portfolio.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "To make the index investable, hedge funds must agree to accept investments on the terms given by the constructor. To make the index liquid, these terms must include provisions for redemptions that some managers may consider too onerous to be acceptable. This means that investable indices do not represent the total universe of hedge funds. Most seriously, they under-represent more successful managers, who typically refuse to accept such investment protocols.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "The most recent addition to the field approaches the problem in a different manner. Instead of reflecting the performance of actual hedge funds, they take a statistical approach to the analysis of historic hedge fund returns and use this to construct a model of how hedge fund returns respond to the movements of various investable financial assets. This model is then used to construct an investable portfolio of those assets. This makes the index investable, and in principle, they can be as representative as the hedge fund database from which they were constructed. However, these clone indices rely on a statistical modelling process. Such indices have too short a history to state whether this approach will be considered successful.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "In March 2017, HFR – a hedge fund research data and service provider – reported that there were more hedge-fund closures in 2016 than during the 2009 recession. According to the report, several large public pension funds pulled their investments in hedge funds, because the funds' subpar performance as a group did not merit the high fees they charged.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Despite the hedge fund industry topping $3 trillion for the first time ever in 2016, the number of new hedge funds launched fell short of levels before the financial crisis of 2007–2008. There were 729 hedge fund launches in 2016, fewer than the 784 opened in 2009, and dramatically fewer than the 968 launches in 2015.",
"title": "Performance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Systemic risk refers to the risk of instability across the entire financial system, as opposed to within a single company. Such risk may arise following a destabilizing event or events affecting a group of financial institutions linked through investment activity. Organizations such as the European Central Bank have charged that hedge funds pose systemic risks to the financial sector, and following the failure of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998 there was widespread concern about the potential for systemic risk if a hedge fund failure led to the failure of its counterparties. (As it happens, no financial assistance was provided to LTCM by the US Federal Reserve, so there was no direct cost to US taxpayers, but a large bailout had to be mounted by a number of financial institutions.)",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "However, these claims are widely disputed by the financial industry, who typically regard hedge funds as \"small enough to fail\", since most are relatively small in terms of the assets they manage and operate with low leverage, thereby limiting the potential harm to the economic system should one of them fail. Formal analysis of hedge fund leverage before and during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 suggests that hedge fund leverage is both fairly modest and counter-cyclical to the market leverage of investment banks and the larger financial sector. Hedge fund leverage decreased prior to the financial crisis, even while the leverage of other financial intermediaries continued to increase. Hedge funds fail regularly, and numerous hedge funds failed during the financial crisis. In testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee in 2009, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman said he \"would not think that any hedge fund or private-equity fund would become a systemically critical firm individually\".",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "This does leave the possibility that hedge funds collectively might contribute to systemic risk if they exhibit herd or self-coordinating behavior, perhaps because many hedge funds make losses in similar trades. This coupled with the extensive use of leverage could lead to forced liquidations in a crisis.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Hedge funds are also closely connected to their prime brokers, typically investment banks, which could contribute to their instability in a crisis, though this works both ways and failing counterparty banks can freeze hedge funds assets, as Lehman brothers did in 2008.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "An August 2012 survey by the Financial Services Authority concluded that risks were limited and had reduced as a result, inter alia, of larger margins being required by counterparty banks, but might change rapidly according to market conditions. In stressed market conditions, investors might suddenly withdraw large sums, resulting in forced asset sales. This might cause liquidity and pricing problems if it occurred across a number of funds or in one large highly leveraged fund.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "Hedge funds are structured to avoid most direct regulation (although their managers may be regulated), and are not required to publicly disclose their investment activities, except to the extent that investors generally are subject to disclosure requirements. This is in contrast to a regulated mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, which will typically have to meet regulatory requirements for disclosure. An investor in a hedge fund usually has direct access to the investment adviser of the fund, and may enjoy more personalized reporting than investors in retail investment funds. This may include detailed discussions of risks assumed and significant positions. However, this high level of disclosure is not available to non-investors, contributing to hedge funds' reputation for secrecy, while some hedge funds have very limited transparency even to investors.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Funds may choose to report some information in the interest of recruiting additional investors. Much of the data available in consolidated databases is self-reported and unverified. A study was done on two major databases containing hedge fund data. The study noted that 465 common funds had significant differences in reported information (e.g., returns, inception date, net assets value, incentive fee, management fee, investment styles, etc.) and that 5% of return numbers and 5% of NAV numbers were dramatically different. With these limitations, investors have to do their own research, which may cost on the scale of US$50,000 for a fund that is not well-established.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "A lack of verification of financial documents by investors or by independent auditors has, in some cases, assisted in fraud. In the mid-2000s, Kirk Wright of International Management Associates was accused of mail fraud and other securities violations which allegedly defrauded clients of close to US$180 million. In December 2008, Bernard Madoff was arrested for running a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme that closely resembled a hedge fund and was incorrectly described as one. Several feeder hedge funds, of which the largest was Fairfield Sentry, channeled money to it. Following the Madoff case, the SEC adopted reforms in December 2009 that subjected hedge funds to an audit requirement.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "The process of matching hedge funds to investors has traditionally been fairly opaque, with investments often driven by personal connections or recommendations of portfolio managers. Many funds disclose their holdings, strategy, and historic performance relative to market indices, giving investors some idea of how their money is being allocated, although individual holdings are often not disclosed. Investors are often drawn to hedge funds by the possibility of realizing significant returns, or hedging against volatility in the market. The complexity and fees associated with hedge funds are causing some to exit the market – CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the US, announced plans to completely divest from hedge funds in 2014. Some services are attempting to improve matching between hedge funds and investors: HedgeZ is designed to allow investors to easily search and sort through funds; iMatchative aims to match investors to funds through algorithms that factor in an investor's goals and behavioral profile, in hopes of helping funds and investors understand the how their perceptions and motivations drive investment decisions.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In June 2006, prompted by a letter from Gary J. Aguirre, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee began an investigation into the links between hedge funds and independent analysts. Aguirre was fired from his job with the SEC when, as lead investigator of insider trading allegations against Pequot Capital Management, he tried to interview John Mack, then being considered for chief executive officer at Morgan Stanley. The Judiciary Committee and the US Senate Finance Committee issued a scathing report in 2007, which found that Aguirre had been illegally fired in reprisal for his pursuit of Mack, and in 2009 the SEC was forced to re-open its case against Pequot. Pequot settled with the SEC for US$28 million, and Arthur J. Samberg, chief investment officer of Pequot, was barred from working as an investment advisor. Pequot closed its doors under the pressure of investigations.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "The systemic practice of hedge funds submitting periodic electronic questionnaires to stock analysts as a part of market research was reported by The New York Times in July 2012. According to the report, one motivation for the questionnaires was to obtain subjective information not available to the public and possible early notice of trading recommendations that could produce short-term market movements.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "According to modern portfolio theory, rational investors will seek to hold portfolios that are mean/variance efficient (that is, portfolios that offer the highest level of return per unit of risk). One of the attractive features of hedge funds (in particular market neutral and similar funds) is that they sometimes have a modest correlation with traditional assets such as equities. This means that hedge funds have a potentially quite valuable role in investment portfolios as diversifiers, reducing overall portfolio risk.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "However, there are at least three reasons why one might not wish to allocate a high proportion of assets into hedge funds. These reasons are:",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Several studies have suggested that hedge funds are sufficiently diversifying to merit inclusion in investor portfolios, but this is disputed for example by Mark Kritzman who performed a mean-variance optimization calculation on an opportunity set that consisted of a stock index fund, a bond index fund, and ten hypothetical hedge funds. The optimizer found that a mean-variance efficient portfolio did not contain any allocation to hedge funds, largely because of the impact of performance fees. To demonstrate this, Kritzman repeated the optimization using an assumption that the hedge funds took no performance fees. The result from this second optimization was an allocation of 74% to hedge funds.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Hedge funds tend to perform poorly during equity bear markets, just when an investor needs part of their portfolio to add value. For example, in January–September 2008, the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index returned -9.87%. According to the same index series, even \"dedicated short bias\" funds returned −6.08% in September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed.",
"title": "Debates and controversies"
}
]
| A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. Hedge funds are considered alternative investments. Their ability to use leverage and more complex investment techniques distinguishes them from regulated investment funds available to the retail market, commonly known as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also considered distinct from private equity funds and other similar closed-end funds as hedge funds generally invest in relatively liquid assets and are usually open-ended. This means they typically allow investors to invest and withdraw capital periodically based on the fund's net asset value, whereas private-equity funds generally invest in illiquid assets and return capital only after a number of years. Other than a fund's regulatory status, there are no formal or fixed definitions of fund types, and so there are different views of what can constitute a "hedge fund". Although hedge funds are not subject to the many restrictions applicable to regulated funds, regulations were passed in the United States and Europe following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 with the intention of increasing government oversight of hedge funds and eliminating certain regulatory gaps. While most modern hedge funds are able to employ a wide variety of financial instruments and risk management techniques, they can be very different from each other with respect to their strategies, risks, volatility and expected return profile. It is common for hedge fund investment strategies to aim to achieve a positive return on investment regardless of whether markets are rising or falling. Hedge funds can be considered risky investments; the expected returns of some hedge fund strategies are less volatile than those of retail funds with high exposure to stock markets because of the use of hedging techniques. A hedge fund usually pays its investment manager a management fee and a performance fee. Hedge funds have existed for many decades and have become increasingly popular. They have now grown to be a substantial portion of the asset management industry, with assets totaling around $3.8 trillion as of 2021. Hedge fund managers can have several billion dollars of assets under management (AUM). | 2002-02-13T03:26:19Z | 2023-12-12T03:47:36Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund |
14,413 | Hydrocodone | Hydrocodone, also known as dihydrocodeinone, is a semisynthetic opioid used to treat pain and as a cough suppressant. It is taken by mouth. Typically it is dispensed as the combination acetaminophen/hydrocodone or ibuprofen/hydrocodone for pain severe enough to require an opioid and in combination with homatropine methylbromide to relieve cough. It is also available by itself in a long-acting form under the brand name Zohydro ER, among others, to treat severe pain of a prolonged duration. Hydrocodone is a controlled drug, in the United States a Schedule II Controlled Substance.
Common side effects include dizziness, sleepiness, nausea, and constipation. Serious side effects may include low blood pressure, seizures, QT prolongation, respiratory depression, and serotonin syndrome. Rapidly decreasing the dose may result in opioid withdrawal. Use during pregnancy or breastfeeding is generally not recommended. Hydrocodone is believed to work by activating opioid receptors, mainly in the brain and spinal cord. Hydrocodone 10 mg is equivalent to about 10 mg of morphine by mouth.
Hydrocodone was patented in 1923, while the long-acting formulation was approved for medical use in the United States in 2013. It is most commonly prescribed in the United States, which consumed 99% of the worldwide supply as of 2010. In 2018, it was the 402nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 400,000 prescriptions. Hydrocodone is a semisynthetic opioid, converted from codeine or less often from thebaine. Production using genetically engineered yeasts has been developed but is not used commercially.
Hydrocodone is used to treat moderate to severe pain. In liquid formulations, it is used to treat cough. In one study comparing the potency of hydrocodone to that of oxycodone, it was found that it took 50% more hydrocodone to achieve the same degree of miosis (pupillary contraction). The investigators interpreted this to mean that oxycodone is about 50% more potent than hydrocodone.
However, in a study of emergency department patients with fractures, it was found that an equal amount of either drug provided about the same degree of pain relief, indicating that there is little practical difference between them when used for that purpose. Some references state that the analgesic action of hydrocodone begins in 20–30 minutes and lasts about 4–8 hours. The manufacturer's information says onset of action is about 10-30 minutes and duration is about 4-6 hours. Recommended dosing interval is 4–6 hours.
Hydrocodone is available in a variety of formulations for oral administration:
Hydrocodone is not available in parenteral or any other non-oral forms.
Common side effects of hydrocodone are nausea, vomiting, constipation, drowsiness, dizziness, lightheadedness, anxiety, abnormally happy or sad mood, dry throat, difficulty urinating, rash, itching, and contraction of the pupils. Serious side effects include slowed or irregular breathing and chest tightness.
Several cases of progressive bilateral hearing loss unresponsive to steroid therapy have been described as an infrequent adverse reaction to hydrocodone/paracetamol misuse. This adverse effect has been considered by some to be due to the ototoxicity of hydrocodone. Other researchers have suggested that paracetamol is the primary agent responsible for the ototoxicity.
Hydrocodone is in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pregnancy category C. No adequate and well-controlled studies in humans have been conducted. A newborn of a mother taking opioid medications regularly prior to the birth will be physically dependent. The baby may also exhibit respiratory depression if the opioid dose was high. An epidemiological study indicated that opioid treatment during early pregnancy results in increased risk of various birth defects.
Symptoms of hydrocodone overdose include narrowed or widened pupils; slow, shallow, or stopped breathing; slowed or stopped heartbeat; cold, clammy, or blue skin; excessive sleepiness; loss of consciousness; seizures; or death.
Hydrocodone can be habit forming, causing physical and psychological dependence. Its abuse liability is similar to morphine and less than oxycodone.
Hydrocodone is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 enzymes CYP2D6 and CYP3A4, and inhibitors and inducers of these enzymes can modify hydrocodone exposure. One study found that combination of paroxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and strong CYP2D6 inhibitor, with once-daily extended-release hydrocodone, did not modify exposure to hydrocodone or the incidence of adverse effects. These findings suggest that hydrocodone can be coadministered with CYP2D6 inhibitors without dosage modification. Conversely, combination of hydrocodone/acetaminophen with the antiviral regimen of ombitasvir, paritaprevir, ritonavir, and dasabuvir for treatment of hepatitis C increased peak concentrations of hydrocodone by 27%, total exposure by 90%, and elimination half-life from 5.1 hours to 8.0 hours. Ritonavir is a strong CYP3A4 inhibitor as well as inducer of CYP3A and other enzymes, and the other antivirals are known to inhibit drug transporters like organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B1 and 1B3, P-glycoprotein, and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP). The changes in hydrocodone levels are consistent with CYP3A4 inhibition by ritonavir. Based on these findings, a 50% lower dose of hydrocodone and closer clinical monitoring was recommended when hydrocodone is used in combination with this antiviral regimen.
People consuming alcohol, other opioids, anticholinergic antihistamines, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, or other central nervous system (CNS) depressants together with hydrocodone may exhibit an additive CNS depression. Hydrocodone taken concomitantly with serotonergic medications like SSRI antidepressants may increase the risk of serotonin syndrome.
Hydrocodone is a highly selective full agonist of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR). This is the main biological target of the endogenous opioid neuropeptide β-endorphin. Hydrocodone has low affinity for the δ-opioid receptor (DOR) and the κ-opioid receptor (KOR), where it is an agonist similarly.
Studies have shown hydrocodone is stronger than codeine but only one-tenth as potent as morphine at binding to receptors and reported to be only 59% as potent as morphine in analgesic properties. However, in tests conducted on rhesus monkeys, the analgesic potency of hydrocodone was actually higher than morphine. Oral hydrocodone has a mean equivalent daily dosage (MEDD) factor of 0.4, meaning that 1 mg of hydrocodone is equivalent to 0.4 mg of intravenous morphine. However, because of morphine's low oral bioavailability, there is a 1:1 correspondence between orally administered morphine and orally administered hydrocodone.
Hydrocodone is only pharmaceutically available as an oral medication. It is well-absorbed, but the oral bioavailability of hydrocodone is only approximately 25%. The onset of action of hydrocodone via this route is 10 to 20 minutes, with a peak effect (Tmax) occurring at 30 to 60 minutes, and it has a duration of 4 to 8 hours. The FDA label for immediate-release hydrocodone with acetaminophen does not include any information on the influence of food on its absorption or other pharmacokinetics. Conversely, coadministration with a high-fat meal increases peak concentrations of different formulations of extended-release hydrocodone by 14 to 54%, whereas area-under-the-curve levels are not notably affected.
The volume of distribution of hydrocodone is 3.3 to 4.7 L/kg. The plasma protein binding of hydrocodone is 20 to 50%.
In the liver, hydrocodone is transformed into several metabolites, including norhydrocodone, hydromorphone, 6α-hydrocodol (dihydrocodeine), and 6β-hydrocodol. 6α- and 6β-hydromorphol are also formed, and the metabolites of hydrocodone are conjugated (via glucuronidation). Hydrocodone has a terminal half-life that averages 3.8 hours (range 3.3–4.4 hours). The hepatic cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP2D6 converts hydrocodone into hydromorphone, a more potent opioid (5-fold higher binding affinity to the MOR). However, extensive and poor cytochrome 450 CYP2D6 metabolizers had similar physiological and subjective responses to hydrocodone, and CYP2D6 inhibitor quinidine did not change the responses of extensive metabolizers, suggesting that inhibition of CYP2D6 metabolism of hydrocodone has no practical importance. Ultra-rapid CYP2D6 metabolizers (1–2% of the population) may have an increased response to hydrocodone; however, hydrocodone metabolism in this population has not been studied.
Norhydrocodone, the major metabolite of hydrocodone, is predominantly formed by CYP3A4-catalyzed oxidation. In contrast to hydromorphone, it is described as inactive. However, norhydrocodone is actually a MOR agonist with similar potency to hydrocodone, but has been found to produce only minimal analgesia when administered peripherally to animals (likely due to poor blood–brain barrier and thus central nervous system penetration). Inhibition of CYP3A4 in a child who was, in addition, a poor CYP2D6 metabolizer, resulted in a fatal overdose of hydrocodone. Approximately 40% of hydrocodone metabolism is attributed to non-cytochrome P450-catalyzed reactions.
Hydrocodone is excreted in urine, mainly in the form of conjugates.
Hydrocodone concentrations are measured in blood, plasma, and urine to seek evidence of misuse, to confirm diagnoses of poisoning, and to assist in investigations into deaths. Many commercial opiate screening tests react indiscriminately with hydrocodone, other opiates, and their metabolites, but chromatographic techniques can easily distinguish hydrocodone uniquely. Blood and plasma hydrocodone concentrations typically fall into the 5–30 µg/L range among people taking the drug therapeutically, 100–200 µg/L among recreational users, and 100–1,600 µg/L in cases of acute, fatal overdosage. Co-administration of the drug with food or alcohol can very significantly increase the resulting plasma hydrocodone concentrations that are subsequently achieved.
Hydrocodone is most commonly synthesized from thebaine, a constituent of opium latex from the dried poppy plant. Once thebaine is obtained, the reaction undergoes hydrogenation using a palladium catalyst.
There are three important structures in hydrocodone: the amine group, which binds to the tertiary nitrogen binding site in the central nervous system's opioid receptor, the hydroxy group that binds to the anionic binding side, and the phenyl group which binds to the phenolic binding site. This triggers a G protein activation and subsequent release of dopamine.
Hydrocodone was first synthesized in Germany in 1920 by Carl Mannich and Helene Löwenheim. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on 23 March 1943 for sale in the United States and approved by Health Canada for sale in Canada under the brand name Hycodan.
Hydrocodone was first marketed by Knoll as Dicodid, starting in February 1924 in Germany. This name is analogous to other products the company introduced or otherwise marketed: Dilaudid (hydromorphone, 1926), Dinarkon (oxycodone, 1917), Dihydrin (dihydrocodeine, 1911), and Dimorphan (dihydromorphine). Paramorfan is the trade name of dihydromorphine from another manufacturer, as is Paracodin, for dihydrocodeine.
The name Dicodid was registered in the United States and appears without a monograph as late as 1978 in the Physicians' Desk Reference; Dicodid may have been marketed to one extent or another in North America in the 1920s and early 1930s. The drug was pure hydrocodone in small 5 and 10 mg tablets, physically similar to the Dilaudid tablets. It is no longer manufactured by Knoll in Germany, nor is a generic available. Hydrocodone was never as common in Europe as it is in North America—dihydrocodeine is used for its spectrum of indications. Germany was the number two consumer of hydrocodone until the manufacture of the drug was discontinued there. Now, the world outside the United States accounts for less than 1% of annual consumption. It was listed as a Suchtgift under the German Betäubungsmittelgesetz and regulated like morphine. It became available in the Schengen Area of the European Union as of 1 January 2002 under Title 76 of the Schengen Treaty.
Several common imprints for hydrocodone are M365, M366, M367.
Most hydrocodone formulations include a second analgesic, such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) or ibuprofen. Examples of hydrocodone combinations include Norco, Vicodin, Vicoprofen and Riboxen.
The US government imposed tougher prescribing rules for hydrocodone in 2014, changing the drug from Schedule III to Schedule II. In 2011, hydrocodone products were involved in around 100,000 abuse-related emergency department visits in the United States, more than double the number in 2004. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hydrocodone, also known as dihydrocodeinone, is a semisynthetic opioid used to treat pain and as a cough suppressant. It is taken by mouth. Typically it is dispensed as the combination acetaminophen/hydrocodone or ibuprofen/hydrocodone for pain severe enough to require an opioid and in combination with homatropine methylbromide to relieve cough. It is also available by itself in a long-acting form under the brand name Zohydro ER, among others, to treat severe pain of a prolonged duration. Hydrocodone is a controlled drug, in the United States a Schedule II Controlled Substance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Common side effects include dizziness, sleepiness, nausea, and constipation. Serious side effects may include low blood pressure, seizures, QT prolongation, respiratory depression, and serotonin syndrome. Rapidly decreasing the dose may result in opioid withdrawal. Use during pregnancy or breastfeeding is generally not recommended. Hydrocodone is believed to work by activating opioid receptors, mainly in the brain and spinal cord. Hydrocodone 10 mg is equivalent to about 10 mg of morphine by mouth.",
"title": "Side effects and mechanisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hydrocodone was patented in 1923, while the long-acting formulation was approved for medical use in the United States in 2013. It is most commonly prescribed in the United States, which consumed 99% of the worldwide supply as of 2010. In 2018, it was the 402nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 400,000 prescriptions. Hydrocodone is a semisynthetic opioid, converted from codeine or less often from thebaine. Production using genetically engineered yeasts has been developed but is not used commercially.",
"title": "History and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hydrocodone is used to treat moderate to severe pain. In liquid formulations, it is used to treat cough. In one study comparing the potency of hydrocodone to that of oxycodone, it was found that it took 50% more hydrocodone to achieve the same degree of miosis (pupillary contraction). The investigators interpreted this to mean that oxycodone is about 50% more potent than hydrocodone.",
"title": "Medical uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "However, in a study of emergency department patients with fractures, it was found that an equal amount of either drug provided about the same degree of pain relief, indicating that there is little practical difference between them when used for that purpose. Some references state that the analgesic action of hydrocodone begins in 20–30 minutes and lasts about 4–8 hours. The manufacturer's information says onset of action is about 10-30 minutes and duration is about 4-6 hours. Recommended dosing interval is 4–6 hours.",
"title": "Medical uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Hydrocodone is available in a variety of formulations for oral administration:",
"title": "Medical uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Hydrocodone is not available in parenteral or any other non-oral forms.",
"title": "Medical uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Common side effects of hydrocodone are nausea, vomiting, constipation, drowsiness, dizziness, lightheadedness, anxiety, abnormally happy or sad mood, dry throat, difficulty urinating, rash, itching, and contraction of the pupils. Serious side effects include slowed or irregular breathing and chest tightness.",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Several cases of progressive bilateral hearing loss unresponsive to steroid therapy have been described as an infrequent adverse reaction to hydrocodone/paracetamol misuse. This adverse effect has been considered by some to be due to the ototoxicity of hydrocodone. Other researchers have suggested that paracetamol is the primary agent responsible for the ototoxicity.",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hydrocodone is in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pregnancy category C. No adequate and well-controlled studies in humans have been conducted. A newborn of a mother taking opioid medications regularly prior to the birth will be physically dependent. The baby may also exhibit respiratory depression if the opioid dose was high. An epidemiological study indicated that opioid treatment during early pregnancy results in increased risk of various birth defects.",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Symptoms of hydrocodone overdose include narrowed or widened pupils; slow, shallow, or stopped breathing; slowed or stopped heartbeat; cold, clammy, or blue skin; excessive sleepiness; loss of consciousness; seizures; or death.",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hydrocodone can be habit forming, causing physical and psychological dependence. Its abuse liability is similar to morphine and less than oxycodone.",
"title": "Side effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hydrocodone is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 enzymes CYP2D6 and CYP3A4, and inhibitors and inducers of these enzymes can modify hydrocodone exposure. One study found that combination of paroxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and strong CYP2D6 inhibitor, with once-daily extended-release hydrocodone, did not modify exposure to hydrocodone or the incidence of adverse effects. These findings suggest that hydrocodone can be coadministered with CYP2D6 inhibitors without dosage modification. Conversely, combination of hydrocodone/acetaminophen with the antiviral regimen of ombitasvir, paritaprevir, ritonavir, and dasabuvir for treatment of hepatitis C increased peak concentrations of hydrocodone by 27%, total exposure by 90%, and elimination half-life from 5.1 hours to 8.0 hours. Ritonavir is a strong CYP3A4 inhibitor as well as inducer of CYP3A and other enzymes, and the other antivirals are known to inhibit drug transporters like organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B1 and 1B3, P-glycoprotein, and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP). The changes in hydrocodone levels are consistent with CYP3A4 inhibition by ritonavir. Based on these findings, a 50% lower dose of hydrocodone and closer clinical monitoring was recommended when hydrocodone is used in combination with this antiviral regimen.",
"title": "Interactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "People consuming alcohol, other opioids, anticholinergic antihistamines, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, or other central nervous system (CNS) depressants together with hydrocodone may exhibit an additive CNS depression. Hydrocodone taken concomitantly with serotonergic medications like SSRI antidepressants may increase the risk of serotonin syndrome.",
"title": "Interactions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hydrocodone is a highly selective full agonist of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR). This is the main biological target of the endogenous opioid neuropeptide β-endorphin. Hydrocodone has low affinity for the δ-opioid receptor (DOR) and the κ-opioid receptor (KOR), where it is an agonist similarly.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Studies have shown hydrocodone is stronger than codeine but only one-tenth as potent as morphine at binding to receptors and reported to be only 59% as potent as morphine in analgesic properties. However, in tests conducted on rhesus monkeys, the analgesic potency of hydrocodone was actually higher than morphine. Oral hydrocodone has a mean equivalent daily dosage (MEDD) factor of 0.4, meaning that 1 mg of hydrocodone is equivalent to 0.4 mg of intravenous morphine. However, because of morphine's low oral bioavailability, there is a 1:1 correspondence between orally administered morphine and orally administered hydrocodone.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Hydrocodone is only pharmaceutically available as an oral medication. It is well-absorbed, but the oral bioavailability of hydrocodone is only approximately 25%. The onset of action of hydrocodone via this route is 10 to 20 minutes, with a peak effect (Tmax) occurring at 30 to 60 minutes, and it has a duration of 4 to 8 hours. The FDA label for immediate-release hydrocodone with acetaminophen does not include any information on the influence of food on its absorption or other pharmacokinetics. Conversely, coadministration with a high-fat meal increases peak concentrations of different formulations of extended-release hydrocodone by 14 to 54%, whereas area-under-the-curve levels are not notably affected.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The volume of distribution of hydrocodone is 3.3 to 4.7 L/kg. The plasma protein binding of hydrocodone is 20 to 50%.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the liver, hydrocodone is transformed into several metabolites, including norhydrocodone, hydromorphone, 6α-hydrocodol (dihydrocodeine), and 6β-hydrocodol. 6α- and 6β-hydromorphol are also formed, and the metabolites of hydrocodone are conjugated (via glucuronidation). Hydrocodone has a terminal half-life that averages 3.8 hours (range 3.3–4.4 hours). The hepatic cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP2D6 converts hydrocodone into hydromorphone, a more potent opioid (5-fold higher binding affinity to the MOR). However, extensive and poor cytochrome 450 CYP2D6 metabolizers had similar physiological and subjective responses to hydrocodone, and CYP2D6 inhibitor quinidine did not change the responses of extensive metabolizers, suggesting that inhibition of CYP2D6 metabolism of hydrocodone has no practical importance. Ultra-rapid CYP2D6 metabolizers (1–2% of the population) may have an increased response to hydrocodone; however, hydrocodone metabolism in this population has not been studied.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Norhydrocodone, the major metabolite of hydrocodone, is predominantly formed by CYP3A4-catalyzed oxidation. In contrast to hydromorphone, it is described as inactive. However, norhydrocodone is actually a MOR agonist with similar potency to hydrocodone, but has been found to produce only minimal analgesia when administered peripherally to animals (likely due to poor blood–brain barrier and thus central nervous system penetration). Inhibition of CYP3A4 in a child who was, in addition, a poor CYP2D6 metabolizer, resulted in a fatal overdose of hydrocodone. Approximately 40% of hydrocodone metabolism is attributed to non-cytochrome P450-catalyzed reactions.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Hydrocodone is excreted in urine, mainly in the form of conjugates.",
"title": "Pharmacology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Hydrocodone concentrations are measured in blood, plasma, and urine to seek evidence of misuse, to confirm diagnoses of poisoning, and to assist in investigations into deaths. Many commercial opiate screening tests react indiscriminately with hydrocodone, other opiates, and their metabolites, but chromatographic techniques can easily distinguish hydrocodone uniquely. Blood and plasma hydrocodone concentrations typically fall into the 5–30 µg/L range among people taking the drug therapeutically, 100–200 µg/L among recreational users, and 100–1,600 µg/L in cases of acute, fatal overdosage. Co-administration of the drug with food or alcohol can very significantly increase the resulting plasma hydrocodone concentrations that are subsequently achieved.",
"title": "Chemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Hydrocodone is most commonly synthesized from thebaine, a constituent of opium latex from the dried poppy plant. Once thebaine is obtained, the reaction undergoes hydrogenation using a palladium catalyst.",
"title": "Chemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "There are three important structures in hydrocodone: the amine group, which binds to the tertiary nitrogen binding site in the central nervous system's opioid receptor, the hydroxy group that binds to the anionic binding side, and the phenyl group which binds to the phenolic binding site. This triggers a G protein activation and subsequent release of dopamine.",
"title": "Chemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Hydrocodone was first synthesized in Germany in 1920 by Carl Mannich and Helene Löwenheim. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on 23 March 1943 for sale in the United States and approved by Health Canada for sale in Canada under the brand name Hycodan.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Hydrocodone was first marketed by Knoll as Dicodid, starting in February 1924 in Germany. This name is analogous to other products the company introduced or otherwise marketed: Dilaudid (hydromorphone, 1926), Dinarkon (oxycodone, 1917), Dihydrin (dihydrocodeine, 1911), and Dimorphan (dihydromorphine). Paramorfan is the trade name of dihydromorphine from another manufacturer, as is Paracodin, for dihydrocodeine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The name Dicodid was registered in the United States and appears without a monograph as late as 1978 in the Physicians' Desk Reference; Dicodid may have been marketed to one extent or another in North America in the 1920s and early 1930s. The drug was pure hydrocodone in small 5 and 10 mg tablets, physically similar to the Dilaudid tablets. It is no longer manufactured by Knoll in Germany, nor is a generic available. Hydrocodone was never as common in Europe as it is in North America—dihydrocodeine is used for its spectrum of indications. Germany was the number two consumer of hydrocodone until the manufacture of the drug was discontinued there. Now, the world outside the United States accounts for less than 1% of annual consumption. It was listed as a Suchtgift under the German Betäubungsmittelgesetz and regulated like morphine. It became available in the Schengen Area of the European Union as of 1 January 2002 under Title 76 of the Schengen Treaty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Several common imprints for hydrocodone are M365, M366, M367.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Most hydrocodone formulations include a second analgesic, such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) or ibuprofen. Examples of hydrocodone combinations include Norco, Vicodin, Vicoprofen and Riboxen.",
"title": "Society and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The US government imposed tougher prescribing rules for hydrocodone in 2014, changing the drug from Schedule III to Schedule II. In 2011, hydrocodone products were involved in around 100,000 abuse-related emergency department visits in the United States, more than double the number in 2004.",
"title": "Society and culture"
}
]
| Hydrocodone, also known as dihydrocodeinone, is a semisynthetic opioid used to treat pain and as a cough suppressant. It is taken by mouth. Typically it is dispensed as the combination acetaminophen/hydrocodone or ibuprofen/hydrocodone for pain severe enough to require an opioid and in combination with homatropine methylbromide to relieve cough. It is also available by itself in a long-acting form under the brand name Zohydro ER, among others, to treat severe pain of a prolonged duration. Hydrocodone is a controlled drug, in the United States a Schedule II Controlled Substance. | 2002-01-10T17:41:06Z | 2023-12-07T00:58:33Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocodone |
14,415 | Hashish | Hashish (Arabic: حشيش, (IPA: [ħæʃiːʃ])), commonly shortened to hash, is an oleoresin made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds (female flowers) containing the most trichomes. It is consumed as a psychoactive drug by smoking, typically in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joint, or via oral ingestion. Hash has a long history of usage in countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Iran, and Lebanon. Hash consumption is also popular in Europe. In the United States, dried flowers or concentrates are more popular, though hash has seen a rise in popularity following changes in law. Like many recreational drugs, multiple synonyms and alternative names for hash exist, and vary greatly depending on the country and native language.
Hash is a cannabis concentrate product composed of compressed or purified preparations of stalked resin glands, called trichomes, from the plant. It is defined by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (Schedule I and IV) as "the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from the cannabis plant". The resin contains ingredients such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids—but often in higher concentrations than the unsifted or unprocessed cannabis flower. Purities of confiscated hashish in Europe (2011) range between 3% and 15%. Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of hashish in cannabis end product seizures was at 18%. With the strength of unprocessed cannabis flowers having increased greatly in recent years—with flowers containing upwards of 25% THC by weight—the strength of hashish produced today and in the future is likely to be far more potent than in these older records.
The consistency and appearance of hash vary depending on the process and amount of leftover plant material (e.g. chlorophyll). It is typically solid, though its consistency ranges from brittle to malleable. It is most commonly light or dark brown in color, though may appear transparent, yellow, black, or red.
Hashish has been consumed for many centuries, though there is no clear evidence as to its first appearance. North India and Nepal have a long social tradition in the production of hashish, known locally as charas.
The first attestation of the term "hashish" is in a pamphlet published in Cairo in 1123 CE, accusing Nizari Muslims of being "hashish-eaters". The cult of Nizari militants which emerged after the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate is commonly called the sect of the Assassins—a corruption of hashishin, Persian for "hashish-smokers." The 13th-century jurist Ibn Taymiyyah prohibited the use of hashish; he mentioned that it was introduced to Levant with the Mongol invasion (throughout the 13th century). Smoking did not become common in the Old World until after the introduction of tobacco; until the 1500s, hashish was consumed as an edible in the Muslim world.
In 1596, Dutchman Jan Huyghen van Linschoten spent three pages on "Bangue" (bhang) in his historic work documenting his journeys in the East. He particularly mentioned the Egyptian hashish. He said, "Bangue is likewise much used in Turkie and Egypt, and is made in three sorts, having also three names. The first by the Egyptians is called Assis (Hashish (Arab.)), which is the poulder of Hemp, or of Hemp leaves, which is water made in paste or dough, they would eat five pieces, (each) as big as a Chestnut (or larger); This is used by the common people, because it is of a small price, and it is no wonder, that such vertue proceedeth from the Hempe, for that according to Galens opinion, Hempe excessively filleth the head."
Hashish arrived in Europe from the East during the 18th century, and is first mentioned scientifically by Gmelin in 1777. The Napoleonic campaigns introduced French troops to hashish in Egypt and the first description of its useful stems was in 1830 by pharmacist and botanist Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck.
In 1839, O’Shaughnessy wrote a comprehensive study of Himalayan hemp, which was recognised by the European school of medicine and describes hashish as relief for cramps and causing the disappearance of certain symptoms from afflictions such as rabies, cholera, and tetanus. This led to high hopes in the medical community. In 1840, Louis Aubert-Roche reported his successful use of hashish against pestilence. Also psychiatric experiments with hashish were done at the same time with Jacques-Joseph Moreau being convinced that it is the supreme medicament for use in psychiatry.
In the 19th century, hashish was embraced in some European literary circles. Most famously, the Club des Hashischins was a Parisian club dedicated to the consumption of hashish and other drugs; its members included writers Théophile Gautier, Dr. Moreau de Tours, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire and Honoré de Balzac. Baudelaire later wrote the 1860 book Les paradis artificiels, about the state of being under the influence of opium and hashish. At around the same time, American author Fitz Hugh Ludlow wrote the 1857 book The Hasheesh Eater about his youthful experiences, both positive and negative, with the drug.
Hashish was also mentioned and used as an anaesthetic in Germany in 1869. It was imported in great quantities especially from India where it was called charas. However, there were also people who did not deem cannabis as harmless. Between 1880 and 1900 was the peak of the medicinal use, where hashish compounds were most commonplace in almost all European countries and the USA. Evidence of misuse at that time was practically non-existent (as opposed to widespread reports in Asia and Africa). Hashish played a significant role in the treatment of pain, migraine, dysmenorrhea, pertussis, asthma and insomnia in Europe and USA towards the end of the 19th century. Rare applications included stomach ache, depression, diarrhea, diminished appetite, pruritus, hemorrhage, Basedow syndrome and malaria. The use was later prohibited worldwide as the use as a medicine was made impossible by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of hashish in Europe came from Kashmir and other parts of India, Afghanistan, as well as Greece, Syria, Nepal, Lebanon, and Turkey. Larger markets developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s when most of the hashish was imported from Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Greece, Hashish was prevalent in the early decades of the 20th century, and although locally produced for hundreds of years prior, it reached its peak with the coming of two and a half million Greek refugees, expelled from Turkey following the disastrous 1919-21 war. Many of these refugees had habitually smoked hashish in Turkey, using waterpipes, (hookas) called "arghilethes," and due to extreme poverty upon arriving in Greece, and living in overcrowded and poor refugee communities, many hashish dens, called "tekethes" sprung up in Greece's larger cities, the port city of Piraeus, and the northern city of Thessaloniki (where many refugees lived.) This gave rise to a substantial urban underclass and sub culture of hashish smokers called "hasiklithes," and a musical genre "rembetika" (oriental sounding), "urban blues" played on the bouzouki, tzoura, and oriental instruments such as the baglama, outi (oud) and kanonaki (kanun) that spoke of life as a hashish user in the "tekethes", as well as about life as refugees, society's unfairness, lack of financial opportunities, prejudice against the refugees, and the deceit of lovers and others in the community. The "tekethes" were closed down in the 1930s by the Greek police and the "rembetes" were jailed and ostracized. In succeeding decades, there has been a strong 20+ year resurgence in Greece of "rembetika" music with the songs of the rembetes and hasiklithes being contuinually performed publicly by many including the younger generation, as a form of cultural heritage, and have gained respectability and popoularity for their frank expressions of that period, and Greek society in general. Due to disruptive conflicts in the regions, Morocco took over and was the sufficient exporter until lately. It is believed that massive hashish production for international trade originated in Morocco during the 1960s, where the cannabis plant was widely available. Before the coming of the first hippies from the Hippie Trail, only small pieces of Lebanese hashish were found in Morocco.
However, since the 2000s there has been a dramatic shift in the market due to an increase of homegrown cannabis production. While Morocco held a quasi-monopoly on hashish in the 1990s with the 250g so-called "soap bar" blocks, which were of low quality, Afghanistan is now regarded as the biggest producer of higher quality hashish. Since then, hashish quality in Europe has increased while its prices have remained stable, with an exception of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the cannabis street prices surged due to various national lockdowns.
Hashish remains in high demand in most of the world while quality continues to increase, due to many Moroccan and western farmers in Morocco and other hash producing countries using more advanced cultivation methods as well as cultivating further developed cannabis strains which increases yields greatly, as well as improving resin quality with higher ratios of psychoactive ingredients (THC). A tastier, smoother and more aromatic terpenes and flavanoids profile is seen as an indicator of a significant rise in hashish quality in more recent years. Hashish production in Spain has also become more popular and is on the rise, however the demand for relatively cheap and high quality Moroccan hash is still extremely high.
Changes to regulations around the world have contributed greatly to more and more countries becoming legitimate hashish producing regions, with countries like Spain effecting more lenient laws on cannabis products such as hashish. Washington State followed by Colorado started regulating cultivation, manufacturing and distribution of cannabis and cannabis derived products such as hashish in the United States, followed by many other places in the US (such as Humboldt, California), and around the world.
According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), Western Europe is the biggest market for cannabis resin with 70% of global seizures. The European hashish market is changing though: Cannabis cultivation increased throughout the 1990s until 2004, with a noticeable decrease reported in 2005 according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Morocco has been the major source, however lately there has been a shift in the market and Afghanistan has been named the major producer of Hashish. Even though a drop in usage and production has been reported, Morocco produced around 6600 tonnes of resin in 2005.
As 641 tonnes of hashish were consumed in the EU in 2013, the European market is currently the world's largest and most profitable. Therefore, many players are involved in the business, including organised crime groups. The largest cannabis resin seizures in Europe happen in Portugal, due to its proximity to Northern Africa.
The 1990s "soap bars" disappeared and the physical shapes of hashish changed to melon shaped, tablets or olive shaped pellets. Overall the general trend of domestically grown cannabis displacing the imported resin leads to a market reaction of potency changes while the prices remain stable while soap-bar potency increased from 8% to up to 20.7% in 2014.
Generally, more resin than herb is consumed in Europe.
Hashish is made from cannabinoid-rich glandular hairs known as trichomes, as well as varying amounts of cannabis flower and leaf fragments. The flowers of a mature female plant contain the most trichomes, though trichomes are also found on other parts of the plant. Certain strains of cannabis are cultivated specifically for their ability to produce large amounts of trichomes. The resin reservoirs of the trichomes, sometimes erroneously called pollen (vendors often use the euphemism "pollen catchers" to describe screened kief-grinders in order to skirt paraphernalia-selling laws), are separated from the plant through various methods.
Hashish samples from India, Lebanon and Morocco confiscated in Europe and Israel in 2005 contained all appreciable amounts of cannabidiol (CBD), and cannabinol (CBN), in addition to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In some samples the CBD-content was significantly higher than the THC-content. The simultaneous occurrence of these three cannabinoids constitute the typical, chemical profile of hashish consumed in Europe and Northern Africa. In comparison, most high-potency marijuana products contain only THC. It is believed that the psychotropic effects of hashish are therefore more subtle, and sedative.
In a study conducted in 2014 by Jean-Jaques Filippi, Marie Marchini, Céline Charvoz, Laurence Dujourdy and Nicolas Baldovini (Multidimensional analysis of cannabis volatile constituents: Identification of 5,5-dimethyl-1-vinylbicyclo[2.1.1]hexane as a volatile marker of hashish, the resin of Cannabis sativa L.) the researchers linked the characteristic flavour of hashish with a rearrangement of myrcene caused during the process of manufacture.
Depending on the production process, the product can be contaminated with different amounts of dirt and plant fragments, varying greatly in terms of appearance, texture, odour and potency. Also, adulterants may be added in order to increase weight or modify appearance.
Hashish can be consumed by oral ingestion or smoking. When smoked, it may be smoked in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joints, where it is often mixed with tobacco, as pure hashish will burn poorly alone. THC has a low water solubility therefore it is most effective when ingested alongside a fatty meal or snack. Not all hashish can be consumed orally as some is not decarboxylated during manufacture. Generally the methods are similar to overall cannabis consumption.
As hashish’s active ingredient is THC, it has the same effects as cannabis. The onset is felt within 15 minutes when smoking, and about 30 to 60 minutes when eaten. Common effects include:
Side effects with overdose may include anxiety, paranoia and panic.
The sticky resins of the fresh flowering female cannabis plant are collected. Traditionally this was, and still is, done in remote locations by pressing or rubbing the flowering plant between two hands and then forming the sticky resins into a small ball of hashish called charas. This method produces the highest amount of cannabinoids (THC content up to 60%) without chemical solvents or distillation. The best quality charas is produced in Central Asia, and sold in sausage-like shapes.
Mechanical separation methods use physical action to remove the trichomes from the dried plant material, such as sieving through a screen by hand or in motorized tumblers. This technique is known as "drysifting". The resulting powder, referred to as "kief" or "drysift", is compressed with the aid of heat into blocks of hashish; if pure, the kief will become gooey and pliable. When a high level of pure THC is present, the end product will be almost transparent and will start to melt at the point of human contact.
Ice-water separation is another mechanical method of isolating trichomes. Newer techniques have been developed such as heat and pressure separations, static-electricity sieving or acoustical dry sieving.
Trichomes may break away from supporting stalks and leaves when plant material becomes brittle at low temperatures. After plant material has been agitated in an icy slush, separated trichomes are often dense enough to sink to the bottom of the ice-water mixture following agitation, while lighter pieces of leaves and stems tend to float.
The ice-water method requires ice, water, agitation, filtration bags with various-sized screens and plant material. With the ice-water extraction method the resin becomes hard and brittle and can easily be separated. This allows large quantities of pure resins to be extracted in a very clean process without the use of solvents, making for a more purified hashish.
Chemical separation methods generally use a solvent such as ethanol, butane or hexane to dissolve the lipophilic desirable resin. Remaining plant materials are filtered out of the solution and sent to the compost. The solvent is then evaporated, or boiled off (purged) leaving behind the desirable resins, called honey oil, "hash oil", or just "oil". Honey oil still contains waxes and essential oils and can be further purified by vacuum distillation to yield "red oil". The product of chemical separations is more commonly referred to as "honey oil." This oil is not really hashish, as the latter name covers trichomes that are extracted by sieving. This leaves most of the glands intact.
Morocco has been the major hashish producer globally with €10.8 billion earned from Moroccan resin in 2004, but some so-called "Moroccan" may actually be European-made. The income for the farmers was around €325 million in 2005. While the overall number of plants and areas shrank in size, the introduction of more potent hybrid plants produced a high resin rate. The range of resin produced is estimated between 3800 and 9500 tonnes in 2005.
The largest producer today is Afghanistan, however studies suggest there is a "hashish revival" in Morocco.
Tiny pieces of leaf matter may be accidentally or even purposely added; adulterants introduced when the hashish is being produced will reduce the purity of the material and often resulting in green finished product. If hash is particularly sticky, this can mean that additional oils have been added to increase the overall weight of the product. The most common quality indicator is the smell. High-quality hash will smell fragrant and aromatic, whereas hash of low quality may have a distinct mouldy or musty aroma. The tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of hashish comes in wide ranges from almost none to 65% and that of hash oil from 30% to 90%. Hashish can also contain appreciable amounts of CBD, CBN and also contain trace amounts of other cannabinoids
As mentioned above, there has been a general increase in potency as the competition has grown bigger and new hybrid plants have been developed. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hashish (Arabic: حشيش, (IPA: [ħæʃiːʃ])), commonly shortened to hash, is an oleoresin made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds (female flowers) containing the most trichomes. It is consumed as a psychoactive drug by smoking, typically in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joint, or via oral ingestion. Hash has a long history of usage in countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Iran, and Lebanon. Hash consumption is also popular in Europe. In the United States, dried flowers or concentrates are more popular, though hash has seen a rise in popularity following changes in law. Like many recreational drugs, multiple synonyms and alternative names for hash exist, and vary greatly depending on the country and native language.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Hash is a cannabis concentrate product composed of compressed or purified preparations of stalked resin glands, called trichomes, from the plant. It is defined by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (Schedule I and IV) as \"the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from the cannabis plant\". The resin contains ingredients such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids—but often in higher concentrations than the unsifted or unprocessed cannabis flower. Purities of confiscated hashish in Europe (2011) range between 3% and 15%. Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of hashish in cannabis end product seizures was at 18%. With the strength of unprocessed cannabis flowers having increased greatly in recent years—with flowers containing upwards of 25% THC by weight—the strength of hashish produced today and in the future is likely to be far more potent than in these older records.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The consistency and appearance of hash vary depending on the process and amount of leftover plant material (e.g. chlorophyll). It is typically solid, though its consistency ranges from brittle to malleable. It is most commonly light or dark brown in color, though may appear transparent, yellow, black, or red.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hashish has been consumed for many centuries, though there is no clear evidence as to its first appearance. North India and Nepal have a long social tradition in the production of hashish, known locally as charas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The first attestation of the term \"hashish\" is in a pamphlet published in Cairo in 1123 CE, accusing Nizari Muslims of being \"hashish-eaters\". The cult of Nizari militants which emerged after the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate is commonly called the sect of the Assassins—a corruption of hashishin, Persian for \"hashish-smokers.\" The 13th-century jurist Ibn Taymiyyah prohibited the use of hashish; he mentioned that it was introduced to Levant with the Mongol invasion (throughout the 13th century). Smoking did not become common in the Old World until after the introduction of tobacco; until the 1500s, hashish was consumed as an edible in the Muslim world.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1596, Dutchman Jan Huyghen van Linschoten spent three pages on \"Bangue\" (bhang) in his historic work documenting his journeys in the East. He particularly mentioned the Egyptian hashish. He said, \"Bangue is likewise much used in Turkie and Egypt, and is made in three sorts, having also three names. The first by the Egyptians is called Assis (Hashish (Arab.)), which is the poulder of Hemp, or of Hemp leaves, which is water made in paste or dough, they would eat five pieces, (each) as big as a Chestnut (or larger); This is used by the common people, because it is of a small price, and it is no wonder, that such vertue proceedeth from the Hempe, for that according to Galens opinion, Hempe excessively filleth the head.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Hashish arrived in Europe from the East during the 18th century, and is first mentioned scientifically by Gmelin in 1777. The Napoleonic campaigns introduced French troops to hashish in Egypt and the first description of its useful stems was in 1830 by pharmacist and botanist Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1839, O’Shaughnessy wrote a comprehensive study of Himalayan hemp, which was recognised by the European school of medicine and describes hashish as relief for cramps and causing the disappearance of certain symptoms from afflictions such as rabies, cholera, and tetanus. This led to high hopes in the medical community. In 1840, Louis Aubert-Roche reported his successful use of hashish against pestilence. Also psychiatric experiments with hashish were done at the same time with Jacques-Joseph Moreau being convinced that it is the supreme medicament for use in psychiatry.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the 19th century, hashish was embraced in some European literary circles. Most famously, the Club des Hashischins was a Parisian club dedicated to the consumption of hashish and other drugs; its members included writers Théophile Gautier, Dr. Moreau de Tours, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire and Honoré de Balzac. Baudelaire later wrote the 1860 book Les paradis artificiels, about the state of being under the influence of opium and hashish. At around the same time, American author Fitz Hugh Ludlow wrote the 1857 book The Hasheesh Eater about his youthful experiences, both positive and negative, with the drug.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hashish was also mentioned and used as an anaesthetic in Germany in 1869. It was imported in great quantities especially from India where it was called charas. However, there were also people who did not deem cannabis as harmless. Between 1880 and 1900 was the peak of the medicinal use, where hashish compounds were most commonplace in almost all European countries and the USA. Evidence of misuse at that time was practically non-existent (as opposed to widespread reports in Asia and Africa). Hashish played a significant role in the treatment of pain, migraine, dysmenorrhea, pertussis, asthma and insomnia in Europe and USA towards the end of the 19th century. Rare applications included stomach ache, depression, diarrhea, diminished appetite, pruritus, hemorrhage, Basedow syndrome and malaria. The use was later prohibited worldwide as the use as a medicine was made impossible by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of hashish in Europe came from Kashmir and other parts of India, Afghanistan, as well as Greece, Syria, Nepal, Lebanon, and Turkey. Larger markets developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s when most of the hashish was imported from Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Greece, Hashish was prevalent in the early decades of the 20th century, and although locally produced for hundreds of years prior, it reached its peak with the coming of two and a half million Greek refugees, expelled from Turkey following the disastrous 1919-21 war. Many of these refugees had habitually smoked hashish in Turkey, using waterpipes, (hookas) called \"arghilethes,\" and due to extreme poverty upon arriving in Greece, and living in overcrowded and poor refugee communities, many hashish dens, called \"tekethes\" sprung up in Greece's larger cities, the port city of Piraeus, and the northern city of Thessaloniki (where many refugees lived.) This gave rise to a substantial urban underclass and sub culture of hashish smokers called \"hasiklithes,\" and a musical genre \"rembetika\" (oriental sounding), \"urban blues\" played on the bouzouki, tzoura, and oriental instruments such as the baglama, outi (oud) and kanonaki (kanun) that spoke of life as a hashish user in the \"tekethes\", as well as about life as refugees, society's unfairness, lack of financial opportunities, prejudice against the refugees, and the deceit of lovers and others in the community. The \"tekethes\" were closed down in the 1930s by the Greek police and the \"rembetes\" were jailed and ostracized. In succeeding decades, there has been a strong 20+ year resurgence in Greece of \"rembetika\" music with the songs of the rembetes and hasiklithes being contuinually performed publicly by many including the younger generation, as a form of cultural heritage, and have gained respectability and popoularity for their frank expressions of that period, and Greek society in general. Due to disruptive conflicts in the regions, Morocco took over and was the sufficient exporter until lately. It is believed that massive hashish production for international trade originated in Morocco during the 1960s, where the cannabis plant was widely available. Before the coming of the first hippies from the Hippie Trail, only small pieces of Lebanese hashish were found in Morocco.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "However, since the 2000s there has been a dramatic shift in the market due to an increase of homegrown cannabis production. While Morocco held a quasi-monopoly on hashish in the 1990s with the 250g so-called \"soap bar\" blocks, which were of low quality, Afghanistan is now regarded as the biggest producer of higher quality hashish. Since then, hashish quality in Europe has increased while its prices have remained stable, with an exception of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the cannabis street prices surged due to various national lockdowns.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Hashish remains in high demand in most of the world while quality continues to increase, due to many Moroccan and western farmers in Morocco and other hash producing countries using more advanced cultivation methods as well as cultivating further developed cannabis strains which increases yields greatly, as well as improving resin quality with higher ratios of psychoactive ingredients (THC). A tastier, smoother and more aromatic terpenes and flavanoids profile is seen as an indicator of a significant rise in hashish quality in more recent years. Hashish production in Spain has also become more popular and is on the rise, however the demand for relatively cheap and high quality Moroccan hash is still extremely high.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Changes to regulations around the world have contributed greatly to more and more countries becoming legitimate hashish producing regions, with countries like Spain effecting more lenient laws on cannabis products such as hashish. Washington State followed by Colorado started regulating cultivation, manufacturing and distribution of cannabis and cannabis derived products such as hashish in the United States, followed by many other places in the US (such as Humboldt, California), and around the world.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), Western Europe is the biggest market for cannabis resin with 70% of global seizures. The European hashish market is changing though: Cannabis cultivation increased throughout the 1990s until 2004, with a noticeable decrease reported in 2005 according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Morocco has been the major source, however lately there has been a shift in the market and Afghanistan has been named the major producer of Hashish. Even though a drop in usage and production has been reported, Morocco produced around 6600 tonnes of resin in 2005.",
"title": "European market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As 641 tonnes of hashish were consumed in the EU in 2013, the European market is currently the world's largest and most profitable. Therefore, many players are involved in the business, including organised crime groups. The largest cannabis resin seizures in Europe happen in Portugal, due to its proximity to Northern Africa.",
"title": "European market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The 1990s \"soap bars\" disappeared and the physical shapes of hashish changed to melon shaped, tablets or olive shaped pellets. Overall the general trend of domestically grown cannabis displacing the imported resin leads to a market reaction of potency changes while the prices remain stable while soap-bar potency increased from 8% to up to 20.7% in 2014.",
"title": "European market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Generally, more resin than herb is consumed in Europe.",
"title": "European market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hashish is made from cannabinoid-rich glandular hairs known as trichomes, as well as varying amounts of cannabis flower and leaf fragments. The flowers of a mature female plant contain the most trichomes, though trichomes are also found on other parts of the plant. Certain strains of cannabis are cultivated specifically for their ability to produce large amounts of trichomes. The resin reservoirs of the trichomes, sometimes erroneously called pollen (vendors often use the euphemism \"pollen catchers\" to describe screened kief-grinders in order to skirt paraphernalia-selling laws), are separated from the plant through various methods.",
"title": "Substance properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Hashish samples from India, Lebanon and Morocco confiscated in Europe and Israel in 2005 contained all appreciable amounts of cannabidiol (CBD), and cannabinol (CBN), in addition to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In some samples the CBD-content was significantly higher than the THC-content. The simultaneous occurrence of these three cannabinoids constitute the typical, chemical profile of hashish consumed in Europe and Northern Africa. In comparison, most high-potency marijuana products contain only THC. It is believed that the psychotropic effects of hashish are therefore more subtle, and sedative.",
"title": "Substance properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In a study conducted in 2014 by Jean-Jaques Filippi, Marie Marchini, Céline Charvoz, Laurence Dujourdy and Nicolas Baldovini (Multidimensional analysis of cannabis volatile constituents: Identification of 5,5-dimethyl-1-vinylbicyclo[2.1.1]hexane as a volatile marker of hashish, the resin of Cannabis sativa L.) the researchers linked the characteristic flavour of hashish with a rearrangement of myrcene caused during the process of manufacture.",
"title": "Substance properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Depending on the production process, the product can be contaminated with different amounts of dirt and plant fragments, varying greatly in terms of appearance, texture, odour and potency. Also, adulterants may be added in order to increase weight or modify appearance.",
"title": "Substance properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Hashish can be consumed by oral ingestion or smoking. When smoked, it may be smoked in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joints, where it is often mixed with tobacco, as pure hashish will burn poorly alone. THC has a low water solubility therefore it is most effective when ingested alongside a fatty meal or snack. Not all hashish can be consumed orally as some is not decarboxylated during manufacture. Generally the methods are similar to overall cannabis consumption.",
"title": "Short-term effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "As hashish’s active ingredient is THC, it has the same effects as cannabis. The onset is felt within 15 minutes when smoking, and about 30 to 60 minutes when eaten. Common effects include:",
"title": "Short-term effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Side effects with overdose may include anxiety, paranoia and panic.",
"title": "Short-term effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The sticky resins of the fresh flowering female cannabis plant are collected. Traditionally this was, and still is, done in remote locations by pressing or rubbing the flowering plant between two hands and then forming the sticky resins into a small ball of hashish called charas. This method produces the highest amount of cannabinoids (THC content up to 60%) without chemical solvents or distillation. The best quality charas is produced in Central Asia, and sold in sausage-like shapes.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Mechanical separation methods use physical action to remove the trichomes from the dried plant material, such as sieving through a screen by hand or in motorized tumblers. This technique is known as \"drysifting\". The resulting powder, referred to as \"kief\" or \"drysift\", is compressed with the aid of heat into blocks of hashish; if pure, the kief will become gooey and pliable. When a high level of pure THC is present, the end product will be almost transparent and will start to melt at the point of human contact.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Ice-water separation is another mechanical method of isolating trichomes. Newer techniques have been developed such as heat and pressure separations, static-electricity sieving or acoustical dry sieving.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Trichomes may break away from supporting stalks and leaves when plant material becomes brittle at low temperatures. After plant material has been agitated in an icy slush, separated trichomes are often dense enough to sink to the bottom of the ice-water mixture following agitation, while lighter pieces of leaves and stems tend to float.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The ice-water method requires ice, water, agitation, filtration bags with various-sized screens and plant material. With the ice-water extraction method the resin becomes hard and brittle and can easily be separated. This allows large quantities of pure resins to be extracted in a very clean process without the use of solvents, making for a more purified hashish.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Chemical separation methods generally use a solvent such as ethanol, butane or hexane to dissolve the lipophilic desirable resin. Remaining plant materials are filtered out of the solution and sent to the compost. The solvent is then evaporated, or boiled off (purged) leaving behind the desirable resins, called honey oil, \"hash oil\", or just \"oil\". Honey oil still contains waxes and essential oils and can be further purified by vacuum distillation to yield \"red oil\". The product of chemical separations is more commonly referred to as \"honey oil.\" This oil is not really hashish, as the latter name covers trichomes that are extracted by sieving. This leaves most of the glands intact.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Morocco has been the major hashish producer globally with €10.8 billion earned from Moroccan resin in 2004, but some so-called \"Moroccan\" may actually be European-made. The income for the farmers was around €325 million in 2005. While the overall number of plants and areas shrank in size, the introduction of more potent hybrid plants produced a high resin rate. The range of resin produced is estimated between 3800 and 9500 tonnes in 2005.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The largest producer today is Afghanistan, however studies suggest there is a \"hashish revival\" in Morocco.",
"title": "Manufacturing processes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Tiny pieces of leaf matter may be accidentally or even purposely added; adulterants introduced when the hashish is being produced will reduce the purity of the material and often resulting in green finished product. If hash is particularly sticky, this can mean that additional oils have been added to increase the overall weight of the product. The most common quality indicator is the smell. High-quality hash will smell fragrant and aromatic, whereas hash of low quality may have a distinct mouldy or musty aroma. The tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of hashish comes in wide ranges from almost none to 65% and that of hash oil from 30% to 90%. Hashish can also contain appreciable amounts of CBD, CBN and also contain trace amounts of other cannabinoids",
"title": "Quality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "As mentioned above, there has been a general increase in potency as the competition has grown bigger and new hybrid plants have been developed.",
"title": "Quality"
}
]
| Hashish, commonly shortened to hash, is an oleoresin made by compressing and processing parts of the cannabis plant, typically focusing on flowering buds containing the most trichomes. It is consumed as a psychoactive drug by smoking, typically in a pipe, bong, vaporizer or joint, or via oral ingestion. Hash has a long history of usage in countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Iran, and Lebanon. Hash consumption is also popular in Europe. In the United States, dried flowers or concentrates are more popular, though hash has seen a rise in popularity following changes in law. Like many recreational drugs, multiple synonyms and alternative names for hash exist, and vary greatly depending on the country and native language. Hash is a cannabis concentrate product composed of compressed or purified preparations of stalked resin glands, called trichomes, from the plant. It is defined by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as "the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from the cannabis plant". The resin contains ingredients such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids—but often in higher concentrations than the unsifted or unprocessed cannabis flower. Purities of confiscated hashish in Europe (2011) range between 3% and 15%. Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of hashish in cannabis end product seizures was at 18%. With the strength of unprocessed cannabis flowers having increased greatly in recent years—with flowers containing upwards of 25% THC by weight—the strength of hashish produced today and in the future is likely to be far more potent than in these older records. The consistency and appearance of hash vary depending on the process and amount of leftover plant material. It is typically solid, though its consistency ranges from brittle to malleable. It is most commonly light or dark brown in color, though may appear transparent, yellow, black, or red. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-27T06:58:59Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashish |
14,417 | Hypnosis | Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.
There are competing theories explaining hypnosis and related phenomena. Altered state theories see hypnosis as an altered state of mind or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary state of consciousness. In contrast, non-state theories see hypnosis as, variously, a type of placebo effect, a redefinition of an interaction with a therapist or a form of imaginative role enactment.
During hypnosis, a person is said to have heightened focus and concentration and an increased response to suggestions. Hypnosis usually begins with a hypnotic induction involving a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. The use of hypnosis for therapeutic purposes is referred to as "hypnotherapy", while its use as a form of entertainment for an audience is known as "stage hypnosis," a form of mentalism.
Hypnosis-based therapies for the management of irritable bowel syndrome and menopause are supported by evidence. Use of hypnosis for treatment of other problems has produced mixed results, such as with smoking cessation. The use of hypnosis as a form of therapy to retrieve and integrate early trauma is controversial within the scientific mainstream. Research indicates that hypnotising an individual may aid the formation of false memories, and that hypnosis "does not help people recall events more accurately".
The words hypnosis and hypnotism both derive from the term neuro-hypnotism (nervous sleep), all of which were coined by Étienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers in the 1820s. The term hypnosis is derived from the ancient Greek ὑπνος hypnos, "sleep", and the suffix -ωσις -osis, or from ὑπνόω hypnoō, "put to sleep" (stem of aorist hypnōs-) and the suffix -is. These words were popularised in English by the Scottish surgeon James Braid (to whom they are sometimes wrongly attributed) around 1841. Braid based his practice on that developed by Franz Mesmer and his followers (which was called "Mesmerism" or "animal magnetism"), but differed in his theory as to how the procedure worked.
People have been entering into hypnotic-type trances for thousands of years. In many cultures and religions, it was regarded as a form of meditation. The earliest record of a description of a hypnotic state can be found in the writings of Avicenna, a Persian physician who wrote about "trance" in 1027. Modern-day hypnosis started in the late 18th century and was made popular by Franz Mesmer, a German physician who became known as the father of 'modern hypnotism'. Hypnosis was known at the time as 'Mesmerism' being named after Mesmer.
Mesmer held the opinion that hypnosis was a sort of mystical force that flows from the hypnotist to the person being hypnotised, but his theory was dismissed by critics who asserted that there is no magical element to hypnotism.
Abbé Faria, a Luso-Goan Catholic monk, was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following on from the work of Franz Mesmer. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by "animal magnetism", Faria believed that it worked purely by the power of suggestion.
Before long, hypnotism started finding its way into the world of modern medicine. The use of hypnotism in the medical field was made popular by surgeons and physicians like Elliotson and James Esdaile and researchers like James Braid who helped to reveal the biological and physical benefits of hypnotism. According to his writings, Braid began to hear reports concerning various Oriental meditative practices soon after the release of his first publication on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843). He first discussed some of these oriental practices in a series of articles entitled Magic, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc., Historically & Physiologically Considered. He drew analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various forms of Hindu yoga meditation and other ancient spiritual practices, especially those involving voluntary burial and apparent human hibernation. Braid's interest in these practices stems from his studies of the Dabistān-i Mazāhib, the "School of Religions", an ancient Persian text describing a wide variety of Oriental religious rituals, beliefs, and practices.
Last May [1843], a gentleman residing in Edinburgh, personally unknown to me, who had long resided in India, favored me with a letter expressing his approbation of the views which I had published on the nature and causes of hypnotic and mesmeric phenomena. In corroboration of my views, he referred to what he had previously witnessed in oriental regions, and recommended me to look into the Dabistan, a book lately published, for additional proof to the same effect. On much recommendation I immediately sent for a copy of the Dabistan, in which I found many statements corroborative of the fact, that the eastern saints are all self-hypnotisers, adopting means essentially the same as those which I had recommended for similar purposes.
Although he rejected the transcendental/metaphysical interpretation given to these phenomena outright, Braid accepted that these accounts of Oriental practices supported his view that the effects of hypnotism could be produced in solitude, without the presence of any other person (as he had already proved to his own satisfaction with the experiments he had conducted in November 1841); and he saw correlations between many of the "metaphysical" Oriental practices and his own "rational" neuro-hypnotism, and totally rejected all of the fluid theories and magnetic practices of the mesmerists. As he later wrote:
In as much as patients can throw themselves into the nervous sleep, and manifest all the usual phenomena of Mesmerism, through their own unaided efforts, as I have so repeatedly proved by causing them to maintain a steady fixed gaze at any point, concentrating their whole mental energies on the idea of the object looked at; or that the same may arise by the patient looking at the point of his own finger, or as the Magi of Persia and Yogi of India have practised for the last 2,400 years, for religious purposes, throwing themselves into their ecstatic trances by each maintaining a steady fixed gaze at the tip of his own nose; it is obvious that there is no need for an exoteric influence to produce the phenomena of Mesmerism. ... The great object in all these processes is to induce a habit of abstraction or concentration of attention, in which the subject is entirely absorbed with one idea, or train of ideas, whilst he is unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, every other object, purpose, or action.
Avicenna (980–1037), a Persian physician, documented the characteristics of the "trance" (hypnotic trance) state in 1027. At that time, hypnosis as a medical treatment was seldom used; the German doctor Franz Mesmer reintroduced it in the 18th century.
Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) believed that there is a magnetic force or "fluid" called "animal magnetism" within the universe that influences the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets to affect this field in order to produce healing. By around 1774, he had concluded that the same effect could be created by passing the hands in front of the subject's body, later referred to as making "Mesmeric passes".
In 1784, at the request of King Louis XVI, two Royal Commissions on Animal Magnetism were specifically charged with (separately) investigating the claims made by one Charles d'Eslon (1750–1786), a disaffected student of Mesmer, for the existence of a substantial (rather than metaphorical, as Mesmer supposed) "animal magnetism", 'le magnétisme animal', and of a similarly physical "magnetic fluid", 'le fluide magnétique'. Among the investigators were the scientist, Antoine Lavoisier, an expert in electricity and terrestrial magnetism, Benjamin Franklin, and an expert in pain control, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.
The Commissioners investigated the practices of d'Eslon; and, although they accepted, without question, that Mesmer's "cures" were, indeed, "cures", they did not investigate whether (or not) Mesmer was the agent of those "cures". Significantly, in their investigations of d'Eslon's procedures, they conducted an expansive series of randomized controlled trials, the experimental protocols of which were designed by Lavoisier, including the application of both "sham" and "genuine" procedures and, significantly, the first use of "blindfolding" of both the investigators and their subjects.
From their investigations both Commissions concluded that there was no evidence of any kind to support d'Eslon's claim for the substantial physical existence of either his supposed "animal magnetism" or his supposed "magnetic fluid"; and, in the process, they determined that all of the effects they had observed could be directly attributed to a physiological (rather than metaphysical) agency—namely, that all of the experimentally observed phenomena could be directly attributed to "contact", "imagination", and/or "imitation".
Eventually, Mesmer left Paris and went back to Vienna to practise mesmerism.
Following the French committee's findings, Dugald Stewart, an influential academic philosopher of the "Scottish School of Common Sense", encouraged physicians in his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1818) to salvage elements of Mesmerism by replacing the supernatural theory of "animal magnetism" with a new interpretation based upon "common sense" laws of physiology and psychology. Braid quotes the following passage from Stewart:
It appears to me, that the general conclusions established by Mesmer's practice, with respect to the physical effects of the principle of imagination (more particularly in cases where they co-operated together), are incomparably more curious than if he had actually demonstrated the existence of his boasted science [of "animal magnetism"]: nor can I see any good reason why a physician, who admits the efficacy of the moral [i.e., psychological] agents employed by Mesmer, should, in the exercise of his profession, scruple to copy whatever processes are necessary for subjecting them to his command, any more than that he should hesitate about employing a new physical agent, such as electricity or galvanism.
In Braid's day, the Scottish School of Common Sense provided the dominant theories of academic psychology, and Braid refers to other philosophers within this tradition throughout his writings. Braid therefore revised the theory and practice of Mesmerism and developed his own method of hypnotism as a more rational and common sense alternative.
It may here be requisite for me to explain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Nervous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from common sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my processes, to produce the higher [i.e., supernatural] phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted principles in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Mesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.
Despite briefly toying with the name "rational Mesmerism", Braid ultimately chose to emphasise the unique aspects of his approach, carrying out informal experiments throughout his career in order to refute practices that invoked supernatural forces and demonstrating instead the role of ordinary physiological and psychological processes such as suggestion and focused attention in producing the observed effects.
Braid worked very closely with his friend and ally the eminent physiologist Professor William Benjamin Carpenter, an early neuro-psychologist who introduced the "ideo-motor reflex" theory of suggestion. Carpenter had observed instances of expectation and imagination apparently influencing involuntary muscle movement. A classic example of the ideo-motor principle in action is the so-called "Chevreul pendulum" (named after Michel Eugène Chevreul). Chevreul claimed that divinatory pendulae were made to swing by unconscious muscle movements brought about by focused concentration alone.
Braid soon assimilated Carpenter's observations into his own theory, realising that the effect of focusing attention was to enhance the ideo-motor reflex response. Braid extended Carpenter's theory to encompass the influence of the mind upon the body more generally, beyond the muscular system, and therefore referred to the "ideo-dynamic" response and coined the term "psycho-physiology" to refer to the study of general mind/body interaction.
In his later works, Braid reserved the term "hypnotism" for cases in which subjects entered a state of amnesia resembling sleep. For other cases, he spoke of a "mono-ideodynamic" principle to emphasise that the eye-fixation induction technique worked by narrowing the subject's attention to a single idea or train of thought ("monoideism"), which amplified the effect of the consequent "dominant idea" upon the subject's body by means of the ideo-dynamic principle.
For several decades Braid's work became more influential abroad than in his own country, except for a handful of followers, most notably Dr. John Milne Bramwell. The eminent neurologist Dr. George Miller Beard took Braid's theories to America. Meanwhile, his works were translated into German by William Thierry Preyer, Professor of Physiology at Jena University. The psychiatrist Albert Moll subsequently continued German research, publishing Hypnotism in 1889. France became the focal point for the study of Braid's ideas after the eminent neurologist Dr. Étienne Eugène Azam translated Braid's last manuscript (On Hypnotism, 1860) into French and presented Braid's research to the French Academy of Sciences. At the request of Azam, Paul Broca, and others, the French Academy of Science, which had investigated Mesmerism in 1784, examined Braid's writings shortly after his death.
Azam's enthusiasm for hypnotism influenced Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, a country doctor. Hippolyte Bernheim discovered Liébeault's enormously popular group hypnotherapy clinic and subsequently became an influential hypnotist. The study of hypnotism subsequently revolved around the fierce debate between Bernheim and Jean-Martin Charcot, the two most influential figures in late 19th-century hypnotism.
Charcot operated a clinic at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (thus, known as the "Paris School" or the "Salpêtrière School"), while Bernheim had a clinic in Nancy (known as the "Nancy School"). Charcot, who was influenced more by the Mesmerists, argued that hypnotism was an abnormal state of nervous functioning found only in certain hysterical women. He claimed that it manifested in a series of physical reactions that could be divided into distinct stages. Bernheim argued that anyone could be hypnotised, that it was an extension of normal psychological functioning, and that its effects were due to suggestion. After decades of debate, Bernheim's view dominated. Charcot's theory is now just a historical curiosity.
Pierre Janet (1859–1947) reported studies on a hypnotic subject in 1882. Charcot subsequently appointed him director of the psychological laboratory at the Salpêtrière in 1889, after Janet had completed his PhD, which dealt with psychological automatism. In 1898, Janet was appointed psychology lecturer at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he became chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France. Janet reconciled elements of his views with those of Bernheim and his followers, developing his own sophisticated hypnotic psychotherapy based upon the concept of psychological dissociation, which, at the turn of the century, rivalled Freud's attempt to provide a more comprehensive theory of psychotherapy.
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, studied hypnotism at the Paris School and briefly visited the Nancy School.
At first, Freud was an enthusiastic proponent of hypnotherapy. He "initially hypnotised patients and pressed on their foreheads to help them concentrate while attempting to recover (supposedly) repressed memories", and he soon began to emphasise hypnotic regression and ab reaction (catharsis) as therapeutic methods. He wrote a favorable encyclopedia article on hypnotism, translated one of Bernheim's works into German, and published an influential series of case studies with his colleague Joseph Breuer entitled Studies on Hysteria (1895). This became the founding text of the subsequent tradition known as "hypno-analysis" or "regression hypnotherapy".
However, Freud gradually abandoned hypnotism in favour of psychoanalysis, emphasising free association and interpretation of the unconscious. Struggling with the great expense of time that psychoanalysis required, Freud later suggested that it might be combined with hypnotic suggestion to hasten the outcome of treatment, but that this would probably weaken the outcome: "It is very probable, too, that the application of our therapy to numbers will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis plentifully with the copper of direct [hypnotic] suggestion."
Only a handful of Freud's followers, however, were sufficiently qualified in hypnosis to attempt the synthesis. Their work had a limited influence on the hypno-therapeutic approaches now known variously as "hypnotic regression", "hypnotic progression", and "hypnoanalysis".
Émile Coué (1857–1926) assisted Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault for around two years at Nancy. After practising for several months employing the "hypnosis" of Liébeault and Bernheim's Nancy School, he abandoned their approach altogether. Later, Coué developed a new approach (c.1901) based on Braid-style "hypnotism", direct hypnotic suggestion, and ego-strengthening which eventually became known as La méthode Coué. According to Charles Baudouin, Coué founded what became known as the New Nancy School, a loose collaboration of practitioners who taught and promoted his views. Coué's method did not emphasise "sleep" or deep relaxation, but instead focused upon autosuggestion involving a specific series of suggestion tests. Although Coué argued that he was no longer using hypnosis, followers such as Charles Baudouin viewed his approach as a form of light self-hypnosis. Coué's method became a renowned self-help and psychotherapy technique, which contrasted with psychoanalysis and prefigured self-hypnosis and cognitive therapy.
The next major development came from behavioural psychology in American university research. Clark L. Hull (1884–1952), an eminent American psychologist, published the first major compilation of laboratory studies on hypnosis, Hypnosis & Suggestibility (1933), in which he proved that hypnosis and sleep had nothing in common. Hull published many quantitative findings from hypnosis and suggestion experiments and encouraged research by mainstream psychologists. Hull's behavioural psychology interpretation of hypnosis, emphasising conditioned reflexes, rivalled the Freudian psycho-dynamic interpretation which emphasised unconscious transference.
Although Dave Elman (1900–1967) was a noted radio host, comedian, and songwriter, he also made a name as a hypnotist. He led many courses for physicians, and in 1964 wrote the book Findings in Hypnosis, later to be retitled Hypnotherapy (published by Westwood Publishing). Perhaps the most well-known aspect of Elman's legacy is his method of induction, which was originally fashioned for speed work and later adapted for the use of medical professionals.
Milton Erickson (1901–1980), the founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association, was one of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists. He wrote several books and journal articles on the subject. During the 1960s, Erickson popularised a new branch of hypnotherapy, known as Ericksonian therapy, characterised primarily by indirect suggestion, "metaphor" (actually analogies), confusion techniques, and double binds in place of formal hypnotic inductions. However, the difference between Erickson's methods and traditional hypnotism led contemporaries such as André Weitzenhoffer to question whether he was practising "hypnosis" at all, and his approach remains in question.
Erickson had no hesitation in presenting any suggested effect as being "hypnosis", whether or not the subject was in a hypnotic state. In fact, he was not hesitant in passing off behaviour that was dubiously hypnotic as being hypnotic.
But during numerous witnessed and recorded encounters in clinical, experimental, and academic settings Erickson was able to evoke examples of classic hypnotic phenomena such as positive and negative hallucinations, anesthesia, analgesia (in childbirth and even terminal cancer patients), catalepsy, regression to provable events in subjects' early lives and even into infantile reflexology. Erickson stated in his own writings that there was no correlation between hypnotic depth and therapeutic success and that the quality of the applied psychotherapy outweighed the need for deep hypnosis in many cases. Hypnotic depth was to be pursued for research purposes.
In the latter half of the 20th century, two factors contributed to the development of the cognitive-behavioural approach to hypnosis:
Although cognitive-behavioural theories of hypnosis must be distinguished from cognitive-behavioural approaches to hypnotherapy, they share similar concepts, terminology, and assumptions and have been integrated by influential researchers and clinicians such as Irving Kirsch, Steven Jay Lynn, and others.
At the outset of cognitive behavioural therapy during the 1950s, hypnosis was used by early behaviour therapists such as Joseph Wolpe and also by early cognitive therapists such as Albert Ellis. Barber, Spanos, and Chaves introduced the term "cognitive-behavioural" to describe their "nonstate" theory of hypnosis in Hypnosis, imagination, and human potentialities. However, Clark L. Hull had introduced a behavioural psychology as far back as 1933, which in turn was preceded by Ivan Pavlov. Indeed, the earliest theories and practices of hypnotism, even those of Braid, resemble the cognitive-behavioural orientation in some respects.
A person in a state of hypnosis has focused attention, and has increased suggestibility.
The hypnotized individual appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist and typically responds in an uncritical, automatic fashion while ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out by the hypnotist. In a hypnotic state an individual tends to see, feel, smell, and otherwise perceive in accordance with the hypnotist's suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the actual stimuli present in the environment. The effects of hypnosis are not limited to sensory change; even the subject's memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended (post-hypnotically) into the subject's subsequent waking activity.
It could be said that hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect. For example, in 1994, Irving Kirsch characterized hypnosis as a "non-deceptive placebo", i.e., a method that openly makes use of suggestion and employs methods to amplify its effects.
A definition of hypnosis, derived from academic psychology, was provided in 2005, when the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, Division 30 of the American Psychological Association (APA), published the following formal definition:
Hypnosis typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which the subject is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. The hypnotic induction is an extended initial suggestion for using one's imagination, and may contain further elaborations of the introduction. A hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior. Persons can also learn self-hypnosis, which is the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one's own. If the subject responds to hypnotic suggestions, it is generally inferred that hypnosis has been induced. Many believe that hypnotic responses and experiences are characteristic of a hypnotic state. While some think that it is not necessary to use the word "hypnosis" as part of the hypnotic induction, others view it as essential.
Michael Nash provides a list of eight definitions of hypnosis by different authors, in addition to his own view that hypnosis is "a special case of psychological regression":
Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell (the originators of the human givens approach) define hypnosis as "any artificial way of accessing the REM state, the same brain state in which dreaming occurs" and suggest that this definition, when properly understood, resolves "many of the mysteries and controversies surrounding hypnosis". They see the REM state as being vitally important for life itself, for programming in our instinctive knowledge initially (after Dement and Jouvet) and then for adding to this throughout life. They attempt to explain this by asserting that, in a sense, all learning is post-hypnotic, which they say explains why the number of ways people can be put into a hypnotic state are so varied: according to them, anything that focuses a person's attention, inward or outward, puts them into a trance.
Hypnosis is normally preceded by a "hypnotic induction" technique. Traditionally, this was interpreted as a method of putting the subject into a "hypnotic trance"; however, subsequent "nonstate" theorists have viewed it differently, seeing it as a means of heightening client expectation, defining their role, focusing attention, etc. The induction techniques and methods are dependent on the depth of hypnotic trance level and for each stage of trance, the number of which in some sources ranges from 30 stages to 50 stages, there are different types of inductions. There are several different induction techniques. One of the most influential methods was Braid's "eye-fixation" technique, also known as "Braidism". Many variations of the eye-fixation approach exist, including the induction used in the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), the most widely used research tool in the field of hypnotism. Braid's original description of his induction is as follows:
Take any bright object (e.g. a lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object. It will be observed, that owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted: They will shortly begin to dilate, and, after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a wavy motion, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object toward the eyes, most probably the eyelids will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion. If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin anew, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried towards the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed, in the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes. In general, it will be found, that the eyelids close with a vibratory motion, or become spasmodically closed.
Braid later acknowledged that the hypnotic induction technique was not necessary in every case, and subsequent researchers have generally found that on average it contributes less than previously expected to the effect of hypnotic suggestions. Variations and alternatives to the original hypnotic induction techniques were subsequently developed. However, this method is still considered authoritative. In 1941, Robert White wrote: "It can be safely stated that nine out of ten hypnotic techniques call for reclining posture, muscular relaxation, and optical fixation followed by eye closure."
When James Braid first described hypnotism, he did not use the term "suggestion" but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea. Braid's main therapeutic strategy involved stimulating or reducing physiological functioning in different regions of the body. In his later works, however, Braid placed increasing emphasis upon the use of a variety of different verbal and non-verbal forms of suggestion, including the use of "waking suggestion" and self-hypnosis. Subsequently, Hippolyte Bernheim shifted the emphasis from the physical state of hypnosis on to the psychological process of verbal suggestion:
I define hypnotism as the induction of a peculiar psychical [i.e., mental] condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion. Often, it is true, the [hypnotic] sleep that may be induced facilitates suggestion, but it is not the necessary preliminary. It is suggestion that rules hypnotism.
Bernheim's conception of the primacy of verbal suggestion in hypnotism dominated the subject throughout the 20th century, leading some authorities to declare him the father of modern hypnotism.
Contemporary hypnotism uses a variety of suggestion forms including direct verbal suggestions, "indirect" verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation. A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered "permissively" and those delivered in a more "authoritarian" manner. Harvard hypnotherapist Deirdre Barrett writes that most modern research suggestions are designed to bring about immediate responses, whereas hypnotherapeutic suggestions are usually post-hypnotic ones that are intended to trigger responses affecting behaviour for periods ranging from days to a lifetime in duration. The hypnotherapeutic ones are often repeated in multiple sessions before they achieve peak effectiveness.
Some hypnotists view suggestion as a form of communication that is directed primarily to the subject's conscious mind, whereas others view it as a means of communicating with the "unconscious" or "subconscious" mind. These concepts were introduced into hypnotism at the end of the 19th century by Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory describes conscious thoughts as being at the surface of the mind and unconscious processes as being deeper in the mind. Braid, Bernheim, and other Victorian pioneers of hypnotism did not refer to the unconscious mind but saw hypnotic suggestions as being addressed to the subject's conscious mind. Indeed, Braid actually defines hypnotism as focused (conscious) attention upon a dominant idea (or suggestion). Different views regarding the nature of the mind have led to different conceptions of suggestion. Hypnotists who believe that responses are mediated primarily by an "unconscious mind", like Milton Erickson, make use of indirect suggestions such as metaphors or stories whose intended meaning may be concealed from the subject's conscious mind. The concept of subliminal suggestion depends upon this view of the mind. By contrast, hypnotists who believe that responses to suggestion are primarily mediated by the conscious mind, such as Theodore Barber and Nicholas Spanos, have tended to make more use of direct verbal suggestions and instructions.
The first neuropsychological theory of hypnotic suggestion was introduced early by James Braid who adopted his friend and colleague William Carpenter's theory of the ideo-motor reflex response to account for the phenomenon of hypnotism. Carpenter had observed from close examination of everyday experience that, under certain circumstances, the mere idea of a muscular movement could be sufficient to produce a reflexive, or automatic, contraction or movement of the muscles involved, albeit in a very small degree. Braid extended Carpenter's theory to encompass the observation that a wide variety of bodily responses besides muscular movement can be thus affected, for example, the idea of sucking a lemon can automatically stimulate salivation, a secretory response. Braid, therefore, adopted the term "ideo-dynamic", meaning "by the power of an idea", to explain a broad range of "psycho-physiological" (mind–body) phenomena. Braid coined the term "mono-ideodynamic" to refer to the theory that hypnotism operates by concentrating attention on a single idea in order to amplify the ideo-dynamic reflex response. Variations of the basic ideo-motor, or ideo-dynamic, theory of suggestion have continued to exercise considerable influence over subsequent theories of hypnosis, including those of Clark L. Hull, Hans Eysenck, and Ernest Rossi. In Victorian psychology the word "idea" encompasses any mental representation, including mental imagery, memories, etc.
Braid made a rough distinction between different stages of hypnosis, which he termed the first and second conscious stage of hypnotism; he later replaced this with a distinction between "sub-hypnotic", "full hypnotic", and "hypnotic coma" stages. Jean-Martin Charcot made a similar distinction between stages which he named somnambulism, lethargy, and catalepsy. However, Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim introduced more complex hypnotic "depth" scales based on a combination of behavioural, physiological, and subjective responses, some of which were due to direct suggestion and some of which were not. In the first few decades of the 20th century, these early clinical "depth" scales were superseded by more sophisticated "hypnotic susceptibility" scales based on experimental research. The most influential were the Davis–Husband and Friedlander–Sarbin scales developed in the 1930s. André Weitzenhoffer and Ernest R. Hilgard developed the Stanford Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility in 1959, consisting of 12 suggestion test items following a standardised hypnotic eye-fixation induction script, and this has become one of the most widely referenced research tools in the field of hypnosis. Soon after, in 1962, Ronald Shor and Emily Carota Orne developed a similar group scale called the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS).
Whereas the older "depth scales" tried to infer the level of "hypnotic trance" from supposed observable signs such as spontaneous amnesia, most subsequent scales have measured the degree of observed or self-evaluated responsiveness to specific suggestion tests such as direct suggestions of arm rigidity (catalepsy). The Stanford, Harvard, HIP, and most other susceptibility scales convert numbers into an assessment of a person's susceptibility as "high", "medium", or "low". Approximately 80% of the population are medium, 10% are high, and 10% are low. There is some controversy as to whether this is distributed on a "normal" bell-shaped curve or whether it is bi-modal with a small "blip" of people at the high end. Hypnotisability Scores are highly stable over a person's lifetime. Research by Deirdre Barrett has found that there are two distinct types of highly susceptible subjects, which she terms fantasisers and dissociaters. Fantasisers score high on absorption scales, find it easy to block out real-world stimuli without hypnosis, spend much time daydreaming, report imaginary companions as a child, and grew up with parents who encouraged imaginary play. Dissociaters often have a history of childhood abuse or other trauma, learned to escape into numbness, and to forget unpleasant events. Their association to "daydreaming" was often going blank rather than creating vividly recalled fantasies. Both score equally high on formal scales of hypnotic susceptibility.
Individuals with dissociative identity disorder have the highest hypnotisability of any clinical group, followed by those with post-traumatic stress disorder.
There are numerous applications for hypnosis across multiple fields of interest, including medical/psychotherapeutic uses, military uses, self-improvement, and entertainment. The American Medical Association currently has no official stance on the medical use of hypnosis.
Hypnosis has been used as a supplemental approach to cognitive behavioral therapy since as early as 1949. Hypnosis was defined in relation to classical conditioning; where the words of the therapist were the stimuli and the hypnosis would be the conditioned response. Some traditional cognitive behavioral therapy methods were based in classical conditioning. It would include inducing a relaxed state and introducing a feared stimulus. One way of inducing the relaxed state was through hypnosis.
Hypnotism has also been used in forensics, sports, education, physical therapy, and rehabilitation. Hypnotism has also been employed by artists for creative purposes, most notably the surrealist circle of André Breton who employed hypnosis, automatic writing, and sketches for creative purposes. Hypnotic methods have been used to re-experience drug states and mystical experiences. Self-hypnosis is popularly used to quit smoking, alleviate stress and anxiety, promote weight loss, and induce sleep hypnosis. Stage hypnosis can persuade people to perform unusual public feats.
Some people have drawn analogies between certain aspects of hypnotism and areas such as crowd psychology, religious hysteria, and ritual trances in preliterate tribal cultures.
Hypnotherapy is a use of hypnosis in psychotherapy. It is used by licensed physicians, psychologists, and others. Physicians and psychologists may use hypnosis to treat depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, compulsive gambling, phobias and post-traumatic stress, while certified hypnotherapists who are not physicians or psychologists often treat smoking and weight management. Hypnotherapy was historically used in psychiatric and legal settings to enhance the recall of repressed or degraded memories, but this application of the technique has declined as scientific evidence accumulated that hypnotherapy can increase confidence in false memories.
Hypnotherapy is viewed as a helpful adjunct by proponents, having additive effects when treating psychological disorders, such as these, along with scientifically proven cognitive therapies. The effectiveness of hypnotherapy has not yet been accurately assessed, and, due to the lack of evidence indicating any level of efficiency, it is regarded as a type of alternative medicine by numerous reputable medical organisations, such as the National Health Service.
Preliminary research has expressed brief hypnosis interventions as possibly being a useful tool for managing painful HIV-DSP because of its history of usefulness in pain management, its long-term effectiveness of brief interventions, the ability to teach self-hypnosis to patients, the cost-effectiveness of the intervention, and the advantage of using such an intervention as opposed to the use of pharmaceutical drugs.
Modern hypnotherapy has been used, with varying success, in a variety of forms, such as:
In a January 2001 article in Psychology Today, Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett wrote:
A hypnotic trance is not therapeutic in and of itself, but specific suggestions and images fed to clients in a trance can profoundly alter their behavior. As they rehearse the new ways they want to think and feel, they lay the groundwork for changes in their future actions...
Barrett described specific ways this is operationalised for habit change and amelioration of phobias. In her 1998 book of hypnotherapy case studies, she reviews the clinical research on hypnosis with dissociative disorders, smoking cessation, and insomnia, and describes successful treatments of these complaints.
In a July 2001 article for Scientific American titled "The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis", Michael Nash wrote that, "using hypnosis, scientists have temporarily created hallucinations, compulsions, certain types of memory loss, false memories, and delusions in the laboratory so that these phenomena can be studied in a controlled environment."
There is evidence supporting the use of hypnotherapy in the treatment of menopause related symptoms, including hot flashes. The North American Menopause Society recommends hypnotherapy for the nonhormonal management of menopause-associated vasomotor symptoms, giving it the highest level of evidence.
Hypnotherapy has been studied for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Hypnosis for IBS has received moderate support in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance published for UK health services. It has been used as an aid or alternative to chemical anesthesia, and it has been studied as a way to soothe skin ailments.
A number of studies show that hypnosis can reduce the pain experienced during burn-wound debridement, bone marrow aspirations, and childbirth. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found that hypnosis relieved the pain of 75% of 933 subjects participating in 27 different experiments.
Hypnosis is effective in decreasing the fear of cancer treatment reducing pain from and coping with cancer and other chronic conditions. Nausea and other symptoms related to incurable diseases may also be managed with hypnosis. Some practitioners have claimed hypnosis might help boost the immune system of people with cancer. However, according to the American Cancer Society, "available scientific evidence does not support the idea that hypnosis can influence the development or progression of cancer."
Hypnosis has been used as a pain relieving technique during dental surgery, and related pain management regimens as well. Researchers like Jerjes and his team have reported that hypnosis can help even those patients who have acute to severe orodental pain. Additionally, Meyerson and Uziel have suggested that hypnotic methods have been found to be highly fruitful for alleviating anxiety in patients with severe dental phobia.
For some psychologists who uphold the altered state theory of hypnosis, pain relief in response to hypnosis is said to be the result of the brain's dual-processing functionality. This effect is obtained either through the process of selective attention or dissociation, in which both theories involve the presence of activity in pain receptive regions of the brain, and a difference in the processing of the stimuli by the hypnotised subject.
The American Psychological Association published a study comparing the effects of hypnosis, ordinary suggestion, and placebo in reducing pain. The study found that highly suggestible individuals experienced a greater reduction in pain from hypnosis compared with placebo, whereas less suggestible subjects experienced no pain reduction from hypnosis when compared with placebo. Ordinary non-hypnotic suggestion also caused reduction in pain compared to placebo, but was able to reduce pain in a wider range of subjects (both high and low suggestible) than hypnosis. The results showed that it is primarily the subject's responsiveness to suggestion, whether within the context of hypnosis or not, that is the main determinant of causing reduction in pain.
The success rate for habit control is varied. A meta-study researching hypnosis as a quit-smoking tool found it had a 20 to 30 percent success rate, while a 2007 study of patients hospitalised for cardiac and pulmonary ailments found that smokers who used hypnosis to quit smoking doubled their chances of success. In 2019, a Cochrane review was unable to find evidence of benefit of hypnosis in smoking cessation, and suggested if there is, it is small at best.
Hypnosis may be useful as an adjunct therapy for weight loss. A 1996 meta-analysis studying hypnosis combined with cognitive behavioural therapy found that people using both treatments lost more weight than people using cognitive behavioural therapy alone. The virtual gastric band procedure mixes hypnosis with hypnopedia. The hypnosis instructs the stomach that it is smaller than it really is, and hypnopedia reinforces alimentary habits. A 2016 pilot study found that there was no significant difference in effectiveness between VGB hypnotherapy and relaxation hypnotherapy.
American psychiatric nurses, in most medical facilities, are allowed to administer hypnosis to patients in order to relieve symptoms such as anxiety, arousal, negative behaviours, uncontrollable behaviour, and to improve self-esteem and confidence. This is permitted only when they have been completely trained about their clinical side effects and while under supervision when administering it.
The use of hypnosis to exhume information thought to be buried within the mind in the investigative process and as evidence in court became increasingly popular from the 1950s to the early 1980s with its use being debated into the 1990s when its popular use mostly diminished. Forensic hypnosis's uses are hindered by concerns with its reliability and accuracy. Controversy surrounds the use of hypnotherapy to retrieve memories, especially those from early childhood or (supposed) past-lives. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association caution against recovered-memory therapy in cases of alleged childhood trauma, stating that "it is impossible, without corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one." Past life regression, meanwhile, is often viewed with skepticism.
A 2006 declassified 1966 document obtained by the US Freedom of Information Act archive shows that hypnosis was investigated for military applications. The full paper explores the potentials of operational uses. The overall conclusion of the study was that there was no evidence that hypnosis could be used for military applications, and no clear evidence whether "hypnosis" is a definable phenomenon outside ordinary suggestion, motivation, and subject expectancy. According to the document:
The use of hypnosis in intelligence would present certain technical problems not encountered in the clinic or laboratory. To obtain compliance from a resistant source, for example, it would be necessary to hypnotise the source under essentially hostile circumstances. There is no good evidence, clinical or experimental, that this can be done.
Furthermore, the document states that:
It would be difficult to find an area of scientific interest more beset by divided professional opinion and contradictory experimental evidence... No one can say whether hypnosis is a qualitatively unique state with some physiological and conditioned response components or only a form of suggestion induced by high motivation and a positive relationship between hypnotist and subject... T. X. Barber has produced "hypnotic deafness" and "hypnotic blindness", analgesia and other responses seen in hypnosis—all without hypnotising anyone... Orne has shown that unhypnotised persons can be motivated to equal and surpass the supposed superhuman physical feats seen in hypnosis.
The study concluded that there are no reliable accounts of its effective use by an intelligence service in history.
Research into hypnosis in military applications is further verified by the Project MKUltra experiments, also conducted by the CIA. According to Congressional testimony, the CIA experimented with utilising LSD and hypnosis for mind control. Many of these programs were done domestically and on participants who were not informed of the study's purposes or that they would be given drugs.
Self-hypnosis happens when a person hypnotises oneself, commonly involving the use of autosuggestion. The technique is often used to increase motivation for a diet, to quit smoking, or to reduce stress. People who practise self-hypnosis sometimes require assistance; some people use devices known as mind machines to assist in the process, whereas others use hypnotic recordings.
Self-hypnosis is claimed to help with stage fright, relaxation, and physical well-being.
Stage hypnosis is a form of entertainment, traditionally employed in a club or theatre before an audience. Due to stage hypnotists' showmanship, many people believe that hypnosis is a form of mind control. Stage hypnotists typically attempt to hypnotise the entire audience and then select individuals who are "under" to come up on stage and perform embarrassing acts, while the audience watches. However, the effects of stage hypnosis are probably due to a combination of psychological factors, participant selection, suggestibility, physical manipulation, stagecraft, and trickery. The desire to be the centre of attention, having an excuse to violate their own fear suppressors, and the pressure to please are thought to convince subjects to "play along". Books by stage hypnotists sometimes explicitly describe the use of deception in their acts; for example, Ormond McGill's New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnosis describes an entire "fake hypnosis" act that depends upon the use of private whispers throughout.
The idea of music as hypnosis developed from the work of Franz Mesmer. Instruments such as pianos, violins, harps and, especially, the glass harmonica often featured in Mesmer's treatments; and were considered to contribute to Mesmer's success.
Hypnotic music became an important part in the development of a 'physiological psychology' that regarded the hypnotic state as an 'automatic' phenomenon that links to physical reflex. In their experiments with sound hypnosis, Jean-Martin Charcot used gongs and tuning forks, and Ivan Pavlov used bells. The intention behind their experiments was to prove that physiological response to sound could be automatic, bypassing the conscious mind.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a moral panic took place in the US fearing Satanic ritual abuse. As part of this, certain books such as The Devil's Disciples claimed that some bands, particularly in the musical genre of heavy metal, brainwashed American teenagers with subliminal messages to lure them into the worship of the devil, sexual immorality, murder, and especially suicide.
Various people have been suspected of or convicted for hypnosis-related crimes, including robbery and sexual abuse.
In 1951, Palle Hardrup shot and killed two people during a botched robbery in Copenhagen - see Hypnosis murders. Hardrup claimed that his friend and former cellmate Bjørn Schouw Nielsen had hypnotised him to commit the robbery, inadvertently causing the deaths. Both were sentenced to jail time.
In 2011, a Russian "evil hypnotist" was suspected of tricking customers in banks around Stavropol into giving away thousands of pounds' worth of money. According to the local police, he would approach them and make them withdraw all of the money from their bank accounts, which they would then freely give to the man. A similar incident was reported in London in 2014, where a video seemingly showed a robber hypnotising a shopkeeper before robbing him. The victim did nothing to stop the robber from looting his pockets and taking his cash, only calling out the thief when he was already getting away.
In 2013, the then-40-year-old amateur hypnotist Timothy Porter attempted to sexually abuse his female weight-loss client. She reported awaking from a trance and finding him behind her with his pants down, telling her to touch herself. He was subsequently called to court and included on the sex offender list. In 2015, Gary Naraido, then 52, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for several hypnosis-related sexual abuse charges. Besides the primary charge by a 22-year-old woman who he sexually abused in a hotel under the guise of a free therapy session, he also admitted to having sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. In December 2018, a Brazilian medium named João Teixeira de Faria (also known as "João de Deus"), famous for performing Spiritual Surgeries through hypnosis techniques, was accused of sexual abuse by 12 women. In 2016 an Ohio lawyer was sentenced to 12 years of prison after hypnotizing a dozen different clients into committing sexual acts under the guise of a mindfulness exercise.
The central theoretical disagreement regarding hypnosis is known as the "state versus nonstate" debate. When Braid introduced the concept of hypnotism, he equivocated over the nature of the "state", sometimes describing it as a specific sleep-like neurological state comparable to animal hibernation or yogic meditation, while at other times he emphasised that hypnotism encompasses a number of different stages or states that are an extension of ordinary psychological and physiological processes. Overall, Braid appears to have moved from a more "special state" understanding of hypnotism toward a more complex "nonstate" orientation.
State theorists interpret the effects of hypnotism as due primarily to a specific, abnormal, and uniform psychological or physiological state of some description, often referred to as "hypnotic trance" or an "altered state of consciousness". Nonstate theorists rejected the idea of hypnotic trance and interpret the effects of hypnotism as due to a combination of multiple task-specific factors derived from normal cognitive, behavioural, and social psychology, such as social role-perception and favorable motivation (Sarbin), active imagination and positive cognitive set (Barber), response expectancy (Kirsch), and the active use of task-specific subjective strategies (Spanos). The personality psychologist Robert White is often cited as providing one of the first nonstate definitions of hypnosis in a 1941 article:
Hypnotic behaviour is meaningful, goal-directed striving, its most general goal being to behave like a hypnotised person as this is continuously defined by the operator and understood by the client.
Put simply, it is often claimed that, whereas the older "special state" interpretation emphasises the difference between hypnosis and ordinary psychological processes, the "nonstate" interpretation emphasises their similarity.
Comparisons between hypnotised and non-hypnotised subjects suggest that, if a "hypnotic trance" does exist, it only accounts for a small proportion of the effects attributed to hypnotic suggestion, most of which can be replicated without hypnotic induction.
Braid can be taken to imply, in later writings, that hypnosis is largely a state of heightened suggestibility induced by expectation and focused attention. In particular, Hippolyte Bernheim became known as the leading proponent of the "suggestion theory" of hypnosis, at one point going so far as to declare that there is no hypnotic state, only heightened suggestibility. There is a general consensus that heightened suggestibility is an essential characteristic of hypnosis. In 1933, Clark L. Hull wrote:
If a subject after submitting to the hypnotic procedure shows no genuine increase in susceptibility to any suggestions whatever, there seems no point in calling him hypnotised, regardless of how fully and readily he may respond to suggestions of lid-closure and other superficial sleeping behaviour.
Ivan Pavlov stated that hypnotic suggestion provided the best example of a conditioned reflex response in human beings; i.e., that responses to suggestions were learned associations triggered by the words used:
Speech, on account of the whole preceding life of the adult, is connected up with all the internal and external stimuli which can reach the cortex, signaling all of them and replacing all of them, and therefore it can call forth all those reactions of the organism which are normally determined by the actual stimuli themselves. We can, therefore, regard "suggestion" as the most simple form of a typical reflex in man.
He also believed that hypnosis was a "partial sleep", meaning that a generalised inhibition of cortical functioning could be encouraged to spread throughout regions of the brain. He observed that the various degrees of hypnosis did not significantly differ physiologically from the waking state and hypnosis depended on insignificant changes of environmental stimuli. Pavlov also suggested that lower-brain-stem mechanisms were involved in hypnotic conditioning.
Pavlov's ideas combined with those of his rival Vladimir Bekhterev and became the basis of hypnotic psychotherapy in the Soviet Union, as documented in the writings of his follower K.I. Platonov. Soviet theories of hypnotism subsequently influenced the writings of Western behaviourally oriented hypnotherapists such as Andrew Salter.
Changes in brain activity have been found in some studies of highly responsive hypnotic subjects. These changes vary depending upon the type of suggestions being given. The state of light to medium hypnosis, where the body undergoes physical and mental relaxation, is associated with a pattern mostly of alpha waves. However, what these results indicate is unclear. They may indicate that suggestions genuinely produce changes in perception or experience that are not simply a result of imagination. However, in normal circumstances without hypnosis, the brain regions associated with motion detection are activated both when motion is seen and when motion is imagined, without any changes in the subjects' perception or experience. This may therefore indicate that highly suggestible hypnotic subjects are simply activating to a greater extent the areas of the brain used in imagination, without real perceptual changes. It is, however, premature to claim that hypnosis and meditation are mediated by similar brain systems and neural mechanisms.
Another study has demonstrated that a colour hallucination suggestion given to subjects in hypnosis activated colour-processing regions of the occipital cortex. A 2004 review of research examining the EEG laboratory work in this area concludes:
Hypnosis is not a unitary state and therefore should show different patterns of EEG activity depending upon the task being experienced. In our evaluation of the literature, enhanced theta is observed during hypnosis when there is task performance or concentrative hypnosis, but not when the highly hypnotizable individuals are passively relaxed, somewhat sleepy and/or more diffuse in their attention.
Studies have shown an association of hypnosis with stronger theta-frequency activity as well as with changes to the gamma-frequency activity. Neuroimaging techniques have been used to investigate neural correlates of hypnosis.
The induction phase of hypnosis may also affect the activity in brain regions that control intention and process conflict. Anna Gosline claims:
Gruzelier and his colleagues studied brain activity using an fMRI while subjects completed a standard cognitive exercise, called the Stroop task. The team screened subjects before the study and chose 12 that were highly susceptible to hypnosis and 12 with low susceptibility. They all completed the task in the fMRI under normal conditions and then again under hypnosis. Throughout the study, both groups were consistent in their task results, achieving similar scores regardless of their mental state. During their first task session, before hypnosis, there were no significant differences in brain activity between the groups. But under hypnosis, Gruzelier found that the highly susceptible subjects showed significantly more brain activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus than the weakly susceptible subjects. This area of the brain has been shown to respond to errors and evaluate emotional outcomes. The highly susceptible group also showed much greater brain activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex than the weakly susceptible group. This is an area involved with higher level cognitive processing and behaviour.
Pierre Janet originally developed the idea of dissociation of consciousness from his work with hysterical patients. He believed that hypnosis was an example of dissociation, whereby areas of an individual's behavioural control separate from ordinary awareness. Hypnosis would remove some control from the conscious mind, and the individual would respond with autonomic, reflexive behaviour. Weitzenhoffer describes hypnosis via this theory as "dissociation of awareness from the majority of sensory and even strictly neural events taking place."
Ernest Hilgard, who developed the "neodissociation" theory of hypnotism, hypothesised that hypnosis causes the subjects to divide their consciousness voluntarily. One part responds to the hypnotist while the other retains awareness of reality. Hilgard made subjects take an ice water bath. None mentioned the water being cold or feeling pain. Hilgard then asked the subjects to lift their index finger if they felt pain and 70% of the subjects lifted their index finger. This showed that, even though the subjects were listening to the suggestive hypnotist, they still sensed the water's temperature.
The main theorist who pioneered the influential role-taking theory of hypnotism was Theodore Sarbin. Sarbin argued that hypnotic responses were motivated attempts to fulfill the socially constructed roles of hypnotic subjects. This has led to the misconception that hypnotic subjects are simply "faking". However, Sarbin emphasised the difference between faking, in which there is little subjective identification with the role in question, and role-taking, in which the subject not only acts externally in accord with the role but also subjectively identifies with it to some degree, acting, thinking, and feeling "as if" they are hypnotised. Sarbin drew analogies between role-taking in hypnosis and role-taking in other areas such as method acting, mental illness, and shamanic possession, etc. This interpretation of hypnosis is particularly relevant to understanding stage hypnosis, in which there is clearly strong peer pressure to comply with a socially constructed role by performing accordingly on a theatrical stage.
Hence, the social constructionism and role-taking theory of hypnosis suggests that individuals are enacting (as opposed to merely playing) a role and that really there is no such thing as a hypnotic trance. A socially constructed relationship is built depending on how much rapport has been established between the "hypnotist" and the subject (see Hawthorne effect, Pygmalion effect, and placebo effect).
Psychologists such as Robert Baker and Graham Wagstaff claim that what we call hypnosis is actually a form of learned social behaviour, a complex hybrid of social compliance, relaxation, and suggestibility that can account for many esoteric behavioural manifestations.
Barber, Spanos, and Chaves (1974) proposed a nonstate "cognitive-behavioural" theory of hypnosis, similar in some respects to Sarbin's social role-taking theory and building upon the earlier research of Barber. On this model, hypnosis is explained as an extension of ordinary psychological processes like imagination, relaxation, expectation, social compliance, etc. In particular, Barber argued that responses to hypnotic suggestions were mediated by a "positive cognitive set" consisting of positive expectations, attitudes, and motivation. Daniel Araoz subsequently coined the acronym "TEAM" to symbolise the subject's orientation to hypnosis in terms of "trust", "expectation", "attitude", and "motivation".
Barber et al. noted that similar factors appeared to mediate the response both to hypnotism and to cognitive behavioural therapy, in particular systematic desensitisation. Hence, research and clinical practice inspired by their interpretation has led to growing interest in the relationship between hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.
An approach loosely based on information theory uses a brain-as-computer model. In adaptive systems, feedback increases the signal-to-noise ratio, which may converge towards a steady state. Increasing the signal-to-noise ratio enables messages to be more clearly received. The hypnotist's object is to use techniques to reduce interference and increase the receptability of specific messages (suggestions).
Systems theory, in this context, may be regarded as an extension of Braid's original conceptualisation of hypnosis as involving "the brain and nervous system generally". Systems theory considers the nervous system's organisation into interacting subsystems. Hypnotic phenomena thus involve not only increased or decreased activity of particular subsystems, but also their interaction. A central phenomenon in this regard is that of feedback loops, which suggest a mechanism for creating hypnotic phenomena.
There is a huge range of societies in England who train individuals in hypnosis; however, one of the longest-standing organisations is the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis (BSCAH). It origins date back to 1952 when a group of dentists set up the 'British Society of Dental Hypnosis'. Shortly after, a group of sympathetic medical practitioners merged with this fast-evolving organisation to form 'The Dental and Medical Society for the Study of Hypnosis'; and, in 1968, after various statutory amendments had taken place, the 'British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis' (BSMDH) was formed. This society always had close links with the Royal Society of Medicine and many of its members were involved in setting up a hypnosis section at this centre of medical research in London. And, in 1978, under the presidency of David Waxman, the Section of Medical and Dental Hypnosis was formed. A second society, the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis (BSECH), was also set up a year before, in 1977, and this consisted of psychologists, doctors and dentists with an interest in hypnosis theory and practice. In 2007, the two societies merged to form the 'British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis' (BSCAH). This society only trains health professionals and is interested in furthering research into clinical hypnosis.
The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) is unique among organisations for professionals using hypnosis because members must be licensed healthcare workers with graduate degrees. As an interdisciplinary organisation, ASCH not only provides a classroom to teach professionals how to use hypnosis as a tool in their practice, it provides professionals with a community of experts from different disciplines. The ASCH's missions statement is to provide and encourage education programs to further, in every ethical way, the knowledge, understanding, and application of hypnosis in health care; to encourage research and scientific publication in the field of hypnosis; to promote the further recognition and acceptance of hypnosis as an important tool in clinical health care and focus for scientific research; to cooperate with other professional societies that share mutual goals, ethics and interests; and to provide a professional community for those clinicians and researchers who use hypnosis in their work. The ASCH also publishes the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "There are competing theories explaining hypnosis and related phenomena. Altered state theories see hypnosis as an altered state of mind or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary state of consciousness. In contrast, non-state theories see hypnosis as, variously, a type of placebo effect, a redefinition of an interaction with a therapist or a form of imaginative role enactment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "During hypnosis, a person is said to have heightened focus and concentration and an increased response to suggestions. Hypnosis usually begins with a hypnotic induction involving a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. The use of hypnosis for therapeutic purposes is referred to as \"hypnotherapy\", while its use as a form of entertainment for an audience is known as \"stage hypnosis,\" a form of mentalism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hypnosis-based therapies for the management of irritable bowel syndrome and menopause are supported by evidence. Use of hypnosis for treatment of other problems has produced mixed results, such as with smoking cessation. The use of hypnosis as a form of therapy to retrieve and integrate early trauma is controversial within the scientific mainstream. Research indicates that hypnotising an individual may aid the formation of false memories, and that hypnosis \"does not help people recall events more accurately\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The words hypnosis and hypnotism both derive from the term neuro-hypnotism (nervous sleep), all of which were coined by Étienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers in the 1820s. The term hypnosis is derived from the ancient Greek ὑπνος hypnos, \"sleep\", and the suffix -ωσις -osis, or from ὑπνόω hypnoō, \"put to sleep\" (stem of aorist hypnōs-) and the suffix -is. These words were popularised in English by the Scottish surgeon James Braid (to whom they are sometimes wrongly attributed) around 1841. Braid based his practice on that developed by Franz Mesmer and his followers (which was called \"Mesmerism\" or \"animal magnetism\"), but differed in his theory as to how the procedure worked.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "People have been entering into hypnotic-type trances for thousands of years. In many cultures and religions, it was regarded as a form of meditation. The earliest record of a description of a hypnotic state can be found in the writings of Avicenna, a Persian physician who wrote about \"trance\" in 1027. Modern-day hypnosis started in the late 18th century and was made popular by Franz Mesmer, a German physician who became known as the father of 'modern hypnotism'. Hypnosis was known at the time as 'Mesmerism' being named after Mesmer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Mesmer held the opinion that hypnosis was a sort of mystical force that flows from the hypnotist to the person being hypnotised, but his theory was dismissed by critics who asserted that there is no magical element to hypnotism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Abbé Faria, a Luso-Goan Catholic monk, was one of the pioneers of the scientific study of hypnotism, following on from the work of Franz Mesmer. Unlike Mesmer, who claimed that hypnosis was mediated by \"animal magnetism\", Faria believed that it worked purely by the power of suggestion.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Before long, hypnotism started finding its way into the world of modern medicine. The use of hypnotism in the medical field was made popular by surgeons and physicians like Elliotson and James Esdaile and researchers like James Braid who helped to reveal the biological and physical benefits of hypnotism. According to his writings, Braid began to hear reports concerning various Oriental meditative practices soon after the release of his first publication on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843). He first discussed some of these oriental practices in a series of articles entitled Magic, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc., Historically & Physiologically Considered. He drew analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various forms of Hindu yoga meditation and other ancient spiritual practices, especially those involving voluntary burial and apparent human hibernation. Braid's interest in these practices stems from his studies of the Dabistān-i Mazāhib, the \"School of Religions\", an ancient Persian text describing a wide variety of Oriental religious rituals, beliefs, and practices.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Last May [1843], a gentleman residing in Edinburgh, personally unknown to me, who had long resided in India, favored me with a letter expressing his approbation of the views which I had published on the nature and causes of hypnotic and mesmeric phenomena. In corroboration of my views, he referred to what he had previously witnessed in oriental regions, and recommended me to look into the Dabistan, a book lately published, for additional proof to the same effect. On much recommendation I immediately sent for a copy of the Dabistan, in which I found many statements corroborative of the fact, that the eastern saints are all self-hypnotisers, adopting means essentially the same as those which I had recommended for similar purposes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Although he rejected the transcendental/metaphysical interpretation given to these phenomena outright, Braid accepted that these accounts of Oriental practices supported his view that the effects of hypnotism could be produced in solitude, without the presence of any other person (as he had already proved to his own satisfaction with the experiments he had conducted in November 1841); and he saw correlations between many of the \"metaphysical\" Oriental practices and his own \"rational\" neuro-hypnotism, and totally rejected all of the fluid theories and magnetic practices of the mesmerists. As he later wrote:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In as much as patients can throw themselves into the nervous sleep, and manifest all the usual phenomena of Mesmerism, through their own unaided efforts, as I have so repeatedly proved by causing them to maintain a steady fixed gaze at any point, concentrating their whole mental energies on the idea of the object looked at; or that the same may arise by the patient looking at the point of his own finger, or as the Magi of Persia and Yogi of India have practised for the last 2,400 years, for religious purposes, throwing themselves into their ecstatic trances by each maintaining a steady fixed gaze at the tip of his own nose; it is obvious that there is no need for an exoteric influence to produce the phenomena of Mesmerism. ... The great object in all these processes is to induce a habit of abstraction or concentration of attention, in which the subject is entirely absorbed with one idea, or train of ideas, whilst he is unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, every other object, purpose, or action.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Avicenna (980–1037), a Persian physician, documented the characteristics of the \"trance\" (hypnotic trance) state in 1027. At that time, hypnosis as a medical treatment was seldom used; the German doctor Franz Mesmer reintroduced it in the 18th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) believed that there is a magnetic force or \"fluid\" called \"animal magnetism\" within the universe that influences the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets to affect this field in order to produce healing. By around 1774, he had concluded that the same effect could be created by passing the hands in front of the subject's body, later referred to as making \"Mesmeric passes\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1784, at the request of King Louis XVI, two Royal Commissions on Animal Magnetism were specifically charged with (separately) investigating the claims made by one Charles d'Eslon (1750–1786), a disaffected student of Mesmer, for the existence of a substantial (rather than metaphorical, as Mesmer supposed) \"animal magnetism\", 'le magnétisme animal', and of a similarly physical \"magnetic fluid\", 'le fluide magnétique'. Among the investigators were the scientist, Antoine Lavoisier, an expert in electricity and terrestrial magnetism, Benjamin Franklin, and an expert in pain control, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Commissioners investigated the practices of d'Eslon; and, although they accepted, without question, that Mesmer's \"cures\" were, indeed, \"cures\", they did not investigate whether (or not) Mesmer was the agent of those \"cures\". Significantly, in their investigations of d'Eslon's procedures, they conducted an expansive series of randomized controlled trials, the experimental protocols of which were designed by Lavoisier, including the application of both \"sham\" and \"genuine\" procedures and, significantly, the first use of \"blindfolding\" of both the investigators and their subjects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "From their investigations both Commissions concluded that there was no evidence of any kind to support d'Eslon's claim for the substantial physical existence of either his supposed \"animal magnetism\" or his supposed \"magnetic fluid\"; and, in the process, they determined that all of the effects they had observed could be directly attributed to a physiological (rather than metaphysical) agency—namely, that all of the experimentally observed phenomena could be directly attributed to \"contact\", \"imagination\", and/or \"imitation\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Eventually, Mesmer left Paris and went back to Vienna to practise mesmerism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Following the French committee's findings, Dugald Stewart, an influential academic philosopher of the \"Scottish School of Common Sense\", encouraged physicians in his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1818) to salvage elements of Mesmerism by replacing the supernatural theory of \"animal magnetism\" with a new interpretation based upon \"common sense\" laws of physiology and psychology. Braid quotes the following passage from Stewart:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "It appears to me, that the general conclusions established by Mesmer's practice, with respect to the physical effects of the principle of imagination (more particularly in cases where they co-operated together), are incomparably more curious than if he had actually demonstrated the existence of his boasted science [of \"animal magnetism\"]: nor can I see any good reason why a physician, who admits the efficacy of the moral [i.e., psychological] agents employed by Mesmer, should, in the exercise of his profession, scruple to copy whatever processes are necessary for subjecting them to his command, any more than that he should hesitate about employing a new physical agent, such as electricity or galvanism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In Braid's day, the Scottish School of Common Sense provided the dominant theories of academic psychology, and Braid refers to other philosophers within this tradition throughout his writings. Braid therefore revised the theory and practice of Mesmerism and developed his own method of hypnotism as a more rational and common sense alternative.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "It may here be requisite for me to explain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Nervous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from common sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my processes, to produce the higher [i.e., supernatural] phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted principles in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Mesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Despite briefly toying with the name \"rational Mesmerism\", Braid ultimately chose to emphasise the unique aspects of his approach, carrying out informal experiments throughout his career in order to refute practices that invoked supernatural forces and demonstrating instead the role of ordinary physiological and psychological processes such as suggestion and focused attention in producing the observed effects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Braid worked very closely with his friend and ally the eminent physiologist Professor William Benjamin Carpenter, an early neuro-psychologist who introduced the \"ideo-motor reflex\" theory of suggestion. Carpenter had observed instances of expectation and imagination apparently influencing involuntary muscle movement. A classic example of the ideo-motor principle in action is the so-called \"Chevreul pendulum\" (named after Michel Eugène Chevreul). Chevreul claimed that divinatory pendulae were made to swing by unconscious muscle movements brought about by focused concentration alone.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Braid soon assimilated Carpenter's observations into his own theory, realising that the effect of focusing attention was to enhance the ideo-motor reflex response. Braid extended Carpenter's theory to encompass the influence of the mind upon the body more generally, beyond the muscular system, and therefore referred to the \"ideo-dynamic\" response and coined the term \"psycho-physiology\" to refer to the study of general mind/body interaction.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In his later works, Braid reserved the term \"hypnotism\" for cases in which subjects entered a state of amnesia resembling sleep. For other cases, he spoke of a \"mono-ideodynamic\" principle to emphasise that the eye-fixation induction technique worked by narrowing the subject's attention to a single idea or train of thought (\"monoideism\"), which amplified the effect of the consequent \"dominant idea\" upon the subject's body by means of the ideo-dynamic principle.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "For several decades Braid's work became more influential abroad than in his own country, except for a handful of followers, most notably Dr. John Milne Bramwell. The eminent neurologist Dr. George Miller Beard took Braid's theories to America. Meanwhile, his works were translated into German by William Thierry Preyer, Professor of Physiology at Jena University. The psychiatrist Albert Moll subsequently continued German research, publishing Hypnotism in 1889. France became the focal point for the study of Braid's ideas after the eminent neurologist Dr. Étienne Eugène Azam translated Braid's last manuscript (On Hypnotism, 1860) into French and presented Braid's research to the French Academy of Sciences. At the request of Azam, Paul Broca, and others, the French Academy of Science, which had investigated Mesmerism in 1784, examined Braid's writings shortly after his death.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Azam's enthusiasm for hypnotism influenced Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, a country doctor. Hippolyte Bernheim discovered Liébeault's enormously popular group hypnotherapy clinic and subsequently became an influential hypnotist. The study of hypnotism subsequently revolved around the fierce debate between Bernheim and Jean-Martin Charcot, the two most influential figures in late 19th-century hypnotism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Charcot operated a clinic at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (thus, known as the \"Paris School\" or the \"Salpêtrière School\"), while Bernheim had a clinic in Nancy (known as the \"Nancy School\"). Charcot, who was influenced more by the Mesmerists, argued that hypnotism was an abnormal state of nervous functioning found only in certain hysterical women. He claimed that it manifested in a series of physical reactions that could be divided into distinct stages. Bernheim argued that anyone could be hypnotised, that it was an extension of normal psychological functioning, and that its effects were due to suggestion. After decades of debate, Bernheim's view dominated. Charcot's theory is now just a historical curiosity.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Pierre Janet (1859–1947) reported studies on a hypnotic subject in 1882. Charcot subsequently appointed him director of the psychological laboratory at the Salpêtrière in 1889, after Janet had completed his PhD, which dealt with psychological automatism. In 1898, Janet was appointed psychology lecturer at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he became chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France. Janet reconciled elements of his views with those of Bernheim and his followers, developing his own sophisticated hypnotic psychotherapy based upon the concept of psychological dissociation, which, at the turn of the century, rivalled Freud's attempt to provide a more comprehensive theory of psychotherapy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, studied hypnotism at the Paris School and briefly visited the Nancy School.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "At first, Freud was an enthusiastic proponent of hypnotherapy. He \"initially hypnotised patients and pressed on their foreheads to help them concentrate while attempting to recover (supposedly) repressed memories\", and he soon began to emphasise hypnotic regression and ab reaction (catharsis) as therapeutic methods. He wrote a favorable encyclopedia article on hypnotism, translated one of Bernheim's works into German, and published an influential series of case studies with his colleague Joseph Breuer entitled Studies on Hysteria (1895). This became the founding text of the subsequent tradition known as \"hypno-analysis\" or \"regression hypnotherapy\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "However, Freud gradually abandoned hypnotism in favour of psychoanalysis, emphasising free association and interpretation of the unconscious. Struggling with the great expense of time that psychoanalysis required, Freud later suggested that it might be combined with hypnotic suggestion to hasten the outcome of treatment, but that this would probably weaken the outcome: \"It is very probable, too, that the application of our therapy to numbers will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis plentifully with the copper of direct [hypnotic] suggestion.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Only a handful of Freud's followers, however, were sufficiently qualified in hypnosis to attempt the synthesis. Their work had a limited influence on the hypno-therapeutic approaches now known variously as \"hypnotic regression\", \"hypnotic progression\", and \"hypnoanalysis\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Émile Coué (1857–1926) assisted Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault for around two years at Nancy. After practising for several months employing the \"hypnosis\" of Liébeault and Bernheim's Nancy School, he abandoned their approach altogether. Later, Coué developed a new approach (c.1901) based on Braid-style \"hypnotism\", direct hypnotic suggestion, and ego-strengthening which eventually became known as La méthode Coué. According to Charles Baudouin, Coué founded what became known as the New Nancy School, a loose collaboration of practitioners who taught and promoted his views. Coué's method did not emphasise \"sleep\" or deep relaxation, but instead focused upon autosuggestion involving a specific series of suggestion tests. Although Coué argued that he was no longer using hypnosis, followers such as Charles Baudouin viewed his approach as a form of light self-hypnosis. Coué's method became a renowned self-help and psychotherapy technique, which contrasted with psychoanalysis and prefigured self-hypnosis and cognitive therapy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The next major development came from behavioural psychology in American university research. Clark L. Hull (1884–1952), an eminent American psychologist, published the first major compilation of laboratory studies on hypnosis, Hypnosis & Suggestibility (1933), in which he proved that hypnosis and sleep had nothing in common. Hull published many quantitative findings from hypnosis and suggestion experiments and encouraged research by mainstream psychologists. Hull's behavioural psychology interpretation of hypnosis, emphasising conditioned reflexes, rivalled the Freudian psycho-dynamic interpretation which emphasised unconscious transference.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Although Dave Elman (1900–1967) was a noted radio host, comedian, and songwriter, he also made a name as a hypnotist. He led many courses for physicians, and in 1964 wrote the book Findings in Hypnosis, later to be retitled Hypnotherapy (published by Westwood Publishing). Perhaps the most well-known aspect of Elman's legacy is his method of induction, which was originally fashioned for speed work and later adapted for the use of medical professionals.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Milton Erickson (1901–1980), the founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association, was one of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists. He wrote several books and journal articles on the subject. During the 1960s, Erickson popularised a new branch of hypnotherapy, known as Ericksonian therapy, characterised primarily by indirect suggestion, \"metaphor\" (actually analogies), confusion techniques, and double binds in place of formal hypnotic inductions. However, the difference between Erickson's methods and traditional hypnotism led contemporaries such as André Weitzenhoffer to question whether he was practising \"hypnosis\" at all, and his approach remains in question.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Erickson had no hesitation in presenting any suggested effect as being \"hypnosis\", whether or not the subject was in a hypnotic state. In fact, he was not hesitant in passing off behaviour that was dubiously hypnotic as being hypnotic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "But during numerous witnessed and recorded encounters in clinical, experimental, and academic settings Erickson was able to evoke examples of classic hypnotic phenomena such as positive and negative hallucinations, anesthesia, analgesia (in childbirth and even terminal cancer patients), catalepsy, regression to provable events in subjects' early lives and even into infantile reflexology. Erickson stated in his own writings that there was no correlation between hypnotic depth and therapeutic success and that the quality of the applied psychotherapy outweighed the need for deep hypnosis in many cases. Hypnotic depth was to be pursued for research purposes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In the latter half of the 20th century, two factors contributed to the development of the cognitive-behavioural approach to hypnosis:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Although cognitive-behavioural theories of hypnosis must be distinguished from cognitive-behavioural approaches to hypnotherapy, they share similar concepts, terminology, and assumptions and have been integrated by influential researchers and clinicians such as Irving Kirsch, Steven Jay Lynn, and others.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "At the outset of cognitive behavioural therapy during the 1950s, hypnosis was used by early behaviour therapists such as Joseph Wolpe and also by early cognitive therapists such as Albert Ellis. Barber, Spanos, and Chaves introduced the term \"cognitive-behavioural\" to describe their \"nonstate\" theory of hypnosis in Hypnosis, imagination, and human potentialities. However, Clark L. Hull had introduced a behavioural psychology as far back as 1933, which in turn was preceded by Ivan Pavlov. Indeed, the earliest theories and practices of hypnotism, even those of Braid, resemble the cognitive-behavioural orientation in some respects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "A person in a state of hypnosis has focused attention, and has increased suggestibility.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The hypnotized individual appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist and typically responds in an uncritical, automatic fashion while ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out by the hypnotist. In a hypnotic state an individual tends to see, feel, smell, and otherwise perceive in accordance with the hypnotist's suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the actual stimuli present in the environment. The effects of hypnosis are not limited to sensory change; even the subject's memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended (post-hypnotically) into the subject's subsequent waking activity.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "It could be said that hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect. For example, in 1994, Irving Kirsch characterized hypnosis as a \"non-deceptive placebo\", i.e., a method that openly makes use of suggestion and employs methods to amplify its effects.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "A definition of hypnosis, derived from academic psychology, was provided in 2005, when the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, Division 30 of the American Psychological Association (APA), published the following formal definition:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Hypnosis typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which the subject is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. The hypnotic induction is an extended initial suggestion for using one's imagination, and may contain further elaborations of the introduction. A hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior. Persons can also learn self-hypnosis, which is the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one's own. If the subject responds to hypnotic suggestions, it is generally inferred that hypnosis has been induced. Many believe that hypnotic responses and experiences are characteristic of a hypnotic state. While some think that it is not necessary to use the word \"hypnosis\" as part of the hypnotic induction, others view it as essential.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Michael Nash provides a list of eight definitions of hypnosis by different authors, in addition to his own view that hypnosis is \"a special case of psychological regression\":",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell (the originators of the human givens approach) define hypnosis as \"any artificial way of accessing the REM state, the same brain state in which dreaming occurs\" and suggest that this definition, when properly understood, resolves \"many of the mysteries and controversies surrounding hypnosis\". They see the REM state as being vitally important for life itself, for programming in our instinctive knowledge initially (after Dement and Jouvet) and then for adding to this throughout life. They attempt to explain this by asserting that, in a sense, all learning is post-hypnotic, which they say explains why the number of ways people can be put into a hypnotic state are so varied: according to them, anything that focuses a person's attention, inward or outward, puts them into a trance.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Hypnosis is normally preceded by a \"hypnotic induction\" technique. Traditionally, this was interpreted as a method of putting the subject into a \"hypnotic trance\"; however, subsequent \"nonstate\" theorists have viewed it differently, seeing it as a means of heightening client expectation, defining their role, focusing attention, etc. The induction techniques and methods are dependent on the depth of hypnotic trance level and for each stage of trance, the number of which in some sources ranges from 30 stages to 50 stages, there are different types of inductions. There are several different induction techniques. One of the most influential methods was Braid's \"eye-fixation\" technique, also known as \"Braidism\". Many variations of the eye-fixation approach exist, including the induction used in the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), the most widely used research tool in the field of hypnotism. Braid's original description of his induction is as follows:",
"title": "Induction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Take any bright object (e.g. a lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object. It will be observed, that owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted: They will shortly begin to dilate, and, after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a wavy motion, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object toward the eyes, most probably the eyelids will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion. If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin anew, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried towards the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed, in the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes. In general, it will be found, that the eyelids close with a vibratory motion, or become spasmodically closed.",
"title": "Induction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Braid later acknowledged that the hypnotic induction technique was not necessary in every case, and subsequent researchers have generally found that on average it contributes less than previously expected to the effect of hypnotic suggestions. Variations and alternatives to the original hypnotic induction techniques were subsequently developed. However, this method is still considered authoritative. In 1941, Robert White wrote: \"It can be safely stated that nine out of ten hypnotic techniques call for reclining posture, muscular relaxation, and optical fixation followed by eye closure.\"",
"title": "Induction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "When James Braid first described hypnotism, he did not use the term \"suggestion\" but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea. Braid's main therapeutic strategy involved stimulating or reducing physiological functioning in different regions of the body. In his later works, however, Braid placed increasing emphasis upon the use of a variety of different verbal and non-verbal forms of suggestion, including the use of \"waking suggestion\" and self-hypnosis. Subsequently, Hippolyte Bernheim shifted the emphasis from the physical state of hypnosis on to the psychological process of verbal suggestion:",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "I define hypnotism as the induction of a peculiar psychical [i.e., mental] condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion. Often, it is true, the [hypnotic] sleep that may be induced facilitates suggestion, but it is not the necessary preliminary. It is suggestion that rules hypnotism.",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Bernheim's conception of the primacy of verbal suggestion in hypnotism dominated the subject throughout the 20th century, leading some authorities to declare him the father of modern hypnotism.",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Contemporary hypnotism uses a variety of suggestion forms including direct verbal suggestions, \"indirect\" verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation. A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered \"permissively\" and those delivered in a more \"authoritarian\" manner. Harvard hypnotherapist Deirdre Barrett writes that most modern research suggestions are designed to bring about immediate responses, whereas hypnotherapeutic suggestions are usually post-hypnotic ones that are intended to trigger responses affecting behaviour for periods ranging from days to a lifetime in duration. The hypnotherapeutic ones are often repeated in multiple sessions before they achieve peak effectiveness.",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Some hypnotists view suggestion as a form of communication that is directed primarily to the subject's conscious mind, whereas others view it as a means of communicating with the \"unconscious\" or \"subconscious\" mind. These concepts were introduced into hypnotism at the end of the 19th century by Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory describes conscious thoughts as being at the surface of the mind and unconscious processes as being deeper in the mind. Braid, Bernheim, and other Victorian pioneers of hypnotism did not refer to the unconscious mind but saw hypnotic suggestions as being addressed to the subject's conscious mind. Indeed, Braid actually defines hypnotism as focused (conscious) attention upon a dominant idea (or suggestion). Different views regarding the nature of the mind have led to different conceptions of suggestion. Hypnotists who believe that responses are mediated primarily by an \"unconscious mind\", like Milton Erickson, make use of indirect suggestions such as metaphors or stories whose intended meaning may be concealed from the subject's conscious mind. The concept of subliminal suggestion depends upon this view of the mind. By contrast, hypnotists who believe that responses to suggestion are primarily mediated by the conscious mind, such as Theodore Barber and Nicholas Spanos, have tended to make more use of direct verbal suggestions and instructions.",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The first neuropsychological theory of hypnotic suggestion was introduced early by James Braid who adopted his friend and colleague William Carpenter's theory of the ideo-motor reflex response to account for the phenomenon of hypnotism. Carpenter had observed from close examination of everyday experience that, under certain circumstances, the mere idea of a muscular movement could be sufficient to produce a reflexive, or automatic, contraction or movement of the muscles involved, albeit in a very small degree. Braid extended Carpenter's theory to encompass the observation that a wide variety of bodily responses besides muscular movement can be thus affected, for example, the idea of sucking a lemon can automatically stimulate salivation, a secretory response. Braid, therefore, adopted the term \"ideo-dynamic\", meaning \"by the power of an idea\", to explain a broad range of \"psycho-physiological\" (mind–body) phenomena. Braid coined the term \"mono-ideodynamic\" to refer to the theory that hypnotism operates by concentrating attention on a single idea in order to amplify the ideo-dynamic reflex response. Variations of the basic ideo-motor, or ideo-dynamic, theory of suggestion have continued to exercise considerable influence over subsequent theories of hypnosis, including those of Clark L. Hull, Hans Eysenck, and Ernest Rossi. In Victorian psychology the word \"idea\" encompasses any mental representation, including mental imagery, memories, etc.",
"title": "Suggestion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Braid made a rough distinction between different stages of hypnosis, which he termed the first and second conscious stage of hypnotism; he later replaced this with a distinction between \"sub-hypnotic\", \"full hypnotic\", and \"hypnotic coma\" stages. Jean-Martin Charcot made a similar distinction between stages which he named somnambulism, lethargy, and catalepsy. However, Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim introduced more complex hypnotic \"depth\" scales based on a combination of behavioural, physiological, and subjective responses, some of which were due to direct suggestion and some of which were not. In the first few decades of the 20th century, these early clinical \"depth\" scales were superseded by more sophisticated \"hypnotic susceptibility\" scales based on experimental research. The most influential were the Davis–Husband and Friedlander–Sarbin scales developed in the 1930s. André Weitzenhoffer and Ernest R. Hilgard developed the Stanford Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility in 1959, consisting of 12 suggestion test items following a standardised hypnotic eye-fixation induction script, and this has become one of the most widely referenced research tools in the field of hypnosis. Soon after, in 1962, Ronald Shor and Emily Carota Orne developed a similar group scale called the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS).",
"title": "Susceptibility"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Whereas the older \"depth scales\" tried to infer the level of \"hypnotic trance\" from supposed observable signs such as spontaneous amnesia, most subsequent scales have measured the degree of observed or self-evaluated responsiveness to specific suggestion tests such as direct suggestions of arm rigidity (catalepsy). The Stanford, Harvard, HIP, and most other susceptibility scales convert numbers into an assessment of a person's susceptibility as \"high\", \"medium\", or \"low\". Approximately 80% of the population are medium, 10% are high, and 10% are low. There is some controversy as to whether this is distributed on a \"normal\" bell-shaped curve or whether it is bi-modal with a small \"blip\" of people at the high end. Hypnotisability Scores are highly stable over a person's lifetime. Research by Deirdre Barrett has found that there are two distinct types of highly susceptible subjects, which she terms fantasisers and dissociaters. Fantasisers score high on absorption scales, find it easy to block out real-world stimuli without hypnosis, spend much time daydreaming, report imaginary companions as a child, and grew up with parents who encouraged imaginary play. Dissociaters often have a history of childhood abuse or other trauma, learned to escape into numbness, and to forget unpleasant events. Their association to \"daydreaming\" was often going blank rather than creating vividly recalled fantasies. Both score equally high on formal scales of hypnotic susceptibility.",
"title": "Susceptibility"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Individuals with dissociative identity disorder have the highest hypnotisability of any clinical group, followed by those with post-traumatic stress disorder.",
"title": "Susceptibility"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "There are numerous applications for hypnosis across multiple fields of interest, including medical/psychotherapeutic uses, military uses, self-improvement, and entertainment. The American Medical Association currently has no official stance on the medical use of hypnosis.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Hypnosis has been used as a supplemental approach to cognitive behavioral therapy since as early as 1949. Hypnosis was defined in relation to classical conditioning; where the words of the therapist were the stimuli and the hypnosis would be the conditioned response. Some traditional cognitive behavioral therapy methods were based in classical conditioning. It would include inducing a relaxed state and introducing a feared stimulus. One way of inducing the relaxed state was through hypnosis.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Hypnotism has also been used in forensics, sports, education, physical therapy, and rehabilitation. Hypnotism has also been employed by artists for creative purposes, most notably the surrealist circle of André Breton who employed hypnosis, automatic writing, and sketches for creative purposes. Hypnotic methods have been used to re-experience drug states and mystical experiences. Self-hypnosis is popularly used to quit smoking, alleviate stress and anxiety, promote weight loss, and induce sleep hypnosis. Stage hypnosis can persuade people to perform unusual public feats.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Some people have drawn analogies between certain aspects of hypnotism and areas such as crowd psychology, religious hysteria, and ritual trances in preliterate tribal cultures.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Hypnotherapy is a use of hypnosis in psychotherapy. It is used by licensed physicians, psychologists, and others. Physicians and psychologists may use hypnosis to treat depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, compulsive gambling, phobias and post-traumatic stress, while certified hypnotherapists who are not physicians or psychologists often treat smoking and weight management. Hypnotherapy was historically used in psychiatric and legal settings to enhance the recall of repressed or degraded memories, but this application of the technique has declined as scientific evidence accumulated that hypnotherapy can increase confidence in false memories.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Hypnotherapy is viewed as a helpful adjunct by proponents, having additive effects when treating psychological disorders, such as these, along with scientifically proven cognitive therapies. The effectiveness of hypnotherapy has not yet been accurately assessed, and, due to the lack of evidence indicating any level of efficiency, it is regarded as a type of alternative medicine by numerous reputable medical organisations, such as the National Health Service.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Preliminary research has expressed brief hypnosis interventions as possibly being a useful tool for managing painful HIV-DSP because of its history of usefulness in pain management, its long-term effectiveness of brief interventions, the ability to teach self-hypnosis to patients, the cost-effectiveness of the intervention, and the advantage of using such an intervention as opposed to the use of pharmaceutical drugs.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Modern hypnotherapy has been used, with varying success, in a variety of forms, such as:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In a January 2001 article in Psychology Today, Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett wrote:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "A hypnotic trance is not therapeutic in and of itself, but specific suggestions and images fed to clients in a trance can profoundly alter their behavior. As they rehearse the new ways they want to think and feel, they lay the groundwork for changes in their future actions...",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Barrett described specific ways this is operationalised for habit change and amelioration of phobias. In her 1998 book of hypnotherapy case studies, she reviews the clinical research on hypnosis with dissociative disorders, smoking cessation, and insomnia, and describes successful treatments of these complaints.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In a July 2001 article for Scientific American titled \"The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis\", Michael Nash wrote that, \"using hypnosis, scientists have temporarily created hallucinations, compulsions, certain types of memory loss, false memories, and delusions in the laboratory so that these phenomena can be studied in a controlled environment.\"",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "There is evidence supporting the use of hypnotherapy in the treatment of menopause related symptoms, including hot flashes. The North American Menopause Society recommends hypnotherapy for the nonhormonal management of menopause-associated vasomotor symptoms, giving it the highest level of evidence.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Hypnotherapy has been studied for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Hypnosis for IBS has received moderate support in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance published for UK health services. It has been used as an aid or alternative to chemical anesthesia, and it has been studied as a way to soothe skin ailments.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "A number of studies show that hypnosis can reduce the pain experienced during burn-wound debridement, bone marrow aspirations, and childbirth. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found that hypnosis relieved the pain of 75% of 933 subjects participating in 27 different experiments.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Hypnosis is effective in decreasing the fear of cancer treatment reducing pain from and coping with cancer and other chronic conditions. Nausea and other symptoms related to incurable diseases may also be managed with hypnosis. Some practitioners have claimed hypnosis might help boost the immune system of people with cancer. However, according to the American Cancer Society, \"available scientific evidence does not support the idea that hypnosis can influence the development or progression of cancer.\"",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Hypnosis has been used as a pain relieving technique during dental surgery, and related pain management regimens as well. Researchers like Jerjes and his team have reported that hypnosis can help even those patients who have acute to severe orodental pain. Additionally, Meyerson and Uziel have suggested that hypnotic methods have been found to be highly fruitful for alleviating anxiety in patients with severe dental phobia.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "For some psychologists who uphold the altered state theory of hypnosis, pain relief in response to hypnosis is said to be the result of the brain's dual-processing functionality. This effect is obtained either through the process of selective attention or dissociation, in which both theories involve the presence of activity in pain receptive regions of the brain, and a difference in the processing of the stimuli by the hypnotised subject.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The American Psychological Association published a study comparing the effects of hypnosis, ordinary suggestion, and placebo in reducing pain. The study found that highly suggestible individuals experienced a greater reduction in pain from hypnosis compared with placebo, whereas less suggestible subjects experienced no pain reduction from hypnosis when compared with placebo. Ordinary non-hypnotic suggestion also caused reduction in pain compared to placebo, but was able to reduce pain in a wider range of subjects (both high and low suggestible) than hypnosis. The results showed that it is primarily the subject's responsiveness to suggestion, whether within the context of hypnosis or not, that is the main determinant of causing reduction in pain.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The success rate for habit control is varied. A meta-study researching hypnosis as a quit-smoking tool found it had a 20 to 30 percent success rate, while a 2007 study of patients hospitalised for cardiac and pulmonary ailments found that smokers who used hypnosis to quit smoking doubled their chances of success. In 2019, a Cochrane review was unable to find evidence of benefit of hypnosis in smoking cessation, and suggested if there is, it is small at best.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Hypnosis may be useful as an adjunct therapy for weight loss. A 1996 meta-analysis studying hypnosis combined with cognitive behavioural therapy found that people using both treatments lost more weight than people using cognitive behavioural therapy alone. The virtual gastric band procedure mixes hypnosis with hypnopedia. The hypnosis instructs the stomach that it is smaller than it really is, and hypnopedia reinforces alimentary habits. A 2016 pilot study found that there was no significant difference in effectiveness between VGB hypnotherapy and relaxation hypnotherapy.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "American psychiatric nurses, in most medical facilities, are allowed to administer hypnosis to patients in order to relieve symptoms such as anxiety, arousal, negative behaviours, uncontrollable behaviour, and to improve self-esteem and confidence. This is permitted only when they have been completely trained about their clinical side effects and while under supervision when administering it.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The use of hypnosis to exhume information thought to be buried within the mind in the investigative process and as evidence in court became increasingly popular from the 1950s to the early 1980s with its use being debated into the 1990s when its popular use mostly diminished. Forensic hypnosis's uses are hindered by concerns with its reliability and accuracy. Controversy surrounds the use of hypnotherapy to retrieve memories, especially those from early childhood or (supposed) past-lives. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association caution against recovered-memory therapy in cases of alleged childhood trauma, stating that \"it is impossible, without corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.\" Past life regression, meanwhile, is often viewed with skepticism.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "A 2006 declassified 1966 document obtained by the US Freedom of Information Act archive shows that hypnosis was investigated for military applications. The full paper explores the potentials of operational uses. The overall conclusion of the study was that there was no evidence that hypnosis could be used for military applications, and no clear evidence whether \"hypnosis\" is a definable phenomenon outside ordinary suggestion, motivation, and subject expectancy. According to the document:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "The use of hypnosis in intelligence would present certain technical problems not encountered in the clinic or laboratory. To obtain compliance from a resistant source, for example, it would be necessary to hypnotise the source under essentially hostile circumstances. There is no good evidence, clinical or experimental, that this can be done.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Furthermore, the document states that:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "It would be difficult to find an area of scientific interest more beset by divided professional opinion and contradictory experimental evidence... No one can say whether hypnosis is a qualitatively unique state with some physiological and conditioned response components or only a form of suggestion induced by high motivation and a positive relationship between hypnotist and subject... T. X. Barber has produced \"hypnotic deafness\" and \"hypnotic blindness\", analgesia and other responses seen in hypnosis—all without hypnotising anyone... Orne has shown that unhypnotised persons can be motivated to equal and surpass the supposed superhuman physical feats seen in hypnosis.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "The study concluded that there are no reliable accounts of its effective use by an intelligence service in history.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Research into hypnosis in military applications is further verified by the Project MKUltra experiments, also conducted by the CIA. According to Congressional testimony, the CIA experimented with utilising LSD and hypnosis for mind control. Many of these programs were done domestically and on participants who were not informed of the study's purposes or that they would be given drugs.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Self-hypnosis happens when a person hypnotises oneself, commonly involving the use of autosuggestion. The technique is often used to increase motivation for a diet, to quit smoking, or to reduce stress. People who practise self-hypnosis sometimes require assistance; some people use devices known as mind machines to assist in the process, whereas others use hypnotic recordings.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Self-hypnosis is claimed to help with stage fright, relaxation, and physical well-being.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Stage hypnosis is a form of entertainment, traditionally employed in a club or theatre before an audience. Due to stage hypnotists' showmanship, many people believe that hypnosis is a form of mind control. Stage hypnotists typically attempt to hypnotise the entire audience and then select individuals who are \"under\" to come up on stage and perform embarrassing acts, while the audience watches. However, the effects of stage hypnosis are probably due to a combination of psychological factors, participant selection, suggestibility, physical manipulation, stagecraft, and trickery. The desire to be the centre of attention, having an excuse to violate their own fear suppressors, and the pressure to please are thought to convince subjects to \"play along\". Books by stage hypnotists sometimes explicitly describe the use of deception in their acts; for example, Ormond McGill's New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnosis describes an entire \"fake hypnosis\" act that depends upon the use of private whispers throughout.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The idea of music as hypnosis developed from the work of Franz Mesmer. Instruments such as pianos, violins, harps and, especially, the glass harmonica often featured in Mesmer's treatments; and were considered to contribute to Mesmer's success.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Hypnotic music became an important part in the development of a 'physiological psychology' that regarded the hypnotic state as an 'automatic' phenomenon that links to physical reflex. In their experiments with sound hypnosis, Jean-Martin Charcot used gongs and tuning forks, and Ivan Pavlov used bells. The intention behind their experiments was to prove that physiological response to sound could be automatic, bypassing the conscious mind.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "In the 1980s and 1990s, a moral panic took place in the US fearing Satanic ritual abuse. As part of this, certain books such as The Devil's Disciples claimed that some bands, particularly in the musical genre of heavy metal, brainwashed American teenagers with subliminal messages to lure them into the worship of the devil, sexual immorality, murder, and especially suicide.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Various people have been suspected of or convicted for hypnosis-related crimes, including robbery and sexual abuse.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "In 1951, Palle Hardrup shot and killed two people during a botched robbery in Copenhagen - see Hypnosis murders. Hardrup claimed that his friend and former cellmate Bjørn Schouw Nielsen had hypnotised him to commit the robbery, inadvertently causing the deaths. Both were sentenced to jail time.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "In 2011, a Russian \"evil hypnotist\" was suspected of tricking customers in banks around Stavropol into giving away thousands of pounds' worth of money. According to the local police, he would approach them and make them withdraw all of the money from their bank accounts, which they would then freely give to the man. A similar incident was reported in London in 2014, where a video seemingly showed a robber hypnotising a shopkeeper before robbing him. The victim did nothing to stop the robber from looting his pockets and taking his cash, only calling out the thief when he was already getting away.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In 2013, the then-40-year-old amateur hypnotist Timothy Porter attempted to sexually abuse his female weight-loss client. She reported awaking from a trance and finding him behind her with his pants down, telling her to touch herself. He was subsequently called to court and included on the sex offender list. In 2015, Gary Naraido, then 52, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for several hypnosis-related sexual abuse charges. Besides the primary charge by a 22-year-old woman who he sexually abused in a hotel under the guise of a free therapy session, he also admitted to having sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. In December 2018, a Brazilian medium named João Teixeira de Faria (also known as \"João de Deus\"), famous for performing Spiritual Surgeries through hypnosis techniques, was accused of sexual abuse by 12 women. In 2016 an Ohio lawyer was sentenced to 12 years of prison after hypnotizing a dozen different clients into committing sexual acts under the guise of a mindfulness exercise.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "The central theoretical disagreement regarding hypnosis is known as the \"state versus nonstate\" debate. When Braid introduced the concept of hypnotism, he equivocated over the nature of the \"state\", sometimes describing it as a specific sleep-like neurological state comparable to animal hibernation or yogic meditation, while at other times he emphasised that hypnotism encompasses a number of different stages or states that are an extension of ordinary psychological and physiological processes. Overall, Braid appears to have moved from a more \"special state\" understanding of hypnotism toward a more complex \"nonstate\" orientation.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "State theorists interpret the effects of hypnotism as due primarily to a specific, abnormal, and uniform psychological or physiological state of some description, often referred to as \"hypnotic trance\" or an \"altered state of consciousness\". Nonstate theorists rejected the idea of hypnotic trance and interpret the effects of hypnotism as due to a combination of multiple task-specific factors derived from normal cognitive, behavioural, and social psychology, such as social role-perception and favorable motivation (Sarbin), active imagination and positive cognitive set (Barber), response expectancy (Kirsch), and the active use of task-specific subjective strategies (Spanos). The personality psychologist Robert White is often cited as providing one of the first nonstate definitions of hypnosis in a 1941 article:",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Hypnotic behaviour is meaningful, goal-directed striving, its most general goal being to behave like a hypnotised person as this is continuously defined by the operator and understood by the client.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Put simply, it is often claimed that, whereas the older \"special state\" interpretation emphasises the difference between hypnosis and ordinary psychological processes, the \"nonstate\" interpretation emphasises their similarity.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Comparisons between hypnotised and non-hypnotised subjects suggest that, if a \"hypnotic trance\" does exist, it only accounts for a small proportion of the effects attributed to hypnotic suggestion, most of which can be replicated without hypnotic induction.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Braid can be taken to imply, in later writings, that hypnosis is largely a state of heightened suggestibility induced by expectation and focused attention. In particular, Hippolyte Bernheim became known as the leading proponent of the \"suggestion theory\" of hypnosis, at one point going so far as to declare that there is no hypnotic state, only heightened suggestibility. There is a general consensus that heightened suggestibility is an essential characteristic of hypnosis. In 1933, Clark L. Hull wrote:",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "If a subject after submitting to the hypnotic procedure shows no genuine increase in susceptibility to any suggestions whatever, there seems no point in calling him hypnotised, regardless of how fully and readily he may respond to suggestions of lid-closure and other superficial sleeping behaviour.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Ivan Pavlov stated that hypnotic suggestion provided the best example of a conditioned reflex response in human beings; i.e., that responses to suggestions were learned associations triggered by the words used:",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Speech, on account of the whole preceding life of the adult, is connected up with all the internal and external stimuli which can reach the cortex, signaling all of them and replacing all of them, and therefore it can call forth all those reactions of the organism which are normally determined by the actual stimuli themselves. We can, therefore, regard \"suggestion\" as the most simple form of a typical reflex in man.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "He also believed that hypnosis was a \"partial sleep\", meaning that a generalised inhibition of cortical functioning could be encouraged to spread throughout regions of the brain. He observed that the various degrees of hypnosis did not significantly differ physiologically from the waking state and hypnosis depended on insignificant changes of environmental stimuli. Pavlov also suggested that lower-brain-stem mechanisms were involved in hypnotic conditioning.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Pavlov's ideas combined with those of his rival Vladimir Bekhterev and became the basis of hypnotic psychotherapy in the Soviet Union, as documented in the writings of his follower K.I. Platonov. Soviet theories of hypnotism subsequently influenced the writings of Western behaviourally oriented hypnotherapists such as Andrew Salter.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Changes in brain activity have been found in some studies of highly responsive hypnotic subjects. These changes vary depending upon the type of suggestions being given. The state of light to medium hypnosis, where the body undergoes physical and mental relaxation, is associated with a pattern mostly of alpha waves. However, what these results indicate is unclear. They may indicate that suggestions genuinely produce changes in perception or experience that are not simply a result of imagination. However, in normal circumstances without hypnosis, the brain regions associated with motion detection are activated both when motion is seen and when motion is imagined, without any changes in the subjects' perception or experience. This may therefore indicate that highly suggestible hypnotic subjects are simply activating to a greater extent the areas of the brain used in imagination, without real perceptual changes. It is, however, premature to claim that hypnosis and meditation are mediated by similar brain systems and neural mechanisms.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Another study has demonstrated that a colour hallucination suggestion given to subjects in hypnosis activated colour-processing regions of the occipital cortex. A 2004 review of research examining the EEG laboratory work in this area concludes:",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Hypnosis is not a unitary state and therefore should show different patterns of EEG activity depending upon the task being experienced. In our evaluation of the literature, enhanced theta is observed during hypnosis when there is task performance or concentrative hypnosis, but not when the highly hypnotizable individuals are passively relaxed, somewhat sleepy and/or more diffuse in their attention.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "Studies have shown an association of hypnosis with stronger theta-frequency activity as well as with changes to the gamma-frequency activity. Neuroimaging techniques have been used to investigate neural correlates of hypnosis.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The induction phase of hypnosis may also affect the activity in brain regions that control intention and process conflict. Anna Gosline claims:",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "Gruzelier and his colleagues studied brain activity using an fMRI while subjects completed a standard cognitive exercise, called the Stroop task. The team screened subjects before the study and chose 12 that were highly susceptible to hypnosis and 12 with low susceptibility. They all completed the task in the fMRI under normal conditions and then again under hypnosis. Throughout the study, both groups were consistent in their task results, achieving similar scores regardless of their mental state. During their first task session, before hypnosis, there were no significant differences in brain activity between the groups. But under hypnosis, Gruzelier found that the highly susceptible subjects showed significantly more brain activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus than the weakly susceptible subjects. This area of the brain has been shown to respond to errors and evaluate emotional outcomes. The highly susceptible group also showed much greater brain activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex than the weakly susceptible group. This is an area involved with higher level cognitive processing and behaviour.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Pierre Janet originally developed the idea of dissociation of consciousness from his work with hysterical patients. He believed that hypnosis was an example of dissociation, whereby areas of an individual's behavioural control separate from ordinary awareness. Hypnosis would remove some control from the conscious mind, and the individual would respond with autonomic, reflexive behaviour. Weitzenhoffer describes hypnosis via this theory as \"dissociation of awareness from the majority of sensory and even strictly neural events taking place.\"",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Ernest Hilgard, who developed the \"neodissociation\" theory of hypnotism, hypothesised that hypnosis causes the subjects to divide their consciousness voluntarily. One part responds to the hypnotist while the other retains awareness of reality. Hilgard made subjects take an ice water bath. None mentioned the water being cold or feeling pain. Hilgard then asked the subjects to lift their index finger if they felt pain and 70% of the subjects lifted their index finger. This showed that, even though the subjects were listening to the suggestive hypnotist, they still sensed the water's temperature.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "The main theorist who pioneered the influential role-taking theory of hypnotism was Theodore Sarbin. Sarbin argued that hypnotic responses were motivated attempts to fulfill the socially constructed roles of hypnotic subjects. This has led to the misconception that hypnotic subjects are simply \"faking\". However, Sarbin emphasised the difference between faking, in which there is little subjective identification with the role in question, and role-taking, in which the subject not only acts externally in accord with the role but also subjectively identifies with it to some degree, acting, thinking, and feeling \"as if\" they are hypnotised. Sarbin drew analogies between role-taking in hypnosis and role-taking in other areas such as method acting, mental illness, and shamanic possession, etc. This interpretation of hypnosis is particularly relevant to understanding stage hypnosis, in which there is clearly strong peer pressure to comply with a socially constructed role by performing accordingly on a theatrical stage.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "Hence, the social constructionism and role-taking theory of hypnosis suggests that individuals are enacting (as opposed to merely playing) a role and that really there is no such thing as a hypnotic trance. A socially constructed relationship is built depending on how much rapport has been established between the \"hypnotist\" and the subject (see Hawthorne effect, Pygmalion effect, and placebo effect).",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Psychologists such as Robert Baker and Graham Wagstaff claim that what we call hypnosis is actually a form of learned social behaviour, a complex hybrid of social compliance, relaxation, and suggestibility that can account for many esoteric behavioural manifestations.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "Barber, Spanos, and Chaves (1974) proposed a nonstate \"cognitive-behavioural\" theory of hypnosis, similar in some respects to Sarbin's social role-taking theory and building upon the earlier research of Barber. On this model, hypnosis is explained as an extension of ordinary psychological processes like imagination, relaxation, expectation, social compliance, etc. In particular, Barber argued that responses to hypnotic suggestions were mediated by a \"positive cognitive set\" consisting of positive expectations, attitudes, and motivation. Daniel Araoz subsequently coined the acronym \"TEAM\" to symbolise the subject's orientation to hypnosis in terms of \"trust\", \"expectation\", \"attitude\", and \"motivation\".",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Barber et al. noted that similar factors appeared to mediate the response both to hypnotism and to cognitive behavioural therapy, in particular systematic desensitisation. Hence, research and clinical practice inspired by their interpretation has led to growing interest in the relationship between hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "An approach loosely based on information theory uses a brain-as-computer model. In adaptive systems, feedback increases the signal-to-noise ratio, which may converge towards a steady state. Increasing the signal-to-noise ratio enables messages to be more clearly received. The hypnotist's object is to use techniques to reduce interference and increase the receptability of specific messages (suggestions).",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "Systems theory, in this context, may be regarded as an extension of Braid's original conceptualisation of hypnosis as involving \"the brain and nervous system generally\". Systems theory considers the nervous system's organisation into interacting subsystems. Hypnotic phenomena thus involve not only increased or decreased activity of particular subsystems, but also their interaction. A central phenomenon in this regard is that of feedback loops, which suggest a mechanism for creating hypnotic phenomena.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "There is a huge range of societies in England who train individuals in hypnosis; however, one of the longest-standing organisations is the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis (BSCAH). It origins date back to 1952 when a group of dentists set up the 'British Society of Dental Hypnosis'. Shortly after, a group of sympathetic medical practitioners merged with this fast-evolving organisation to form 'The Dental and Medical Society for the Study of Hypnosis'; and, in 1968, after various statutory amendments had taken place, the 'British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis' (BSMDH) was formed. This society always had close links with the Royal Society of Medicine and many of its members were involved in setting up a hypnosis section at this centre of medical research in London. And, in 1978, under the presidency of David Waxman, the Section of Medical and Dental Hypnosis was formed. A second society, the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis (BSECH), was also set up a year before, in 1977, and this consisted of psychologists, doctors and dentists with an interest in hypnosis theory and practice. In 2007, the two societies merged to form the 'British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis' (BSCAH). This society only trains health professionals and is interested in furthering research into clinical hypnosis.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) is unique among organisations for professionals using hypnosis because members must be licensed healthcare workers with graduate degrees. As an interdisciplinary organisation, ASCH not only provides a classroom to teach professionals how to use hypnosis as a tool in their practice, it provides professionals with a community of experts from different disciplines. The ASCH's missions statement is to provide and encourage education programs to further, in every ethical way, the knowledge, understanding, and application of hypnosis in health care; to encourage research and scientific publication in the field of hypnosis; to promote the further recognition and acceptance of hypnosis as an important tool in clinical health care and focus for scientific research; to cooperate with other professional societies that share mutual goals, ethics and interests; and to provide a professional community for those clinicians and researchers who use hypnosis in their work. The ASCH also publishes the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis.",
"title": "State vs. nonstate"
}
]
| Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion. There are competing theories explaining hypnosis and related phenomena. Altered state theories see hypnosis as an altered state of mind or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary state of consciousness. In contrast, non-state theories see hypnosis as, variously, a type of placebo effect, a redefinition of an interaction with a therapist or a form of imaginative role enactment. During hypnosis, a person is said to have heightened focus and concentration and an increased response to suggestions.
Hypnosis usually begins with a hypnotic induction involving a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. The use of hypnosis for therapeutic purposes is referred to as "hypnotherapy", while its use as a form of entertainment for an audience is known as "stage hypnosis," a form of mentalism. Hypnosis-based therapies for the management of irritable bowel syndrome and menopause are supported by evidence. Use of hypnosis for treatment of other problems has produced mixed results, such as with smoking cessation. The use of hypnosis as a form of therapy to retrieve and integrate early trauma is controversial within the scientific mainstream. Research indicates that hypnotising an individual may aid the formation of false memories, and that hypnosis "does not help people recall events more accurately". | 2002-01-10T17:56:50Z | 2023-12-27T09:51:57Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis |
14,421 | Henry Chadwick (writer) | Henry Chadwick (October 5, 1824 – April 20, 1908) was an English-American sportswriter, baseball statistician and historian, often called the "Father of Baseball" for his early reporting on and contributions to the development of the game. He edited the first baseball guide that was sold to the public. He is credited with creating box scores, as well as creating the abbreviation "K" that designates a strikeout. He is said to have created the statistics of batting average and earned run average (ERA). He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.
Chadwick was born on October 5, 1824, in Exeter, England. His grandfather, Andrew Chadwick, had been a close friend of theologian John Wesley. His father, James Chadwick, was a supporter of the French Revolution who also tutored John Dalton in music and botany. James Chadwick had served as editor of a publication known as the Western Times. Edwin Chadwick's mother had made James Chadwick a widower shortly after Edwin's birth.
Chadwick was the younger half-brother of Sir Edwin Chadwick, England's sanitary philosopher who developed environmental measures and laws designed to counteract the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Chadwick moved to Brooklyn with his family at the age of 12. Biographer Andrew Schiff writes that Henry Chadwick "was not brought up to value possessions or with an understanding of commerce and trade; rather he received an education that was drenched in moral philosophy and science." He began to write music and to teach piano and guitar.
In 1848, Chadwick married Jane Botts from Richmond, Virginia. Botts' father Alexander had been president of the Virginia State Council. She was also related to politician John Botts. Chadwick edited John Botts' work titled The Great Rebellion. Chadwick and his wife had three children, Richard Westlake Chadwick, in 1849, Susan Mary Chadwick, in 1851, and Rose Virginia Chadwick, 1853.
Chadwick became a frequent player of cricket and similar ball games such as rounders. He began covering cricket for numerous local newspapers such as the Long Island Star. He first came across organized baseball in 1856 as a cricket reporter for The New York Times, watching a match played between New York's Eagles and Gothams at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. He focused his attention as a journalist and writer on baseball after joining the New York Clipper in 1857, and was also soon hired on to provide coverage for other New York papers including the Sunday Mercury.
Chadwick was one of the prime movers in the rise of baseball to its popularity at the turn of the 20th century. A keen amateur statistician and professional writer, he helped sculpt the public perception of the game, as well as providing the basis for the records of teams' and players' achievements in the form of baseball statistics. He also served on baseball rules committees and influenced the game itself. He is sometimes referred to as "the father of baseball" because he facilitated the popularity of the sport in its early days.
Early baseball had a provision known as the "bound rule", which held that a fielder could catch a batted ball on one bounce and that it would still be recorded as an out. Chadwick was an outspoken critic of the rule for many years, stating that fielders should have to catch a ball on the fly for it to count as an out. In 1864, the bound rule was eliminated for balls hit into fair territory. The bound rule for foul balls persisted into the 1880s.
Chadwick edited The Beadle Dime Base-Ball Player, the first annual baseball guide on public sale, as well as the Spalding and Reach annual guides for a number of years and in this capacity promoted the game and influenced the infant discipline of sports journalism. In his 1861 Beadle guide, he listed totals of games played, outs, runs, home runs, and strikeouts for hitters on prominent clubs, the first database of its kind. His goal was to provide numerical evidence to prove which players helped a team to win.
In 1867 he accompanied the National Base Ball Club of Washington, D.C., on their inaugural national tour, as their official scorer. The next year, Chadwick wrote the first hardcover baseball book, The Game of Base Ball. In 1874 was instrumental in organizing a tour of England which included games of both baseball and cricket. In his role as journalist, he campaigned against the detrimental effects on the game of both alcohol and gambling.
Despite a friendship with Albert Spalding, Chadwick was scornful of the attempts to have Abner Doubleday declared the inventor of baseball. "He means well", said Chadwick, "but he don't know". Chadwick later willed his baseball library to Spalding.
Author William Cook wrote that "Chadwick was at times a bit self-aggrandizing, but his heart was always deeply rooted in looking after the best interest of the game." An 1876 Chicago Tribune article attacked Chadwick's status as the father of baseball, saying in part that Chadwick "has had enough experience to have made himself a man of respect had heaven but given him a head ... he proceeded to call himself the '"Father of the Game,' and to assume much on the strength of the title. But he found an unruly child, and one which disinherited him with rapidity and ease." Cook writes that Chadwick may have been a victim of "Western journalism", a sensationalized style of writing.
Chadwick is credited with devising the baseball box score (which he adapted from the cricket scorecard) for reporting game events. The first box score appeared in an 1859 issue of the Clipper. It was a grid with nine rows for players and nine columns for innings. The original box scores also created the often puzzling abbreviation for strikeout as "K" – "K" being the last letter of "struck" in "struck out". Chadwick assigned numbers to each defensive position for scorekeeping purposes, a system that remains in modern baseball scorekeeping.
Newspapers had previously tallied runs scored, but Chadwick's 1859 box score looked similar in structure to modern ones. Baseball researcher Bill James credits Chadwick's creation of the box score with his interest in the game, but he criticized Chadwick's omission of the walk from calculation of a player's batting average: ""What they failed to understand is that actually the batter has as much or a little more to do with when the walk occurs as the pitcher does. They ignored that element of it and that did distort the game for a lot of people." The box score was popularized in 1925 when Baseball Magazine republished Chadwick's 1859 Clipper article. Chadwick is credited with devising statistical measures such as batting average and earned run average (ERA). He felt that batting average was the best representation of a batter's offensive skills. He initially scored walks as errors charged to the pitcher. Walks did not exist in cricket (though there is a penalty run for a wide) and upon learning about them in baseball, he felt that they did not have anything to do with offensive skill. He later removed walks entirely from baseball statistics. ERA originated not in the goal of measuring a pitcher's worth but to differentiate between runs caused by batting skill (hits) and lack of fielding skill (errors). He is also noted as believing fielding range to be a superior skill to avoiding errors.
The following description of a game was written by Henry Chadwick and appeared in his Base Ball Memoranda. It is typical of his style of sports journalism, and that of his time:
A Base Ball tourney had been held in Chicago on July 4, 1867, in which the Excelsiors of that city and the Forest City Club, of Rockford, had been the leading contestants. The former had defeated the Forest City nine in two games, by the very close scores of 45–41 in one, and 28–25 in another, when the Forest Citys were invited to meet the Nationals at Chicago on July 25, a day which proved the most notable of the tour. The contest took place at Dexter Park, before a vast crowd of spectators, the majority of whom looked to see the Nationals have almost a walk-over. In the game A. G. Spalding was pitcher and Ross Barnes shortstop for the Forest City nine; these two afterwards becoming famous as star players of the Boston professional team of the early seventies. Williams was pitcher for the Nationals and Frank Norton catcher. The Nationals took the lead in the first innings by 3 to 2; but in the next two innings they added but five runs to their score, while the Forest Citys added thirteen to theirs, thereby taking the lead by a score of fifteen to eight, to the great surprise of the crowd and the delight of the Rockfords. The Nationals tried hard to recover the lost ground. The final result, however, was the success of the Forest Citys by a score of 29 to 23 in a nine innings game, twice interrupted by rain.
Late in life, Chadwick continued editing the Spalding Base Ball Guides and producing a column for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In late 1905, he wrote the editor of The New York Times to propose widening of the baseball bat to overcome the advantage that pitchers had established in the game. In his letter, Chadwick noted that some cricket experts had advocated for the narrowing of the cricket bat to bring balance to the advantage that belonged to the batter in that game.
In the winter before the 1908 baseball season, Chadwick was struck by an automobile and was bedridden for several weeks. He recovered and attended an exhibition game at the Polo Grounds the week before the season began. He caught a cold while at the game, and the illness worsened when he attended an Opening Day game at Washington Park in Brooklyn.
On April 19, Chadwick was moving furniture from the fourth floor of his apartment to the second floor when he fell unconscious. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and heart failure. He awakened briefly and asked about the game between Brooklyn and New York, but he died the next day. Henry Chadwick is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
For his contributions to the game of baseball, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1938. He was inducted in the same ceremony as Alexander Cartwright.
In 2009, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) established the Henry Chadwick Award to honor the outstanding contributions of baseball researchers. Bill James and John Thorn are among the award's recipients.
A collection of historical baseball items, which featured a letter written by Chadwick on the origins of baseball, sold at auction in 2004 for $310,500.
Chadwick was inducted to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame during 2020.
Chadwick, through the Spalding Athletic Library collection, added "The Ancient History of Base Ball" in 1867 and "Technical Terms of Base Ball" in 1897. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Henry Chadwick (October 5, 1824 – April 20, 1908) was an English-American sportswriter, baseball statistician and historian, often called the \"Father of Baseball\" for his early reporting on and contributions to the development of the game. He edited the first baseball guide that was sold to the public. He is credited with creating box scores, as well as creating the abbreviation \"K\" that designates a strikeout. He is said to have created the statistics of batting average and earned run average (ERA). He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Chadwick was born on October 5, 1824, in Exeter, England. His grandfather, Andrew Chadwick, had been a close friend of theologian John Wesley. His father, James Chadwick, was a supporter of the French Revolution who also tutored John Dalton in music and botany. James Chadwick had served as editor of a publication known as the Western Times. Edwin Chadwick's mother had made James Chadwick a widower shortly after Edwin's birth.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Chadwick was the younger half-brother of Sir Edwin Chadwick, England's sanitary philosopher who developed environmental measures and laws designed to counteract the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Chadwick moved to Brooklyn with his family at the age of 12. Biographer Andrew Schiff writes that Henry Chadwick \"was not brought up to value possessions or with an understanding of commerce and trade; rather he received an education that was drenched in moral philosophy and science.\" He began to write music and to teach piano and guitar.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1848, Chadwick married Jane Botts from Richmond, Virginia. Botts' father Alexander had been president of the Virginia State Council. She was also related to politician John Botts. Chadwick edited John Botts' work titled The Great Rebellion. Chadwick and his wife had three children, Richard Westlake Chadwick, in 1849, Susan Mary Chadwick, in 1851, and Rose Virginia Chadwick, 1853.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Chadwick became a frequent player of cricket and similar ball games such as rounders. He began covering cricket for numerous local newspapers such as the Long Island Star. He first came across organized baseball in 1856 as a cricket reporter for The New York Times, watching a match played between New York's Eagles and Gothams at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. He focused his attention as a journalist and writer on baseball after joining the New York Clipper in 1857, and was also soon hired on to provide coverage for other New York papers including the Sunday Mercury.",
"title": "Early life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Chadwick was one of the prime movers in the rise of baseball to its popularity at the turn of the 20th century. A keen amateur statistician and professional writer, he helped sculpt the public perception of the game, as well as providing the basis for the records of teams' and players' achievements in the form of baseball statistics. He also served on baseball rules committees and influenced the game itself. He is sometimes referred to as \"the father of baseball\" because he facilitated the popularity of the sport in its early days.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Early baseball had a provision known as the \"bound rule\", which held that a fielder could catch a batted ball on one bounce and that it would still be recorded as an out. Chadwick was an outspoken critic of the rule for many years, stating that fielders should have to catch a ball on the fly for it to count as an out. In 1864, the bound rule was eliminated for balls hit into fair territory. The bound rule for foul balls persisted into the 1880s.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Chadwick edited The Beadle Dime Base-Ball Player, the first annual baseball guide on public sale, as well as the Spalding and Reach annual guides for a number of years and in this capacity promoted the game and influenced the infant discipline of sports journalism. In his 1861 Beadle guide, he listed totals of games played, outs, runs, home runs, and strikeouts for hitters on prominent clubs, the first database of its kind. His goal was to provide numerical evidence to prove which players helped a team to win.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1867 he accompanied the National Base Ball Club of Washington, D.C., on their inaugural national tour, as their official scorer. The next year, Chadwick wrote the first hardcover baseball book, The Game of Base Ball. In 1874 was instrumental in organizing a tour of England which included games of both baseball and cricket. In his role as journalist, he campaigned against the detrimental effects on the game of both alcohol and gambling.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Despite a friendship with Albert Spalding, Chadwick was scornful of the attempts to have Abner Doubleday declared the inventor of baseball. \"He means well\", said Chadwick, \"but he don't know\". Chadwick later willed his baseball library to Spalding.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Author William Cook wrote that \"Chadwick was at times a bit self-aggrandizing, but his heart was always deeply rooted in looking after the best interest of the game.\" An 1876 Chicago Tribune article attacked Chadwick's status as the father of baseball, saying in part that Chadwick \"has had enough experience to have made himself a man of respect had heaven but given him a head ... he proceeded to call himself the '\"Father of the Game,' and to assume much on the strength of the title. But he found an unruly child, and one which disinherited him with rapidity and ease.\" Cook writes that Chadwick may have been a victim of \"Western journalism\", a sensationalized style of writing.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Chadwick is credited with devising the baseball box score (which he adapted from the cricket scorecard) for reporting game events. The first box score appeared in an 1859 issue of the Clipper. It was a grid with nine rows for players and nine columns for innings. The original box scores also created the often puzzling abbreviation for strikeout as \"K\" – \"K\" being the last letter of \"struck\" in \"struck out\". Chadwick assigned numbers to each defensive position for scorekeeping purposes, a system that remains in modern baseball scorekeeping.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Newspapers had previously tallied runs scored, but Chadwick's 1859 box score looked similar in structure to modern ones. Baseball researcher Bill James credits Chadwick's creation of the box score with his interest in the game, but he criticized Chadwick's omission of the walk from calculation of a player's batting average: \"\"What they failed to understand is that actually the batter has as much or a little more to do with when the walk occurs as the pitcher does. They ignored that element of it and that did distort the game for a lot of people.\" The box score was popularized in 1925 when Baseball Magazine republished Chadwick's 1859 Clipper article. Chadwick is credited with devising statistical measures such as batting average and earned run average (ERA). He felt that batting average was the best representation of a batter's offensive skills. He initially scored walks as errors charged to the pitcher. Walks did not exist in cricket (though there is a penalty run for a wide) and upon learning about them in baseball, he felt that they did not have anything to do with offensive skill. He later removed walks entirely from baseball statistics. ERA originated not in the goal of measuring a pitcher's worth but to differentiate between runs caused by batting skill (hits) and lack of fielding skill (errors). He is also noted as believing fielding range to be a superior skill to avoiding errors.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The following description of a game was written by Henry Chadwick and appeared in his Base Ball Memoranda. It is typical of his style of sports journalism, and that of his time:",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A Base Ball tourney had been held in Chicago on July 4, 1867, in which the Excelsiors of that city and the Forest City Club, of Rockford, had been the leading contestants. The former had defeated the Forest City nine in two games, by the very close scores of 45–41 in one, and 28–25 in another, when the Forest Citys were invited to meet the Nationals at Chicago on July 25, a day which proved the most notable of the tour. The contest took place at Dexter Park, before a vast crowd of spectators, the majority of whom looked to see the Nationals have almost a walk-over. In the game A. G. Spalding was pitcher and Ross Barnes shortstop for the Forest City nine; these two afterwards becoming famous as star players of the Boston professional team of the early seventies. Williams was pitcher for the Nationals and Frank Norton catcher. The Nationals took the lead in the first innings by 3 to 2; but in the next two innings they added but five runs to their score, while the Forest Citys added thirteen to theirs, thereby taking the lead by a score of fifteen to eight, to the great surprise of the crowd and the delight of the Rockfords. The Nationals tried hard to recover the lost ground. The final result, however, was the success of the Forest Citys by a score of 29 to 23 in a nine innings game, twice interrupted by rain.",
"title": "Contributions to baseball"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Late in life, Chadwick continued editing the Spalding Base Ball Guides and producing a column for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In late 1905, he wrote the editor of The New York Times to propose widening of the baseball bat to overcome the advantage that pitchers had established in the game. In his letter, Chadwick noted that some cricket experts had advocated for the narrowing of the cricket bat to bring balance to the advantage that belonged to the batter in that game.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the winter before the 1908 baseball season, Chadwick was struck by an automobile and was bedridden for several weeks. He recovered and attended an exhibition game at the Polo Grounds the week before the season began. He caught a cold while at the game, and the illness worsened when he attended an Opening Day game at Washington Park in Brooklyn.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On April 19, Chadwick was moving furniture from the fourth floor of his apartment to the second floor when he fell unconscious. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and heart failure. He awakened briefly and asked about the game between Brooklyn and New York, but he died the next day. Henry Chadwick is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.",
"title": "Later life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For his contributions to the game of baseball, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1938. He was inducted in the same ceremony as Alexander Cartwright.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 2009, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) established the Henry Chadwick Award to honor the outstanding contributions of baseball researchers. Bill James and John Thorn are among the award's recipients.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "A collection of historical baseball items, which featured a letter written by Chadwick on the origins of baseball, sold at auction in 2004 for $310,500.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Chadwick was inducted to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame during 2020.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Chadwick, through the Spalding Athletic Library collection, added \"The Ancient History of Base Ball\" in 1867 and \"Technical Terms of Base Ball\" in 1897.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
]
| Henry Chadwick was an English-American sportswriter, baseball statistician and historian, often called the "Father of Baseball" for his early reporting on and contributions to the development of the game. He edited the first baseball guide that was sold to the public. He is credited with creating box scores, as well as creating the abbreviation "K" that designates a strikeout. He is said to have created the statistics of batting average and earned run average (ERA). He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938. | 2002-01-11T01:14:57Z | 2023-12-18T00:17:24Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Chadwick_(writer) |
14,423 | Higher education | Higher education is tertiary education leading to the award of an academic degree. Higher education, which makes up a component of post-secondary, third-level, or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. It represents levels 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the 2011 version of the International Standard Classification of Education structure. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education.
The right of access to higher education is mentioned in a number of international human rights instruments. The UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 declares, in Article 13, that "higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education". In Europe, Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1950, obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education.
Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. This consists of universities, colleges and polytechnics that offer formal degrees beyond high school or secondary school education.
The International Standard Classification of Education in 1997 initially classified all tertiary education together in the 1997 version of its schema. They were referred to as level 5 and doctoral studies at level 6. In 2011, this was refined and expanded in the 2011 version of the structure. Higher education at undergraduate level, masters and doctoral level became levels 6, 7, and 8. Nondegree level tertiary education, sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education was reordered as level 4, with level 5 for some higher courses.
In the days when few pupils progressed beyond primary education or basic education, the term "higher education" was often used to refer to secondary education, which can create some confusion. This is the origin of the term high school for various schools for children between the ages of 14 and 18 (United States) or 11 and 18 (United Kingdom and Australia).
In the U.S., higher education is provided by universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, conservatories, and institutes of technology, and certain college-level institutions, including vocational schools, universities of applied sciences, trade schools, and other career-based colleges that award degrees. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education.
Higher education includes teaching, research, exacting applied work, as exists in medical schools and dental schools, and social services activities of universities.
Within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level, and beyond that, graduate-level (or postgraduate level). The latter level of education is often referred to as graduate school, especially in North America. In addition to the skills that are specific to any particular degree, potential employers in any profession are looking for evidence of critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills, teamworking skills, information literacy, ethical judgment, decision-making skills, fluency in speaking and writing, problem solving skills, and a wide knowledge of liberal arts and sciences.
The oldest known institutions of higher education are credited to Dynastic Egypt, with Pr-Anx (houses of life) built as libraries and scriptoriums, containing works on law, architecture, mathematics, and medicine, and involved in the training of "swnw" and "swnwt" (male and female doctors); extant Egyptian papyri from the 3rd millennia BC are in several collections.
In the Greek world, Plato's Academy (c. 387 - 86 BC), Aristotle's Lyceum (c. 334 - 86 BC) and other philosophical-mathematical schools became models for other establishments, particularly in Alexandria of Egypt, under the Ptolemies.
In South Asia, the city of Taxila, later the great Buddhist monastery of Nalanda (c. 427 - 1197 CE), attracted students and professors even from distant regions.
In China, the Han dynasty established chairs to teach the Five Confucean Classics, in the Grand School, Taixue (c. 3 - 1905 CE), to train cadres for the imperial administration. All these higher-learning institutions became models for other schools within their sphere of cultural influence.
In 425 CE, the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II innovated as he established the Pandidakterion, with a faculty of 31 professors, to train public servants. In the 7th and 8th centuries, "cathedral schools" were created in Western Europe. Meanwhile, the first Medresahs were founded in the Moslem empire – initially mere primary schools in the premises of major mosques, which gradually evolved toward secondary, later higher education. However high the intellectual level of these schools could be, it would be anachronistic to call them "universities". Their organization and purposes were markedly different from the corporations of students and teachers, independent from both the Church and the State, which established themselves from the 12th century in Western Europe as Universitas Studiorum.
According to UNESCO and Guinness World Records, the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco is the oldest existing continually operating higher educational institution in the world. and is occasionally referred to as the oldest university by scholars. Undoubtedly, there are older institutions of higher education, for example, the University of Ez-Zitouna in Montfleury, Tunis, was first established in 737. The University of Bologna, Italy, founded in 1088, is the world's oldest university in continuous operation, and the first university in the sense of a higher-learning and degree-awarding institute, as the word universitas was coined at its foundation.
Since World War II, developed and many developing countries have increased the participation of the age group who mostly studies higher education from the elite rate, of up to 15 per cent, to the mass rate of 16 to 50 per cent. In many developed countries, participation in higher education has continued to increase towards universal or, what Trow later called, open access, where over half of the relevant age group participate in higher education. Higher education is important to national economies, both as an industry, in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy. College educated workers have commanded a measurable wage premium and are much less likely to become unemployed than less educated workers.
In recent years, universities have been criticized for permitting or actively encouraging grade inflation. Also, the supply of graduates in many fields of study is exceeding the demand for their skills, aggravating graduate unemployment, underemployment, overqualification and educational inflation. Some commentators have suggested that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education is rapidly making certain aspects of the traditional higher education system obsolete.
A 2014 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states that by 2014, 84 percent of young people were completing upper secondary education over their lifetimes, in high-income countries. Tertiary-educated individuals were earning twice as much as median workers. In contrast to historical trends in education, young women were more likely to complete upper secondary education than young men. Additionally, access to education was expanding and growth in the number of people receiving university education was rising sharply. By 2014, close to 40 percent of people aged 25–34 (and around 25 percent of those aged 55–64), were being educated at university.
The Lisbon Recognition Convention stipulates that degrees and periods of study must be recognised in all of the Signatory Parties of the convention. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Higher education is tertiary education leading to the award of an academic degree. Higher education, which makes up a component of post-secondary, third-level, or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. It represents levels 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the 2011 version of the International Standard Classification of Education structure. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The right of access to higher education is mentioned in a number of international human rights instruments. The UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 declares, in Article 13, that \"higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education\". In Europe, Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1950, obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education.",
"title": "The right of access to higher education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. This consists of universities, colleges and polytechnics that offer formal degrees beyond high school or secondary school education.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The International Standard Classification of Education in 1997 initially classified all tertiary education together in the 1997 version of its schema. They were referred to as level 5 and doctoral studies at level 6. In 2011, this was refined and expanded in the 2011 version of the structure. Higher education at undergraduate level, masters and doctoral level became levels 6, 7, and 8. Nondegree level tertiary education, sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education was reordered as level 4, with level 5 for some higher courses.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the days when few pupils progressed beyond primary education or basic education, the term \"higher education\" was often used to refer to secondary education, which can create some confusion. This is the origin of the term high school for various schools for children between the ages of 14 and 18 (United States) or 11 and 18 (United Kingdom and Australia).",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the U.S., higher education is provided by universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, conservatories, and institutes of technology, and certain college-level institutions, including vocational schools, universities of applied sciences, trade schools, and other career-based colleges that award degrees. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Higher education includes teaching, research, exacting applied work, as exists in medical schools and dental schools, and social services activities of universities.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level, and beyond that, graduate-level (or postgraduate level). The latter level of education is often referred to as graduate school, especially in North America. In addition to the skills that are specific to any particular degree, potential employers in any profession are looking for evidence of critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills, teamworking skills, information literacy, ethical judgment, decision-making skills, fluency in speaking and writing, problem solving skills, and a wide knowledge of liberal arts and sciences.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The oldest known institutions of higher education are credited to Dynastic Egypt, with Pr-Anx (houses of life) built as libraries and scriptoriums, containing works on law, architecture, mathematics, and medicine, and involved in the training of \"swnw\" and \"swnwt\" (male and female doctors); extant Egyptian papyri from the 3rd millennia BC are in several collections.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the Greek world, Plato's Academy (c. 387 - 86 BC), Aristotle's Lyceum (c. 334 - 86 BC) and other philosophical-mathematical schools became models for other establishments, particularly in Alexandria of Egypt, under the Ptolemies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In South Asia, the city of Taxila, later the great Buddhist monastery of Nalanda (c. 427 - 1197 CE), attracted students and professors even from distant regions.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In China, the Han dynasty established chairs to teach the Five Confucean Classics, in the Grand School, Taixue (c. 3 - 1905 CE), to train cadres for the imperial administration. All these higher-learning institutions became models for other schools within their sphere of cultural influence.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 425 CE, the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II innovated as he established the Pandidakterion, with a faculty of 31 professors, to train public servants. In the 7th and 8th centuries, \"cathedral schools\" were created in Western Europe. Meanwhile, the first Medresahs were founded in the Moslem empire – initially mere primary schools in the premises of major mosques, which gradually evolved toward secondary, later higher education. However high the intellectual level of these schools could be, it would be anachronistic to call them \"universities\". Their organization and purposes were markedly different from the corporations of students and teachers, independent from both the Church and the State, which established themselves from the 12th century in Western Europe as Universitas Studiorum.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "According to UNESCO and Guinness World Records, the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco is the oldest existing continually operating higher educational institution in the world. and is occasionally referred to as the oldest university by scholars. Undoubtedly, there are older institutions of higher education, for example, the University of Ez-Zitouna in Montfleury, Tunis, was first established in 737. The University of Bologna, Italy, founded in 1088, is the world's oldest university in continuous operation, and the first university in the sense of a higher-learning and degree-awarding institute, as the word universitas was coined at its foundation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Since World War II, developed and many developing countries have increased the participation of the age group who mostly studies higher education from the elite rate, of up to 15 per cent, to the mass rate of 16 to 50 per cent. In many developed countries, participation in higher education has continued to increase towards universal or, what Trow later called, open access, where over half of the relevant age group participate in higher education. Higher education is important to national economies, both as an industry, in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy. College educated workers have commanded a measurable wage premium and are much less likely to become unemployed than less educated workers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In recent years, universities have been criticized for permitting or actively encouraging grade inflation. Also, the supply of graduates in many fields of study is exceeding the demand for their skills, aggravating graduate unemployment, underemployment, overqualification and educational inflation. Some commentators have suggested that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education is rapidly making certain aspects of the traditional higher education system obsolete.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "A 2014 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states that by 2014, 84 percent of young people were completing upper secondary education over their lifetimes, in high-income countries. Tertiary-educated individuals were earning twice as much as median workers. In contrast to historical trends in education, young women were more likely to complete upper secondary education than young men. Additionally, access to education was expanding and growth in the number of people receiving university education was rising sharply. By 2014, close to 40 percent of people aged 25–34 (and around 25 percent of those aged 55–64), were being educated at university.",
"title": "Statistics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Lisbon Recognition Convention stipulates that degrees and periods of study must be recognised in all of the Signatory Parties of the convention.",
"title": "Statistics"
}
]
| Higher education is tertiary education leading to the award of an academic degree. Higher education, which makes up a component of post-secondary, third-level, or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. It represents levels 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the 2011 version of the International Standard Classification of Education structure. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-24T22:29:10Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education |
14,428 | Heather Fargo | Heather Fargo (born December 12, 1952) is an American politician who served as mayor and was a former City Council Member of Sacramento, California. She was sworn in as mayor in November 2000, replacing Jimmie R. Yee, and served until December 2008, when she was defeated for reelection by Kevin Johnson.
Born in Oakland, California, Fargo grew up in Santa Maria and graduated from Stagg High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental planning and management from the University of California, Davis in 1975. In 1981, Fargo earned a Certificate of Completion from the Revenue Sources Management School in Boulder, Colorado. She also completed the State and Local Government Executive Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1991.
Fargo was first elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1989 to a five-year term as Sacramento was transitioning to even year citywide elections. Fargo represented District One which includes Downtown and Natomas. In the September primary, she came in second place to businesswoman Kate Karpilow but beat future City Councilman Ray Tretheway who came in third place and incumbent David Shore who came in fourth place. However, Fargo came back to beat Karpilow in November.
Upon Grantland Johnson's resignation from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in 1994, Fargo decided to run for the Board. In that election, she faced attorney and community activist Roger Dickinson. In a closely fought election, Dickinson narrowly beat Fargo. After that loss she was re-elected in 1994 and 1998. While serving on the city council, (prior to becoming Mayor full-time), she was employed as a manager of the California State Parks Volunteer Program.
Upon the sudden death in November 1999 of Mayor Joe Serna, Jr., Land Park City Councilman Jimmie Yee became the acting mayor. Several candidates announced their intentions to run. Other than Fargo, three other council members were also seeking the mayorship. North Sacramento City Councilman Rob Kerth who represented an area immediately adjacent to Fargo's also decided to run. In addition, Steve Cohn, the city councilman for East Sacramento ran along with Robbie Waters who represents the Pocket and Greenhaven areas decided to run along with several lesser known candidates that included businessman and attorney Joe Genshlea and community activist Julie Padilla. Fargo, who won 22% of the vote in the primary and Kerth who won 20% of the vote made it into the November runoff, where Fargo was elected with just 53% of the vote. In winning, Fargo became the second elected mayor of Sacramento, and the first mayor from north of the American River .
Fargo did not face as stiff competition in her 2004 re-election. Her main opponent was Ross W. Relles, Jr., a businessman. Other candidates were Deputy Attorney General Mark Soble and Lorenzo Patino Law School President Leonard Padilla. Virtually unopposed against candidates far less funded, Fargo won solidly in the primary election, thus no runoff was necessary.
The primary election for mayor took place on June 3, 2008. Fargo received 39% of the vote, while former NBA star and Sacramento native Kevin Johnson received 46% of the vote. Since neither received a majority of the votes, a run off election was scheduled for November 2008, where she was defeated by a margin of 58% to 42%.
During the primary election campaign, Fargo initially claimed that she had the support of all the city councilmembers. Yet, Councilman Robbie Waters, Steve Cohn, and Sandra Sheedy all ended up endorsing Johnson during the primary. On September 4, 2008, only Councilman Kevin McCarty endorsed Heather Fargo.
Fargo was a founding member and the first secretary of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which is considered an important voice in Sacramento's environmental community.
During her tenure Mayor Fargo became a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Thomas Menino.
Fargo is a long term advocate for women in politics. After she left office Fargo has continued to encourage women to run for office. Fargo is also active in promoting awareness about the history of women's suffrage.
Mayor Fargo's tenure as mayor included disagreements with the Maloof family, owners of the NBA's Sacramento Kings, over the building of a new arena.
In 2006, 2007, and 2008, Mayor Fargo was named "Best Local Elected Official" by the readers of Sacramento Magazine in their annual poll.
Because Fargo received a majority of the votes in the primary election, no general election was necessary.
Johnson and Fargo proceeded to a runoff election on November 5.
Precincts Reporting - 215 out of 391 | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Heather Fargo (born December 12, 1952) is an American politician who served as mayor and was a former City Council Member of Sacramento, California. She was sworn in as mayor in November 2000, replacing Jimmie R. Yee, and served until December 2008, when she was defeated for reelection by Kevin Johnson.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Born in Oakland, California, Fargo grew up in Santa Maria and graduated from Stagg High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental planning and management from the University of California, Davis in 1975. In 1981, Fargo earned a Certificate of Completion from the Revenue Sources Management School in Boulder, Colorado. She also completed the State and Local Government Executive Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1991.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Fargo was first elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1989 to a five-year term as Sacramento was transitioning to even year citywide elections. Fargo represented District One which includes Downtown and Natomas. In the September primary, she came in second place to businesswoman Kate Karpilow but beat future City Councilman Ray Tretheway who came in third place and incumbent David Shore who came in fourth place. However, Fargo came back to beat Karpilow in November.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Upon Grantland Johnson's resignation from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in 1994, Fargo decided to run for the Board. In that election, she faced attorney and community activist Roger Dickinson. In a closely fought election, Dickinson narrowly beat Fargo. After that loss she was re-elected in 1994 and 1998. While serving on the city council, (prior to becoming Mayor full-time), she was employed as a manager of the California State Parks Volunteer Program.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Upon the sudden death in November 1999 of Mayor Joe Serna, Jr., Land Park City Councilman Jimmie Yee became the acting mayor. Several candidates announced their intentions to run. Other than Fargo, three other council members were also seeking the mayorship. North Sacramento City Councilman Rob Kerth who represented an area immediately adjacent to Fargo's also decided to run. In addition, Steve Cohn, the city councilman for East Sacramento ran along with Robbie Waters who represents the Pocket and Greenhaven areas decided to run along with several lesser known candidates that included businessman and attorney Joe Genshlea and community activist Julie Padilla. Fargo, who won 22% of the vote in the primary and Kerth who won 20% of the vote made it into the November runoff, where Fargo was elected with just 53% of the vote. In winning, Fargo became the second elected mayor of Sacramento, and the first mayor from north of the American River .",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Fargo did not face as stiff competition in her 2004 re-election. Her main opponent was Ross W. Relles, Jr., a businessman. Other candidates were Deputy Attorney General Mark Soble and Lorenzo Patino Law School President Leonard Padilla. Virtually unopposed against candidates far less funded, Fargo won solidly in the primary election, thus no runoff was necessary.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The primary election for mayor took place on June 3, 2008. Fargo received 39% of the vote, while former NBA star and Sacramento native Kevin Johnson received 46% of the vote. Since neither received a majority of the votes, a run off election was scheduled for November 2008, where she was defeated by a margin of 58% to 42%.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the primary election campaign, Fargo initially claimed that she had the support of all the city councilmembers. Yet, Councilman Robbie Waters, Steve Cohn, and Sandra Sheedy all ended up endorsing Johnson during the primary. On September 4, 2008, only Councilman Kevin McCarty endorsed Heather Fargo.",
"title": "Career"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Fargo was a founding member and the first secretary of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which is considered an important voice in Sacramento's environmental community.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During her tenure Mayor Fargo became a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Thomas Menino.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Fargo is a long term advocate for women in politics. After she left office Fargo has continued to encourage women to run for office. Fargo is also active in promoting awareness about the history of women's suffrage.",
"title": "Political positions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Mayor Fargo's tenure as mayor included disagreements with the Maloof family, owners of the NBA's Sacramento Kings, over the building of a new arena.",
"title": "Mayoral tenure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 2006, 2007, and 2008, Mayor Fargo was named \"Best Local Elected Official\" by the readers of Sacramento Magazine in their annual poll.",
"title": "Mayoral tenure"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Because Fargo received a majority of the votes in the primary election, no general election was necessary.",
"title": "Electoral history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Johnson and Fargo proceeded to a runoff election on November 5.",
"title": "Electoral history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Precincts Reporting - 215 out of 391",
"title": "Electoral history"
}
]
| Heather Fargo is an American politician who served as mayor and was a former City Council Member of Sacramento, California. She was sworn in as mayor in November 2000, replacing Jimmie R. Yee, and served until December 2008, when she was defeated for reelection by Kevin Johnson. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-08-19T01:36:52Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Fargo |
14,429 | Henotheism | Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.
Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into wider usage in his scholarship on the Indian religions, particularly Hinduism whose scriptures mention and praise numerous deities as if they are one ultimate unitary divine essence. Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism (relative to Eastern religions), focusing on a cultural dogma which held "monotheism" to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing conceptions of God.
Friedrich Schelling coined the German term Henotheismus from Greek ἕν (hén) 'one' and German Theismus 'theism' (which comes from Greek θεός (theós) 'god'). The term refers to a form of theism focused on a single god. Related terms are monolatry and kathenotheism. The latter term is an extension of "henotheism", from καθ' ἕνα θεόν (kath' hena theon) 'one god at a time'. Henotheism refers to a pluralistic theology wherein different deities are viewed to be of a unitary, equivalent divine essence. Another term related to henotheism is "equitheism", referring to the belief that all gods are equal. Further, the term henotheism does not exclude monism, nondualism or dualism.
Various scholars prefer the term monolatry to henotheism, to discuss religions where a single god is central, but the existence or the position of other gods is not denied. According to Christoph Elsas, henotheism in modern usage connotes a syncretic stage in the development of religions in late antiquity. A henotheist may worship a single god from a pantheon of deities at a given time, depending on his or her choice, while accepting other deities and concepts of god. Henotheism and inclusive monotheism are terms that refer to a middle position between unlimited polytheism and exclusive monotheism.
Ahura Mazda is the supreme god, but Zoroastrianism does not deny other deities. Ahura Mazda has yazatas ("good agents") some of which include Anahita, Sraosha, Mithra, Rashnu, and Tishtrya. Richard Foltz has put forth evidence that Iranians of Pre-Islamic era worshipped all these figures, especially Mithra and Anahita.
Prods Oktor Skjærvø states Zoroastrianism is henotheistic, and "a dualistic and polytheistic religion, but with one supreme god, who is the father of the ordered cosmos". Other scholars state that this is unclear, because historic texts present a conflicting picture, ranging from Zoroastrianism's belief in "one god, two gods, or a best god henotheism".
To what is One
They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly-winged Garutman. To what is One, sages give many a title.
— Rigveda 1.164.46Transl: Klaus Klostermaier
Henotheism was the term used by scholars such as Max Müller to describe the theology of Vedic religion. Müller noted that the hymns of the Rigveda, the oldest scripture of Hinduism, mention many deities, but praises them successively as the "one ultimate, supreme God", alternatively as "one supreme Goddess", thereby asserting that the essence of the deities was unitary (ekam), and the deities were nothing but pluralistic manifestations of the same concept of the divine (God).
The Vedic era conceptualization of the divine or the One, states Jeaneane Fowler, is more abstract than a monotheistic God, it is the Reality behind and of the phenomenal universe. The Vedic hymns treat it as "limitless, indescribable, absolute principle", thus the Vedic divine is something of a panentheism rather than simple henotheism. In late Vedic era, around the start of Upanishadic age (~800 BCE), theosophical speculations emerge that develop concepts which scholars variously call nondualism or monism, as well as forms of non-theism and pantheism. An example of the questioning of the concept of God, in addition to henotheistic hymns found therein, are in later portions of the Rigveda, such as the Nasadiya Sukta. Hinduism calls the metaphysical absolute concept as Brahman, incorporating within it the transcendent and immanent reality. Different schools of thought interpret Brahman as either personal, impersonal or transpersonal. Ishwar Chandra Sharma describes it as "Absolute Reality, beyond all dualities of existence and non-existence, light and darkness, and of time, space and cause."
While Greek and Roman religion began as polytheism, during the Classical period, under the influence of philosophy, differing conceptions emerged. Often Zeus (or Jupiter) was considered the supreme, all-powerful and all-knowing king and father of the Olympian gods. According to Maijastina Kahlos, "monotheism was pervasive in the educated circles in Late Antiquity" and "all divinities were interpreted as aspects, particles or epithets of one supreme God". Maximus Tyrius (2nd century C.E.) stated:
The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus taught that above the gods of traditional belief was "The One". Maximus, the polytheist grammarian of Madauros, even stated that only a madman would deny the existence of the supreme God.
Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinical Judaism are emphatically monotheistic. However, its predecessor—the cult of Yahweh as it was practiced in ancient Israel during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE (Yahwism)—has been described as henotheistic or monolatric.
For example, the Moabites worshipped the god Chemosh, the Edomites, Qaus, both of whom were part of the greater Canaanite pantheon, headed by the chief god, El. The Canaanite pantheon consisted of El and Asherah as the chief deities, with 70 sons who were said to rule over each of the nations of the earth. These sons were each worshiped within a specific region. Kurt Noll states that "the Bible preserves a tradition that Yahweh used to 'live' in the south, in the land of Edom" and that the original god of Israel was El Shaddai.
Several biblical stories allude to the belief that the Canaanite gods all existed and were thought to possess the most power in the lands by the people who worshiped them and their sacred objects; their power was believed to be real and could be invoked by the people who patronized them. There are numerous accounts of surrounding nations of Israel showing fear or reverence for the Israelite God despite their continued polytheistic practices. For instance, in 1 Samuel 4, the Philistines fret before the second battle of Aphek when they learn that the Israelites are bearing the Ark of the Covenant, and therefore Yahweh, into battle. The Israelites were forbidden to worship other deities, but according to some interpretations of the Bible, they were not fully monotheistic before the Babylonian captivity. Mark S. Smith refers to this stage as a form of monolatry. Smith argues that Yahweh underwent a process of merging with El and that acceptance of cults of Asherah was common in the period of the Judges. 2 Kings 3:27 has been interpreted as describing a human sacrifice in Moab that led the invading Israelite army to fear the power of Chemosh.
Paul the Apostle, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writes that "we know that an idol is nothing" and "that there is none other God but one". He argues in verse 5 that "for though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth", "but to us there is but one God". Some translators of verse 5 put the words "gods" and "lords" in quotes to indicate that they are gods or lords only so-called.
In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul refers to "the god of this world", which the 18th-century theologian John Gill interpreted as a reference to Satan or the material things put before God, such as money, rather than acknowledging any separate deity from God.
Some scholars have written that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) can be characterized as henotheistic, but others have rejected that stance.
Eugene England, a professor at Brigham Young University, asserted that LDS Presidents Brigham Young and Joseph Fielding Smith along with the LDS scholar B. H. Roberts used the LDS interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 as "a brief explanation of how it is possible to be both a Christian polytheist (technically a henotheist) and a monotheist". BYU Professor Roger R. Keller rejected descriptions of the LDS Church as polytheistic by countering, as summarized by a reviewer, "Mormons are fundamentally monotheistic because they deal with only one god out of the many which exist."
In their book, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, Richard and Joan Ostling, wrote that some Mormons are comfortable describing themselves as henotheists.
Kurt Widmer, professor at the University of Lethbridge, described LDS beliefs as a "cosmic henotheism". A review of Widmer's book by Bruening and Paulsen in the FARMS Review of Books countered that Widmer's hypothesis was "strongly disconfirmed in light of the total evidence".
Van Hale has written, "Mormonism teaches the existence of gods who are not the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost" and "the existence of more than one god [is] clearly a Mormon doctrine", but he also said that defining this belief system in theological terms was troublesome. Henotheism might appear to be "promising" in describing LDS beliefs, Hale wrote, but it is ultimately not accurate because henotheism was intended to describe the worship of a god that was restricted to a specific geographical area. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into wider usage in his scholarship on the Indian religions, particularly Hinduism whose scriptures mention and praise numerous deities as if they are one ultimate unitary divine essence. Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism (relative to Eastern religions), focusing on a cultural dogma which held \"monotheism\" to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing conceptions of God.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Friedrich Schelling coined the German term Henotheismus from Greek ἕν (hén) 'one' and German Theismus 'theism' (which comes from Greek θεός (theós) 'god'). The term refers to a form of theism focused on a single god. Related terms are monolatry and kathenotheism. The latter term is an extension of \"henotheism\", from καθ' ἕνα θεόν (kath' hena theon) 'one god at a time'. Henotheism refers to a pluralistic theology wherein different deities are viewed to be of a unitary, equivalent divine essence. Another term related to henotheism is \"equitheism\", referring to the belief that all gods are equal. Further, the term henotheism does not exclude monism, nondualism or dualism.",
"title": "Definition and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Various scholars prefer the term monolatry to henotheism, to discuss religions where a single god is central, but the existence or the position of other gods is not denied. According to Christoph Elsas, henotheism in modern usage connotes a syncretic stage in the development of religions in late antiquity. A henotheist may worship a single god from a pantheon of deities at a given time, depending on his or her choice, while accepting other deities and concepts of god. Henotheism and inclusive monotheism are terms that refer to a middle position between unlimited polytheism and exclusive monotheism.",
"title": "Definition and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Ahura Mazda is the supreme god, but Zoroastrianism does not deny other deities. Ahura Mazda has yazatas (\"good agents\") some of which include Anahita, Sraosha, Mithra, Rashnu, and Tishtrya. Richard Foltz has put forth evidence that Iranians of Pre-Islamic era worshipped all these figures, especially Mithra and Anahita.",
"title": "Zoroastrianism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Prods Oktor Skjærvø states Zoroastrianism is henotheistic, and \"a dualistic and polytheistic religion, but with one supreme god, who is the father of the ordered cosmos\". Other scholars state that this is unclear, because historic texts present a conflicting picture, ranging from Zoroastrianism's belief in \"one god, two gods, or a best god henotheism\".",
"title": "Zoroastrianism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "To what is One",
"title": "Hinduism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly-winged Garutman. To what is One, sages give many a title.",
"title": "Hinduism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "— Rigveda 1.164.46Transl: Klaus Klostermaier",
"title": "Hinduism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Henotheism was the term used by scholars such as Max Müller to describe the theology of Vedic religion. Müller noted that the hymns of the Rigveda, the oldest scripture of Hinduism, mention many deities, but praises them successively as the \"one ultimate, supreme God\", alternatively as \"one supreme Goddess\", thereby asserting that the essence of the deities was unitary (ekam), and the deities were nothing but pluralistic manifestations of the same concept of the divine (God).",
"title": "Hinduism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Vedic era conceptualization of the divine or the One, states Jeaneane Fowler, is more abstract than a monotheistic God, it is the Reality behind and of the phenomenal universe. The Vedic hymns treat it as \"limitless, indescribable, absolute principle\", thus the Vedic divine is something of a panentheism rather than simple henotheism. In late Vedic era, around the start of Upanishadic age (~800 BCE), theosophical speculations emerge that develop concepts which scholars variously call nondualism or monism, as well as forms of non-theism and pantheism. An example of the questioning of the concept of God, in addition to henotheistic hymns found therein, are in later portions of the Rigveda, such as the Nasadiya Sukta. Hinduism calls the metaphysical absolute concept as Brahman, incorporating within it the transcendent and immanent reality. Different schools of thought interpret Brahman as either personal, impersonal or transpersonal. Ishwar Chandra Sharma describes it as \"Absolute Reality, beyond all dualities of existence and non-existence, light and darkness, and of time, space and cause.\"",
"title": "Hinduism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "While Greek and Roman religion began as polytheism, during the Classical period, under the influence of philosophy, differing conceptions emerged. Often Zeus (or Jupiter) was considered the supreme, all-powerful and all-knowing king and father of the Olympian gods. According to Maijastina Kahlos, \"monotheism was pervasive in the educated circles in Late Antiquity\" and \"all divinities were interpreted as aspects, particles or epithets of one supreme God\". Maximus Tyrius (2nd century C.E.) stated:",
"title": "Hellenistic religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus taught that above the gods of traditional belief was \"The One\". Maximus, the polytheist grammarian of Madauros, even stated that only a madman would deny the existence of the supreme God.",
"title": "Hellenistic religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinical Judaism are emphatically monotheistic. However, its predecessor—the cult of Yahweh as it was practiced in ancient Israel during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE (Yahwism)—has been described as henotheistic or monolatric.",
"title": "Canaanite religion and Yahwism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For example, the Moabites worshipped the god Chemosh, the Edomites, Qaus, both of whom were part of the greater Canaanite pantheon, headed by the chief god, El. The Canaanite pantheon consisted of El and Asherah as the chief deities, with 70 sons who were said to rule over each of the nations of the earth. These sons were each worshiped within a specific region. Kurt Noll states that \"the Bible preserves a tradition that Yahweh used to 'live' in the south, in the land of Edom\" and that the original god of Israel was El Shaddai.",
"title": "Canaanite religion and Yahwism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Several biblical stories allude to the belief that the Canaanite gods all existed and were thought to possess the most power in the lands by the people who worshiped them and their sacred objects; their power was believed to be real and could be invoked by the people who patronized them. There are numerous accounts of surrounding nations of Israel showing fear or reverence for the Israelite God despite their continued polytheistic practices. For instance, in 1 Samuel 4, the Philistines fret before the second battle of Aphek when they learn that the Israelites are bearing the Ark of the Covenant, and therefore Yahweh, into battle. The Israelites were forbidden to worship other deities, but according to some interpretations of the Bible, they were not fully monotheistic before the Babylonian captivity. Mark S. Smith refers to this stage as a form of monolatry. Smith argues that Yahweh underwent a process of merging with El and that acceptance of cults of Asherah was common in the period of the Judges. 2 Kings 3:27 has been interpreted as describing a human sacrifice in Moab that led the invading Israelite army to fear the power of Chemosh.",
"title": "Canaanite religion and Yahwism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Paul the Apostle, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writes that \"we know that an idol is nothing\" and \"that there is none other God but one\". He argues in verse 5 that \"for though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth\", \"but to us there is but one God\". Some translators of verse 5 put the words \"gods\" and \"lords\" in quotes to indicate that they are gods or lords only so-called.",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul refers to \"the god of this world\", which the 18th-century theologian John Gill interpreted as a reference to Satan or the material things put before God, such as money, rather than acknowledging any separate deity from God.",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Some scholars have written that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) can be characterized as henotheistic, but others have rejected that stance.",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Eugene England, a professor at Brigham Young University, asserted that LDS Presidents Brigham Young and Joseph Fielding Smith along with the LDS scholar B. H. Roberts used the LDS interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 as \"a brief explanation of how it is possible to be both a Christian polytheist (technically a henotheist) and a monotheist\". BYU Professor Roger R. Keller rejected descriptions of the LDS Church as polytheistic by countering, as summarized by a reviewer, \"Mormons are fundamentally monotheistic because they deal with only one god out of the many which exist.\"",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In their book, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, Richard and Joan Ostling, wrote that some Mormons are comfortable describing themselves as henotheists.",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Kurt Widmer, professor at the University of Lethbridge, described LDS beliefs as a \"cosmic henotheism\". A review of Widmer's book by Bruening and Paulsen in the FARMS Review of Books countered that Widmer's hypothesis was \"strongly disconfirmed in light of the total evidence\".",
"title": "In Christianity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Van Hale has written, \"Mormonism teaches the existence of gods who are not the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost\" and \"the existence of more than one god [is] clearly a Mormon doctrine\", but he also said that defining this belief system in theological terms was troublesome. Henotheism might appear to be \"promising\" in describing LDS beliefs, Hale wrote, but it is ultimately not accurate because henotheism was intended to describe the worship of a god that was restricted to a specific geographical area.",
"title": "In Christianity"
}
]
| Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks. Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into wider usage in his scholarship on the Indian religions, particularly Hinduism whose scriptures mention and praise numerous deities as if they are one ultimate unitary divine essence. Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism, focusing on a cultural dogma which held "monotheism" to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing conceptions of God. | 2002-01-13T11:03:25Z | 2023-11-27T14:46:23Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism |
14,431 | Hedwig of Silesia | Hedwig of Silesia (Polish: Święta Jadwiga Śląska), also Hedwig of Andechs (German: Heilige Hedwig von Andechs, Latin: Hedvigis; 1174 – 15 October 1243), a member of the Bavarian comital House of Andechs, was Duchess of Silesia from 1201 and of Greater Poland from 1231 as well as High Duchess consort of Poland from 1232 until 1238. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1267 by Pope Clement IV.
The daughter of Count Berthold IV of Andechs, margrave of Carniola and Istria and his second wife Agnes of Wettin, she was born at Andechs Castle in the Duchy of Bavaria. Her elder sister, Agnes, married King Philip II of France (annulled in 1200) and her sister Gertrude (killed in 1213) married King Andrew II of Hungary, while the youngest Matilda, (Mechtild) became abbess at the Benedictine Abbey of Kitzingen in Franconia, where Hedwig also received her education. Hedwig's brother was Bishop Ekbert of Bamberg [de], Count of Andechs-Meranien. Another brother was Berthold, Archbishop of Kalocsa and Patriarch of Aquileia, while her brother Henry, Margrave of Istria was the first lord of Carniola.
Through her sister Gertrude, she was the aunt of Elizabeth of Hungary.
At the age of twelve, Hedwig married Henry I the Bearded, son and heir of the Piast duke Boleslaus the Tall of Silesia. As soon as Henry succeeded his father in 1201, he had to struggle with his Piast relatives, at first with his uncle Duke Mieszko IV Tanglefoot who immediately seized the Upper Silesian Duchy of Opole. In 1206 Henry and his cousin Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks of Greater Poland agreed to swap the Silesian Lubusz Land against the Kalisz region, which met with fierce protest by Władysław's III nephew Władysław Odonic. When Henry went to Gąsawa in 1227 to meet his Piast cousins, he narrowly saved his life, while High Duke Leszek I the White was killed by the men of the Pomerelian Duke Swietopelk II, instigated by Władysław Odonic.
The next year Henry's ally Władysław III Spindleshanks succeeded Leszek I as High Duke; however as he was still contested by his nephew in Greater Poland, he made Henry his governor at Kraków, whereby the Silesian duke once again became entangled in the dispute over the Seniorate Province. In 1229 he was captured and arrested at Płock Castle by rivaling Duke Konrad I of Masovia. Hedwig proceeded to Płock pleading for Henry and was able to have him released.
Her actions promoted the reign of her husband: upon the death of the Polish High Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks in 1231, Henry also became Duke of Greater Poland and the next year prevailed as High Duke at Kraków. He thereby was the first of the Silesian Piast descendants of Władysław II the Exile to gain the rule over Silesia and the Seniorate Province in accord with the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty.
Upon his death in 1238, Henry was buried at a Cistercian monastery of nuns, Trzebnica Abbey (Kloster Trebnitz), which he had established in 1202 at Hedwig's request. Hedwig accepted the death of her beloved husband with faith. She said:
Would you oppose the will of God? Our lives are His.
The widow moved into the monastery, which was led by her daughter Gertrude, assuming the religious habit of a lay sister, but she did not take vows. She invited numerous German religious people from the Holy Roman Empire into the Silesian lands, as well as German settlers who founded numerous cities, towns and villages in the course of the Ostsiedlung, while cultivating barren parts of Silesia for agriculture.
Hedwig and Henry had several daughters, though only one surviving son, Henry II the Pious, who succeeded his father as Duke of Silesia and Polish High Duke. The widow, however, had to witness the killing of her son, vainly awaiting the support of Emperor Frederick II, during the Mongol invasion of Poland at the Battle of Legnica (Wahlstatt) in 1241. The hopes for a re-united Poland were lost, and even Silesia fragmented into numerous Piast duchies under Henry II's sons. Hedwig and her daughter-in-law, Henry II's widow Anna of Bohemia, established a Benedictine abbey at the site of the battle in Legnickie Pole, settled with monks coming from Opatovice in Bohemia.
Hedwig and Henry had lived very pious lives, and Hedwig had great zeal for her faith. She had supported her husband in donating the Augustinian provostry at Nowogród Bobrzański (Naumburg) and the commandery of the Knights Templar at Oleśnica Mała (Klein Oels). Hedwig always helped the poor, the widows and the orphans, founded several hospitals for the sick and the lepers and donated all her fortune to the Church. She allowed no one to leave her uncomforted, and one time she spent ten weeks teaching the Our Father to a poor woman. According to legend, she went barefoot even in winter, and when she was urged by the Bishop of Wrocław to wear shoes, she carried them in her hands. On 15 October 1243, Hedwig died and was buried in Trzebnica Abbey with her husband, while relics of her are preserved at Andechs Abbey and St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin.
Hedwig was canonized in 1267 by Pope Clement IV, a supporter of the Cistercian order, at the suggestion of her grandson Prince-Archbishop Władysław of Salzburg. She is the patron saint of Silesia, of Andechs, and of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Görlitz. Her feast day is celebrated on the General Roman Calendar on 16 October. The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, who count her as a great benefactor, celebrate it on 8 June. A 17th-century legend has it that Hedwig, while on a pilgrimage to Rome, stopped at Bad Zell in Austria, where she had healing waters spring up at a source which today still bears her name.
In 1773 the Prussian king Frederick the Great, having conquered and annexed the bulk of Silesia in the First Silesian War, had St. Hedwig in Berlin built for the Catholic Upper Silesian immigrants, since 1930 the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Berlin. After the expulsion of almost all Germans from Silesia, German Silesians carried Hedwig's worship to all over remaining Germany.
In March 2020 the discovery of Hedwig's remains, that had been missing for centuries, was reported. The remains were found in her sanctuary in Trzebnica, in a silver casket bearing a lead tablet with an inscription confirming Hedwig's identity.
Hedwig glasses are named after Hedwig of Silesia.
Hedwig and Henry I had seven children: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hedwig of Silesia (Polish: Święta Jadwiga Śląska), also Hedwig of Andechs (German: Heilige Hedwig von Andechs, Latin: Hedvigis; 1174 – 15 October 1243), a member of the Bavarian comital House of Andechs, was Duchess of Silesia from 1201 and of Greater Poland from 1231 as well as High Duchess consort of Poland from 1232 until 1238. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1267 by Pope Clement IV.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The daughter of Count Berthold IV of Andechs, margrave of Carniola and Istria and his second wife Agnes of Wettin, she was born at Andechs Castle in the Duchy of Bavaria. Her elder sister, Agnes, married King Philip II of France (annulled in 1200) and her sister Gertrude (killed in 1213) married King Andrew II of Hungary, while the youngest Matilda, (Mechtild) became abbess at the Benedictine Abbey of Kitzingen in Franconia, where Hedwig also received her education. Hedwig's brother was Bishop Ekbert of Bamberg [de], Count of Andechs-Meranien. Another brother was Berthold, Archbishop of Kalocsa and Patriarch of Aquileia, while her brother Henry, Margrave of Istria was the first lord of Carniola.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Through her sister Gertrude, she was the aunt of Elizabeth of Hungary.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "At the age of twelve, Hedwig married Henry I the Bearded, son and heir of the Piast duke Boleslaus the Tall of Silesia. As soon as Henry succeeded his father in 1201, he had to struggle with his Piast relatives, at first with his uncle Duke Mieszko IV Tanglefoot who immediately seized the Upper Silesian Duchy of Opole. In 1206 Henry and his cousin Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks of Greater Poland agreed to swap the Silesian Lubusz Land against the Kalisz region, which met with fierce protest by Władysław's III nephew Władysław Odonic. When Henry went to Gąsawa in 1227 to meet his Piast cousins, he narrowly saved his life, while High Duke Leszek I the White was killed by the men of the Pomerelian Duke Swietopelk II, instigated by Władysław Odonic.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The next year Henry's ally Władysław III Spindleshanks succeeded Leszek I as High Duke; however as he was still contested by his nephew in Greater Poland, he made Henry his governor at Kraków, whereby the Silesian duke once again became entangled in the dispute over the Seniorate Province. In 1229 he was captured and arrested at Płock Castle by rivaling Duke Konrad I of Masovia. Hedwig proceeded to Płock pleading for Henry and was able to have him released.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Her actions promoted the reign of her husband: upon the death of the Polish High Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks in 1231, Henry also became Duke of Greater Poland and the next year prevailed as High Duke at Kraków. He thereby was the first of the Silesian Piast descendants of Władysław II the Exile to gain the rule over Silesia and the Seniorate Province in accord with the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Upon his death in 1238, Henry was buried at a Cistercian monastery of nuns, Trzebnica Abbey (Kloster Trebnitz), which he had established in 1202 at Hedwig's request. Hedwig accepted the death of her beloved husband with faith. She said:",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Would you oppose the will of God? Our lives are His.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The widow moved into the monastery, which was led by her daughter Gertrude, assuming the religious habit of a lay sister, but she did not take vows. She invited numerous German religious people from the Holy Roman Empire into the Silesian lands, as well as German settlers who founded numerous cities, towns and villages in the course of the Ostsiedlung, while cultivating barren parts of Silesia for agriculture.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Hedwig and Henry had several daughters, though only one surviving son, Henry II the Pious, who succeeded his father as Duke of Silesia and Polish High Duke. The widow, however, had to witness the killing of her son, vainly awaiting the support of Emperor Frederick II, during the Mongol invasion of Poland at the Battle of Legnica (Wahlstatt) in 1241. The hopes for a re-united Poland were lost, and even Silesia fragmented into numerous Piast duchies under Henry II's sons. Hedwig and her daughter-in-law, Henry II's widow Anna of Bohemia, established a Benedictine abbey at the site of the battle in Legnickie Pole, settled with monks coming from Opatovice in Bohemia.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hedwig and Henry had lived very pious lives, and Hedwig had great zeal for her faith. She had supported her husband in donating the Augustinian provostry at Nowogród Bobrzański (Naumburg) and the commandery of the Knights Templar at Oleśnica Mała (Klein Oels). Hedwig always helped the poor, the widows and the orphans, founded several hospitals for the sick and the lepers and donated all her fortune to the Church. She allowed no one to leave her uncomforted, and one time she spent ten weeks teaching the Our Father to a poor woman. According to legend, she went barefoot even in winter, and when she was urged by the Bishop of Wrocław to wear shoes, she carried them in her hands. On 15 October 1243, Hedwig died and was buried in Trzebnica Abbey with her husband, while relics of her are preserved at Andechs Abbey and St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin.",
"title": "Life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hedwig was canonized in 1267 by Pope Clement IV, a supporter of the Cistercian order, at the suggestion of her grandson Prince-Archbishop Władysław of Salzburg. She is the patron saint of Silesia, of Andechs, and of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Görlitz. Her feast day is celebrated on the General Roman Calendar on 16 October. The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, who count her as a great benefactor, celebrate it on 8 June. A 17th-century legend has it that Hedwig, while on a pilgrimage to Rome, stopped at Bad Zell in Austria, where she had healing waters spring up at a source which today still bears her name.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 1773 the Prussian king Frederick the Great, having conquered and annexed the bulk of Silesia in the First Silesian War, had St. Hedwig in Berlin built for the Catholic Upper Silesian immigrants, since 1930 the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Berlin. After the expulsion of almost all Germans from Silesia, German Silesians carried Hedwig's worship to all over remaining Germany.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In March 2020 the discovery of Hedwig's remains, that had been missing for centuries, was reported. The remains were found in her sanctuary in Trzebnica, in a silver casket bearing a lead tablet with an inscription confirming Hedwig's identity.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Hedwig glasses are named after Hedwig of Silesia.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Hedwig and Henry I had seven children:",
"title": "Children"
}
]
| Hedwig of Silesia, also Hedwig of Andechs, a member of the Bavarian comital House of Andechs, was Duchess of Silesia from 1201 and of Greater Poland from 1231 as well as High Duchess consort of Poland from 1232 until 1238. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1267 by Pope Clement IV. | 2002-01-14T01:11:36Z | 2023-10-16T20:35:05Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_of_Silesia |
14,436 | Hasidic Judaism | Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות Ḥăsīdus, [χasiˈdus]; originally, "piety"), is a religious movement within Judaism that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contemporary Western Ukraine during the 18th century, and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as hassidim, reside in Israel and in the United States.
Israel Ben Eliezer, the "Baal Shem Tov", is regarded as its founding father, and his disciples developed and disseminated it. Present-day Hasidism is a sub-group within Haredi Judaism and is noted for its religious conservatism and social seclusion. Its members adhere closely both to Orthodox Jewish practice – with the movement's own unique emphases – and the traditions of Eastern European Jews. Many of the latter, including various special styles of dress and the use of the Yiddish language, are nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hasidism.
Hasidic thought draws heavily on Lurianic Kabbalah, and, to an extent, is a popularization of it. Teachings emphasize God's immanence in the universe, the need to cleave and be one with Him at all times, the devotional aspect of religious practice, and the spiritual dimension of corporeality and mundane acts. Hasidim, the adherents of Hasidism, are organized in independent sects known as "courts" or dynasties, each headed by its own hereditary male leader, a Rebbe. Reverence and submission to the Rebbe are key tenets, as he is considered a spiritual authority with whom the follower must bond to gain closeness to God. The various "courts" share basic convictions, but operate apart and possess unique traits and customs. Affiliation is often retained in families for generations, and being Hasidic is as much a sociological factor – entailing birth into a specific community and allegiance to a dynasty of Rebbes – as it is a religious one. There are several "courts" with many thousands of member households each, and hundreds of smaller ones. As of 2016, there were over 130,000 Hasidic households worldwide, about 5% of the global Jewish population.
The terms hasid and hasidut, meaning "pietist" and "piety", have a long history in Judaism. The Talmud and other old sources refer to the "Pietists of Old" (Hasidim haRishonim) who would contemplate an entire hour in preparation for prayer. The phrase denoted extremely devoted individuals who not only observed the Law to its letter, but performed good deeds even beyond it. Adam himself is honored with the title, in tractate Eruvin 18b by Rabbi Meir: "Adam was a great hasid, having fasted for 130 years." The first to adopt the epithet collectively were apparently the hasidim in Second Temple period Judea, known as Hasideans after the Greek rendering of their name, who perhaps served as the model for those mentioned in the Talmud. The title continued to be applied as an honorific for the exceptionally devout. In 12th-century Rhineland, or Ashkenaz in Jewish parlance, another prominent school of ascetics named themselves hasidim; to distinguish them from the rest, later research employed the term Ashkenazi Hasidim. In the 16th century, when Kabbalah spread, the title also became associated with it. Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah wrote in his glossa on Isaac Luria's version of the Shulchan Aruch that, "One who wishes to tap the hidden wisdom, must conduct himself in the manner of the Pious."
The movement founded by Israel Ben Eliezer in the 18th century adopted the term hasidim in the original connotation. But when the sect grew and developed specific attributes, from the 1770s, the names gradually acquired a new meaning. Its common adherents, belonging to groups each headed by a spiritual leader, were henceforth known as Hasidim. The transformation was slow: The movement was at first referred to as "New Hasidism" by outsiders (as recalled in the autobiography of Salomon Maimon), to separate it from the old one, and its enemies derisively mocked its members as Mithasdim, "[those who] pretend [to be] hasidim". Yet, eventually, the young sect gained such a mass following that the old connotation was sidelined. In popular discourse, at least, "Hasid" came to denote someone who follows a religious teacher from the movement. It also entered Modern Hebrew as such, meaning "adherent" or "disciple". One was not merely a Hasid anymore, observed historian David Assaf, but a Hasid of someone or some dynasty in particular. This linguistic transformation paralleled that of the word tzaddik, "righteous", which the Hasidic leaders adopted for themselves – though they are known colloquially as Rebbes or by the honorific Admor. Originally denoting an observant, moral person, in Hasidic literature, tzaddik became synonymous with the often hereditary master heading a sect of followers.
The lengthy history of Hasidism, the numerous schools of thought therein, and its definitive use of homiletic literature and sermons – comprising numerous references to earlier sources in the Torah, Talmud, and exegesis as a means to grounding itself in tradition – to convey its ideas make the isolation of a common doctrine highly challenging to researchers. As noted by Joseph Dan, "Every attempt to present such a body of ideas has failed". Even motifs presented by scholars in the past as unique Hasidic contributions were later revealed to have been common among both their predecessors and opponents, all the more so regarding many other traits that are widely extant – these play, Dan added, "a prominent role in modern non-Hasidic and anti-Hasidic writings as well". The difficulty of separating the movement's philosophy from that of its main inspiration, Lurianic Kabbalah, and determining what was novel and what merely a recapitulation, also baffled historians. Some, like Louis Jacobs, regarded the early masters as innovators who introduced "much that was new if only by emphasis"; others, primarily Mendel Piekarz, argued to the contrary that but a little was not found in much earlier tracts, and the movement's originality lay in the manner it popularized these teachings to become the ideology of a well-organized sect.
Among the traits particularly associated with Hasidism in common understanding which are in fact widespread, is the importance of joy and happiness at worship and religious life – though the sect undoubtedly stressed this aspect and still possesses a clear populist bent. Another example is the value placed on the simple, ordinary Jew in supposed contradiction with the favouring of elitist scholars beforehand; such ideas are common in ethical works far preceding Hasidism. The movement did for a few decades challenge the rabbinic establishment, which relied on the authority of Torah acumen, but affirmed the centrality of study very soon. Concurrently, the image of its Opponents as dreary intellectuals who lacked spiritual fervour and opposed mysticism is likewise unfounded. Neither did Hasidism, often portrayed as promoting healthy sensuality, unanimously reject the asceticism and self-mortification associated primarily with its rivals. Joseph Dan ascribed all these perceptions to so-called "Neo-Hasidic" writers and thinkers, like Martin Buber. In their attempt to build new models of spirituality for modern Jews, they propagated a romantic, sentimental image of the movement. The "Neo-Hasidic" interpretation influenced even scholarly discourse to a great degree, but had a tenuous connection with reality.
A further complication is the divide between what researchers term "early Hasidism", which ended roughly in the 1810s, and established Hasidism since then onwards. While the former was a highly dynamic religious revival movement, the latter phase is characterized by consolidation into sects with hereditary leadership. The mystical teachings formulated during the first era were by no means repudiated, and many Hasidic masters remained consummate spiritualists and original thinkers; as noted by Benjamin Brown, Buber's once commonly accepted view that the routinization constituted "decadence" was refuted by later studies, demonstrating that the movement remained very much innovative. Yet many aspects of early Hasidism were indeed de-emphasized in favour of more conventional religious expressions, and its radical concepts were largely neutralized. Some Rebbes adopted a relatively rationalist bent, sidelining their explicit mystical, theurgical roles, and many others functioned almost solely as political leaders of large communities. As to their Hasidim, affiliation was less a matter of admiring a charismatic leader as in the early days, but rather birth into a family belonging to a specific "court".
The most fundamental theme underlying all Hasidic theory is the immanence of God in the universe, often expressed in a phrase from Tikunei haZohar, Leit atar panuy miné (Aramaic: "no site is devoid of Him"). This panentheistic concept was derived from Lurianic discourse, but greatly expanded in the Hasidic one. In the beginning, in order to create the world, God contracted (Tzimtzum) His omnipresence, the Ein Sof, leaving a Vacant Void (Chalal panuy), bereft from obvious presence and therefore able to entertain free will, contradictions and other phenomena seemingly separate from God Himself. These would have been impossible within His original, perfect existence. Yet, the very reality of the world which was created in the Void is entirely dependent on its divine origin. Matter would have been null and void without the true, spiritual essence it possesses. Just the same, the infinite Ein Sof cannot manifest in the Vacant Void, and must limit itself in the guise of measurable corporeality that may be perceived.
Thus, there is a dualism between the true aspect of everything and the physical side, false but ineluctable, with each evolving into the other: as God must compress and disguise Himself, so must humans and matter in general ascend and reunite with the Omnipresence. Rachel Elior quoted Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in his commentary Torah Or on Genesis 28:22, who wrote that "this is the purpose of Creation, from Infinity to Finitude, so it may be reversed from the state of Finite to that of Infinity". Kabbalah stressed the importance of this dialectic, but mainly (though not exclusively) evoked it in cosmic terms, referring for example to the manner in which God progressively diminished Himself into the world through the various dimensions, or Sephirot. Hasidism applied it also to the most mundane details of human existence. All Hasidic schools devoted a prominent place in their teaching, with differing accentuation, to the interchanging nature of Ein, both infinite and imperceptible, becoming Yesh, "Existent" – and vice versa. They used the concept as a prism to gauge the world, and the needs of the spirit in particular. Elior noted: "Reality lost its static nature and permanent value, now measured by a new standard, seeking to expose the Godly, boundless essence, manifest in its tangible, circumscribed opposite."
One major derivative of this philosophy is the notion of devekut, "communion". As God was everywhere, connection with Him had to be pursued ceaselessly as well, in all times, places and occasions. Such an experience was in the reach of every person, who only had to negate his inferior impulses and grasp the truth of divine immanence, enabling him to unite with it and attain the state of perfect, selfless bliss. Hasidic masters, well versed in the teachings concerning communion, are supposed not only to gain it themselves, but to guide their flock to it. Devekut was not a strictly defined experience; many varieties were described, from the utmost ecstasy of the learned leaders to the common man's more humble yet no less significant emotion during prayer.
Closely linked with the former is Bitul ha-Yesh, "Negation of the Existent", or of the "Corporeal". Hasidism teaches that while a superficial observance of the universe by the "eyes of the flesh" (Einei ha-Basar) purportedly reflects the reality of all things profane and worldly, a true devotee must transcend this illusory façade and realize that there is nothing but God. It is not only a matter of perception, but very practical, for it entails also abandoning material concerns and cleaving only to the true, spiritual ones, oblivious to the surrounding false distractions of life. The practitioner's success in detaching from his sense of person, and conceive himself as Ein (in the double meaning of 'naught' and 'infinite'), is regarded as the highest state of elation in Hasidism. The true divine essence of man – the soul – may then ascend and return to the upper realm, where it does not possess an existence independent from God. This ideal is termed Hitpashtut ha-Gashmi'yut, "the expansion (or removal) of corporeality". It is the dialectic opposite of God's contraction into the world.
To be enlightened and capable of Bitul ha-Yesh, pursuing the pure spiritual aims and defying the primitive impulses of the body, one must overcome his inferior "Bestial Soul", connected with the Eyes of the Flesh. He may be able to tap into his "Divine Soul" (Nefesh Elohit), which craves communion, by employing constant contemplation, Hitbonenut, on the hidden Godly dimension of all that exists. Then he could understand his surroundings with the "Eyes of the Intellect". The ideal adherent was intended to develop equanimity, or Hishtavut in Hasidic parlance, toward all matters worldly, not ignoring them, but understanding their superficiality.
Hasidic masters exhorted their followers to "negate themselves", paying as little heed as they could for worldly concerns, and thus, to clear the way for this transformation. The struggle and doubt of being torn between the belief in God's immanence and the very real sensual experience of the indifferent world is a key theme in the movement's literature. Many tracts have been devoted to the subject, acknowledging that the "callous and rude" flesh hinders one from holding fast to the ideal, and these shortcomings are extremely hard to overcome even in the purely intellectual level, a fortiori in actual life.
Another implication of this dualism is the notion of "Worship through Corporeality", Avodah be-Gashmiyut. As the Ein Sof metamorphosed into substance, so may it in turn be raised back to its higher state; likewise, since the machinations in the higher Sephirot exert their influence on this world, even the most simple action may, if performed correctly and with understanding, achieve the reverse effect. According to Lurianic doctrine, the netherworld was suffused with divine sparks, concealed within "husks", qlippoth. The glints had to be recovered and elevated to their proper place in the cosmos. "Materiality itself could be embraced and consecrated", noted Glenn Dynner, and Hasidism taught that by common acts like dancing or eating, performed with intention, the sparks could be extricated and set free. Avodah be-Gashmiyut had a clear, if not implicit, antinomian edge, possibly equating sacred rituals mandated by Judaism with everyday activities, granting them the same status in the believer's eyes and having him content to commit the latter at the expense of the former. While at some occasions the movement did appear to step at that direction – for example, in its early days, prayer and preparation for it consumed so much time that adherents were blamed of neglecting sufficient Torah study – Hasidic masters proved highly conservative. Unlike in other, more radical sects influenced by kabbalistic ideas, like the Sabbateans, Worship through Corporeality was largely limited to the elite and carefully restrained. The common adherents were taught they may engage it only mildly, through small deeds like earning money to support their leaders.
The complementary opposite of corporeal worship, or the elation of the finite into infinite, is the concept of Hamshacha, "drawing down" or "absorbing", and specifically, Hamshachat ha-Shefa, "absorption of effluence". During spiritual ascension, one could siphon the power animating the higher dimensions down into the material world, where it would manifest as benevolent influence of all kinds. These included spiritual enlightenment, zest in worship and other high-minded aims, but also the more prosaic health and healing, deliverance from various troubles and simple economic prosperity. Thus, a very tangible and alluring motivation to become followers emerged. Both corporeal worship and absorption allowed the masses to access, with common actions, a religious experience once deemed esoteric.
Yet another reflection of the Ein-Yesh dialectic is pronounced in the transformation of evil to goodness and the relations between these two poles and other contradicting elements – including various traits and emotions of the human psyche, like pride and humility, purity and profanity, et cetera. Hasidic thinkers argued that in order to redeem the sparks hidden, one had to associate not merely with the corporeal, but with sin and evil. One example is the elevation of impure thoughts during prayer, transforming them to noble ones rather than repressing them, advocated mainly in the early days of the sect; or "breaking" one's own character by directly confronting profane inclinations. This aspect, once more, had sharp antinomian implications and was used by the Sabbateans to justify excessive sinning. It was mostly toned down in late Hasidism, and even before that, leaders were careful to stress that it was not exercised in the physical sense, but in the contemplative, spiritual one. This kabbalistic notion, too, was not unique to the movement and appeared frequently among other Jewish groups.
While its mystical and ethical teachings are not easily sharply distinguished from those of other Jewish currents, the defining doctrine of Hasidism is that of the saintly leader, serving both as an ideal inspiration and an institutional figure around whom followers are organized. In the movement's sacral literature, this person is referred to as the Tzaddiq, the Righteous One – often also known by the general honorific Admor (acronym of Hebrew for "our master, teacher and Rabbi"), granted to rabbis in general, or colloquially as Rebbe. The idea that, in every generation, there are righteous persons through whom the divine effluence is drawn to the material world is rooted in the kabbalistic thought, which also claims that one of them is supreme, the reincarnation of Moses. Hasidism elaborated the notion of the Tzaddiq into the basis of its entire system – so much that the very term gained an independent meaning within it, apart from the original which denoted God-fearing, highly observant people.
When the sect began to attract following and expanded from a small circle of learned disciples to a mass movement, it became evident that its complex philosophy could be imparted only partially to the new rank and file. As even intellectuals struggled with the sublime dialectics of infinity and corporeality, there was little hope to have the common folk truly internalize these, not as mere abstractions to pay lip service to. Ideologues exhorted them to have faith, but the true answer, which marked their rise as a distinct sect, was the concept of the Tzaddiq. A Hasidic master was to serve as a living embodiment of the recondite teachings. He was able to transcend matter, gain spiritual communion, Worship through Corporeality and fulfill all the theoretical ideals. As the vast majority of his flock could not do so themselves, they were to cleave to him instead, acquiring at least some semblance of those vicariously. His commanding and often – especially in the early generations – charismatic presence was to reassure the faithful and demonstrate the truth in Hasidic philosophy by countering doubts and despair. But more than spiritual welfare was concerned: Since it was believed he could ascend to the higher realms, the leader was able to harvest effluence and bring it down upon his adherents, providing them with very material benefits. "The crystallization of that theurgical phase", noted Glenn Dynner, "marked Hasidism's evolution into a full-fledged social movement."
In Hasidic discourse, the willingness of the leader to sacrifice the ecstasy and fulfillment of unity in God was deemed a heavy sacrifice undertaken for the benefit of the congregation. His followers were to sustain and especially to obey him, as he possessed superior knowledge and insight gained through communion. The "descent of the Righteous" (Yeridat ha-Tzaddiq) into the matters of the world was depicted as identical with the need to save the sinners and redeem the sparks concealed in the most lowly places. Such a link between his functions as communal leader and spiritual guide legitimized the political power he wielded. It also prevented a retreat of Hasidic masters into hermitism and passivity, as many mystics before them did. Their worldly authority was perceived as part of their long-term mission to elevate the corporeal world back into divine infinity. To a certain extent, the Saint even fulfilled for his congregation, and for it alone, a limited Messianic capacity in his lifetime. After the Sabbatean debacle, this moderate approach provided a safe outlet for the eschatological urges. At least two leaders radicalized in this sphere and caused severe controversy: Nachman of Breslov, who declared himself the only true Tzaddiq, and Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whom many of his followers believed to be the Messiah. The Rebbes were subject to intense hagiography, even subtly compared with Biblical figures by employing prefiguration. It was argued that since followers could not "negate themselves" sufficiently to transcend matter, they should instead "negate themselves" in submission to the Saint (Hitbatlut la-Tzaddiq), thus bonding with him and enabling themselves to access what he achieved in terms of spirituality. The Righteous served as a mystical bridge, drawing down effluence and elevating the prayers and petitions of his admirers.
The Saintly forged a well-defined relationship with the masses: they provided the latter with inspiration, were consulted in all matters, and were expected to intercede on behalf of their adherents with God and ensure they gained financial prosperity, health and male offspring. The pattern still characterizes Hasidic sects, though prolonged routinization in many turned the Rebbes into de facto political leaders of strong, institutionalized communities. The role of a Saint was obtained by charisma, erudition and appeal in the early days of Hasidism. But by the dawn of the 19th century, the Righteous began to claim legitimacy by descent to the masters of the past, arguing that since they linked matter with infinity, their abilities had to be associated with their own corporeal body. Therefore, it was accepted "there can be no Tzaddiq but the son of a Tzaddiq". Virtually all modern sects maintain this hereditary principle. For example, the Rebbes' families maintain endogamy and marry almost solely with scions of other dynasties.
Some Hasidic "courts", and not a few individual prominent masters, developed distinct philosophies with particular accentuation of various themes in the movement's general teachings. Several of these Hasidic schools had lasting influence over many dynasties, while others died with their proponents. In the doctrinal sphere, the dynasties may be divided along many lines. Some are characterized by Rebbes who are predominantly Torah scholars and decisors, deriving their authority much like ordinary non-Hasidic rabbis do. Such "courts" place great emphasis on strict observance and study, and are among the most meticulous in the Orthodox world in practice. Prominent examples are the House of Sanz and its scions, such as Satmar, or Belz. Other sects, like Vizhnitz, espouse a charismatic-populist line, centered on the admiration of the masses for the Righteous, his effervescent style of prayer and conduct and his purported miracle-working capabilities. Fewer still retain a high proportion of the mystical-spiritualist themes of early Hasidism, and encourage members to study much kabbalistic literature and (carefully) engage in the field. The various Ziditchover dynasties mostly adhere to this philosophy. Others still focus on contemplation and achieving inner perfection. No dynasty is wholly devoted to a single approach of the above, and all offer some combination with differing emphasis on each of those.
In 1812, a schism occurred between the Seer of Lublin and his prime disciple, the Holy Jew of Przysucha, due to both personal and doctrinal disagreements. The Seer adopted a populist approach, centered on the Righteous' theurgical functions to draw the masses. He was famous for his lavish, enthusiastic conduct during prayer and worship, and extremely charismatic demeanour. He stressed that as Tzaddiq, his mission was to influence the common folk by absorbing Divine Light and satisfying their material needs, thus converting them to his cause and elating them. The Holy Jew pursued a more introspective course, maintaining that the Rebbe's duty was to serve as a spiritual mentor for a more elitist group, helping them to achieve a senseless state of contemplation, aiming to restore man to his oneness with God which Adam supposedly lost when he ate the fruit of the Lignum Scientiae. The Holy Jew and his successors did neither repudiate miracle working, nor did they eschew dramatic conduct; but they were much more restrained in general. The Przysucha School became dominant in Central Poland, while populist Hasidism resembling the Lublin ethos often prevailed in Galicia. One extreme and renowned philosopher who emerged from the Przysucha School was Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. Adopting an elitist, hard-line attitude, he openly denounced the folky nature of other Tzaddiqim, and rejected financial support. Gathering a small group of devout scholars who sought to attain spiritual perfection, whom he often berated and mocked, he always stressed the importance of both somberness and totality, stating it was better to be fully wicked than only somewhat good.
The Chabad school, limited to its namesake dynasty, but prominent, was founded by Shneur Zalman of Liadi and was elaborated by his successors, until the late 20th century. The movement retained many of the attributes of early Hasidism, before a clear divide between Righteous and ordinary followers was cemented. Chabad Rebbes insisted their adherents acquire proficiency in the sect's lore, and not relegate most responsibility to the leaders. The sect emphasizes the importance of intellectually grasping the dynamics of the hidden divine aspect and how they affect the human psyche; the very acronym Chabad is for the three penultimate Sephirot, associated with the cerebral side of consciousness.
Another famous philosophy is that formulated by Nachman of Breslov and adhered to by Breslov Hasidim. In contrast to most of his peers who believed God must be worshiped through enjoyment of the physical world, Nachman portrayed the corporeal world in grim colors, as a place devoid of God's immediate presence from which the soul yearns to liberate itself. He mocked the attempts to perceive the nature of infinite-finite dialectics and the manner in which God still occupies the Vacant Void albeit not, stating these were paradoxical, beyond human understanding. Only naive faith in their reality would do. Mortals were in constant struggle to overcome their profane instincts and had to free themselves from their limited intellects to see the world as it truly is.
Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov, a major Galician Tzaddiq, was a disciple of the Seer of Lublin, but combined his populist inclination with a strict observance even among his most common followers, and great pluralism in matters pertaining to mysticism, as those were eventually emanating from each person's unique soul.
Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica promulgated a radical understanding of free will, which he considered illusory and also derived directly from God. He argued that when one attained a sufficient spiritual level and could be certain evil thoughts did not derive from his animalistic soul, then sudden urges to transgress revealed Law were God-inspired and may be pursued. This volatile, potentially antinomian doctrine of "Transgression for the Sake of Heaven" is found also in other Hasidic writings, especially from the early period. His successors de-emphasized it in their commentaries. Leiner's disciple Zadok HaKohen of Lublin also developed a complex philosophic system which presented a dialectic nature in history, arguing that great progress had to be preceded by crisis and calamity.
The Hasidic community is organized in a sect known as "court" (Hebrew: חצר, romanized: chatzer; Yiddish: הויף, romanized: Hoif; from German Hof/Gerichtshof). In the early days of the movement, a particular Rebbe's following usually resided in the same town, and Hasidim were categorized by their leaders' settlement: a Hasid of Belz, Vizhnitz, and so forth. Later, especially after World War II, the dynasties retained the names of their original Eastern European settlements when moving to the West or Israel. Thus, for example, the "court" established by Joel Teitelbaum in 1905 at Transylvania remained known after its namesake town, Sathmar, even though its headquarters lay in New York, and almost all other Hasidic sects likewise – albeit some groups founded overseas were named accordingly, like the Boston Hasidic Dynasty.
Akin to his spiritual status, the Rebbe is also the administrative head of the community. Sects often possess their own synagogues, study halls and internal charity mechanisms, and ones sufficiently large also maintain entire educational systems. The Rebbe is the supreme figure of authority, and not just for the institutions. The rank-and-file Hasidim are also expected to consult with him on important matters, and often seek his blessing and advice. He is personally attended by aides known as Gabbai or Mashbak.
Many particular Hasidic rites surround the leader. On the Sabbath, holidays, and celebratory occasions, Rebbes hold a Tisch (table), a large feast for their male adherents. Together, they sing, dance, and eat, and the head of the sect shakes the hands of his followers to bless them, and often delivers a sermon. A Chozer, "repeater", selected for his good memory, commits the text to writing after the Sabbath (any form of writing during the Sabbath itself being forbidden). In many "courts", the remnants of his meal, supposedly suffused with holiness, are handed out and even fought over. Often, a very large dish is prepared beforehand, and the Rebbe only tastes it before passing it to the crowd. Apart from the gathering at noon, the third repast on Sabbath and the "Melaveh Malkah" meal when it ends are also particularly important and an occasion for song, feasting, tales, and sermons. A central custom, which serves as a major factor in the economics of most "courts", is the Pidyon, "Ransom", better known by its Yiddish name Kvitel, "little note": Adherents submit a written petition, which the master may assist with on behalf of his sanctity, adding a sum of money for either charity or the leader's needs. Occasions in the "court" serve as pretext for mass gatherings, flaunting the power, wealth and size of each. Weddings of the leader's family, for example, are often held with large multistoried stands (פארענטשעס, Parentches) filled with Hasidim surround the main floor, where the Rebbe and his relatives dine, celebrate, and perform the Mitzvah tantz. This is a festive dance with the bride: Both parties hold one end of a long sash, a Hasidic gartel, for reasons of modesty.
Allegiance to the dynasty and Rebbe is also sometimes a cause for tension. Notable feuds between "courts" include the 1926–1934 strife after Chaim Elazar Spira of Munkatch cursed the deceased Yissachar Dov Rokeach I of Belz; the 1980–2012 Satmar-Belz collision after Yissachar Dov Rokeach II broke with the Orthodox Council of Jerusalem, which culminated when he had to travel in a bulletproof car; and the 2006–present Satmar succession dispute between brothers Aaron Teitelbaum and Zalman Teitelbaum, which saw mass riots.
As in other Haredi groups, apostates may face threats, hostility, violence, and various punitive measures, among them separation of children from their disaffiliated parents, especially in divorce cases. Due to their strictly religious education and traditionalist upbringing, many who leave their sects have few viable work skills or even command of the English language, and their integration into the broader society is often difficult. The segregated communities are also a comfortable setting for sexual abuse of children, and numerous incidents have been reported. While Hasidic leadership has often been accused of silencing the matter, awareness of it is rising within the sects.
Another related phenomenon is the recent rise of Mashpi'im ("influencers"). Once a title for an instructor in Chabad and Breslov only, the institutionalized nature of the established "courts" led many adherents to seek guidance and inspiration from persons who did not declare themselves new leaders, but only Mashpi'im. Technically, they fill the original role of Rebbes in providing for spiritual welfare; yet, they do not usurp the title, and are therefore countenanced.
Most Hasidim use some variation of Nusach Sefard, a blend of Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgies, based on the innovations of Rabbi Isaac Luria. Many dynasties have their own specific adaptation of Nusach Sefard; some, such as the versions of the Belzer, Bobover, and Dushinsky Hasidim, are closer to Nusach Ashkenaz, while others, such as the Munkacz version, are closer to the old Lurianic. Many sects believe that their version reflects Luria's mystical devotions best. The Baal Shem Tov added two segments to Friday services on the eve of Sabbath: Psalm 107 before afternoon prayer, and Psalm 23 at the end of evening service.
Hasidim use the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew and Aramaic for liturgical purposes, reflecting their Eastern European background. Wordless, emotional melodies, nigunim, are particularly common in their services.
Hasidim lend great importance to kavana, devotion or intention, and their services tend to be extremely long and repetitive. Some courts nearly abolished traditional specified times by which prayers must be conducted (zemanim), to prepare and concentrate. This practice, still enacted in Chabad for one, is controversial in many dynasties, which do follow the specifics of Jewish Law on praying earlier, and not eating beforehand. Chabad makes use of the permission granted in Jewish law to eat before prayer in certain circumstances, and to have later praying times, as a result of longer periods of preparatory study and contemplation beforehand. A common saying to explain this (attributed to the Third Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson I) goes, "Better to eat in order to pray, than to pray in order to eat", implying it is better to eat before prayer if due to the later time of prayers finishing one will be hungry and unable to properly concentrate. Another reglement is daily immersion in a ritual bath by males for spiritual cleansing, at a rate much higher than is customary among other Orthodox Jews.
Hasidism developed a unique emphasis on the spirituality of melody (Nigunim) as a means to reach Deveikut Divine communion, during prayer and communal gatherings. Ecstatic, often wordless Hasidic melodies developed new expressions and depths of the soul in Jewish life, often drawing from folk idioms of the surrounding gentile culture, which were adapted to elevate their concealed sparks of divinity, according to Lurianic theology.
Within the Hasidic world, it is possible to distinguish different Hasidic groups by subtle differences in dress. Some details of their dress are shared by non-Hasidic Haredim. Much of Hasidic dress was historically the clothing of all Eastern European Jews, influenced by the style of Polish–Lithuanian nobility. Furthermore, Hasidim have attributed religious origins to specific Hasidic items of clothing.
Hasidic men most commonly wear dark overclothes. On weekdays, they wear a long, black, cloth jacket called a rekel, and on Jewish Holy Days, the bekishe zaydene kapote (Yiddish; lit., satin caftan), a similarly long, black jacket, but of satin fabric traditionally silk. Indoors, the colorful tish bekishe is still worn. Some Hasidim wear a satin overcoat, known as rezhvolke. Most Hasidim do not wear neckties.
On the Sabbath, the Hasidic Rebbes traditionally wore a white bekishe. This practice has fallen into disuse among most. Many of them wear a black silk bekishe that is trimmed with velvet, known as stro-kes or samet, and in Hungarian ones, gold-embroidered.
Various symbolic and religious qualities are attributed to Hasidic dress, though they are mainly apocryphal, and the clothes' origin is cultural and historical. For example, the long overcoats are considered modest, the shtreimel is supposedly related to shaatnez and keeps one warm, without using wool, and Sabbath shoes are laceless in order not to have to tie a knot, a prohibited action. A gartel divides the Hasid's lower parts from his upper parts, implying modesty and chastity, and for kabbalistic reasons, Hasidim button their clothes right over left. Hasidic men customarily wear black hats during the weekdays, as do nearly all Haredi men today. A variety of hats are worn depending on the group: Chabad men often pinch their hats to form a triangle on the top, Satmar men wear an open-crown hat with rounded edges, and Samet (velvet) or biber (beaver) hats are worn by many Galician and Hungarian Hasidic men.
Married Hasidic men don a variety of fur headdresses on the Sabbath, once common among all wedded Eastern European Jewish males and still worn by non-Hasidic Perushim in Jerusalem. The most ubiquitous is the shtreimel, which is seen especially among Galician and Hungarian sects like Satmar or Belz. A taller spodik is donned by Polish dynasties such as Ger. A kolpik is worn by unmarried sons and grandsons of many Rebbes on the Sabbath. Some Rebbes don it on special occasions.
There are many other distinct items of clothing. Such are the Gerrer hoyznzokn – long black socks into which the trousers are tucked. Some Hasidic men from Eastern Galicia wear black socks with their breeches on the Sabbath, as opposed to white ones on weekdays, particularly Belzer Hasidim.
Following a Biblical commandment not to shave the sides of one's face (Leviticus 19:27), male members of most Hasidic groups wear long, uncut sidelocks called payot (or peyes). Some Hasidic men shave off the rest of their hair. Not every Hasidic group requires long peyos, and not all Jewish men with peyos are Hasidic, but all Hasidic groups discourage the shaving of one's beard. Most Hasidic boys receive their first haircuts ceremonially at the age of three years (only the Skverrer Hasidim do this at their boys' second birthday). Until then, Hasidic boys have long hair.
Hasidic women wear clothing adhering to the principles of modest dress in Jewish law. This includes long conservative skirts and sleeves past the elbow, as well as covered necklines. Also, the women wear stockings to cover their legs; in some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar or Toldot Aharon, the stockings must be opaque. In keeping with Jewish law, married women cover their hair, using either a sheitel (wig), a tichel (headscarf), a shpitzel, a snood, a hat, or a beret. In some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar, women may wear two headcoverings – a wig and a scarf, or a wig and a hat.
Hasidic Jews, like many other Orthodox Jews, typically produce large families; the average Hasidic family in the United States has 8 children. This is followed out of a desire to fulfill the Biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply".
Most Hasidim speak the language of their countries of residence but use Yiddish among themselves as a way of remaining distinct and preserving tradition. Thus, children are still learning Yiddish today, and the language, despite predictions to the contrary, has not died. Yiddish newspapers are still published, and Yiddish fiction is being written, primarily aimed at women. Even films in Yiddish are being produced within the Hasidic community. Some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar and Toldot Aharon, actively oppose the everyday use of Hebrew, which they consider a holy tongue. The use of Hebrew for anything other than prayer and study is, according to them, profane, and so, Yiddish is the vernacular and common tongue for most Hasidim around the world.
Hasidic Tales are a literary genre, concerning both hagiography of various Rebbes and moralistic themes. Some are anecdotes or recorded conversations dealing with matters of faith, practice, and the like. The most famous tend to be terse and carry a strong and obvious point. They were often transmitted orally, though the earliest compendium is from 1815.
Many revolve around the righteous. The Baal Shem, in particular, was subject to excess hagiography. Characterized by vivid metaphors, miracles, and piety, each reflects the surrounding and era it was composed in. Common themes include dissenting the question what is acceptable to pray for, whether or not the commoner may gain communion, or the meaning of wisdom. The tales were a popular, accessible medium to convey the movement's messages.
Additional to these tales, Hasidim study the numerous mystical / spiritual works of Hasidic philosophy. (Chabad Hasidim, for example, daily study the Tanya, the Likutei Torah, and the voluminous works of the Rebbes of Chabad; Breslovers study the teachings of Rabbi Nachman, additional to his "tales".) These works draw on the earlier esoteric theology of Kabbalah but articulate this in terms of inner psychological awareness and personal analogies. Additional to its formal, intellectual component, this study thus makes Jewish mysticism accessible and tangible, so that it inspires emotional dveikus (cleaving to God) and embeds a deep spiritual element in daily Jewish life.
The various Hasidic groups may be categorized along several parameters, including their geographical origin, their proclivity for certain teachings, and their political stance. These attributes are quite often, but by no means always, correlated, and there are many instances when a "court" espouses a unique combination. Thus, while most dynasties from the former Greater Hungary and Galicia are inclined to extreme conservatism and anti-Zionism, Rebbe Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam led the Sanz-Klausenburg sect in a more open and mild direction; and though Hasidim from Lithuania and Belarus are popularly perceived as prone to intellectualism, David Assaf noted this notion is derived more from their Litvak surroundings than their actual philosophies. Apart from those, each "court" often possesses its unique customs, including style of prayer, melodies, particular items of clothing, and the like.
On the political scale, "courts" are mainly divided on their relations to Zionism. The right-wing, identified with Satmar, are hostile to the State of Israel, and refuse to participate in the elections there or receive any state funding. They are mainly affiliated with the Edah HaChareidis and the Central Rabbinical Congress. The great majority belong to Agudas Israel, represented in Israel by the United Torah Judaism party. Its Council of Torah Sages now includes a dozen Rebbes. In the past, there were Religious Zionist Rebbes, mainly of the Ruzhin line, but there are virtually none today.
In 2016, a study conducted by Prof. Marcin Wodziński, drawing from the courts' own internal phone-books and other resources, located 129,211 Hasidic households worldwide, about 5% of the estimated total Jewish population. Of those, 62,062 resided in Israel and 53,485 in the United States, 5,519 in Britain and 3,392 in Canada. In Israel, the largest Hasidic concentrations are in the Haredi neighbourhoods of Jerusalem – including Ramot Alon, Batei Ungarin, et cetera – in the cities of Bnei Brak and El'ad, and in the West Bank settlements of Modi'in Illit and Beitar Illit. There is considerable presence in other specifically Orthodox municipalities or enclaves, like Kiryat Sanz, Netanya. In the United States, most Hasidim reside in New York, though there are small communities across the entire country. Brooklyn, particularly the neighborhoods of Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, has an especially large population. Another large population resides in the hamlet of Monsey in the Hudson Valley region of New York; in the same region, New Square and Kiryas Joel are rapidly growing all-Hasidic enclaves, one founded by the Skver dynasty and the other by Satmar. In Britain, Stamford Hill is home to the largest Hasidic community in the country, and there are others in London and Prestwich in Manchester. In Canada, Kiryas Tosh is a settlement populated entirely by Tosh Hasidim, and there are more adherents of other sects in and around Montreal.
There are more than a dozen Hasidic dynasties with a large following, and over a hundred which have small or minuscule adherence, sometimes below twenty people, with the presumptive Rebbe holding the title more as a matter of prestige. Many "courts" became completely extinct during the Holocaust, like the Aleksander (Hasidic dynasty) from Aleksandrów Łódzki, which numbered tens of thousands in 1939, and barely exists today.
The largest sect in the world, with some 26,000 member households, which constitute 20% of all Hasidim, is Satmar, founded in 1905 in the namesake city in Hungary and based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel. Satmar is known for its extreme conservatism and opposition to both Agudas Israel and Zionism, inspired by the legacy of Hungarian Haredi Judaism. The sect underwent a schism in 2006, and two competing factions emerged, led by rival brothers Aaron Teitelbaum and Zalman Teitelbaum. The second-largest "court" worldwide, with some 11,600 households (or 9% of all Hasidism), is Ger, established in 1859 at Góra Kalwaria, near Warsaw. For decades, it was the dominant power in Agudas, and espoused a moderate line toward Zionism and modern culture. Its origins lay in the rationalist Przysucha School of Central Poland. The current Rebbe is Yaakov Aryeh Alter. The third-largest dynasty is Vizhnitz, a charismatic sect founded in 1854 at Vyzhnytsia, Bukovina. A moderate group involved in Israeli politics, it is split into several branches, which maintain cordial relations. The main partition is between Vizhnitz-Israel and Vizhnitz-Monsey, headed respectively by Rebbes Israel Hager and the eight sons of the late Rebbe Mordecai Hager. In total, all Vizhnitz sub-"courts" constitute over 10,500 households. The fourth major dynasty, with some 7,000 households, is Belz, established 1817 in namesake Belz, south of Lviv. An Eastern Galician dynasty drawing both from the Seer of Lublin's charismatic-populist style and "rabbinic" Hasidism, it espoused hard-line positions, but broke off from the Edah HaChareidis and joined Agudas in 1979. Belz is led by Rebbe Yissachar Dov Rokeach.
The Bobover dynasty, founded 1881 in Bobowa, West Galicia, constitutes some 4,500 households in total, and has undergone a bitter succession strife since 2005, eventually forming the "Bobov" (3,000 households) and "Bobov-45" (1,500 households) sects. Sanz-Klausenburg, divided into a New York and Israeli branches, presides over 3,800 households. The Skver sect, established in 1848 in Skvyra, near Kyiv, constitutes 3,300. The Shomer Emunim dynasties, originating in Jerusalem during the 1920s and known for their unique style of dressing imitating that of the Old Yishuv, have over 3,000 families, almost all in the larger "courts" of Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avraham Yitzchak. Karlin Stolin, which rose already in the 1760s in a quarter of Pinsk, encompasses 2,200 families.
There are two other populous Hasidic sub-groups, which do not function as classical Rebbe-headed "courts", but as de-centralized movements, retaining some of the characteristics of early Hasidism. Breslov rose under its charismatic leader Nachman of Breslov in the early 19th century. Critical of all other Rebbes, he forbade his followers to appoint a successor upon his death in 1810. His acolytes led small groups of adherents, persecuted by other Hasidim, and disseminated his teachings. The original philosophy of the sect elicited great interest among modern scholars, and that led many newcomers to Orthodox Judaism ("repentants") to join it. Numerous Breslov communities, each led by its own rabbis, now have thousands of full-fledged followers, and far more admirers and semi-committed supporters; Marcin Wodziński estimated that the fully committed population of Breslovers may be estimated at 7,000 households. Chabad-Lubavitch, originating in the 1770s, did have hereditary leadership, but always stressed the importance of self-study, rather than reliance on the Righteous. Its seventh, and last, leader, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, converted it into a vehicle for Jewish outreach. By his death in 1994, it had many more semi-engaged supporters than Hasidim in the strict sense, and they are still hard to distinguish. Chabad's own internal phone-books list some 16,800 member households. None succeeded Schneerson, and the sect operates as a large network of communities with independent leaders.
In the late 17th century, several social trends converged among the Jews who inhabited the southern periphery of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially in contemporary Western Ukraine. These enabled the emergence and flourishing of Hasidism.
The first, and most prominent, was the popularization of the mystical lore of Kabbalah. For several centuries, an esoteric teaching practiced surreptitiously by few, it was transformed into almost household knowledge by a mass of cheap printed pamphlets. The kabbalistic inundation was a major influence behind the rise of the heretical Sabbatean movement, led by Sabbatai Zevi, who declared himself Messiah in 1665. The propagation of Kabbalah made the Jewish masses susceptible to Hasidic ideas, themselves, in essence, a popularized version of the teaching – indeed, Hasidism actually emerged when its founders determined to openly practice it, instead of remaining a secret circle of ascetics, as was the manner of almost all past kabbalists. The correlation between publicizing the lore and Sabbateanism did not escape the rabbinic elite, and caused vehement opposition to the new movement.
Another factor was the decline of the traditional authority structures. Jewish autonomy remained quite secured; later research debunked Simon Dubnow's claim that the Council of Four Lands' demise in 1746 was a culmination of a long process which destroyed judicial independence and paved the way for the Hasidic rebbes to serve as leaders (another long-held explanation for the sect's rise advocated by Raphael Mahler, that the Khmelnytsky Uprising effected economic impoverishment and despair, was also refuted). However, the magnates and nobles held much sway over the nomination of both rabbis and communal elders, to such a degree that the masses often perceived them as mere lackeys of the land owners. Their ability to serve as legitimate arbiters in disputes – especially those concerning the regulation of leasehold rights over alcohol distillation and other monopolies in the estates – was severely diminished. The reduced prestige of the establishment, and the need for an alternative source of authority to pass judgement, left a vacuum which Hasidic charismatics eventually filled. They transcended old communal institutions, to which all the Jews of a locality were subordinate, and had groups of followers in each town across vast territories. Often supported by rising strata outside the traditional elite, whether nouveau riche or various low-level religious functionaries, they created a modern form of leadership.
Historians discerned other influences. The formative age of Hasidism coincided with the rise of numerous religious revival movements across the world, including the First Great Awakening in New England, German Pietism, Wahhabism in Arabia, and the Russian Old Believers who opposed the established church. Hasidism rejected the existing order, decrying it as stale and overly hierarchic. They offered what they described as more spiritual, candid, and simple substitutes. Gershon David Hundert noted the considerable similarity between the Hasidic conceptions and this contemporary background, rooted in the growing importance attributed to the individual's consciousness and choices.
Israel ben Eliezer (ca. 1698–1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name", acronym: "Besht"), is considered the founder of Hasidism. Supposedly born south of the Prut, in the northern frontier of Moldavia, he earned a reputation as a Baal Shem, "Master of the Name". These were common folk healers who employed mysticism, amulets and incantations as their trade. Little is known for certain about Israel ben Eliezer. Though not a scholar, he was sufficiently learned to become notable in the communal hall of study and marry into the rabbinic elite, his wife being the divorced sister of a rabbi; in his later years, he became wealthy and famous, as attested by contemporary chronicles. Apart from that, most information about him is derived from Hasidic hagiographic accounts. These claim that as a boy he was recognized by one "Rabbi Adam Baal Shem Tov" who entrusted him with great secrets of the Torah, passed in his illustrious family for centuries; that the Besht later spent a decade in the Carpathian Mountains as a hermit, where he was visited by the Biblical prophet Ahijah the Shilonite who taught him more; and that at the age of thirty-six, he was granted heavenly permission to reveal himself as a great kabbalist and miracle worker.
By the 1740s, it is verified that he relocated to the town of Medzhybizh and became recognized and popular in Podolia and beyond. It is well attested that he emphasized several known kabbalistic concepts, formulating his own teachings to some degree. The Besht stressed the immanence of God and His presence in the material world, and that therefore, physical acts, such as eating, have an actual influence on the spiritual sphere and may serve to hasten the achievement of communion with the divine (devekut). He was known to pray ecstatically and with great intention, in order to provide channels for the divine light to flow into the Earthly realm. The Besht stressed the importance of joy and contentment in the worship of God, rather than the abstinence and self-mortification deemed essential to becoming a pious mystic, and of fervent and vigorous prayer as a means of spiritual elation instead of severe asceticism, but many of his immediate disciples reverted in part to the older doctrines, especially in disavowing sexual pleasure even in marital relations.
In that, the "Besht" laid the foundation for a popular movement, offering a far less rigorous course for the masses to gain a significant religious experience. And yet, he remained the guide of a small society of elitists, in the tradition of former kabbalists, and never led a large public as his successors did. While many later figures cited him as the inspiration behind the full-fledged Hasidic doctrine, the Besht himself did not practice it in his lifetime.
Israel ben Eliezer gathered a considerable following, drawing to himself disciples from far away. They were largely of elitist background, yet adopted the populist approach of their master. The most prominent was Rabbi Dov Ber the Maggid (preacher). He succeeded the former upon his death, though other important acolytes, mainly Jacob Joseph of Polonne, did not accept his leadership. Establishing himself in Mezhirichi, the Maggid turned to greatly elaborate the Besht's rudimentary ideas and institutionalize the nascent circle into an actual movement. Ben Eliezer and his acolytes used the very old and common epithet Hasidim, "pious"; in the latter third of the 18th century, a clear differentiation arose between that sense of the word and what was at first described as "New Hasidism", propagated to a degree by the Maggid and especially his successors.
Doctrine coalesced as Jacob Joseph, Dov Ber, and the latter's disciple, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, composed the three magna opera of early Hasidism, respectively: the 1780 Toldot Ya'akov Yosef, the 1781 Maggid d'varav le-Ya'akov, and the 1788 No'am Elimelekh. Other books were also published. Their new teaching had many aspects. The importance of devotion in prayer was stressed to such degree that many waited beyond the prescribed time to properly prepare; the Besht's recommendation to "elevate and sanctify" impure thoughts, rather than simply repress them during the service, was expanded by Dov Ber into an entire precept, depicting prayer as a mechanism to transform thoughts and feelings from a primal to a higher state in a manner parallel to the unfolding of the Sephirot. But the most important was the notion of the Tzaddiq – later designated by the general rabbinic honorific Admor (our master, teacher, and rabbi) or by the colloquial Rebbe – the Righteous One, the mystic who was able to elate and achieve communion with the divine, but, unlike kabbalists past, did not practice it in secret, but as leader of the masses. He was able to bring down prosperity and guidance from the higher Sephirot, and the common people who could not attain such a state themselves would achieve it by "clinging" to and obeying him. The Tzaddiq served as a bridge between the spiritual realm and the ordinary folk, as well as a simple, understandable embodiment of the esoteric teachings of the sect, which were still beyond the reach of most just as old-style Kabbalah before.
The various Hasidic Tzaddiqim, mainly the Maggid's disciples, spread across Eastern Europe with each gathering adherents among the people and learned acolytes who could be initiated as leaders. The Righteous' "courts" in which they resided, attended by their followers to receive blessing and council, became the institutional centers of Hasidism, serving as its branches and organizational core. Slowly, various rites emerged in them, like the Sabbath Tisch or "table", in which the Righteous would hand out food scraps from their meals, considered blessed by the touch of ones imbued with godly Light during their mystical ascensions. Another potent institution was the Shtibel, the private prayer gatherings opened by adherents in every town which served as a recruiting mechanism. The Shtibel differed from the established synagogues and study halls, allowing their members greater freedom to worship when they pleased, and also serving recreational and welfare purposes. Combined with its simplified message, more appealing to the common man, its honed organizational framework accounted for the exponential growth of Hasidic ranks. Having ousted the old communal model, and replaced it with a less-hierarchical structure and more individually-oriented religiosity, Hasidism was, in fact, the first great modern – albeit not modernist; its self-understanding was grounded in a traditional mindset – Jewish movement.
From its original base in Podolia and Volhynia, the movement was rapidly disseminated during the Maggid's lifetime, and after his 1772 death. Twenty or so of Dov Ber's prime disciples each brought it to a different region, and their own successors followed: Aharon of Karlin (I), Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, and Shneur Zalman of Liadi were the emissaries to the former Lithuania in the far north, while Menachem Nachum Twersky headed to Chernobyl in the east, and Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev remained nearby. Elimelech of Lizhensk, his brother Zusha of Hanipol, and Yisroel Hopsztajn established the sect in Poland proper. Vitebsk and Abraham Kalisker later led a small group of followers to Ottoman Palestine, establishing a Hasidic presence in the Galilee.
The spread of Hasidism also incurred organized opposition. Rabbi Elijah of Vilnius, one of the greatest authorities of the generation and a hasid and secret kabbalist of the old style, was deeply suspicious of their emphasis on mysticism, rather than mundane Torah study, threat to established communal authority, resemblance to the Sabbatean movement, and other details he considered infractions. In April 1772, he and the Vilnius community wardens launched a systematic campaign against the sect, placing an anathema upon them, banishing their leaders, and sending letters denouncing the movement. Further excommunication followed in Brody and other cities. In 1781, during a second round of hostilities, the books of Jacob Joseph were burned in Vilnius. Another cause for strife emerged when the Hasidim adopted the Lurianic prayer rite, which they revised somewhat to Nusach Sefard; the first edition in Eastern Europe was printed in 1781 and received approbation from the anti-Hasidic scholars of Brody, but the sect quickly embraced the Kabbalah-infused tome and popularized it, making it their symbol. Their rivals, named Misnagdim, "opponents" (a generic term which acquired an independent meaning as Hasidism grew stronger), soon accused them of abandoning the traditional Nusach Ashkenaz.
In 1798, Opponents made accusations of espionage against Shneur Zalman of Liadi, and he was imprisoned by the Russian government for two months. Excoriatory polemics were printed and anathemas declared in the entire region. But Elijah's death in 1797 denied the Misnagdim their powerful leader. In 1804, Alexander I of Russia allowed independent prayer groups to operate, the chief vessel through which the movement spread from town to town. The failure to eradicate Hasidism, which acquired a clear self-identity in the struggle and greatly expanded throughout it, convinced its adversaries to adopt a more passive method of resistance, as exemplified by Chaim of Volozhin. The growing conservatism of the new movement – which at some occasions drew close to Kabbalah-based antinomian phraseology, as did the Sabbateans, but never crossed the threshold and remained thoroughly observant – and the rise of common enemies slowly brought a rapprochement, and by the second half of the 19th century, both sides basically considered each other legitimate.
The turn of the century saw several prominent new, fourth generation tzaddiqim. Upon Elimelech's death in the now-partitioned Poland, his place in Habsburg Galicia was assumed by Menachem Mendel of Rimanov, who was deeply hostile to the modernization the Austrian rulers attempted to force on the traditional Jewish society (though this same process also allowed his sect to flourish, as communal authority was severely weakened). The rabbi of Rimanov hearkened the alliance the Hasidim would form with the most conservative elements of the Jewish public. In Central Poland, the new leader was Jacob Isaac Horowiz, the "Seer of Lublin", who was of a particularly populist bent and appealed to the common folk with miracle working and little strenuous spiritual demands. The Seer's senior acolyte, Jacob Isaac Rabinovitz, the "Holy Jew" of Przysucha, gradually dismissed his mentor's approach as overly vulgar, and adopted a more aesthetic and scholarly approach, virtually without theurgy to the masses. The Holy Jew's "Przysucha School" was continued by his successor Simcha Bunim, and especially the reclusive, morose Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. The most controversial fourth generation tzaddiq was the Podolia-based Nachman of Breslov, who denounced his peers for becoming too institutionalized, much like the old establishment their predecessors challenged decades before, and espoused an anti-rationalist, pessimistic spiritual teaching, very different from the prevalent stress on joy.
The opening of the 19th century saw the Hasidic sect transformed. Once a rising force outside the establishment, the tzaddiqim now became an important and often dominant power in most of Eastern Europe. The slow process of encroachment, which mostly begun with forming an independent Shtibel and culminated in the Righteous becoming an authority figure (either alongside or above the official rabbinate) for the entire community, overwhelmed many towns even in Misnagdic stronghold of Lithuania, far more so in Congress Poland and the vast majority in Podolia, Volhynia and Galicia. It began to make inroads into Bukovina, Bessarabia and the westernmost frontier of autochthonic pre-WWII Hasidism, in northeastern Hungary, where the Seer's disciple Moses Teitelbaum (I) was appointed in Ujhely.
Less than three generations after the Besht's death, the sect grew to encompass hundreds of thousands by 1830. As a mass movement, a clear stratification emerged between the court's functionaries and permanent residents (yoshvim, "sitters"), the devoted followers who would often visit the Righteous on Sabbath, and the large public which prayed at Sefard Rite synagogues and was minimally affiliated.
All this was followed by a more conservative approach and power bickering among the Righteous. Since the Maggid's death, none could claim the overall leadership. Among the several dozen active, each ruled over his own turf, and local traditions and customs began to emerge in the various courts which developed their own identity. The high mystical tension typical of a new movement subsided, and was soon replaced by more hierarchical, orderly atmosphere.
The most important aspect of the routinization Hasidism underwent was the adoption of dynasticism. The first to claim legitimacy by right of descent from the Besht was his grandson, Boruch of Medzhybizh, appointed 1782. He held a lavish court with Hershel of Ostropol as jester and demanded the other Righteous acknowledge his supremacy. Upon the death of Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl, his son Mordechai Twersky succeeded him. The principle was conclusively affirmed in the great dispute after Liadi's demise in 1813: his senior acolyte Aharon HaLevi of Strashelye was defeated by his son, Dovber Schneuri, whose offspring retained the title for 181 years.
By the 1860s, virtually all courts were dynastic. Rather than single tzaddiqim with followings of their own, each sect would command a base of rank-and-file Hasidim attached not just to the individual leader, but to the bloodline and the court's unique attributes. Israel Friedman of Ruzhyn insisted on royal splendour, resided in a palace and his six sons all inherited some of his followers. With the constraints of maintaining their gains replacing the dynamism of the past, the Righteous or Rebbes/Admorim also silently retreated from the overt, radical mysticism of their predecessors. While populist miracle working for the masses remained a key theme in many dynasties, a new type of "Rebbe-Rabbi" emerged, one who was both a completely traditional halakhic authority as well as a spiritualist. The tension with the Misnagdim subsided significantly.
But it was an external threat, more than anything else, that mended relations. While traditional Jewish society remained well entrenched in backward Eastern Europe, reports of the rapid acculturation and religious laxity in the West troubled both camps. When the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, appeared in Galicia and Congress Poland in the 1810s, it was soon perceived as a dire threat. The maskilim themselves detested Hasidism as an anti-rationalist and barbaric phenomenon, as did Western Jews of all shades, including the most right-wing Orthodox such as Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer. In Galicia especially, hostility towards it defined the Haskalah to a large extent, from the staunchly observant Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes and Joseph Perl to the radical anti-Talmudists like Osias Schorr. The Enlightened, who revived Hebrew grammar, often mocked their rivals' lack of eloquence in the language. While a considerable proportion of the Misnagdim were not averse to at least some of the Haskala's goals, the Rebbes were unremittingly hostile.
The most distinguished Hasidic leader in Galicia in the era was Chaim Halberstam, who combined Talmudic erudition and the status of a major decisor with his function as tzaddiq. He symbolized the new era, brokering peace between the small Hasidic sect in Hungary to its opponents. In that country, where modernization and assimilation were much more prevalent than in the East, the local Righteous joined forces with those now termed Orthodox against the rising liberals. Rabbi Moses Sofer of Pressburg, while no friend to Hasidism, tolerated it as he combated the forces which sought modernization of the Jews; a generation later, in the 1860s, the Rebbes and the zealot ultra-Orthodox rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein allied closely.
Around the mid-19th century, over a hundred dynastic courts related by marriage were the main religious power in the territory enclosed between Hungary, former Lithuania, Prussia and inner Russia, with considerable presence in the former two. In Central Poland, the pragmatist, rationalist Przysucha school thrived: Yitzchak Meir Alter founded the court of Ger in 1859, and in 1876 Jechiel Danziger established Alexander. In Galicia and Hungary, apart from Halberstam's House of Sanz, Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov's descendants each pursued a mystical approach in the dynasties of Zidichov, Komarno and so forth. In 1817, Sholom Rokeach became the first Rebbe of Belz. At Bukovina, the Hager line of Kosov-Vizhnitz was the largest court.
The Haskalah was always a minor force, but the Jewish national movements which emerged in the 1880s, as well as Socialism, proved much more appealing to the young. Progressive strata condemned Hasidism as a primitive relic, strong, but doomed to disappear, as Eastern European Jewry underwent slow yet steady secularization. The gravity of the situation was attested to by the foundation of Hasidic yeshivas (in the modern, boarding school-equivalent sense) to enculturate the young and preserve their loyalty: The first was established at Nowy Wiśnicz by Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam (I) in 1881. These institutions were originally utilized by the Misnagdim to protect their youth from Hasidic influence, but now, the latter faced a similar crisis. One of the most contentious issues in this respect was Zionism; the Ruzhin dynasties were quite favourably disposed toward it, while Hungarian and Galician courts reviled it.
Outside pressure was mounting in the early 20th century. In 1912, many Hasidic leaders partook in the creation of the Agudas Israel party, a political instrument intended to safeguard what was now named Orthodox Judaism even in the relatively traditional East; the more hard-line dynasties, mainly Galician and Hungarian, opposed the Aguda as "too lenient". Mass immigration to America, urbanization, World War I, and the subsequent Russian Civil War uprooted the shtetls in which the local Jews had lived for centuries, and which were the bedrock of Hasidism. In the new Soviet Union, civil equality first achieved and a harsh repression of religion caused a rapid secularization. Few remaining Hasidim, especially of Chabad, continued to practice underground for decades. In the new states of the Interbellum era, the process was only somewhat slower. On the eve of World War II, strictly observant Jews were estimated to constitute no more than a third of the total Jewish population in Poland, the world's most Orthodox country. While the Rebbes still had a vast base of support, it was aging and declining.
The Holocaust hit the Hasidim particularly hard because they were easily identifiable and because they were almost unable to disguise themselves among the larger populace due to cultural insularity. Hundreds of leaders perished with their flock, while the flight of many notable ones as their followers were being exterminated – especially Aharon Rokeach of Belz and Joel Teitelbaum of Satmar – elicited bitter recrimination. In the immediate post-war years, the entire movement seemed to teeter on the precipice of oblivion. In Israel, the United States, and Western Europe, the survivors' children were at best becoming Modern Orthodox. While a century earlier, the Haskalah depicted it as a medieval, malicious power, now, it was so weakened that the popular cultural image was sentimental and romantic, what Joseph Dan termed "Frumkinian Hasidism", for it began with the short stories of Michael Levi Rodkinson (Frumkin). Martin Buber was the major contributor to this trend, portraying the sect as a model of a healthy folk consciousness. "Frumkinian" style was very influential, later inspiring the so-called "Neo-Hasidism", and also utterly ahistorical.
Yet, the movement proved resilient. Talented and charismatic Hasidic masters emerged, who re-invigorated their following and drew new crowds. In New York, the Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum formulated a fiercely anti-Zionist Holocaust theology and founded an insular, self-sufficient community which attracted many immigrants from Greater Hungary. By 1961, 40% of families were newcomers. Yisrael Alter of Ger created robust institutions, fortified his court's standing in Agudas Israel, and held tisch every week for 29 years. He halted the hemorrhage of his followers, and retrieved many Litvaks (the contemporary, less adverse epithet for Misnagdim) and Religious Zionists whose parents were Gerrer Hasidim before the war. Chaim Meir Hager similarly restored Vizhnitz. Moses Isaac Gewirtzman founded the new Pshevorsk (Hasidic dynasty) in Antwerp.
The most explosive growth was experienced in Chabad-Lubavitch, whose head, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, adopted a modern (he and his disciples ceased wearing the customary Shtreimel) and outreach-centered orientation. At a time when most Orthodox Jews, and Hasidim in particular, rejected proselytization, he turned his sect into a mechanism devoted almost solely to it, blurring the difference between actual Hasidim and loosely affiliated supporters until researchers could scarcely define it as a regular Hasidic group. Another phenomenon was the revival of Breslov, which remained without an acting Tzaddiq since the rebellious Rebbe Nachman's 1810 death. Its complex, existentialist philosophy drew many to it.
High fertility rates, increasing tolerance and multiculturalism on the part of surrounding society, and the great wave of newcomers to Orthodox Judaism which began in the 1970s all cemented the movement's status as very much alive and thriving. The clearest indication for that, noted Joseph Dan, was the disappearance of the "Frumkinian" narrative which inspired much sympathy towards it from non-Orthodox Jews and others, as actual Hasidism returned to the fore. It was replaced by apprehension and concern due to the growing presence of the reclusive, strictly religious Hasidic lifestyle in the public sphere, especially in Israel. As numbers grew, "courts" were again torn apart by schisms between Rebbes' sons vying for power, a common occurrence during the golden age of the 19th century. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות Ḥăsīdus, [χasiˈdus]; originally, \"piety\"), is a religious movement within Judaism that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contemporary Western Ukraine during the 18th century, and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as hassidim, reside in Israel and in the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Israel Ben Eliezer, the \"Baal Shem Tov\", is regarded as its founding father, and his disciples developed and disseminated it. Present-day Hasidism is a sub-group within Haredi Judaism and is noted for its religious conservatism and social seclusion. Its members adhere closely both to Orthodox Jewish practice – with the movement's own unique emphases – and the traditions of Eastern European Jews. Many of the latter, including various special styles of dress and the use of the Yiddish language, are nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hasidism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hasidic thought draws heavily on Lurianic Kabbalah, and, to an extent, is a popularization of it. Teachings emphasize God's immanence in the universe, the need to cleave and be one with Him at all times, the devotional aspect of religious practice, and the spiritual dimension of corporeality and mundane acts. Hasidim, the adherents of Hasidism, are organized in independent sects known as \"courts\" or dynasties, each headed by its own hereditary male leader, a Rebbe. Reverence and submission to the Rebbe are key tenets, as he is considered a spiritual authority with whom the follower must bond to gain closeness to God. The various \"courts\" share basic convictions, but operate apart and possess unique traits and customs. Affiliation is often retained in families for generations, and being Hasidic is as much a sociological factor – entailing birth into a specific community and allegiance to a dynasty of Rebbes – as it is a religious one. There are several \"courts\" with many thousands of member households each, and hundreds of smaller ones. As of 2016, there were over 130,000 Hasidic households worldwide, about 5% of the global Jewish population.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The terms hasid and hasidut, meaning \"pietist\" and \"piety\", have a long history in Judaism. The Talmud and other old sources refer to the \"Pietists of Old\" (Hasidim haRishonim) who would contemplate an entire hour in preparation for prayer. The phrase denoted extremely devoted individuals who not only observed the Law to its letter, but performed good deeds even beyond it. Adam himself is honored with the title, in tractate Eruvin 18b by Rabbi Meir: \"Adam was a great hasid, having fasted for 130 years.\" The first to adopt the epithet collectively were apparently the hasidim in Second Temple period Judea, known as Hasideans after the Greek rendering of their name, who perhaps served as the model for those mentioned in the Talmud. The title continued to be applied as an honorific for the exceptionally devout. In 12th-century Rhineland, or Ashkenaz in Jewish parlance, another prominent school of ascetics named themselves hasidim; to distinguish them from the rest, later research employed the term Ashkenazi Hasidim. In the 16th century, when Kabbalah spread, the title also became associated with it. Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah wrote in his glossa on Isaac Luria's version of the Shulchan Aruch that, \"One who wishes to tap the hidden wisdom, must conduct himself in the manner of the Pious.\"",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The movement founded by Israel Ben Eliezer in the 18th century adopted the term hasidim in the original connotation. But when the sect grew and developed specific attributes, from the 1770s, the names gradually acquired a new meaning. Its common adherents, belonging to groups each headed by a spiritual leader, were henceforth known as Hasidim. The transformation was slow: The movement was at first referred to as \"New Hasidism\" by outsiders (as recalled in the autobiography of Salomon Maimon), to separate it from the old one, and its enemies derisively mocked its members as Mithasdim, \"[those who] pretend [to be] hasidim\". Yet, eventually, the young sect gained such a mass following that the old connotation was sidelined. In popular discourse, at least, \"Hasid\" came to denote someone who follows a religious teacher from the movement. It also entered Modern Hebrew as such, meaning \"adherent\" or \"disciple\". One was not merely a Hasid anymore, observed historian David Assaf, but a Hasid of someone or some dynasty in particular. This linguistic transformation paralleled that of the word tzaddik, \"righteous\", which the Hasidic leaders adopted for themselves – though they are known colloquially as Rebbes or by the honorific Admor. Originally denoting an observant, moral person, in Hasidic literature, tzaddik became synonymous with the often hereditary master heading a sect of followers.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The lengthy history of Hasidism, the numerous schools of thought therein, and its definitive use of homiletic literature and sermons – comprising numerous references to earlier sources in the Torah, Talmud, and exegesis as a means to grounding itself in tradition – to convey its ideas make the isolation of a common doctrine highly challenging to researchers. As noted by Joseph Dan, \"Every attempt to present such a body of ideas has failed\". Even motifs presented by scholars in the past as unique Hasidic contributions were later revealed to have been common among both their predecessors and opponents, all the more so regarding many other traits that are widely extant – these play, Dan added, \"a prominent role in modern non-Hasidic and anti-Hasidic writings as well\". The difficulty of separating the movement's philosophy from that of its main inspiration, Lurianic Kabbalah, and determining what was novel and what merely a recapitulation, also baffled historians. Some, like Louis Jacobs, regarded the early masters as innovators who introduced \"much that was new if only by emphasis\"; others, primarily Mendel Piekarz, argued to the contrary that but a little was not found in much earlier tracts, and the movement's originality lay in the manner it popularized these teachings to become the ideology of a well-organized sect.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Among the traits particularly associated with Hasidism in common understanding which are in fact widespread, is the importance of joy and happiness at worship and religious life – though the sect undoubtedly stressed this aspect and still possesses a clear populist bent. Another example is the value placed on the simple, ordinary Jew in supposed contradiction with the favouring of elitist scholars beforehand; such ideas are common in ethical works far preceding Hasidism. The movement did for a few decades challenge the rabbinic establishment, which relied on the authority of Torah acumen, but affirmed the centrality of study very soon. Concurrently, the image of its Opponents as dreary intellectuals who lacked spiritual fervour and opposed mysticism is likewise unfounded. Neither did Hasidism, often portrayed as promoting healthy sensuality, unanimously reject the asceticism and self-mortification associated primarily with its rivals. Joseph Dan ascribed all these perceptions to so-called \"Neo-Hasidic\" writers and thinkers, like Martin Buber. In their attempt to build new models of spirituality for modern Jews, they propagated a romantic, sentimental image of the movement. The \"Neo-Hasidic\" interpretation influenced even scholarly discourse to a great degree, but had a tenuous connection with reality.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A further complication is the divide between what researchers term \"early Hasidism\", which ended roughly in the 1810s, and established Hasidism since then onwards. While the former was a highly dynamic religious revival movement, the latter phase is characterized by consolidation into sects with hereditary leadership. The mystical teachings formulated during the first era were by no means repudiated, and many Hasidic masters remained consummate spiritualists and original thinkers; as noted by Benjamin Brown, Buber's once commonly accepted view that the routinization constituted \"decadence\" was refuted by later studies, demonstrating that the movement remained very much innovative. Yet many aspects of early Hasidism were indeed de-emphasized in favour of more conventional religious expressions, and its radical concepts were largely neutralized. Some Rebbes adopted a relatively rationalist bent, sidelining their explicit mystical, theurgical roles, and many others functioned almost solely as political leaders of large communities. As to their Hasidim, affiliation was less a matter of admiring a charismatic leader as in the early days, but rather birth into a family belonging to a specific \"court\".",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The most fundamental theme underlying all Hasidic theory is the immanence of God in the universe, often expressed in a phrase from Tikunei haZohar, Leit atar panuy miné (Aramaic: \"no site is devoid of Him\"). This panentheistic concept was derived from Lurianic discourse, but greatly expanded in the Hasidic one. In the beginning, in order to create the world, God contracted (Tzimtzum) His omnipresence, the Ein Sof, leaving a Vacant Void (Chalal panuy), bereft from obvious presence and therefore able to entertain free will, contradictions and other phenomena seemingly separate from God Himself. These would have been impossible within His original, perfect existence. Yet, the very reality of the world which was created in the Void is entirely dependent on its divine origin. Matter would have been null and void without the true, spiritual essence it possesses. Just the same, the infinite Ein Sof cannot manifest in the Vacant Void, and must limit itself in the guise of measurable corporeality that may be perceived.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Thus, there is a dualism between the true aspect of everything and the physical side, false but ineluctable, with each evolving into the other: as God must compress and disguise Himself, so must humans and matter in general ascend and reunite with the Omnipresence. Rachel Elior quoted Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in his commentary Torah Or on Genesis 28:22, who wrote that \"this is the purpose of Creation, from Infinity to Finitude, so it may be reversed from the state of Finite to that of Infinity\". Kabbalah stressed the importance of this dialectic, but mainly (though not exclusively) evoked it in cosmic terms, referring for example to the manner in which God progressively diminished Himself into the world through the various dimensions, or Sephirot. Hasidism applied it also to the most mundane details of human existence. All Hasidic schools devoted a prominent place in their teaching, with differing accentuation, to the interchanging nature of Ein, both infinite and imperceptible, becoming Yesh, \"Existent\" – and vice versa. They used the concept as a prism to gauge the world, and the needs of the spirit in particular. Elior noted: \"Reality lost its static nature and permanent value, now measured by a new standard, seeking to expose the Godly, boundless essence, manifest in its tangible, circumscribed opposite.\"",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "One major derivative of this philosophy is the notion of devekut, \"communion\". As God was everywhere, connection with Him had to be pursued ceaselessly as well, in all times, places and occasions. Such an experience was in the reach of every person, who only had to negate his inferior impulses and grasp the truth of divine immanence, enabling him to unite with it and attain the state of perfect, selfless bliss. Hasidic masters, well versed in the teachings concerning communion, are supposed not only to gain it themselves, but to guide their flock to it. Devekut was not a strictly defined experience; many varieties were described, from the utmost ecstasy of the learned leaders to the common man's more humble yet no less significant emotion during prayer.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Closely linked with the former is Bitul ha-Yesh, \"Negation of the Existent\", or of the \"Corporeal\". Hasidism teaches that while a superficial observance of the universe by the \"eyes of the flesh\" (Einei ha-Basar) purportedly reflects the reality of all things profane and worldly, a true devotee must transcend this illusory façade and realize that there is nothing but God. It is not only a matter of perception, but very practical, for it entails also abandoning material concerns and cleaving only to the true, spiritual ones, oblivious to the surrounding false distractions of life. The practitioner's success in detaching from his sense of person, and conceive himself as Ein (in the double meaning of 'naught' and 'infinite'), is regarded as the highest state of elation in Hasidism. The true divine essence of man – the soul – may then ascend and return to the upper realm, where it does not possess an existence independent from God. This ideal is termed Hitpashtut ha-Gashmi'yut, \"the expansion (or removal) of corporeality\". It is the dialectic opposite of God's contraction into the world.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "To be enlightened and capable of Bitul ha-Yesh, pursuing the pure spiritual aims and defying the primitive impulses of the body, one must overcome his inferior \"Bestial Soul\", connected with the Eyes of the Flesh. He may be able to tap into his \"Divine Soul\" (Nefesh Elohit), which craves communion, by employing constant contemplation, Hitbonenut, on the hidden Godly dimension of all that exists. Then he could understand his surroundings with the \"Eyes of the Intellect\". The ideal adherent was intended to develop equanimity, or Hishtavut in Hasidic parlance, toward all matters worldly, not ignoring them, but understanding their superficiality.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Hasidic masters exhorted their followers to \"negate themselves\", paying as little heed as they could for worldly concerns, and thus, to clear the way for this transformation. The struggle and doubt of being torn between the belief in God's immanence and the very real sensual experience of the indifferent world is a key theme in the movement's literature. Many tracts have been devoted to the subject, acknowledging that the \"callous and rude\" flesh hinders one from holding fast to the ideal, and these shortcomings are extremely hard to overcome even in the purely intellectual level, a fortiori in actual life.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Another implication of this dualism is the notion of \"Worship through Corporeality\", Avodah be-Gashmiyut. As the Ein Sof metamorphosed into substance, so may it in turn be raised back to its higher state; likewise, since the machinations in the higher Sephirot exert their influence on this world, even the most simple action may, if performed correctly and with understanding, achieve the reverse effect. According to Lurianic doctrine, the netherworld was suffused with divine sparks, concealed within \"husks\", qlippoth. The glints had to be recovered and elevated to their proper place in the cosmos. \"Materiality itself could be embraced and consecrated\", noted Glenn Dynner, and Hasidism taught that by common acts like dancing or eating, performed with intention, the sparks could be extricated and set free. Avodah be-Gashmiyut had a clear, if not implicit, antinomian edge, possibly equating sacred rituals mandated by Judaism with everyday activities, granting them the same status in the believer's eyes and having him content to commit the latter at the expense of the former. While at some occasions the movement did appear to step at that direction – for example, in its early days, prayer and preparation for it consumed so much time that adherents were blamed of neglecting sufficient Torah study – Hasidic masters proved highly conservative. Unlike in other, more radical sects influenced by kabbalistic ideas, like the Sabbateans, Worship through Corporeality was largely limited to the elite and carefully restrained. The common adherents were taught they may engage it only mildly, through small deeds like earning money to support their leaders.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The complementary opposite of corporeal worship, or the elation of the finite into infinite, is the concept of Hamshacha, \"drawing down\" or \"absorbing\", and specifically, Hamshachat ha-Shefa, \"absorption of effluence\". During spiritual ascension, one could siphon the power animating the higher dimensions down into the material world, where it would manifest as benevolent influence of all kinds. These included spiritual enlightenment, zest in worship and other high-minded aims, but also the more prosaic health and healing, deliverance from various troubles and simple economic prosperity. Thus, a very tangible and alluring motivation to become followers emerged. Both corporeal worship and absorption allowed the masses to access, with common actions, a religious experience once deemed esoteric.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Yet another reflection of the Ein-Yesh dialectic is pronounced in the transformation of evil to goodness and the relations between these two poles and other contradicting elements – including various traits and emotions of the human psyche, like pride and humility, purity and profanity, et cetera. Hasidic thinkers argued that in order to redeem the sparks hidden, one had to associate not merely with the corporeal, but with sin and evil. One example is the elevation of impure thoughts during prayer, transforming them to noble ones rather than repressing them, advocated mainly in the early days of the sect; or \"breaking\" one's own character by directly confronting profane inclinations. This aspect, once more, had sharp antinomian implications and was used by the Sabbateans to justify excessive sinning. It was mostly toned down in late Hasidism, and even before that, leaders were careful to stress that it was not exercised in the physical sense, but in the contemplative, spiritual one. This kabbalistic notion, too, was not unique to the movement and appeared frequently among other Jewish groups.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "While its mystical and ethical teachings are not easily sharply distinguished from those of other Jewish currents, the defining doctrine of Hasidism is that of the saintly leader, serving both as an ideal inspiration and an institutional figure around whom followers are organized. In the movement's sacral literature, this person is referred to as the Tzaddiq, the Righteous One – often also known by the general honorific Admor (acronym of Hebrew for \"our master, teacher and Rabbi\"), granted to rabbis in general, or colloquially as Rebbe. The idea that, in every generation, there are righteous persons through whom the divine effluence is drawn to the material world is rooted in the kabbalistic thought, which also claims that one of them is supreme, the reincarnation of Moses. Hasidism elaborated the notion of the Tzaddiq into the basis of its entire system – so much that the very term gained an independent meaning within it, apart from the original which denoted God-fearing, highly observant people.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "When the sect began to attract following and expanded from a small circle of learned disciples to a mass movement, it became evident that its complex philosophy could be imparted only partially to the new rank and file. As even intellectuals struggled with the sublime dialectics of infinity and corporeality, there was little hope to have the common folk truly internalize these, not as mere abstractions to pay lip service to. Ideologues exhorted them to have faith, but the true answer, which marked their rise as a distinct sect, was the concept of the Tzaddiq. A Hasidic master was to serve as a living embodiment of the recondite teachings. He was able to transcend matter, gain spiritual communion, Worship through Corporeality and fulfill all the theoretical ideals. As the vast majority of his flock could not do so themselves, they were to cleave to him instead, acquiring at least some semblance of those vicariously. His commanding and often – especially in the early generations – charismatic presence was to reassure the faithful and demonstrate the truth in Hasidic philosophy by countering doubts and despair. But more than spiritual welfare was concerned: Since it was believed he could ascend to the higher realms, the leader was able to harvest effluence and bring it down upon his adherents, providing them with very material benefits. \"The crystallization of that theurgical phase\", noted Glenn Dynner, \"marked Hasidism's evolution into a full-fledged social movement.\"",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In Hasidic discourse, the willingness of the leader to sacrifice the ecstasy and fulfillment of unity in God was deemed a heavy sacrifice undertaken for the benefit of the congregation. His followers were to sustain and especially to obey him, as he possessed superior knowledge and insight gained through communion. The \"descent of the Righteous\" (Yeridat ha-Tzaddiq) into the matters of the world was depicted as identical with the need to save the sinners and redeem the sparks concealed in the most lowly places. Such a link between his functions as communal leader and spiritual guide legitimized the political power he wielded. It also prevented a retreat of Hasidic masters into hermitism and passivity, as many mystics before them did. Their worldly authority was perceived as part of their long-term mission to elevate the corporeal world back into divine infinity. To a certain extent, the Saint even fulfilled for his congregation, and for it alone, a limited Messianic capacity in his lifetime. After the Sabbatean debacle, this moderate approach provided a safe outlet for the eschatological urges. At least two leaders radicalized in this sphere and caused severe controversy: Nachman of Breslov, who declared himself the only true Tzaddiq, and Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whom many of his followers believed to be the Messiah. The Rebbes were subject to intense hagiography, even subtly compared with Biblical figures by employing prefiguration. It was argued that since followers could not \"negate themselves\" sufficiently to transcend matter, they should instead \"negate themselves\" in submission to the Saint (Hitbatlut la-Tzaddiq), thus bonding with him and enabling themselves to access what he achieved in terms of spirituality. The Righteous served as a mystical bridge, drawing down effluence and elevating the prayers and petitions of his admirers.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Saintly forged a well-defined relationship with the masses: they provided the latter with inspiration, were consulted in all matters, and were expected to intercede on behalf of their adherents with God and ensure they gained financial prosperity, health and male offspring. The pattern still characterizes Hasidic sects, though prolonged routinization in many turned the Rebbes into de facto political leaders of strong, institutionalized communities. The role of a Saint was obtained by charisma, erudition and appeal in the early days of Hasidism. But by the dawn of the 19th century, the Righteous began to claim legitimacy by descent to the masters of the past, arguing that since they linked matter with infinity, their abilities had to be associated with their own corporeal body. Therefore, it was accepted \"there can be no Tzaddiq but the son of a Tzaddiq\". Virtually all modern sects maintain this hereditary principle. For example, the Rebbes' families maintain endogamy and marry almost solely with scions of other dynasties.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Some Hasidic \"courts\", and not a few individual prominent masters, developed distinct philosophies with particular accentuation of various themes in the movement's general teachings. Several of these Hasidic schools had lasting influence over many dynasties, while others died with their proponents. In the doctrinal sphere, the dynasties may be divided along many lines. Some are characterized by Rebbes who are predominantly Torah scholars and decisors, deriving their authority much like ordinary non-Hasidic rabbis do. Such \"courts\" place great emphasis on strict observance and study, and are among the most meticulous in the Orthodox world in practice. Prominent examples are the House of Sanz and its scions, such as Satmar, or Belz. Other sects, like Vizhnitz, espouse a charismatic-populist line, centered on the admiration of the masses for the Righteous, his effervescent style of prayer and conduct and his purported miracle-working capabilities. Fewer still retain a high proportion of the mystical-spiritualist themes of early Hasidism, and encourage members to study much kabbalistic literature and (carefully) engage in the field. The various Ziditchover dynasties mostly adhere to this philosophy. Others still focus on contemplation and achieving inner perfection. No dynasty is wholly devoted to a single approach of the above, and all offer some combination with differing emphasis on each of those.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1812, a schism occurred between the Seer of Lublin and his prime disciple, the Holy Jew of Przysucha, due to both personal and doctrinal disagreements. The Seer adopted a populist approach, centered on the Righteous' theurgical functions to draw the masses. He was famous for his lavish, enthusiastic conduct during prayer and worship, and extremely charismatic demeanour. He stressed that as Tzaddiq, his mission was to influence the common folk by absorbing Divine Light and satisfying their material needs, thus converting them to his cause and elating them. The Holy Jew pursued a more introspective course, maintaining that the Rebbe's duty was to serve as a spiritual mentor for a more elitist group, helping them to achieve a senseless state of contemplation, aiming to restore man to his oneness with God which Adam supposedly lost when he ate the fruit of the Lignum Scientiae. The Holy Jew and his successors did neither repudiate miracle working, nor did they eschew dramatic conduct; but they were much more restrained in general. The Przysucha School became dominant in Central Poland, while populist Hasidism resembling the Lublin ethos often prevailed in Galicia. One extreme and renowned philosopher who emerged from the Przysucha School was Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. Adopting an elitist, hard-line attitude, he openly denounced the folky nature of other Tzaddiqim, and rejected financial support. Gathering a small group of devout scholars who sought to attain spiritual perfection, whom he often berated and mocked, he always stressed the importance of both somberness and totality, stating it was better to be fully wicked than only somewhat good.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Chabad school, limited to its namesake dynasty, but prominent, was founded by Shneur Zalman of Liadi and was elaborated by his successors, until the late 20th century. The movement retained many of the attributes of early Hasidism, before a clear divide between Righteous and ordinary followers was cemented. Chabad Rebbes insisted their adherents acquire proficiency in the sect's lore, and not relegate most responsibility to the leaders. The sect emphasizes the importance of intellectually grasping the dynamics of the hidden divine aspect and how they affect the human psyche; the very acronym Chabad is for the three penultimate Sephirot, associated with the cerebral side of consciousness.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Another famous philosophy is that formulated by Nachman of Breslov and adhered to by Breslov Hasidim. In contrast to most of his peers who believed God must be worshiped through enjoyment of the physical world, Nachman portrayed the corporeal world in grim colors, as a place devoid of God's immediate presence from which the soul yearns to liberate itself. He mocked the attempts to perceive the nature of infinite-finite dialectics and the manner in which God still occupies the Vacant Void albeit not, stating these were paradoxical, beyond human understanding. Only naive faith in their reality would do. Mortals were in constant struggle to overcome their profane instincts and had to free themselves from their limited intellects to see the world as it truly is.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov, a major Galician Tzaddiq, was a disciple of the Seer of Lublin, but combined his populist inclination with a strict observance even among his most common followers, and great pluralism in matters pertaining to mysticism, as those were eventually emanating from each person's unique soul.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica promulgated a radical understanding of free will, which he considered illusory and also derived directly from God. He argued that when one attained a sufficient spiritual level and could be certain evil thoughts did not derive from his animalistic soul, then sudden urges to transgress revealed Law were God-inspired and may be pursued. This volatile, potentially antinomian doctrine of \"Transgression for the Sake of Heaven\" is found also in other Hasidic writings, especially from the early period. His successors de-emphasized it in their commentaries. Leiner's disciple Zadok HaKohen of Lublin also developed a complex philosophic system which presented a dialectic nature in history, arguing that great progress had to be preceded by crisis and calamity.",
"title": "Hasidic philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Hasidic community is organized in a sect known as \"court\" (Hebrew: חצר, romanized: chatzer; Yiddish: הויף, romanized: Hoif; from German Hof/Gerichtshof). In the early days of the movement, a particular Rebbe's following usually resided in the same town, and Hasidim were categorized by their leaders' settlement: a Hasid of Belz, Vizhnitz, and so forth. Later, especially after World War II, the dynasties retained the names of their original Eastern European settlements when moving to the West or Israel. Thus, for example, the \"court\" established by Joel Teitelbaum in 1905 at Transylvania remained known after its namesake town, Sathmar, even though its headquarters lay in New York, and almost all other Hasidic sects likewise – albeit some groups founded overseas were named accordingly, like the Boston Hasidic Dynasty.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Akin to his spiritual status, the Rebbe is also the administrative head of the community. Sects often possess their own synagogues, study halls and internal charity mechanisms, and ones sufficiently large also maintain entire educational systems. The Rebbe is the supreme figure of authority, and not just for the institutions. The rank-and-file Hasidim are also expected to consult with him on important matters, and often seek his blessing and advice. He is personally attended by aides known as Gabbai or Mashbak.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Many particular Hasidic rites surround the leader. On the Sabbath, holidays, and celebratory occasions, Rebbes hold a Tisch (table), a large feast for their male adherents. Together, they sing, dance, and eat, and the head of the sect shakes the hands of his followers to bless them, and often delivers a sermon. A Chozer, \"repeater\", selected for his good memory, commits the text to writing after the Sabbath (any form of writing during the Sabbath itself being forbidden). In many \"courts\", the remnants of his meal, supposedly suffused with holiness, are handed out and even fought over. Often, a very large dish is prepared beforehand, and the Rebbe only tastes it before passing it to the crowd. Apart from the gathering at noon, the third repast on Sabbath and the \"Melaveh Malkah\" meal when it ends are also particularly important and an occasion for song, feasting, tales, and sermons. A central custom, which serves as a major factor in the economics of most \"courts\", is the Pidyon, \"Ransom\", better known by its Yiddish name Kvitel, \"little note\": Adherents submit a written petition, which the master may assist with on behalf of his sanctity, adding a sum of money for either charity or the leader's needs. Occasions in the \"court\" serve as pretext for mass gatherings, flaunting the power, wealth and size of each. Weddings of the leader's family, for example, are often held with large multistoried stands (פארענטשעס, Parentches) filled with Hasidim surround the main floor, where the Rebbe and his relatives dine, celebrate, and perform the Mitzvah tantz. This is a festive dance with the bride: Both parties hold one end of a long sash, a Hasidic gartel, for reasons of modesty.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Allegiance to the dynasty and Rebbe is also sometimes a cause for tension. Notable feuds between \"courts\" include the 1926–1934 strife after Chaim Elazar Spira of Munkatch cursed the deceased Yissachar Dov Rokeach I of Belz; the 1980–2012 Satmar-Belz collision after Yissachar Dov Rokeach II broke with the Orthodox Council of Jerusalem, which culminated when he had to travel in a bulletproof car; and the 2006–present Satmar succession dispute between brothers Aaron Teitelbaum and Zalman Teitelbaum, which saw mass riots.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "As in other Haredi groups, apostates may face threats, hostility, violence, and various punitive measures, among them separation of children from their disaffiliated parents, especially in divorce cases. Due to their strictly religious education and traditionalist upbringing, many who leave their sects have few viable work skills or even command of the English language, and their integration into the broader society is often difficult. The segregated communities are also a comfortable setting for sexual abuse of children, and numerous incidents have been reported. While Hasidic leadership has often been accused of silencing the matter, awareness of it is rising within the sects.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Another related phenomenon is the recent rise of Mashpi'im (\"influencers\"). Once a title for an instructor in Chabad and Breslov only, the institutionalized nature of the established \"courts\" led many adherents to seek guidance and inspiration from persons who did not declare themselves new leaders, but only Mashpi'im. Technically, they fill the original role of Rebbes in providing for spiritual welfare; yet, they do not usurp the title, and are therefore countenanced.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Most Hasidim use some variation of Nusach Sefard, a blend of Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgies, based on the innovations of Rabbi Isaac Luria. Many dynasties have their own specific adaptation of Nusach Sefard; some, such as the versions of the Belzer, Bobover, and Dushinsky Hasidim, are closer to Nusach Ashkenaz, while others, such as the Munkacz version, are closer to the old Lurianic. Many sects believe that their version reflects Luria's mystical devotions best. The Baal Shem Tov added two segments to Friday services on the eve of Sabbath: Psalm 107 before afternoon prayer, and Psalm 23 at the end of evening service.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Hasidim use the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew and Aramaic for liturgical purposes, reflecting their Eastern European background. Wordless, emotional melodies, nigunim, are particularly common in their services.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Hasidim lend great importance to kavana, devotion or intention, and their services tend to be extremely long and repetitive. Some courts nearly abolished traditional specified times by which prayers must be conducted (zemanim), to prepare and concentrate. This practice, still enacted in Chabad for one, is controversial in many dynasties, which do follow the specifics of Jewish Law on praying earlier, and not eating beforehand. Chabad makes use of the permission granted in Jewish law to eat before prayer in certain circumstances, and to have later praying times, as a result of longer periods of preparatory study and contemplation beforehand. A common saying to explain this (attributed to the Third Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson I) goes, \"Better to eat in order to pray, than to pray in order to eat\", implying it is better to eat before prayer if due to the later time of prayers finishing one will be hungry and unable to properly concentrate. Another reglement is daily immersion in a ritual bath by males for spiritual cleansing, at a rate much higher than is customary among other Orthodox Jews.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Hasidism developed a unique emphasis on the spirituality of melody (Nigunim) as a means to reach Deveikut Divine communion, during prayer and communal gatherings. Ecstatic, often wordless Hasidic melodies developed new expressions and depths of the soul in Jewish life, often drawing from folk idioms of the surrounding gentile culture, which were adapted to elevate their concealed sparks of divinity, according to Lurianic theology.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Within the Hasidic world, it is possible to distinguish different Hasidic groups by subtle differences in dress. Some details of their dress are shared by non-Hasidic Haredim. Much of Hasidic dress was historically the clothing of all Eastern European Jews, influenced by the style of Polish–Lithuanian nobility. Furthermore, Hasidim have attributed religious origins to specific Hasidic items of clothing.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Hasidic men most commonly wear dark overclothes. On weekdays, they wear a long, black, cloth jacket called a rekel, and on Jewish Holy Days, the bekishe zaydene kapote (Yiddish; lit., satin caftan), a similarly long, black jacket, but of satin fabric traditionally silk. Indoors, the colorful tish bekishe is still worn. Some Hasidim wear a satin overcoat, known as rezhvolke. Most Hasidim do not wear neckties.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "On the Sabbath, the Hasidic Rebbes traditionally wore a white bekishe. This practice has fallen into disuse among most. Many of them wear a black silk bekishe that is trimmed with velvet, known as stro-kes or samet, and in Hungarian ones, gold-embroidered.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Various symbolic and religious qualities are attributed to Hasidic dress, though they are mainly apocryphal, and the clothes' origin is cultural and historical. For example, the long overcoats are considered modest, the shtreimel is supposedly related to shaatnez and keeps one warm, without using wool, and Sabbath shoes are laceless in order not to have to tie a knot, a prohibited action. A gartel divides the Hasid's lower parts from his upper parts, implying modesty and chastity, and for kabbalistic reasons, Hasidim button their clothes right over left. Hasidic men customarily wear black hats during the weekdays, as do nearly all Haredi men today. A variety of hats are worn depending on the group: Chabad men often pinch their hats to form a triangle on the top, Satmar men wear an open-crown hat with rounded edges, and Samet (velvet) or biber (beaver) hats are worn by many Galician and Hungarian Hasidic men.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Married Hasidic men don a variety of fur headdresses on the Sabbath, once common among all wedded Eastern European Jewish males and still worn by non-Hasidic Perushim in Jerusalem. The most ubiquitous is the shtreimel, which is seen especially among Galician and Hungarian sects like Satmar or Belz. A taller spodik is donned by Polish dynasties such as Ger. A kolpik is worn by unmarried sons and grandsons of many Rebbes on the Sabbath. Some Rebbes don it on special occasions.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "There are many other distinct items of clothing. Such are the Gerrer hoyznzokn – long black socks into which the trousers are tucked. Some Hasidic men from Eastern Galicia wear black socks with their breeches on the Sabbath, as opposed to white ones on weekdays, particularly Belzer Hasidim.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Following a Biblical commandment not to shave the sides of one's face (Leviticus 19:27), male members of most Hasidic groups wear long, uncut sidelocks called payot (or peyes). Some Hasidic men shave off the rest of their hair. Not every Hasidic group requires long peyos, and not all Jewish men with peyos are Hasidic, but all Hasidic groups discourage the shaving of one's beard. Most Hasidic boys receive their first haircuts ceremonially at the age of three years (only the Skverrer Hasidim do this at their boys' second birthday). Until then, Hasidic boys have long hair.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Hasidic women wear clothing adhering to the principles of modest dress in Jewish law. This includes long conservative skirts and sleeves past the elbow, as well as covered necklines. Also, the women wear stockings to cover their legs; in some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar or Toldot Aharon, the stockings must be opaque. In keeping with Jewish law, married women cover their hair, using either a sheitel (wig), a tichel (headscarf), a shpitzel, a snood, a hat, or a beret. In some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar, women may wear two headcoverings – a wig and a scarf, or a wig and a hat.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Hasidic Jews, like many other Orthodox Jews, typically produce large families; the average Hasidic family in the United States has 8 children. This is followed out of a desire to fulfill the Biblical mandate to \"be fruitful and multiply\".",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Most Hasidim speak the language of their countries of residence but use Yiddish among themselves as a way of remaining distinct and preserving tradition. Thus, children are still learning Yiddish today, and the language, despite predictions to the contrary, has not died. Yiddish newspapers are still published, and Yiddish fiction is being written, primarily aimed at women. Even films in Yiddish are being produced within the Hasidic community. Some Hasidic groups, such as Satmar and Toldot Aharon, actively oppose the everyday use of Hebrew, which they consider a holy tongue. The use of Hebrew for anything other than prayer and study is, according to them, profane, and so, Yiddish is the vernacular and common tongue for most Hasidim around the world.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Hasidic Tales are a literary genre, concerning both hagiography of various Rebbes and moralistic themes. Some are anecdotes or recorded conversations dealing with matters of faith, practice, and the like. The most famous tend to be terse and carry a strong and obvious point. They were often transmitted orally, though the earliest compendium is from 1815.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Many revolve around the righteous. The Baal Shem, in particular, was subject to excess hagiography. Characterized by vivid metaphors, miracles, and piety, each reflects the surrounding and era it was composed in. Common themes include dissenting the question what is acceptable to pray for, whether or not the commoner may gain communion, or the meaning of wisdom. The tales were a popular, accessible medium to convey the movement's messages.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Additional to these tales, Hasidim study the numerous mystical / spiritual works of Hasidic philosophy. (Chabad Hasidim, for example, daily study the Tanya, the Likutei Torah, and the voluminous works of the Rebbes of Chabad; Breslovers study the teachings of Rabbi Nachman, additional to his \"tales\".) These works draw on the earlier esoteric theology of Kabbalah but articulate this in terms of inner psychological awareness and personal analogies. Additional to its formal, intellectual component, this study thus makes Jewish mysticism accessible and tangible, so that it inspires emotional dveikus (cleaving to God) and embeds a deep spiritual element in daily Jewish life.",
"title": "Practice and culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The various Hasidic groups may be categorized along several parameters, including their geographical origin, their proclivity for certain teachings, and their political stance. These attributes are quite often, but by no means always, correlated, and there are many instances when a \"court\" espouses a unique combination. Thus, while most dynasties from the former Greater Hungary and Galicia are inclined to extreme conservatism and anti-Zionism, Rebbe Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam led the Sanz-Klausenburg sect in a more open and mild direction; and though Hasidim from Lithuania and Belarus are popularly perceived as prone to intellectualism, David Assaf noted this notion is derived more from their Litvak surroundings than their actual philosophies. Apart from those, each \"court\" often possesses its unique customs, including style of prayer, melodies, particular items of clothing, and the like.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "On the political scale, \"courts\" are mainly divided on their relations to Zionism. The right-wing, identified with Satmar, are hostile to the State of Israel, and refuse to participate in the elections there or receive any state funding. They are mainly affiliated with the Edah HaChareidis and the Central Rabbinical Congress. The great majority belong to Agudas Israel, represented in Israel by the United Torah Judaism party. Its Council of Torah Sages now includes a dozen Rebbes. In the past, there were Religious Zionist Rebbes, mainly of the Ruzhin line, but there are virtually none today.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 2016, a study conducted by Prof. Marcin Wodziński, drawing from the courts' own internal phone-books and other resources, located 129,211 Hasidic households worldwide, about 5% of the estimated total Jewish population. Of those, 62,062 resided in Israel and 53,485 in the United States, 5,519 in Britain and 3,392 in Canada. In Israel, the largest Hasidic concentrations are in the Haredi neighbourhoods of Jerusalem – including Ramot Alon, Batei Ungarin, et cetera – in the cities of Bnei Brak and El'ad, and in the West Bank settlements of Modi'in Illit and Beitar Illit. There is considerable presence in other specifically Orthodox municipalities or enclaves, like Kiryat Sanz, Netanya. In the United States, most Hasidim reside in New York, though there are small communities across the entire country. Brooklyn, particularly the neighborhoods of Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, has an especially large population. Another large population resides in the hamlet of Monsey in the Hudson Valley region of New York; in the same region, New Square and Kiryas Joel are rapidly growing all-Hasidic enclaves, one founded by the Skver dynasty and the other by Satmar. In Britain, Stamford Hill is home to the largest Hasidic community in the country, and there are others in London and Prestwich in Manchester. In Canada, Kiryas Tosh is a settlement populated entirely by Tosh Hasidim, and there are more adherents of other sects in and around Montreal.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "There are more than a dozen Hasidic dynasties with a large following, and over a hundred which have small or minuscule adherence, sometimes below twenty people, with the presumptive Rebbe holding the title more as a matter of prestige. Many \"courts\" became completely extinct during the Holocaust, like the Aleksander (Hasidic dynasty) from Aleksandrów Łódzki, which numbered tens of thousands in 1939, and barely exists today.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The largest sect in the world, with some 26,000 member households, which constitute 20% of all Hasidim, is Satmar, founded in 1905 in the namesake city in Hungary and based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel. Satmar is known for its extreme conservatism and opposition to both Agudas Israel and Zionism, inspired by the legacy of Hungarian Haredi Judaism. The sect underwent a schism in 2006, and two competing factions emerged, led by rival brothers Aaron Teitelbaum and Zalman Teitelbaum. The second-largest \"court\" worldwide, with some 11,600 households (or 9% of all Hasidism), is Ger, established in 1859 at Góra Kalwaria, near Warsaw. For decades, it was the dominant power in Agudas, and espoused a moderate line toward Zionism and modern culture. Its origins lay in the rationalist Przysucha School of Central Poland. The current Rebbe is Yaakov Aryeh Alter. The third-largest dynasty is Vizhnitz, a charismatic sect founded in 1854 at Vyzhnytsia, Bukovina. A moderate group involved in Israeli politics, it is split into several branches, which maintain cordial relations. The main partition is between Vizhnitz-Israel and Vizhnitz-Monsey, headed respectively by Rebbes Israel Hager and the eight sons of the late Rebbe Mordecai Hager. In total, all Vizhnitz sub-\"courts\" constitute over 10,500 households. The fourth major dynasty, with some 7,000 households, is Belz, established 1817 in namesake Belz, south of Lviv. An Eastern Galician dynasty drawing both from the Seer of Lublin's charismatic-populist style and \"rabbinic\" Hasidism, it espoused hard-line positions, but broke off from the Edah HaChareidis and joined Agudas in 1979. Belz is led by Rebbe Yissachar Dov Rokeach.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Bobover dynasty, founded 1881 in Bobowa, West Galicia, constitutes some 4,500 households in total, and has undergone a bitter succession strife since 2005, eventually forming the \"Bobov\" (3,000 households) and \"Bobov-45\" (1,500 households) sects. Sanz-Klausenburg, divided into a New York and Israeli branches, presides over 3,800 households. The Skver sect, established in 1848 in Skvyra, near Kyiv, constitutes 3,300. The Shomer Emunim dynasties, originating in Jerusalem during the 1920s and known for their unique style of dressing imitating that of the Old Yishuv, have over 3,000 families, almost all in the larger \"courts\" of Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avraham Yitzchak. Karlin Stolin, which rose already in the 1760s in a quarter of Pinsk, encompasses 2,200 families.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "There are two other populous Hasidic sub-groups, which do not function as classical Rebbe-headed \"courts\", but as de-centralized movements, retaining some of the characteristics of early Hasidism. Breslov rose under its charismatic leader Nachman of Breslov in the early 19th century. Critical of all other Rebbes, he forbade his followers to appoint a successor upon his death in 1810. His acolytes led small groups of adherents, persecuted by other Hasidim, and disseminated his teachings. The original philosophy of the sect elicited great interest among modern scholars, and that led many newcomers to Orthodox Judaism (\"repentants\") to join it. Numerous Breslov communities, each led by its own rabbis, now have thousands of full-fledged followers, and far more admirers and semi-committed supporters; Marcin Wodziński estimated that the fully committed population of Breslovers may be estimated at 7,000 households. Chabad-Lubavitch, originating in the 1770s, did have hereditary leadership, but always stressed the importance of self-study, rather than reliance on the Righteous. Its seventh, and last, leader, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, converted it into a vehicle for Jewish outreach. By his death in 1994, it had many more semi-engaged supporters than Hasidim in the strict sense, and they are still hard to distinguish. Chabad's own internal phone-books list some 16,800 member households. None succeeded Schneerson, and the sect operates as a large network of communities with independent leaders.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In the late 17th century, several social trends converged among the Jews who inhabited the southern periphery of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially in contemporary Western Ukraine. These enabled the emergence and flourishing of Hasidism.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The first, and most prominent, was the popularization of the mystical lore of Kabbalah. For several centuries, an esoteric teaching practiced surreptitiously by few, it was transformed into almost household knowledge by a mass of cheap printed pamphlets. The kabbalistic inundation was a major influence behind the rise of the heretical Sabbatean movement, led by Sabbatai Zevi, who declared himself Messiah in 1665. The propagation of Kabbalah made the Jewish masses susceptible to Hasidic ideas, themselves, in essence, a popularized version of the teaching – indeed, Hasidism actually emerged when its founders determined to openly practice it, instead of remaining a secret circle of ascetics, as was the manner of almost all past kabbalists. The correlation between publicizing the lore and Sabbateanism did not escape the rabbinic elite, and caused vehement opposition to the new movement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Another factor was the decline of the traditional authority structures. Jewish autonomy remained quite secured; later research debunked Simon Dubnow's claim that the Council of Four Lands' demise in 1746 was a culmination of a long process which destroyed judicial independence and paved the way for the Hasidic rebbes to serve as leaders (another long-held explanation for the sect's rise advocated by Raphael Mahler, that the Khmelnytsky Uprising effected economic impoverishment and despair, was also refuted). However, the magnates and nobles held much sway over the nomination of both rabbis and communal elders, to such a degree that the masses often perceived them as mere lackeys of the land owners. Their ability to serve as legitimate arbiters in disputes – especially those concerning the regulation of leasehold rights over alcohol distillation and other monopolies in the estates – was severely diminished. The reduced prestige of the establishment, and the need for an alternative source of authority to pass judgement, left a vacuum which Hasidic charismatics eventually filled. They transcended old communal institutions, to which all the Jews of a locality were subordinate, and had groups of followers in each town across vast territories. Often supported by rising strata outside the traditional elite, whether nouveau riche or various low-level religious functionaries, they created a modern form of leadership.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Historians discerned other influences. The formative age of Hasidism coincided with the rise of numerous religious revival movements across the world, including the First Great Awakening in New England, German Pietism, Wahhabism in Arabia, and the Russian Old Believers who opposed the established church. Hasidism rejected the existing order, decrying it as stale and overly hierarchic. They offered what they described as more spiritual, candid, and simple substitutes. Gershon David Hundert noted the considerable similarity between the Hasidic conceptions and this contemporary background, rooted in the growing importance attributed to the individual's consciousness and choices.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Israel ben Eliezer (ca. 1698–1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov (\"Master of the Good Name\", acronym: \"Besht\"), is considered the founder of Hasidism. Supposedly born south of the Prut, in the northern frontier of Moldavia, he earned a reputation as a Baal Shem, \"Master of the Name\". These were common folk healers who employed mysticism, amulets and incantations as their trade. Little is known for certain about Israel ben Eliezer. Though not a scholar, he was sufficiently learned to become notable in the communal hall of study and marry into the rabbinic elite, his wife being the divorced sister of a rabbi; in his later years, he became wealthy and famous, as attested by contemporary chronicles. Apart from that, most information about him is derived from Hasidic hagiographic accounts. These claim that as a boy he was recognized by one \"Rabbi Adam Baal Shem Tov\" who entrusted him with great secrets of the Torah, passed in his illustrious family for centuries; that the Besht later spent a decade in the Carpathian Mountains as a hermit, where he was visited by the Biblical prophet Ahijah the Shilonite who taught him more; and that at the age of thirty-six, he was granted heavenly permission to reveal himself as a great kabbalist and miracle worker.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "By the 1740s, it is verified that he relocated to the town of Medzhybizh and became recognized and popular in Podolia and beyond. It is well attested that he emphasized several known kabbalistic concepts, formulating his own teachings to some degree. The Besht stressed the immanence of God and His presence in the material world, and that therefore, physical acts, such as eating, have an actual influence on the spiritual sphere and may serve to hasten the achievement of communion with the divine (devekut). He was known to pray ecstatically and with great intention, in order to provide channels for the divine light to flow into the Earthly realm. The Besht stressed the importance of joy and contentment in the worship of God, rather than the abstinence and self-mortification deemed essential to becoming a pious mystic, and of fervent and vigorous prayer as a means of spiritual elation instead of severe asceticism, but many of his immediate disciples reverted in part to the older doctrines, especially in disavowing sexual pleasure even in marital relations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "In that, the \"Besht\" laid the foundation for a popular movement, offering a far less rigorous course for the masses to gain a significant religious experience. And yet, he remained the guide of a small society of elitists, in the tradition of former kabbalists, and never led a large public as his successors did. While many later figures cited him as the inspiration behind the full-fledged Hasidic doctrine, the Besht himself did not practice it in his lifetime.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Israel ben Eliezer gathered a considerable following, drawing to himself disciples from far away. They were largely of elitist background, yet adopted the populist approach of their master. The most prominent was Rabbi Dov Ber the Maggid (preacher). He succeeded the former upon his death, though other important acolytes, mainly Jacob Joseph of Polonne, did not accept his leadership. Establishing himself in Mezhirichi, the Maggid turned to greatly elaborate the Besht's rudimentary ideas and institutionalize the nascent circle into an actual movement. Ben Eliezer and his acolytes used the very old and common epithet Hasidim, \"pious\"; in the latter third of the 18th century, a clear differentiation arose between that sense of the word and what was at first described as \"New Hasidism\", propagated to a degree by the Maggid and especially his successors.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Doctrine coalesced as Jacob Joseph, Dov Ber, and the latter's disciple, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, composed the three magna opera of early Hasidism, respectively: the 1780 Toldot Ya'akov Yosef, the 1781 Maggid d'varav le-Ya'akov, and the 1788 No'am Elimelekh. Other books were also published. Their new teaching had many aspects. The importance of devotion in prayer was stressed to such degree that many waited beyond the prescribed time to properly prepare; the Besht's recommendation to \"elevate and sanctify\" impure thoughts, rather than simply repress them during the service, was expanded by Dov Ber into an entire precept, depicting prayer as a mechanism to transform thoughts and feelings from a primal to a higher state in a manner parallel to the unfolding of the Sephirot. But the most important was the notion of the Tzaddiq – later designated by the general rabbinic honorific Admor (our master, teacher, and rabbi) or by the colloquial Rebbe – the Righteous One, the mystic who was able to elate and achieve communion with the divine, but, unlike kabbalists past, did not practice it in secret, but as leader of the masses. He was able to bring down prosperity and guidance from the higher Sephirot, and the common people who could not attain such a state themselves would achieve it by \"clinging\" to and obeying him. The Tzaddiq served as a bridge between the spiritual realm and the ordinary folk, as well as a simple, understandable embodiment of the esoteric teachings of the sect, which were still beyond the reach of most just as old-style Kabbalah before.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The various Hasidic Tzaddiqim, mainly the Maggid's disciples, spread across Eastern Europe with each gathering adherents among the people and learned acolytes who could be initiated as leaders. The Righteous' \"courts\" in which they resided, attended by their followers to receive blessing and council, became the institutional centers of Hasidism, serving as its branches and organizational core. Slowly, various rites emerged in them, like the Sabbath Tisch or \"table\", in which the Righteous would hand out food scraps from their meals, considered blessed by the touch of ones imbued with godly Light during their mystical ascensions. Another potent institution was the Shtibel, the private prayer gatherings opened by adherents in every town which served as a recruiting mechanism. The Shtibel differed from the established synagogues and study halls, allowing their members greater freedom to worship when they pleased, and also serving recreational and welfare purposes. Combined with its simplified message, more appealing to the common man, its honed organizational framework accounted for the exponential growth of Hasidic ranks. Having ousted the old communal model, and replaced it with a less-hierarchical structure and more individually-oriented religiosity, Hasidism was, in fact, the first great modern – albeit not modernist; its self-understanding was grounded in a traditional mindset – Jewish movement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "From its original base in Podolia and Volhynia, the movement was rapidly disseminated during the Maggid's lifetime, and after his 1772 death. Twenty or so of Dov Ber's prime disciples each brought it to a different region, and their own successors followed: Aharon of Karlin (I), Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, and Shneur Zalman of Liadi were the emissaries to the former Lithuania in the far north, while Menachem Nachum Twersky headed to Chernobyl in the east, and Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev remained nearby. Elimelech of Lizhensk, his brother Zusha of Hanipol, and Yisroel Hopsztajn established the sect in Poland proper. Vitebsk and Abraham Kalisker later led a small group of followers to Ottoman Palestine, establishing a Hasidic presence in the Galilee.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The spread of Hasidism also incurred organized opposition. Rabbi Elijah of Vilnius, one of the greatest authorities of the generation and a hasid and secret kabbalist of the old style, was deeply suspicious of their emphasis on mysticism, rather than mundane Torah study, threat to established communal authority, resemblance to the Sabbatean movement, and other details he considered infractions. In April 1772, he and the Vilnius community wardens launched a systematic campaign against the sect, placing an anathema upon them, banishing their leaders, and sending letters denouncing the movement. Further excommunication followed in Brody and other cities. In 1781, during a second round of hostilities, the books of Jacob Joseph were burned in Vilnius. Another cause for strife emerged when the Hasidim adopted the Lurianic prayer rite, which they revised somewhat to Nusach Sefard; the first edition in Eastern Europe was printed in 1781 and received approbation from the anti-Hasidic scholars of Brody, but the sect quickly embraced the Kabbalah-infused tome and popularized it, making it their symbol. Their rivals, named Misnagdim, \"opponents\" (a generic term which acquired an independent meaning as Hasidism grew stronger), soon accused them of abandoning the traditional Nusach Ashkenaz.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In 1798, Opponents made accusations of espionage against Shneur Zalman of Liadi, and he was imprisoned by the Russian government for two months. Excoriatory polemics were printed and anathemas declared in the entire region. But Elijah's death in 1797 denied the Misnagdim their powerful leader. In 1804, Alexander I of Russia allowed independent prayer groups to operate, the chief vessel through which the movement spread from town to town. The failure to eradicate Hasidism, which acquired a clear self-identity in the struggle and greatly expanded throughout it, convinced its adversaries to adopt a more passive method of resistance, as exemplified by Chaim of Volozhin. The growing conservatism of the new movement – which at some occasions drew close to Kabbalah-based antinomian phraseology, as did the Sabbateans, but never crossed the threshold and remained thoroughly observant – and the rise of common enemies slowly brought a rapprochement, and by the second half of the 19th century, both sides basically considered each other legitimate.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The turn of the century saw several prominent new, fourth generation tzaddiqim. Upon Elimelech's death in the now-partitioned Poland, his place in Habsburg Galicia was assumed by Menachem Mendel of Rimanov, who was deeply hostile to the modernization the Austrian rulers attempted to force on the traditional Jewish society (though this same process also allowed his sect to flourish, as communal authority was severely weakened). The rabbi of Rimanov hearkened the alliance the Hasidim would form with the most conservative elements of the Jewish public. In Central Poland, the new leader was Jacob Isaac Horowiz, the \"Seer of Lublin\", who was of a particularly populist bent and appealed to the common folk with miracle working and little strenuous spiritual demands. The Seer's senior acolyte, Jacob Isaac Rabinovitz, the \"Holy Jew\" of Przysucha, gradually dismissed his mentor's approach as overly vulgar, and adopted a more aesthetic and scholarly approach, virtually without theurgy to the masses. The Holy Jew's \"Przysucha School\" was continued by his successor Simcha Bunim, and especially the reclusive, morose Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. The most controversial fourth generation tzaddiq was the Podolia-based Nachman of Breslov, who denounced his peers for becoming too institutionalized, much like the old establishment their predecessors challenged decades before, and espoused an anti-rationalist, pessimistic spiritual teaching, very different from the prevalent stress on joy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The opening of the 19th century saw the Hasidic sect transformed. Once a rising force outside the establishment, the tzaddiqim now became an important and often dominant power in most of Eastern Europe. The slow process of encroachment, which mostly begun with forming an independent Shtibel and culminated in the Righteous becoming an authority figure (either alongside or above the official rabbinate) for the entire community, overwhelmed many towns even in Misnagdic stronghold of Lithuania, far more so in Congress Poland and the vast majority in Podolia, Volhynia and Galicia. It began to make inroads into Bukovina, Bessarabia and the westernmost frontier of autochthonic pre-WWII Hasidism, in northeastern Hungary, where the Seer's disciple Moses Teitelbaum (I) was appointed in Ujhely.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Less than three generations after the Besht's death, the sect grew to encompass hundreds of thousands by 1830. As a mass movement, a clear stratification emerged between the court's functionaries and permanent residents (yoshvim, \"sitters\"), the devoted followers who would often visit the Righteous on Sabbath, and the large public which prayed at Sefard Rite synagogues and was minimally affiliated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "All this was followed by a more conservative approach and power bickering among the Righteous. Since the Maggid's death, none could claim the overall leadership. Among the several dozen active, each ruled over his own turf, and local traditions and customs began to emerge in the various courts which developed their own identity. The high mystical tension typical of a new movement subsided, and was soon replaced by more hierarchical, orderly atmosphere.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The most important aspect of the routinization Hasidism underwent was the adoption of dynasticism. The first to claim legitimacy by right of descent from the Besht was his grandson, Boruch of Medzhybizh, appointed 1782. He held a lavish court with Hershel of Ostropol as jester and demanded the other Righteous acknowledge his supremacy. Upon the death of Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl, his son Mordechai Twersky succeeded him. The principle was conclusively affirmed in the great dispute after Liadi's demise in 1813: his senior acolyte Aharon HaLevi of Strashelye was defeated by his son, Dovber Schneuri, whose offspring retained the title for 181 years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "By the 1860s, virtually all courts were dynastic. Rather than single tzaddiqim with followings of their own, each sect would command a base of rank-and-file Hasidim attached not just to the individual leader, but to the bloodline and the court's unique attributes. Israel Friedman of Ruzhyn insisted on royal splendour, resided in a palace and his six sons all inherited some of his followers. With the constraints of maintaining their gains replacing the dynamism of the past, the Righteous or Rebbes/Admorim also silently retreated from the overt, radical mysticism of their predecessors. While populist miracle working for the masses remained a key theme in many dynasties, a new type of \"Rebbe-Rabbi\" emerged, one who was both a completely traditional halakhic authority as well as a spiritualist. The tension with the Misnagdim subsided significantly.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "But it was an external threat, more than anything else, that mended relations. While traditional Jewish society remained well entrenched in backward Eastern Europe, reports of the rapid acculturation and religious laxity in the West troubled both camps. When the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, appeared in Galicia and Congress Poland in the 1810s, it was soon perceived as a dire threat. The maskilim themselves detested Hasidism as an anti-rationalist and barbaric phenomenon, as did Western Jews of all shades, including the most right-wing Orthodox such as Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer. In Galicia especially, hostility towards it defined the Haskalah to a large extent, from the staunchly observant Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes and Joseph Perl to the radical anti-Talmudists like Osias Schorr. The Enlightened, who revived Hebrew grammar, often mocked their rivals' lack of eloquence in the language. While a considerable proportion of the Misnagdim were not averse to at least some of the Haskala's goals, the Rebbes were unremittingly hostile.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The most distinguished Hasidic leader in Galicia in the era was Chaim Halberstam, who combined Talmudic erudition and the status of a major decisor with his function as tzaddiq. He symbolized the new era, brokering peace between the small Hasidic sect in Hungary to its opponents. In that country, where modernization and assimilation were much more prevalent than in the East, the local Righteous joined forces with those now termed Orthodox against the rising liberals. Rabbi Moses Sofer of Pressburg, while no friend to Hasidism, tolerated it as he combated the forces which sought modernization of the Jews; a generation later, in the 1860s, the Rebbes and the zealot ultra-Orthodox rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein allied closely.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Around the mid-19th century, over a hundred dynastic courts related by marriage were the main religious power in the territory enclosed between Hungary, former Lithuania, Prussia and inner Russia, with considerable presence in the former two. In Central Poland, the pragmatist, rationalist Przysucha school thrived: Yitzchak Meir Alter founded the court of Ger in 1859, and in 1876 Jechiel Danziger established Alexander. In Galicia and Hungary, apart from Halberstam's House of Sanz, Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov's descendants each pursued a mystical approach in the dynasties of Zidichov, Komarno and so forth. In 1817, Sholom Rokeach became the first Rebbe of Belz. At Bukovina, the Hager line of Kosov-Vizhnitz was the largest court.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "The Haskalah was always a minor force, but the Jewish national movements which emerged in the 1880s, as well as Socialism, proved much more appealing to the young. Progressive strata condemned Hasidism as a primitive relic, strong, but doomed to disappear, as Eastern European Jewry underwent slow yet steady secularization. The gravity of the situation was attested to by the foundation of Hasidic yeshivas (in the modern, boarding school-equivalent sense) to enculturate the young and preserve their loyalty: The first was established at Nowy Wiśnicz by Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam (I) in 1881. These institutions were originally utilized by the Misnagdim to protect their youth from Hasidic influence, but now, the latter faced a similar crisis. One of the most contentious issues in this respect was Zionism; the Ruzhin dynasties were quite favourably disposed toward it, while Hungarian and Galician courts reviled it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Outside pressure was mounting in the early 20th century. In 1912, many Hasidic leaders partook in the creation of the Agudas Israel party, a political instrument intended to safeguard what was now named Orthodox Judaism even in the relatively traditional East; the more hard-line dynasties, mainly Galician and Hungarian, opposed the Aguda as \"too lenient\". Mass immigration to America, urbanization, World War I, and the subsequent Russian Civil War uprooted the shtetls in which the local Jews had lived for centuries, and which were the bedrock of Hasidism. In the new Soviet Union, civil equality first achieved and a harsh repression of religion caused a rapid secularization. Few remaining Hasidim, especially of Chabad, continued to practice underground for decades. In the new states of the Interbellum era, the process was only somewhat slower. On the eve of World War II, strictly observant Jews were estimated to constitute no more than a third of the total Jewish population in Poland, the world's most Orthodox country. While the Rebbes still had a vast base of support, it was aging and declining.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The Holocaust hit the Hasidim particularly hard because they were easily identifiable and because they were almost unable to disguise themselves among the larger populace due to cultural insularity. Hundreds of leaders perished with their flock, while the flight of many notable ones as their followers were being exterminated – especially Aharon Rokeach of Belz and Joel Teitelbaum of Satmar – elicited bitter recrimination. In the immediate post-war years, the entire movement seemed to teeter on the precipice of oblivion. In Israel, the United States, and Western Europe, the survivors' children were at best becoming Modern Orthodox. While a century earlier, the Haskalah depicted it as a medieval, malicious power, now, it was so weakened that the popular cultural image was sentimental and romantic, what Joseph Dan termed \"Frumkinian Hasidism\", for it began with the short stories of Michael Levi Rodkinson (Frumkin). Martin Buber was the major contributor to this trend, portraying the sect as a model of a healthy folk consciousness. \"Frumkinian\" style was very influential, later inspiring the so-called \"Neo-Hasidism\", and also utterly ahistorical.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Yet, the movement proved resilient. Talented and charismatic Hasidic masters emerged, who re-invigorated their following and drew new crowds. In New York, the Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum formulated a fiercely anti-Zionist Holocaust theology and founded an insular, self-sufficient community which attracted many immigrants from Greater Hungary. By 1961, 40% of families were newcomers. Yisrael Alter of Ger created robust institutions, fortified his court's standing in Agudas Israel, and held tisch every week for 29 years. He halted the hemorrhage of his followers, and retrieved many Litvaks (the contemporary, less adverse epithet for Misnagdim) and Religious Zionists whose parents were Gerrer Hasidim before the war. Chaim Meir Hager similarly restored Vizhnitz. Moses Isaac Gewirtzman founded the new Pshevorsk (Hasidic dynasty) in Antwerp.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The most explosive growth was experienced in Chabad-Lubavitch, whose head, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, adopted a modern (he and his disciples ceased wearing the customary Shtreimel) and outreach-centered orientation. At a time when most Orthodox Jews, and Hasidim in particular, rejected proselytization, he turned his sect into a mechanism devoted almost solely to it, blurring the difference between actual Hasidim and loosely affiliated supporters until researchers could scarcely define it as a regular Hasidic group. Another phenomenon was the revival of Breslov, which remained without an acting Tzaddiq since the rebellious Rebbe Nachman's 1810 death. Its complex, existentialist philosophy drew many to it.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "High fertility rates, increasing tolerance and multiculturalism on the part of surrounding society, and the great wave of newcomers to Orthodox Judaism which began in the 1970s all cemented the movement's status as very much alive and thriving. The clearest indication for that, noted Joseph Dan, was the disappearance of the \"Frumkinian\" narrative which inspired much sympathy towards it from non-Orthodox Jews and others, as actual Hasidism returned to the fore. It was replaced by apprehension and concern due to the growing presence of the reclusive, strictly religious Hasidic lifestyle in the public sphere, especially in Israel. As numbers grew, \"courts\" were again torn apart by schisms between Rebbes' sons vying for power, a common occurrence during the golden age of the 19th century.",
"title": "History"
}
]
| Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism, is a religious movement within Judaism that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contemporary Western Ukraine during the 18th century, and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as hassidim, reside in Israel and in the United States. Israel Ben Eliezer, the "Baal Shem Tov", is regarded as its founding father, and his disciples developed and disseminated it. Present-day Hasidism is a sub-group within Haredi Judaism and is noted for its religious conservatism and social seclusion. Its members adhere closely both to Orthodox Jewish practice – with the movement's own unique emphases – and the traditions of Eastern European Jews. Many of the latter, including various special styles of dress and the use of the Yiddish language, are nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hasidism. Hasidic thought draws heavily on Lurianic Kabbalah, and, to an extent, is a popularization of it. Teachings emphasize God's immanence in the universe, the need to cleave and be one with Him at all times, the devotional aspect of religious practice, and the spiritual dimension of corporeality and mundane acts. Hasidim, the adherents of Hasidism, are organized in independent sects known as "courts" or dynasties, each headed by its own hereditary male leader, a Rebbe. Reverence and submission to the Rebbe are key tenets, as he is considered a spiritual authority with whom the follower must bond to gain closeness to God. The various "courts" share basic convictions, but operate apart and possess unique traits and customs. Affiliation is often retained in families for generations, and being Hasidic is as much a sociological factor – entailing birth into a specific community and allegiance to a dynasty of Rebbes – as it is a religious one. There are several "courts" with many thousands of member households each, and hundreds of smaller ones. As of 2016, there were over 130,000 Hasidic households worldwide, about 5% of the global Jewish population. | 2002-01-15T05:08:27Z | 2023-12-24T22:58:43Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism |
14,439 | Harmonic series (music) | A harmonic series (also overtone series) is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a fundamental frequency.
Pitched musical instruments are often based on an acoustic resonator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous modes simultaneously. At the frequencies of each vibrating mode, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling each other to form standing waves. Interaction with the surrounding air causes audible sound waves, which travel away from the instrument. Because of the typical spacing of the resonances, these frequencies are mostly limited to integer multiples, or harmonics, of the lowest frequency, and such multiples form the harmonic series.
The musical pitch of a note is usually perceived as the lowest partial present (the fundamental frequency), which may be the one created by vibration over the full length of the string or air column, or a higher harmonic chosen by the player. The musical timbre of a steady tone from such an instrument is strongly affected by the relative strength of each harmonic.
A "complex tone" (the sound of a note with a timbre particular to the instrument playing the note) "can be described as a combination of many simple periodic waves (i.e., sine waves) or partials, each with its own frequency of vibration, amplitude, and phase". (See also, Fourier analysis.)
A partial is any of the sine waves (or "simple tones", as Ellis calls them when translating Helmholtz) of which a complex tone is composed, not necessarily with an integer multiple of the lowest harmonic.
A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a common fundamental frequency. The fundamental is a harmonic because it is one times itself. A harmonic partial is any real partial component of a complex tone that matches (or nearly matches) an ideal harmonic.
An inharmonic partial is any partial that does not match an ideal harmonic. Inharmonicity is a measure of the deviation of a partial from the closest ideal harmonic, typically measured in cents for each partial.
Many pitched acoustic instruments are designed to have partials that are close to being whole-number ratios with very low inharmonicity; therefore, in music theory, and in instrument design, it is convenient, although not strictly accurate, to speak of the partials in those instruments' sounds as "harmonics", even though they may have some degree of inharmonicity. The piano, one of the most important instruments of western tradition, contains a certain degree of inharmonicity among the frequencies generated by each string. Other pitched instruments, especially certain percussion instruments, such as marimba, vibraphone, tubular bells, timpani, and singing bowls contain mostly inharmonic partials, yet may give the ear a good sense of pitch because of a few strong partials that resemble harmonics. Unpitched, or indefinite-pitched instruments, such as cymbals and tam-tams make sounds (produce spectra) that are rich in inharmonic partials and may give no impression of implying any particular pitch.
An overtone is any partial above the lowest partial. The term overtone does not imply harmonicity or inharmonicity and has no other special meaning other than to exclude the fundamental. It is mostly the relative strength of the different overtones that give an instrument its particular timbre, tone color, or character. When writing or speaking of overtones and partials numerically, care must be taken to designate each correctly to avoid any confusion of one for the other, so the second overtone may not be the third partial, because it is the second sound in a series.
Some electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, can play a pure frequency with no overtones (a sine wave). Synthesizers can also combine pure frequencies into more complex tones, such as to simulate other instruments. Certain flutes and ocarinas are very nearly without overtones.
One of the simplest cases to visualise is a vibrating string, as in the illustration; the string has fixed points at each end, and each harmonic mode divides it into an integer number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) of equal-sized sections resonating at increasingly higher frequencies. Similar arguments apply to vibrating air columns in wind instruments (for example, "the French horn was originally a valveless instrument that could play only the notes of the harmonic series"), although these are complicated by having the possibility of anti-nodes (that is, the air column is closed at one end and open at the other), conical as opposed to cylindrical bores, or end-openings that run the gamut from no flare, cone flare, or exponentially shaped flares (such as in various bells).
In most pitched musical instruments, the fundamental (first harmonic) is accompanied by other, higher-frequency harmonics. Thus shorter-wavelength, higher-frequency waves occur with varying prominence and give each instrument its characteristic tone quality. The fact that a string is fixed at each end means that the longest allowed wavelength on the string (which gives the fundamental frequency) is twice the length of the string (one round trip, with a half cycle fitting between the nodes at the two ends). Other allowed wavelengths are reciprocal multiples (e.g. 1⁄2, 1⁄3, 1⁄4 times) that of the fundamental.
Theoretically, these shorter wavelengths correspond to vibrations at frequencies that are integer multiples of (e.g. 2, 3, 4 times) the fundamental frequency. Physical characteristics of the vibrating medium and/or the resonator it vibrates against often alter these frequencies. (See inharmonicity and stretched tuning for alterations specific to wire-stringed instruments and certain electric pianos.) However, those alterations are small, and except for precise, highly specialized tuning, it is reasonable to think of the frequencies of the harmonic series as integer multiples of the fundamental frequency.
The harmonic series is an arithmetic progression (f, 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f, ...). In terms of frequency (measured in cycles per second, or hertz, where f is the fundamental frequency), the difference between consecutive harmonics is therefore constant and equal to the fundamental. But because human ears respond to sound nonlinearly, higher harmonics are perceived as "closer together" than lower ones. On the other hand, the octave series is a geometric progression (2f, 4f, 8f, 16f, ...), and people perceive these distances as "the same" in the sense of musical interval. In terms of what one hears, each octave in the harmonic series is divided into increasingly "smaller" and more numerous intervals.
The second harmonic, whose frequency is twice the fundamental, sounds an octave higher; the third harmonic, three times the frequency of the fundamental, sounds a perfect fifth above the second harmonic. The fourth harmonic vibrates at four times the frequency of the fundamental and sounds a perfect fourth above the third harmonic (two octaves above the fundamental). Double the harmonic number means double the frequency (which sounds an octave higher).
Marin Mersenne wrote: "The order of the Consonances is natural, and ... the way we count them, starting from unity up to the number six and beyond is founded in nature." However, to quote Carl Dahlhaus, "the interval-distance of the natural-tone-row [overtones] [...], counting up to 20, includes everything from the octave to the quarter tone, (and) useful and useless musical tones. The natural-tone-row [harmonic series] justifies everything, that means, nothing."
If the harmonics are octave displaced and compressed into the span of one octave, some of them are approximated by the notes of what the West has adopted as the chromatic scale based on the fundamental tone. The Western chromatic scale has been modified into twelve equal semitones, which is slightly out of tune with many of the harmonics, especially the 7th, 11th, and 13th harmonics. In the late 1930s, composer Paul Hindemith ranked musical intervals according to their relative dissonance based on these and similar harmonic relationships.
Below is a comparison between the first 31 harmonics and the intervals of 12-tone equal temperament (12TET), octave displaced and compressed into the span of one octave. Tinted fields highlight differences greater than 5 cents (1⁄20 of a semitone), which is the human ear's "just noticeable difference" for notes played one after the other (smaller differences are noticeable with notes played simultaneously).
The frequencies of the harmonic series, being integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, are naturally related to each other by whole-numbered ratios and small whole-numbered ratios are likely the basis of the consonance of musical intervals (see just intonation). This objective structure is augmented by psychoacoustic phenomena. For example, a perfect fifth, say 200 and 300 Hz (cycles per second), causes a listener to perceive a combination tone of 100 Hz (the difference between 300 Hz and 200 Hz); that is, an octave below the lower (actual sounding) note. This 100 Hz first-order combination tone then interacts with both notes of the interval to produce second-order combination tones of 200 (300 − 100) and 100 (200 − 100) Hz and all further nth-order combination tones are all the same, being formed from various subtraction of 100, 200, and 300. When one contrasts this with a dissonant interval such as a tritone (not tempered) with a frequency ratio of 7:5 one gets, for example, 700 − 500 = 200 (1st order combination tone) and 500 − 200 = 300 (2nd order). The rest of the combination tones are octaves of 100 Hz so the 7:5 interval actually contains four notes: 100 Hz (and its octaves), 300 Hz, 500 Hz and 700 Hz. The lowest combination tone (100 Hz) is a seventeenth (two octaves and a major third) below the lower (actual sounding) note of the tritone. All the intervals succumb to similar analysis as has been demonstrated by Paul Hindemith in his book The Craft of Musical Composition, although he rejected the use of harmonics from the seventh and beyond.
The Mixolydian mode is consonant with the first 10 harmonics of the harmonic series (the 11th harmonic, a tritone, is not in the Mixolydian mode). The Ionian mode is consonant with only the first 6 harmonics of the series (the seventh harmonic, a minor seventh, is not in the Ionian mode). The Rishabhapriya ragam is consonant with the first 14 harmonics of the series.
The relative amplitudes (strengths) of the various harmonics primarily determine the timbre of different instruments and sounds, though onset transients, formants, noises, and inharmonicities also play a role. For example, the clarinet and saxophone have similar mouthpieces and reeds, and both produce sound through resonance of air inside a chamber whose mouthpiece end is considered closed. Because the clarinet's resonator is cylindrical, the even-numbered harmonics are less present. The saxophone's resonator is conical, which allows the even-numbered harmonics to sound more strongly and thus produces a more complex tone. The inharmonic ringing of the instrument's metal resonator is even more prominent in the sounds of brass instruments.
Human ears tend to group phase-coherent, harmonically-related frequency components into a single sensation. Rather than perceiving the individual partials–harmonic and inharmonic, of a musical tone, humans perceive them together as a tone color or timbre, and the overall pitch is heard as the fundamental of the harmonic series being experienced. If a sound is heard that is made up of even just a few simultaneous sine tones, and if the intervals among those tones form part of a harmonic series, the brain tends to group this input into a sensation of the pitch of the fundamental of that series, even if the fundamental is not present.
Variations in the frequency of harmonics can also affect the perceived fundamental pitch. These variations, most clearly documented in the piano and other stringed instruments but also apparent in brass instruments, are caused by a combination of metal stiffness and the interaction of the vibrating air or string with the resonating body of the instrument.
David Cope (1997) suggests the concept of interval strength, in which an interval's strength, consonance, or stability (see consonance and dissonance) is determined by its approximation to a lower and stronger, or higher and weaker, position in the harmonic series. See also: Lipps–Meyer law.
Thus, an equal-tempered perfect fifth (play) is stronger than an equal-tempered minor third (play), since they approximate a just perfect fifth (play) and just minor third (play), respectively. The just minor third appears between harmonics 5 and 6 while the just fifth appears lower, between harmonics 2 and 3.
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{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The musical pitch of a note is usually perceived as the lowest partial present (the fundamental frequency), which may be the one created by vibration over the full length of the string or air column, or a higher harmonic chosen by the player. The musical timbre of a steady tone from such an instrument is strongly affected by the relative strength of each harmonic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A \"complex tone\" (the sound of a note with a timbre particular to the instrument playing the note) \"can be described as a combination of many simple periodic waves (i.e., sine waves) or partials, each with its own frequency of vibration, amplitude, and phase\". (See also, Fourier analysis.)",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A partial is any of the sine waves (or \"simple tones\", as Ellis calls them when translating Helmholtz) of which a complex tone is composed, not necessarily with an integer multiple of the lowest harmonic.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a common fundamental frequency. The fundamental is a harmonic because it is one times itself. A harmonic partial is any real partial component of a complex tone that matches (or nearly matches) an ideal harmonic.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "An inharmonic partial is any partial that does not match an ideal harmonic. Inharmonicity is a measure of the deviation of a partial from the closest ideal harmonic, typically measured in cents for each partial.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Many pitched acoustic instruments are designed to have partials that are close to being whole-number ratios with very low inharmonicity; therefore, in music theory, and in instrument design, it is convenient, although not strictly accurate, to speak of the partials in those instruments' sounds as \"harmonics\", even though they may have some degree of inharmonicity. The piano, one of the most important instruments of western tradition, contains a certain degree of inharmonicity among the frequencies generated by each string. Other pitched instruments, especially certain percussion instruments, such as marimba, vibraphone, tubular bells, timpani, and singing bowls contain mostly inharmonic partials, yet may give the ear a good sense of pitch because of a few strong partials that resemble harmonics. Unpitched, or indefinite-pitched instruments, such as cymbals and tam-tams make sounds (produce spectra) that are rich in inharmonic partials and may give no impression of implying any particular pitch.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "An overtone is any partial above the lowest partial. The term overtone does not imply harmonicity or inharmonicity and has no other special meaning other than to exclude the fundamental. It is mostly the relative strength of the different overtones that give an instrument its particular timbre, tone color, or character. When writing or speaking of overtones and partials numerically, care must be taken to designate each correctly to avoid any confusion of one for the other, so the second overtone may not be the third partial, because it is the second sound in a series.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Some electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, can play a pure frequency with no overtones (a sine wave). Synthesizers can also combine pure frequencies into more complex tones, such as to simulate other instruments. Certain flutes and ocarinas are very nearly without overtones.",
"title": "Terminology "
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "One of the simplest cases to visualise is a vibrating string, as in the illustration; the string has fixed points at each end, and each harmonic mode divides it into an integer number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) of equal-sized sections resonating at increasingly higher frequencies. Similar arguments apply to vibrating air columns in wind instruments (for example, \"the French horn was originally a valveless instrument that could play only the notes of the harmonic series\"), although these are complicated by having the possibility of anti-nodes (that is, the air column is closed at one end and open at the other), conical as opposed to cylindrical bores, or end-openings that run the gamut from no flare, cone flare, or exponentially shaped flares (such as in various bells).",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In most pitched musical instruments, the fundamental (first harmonic) is accompanied by other, higher-frequency harmonics. Thus shorter-wavelength, higher-frequency waves occur with varying prominence and give each instrument its characteristic tone quality. The fact that a string is fixed at each end means that the longest allowed wavelength on the string (which gives the fundamental frequency) is twice the length of the string (one round trip, with a half cycle fitting between the nodes at the two ends). Other allowed wavelengths are reciprocal multiples (e.g. 1⁄2, 1⁄3, 1⁄4 times) that of the fundamental.",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Theoretically, these shorter wavelengths correspond to vibrations at frequencies that are integer multiples of (e.g. 2, 3, 4 times) the fundamental frequency. Physical characteristics of the vibrating medium and/or the resonator it vibrates against often alter these frequencies. (See inharmonicity and stretched tuning for alterations specific to wire-stringed instruments and certain electric pianos.) However, those alterations are small, and except for precise, highly specialized tuning, it is reasonable to think of the frequencies of the harmonic series as integer multiples of the fundamental frequency.",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The harmonic series is an arithmetic progression (f, 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f, ...). In terms of frequency (measured in cycles per second, or hertz, where f is the fundamental frequency), the difference between consecutive harmonics is therefore constant and equal to the fundamental. But because human ears respond to sound nonlinearly, higher harmonics are perceived as \"closer together\" than lower ones. On the other hand, the octave series is a geometric progression (2f, 4f, 8f, 16f, ...), and people perceive these distances as \"the same\" in the sense of musical interval. In terms of what one hears, each octave in the harmonic series is divided into increasingly \"smaller\" and more numerous intervals.",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The second harmonic, whose frequency is twice the fundamental, sounds an octave higher; the third harmonic, three times the frequency of the fundamental, sounds a perfect fifth above the second harmonic. The fourth harmonic vibrates at four times the frequency of the fundamental and sounds a perfect fourth above the third harmonic (two octaves above the fundamental). Double the harmonic number means double the frequency (which sounds an octave higher).",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Marin Mersenne wrote: \"The order of the Consonances is natural, and ... the way we count them, starting from unity up to the number six and beyond is founded in nature.\" However, to quote Carl Dahlhaus, \"the interval-distance of the natural-tone-row [overtones] [...], counting up to 20, includes everything from the octave to the quarter tone, (and) useful and useless musical tones. The natural-tone-row [harmonic series] justifies everything, that means, nothing.\"",
"title": "Frequencies, wavelengths, and musical intervals in example systems"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "If the harmonics are octave displaced and compressed into the span of one octave, some of them are approximated by the notes of what the West has adopted as the chromatic scale based on the fundamental tone. The Western chromatic scale has been modified into twelve equal semitones, which is slightly out of tune with many of the harmonics, especially the 7th, 11th, and 13th harmonics. In the late 1930s, composer Paul Hindemith ranked musical intervals according to their relative dissonance based on these and similar harmonic relationships.",
"title": "Harmonics and tuning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Below is a comparison between the first 31 harmonics and the intervals of 12-tone equal temperament (12TET), octave displaced and compressed into the span of one octave. Tinted fields highlight differences greater than 5 cents (1⁄20 of a semitone), which is the human ear's \"just noticeable difference\" for notes played one after the other (smaller differences are noticeable with notes played simultaneously).",
"title": "Harmonics and tuning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The frequencies of the harmonic series, being integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, are naturally related to each other by whole-numbered ratios and small whole-numbered ratios are likely the basis of the consonance of musical intervals (see just intonation). This objective structure is augmented by psychoacoustic phenomena. For example, a perfect fifth, say 200 and 300 Hz (cycles per second), causes a listener to perceive a combination tone of 100 Hz (the difference between 300 Hz and 200 Hz); that is, an octave below the lower (actual sounding) note. This 100 Hz first-order combination tone then interacts with both notes of the interval to produce second-order combination tones of 200 (300 − 100) and 100 (200 − 100) Hz and all further nth-order combination tones are all the same, being formed from various subtraction of 100, 200, and 300. When one contrasts this with a dissonant interval such as a tritone (not tempered) with a frequency ratio of 7:5 one gets, for example, 700 − 500 = 200 (1st order combination tone) and 500 − 200 = 300 (2nd order). The rest of the combination tones are octaves of 100 Hz so the 7:5 interval actually contains four notes: 100 Hz (and its octaves), 300 Hz, 500 Hz and 700 Hz. The lowest combination tone (100 Hz) is a seventeenth (two octaves and a major third) below the lower (actual sounding) note of the tritone. All the intervals succumb to similar analysis as has been demonstrated by Paul Hindemith in his book The Craft of Musical Composition, although he rejected the use of harmonics from the seventh and beyond.",
"title": "Harmonics and tuning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Mixolydian mode is consonant with the first 10 harmonics of the harmonic series (the 11th harmonic, a tritone, is not in the Mixolydian mode). The Ionian mode is consonant with only the first 6 harmonics of the series (the seventh harmonic, a minor seventh, is not in the Ionian mode). The Rishabhapriya ragam is consonant with the first 14 harmonics of the series.",
"title": "Harmonics and tuning"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The relative amplitudes (strengths) of the various harmonics primarily determine the timbre of different instruments and sounds, though onset transients, formants, noises, and inharmonicities also play a role. For example, the clarinet and saxophone have similar mouthpieces and reeds, and both produce sound through resonance of air inside a chamber whose mouthpiece end is considered closed. Because the clarinet's resonator is cylindrical, the even-numbered harmonics are less present. The saxophone's resonator is conical, which allows the even-numbered harmonics to sound more strongly and thus produces a more complex tone. The inharmonic ringing of the instrument's metal resonator is even more prominent in the sounds of brass instruments.",
"title": "Timbre of musical instruments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Human ears tend to group phase-coherent, harmonically-related frequency components into a single sensation. Rather than perceiving the individual partials–harmonic and inharmonic, of a musical tone, humans perceive them together as a tone color or timbre, and the overall pitch is heard as the fundamental of the harmonic series being experienced. If a sound is heard that is made up of even just a few simultaneous sine tones, and if the intervals among those tones form part of a harmonic series, the brain tends to group this input into a sensation of the pitch of the fundamental of that series, even if the fundamental is not present.",
"title": "Timbre of musical instruments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Variations in the frequency of harmonics can also affect the perceived fundamental pitch. These variations, most clearly documented in the piano and other stringed instruments but also apparent in brass instruments, are caused by a combination of metal stiffness and the interaction of the vibrating air or string with the resonating body of the instrument.",
"title": "Timbre of musical instruments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "David Cope (1997) suggests the concept of interval strength, in which an interval's strength, consonance, or stability (see consonance and dissonance) is determined by its approximation to a lower and stronger, or higher and weaker, position in the harmonic series. See also: Lipps–Meyer law.",
"title": "Interval strength"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Thus, an equal-tempered perfect fifth (play) is stronger than an equal-tempered minor third (play), since they approximate a just perfect fifth (play) and just minor third (play), respectively. The just minor third appears between harmonics 5 and 6 while the just fifth appears lower, between harmonics 2 and 3.",
"title": "Interval strength"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Sources",
"title": "Notes"
}
]
| A harmonic series is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a fundamental frequency. Pitched musical instruments are often based on an acoustic resonator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous modes simultaneously. At the frequencies of each vibrating mode, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling each other to form standing waves. Interaction with the surrounding air causes audible sound waves, which travel away from the instrument. Because of the typical spacing of the resonances, these frequencies are mostly limited to integer multiples, or harmonics, of the lowest frequency, and such multiples form the harmonic series. The musical pitch of a note is usually perceived as the lowest partial present, which may be the one created by vibration over the full length of the string or air column, or a higher harmonic chosen by the player. The musical timbre of a steady tone from such an instrument is strongly affected by the relative strength of each harmonic. | 2002-01-15T13:35:16Z | 2023-10-19T10:48:04Z | [
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music) |
14,441 | Hasid | Ḥasīd (Hebrew: חסיד, "pious", "saintly", "godly man"; plural חסידים "Hasidim") is a Jewish honorific, frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods. It denotes a person who is scrupulous in his observance of Jewish law, and often one who goes beyond the legal requirements of ritual and ethical Jewish observance in daily life. In the Mishnah, the term is used thirteen times, the majority of which being in the Tractate Pirkei Avot.
The Hebrew word Ḥasīd appears for the first time in the Torah (Deuteronomy 33:8) with respect to the tribe of Levi, and all throughout the Hebrew Book of Psalms, with its various declensions. In classic rabbinic literature it differs from "Tzadik" ("righteous") by instead denoting one who goes beyond his ordinary duty. The literal meaning of Ḥasīd derives from Chesed (חסד) (= "kindness"), the outward expression of love (lovingkindness) for God and other people. This spiritual devotion motivates pious conduct beyond everyday limits. The devotional nature of its description lent itself to a few Jewish movements in history being known as "Hasidim". Two of these derived from the Jewish mystical tradition, as it could tend towards piety over legalism.
Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the medieval Hebrew linguist and biblical exegete, translated the Hebrew word Ḥasīd in Psalm 18:26 into the Judeo-Arabic word אלמחסן, meaning, "he that does good."
As a personal honorific, both "Ḥasīd" and "Tzadik" could be applied independently to the same individual with both different qualities. The 18th-century Vilna Gaon, for instance, at that time the chief opponent of the new Jewish mystical movement that became known as "Hasidism", was renowned for his righteous life. In tribute to his scholarship, he became popularly honored with the formal title of "Genius", while amongst the Hasidic movement's leadership, despite his fierce opposition to their legalistic tendencies, he was respectfully referred to as "The Gaon, the Ḥasīd from Vilna".
A general dictum in the Talmud (Baba Kama 30) states: "He that wishes to be pious (Aramaic: ḥasīda), let him uphold the things described under the indemnity laws in the Mishnaic Order of Neziqin." Rava, differing, said: "Let him observe the things transcribed in Pirkei Avot." (ibid.)
Of the few known pious men in the early 2nd century, the Talmud acknowledges the following: "Wherever we read (in Talmudic writings), 'It is reported of a pious man', either R. Juda b. Baba it meant or R. Judah, the son of R. Ilai."
In the aggregate, "Ḥasīd" may also refer to members of any of the following Jewish movements: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ḥasīd (Hebrew: חסיד, \"pious\", \"saintly\", \"godly man\"; plural חסידים \"Hasidim\") is a Jewish honorific, frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods. It denotes a person who is scrupulous in his observance of Jewish law, and often one who goes beyond the legal requirements of ritual and ethical Jewish observance in daily life. In the Mishnah, the term is used thirteen times, the majority of which being in the Tractate Pirkei Avot.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Hebrew word Ḥasīd appears for the first time in the Torah (Deuteronomy 33:8) with respect to the tribe of Levi, and all throughout the Hebrew Book of Psalms, with its various declensions. In classic rabbinic literature it differs from \"Tzadik\" (\"righteous\") by instead denoting one who goes beyond his ordinary duty. The literal meaning of Ḥasīd derives from Chesed (חסד) (= \"kindness\"), the outward expression of love (lovingkindness) for God and other people. This spiritual devotion motivates pious conduct beyond everyday limits. The devotional nature of its description lent itself to a few Jewish movements in history being known as \"Hasidim\". Two of these derived from the Jewish mystical tradition, as it could tend towards piety over legalism.",
"title": "Hebrew etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the medieval Hebrew linguist and biblical exegete, translated the Hebrew word Ḥasīd in Psalm 18:26 into the Judeo-Arabic word אלמחסן, meaning, \"he that does good.\"",
"title": "Hebrew etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "As a personal honorific, both \"Ḥasīd\" and \"Tzadik\" could be applied independently to the same individual with both different qualities. The 18th-century Vilna Gaon, for instance, at that time the chief opponent of the new Jewish mystical movement that became known as \"Hasidism\", was renowned for his righteous life. In tribute to his scholarship, he became popularly honored with the formal title of \"Genius\", while amongst the Hasidic movement's leadership, despite his fierce opposition to their legalistic tendencies, he was respectfully referred to as \"The Gaon, the Ḥasīd from Vilna\".",
"title": "Usage in rabbinic texts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A general dictum in the Talmud (Baba Kama 30) states: \"He that wishes to be pious (Aramaic: ḥasīda), let him uphold the things described under the indemnity laws in the Mishnaic Order of Neziqin.\" Rava, differing, said: \"Let him observe the things transcribed in Pirkei Avot.\" (ibid.)",
"title": "Usage in rabbinic texts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Of the few known pious men in the early 2nd century, the Talmud acknowledges the following: \"Wherever we read (in Talmudic writings), 'It is reported of a pious man', either R. Juda b. Baba it meant or R. Judah, the son of R. Ilai.\"",
"title": "Usage in rabbinic texts"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the aggregate, \"Ḥasīd\" may also refer to members of any of the following Jewish movements:",
"title": "Other uses"
}
]
| Ḥasīd is a Jewish honorific, frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods. It denotes a person who is scrupulous in his observance of Jewish law, and often one who goes beyond the legal requirements of ritual and ethical Jewish observance in daily life. In the Mishnah, the term is used thirteen times, the majority of which being in the Tractate Pirkei Avot. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-11-14T08:40:41Z | [
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]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasid |
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